Easy Chicken Pot Pie!

Chicken Pot Pie

1 package of already made pie crust
1 large can of cream of potato soup
1 large can of cooked chicken breast

1/2 chopped onion
1 cup of chopped carrots
2 stalks of celery chopped with leaves
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 can of peas or use some frozen.
Pepper to taste
1 tsp of poultry seasoning.

Saute onions, celery, and carrots in butter until done. Add chicken with the broth in the can. Add cream of potato soup and milk. Stir and cook on med low heat until bubbly. Add poultry seasoning and pepper, and then add peas. Keep warm.
Take one pie crust and put in pie plate. Poke holes with a fork. Brown for 10 mins in oven at 375 degrees. Put chicken stew mixture into the pie shell and then cover with the 2nd pie crust. Pinch around the edges and put some vent holes in the middle. Bake in the 373 degree oven for 35 mins until crust is golden. It's super simple and super yummy. Family was happy with this one. Serves 4 people easy with a little left over. 

Navajo Tacos

While in Arizona, my family and I discovered Navajo Tacos. We love them! Basically they are taco filling on Navajo Fry Bread. My grandkids love the Fry Bread all by itself, especially with honey. It's a bit labor intensive, but worth the work.
Fry Bread
6 cups of flour
2 TBSP of baking powder
1 TBSP of quick rising yeast
2 TBSP sugar
3 TBSP of softened butter or shortening
1 1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup of milk
 2 cups of vegatable oil for frying.

Mix all dry ingredients into a large bowl. The bowl I use is a huge stainless steel bowl. Then cut in softened butter or shortening. I use my fingers to incorporate through the flour until the flour looks grainy. Mix your milk with the water and then slowly add to the flour a little at a time. Work into a dough ball, but don't over knead or your bread will turn out tough.Cover with a damp towel and set in a warm place. Let dough rise 1 - 2 hours.
Roll out golf ball size pieces of dough into 1/4 thick discs. If you doing this alone, then you can stack them up on wax paper to separate. I usually make these when my daughter Angela is here to help. She fries and I roll out the dough.
Heat up your vegetable oil on med-high heat in a large skillet. Put a small peice of dough. when it floats to the top, the oil is ready. Have a large cookie sheet lined with paper towels to put your Fry Bread on to drain. Cook your Fry bread unitl brown on both sides, turning once.  This recipe makes 16 - 20 pieces of delicious Fry Bread!(Put your finished fry bread into a warm oven to keep warm until ready to serve.)

Taco Meat
3 lbs of lean ground beef
1 can of chopped hatch green chilies
1 can of Rotel Tomatoes with green chilies
4 TSP of garlic powder
4 TSP of cumin powder
4 TSP of chili powder
4 TSP of beef bouillon powder
1/2 large onion chopped
Brown the ground beef on a medium heat. Add the onion and saute until the onion is soft. Drain grease. Add the remaining ingredients and turn to low heat and cover. Let simmer for at least an hour, checking and stirring. Don't let the meat cook dry. Add a little water to keep it moist. the longer you let it simmer, the more tender the ground beef will be, just saying...

Put it all together now!

I warm up a can of Bushes Pinto Beans. No seasoning, and this is the only brand I recommend.
1 package of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 bag of shredded lettuce
2 or 3 chopped tomatoes
1 jar of your favorite salsa
1 can of corn or frozen corn warmed up

Build you Navajo taco to suit yourself. I use a slotted spoon and put some drained meat, drained beans, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and salsa on mine. You can put sour cream, avocados, or substitute black beans for the pintos. Recently, I experimented with the salsa after receiving complaints the salsa I was buying wasn't spicy enough. I took a can of the smoked chipotle peppers in moke sauce and used my immersion blender stick to chopped it up really fine. I added that to the salsa. Boy, it's plenty spicy now and has that smoky taste. Family is happy now and loves it.

Hope you like my recipe. You know you can half it up if you don't want to make so much. As is, it fed 10 people with leftovers. Not a lot of leftovers, but enough for some lunches the next day for 4 of us.  Anyway, enjoy!

A Dream Come True! My Singer Class 66 Treadle Machine!

