White Beans with Rigatoni

(Photo from Taste of Home)

I'm always on the lookout for good meatless main dishes, and this one. which I found in my 2005 Annual Light & Tasty Recipes (a book I got free for having a recipe published in it)  is a keeper.  Here's the link: White Beans with Rigatoni.

About the only changes I made were to use brown rice pasta (I used the rotini style, but in retrospect, elbows would have held up better) and to use more chopped kale than the recipe called for.  I think I used about 4 cups rather than 2.  I like to buy the large bags of chopped kale in the produce section.  Frozen chopped spinach would also work well.  I also didn't have any fresh sage, so I used 2 teaspoons of the dried rubbed sage, using the rule of thumb that 1 teaspoon of a dried herb equals 1 tablespoon of a fresh herb.

This dish had a very good flavor and we enjoyed it very much with salad and gluten free cornbread on the side.  If you enjoy a good meatless meal, give this one a try!

Goals for week beginning 5/20/2013

From my personal collection of antique cards

I'm not sure where last week went, other than it was a very busy week with a lot of time spent out of the house due to appointments and such.  I never did get back to my blog to post anything more, even though I fully intended to.  I am certainly hoping that this week will be less busy.  Here are my tentative goals for the week:
*  Spend time in 2 Samuel Bible study
*  Work on Sunday School lesson 2
*  Make 2 pages for "What Do I Know About My God"?  notebook
*  Memorize Psalm 104:33-34
*  Read 2 chapters in A Woman's Call to Prayer
*  Exercise or go for walks as often as time allows
*  Keep up with crafting goals for birthdays, Christmas, and finishing UFOs
*  Keep up a good water intake
*  Get to bed by 9:30 or 10 pm each night
*  Post once or twice in my Christmas blog and at least five times in my regular blog
*  Make a simple spring banner
*  Complete homemaking goals for Zone 2, the kitchen, including decluttering, and Zone 4, the bedroom
 *  Make a daily time schedule for the things I need to do.

And here is how last week went:
*  Spend time in 2 Samuel Bible study -- not done
*  Finish Sunday School lesson 1; start on lesson 2 -- DONE!
*  Make 2 pages for "What Do I Know About My God"?  notebook -- DONE!
*  Memorize Psalm 104:33-34 -- not done; ended up memorizing Psalm 48:14 instead
*  Read 2 chapters in A Woman's Call to Prayer -- DONE!
*  Exercise or go for walks as often as time allows -- not done
*  Keep up with crafting goals for birthdays, Christmas, and finishing UFOs -- not done
*  Keep up a good water intake -- DONE!
*  Get to bed by 9:30 or 10 pm each night -- not done
*  Post once or twice in my Christmas blog and at least five times in my regular blog -- would you believe once in each?
*  Proofread kids' devotional book for summer 2013 and send to print shop -- DONE!
*  Make a simple spring banner -- not done, although I have started it
*  Complete homemaking goals for Zone 2, the kitchen, including decluttering, and Zone 3, the bathrooms -- DONE! for Zone 3, but not for Zone 2
 *  Make a daily time schedule for the things I need to do-- DONE!

Here's hoping for a more productive week ahead!

Goals for week beginning 5/13/2013

A vintage card from my collection

I didn't get around to putting up a Mother's Day post yesterday, but hope that each of you had a wonderful day and that you were able to celebrate in some way.  Here are some goals for this week:
*  Spend time in 2 Samuel Bible study
*  Finish Sunday School lesson 1; start on lesson 2
*  Make 2 pages for "What Do I Know About My God"?  notebook
*  Memorize Psalm 104:33-34
*  Read 2 chapters in A Woman's Call to Prayer
*  Exercise or go for walks as often as time allows
*  Keep up with crafting goals for birthdays, Christmas, and finishing UFOs
*  Keep up a good water intake
*  Get to bed by 9:30 or 10 pm each night
*  Post once or twice in my Christmas blog and at least five times in my regular blog
*  Proofread kids' devotional book for summer 2013 and send to print shop
*  Make a simple spring banner
*  Complete homemaking goals for Zone 2, the kitchen, including decluttering, and Zone 3, the bathrooms
 *  Make a daily time schedule for the things I need to do.

