The Good, the Bad, and the Pretty?

Driftwood Statue of Liberty on cover of local guide.
I love it!

Hi!  I didn't do a Memorial Day post. I was feeling sad that I couldn't leave a little flag on my dad's grave. My parents' ashes were buried, unmarked, on a windswept promontory overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, in the  garden of a  Cape Cod church we called the Moby Dick/ whaling church because it dates from that era.[1845?]. It's the perfect spot but somehow putting his flag out on my deck isn't the same as being there. I don't  know why.  So along with truly frigid temps it was a somewhat sad weekend here.

I kept busy with projects: I made the Shower Melts, recipe:   HERE   You can also browse through my Bath- Little Luxuries file on Pinterest, though the general gist is always the same.

Cornstarch, water, essential oils. 

The result is like very hard to handle drywall spackle. And it gives that creepy chalk on the blackboard feeling as you mix it, eew.

I doubled the recipe, 2 Cups of cornstarch.

Drops of essential oils: bergamot, lemon, lemon verbena, eucalyptus. I subbed the eucalyptus for peppermint oil from the recipe because peppermint gives me migraines.

You don't have to pack the spackle into the ice cube trays. It sort of settles in a minute or so. The water on top can be wicked off by laying a paper towel on top.

I had the red heart molds on hand, a gift from a young man who was a house guest one summer. He'd make pink lemonade hearts in them for our drinks.

The trays go in the freezer. No clue why this works, but it seems to do the trick. Bring the trays out and let them warm up for only about 90 seconds. Pop out and let the cubes dry, then pack into jars.

Pretty!

BUT they have no scent whatsoever. I used way more scented oil than the recipe called for, but nada. Maybe my oils lacked scent because they are all natural and organic? We're used to bright artificial scents instead? But really. Nothing. Too bad because I wanted to make them for little gifts for friends.

And then there is the drywall spackle issue. I kept imagining this stuff clogging my drains. Permanently.

...........

Since it was so cold I went ahead and made Kelley's Roasted Veggies Pasta. I did cherry tomatoes for about 4 hours at 200*. They came out nice but cooked away to nothing much. I think big beefsteak slices or Italian plum tomatoes would work better. 

Then I roasted 1/2 a bunch of asparagus cut in 2" sticks, 1 summer squash  cut into half moons, a sweet onion cut into moons, garlic, and [just because] pine nuts. Single layer, bit of olive oil and lemon pepper [I use one of those grinder mixes.] They should roast 35 minutes at 400*. I overcooked them due to some little quotidian distraction/ crisis . But they were salvageable. 

Toss with rigatoni and a little butter or olive oil, cubed Brie. Parm on top.

The look is not foodie mag perfect but the taste was delicious on a a drizzly cold night. Easy to do too, except the watch-your-timing issue.

......

And the pretty: This quilt is back from the quilter! 

My quilter did a gorgeous job. There's a lot more work to be done now, first bind, then wash and dry. Then  eyes for birdies, 60 + rosettes to sew, beads for stamens. This is a huge, king sized quilt, for no obvious reason. 

I used flannel instead of batting to make the post-quilting handwork easier, maybe. An experiment. The quilter used the flannel with no comment. We'll see how it all washes.

.....

Mo is always a happy little guy! He loves the cool grass.

Have a great week.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...