Purling Oaks

Beans, and trees, and handsome boys

I had to input my username and password to get into TypePad this morning.  I didn't think I had been gone that long but my sense of time appears to be distorted.  :D

 

I'm making bean soup this morning for consumption during deer hunting week.  The beans looked so pretty after rinsing them this morning, I had to take a picture.  (See, still a blogger at heart.)  I'm using Bob's Red Mill 13 Bean Soup Mix and soaked the beans overnight.  They're simmering right now and I'll add vegies and chicken later.  We'll probably have this for lunch some day when we are processing and packing our catch.  

I've been working on a project at work for the past two months that has just been eating my shorts quite a b**** been difficult for reasons I can't go into on the blog.  Thursday, I completed the major segment of it and now it is off to another coworker for their part.  Fortunately, that project is not normally part of my job duties and that is good because I feel so really good, mentally, today,  that I know doing that type of work all the time would Not.Be.Good.

Of course, feeling good is also because I am on vacation (Whooo!) through the weekend after Turkey Day.  My brother and his two sons (say hello to Dr. E) are at the Farm with our DM.  Wilson and I will be joining them this afternoon.  The Wisconsin gun deer hunting season starts Saturday.  We'll all be in our trees tomorrow morning before dawn on the family farm and with luck and skill have a full freezer by Wednesday.  The weather looks decent in that there is no rain (which I find to be miserable when I'm in a tree) but there's no snow forecast either which would be good for this type of hunting.   Even if you are a vegan/vegetarian, I recommend sitting in a tree in the woods for a day or three.  It is an excellent time for mental adjustment and decompression, even if you didn't think you were compressed.  :D

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I while on the topic of hunting........

I present our handsome and dashing hunter, Blue, and his catch.

End of August Sunday

Wow.  Sunday all ready!  This weekend passed in a flash.  ....and with no photos, either.  Must be the End of Summer slump.  The weather definitely has an autumn feel.  Windy but sunny.  The temperature right now is 64 degrees.  The low tonight is supposed to be 36 degrees.  (yikes!)  I'm glad I won't have to go to the airport at 4 am tomorrow (due to a dental appointment) and won't have to make the coat/no coat decision at that hour.

Garden/Kitchen:  More tomatoes and eggplants were harvested.  One eggplant plant was withering so I ripped it out of the garden in the hopes whatever happened to it won't spread to the other three.  The Italian heirloom (generic variety) are lovely meaty tomatoes. 

I made two types of tomato sauce today.  Regular tomato sauce that I'll freeze as soon as I post this entry and roasted tomato sauce from this recipe.  The roasted sauce turned out more like a bruchetta even though I used only 1/4 cup of EV olive oil.  It was in the oven for a good hour and I used about 1/4 cup fresh basil as well as some dried oregano and fresh parsley (see next paragraph).  Guess what I had for lunch on toasted fresh bread?  Yum.

We also are having salsa tonight.  We would have had it last night but the bag of cilantro turned into a bag of parsley in the rotter vegetable drawer and the Pig didn't have any cilantro....in August.  Wilson made a run into Madison today and brought back some cilantro so this evening's snacking plans are saved.

House:  The cool weather this weekend has turned my thoughts to preparing for winter.   Besides, Stacey is visiting soon and I'm having another domesticity attack.  I decided to look for room rugs this weekend.  I found one that I liked but will still be on the lookout for another three or four.  That is hard work people.  Nice enough for the house but not that nice since I have house not a museum.

The front yard landscaping/reclamation is finished and the grass is growing.  The yard actually looks like someone lives here.  Cool.  Saturday, I ordered 10 hosta plants (for 15 dollars!!) and a bunch of daylilies from Gilbert H. Wild and Son in a moment of weakness.  Oh, and three peonies, too. 

Knitting/Spinning:  None except for a row or five during the week on the Simple Yet Effective Shawl.  But I did read about knitting and thought about looking for the bag of Williamsro raw material. 

Other good stuff:  Enjoyed the first caramel apple of the season from Lapacek's Orchard.  Tried their new apple cider donuts, which do belong in the good stuff category.  This past week was Restaurant Week in D.C. and I enjoyed three dinners and one lunch at four nice restaurants and spending time with several of my co-workers and getting to know them a bit better.  Yes, I'm eating salads this coming week.

