Zucchini & Orzo Salad w/Basil

If you're growing them, you're trying to find something to do with them or you will be soon.
If you aren't, you may start finding them on your porch in the morning....

I'll admit, I've never felt the need to grow zucchini, but I've often been gifted with them and found ways to use them. This salad is probably one of my favorites.

I'm not sure if I had even tried zucchini before, but many years ago we were participating in the Landis Valley Herb & Garden Fair.

It was in the early days of the fair and Fridays were a by invitation only affair for the press and special friends of the museum. On Friday night, May wine was served along with a various little canapes.

On Saturday, lunch was catered and as (some of the few) vendors, lunch was free to us as a little something extra (for our $35 table fee!) One year, this salad was the main course and I loved it. I tried in vain to find the recipe and actually picked up a few other good ones along the way, but for some reason, the original was finally published in our newspaper and I was sure to copy it down. I hope you will enjoy it too!

Zucchini & Orzo Salad w/Basil

4 Med. Zucchini, coarsely grated
2 T. Salt
2 C. (packed) fresh basil
½ C. Olive Oil
3 med. garlic cloves
8 C. chicken broth
1# Orzo
¼ C. fresh lemon juice & zest
ground black pepper
1 C. imported Kalamata olives
Basil sprigs

Drain Zucchini in colander. Sprinkle with 1 T. salt. Let drain 30 min. Stir or shake twice. Squeeze dry. Transfer to large bowl. Fluff with hands to separate.
Place basil & olive oil in processor 1 minute, drop garlic in and blend.
Add Zucchini to basil mix.
Bring chicken broth to boil in medium saucepan. Stir in 1 T. salt and orzo, return to boil. Simmer 10-15 min. ‘til orzo is tender. Drain.
Stir all together and cool to room temp.
Just before serving, stir in lemon juice and zest (if desired) Season with pepper. Garnish with olives and basil sprigs.

For more zucchini recipes, visit my friends:

Becky - Zucchini Fritters
Tina - Zucchini Bread Recipes
Patricia – Stuffed Zucchini
Karen – Zucchini Pizza
Cindy – Calabacitas
Beth – Zucchini Brownies

Next, Cucumber!

A String of Blue Beads

So, I said I'd show you what I did on the torch last week when the weather was so temperate.

I made a few other things, but this set is my favorite.

The base is a very pale transparent aqua and the flowers and vines are a pale sky blue. They're pretty right out of the kiln, but I etched them so the design shows up more clearly and they appear to glow from within.

I can see them made into a bracelet to be worn on a tan wrist. Perfect for the summer.

Where did I get the name? One year for Christmas, when I was about 7 or 8, one of my gifts from my parents was a book called A String of Blue Beads. I think the theme was something like The Gift of the Magi. I always remember that gift because for some reason it made me feel very special. It may well have been the last Christmas our parents were together and it was a nice memory.

A Stinky Post!

Look what I harvested today!

Last fall one week, we played hooky from "our" market and visited another nearby market. Lo and behold, one of our fellow vendors was set up there too. He had some lovely garlic bulbs and I asked about growing them. He explained the process and so I took them home and planted them, really expecting nothing.

When the snows melted this spring, I went out to see what was happening around the yard and - there they were! Green shoots where we had planted the single cloves.

I cut the scapes and used them when they "bloomed" and waited. When I was out weeding and tying the tomatoes the other day I noticed that the foliage was looking yellowish and wondered if this was the cue to harvest.

I checked with Tina's Yahoo list and was told they are ready when the first few sets of leaves were dried up. Then, I was given instructions to dig, not pull, them and then to hang them in an airy place where they could cure.

I waited until the heat returned today(!) and decided it was time to dig them. I couldn't wait to see how they had fared.

You can see my harvest above. What a thrill! No more garlic in a jar for us.

The tomatoes will be ready soon, basil is producing profusely, now we have our own garlic. We'll be eating a lot of Pasta Fresca this summer. (Recipe from "Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home") Heck, I might even have to make my own mozzarella!

I have them bunched and hanging in the shop. They may have to be moved outside. Don't want the soap to pick up their "scent."

I actually did manage to get to the torch during our brief spell of gorgeous temperate heat and low humidity weather and I will post the results soon.

PA Dutch/Mexican Beads!

