A PATCHWORK QUILT KINDA POST

When I started this blog, I wanted to name it My Patchwork Life because that seemed appropriate since I have so many interests and I wanted to share all of them. The problem? That name was already taken. My second thought was My Patchwork Quilt. That one worked. 

While it has turned out that I have more recipes than any other topics, except for a recipe for a banana bread that I found in the back of a novel about Amish by Kelly Long, my most popular posts are my tutorials for "quilting". (The last time I checked the Moist Banana Bread, an Amish Recipe post, it had been viewed 122,121 times. I shared the post/recipe on Pinterest and the rest is history.)

Since I seemed to be talking about the beginning of this blog, I guess I should say the reason I wanted to do a blog was I wanted to create an easy tutorial for making a rag quilt. I would see tutorial on Pinterest and get frustrated when I read them at how difficult they made it look. I also didn't always agree with their instructions. One tutorial turned into several tutorials for making rag quilts. (The first one is currently my fourth most popular post. Yes, I have done additional ones since.)

For today I thought I would have a patchwork quilt kind of post....a little of this and a little of that.

When the canasta group met at Friend Ellen's house the last time, she served Chocolate Raspberry Cake. She thought she had made it before for us, but I took a picture of it anyway. Turned out she had, but I thought I would share it with you again. You can find the recipe at the above link or link.

When Blankets of Hope met this month, I brought back home two or three "quilts" to finish with machine quilting. I say those words (machine quilting) loosely. I don't do free-motion quilting. I did do some slight curves on a baby quilt I made for my hairstylist's son, but I mainly do straight stitching - stitching in the ditch (that means stitching along the seam), outline stitching (which means stitching usually about 1/4 of an inch from the seams), or diagonally stitching (stitching diagonally across the square). The quilt tops I brought back home to finish are quilt tops I sewed together to make the tops. 

One of the quilt tops I had made were made from various strips from 3 to 9 or 10 inches wide. After sewing the strips together, I pressed them so that I could stitch in the ditch when I finished the quilt. Generally speaking you should have stitching no farther apart than your hand width. That meant I needed to sew another "line" down the middle of the wider pieces of material. 

Most of the time quilters will use a washable marker or quilting pen to mark where they wanted to sew. I didn't want to bother, so instead I measured where half way was (approximately) and taped where I needed to sew. Then I just used the edge of the tape as my guide for sewing.

Just the quilt top finished...

Here are some of the lap quilts we have finished recently...

Recently my husband and I took our MO grandchildren to a train show at KCI Expo. We thought they would enjoy seeing the model trains and villages and they did.

Here they are pushing buttons that makes the trains runs and the crossing guard drop or ...

Granddad had told them "NOT TO TOUCH"...

They had a great time and so did Grandmother and Granddad.

Last "block" in the quilt....

When we were in TN, we saw a sign on a highway for a historic covered bridge. I love covered bridges. The sign indicated it was only 1-1/2 miles off the road. This is what we found....

This has been fun writing. I will have to do this again sometimes. Hope you have enjoyed it.

CRANBERRY HONEY BUTTER SPREAD

If you saw my post from yesterday, I mentioned this absolutely marvelous Cranberry Honey Butter Spread that is the perfect pairing with the Biltmore Estate's Cranberry Orange Scones that I made. I saw the recipe from Taste of Home and thought I would make some and give to friends for Christmas along with a mini loaf of bread. I still plan to do that, but most of this first attempt ended up at my son's on Thanksgiving. I filled a half-pint jar and took it to them when we went to their house for Thanksgiving Dinner. I kept the rest for us.

CRANBERRY HONEY BUTTER SPREAD

1        cup butter, softened
1/3    cup finely chopped dried cranberries
1/4    cup honey
2       teaspoons grated orange peel 
1/8    teaspoon kosher salt

In a small bowl, beat all ingredients until blended. 

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 2 weeks or freeze up to 3 months.

