Christmas Biscotti

I made my cranberry almond biscotti here this morning in Saskatoon.  It was very popular so I decided to post it on my blog.  It had also been popular when I packaged it in Holiday tins and gave it out for office gifts.  I also took some to the Common Threads Guild meeting (Holiday Party) in December.

Here is the recipe:

Cranberry Almond Biscotti

2 ¼ cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 cup sugar

½ cup oil

2 tsp almond extract

1 1/3 cup slivered almonds (toasted)

2 cups dried cranberries

Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt . Mix eggs, sugar, oil and almond extract. Add dry ingredients. Add almonds and cranberries. Divide batter into 2 parts. Pat into 2 bars (about 4 inches by 9 inches). Bake for 30 minutes at 350 F. Using a serrate knife cut slices. Rearrange the slices (turning them on their side so they can dry out). Bake for another 10 minutes.

To toast almonds spread out on cookie sheet and bake in 350 F oven. Stir frequently unit toasty brown.

From the kitchen of Joan Fulton

Christmas Quilts 2011

I finished 2 quilts just in time for Christmas. The Pittsburgh Penguin quilt is for my niece, Lauren.

Here it is on the long-arm when I was part way through quilting it.

I custom quilted this one - trying out a different quilting pattern in each round on the quilt.

This quilt was for Mom for Christmas. The center is from 2 hand dyed pieces that I dyed at Ricky Tims quilt retreat last summer. The one is a spiral combined with a mottled hand-dyed piece. I had another dark hand dyed piece for the border. I quilted it using the Linda Taylor feathers and curls pantograph. The swirls in the quilting design coordinate well with the swirls on the quilt.

It looks nice on the back of the couch in their living room.

Fireplace is working and Starting to Get Things Back in Place

After over a week of waiting for the fireplace guy to come and fire up the fireplace he came on Saturday morning. As you can imagine, this is a busy time of the year for the fireplace guy. The fireplace is working great - and sure warms up the family room. The mantel is leaning up against the front of the fireplace - hopefully they will put that up tomorrow. I stained it yesterday.

On Friday morning we got the long arm quilting machine moved from the living room (where it had been during the renovations. It really did take up a lot of space in the living room.

On Saturday I quilted a quilt - and it sure was wonderful to be able to walk all around the machine with ease.

Here's a update on the bathroom.  The red and purple spiral quilt goes really nicely with the red sink..

I put up ceramic tile as a backsplash in the laundry room.  You can also see the paintbrush and roller that I was using when I was painting this weekend.

I got out my Christmas quilts and started to put some more things on the walls. It sure does feel more like "home" with things on the walls.

The quilts laying over the couch are ones that I had started before the renovations for people who were leaving our department. Needless to say, things got put "on hold" during the renovations.