Fiber Fool

After a fantastic breakfast at my fav breakfast location we hit one of the local nurseries for seeds. This weekend, amongst knitting and further garden reading (we’re looking at doing a lot of companion planting to aid in pest management) we’ll be starting to make our starter pots with our handy dandy pot maker and getting ready to start some of our seeds. Last weekend while taking the weekend off from knitting we started sketching out what and where to plant things. This planning stage is kind of fun!

This year I’m going to try using a Ravelry-esque website to track our garden progress - MyFolia. You can join in on the fun as well!

Last weekend both Ashley and Amanda were on their own. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to have a lunch. I’ve fed them at teas, but I don’t often have the chance to cook a meal for them. I still didn’t really cook a meal as I had great help from Drew and Ashley brought some fantastic homemade bread. But it was a darn fine meal if I do say so myself and I’ll take some credit for organizing it :-)

We had some lovely mixed greens from Amanda with some of our tomatoes to make a nice simple salad, Drew made zucchini fritte and helped destem the basil as well as cooked the mini penne, I cut and chopped the basil and made the homemade pesto - chopped by hand of course! Oh, and I cannot forget the homemade butter Drew made that morning in the Kitchen Aid mixer.

It all went together so well and made a perfect autumn outdoor lunch. In fact, that was likely the last outdoor meal for the season. DH and I might sneak in another one or two ourselves, but I also need to get it sanded and oiled and ready to be in storage for the winter.

While the little man (wow, has his face started to thin out and look even more like his dad) napped we had some locally roasted coffee and an apple raspberry crisp that I kind of made up on the fly. The apples were from our tree. I have no idea of what variety they are since we did not plant the tree, but so far only a few have the slightest blush of red, they have a nice firm flesh, and they have become rather sweet in the last couple of weeks.

The crisp was a hit I think. We shared more of it with our friends Anne and Rod that evening and they really liked it as well. Ashley was asking me questions about how I made it so I told her I’d post the recipe. So, here it is…

Kristi’s Apple Raspberry Crisp*

For filling:

• 1 1/2 pounds apples, peeled and sliced thin
• 12 oz raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 1/4 C water + 1 packet of True Lime (you could use 1/4 C real lime juice, but our limes had turned)
• 3/4 C packed brown sugar
• 1/2 t ground cinnamon
• 1/2 t ground ginger
• 1/4 t fresh ground cardamom (contents of roughly 4-5 pods)
• 1/4 t fresh ground clove
• 1/3 C flour

For Crisp Topping:

• 3/4 C flour
• 1/3 C pecans, chopped
• 1/4 C sugar
• 6 T butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine all filling ingredients in a 3 quart glass baking dish and mix well. With a fork combine the topping ingredients until a crumble forms. Sprinkle evenly over the topping. Bake until the filling is bubbling on the edges, about 40 minutes. Let cool 30 - 60 minutes and serve slightly warm with ice cream.

Notes: As I mentioned, we used apples from our tree and I don’t know the variety. You want a nice crisp textured apple that will hold up to the baking and still retain it’s shape. Skip the Delicious varieties and try Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Braeburn, or Fuji. I haven’t gotten my hands on a Honeycrisp yet, but I suspect those would make a nice pairing with the tart raspberries as well.

The spices came more forward in the fully cooled version of the crisp, though we did eat it cool without ice cream. If you decide to forgo the ice cream in favor or au natural or just whipped cream you may wish to scale back the cardamom and clove just slightly, or to substitute pre-ground versions.

*Amber, this was loosely based on our “Fall Crack in a Bowl” that we ate last September. Remember that? I was hoping to recreate that, but no luck finding any rhubarb, fresh or frozen right now.

Over the weekend the Minnesota Midget Melons decided they had had enough and it was time to come inside. There are another 4 or so out on the vine that aren’t quite ready, but these four all came ripe over the long holiday weekend. To those who laughed at us when we said we were going to be growing melons here - I return the laugh! Behold, we have melons and well before the average first frost! Ha!!!! It’s all about choosing the proper variety for your location. While we are well south of Minnesota the growing season is quite similar due to our elevation and lack of humidity, so choosing a varietal that was created at the UofMn was a natural choice.

If my sister is reading - Emma was again possessed by Sootie this morning. It is a semi-regular occurrence. This morning it was by the Sootie who liked the fair.*

This weekend has been a somewhat trying one. Trying in a good way for the most part. In way that makes me say, “I am really a &*$( designer!” I discovered a stitch pattern that is not so easily converted to knitting in the round. It can be done, but it can’t be written easily in either a chart or long-hand manner. I spent hours crunching numbers in Excel (or rather NeoOffice) to turn that handspun spiral into five sizes. I’ve lined up test knitters (I may be in need of another two for lace socks, stay tuned). I’ve been invited to contribute to a fun web site that is launching in a month or two and invited to contribute to a book. I am designer, hear me roar, LOL!

