Scribble Picnic: Tie It Up; Cheese Update and Foggy Morning

This is my first contribution to the weekly art-themed Scribble Picnic (follow the link to see the other member's art contributions). :) My favourite medium these days is watercolour so that's what I'll be doing, even though it really did start as a "scribble"! It's so hard to take a good photo of a watercolour...the sky is actually a lot darker than it looks, but I'm happy with it! It graduates to the watercolour wall now. :)

The theme is "Tie It Up" this week. I was inspired by the weather and my garden. My pumpkins are really doing well...(as far as I know since it's the first year I've grown them!) The tendrils and vines curl up and get all tied up on one another, so that's what inspired me for my watercolour this week. :) Last week's theme was "Curly" so I guess my idea could have applied to both! :)

Cheese Making Update

The Colby and Mozzarella were finally dry enough for me to seal, but the Colby was too big for my bag! So I cut it in half, and lo and behold...HOLES!! Is it me or am I crazy? Colby DOESN'T have holes does it??? Did I accidentally make a Swiss-style cheese lol?

Me thinks it didn't get pressed with enough weight long enough...I'll have to confirm with the folks on the Cheese Forum. Oh my, it smelled SO GOOD...Alex and I kept looking at each other with that tempting look in our eyes...but in the end we were good and the cheeses got sealed for more aging!

With some leftover Italian sausages, I made Polish Kolaches, courtesy of Joyce from October Farm! They turned out delicious! We had them with some Cheddar cheese spread; and Joyce, that pastry is amazing! I have half left so I might make croissants out of them! Thanks for the recipe! :)

Walking the dogs on the mountain has been so wonderful the last few days. No tourists and some nice fall weather. Our summer was so chilly and rainy that Alex and I didn't get to fish more than a few times, which is sad for us! We have higher hopes for next summer, that lake is full of wonderful trout! I took this photo yesterday.

And I took this photo just this morning, it was so foggy you couldn't even see the lake! Gave the woods a bit of a creepy feel to them! :) Even though I crave the heat and humidity each summer, likely due to overly long winters; I have to say that Fall is my favourite time of year!

Two New Cheddars; Leafy Sea Dragon, Jack's Sweater (YOP Week 10) and Potatoes!!!

Hi Everyone :)

How are you all doing? I feel great. Every day the past week was sunny, though very much sweater weather. I don't mind the rain today because it's the weekend and at least the weekender neighbours are stuck indoors lol. The garden is at a stand still. Oh well, I wonder if my tomatoes will ever ripen! I did a lot of my hobbies this last week too. I painted this leafy sea dragon in watercolour which I started sketching with the watercolour pencils - I LOVE those pencils!! It's a funny looking creature, here is an image I found off Google:

Alex is fascinated with sea creatures and asked me to paint one for him. It's now up on the watercolour wall! There is also a "weedy sea dragon" that I'll be painting for him as well. At the suggestion of Tammie Lee from Beauty Flows, I will be joining the Wednesday "Scribble Picnic". It's a group of bloggers who follow a weekly theme to encourage them to create art. So every Wednesday (if I can keep it up!) I should have a new watercolour that I'll be posting! I'm excited, because I love to create, but I also love structure! :) It's open to anyone who would like to join, just follow the link above! :)

My knitted beach cover up is on hold for a while, but now that I have the knitting bug, I had to knit something! I decided on Martha Stewart's dog sweater pattern. This wasn't on my original list of projects for the year. If anyone wishes to check out the Year of Projects group on Ravelry, here is the link. Is it me or are some of these patterns written in an overly complicated way? I love Martha, but she takes 6 lines to write out instructions that I condensed to one easily understandable line! Anyway, this was easy and fun to make, and Jack seems to like it! He's had it on for about an hour after I washed it and it's already full of Marlene's hair - oh my gosh she is shedding badly! We live in a hairy house these days!

I had to wing the size because Jack's rib cage is really outstanding, but his neck is tiny. So it's between a small and medium. If I make this again, I'll have to alter it just a little more to make the underside wider.

Do you ever find things that you forgot you had?? This is a book that I found this morning! It was under a bunch of my old school books in a drawer gathering dust. I'm going to look through it for the next project!

Speaking of projects, I made TWO more Cheddars!! They are both drying out before I start to age them. The one on the left is going to be aged for a year, ready for Labour Day 2018. The one on the right is going to be aged until Christmas or New Year's. I infused it with Newcastle Brown Ale...it smells DIVINE...I'm conjuring up all of my will power to leave it alone without sneaking a bite!

