Bird's Nest Knits

Summertime summertime...

I love summer time, especially in Southern California.  Long warm days, cool nights, and the bounty of fruit and vegetables from the garden (or the garden box) are some of the things I love most about this time of year.   My vegetables are doing really well, thanks to the Earthboxes that makes it difficult even for ME to kill everything in sight.  Tomatoes, green/purple beans, herbs, cucumbers, peppers, blueberries (thanks Wendy!) are doing really fantastically.  I'm thinking about putting up a box of corn as well.

They can never ripen fast enough for me, so I often end up splitting a single green bean with Mr. Bird or cutting a cherry tomato in half to share.    We've had a handful of blueberries, a couple of kumquats, and a few beans.  The sweet peas have suffered with the heat but I've been able to break open a couple of pods and had some super sweet samples.  Heidi suggested replanting those after the summer since they are a cool season crop.  The tomatoes are growing so fast that every day I go out there I marvel at the number of fruit and can't wait till they ripen.  They've grown as tall as I am and the EarthBox trellis system kicks some serious ass.  I only bought one trellis and the other tomatoes I put up in a cage and the cage proved to be a cheap and really really crappy alternative.  The tomatoes outgrew the cage really fast and then fell over the top because the fruit heavy sections snapped because there wasnt enough support.

I'm hoping that the tomatoes will produce enough to do some jarring in a few weeks.  Homemade tomato sauce - exciting!  I had some trouble with blossom end rot a couple of weeks ago, but I've added some bone meal to the soil and removed all the tomatoes with any sign of it.  Hopefully the rest of the crop will be ok.  I continue to be amazed by how well I'm doing with the gardening and so excited with being able to grow and eat my own produce.

Oh.

Did you think this was a knitting blog?

Well as a matter of fact I have been doing a bit of knitting.  Somethings here and there.  I will have to admit to breaking my yarn diet, not bad that I held out for six months though.   I picked up some Trekking sock yarn from the Grove and started working it up in the Conway sock pattern from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road.

Meh isnt it?  The color way just does not work well with the beautifully subtle pattern of Conway which just gets lost in the varigation.  I thought so at least, so riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.  Bye bye Conway, I'll revisit you soon with a more solid color sock yarn.

I had told myself I wasn't going to be a lemming and would NOT make a pair of Jaywalkers.  Cause everyone and their grandma's roommate had knit these and they just looked too much like the Broadripple socks that I'd already knit.  Who wants to do the same thing right?  Well - I've proven myself a hypocrite because I went with the Jaywalker pattern.  And sheepishly, I must admit its a pretty great pattern and it works up this varigated yarn beautifully.  I was wrong, it's not boring. 

Isn't that pretty?  I'll be kitchener'ing the toe today and casting on for the 2nd straight away.  The two row pattern is very nice cause I dont have to lug around the pattern. 

I've put Mariah on the back burner since I can't get myself motivated to sit and knit with wool during the summer heat.  I plan to get this one done in time for my sister's graduation from nursing school in December which is when she'll be moving back to Seattle and she'll have good use for a warm cabled sweater.

I've made a couple of modifications to the pattern.  I'm extending the cables up the sides to cinch in the body of the sweater to make it more form fitting.  It also keeps the stockinette section from being so painfully boring now that the lovely cabled arms are completed.  I'm also going to make a fold over collar instead of a hood, but we'll see how that all goes.

Can you see where there is a mistake in a cable cross?  I'm leaving it in, cause I'm too lazy to rip back that far.

 

Have I ever said that Elann is evil?  It is.  Really. 

I bought Elann's Callista yarn (50% Viscose Rayon/ 25% Cotton/ 25% Linen) in a DK weight to work on a summer skirt along the lines of the Indigo Ripples skirt from the Spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits.  It's a much smaller gauge yarn and I'll be doing a leaf lace edging instead of the ripples, but the shaping will be similar and there will be a longer section of stockinette.

I have enough skeins of it in the Burnt Olive color and the Italian Plum for two separate skirts.  Delusions of grandeur?  Considering I've got one pair of socks done and it's June?  Yah probably - but it's nice to dream isn't it?

Oh.  And because I'm a Norma acolyte,  I made up some Rose Petal Jam and it is delicious!  I'll have to call it Rose Petal Lemon jam because the lemon really comes out.  It was incredibly easy to make and I changed the recipe just a bit.  I boiled the sugar, water, lemon juice, rose petal (blended) mixture until all the sugar was dissolved, and then mixed in the pectin (I used liquid) into the hot mixture then poured it into the jelly jars.   

I don't know the variety of rose this is but they are grown in my back yard organically and smell amazing so I figured they'd be perfect for this jam.   I had Mr Bird test out the jam and he's quite the PB & J connoisseur so if he thought it was good that was the stamp of approval.  It's a touch tart but is really nice on toast or with PB.  He really liked it!  I have a jar for Heidi, Crissy, Joelle, Wendy and Yoly.

Thanks for sharing Norma!

Coffee Tea or me?

There is nothing like a gathering of friends and an excess of good food.  Sunday was an English afternoon tea hosted by yours truly.  We tried to be all sly and turn it into a surprise party - but considering the nature of surprises - our guest of honor wasn't feeling well.  It all turned out for the best though - cause there was knitting to be done and my present isnt even near ready!

On to the food - cause thats what it is all about Chez Bird.

