Knitting

Recently I've been knitting.

Project one: scarf for Joel. This was to reacquaint myself with basic knit and purl (it had been quite awhile since I'd picked up a pair of knitting needles and I'm not actually positive that I had ever finished a knitting project before...not even a scarf...). I didn't use a pattern, just made little blocks. I think I cast on forty stitches and knit ten, purled ten, knit ten, purled ten, stockinette st for ten rows and then reversed it (for another ten rows...etc, etc, etc).

Project two: coasters.

Project three (work in progress): plastic shopping bag rug. It's not very pretty, but I think that I will be able to tuck in most of those ends once I'm done. I'm cutting the bags into two long strips, knotting the ends together and then just a basic garter stitch. I like the idea of putting more stripes in, but unfortunately about 90% of the bags I have are just clear or white. I also tend to shop at Aldi or use my canvas bags for groceries (a lot easier to handle on the bus) so I'm actually running out of bags already and it's only four inches wide!

Squirrels II

In my last blog about tree rats the pictures were not the best they could be. So, a few days later I baited them with some bread that I had let rise too long and was thus not very tasty at all (to us). They came and I was prepared with the camera:

The one below is trying to bury some of the bread in one of the pots.

After the event that inspired the last post on these little critters, we put the bag of charcoal inside the grill, out of reach of the squirrels. But we apparently left some "crumbs" that this squirrel was happy to eat (I told you the bread didn't taste very good...but the other squirrels seemed to prefer it to charcoal...maybe this one has finer tastes and was trying to make a point?).

It's Spring! At least it is inside...

In Oklahoma about now there are daffodils blooming and trees all covered in blossoms (photos stolen from a friend back in Norman - Sally). Not full blown spring yet, but definitely starting.

There is hope here as I have seen a few things starting to pop out of the ground...but just barely and definitely not near blooming yet.

What helps my impatience for spring is my collection of indoor plants. They're green (except for the purple ones), mostly happy and every once in awhile they bloom!

A little while ago, one of my amaryllises bloomed.

Here's Joel holding it so that you can get an idea of how big it is. It had four blooms total.

On one of my other amaryllises a flower stalk just starting coming up. I wonder what color it will be... I have two or three different ones, but didn't label them and some of them died over the winter (they had a mold problem) so I don't know what I have left...

Other exciting plant happenings are the little basil and parsley seedlings! Almost all of them have one set of true leaves already and are so cute! We couldn't wait for the basil to grow up, so we also took some cuttings from a hydroponically-grown plant we bought from the grocery store. I don't have pictures yet...but maybe I'll post some soon.

S'mores

Before today it had been quite awhile since I last blogged, but I had been thinking of blogging during that time and even specific things to blog about. So, here's one of those ideas from maybe two months ago...

The kit:

Graham crackers, mini marshmallows, chunks of chocolate (and some caramel-filled chocolates), sharpened matchsticks (we didn't have any toothpicks), matches, and tea lights


Execution:

Yum.



Note: Might work better with normal sized mashmallows as it was hard to brown the small ones without them bursting into flame. Fun nonetheless.

Glorious French Onion Soup

We have a cookbook titled "Glorious French Food" by James Peterson and it's one that I'd skimmed through but that we hadn't actually cooked out of yet, until yesterday. We decided that we should make one of the recipes because, really, what is the point of a cookbook if it's never used to cook?

I looked through it and found a recipe for French Onion Soup. We had recently stocked up on onions to make that very dish. So, perfect.

The recipe makes 10 first-course servings. The ingredients seem pretty basic:

5 pounds of onions -> sounds like a lot...but they reduce, so not totally unexpected

4 tablespoons butter -> if anything, seems to be skimping a bit, especially with so much onion

10 cups broth -> the introduction to the recipe says beef stock is best but that it really doesn't matter because it's going to taste like onions and cheese regardless

bouquet garni

salt

pepper

4 cups bread cubes . . .

What's left? Cheese.

25 cups of finely grated Swiss Gruyere or other full-flavored firm cheese (about five pounds)

Whoa! 25 cups? For ten people? That's half a pound per person! For a first course? And it specifically says not to use the "swiss" cheese with all the holes in it which is actually Emmentaler because it doesn't have enough flavor and makes the soup stringy.

But, hey, why not? So, we halved the recipe and bought enough good cheese for two servings (the rest of the soup we can eat with sliced swiss even if it is a bit stringy).

Here's a spoonful of it:

And here's a bowl:



If you've ever had French Onion Soup before and it didn't have ratios similar to these...you are missing out. It was amazing! Definitely only a first-course serving if you're only having one course. One bowl was plenty for a full meal.

French Onion Soup just got a lot more expensive for us to make...but it's so good.