Knit Think

Making it easy to do good

I just saw this over on Erica's site. Photographer Sarah McGee has a wonderful website where, if you comment between now and Dec. 26, she'll donate 50 cents per comment to Minnesota's Second Harvest Heartland food shelter. That's it--all you have to do is comment, and your pithy words will translate into food for people in need. Go! What are you waiting for? Comment! 

Friday food

We're not doing it as an Iron Chefettes, but Miss T. and I both got a late-fall CSA box from Loon Organics. It was full of the goodness of the end of the season, and many of the items will actually keep quite a while, hence the slowing down and not going Iron-Chefette crazy. One of the items in the box was a butternut squash. I'd seen this recipe floating around the interwebs, and decided this was the perfect time to try it. 

Not particularly difficult, but a little time-consuming. Anything that calls for peeling and dicing a big honkin' butternut squash will be that way.

Well, first you slice a few thin rounds, then dice the rest. Put them on baking sheets that you've brushed with olive oil, then add some fresh sage leaves. Roast away in a 375 oven for 15-20 minutes. Your kitchen will smell quite nice.

While you're doing that, you saute some chopped onion and garlic in olive oil, then add broth and cook up some quinoa. I love quinoa and had been wanting to find more ways to use it. As it turned out, I had some plain quinoa and some red Inca quinoa, so I mixed those together, with, I think, pleasing results.

Eventually the quinoa is mixed with the diced squash, along with some Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and more chopped sage. 

The recipe then instructs you to use nonstick spray in a glass pie dish. You can see I did not use a glass pie dish. I could not find my glass pie dish. I own one. All the baking dishes are in one cupboard. I pulled everything out. It is not there. And it's not like I make so much pie that it might have been in use.

You see, the Teens are in charge of emptying the dishwasher. They know very well where baking dishes go. But I think one or the other of them got distracted and decided the glass pie dish needed to go elsewhere. Where would that be? Who knows? Clearly I don't think like a Teen, because I looked all over the kitchen and couldn't find it. This worried me--when the recipe specifies a glass baking dish, there's usually a good reason for it.

But onward. I had roasted squash and cooked quinoa that needed combining and baking. So--I sprayed my metal pie pan, put a few more leaves of sage in it, topped with the sliced squash, and finally the quinoa mixture. The recipe says to "press" the quinoa in, and then bake. I thought I "pressed," but apparently I did not, for when it came time to invert the pie, it all collapsed.

Oh well.

Even with two kinds of quinoa, even in a metal pie plate, even not properly pressed, this was still delicious. Oh. So good! Loved it! Loved it the next day heated up! Even Teen 2 ate seconds! And so darned healthy! Goodness--I could almost pretend that I care about nutrition by eating this!

Maybe I should add bacon next time.

Lights, camera...

The setting: a suburban Target parking lot, 2 1/2 weeks before Christmas, on a day when a snowstorm is scheduled to arrive.

The character: Our Heroine, a harried, matronly, suburban-type Mom.

The plot so far: Our Heroine has raced to Target early in the morning, hoping to beat crowds before heading to a work meeting, to buy the oh-so-glamorous things her household needs, like toilet paper and laundry detergent.

Action!

Our Heroine is hastily stuffing all her many purchases into her Gecko Green VW Bug, when--riiiiiip--the 17.5-pound bag of Iams Active Maturity Senior Dog Formula food catches on the box of laundry detergent as it's being hoisted into the back seat (the trunk being full of all those other glamorous things).

What would Our Heroine do? Would she:

1. Holler "SON OF A BITCH!" at the top of her lungs, thus angering the mother who's herding young children past the Bug?

2. Burst into maniacal, shrieking laughter, thus scaring the mother who's herding young children past the Bug?

3. Do all of the above?

Feel free to discuss, while I get out the shovel. And not for the snow.

Here we have some Christmas knitting

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

I've actually been knitting up a storm, I just can't show it because some of the recipients read (or I egotistically think they do) my blog. However, this is for someone who doesn't. Isn't it pretty? The Lotus Leaf Scarf in Frog Tree yarn. So soft, so sweet. And that blue is amazing--you can't really see it here, and I did try photographing it under different lights and on different backgrounds, but it has just the slightest violet undertones throughout. Scrumptious.

So scrumptious, in fact, that I've reconsidered its status as a gift. To anyone but me.

I wish me a merry Christmas, I wish me a merry Christmas, I wish me a merry Christmas, and a selfish New Year.

So, seeing as how it would come as no surprise to me under the tree, I put it down for a while and started the same pattern, same yarn, different color, for the previously intended recipient.

Isn't it pretty? The Lotus Leaf Scarf in Frog Tree yarn. So soft, so sweet. And that green is amazing--you can't really see it here, and I did try photographing it under different lights and on different backgrounds, but it has just the slightest silver-gray undertones throughout. Scrumptious.

