The home buying battle is nearly won!

Nearly and almost... but not quite. I have faith that it will be done by mid March and we will be moved in by April. YAY!!

In the meantime I decided to get over myself a little and make another wool painting. This one is indulgent and fanciful, I love it. It will be available in my Etsy shop when I am completely happy with all the little details.

My next picture is already on the table, it is a black and white American Indian portrait.

I did not fall off the face of the planet.

But It felt like it.

I have not been around the web much lately nor have my creative juices been flowing. I have been stressed to the max trying to buy a house. The stress of waiting to find out what various banks and lenders think has turned my eyebrows white ( which I plucked immediately) and my hair is greying at an alarming rate.

You would think that buying a house would not be to difficult with the housing market in complete shambles and empty houses on every street I walk dawn. Wrong, lenders don't seem to want to deal with the self employed. I thought I was part of the American backbone, a small business owner ... Our problem seems to be we earned to much money last year and it is worrisome for the lender...? Is it really a strange thing that my upholstery business has flourished in this harsh economy? I after all fix and repair what people used to throw away and buy new.... Now they cannot afford to be so wasteful and I am making a good living.

I just want to buy my own house not my landlords.

Anyhow, this is the stress that is causing me to age, to disappear and that has stolen my creative energy.

I am willing myself to no longer dwell on it, I have gotten out my wool and my paints, maybe something beautiful will come of this.

Happy New Year, May it be prosperous and fulfilling.

This year I have only one real goal and that is to delve deeper into my creative side , do my art and see where that leads in my life. I feel successful in my business, I'm very very proud of my child, and I'm happy. To soon my daughter will go off to college then on to her own life and I want to be doing what fulfills me. Therefore, more projects.

So to begin I have started a sampler of sorts, basically I'm embroidering a printed fabric I found at Ikea. It is a perfect canvas to practice stitches on. I have always admired embroidery, it is so textured and needlework can be really amazing. I want to be able to manipulate fibers in ways that are lush and full of life.

Here are a couple of pictures of the stitches I have learned. The leaf to the left is not as wonderful as I had imagined it would be but it is not finished and that will defiantly help.

The pomegranate above is composed of buttonhole stitches, lots of them.

The leaf is a square filling stitch and the stem in the middle is couching.

Im my quest to explore art more I am taking an online class, it is called Color Theory it is taught by Judy Perez a quilt and fiber artist. I just received the textile paints that are for the class and immediately got to playing.

I found right off that the paints bleed all over the fabric when I added water to thin them. I briefly read that there is other ways to thin them so they don't bleed... so I will have to look into that.

Anyhow, after a few little mistakes and learning opportunities I painted a hummingbird, a beetle and a dragonfly. The dragonfly was my fist attempt and you can see how much improvement there was between it and the others.

After painting I messed around and sewed some scraps around the pictures... pretty cool so far.

These will probably be post cards for my parents. I think they will enjoy that.

Smoked Duck with Cranberry Mango Chutney

Smoked Duck

This takes 3 days to make. You will cook and serve on day 3. This can be a finicky dish to prepare, it is really best to make a dry run before you try to impress guests. Read all the instruction thoroughly before starting and do not skip any of the steps.

5-6 Lb Muscovy duck ( each duck serves about 4 ) make as many as you need
¼ cup salt per gallon water used to brine.
1 orange cleaned and cut into quarters
1 onion quartered
one large rosemary sprig per bird
fresh thyme, marjoram, garlic
Adobo seasoning ( a seasoning mixture of salt, garlic and oregano, wing it if you can't locate it)
pepper

hickory smoke chips

Thaw bird at least 4 days in advance of serving.

Day 1
remove from package, pull out any pin feathers, trim off the neck flap, and all excess fat from around cavity. Rinse clean. Often ducks found at supermarkets are pre-brined but continue as though it was not. If your duck is still a little frozen that will be ok, it will thaw.

If the bird you have has not had the skin pricked all over then you must do it. You need to prick the skin many times but only prick the skin and fat, do not pierce the flesh if you can manage. Often the pre-brined ducks are also pierced if this is the case skip this step.

