Knitting 40 shades of green

DDELC Week 11

I wasn't going to share this recipe but as I was putting it away I took another bite and it was so yummy I had to have another serving.  It isn't 100% local but I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and thought if she can use store bought pasta and the occasional olive, or caper -- well, it is still a lot better than lunchables.  So here it is adapted from a recipe from Whole Foods.

Greens with Couscous

• 1 small onion, sliced
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 or 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt, to taste
• ground pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup whole wheat couscous
• 1/4 cup chicken broth, vegetable broth, or water (I used water)
• 4 cups chopped greens (I used Kale)
• 2 ounces crumbled feta cheese
• 2 tablespoons lightly toasted pine nuts

Saute onion, tomato, and garlic in oil over low to medium heat, stirring for about 5 minutes. Cover and continue cooking over low for 5 more minutes. At the same time, In another pan boil 1/2 cup water.  Turn off heat and add couscous once it boils. Add the greens, salt, pepper, and broth. Cover and cook for 5 to 8 minutes more or until greens are bright green and tender enough to chew. Remove from heat.  Stir the couscous and greens mixture together.  Add feta and pine nuts. Cover a minute more to allow the cheese to melt.

Enjoy!!

local:  onion, garlic, tomato (my CSA has been giving us green tomatoes and this one had ripened on the counter -- a good recipe to use this less than perfect tomato), Kale and feta cheese 

Non local:  pine nuts, couscous, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Let's Begin year 3 of Knitting40shadesofgreen

I started this blog on December 28, 2005.  Today I begin the third year of blogging.  It is a bit of a miracle that I have kept up with it since I have never been very consistent with my attempts to journal over the years.  I am not sure if it has effected my progress in finishing things or not.  That first entry had a list of things on that needed finishing and all but one of them have been finished.  However most of the things I was working on at the time are still out there unfinished.  Lets take a look back, shall we?

To seam or add minor finishing touches:

• Aztec Sun Vest  Next in queue for finishing
• Salt Peanuts  Finished
• Polka Purl Dots Finished
• Silk Vera Tank  Finished
• socks  Finished
• Baby sweater from baby knits  Finished

Currently on the needles:

• late Christmas scarf in Louisa Harding Inspiration  Finished 
• Revena rug in Lopi  Tucked away (but I loved working on this and should pull it out)
• Via Diagonale  Needs handle and lining
• toe-up socks  Finished
• Abfab Afghan wedding present  The wedding and the first anniversary have passed
• small Bobby Bear  Abandoned
• cable/lace cardigan  Haven't seen this in ages should dig it out.

Of the 13 things 7 are finished, maybe I should attend to the other 6.  Last year for the blog anniversary I added a few more things that need finishing (and a few that were finished).  So as a vehicle of motivation, the blog is causing some finishing but not discouraging multiple projects and abandoned knitting (often for no good reason other than my desire to start something new).  I am always astounded that people other than my immediate family read this blog and am thankful for your comments and readership. 

Here is to another great year of knitting, cooking and all things green...

DDELC, week 9

Well it seems that the dreary wet days and the hectic schedule conspire to have me eat Christmas cookies for dinner, but I persevered and threw together some local ingredients for another pot of soup.

Butternut Squash soup with curried apples

First you make a lovely soup of squash with onions and carrot and celery.

Then you top it with sauteed apples and onions and a dollop of yogurt.

It made for a pretty tasty supper.

carrot, Next Step Produce, Newburg, MD (31 miles)
butternut squash, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)
garlic, Twin Springs Fruit Farm, Ortanna, PA (72 miles)
oregano, this was kind of dried out in my fridge, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)
onion, Twin Springs Fruit Farm, Ortanna, PA (72 miles)
apple, Twin Springs Fruit Farm, Ortanna, PA (72 miles)
non-fat yogurt, Blue Ridge Dairy, Leesburg, VA (32 miles)

Non local:  celery (organic), olive oil (CA), salt, pepper, curry powder

stripes

It is a good thing that NABLOPOMO is in November and not in December because if I had to post every day this month I could never pull it off. Between things picking up at work and meetings and hockey games and social engagements (holiday parties and the like) I hardly have a chance to knit much less post. But there has been some progress on my December goals. A round or two on the Potomatatamu (why can I never remember what they are called) on the Metro on the way to hockey games and stripes added to the Silky Wool Jacket whenever I get a chance. Here is the progress on the stripy jacket. I hope to finish it up by early next week. I just have to finish up the back and then the fiddly stuff like button bands and seaming.

For those patiently waiting for pictures of Jade -- well our regularly scheduled photo shoot was interrupteed by the union holiday party and we didn't get any pictures. But I wore it yesterday and the fit is pretty well and the striping of the yarn isn't too noticeable especially when worn under a blazer which is what I had planned for it. Maybe I will be able to recruit another photographer to get those pictures so I can get that post up soon.

DDELC, week 8

The scene out side my kitchen window was pretty snowy this morning and while the roads looked pretty clear they were covered with ice and the superintendent decided it was a good day for a two hour delay.  Instead of sleeping in, I decided to get up after the principals 5:30am call and take advantage of the extra time. 

