I haven’t had much for recipes for you lately. Things have been stagnant here in the new recipe department since the fruit revelation. Funny how one little thing can set a girl running back to the food she knows. So it’s been a lot of salads, green smoothies and rice dishes. Last week I made my first batch of Kombucha.

When I went in for a tattoo day 2 weeks ago, Jennifer had brought in a little SCOBY for me. I bought my jar and away I went to make my Kombucha. In case you don’t want to click the link, it’s a fermented tea drink. It tastes ciderish. We make it with less sugar than is called for and use Turbinado. In that way the Mother eats all the sugar out of it so we can still live a sugar free existence.

There is a lot of information about how to make it and Jen has some linked from her site. Here’s one site with videos The guy in that video is entertaining but boy does he use a lot of sugar. You can use a ton of sugar but you don’t have to. Though you need to use some. Mother needs the sugar to eat and live. Poor Sara was forced to drink my Kombucha that hadn’t had it’s final fermentation. It is good and ok to drink after a week without the rebottling, but it should be even better today though.

There is some knitting and spinning too. Actually I’ve been doing a ton of spinning though most of it is not recreational. This is the yarn I’ve done for the Goddess Anniversary Shawl knit along:

Because of a discussion in Ravelry….I decided I needed to start the shawl and did the first round just before the second round was posted. I think I’m just going to do chart D all the way through. Less decision making if I just follow one all the way.

That is assuming I actually keep going and aren’t halted by other work.

Not like you need a recipe for rice porridge. It’s been one of my choice breakfasts of late. Sometimes I have a Kale smoothie and sometimes I have porridge. Basically for dinners we will use one cup of rice (uncooked measurement). I will make 2 cups though. When supper is done, I’ll add 2 more cups of water to the rice left in the cooker and turn it on low for another 30 minutes to an hour. Until all the rice has gotten fat, split and starts to break down into what looks like porridge. This will be breakfast for a few days. It keeps well and reheats just fine.  If you’re looking for a quick breakfast, this is a good candidate.

I take a bit of the porridge, add some syrup or honey and a few cranberries or strawberries if I have them. There we go. Simple yummy breakfast.

Speaking of yummy….

That’s the Enchanted yarn I’ve been spinning from Enchanted Knoll’s Batt club. The real name of the batts I think were Wood elves… Don’t quote me on that, I never get it right. The shawl pattern s swallowtail. I have 450 yards spindle spun up and plied, I have another 100 or so of singles that are waiting for the last 100 so I can ply them. My spindling time was low when club was shipping (I work in the morning instead of walking on the treadmill). Hopefully I’ll finish up spinning this week, though I probably won’t need them since the shawl calls for less yarn. I might actually get 2 projects out of it or maybe modify the shawl to make it larger…..

And for those celebrating - Have a Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Normally this would be an autumn dish but I just had to have some now. On our weekend away I had a dish of roasted squash soup that was just incredible so I really wanted to reproduce it. I think I got it pretty close. This makes a big batch so you can cut it in half or make it all and freeze some.

Roasted Squash Soup

1 Butternut squash
2 acorn squash
Garlic minced
onions minced
Parsley
olive Oil
2 cups of Veggie Stock

Wash then cut in half the squashes. Scoop out the seeds. Drizzle the cut side with olive oil then liberally sprinkle on the onions and garlic. Cover and put into the oven at 250F for about 3 hours or until it’s soft when you pierce it with a fork. Let it cool a bit. Scoop it out of the shell. Throw it in the blender with the Veggie stock - blend smooth. Serve hot with a sprinkle of parsley. If you want it to be a little more rich, you can add sour cream or regular cream. Though, I think regular cream makes it a little more sweet and desert like.

I’ve been eating small bowls of it with a large salad. It makes a great lunch.

Knitting and Spinning
I’ve been wanting to spin far more than knit lately. I suppose my block is the ten million swatches I need to do. Ok, maybe not ten million. I’m just not a swatch gal. I swear I can do a pair of mittens in the time it takes me to one swatch. Especially if you count in the procrastinating.

I’ve got 4 bobbins full of the Merino Bamboo I showed off a little while ago:

I also took time repairing and rearranged my wheels. The shop and the living room were feeling crowded with my wheels. So I moved the big Jensen home and the Indian Head spinner downstairs. The Indian head was broken and I had some work to do to make it work right and I’m pleased with the fix I did even though it’s not the prettiest. The Ashford that was living down there in a corner got pulled out and got her new quill head. That thing is a blast to use. This is the space I cleared out for them all.

If you go to the flickr picture you’ll see a bunch of notes. We don’t wind yarn here anymore so the wheels were able to take that space. Eventually husbeast will take over this area of the basement when I get my dye shop moved. Then the wheels will either have to go in some sort of storage situation or I’ll have to make some room in sewing room.

