I’ve currently got the Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook from the library and in it I discovered the absorption method of cooking pasta. I’d never heard of that despite far too many hours spent watching the Food Network so I decided to give it a whirl. I followed her method more or less as described but I’ve used onion, garlic, mushrooms, add the pasta and some stock and do the boiling thing with occasional stirring until water is mostly absorbed then I tossed in some chopped asparagus and a 1/2 cup white wine and slapped the lid on while the asparagus steamed. I turned out the whole mess into a serving dish and topped with chunks of goat cheese and a sprinkle of freshly grated Parm. It was delicious, easy and uses fewer dishes than the traditional boiling method. I’ll absolutely cook pasta this way from now on.
I also discovered a mystery sky photo on the camera. I’ll have to inquire at dinner tonight to find out who took this fabulous shot.
I woke up a bit late for the eclipse and dashed outside with the camera to snatch a couple pictures before we lost her in the trees. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find my glasses so the photos are out of focus at best. I think I’ve also got a little camera shake even with the tripod. I have a remote for the camera somewhere but I didn’t think to get that out last night and sort out how it works. Ah well, better luck next time.
Company is arriving Tuesday and I need some mindless knitting I can do with rambunctious niece and nephew around (err not to mention to rambunctious older kiddos of my own). I’ve pulled out The Incredible Circular Rectangular Miter acquired back in July as just the thing. I wanted to use stash yarn so I pulled out a skein each of cream and chocolate Frog Tree fingering weight and some size 3 needles and proceeded to cast on for a couple of hours until I had nearly 500 stitches. Since I’m using heavier weight yarn I’m getting off easy as I’m doing about %75 fewer stitches and rounds all told. Unfortunately, after 5 or 6 rounds I realized I did indeed have a twist in my knitting and had to frog the whole thing. I paid a visit to the LYS and purchased a mucho longo needle and am going to cast on again and then transfer to the shorter needles after a few rounds.
I was all set to go with felted handles for this bag when I saw this lovely thing with gorgeous leather handles and changed my mind. I’d knit the i-cord handles and felted them as well but they were quickly tossed aside when I saw that photo. I went on a search yesterday for handles and found some decent ones at Michaels (sorry D&M, it’s what’s closest to me). I planned to install grommets on the top edge and then thread the split rings on the handles through those. The split rings proved much too tight for either Jason or me to manage so off I went in search of more hardware today. I found some largish lobster claw clasps that I thought would work but they proved to small. They came with looser split rings however so I subbed those in for the tight ones the handles came with and we’re good to go.
The final specs on this are: Bar Harbor Shell bag knit with 2 skeins light green Lamb’s Pride worsted, 1 skein dark green Lamb’s Pride worsted, 1 skein black Lamb’s Pride worsted on size 7 DPNs and circular. I found one error in the pattern on round 12 row 6 which the designer has now posted as an errata to the pattern. I altered the method for creating the top edge slightly in that I picked up all the loops from the bottom edge on a circular before knitting them together with the live stitches at the top of that edge and binding off. In this way I was certain I’d have the right number of stitches evenly space along that bottom edge.
Well may not an X exactly. I followed the tutorial for pinny stitch markers and made a few of my own. I like the twisty ones best since I didn’t make very round spheres and even when I did the smooshed as I pushed them onto the pins. I did find that if you twirl the pin and you press the clay on it will deform less.
I’d been racking my brains trying to think of a little something boy to knit when a friend mentioned she was knitting Grr as a gift for someone. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s perfect. With the bag off the needles I hot-footed it on over to the yarn shop and snagged some cotton yarn and set to work. As always the cotton hurts my hands to knit with if it’s not plain stockinette but it’s such a quick little knit that it doesn’t matter a bit, I was done before evening was over. Thanks Crystal for turning the lightbulb on!
Apologies to just about everyone this time. I wasn’t going to post anymore nasty spider pictures since I don’t want to be responsible for so many folks holding their feet up off the floor all day but look what my Charlotte has caught for her breakfast today! She’s quite the huntress.
I finished up the top border yesterday. I used a second circular to pick up the bottom edge of the top band before knitting them together and binding off. In this way I was sure I had the right number of stitches picked up evenly along the bottom edge. It was really tight but I did eventually get it done. After that it wasn’t long before the i-cord handles were finished so it’s all ready for felting today. I used only a single black skein of yarn so if you plan to knit this you may not need two of them. I did use every last bit of that one skein with not even a few inches left over.
You wouldn’t think I’d still be finding new blooms in the garden at this point in the year but, in fact, I am. The stonecrop is just coming into bloom, much to the delight of our little bee friends. I just put the stonecrop in last summer and it’s doing very nicely indeed. Beginning to climb up the railing but with no buds as of yet is the moonflower vine. Some years I get blooms and some years we get an early frost and I get nothing. It’s been quite a cool summer this year so the race is one. Not pictured is my sweet autumn clematis which has also yet to bloom but at the moment if I tried to take his picture all you’d see would be honeysuckle.
The best bargain at the farmer’s market yesterday was bell peppers 4/$1. I also found some delicious bagels, and some delicious cranberry lime sauce in addition to the usual fruits and vegetables. Appalachian Naturals doesn’t make it to our little farmer’s market often so I hope I catch her again because I’d really like to snag some of that horseradish dip for steaks.
Stuffed Bell Peppers
1 pound extra-lean ground beef
1 large sweet onion, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 cup rice
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 can beef broth
salt and pepper to taste
4 bell peppers, seeded with tops reserved
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cook the onion in a bit of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until soft. Add the garlic and cook a further 60 seconds, while stirring, until fragrant. Add the meat and continue to cook another ten minutes or until meat is just cooked through. Add the remaining ingredients, except for the green peppers, and remove from heat, stirring to mix thoroughly. Spoon mixture into each of the four peppers, replacing tops. Assemble peppers in a casserole dish, pour about 1/2 cup water in the bottom of the dish and cover tightly with foil. Bake at 350 F for 45 minutes or until rice is tender.
My niece is very crafty and she knows I’ve always got things in mind for us to do when she visits. This time we made baby bibs for her dolls from "Bend-the-Rules Sewing". My nephew requested a shirt for his dog in two colors with dogs on it. I didn’t really have a pattern so I winged it. As it turns out he meant the word dogs rather than an image of dogs but he said he didn’t know I could do that (meaning applique a picture) and it was much cooler. 
