The Knitting Knutter

Yes, I am known to some as the Knitting Knutter. I am the crazy person that for months was posting a new knitted project on my Facebook wall, in addition to all the food I was making at the time. I tried to learn to crochet from my mother, but I didn't seem to get the hang of it, and tried to eventually teach myself to knit. I failed horribly! So I gave it up as a lost cause for many years. Then sometime about a year and a half ago, my mother and I were out shopping, and at the time I was going through a bit of stress and my mom, being the mom that she is, figured out that I desperately needed something to occupy my time and thoughts so that I could relax a bit. My mother knows me all too well and knows that if my hands are busy, I'm calm. Which is why I used to needlepoint and why I love to cook. She also knows that I have Carpal Tunnel in my hands from years of typing on the computer for both work and pleasure. We meandered down the craft aisle as I had recently seen something on the Internet about knitting looms and was curious if they could help me finally knit, without being in pain after. We found a lovely set of plastic long looms by Boye and my mother bought it for me along with some yarn as a present. Pardon the pun, but I was hooked! I have since then amassed a collection of not only the plastic long looms, but two sets of round and a beautiful collection of wooden knitting boards from Authentic Knitting Boards.

I highly recommend knitting on a loom, round or long, for anyone that has issues with their hands that make needle knitting or even crocheting painful or difficult. You get a beautiful result with often less time, and quite a bit less effort. I'm not going to go into all the specifics as to how it is done, as I would be typing forever! But I will put some links to pages that will help you with this wonderful and rewarding craft!

If you're curious as to the difference between round and long looms, let me clarify. Round looms are excellent for hats, socks, and tube scarves, including, Magic Scarves, which you can see pictured above on the round loom to the left. You can also make flat pieces where one side is a standard knit stitch, and the other is a purl stitch, this is called flat panel, and is prone to curling. This is where long looms are superior. These allow you to do what is called a double stitch. Both sides of the project will have the same pattern. This is great for scarves, blankets, and washcloths. You can also get a loom from Authentic Knitting Boards that is fully adjustable and designed specifically for making socks. That is the loom on the bottom of the wooden loom photo. I love making my own socks!

All of these projects were made using either plastic round looms (The hat and sock) or long looms. The blue is done in an open rib stitch which is simple and pretty. The white is actually a very thick yarn on a scarf loom that I made for my father to take fishing in the winter. The last photo is of a throw I made my husband while he's overseas using a 38 inch afghan knitting board and alternating colors and stitches. It came out beautiful!

There are of course other tools in my box of tricks, crochet hooks for finishing projects, pom-pom makers and...knitting needles! I haven't given up on them. I actually can knit with needles now and as long as I take breaks, its not too bad. In fact my current project is a rather neat frilly ruffle scarf for my sister. And you can never go wrong with a row counter app on your phone too!

See? A Knitting Knutter if ever there was one! But I love seeing the looks on my friends' and family's faces when they get a gift that I made myself. And I put love in every single stitch...and occasionally curse words...I never said it was perfectly easy! Just easy! Everyone makes mistakes!

Brightest Blessings!

www.authenticknittingboard.com (Great for getting boards, instructional videos, and free patterns!)

Knitting pattern central loom patterns (Free loom patterns, some are pdf files, but great site!]





Patience, Perseverance, PASTA!

When I got my beloved Kitchenaid mixer, the first attachments I wanted so desperately to get were the pasta rollers. The idea of making my own pasta was something I found absolutely fascinating! So this past Christmas, my sweet husband, got me EVERY pasta roller for the Kitchenaid and every other attachment to go with it! (Except the ice cream maker, we already have one). I was so excited to try it. My sister and I had a family dinner one night where we made our own pasta and Alfredo and it went over amazingly well. Dad was quite impressed!

I have had a mad hankering for pasta lately and what could possibly be better than my own homemade pasta for supper! And of course doing so lets me share with you how you can make your own pasta too! Its very simple, though it does require patience and a pasta roller, whether hand crank or electric. I used the rollers designed for my Kitchenaid mixer.

 For the dough you will need:

3 1/2 cups sifted flour

Four large eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-2 tablespoons of water

Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of the mixer. Mix with the paddle for 30 seconds on setting 2. Then switch to the dough hook and mix on setting 2 for two minutes.

Once dough is combined, knead on a floured surface for about two minutes then let the dough rest for twenty minutes. Then, divide into four parts and flatten out. Attach the pasta sheeter attachment to the mixer. On setting 1 run the dough through the sheeter. I will warn you. Its going to fall apart and make a mess and if you are like me at times, leave you cursing like a drunken Irish sailor with Tourrette's syndrome. Patience pays off! It will start to smooth out! Just fold it up as best you can and run it through again. Keep doing this until its a nice smooth sheet. Repeat this process on setting 2 and then 3, folding the dough each time you draw it from the sheeter.

