cosmicpluto knits!

summertime eats

Well, I’m knitting lots, but it isn’t very exciting to look at – mostly working on my cabled scarf (so close to the end!) and I’ve restarted that little shrug too. Really I’m just itching to cast on for some new fall sweater projects, but I really need to get a few things done first!

So today I have a little bit of food to share, instead.

I brought home rather a LOT of pickling cucumbers from the produce stores near my work yesterday, and today set about making some refrigerator pickles. No water processing required, no fear of bad canning, and they stay so very crispy, which I love!

I made one huge vat of cucumber garlic dills – it’s 1.8L/2qt! The slightly smaller jar in the back is beans, done up with basically the same spices and brine. They were yellow, green, and purple to start with, but unfortunately now they’re all kind of greeny grey. Oh well, they’ll still taste awesome.

Super Easy Garlic Dills

Veggies:
Whatever you like. I did sliced kirby cucumbers and trimmed green beans, I’m sure this would be great with carrots, cauliflower, radishes, whatever! I’m not sure how many cucumbers I used – probably about 10 small ones for the 1.8L jar.

Brine:
4 cups / 1L water
4 cups / 1L white vinegar
6tbsp pickling salt

Seasonings:
garlic, peeled
dill seed
red pepper flakes
black peppercorns
celery seed
fresh dill

Mix together water, vinegar and salt in a largeish pot and heat on the stove to a simmer. While it’s heating, prep your veggies and add seasonings to your jars.

For the 1.8L jar of cucumbers, I used: 4 cloves garlic, 4 tsp dill seed, a dash each of celery seed and red pepper flakes, 3 stalks fresh dill and a few whole black peppercorns.

Pack the veggies tightly into the jars leaving some room at the top (1/2″-1″, not as important as when processing because we’re just sticking these in the fridge). Slowly add brine to cover. Let the jars cool on the counter, then stick them in the fridge. That’s it! They’ll begin to taste pickled after just a few hours, but it’s best to wait at least a few days.

Wow, that’s a giant jar of pickles!

I also managed to find Ontario strawberries at the big chain supermarket, which I was pretty surprised by – I picked up three containers and made jam with half (I might get more tomorrow or soon and make more or ice cream!). I prefer freezer jam because it uses much less sugar, and has that just-picked-fruit taste that you just don’t get with cooked jam.

I just followed the recipe on the gelling agent packet and it came out perfectly. I’ll definitely have to make at least 1 more batch of freezer jam soon, maybe wild blueberry!

What are you doing with this summer’s awesome produce?

strawberry tart

Thanks so much for your reception of the Massey Wrap! I’ve been wearing it a lot – light enough for springy weather, but long and warm enough for the occasional blustery day like we’ve been having lately.

I don’t have much in the way of knitting to show you all, so how about some yummy dessert instead?

I made this for denny’s 50th birthday party at lettuce knit yesterday. I’ve had such a craving for a strawberry tart and haven’t found them anywhere – and of course, my homemade one is tastier anyway!

I used this recipe from Confessions of a Tart, slightly modified. I had an 11″ tart pan rather than a 9″ one, so I doubled the pastry recipe and had enough for a pretty thick crust on the big tart, and a couple of mini ones (which are still chilling out in the freezer). The fact that this pastry doesn’t require pie weights is great, since I don’t have any.

I made 1.5 times the pastry cream so I’d be sure to have enough, and I used half a vanilla bean in the milk rather than vanilla extract at the end. Delicious – the pastry cream is my favourite part, really. It’s quite eggy on its own but works so well with the strawberries. I don’t generally like to buy strawberries out of season, but this week I found some organic ones that actually smelled and tasted like proper strawberries and were cheaper than conventional, too!

No glaze; they’re kind of heavy and weird. This was all freshness. I’d definitely make it again – perfect for a crowd and would work great with all kinds of fruit – I think whole blueberries would be really good.

Happy Birthday Denny!

a slow re-entry

I spent all of last week in Boston, exploring, meeting up with friends, and eating. The weather was good for the most part – a little dreary during the week, but totally beautiful on the weekend. I spent a couple hours at the Museum of Fine Arts on a drizzly day:

I carried my camera around a lot, but I didn’t really take any other photos – like of biking around, exploring Porter Square, Jamaica Plain and the South End, and meeting up with people for drinks and Alice in Wonderland. I did, however, manage to take a few photos of food I made while there! Mmmm, food. (I didn’t make the Boston Cream Pie, that was from Flour Bakery!)

Back soon with Actual Knitting Content.

more pretties

I’m not sure I’ve hit the ground running this new year, but I have hit the stranded colourwork!

A fresh off the needles wee colourwork project, designed to use up bits of yarn. I used Koigu in about 18 colours! They weren’t all leftovers; the main background colour is one full skein, and a bunch of them I bought as mill ends (a couple grams of each). I’m hoping to have this pattern up very shortly.

And it’s so nice, I knit it twice! Well, technically this is a slightly different option of the pattern. But it’s basically the same. Also, can I say hooray for daylight-spectrum bulbs? I put one in my office and now I can take photos like this one without having to massively colour-correct.

I’ve also been hard at work writing up a bunch of patterns in the backlog. Here’s hoping it gets flowing soon – I have a few with test knitters and some that need new photographs too. It’s a bit tricky to take photos outside in this weather though; it’s pretty chilly out there!

Hope you’re staying warm.

(Sunday morning breakfast: chocolate chip yoghurt pancakes and coffee. Mmm.)

two weeks

Um, yikes. Time’s going by rather alarmingly quickly, isn’t it?

This scarf has been on my rigid heddle loom (Ashford 24″) for months and months, since before I moved! It was even still in its plastic garbage bag under my desk until I decided this week that it was high time to finish it. And of course once I picked it up again, I was finished in 2 hours!

That led to warping the loom up again, and right now I have 2 scarves have their soak. The loom is empty just now, but I might even warp it up again tonight.

A knit I’m really excited by, but was putting off because it’s fiddly – Some Assembly Required. Personally I’m not really one for knitting very fiddly things, especially small fiddly things (I’m pretty game for complicated sweaters and things). Toys are pretty challenging for me just because there’s so much finishing and fiddling compared to the actual knitting! Give me a big swatch of stockinette any day.

That said, this is a pretty fun knit so far. I’ve only done the head, but I’m hoping to make a good dent in the torso-knitting this afternoon.

Oh, and just in case someone out there needs a yummy recipe to bring to one of those numerous parties this time of year?

Twix-alike bars! So good. The only changes I made were to add some sea salt to the caramel (probably about 1/2 to 3/4 tsp) and to cut the squares much, much smaller. Nom.

we interrupt…

…your regularly scheduled Rhinebeck yarn post for an important announcement.

Soft Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Make them NOW. Go to the store for ingredients if you must – they are orange and black after all, perfect for that Hallowe’en party later this week (if they make it to then).

My very slight mods to the recipe: I used 1/2 brown, 1/2 white sugar, upped the chocolate chips a touch (to use up the rest of the bag), mixed by hand, and used heaping tablespoons rather than 1/4 cup portions for each cookie. I got 30 cookies…but there aren’t that many now!

A sneak peek at the yarn? Sure.

Clearly I’m in a purple period!