Since today is Wednesday you're getting a WIP Wednesday post. You're welcome. 😁 I've been working on this quilt since last fall. It's the Colour Me Creative block of the month from Phoebe Moon. I have one more border to go, then it'll be ready for quilting.
The design is meant to be scrappy, so I chose that black fern print first. I have a lot of it and it's been hanging around for Y.E.A.R.S. Like much of my stash, I'm ashamed to say (although I know I have lots of company out there). When I plunked the colour wheel on it, it did NOT identify in the yellow-greens where I expected it to be. It matched in the yellow column. Huh. So I used the TRIAD guide to pull my other fabrics from reds and blues. BTW, I purchased my colour wheel at an art supply store. It was about half the price of a comparable item from a quilt shop.
Out in the garden I've been battling cucumber beetles this year. They killed my first crop of squash. (why are they in the squash, anyways???) By the time I replanted seeds I thought the beetles had flitted off to greener pastures, but nooo - they are still here. The other irritant is cabbage moth. They're working on the cabbage and the kale. I think DH is paying them to stay in the kale. It's definitely NOT on his list of favorite foods.
Anyhow. Garden pests are the reason I've only picked TWO zucchinis this summer. The first one was pinky size, so really small. The second one was P.E.R.F.E.C.T. I've also got a few nice tomatoes, lovely big onions, enough purple beans for a Helen-sized serving every two days. We'd been out for dinner to an Italian restaurant on Sunday so on Monday I was still in that mood for tomatoes & parmesan. Here ya go...very informal pasta recipe:
GARDEN PRODUCE PASTA (serves 4 but very easy to amend)
Assemble:
- half pound of bacon
- 2 cups of dry pasta, my preference is fusilli
- 1 or two leaves of kale
- a couple onions and a couple cloves of garlic
- some tomatoes, enough to dice into about three or four cups
- garden veggies, whatever you have: peppers sweet and/or hot, zucchini or other squash, peas, beans, carrots, celery, broccoli, etc. Mushrooms if you have some on hand.
- some fresh basil leaves, diced
- 1/4 c. heavy cream and 1/4 c. parmesan cheese (plus more for serving)
- cut up half a pound of bacon into 1" pieces and cook it crisp in a BIG frying pan, drain off the oil and set the bacon aside on paper towels to drain.
- chop up the kale leaf(s) (mine are huge). Toss the big fat rib in the compost, or dice it small and freeze it for winter soup/stew/meatloaf/pasta.
- dice a couple onions and a couple cloves of garlic.
- add a bit of olive oil to that big frying pan and saute the onions, garlic & kale for 5 minutes or until everything is getting slightly soft. The liquid released from the onions should help to scrape the bacon stuff off the bottom of the pan for extra flavour. Yum.
- dice up some of your garden produce - I used a HUGE green pepper and a jalapeno pepper and a zucchini, but pretty much anything is fair game: peas, beans, carrots, whatever.
- add the diced veggies to the pan and saute them for a few minutes.
- enough diced tomatoes of any type to make about three or four cups - add them to the pan and cook until they're soft and the liquid is simmering and reducing a bit.
- add 1/4 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup parmesan, the basil leaves, and the reserved bacon. Stir, throw the lid on the pan and shut the heat off.
- MEANWHILE you will have been cooking about two cups of pasta - I like fusilli because all those little ribs grab the sauce and other bits, so you get a great mouthful in every bite.
- drain the pasta. You can either add the pasta to the pan with the sauce if the pan is big enough, OR return the pasta to the cooking pot and throw the sauce in there. Whatever - mix all the contents together. Serve with extra cheese and a loaf of lovely bread. Add a salad if you like.
