catching up days

Posted on Posted in designing, food and garden, projects

still picking stuff from the garden every day, but since i ignored some of the putting up work while i finished my stole over the weekend, i had lots to attend to the last couple of days.

i promised myself that yesterday i would knit only on my sweater, as a reward for keeping to my schedule and getting the stole and pattern finished and blocked. and i did . . . i had classes to teach but i worked on it during those, and then in the evening i treated myself to a couple of hours of work on it.

i’m knitting the body of it in one piece. normally i prefer to do seams in sweaters to give them the structure i like, but i wanted on-seam cables here so i went with working the body all at once. and cables at the seams provide rigidity similar to that of a sewn seam, so no worries about it losing its shape there.

it feels great to be working with heavier yarn—the knitting goes quite a bit more quickly and i’m already about 6 inches deep into the body. i’m adding a little shaping at the sides and center back so it will fit a bit like a tailored jacket. the ribbing you see at the bottom will be steamed flat instead of being allowed to pull in, so far, so good. i’m aiming to get this done for rhinebeck but i’m not going to kill myself making that happen.

the yarn is gorgeous, isn’t it?? the colors are actually much deeper and richer than this photo shows . . . more like this:

(but that still doesn’t qute represent the color exactly, sigh)

chris at briar rose fibers just outdid herself with this one and i know this will be a garment i’ll wear a lot—it goes with everything i own. the yarn is her BFL DK named glory days and i love it.

come this morning though, i had a lot of catching up to do in the kitchen. i had two big bowls of tomatoes that needed to be cooked and puréed, so i did that first thing.

then i went out and pulled in all the remaining mature swiss chard, zen greens, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes that were ripe. i put the greens on to soak, filled a big pot with water to boil them, and cut up all the eggplant i have lying around to roast up for the freezer

it was a lot—three cookie sheets full. nice.
actually i love this roasted eggplant in recipes almost better than fresh. and definitely better than any eggplant from the store. the nice thing about it is that it is par-cooked, so that when i take it out to use it on pasta or in a curry, it doesn’t take forever to cook through. and the roasting seems to improve the flavor, too.

by the time the eggplant went into the oven the pot was boiling for the greens and i tossed them in for a few seconds to cook, then into freezer bags.

never got my peppers stuffed over the weekend so i got out the big bag full that i had in the fridge and started cleaning them. i packed them with the family recipe which includes good bread, anchovies, capers, grated cheese, garlic, and herbs

and laid them on a bed of herbs to roast.
i had about 20 larger peppers and 30 or so midget ones. the little peppers came from the plants my friend kris gave me and they are awesome. sweet, meaty, and they turn bright orange on the plant—how much do we love that?

i’ve been using them all summer in curries and pasta dishes, but i thought they’d make great appetizers if they were stuffed. the plants have been very prolific, so i’m hoping for at least one more good harvest from them. if i get it, i’ll make roasted plain peppers to use in the christmas eve antipasto—i just think they’d be so festive.

i really wanted to get the rapini in and cooked up today too, but by this time it was 3 pm and we had to do our photo shoot with the shawls.
i’m telling you—every day it’s go, go go. but i like it that way.

ok, now i really have to get those photos edited so the stole pattern can be released tomorrow with a nice picture . . . see you then.

10 thoughts on “catching up days

  1. Your peppers are so colourful, it looks like they’ll be delicious!
    Cutting and roasting up eggplant for the freezer is an awesome idea! Thanks for sharing it. I’ll buy some eggplants at the farmer’s market and will give that a try for sure!

  2. I am so envious of your veggie garden. Thank you for all the great tips of preparing the vegs for freezing especially the eggplants.

  3. wow you get so much done in one day.
    I started punch & judy and have about 10 inches done. Loveit!

  4. Stuffed peppers with anchovies and bread and garlic and cheese and herbs???????? Now, how wonderful does that sound and I don’t even see the family recipe here for all the details! Hey, I’m the one who loves anchovy pizza!

    The sweater will be perfect on you!

  5. Wow. Those stuffed peppers look absolutely fabulous — and I take it they freeze well? Is there a recipe for that? Mmm…. (The sweater looks yummy, too, but you completely distracted me with those peppers!)

  6. Yum! It all looks so delicious. I love seeing the food as much as I love seeing the knitting. Two of the most wonderful things in the world, knitting and food!

  7. You must have one heck of a good sized freezer (huge grins here). I think if ever there is a snow storm bad enough to become housebound, I want to arrange it so I’m at your place (hah!)
    It all looks so delicious.

  8. Oh, wow. I should know better than to read your blog when I’m hungry! Those peppers sound fantastic.

  9. The food is making me hungry but it’s not even elevenses yet. And your sweater looks so beautiful already. I’m envious and I’ve just realized that the next couple of years for me are probably going to be in places where I will rarely need a sweater. Which means I need to get cracking on finishing the one I have going so I have something to wear this winter.

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