News From the Nest, August 17

A Few Fun Finds and Favorites

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• While I appreciate the practicality of gift cards, I sometimes feel lazy about just handing one over. Placing the gift card in a frame makes the gift feel a little more special, and it becomes two gifts in one!

• I love the squishy-ness of a feather pillow, but don’t love the pokey-ness that sometimes happens. Enter these pillow covers/protectors! We have them on our feather pillows in the den, and I can attest that they keep the vast majority of the feathers inside, where they belong.
• Moving furniture around while I did some deep cleaning this week reminded me what a handy find these Furniture Moving Pads are. These pads let me move heavy furniture around by myself, whether on carpet or hardwood.

Featured Posts

• Today is National “I Love My Feet Day“, and after a summer of sandals and bare feet, mine are asking for a little attention. I inherited dry heels right along with big, long and elegant feet from my mom, and a penchant for going barefoot certainly doesn’t help. What makes this Moisturizing Heel Balm different from the jars of goopy foot cream I used to keep in the nightstand is the wind-up deodorant tube it goes into, so you can treat your heels without coating your hands. There’s one small pouring trick in the post that keeps the balm from leaking down through the tube mechanism. And while I’m thrilled with the results, don’t just take my word for it. Reader Sharon says her granddaughter-in-law texted her the very night she tried it to say it was already working!

• I’ll admit there’s something a little contrary about turning on the oven in August after complaining about the heat, but Brothy Beans are still on our table all summer long. A pot of beans, some good olive oil, a few Fire Roasted Tomatoes spooned over the top, and a plate of bruschetta or caprese made from whatever the garden has handed us that day, and suddenly the heat doesn’t feel like such an imposition. It’s the kind of supper that tastes like a back patio in Tuscany even when it’s ninety-two humid degrees in southeastern North Carolina.

From the Kitchen

When the tomatoes and basil are coming in faster than we can possibly eat them, a good bit of it ends up here. The trick to Mozzarella Bruschetta is to mellow the garlic in warm olive oil first, so the tomatoes and basil can shine instead of getting bulldozed. Think of it as chopped caprese on toasted bread. It’s perfection alongside those Brothy Beans!

If your zucchini plants are doing what zucchini plants do in August, here’s a delicious way to make a dent in the pile. Air Fryer Zucchini Fries come out crisp on the outside and tender inside, but only if you don’t skip the one step that happens before the zucchini ever sees the air fryer. The horseradish dipping sauce is worth making, too.

Leftover grilled or roasted chicken has a much better destiny than a sad sandwich. Curried Chicken Salad is creamy and a little sweet from the chutney and raisins, with crisp celery and a shower of peanuts added right before serving. Tucked into a wrap, it travels beautifully for picnics and road trips, which is exactly how we’ve been eating it lately.

Garden tomatoes arriving all at once? Roasting concentrates all that flavor into something rich and almost candy-like, and Fire Roasted Tomatoes will even rescue the mealy grocery store ones. The grill gives you smoke and the oven gives you melt, and either way they freeze beautifully in small portions. Spooned over a bowl of brothy beans, tossed in salads, tucked in sandwiches, added to pizza, their versatility makes them one of our very favorite things.

This one is for those of you who quietly fight over the crunchy corner pieces of the pan. Brownie Brittle delivers nothing but edges, and two small tricks are the whole secret to getting that snap. Fair warning from personal experience: I started nibbling away, realized where that was heading, split the rest between two bags, and mailed them to my children. Their problem now.

Blueberries and apples under a buttery, crumbly topping is one of those desserts nobody turns down. Blueberry and Apple Crumble comes with two easy tips for the crispest topping ever, and neither one involves a pastry blender. Nancy called it fantastic and definitely a keeper.

One of my fondest high school memories is stopping at 7-Eleven after a day at the beach for a Big Wheel. They stopped making them; I never quite forgave them, and the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich is my best attempt to close that hole in my heart. There’s a clever trick using a clean tin can that gives you perfectly round ice cream slices, and Kathleen says her family raved about them.

From the Knit + Crochet Studio

After years of knitting washcloths and towels, I decided to try something entirely new, and the Knit Purse Pattern was the happy result. The half-linen stitch was perfect here because it creates a fabric with very little give, and the detachable leather straps mean the whole bag goes right into the washing machine.

Know someone expecting? The Knit Lace Baby Blanket Pattern works up in a soft, squishy yarn that can go straight into the washer and dryer, which new parents will greatly appreciate. It’s also one of the most economical hand-knit baby blankets I’ve ever made. Take my word on one thing, though: use your stitch markers on the lattice repeat. Ask me how I know. 😵‍💫

You can never have too many dishcloths, and the Sunburst Crochet Dishcloth works up in somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour. A puffy sunburst center blooms out into a granny square, and the illustrated instructions walk you through every round, so even a newer crocheter can manage it. Tie a few up with a pretty bar of soap and you’ve got a lovely little gift.

Here’s the frustrating truth about tension troubles: you can’t go back and fix them after the fact, which makes preventing them everything. This post on Tension in Knitting helps you diagnose which problem you actually have, with fixes for each. I’m a tight knitter myself, so I know that aching-shoulders feeling all too well.

From the Arts + Crafts Studio

An old rust-spotted bedspread sat in the attic for years because I simply couldn’t bear to toss it. Turning it into fringed hand towels finally gave it the second life it deserved, and one bedspread yielded plenty to keep and plenty to gift. If you don’t have one tucked away, thrift stores and estate sales are full of them, which makes this a wonderfully inexpensive project.

In the House and Home

My office had a perfectly serviceable but decidedly ho-hum Formica counter, but a length of linen on grommets transformed it completely. The Grommeted Counter Skirt dresses up any counter and, possibly more importantly, makes every bit of the storage underneath magically disappear. The rod took the longest to figure out, especially since mine had to turn a corner, and I walk you through exactly how we solved it.

So often, when I find myself with a spare few minutes, I end up spinning my wheels and accomplishing nothing. That’s what the Household Chores List: 15 Minutes or Less is for, with fifty-plus small tasks you can knock out while you wait for the kettle or the repairman. This is the second installment. There’s a printable version waiting in the Subscriber Library, and it’s worth printing off and tucking in a drawer.

In the Garden

August heat is hard on a garden, and this is the best way we know to keep it fed through the worst of it. This post on Compost Tea explains why it works like yogurt for your soil, delivering beneficial microorganisms right where roots can use them. We apply it several times a month, and our garden harvests reflect the benefits.