I’m only posting the tomato one here because it is over a week old now and I love it. This has been our centerpiece (in varying formations) for the last ten days or so. Sometimes the nicest centerpiece is simple produce. Yes, I puff up a bit if said simple produce was a product of my garden :-)

* To those who are not my sister… Sootie was my mom’s first Seeing Eye dog ™. She got her when I was in about 8th grade so I grew up with her. I wasn’t there for this particular Sootie story so my details may be incorrect, in which case I invite Amber to fix any in the comments. However, mom and Sootie went to the fair with dad and my sister. They were in one of the home ec buildings where they had bales of hay and produce set up in an appealing way to kind of draw people in to check out the awards for the produce and preserves and such. Well, Sootie was never very well behaved when it came to food, even if she was in her harness and “working.” She stole a mini pumpkin and pranced around the building until someone saw it and stopped chuckling enough to tell mom about it. At least I believe Sootie was carrying it by the stem. Emma didn’t have such a choice. I had picked three midget melons this morning and I couldn’t carry those around while I was checking to see what else needed picked so I set them on the step on the way into the house. Well, before I know it Emma is prancing up behind me with a cantelope in her mouth. I’m kind of surprised. She carried plums and apples all over the yard, but I thought even though these melons are a small variety that they would bigger than she would want to carry. But when they are nice and ripe, those canines sink right in and you can carry it around and run away from mom as much as you want! LOL!

Yes, I am aware that it is not Friday today according to the calendar. However, SIL2 is getting married on Saturday. Though neither of us has a role in the wedding we decided to make a long weekend of it so we will begin our weekend tomorrow morning. So, for me, today is Friday.

Last night I rooted around in the garden in hopes that we won’t have any produced spoiled before our return. I’ll make another pass tomorrow morning to be sure. The photo above shows what came from the garden last night, aside from about 4-5 cups of basil (of both varieties, but mostly the common sweet basil). Doesn’t it look great? We got heirloom tomatoes and were unsure of their final color. But after leaving one on the vine for a week to ten days at the same orange color we determined the monster variety are to be deep yellow to orange.

In order to use some of the harvest I had made some polenta up early in the day and wrapped it into logs using waxed paper. Then DH sliced and pan fried them and we topped them with a variety of things, including some of our tomatoes some of DH’s cheese and a few chopped herb sauces.

With just the two of us we have taken to making our herb sauces by hand chopping rather than using the food processor. It give the sauce that touch of rustic and just has a nice mouthfeel since it isn’t turned into a cohesive paste. I made pesto using mostly the traditional sweet basil, but I tossed in a bit of the spicier globe basil. I’ve also become enamored with the chimichurri sauce that was posted at Tea & Cookies not too long ago. Those who are unfamiliar with chimichurri, it is a blend of parsley and cilantro that has some cayenne, white vinegar or citrus juice and olive oil. While it is traditionally a sauce that is served with steak, it is like summer in a bowl on top of pasta. It also made a wonderful polenta topping and paired especially well with the avocado.

The pan fried polenta was a great late summer supper. It requires only a small amount of heat and you can top it with a large variety of things from the garden or a farmer’s market. I wasn’t sure if we’d feel satisfied with just the polenta for dinner, but it served us quite well.

This was our first strawberry off of one of the everbearing strawberries. There were a few early on in the season right after we planted them, but they got nabbed by something. I’m always amazed by how much better the locally grown ones taste and how they are red throughout rather than just on the outside. DH and I have been splitting the berries as they become ripe. I think we’ll have a quiet time here for a bit, but there are more set and working towards ripening.

It is to be a real scorcher this weekend. Thankfully, the forecasted lows have been higher than reality and we’ve been able to get the house down to about 65 degrees overnight so we aren’t exceeding about 77 or 78 in the house (and that was with canning both days). We aren’t reaching those temps until it is very nearly cool enough to open up and turn the fans on again so the 90+ degrees have been bearable. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to say the same for the nearly 100 degrees, but we’ll see! Stay cool and have a good weekend!

ETA: After hitting “publish” I went to stretch and caused a terrible spasm in my upper back on the side that usually doesn’t have any problems. Trying to wash my hair or get dressed is pure agony, calling forth tears. I’m laying flat on a heating pad and can read blogs, but typing is rather uncomfortable, so please excuse my lack of commenting at the moment or replying to comments left here.