Happy May Day!!! Foodie Friday and Country Village QAL Reminder!

Hi peeps! 

I thought I would start some blog posts with photos of the quilts I have in my house. These three are "rescue" quilts. 

I found the lighthouse one at a community services garage sale. They only wanted $2 for it, so I happily opened my change purse and walked away with someone's artwork. It is dated 2000 and has the initials of the maker on it too. 

The Santa wall-hanging is a small panel, and the maker had added 2 log cabin blocks on the top and bottom as well as a border. It even has 2 plastic rings sewn onto the backing for hanging! 

The third quilt is a pretty Dresden Flower block in 1930's style reproduction prints. If you look closely at the centre, you can see she stitched a 9-patch block then trimmed it into a circle-very original! 

I found both the Santa and Dresden at Value Village(of course!!).

Do you remember back in this post and this post, when I shared about making vegetable and meat/chicken stock? I extolled about the healthy benefits of consuming homemade stock/broth and showed a Vancouver business which sells cups of broth to drink. I even made a batch for my Dad to enjoy when he got out of the hospital a few weeks ago…and he has requested more!!!(He is doing very well, now that he is at home-thanks for your enquiries…huggs!)

Well, the above photo was in the Vancouver Sun today. Writing about this local company that has been making scratch-made stock-based soups and now sells it in the USA at Costco and Whole Foods. Even though they are located in the Vancouver area, they chose to start marketing their products in the USA and Japan. The soups are in the frozen section of the grocery stores and now they are about to start selling fresh soups in grocery deli's and local hospitals.

Here is the article, if you would like to read it:

Healthy soups boil down to big business for Richmond company

Global Gourmet Foods banks on fresh ingredients, homemade stock

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Healthy+soups+boil+down+business+Richmond+company/11018257/story.html#ixzz3Yv2G0dXx 

The other day, I tried a new recipe...and it's a hit! Yumm! 

I found it on my favourite recipe site: allrecipes.com and I thought I would share it with you here:

Salisbury Steak with Mushrooms

1 lb lean ground beef

1/3 cup breadcrumbs(I used the seasoned ones)

1/4 cup chopped onions

1 egg, beaten

1 t. salt

pinch ground black pepper

2 cups beef broth

1 lg. onion, thinly sliced

1 cup sliced mushrooms

3 T. cornstarch(I ended up using more as I had added more stock than required)

3 T. water

1. Combine gr. beef, bread crumbs, chopped onion, egg, salt, and black pepper in a bowl until evenly mixed. Shape into 4 patties, about 3/4 inch thick.

2. Fry patties in a large frying pan until browned on both sides-about 10 mins. Add beef broth, sliced onion, and mushrooms, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to Low, cover and simmer until patties are no longer pink in the centre-about 10 mins. Transfer patties only to a platter and keep warm.

3. Bring beef broth mixture to a boil. Mix cornstarch and water in a small bowl(this is called a slurry and I use a fork to do this) and stir into the broth mixture. Cook and stir until broth mixture is thickened like gravy, about 1 minute or so. Pop patties back into the pan and warm through, coating them in the beef/mushroom gravy.

Serve with veggies(I served our with scalloped potatoes and corn niblets).

Makes 4 servings.

Enjoy!

I just love, love this stack of fat quarters…deee-lish! It will be so hard to cut into them. 

**Don't forget about my Country Village Quilt-A-Long featuring the above Maison De Provence fabric line from Connecting Threads. Part 1 can be found here, and you can also click the Country Village QAL, 2015 tab (found under the blog title) to find all the steps as they are posted (on Wednesdays). This tab will stay up indefinitely, so if you miss a post or need to be reminded about something, you can go to the step with ease!

Sharing is caring!!! 
Don't forget that I am happy to share with your friends…feel free to pin to Pinterest, post on Google+ and Facebook, and Tweet away! Just please play fair and make sure your posts link back to this blog. 
*If you mouse/hover over the top right corner of my photos, a red "Pin-it" button will show up and all you have to do is click it to be taken to Pinterest. There is also another red button right beside it for posting to Facebook and Twitter. Or, you could always use the little square grey buttons at the end of this post.

