Well for one, I’ve been working on Christmas presents since July or August.  Also, I’ve been assaulted of late by a barrage of sweaters and other toasty knitted lovelies that has inspired a bad case of knitting lust.  So to stave off my impulses, I’m putting in a request.

Santa, next year I would like to knit the following:

Greenway

Leaving

Chambord

Blair

Skalva

Cadence

Mythos

Milly

. . . and a whole lot more. Now, I can come by yarn pretty easily, patterns too. What I need you to do is to flex some of your time/space continuum bending powers in my favor so I can have the time I need to knit them all and still work and sleep and take care of things. I know I’m asking a lot, but I hope we can come to a mutually acceptable arrangement.

Yours,
Queue

Then it dawned on me the other day – Italian soda would be easy.  Just add syrup to some kind of fizzy water and go.  So I’ve started making syrups from time to time – way less fussy and super quick.  A roughly 1 to 1 ratio of the liquid of my choice and some sugar in a pan on the stove for a minute or two and I was all set.  Give it a try – it’s pretty awesome!

So far I’ve tried:

Pappy’s Sassafrass Tea Concentrate (awesome root beer!!!)

Fresh Ginger steeped in boiling water (very nice, ginger teabags would work too)

A couple of pureed peaches (my little chopper left them a bit chunky, so the soda had floaties because I opted not to strain)

Bottle of Pom Wonderful straight up Pomegranate (not bad, but next time I’ll just buy a couple pomegranates and juice them, pasteurization changes the flavor a bit)

Nearly anything could work – any juice, tea, or infusion you like.  If you like it as much as we do, you too may be thinking about finding one of those old seltzer bottles and some CO2 cartridges.  Cheers!

A moth (not likely the dangerous kind, for one it was a bit too big) just landed on my knee.  We see a lot more bugs in this apartment than we did in the last one (probably because I count an ant infestation as one single bug), perils of being out in the country.  I’ll trade more bugs for the semi’s that used to rattle our walls, any day!

Anyway – the moth didn’t stay long on my knee, and shortly made it’s fatal error – it flew across the puppy’s line of sight.  That was it – it was toast.  She pursued it through the apartment with the single-minded focus of a zealot.  First paws, then teeth, and finally (I believe) she ate it.  A few more of those and she will have totally made up for the times she’s tried to eat my yarn!

Today I made Spinach and Cheese Strata, which needs to chill overnight before cooking anyway, and Stuffed Cabbage Rolls which I intend to bag and freeze for sometime next week.  Tonight we’re having Tomato and Sausage Risotto.

It was a fair bit of prep work – though not as labor intensive as some things I love to cook.  But now I’ll have two nights of reheat dinners, basically.  Tomorrow is another subbing day, so the strata will be an easy dinner after a longish day.  Friday is birthday dinner for the boy, so we’re having (by request) fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and hopefully asparagus.  The asparagus at the store today was HUGE and a bit past its “expiration date” if you know what I mean.  Ew.  And to top all that oh so healthy food off, I’m making him a Cappuccino Fudge Cheesecake.

There may have also been some knitting.  I started spinning a 4 oz. braid on Saturday, finished the singles on Sunday, plied, soaked, and dried on Monday.  The braid was three large sections of color.  I split each color into sixths and spun them in such an order than when I wound the singles on my ball winder and plied starting from the two ends and working towards the middle I’d get stripes.  Then I proceeded to cast on a hat.  I’m working a top down toboggan type loosely based on Brooklyntweed’s Turn a Square.  I’m going to keep going ’til I run out of yarn, so this hat may have a sizeable “cuff.”

I cooked up the last of the 50% whole wheat penne – probably a cup and a half dry and saved the salty pasta water.   Whole wheat would certainly be fine if you like the stuff – I find it resembles cardboard a bit too closely.  Regular old “normal” pasta would also be fine – but I recommend penne or some other somewhat chunky pasta.  This is not a time for spaghetti.

I sauteed a handful of button mushrooms, which I quartered, and four pieces of acorn squash leftover from the previous recipe, which I cut into cubes, in some olive oil.  I added a little Italian seasoning and some chopped walnuts.

Once this was browned and crispy in spots I added a few tablespoons of heavy cream (half and half would totally work, didn’t have any – milk, on the other hand really wouldn’t) and a few crumbles of blue cheese.

Then I stirred in some chopped frozen basil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Once the pasta was done, I added some of the pasta water to the creamy sauce stuff to thin it down (it was almost a paste consistency before I did that) and stirred it together with the pasta.

Sorry there’s no picture today – I already ate my bowl.  It was good.  I highly recommend you play with your food from time to time, the results can be really tasty!

* This is my attempt to practice some of the things taught to me by my mother/grandmother/great-grandmother.  To quote my grandfather’s mother, my Gran, “a recipe is for medicine, a receipt for food.”

So I thought I’d share the good dinner recipes when I have them.  And I’m hoping that the few of you that read this from time to time might chime in with some of your own.

