Beefmasters of the Universe-in which food probably figures way too prominiently

The tomato variety I'm growing in my garden is called 'Beefmaster.' This never fails to crack me up. However the name is appropriate. These girls are ample and full, the Nell Carter of the tomato world if you will.



They make me very, very happy. Even happier was that today for the first time I actually got to use produce I've grown myself to make one of our very favorite recipes-Gazpacho.



My husband used to forget the name and would shorten it to 'Gestapo' the first few times I made it. So now we often affectionately refer to it as Gestapo. I always use this recipe here. Back in the early days of the Food Network there used to be a show on at seven o'clock every night with a woman named Sara Moulton. Sara Moulton was the executive chef of Gourmet magazine and also did this hour long show every night where she would cook and actually take live phone calls over the air. I adored this show. Almost 10 years later a lot of the recipes I still make are from this show. My meatball recipe. My salsa recipe. Pasta e Fagioli soup. So many. Favorites I've made over and over. And this one that she made on that show is just as good as all the others. If you don't think you like vegetables make it and try it anyway. My husband hates vegetables yet somehow devours this stuff by the bowlful. It's the sweet tomatoes, crunchy cucumber and peppers, a little bite of red wine vinegar, a little salt and cayenne just manage to pull the whole thing together in perfection. And making it today with my own tomatoes for the first time ever. Well, I have to admit I remembered my old tv friend Sara and felt a little sentimental.

And don't worry, lest you think this is no longer a knitting blog I promise you I've been knitting my head off.



Trying to work my way through that big bag of Peaches and Creme cotton. I have this ballband pattern memorized now and I don't care. I still covet it and these cloths. These are for my niece (pink and brown) and future nephew (blue and brown of course). I am on a big "and brown" color kick if you couldn't tell. And yes, I'm totally aware they're more likely to be gifts for my sister to use on whoever is in the bathtub when that cloth is on the top of the pile. But still, I like the "and brown" thing.

And if just in case you still wanted to hear more about food (sorry) I cannot help but mention the brilliant episode I caught of Jamie at Home yesterday. Oh my gosh, I was practically fanning myself from overheating, it was such a great show. First of all I love this show because let's face it, this



plus a British accent = yum! Please sir may I have another? Plus, he spends a good deal of the show in his garden, I'm newly into gardening so this appeals to me. Third, yesterday he made this amazing salad with kaleidoscope carrots (beautiful!) and ground lamb. I love it when a dish includes something totally rich and decadent like lamb but it's still 'a salad.' Anyway, I loved it. I rewound it with the tivo and watched him make this recipe twice! But-do I know anyone I could serve this too who would probably like it? Not that I can think of. I adore my family and friends dearly but they always want gazpacho or meatballs or macaroni and cheese. Not that I don't love those things too, I do, I totally do. And I will never, ever tire of making them for the people I love. But sometimes I just want something different. Something I could probably only get by having it in someone else's or my own kitchen. Anyway, such is the lonely road of the foodie nerd! No matter, that won't stop me from making lamb salad for myself and eating it out of the serving dish in my jammies while dreaming of Jamie one night. Or I'll probably just force it on the husband anyway, he'll usually try anything at least once. We'll see, if I do try it I'll let you know how it comes out!

Limited seating

It's not that the cats want me to get off the computer...


They just want me off of the chair. It's their favorite spot in the house!

Socks and Blockers and Blocks

I started these socks in May, which means for some reason they took me longer than usual. But that doesn't make them any less special!

Pattern: Double Lace Ribbing from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch
Yarn: Socks that Rock, Raven Clan-Valkyrie colorway
Knit on Knitpicks size 1 nickel dpns

The yarn was gifted to me by Tracy for my birthday. I have knit with Socks that Rock before and loved it, but those were gift socks. These are my first Socks that Rock socks for me and I am psyched! Another thing to be psyched about, the socks are on sock blockers gifted to me also by Tracy. Her and her Dad did a bang up job on these handcrafted custom made blockers and they are perfect!

