Mountain Musings

Photography Boot Camp

Recently, we had the opportunity to attend a weekend photography class hosted by the Hynes family. Dad, Mom, and I were the participants from our family while Jonathan was away in Mississippi and Sarah and Granny held down the fort at home.

The agenda included an afternoon of photographic instruction packed into a few hours, then a day of outdoor shooting at the beautiful Sky Meadows State Park. Our time of learning began with setting our perspective on Scripture and reminding ourselves of what we are communicating about God's character and His creation with our pictures.

The park location included a historic house and outbuildings, fields of cattle, and hiking trails with creekbeds, snakes wildlife, and panoramic views of the surrounding hills. We also stopped to explore the nearby quaint town of Paris, VA (pop. 51).

We returned to the Hynes' home for dinner and critiquing of the images we had captured; everyone agreed that this part was a fun and helpful way of solidifying concepts we had discussed. I had a memorable time; it is always inspiring to glean from the knowledge and experience of avid Christian photographers.

Enjoy a slideshow below of some of my photos from the day.

~Hannah

Bloggers' Quilt Festival ~ Piece of Cake!

For those of you who've arrived at Mountain Musings via Amy's Quilt Festival, welcome! For our regular readers, you've seen this quilt before when I posted it when my sister opened this surprise gift at Christmas.

This pattern was designed by Camille Roskelley of Thimble Blossoms and is called Piece of Cake. It truly was a very easy quilt to make and took just over a week to complete. I used a Tranquility layer cake by Moda.

My sister loves quilts, and I had an extra fun time with this one since she had no clue I was making it. The photo above was taken today at my sister's house in South Carolina where Hannah and I have been visiting this week.

We've had a wonderful time here and will head home to Virginia early Saturday morning. We'll post about some of our adventures next week.

Head over to Amy's Creative Side where more than 300 bloggers have posted their quilts! Thanks, Amy, for hosting the Festival!

~Deb

Devil's Food Cheesecake

In her Thursday Thirteen post, Mom mentioned the cheesecake I made for Mother's Day - here is the recipe. I combined a devil's food cake and a New York cheesecake to make it and iced it all over with chocolate frosting. Yum!

Devil's Food Cake

• 2 1/4 cup cake flour
• 3/4 cup Dutch Process cocoa powder
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 12 Tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft
• 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
• 4 large eggs

Set oven rack at the middle level of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees. Grease bottom and sides of 2 10-inch round cake pans and line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper. For the cake batter, sift the dry ingredients into a mixer bowl and add the butter. Mix for 2 minutes on low speed. Add half of the buttermilk and continue mixing 5 minutes longer. Scrape bowl and beaters. Mix remaining buttermilk with eggs, and add a third at a time to the batter, stopping and scraping between each addition.

Divide batter between prepared pans and bake for 30-40 minutes. Cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes, unmold onto rack, and cool right side up. This recipe also says to let in sit for a day before frosting, but I'm not sure why. I did have to wait anyway, but I wouldn't see any problem with icing the cake once it was cool.

Philadelphia New York Cheesecake (modified)

• 5 8-oz. packages cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 cup sour cream
• 4 eggs

Heat oven to 325 degrees if using a silver springform pan or to 300 degrees if using a dark nonstick springform pan. This calls for a 9 inch pan; but I used our 10 inch, and it turned out fine. Beat cream cheese, sugar, flour and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Pour into pan.

Bake 1 hour 10 minutes or until center in almost set. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim of pan. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. 

The above recipe did have a crust plus toppings, but since I was combining it with the cake, I just wanted the actual cheesecake part. :) Once it was firm and cold, I stacked one layer of devil's food, the cheesecake, and then the second devil's food layer on top. You could split each chocolate layer into two and fill with icing, but it wasn't necessary. Chocolate frosting went over everything, with halved strawberries for garnish.

~Sarah

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Random Musings ~ Past, Present, & Future

1. Don't you think it's time for a catching-up post since we've been missing in action on the blog again? Yes, I thought so! Did you miss us?

2. Lots of yard work has been completed this last week (the mulch pile is gone, but I almost need more!), and the garden picket fence project is all done! I love, love, love the new picket fence!!

3. I've missed participating in Bloomin' Tuesday for the past two weeks, so here's a sampling of what's blooming in the flower bed that runs alongside the shed. Hopefully, I can post some up-close photos for the next Bloomin' Tuesday.

4. Hannah has been super busy in the garden tilling and preparing the beds; here she is planting a new asparagus bed. We've just discovered this spring that we love this veggie! Now we need patience to wait a few years for the bed to become established.