Happy Sunday.

Breakfast on Sunday morning

A July Friday

Storms to the North last Sunday

How did it get to be the end of July all ready?!

I've been away from the blog so long, TypePad had forgotten me.  And now there's this "new" TypePad that I'm previewing.  So far, it isn't quite intuitive but that could be me needing another cup of coffee.  I slept "in" this morning, having thought ahead and not scheduled anything until this afternoon.  Just those two extra hours of sleep make me feel so good, especially after yesterday's typical end of week travel.   Laundry's in process as I type.

Wilson's been making kim chee lately.  It's very tasty and simple to make.  The recipe that he currently favors is the fifth one on this collection of recipes. 

The jar on the left had aged in the refrigerator for over a week and had been sampled.  The two other jars were freshly made when this photo was taken last Sunday.  I just checked and the two new jars have taken on a golden color like the one on the left in the photo.  Yum!

I'm planning (with the services of my stylist) to do a little hair color adjustment today.  The recent "golden" (aka red) color is growing out and I'm not enjoying it.  I hope that my stylist can come close to my natural "dark" (do I hear snickering!?) blond with some low-lighting to disguise the transition between old and new growth.  Why do I think "forest" when I read that?   

There's no knitting or other fibery progress to show this week.  I've been re-reading S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire in light of just picking up The Sunrise Lands, one of the books in his "Emberverse" world.  I've read one of the others in the "modern-day" portion this series and one or two of the "Nantucket" portion.  I have to be in the right mood as sometimes the author is just too descriptive for my attention span.  However, I enjoy the character development and the alternate Earth-universe premise of this series.  I'm also reading J.D. Robb's Promises in Death and I'm more satisfied (can I say that?) with this one than the last one I read which I believe was Salvation in Death.  There's more of the Eve/Rourke relationship and other character development in Promises.

Happy Friday!

Making room for one more thing....

Some unscheduled events can be very tasty........

I had a full list of things to do yesterday.  However, sometimes you need to make room for one more thing, especially when Mother Nature is involved.  The cherries were ripe yesterday so I grabbed the step-ladder and a bowl and picked (and pitted) about five cups of tart cherries.  I'm actually glad they ripened yesterday.  Ripening on Monday would have meant the birds got to enjoy them all.  I picked just the ripe ones with many left on the tree.  So, we're sharing.  Of course, once they were picked and pitted, I was faced with the horrible task of deciding what to make with them. 

Horrible.  Riiiight.

Cherry and Nut Muffins using the Joy of Cooking recipe for basic muffins-full fat version.  I added 1.5 cups of tart cherries, and about 3/4 cup of nuts (pecans and walnuts), filled up a jumbo muffin tin and  presto......Breakfast!

and Snack.  and Lunch.  and Late afternoon snack.  Just Kidding.  Maybe.  Definitely tomorrow's early breakfast.

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Tour de Fleece 2009 Update

Yesterday's spinning is the bump part on the bobbin.  How I managed that odd bump I'm not sure.  All the cherry picking/pulled-pork making/laundry tired me out but I did make progress!  

I've got just a bit of this fiber to spin....I'm hoping to make a sweater with it whenever I finish spinning.  It is a warm neutral which should be perfect for a basic cardigan.

 

Geranium Update:

Happy Sunday!

Food and a plan

The weekend has flown, as usual.  I arrived home just before midnight after driving through a thunderstorm Thursday night.  I think the delayed flights, thunderstorm driving, and sleep deficit colored my weekend in a way I would rather not repeat. 

Anyway......here's some of the fun stuff from this weekend.

Food!  Pork Lettuce Wraps

I used a recipe by Molly Katzen as a catalyst but I was pretty "free-form" to arrive at our dinner Saturday.  Boneless porkchops cubed and cooked then sauted with minced carrots, celery, scallions, garlic, cilantro, and bean sprouts.  Yum.

I won't linger on saying I still have some *more* frogging to do on the Simple Yet Effective Shawl.  I think I can safely say that I'm going to make sure I get better sleep in the work weeks to come.

