Categories

Take two and call me in the morning

8-17--peach-blueberry 8-17--jars Yesterday I made a batch of peace blueberry conserve that just about finsihed up our lovely peaches. We'll take the last few on the road with us today. We are heading off to take the boy to Missouri for college, visit relatives and generally have a bit of vacation. Back in two weeks!

Peaches

8-19-peach 8-16-peach-butter Yesterday we went to pick early season peaches lest we miss them while we are away for the next couple weeks. I've never done much canning but I decided it's high time to learn and the success of the blueberry syrup spurred me on. Yesterday I decided to try a batch of peach butter. I bought a large water bath canner and a food mill . I guess I didn't wash the food mill thoroughly enough as some grease was still on it as I was grinding up the peaches so the first batch had to be discarded. The second batch turned out very nicely and smells lovely.

Another visit to the rail trail

Sculpture Buckinham Hopeful Having fully recovered from our last visit to the Nashua Rail Trail we pulled out the bikes again to enjoy another lovely sunny day. This time we made the trip a good deal shorter in hopes of preventing another shoulder flare and so far it seems to have done the trick. Yesterday was quite hot (well for this summer anyway) but we were out early enough that it was still bearable and there was a nice breeze. I do need to find myself some proper shorts as I again ended up with some uncomfortable abrasions. It also seems like my tires need pumped up each time as they were a bit too flat making it tougher to ride than it needed to be. The Canada geese were hopeful we'd toss them some bread when we stopped for a drink but quickly realized none was forthcoming and turned tail for more fertile feeding grounds.

Swappin’

002greycuff Our fall sock swap is fast approaching and at the rate I am currently knitting it's long past time to get busy with this. As usual, if I show colors I'll give myself away so we'll make do with black and white, okay? This was the first incarnation of the sock I am designing for my pal. When I saw who I had some ideas immediately popped to mind and I ordered yarn. I'd forgotten to look at my charts first though and when I actually started knitting I realized I needed a different weight of yarn so more was ordered. On the next attempt I realized if I included all the elements I wanted my sock would turn into a knee sock so it was back to the drawing board again. I'm working now on the third incarnation of the sock which looks nothing like this photo. I'm almost ready for the heel and things finally seem to be clicking. My goal is to get through the gusset before we leave on Tuesday.

In the kitchen again

8-13-quesadillas 8-13-blueberry-close I made an interesting blueberry bread yesterday. I wanted to clear some things out of the fridge since we are heading out next week to drive the boy to Missouri for college and we'll be away two weeks. This bread finished off a bag of Trader Joe's blueberrys and used some of our freshly picked ones as well as cleaning out the sour cream and creme fraiche and then helped use up a few more eggs. For dinner we had quesadillas with onion, zucchini, peppers and andoille sausage and a side of tomatoes. Everything but the sausage and tortillas came from the farmers market, yum!

Blueberry Bread

1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
7 ounces flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cake spice
1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups sour cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cream together butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 egg. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and cake spice. Add dry mixture to creamed mixture and combine thoroughly. Transfer to a 10-inch springform pan and spread across the bottom.

Pour the blueberries over the dough and shake the pan to distribute evenly. Combine the remaining ingredients until well mixed and pour over the top. Bake about an hour or until edges are lightly browned and the custard is set. Cool completely.

CSA chicken is the best

8-12-chicken-marsala 8-12-close I have really enjoyed the chicken from our CSA share, it's just head and shoulders above any other chicken I've eaten. This week I made a chicken marsala with it that was very tasty indeed. We received breasts this time still attached to bone and still attached to each other so I attempted to remove each half. It was pretty sloppy but it's just one of those things that takes practice and since I was chopping the meat up in the end it didn't really matter. Next time I'll keep those bones and make some chicken stock with them but I didn't think of that this time.

A basket o’ figs

8-11-salad 8-11-close 8-11-close-ham-and-fig It's rare that we find affordable figs here so when I see them at a reasonable price I snatch them up right quick. This week we enjoyed them in a salad with fried manchego and ham as well as a side of broccolini.  Delicious!

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Scratch and Sniff?

Basted Ready-to-tear Closeup Mission-accomplished How about embroider and tear instead. I finished knitting the mitts for Daniel earlier this week and finally took the plunge to do the embroidery. Past attempts at embroidering on knitted fabric have been less than satisfactory but I'd seen a tip to embroider over tissue paper that I wanted to try. I found an image he liked in a size that was appropriate and printed it out then traced it onto tissue paper (making two copies, one for each mitt). I basted the paper onto the mitt with a sewing needle and thread then used a sharp tapestry needle to embroider. Once it was all done I ripped out the paper  leaving the embroidered design intact. Weave in the ends and they're all set. Mission accomplished!

Finis The pattern is similar to previous fingerless mitts I've knit but I've made it just a bit larger for a better fit and the ribbing is easier on the hands as well.

Shorts that aren’t short

Shorts-with-Gabby Shorts Pocket-detail The time that I could wear shorts shorts is long behind me but as we are heading into the deep South for vacation this year I will definitely need to lay in a supply of shorts for self-preservation. Pardon the wrinklies, I was wearing them to see where I wanted the hem to fall. Gabby felt the need to attack them during the photo session but I think we can see them well enough since they are just a very basic elastic waist short with pockets. The closeup shows where I edge stitched the pockets to help them lay nice and flat. They may not be the most attractive shorts but they'll definitely serve the purpose and are possible to make in one afternoon. If all goes well there'll be more of these churned out this week.