I haven’t written the Single Gourmet blog for a while. I either haven’t make anything worth writing about or forgot to take a picture. It is still hard to cut recipes down for just one. I still cook for two or more and have lots of left overs.
Yesterday, I wanted to make pizza. I do have a good recipe for two 7″ pizzas. There is no waiting for the dough to rise.
Recipe: Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Ingredients : 1 1/2 tsp. dry yeast 1/2 tsp. sugar 1/2 c warm water 1 1/4 c flour 1 Tbsp. olive oil 1/2 tsp. salt.
Dissolve yeast and sugar in water. Let set for 10 minutes. Add flour, oil and salt.. Beat until smooth. I use the dough hook in the stand mixer.
Turn dough onto a lightly floured board. Let rest for 5 minutes. I put a bowl over the dough.
Cut into two pieces. At this point, you can make two pizzas or freeze one for a later date. You could also make one larger pizza from the whole dough. Roll into a circle. If you like a thin crust, roll it thin. Transfer crust to a lightly greased pan. I use 7″ pie tins. Add desired toppings. Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes.
I used cheese, pizza sauce, and pepperoni on one pizza. 
I didn’t want two pizzas, so wondered how it would be if I made a dessert pizza using one apple, some raisins, nuts, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. It was not very good. It would have been better with a pie crust, not a pizza crust. Not wanting to throw it away, I whisked one egg with 1/2 c milk and a little sugar, cut up the dessert pizza and baked it for 30 minutes at 350. Delicious bread pudding.
Usually, I make my own red sauce, but I was lazy and bought a can at the store. There was some left over, so I froze it in little tins. I’ll take it out of the tins, transfer it to freezer bags and put it back in the freezer for later use.
Have a great day and happy quilting.
Nancy’s wall hanging was the first one that I received when the swap was over. Her quilts were perfect. It is 15″ x 19″ Another year, she received a small wall hanging that I made.
I always wanted something from Shirley. She is a master of the mini quilt. This one is 17″ x 19″ I had watched her work on this quilt at another group meeting and really liked it. Every year, at the Yankee swap when I got something from Shirley, someone took it away from me. I thought that I would loose this little quilt, but the last person in the swap chose something else.
I went home with Claire’s quilt the last year that Claire was with us. She moved to Florida and I have such fond memories of her. I could have swapped for other items, but I wanted a memory of Claire.
The first was made from two paper pieced flowers. I don’t remember why I made them. They have been in my stash for a long time. My sister in law gave me a toilet paper cover for Christmas. It was knit in Christmas colors, As pretty as it was, when the season was gone, I put it away. The two flowers looked about the same size so using the knit piece as a pattern, I designed a cover. I enjoy adding piping to quilt pieces so piped around the top. It looks like Spring.
Last June, I had a class at the Vermont Quilt Festival with David Taylor. He taught Invisible machine applique. It is an quick,easy, and fun technique. The piece, Under the Apple Tree, was completely appliqued in the class. Then it has sat in my ufo stash until this week. It just needed the border added, quilting and binding. It is 12″ x 12″ so didn’t take long.
When I made the Garbage to Gaa-barge series, I belonged to a group called the Tuesday night quilters. We had lessons and sewed challenges and round robins. At one meeting, a member was making a baby quilt. The fabric was unusual. It was not baby quilt fabric. When it was finished it was awesome. A baby would love to bright colors.
My Christmas cactus has outdone itself this year. It has been blooming continually since Thanksgiving day. It must like how I care for it. It is in an east window. At night, I pull the insulated drapes around it, leaving it to the evening window chill. It apparently likes to be cold at night.
Basket is a Nancy Pearson pattern. It is hand appliqued and hand quilted. 25′ x 25″
Rose is also hand appliqued and hand quilted 18″ x 18″ It has a double row of piping on the border.
Stone Soup was made from a stone soup challenge. A bag was filled with different criteria from fabric stashes and then traded with other quilters. When I opened my bag, I found that there were two different colorways. One was red, white and blue, the other was pastel. They didn’t seem to fit in one quilt so I made two and joined them at the top. They fit over the back of a chair. 
We had already purchased the tulle and cut it into 10″ strips. 
The strips were rolled on a diagonal and the bottom stapled.
The rolled strips were stapled and glued to a circle that was made from a pizza box. Two holes were punched into one side of the circle for the wire to hang the finished wreath.
There were three rows of rolled strips. The middle was made from brown burlap that was glued onto a smaller circle.
Each of us had different color tulle and the sunflowers were very different. We had a great day with fun, laughter, and fellowship. Not to mention the most delicious lunch.
Several years ago, I demonstrated the Lazy Girl Flying Geese ruler It makes four geese at a time. Again, I did the demo five times. There were a lot of cut out pieces. Those pieces sat for a long time until a Guild challenge was to finish a UFO. I pulled the pieces out and finished the quilt. 
It looks as if one light green jumped from one fabric pile to another. It’s o.k. as that color is in both pictures.
The spiral runner was made with from a pattern “Spicy Spiral Table Runner” by School House Quilts. It is made with a 10 degree ruler. The fabric was strip pieced and cut and then sewn back together. Organization is the key to keeping the strips in order.
This table runner is made from a “Piecing with Poppers” pattern by Sharon Mayers. The poppers make a big difference in the piece. I pieced the back the regular way and the front with the poppers to show the difference. The “poppers” really do make the quilt “pop.”I have other Sharon Mayers patterns and will make them in the future.
I was having a dinner party the first part of March and thought a green table runner would be great to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. This pattern is a free download from Connecting Threads, I sewed it together a little different than the instructions. It called for cutting each piece separately, I sewed the sections in a strata and then cut the strips.
This runner was made with the flip and sew method. It was quilted as I pieced it. I’m not sure which pattern I used as I have many patterns with this runner.
This is another Connecting Threads pattern. It looks difficult to make, but in reality is very easy.
For the first wall hanging, I went to the back yard and picked up leaves, The leaves were used as patterns. Each leaf was fused together with a backing, making a double sided leaf. The piece was machine quilted before the leaves were attached, After stitching around the leaf shape with a zig zag stitch, they were attached to the piece with built in embroidery stitches, stitching down the center and leaving the leaves free standing. 
Moonlight is made with discharge dyeing. When you discharge dye, you never know what color will remain on a black piece of fabric Every black has a different base color. I picked leaves and branches from the yard. Using a foam brush, I painted the leaves and branches with bleach and pressed them on the black fabric with a brayer. It is important to have a bucket of vinegar and water prepared ahead of time so the fabric can be immersed as soon as the bleach has done its job. After the fabric had dried, I made the moon. A circle was cut out of freezer paper and the paper was pressed in the middle of the piece. Bleach was spritzed from a spray bottle. Again, the vinegar rinse is ready for use as soon as the discharge looks like you want it to look. Quilting with gold thread brought the leaves to life. 
I had a class with Sarah Ann Smith at the Vermont Quilt Festival. We painted the leaves with a metallic paint stick and then machine quilted around the with metallic thread.
Miss Molly quilts 