I also finished these darn baby blocks this week:



Pattern: Baby Blocks from Knitting for Baby
Yarn: The rest of the Knitpicks Comfy I had left over
Needles: Bamboo Size 3

I'm glad these are done. Yes they are cute, yes I think my future nephew will like them. But good golly miss molly it seemed like there was a lot of seaming (haha!) involved. I realized at one point that each block was 6 squares but 8 seams. And dealing with different colors and stitch patterns made that seaming pretty challenging. No run of the mill easy peasy mattress stitch here. Nonetheless, my sister is one of the best knitting gift recipients ever. And she also likes the idea of 'green' toys involving no lead, no plastic, etc. So I know these will probably get used and played with, which is the best thing. But will I be making these for anybody else anytime soon? Nope! I'll just go and buy some regular blocks from the store probably.

Win some, lose some

You know how a lot of people with gardens have a proliferation of zucchini right now? How they have so much they run out of people to give it to and they get so sick of it they end up making zucchini breads and cakes and cookies? Well, lets just say, that doesn't happen to everyone.



Sad, sad, sad. Looks like those 2 squash in the last post aren't going to be followed by similar ones anytime soon. Squash vine borers have made a mess of my summer squash plants. I tried extracting them (Ew! Ew ew ew!!!!!) and covering the stems with dirt but afraid it's just too late. There are just no fruits on these plants to be seen anywhere. I'll probably pull them out this weekend and maybe start again. If I plant the seeds soon and keep a closer eye out for these buggers I might get a little crop at the end of the season. For now I guess I'll just have to keep an eye on the pretty peppers and the pretty tomatoes that should be ready for harvesting any day now...

Garter and Greens

The Baby Blanket for my future nephew is done!

Pattern: How to Log Cabin from Mason Dixon Knitting
Yarn: Knitpicks Comfy, 10 balls, 2 balls each color, a little more of the Honeydew color for seaming and the border
Needles: Size 6 Bamboo Circulars
Result: Love it. Good yarn, great pattern, seems pretty baby-appropriate. I would knit this pattern again. Seriously. I like knitting a lot of garter stitch but the color changes give it enough visual interest to not get completely boring. I think if I had to knit a garter stitch square this size I would probably have gotten bored to tears. But the pattern makes it fun. I even survived the seaming and weaving of ends and i-cord border. Definitely a success!

Now all I want to do is dive into the new Peaches and Creme yarn that arrived the other week.

But I'm trying to do the right thing and use up the rest of the Comfy. I did originally purchase 20 balls, so yeah, I have quite a bit left over. For some reason I've decided to try to use it up by making these blocks.



The pattern is from this Knitting for Baby Book. For some reason it's a lot tougher than it looks. I mean knit a bunch of squares and sew them together right? Wrong! For some reason it's tough. I don't know if it's because I'm using a different yarn or there's give in the foam blocks or the seaming is... well there's just a lot of it. I think because the blocks are so small it almost feels like there's as much seaming as knitting. Yeah, exactly, ick. Anyway, I have 6 small blocks. I'm making those and that's it. I think that's enough for a baby to have a good time with.

In non knitting news the recession garden is finally producing a harvest!



I haven't had an overabundance of anything just yet but that's ok. I have lots of green tomatoes about to turn red and lots of tiny peppers and tiny cucumbers on the way. I'm just happy the plants still seem healthy and I'm still really enjoying it. There will be garden photos in the coming week I promise. And hopefully pictures of it's spoils too! Yum!

Recipe and Baby Pattern Suggestions Welcome!

Forgive the gratuitous kitten shot but they're really cute. The kittens have been growing like weeds.

The other thing grown like weeds? The weeds in the recession garden. I'm plugging away, I think I'm a week or so away from the first red tomato (Take that salmonella!) of the season. And if it doesn't happen at least I know I was able to grow basil and oregano like a rock star.



Although the basil and oregano are very eager for their friend tomato to make an appearance on our dinner plates. Anyone have good non-tomato based recipes for these other than pesto? I know it sounds odd but I'm really not a pesto person... Tonight I'm making some tilapia with a lemon/oregano type of seasoning, hopefully it comes out ok.