Brine the bird. In a large tub or food safe bucket mix together ¼ cup salt per gallon water to cover the bird or birds. Before adding raw bird taste water, you want a pleasant saltiness, not overly saturated, make the brine to your taste. Add bird or birds. Keep cold , and brine for one day.

Day 2
after 24 hour brine, remove birds from brine drain pull the necks, livers, hearts and whatever else is in there out.

Pat dry.

Stuff cavity with the orange and onion quarters as well as a rosemary sprig. Tie the legs together and fold the wings back and over themselves.

Mix your herbs, garlic, pepper and Adobo in a bowl then liberally apply to the surface of the ducks. Place ducks on a roasting rack in the roasting pan you plan to cook them in. Do the back side first then the breast ( so the herbs don't fall off the side you will see.

This is a dry marinade stage, if you have a safe refrigerator that you can leave the ducks uncovered for 24 hours in do that. If not cover ducks keeping them elevated off the floor of the container so the juices do not soak the back let rest over night. You want the duck skin to dry out.




Day 3 -Day of Serving
soak the smoke chips or make 2 foil packs with the dry chips, pierce a few times and set aside.

About 7 hours before you serve your duck remove and let stand on counter. Light your smoker. We use a standard Weber BBQ to do this. I have cut a coffee can down to 2 inches tall and drilled out 1” holes in the bottom. This is the smoke pan. You need to light 8-10 coals Use a bricket chimney and NOT LIGHTER FLUID you do not want the ducks to taste like lighter fluid.

When the coals are ready pour them into the coffee can pan pull to the side in a location that you can access to add smoke chips as needed.

Place the rack right from your roasting pan in the smoker if it fits. If not place the duck directly on the rack. add a few chips cover tightly, open a vent a little to keep the air flow.

At this stage you are not cooking the duck you are adding the smoked flavor. So keep only enough coals in the smoke pan to create smoke not create heat. Add coals as needed. Add wood chips as needed.

Smoke duck for 2 hours.

Heat oven to 225 F remove the ducks from smoker and cover with a lid or with foil as tightly as you can. The duck will now slowly cook for 3.5 hours steaming off some of the fat. The more tightly covered the more fat will drain. Check them after 2 hours and drain the fat if it begins to accumulate in bottom. You don't want the ducks to touch it after it has rendered off. Keep tightly covered and remove from oven at 3.5 hours.

Let the duck rest for 45 minutes.

Heat oven to 375 F uncover ducks and place in the hot oven for another 40 min. This is the stage when you are crisping up the skin.

Carve the duck tossing out the fatty parts of the skin.

Serve with Mango Cranberry Chutney or a sauce of your choice.


Cranberry Mango Chutney

1 bag fresh cranberries picked through and cleaned
2 large mangoes peeled and chopped
1 medium apple peeled cored and chopped
1 whole sweet red pepper
1 ½ cup sugar
1 cup finely chopped onion
½ cup white vinegar
2 TB finely chopped ginger root
1 TB lemon juice
2 tsp curry powder
½ tsp each nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt
1/3 cup chopped crystallized ginger

Combine everything in a large stainless or enamel saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered 40 min or until fruits are tender and mixture is thickened. Stir occasionally.

To can, ladle the hot mixture into sterilized jars fill to within ½” of rim to allow for head space. Process 10 min for ½ pint jars and 15min for pint jars.

Excellent as an accompaniment with poultry.

Recipe for Grilled Lamb

Grilled Lamb Rack with a Wild Mushroom Cabernet reduction sauce

This is dry marinated 1 day in advance of serving
though if you had to you could do it a few hours in advance.

Frenched lamb racks- (purchase enough for the amount you wish to serve. ) Frenched lamb racks have the rib bones protruding from the meat. You want to look for lamb racks that are somewhat trimmed down. You do not want or need the fat so don't pay for something you have to throw out.