In the spirit of Summer of Socks 2009, I started some socks for Wilson using Magic Loop and Cascade.

I used this method of casting on that I found while nosing around in Ravelry.  I'm not an expert but it is pretty slick.  These socks will be staying home this week but following me on vacation next week.  (Wheee!  VACATION!!!!) *ahem*  However, this week Icarus and the SYES are coming with me for my knitting pleasure. 

Here's the plan this weekL  Work, get to the hotel, walk for about an hour, eat dinner, call Wilson, knit, and sleep.  Shower and repeat.  No television.  I repeat.....no television.  I'm blaming it for my reduced sleep levels.  I know, I know, *I'm* responsible for pushing those buttons on the remote ....but if I don't turn it on I won't know if there are never-before-aired NCIS episodes being shown.  Right?   There will be some ipod Touch surfing/blog reading, too, assuming the wireless connection is functioning. 

Happy late Sunday night!

A Bluebird and Enchiladas

Mr. Bluebird - Saturday Morning

I had a pretty good week overall, despite completely forgetting about the humidity levels in DC and having the worse "hair" week of the last decade.  This was my first week of a year-long detail in DC and I'm having the opportunity of experiencing what it is like to have my own office....with a door.  No exterior window, so don't get too excited for me.  Normally, for work I get to sit at a folding or conference room table in chairs ranging from folding chairs to kitchen chairs to pretty decent office chairs, so a "real" office is a treat.  My hotel is about 12 blocks from the office so I did get a lot of walking in....and also more showers.  I'm going to have to strategize (is *so* a word!) my day so I don't feel like a wrung-out rag when I arrive for work in the morning.  I am such a walking wimp since I really hate being sweaty in work clothes.  *whine*  On the other hand, I am happy with the exercise I got this week.  I've found there is a work-out room in the building so I may be able to include it in my campaign quest to be more fit.

I definitely got behind in personal email answering and blog reading and commenting this week on the road.  When flying, I can't carry everything I would normally just chuck into the Jeep, so I'm minus my MacBook.   I may be in the market for one of those little net books things but I'm really waiting for the rumored Apple netbook of early 2010.  My telephone and some blog comment applications like those for Joan's and Carrie's blogs, to name just a couple, do not play together at all.  On top of that I just don't like typing long sentences on a micro-keyboard.  Access to blogs via work is just not the thing to do with my employer.  So, I'm working on it.  Please don't forget about me.  :D 

Wilson and I don't really have the "yard beautiful" thing going on but sometimes stuff just needs to be trimmed.  A new gardening tool arrived this week that I ordered from Amazon and I'm very pleased with it.  It is a cordless Black & Decker 18V string trimmer.  It is light enough for me to use easily in the yard compared to the stinky gas models.  Wilson charged the batteries for me during the week so I could play with it Saturday.  I trimmed just about everything using the first battery (it comes with two rechargeables) yesterday afternoon.  It also is far less noisy than the gas model.  We have an electric model but an extension cord only goes so far around here.  On top of it all, this is going to be an excellent upper-body strength builder based on the way my arms feel this morning.  Ouch.  (I am such a weakling.) 

Besides trimming, laundry, and errands, I also cooked!  Really.  I was browsing in the cookbook bookcase and came across Jane Butel's book and decided pork and green chile enchiladas, New Mexico style sounded great.  The recipe was inspired by Jane but isn't in the book, exactly. 

Now, I'm just taking Jane's word that this are really New Mexico-style enchiladas since I didn't research them the one time I visited in Roswell.  (I'm hoping to amend that this October in Taos.)  However, these were yummy even if they were just Angie-style.  I also made some tomatillo salsa from last summer's frozen tomatillos.  I collapsed in my armchair the rest of the evening.  :D

Butter!

Diane asked about the Sunday butter project.  Here's an answer in photos.

