Bathing Beauty

Wow, two posts in one day.  I just had to post these somewhere, and where better than my blog! My boy Kosmo thinks he can fit himself into a cereal bowl to have a bath. I put the bowl of warm water on top of his cage because he was trying to bathe in his water dish. As soon as I put the bowl up, he climbed right in.

And now he just has to show off his impressive wing span (actually he thinks he's getting himself all wet)

Silly bird.  You can see he's missing a few feathers.  He's been molting for the past week and I've caught quite a few feathers that he's dropped.  I'm saving them for a quilt, lol.  Not really, but it would be interesting to have a cockatiel down quilt.

And now for....the Bran Muffins!

Well, I finally got a new memory card for my camera, so I'm back in business.  I did make the bran muffins, albeit Monday, not Sunday.  I found a fairly easy recipe for bran muffins that called for buttermilk, which I of course, did not have.  I googled for substitutions and found that you can use 1cup of milk less one tablespoon plus one tablespoon of vinegar.  You let it set for 5 minutes, and ta-da buttermilk substitute. I added some of the delicious blueberries that dd and I picked and froze last summer. Yummy!

 Bran Muffins with Blueberries

 

Recipe:

1 1/2 cups wheat bran
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used 1/2 melted coconut oil)
1 egg
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (I omitted)
1/2 cup raisins (I used frozen blueberries)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. Mix together wheat bran and buttermilk; let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Beat together oil, egg, sugar and vanilla and add to buttermilk/bran mixture. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir flour mixture into buttermilk mixture, until just blended. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins.
4. Carefully add 5-6 frozen blueberries into each batter- filled muffin cup, making sure to cover them with batter.
5. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool and enjoy!

 

The "Penguin" Quilt

When I asked my son what he would like in a quilt, he said he would like "Blues, greys and blacks.  In a random pattern".  So I came up with this quilt.  Since he secretly loves penguins, I snuck in a few blocks with penguins.  The backing was a yummy, soft flannel.  DD said it reminded her of the Toronto Maple Leafs, as it was white maple leafs on a navy background. Bad cell phone pic, but the only one I got before I gave it to him.

Planning to bake today.  Protein Bars and Bran Muffins.  Yikes that sounds too healthy!

Great towel find and upgrade

So it's not quilting or baking, but I also love to embroider, lol. 
I was at Ikea a while back and found a great buy on kitchen towels.  The TEKLA tea towels are only 59¢.  And they are just begging to be upgraded.  I bought a dozen and immediately started planning what I could embroider on them. The weave is a bit looser than I would have liked, but not too bad. The red stripe lends colour to the plain off white towel, and is a great starting point for bright colours.   Here is my first Tekla upgrade:

And a close up of the embroidery :

I'm working on the second towel and have so many ideas for the rest!