Hi. I’m Hannah.
It has been much warmer here this week and the Mother of Cats has been up and about doing lots of… stuff. She has been moving furniture, fussing with the plants, working in the kitchen, and she even… <shudder>… vacuumed this week! I just don’t understand why she is doing stuff like this when she really should be spending more time playing with me and the CoalBear instead of scaring me with the evil vacuum. You’d think that Mateo would be calm after the vacuum chasing, but no, that dang Coalbear has been in all kinds of mischief all week. He pulled quilts and wreaths off the walls. He left toys everywhere. He ate my TUNA!!!
Seriously, CoalBear, you are a pouncing disaster. You have been driving everyone crazy with your chirpy toys. The Mother of Cats has to put you outside while she cooks in the kitchen so you won’t trip her. I have photo evidence…
See. Trouble. I think that he was acting up so much because the Mother of Cats was doing all of this Meyer lemon cooking and he gets excited when she keeps running around the house, moving things and bringing stuff in from the garage. Look at what she made this week.
The Mother of Cats made the yummy lemon bars early in the week, and then she made the marmalade over two days. The marmalade was a LOT OF WORK and she had to actually drag a chair into the kitchen to sit on while she was taking care of it on the stove. It looks really nice, but to be frank, lemons aren’t my thing. I like it better when the Mother of Cats sits down to knit.
The Mother of Cats is now knitting on the 10th hat this month. Boring. All the hats look the same, so she decided to not show them off this week. She is knitting the hats with two strands of fingering yarn held together, and she is liking how cool the marled knitted fabric looks. I wish she would knit me a catnip mouse from the yarns instead of hats, but there you are. Luckily, I get to sleep curled up by her when she knits, so it is a good time.
The book, The Priory of the Orange Tree, was a really long one. I got to spend lots and lots of time sleeping on top of the Mother of Cats’ legs while she was reading it this week. She says that the book was really good: lots of political and court intrigue, adventures traveling to strange places, an ancient prophecy of the return of a horrible monster that will bring an age of grief, dragons, magic, pirates, a sword and jewels made from starlight stuff, and NO CATS. What is up with that, right? The dragons were pretty cool in my opinion, however. Almost as cool as cats.
Well, that’s all for now. It’s time for me to go help the Mother of Cats finish up her dinner.
This is Hannah, signing off.
Notes from the Mother of Cats:
- The hats are all knit from the Barley DK hat pattern by Tin Can Knits.
- My yarn is wound into a cake for knitting. I’m knitting two stranded from the same cake by pulling yarn from the outside and inside at the same time, which also reduces pooling. So far it is working pretty well, and there is enough yarn to make one hat and one PICC line cover in each skein.
- The lemon bar recipe is The Best Lemon Bars from Allrecipes. I adjusted the recipe to 2/3 cup of lemon juice and added one tablespoon of flour to compensate.
- The Marmalade recipe is Easy, Beautiful Meyer Marmalade by Otherwise Amazing.
- Here’s the whole marmalade adventure: two days condensed into a few pictures.
The recipe made exactly 6 perfect jars of marmalade.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Hannah, you and my friend Boodie share a loathing of the vacuum: he rushes off and hides in the bedroom cupboard. Where do you go ?
I ADORE marmalade, and am sure that your meyer lemon marmalade is superb. So now you have to send me a ginormous package of lemon bars AND marmalade, Marilyn.
Hannah: I have a little doggie bed in the bedroom closet that I hide in. It’s really cozy and I’m pretty sure that the vacuum can’t get me in there.
I just love marmalade too! Usually it is oranges, but it is pretty darn tasty with these lemons, too. I’m wondering if I should make another batch with a couple of little oranges mixed in with the lemons that I have left. I’m not sure how tasty the lemon bars will be after traveling to Australia… 🙂
Luckily for you, me old china plate, they would be squashed out of all recognition.
Sighhhh .. :(
I can just imagine the delicious smell in your kitchen. So fresh!
It was a fun and tasty week; you are so right about the smell, too!
JoJo says, “The vacoom is a terror. Yesterday I hid under a blanket on my hooman’s lap when the vacoom entered the room. Luckily I had a safe space to hide!”
Alissa says, “Those lemon bars and that marmalade looks yummy!”
Hannah: the vacoom is the worst most scary thing ever!! Mateo follows it around the house so he can keep his eye on it, but I think that is just crazy. I’m with you JoJo; it is best to be under a blanket or in the closet! Also, I want to point out that Mateo is terrified of NETFLIX!!
The lemon bars are keeping really well in the fridge. I highly recommend them.
The lemon bars look yummy! Congrats on making them and the marmalade – good job! We’re going to get some warm, sunny days before the next snow storm, which is due in on Friday!
The lemon bars are fast and easy, but that marmalade was much more time consuming. I cheated and used the juicer to get the seeds out because it was too much to dig them out with my fingers. I’m pretty sure it didn’t matter after it all got boiled for an hour. 🙂 I hope that your next storm isn’t too bad. We had a little dumping last week that melted right off.
Mmm, those lemon bars look divine. And the marmalade too. But lordy that looks like a lot of work!
It was a lengthy process, but not that much work actually. With 6 jars in the cupboard I won’t be making it again any time soon, but the whole process made me wonder about making some other jam this summer.
The lemon bars and marmalade look delicious! It does sound like a lot of work, but I bet it was worth it 🙂 Sounds like Matteo was in a crazy cat mood the last few days!! Hannah, hang in there – he will calm down sometime. And I bet there is more tuna around for you!
The lemon bars look wonderful! I don’t think I’ve had any marmalade besides orange before, but it sounds like a nice treat, too!
Lemon bars are one of my favorites and perfect with a cup of strong tea in the afternoons, IMHO! Glad you got in so much good knit time around the lemon goodies. I haven’t picked up the sequel yet (as it is just as long) but it’s on my list to read at some point.
I bought a new Keurig coffee maker during the last Amazon Prime days sale: I just had a yummy lemon bar and coffee this afternoon while working on th computer. So yummy!!
I’m salivating over the picture of the lemon marmalade. It looks delicious!
It is very tasty! I’ve been eating it every morning on English muffins and I’m almost through the first jar.