The Colby and the aging Mozzarella are dry enough to be sealed today for aging. I made these a few weeks back; the Colby should be ready to try in 6 weeks, and the Mozza, since it's an experiment...not sure how long it'll age!

I started my cheese making in July. My goals for the entire year were 4 Cheddars, a Pizza Mozzarella, a Cream Cheese, a Camembert and a Blue Cheese. I haven't done too bad at all for the first TWO months lol...I guess Leigh is right, I'm addicted. Not a bad addiction though! :) I highly recommend Leigh's blog by the way 5 Acres and a Dream. It's a wonderful homesteading blog, I love it. I've been following Leigh for many years now and have learned a lot. 

Remember the 40 potatoes that I harvested on Wednesday? Half are gone! :) I made a dish with sausage and potatoes called French Quarter Potatoes. Very comforting! And I used up the green onions I harvested and made a Green Onion and Potato Soup with homemade bread. MUCH better than leek and potato in my opinion! I love that everything for that dinner was either home grown or home made (except the butter!!).

More potatoes! Last night was fish and chip night with some of the Newcastle beer. Check out the fun baskets and basket liners!! Alex and I try our best to shop online as much as possible to avoid going out. Pretty much everything except for groceries gets bought online so when we have an Amazon order, we check out what they call their "add on" items. These are items that are really inexpensive, but you can only get them if you "add them on" to your already $25 purchase. The baskets were 6 for $4.99 and the liners were in a bag of 24 for $3.99. Makes it fun, like being in a diner! :) Mama Pea the baskets and liners would go well on burger night with the milkshakes in those glasses we bought! :)

What's up for your coming week? It's Labour Day weekend, and OMGAWD...the tourists are here in groves, yeegad. It's so loud in the village...we are totally hibernating this weekend. We'll have our quiet back on Tuesday, at least until Thanksgiving!

Potato Harvest!

A familiar sight. :) When I woke up this morning, it really felt like autumn at 4 degrees Celcius. The dogs and I had a great walk up the mountain. They are so obedient, I love this pack. All I say is "Everybody stop" and they stop, then "Everybody sit" and they sit. It's nearly sweater-weather for Jack!

I took this photo last autumn right after I made Jack a hoodie. My hands were still really bothering me so I couldn't knit him anything, but Alex had an old sweater that didn't fit him anymore and I altered it to fit Jack. He'll be wearing this on walks in the morning now until I knit him a sweater, which I started yesterday and will post about on the weekend! :)

Two hours later the sun was out and it was 27 degrees!! I was wearing a sundress the whole day!

I harvested my potatoes today!! I got a varying size-assortment of 40 potatoes!! :) I was conservative in the spring when I planted the seed potatoes because I really didn't know what to expect, so next spring I'm going to amp it up and and maybe get some more garbage bins, they're not expensive at all. I have two bins, I have the potato bag that Dianna sent me as a gift...and maybe 8 more bins and we should be set for the winter at least! Now I have to figure out how to store them without a root cellar and a potential mouse problem in the basement!

The garden cleanup continued today.  I had two dead tomato plants, sigh. So I had room to move the 3 Roma tomato containers into Tomato Land where they'll get more sun. Nice to see some red cherry tomatoes in all that green!

Last night I made a Coq Au Vin from my "Snow Country Cooking" cookbook. I usually make mine in the slow cooker with de-boned chicken breast. But this was more authentic, using the whole chicken and the addition of turnip, which gave a nice flavour.

I planted 3 more pots of lettuce today too. I probably should have done that a week or so ago but I've been busy in cheese land! We still have a few pots left before the slugs get to all of them. Tonight will be a BIG chicken Cesar salad!! What's been on the menu for you all out there? I'm always looking for dinner ideas! :)

Mozza and Colby Cheese; Gardening and Project Updates (YOP Week 9)

Hi Everyone!

A new week is starting and I'm still catching up on last week! :) I finished the back of my beach/fall cover up during the weekend. This is an easy garment, it's just two pieces sewn together at the sides. I may or may not be putting this project on hold for a while because I want to knit us some winter hats and a doggy sweater for Jack. 

As some of you may have already read, I had success with my Pizza Mozzarella! It was my sixth try and I finally got a nice stretch from it. I got three balls of Mozza, just under a pound each I'd say. We're keeping one in the fridge to eat up, another is going in the freezer, and I'm going to try to age one in the cheese cave. The next one I try, I may add Lipase, that's a flavouring agent to give it more of a sharp taste. I also made a Colby cheese which is drying nicely! That ages for six weeks so we'll be able to try it around (Canadian) Thanksgiving. (More details on Rainy Day Cheese Making).