And here's how last week went:
*  Spend time in 2 Samuel Bible study  -- not done; I have been very busy in Bible study for my new Sunday School lessons.
*  Work on Sunday School lesson 1 -- DONE!
*  Make 2 pages for "What Do I Know About My God"?  notebook -- DONE!
*  Memorize Psalm 104:33-34 -- not done; memorized Psalm 40:5 instead
*  Read 2 chapters in A Woman's Call to Prayer -- DONE!
*  Exercise or go for walks as often as time allows -- not done
*  Keep up with crafting goals for birthdays, Christmas, and finishing UFOs -- DONE!
*  Keep up a good water intake -- DONE!
*  Get to bed by 9:30 or 10 pm each night -- didn't manage this every night
*  Post once or twice in my Christmas blog and at least five times in my regular blog -- DONE!
*  Finish kids' devotional book for summer 2013 and send to print shop -- book is finished but still needs proofreading, and I am waiting on the cover
*  Make a simple spring banner -- not done; hopefully this week
*  Keep up with homemaking goals for Zone 2, the kitchen, including decluttering -- did a few things but still need to complete the kitchen missions
 *  Make a daily time schedule for the things I need to do  -- DONE!

This week looks busy, with several appointments, but I am hoping it can be productive and fruitful.

Fabric trimmed tea towels (and a dishcloth or two!)

I'm still trying to post links, tutorials, etc. for the recent crafts I've made.  Today I want to share the links for the fabric trimmed tea towels (or dish towels, if you prefer that term) that I've been sewing.  I absolutely love Sew4Home.  They have the best and most professional sewing tutorials I've seen, plus they feature projects I can actually make even with my less-than-great sewing machine.  I've made the fabric trimmed tea towels from a couple different tutorials, but this one: Fancy Border Tea Towels is my out-and-out favorite.  It is SO easy yet comes out so cute.

Love the fruit print on this one!

I had so much fun making that one, I made a couple more.

Same towel as above, just folded

Then I made one for myself!  I found that one of the flour sack towels in my stash had a little stain on it.

I couldn't use a stained towel as a gift item, of course.  But I can use it in my own kitchen.  I love this print!

A fall-themed set I made for a giveaway

And I have also made these:  Triple Border Dish Towels in the past.  They are fun and simple too, but the Fancy Border ones are definitely my favorite.

Sunflowers

With a Coke® theme

Brown and pink

Often when I give a gift of dish towels, I also like to include a crocheted dishcloth.

A gift for a homeschooling mom

 Here is one I have made many times:  seed stitch dishcloth.
 
(Incidentally, the pattern doesn't call for an edging, but I  add one by simply single crocheting around all four edges.) 

This time, I only had 2 dishcloths left in my stash, so the I chose the green one on the right to go with the dish towel I had made for my granddaughter:
 
 This is made using another favorite dishcloth pattern.  I've made loads of these as well, and they are so pretty.

Now it's time to crochet a few more, and I have a couple of new dishcloth patterns I want to try as well.

So there you have it!  Why not whip up a few of these easy items for your own gift stash?

Popsicle Memory Game

I'm still sharing links, tutorials, printables, etc. from the recent birthday gifts I made for some of my grandchildren.  This Popsicle Memory Game from Eat Drink Chic is one I've wanted to make for quite awhile.  I actually printed out the popsicles and cut them out last year, but when it came time to glue them together I was too rushed to do a good job.




We have grandkids of various ages at our house a lot, and they do enjoy playing games.  But I had noticed that sometimes they would sort of cheat at games -- for example, in Old Maid, our cards have been used so much that some of the cards (the Old Maid being one of them) are creased or torn in a way that makes them identifiable even from the back.  (I know, I know, it's time for new cards!)  And we have a set of wooden tiles with various animals.  Sometimes the kids like to play Memory with those.  And one of the tiles has some sort of trademark on the back.  By this time we all know that the picture on the other side is the bunny!


So I knew that in constructing these popsicles I would need to take care to make them as exactly alike as possible on the back sides of each.  Not something I could rush with.  So this year, I carefully scored and creased each fold, and I put a measuring mark on each popsicle stick so the exact same amount of stick was showing on each.  I knew the kids would still eventually find the matching up to be easy, but these siblings would also enjoy using the popsicles along with all of their other play food.


I made a simple label for the game
 
and packaged it in a small plastic latching container from the supermarket or Walmart, I forget which. 
 
That should make it easy to keep all the popsicles together.


I was actually wondering if the game was a bit too young (the kids turned 5 and 7), but I needn't have worried.  We played the game several times that first night, and even their older brother wanted to get in  on the fun.  They had a great time with it, and they also have some truly mouthwatering popsicles to share with their stuffed animals and friends!

Felt tea bags, pancakes, and toaster pastries

 
Sounds like a sort of unbalanced meal, doesn't it?  I'm trying to keep up with my promise to share links to instructions, tutorials, and so on for some of my recent crafting.  So here goes.