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Look what followed me home! She was a little bit tight. Had to do some cleaning and a good bit of oil.Now she's so quiet, and purrs like a kitten. The wife sold her husband's aunt's Treadle. The grandmother was the original owner, and was a descendant of Anne Boleyn's family line. One of Anne's siblings as a matter of fact! The machine was brought here to Texas from North Carolina. It is model number G081660. She was born April 8,1924 in Elizabeth,New Jersey. Don't you love it when your machine has a history! She's in pretty good shape. The decals are amazing. i'm in love!

The cabinet is in amazing shape. I don't plan to refinish it. It just needs some polish. I got her a new belt and have start sewing 2 inch 9 patches on her. A most simple design to help me get used to treadling. It's a bit tricky, but I'm getting the hang of it.I may take her later to a repair shop for a good tuneup if I can find someone that can work on antique machines. If anyone knows someone in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, give me a hollar!

PS- I almost forgot! I have named her Anne! (Given her history, I think it's perfect!) She's a nice cousin to Bessie, my featherweight!

What's been under my needle lately?

 What's been under my needle lately? As an avid Bonnie Hunter fan, I've been participating in her Allietare Mystery Quilt. Bonnie is so generous to do this every year and her designs never disappoint! I started this quilt Thanksgiving week when she releases the first clue and finished piecing the last week of January.( If only I didn't have to go to work!)
For those of you not familiar with Bonnie, check out her blog at .quiltville.blogspot.com . She is an amazing teacher, author, and designer. My biggest dream is to be able to go on one of her teaching cruises. Quilting and a cruise...I think it would be heaven!

There are lots of pieces in a Bonnie Hunter quilt! I was so excited that I had the required fabric in my stash. I opted for the scrappy version. In my Easy Street Mystery Quilt by Bonnie, I purchased batiks. This time I used what I had.













This year I learned a new technique for headless geese. They were most time consuming. All the colors were scrappy except for a grey constant. I chose a grey with a white pattern. It was almost a mistake. It almost faded into my neutrals. Next time I'll be more careful.

Look at my happy blocks! I always love it when you start assembling the blocks!  There was 50 blocks in this year's MQ. I love the colors this year too!

This is the corner section. The blocks are pieced together on the diagonal.

Isn't it pretty! I love the stars! As I was laying this out, I noticed that the star blocks would make a gorgeous quilt and the square blocks would too. I may be doing this at some point!

Alletare on my little twin bed. I still have to attach the borders.

I think the borders really tie it all together! Bonnie put a scalloped edge on hers. I'm still toying with the idea, but will probably not. I like straight borders.

Forgive the picture. The sun was behind the quilt. And it was windy and cold. My daughter and 2 grandkids are trying to hold it straight enough for me to get a pic! I'm proud of this quilt and love how it turned out! Thanks Bonnie Hunter! Your mystery quilt along is most generous and makes me happy!

It's been forever since I last blogged.My only excuse is going through menapause and getting off an antidepressant. Menapause makes you crazy and the antidepressant had me so sedated, all I did was sleep. I've made it past the menapause now and have been off the Lexapro for almost a year now. I must say I'm feeling like my old self again. So I have been quilting again. This is a memory quilt for a friend who lost her Mom. I'm really pleased how it turned out. It took me a year to make. I FMQ it on my Juki TL 2010 Q. I'd been following Leah Day's blog on FMQ and she had recommended this machine. I love it! It only does a straight stitch, but it does it so well. It's my favorite machine to piece with as well. 

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Working on a Wacky Web Quilt

And once again, it's been forever since my last post. My only excuse is that it's summer time, and grandkids want to swim.In between the swimming and such, I have been working away on a Wacky Web Quilt. I'd seen the Youtube video by Missouri Star Quilt Company, and fell in love with the pattern. Having a big box of strings, I just knew I wanted this to be my first string quilt. So far I have 14 blocks made.  

 Perfect for passing the evenings with a good movie on in the back ground. I love mixing the colors, and the anything goes rule. It's  a fun project and I'm debating on appliqueing a few spiders here and there for fun. I'm thinking this will be a nice quilt for Aiden, who is quite into bugs these days anyway.

 Missouri Star Quilt Company has a Wacky Web kit. It has 250 triangle papers, a WW ruler and a lapel temporary glue stick. I also bought a few Muslin Mates charm packs by Moda.

 The template fits perfectly on the charm packs. I trim 4 layers at a time. It goes pretty fast.

