Two recipes I am making this week. The first is a tasty crock-pot supper. To keep the house cool, you know.
Then we have an irresistible lemon cake recipe....
LOL, who cares about keeping the house cool when you can bake something that tastes this great! Love lemon in the summer!






Recipes / Slow-Cooker Chicken Posole Recipe
Slow-Cooker Chicken Posole Recipe
By Woman's Day Kitchen from Woman's Day March 3, 2009

Active Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 3 hours 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 can (15 oz) yellow or white hominy, drained
1 can (14.5 oz) Mexican-style diced tomatoes
1 can (10 oz) mild green enchilada sauce
2 carrots, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp cumin
5 chicken thighs
(1 1⁄2 lbs), skin removed
Chopped cilantro (optional) (from the herb garden!)
Lime wedges (optional)
Tortilla chips (optional)
Lila's note: I added a can of drained black beans!

PREPARATION
1. Combine hominy, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, carrots, onion, garlic and cumin in a 4-qt slow-cooker. Add chicken and stir to combine. Cover and cook on high 3 to 3 1⁄2 hours until chicken is cooked through and vegetables tender. Skim and discard any fat from the surface.2. Remove chicken; pull meat off bones into large shreds. Stir back into slow cooker.Stir in cilantro, if using. Serve with lime wedges and tortilla chips.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Lemon Cornmeal Cake (also from Woman's Day)
INGREDIENTS
Baking spray (cooking spray with flour)
2 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1⁄2 tsp each baking soda and salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 3⁄4 cups sugar
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1⁄4 cup lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt, stirred to loosen
Sugar Glaze
1 cup sugar
1⁄3 cup lemon juice

PREPARATION
1. Heat oven to 325°F. You’ll need a 10-cup decorative tube pan or a 12-cup Bundt pan coated with baking spray. In medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and soda, and salt.2. In a large bowl beat butter, sugar, lemon zest and juice with mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time until blended. With mixer on low, alternately beat in flour mixture and buttermilk until batter is smooth. Scrape into prepared pan; level top with spatula.3. Bake 55 to 65 minutes until a wooden pick inserted in cake comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on wire rack 5 minutes.4. Meanwhile, make the sugar glaze: Whisk glaze ingredients in a small bowl just until combined (sugar will not be totally dissolved). Invert cake from pan onto rack; place rack over a baking sheet. Brush glaze all over hot cake until absorbed (sugar crystals will be evident). Cool completely. Transfer cake to a serving plate and cover. Let cake rest several hours, or overnight, before serving. Store cake covered at room temperature up to 4 days. Cut into thin slices to serve.Tip: Use lime zest and juice (instead of lemon) for a zesty alternative.

Grandkids playing on the 4th of July

It was their neighborhood pool party...all day!

Patriotic placemats!!!!
This is the photo from the pattern of the placemats I finished for the holiday weekend! They were fun to make!

Hoping you all have wonderful celebrations for our country's birthday!

***********************************************************************************

Report from the garden. Our first cucumber! This one was the lowest on the vine and seemed to be the fastest growing, the others not growing much at all. Now that it has been harvested, perhaps the others will have a chance to grow! It was delicious in our salad last night!

The perfect sentiment for this rainy morning!

Machine embroidery sample from the shop where I work. It is for sale in my store! Off to the world of sewing and embroidery machines now, after another cup of coffee!

I'll be enjoying the patriotic weekend by finishing a set of quilted "flag" placemats! I have a set myself which we use on the back porch and just love them! They look so festive and summery! [These will be for a co-worker!]

So, even though my place of employment is a "job", it has many creative moments which keeps me content! [and yes, I will be working there tomorrow, probably sewing up a birthday dress for my granddaughter, Lilia. She will be 10 on July 15th!]

Cherries in the garden....


I've just come back into the air conditioned house after enjoying watercolor painting in the garden. What a beautiful day for the last of June!

An impressionistic sketch of the garden, it is getting more tangled and full of French marigolds and snapdragons. The photos show the "real" thing today.

Shameless self-promotion again, I'm afraid! This bag has just been listed in my shop!
I have the day off, a different work schedule this week with the Fourth of July holiday. It is a perfect summer day! I just love being out by my garden, so will now head out there and see if my birds are using the birdbath, or maybe I'll see a butterfly. At any rate, I can carry my lunch out there, with some raspberry iced tea.
Hope you are having a good day!

While cleaning and de-cluttering my studio, I couldn't help getting involved with the materials down there. Here is a quick collage about sitting, resting, chairs.....Hmmmm. Maybe I've done enough for the day. Now to find a comfortable chair and read more of "Middlemarch". I just read chapter XL this morning and liked it very much as some of my favorite characters finally got some good news about their prospects! Reading this has been enlightening about how similar our concerns are today to theirs in the 1800's.... to a certain extent. (and of course I am a little out of date myself! LOL!)

It's almost time to find my quilted flag placemats....and cut a bouquet from our garden.

A bouquet of a different kind.....
In cleaning my sewing/art studio I set to work on a bag
of bias binding strips. They are rolled up and pinned
waiting to finish the edges of future quilt projects.
Back to work on this now.....

