Knit Think

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.

Dishcloths and blocking

After the monstrously long time it took me to complete the Diamond Fantasy Shawl, I needed some quick and easy projects. Fortunately, some months ago Debra had asked if I'd be willing to participate in the Cups of Kindness event again this year, which solicits handmade items and artwork to be put on sale to raise money for the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. (If you keep an eye on the Cups of Kindness site, I believe some of the pieces will be posted there and available for sale soon.)

So! Dishcloths. Festive holiday dishcloths. Quick to knit--even for a slowpoke like me--and quick to block.

I have a love/hate relationship with blocking. In some ways, it's a soothing pastime, kind of quietly mindless. On the other hand, it's dull. Boring. A giant snore.

Which is maybe why I haven't blocked Diamond Fantasy yet. I have blocking wires, but have never used them. Will they make my life easier? Any tips to using them? Because, after all, poor Diamond Fantasy's been off the needles for a while now and is destined to be put in a box under the Christmas tree. Clock's tickin'.

Friday food

A couple of times during Iron Chefettes I mentioned that beets are one of those vegetables I have a hard time feeling any love for. Last time, Rudee described an interesting sounding dish in the comments, and several others seconded her vote. What choice did I have but to try it? Especially since I had a few beets still cluttering up my veggie drawer. Nothing to lose, right?

The first step involved roasting the beets. I had done this with the last IC, and found plain roasted beets to be better than, say, boiled beets, but nowhere near approaching the nirvana of bacon. However, this had a few more steps, and they looked promising.

While the beets cooled, I took some quite nice balsamic vinegar and boiled it down to a syrup. The kitchen smelled lovely at this point.

Finally, I sliced the beets, layered them with a good-quality goat cheese, and swirled my balsamic vinegary goodness all over it. Pretty, isn't it? Even I, who have zero presentation skills, would not have been too embarrassed to serve this to guests.

But.

It still tasted like beets.

Beets with alternating bites of great goat cheese and lovely balsamic syrup.

But the beets dominated.

It would have been better to have goat cheese drizzled with syrup. And some nice bread.

And no beets.

Sorry, Rudee.

Oh, and blogless Don? Your suggestion of making beet vodka? Because that would use up even more beets--and taste like beets. So, um...no. Thanks. But no.

If this isn't horror enough for you, I give you: Teen 2, dressed for Halloween.

In case you're not clear on what he is, he's a douchebag.

Enjoy pondering that, and happy Halloween!

The Iron Chefettes, CSA Edition: Grand Finale

Oh dear. It's finally arrived. That dreaded day--the day the CSA boxes stopped coming. Y'all know me, I'm a staunch lover of winter and snow and rain and all that, but it is a most serious downside to our weather cycle when it causes the CSA boxes to stop coming. Makes me almost re-evaluate being a Minnesotan.

Well, let's go out with a bang, shall we, and no more whimpering? Here's the last Chairman of the season:

There's been much wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth this week--not by me, natch--about the premature arrival of winter. Suck it up, folks! This is Minnesota! Except for that CSA thing...

This week's box o'goodness had: potatoes, hot and sweet peppers, cauliflower, celery root, acorn and delicata squash, spinach, onions, garlic, leeks, tomatoes, carrots, beets, and red cabbage. I have no idea what Miss T.'s been up to, but I do know I scored one over her on the cabbage. See, the boxes were packed so full that we were supposed to pick up a cabbage and take it with us, on top of our boxes. I did that. Miss T. didn't. So much for the cabbage challenge! I win!

I give you--Warm Red Cabbage Salad, from Deborah Madison's The Greens Cookbook. Lightly sauteed red cabbage with garlic and red onions, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, then tossed with toasted walnuts, herbs, goat cheese, and chopped apples. Very, very yummy.

I have to admit beets fall in that category of "boy, there is just no way I like those things." Yet I'm determined to find a way to change that. The chocolate cake some time ago was fine, but felt like cheating. I decided to roast them, along with some of the potatoes and the leeks. Loved the potatoes and the leeks. The beets were--OK. I think they're just too sweet for me. I did splash a little white wine vinegar on them to cut back the sweetness a bit, and that helped.

This got decidedly mixed reviews: sweet roasted butternut squash and greens over bow-tie pasta. I really liked it, Teen 1 kind of liked it, DH wasn't wild about it, and Teen 2 wouldn't eat it--Teen 2, the kid who eats everything, especially when pasta is involved. It probably didn't help that I over-roasted the greens. I'd make it again. For me.

 

Here's a unanimous success: Ribs with homemade bbq sauce in the clay pot, using onions and celery root. Yeah, baby.

This was a hit too: pasta e fagioli. So simple, so yummy, such excellent leftovers. This took up some of my onion, celery root, and carrot.

Another excellent use of carrots, onions, and celery root is my three-bean soup.

Come to think of it, the loss of my CSA box is somewhat compensated by the arrival of comfort food season.

Speaking of comfort food, you didn't think I'd skip eggs this time, did you? Of course not.

Scrambled eggs with onion, sweet pepper, and spinach. Oh, eggs are so wonderful. So incredibly versatile. Why, they're darn near as versatile as chicken.

So.........which came first, the versatility of the chicken or the versatility of the egg?

What started out before cooking to be purple broccoli and purple cauliflower turned, once steamed, into green broccoli and purple cauliflower. For shame, broccoli--changing your looks to appear like all the other broccoli. Oh, the conformity, it hurts my heart. You go, purple cauliflower.

 
Finally, my first-ever attempt at cooking delicata squash. I used Crescent Dragonwagon's stuffed delicata squash recipe from Passionate Vegetarian. The squash is stuffed with a mixture of sauteed onions and apples with apple juice concentrate and soy sauce, chopped partially cooked squash, raisins, toasted cashews, paprika, and cornflake crumbs. The result is quite tasty. Kind of like when I make squash the old-fashioned way, with butter, brown sugar, and marshmallows, but a whole lot healthier.

So, that's it. An entire season of Iron Chefettes: CSA Edition comes to an end. No clear winner, I think. And how about all those guest Chairmen! Anonymous bartenders. Secret weapons. Eva Peron. And, of course, my ever-beloved and ne'er forgotten Billie Joe {swoon}.

What a season it's been. And I'm so glad to have entertained myself so thoroughly. Hopefully you were entertained at least some of the time too.

Friday food

But first, check out Miss T.'s post today--she has an interview with Deborah Madison!!!

Summer, segueing into fall. What to do with that varietal of summer squash known as zucchini?

How about playing a rousing game of "trick your family into thinking they're eating apple crisp when they're really eating zucchini crisp"? 

Very successful, both in the eating and the tricking. Only Teen 1 noted that the apples tasted "different." I followed the recommendations of the some of the commenters and cut down the lemon juice and increase the cinnamon. Pretty tasty all around.

Diamond Fantasy

...is a fantasy no longer.

 

Diamond Fantasy Shawl, off the needles, ends woven in, awaiting blocking. I've never blocked something like this before, so that should be good for some giggles.

Two Christmas gifts (almost) done, four (small ones) to go...how's your holiday knitting coming along?