All the while I’m working on an update. And I”ll have batts in the update. If you use my rolag tutorial from last week, you’ll be able to get a self striping yarn from the new triple play batts. I wound my yarn on the shaft so you could see the color changes.

I had hoped to have the update done last week because I’m working on club now. So I may not get it all done until next week now. I know that’s cruel to tease you and leave you hanging….

In talking to many people about going Vegan, the one thing that many have a hard time giving up, surprisingly (to me anyway) is not cheese, ice cream or eggs, it’s yogurt. I’ve never been a huge fan of the stuff. I like it well enough but it certainly wasn’t the thing that made it hard being a vegan (of course I’m a bad vegan but we won’t go there right now).

I thought I’d mention my recipe for Yogurt and make some at the same time. This is my jar sitting in the cupboard. (I knew you were all dying to see the messy cupboards and just love all these high flash 6 am photos)

I made 2 jars of Cashew milk. One was really rich and creamy with very little water, it was quite thick and almost could be described as Cashew butter. The other was the normal milk that I make. The Normal milk version is what I made kefir with and use normally over Granola or what not. I think I’ve mentioned it before that Kefir is something that is generally mammalian milk. My kefir grains were trained to be vegans. They’re happy and they’re multiplying. Mightily slow in their multiplication but they are growing. Kefir feeds off sugar and I feed mine honey (not alot, but enough to survive).

I kefired the milk, strained out my kefir babies and gave them some fresh cashew milk to their magic with. Into the kefired milk I add in the thick cream of cashews to thicken it all up. I stirred it up, added in some vanilla and some stevia and set it into a warm dark place (the cupboard) to thicken and gather more tang. In a couple of days the yogurt is done. It’s not usually super thick but it has that tangy taste and is really good. Sometimes I don’t flavor it at the cupboard stage. Sometimes I leave it alone and add fruit later. This stuff also freezes well. It freezes pretty solid but by scraping a fork, you can get a nice mound of a treat that seems like ice cream.

KNITTING
I finished the body to the green top down thing….I think…

I did a turned hem and was lazy about not sewing it, I did a different bind off that may or may not work. I need to block it and see if it uncurls or I may be redoing the hem.

I’ve started sprout.

People are finding little oopsies in the newest pattern because it wasn’t tested, wasn’t edited and I basically just threw it out there. The mistakes are little and I’m fixing them as needed. So if you see one, let me know. And no, it’s not a mistake that this is Noro and not the handspun I announced I’d be using. I just don’t love peach and I couldn’t bring myself to use it. I want to wear this sweater alot. I’ll save the peach for a vest or maybe something for the girls that isn’t likely to get thrown into the wash by mistake.

I’ve been concentrating on finding the best green smoothies I can find. I know some are thinking ew, but it’s a pretty good way to get more “green” in your diet. And believe it or not, alot of these greens are amazingly good blended into fruits. They aren’t at all what you think they’d be like. Fresh and blended with fruit they taste so different (or not noticeably at all) compared to cooked versions of the same vegetable.

One of the easiest ways to get more green is to put some spirulina in your regular smoothie. Remember with spirulina, a little bit goes a long way.

Sweet Kale
I really wanted to get more Kale in my diet, it’s one of those hero foods. I must say, it’s better as a smoothie than cooked.
3 large Kale leaves (no stems)
1 cup of water
1 peeled Kiwi
1 Banana

Fresh spring smoothie
I call it that because all I can think when I drink it is how “fresh” and springy it feels. Plus it leaves my breath smelling good.
Giant handful of Parlsey
1 cup of strawberries
1/2 inch of peeled ginger
1 cup of Cashew Kefir (water will work as well and has less calories)

Peppery
Arugula gives it a little peppery taste and with a peach that isn’t overly sweet, you get a good drink that isn’t too deserty.
1 cup Arugala
1 cup Spinache leaves
1 Peach
1 cup of water
Agave or Honey if needed to sweeten it

Hidden greens
Hidden because sometimes you can get your kids to drink a berry “shake” but not to eat their greens. Spinache is easy to hide in really flavorful berries.
1 cup water
1 cup of spinache leaves
1.5 cups of mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries)

Each of these smoothies are blended in the blender until smooth. Nothing fancy. Just blended.

KNITTING….

I did find some knitting time over the weekend. My sprout has it’s arms attached and is at that odd looking baby sweater with fat arms stage:

The top down raglan has had it’s arms separated.

I have a lot of work to do this week so I don’t expect the sweaters to move much beyond those stages. February really kicked my butt with having a ton of work to do and being a really short month. This week I plan to have an update for the shop. Spindles, fiber and yarn.