Back to work this afternoon....in just a minute. I've been home trying to fix the link to by "Lilly Bee" store. I will be adding it to my links as soon as I have time. In the meantime, I think the one in the post below works now!

A busy morning! I have started a store here.....Shop Handmade - Lilly Bee

I am busy uploading items for sale. This will be my sewing store. The paintings and art will be in ETSY.

But now, I am stopping to go visit a friend and a quilt store, AND to take some watercolors to a gallery!

Trying to find good homes for my creations!

Sunny and bright in the garden at noon. A pink hybrid geranium and dwarf French marigolds grow near some young summer squash plants.

Here snapdragons and basil are doing fine near the young zucchini (courgette)! These squash and zucchini plants will have to spill out into the yard as they grow. This IS a tiny beginner's garden! Oh, and didn't I just put in a few cantaloupe seedlings....LOL!

The cucumbers are climbing the bamboo supports and blooming. I hope to have some kind of harvest. Now, it is so enjoyable just to see the foliage and flowers. [I've been reading on this...too little nitrogen or too much nitrogen and tomatoes won't set fruit....if the nights are too cool and/or the days too hot, the same thing...no fruit, just lots of leaves and blossoms. This is all a learning process. Thank-goodness I am not dependent on this for my food!!!]
Finally, after moving those plants around, I have to wash up at the "garden sink".

P.S. don't miss today's watercolors!NOw for sale in ETSY!

A pair of house wrens live just outside the door to our deck. They inspired my watercolor this morning. ( more about the wrens later)

Here, the geranium poses for me!

An early morning, as the sun is rising, "bird's-eye" view from the deck of my "lasagna" garden! [Note: added Tuesday a m- I looked out just now to see that the wrens were drinking from the birdbath and hopping through the garden, finding tasty morsels! I was so delighted to see them using the bird bath I had made!]

Here is a newly sewn seersucker romper with an embroidered sports car, for my darling grandson! Whew!

......now to finish reading "Middlemarch" (very droll descriptions of many of the characters, esp. as they struggle with money issues and finding their way in the world of their time!) and go to the library for my next book. ["In Hovering Flight"--see previous post] Have a good Sunday!

"In Hovering Flight" by Joyce Hinnefeld. I just placed a request for this book at our public library. So as soon as I finish reading "Middlemarch" by George Eliot, I can read this one. It is about a bird artist who lives with a naturalist. It is also about mother-daughter and other relationships. Hoping it will be good!




Meanwhile, I made some whimsical bird watercolors this afternoon. See them on my art blog.

Bounty from the local farmer's market....

I will be doing some watercolors of these fruits and vegetables! They are so beautiful!

************************************************************************************
Meanwhile, early morning photos of my garden, show me that I could use a few more, larger potted plants in this setting (below).

Here the morning sun is gently striking the birdbath at the corner of the "lasagne" (layered) garden.

the "Beefmaster" tomato is making lots of blossoms but no fruit yet???? Do we need more bees????
Right next to it, the heirloom "Cherokee Purple" has 2 tomatoes and also more blossoms.

I did see one little bee the other day......hope he was helping with this!

Backporch moments......

This photo (above) of a group of friends enjoying an evening recently on the back porch reminds me of a famous impressionist painting!

Below, the begonia cutting from my friend Sally is now living in a world walled by scallop shells. I saw the shells being used like this on another blog recently (sorry but I can't remember which one!)

I love blue glass especially when it picks up the soft morning light. ...

Of course, the porch was the perfect place for an early breakfast this morning....

This is the book I read today, "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Wells. It is wonderful!
A memoir of her childhood with creative, eccentric parents who were always on the move and very spontaeous, to say the least!

*********************************************************************
Playing with odds and ends of planters and all to see if I can make a birdbath.

I don't know if the birds will come, we had such a thunderstorm today, that there are probably plenty of puddles. However, this little garden statue bird is happy here, LOL!

Babies in the garden!

A tiny cucumber under the yellow flower!

Heirloom tomato, "Cherokee Purple", is producing fruit!
I am pulling out the lettuce now that the weather is too warm and have seedlings of zucchini and summer squash ready to replace the lettuce. Perhaps I will start some cantelope seeds too!

Who are these people????? [walking at the farmer's market on Saturday morning]

It's our family....enjoying being together!

Here is a look at the one who was in the stroller and not in the lens of the camera in the first 2 photos....enjoying a Sunday morning breakfast!

It is so nice to have time at home with a visiting granddaughter!!!
She has a book to read, but to keep up with our friends, we deep cleaned the back porch and sent out e-mail invitations which resulted in a fun evening yesterday!

Above, the back porch with a new quilt top and yellow accessories....below, the girls playing inside as it was a bit rainy.

I was away for 4 sunny days....the garden did very well!
All the tomatoes look bigger and stronger.

The lettuce and the flowers are still thriving!

I am glad to be back to see this!

*********************************************************
The dance recital on Saturday was very well done! It was a joy to watch, especially our Lilia!





Within the hour of our arrival back in Arkansas, Lilia made a collage using her boarding pass from today's flight.


Below, fun outside on the deck, the evening before the recital!