So, without further ado, I bring you tonight’s supper:

Blue Cheese Burgers w/ Grilled Onion on Texas Toast

Really should make 4, possibly 5 burgers

1 lb. ground beef

A few  shakes of Worcestershire Sauce

A few shakes of garlic salt

A few twists from the pepper grinder

2-3 tbsp of cream cheese and a roughly equal amount of blue cheese

One large red onion

Six slices of garlic butter Texas Toast (make your own, buy frozen, or see if there are fresh ones in the bakery section – it doesn’t matter overly much)

Put the ground beef into a bowl and work in the Worcestershire Sauce, onion salt, and pepper with your hands.  I’m pretty sure I used a good tablespoon of Worcestershire, maybe more – it’s a taste thing, adjust it to yours.  Form this into eight or ten flatish patties that don’t quite cover the palm of your hand.  In another bowl mix the cheeses together with a spoon.  Spread the cheese mixture onto the middles of three of your patties.  Make beef patty oreos and pinch and press the edges together so you can’t see any cheese.

Slice red onion into 1/2 inch slices (or less, Seth asked for less next time) and rub a little olive oil on each side.

Cook the burgers by your desired method (I’m a grill girl myself) until they are as done as you like your burgers.  This will likely take a little longer than you’re used to due to the thickness.  Some cheese may ooze out, this is ok.  You can either grill or pan saute the onions right along with the burgers.  You can either grill or oven bake the texas toast.  I lit the webber and laid everything on there, pulling things off as they were done.  Once they’re all done, assemble and enjoy.

Roasted Acorn Squash with Sage Butter

1-2 Acorn squash

2-4 Tbsp. salted butter

1 Tbsp. rubbed sage (fresh would be better, we didn’t have any tonight)

Cut open your squash and scoop out the seeds.  Cut each whole squash into about six wedges.  Melt your butter and stir the sage into it.  Brush this onto the squash and let a little pool in the “bottom of the boat.”  Bake these in a 350 degree oven until the squash is soft when poked with a fork.  I put mine on a pizza stone in a cold oven, set for 350, and it took about 35 minutes.

I hope this helps someone who needs a good idea for dinner.  Feel free to pass it along to anyone who might like it; these are far from being entirely my original ideas, so share the love!

Well, damn.  Shut the damn door.  Dayum!  Damn, damn, damn!  There’s the instant whiny five year old: I want it now, dammit!  It can said in anger, impatience, or even glee.  Love that!

This is not the first, nor will it likely be the last, time I’ve gotten a little nerdy about language.  Welcome to my particular brand of insanity.  Admission is free.

You’re damn right! (or for you Asbury kids: You’re Dan Straight!)

I’m going to make an attempt to post more regularly.  My goal is weekly.

So let’s see, what’s been going on around here . . .

Well, I’ve told you about the puppy.

I’ve got one finished sweater and one that’s nearly done.  I’ve finished a couple pairs of socks.  I’ve got a couple hats I made back when my head was cold.  I’m working on a really pretty lace piece and I have a shrug to finish for Curly. When I’ve got some good light, I’ll get Seth to help me get some pictures!

Also, I’ve decided not to garden too seriously this year.  I just don’t want to play with tomatoes in big pots and the hazards of dry weather, or cool weather, or a lack of sunshine.  One of the nearby farmer’s markets has a CSA, and I’m going to try to get us subscribed.  Between that, my garden crazy MIL, and the other farmer’s markets around we should be just fine.

I’ve been using my copy of Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day more lately.  It’s fantastic to have dough on hold in the fridge for when you want some warm bread with dinner.  Or burger buns, which I never remember to buy or make until we’ve already dug the ground beef out of the freezer to make patties.  I found some great instructions for making sliders here.  And we had a great time making and eating them.

We’ve been having some good fun here.

Meet our new fur kid!

Her name is Bree.  She’s an 8ish month old Australian Shepherd mix, and a barrel of fun!  She’s crazy smart, and getting better behaved by the day.  We love her!

That last one makes me feel truly pathetic.  I know that the sleeve would take me maybe two days to knit and then I could sew them on and have a whole sweater.  But have I so much as cast on that sleeve? Nope.  To add insult to injury, this was my “speed sweater.”  I worked on it monogamously and kept track of my time spent to see just how long a sweater truly took.  It’s craziness!  The thing is, the sweater is a little snug and short.  So while it technically only needs a sleeve, it really needs a little more than that.

There is hope, though.  The completion muse has struck me again.  I finished a pair of socks for the boy that had been languishing in my bag while waiting for midnight to roll around New Years Eve.  I got the shrug to a point that the recipient can try it on the next day.  I got one of the socks from barely a cuff to half way down the foot and it should be done in another day or so.

I’m in the mood to tie up loose ends at the moment, perhaps I will make some progress on that front as this new year gets going.  I hope so, I really want to cast on something new and exciting as a Ravelympics project this year.  I’m thinking hooded V-neck cardigan, real raw and casual:  rolled cuffs, zipper, brown-gray tweedy Bartlett yarn, thumb holes, and a needle felted yarn skull and cross knitting needles on the back in a bright-ish color.