clay + cook: pin gifting + refrigerator clean-out

I spent a short weekday afternoon adhering epoxy to the back of these pins that I'm giving to friends, and I'm so pleased at how they turned out.

This Sunday is the birthdays of two of the sweetest people I know: Michaela and Nicole. And of course, they're animal people.  

See? The warmest women I know. They posted this pic after I had left their birthday cards and presents at the computer behind the circulation desk at our library. 

No outrigger canoe paddling because of 17 mph winds, and I hadn't scheduled myself to swim. And so I spent Saturday morning making tuna salad to eat the hot dog buns in the pantry and then departed for the clay studio where I spent the afternoon making a candelabra and came straight home to avoid the rain. In order to not go out grocery shopping and face rain, I cooked fried rice, integrating leftovers for dinner. I wasn't even willing to get wet in the rain for a bottle of my favorite Chardonnay. Instead I squeezed a bunch of oranges and made, not a Negroni and not an Orange Campari, but a combination of the two drinks with lots of fresh squeezed orange juice (probably 6 parts), one part Campari, one part sweet vermouth, one part gin. Next time I'll remember to add sparkling blood orange-flavored soda.                                

 

I combined leftover orange chicken with leftover brown rice, took out what was left of frozen green peas, chopped a yellow onion and couple cloves of garlic, chopped celery and carrots and scallions, and sliced a few Chinese sausage. 

 

I sauteed the onions, carrot, and celery for five minutes until softened and then added the Chinese sausage for a couple minutes. And then the brown rice and sausage and the sauces of oyster sauce, soy sauce, cooking sake, and sesame oil. And oh boy, the fried rice was pretty soggy.

 

I tried to dry out the dish and let a brown crust develop on the bottom. And I fried a couple eggs before plating and then topping the rice with the egg and then sprinkled chopped green onion.

Sunday morning was sunny and clear and my mile swim felt great. When I came home, I got rid of more leftovers by making myself a pita sandwich. I had lamb and chicken kabob in the freezer which I fried and lemon hummus and tzatziki in the fridge to spread on the pita. Add some chopped red onion, romaine lettuce and tomato. All made for an awesome Sunday brunch.

Earlier in the week, I had gathered a mini bouquet ($3.99), a bouquet of Dotties ($4.99) and bouquet filler of greenery ($3.99). 

This morning at Safeway, I noticed these moon cacti. I've a couple of these and wonder if they'll ever bloom like these in the grocery store nursery.

I'll need to ask Annemarie who gave me this cacti as well as a bunch of other succulents. I spent the majority of my Sunday sewing pouches.

I finally figured that the most efficient way to sew these pouches is to cut the fabric, backing or interfacing and lining and then have them all basted together for installing a zipper. And so I have a stack of 5 pouches for which I need to buy more zippers and 3 with zippers pinned on, ready for changing my walking foot to a zipper foot on my sewing machine to complete.