Normally, I spend some time on the weekend making food that I can easily be packed for lunch to take to work. In the warmer months this often consists of grain, bean and vegetable salads and in the cooler months it is often soups. Lately my weekend schedule has been fairly disrupted so I haven't been packing the fridge with yummy things to take for lunch so gifted with two free hours I made two kinds of soup, a goat cheese tart and a batch of cookies. This allowed me a quick meal of potato leek soup and goat cheese tart [I finally found local creme fraiche] for this weeks showing in the DDELC.

• onions, Twin Springs Fruit Farm, Ortanna, PA (72 miles)
• leeks, Next Step Produce, Newburg, MD (31 miles)
• potatoes, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)
• thyme, back porch, (0 miles)
• green onions, Sunnyside Farm and Orchards, (52 miles)
• red poblano pepper, Sunnyside Farm and Orchards, (52 miles)
• eggs, Olin Fox Farms, Reedville, VA (81 miles)
• creme fariche, Blue Ridge Dairy, Leesburg, VA (32 miles)
• butter, Blue Ridge Dairy, Leesburg, VA (32 miles)
• goat cheese, FireFly Farms, Bittinger, MD (127 miles)
• basil (actually frozen pesto)

non local:  bread crumbs, olive oil, lemon zest

Life after NABLOPOMO: Random Wednesday posted on Thursday

So I am still looking at every thing as possible blog fodder and felt a bit odd after not posting for two days. I have been taking pictures of my cooking and thinking of links that I can offer for those days when I have nothing of particular interest to share. For goodness sakes, I posted about cooking experiments yesterday...

I was hoping to get a Finished Object photo shoot of the NAKNISWEMO sweater but I didn't get it to soaking until Monday night and it is still drying (it is cotton). I left it in a sink of water overnight and while the water wasn't entirely clear there wasn't much dye in the water either. I think that I will just have to come to live with the color vagarities or overdye the thing (not something I know anything about since the only dying I have ever done has been wool and cotton is completely different).

Laura, over at Urban Hennery, has found herself with the responsibility of helping to thin her grandmother's sheep herd, so if anyone is in need of a ewe (especially if you find yourself in Minnisota) let her know.

I finally got my library hold of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and as I was reading, I was shocked by the fact that if ever US citizen ate one local meal a week (any meal breakfast, lunch or dinner) that we would save 1.1 billion barrels of oil a week. So if you are interested in supporting local farmers or trying to help conserve oil start researching a CSA now before they sell out. If you aren't sure where to start check out Local Harvest or Biodynamics or here. If you start looking now you won't have to fret about fresh veggies this summer.

Adventures in the kitchen

I agreed to help my step mother with the food for a brunch she was having for representatives from Alexandria's sister city in France who will be in town for the Scottish Walk. In addition to the quiches that I promised her, I decided to make up a batch of my new favorite appetizer recipe.

I am folding up triangular turnovers filled with chicken filling when I run out of filling and still have another strip of phyllo dough on the counter and enough leaves of dough left over to make another stack and a half. I start looking in the fridge for something to stuff in there but am coming up with nothing and then I spy some apples sitting on the counter. I know they should be in the fridge but there wasn't any room in there. A little soft but they should be OK for cooking, hmm...

I chop the apples and start throwing things together. After stuffing that first turnover I remember the cranberries in the fridge and take out a handful and mix that in with the filling as well.

With a little vanilla ice cream they turned out pretty well.

Apple Turnovers
(makes 8 turnovers)

filling
3 apples
1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 - 1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
1/3 cup cranberries (you could also use dried cranberries)
juice and zest from one lemon

wrappers
8 leafs of phyllo dough
1/4 cup or less dried sweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Chop apples, and mix with cheese, honey, walnuts, lemon juice, lemon zest and cranberries.

Place 1 phyllo sheet on a large cutting board or work surface (cover remaining dough to prevent drying); lightly coat with cooking spray. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon coconut. Repeat layers 3 times. Cut crosswise into 4 strips. Spoon about 2 tablespoons apple mixture onto one end of each strip. Fold 1 corner of edge over mixture, forming a triangle; continue folding back and forth into a triangle to end of strip. Repeat procedure with remaining phyllo, cooking spray, chicken mixture, and coconut.

Place triangles on a large baking sheet coated with cooking spray; coat with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 18 minutes or until golden brown.

NABLOPOMO redux

Well, National Blog Posting Month is over (or Na pablano Mo as my sister likes to call it) and I managed to post every day without too much trouble (although there were some times when I was at a loss over what to post). Rarely did I start a draft of a post before the day it was posted. I am not sure that my writing improved much but I did get a lot more of my ideas published rather than in my head.

Last year at this time my posting seemed to fall off considerably.  I don't feel that same writing fatigue this year but as December progresses we will see, it is a notoriously busy month.  To wit, I am heading out the door for the Alexandria's Scottish Christmas Walk.