The other cool thing I grew this week, this beautiful morning glory.



Chris gave me these seed for my birthday and I love how they've taken off and wound themselves around the banister of our front steps. With really very little care to them, just water mainly. Unfortunately the blooms only seem to last only a day-they come out in the morning and are pretty wilty by the next. But there are lots of closed pods growing on here so hopefully we'll see more soon.

On the knitting front, I can't believe I'm actually typing this but the Mason Dixon Log Cabin baby blanket is almost done. I originally thought it was going to be 5 rows of 4 blocks, but from where I'm at now it's clear, 4 rows of 4 blocks is more than enough.



I'm attaching the blocks using single crochet which surprised me. I usually don't like to attach with single crochet because it can produce kind of a bulky ridge on the wrong side at the seams. But this yarn has just enough drape to still let it lay pretty flat, and I can only imagine it will lay flatter with blocking and time and use. So I think it's working. Once I have the squares all attached I'm just going to do an applied i-cord border and call it a day.


Which leaves me of course with the leftovers... Can you believe it looks like I will only be using half of the yarn I ordered for this project? We were talking about buying yarn at our little knitting group the other night and unlike the folks that felt like sometimes they have a tendency to under-buy I confessed that I think my problem is that when I do buy yarn I buy it like I'm preparing for the apocalypse. The thought of running out of yarn really scares me! So I have a slight tendency to over-buy. How much did I over-buy with this project? Well, using only half the yarn for this baby blanket means I probably could have knit 2 of them if I wanted. Or (it's a pretty big baby blanket) I really probably could have just used all of it to make a full sized adult throw. Seriously. I over bought that much.

So here's a question. I will probably have 8 balls of Comfy left. About 200 yarns of each color. Which is ok-because I do have babies to knit for and this is a great worsted baby yarn. So what are your favorite baby patterns right now? I don't know if I have enough for a sweater, maybe one of those baby kimonos from Mason Dixon? I think I might want to try those. And some hats and booties. Any suggestions? I hear those are little and they go fast. Works for me!

Take some time and grow the tomatoes

Check this out!!! Looks like I'm not that only person around with a Recession Garden! Can you believe Burpee.com saying sales of seeds and plants are up 40%? 40%! Who says there's no recession? And if finances aren't enough reason to grow your own now it looks like it might be one of the best ways to avoid getting salmonella this summer. I figure at this rate by the time the FDA figures out what happened hopefully I'll be sliding slices of one of these in between some whole wheat bread and mayo. Yum!

Cute Time vs. Knitting Time

Sigh... As if having 2 new kittens around wasn't enough cuteness, I think the house reached cute overload this week when my sister and my niece came to visit.



That's my mom and my adorable niece and this was her first ice cream cone ever! I don't think it will be her last. So there's been ice cream, and eating watermelon, and running through the sprinkler, and having tea parties, and all that fun summer stuff that makes the world seem absolutely huge when you're two years old. It's been exhilarating and exhausting and I know I'll miss the heck out of her and my sister when it's time for them to go back home to Florida. She'll be getting a baby brother in the fall and she'll also be turning 3 and after that she'll never be an only child or 2 years old again. Which is ok, those are things we're all looking forward to. But for now these are times to be savored. So if there hasn't been much knitting this week, I think I'll let it slide.

But that does not mean I haven't been watching the glimpses of knitting I've caught here and there on the horizon. I got the Berrocco KnitBits email the other week with the Fall/Winter collection and just fell head over heels for the new patterns. My absolute favorite, Cosina.



Gorgeous! I don't even know if this would look acceptable on bigger/bustier girls like me but I still adore it. I love the yoke styling and the drapey shape of it. I'll have to stalk it on Ravelry and see how other people do with it.

The other knitting thing I'm into big time this week is the Knitmore Girls Podcast. Jasmin and Gigi are a mother daughter team and I think they're utterly adorable and entertaining and informative. I especially love Gigi's (the mom's) accent. Her accent and voice sound exactly like my husband's aunt Sylvia who is also a knitter. I could close my eyes and swear it was her! And she loves the color red which is a fave of mine too so I can really relate!