The Taste of Home test kitchen suggests you try dried blueberries with lemon peel, or dried cherries with lime peel. They also suggested replacing the honey with maple syrup and use with a stack of fluffy pancakes. 

CRANBERRY ORANGE SCONES

I found this recipe for Cranberry Orange Scones on the Biltmore Estate website when I wanted to have a link to its website for my post on our recent visit at the estate to see it decorated for Christmas. (I got so many pictures.) I love the idea of cranberries and orange/peel together and printed it off so I could try them.

My first attempt wasn't perfect because I cooked them too long. I did misread the directions (the print was so small is my excuse) but even then it was too long. I knew I would be making them again and the chance came just a few days later.

A week ago at Sunday school, Mike, one of our members wanted to know if I had brought anything to eat. I'm not really sure why he thought I would have. My husband was teaching the class that morning. That's the only reason I could come up with.

Well, this past Sunday, our class didn't meet because we were the hospitality team for two of the worship services. Mike was going to help out so I knew he would be there. I would have preferred to have made them Sunday morning but I knew I would be washing my hair so I made them Saturday night instead.

The first time I made them I cut them as wedges but I wanted to have more than 8 scones. The directions for the scones said to cut them as wedges or into rounds with a 2-1/2 - inch biscuit cutter. I followed the directions the first time and rolled the dough out into a 10 - inch circle, but Saturday night I only rolled them out into an 8 - inch circle. 

I make biscuits often and they bake in 15 minutes at 450 degrees F. They are fatter than the scones so I was surprised when the recipe said to bake them for 12 minutes at 450 degrees F and then turn the oven temperature down to 400 degrees F and bake 5 more minutes or until golden brown. The first ones were overbaked that I made; the ones Saturday night were just right. I took them out of the oven after 12 minutes and they were perfect.

After Mike ate one at church Sunday morning, he came over and told my husband that he didn't see any need for the class members to eat doughnuts on Sunday when I could just bake something and bring it in. (My husband's response? "Don't encourage her".)

These scones are absolutely wonderful! And really easy, too. I know I will be making them often - maybe as often as I make my biscuits.

CRANBERRY ORANGE SCONES

1-1/2       cups flour
1/4          cup sugar
1             tablespoon orange zest (I used orange peel)
1-1/2       teaspoons baking powder
1/4          teaspoon baking soda
1/2          teaspoon salt
1/2          cup (1 stick) butter - lightly softened
2/3          cup dried cranberries (I did chop mine)
1             egg
1/4          cup orange juice - approximate
1             teaspoon vanilla
Sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Combine the flour, sugar, orange zest, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl with a whisk. 

Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

(I used my fingers.)

(Cut butter in slices to make this easier.)

Stir in cranberries.

Beat the egg in a 1 cup measure.

Add enough orange juice to measure 1/2 cup.

Add the vanilla.

Stir the liquid into the flour mixture

just until moistened.

Place the dough on a floured surface.

(Sprinkle a little flour on top before you start.)

Knead 8 to 10 times.

Shape into a 10 - inch circle. (An 8 - inch circle will make a little fatter scone but not too fat.)

Cut into wedges...

or into rounds using a biscuit cutter.

(If you do the rounds, you will need to gently knead the scraps

until you have used all of the dough.)

 

Place on a greased baking sheet. (I used my non-stick cookie sheet with good results the second time.)

Sprinkle with additional sugar. (I forgot to do this the second time - they were fine.)

Bake for 12 minutes. Remove if golden brown. If not, reduce temperature to 400 degrees F. and bake 5 more minutes or until golden brown. (Mine were done in the 12 minutes so I removed them from the oven.)

When I made these the first time, I also made some Cranberry Honey Butter to spread on them. There are no words to describe how delicious this "butter spread" is and just perfect with these Cranberry Orange Scones. I will be sharing that recipe tomorrow but here is a sneak peak. 

Hope you will check back tomorrow for this scrumptious spread.