Tag Archives: kitchen

tomatillo, -illo, illo.

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Pronounced incorrectly, the word “tomatillo” calls to mind a certain pop song (circa 2007). Not exactly my preferred genre, but the suggestion of said song does make me smile, if only because the memory a particularly enthusiastic ’round the campfire acoustic version takes over in my brain and makes me think of my time in the Southwest. What else makes me think of the Southwest? Tomatillos. (-illos, -illos…)

And now I have to tell you about a new blog that I’ve read cover to cover since I came across it on Friday morning: local kitchen. Kaela makes everything from salsa and mustard to jams and booze-y preserves, and it is all beautifully photographed and thoughtfully described. Swoon. My adventures in blog-reading on Friday evening may have prompted me to print out a slew of ideas for my kitchen binder. And then I had to retire my kitchen binder and transfer everything to a bigger 3-ring set up. That’s how great Kaela’s blog is. Local Kitchen was a timely find — here I was, with a kitchen counter COVERED in farm produce, and without a good idea for what all of that deliciousness was going to become.

First up, Kaela’s Salsa Verde. Tomatillos, green peppers, hot peppers, onion, garlic, cilantro…yum. I might make another batch this week.

Next? Cherry Tomato Confit, also from Local Kitchen. The boy and I went to the farm on Saturday to pick more produce before the season’s first frost, and several of the cherry tomatoes were literally splitting as we picked them — bursting with juice and flavor. I took a pint of these and slow-roasted them in the oven, turning them into Cherry Tomato Confit, and now there is a tiny 4 oz. jar in the fridge filled with the powerful flavors of sweet tomatoes, basil, parsley, thyme, garlic, and olive oil. On pasta? On pizza? Straight out of the jar?

I also harvested several big handfuls of mint to hang to dry in the kitchen (also something I learned from Local Kitchen). I love these pictures so much. Something about the vibrant greens.

And that isn’t even the whole of my Local Kitchen-inspired weekend adventures. Yesterday I may have been saying aloud (to anyone who would listen), “I don’t want to be a grad student right now. I just want to play in the kitchen.” Sigh.

And I do actually very much want to be a grad student. I’d just really like to press pause on life for a week in order to focus on preparing my kitchen for winter.

More produce, and even some spinning next time!

charging/recharging.

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So, school started on Wednesday. And even though I only had a few obligations on campus, and managed to can and cowl on Thursday (see what I did there? OED, here I come) the start of the semester is emotionally exhausting — something about trying to get comfortable in a slightly different routine. With all this in mind, my friend J. and I planned an afternoon hike, and it was just the kind of recharging we needed.

We headed out of town just after five, and hiked a nearby four-mile loop as we enjoyed the evening light. This really is my backyard — closer than my yoga teacher’s home studio, which is in one of the next towns over. Boh and I need to do this more.

When Boh and I returned, I made this colorful meal — nothing more than a bunch of farm veggies sauteed. I added some leftover rice from the fridge and it sopped up some of the broth created by the fresh tomatoes, and then I stirred in chunks of goat cheese feta to add a creamy texture. Super good, and just what I needed after that hike. This is the thing about cooking from a farm share — veggies that were harvested this week (often in the hours just before the afternoon member pick-up) are so full of flavor and earthy sweetness that you don’t have to do much of anything to them to make something absolutely delicious.

In between finishing one book and starting another, I inched towards the decrease row at the neckline of idlewood. Another inch or so and I’ll be there. I need to wind up another skein of yarn!

This morning, I worked on plying two bobbins of that super soft natural brown alpaca together. I tried to underply a bit, with the idea that a less tightly plied yarn would allow more a soft, alpaca-y halo in the finished yarn. It is soaking right now, so we’ll see how it turns out. On today’s agenda? Brunch with the boy, an afternoon birthday celebration near the lake, and a whole lot of reading/prepping for the week in between. Happy Sunday!

canning/cowling.

