Freezing beets the EASY way

My son Carson and I LOVE beets!! This love affair only began a few years ago, at which time we had planted some in our garden and I didn't even know how to cook them. I asked around and did some research and since then have come up with my own method for freezing beets the easy way!

This week, my mother-in-law's friend arrived at our house with two boxes of beets. I was VERY excited by this because this year our garden has been over taken by weeds and NOTHING that we planted is growing. Yesterday, I decided to deal with the boxes of beets so that I could get them off my kitchen table and into the freezer.

First step is to wash the beets and pop them into a large pot. Boil for as long as it takes for the outer part of the beets to be soft enough to stick a fork in them. The time will depend on the size of your beets but will be around 15-20 minutes.

Next, drain the hot water and add cold water to the pot. The skins should slide right off! This is a messy job, so make sure that you are wearing OLD clothes.

Boiled and ready to chop.

Next, chop the beats into chunks - it doesn't matter if you make them large or small, just be consistent so that when you cook them later on they will all cook in the same amount of time.

Chopped and ready to freeze.

Next, spray a rimmed cookie sheet with cooking spray or oil. Put the chopped beets in a single layer on the tray and pop into the freezer.

My baskets are just the right height to put the trays on top.

Leave the beets in the freezer overnight and then take them out. Gently flex the cookie sheets and you will find that the beets pop right off and separate from each other. Scoop them up and put them into large zip-loc bags. Date the bags and put them back into the freezer.

When you are ready to cook the beets, you can warm them in the microwave, or boil them, but our favourite way is roasted in the oven. I take the desired amount of beets out of the freezer, toss them with a bit of olive oil and then sprinkle with seasonings - the one we like the best is Chili Garlic salt from Epicure. YUM YUM!! The beets will take about 30 minutes to cook in the oven (depending on the size of the chunks). If you need to speed that time up, defrost them in the microwave and then season and pop in the oven at 350-400 degrees.

If you are a beet lover like me, or just new to beets, try out this recipe and in the middle of the winter, when you have a roast in the oven, pop in the beets and enjoy that yummy summer flavour!!

Upcycle an altoids tin into a sewing kit

My son has a thing for Altoids - you know those "Curiously Strong Mints" that come in the cute hinged tins.

As a result, he has quite the collection of tins in his bedroom so one night while I was on Pinterest I researched things that you could do with these tins. I have a Pinterest Board called "Altoid Tins" - check it out to see all of the ideas that are there. 

Since I was going on vacation and taking along a sewing project, the pins that showed sewing kits were the ones that I found the most interesting. 

First, I used Modge Podge to cover the inside and outsides of the tin with scrapbooking papers. I added a few co-ordinating buttons to the top of the tin.

Once the Modge Podge was dry, I tightly rolled up a small piece of batting and covered it with a piece of fabric. I used my hot glue gun to glue it to the inside of the tin.

Next, I found a magnet and glued it to the inside of the lid. I found some bobbins and wound them with Decobob thread and added them and some pins to the inside of the tin. Luckily I had a tiny set of scissors that I had bought at a rummage sale at our guild last year and they fit inside perfectly!

Tips for sewing hexies by hand

Whenever I go away on vacation, I ALWAYS take along a hand sewing project. There is always down time while we are on vacation, and it is so nice to have something to work on while we are watching TV at night or driving in the car. The added bonus is that when the project is finished it will remind you of your time on vacation!

When I headed to Florida this past March I decided to take along 1 inch hexagons to hand stitch together. I had seen my friend Donna Taylor from Taylor Sewing Centre demonstrate how to use thes Mylar pieces from Brandy's and couldn't wait to try them out!! As luck had it, my Accuquilt hexagon die cut pieces that were PERFECT for using the templates. I used a stack of fat quarters that I bought from Kallisti Quilts  and cut a whack of hexagons to take along.

The hexagons are very easy to use. All you do is pin each Mylar template to the back of each fabric hexagon through the hole in the middle. You then fold over the edges and tack them down at each corner with a couple sticthes. 

                                        

Once all of the corners are tacked down, you can knot off your thread and stitch the next hexagon. To stitch the hexagons together, you just whip stitch the two edges together from the back.

                                                 

You can sew the hexagons together into rows and them stitch the rows together using the same whip stitching method. 

Months later I'm still working on this project. I took it to Blue Mountain with us this week and managed to add a few more rows. I think it will be a tablerunner when I am done, but who knows, I may just keep on sewing until it's a lap quilt!!

Fast and easy quilt for a "Modern" kinda guy

If you need a fast and easy quilt to make for a special guy in your life, Our Mosaic Maze pattern might just fit the bill! The large blocks feature easy piecing and go together SUPER fast. Nellie and I designed the quilt using digital images of the fabrics in EQ6, So it was fun to make the actual quilt when I went to the quilt retreat last year. 

Usually I precut everything for my projects, so when I am at the retreat I can just sit and sew,sew,sew. But, this time I ran out of time and had to cut the pieces there.

 Even doing that, I managed to put the quilt top together in one afternoon!!

 

I decided to add an additional pieced border using the fabric that was left over after cutting the pieces for the blocks. To set off this pieced border I also added a second black inner border.

When I got home from the retreat it was time to put it on the quilting frame.
I had so much fun quilting this quilt as I got to do a fun overlapping square and rectangle design using the vertical and horizontal locks on my Gammill.

 A black binding finished it off and it was all ready for Christmas! It now lives at my brother's house BUT, once in awhile it gets to hang out with the rest of my quilts!!

My booth at the Thousand Islands Quilt Guild quilt show - May 2015

Great ways to get your kids to eat more veggies

My kids are just like the rest of them. They would prefer to eat only chips, cookies, granola bars and anything else that is FASt and EASY!!  But, like most moms, I want them to eat more healthy foods. With our busy lives this can be harder than I ever imagined!

When I started using Thrive products, I was pleasantly surprised that my kids were actually snacking right out of the cans of freeze dried foods! Carson was in love with the blueberry yogurt bites and Aidan would actually sit in the pantry and eat peas and peppers right out of the can.

I was having trouble keeping their favourites ones in the house and sometimes would realize too late that we were out of mixed bell peppers!!!

For really picky eaters you can take the veggies and crush them into a powder to "sneak" them into foods that your kids already like. It's tricky, I know, but sometimes a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do!

Now, Thrive has come out with "Snackies", the new product just launched at the convention last month. My first box arrived this week and I think I'm in LOVE. The coconut bites are to DIE FOR!!

And the carrot crisps, spinach crisps and beet crisps will be AWESOME additions to school lunches in the fall (yes, just 2 weeks to go moms).

The great thing about these new Snackies (besides the taste) is that they are made from REAL FRUITS AND VEGGIES. No preservatives, no artificial colours or flavours. 

Doesn't that sound better than the alternatives that we all seem to have in our cupboards?