Dog Days Of Summer

It's here.  Those summer days that zap you of all of your energy.  The kind of days where you just want to stay inside in the air conditioned house.  The kind where you find yourself looking ahead on the calendar to see just when it is acceptable to begin decorating your house for Fall.  In my case, Fall is my favorite season.  Not that we necessarily get a "true" Fall here where we live in Southern California.  But I love everything that  has to do with Fall.  The warm, rich colors, the smells, pumpkin flavored everything, fires in the fireplace, shorter days, quilting, leaves falling, football season, comfort foods for dinner, sweater and boot season.   You get the idea.  I LOVE Fall.  Somewhere around the first of September, I begin to change things up here in my house. The apples come out first.  The flags change.  Quilts come out, candles burn, etc.
But the triple digits will stay for some time yet.  Warm weather lasts well into October here.  
In my sewing room, I have several projects that await.  I bought a couple of panels at the quilt show last weekend, along with a pattern for Halloween.

Witches Hat Pattern.

A couple yards of Rooster fabric.  These may find their way into my kitchen very soon.

I continue to work on my flower squares.  I laid them out on the table today to try to see how many more I need.

This has really been slow going, but I think I am going to love the end result!
On Saturday, Geeps went up to the lake to fish.  I was going to go too, but I just couldn't pull myself out of bed at 5:30 that morning.  I was going to drive up later, but then decided not to.  He had the best day of fishing that he has had to date this summer.  He and his buddy Ron caught 12 nice sized trout.  He brought a couple of them home to cook.  I am not a big fan of fish.  I eat it in restaurants, or if it is cooked outside, but I can't stand the smell of it cooking!!!  This is because of the time my husband came home from his annual fishing trip to Mexico when I was newly expecting, and set his ice chest full of fish on the kitchen counter, opening it up to show me his catch, and I had to go running to the bathroom due to the smell!  I cannot smell fish to this day!!!!!
One of these looked and tasted a lot like Salmon.

He did all of the cooking.  I only coached a little bit from the sidelines.

  Dusty was hoping for a little bite, I think.  He used a fish fry coating, and dipped it in egg coating, and cooked it in canola oil, leaving the skin on the one side.

Fried to a golden brown.

He and Drew both thought it was delicious!

No placemats....tsk, tsk!   They don't set the table the way that I do!!
Over the weekend, while watching cooking shows, I saw Bobby Deen make frozen yogurt pops.  I thought they looked so good.  I  bought some strawberries and made some of my own today.  I am not sure what all he put in his.
I cut up about a pint of berries.  Added about a scant 1/4 cup of sugar, two tsp or so of vanilla, and about 1/2 cup plain yogurt.

I put it in my Cuisinart, and then added the juice of 1/2 a lemon, and one large sliced banana.  (Bobby didn't use banana)

Blend into a thick puree.  Pour into cups to freeze.  I couldn't find the molds for my ice pops to save my life. I did find the handles though.  I used small plastic cups and rested the 4 handles that I had on the tops, and used plastic spoons for the rest.
After they had set up a bit, I centered the falling spoons.

Were they good, you ask?  Just ask my grandson Noah.  He had two after school today.

That's all I've got.  Not too much happening here lately.  Just trying to ride out the dog days of summer.

See you soon.

XO  Kris