Thanksgiving doings, dryer vent clean-out and upgrade, and beadworks.

I love this time of the year. I'm all shopped-up and caught-up around here and can concentrate on those things that I love - cooking, baking, beading, socializing and getting the decorations ready to go up.

I've been baking cookies, (of course) and worked through processing a 2# bag of asparagus and a 10# bag of red potatoes; scalloped, twice baked, cooked & cubed for home fries and smashed & frozen for use in Italian sausage & potato soup. Whew, big job but rewarding, lots of sides for grilled meats.

Delicious scalloped potatoes

With the asparagus, I steam it all until just barely crisp-tender, then season it with butter and spices and let it cool. We'll have some fresh like that but it freezes quite well. I will then use it in various alfredo sauces, quiches, cold salads and such. Another time/energy saver and I don't have to stress about it laying around in the vegetable drawer waiting to be addressed.

Some steamed already, and some getting ready to steam.

The Tollhouse cookies aren't the only sweets I've baked, I started with those delicious ginger snaps we love, with those tiny dices of candied ginger and more pecans, haha. Those got devoured in short order.

Tollhouse chocolate chips with loads of pecans.

Everyone knows we love having some pot pie around, time for another one. Now I just need to get some ready to go chicken and some crusts. BJ's warehouse store comes to the rescue with a multi-pack of pie crusts (6) and a tray of roasted chicken thighs from dinosauric-proportioned chickens! The photo below shows the meat from 2 thighs plus another thigh ready to be "picked". Man, with 4 like that I've got meat for days, or at least 2 more pot pies, lol!

Meat from 2 thighs with 2 left to "pick".

After all that picking I had to get the stock pot involved. I always have wonderful, strong stock in the freezer. Some as ice cubes, some in 1 cup measures and super handy for soups, gravies, sauces, making grits with it, sauteing veg's and more. I'm going to need a lot for Thanksgiving dressing.

On the topic of Thanksgiving, I was planning on dry-brining a Cornish hen for the meat. Generally speaking, turkeys are just too big for us. However, our local IGA (Rowes) usually caters to quite the international clientele and often has unusual cuts of meat. They had a very nice half turkey that looked just right. Turkey it is then.. out came the roasting pan, down goes the bed of carrots and some chicken stock and I forgot to take any more pictures, ah shucks.

Ready for the half turkey and the small "balls" of dressing.

Here is a shot from the dinner table. A mid-day meal is so nice - all afternoon to piddle around with the clean-up.

We enjoyed our meal in the Florida Room as usual.

I've been busy with the beadworks, developing new designs and stretching my skills. I've also participated in a few more craft fairs and have been pleased with both my sales and people's compliments. It certainly adds a fillip of satisfaction to the whole process.

Trying my hand at Tree of Life styles. I'm liking them!

Also some triple-hooper's with semi-precious stones/crystal beads.
It's all fun, FUN to me, and I'm covering my supplies costs.

The Boss has been busy with his projects as well, one of which has been to clean out the dryer vent of 40 yrs of lint, and install a super-duper lint trap which can be cleaned more readily. The dryer vents out under the deck via a 25' 4" PVC pipe laid in the foundation. Whose bright idea was this when the house was built?? 😦 Scary how much lint accumulates, and can you say flammable?!! Anyway, with his heavy duty leaf blower and a lo-o-ong cleaning brush he/we got it cleaned out. Boy, did it make a difference in drying times! He then installed a secondary lint filter system to prevent build-ups like this from happening again.

The portion of the hose that's inside the house,
a shocking amount of lint build-up in just 5 years.
Why doesn't the dryer's lint filter capture more?

Marry an engineer, you get engineered projects.

Ready to go. You put water in the bottom of the capture box
and angle the deflector screen towards the water.
Easy to see when it needs cleaning out.

As usual, thanks for visiting, and comments are always welcome. See you the next time. Enjoy the Holidays and all it entails, hugs.