Good things are happening...

Sorry not to post for so long, things have been mega busy around here lately, and I think by the end of this post you'll understand. Yes, we did finally make it to Maine and it was absolutely beautiful.



Somehow, going the week before Memorial Day we timed it just right with the weather and the crowds. It was beautiful and idyllic and relaxing. We spent most of our time exploring Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor and eating lobster, blueberries and ice cream. It was a great trip that was a nice break for us. I even got some knitting done there and the Mason Dixon Blanket is coming along nicely.



This pattern is awesome. I know some people find garter stitch boring but I do not, not at all. And the color changes with this pattern keep it just interesting enough. I'm hoping to finish a few more squares soon, finalize how I'm going to lay the squares out and eventually, start seaming. Another project of mine is also moving along nicely. The Recession Garden has finally made it to Garden Status and is no longer just a box of funny plants on my porch!



Approximately 5 minutes after I walked away from this after the first day of planting I walked back to it and found 10 birds happily milling about. Ack! So I consulted my "Gardening for Dummies" book, grabbed the aluminum foil and that's why there are funny bunches of foil all over those stakes. It ain't pretty but it's survived some nasty thunderstorms this week and so far still no birds, so it's staying. And we know we have rabbits around too so that's what the wire fencing is for. The tomato plants I started from seed were looking a little yellow when I planted them. A week later they were officially dead. So I bought some tomato plants from a local garden center and we'll see how that goes. I also got strawberry plants and they even have some tiny green berries already. But the pepper plants I started from seed are doing great, and my herbs I started from seed are doing good. I also planted zucchini, lettuce, cucumber and beans, I'll let you know how those work out.

In other news, the husband and I are once again happy to be new pet parents! Meet Ella.



And Louis.




Giant Husband has been provided for scale. If anyone else reading this is a jazz fan you might pick up on the fact that they are named after Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Two of our faves. Ella is now 9 weeks old and Louis is 7 weeks old. They were a little timid when we brought them home last weekend, that's all over now. Now they are friends chasing each other all over the place, play fighting over who gets their favorite fish toy, and falling asleep on anyone's shoulder/lap/chest that will give them the time of day. I'll be honest it was a little bittersweet for me, going to pick out new cat food and cat toys and supplies for a new cat. I still miss our old friend Allister. But these two are nothing but joy. You can't help but smile when they tumble around chasing each other tails. Playing with an empty cardboard box they discovered. We are definitely so happy to be pet owners again!

Happy Mom's Day!

Due to a few scheduling difficulties, Mother's Day was celebrated a day early, on Saturday for us this year. In honor of the moms I prepared a big batch of one of their favorite foods, lamb chops!



Now I know a lot of people who don't like lamb might be gagging right now. But if you do like it, that picture is droolworthy. I've made lamb chops a couple of different ways before but this time they came out perrrrfect! Tasty and moist and delicious. The mom's were very, very pleased.



Aren't they cute? In addition to cooking there has also been some knitting going on for another mom-my sister is about to become a mom again! This time we waited to make sure everything is going good, and I think that now that she's now almost halfway there (she's due in Sept.) it's about time I start knitting something for my future nephew!



That's right my niece is about to get a baby brother! We're all completely thrilled and I have to admit I'm slightly intrigued since there are no boys in our family really. I think its going to be such an adventure having a little guy around. So I started this little blanket in the traditional boy colors, since I remember it wasn't long ago it seemed everything I knit was pink! Anyway, this is a Mason Dixon log cabin square in the new Knitpicks yarn, Comfy, that I talked about last week. I'm going to do probably 20 or 25 squares like this, just with these 5 colors in different arrangements. I like it pretty much so far except for the dark green being so dark. In person you can tell it's dark green, but sometimes it looks almost black. But I really have my heart set on these colors and this layout so I'm thinking once I get the whole thing together it won't look like so much dark green. And remember too, it's for a little baby, it's soft and warm and machine washable, those are probably the most important things.

