Fiber Fool

It is official, we have a new dog joining our family. I will be picking him up late this afternoon. He’ll be sharing his adoption day with my mom’s birthday! He is currently being called Atwater, but he was a stray and has no attachment to the name. Atwater had kind of grown on me, but DH isn’t too fond of it. The top name in the running for him is now Brandon. I’d share a pic, but photo taking was prohibited when I visited yesterday so you’ll have to follow his link to see him for now. I might get a photo posted to my twitter account when we head for home.

Our current dog, Emma, is a Corgi/Chow/Lab mix and comes in a couple inches taller than Brandon.

In honor of Brandon’s homecoming today, if you can figure out the theme that inspired the naming of our dogs you’ll be entered to win 1 of 3 free copies of my Pyewacket sock knitting pattern. Make your entries in the comments below by Sunday, August 2nd. Only one entry per person please!

On Monday I’ll use the random number generator to choose the 3 winners.

Tweet the contest for a double entry, just tweet “RT: @fiberfool Enter to win 1 of 3 Pyewacket sock knitting patterns in honor of the new dog! http://bit.ly/dPr1U” Be sure to include your twitter name in your blog comment so I get your double entry recorded!

Now, go give your pets a scratch and cuddle!

This past weekend, back home in Minnesota was a gathering of my dad’s family. Mom called me a few times toward the end of the week to get info on this dish I make fairly regular around here. Mom cracked me up when she asked me for the source and I told her my head. She didn’t really believe me that I did not get it from a cookbook or magazine. Silly, silly mom!

It is one of those magic dishes that is edible hot, room temp or chilled and thus a great choice for a picnic. She got requests for the recipe and I could have sworn I had posted the recipe here before, but a search of this blog, the old blog and my neglected LiveJournal account all came up empty. As did a search of my Flickr and all my photos since January 2007 in Lightroom.

At the farmer’s market this Sunday we were on a mission to get the fixings for it so I could take some pics and post the recipe. We got a good share of ingredients at the market so this may be a good choice for those of you looking to eat local this summer!

Mediterranean Orzo Pasta

Serves 4 as main dish, 6-8 as side dish.

• 2 Tbs Olive Oil
• 1 lrg Yellow Onion, sliced into half rings
• 1 Lemon, zest and juice
• 1/2 dry pint Grape Tomatoes, halved (can use cherry quartered as well)
• 1/4-1/3 c Kalamata Olives, pitted and quartered
• 1-2 oz fresh Basil, chiffonade
• 8 oz Orzo Pasta
• 3-4 oz Baby Spinach, rough chopped
• 4 oz reduced fat Feta Cheese, crumbled
• Salt and Fresh Coarsely Ground Black Pepper, to taste

1. Warm olive oil in skillet over medium-low while cleaning and slicing the onion. Add onion to warmed skilled, stir to coat onion in olive oil and leave while working on remainder of dish. Stir occassionally while completing the remaining steps. Reducing stirring will help promote the caramelizing of the onions.
2. Zest and juice lemon into a large serving bowl. Prep tomatoes, olives and basil as directed.
3. Fill large pot with water and bring to a boil. Add orzo and cook as directed.
4. While pasta is cooking rough chop the spinach and place in a heat-proof colander. For the last 4 minutes or so of the pasta cooking time, hold colander with spinach over the pasta pot and if possible put pan cover on top to trap the steam. Wilt the spinach in this manner, turning with tongs once or twice during cooking time.
5. Place spinach into bowl with other ingredients, drain pasta and place into bowl over spinach to finish the wilting and to release the oils in the basil. Add the caramelized onions and feta cheese and stir.
6. Salt and pepper as desired. I often do not add any salt when serving it warm as the olives and the cheese are both quite salty. When eating chilled I’ll sprinkle with a bit of kosher salt in addition to some additional fresh ground black pepper.

Nutrition Info (as main course, serving 4): cal 366; fat 14g; sat fat 3g; chol 8g; sodium 644mg; carb 49g; fiber 4g; pro 14g.
Nutrition Info (as side dish, serving 6): cal 244; fat 9g; sat fat 2g; chol 6g; sodium 429mg; carb 32g; fiber 3g; pro 9g.

This is the view looking west from the Lindenmeier Overlook that is at the end of a ~1/4 mile paved trail at the new Fort Collins natural area, Soapstone Prairie (there’s a nice informative 10 min video too). If you are in the area and haven’t heard about Soapstone, it is ~25 miles north of town along the Wyoming boarder. Parts of it connect to the new Larimer County Red Mountain natural area as well as a Cheyenne natural area.

Ashley and I went and hiked the 3 mile Towhee trail on July 5th. It is a relatively easy trail with only ~400 ft elevation gain occurring in the first mile and then a slow descent over the last two miles. Above and below are views from the trail near the 1/2 way point.

The photos do not do justice to how gorgeous this natural area is. Of course it was aided by our unusually wet and cool June. I’m not certain of the source or the validity of the claim, but someone told me before I went that some of the species on the prairie there only flower every two years and that the wet June coincided with the flowering cycle to produce an amazing wildflower display. I don’t know if that info is correct, but the wildflower display was unlike any I’ve seen in my ten years in Colorado!

The day was bright and shining when we arrived. Nice and cool with a fair breeze. All the sun let me play and learn more about my circular polarizer and neutral density filters. The large number of wildflowers let me play with my close-up filters too! We no sooner made a pit stop at the trailhead and it started to sprinkle. We couldn’t have planned it any better!

I’ll share a better look at the wildflowers after some more quality time with my newNational Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers: Western Region :-)

This year has been a very humbling one for this fledgling gardener. There was much hail throughout the month of June. Three really bad ones with hail piling up and sitting for hours before melting. That has left the garden a bit stunted and behind. I’m not sure how much harvest we will ultimately have, but we had out first meal using stuff from the garden last night.

I have learned that arugula stands up well to hail and is fairly effectively kept from bolting by being planted around the edges of the pumpkin bed. I had a large harvest of fairly petite arugula leaves yesterday morning. I had read they don’t keep very well so I wanted to use them right away. I whipped up a batch of arugula and walnut pesto that I served over cellentani pasta and white beans with carmelized onions and chèvre with a side dressing of balsamic grape tomatoes. There was also of course the required garlic bread :-)

It was delicious if I do say so myself. I’m looking forward to the leftovers as a cold salad for lunch today :-) There is a bit of the pesto left over as well. Perhaps we’ll have that on some polenta cakes???

It has been a long time since I made time to sit at the spinning wheel. But, starting last week I began making some time near the end of the “working day” to have some quality time with the wheel. All I can say is thank heavens for good tactile and muscle memory! The first several yards at the beginning of the bobbin are inconsistent, but not too much more than normal when trying to find just the right tension, thinness, twist etc. when starting a new yarn.

What is on the bobbin? Some puni’s designed to stripe that I made from the fiber in the above photo. They were made nearly 2 years ago when Cathy kindly lent me her drum carder.

Unfortunately, I did not manage to work any spinning into the holiday weekend. If I keep the same pace I had last week I have 10 more days of spinning before I’m ready to ply… Why do I like such fine 3-ply yarns? :-)