For the tea bags, I just cut small squares of white felt (mine were about 1-3/8" x 1-5/8"-- so, not exactly square).  You cut 2 of these for each tea bag, and then a smaller dark brown square (mine were about 7/8" x 1-1/4") for the "tea" inside.  The first time I made these I cut the white squares with pinking shears, which was cute, but I honestly thought they were just as cute without.  So you sandwich the brown square in between the 2 white ones, tucking a length of cord (I used yellow and white bakers twine) into the top, and you machine sew all around the edges.  Then you take 2 small felt shapes (I used hearts of different colors) and sew them together by hand, slipping the other end of the cord or twine between them.  It almost takes longer to write this out than it did to sew them!  Cutting out the small pieces does take a bit of time.

I made a dozen tea bags for each girl and packaged them just in simple plastic food storage containers from Walmart.

I made a label for each using cute printables from The Cottage Market.  An easy way to access just what you want from this site is to go to their Pinterest boards and find the one labeled Cottage Market Freebies (or a similar name -- I can't remember just what it's called -- may be Cottage Market Free Printables).  From there you can easily find the link to the printable you'd like.  Or you could design your own label as I've done for some of the other foods.

For the felt pancakes, I used this tutorial: :Felt Pancakes from Turkey Feathers.

These are easy, easy, easy!  All done by machine except for the butter pat.

And for the toaster pastries, which I failed to take pictures of, I used this tutorial: Felt Toaster Pastries from Treasures for Tots.  I'm sure these could be done by machine too, but I think the blanket stitching around the edge makes them look more real.  The ones I made for the girls were intended to be strawberry flavored.  I used pink felt for frosting and a variety of pink beads for sprinkles.  This picture is of some I had previously made with white frosting and multicolored sprinkles.

I should add (this is probably a no-brainer, but I'll add it anyway) that when I make any felt food involving a simple, generic shape like a rectangle or circle, like these, I'll make a pattern out of newspaper or tracing paper and label it (like "felt pancakes, small circle, cut 2 tan") and so on.  That way, when I want to make that particular food again, I am all ready.  I keep all of my felt food patterns together in a zip-top quart size bag within a folder of the various felt food instructions.

I also like to package my felt foods in plastic zip-top bags with a label.  I like to think this helps to keep it corraled when the kids aren't playing with it, but that may just be wishful thinking.

Trying to hunt up all of the links for these felt foods made me remember something I've been wanting to do for ages: do an entire post with links for ALL of the felt food I've made over the past 5 years or so.  People often ask for specific instructions/patterns but I have never taken the time to get all of the links in one place.  It's going to take awhile, but hopefully I can put a post like that on my Christmas blog in the next week or two.  Stay tuned!

Goals for week beginning 5/6/2013

Doesn't this vintage iced tea  tray look refreshing?  It's warm enough to enjoy iced tea right now!

Another Monday!  They do roll around so quickly!  Here are some goals for the week:
*  Spend time in 2 Samuel Bible study
*  Work on Sunday School lesson 1
*  Make 2 pages for "What Do I Know About My God"?  notebook
*  Memorize Psalm 104:33-34
*  Read 2 chapters in A Woman's Call to Prayer
*  Exercise or go for walks as often as time allows
*  Keep up with crafting goals for birthdays, Christmas, and finishing UFOs
*  Keep up a good water intake
*  Get to bed by 9:30 or 10 pm each night
*  Post once or twice in my Christmas blog and at least five times in my regular blog
*  Finish kids' devotional book for summer 2013 and send to print shop
*  Make a simple spring banner
*  Keep up with homemaking goals for Zone 2, the kitchen, including decluttering
 *  Make a daily time schedule for the things I need to do.


And here's how last week went:
*  Spend time in 2 Samuel Bible study -- DONE!
*  Finish Sunday School lesson 14 -- DONE!
*  Start new Sunday School lesson 1 -- DONE!
*  Make 2 pages for "What Do I Know About My God"?  notebook -- not done
*  Memorize Psalm 104:33-34 -- not done
*  Read 2 chapters in A Woman's Call to Prayer -- DONE!
*  Exercise or go for walks as often as time allows -- not done
*  Keep up with crafting goals for birthdays and finishing UFOs -- DONE!
*  Keep up a good water intake -- DONE!
*  Get to bed by 9:30 or 10 pm each night -- DONE!
*  Post once or twice in each blog -- DONE! for my regular blog, but not the Christmas one
*  Continue work on kids' devotional book for summer 2013 -- DONE!
*  Make a simple spring banner -- not done
*  Keep up with homemaking goals as much as possible, including decluttering several closets -- did well with Zone 1, but no real decluttering of closets was done.
 *  Make a daily time schedule for the things I need to do  -- DONE!

Obviously I am hoping for a more productive week ahead.  We'll see how it all goes