Anyway, part of the reason Mother's Day got moved up this year is the husband and I are preparing for a vacation this week. We're headed for Bar Harbor, Maine and I'm so excited. Work has been a beast lately and we're definitely overdue for a break. I'm purposely not hunting out any yarn shops this trip. I have so much in the stash right now it saddens me. Anyway, we're hoping for a nice laid back time, no work and I'm bringing my knitting, for me that's usually a good start to a trip right there.

More Green...

Sorry, that photo is what happens when I don't feel like putting on makeup or schlepping upstairs for the tripod. But the hat looks ok right? This is the Slouchy McSlouchington, pretty much my own twisted combination of Le Slouch and the Twiggy Bobble hat. Almost 2 balls of Misti Alpaca, pretty much just knit a little K1P1 rib, increase a little, knit several inches of stockinette and then work even decreases every other row. It's a cute accessory, but I'm usually more of a 'hat for function' than a 'hat for fashion' type person. I think we'll have to wait and see what kind of utilization it gets next winter.

Well, so I finished the Slouchy green hat, and I'm working the buttonbands on the tweedy green CPH, but believe it or not, I have even more green yarn coming in this week!



This is the new Comfy yarn from Knitpicks and it is squishable lovey soft. The greens are Honeydew and Cypress colorways. I also got Seafoam, Ivory and Cashew. But I'm not going to say what it's for just yet... I'm swatching around I'll probably spill the beans next week. I adore the colors so far, so I think it's going to be a great project.

Hello!

Hi! Hi there!!!! Hi there blog! I miss you! Just wanted to say hi!

I miss blogging more often I really, really do. But it just seems like lately the precious weekend hours have been getting away from me. All to often I find myself collapsing on Sunday nights, without a single picture taken or idea reported on. But things do go on, like the Central Park Hoodie. This weekend it morphed itself into a big, soft, woolly, beautiful mess and I love it.



The pieces are all done, I seamed the shoulders and got the sleeves in. Now I'm simultaneously working on the hood and the side seams. I had read on Ravelry that since the yarn I used to knit this was pretty bumpy, that it was easier to seam this with DMC Perle Cotton instead of the yarn. I bought some Perle Cotton and tried it and while it was probably easier, I felt the cotton was totally obvious, so I'm seaming with the Kathmandu Aran I knit it with and it's really not that bad. No suckier than seaming usually is, but that whining is for another day.

Because this hasn't been so portable lately I have been working on my smaller project I usually keep going. I finished the sloucharific green hat (crap forgot to photo it, next week I promise) and started the first sock I've knit since before Christmas.



Ain't it pretty?

Tracy gave me awesome Socks that Rock in the Raven-Valkyrie colorway and I love it. I'm finally using a pattern from the More Sensational Socks book. This one is Double Lace Ribbing and it's pretty fun.

Speaking of fun I just found the video podcast Gardenfork on iTunes this morning. So far I've watched the episode on making raised garden beds (so informative, I needed to see this done, I'm so glad I found it) and the episode on street food from Jackson Heights, Queens. Also very fun. Hopefully next week I may have even more to report!

Pizza! Pizza!

I can never, ever, ever get enough pizza. I love it to death. Even though I had it for dinner last night, I still went ahead and made a different version of pizza for lunch today.



It's a spin on this Rachel Ray recipe. Instead of spinach I had baby arugula in the fridge. And I made sure I tossed it well with olive oil, salt and pepper. Other than that it's the same, as simple as it gets. Refrigerated pizza dough, olive oil, arugula, tomatoes and fresh goat cheese. Yum! Really, I'm a sucker for goat cheese on anything. But I understand people who don't like it, you either love it or you hate it probably. Just like a lot of people and arugula. I happen to adore both. Can you image how good this will be if I can make it again in the summer with my own tomatoes?



Look at those happy little guys just growing away! All I can hope for is that the growing continues this way when I put them in the ground in about 6 weeks. If that happens the Recession Garden will surely be a success.

