Raspberry-Cream Cheese Muffins

I tried a new Raspberry-Cream Cheese Muffin recipe. This one isn't particularly healthy, although it came from Cooking Light. Next time I might try a little whole wheat flour. I used pecans instead of walnuts, and substituted  Splenda in place of some of the sugar. I used frozen raspberries. These are absolutely delicious. They are very cakey, so could be used for a dessert as well as for breakfast (or a snack!) I highly recommend trying this recipe.

Spaghetti and No-Meat Balls

I tried another "experimental" dish. Spaghetti and No-Meat Balls is a food network recipe that uses mushrooms and tofu to make meatballs instead of meat. Surprisingly, this turned out pretty good. I had to use more bread crumbs than it called for, to make the meatballs hold up. I also added some Italian seasoning -- or you could use seasoned bread crumbs, because I though it would be too bland with just the salt and pepper for seasoning. I think I could have used a bit more seasoning. I also wish I would have put some Parmesan cheese in the tofu mixture -- I think that would have added a lot.

I used a jarred spaghetti sauce instead of making the one in the recipe. I'm not sure I'll try this one again. I guess if I get adventurous. It was a little labor intensive, and I'm not sure it was good enough for that.

Embroidered Napkins

I was interested in trying some cutwork embroidery. I had some patterns from Adorable Ideas, and the one I actually ended up using was a free one that I got when I attended one of their seminars, so I'm not sure if it's available on the website.

I stitched on a couple of napkins that belonged to my late mother-in-law. I don't believe she ever used these -- they didn't feel like they had ever been washed.

They stitched up fairly quickly. The pattern stitches a guideline first, then you have to cut away everything from the guideline. That probably took the longest, because you can't remove the napkin from the hoop. I like the way they turned out, and intend to stitch up the rest of the set.

Beach Bag

My sister gave me this bag to embroider something on. She wanted something beachy. This pattern is from Embroidery Library, and is supposed to look like a water color. There are many layers of colors in the sand and the palm leaves. After having some hooping challenges (small bag, large design) it stitched out just fine.