Time to switch the attachment. You could keep going down the dial and use the sheets for lasagna, or after setting three, switch to one of the pasta cutters. I chose the spaghetti attachment. You don't have to fold the dough, just run the sheet through with one hand, catching the pasta across your arm with the other, or over the back of a long handled spoon, or pasta catcher. I have a pasta drying wrack and it has one of these catchers thankfully. Drape the pasta over the drying wrack or other surface that lets them hang a bit. Now is the time to get your water boiling.

Add pasta to salted boiling water and boil for about 3-4 minutes. Fresh pasta takes less time! Drain, but DO NOT RINSE! The starches on the pasta will help your sauce adhere to it, rinsing will have it wash right off. I like restaurant-style pasta so I heated a skillet on the stove with two knobs of butter while my pasta is boiling. Add a ladle-full of the pasta water to the skillet. Add the drained pasta to the melted butter/water in the skillet. Add your sauce of choice and Parmesan cheese if you like, and toss until the pasta is coated.

Tongs are a necessary tool for this kind of pasta. It makes it so much easier to toss and plate your tasty pasta! You can freeze the cooked pasta once its cooled if, like me, you made enough for a small army! Freeze it in zip top bags in small enough portions for a quick week-night meal! Its so easy and rewarding to make your own pasta! I strongly recommend it to any who have never tried, to give it a chance!

Brightest Blessings!

Garden Bounty Preserved

I love my little back porch garden. Its nothing grand or huge. Just some pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, jalapenos, onions and a hanging strawberry plant. Not a big deal. But it is such a big deal to me to go out and see huge cucumbers hanging off their vines or peppers ripening. Those are pretty much the only things being produced at the moment. I'm really hoping this changes by fall! Yesterday morning I went out for the morning hydration of my green babies when I noticed the massive amount of peppers on my little jalapeno plant and that several cucumbers had ripened up just perfectly on the vine. This beautiful sight brought only one thing to mind. PICKLES! I love pickles. I love to pickle. Pickling is the reason I grow pickling cucumbers! So I of course harvested every last ripe cucumber and pepper I could get my little hands on.

Aren't they gorgeous!? Even a few of the jalapenos turned red! So now I have my veggies, its time to get things prepped for some simple pickling. Now this is a simple dill brine, so its a little sweet, a little salty. But very easy to make. First you need some equipment:

Large pot for brining

Large pot for processing cans

Canning basket or something to keep jars from touching the bottom of the pan

Jar lifter or something to remove jars from pot

Jars with caps and bands

Ladle

Funnel

Magnetic cap lifter

Cooling wrack

For the brine you will need:

Four cups apple cider vinegar

Four cups water

1/2 cup canning or pickling salt

3/4 cups sugar

2 tablespoons pickling spice in cheesecloth

1 Teaspoon mustard seed per jar (for cucumbers)

1 tablespoon dill or 4 fresh dill heads per jar (Cucumbers)

Pickle crispers (Optional)

Okay first thing is first. You don't want anything nasty getting into your pickles so you have to clean EVERYTHING. Every surface, every pot, every utensil must be sterile. Wash your veg, wash your jars. You can run your jars through the dishwasher and leave them in on the high heat dry to sterilize, or place jars in the canning pot covered by an inch of water and boiled for ten minutes at least. They MUST stay hot. So leave them be until you are ready to fill them. Fill your canning pot with water and all your equipment: ladle, funnel, lifters, bubble burster, etc, and let it come to a boil and maintain that high heat until you need everything along with the jars, if you can. Put just the caps in a small pan of water that has been boiled and the burner turned off and keep hot on a back burner until they are needed.

In your pot, combine the water, sugar, salt, vinegar and the cheesecloth of pickling spices. Let this come to a boil to let the sugar and salt dissolve. Meanwhile, wash your veggies and pat them dry. I'm leaving the peppers whole and slicing the cucumbers. I plan to have one large quart jar of dilled slices, a pint jar of jalapenos, and a pint of jalapeno/cucumber mix.

Now here's the fun part. Pack your jars! Add the mustard and dill to the jars you want to have those flavors first. Then pack them with the veggies until you have about one inch of space between the vegetables and the top of the jar. This is called head space and allows for air expansion. Now, using your funnel and ladle, fresh out of that hot water, ladle the brine over the veggies, still keeping that head space. Using a plastic knife or ruler, anything non-metallic, slip it along the sides to release air bubbles. Add pickle crispers if you wish. Wipe the sides of the jar. Use the cap lifter to put the caps on the jars, do not touch the sides of the cap! This will contaminate them! Screw on the bands finger tight.

Carefully, using either a canning basket, or a jar lifter, place the jars in the hot water of the canning pot. Try to keep the jars from touching and keep about an inch of water over the top. Bring to a boil. Maintain the boil for 15 minutes. This creates the needed heat to kill off organisms and create the vacuum to seal the lids. After the time elapses, carefully remove from the canner and allow to cool in a draft free area on a cooling wrack. You will hear DING! As the lids seal. I love that sound! Do not push or press on the tops of the lids. Let them seal on their own. It can take hours. So just leave them overnight. Make sure you label them too, with the month and year. You will have to let them sit in a dark pantry for about two weeks before you eat them.  But they will be well worth it!