Thanks for reading and have a great day! 

Quilty Huggs, 

Jacqueline 

PLEASE NOTE: This blog accepts forms of compensation such as, but not limited to; fabric/notions/patterns/books in exchange for a posted review and/or tutorial. All comments/critiques/opinions are completely my own and are not those of the provider. This blog may also contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on one of my links. Thanks so much!

A New Addition to the "Family" and a recipe!

Hi peeps! 

So…can you guess what I just got???

I found this vintage Singer on Craig's List, and my Uncle went to pick it up for me! She was a little bit dusty so I gave her a good clean. The wooden base has that slightly musty smell that wood gets when it is in storage for too long. That doesn't bother me so much, I can always stick a dryer sheet in there, to soak up the smell.

Here you can see most of her decals...they are in excellent condition, and are quite pretty.

Here's a close-up of the decals and her serial number. I had a look online and found a site which can help you date your machine and find out the model number. I think this is a 15-90 model, made in 1948…but I am not totally sure, so I also emailed Singer to see if they could help date her for me.

On the bottom of the foot pedal it says "Made in Canada", but that is probably only where the foot pedal was made.

The box with the accessories in it also said "Made in Canada"…so the mystery deepens! I'm hoping Singer will be able to give me some info on where she was made.

I managed to get her threaded and popped in the bobbin, but the stitches are not completing, so I'm not sure if it is the new needle I put in it, or possibly I threaded it incorrectly. All in all, still a good deal for only $45!!! I don't mind putting some $$ on her to make her run like a dream. 

So many people say how wonderfully these old cast-iron machines run. She sure is heavy though, the Hubs had to oomph a little to get her onto the kitchen table!!!

This recipe was in the Vancouver Sun this past Wednesday,though it is actually from the Portlandia Cookbook. We defrosted a small chicken overnight on Thursday and made the soup on Friday. We all ate a hearty bowl of this soup on Friday for supper and there was enough soup leftover to be an accompaniment to a sandwich on Saturday night for all 3 of us.

Tortilla Soup with Chicken

2 T. vegetable oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 large Poblano peppers, stemmed, seeded and finely chopped*

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 t. ground cumin

6 cups low-sodium chicken broth

kosher sale and black pepper

4 corn tortillas, cut into 1 inch strips

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, plus more for garnish

4 cups cooked & shredded chicken(we used a small chicken and it was fine)

1 cup hominy, rinsed & drained**

Sour cream and broken tortilla chips for garnish

*we used a small can of mild green chilies as there were no Poblanos in the store

**There was no Hominy to be found so we subbed in a can of corn niblets

In a large pot, heat the oil and add the onions, chilies, garlic, cumin and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until softened-about 5 mins.

Add the broth and tortilla strips, cover and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat until the vegetables and tortilla strips are very soft-about 5 mins.

Add the 1/4 cup of cilantro and using a stick blender, puree the soup until smooth.

Add the chicken and hominy and simmer uncovered for 5 mins.

Ladle the soup into shallow bowls and garnish with sour cream, cilantro and broken up tortilla chips.

Note-I would not omit the tortilla chips at the end as they add some needed salt taste to the soup.

This was a fast and easy soup to make and is now a favourite. I hope it will become yours too!

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Question of the day:

Does anyone out there own a vintage seeing machine, and if so, which one?also, what shall I name my new-to-me vintage Singer?

Sharing is caring!!! 

Don't forget that I am happy to share…feel free to pin to Pinterest, post on Google+ and Facebook, and Tweet away! Just please make sure your posts link back to this blog. 

*If you mouse/hover over the top right corner of my photos, a red pin-it button will show up and all you have to do is click it to be taken to Pinterest. There is also another red button right beside it for posting to Facebook and Twitter. Or, you could always use the little grey square buttons at the end of this post.

Thanks for reading and have a great day! 

Quilty Huggs, 

Jacqueline 

PLEASE NOTE: The writer of this blog accepts forms of compensation such as, but not limited to; fabric/notions/patterns/books in exchange for a posted review. All comments/critiques/opinions are completely my own and are not those of the provider. 

This post may also contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my link. Thanks!