5. Granny and Hannah shopped for plants in anticipation of the last frost date of May 15th. Maybe we can get all the veggies in the ground while Granny is still here.

6. Mother's Day was an excellent time around here! Tom and the girls served breakfast in bed to Granny and me--both of us together in her bed! (No pictures, please!) French Toast and an edible fruit bouquet were the highlights...yummy! Plus, flowers from the garden, pictured above, graced the table.

7. We also enjoyed having guests visiting our home fellowship on Mother's Day, and Tom arranged a special treat for the mothers and grilled steaks and hamburgers for everyone for lunch. Hannah made Bobby Flay's delicious Fra Diavolo BBQ Sauce for basting. Yummy and spicy!

8. Sarah made a special Mother's Day chocolate cheesecake to serve. I'll post a picture here, and hopefully she'll follow up later with her recipe. Doubly delicious...and all gone so quickly!

9. Sarah and I attended our Saturday Sampler monthly class this past weekend...and took our completed blocks. That's always a good thing--to go with your homework done! Here's a photo of the Show &Tell portion of the class. It's inspiring to see what other quilters have done!

10. And have we mentioned how much we've missed Jonathan being around the supper table with us for the past week? He's been in Mississippi repairing planes his company sent there to help with the big oil spill. He may be gone another week or two?

11. And have we mentioned how much we'll miss Granny--not only around the table but around the house--when she leaves for my sister's in South Carolina? Hannah and I will drive her down and stay a few days, and Sarah will hold down the fort with Dad and Pepper. We'll get Granny back in August.

12. And Hannah, Tom, and I are gearing up to attend a Photography Boot Camp in northern Virginia with some of the families we met at the recent Hymn Sing. Jonathan had planned to go, and we will miss him participating! Hopefully, we can post about our excursion when we return. Sarah and Granny will hold down the fort with Pepper.

13. And if not enough is going on, I signed up for Julie's (Jaybird Quilts) Modern Siggy Block Swap. I already have the fabric needed (I won it!)...so basically it's almost a free quilt. I'll receive 100 different blocks from quilters all over the country and world, and they will receive one of my blocks! I just couldn't resist signing up! It will be fun since my friend Chris is doing it, too!

That's what's been happening around here! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. See you on the blog next week!

~Deb

Carnitas

This week, I had the opportunity to try out a Mexican recipe that I have been wanting to make for quite awhile - Carnitas. Our family enjoys Mexican foods, and this sounded like a delicious new dish to try.

I was planning on preparing it for supper on Wednesday night, so I had to start the meat on Tuesday night - it required 18 hours in the crockpot! After searing (in a manner - it wasn't too easy) the 6 pound pork shoulder roast, into the slow cooker it went...along with dried chilies, onions, garlic, jalapeno pepper, water, and 1 CUP of cumin. Yes, I said 1 whole cup.

It cooked on high overnight, then on low all the next day, filling the house with quite the strong smell. It was actually a little overwhelming - mom wondered if any of us would still want to eat this meal after inhaling the aroma all night and all day. But no one seemed to not want to eat when it was all on the table. :)

Later in the afternoon, I started on the side dishes/toppings for the carnitas. The recipe I linked to above has instructions for pico de gallo, but I decided to make our yummy fresh salsa that we all love. Freshly picked garden cilantro pairs perfectly with the tomatoes and onions.

While I was busy at the cutting board, Hannah was working away with our new tortilla press making some whole wheat tortillas. She used the press to flatten the balls of dough, then put them one by one into a hot frying pan for a minute or two on each side. Homemade tortillas are a lot yummier than what you can buy from the store!

The press seemed to be making the tortillas a bit small, so Hannah also used the rolling pin to make a few bigger ones. The smaller tortillas turned out to work alright, though.

After the salsa was done, I turned to the peppers and onions. The recipe didn't say anything about serving them with the carnitas, but they're always good on any Mexican dish. The pan was really hot before I dumped in the peppers and onions, so they were really smoking. So....good.

In the middle of all the chopping and running to the stove, I had to take the pork out of the crockpot and prepare it. It shredded very easily and looked so nice and moist. I added a little of the cooking liquid and some of the chilies and onions that had flavored the meat.

Okay, now the salsa, peppers and onions, lettuce, cheese, pork, tortillas, and chips and salsa tray were all on the table just waiting for us to dig in!

Oooo, they were so good! I would definitely want to make them again. :)

~Sarah