Pizza Book

I am on what I hope is the home stretch of my mixed media book. I have all the final photographs and am busily writing captions for many of them. I want to share ALL the photos on my blog, but I don't think that would go over so well with the publisher. Here is one, though, which may or may not make it into the book. It is my "Pizza Book" for pizza recipes. The cover is made from a fused fiber sheet, fused to a stiff interfacing. The tomatoes and basil leaves are cut from fabric I designed for Free Spirit Fabrics several years ago. I just love these tomato slices! They are fused to the background and then stitched by machine. I added a few beads to the tomato seeds. This is a one-signature book sewn in a few places to the cover at the spine. Now I have to compile all my pizza recipes. Anyone want to send me a recipe? If anyone wants a few tomato slices I'd be happy to send them.

Lima Beans

Did anyone ever like lima beans as a kid? I can only remember them tasting like mild cardboard, but on a whim I tried making lima bean puree, and they were SO good I've made them several times since. They are the color of wasabi, and go great with salmon.

Lima Bean Puree

If you have your own home grown lima beans, or some from a local farm, use those. If not, a bag of grocery store frozen lima beans will work perfectly well.

1 pound fresh or frozen lima beans
1/3 - 1/2 cup milk, heated
1 - 2 tablespoons butter
salt to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to boil, and cook the lima beans for about 5 minutes. Drain, and place in the bowl of a food processor. Puree while adding the milk in a stream. Add butter and salt. Puree some more. Serve hot. This dish can be made ahead of time and heated gently in the microwave. Variation: incorporate a head of roasted garlic into the puree (to roast a head of garlic, slice off the top end to expose the cloves; drizzle with olive oil; wrap in foil, and bake in your toaster oven at 275 degrees for about an hour. When cool, squeeze out the softened cloves. MMMmmmm).