Quilt Blocks and easy dinner on the wood stove.

In October I made goal to learn to make a quilt in a year. I decided to do only one block per month hoping that by the time I got all 12 done I would feel confident enough to put it together. I wanted to make a black cat block for October and had a hard time finding a pattern I could cut out. Most of the ones I found wanted me to do math and figure out the angles and sides and I was a bit overwhelmed. Then I remembered that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote how she had to make a 9 patch quilt when she started so I decided to keep mine simple as well. In one of the Little House books Laura is a little jealous since Mary got to make the bears paw quilt and she had to stick with her 9 patch until she got better. Remember when setting goals to not go overboard especially if you are just learning somethin


 My squares are 1 foot square or at least as close as I can get. The orange and black one if for October, the yellow and brown for November and the red and green fabrics are for December. I think I am going to do three squares across and 4 squares down. I plan on separating the squares with a pretty blue material a am hoping to have a finished quilt of about 5 foot by 7 foot.

I was home all day yesterday so I was able to keep a fire in the stove and the furnace off all day. Its silly to use your oven if you have so much heat coming from that stove. So I made beef chunks with gravy over rice. The rice I had already cooked and it was in the freezer. I have not tried rice on the wood stove but will try one day, I will tell you that pasta is a bad idea. You have to keep water boiling which will produce lots of heat and you may have to open your windows so you dont cook yourself. The trouble I had was it wasnt boiling and my noodles turned into a mushy mess. The chickens didnt mind eating it though. Think of the top of your wood stove like a crock pot.

Easy beef chunks in gravy

1 pound of roast meat chopped into chunks
2 TBS seasoned flour
3 cups of beef broth
8 ounces of sliced mushrooms
2 TBS oil
1 teasopoon each of garlic and onion powder
salt and pepper to taste

Add oil to your pot and heat up, mix flour and beef together and then throw in pot with the oil and brown for 2-3 minutes. Add broth and mushrooms, mix and put a lid on it. Cook 3-4 hours until the beef is tender.

Rice
1 1/2 cups rice
3 cups broth, the broth I use depends on what I am cooking. Most times I use veggie.
1 TBS butter
Bring water and butter to a boil add rice turn heat down to simmer and put a lid on pot. cook 20-25 minutes.