In the meantime Central Park Hoodie is growing also. I'm knitting the fronts at the same time to make sure they're even. Also to avoid second front syndrome. This way when the fronts are done, they're done!

Avalanche!!!!

Now I can be a cluttered person at times but this really is a bit much...



See the slanted piece of wood next to the desk? It's attached to a small cabinet. It, the cabinet and a small but very cherished collection of action figures, knick knacks and toys used to be resting on top of the desk. Thursday night after getting a check with some extra expendable income we were expecting in the mail, and after finding out I'd only have to work a half day on Friday our beloved desk and toys and collection decided to somehow all implode on itself when we tried to hook the husband's laptop into the cable modem. Miraculously, the work laptop, the home computer, home monitor, external hard drive, printer, etc. all escaped without a single scratch. However the toy collection and our sanities were given a bit of a shake up. And well the afternoon off from work, and that little bit of expendable income of course went right out the window since we knew I'd have to go right to Staples the next day and get something to replace the 14 year old pile of IKEA particleboard we had probably entrusted way too much of our life to. But I think I did ok.





Aah, order and organization has been restored. Along with order and organization there's a lot of spring green around here lately. I'm starting the plants for the Recession Garden inside from seeds. They've just begun to poke through the dirt a little, I think I'll have a really good picture of them for you next week, at the moment they look mostly just like a box of dirt. Other green things: the back of the Central Park Hoodie is done.



Pretty! And then I have this hat that I've started but I'm not exactly sure where it's going.



A very loosely based amalgamation of the Twiggy Bobble Hat and Le Slouch this is my current traveling project. Knitting the Misti Alpaca Worsted stockinette in the round is lucious enough to make me enjoy knitting it alone. I think this is going to be one of those slouchy, baggy rasta type hats you're seeing everywhere that I'm probably too old to wear at this point. But still it's so fun. I keep re-naming it. On Ravelry it's Slouchy Mc Slouchington. Sometimes is Slouch-o-rama. Sometimes it's Slouchilicious. Either way, at least I'm having fun knitting it. And re-naming it constantly. That should count for something...

New Jersey-The Garden State

Yes, New Jersey really is known as the Garden State. In keeping with this theme I picked up a couple of new books yesterday.


In my job, which is really pretty boring unless you do it too, trust me, fraud is not an uncommon occurrence unfortunately. We are constantly getting updates and warnings from our underwriters, FDIC etc. about whatever new real estate scheme is going down. I've actually heard important people at important meetings refer to New Jersey as "a hotbed of fraud" and talk about the many "Fraudsters" (that one makes me giggle especially hard) peppering our landscape. So when someone recommended The Soprano State to me earlier this week I had to pick it up. It is supposed to be J-U-I-C-Y baby! I can't wait to hear about some more Fraudsters! It's always so funny it's sad, and by the look of the index and the names named so far, I don't think it will disappoint.

As for the gardening book it's hopefully going to help me with what I've referred to as my Recession Garden.



Because thanks to the Fraudsters people, we are in the middle of a Recession and I figure when everything starts doubling in price it might not hurt to have some free food around. This is my first official gardening adventure and I'm pretty excited about it so far. I've started seeds for peppers, tomatoes, flowers and herbs. I like working outside in the yard and I've always wanted a garden so I figure I'll give it a try. Worse case scenario, nothing takes and I'm just left with the box of dirt I started with in the beginning right?

In knitting news the bandwagon ride has been going along smoothly...



Chris in my knitting group originally suggested that we should all knit the Central Park Hoodie as a race. Being the person who would have to knit the biggest sweater I put the kibosh on that right away. It just wouldn't be fair. However, I don't think anyone else has really started that much... and Chris has been on vacation in Florida where I'm certain it's got to be too hot to be knitting a Central Park Hoodie right? I might actually be in the lead so... race on ladies!!! Eat my dust! Ok, just kidding, who cares when anyone finishes. I'll just be happy if the end result does not look like a circus tent or a sausage casing. That's how I usually gauge my sweater success. Aim high right? And if it comes out the wrong size I'll just have to go and find someone that it will fit to own it.