This should be from Cinco de Mayo, but these beads only appeared in the past few days, so ... better late than never!

I started out with an idea... bright colors on a black background, inspired by a set of beads in a gallery online.

At first, looking at this "set" of beads, I thought, PA Dutch. But, as I looked at the a little longer, I was reminded of the beautifully embroidered Mexican blouses. Usually, the designs are on unbleached muslin, but sometimes on black... So, these are my PA Dutch/Mexican beads! It made me think of my lampworking friend, Rachel, who is of Mexican descent and how when we get together (me being PA Dutch), fun and pretty things result.

One of the beads that came out of this effort was a cone bead. I plan to string it as a pendant with a cascade of other beads of the same colors coming out the bottom. This may give you an idea of my plan.

The entire "set" shows the cone bead along with a couple of multicolored florals, then a leaves and hearts bead. The last five beads on the strand are leaves with flowers - in pinks and turquoises.

Click on the picture for a better look.

I have a pretty good idea of what I will do with the turquoise flowered beads. They remind me of Forget-me-nots and I want to make them into a bracelet along with a stamped link...

I'll have to do a follow-up post when these are finished.

The last few times I torched, it was really for a swap I am involved in, but these beads are somewhat different from what I have been doing lately and they have inspired these differet ideas that I will have to keep at least the ones I talked about using.

Something else sort of different came out of the kiln too...

Thee are some nice round beads with silvered ivory, intense black, murinis and contrasting random dots.

I think these will be part of my swap project.

I'm liking them too and would like to make some actual sets like this... maybe all in one color!

Sets do seem to be escaping me lately. I'm just having fun experimenting and one thing seems to lead to another rather than just copying the same thing over and over.

Baltimore Orioles Up North

I'm excited about this! I've seen Baltimore Orioles on very rare occasions here in our yard, usually at the top of our big old sycamore tree.

Today, as I was closing a window in the shop and covering the soap, one landed right in front of me and looked in the window!

I was planning to go into the house and as I walked out, I saw him/her(?) fly out of the purple plum right outside the shop and into the sycamore. It hung around and then sort of disappeared into a glob of what looked like dried leaves near the end of a branch.

I went into the shop and got my camera to snap a picture in telephoto mode and see if it was a nest... Yes! It was. I've never seen an oriole nest in person, but have seen lots of pictures of the neat little bag they build.

From one side, it looked like some old leaves that may have gotten caught in the crook of a branch, but I climbed up the hill to try to get a better shot and this was what I got after I enlarged the picture and cropped it. I'll have to keep track of it as it is built - I think there is more to go on it to make it a secure spot for their precious eggs.

It seems to be bird day around here because this past winter, we finally lost our last Guinea hen. But this morning, Bob came home with a dozen week old chicks and set them up in a cage with a heat lamp to nurse them through the first few weeks before we can put them outside in a safe spot to become acclimated to life outside. There is a tree in the spot so they will learn to roost at night.

He also told me he has (I think) 6 silky chicks on order for next week.... Those are the fluffy white chickens. We'll be adding to the menagerie once again.

Between the loud chuck chuck of the Guineas, another few clucks to add to our chicken flock and the sweet clear call of the orioles... it'll be a noisier place around here this summer.

Return of the Muse

My flameworking muse is back - for how long, I never know.

However, the last few days, I have been inspired to sit down at the torch and create, something I haven't done since last month.

I've had a certain frit around for a long time and at some point, I made an interesting (if wonky) focal with it. The frit floated around in the middle and the ends were red - "bordello" to be exact.

I really liked it, but wasn't inspired to do anything more with it until recently. Yesterday, I made a set with it - frit on a nice neutral in Kalera shaped beads, with bordello spacers. Then I made a large lentil with the same combo. I'll post them soon.

There was a thread on one of my favorite online glass haunts about vessels and I guess that made me think about this application. The very base is bordello with a bordello neck and handles... The body of the vessel is clear with frit spattered through it.

The main vessel turned out so well that I thought it should have a special top, so I made an applied top. It's basically a blob of glass at the end of a rod, dipped in frit, then a bit down the rod, flame cut and tapered. I added a dollop of bordello to the very top and it looks like a little flame dancing on the top.

The first picture was taken inside next to a paisley curtain with very similar colors.

