Knitting 40 shades of green

Girasole

I am going to blame Sherri over at the Loopy Ewe or maybe I should blame Wendy who is knitting this as well, but I cast on for Girasole a shawl/blanket designed by Jared Flood a recent Friday afternoon. It was part of my "avoid having to pull out the monkey plan".  After casting on, I almost called up the girls to opt out of Happy Hour so that I could sit home and knit on this fun lace project.

 

I am making it in a fingerling weight yarn from Tuscan Grove.  The color is called Cobblestone.  I chose it because I thought it would go with lots of different outfits.  I am not entirely sure that I am a shawl person but wanted to keep an open mind and so chose the neutral colors.  I am really enjoying working with this yarn and was happy to discover that I had bought a couple of skeins for socks the last time I ordered from the Loopy Ewe.

I brought this with me on my trip to San Diego but have only worked a few rows (I have almost completed chart D), as it takes a little more concentration than I can devote at most of my meetings.  I have finished the May Basket Socks and started another plain sock in Trekking XXL of which the first is already at the heel flap after casting on yesterday morning.  Hopefully, I will get a free evening to take a few pictures and share them with you before I get back.

One Local Summer: Week 4

I am headed out of town for a week and have been making an effort not to go to the markets, the grocery store and to try to use up the food that is sitting around the house so that it doesn't need to be thrown out.  All of my meals have had local components in an effort to use up CSA produce but often I throw in a nonlocal element that also needs to be eaten, which disqualifies the meal for the challenge.  There have been some interesting combinations this week , like crepes with stuffed pepper filling and cheese, bok choy, grape tomatoes and jalapeno chicken sausage, and teriyaki stir fry with rice stick noodles.   For my local meal this week, I think we will have to use the "clean out the fridge" omelet.

I sauteed some onions and zucchini, added in some cherry tomatoes, a half of an Anaheim pepper,some refrigerator dried basil and two or three pickled jalapeno slices.  I then beat two eggs with a dallop of milk and salt and pepper as well as the last of the smoked mozzarella and cooked that over low heat.  It was pretty good but made a huge meal.

Stop Monkeying Around

Well, little Isabel finally made it into the world Wednesday morning shortly after midnight and I have yet to finish the monkey jumper I was making her.  Why? you might ask -- well look at this picture, do you notice anything missing?

How about now when you can compare the front with the back?

Yes, I forgot to make the decreases for the sleeves on the front.  I had this sneaky suspicion that it was an "at the same time" direction but I failed to believe that I might have to start the decreases before I was done with the monkey.  So, I finished the monkey and realized I have to pull out the last couple of inches and reknit them.  I haven't been able to face this fiasco so I have been casting on new projects just to avoid pulling out intarsia.  But now that the baby has made her entrance to the world (although somewhat reluctantly as she held out for an extra week, an induction and still they had to go with the Cesarean) I had better suck it up and stop monkeying around.

One Local Summer: Week 3

I was shifting some things around in the freezer when I came across some ground beef I had bought at the farmers' market from Valentine's Country Meat in Orange, VA and should probably think about using before it developed freezer burn.  So I popped it into the fridge to defrost without a thought about how I would use it.

I don't cook red meat very often and since I spent so many years as a vegetarian, I don't have a repertoire of recipes for different cuts of meat.  What I do have is all kinds of vegetables spilling out of my refrigerator.  You open the door and as likely or not some bag of greens or a bunch of radishes are going to come crashing off the shelf to land at your feet due to the incredible amount of food crammed precariously around the half gallon of milk, some beer, bottles of seltzer water and wine not to mention the condiments.  Yes, my fridge is full and still I go to the farmers' market and buy more veggies. 

So, as I contemplated the ground beef, I needed to consider something to use up some veggies as well.  After a bit of contemplation and web surfing for recipes, I decide on stuffed peppers and immediately headed out to the West End Farmers' Market to see if they would have any.  (hm, maybe this isn't the best way to solve my problem of produce abundance).  Luckily, I found some. (I also found some cherries, potatoes, and Anaheim peppers, oh and a couple of Japanese eggplant.  So much for produce reduction) These were not big round peppers ideal for stuffing but they would do.

I started by chopping up the last of a bunch of onions I had bought at J & W last week and throwing it in a saute pan with some  garlic that I had picked up from Westmoreland Berry Farm.  Next I added an Anaheim pepper that was beginning to change to orange/red for a little color.  As the onion started to soften I threw in a quarter of a cabbage which had been languishing in the crisper and let this cook down a bit.

   

I moved the vegetables to a bowl and then browned the beef with some more garlic and some Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.  I mixed the browned meat with the vegetable mixture and mixed in a bit of Blue Ridge Dairy smoked mozzarella, I discovered behind some Metala Greek Salad leftover from last weeks' lunch salads ( I bring in lunch for three of my colleagues since we barely have time to breath let alone go out and get lunch and this time of year I find myself making large batches of grain and vegetable salads).   I then stuffed the filling into peppers I had sliced in half (their unusual shapes and small size made this seem the best method of stuffing) and baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. 

