Fiber Fool

I’d give you all three guesses as to the twist my grapefruit sorbet had this week, except I couldn’t count the first two since I also couldn’t leave the twist out of the photos, LOL! It added such a nice spark of contrast I couldn’t help myself.

If you’ve read me for any length of time it is no secret that I love my tart citrus fruits. Grapefruit and lime are probably about tied. I love to eat and drink them. I also love to use beauty products that are scented like either of them especially if they are not muddied with additional herb or vegetable scents (oh how I miss Fruit Punch from Bath & Bodyworks). Though the right blend of those are hard for me to resist as well, even if I walk around all day dreaming of Pad Thai or some other dish.

While I don’t prefer my citrus bath products to include herbs I have been obsessed with a capital O on combining rosemary with grapefruit. It has been on my mind for months and months. I started out by making rosemary sugar to use in a recipe. After letting it sit a day the rosemary smelled so strongly I wimped out on that recipe and used only half of the sugar I had made and half plain sugar (which it ended up I didn’t need to do). So, I’ve had a sizeable portion of rosemary sugar lying about that needed using. I started by combining 1-2 teaspoons with about 1/4 cup of grapefruit juice and topped with ice and seltzer for a refreshing lower calorie drink than cola. It was lovely and I suspect would be a fantastic adult beverage with a splash of vodka as well.

That was not however making much of a dent in the rosemary sugar. As the weather turned hot enough for a long enough streak to really warm up the house this week I decided to make grapefruit and rosemary sorbet. It was inspired if I do say so myself! I used all rosemary sugar to make the simple syrup I combined with grapefruit juice and zest and the balance was great. I did put a tad too much zest in, or shouldn’t have candied some of the peel in the simple syrup I made as there was a bit too bitter of an immediate aftertaste. It did subside rather quickly and in some ways added to the refreshing quality of the frozen dessert. But I’ve made adjustments in the recipe below. I’d love feedback if any of you try it.

Grapefruit And Rosemary Sorbet

• 1-2 tsp Grapefruit Zest (when using zest in cooking I highly recommend shelling out for the organic)
• 2 large Ruby Red Grapefruit juice (approximately 1.5 C)
• 1/2 C Water
• 1 C Rosemary Sugar (see below)
• 1 Tbs Vodka

1. In a small saucepan on medium heat, combine rosemary sugar and water and bring to boil to create a simple syrup. Once boiling and the sugar has dissolved completely remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
2. Zest and juice the grapefruit. I find little pips get through the large holes in my hand juicer so I pour it through a fine sieve to be certain to remove those. Add syrup and vodka. Total volume should be about 3.5 cups.
3. Chill for a few hours, until mixture is about 40 degrees or cooler. Add to your 1-qt ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for operation.

If you care to risk it, you can do as I did and boil some fine pieces of peel (be careful of the white pith, my peels may have not been quite fine enough and thus been the cause of the extra bitterness this first batch had) in with the simple syrup to use as garnish. Once they cool, but before they set up too much you can curl them to wow your friends even more.

We use a Donvier, a hand crank ice cream maker that uses a freezer chilled chamber. Be certain you have chilled the chamber for the full time recommended by the manufacturer if you use a chilled chamber type machine. I’ve found over the years that I do not want to put in more than 3.5 cups or it doesn’t set up well. We also finish the sorbet by freezing it in a container in the freezer for at least a few hours. The vodka acts as a bit of antifreeze (and it undetectable) and keeps it from setting up too hard. If you do not have an ice cream maker you should be able to use this same recipe and freeze it like a granita, where you place it in a shallow pan and stir/scrape with a fork every hour or so until it has reached your desired consistency.

Rosemary Sugar

• 2.5 C Raw (Turbinado) Cane Sugar
• Leaves of one 8″ length of fresh Rosemary

Place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until rosemary is quite fine and well incorporated into the now finer raw sugar. Place in an air tight container and let sit for 12 hrs or more before using, shaking container every 3-4 hours or as you remember.

The raw sugar used here helped form the deeper, richer color of the sorbet since all the molasses has not been stripped. I also just prefer to use products that are processed the least amount possible. If you opt to use white sugar you may wish to add a splash of grenadine to your mixture before chilling to enhance the color of the sorbet a bit. The rosemary sugar can be used in all kinds of things in place of regular sugar, from sugar cookies and scones to mojitos and anything else you can imagine.

My stockpile of facecloths has been slowly dwindling over the last few years as they’ve worn out and I haven’t replenished my stock in at least 5 years. Looking at my sad stack of 5 cloths remaining I decided it was time to remedy it. At first I was going to hit my local Bed Bath and Beyond or Target, but then decided small projects and non-wool yarns are prefect for the needles in the summer when the house temperature often soars to 80+ degrees by late afternoon so I decided to make some fun and special facecloths to make my beauty rituals more fun and a special treat rather than something to hurry through to get to work or bed.