I'd prepared a wonderfully fattening comfort meal on Saturday for a "just in case" the sixth Mozza didn't work out. But what a nice surprise to find out that the Mozza grated well and melted wonderfully on our pizza for Pizza-Ghetti night! :)) The texture was just like the kind you buy in the bricks at the grocery store; and the taste was fresh and mild.

Now that I have the recipe for Mozza and the tools I need, I can make some whenever I like - I just have to get the timing right so I'm not up all night checking PH levels! Goodbye store-bought cheese-food Mozzarella! :)

The ONLY reason my Mozza worked was because I was able to read the PH (the red meter to the left). It worked like a dream, but took 22 hours for the PH to hit the sweet-stretch-spot. I also treated myself to a vacuum sealer. Not only will this come in handy for freezing, it will help me save lots of space in the cheese cave.

I already sealed up my aging cheeses! I also sealed one of the Mozzas for freezing.

Recognize my little fella? :)) I think that, of all the new projects I've started this year, the cheese making is my absolute favourite with the garden coming in at a close second! :) Speaking of the garden...

I cleaned up the garden this weekend too. I've discovered that flowers, root veggies and lettuces are the way to go in this climate. My poor tomatoes are all falling off the vine unripened. I never got one yellow bean or orange pepper. But my chamomile flowers have finally bloomed. They're so pretty!

My buttercrunch lettuce is still thriving! I have to find a way to grow this indoors over the winter, it's the only lettuce that my stomach can handle. And lookie lookie!!! A pun-kin is growing!!! Sometimes I see little surprises when I walk around the garden. This pumpkin was pushing its way out of the pumpkin patch. I tried to look more deeply in there but the stems are so pokey, even with gloves on, so I'm just waiting it out!

This seems like the last of the summer harvest. One little bit of spinach, 5 green beans, 4 cherry tomatoes and ONE cucumber (another surprise find yesterday!). I harvested the green onions too. I'll be harvesting my potatoes this week and we decided on a green onion and potato soup. We love green onions, but really don't use them that often and I don't want to freeze them.

Jack was watching me the whole time through the porch screen. He's a funny little guy, rarely wants to be outside, just likes the comforts of home I guess! :)

After the pizza-ghetti, we needed a nice light meal so with all of the garden goodies, I made a healthy and filling Cobb Salad.  The little cherry tomatoes were SO SWEET, delicious. I really hope we get more before the plants die from the cold nights.

I've come to terms with the fact that summer is more than likely over. I have to cover up the tomatoes and cukes each night now since it's down to around 5C these days. We had to put the heat on last night, ugh, in August! I hope everyone has a fabulous week, I intend to! :) 

SUCCESS!!!!!!! 😋

After SIX attempts and nearly 50 liters of milk...I FINALLY got my Mozzarella to stretch!!!

I'm on such a cheese high right now I'm discombobulated so I can't write much more lol! Will update soon!!!

😀

Pizza Mozzarella (#4).....Watercolour of Marlene (YOP Update Week 8)

Hi Everyone :)

Firstly, I got very little knitting done the last week so it doesn't merit a photo! I've been really concentrating on other projects. It's been rainy and chilly all week, sigh, so knitting on the porch didn't happen too often! After my cheese making extravaganza last Tuesday, I decided to get out of the kitchen and do some painting. I sketched Marlene with the watercolour pencils. Then I just added water with a brush and you can see how they really resemble good old watercolour painting. All of those colours are the pencils, except I had already started to add paint to her ear before I remembered to take a picture. The set I got was just 12 basic colours, but I may ask Alex for a nice big set for Christmas or my birthday with many more colours.

I added a little more colour with my paints because the pencils alone weren't bright enough. I liked that I could go back to the painting after it dried so that I could pencil in some of her fur, so I guess it made it a mixed-media project! I will definitely continue to use the pencils because they allow me to see all the colours I want to paint and I don't have to wing it too much. I have a habit of seeing greens and yellows blend together beautifully and they ALWAYS turn into a poopy-brown mess lol! 

I'm not great at portraits, but I really wanted to paint our pets. I've already done Jack and Charlie.

And Marlene is now added to my watercolour wall! :) My next challenge will be trying to paint the cats! I did a post a while ago, showing all the paintings I've done in oil, acrylic and watercolours for anyone who is interested. I think that painting is so much fun and it's very relaxing. I started with oils, just following Bob Ross' PBS show The Joy of Painting, then I branched out on my own so to speak! It was hard for me at first, because I'm horribly (and UNNECESSARILY) self-critical...but Alex is really supportive and he egged me on to keep trying so I'm very glad I did! When I posted my art work last March, all of my Blogger friends were also very supportive and sweet and this helps my confidence a lot, so many thanks again! :)

Now that I have FOUR (woohoo!) cheeses aging, I decided to start a cheese making journal. It also allows me some creativity and fun while I write my daily "to do" list! As I continue to make more cheeses, I will really need to keep track of everything diligently. I want my cheeses to really turn out well. I'm really loving this new hobby of mine! Except...