Trim the lamb up. Turn them curved side down, carefully slice off the layer of fat along the bones and the silver from the meat. Careful trimming off the silver, you do not want to mangle the meat nor loos much of the meat in the trimming.
Wrap bone end in foil to protect it on the BBQ.

Herb Marinade
This herb marinade is caked onto the lamb you will be using very generous and equal amounts of seasonings. Just mix this into a paste and cake onto the lamb, it should be a thick layer

dry marjoram
fresh crushed garlic
pepper
salt

Cake this herb mixture onto lamb, place in a refrigerator over night.

BBQ over direct heat

BBQ your lamb in the center of the grill over the coals. Throw smoke chips in to add a wonderful smoky flavor. About 8-9 minutes per side until they are medium rare.
Serve with the mushroom Cabernet sauce


Wild Mushroom Cabernet Sauce

you can double this recipe it is excellent over mashed potatoes.
Can be made in advance and reheated.

1 ounce dried wild mushrooms or about 1 cup fresh. We used a mixture of morel, porcini, oyster and crimini
½ cup beef broth
½ cup Cabernet wine ( not to cheap, you want a decent flavor)
corsage of fresh thyme, bay, and marjoram tied into a bundle
3 peppercorns (I place these in a metal tea ball so they don't end up in the final dish.)
1 TB olive oil
2 TB flour, use gluten free if you need to. This is to thicken the sauce
salt to taste at the end

If you are using dried mushrooms rehydrate them 20 min prior and then rinse them 3-4 times to remove any unwanted bits of sand or dirt. Drain and squeeze dry.

In a small saucepan heat oil and sauté mushrooms until mostly browned and crispy add flour stir until the flour is a bit browned. Add the herb bundle, the peppercorns, wine and broth. Bring to a low simmer and simmer for 20 min or longer to reduce and thicken sauce. Adjust seasonings and add salt if you wish.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We threw tradition into the wind and did not miss it at all.

We had a five course meal with plate service so most of our family was able to just sit, sip wine and chat. My husband and I designed the menu and all the recipes are our own. Our

daughter and our niece served the plates and pulled the plates. Just like a real restaurant. It was divine. All though we went to so much trouble we all were able to sit down at every course and enjoy it with the family.

Here is the menu:

Oyster Rockefeller

broiled oysters served with a creamy spinach sauce topped with hollandaise and smokey paprika

Harvest Salad

baby greens served with apples, pears, blue cheese, dried cranberries candied pecans and a pomegranate vinaigrette

Grilled Rack of Lamb

served medium rare with a Cabernet wild mushroom sauce, on a bed of horseradish mashed potatoes and honey glazed baby carrots

A Smoked and Grilled Duet

Smoked duck with cranberry mango chutney and a skewer of marinated beef tenderloin served on a bed of mashed sweet potato

Creme Brulee

with a chocolate wafer and fresh berries

I am certain almost everybody loved it. I know that as a hostess I was very happy with the results, it was just as I had planned. And there was a lot of planning.

Here is my daughter and Emily my niece looking very intent as they serve the lamb course.

If you are interested in recipes stay tuned... They will follow in future posts.

Our dog and Emily... Look how worn out he is after all the begging he had to do.

My wool paintings are finially framed!

I still would like a bigger shadowbox, I have other beautiful arrowheads including a large spear head I wanted to display.

On the bottom of the frame and the bottom left, you are seeing awls and needle implements used to sew and manipulate leather and whatever else needed to be sewn.

12"x13" Wetfelt background,

needlefelt portrait

Wool

Jan 9 2009

While this may look like Chief Joseph it is not. The chiefs of these tribes wore very similar ornaments.

This is my rendition of Chief Plenty Coups of the Absaroka or Crow tribe. I know you have all seen him before, but it looks even better in a frame.

I actually framed all my wool paintings now, wohoo! It was a little pricey, but they will be here for my grandchildren not destroyed by my cats....

Now that they are complete I feel I can start another painting. A couple of ideas come from the Art Nueveau style, and because I recently learned that I am a distant cousin of Kay Nielson something related to his work.