The second picture was taken as it hung in the window. Neither one does it justice. The bordello is a deeper red than it appears on either of the pictures.

When the sun finally appears again I may try to get a truer picture, but meanwhile, I gave up and had fun with Photoshop.... note the lens flare on the handle of the second picture!

The stopper almost fit exactly, but I wound up grinding just a bit off it. It fits very well, but I suppose if I sell it, it should have a cork option!

I'd love to make some kind of a wire stand so it could be displayed too.... Another day, I suppose.

An early spring garden

We (Tina & I) spent a lovely day on Sunday with a friend in Waynesboro, PA on Sunday. Our excuse for going to visit was to attend the Carroll County Spring Flower Show just outside Hagerstown, MD.

The flower show was a bust, but the visit was great! Sharon had a wonderful variety of delicacies prepared for our visit and we seemed to be eating a good part of the day!

It had been raining for a few days, but the weather held for us most of the day. We went out and explored her gardens, finding a number of brave little plants starting to poke through the newly defrosted ground.

This was the scene that greeted us as we approached her door:
Snowdrops! These are so often the very first flowers to pop open in the early spring, sometimes even through the lingering snow. They always make me happy knowing that spring is really on the way.

We turned a corner, and:
A sink was tucked into an out-of-the-way corner... Her house and gardens are all full of wonderful little surprises like this.

As we toured the gardens, Sharon kept noticing many things, especially birdhouses, that were the worse for the rough treatment they had received in this snowy winter and the last few very windy days before we arrived. She spent a lot of time finding things and putting them aright. One of the things was this:
A butterfly house...

So many treasures. I think we need to return a bit later to see everything after it has greened up a bit. Her garden was a much better vision of spring than anything we saw at the show and the trip and visit were a delight!

Torch Time

I got some torch time in yesterday and these were some of the best results:

I've been seeing "baleen" beads and reading people referring to "the cuts" - and "the tool", so I decided to experiment just from what I could gather instead of purchasing a tutorial. It didn't turnout too bad for a first try.

Then I thought, while I'm in the zone, why not do a moon vessel. These are always popular and sell quickly, so here's the latest:

It's better than it looks here - really a graceful shape. I should have waited to get a better picture, but just didn't have the patience today.

Resin addiction!

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm addicted to resin!

Here are the latest:
A little closer up view of the three larger charms. I tried a number of different techniques.
And the smaller ones... The top two are an experiment with trying to use tiny shells we picked up on the beach in Bermuda many years ago. I think they turned out pretty well and plan to make a pair of earrings out of them.
The Queen of Hearts was cut from a tiny deck of cards - a little glitter paste and a red jewel..

Then two "M" charms. Might as well play with my own initial for now!

What did you do in the snow, Mommy?

Resin! I've been wanting to do this for so long... I took a class a couple of years ago and fooled around with what I learned. Then, one day, while sorting through a bag of dried roses, and found a bottle cap. An article in this month's Wire Jewelry magazine gave me the impetus to make this....I pasted a tiny picture of a rose on the bottom and filled in with beads and wires, covering it all with resin. I had always imagined filling it with rose petals, but i think I like this better. I caught a couple of tiny bubbles in the resin, not good thing, but I got rid of most of them. For a first try, this turned out pretty well!

Here is the original bottle cap:
If you look at the bottom left of the cap, you will see that it is from Pakistan, the same place my roses came from! And interesting to note, the ingredients list says nothing at all about either high fructose corn syrup or aspartame... only in America!

Okay, off the soapbox. While I had the resin mixed up, I made a couple more little charms with some of the bezels I just got from Rings 'n Things:These tiny pictures were cut from scrapbooking paper & coated with Elmer's glue. I added just one tiny matching bead to each one and then filled with resin. I think they'd make a great addition to a charm bracelet or a cute little necklace charm.

So, that's what I did in the snow... Now, to the torch!

Leaf Earrings

I had a request for some new "leaf earrings", so during the snow, I made a few pairs:

Bronze:
Turquoise:

Lily of the Valley:

Lilac Ice:

Hematite:

& Dark Teal:

These are fun to put together. I make such a mess as I paw through all my beads, finding combinations that I can't wait to put together!

After the storm

I can't resist. There are just so many gorgeous pictures from the snow!