 Then a little lapel stick to the paper triangle, just enough to hold it down. Your ready to start adding your strings.The triangle papers come in a refill pack too, so you don't have to repurchase the whole kit. Or you could make your own triangle papers, but the packs are so inexpensive, and I really like how easy they tear away. Missouri Star Quilting Company is one of my favorite online shops. They always have a daily deal, that is hard to pass up. Love their videos too. Go check them out!

Sister's Choice...Blocks finished!

Sister's Choice blocks finished and sewn together! Now I have to consider the border's. Did you see Bonnie Hunter's Sister Choice? I just love it! I'm afraid I didn't see her lesson on Neutrals until after I was too far committed into my fabric choices. Still, Addi is most very happy with what I've completed, and I watched her little fingers tracing along the different blocks, and she would ooooo and ahhhh over the different fabrics.( This is why you sew for the little darlings, right? I have visions of her hunging onto her quilt long after I'm gone, remembering the Nana that loved her enoough to make her a quilt.)

I'm thinking a thin red border with a wider pink border. My daughter suggested that I put her name and a message on the back. I think I like that idea! After this, I have to quilt Easy Street and this quilt. I also have a smail's trail, and a couple of other UFO's that need quilting.

What are ya'll up too?

OOOOOO!!!! I WON!

OOOOO! SQUEEEEEE! I actually won something!!!! How kewl is that?  I won some yummy hand dyed fabric from vickiwelsh.etsy.com hand dyed fabrics ! LOOKIE LOOKIE!!! Isn't it the most fabulous colors, so bright, so happy, so...well me! (I blame my love of bright colors on my Japanese heritage and growing up in the 60s and 70s!) Thank you Vicki for such a fabulous gift! This will have to be for something special with these 10, yes 10 fat 8ths. I'm thinking they would be most very awesome in a Twister quilt with black border, or maybe to use for the Flower Garden applique quilt I have planned. Anyway, the give away was sponsered by Quilting Bloggers.Go check the site out, there's a button on my sidebar. They have give aways all the time.( You never know...you could win too!)

Once Upon a Time...

a kind friend named Ms Julie, give me a couple of huge bags of scraps. They were most colorful happy scraps, and I was overjoyed! I cut the scraps into 2 1/2 " squares and pondered, what shall I do with said lovelies? They were most precious and special soooo, they were stashed away in normal saline tubs awaiting the day that a most special use was found.

While watching Bonnie Hunter on Quilt Cam piecing together her Sister's Choice blocks, there was an epiphany! Hey! I love those blocks! Hey! I have a bunch of 2 1/2 square blocks cut out! OOOOOO! I have a bunch of white on white/cream fabric left from Easy Street! And so now I have this, 18 Sister's Choice blocks with rainbow points! See!

Now while I was sewing blocks, Addi, my 4 year old granddaughter, came up and said," Can this be for me Nana?" . Why yes! Yes it can. She loves the rainbow points too!

This is my favorite block. The yellow fabric with blue pansies is so gorgeous and I wish I had more of it.

So now Nana still needs to make at least 6 more blocks, maybe 10. I'm aiming for a twin size quilt for Addi's bed. I think I need some green points to mix in for the rainbow colors.

Now this isn't the end to my story! To be continued! 

Learning To Quilt, Part 2

Again no pics, yet another story.  My first mother in law was Vesta Lyons. She was the kindest soul I'd ever met. I was too young when I married my first husband. Vesta took me right in. She was an older lady in her late 60's. Her eyes were bright, and beamed with goodness. I love her so! She taught me gardening, cooking, and took me everywhere with her like I was her own daughter. She also took my quilting to the next level.

 Vesta taught me to make string quilts. We would take old sheets, some purchased at yard sales, and tear them into 6 inch strips lengthwise. Once again, double knits came into play. Old pant suits, shirts, and what ever we could get our hands on would be cut into 2 inch strips. She showed me how to lay the strips on a diagonal, and we'd zigzag the strips into place. Once we covered those long strips with colorful  doubleknits, we'd then alternate them into a zigzag pattern and sew them together. Old blankets served as batting, and a new sheet or a used one in good shape would be the backing. Now I learned about tacking and tying. She taught me about binding. There wasn't a lot of money back then, but let me tell you, the quilts we made one year, enough for all her kids, grandkids, including myself and my husband, were beautiful and warm.

Vesta used to tell me all the time,"If a person was to make one quilt a year, every year, she would never have to worry about her family needing covers." . So true, so true! Love you Vesta!