Booo! My fourth attempt to make a nice melty Pizza Mozzarella failed again...but it made a nice Ricotta. Dang. I wrote a more detailed post on Mozzarella on Rainy Day Cheese Making. I think what I'm missing for success is a PH meter to check acidity levels as I make this terribly finicky cheese. Anyway...failures teach you, and I have much more knowledge now than I did a week ago!

I made another Bundt cake yesterday using some strawberries I bought at the local market. I'm into Bundt cakes these days, they're so fun to create!

My attempt to empty the deep freezer continues! I found some fondue meat and chicken in the depths of the freezer, so I made Philly Cheese Steaks for dinner last night (you just fry up some onions and mushrooms, brown your meat or chicken and melt some cheese on top - delicious and easy!) My hopes were not to have to go grocery shopping until September, but we do need some supplies after all. It's been nearly a month since the last shopping day and I can't complain! So I've spent time going through the freezer again and planning menus and hopefully I can have the shopping list ready for Tuesday! Here is my 30-day dinner plan for anyone who wants some ideas. The plan started yesterday and I repeated some things from last month that we didn't get a chance to eat yet.

Don't miss the Total Solar Eclipse tomorrow. Depending on where you live, you might enjoy a total or a partial eclipse! We're hoping for clear skies so we can enjoy it - safely!

Garden News; Mexican Fiesta; New Cheeses!!

Life is giving me lemons! :) This year I'm stunned with 4 lemons turning yella already. I got this little tree a year ago and the first lemon it produced was ready this past spring and it was SO SOUR...😲 I'm very pleased that the tree is producing lemons already - despite the cool nights!

Tomato land: Cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes and Romas...growing bigger but still green! I have to cover them each night now with poly-tarp because the nighttime temperatures are down to the 10's Celcius now...fall is just around the corner. At this point I have no clue what's going on in the pumpkin patch, I can't see in there lol...it's just going to have to surprise me in a few months! I may be harvesting my potatoes soon too, I have to look up some more information about that!

Happily due to an overabundance of cilantro, last night we had a Mexican Fiesta! I made my Papas Fritas with a Cilantro Dip and homemade tortilla chips. I don't have a recipe for the dip, I kind of winged it by throwing together some cream cheese, sour cream, LOTS of cilantro, lime juice and S&P. It was pretty good! I hope I can remember how to make it again!

Speaking of using things up...I had all that curd cheese in the fridge from the failed Mozzas! I've mentioned previously that Alex and I celebrate all of the little things as well as the big celebrations. Well, last week was our 4 years and 5 months "anniversary" so I made a special poutine with Toulouse sausages and we shared a bottle of white wine. The sausage in the poutine was SO DARN GOOD...we had a side salad to get some greens in there (really Mama Pea, we DID!) 😁 I always try to make the 14th of each month special in some way - usually with dinner!

And once again on the suggestion of my dear friend Sam, I acquired some watercolour pencils! I've been playing around with them to see what they can do and they are so much fun. I used to draw with a regular pencil, but hated that it showed sometimes in my paintings. This solves it! I can use the pencils to sketch my design, then add water and they really look like they've been painted on. Thanks Sam for the suggestion! I hope to get a few paintings done before the end of the month!

Now for some fun! Here are my aging babies!!! The two original Cheddars on top; and two new cheeses on bottom. On Tuesday I had a cheese making insanity day and I made a red wine infused Cheddar; AND a Dry Jack!! (More detailed post on Rainy Day Cheese Making) Thirteen hours in the kitchen...sounds grueling but my gosh I was enjoying myself to bits...and might I say...what failed Mozzarella? Hee hee...well, we'll see - the sting of failure is now gone (hopefully for good!). Tomorrow it's going to rain all day so that'll be my fourth (and final?) attempt at making Pizza Cultured Mozzarella. I may age the red wine Cheddar for a year, and the Dry Jack will be ready on May Day of 2018. I LOVE cheese making!!! I can't wait to taste these beauties!

If there is something you want, go for it. You might find challenges, failures and struggles...but my gosh, sometimes you find strength, success and passion at the same time! Life is too short for regrets and self-doubts! I jumped back on the cheese horse and I'm so glad I did!