Oh dear. Deja vu. How can I give this one up?

It appears that what we have here is not the Christmas edition of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but Conundrums of the Rude and Greedy.

I will persevere and overcome these deplorable tendencies. The green scarf will be gifted, to someone other than me.

Really.

I mean it this time.

Christmas better come soon.

Friday food

I thought that today I'd give a shout-out to poor Rudee, who has been such a good sport for taking all the teasing I give her about not liking eggs.

Although I do have to pause for a moment and think about that. How can you *not* like eggs?

OK. Moving on.

Rudee shared a recipe with me that I made for Thanksgiving.

It's easy, and very pretty. You mix 1 cup chopped cranberries, 2 cups diced red apple, 1 cup diced celery, 1 cup red seedless grapes cut in half, and 1/4 cup toasted and chopped walnuts. You could also add 1/3 cup raisins, but Rudee noted that she doesn't use them, and I didn't either. Isn't it pretty, all bright and festive?

But we're not done yet.

Next I combined 8 ounces of vanilla yogurt (the recipe called for low-fat, but when I went to the grocery store, the choice was full-fat or non-fat--and shockingly, I opted for the latter) with 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Then toss with the nummies in the other bowl.

Cranberry Waldorf Salad. Totally delightful, and such a nice contrast to the rest of the Thanksgiving table, laden with starch and protein as it was. Everyone loved it. I do believe there's a strong possibility it will reappear at Christmas.

So, Rudee, I guess I forgive you for not liking eggs. Even if most of the time, I'd have to view that as a major character flaw.

Thankful

'Tis the season for thankfulness, and I have many reasons to be so. If you also have much to be thankful for and can share, please read Laurie's blog post today and consider helping someone who could desperately use some reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving season.

Friday food

I recently won a Major Award--although it wasn't fre-gee-lay. Nope, this prize was meant to be taken apart, sliced and diced, soaked in water and subjected to high temperatures.

You can see that it was a good prize.

You have to love a box that comes with this note on the outside.

Inside--look at the treasures!

What are all those goodies? So colorful! So varied! So many of them!

Let's take a closer look.

Dried mushrooms. Specifically: samples of maitake, porcini, chantarelle, shiitake, oyster, black trumpet, lobster, and matsutake mushrooms.

But that's not all.

Aren't they pretty?? What we have--or rather, what *I* have, too bad for you--is samples of puya, pasila negro, habanero, chipotle, ancho, aji panca, japones, new mexico, ghost, smoked serrano, and aji cereza peppers.

And that's still not all.

Salts: Hawaiian black, gray sea, smoked sea, habanero, Hawaiian red sea, espresso, szechuan pepper, and lime. Oh: and vanilla sugar, granulated honey, and demerara sugar.

Wow. What riches. Thank you so much, Katie!

I'm still contemplating all my choices. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Some of the items I'm familiar with (chipotle, ancho), others not so much (espresso salt?). What should I do with these things? How shall I cook with them? What would taste good?

Happy news for me!

Wander Minnesota

Aaaaannnnnnnddd....

It's done. Blocked and everything.

I do rather like those blocking wires. No, it's probably not perfect, but it's a start.

And for the record, I only block dishcloths that are going to others. Heaven knows I wouldn't bother for myself. Sheesh. I'm not quite that obsessive.

Friday food

When it comes to cooking, one thing I am most emphatically *not* good at is making up my own recipes. Occasionally I can throw some pasta sauce together, and I do a mean job of mixing things into scrambled eggs, but attempt a recipe on my own? Nuh-uh, not gonna happen.

So I felt it was quite brave of me this week when I attempted to create my own enchilada filling. (Yes, I'm aware it's not a big step from pasta sauce to enchilada filling. Work with me here.) I had some delicata squash I wanted to use up, and I wondered--hmm, how would that taste in an enchilada?

This of course led to additional work, because to the males at Casa Knit Think, enchiladas mean animal protein and cheese, and nothing else, thankyouverymuch. So I'd have to have two fillings, one an old standby, and one just for me.

How luxurious, to create a filling just for me.

First I roasted the squash.

This was one of the best discoveries of the summer. I think delicata might be my favorite of the squashes. By the time it was roasted, I was rethinking the enchilada thing and considering just eating the squash. But no. I persevered.

I sauteed some onions and sweet bell peppers. Yeah, I could have roasted them. If I'd thought of it before I took the squash out of the oven. Oh well.

I mixed my chopped veggies with a can of black beans, some pico de gallo, cilantro, and brown rice. Yummy

And then I folded it into tortillas, poured enchilada sauce over the top, added a bit--OK, a lot--of Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheeses, and baked.

Oh. My.

This was so good. The sweetness of the squash and peppers were a wonderful contrast against the spicy pico de gallo. I added a little--really, I mean it this time--sour cream to the top. Perfect.

And there was leftover filling, and guess what?

It's really good with a poached egg on top.