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On Wednesday night, I blanched, peeled, and cored about a gallon and a half of paste tomatoes. And then I went to bed, more tired from the start of the semester than from the hour and a half of tomato labor! Thursday morning, before I put the water on for coffee, I filled my canning pot, gathered together some jars and lids, and set to sterilizing. 4 quarts and 2 pints of tomatoes had been raw-packed and processed (45 mins in the water bath, according to the scanned cookbook page my parents sent me, complete with my mom’s tiny, perfect notations about the number of tomatoes that fit in a pint or quart jar — love it) by mid-morning. I’m hoping to do this again next week if there are still tomatoes to pick when I head out to the farm on Tuesday.

I’ve also been cowling, which is how I’m referring (aloud, to no one in particular) to the act of knitting the cowl portion of idlewood. I am in love with the way this fabric feels and drapes in this gauge. I think I’ve got about ten inches, so I’m about two-thirds of the way there. If I can finish a book this morning, I’m going to let myself watch last night’s episode of Project Runway and do some cowling. Happy Friday!

there and back.

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Apologies — I didn’t intend to just stop posting this week! I think I’m still recovering from my whirlwind 36 hour (+travel time) trip to LA for the wedding of a dear friend. I’m up early this morning, enjoying a full mug of coffee before heading off to an 8 am yoga class, and I have some photos to share. (Not much knitting, I’m afraid.)

The hotel was less than 3 miles from the Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. How could I not go? (Especially after TAing a class this spring that covered the Reagan presidency.) Let’s just say that the view was fantastic. The rest? I was surprised at the lack of any sort of coherent narrative (triumphant or otherwise) about Reagan or his presidency. Don’t get me wrong; there was quite a bit of material suggesting that Reagan single-handedly won the Cold War, but it was repetitive and rather disjointed. Instead, the focus seemed to be on the spaces Reagan inhabited: “his” Air Force One (commissioned in 1973, decommissioned in 2001 — he logged the most mileage and negotiated to display it when it was retired), a Cadillac from his motorcade, a replica of his Oval Office, and a scale model, dollhouse style, of the entire White House.  I have lots more to say about the ways the volunteer tour guides described the various exhibits, as well as the mandatory posed photo at the entrance to Air Force One (not unlike those roller coaster photos you have the option to purchase at an amusement park), but I’ll stop there for now.

The wedding took place at a stunning temple high above the Simi Valley. I posted a handful of photos from the pre-wedding receptions and the ceremony itself on Flickr, if you’re interested. (Click through on the sidebar.)

Despite the briefness of my trip, I had a fantastic weekend. It was so nice to catch up with dear friends, and especially wonderful to see the bride and groom so happy.

Boh stayed with his best friends this weekend, and when I picked him up (after a red-eye and an hour and a half drive from the airport), he didn’t seem to want to leave. Once we got home, however, he made himself comfortable. Here he is after our much needed afternoon nap on Monday.

This pizza was made with bbq sauce. Note to self: in the future, check the cupboard for tomato sauce BEFORE making pizza dough. (You know, if tomato sauce is important to you. The bbq sauce was actually pretty awesome, and I’d do this again.)

I call this “unstuffed zucchini.” Last night I looked at my farm share and thumbed through a favorite cookbook full of recipes contributed by CSA farmers, and stumbled across a whole page of ideas for stuffings to use in vegetables. This is a mixture of onions, tomatoes, chopped basil, garlic, ricotta and mozzerella. I sauteed the veggies, mixed in the cheese, and then instead of stuffing the zucchini, I simply chopped it up with some summer squash, poured the stuffing on top, and baked it until it developed a nice crust (45 minutes or so). Let’s just say there isn’t any left.

And there you have it. I’m about 15 rows from the end of my hemlock ring, and I will be almost sad to finish it. I’m going to have to make another, as this one will soon be winging its way to LA in honor of the union we celebrated last weekend.

In other news, the boy returns tomorrow. Hooray!

paws off, please.

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Somebody really likes my hemlock ring blanket.

Unfortunately, lace (even with heavy worsted weight yarn on big needles) + dog paws does not equal a good idea. Poor Boh.