There were three kinds of scones - Ginger Carrot, Blueberry and Apple Carrot - all based on this basic cream scone recipe.  I just would mix the fruit mixture into dough before making the little balls to go into the oven.  There nearly was more fruit than dough in these lovely crumbly bits.

Tell me this isn't what dreams are made of...
 

In addition to the scones, there were proper tea sandwiches (cucumber dill, curried egg salad, and smoked salmon cucumber), real devonshire double cream, lemon curd (so tart and tasty), fig pear butter, lemon poppyseed rosettes (thanks to Hilari), and yummy goat cheese and french bread that Crissy brought.

And what is an English tea (hah! I typo'd teat first)  without a generous selection of teas.  I had some Earl Grey, Chai, Green Tea and some fresh tea of Lemon Verbena Leaves, Mint and Crystallized Ginger (which was my personal favorite).  Yoly brought a very cool selection of loose leaf teas, (Rooibos, some minty stuff, another chai, and this dragon blooming tea) which we all enjoyed as well.

So part of the dress code for the tea party was a tea party HAT.  No tea without a hat, bitches.  Happily - everyone came with a hat, and someone even came with a boob.  With a tassle no less! There was even some knitting done.

Summer wanes into Autumn...

The summer has faded away, and the weather gotten cooler.  My tomatoes have thanked the heavens for that - they were looking positively wilted during the heat wave we had in the middle of August.  In an attempt to hold onto the last bits of summer I picked up a basket of fresh figs from my local gourmet grocery store and made some Fig Scones.  They turned out awesome and were a fantastic last hurrah to summer.  Not crumbly like some scones, they were dense and crispy on the browned edges.  Delicious with coffee or tea.

Developed based on the Epicurious Biscuit Recipe

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup heavy cream
8 small ripe figs cut into half and then the halves quartered
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2  teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon clove
1 teaspoon cinnamon

PREPARATION:

Preheat oven to 425°F. and lightly grease a baking sheet.

Place cut up figs, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove and sugar into a bowl and mix well - set aside till dough is prepared.

Into a large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut 5 tablespoons butter into bits and with your fingertips or a pastry blender blend into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add cream, stirring with a fork until just combined. Transfer mixture to a lightly floured surface and gently knead about 3 times until it just forms a dough. Mix in the fig mixure lightly - just until combined - doesnt need to be completely evenly mixed together.  Fig chunky bits are good.   Spoon big tablespoon fulls onto greased baking sheet leaving space in between each to expand.

Melt remaining tablespoon butter and lightly brush onto biscuits. Bake biscuits in middle of oven until pale golden and cooked through, about 20 minutes.

    Makes about 6 biscuits.

Best laid plans...

So I consider myself a pretty decent cook.  I rarely get complaints and usually my food gets devoured pretty quick.  Now if that's because the people I cook for are not that discerning - we wont worry about.  But generally I can whip up some pretty tasty concoctions.  However - there are those occasions when something goes awry.  I rarely follow recipes to a T - they are generally considered suggestions and I often will make up things haphazardly.  This results in a lot of fun in the kitchen, surprising outcomes that usually are near impossible to replicate.

Yesterday I made a fantastic Spaghetti Putescana.  Which means Slut pasta in Italian.  Serious - it does.  So in my Whorey lunch - I had boiled up some spaghetti al dente, strained it and then and added some fresh chopped tomatoes, fresh basil chopped, and a handful of olives chopped.  I used the olives that were stuffed with garlic.   Stir that all up and sprinkle with shredded parmesean cheese, fresh ground pepper and some salt to taste.    It was mucho good - and there was minimal cooking involved.  You could add a clove of chopped garlic and a bit of olive oil too if you wanted.

Today - its hot out, and when its hot - my desire to stand in front of a stove and bake my boobages is rather low.  Real real low.  So I figure - I'll make what I made last night.  Quick, easy, tasty, who can resist a plateful of carbs?    I know I cant.  Only one problem - no more parmesean left.  Well who NEEDS parmesean - we will invoke the Holy Order of Substitution and all will be well.  What have we got?  We have goat cheese crumbles!  with herbs and thyme!  Its cheese, its crumbly - its PRACTICALLY parmesean. 

Do you know what goat cheese crumbles taste like over the hot garlicky, olivey, basily tomatoey goodness?

I'll tell you - it tastes like dirt.

After tasting the outcome I quickly start scooping the goat cheese crumbles off.  Luckily I had put it on top at the end instead of mixing it in.  It was tolerable after that - just a hint of earthiness.  Luckily for me?  I have a bottle of Friday's Mudslide in my fridge and nothing takes away the taste of dirt like Chocolately Mudslides.  Dirt... mudslides...  somewhere - someone is laughing down at me about this.

Spaghetti Putescana Recipe (non dirt version)

2 chopped tomatoes - I like the vine ripened
Fresh basil leaves chopped - about 2-3 stems worth
pitted olives chopped- 12 of em - any kind will do
Parmesean (NOT goat cheese) - enough to sprinkle over dishes
1 Tbsp of good Olive oil
Spaghetti

Boil spaghetti and cook for 1 minute less than the box directions tell you.  Drain and return to warm pot and place back on stove.  Mix the tomatoes, basil, olive oil, olives in to the spaghetti while its still hot.  Sprinkle generously with the cheese, and grind some fresh pepper and salt to taste.  Enjoy!