Bounty from Mom

My mother has a great garden and loaded me up with a lot of goodies the other day.
Tomatoes, basil, parsley along with some garlic and a lemon. I made a wonderful baked bruschetta using some regular bread.

Baked Bruschetta
I rarely measure anything, so use your own judgments and taste!

• 1 loaf French baguette
• 1 stick butter, room temp
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• dried oregano
• diced tomatoes
• mozzarella cheese, shredded
• fresh basil leaves
• salt & pepper
  

Cut bread into slices about 1/2" thick. Toast slices in oven and set aside.
Mix butter, garlic and oregano together and spread some of the butter mixture on each slice of bread.
Top with tomatoes, salt & pepper and cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes.
Top with fresh basil leaves and serve.

Mom also gave me some homemade fish cakes (like crab cakes) and they were really good. I made a sauce of mayonnaise, lemon juice and dill to have with the cakes.

My stepbrother brought over a giant water slide for all the kids and the thing is huge!!!

Another Addiction....

Spinning yarn!!! I have no clue why, but I just wanted to try it. After some not so good results, I finally found some great resources thanks to the very talented people at Ravelry. Now I have another passion that I am loving. Above is a practice run. I bought some wool roving that was blue and green and separated it into two strips. I plan on plying the two colors together. Below is the roving spun as is:Sorry for the blurry picture. One of my first attempts did not turn out so well......

Very uneven and "wormy". This was made right after spinning yarn "clicked". I used some random roving I had for needle felting. I think it is just wool, maybe with some alpaca too. The book Spin to Knit by Shannon Oakey says "your first yarn can be soncidered designer yarn, with the unevenness and thick and thin parts" and I have to agree. The spindle is made by me out of a toy wheel, wood dowel and a cup hook. I made another one today out of a large flat bead (some sort of stone) and a wood dowel. Butterfly Girl Designs has some lovely spindles!! The roving for sale on Esty is to die for!! I would order everything if my budget allowed, but I only ordered some BFL and a batt for now. I can't wait until they arrive! I still have plenty of the blue & green roving left but I am anxious to try new fibers.