 

I ate these for lunch with a bit of the green and yellow bean salad with chunky tomato dressing (from Cooking Light) made from beans and tomatoes (the first of the season) from Three Way Farm and feta from Blue Ridge Dairy that I was taking to my supper club this evening.

One Local Summer: Week 2

For this week's local meal, I needed to continue to use the eggs that are taking over my refrigerator but I wanted to make something a little different.  After a bit of thinking, and some driving around to find acceptable milk for the challenge, I settled on crepes.

I chopped up some zucchini and yellow squash that I got in my CSA share, a sweet potato left over from my last spring CSA share, and an onion I picked up at the West End Farmer's Market.  I roasted them at 425 degrees with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin and ground coriander seed for about 25 minutes.

I mixed some milk, eggs, flour, salt, pepper, garlic scapes and dill and made crepes that I wrapped around the veggies and a little bit of feta cheese.

I served them with a bit of lettuce and dressing for a lovely vegetarian meal.

[ formally written recipe will appear later today when I get a minute to type it up]

We get by with a little help...

Have you ever had friends where at some point they differences between friends and family gets a little blurry? 

Several years ago I taught my good friend Ruti  to knit.  She definitely enjoyed the process but wasn't much for precision when she started out (and I would often correct her mistakes).  She watched me knit socks and asked me to teach her.  I remember sitting with her at our local coffee pub  and telling her what to do for each row of the heel turn .  We had to do the entire thing in one sitting as well.  Her skills as a knitter have improved considerably since then but she still is a little bit intimidated by turning the heel.  She is also OK with not being able to do it on her own.  So, for her latest pair of Steeler socks, she contracted out the heels.  I have knit both heels of her latest socks while sitting through some of the most boring meetings ever...at least  they are a good excuse to sit and knit. At tonights meeting, I will be back to finishing up some socks for me...

Oh, and because I am super excited about it, Ruth and I are going to Wales this summer to visit her long lost relatives.

One Local Summer: Week 1

I have been trying to use things up in the pantry and larder as we approach another summer of  bounty.  I found some sad looking potatoes in the basket under the sink, there are dozens of eggs in the refrigerator and it is asparagus season, so a fritata it will be for my first local meal this summer.     I made a sort of crust with the potatoes and then added onions, asparagus and some smoked mozzarella from Blue Ridge Dairy.

I served it with a simple salad of Romaine lettuce and strawberries with a touch of Blue Ridge feta and a Balsamic Vinaigrette.  A lovely summer dinner.

ELC: Farmer's Market Report

I regularly buy local produce and try to keep things fairly seasonal but this isn't 100% of my grocery habits. I am also likely to pick up a bag of carrots, some celery and maybe an onion or two without even thinking about it.  Mangoes, avacados and bananas often make it into my grocery basket. Sweet peppers are a constant on my grocery list and then the summer growing season hits, I decide to participate in the Eat Local Challenge, and I try to be more aware of what I buy and where it comes from.  I have been quite busy on the weekends and have gotten out of the farmers' market habit but decided that it was time to fit this back into my schedule.  One Local Summer is just a week away.  So I headed to the West End Market at Ben Brenman Park on Sunday and I may say my eyes were pretty big with all the options...I will have to make a real effort to make sure none of it goes to waste.
Here is what I bought:

• quart of apples
• two pints of sugar snap peas
• bunch of beets with beet greens
• bunch of cilantro
• bunch of dill
• bunch of basil
• 2 quarts of strawberries
• 4 broccoli he
• Several small zucchini

I also received my CSA share yesterday.  It contains

• arugula
• 2 lbs asparagus
• 1 quart of strawberries
• mint
• small fennel bulb
• radishes
• pac choi
• garlic scapes
• eggs
• sugar snap peas

I will have to make an effort to get some local dairy or meat this weekend to compliment all of these great vegetables and make some great local meals this summer.

It's the monkey in me....

 Having watched the video clip, I am not entirely sure that I have ever seen the movie "Starstruck" and can only surmise that my sister must have had the soundtrack because I know every word to the song and yet have no other memory of this movie.  There were other songs too like, "I want to live in a house..."

There is something in the water at work, we easily have had at least three babies born to my colleagues ever year that I have worked there.  Well, one of my teaching partners is soon expecting a little girl and one day after she shared her excitement with me (right before running off to puke) this pattern came through my in box and I knew it was kismet.

(photo taken from the Knitpicks site where I bought the kit and book for this)

I have changed the background to a dark green and I really need to get working on it since her last day at work is next Tuesday and she has started to have doubts that she will make it that long.  I have knit the back and am about a third of the way through the monkey...

Decoration Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)
 
My father and grandfather shared a birthday, May 24.  I usually go to visit my father at the cemetery on their birthday but I found myself out of town for most of the day and so I went to the cemetery today for Memorial Day.  I placed flags by their headstones and shared a moment of thanks for their military service, that they came home safely and for the military service of everyone else who has ever fought for what this country stands for.  I appreciate that there are men and women who are willing to do this.  I just wish they didn't have to...

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

~Eric Bogle