Enjoying your Summer?   I am enjoying it so much, except for the really hot days that seem to sap all my energy.  We are going to be in the nineties for the next few days and I am not looking forward to it.  That is possibly why I love Alaska so much.  I was never hot while I was up there.

We have had a bumper crop of rhubarb this year.  For years I tried growing it, but never seemed to be able to until the last three or four years and now it is growing very well indeed.  We had rainy, cool weather earlier, which rhubarb loves, and it grew and grew. I think all the chicken poo and composted cow manure I put on it last fall helped too.  I have made rhubarb pies before, but this year I tried something different.  Rhubarb and strawberry crunch.  I have used this recipe for years to make apple crunch.   Now it is David’s and my favorite way to eat rhubarb.  Here is how you make it.

First you go out in your garden and cut several stalks of rhubarb.

Wash it well and then cut it up into small pieces.

Doesn’t look like much after this, does it?  But then you do this.

You get these luscious strawberries that your husband found at Aldis and wash and quarter them.

You mix them all together with sugar.  I used one and a half cups for two pies.

I also mixed in about a half cup of flour to thicken it because rhubarb makes a lot of juice when it is cooking.  I think I could have added just a little more, but David says he likes the juice.

Then you get out your pfaltzgraf? pie plates.  Don’t have any?  Well, just any ol’ pie plate will do.  I spray canola oil in them, but you can butter them if you want to add even more calories.

Now for the crunch part.

Mix one and 1/2 half cups of flour,  3/4 cup of sugar, 1/4 tsp. of salt,  one tsp. of baking powder together.

Take two of your disproportionate eggs that you found under your free range chickens.  Don’t have chickens?  Any chicken eggs will do.   Break them into the flour mixture and stir with a fork until well mixed.  Then add 1/2 cup of canola oil.  (Do not use olive oil in this.)  I have always used canola oil so that is the only thing I can tell you will work.

Your dough will cling together which is exactly what you want it to do.

Now here is the tricky part.(Or not, but you may think it is.)

After filling your pie plate.  And I mean full, you pat the dough all over the top of it with your bare hands.  Try to cover everything.  You will think you don’t have enough dough, but it will cover it all if you work at it.

Now it is ready to bake.  Wait a minute.  I like to sprinkle sugar over the top as this is not sweet enough yet.   When I make apple crunch, I sprinkle both sugar and cinnamon on the  top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 to 45 minutes or until top is golden brown and dry to touch.

Now I doubled this recipe because I had enough rhubarb to make two pies.  Doesn’t this look yummy?  Sorry, both of these are gone already.  We had company and someone really loved this enough to eat two helpings.   It’s really so good.

If you have been reading my blog for even a short time, you know I love fabrics.  I have been in love with textiles ever since I was a girl when I sewed my first doll from an old sock my mother gave me.  I have been in search of fabrics and things to make with it ever since.

I also love ironing.  I was cleaning out a dresser this week and found some old handkerchiefs I forgot I had.  I have collected old handkerchiefs for years and have a lot of them.

I washed them and ironed them.  I love to iron.  Yes, I know, I am a throwback, a crazy woman, someone you must think has too much time on her hands.  There is just something about taking a wrinkled piece of cloth and making it smooth.

How could I have forgotten these beautiful handkerchiefs?  How could women blow their noses on them?  They use to, you know.

Also found some curtains I bought at an auction years ago.  I think I will hang these in my shop.

I washed and ironed this fabric I have had for years that we sold in our quilt shop years ago.  I am working on doll quilts and this will be the backing for some.

 

I am using a lot of 2 and 1/2 inch blocks for these doll quilts.

I got this perfectly darling, wonderful quilt book in the mail the other day.  I have been looking at it a lot the past few days.  There are so many wonderful projects in it.

It is written by this very talented lady.  I have been reading her blog for years and she has written some of the cutest quilt patterns and designed some really pretty fabric.   She is a farm girl like me and her book is right down my alley.

Sorry for the poor quality of my pictures, but if you can see, this is a really, really cute barn quilt.   Inside each block is another smaller block where the barn door should be.  I am loving this.

This is another version and this is the one I am working on now.

This is one of the six inch blocks that go in the barn block.

This is another one.  There are many quilt blocks to make.  Boy, am I going to have fun.

This is my  attempt at my first barn quilt block.   A lot of tiny pieces.  This is going to be FUN. Did I already say that?  You are probably thinking, this girl needs to get out more.  No, I just love quilting and cute patterns like this.

Oh, oh, oh, look at this darling chick quilt made with one of the six inch block patterns.  What a cute baby quilt this would be.

This pattern was worth the entire cost of the book for me.  A chicken quilt.  I have made a chicken quilt before, but this one in pastels is just so, so, have I said cute enough?  This one will get made by me.

Here are a lot of 1and 1/2 inch squares cut ready to make this six inch block.

Inserted into a barn block this will be, well, CUTE!!  Have I gushed enough about this book and the cute patterns?  I am just so glad I decided to buy this pattern book.  It has already given me hours of happiness.

Now to the garden.  My vegetable garden already looks like a weed patch although you can see the tomatoes, pumpkins and sunflowers above the weeds.  I go out occasionally and pull a few weeds and a few hundred more grow up to take their place.  I have never seen weeds come up and grow so fast before.

My flower gardens give me so much pleasure.  In my little kitchen garden(kitchen garden used loosely as the only edible plants growing in it is the rhubarb.)

I am not sure what this is called anymore, but I know it just keeps spreading more each year.

Hiding among the foliage I found this lily reaching for the sun.   Behind it is perovskia and love in the mist.  This garden holds mostly blue flowers and this lily stands out like a sore, but pretty, thumb.

Here’s to rhubarb crunch, textiles and a quilt book that sends me over the moon.  Bye.