It is incredibly rewarding to make something like this yourself. Especially when using produce you grew yourself. Canning and pickling may seem scary, but once you know the basics and how to do it, you'll find its quickly addicting!

Brightest Blessings!

Frozen fruitiness

Its the height of summer, when all those tasty fruits and berries are in season and you can find them all over your local farmer's market and grocery produce section. Sadly, a lot goes to waste if you don't eat it all fast enough. Especially fruits that tend to ripen quickly like plums, peaches and apricots. For that same reason, stores often put those fruits on special as they start to near the end of their shelf life and you can get a great deal on tons of sweet fruit. But what to do with it all if its more than you can eat before it goes bad? Why freeze it of course! I'm an avid canner. I love to pickle and make my own fruit butters, jams, jellies and preserves. So these sales and bargains on fruits are just Heaven in my eyes. However, I don't always have the time to stand over a stove making them into something to be stored up for later. So when I found out you can freeze fresh produce to be used later, I jumped on learning how! Its very easy, and you don't need a lot of equipment.

For basic fruit processing and freezing you will need: Sharp knives, a good cutting board (food grade plastic cleans up like a dream!) large bowls (for holding fruit of course), strainers, a large pot for boiling water, a bowl of ice water, freezer bags and baking sheets. Also, if you don't want your fruit to brown, some ascorbic acid is a good idea. Its a powder readily found in the canning section of your local grocery store. A good optional tool is an apple corer/peeler/slicer.

The fruit that I am going to freeze pretty well runs the gamut of preparations. I found some great deals at Sam's club Sunday and I wasn't about to let any of that go to waste! The fruits I will be working with are: Gala apples, raspberries, strawberries, black velvet apricots and black plums. Try to find ripe fruit that isn't too soft, or bruised and without too many icky blemishes that might promise of rot.

We'll start with the strawberries. Wash and thoroughly rinse your berries and pat them dry.

Next you need to hull the berries, which means to remove the leafy bits and the hard core connected to them. Now you can buy strawberry hullers in the fancy tool section of any store that sells fancy kitchen tools. However, all you really need is a good parring knife. Insert the knife just at the edge of where the leaves overlap the top of the berry, and only go about a half inch or so deep. Carefully guide the blade around the top of the berry until you've cut a circle around the leafy part. Very carefully angle the blade up just a touch until the top of the berry pops off and the hull is removed. You can also just cut the top of the berry off but that wastes fruit.

Now just arrange the fruit on a baking sheet that will fit into your freezer. Try to keep the fruit from touching. Then just pop in the freezer for about two hours, or until frozen through. After that, just place in a labeled freezer bag and return to the freezer. These should keep for at least six months. 

For the raspberries (Or any berry like that, or even blueberries) you can just spread out on the sheet and freeze once they've been washed and patted dry.

Now peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines are a different matter. These soft fruits should be peeled before they are pitted, sliced and put on the trays to freeze. And peeling is not the easiest thing with these rather delicate fruits.

First you want to score the skin with a parring knife by slashing an "X" across the bottom of the fruit.

Next, using a slotted spoon, dunk the fruit into boiling water and leave for forty seconds or up to a minute for firmer fruits. A good idea is to hold it on the spoon in the water, x side up. The skin will start to peel back when its ready to pull out.

Immediately plunk those babies into a bowl of ice water. I work in batches personally. I'll boil off about six, going one at a time, and then putting them in the ice bath as they're finished. Let them sit in the bath for about a minute to cool off.

After the minute is up, the peel should just slide right off. This is very messy, I will warn you. And if you're working with fruits that are a bit reddish, you will look like some kind of horror movie villain when you're done! I do not recommend wearing white or anything pale colored, and definitely wear an apron. This is also very sticky work, so be prepared to wash your hands frequently.

Once the plums and apricots were peeled, they were cut into quarters, pitted and laid out on the sheet like I did with the berries and the transferred into the freezer.

Apples are pretty straight forward. You peel them, core them, slice them and place them on the tray. You can treat them with ascorbic acid to keep them from browning, or a little lemon juice. I used my nifty apple corer/peeler/slicer, as it cuts down on the fuss and mess!

Once everyone is frozen, the last thing you have to do is place them in freezer bags, and be sure to label them, especially if some of the fruit looks a bit similar. You'd hate to go to make a nice plum tart but realize too late you pulled out apricots. With the skin gone and the fruit cut up, trust me its an easy mistake!

Freezing excess fruits is a simple, economical way to get the most of the season's sweetest offerings. But its not just fruit that can be frozen in this way. Use it to flash freeze vegetables from your garden or those you catch in a great sale. Buying in bulk is a great way to save money, and with the right tools and know how, you can preserve them for the months ahead for you and your family to enjoy!

Brightest Blessings!