The one on the left is my favorite. Icicles hanging on the shop. They look almost magical as the sun turns them into prisms! I love icicles even though they can sometimes seem to be daggers ready to fall.

Below, the picture on the right is a scene Tina pointed out to me... our wisteria vine, so gnarled and twisted, covered with snow and icicles hanging above.. The contrasts in this one reminded me of some kind of modern painting. Nature is amazing!

I walked out to see that the winds we thought might undo all Bob's work yesterday had hardly made a difference in our driveway.

The shop is almost hidden behind all the piles of snow. The cars, which were completely dug out only a day or so ago are back to being buried under the new snow.

You can see Tina's house up on the hill to the right. It looks pretty close, right? Well, apparently when one is basically "swimming" through the snow with no gloves, hat or suitable shoes it is miles and miles and very frightening - especially as the snow is still swirling!

The sky has become so blue after days of heavy gray. It looks warm and comforting, but I suspect if we went out on the roads right now, it would still seem a bit threatening.
As I got closer, I saw all the icicles hanging from the eaves...
Now that I'm out here, I have some work to do. So off I go to mix lye for soap to be made later in the week and to light the torch for another day of bead making, but first, I had to share some of the beauty of this most recent storm.

Da Beads

So, after all that absence, now I post twice in one day.

Yesterday, as I waited for the kiln to ramp up, I decided to make a few murini. I have done this before, but I got some pretty good results yesterday.

This brown flower murini seemed to work perfectly on this bead - I think It's my favorite of the day:This one got a little smeared. I wasn't totally prepared to make the bead and that may account for the messiness of it. I kinda went with the flow instead of having everything I needed at the ready!
I was thinking of adding a murini to this one, but I had grabbed an unknown stringer to play around in the background. I think it turned out to be a stringer of a glass called "magic" and it seemed to be coming out so beautifully that I decided not to mess it up!
Finally, I had actually made this bead toward the end of last year with a dusting of enamel and another of the murinis I made before and don't think I ever showed it before.
I sure hope I can get back to the torc regularly now... just as soon as we get caught up with the soap!

Life Goes On

It'a been so long since I've posted, but January slipped past in a blur of hospitals and sorrow. We lost our brother John on February 2, after a 4-year fight with liver disease.

The weather held mostly clear for us as we traveled back and forth from home to hospital and back, finally bringing him home for a few precious days before we could no longer care for him at home and he was taken to Hospice.

The day he died, we walked out of Hospice into a light dusting of snow. My sister and I looked at each other realizing how lucky we were that we had not had to deal with weather during this and all the other times we have had to take him in for standard or emergency treatment. Even when we were traveling back and forth to Philly, the bad weather always seemed to dance around us, but never gave us a problem.

Friday night, it began to snow in earnest and we woke to 20" on the ground with more to come. This is the scene from our garage door:
It was such a relief to know that there was nothing to worry about and that we could just watch it and enjoy the beauty.

After it stopped snowing, my personal hero, my husband Bob plowed us out and opened the way to the shop.I cleared the snow away from the air vent and made my first beads of the new year.

They should be annealed by now and when I clean them, good or bad, they'll be posted here.

I am the oldest and John was the second oldest in our band of 5 kids. I remember the day he was born. It is hard to believe, after all this time that we never got the happy ending we were hoping for, but life goes on and I know that John would want us to live our lives to the fullest.

One last little surprise!

On waking this morning, I looked out the window to see that 2009 wasn't quite finished with us yet. Apparently there was some hushed mention of snow, but I never heard it.

These are the scenes we see this morning from our front porch - the driveway:
The steps down to the front deck:
And the woods and pond. The road is that shallow diagonal line in the middle right of the picture:
No longer feeling the need to participate in any of the rowdy traditions of our youth, I will be happy to sit here in the warm and watch the delicate traceries of snow on the trees and the poor folks who still feel they must try to travel on this night as they struggle up the hill and around the corner...

After the Storm

The winds have been howling around here for a few days. They followed closely on the heels of an early snow and were joined with a nasty rain storm that seemed to freeze on the roads in the evenings.

As we were driving home from the bank/post office run on Monday, we saw this sight up ahead:
The pole had been hit and a guy wire has been stretched across to the right on a diagonal to hold it in place.