Here he is again for scale — as you can see, I’ve begun the feather and fan section of the blanket, and might need to start looking for a longer circular. I’m using something in the 32 inch range right now, and I can see that this is going to start growing exponentially very soon.

Also, last night I made zucchini and onion pizza. I think I might have the leftovers for breakfast. Yum!

FO: new day (also, zucchini and chard).

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This is 150 yards of squishy, shiny, 2-ply made from 4 oz. of Spunky Club corriedale in the New Day colorway. The orange bits are my favorite part.

And here’s the zucchini ricotta galette I made for dinner last night. (I had company.) When Deb posted this recipe recently, I knew I had to make it. I think I’ve made every galette recipe she’s posted, and they’ve all been absolutely delicious!

I’m part of the way through plying the Pigeonroof Studios merino in the chard colorway, and I am absolutely loving the way the colors are combining. So pretty! In fact, pretty enough that I might put off the reading I must finish before my afternoon meeting to ply just a little bit more…

pesto makes everything better.

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I made a jar of homemade pesto on Tuesday morning, and yesterday, as soon as I had finished ripping out my ishbel and posting the sad photos here, I made a beeline for the stuff. Pesto makes everything better.

Boh and I took a nice, slow walk yesterday morning — extra slow, because this rooster pulled a hamstring in last weekend’s soccer match. Boh waited patiently while I photographed neighborhood flowers with my phone. Aren’t they lovely?

When I look at this photo I hear: “Now wait just a minute young lady…”

And this one! What a ham! Thank goodness for a decent camera phone.

And now, since this purports to be a knitting blog, I give you my citron. I’m in the middle of section 4, and I’m planning to add a few more sections to make a more substantial shawl. I spent a few hours on this last night while catching up on podcasts, and fell in love with it all over again. I intend to work only on this and the pinwheel for the next week, in hopes that I’ll finish both in time for the wedding. I’m counting on Boh to keep me on track.

ishbel revisited.

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Hey, remember when I was afraid of lace? Well, I’m working on that. This week I dug out my ishbel, and started the lace section. I may have had a slight freak-out when my count was off by one at the end of the first chart, but after lots of squinting at my shawl, I’m pretty sure I did something silly near the edging, because everything *seems* to be lined up in the body of the lace section. So I k2tog’ed the offending stitch, and moved onto chart B. Fingers crossed that everything will turn out…

Also, I picked a few more quarts of sugar snap peas, and turned some of them into these most delicious, incredibly simple pickled sugar snap peas again this year. Yum.

The pinwheel blanket has entered blob-land, and I’m well into the second skein. Hoping to keep cranking away on this so that it is done long before the wedding (on July 2).

Boh in a blanket. Or in more traditional dress, depending on your reading of this photograph. This look really seems to highlight Boh’s soulful eyes.

Alright, time to get to work!

pancakes/eggers.

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A lazy Saturday brunch.

This evening’s activities: prepping for my final sections, snuggling with Boh.

Boh responds unfavorably to my attempts at photo composition.

I’m itching to spend some time with my knitting needles and my wheel. A few more days filled to bursting with meetings and final class sessions, and then I’ll have big enough chunks of time to warrant focusing on my end-of-semester writing, which will likely require some dedicated time for thinking (read: knitting/spinning).

baked chicken meatballs.

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Still grading, still writing, still scrambling to figure out some kind of balance. Meatballs help. Especially these meatballs. The recipe has been waiting patiently in my binder o’ things to try, and I rediscovered it during a procrastinatory (yep, I’m making up words) purge of the recipe pile a few weeks ago. Enter a meat-eating boy. How could I not make these for dinner? Surprisingly quick, incredibly delicious, and perfect with a spring salad of romaine, radishes, carrots, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese.

No knitting — but I’ve done a (very) little bit of writing. If only the 100 words I’ve written here could somehow count towards the 1000 I need to turn in tomorrow…

Hope the sun is shining where you are. Here, it has made all the difference.