One pint of fresh cream from Blue Marble Family Farm transformed into eight ounces of butter.  There is also a sprinkle of sea salt in there at the bowl stage.  The entire process took less than 45 minutes because I do everything a bit slower than the average bear and I had a load or two of laundry that required attention.  The cream became solid in 15 minutes of shaking (and photography) in the jar.  The rinsing and stirring took more time.   Would I do it again?  Probably.  Will I do it all the time.  No.  The butter is very tasty and melts more rapidly than the "store" butter on toast.  DH and I both thought it was mild and, well, tasted like butter.  It was delicious on freshly baked bread.   I enjoyed the process and I'm glad I now have a "muscle memory" of sorts for butter-making.

This post was my original inspiration.  There are also numerous other references to butter-making on the Internet.   There's a bit more narration about the process in my Flickr set.

Some Tuesday food on Friday

This week DH and I were in Chicago for a meeting.  (My presentation was very well-received, thankyouverymuch.)  Our hotel was on the edge of Greek Town but we joined a group of co-workers Tuesday night and went to this restaurant up near Diversey and Halsted.   We found that they offer Tapas Tuesday on , well, Tuesday, which is a menu of many of their dishes but in smaller portions.  I don't remember the name of the dish but one of the dishes I ordered was a brushetta that DH and I decided just had to be reproduced at home.  Not one to let grass grow under his feet when there is food to experiment with, DH reproduced the dish this evening. 

I made the bread this afternoon (Artisan Bread in 5 min, basic recipe) and he did the rest----and he shared.  Delicious!!!

Wilson's Tomato, Avocado, and Provolone Bruschetta

One medium vine-ripened tomato, seeded, cut in a large dice
Half of a ripe Haas avocado, large dice
Some shredded provolone cheese (no measurement, maybe 1/3 cup or so)
basil leaves-about a teaspoon (2 or 3 fresh leaves), chopped
garlic clove (peeled)
olive oil - one tablespoon
red wine vinegar - one teaspoon
sturdy bread-sliced, cut into serving portions
Sea salt (Maldon's flaky)

Toast the bread and rub the garlic clove over the toast (either a lot or a little--to your taste)  Place the toasts on a serving platter.

In a medium bowl, combine the tomato and red wine vinegar.  Add the olive oil, basil, and provolone.  Mix.  Add the avocado and mix gently.  Spoon the tomato/avocado mixture on the toast.  Sprinkle the salt according to your own taste at the table.  Enjoy!

Stay tuned for some actual knitting-related content!

Things that make you say hmmm.....

Last week (which seems like a decade ago but I digress), I needed, err, wanted to divide a skein into two equal cakes to prepare yarn for the Simple Yet Effective Shawl (ravelry link).  Being a geeky kind of knitter, I pulled out the scale (required for equal cakes), put the skein on it and you can see what I saw.  Gee whiz.  I know there is some variation in weights for both my scale and the yarn but this is a bit much.  (ETA:  Carrie has a good suggestion.  The humidity when I weighed was probably 30 percent or less.)   However, life is too short to worry much about it outside of having blog fodder.   Only one knot in the entire skein and it is pretty yarn with lovely color changes.  It will be just the thing (simple and colorful) to perk me up until Spring comes.  (and maybe after but let's not dwell on that.....)

Another hmmm moment:  I had my teeth cleaned today.  Always a good experience at this dental office.  However, an old crown came loose while I was in the chair.  Overall, a sort of fortunate thing.  I guess.  A time saver at the least.  I did notice something odd in my bite last night but I brushed my teeth and forgot about it.  I had other stuff to fill up my brain matter at the time.  Unfortunately, it is/was a very old crown so I'm happy I opted for the supplemental dental insurance at work this year.  /sigh

I've been remiss reporting family birthdays the past two weeks.  DH's birthday was at the end of January and we had a nice but low-key celebration.  Happy Birthday to the man who keeps me steady and I love with all my heart. 

Sunday was Mom's birthday. We had a nice family luncheon of pickled mussels, panko-crusted cod, smashed pototes, baby peas, a loaf of artisan bread, and chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream at her house.  Mom enjoyed a bit of everything.  (At least, she said she did.)  She's feeling a bit better but is still building her strength back up.  Happy 76th Birthday, Mom!  I love you!

Okay, the full moon stuff can stop anytime.  It's been a hard couple of days, gremlins and trouble-makers.  Time to take a break, okay?

Gosh, I need to change the blog template, especially the font size, but I think I'll wait a few days......