As we got closer, we saw this makeshift "bandage":
I'm not sure why this struck us as so funny that we felt the need to document it. At first, the guy wire was not visible and the ridiculousness of the flimsy plastic bandage trying to hold it all together was probably the reason. We thought it might belong in the Fail Blog.

Last day at Frog Hollow - Happy Solstice!

Our final official day at Frog Hollow, we think! Somebody said Dec. 21 was the last day and due to some language difficulties around here, we aren;t sure if we're still open or not!

The trees still look great, even if they are in "disguise."
The shop looks cozy with its blanket of snow....
And the road is mostly open and clear.
So, it looks like we can finish up the preparations for the celebrations to come.

If the guys will just get the decrations out of the attic, I can decorate the tree! A chicken in the oven for today... Some soup tomorrow.

Sorry - just a stream of conciousness today.

Molded Soaps

From time to time, when we have extra soap in the pan, or when there is just some there that we don't want to scrape out, we will pour it into a small mold.

Often these molds are used for what we call melt & pour soap because that soap is easily released from them.

Cold process (the soap we make) seems sometimes to become a PART of them and may never come out.

We wait and wait, and finally they pop out - sometimes in one piece, sometimes in a strange smeared parody of the original intent!

One night, not too long ago, we decided to make some molded soaps on purpose! We decided to make essential oil blends for them and the Green Man, above, was made with a nice blend including fir, vetiver and some other woodsy oils.

First, we used less water than usual so the soaps would firm up more quickly and we made sure to add plenty of clay, which would absorb some of the water.

When they still gave us a hard time, we mentioned it to a soapmaking friend who simply said, "Put them in the freezer." So we did - and when we took them out - lo and behold, we had lovely molded soaps.

Then we decided to play with some micas. They were especially beautiful on this sun soap (to the right.) The essential oils in this one are bright and shiny, including some citrus oils.

We touched them all with mica to bring out their details.

The Celtic cube is probably one of the molds we have had around the longest. It is always a nice pattern and the fragrance used in this one was something like patchouli and grapefruit.

Tina took some plain goat milk soap home last night to try rebatching for molding. Her little experiment turned out beautifully and I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't do a blog entry about it soon.

She did post a picture today on her facebook page.

As the days grow short...

November is here and it means many things... In Lancaster County, one of the things it means is the Amish wedding season.

Yesterday, while we were making deliveries in "Amish Country", we passed a farm that usually has a unique Homemade Root Beer sign out at the end of their driveway and noticed that it was covered with a cardboard sign that said "Closed until Weds." We looked down the lane at the farm and saw this:All those little grey boxes on the left of the buildings are buggies. I cut off a few other vehicles. There were also some vans, called "Amish Taxis", driven by "English" drivers that apparently brought some of the guests from farther away.

This was a HUGE gathering. The 3 wagons I have marked are called bench wagons. For Sunday church services, these bench wagons carry a number of benches - seating - to whatever home is hosting church that week, but church normally only requires one wagon. This was a number of congregations combined.

I worried that it might have been a funeral, but Tina remembered that this is Wedding Season and that the Amish weddings usually take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, so it was most likely a joyous occasion for this large gathering.

Another thing that often happens is that we do some experimentation with various products. Usually this is done after the Christmas season here at Frog Hollow is over, but, last night, I decided it was time to try once again to try make liquid soap. I have a couple of projects that this was needed for, so I gave it another shot before I broke down and just bought some ready-made. It seems to have worked out pretty well. I read (and followed) the recipe better than the last time. I saw the reasons for some of the things that were changed from making regular cold process soap and decided to try to go against some hard and fast rules we have always followed.
I poured off some of the finished soap and tried it out. It is NOT finished soap and feels pretty harsh at this point, but give it a couple of weeks and it'll be fine. The stuff in the crock pot is the left over paste which has not melted this morning. I added some more boiling water and will now let it sit, covered so that it will dissolve and become a nice amber liquid...

I'm actually pretty proud of this batch. Apparently I superfatted the previous batch I made and it never was completely clear and separated almost immediately. We'll see how this goes.

Finally, as I walked out to the shop this morning, I noticed we had a frost last night and it was just beginning to melt. These are the fairy soap balls I have stuck in the planter outside the shop..
These always look magical to me, but the frost adds another dimension!