Baby Jacket Pattern/Hotdish of the Day/Links

I just sent an email and realized it was full of links that might be of interest to others, so here's a very quick post.

First - check out this very cute cabled baby jacket pattern. I found the link on Julie's Greatwool blog. I wish I could write like Julie does! I might try knitting this jacket, it's so cute.

I came up with a new hotdish made from things we produce right here and a cup of rice. I went to make Sloppy Joes when I realized my lamb-burger was in fact lamb bratwurst. (We don't put our bratwurst in casings, we just grind up our lamb trimmings and add the seasonings). So I decided to add some diced onions, frozen green peppers, tomatoes, and corn to it and also a cup of rice. It made a pretty good ground lamb hotdish. Yummm!

I used to spend a lot of time canning the tomatoes from my garden, but once I found about about freezing them I never went back. (Well, I still do make canned tomato juice - but that's pretty easy too.) I think frozen tomatoes have a much fresher taste than stewed tomatoes. When the tomatoes are over flowing in the garden, I just quarter them and pop them into the food processor to blend a few seconds. Then I freeze them in old yogurt containers -- reduce and reuse. It takes only a few minutes. You can add your onions and peppers if you want to, but I'm usually too busy and just want to get those tomatoes taken care of. For the peppers, I cut them in strips and freeze on a cookie sheet. Then they go into a quart size freezer bag. The corn I cut off the cob and freeze on the cookie sheet too. Then it's easy to serve only what you need at a meal. I love homegrown sweet corn! And of course the onions keep well all winter long in mesh bags. Next year I need to plant more corn and more onions.

Discussion on the BFL Friends list recently has centered around color genetics in Bluefaced Leicesters. It's very interesting because this is actually an unexplored area with lots to learn. One of the members of the Friends list mentioned the breed Bleu de Maine this afternoon. So I had to Google the breed to see what they looked like. Here's a link to the UK website on the breed. Look at the hindquarters on those things! They look like good terminal crossing sires for Mules too. I don't know if there are any in the US though.

And last but not least, here's a link that someone shared on the Feltmaker's list, check out this fabulous embroidered felt work by Renee Harris. Wow! I love it. What an inspiration!

Okay, I have to admit all these are distractions that have kept me from getting my taxes done. I really need to buckle down and stay on task here. :-)