Sewing and Eating

We all know that sewing requires food, the nourishment that gives us the strength to sew, right?

Here's what we had for supper tonight -- pork country-style ribs (which DH grilled with his special sauce), steamed asparagus (topped with butter), and a cherry tomato salad (I found the recipe here).  This is a very Paleo meal (at least to my understanding) because it contains only "real food" -- no grains, no processed carbs, and no chemicals:

Here's a light-weight knit I bought on sale at JA's a couple days ago.  I bought 1.5 yards of this sale fabric, and with 40-percent off (plus tax) it cost me approximately $12.50.  I think that's pretty good!  It will become a top of some sort.  Isn't it pretty?  It will go with all my purple and fuchsia pieces, and maybe even some red or black pieces:

I hope to get back to work on my skirt soon.  You believe me, don't you?  Most recent pictures of the skirt are here.

I also plan to make an actual container to hold the paper napkins that sit on my kitchen counter.  I want to make a short basket based on Debbie Cook's Ikea-style bins.  Look here to see what I mean.  DH doesn't know it yet, but he will help me make this.

If DH want another set of custom sheets like you can see here, we have to find a very good price for extra-wide fabric, which is usually called quilt backing.  I still have to write the tutorial for making sheets, but you can click here to see the instructions that are with the pictures.

As if there weren't enough projects in the planning stage around here, we bought a huge wedge pillow at BB&B (with a coupon, of course!).  It comes with a flimsy pillow cover, but we prefer two pillow cases on all our pillows.  When I get around to making this pillow cover, I will share the instructions.

Sesame Treats

Now that we eat real food, this is as close as we get to making cookies. There is no sugar, yet these healthy, non allergenic cookies disappear quickly. Here's what we do:

Put a dozen dates in a high-speed blender. Blond raisins or other dried fruits can be added for variety, but the dates are all that's really needed for sweetness. Add a little water and run at high speed until you have a sludgy drizzly mess.

Pour mess into a bowl.

Add about a cup of sesame seeds, 1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds, and a tablespoon or so of virgin coconut oil. Mix this up with a big spoon.

We have corelle plates and coat them with a little oil, which makes spreading out the goo easier. Any oven-safe flat thing will work such as glass plates or a cookie sheet.

Use the spoon to kind of slush it all around on the plates and spread it out evenly.

We put this in our NuWave convection oven at setting 2 for an hour. You could probably put in a conventional oven at 150 degrees, but we're not sure what the length of time would be.

After an hour we pull them out and use a pizza cutter to cut one huge piece into many bite size pieces. Then the pieces are turned over and they are put back in again for another hour. If it's very thick, they might have to be cooked some more.