From the cooking/baking front

I've been jamming like crazy. Very hard to keep up with the demands of the restaurant. I just made a batch of kiwi apple chia jam to try. Someone [who never check what we have at the restaurant and it's not me] bought an extra container of kiwi from costco and brought it home for us to eat. There would be no way to eat them all, on top of the pineapple, berries and grapes we had in the house. I adapted the recipe and added the chia seeds. The kiwi seeds are the black stuff in the jam and the chia seeds are the beige stuff. It has a nice taste, not too sweet. I used the food mill because I didn't read the recipe well, and didn't grate the but chopped the apples instead. I used the largest screen for the mill so it's still quite chunky.

I've also been trying to test our recipes that I've been clipping [I love evernote clipper]. Been reading about harissa a lot in the blogs that I follow. It's a North Africa hot red pepper paste. Got the harissa recipe from The Wednesday Chef and finally made up some harissa this weekend. I'm thinking of rice and beans with fried egg to go with the harissa. I'll let you know what I think and post a pic of what I made. 

Fresh from my garden

What I've been harvesting. Pretty much the same thing but I have a small garden and I'll take what I get. This is to supplement my farmers market purchased. Anyone who see my dad, let him know his hard work in my garden is paying back plenty all ready.


2 weeks ago: Swiss chard on the left and the radish, beets and lettuce seedlings that I thinned out on the right. I have enough swiss chard for a saute for lunch and added some romaine lettuce to my seedling that made 2 servings of salad. Not too shabby. 

1 week ago: 2.5oz of swiss chard and a couple sprigs of italian parsley


Today: 2.5oz of swiss chard and 2oz of italian parsley. Notice the leaves are bigger. Using last week and this week's harvest to make another quiche for lunch. 

Planted some basil that I got as a gift from some friends. Trimmed the tops off in hope that it start sprouting more shoots. Will use the tops in my quiche.

I also weeded and added some coffee grounds around the plants as fertilizer. I hope it works. 


My tomato plant is getting huge, I think I need to move it from my front steps. It gets lots of sun there and thought my tomato plant would like it there. And apparently, it really does. I have several tomatoes coming in and lots of blossoms. I need to figure out who to stake the plants. Will do that next week.

This is so exciting--especially after last year--with all the weeds I got. More garden updates to come. 

Got a new canning pot

Just fit on the burner.

My big old faithful pot seems to be leaking and I can't have that happen--too much water on my stovetop put my oven out of commission for 4 days in May. 

Now with my brand new pot, I've been jamming away. By the end of this week, I will have jammed 9 lbs of fruit--two batches of strawberry and one batch of mixed berry. 

Just got inspired . . .

from "Let us now praise garter stitch blanket" post from Mason-Dixon Knitting, to make up a blanket with yarn scraps that I obsessively save [hoarder-tendencies that I'm trying to break]. I hope this doesn't turn into my 20 year blanket project. I think it will be a fun blanket of these stripe-y panels of assorted crazy colors. I want to make it for a queen size bed or at least cover the top. I think it would look great. 


I started a prototype to see if I like it. Here's what it looks like so far. That's one of my bags of scrap yarn in the back. I was watching Prime Suspect with Jane Mirren [Ioved the Prime Suspect with Maria Bello on nbc,but of course they cancel it] on Nexfilx as I was knitting it up. Kind of a good way to catch up on shows that I missed and get some knitting done.

I don't know if you can see the scrap bag too well. I probably will have to organize the scraps a bit--in color combinations that I like. I probably need a base color to tie all together.  But . . . organizing will kind of kill my color concept [in my head] for this blanket of just letting it happen. Most of the scraps of yarn I bought so I should like the colors. So what the hell, I'm just going for it. I think I'm only going to organize by fiber. I want this a wool or wool blend blanket. This will be my project for neflix marathons or while a wait for something to come out of the oven. Mindless but with a goal. 

Something not mindless, is knitting a sweater. I've wanting to start a sweater for myself this summer but I'm getting so distracted by so many other things . . . making a cowl in yarn that I don't really like . . .  how many neck things does a girl need. But I do need an easy-ish project to bring on vacation with me that doesn't take too much room in my bag and I just saw a pattern I could use that skein I've had for years . . . Oh no, not another one.

But in the meantime . . . I'll try to finish up that cowl and a bunny I've been making [so late] for gift. I wanted make up a skirt to go with the bunny but at this rate I'll never get it out. [I'm even worst at mailing packages out]

Blooms

Just quick post to show few of the blooms from yard.