Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Friday, September 21, 2012

Friday Links


Finally, the switch was flipped, and we're excited to start cooking up some fall dishes.

Sarah baked a wheat-free sweet potato pie {link soon to be added!}.

Guests were coming for breakfast on Tuesday, so we baked this almond poppy seed bread {the recipe makes two, so you can give away or freeze one!}, and this apple buckle. Have you ever baked a buckle? They are like a fruit-filled coffee cake. Perfectly moist with a crumbly, nutty topping. So easy to bake the night before and have ready for guests. They recommended serving that one with sweetened sour cream, but a dollop of plain yogurt works well too.

Working our way through the sweet potatoes, I made some curried lentils and sweet potatoes on Wednesday. This we have been eating with a dollop of sour cream.

Next week? We're thinking about apple crisp, some pumpkin {squash} risotto, and the swiss chard and sweet potato gratin {we have a lot of sweet potatoes!}.

The photo at the top of this list? It's the most delicious quiche we've cooked up in a while :: mushroom, leek, and arugula! I sautéd the leeks and mushrooms in some butter until the leeks were translucent and the mushrooms cooked down to my liking. The arugula was chopped up and added it to my milk, egg, and cheese mixture {I use about four eggs, 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese and about two cups of milk?}. The mushrooms and leeks were added to the pie crust first, then I poured the milk mixture over it and topped it with another 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar. And yes, I cheated with the store-bought crust. That's what happens when you have a last-minute idea that's too good to ignore on your way home from work.

Are you filling up on sweet potatoes and apples too?

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Fuse Update

I finished this sweater in April, and then it went in the closet until this week when there was a definite fall chill in the air. So after a full day of wear, I thought it was worthy of a little update.

As I mentioned in the first post, the drape of the front panels is a bit funky, but as Flossie pointed out, it's likely the result of blocking it flat rather than on a dress form. So, that's something that can easily be remedied once I borrow that dress form :-).



Lucky for vest-loving me, between the nice big/doubled cowl neck and the fitted sleeves, this sweater perfect for vest wearing. There's no need for a scarf, and there's no extra sleeve fabric around the shoulders that would bunch up and make it uncomfortable.


Unfortunately, I realized yesterday that it is getting too dark too quickly for our long after-work hikes... and photo-shoots. Not the best photos. And do you see the ghost in the photo below? That's our best distance shot.



Finally, it's teaberry season! If it's dark and we're still not back from our hike, don't worry about us ~ we're just competing with the bears to gobble up the berries.


Monday, September 17, 2012

Sweet Potato Harvest

Saturday Sarah and I woke up early to drive out to our CSA farm and help with the sweet potato harvest. It's not often that we're up and out early enough to drive through the fog in the valleys or see the dew on the spiderwebs.


At the farm we got to meet the Sally and Polly, the horses that pulled the harvester through the field. As they passed, the soil was turned and the sweet potatoes were brought to the surface for us to sort.



The potatoes were sorted into piles of unblemished "firsts" and blemished "seconds". The seconds were broken, nibbled on by mice, or had gashes from the harvester. Once the seconds are cured {left out in the sun to dry a bit}, they will be as good as the firsts and nothing will go to waste.



After a couple hours of work, we all sat in the field and ate a few baked sweet potatoes before bringing home half a bushel... and now we're planning a week of sweet potato meals!



Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Stasis!

Seeing that dirty carpet at the top of the blog is all the motivation I need to post again. How about something easier on the eyes?



Just in time for fall it's Stasis! The pattern's from one of the awesome Brooklyn Tweed collections. It's written using the Loft yarn, which is a bit pricey, but sosososososo so perfect and worth the investment for a sweater that I hope to have around for years.



I used their barn owl {tan} and old world colors {blue with flecks of reds}.

I'm often substituting yarns, which can sometimes be a mind bender when you have to adjust the number of stitches or rows to get the right size, so it's really nice to use the yarn called for a just blindly follow the pattern {almost}.


My only adjustments to the pattern were to knit the sleeves and body a few inches longer than suggests. As my physics teacher pointed out in 10th grade, I have a low center of gravity {shorter legs and a longer torso than average}, which he said made me a good player on the soccer field. With that tidbit, I find that I'm always knitting patterns longer than written to cover my long bits.


This was my first time knitting stranded color-work for a sweater, and I found the instructions in this pattern really helpful. I followed all of their needle guidelines {using a larger size for the color-work portion}, and I was mindful to keep things in that area loose.

The sweater's mainly knit on size three needles, which seems crazy small for a whole sweater, but it's a nice change of pace to produce a thinner sweater that still warm. And since there's no design or pattern work occurring in the torso, it's really easy to zip through a lot of length in a sitting. I called this my Tour de France and Olympic sweater, because the long plain knitting complimented evenings in front of the TV.

And call me crazy, but I want to keep the size three needles out and start on another one right away!

Monday, September 10, 2012

Ack.


A humble hi from the house with {previously} dirty carpets {we bought a steam cleaner and Sarah left us a message}.

It's been a while. I think we got caught up in the largest case of end-of-summer doldrums that ever existed. We've been lazing around, taking too many naps, eating out too often, and generally trying to avoid the start of the school year and regular schedules. But it's here, so we're setting our sights on fall with it's crisp weather, apple picking, and big pots of soup.

Goodbye to summer with it's crazy bugs, outdoor concerts, and mushroom-covered forests.



Next time :: a new sweater