Two Great Recipes, ChookShed Stitchers Challenge

Hello again...I'm back from an unintentional little break from my blogging which happened for a good reasons. I got caught up with Christmas/family events. I'm toying with the idea of changing things up this new year. In looking back, my bigger picture circumstances have changed just about every ten years or so. It's always invigorating for me to have new beginnings. We'll see.  

Meanwhile since speaking to you last, I cooked two recipes that I want to share with you. Have you heard of Funeral Potatoes? A dish that has an interesting church beginning and the recipe is so simple. It's basically a bag of thawed hashbrowns, a can of cream of chicken soup, and a container of sour cream well mixed then crushed corn flakes and loads of grated cheese layered on top and popped in the oven. It was a hit! Recipe here at Tastes Better From Scratch.

 The other new recipe I made recently is another casserole called Macaroni Lasagna. I substituted rotini for the macaroni cause it seems a little fancier and I used the chicken broth that includes red wine. It was tasty and I hope I can remember to make that again sometime as well. Recipe found at The Salty Marshmallow.

Two of my Christmas presents this year were for my feet.

I've wanted snow shoes for a long time. Certain trails become impassable when we have a big snowfall. However, it would be impossible to use them just now as repeated rainfall has completely wiped out all the snow. It looks like April out there though a sad, drenched one.  

The weather has been foggy and cloudy day after day. Tony calls it gloomy. I don't mind it actually. Here is a shot from the weather channel showing how much cloud cover we have had in December.

 This was for Toronto area but we seem to have worse weather than they do- something to do with our Ottawa valley and the Great Lakes.

There was one nice sunny day but the rest have been overcast. This is the 29th and Ned and I just came in from another drizzly wet walk so it looks like 2023 will end with record breaking gloom. 

In brighter news...2024 promises to be a great year for sewists. Flosstube stitchers are taking on a challenge called  24 in 24 meaning 24 projects in 2024. First I was thinking wowzers, then realized there are 352 days in a year so who knows, maybe 24 could be manageable especially if some patterns are quite small. I'm not sure it means actual finishes either so to start that many would not be a problem. As we all know, starting is never the issue!

 It worked well for me to choose a WIP a month to finish last year and I'm going to continue that plan this new year. Since I'm so good at following orders, I've also decided to follow along with the ChookShed Stitchers 2024 Challenge. You can read all about it here at Daughters of Dorinda where Deana describes the plan. 

I enjoyed choosing a variety of stitching projects to work on for this challenge. Included in my list is cross stitching, embroidery for quilting projects, working with wool- that Bonnie Sullivan kit I've had for a few years, as well as machine and hand quilting. Yes, I'm a jack of all trades, master of exactly none! 

1. My Crabapple Hill Designs Snow Days  2. Blue Courthouse Steps Quilt  3. Madame La Fee Jour de Neige  4.Patchwork Diamond Quilt  5. Quiltmania Xmas Applique project  6. EPP Lone Star Medallion  7. Scrappy Trees Quilt  8. Tumbling Blocks Quilt  9. Panama Pyramids Quilt  10. Cardinal Rule

I've a soup on the go in the slow cooker...pea using up leftover holiday ham. Perfect for a rainy but turning colder day. Hope your week is going well and you too are dreaming of all the lovely stitching hours stretching ahead in the new year!