With July 4th coming up my mind had turned to stars. Not 6 or 8 pointed stars, but the good old 5 point star. Well over a year ago when I was messing around with mitered knitting I had thought about making stars with the technique. When I set out to make a 5 pointed version however I had no idea what I was getting myself into! The first attempt I had misplaced the increases and decreases and was getting a pentagon rather than a star. A rookie mistake, but I hadn’t worked with mitering in a while and hadn’t bothered to reference anything on the first try.

Having jogged my memory of how you want to place the increases and decreases in relationship to each other to create the mitering I blithely continued onto trial two, but decided to use a few patterns as reference material and they ended up steering me wrong. I suppose that is what I get. I ended up with something very starfish-like as the center bulged and the points curled quite a bit. The kicker was that I thought the placements of the increases and decreases was odd, but it was clear I was getting actual points so once again I did not listen to the voice in my head and knit a whole cloth before realizing round 2 was not the answer. The result was kind of cool, but really not what I was going for.

The third attempt was closer. I got straight and properly proportioned points on the star, but #3 would have made a much better pastie for someone even more graciously endowed than myself, LOL! The center would not lay flat and since I was working with an inelastic blend of cotton and bamboo blocking it flat was not an option. Not to mention who wants to have to severely block their washcloths? That just doesn’t seem practical.

To remedy the bulging center problem I decided I needed to both start with more stitches and increase at a faster rate. It worked for the fourth one. I got a nice facecloth that would lie flat, but my points on the start were kind of skinny and took away from the inner circumference of the cloth. Since I can’t imagine the points being used for much more than removing eye make-up I didn’t want to sacrifice the size of the non-point section of the star so it was to the drawing board AGAIN!

The fifth time was the charm in this case. I ended up combining trials 3 and 4 into what has become the official Stellar Facecloth pattern. What I had been envisioning to be a couple days design project ended up taking me the entire month of May! Not quite exclusively, but it got the bulk of my design attention for the month. While some have thought me nuts to keep trying I’m glad I did. I really like the outcome. It is a nice and generous size cloth (12.5″ from point to point), it has a very pleasing star shape, and it only requires laying flat to finish drying (you can partially dry it in the dryer) rather than a true pinned blocking.

These three were knit from Frog Tree’s Picoboo, a fair trade pima cotton and bamboo blend yarn. I’ve never used a blend for washcloths before so we’ll see what I end up thinking about them once they come home from My Sister Knits. Or, maybe I’ll be able to squeeze a striped one from the leftovers that I can keep at home and try. Supposedly bamboo fiber is anti-bacterial which would be valuable in a facecloth so I decided to give it a try. Plus, the slight sheen makes the washcloths seem that much more “special.” The yarn is classified as a sport weight by Frog Tree, but I think it is probably on the line between sport and DK. I opted for US5 needles because mitering tends to make fabric a bit more stiff. Normally for facecloths my tendency is to go down 1-2 needles sizes from the recommendation because when cotton is wet it stretches so easily. But US5s were perfect in this application.

The pattern is free for the month of June only in the My Sister Knits June 2010 newsletter which is available on their Community News page! I put it up last Friday and I can’t believe the amount of hits it has gotten in such a short period of time. I’m so excited and want to thank those of you who helped get the word out. The amazing response tells me it was worth the five tries to get the shape just right!

Sorry for the long silence. It seemed I wrote many blog posts in my head. In some cases I even took the photos for them, but they somehow didn’t get written. Where are those blog gnomes when you need them?!

I’m working on some collections for fall and winter so it is pretty much nearly all secret knitting around these parts which means knitting posts are pretty much nonexistent. Except of course the patterns I design with yarn from My Sister Knits for the newsletters. Up above and to the right is May’s free pattern - Cirrus. It is a simple all in one, no seaming, side-to-side shrug that is completely customizable to your own particular ration of across back width and upper arm circumference. The pattern is still available for free on page 3 of the May 2010 newsletter at the My Sister Knits Community News page.

The stitch pattern is a small, two-stitch repeat with two pattern rows in the vertical repeat so it is simple to memorize, a pretty simple lace for those new to lace knitting or a great KIP or TV-watching project for those more experienced with lace knitting. This open faggoted lace often does a great job of mixing up higher contrast colors of handpainted yarns too. I put a small gusset at the transitions from sleeve to back so that the edges on the flat section are self-finishing and it gives just a tad more wiggle room for getting the shrug on and off.

This one was knit from Madelinetosh tosh sock yarn in the Nostalgia colorway and for the small size pictured here took only about 3/4 of a 4oz skein. The pattern contains four sizes based on garment sizing standards if you are knitting it as a gift and don’t have exact measurements and takes 275-500 yds of fingering weight yarn. There are notes on how to make adjustments and you could also easily make longer or fuller sleeves as well. Just don’t forget that any changes you make will impact the yardage you require!

I’m hoping things will slow down around here sometime this summer so I can whip one up for myself. It slips into a purse so easily so it is at the ready when AC in restaurants and such gets to be too much. One can even keep the seam to the inside and wear it as a tube scarf if only the neck is chilled!