The Brain and the Vacuum Cleaner

This is a very cute picture of Terry, but not a very good picture of his brain.  You can't really see all the convolutions.  Or that is has two halves.
This is my cute little vacuum, plugged in because I occasionally have to jump up and use it.  

There you go, Dave.  

Christmas photos

Well, the only cookies we managed to make were the cookie press. That is, if you don't count the cinnamon trees that didn't mention the flour in the recipe and got et before Christmas, and the pistachio and cranberry ice box cookies that no one really likes.

We made some colored sugar to decorate them this year, and the sugar was like little jewels.




For dinner on Christmas eve, I made a buncha hors d'oeuvres. We ate some of this. There were crackers with lunch meat and cheese, more cheese cubes and a variety of different crackers, salsa and homemade guacamole with chips and hummus and baba ganoush with pita triangles. And grape juice. And grapes, too, for that matter.   And some pistachios.

This is a new table cloth.  It used to be a sarong, but I ripped the seam open.

This is the tray with the corned beef.  I'm not very good at decorating crackers for snacks like this, it took a while before I got creative with the tiny cookie cutters.

Here is the German apple pancake before it deflated.  Usually I make this in a saute pan in the oven, but none of my pans fit in my little oven, so I used this cake pan.  I was afraid it was going to overflow, but it didn't.

Here are some of the present pictures.
Glory with her Uke and baby penguin.
This purse was made by some micro enterprise somewhere in SE Asia.
Here are the stainless chopsticks Terry got.

Blogger is being poopy, so I'll try to post more pix later.

Your Request is Granted

Jolly Jolly Hallway

White woodwork on the ceiling to follow.

The bench gets it own pillow and painting. All this just to 'hide' the cable box and all those wires. Grrrr.

This painting is temporary. Even tho it works kinda, I think there will be something else there in the weeks to come, maybe a series of paintings until the right one is done.
Please post the Brain and your vacuum cleaner, a request from Dave, vacuum cleaner collector.

First the mess I have to clean up...

Kitchen, studio and the poor dumping ground, the guest room. Oy! Then...it's

The Patchworkshop Setup

The top on the right is actually hand and machine quilted, but not made into a pillow yet.

I mean...REALLY! What was I thinking?

It's that damn Malka influence. She uses prints but not as many or as busy. Hmmm.

A Better Idea


I had planned to make the seat covers from this watermelon-y red linen, but remembered this Marimekko I had stashed away in the archives. It will be much more fun and will look good against the orange or the turquoise, or on the porch. It seems that I made that quilt just as an exercise in getting the colors into the room and our brains.

The dining room taken with a flash. And then the other side without the flash. Bright enough???

The rest of my room. I put the other pieces on the farther side of the room so I could have a space for the 'office' part and a nice open area for the chair that I watch tv on. All are clickable.

Recipe

I have to write this down before I forget. It was soooo good. And, you might want to make it yourself.

Pasta with Chicken, Zucchini and Lemon Thyme Cream

Pound 2 chicken breasts with meat tenderizer until they are 1/4 inch thickness. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pan fry in a little olive oil until nicely browned on both sides. Add 1/4 cup white wine and let it cook down to a brown syrup. Remove chicken from pan and keep warm. Add another 1/4 cup white wine to pan, stir to incorporate chicken drippings and remove from heat.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in boiling water.

Cut 1 medium zucchini into matchsticks. Add to pan the chicken was cooked in and put on low heat.

Drain pasta and pour 1/3 cup heavy cream into pot. Add 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves and 1 teaspoon lemon zest. Grind some black pepper into cream. Return pasta to pot and toss in cream.

Cut chicken into paper thin slices. Spread pasta on platter, place chicken on top, and layer with zucchini. Sprinkle with more lemon zest, some whole thyme leaves, and shaved parmesan cheese.

I was so hungry I couldn't make this fast enough, and then I gobbled it up. The lemon and thyme flavors are very subtle and the zucchini was the best I've ever had with the chicken drippings and wine flavoring. Wow, it was so good.


I'm going to start labeling our posts so we can find stuff later. How about calling this one food?