fujiwood

I received a new watch as a Christmas gift.

It's the Vaer S5 Tradition which originally came with a silicone and khaki nylon strap. Since I prefer nato straps, I swapped it for my old watch strap. It's a 40 mm case with sapphire crystal and screwdown crown. The lume is honestly better than I expected.

I don't own a stitching pony so this is how I decided to hold my work. It's not perfect as the thread sometimes get caught on the vice and it's only three inches wide but it's much faster than trying to hold the piece with my hands as I stitch it.

I made an apple pie in a cast iron pan. It's actually easier to make than it seems. Everything is from scratch.

I was originally going to make Chile Rellenos but I ran out of time. I made Rajas and added them to the Picadillo that was going to be the pepper stuffing. I didn't take a photo of that because I was too hungry. It came out great.

Edit: You char all sides of the pepper. Then you let it steam in a bag for 10-15 minutes. This allows you to remove the char and you are left with a pleasantly smokey and flavorful pepper.

Lately I've been cooking everything in my cast iron pans. Once you get the hang of them they're fantastic.

For this pan I sanded the original sandpaper like texture with an orbital sander then applied many coats of seasoning. Sadly, I may have made it too smooth. The seasoning doesn't stay on as well as another smaller pan that I own. Which means I'll sand it again with 40 grit in order to help the seasoning stick. Fingers crossed.

This is one I make often since it usually gives me good results.

Just some banana nut bread.

The last 20 minutes of baking is done with the lid off to encourage browning the crust.

I say home cooked because with prepackaged masa it's literally "add water" to prepare. It doesn't take very long to make but since the flavor of the mass produced masa is very similar to some premade corn tortillas I usually only make them when I'm out of premade tortillas. In my opinion azul masa does have a better flavor, so I wonder if a less refined masa or even homemade masa may have better flavor.

I made this one a while back. It's most likely the "Saturday White Bread" from "Flour Water Salt Yeast".

My Orbitkey was beginning to fray since I've had it for over five years. I made a replacement for the old canvas from 5 oz veg-tan leather. I've had my old wallet for a year and half. It was the first thing I ever made and I've never been completely happy with it. It worked well enough but there were small details that always bothered me. This week I made a new wallet from ~4 oz veg-tan leather and gave it some color. I was originally aiming for a sage green but I still need more practice dyeing which means it's now a dark green. I decided to wet form my pen into the front pocket of the wallet so it's less likely to fall out. I'm very pleased.

I used my 13.25" cast iron skillet to bake a large carrot cake. I found the recipe online and adjusted the cooking length to accommodate the larger pan.