What's cooking

I can not tell you where the days go right now. We have been working on so many things, and reading books, that we find the days slip by so quickly.
Mark found someone to mow around the pond and on the driveway and this has added not only to his work load but it is making us look less neglected around here. For the past 4-5 years with all the stuff that was happening here we just did not have time to keep all the green stuff cut back.

 So Mark starting doing some talking and found one of our neighbors works for DOT and things were slow right now for him. Yeah- and Good lord I want one of these for our tractor.

Look at how pretty the driveway is becoming! Really- you need to oh and ah since I know how much time,( and money) this takes.
It is almost as good as getting a new kitten!

I unloaded the tiles this past week and decided that I was sticking with the Red Rock or Red stone. I used a white clay body and besides finding it a bit dull there were two tiles that warped like potato chips.
Ugh- they of course had a ton of work on them and the are rocking and rolling. I am still licking the sting over those two.
There were some good things like this house number.
I had a couple form Pinehurst ask me to make this for them.
This is their house number and they wanted to be sure it could be seen from the street.
I think it will work great.
I hope that they will send me a picture when it is all put up.
I was also glad we broke up that yellow with some weeds and another color.
Bright!

This is one of the tiles out of the last kiln- picture is terrible but I love the colors in this one.
This is where I really enjoy those premixed commercial glazes. Fun with glazes I should call these.
Sometimes they work really well.
Even though they are expensive for tiles you just don't use that much.

I also make some tiles form some of the scraps and loved the way these came out- terrible picture, I think the camera needs some work, it has been doing some strange things....like double exposures.
Anyway these are being shipped to a customer today. They did not get left in the store but 1 day.
They are not real large but will be fun to hang in a place that needs something.

In wrapping up this week there are many pots drying for the next kiln load in the Big Gas kiln, that we have never named, but now I am thinking Henry would be a good name for a kiln that has worked hard all it's life being faithful and just trudging along.
So what's next? More pots, more tiles, more firing, more driveway and more books.
Cheers!
M

PS- and you thought there would be a recipe in here didn't you?

Blueberry and Blackberry Galette with Cornmeal Crust
( disclaimer one- I had no blackberries---)
Crust:
1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup raw organic sugar
¼ cup cornmeal
¼ tsp. salt
½ cold ,cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 buttermilk- or in my case milk

lightly spoon flour into measuring cup and level with knife.
Combine flour, sugar, cornmeal into food processor and pulse to mix.
Add:
Butter- pulse 3-4 times or more in my case.
Add milk to just hold together but not wet.
Chill- I did over night.

Filling: Combine in a bowl toss well to coat.
4 cups of blueberries
2 cups of blackberries- I only used the 4 cups of blueberries.
½ cup of sugar- I used 1/4th
3 TBS. flour
2 TBS. lemon juice
2 TBS. milk

I added a TBS of orange liqueur, cinnamon and chopped up orange rind

Preheat oven to 350
Roll crust into a 15 inch prefect circle
(Not really I just threw that in.)
I rolled this on a pastry cloth I have using light flour on top.
Flipped it over onto lightly flour dusted wax paper.
Continued to roll using light flour on the rolling pin.
Then flipped it over on parchment paper to bake and place that on a baking sheet.

Place the filling on crust leaving about 2 inches all the way around the edges.
Fold edges inward to center, pressing gently to seal.

I baked for 30 minutes then brushed the pie crust with 2TBS. Blackberry Jam heated with about 1 TBS. orange liqueur.
I poured the extra on the berries.
Baked another 30 minutes.
Let cool and serve.