No Cream Ice Cream, and Quilty Pleasures

Do you read "our new life in the country" blog? No, well you ought to have a look. Yesterday Sue was making Banana Ice cream. It looked and sounded yummy, apart from the toffee sauce, but that's just me.
Even after making Banana cake I had three forlorn spotty bananas in the kitchen and i decided that ice cream they would be. Instead of toffee sauce I made a puree of some cherry plums and windfall apples.

I cut the plums in half , don't want anything wriggly going in the pot!, cut the apples in 1/4,s and took the core out, there were no bruises as they landed on my miniature roses.
Into a pot lidded on a gentle heat with a tsp of sugar to draw the juice out.
Once soft I pushed them through a sieve and collected the pulp.

This was all the waste from nearly a kilo of fruit.
I did not need all the pulp so some is in the freezer for when I next make Apple sauce cake.

The  pulp was a little sour so I added some maple syrup and then stirred it into some frozen squashed banana.
Once it was a smooth I put it into a plastic tub and swirled some more sauce through, then popped it back into the freezer.

I was tempted to scoff into it but  contented myself by scraping round the bowl with a spatula and eating the remnants, YUM YUM

We were stuffed after the pasta so it will feature as pudding at a later date.








I have unashamedly reproduced this recipe, with my own variation and I see more of this happening.
How about dark chocolate grated in with little nuggets of stem ginger and the syrup. Or poached blackberries with concentrated  juice from the berries. I make granola and chunks of that would be good.
I also make rose hip syrup and that would be sublime swirled through and poured over.
I better stop now before I start dribbling.
One last idea, ice cream sandwiches with home made cookies.

Remember this little pretty?

While I was looking through my cupboard I found a ziploc bag with 39 of these little blocks, I only need 90 to make a double bed quilt and I had found my shape cut ruler, and I did have a lot of white yardage waiting to be cut into strips, and I do have a BIG stash of Charm Squares. 1 hour and 2 cups of tea later I have this little lot ready to be chain pieced. I have also cut the 1 1/2" strips that I want so I am all set for a weekend sewing. I do have another 4 day weekend coming so I need to have lots to do all ready for me.

Lots of  sashing strips cut by my own fair hands.

Stacks of 5" Charm Squares, some bought in, some cut by me.

The quilt blocks that I found, how could I have forgotten them?








Then to add more hot water to the boiling pot I had a little time to fill yesterday so I watched one of Bonnie Hunters quilt cam sessions and fell in love with the block that she was making. I am going to make just 1 block as an experiment. As I told you a few days ago I have a problem with big pieces of fabric in my quilting, however 5" charms are no issue to me. sooooo my thinking is if I use 5" where Bonnie was using
2 1,2" I will get a huge block  and if I use some of my favourite fabrics it may break me out of this rut. I will keep you posted.

I have my new machine but I am keeping her to myself today, this post is big enough.

Reasons to be grateful

1. Meeting new people who gave me the machine, future friends?

2. A reasonably easy night at work last night.

3. A gloriously sunny day.

4. Only one load of washing, and that is done and dry.

5. Lots and lots of lovely sewing lined up for me.

An extra, 6. I found a piece of Lamb Fillet RTC in the Co op and for around £4 we will have Kebabs tonight in flat bread wraps. The lamb is cubed and sitting in a marinade, the veg will join it for 20 minutes or so before I assemble them. That really does make me grateful.

My word I do sound greedy, but then I am.

And now the time has come                    TTFN     Pam