Fiber Fool

Last week’s salad of choice was once again baby spinach based :-) But this time I dressed it with some awesome fresh strawberries and a sprinkle of pine nuts with Marie’s Blue Cheese Vinaigrette. This one was even quicker to throw together than last week’s salad as there was no need to chop multiple veggies, just slice three strawberries, toss on the pine nuts and toss with a tad of the dressing. I’m pretty sure it took less than five minutes to prepare.

I started putting strawberries in my spinach salad after a restaurant in Willmar many years ago made an awesome salad like that with thinly sliced red onion and poppyseed dressing. I started to take that to pot lucks and such and always got rave reviews. I don’t, however, care to go to the trouble of slicing onion just for myself and one day decided to try the blue cheese with strawberries and loved it.

This week though, it has been chilly so I haven’t been able to get into the salad thing for lunch so far. In fact, I’m contemplating going to Spoons to pick up lunch today. I’ve had a sore throat (allergy drainage induced) for 12 days and interesting soup sounds really good while I wait for the new meds to kick in.

One last post on my Minnesota trip. So when I finished the Birthday socks so quickly I was in need of more knitting. I couldn’t knit at Amber’s because of Mr. Pissy Pants, but I knew I couldn’t get through the return trip to Colorado without knitting. This is where number ten - “Always pack additional sizes of knitting needles” comes in. I had one heck of a time trying to locate yarn appropriate for socks and thick enough to warrant US2 needles. I ended up settling on some Paton Kroy from Crafts Direct in St. Cloud on our way to Plymouth where we were taking in a performance of Church Basement Ladies: A Second Helping and spending the night before my return flight.

What you see atop this post is what I completed by the time I reached my door back in Colorado. I have had to neglect it since my return. Now that I pulled it out again to photograph I’m thinking it may get frogged. The fabric is really looser than I care for when it comes to socks and I stuck with the 60 stitch count because I figured the cable would snug it up, but it still feels kind of big. We’ll see though. I won’t get to touch it until at least June, probably longer so I’ll probably wait to decide whether to frog or not at such time that I need my US2 needles or I have time to knit just for me again. But, I am liking the colors very much :-)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Just a quick note to say that the Two Toe-Up Socks on Two Circulars class starts this Saturday, May 10th. As of mid-day on Wednesday there were only two slots remaining in the class. See full details on the Fiber Arts Class page.

If you haven’t taken a class from me before, you get full color handouts illustrating the new techniques used in the projects of the class. These handouts include room for you to make additional notes to help jog your memory when you refer to them at a later date. This class also includes a multi-sized and multi-gauge pattern with guidance on working with two socks on two circs and tips on sizing and adjustments for special fitting needs. The pattern also includes four stitch patterns you can plug right into the sock as you go.

With the rising mercury my mind starts turning to meals that require little to no additional heat. Not that the house is getting terribly hot yet, but I know one day we’ll suddenly be approaching the 80 degree mark inside and it’ll happen faster than I will be ready for. So, I’m getting into the habit of eating salads for lunch. However, I am also one who prefers variety.

The latest issue of Sunset that arrived in my mailbox had some interesting salad ideas. Most of them are not likely for me because they either require too much work for making one single salad or require food that DH would prefer I not make in the house. But there were several seeds of inspiration there. The salad pictured at the top here is one that resulted.

The big inspiration was the dressing used on one of the salads. A yogurt-based spicy dressing where the spice comes from a traditional Tunisian chili paste called Harissa. I had Harissa when we ate at Leaf in Boulder back in October and I really liked it so after reading the recipe in Sunset and not finding it on the shelves of my two nearest grocery stores (I can’t say I was surprised) I sought recipes to make my own. I am very glad I did because it gave me an excuse to use some more of the dried chilies we grew last year and seeing as how we’ll have more chilies before we know it that is a great thing. I kind of based mine off of the recipe at about.com. But I used a wide variety of dried chilies and next time I’d likely add another 2 or 3 cloves of garlic which would bring it more in line with other recipes that appeared on blogs and the like. In the meantime I can just add the garlic as I use the paste. Another advantage is that the past keeps under olive oil in the fridge for a month.

Since DH is vegetarian and I was advised to not take that path myself after a year of doing so it is nice for me to have some easy to add meat around the house that won’t offend. So, I added three chicken breast tenders from the freezer section to my salad. Because I can bake them in a toaster oven it doesn’t put out near the same amount of heat as something that would need to go into the large oven. I’ve also been known to purchase a rotisserie chicken from my supermarket when they are on sale and split it out into single serving portions and freeze it.

With or without the meat this salad was sure to please. I used baby spinach for my greens since the dark green leaves have many more nutrients and fiber than your stander iceberg, and even other leaf lettuces. I had some pre-cut veggies like bell peppers and baby carrots and celery from taking veggies to SnB and just chopped them a bit smaller to add to the salad. The result was a slightly spicy, tangy, complex salad with great color and eye appeal - just what we should strive for, even if only “cooking” for ourselves!