Thursday, December 30, 2010

More Knitting..Cable scarf with attached convertible mittens.

So I made this scarf with attached convertible mittens thing as a special order for a customer,

 it's um... awesome....


Notice that the thumb is convertible too, you know for texting.


Thanks to "the other Sarah" for being my model.

Hmmm... wait...this feels funny....
2 right mittens....FAIL...

I ripped one out and re-knitted it, good thing "the other Sarah" noticed!!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Improved Horehound Drops

I made horehound drops again this year, with some minor improvements. (Last Year) I used a buttered pyrex dish, that didn't work out. This year I did the cookie sheet with parchment paper on top, WAAAAAY better for getting the drops off.

New improved drop remover design

Scored drops



 The scoring didn't work so well, out came the big guns (notice the hammer).


Used confectioner's sugar again this year to coat them, it helps with the bitter flavor, at least at first...

 
Also I may have slightly burnt it, it got to 300 degrees and a little over, FAST this time, but this stuff is so bitter, you can't tell. =0) The one good thing is these drops are far less sticky than last years, I'm guessing because they for sure got to 300 this year? (the hard crack candy stage)

By next year I should be a pro! =0)

If you'd like some drops, let me know, they're an acquired taste, but great for colds, sore throats, and asthma.
Drops packaged, labeled, and ready to go.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Processing Grease Fleece or why it smells like sheep in here....

Over the last year I've mentioned I'd love to learn to spin wool into yarn a few times, and being me I wanted to start from the beginning. Well, Aaron took me seriously and a few weeks ago, came home with a surprise. Three bags of unprocessed sheep's fleece, also called grease fleece. One of his customers mentioned they had some sheep and couldn't even give away the fleece.

I didn't quite know what to do with this stuff, so it went in the attic for a couple weeks. My philosophy is, with enough time, books, googling, and rarely, some hands on instruction, I can learn anything. So online I went and I found a pretty comprehensive how to.  I gathered my supplies (lingerie bags, long rubber gloves, and dawn dish soap), oddly enough I didn't actually own any of these things. Although, I'm now a fan of rubber gloves. Especially long pink ones. =0) Then I set out on my journey..

The first step is to pick out most of the debris, and since these fleece were free.... well let's just say the price was reflected in the quality. There was a lot of debris (vegetable matter, dung, urine, etc..) and I had to get rid of the really matted /dirty sections. I assume those were the belly/neck areas. Most people who have sheep and sell the fleece will "skirt" the fleece before they pack it away, which means take out the major debris and also the belly, leg, and neck sections (mostly done in shearing, but then again before the fleece are packed away).  Also some folks have their sheep wear special coats to keep vegetable matter off them. These particular fleece were shoved all willy nilly into black trash bags, which is a bad idea, but free is free and the lanolin didn't seem to have set in, so I figured might as well try it out..

This thing smelled bad, like a dirty sheep.



Skirting the fleece....
The nasty sections we had to cull out.


Then I started the washing process, basically a tub of hot hot water, some dawn dish soap, let soak, drain and spin (never agitate, or the wool will felt, they mean it too. I had some felt on me, because I was impatient and swished it around to clean it faster).

Take the wool out, refill with hot water, no soap, put the wool back in and soak again for a few minutes. Drain and spin.

Repeat until water is clear, which takes awhile.

I didn't use the lingerie bags the first time around, but I did the second time and that made the whole process much easier.


Then lay it out to dry, I put mine on an old screen thingy on top of a dog crate, Roxie loved having a sheep on top of her.


Here's a closer look.


Next up, combing wool.....

and then.....

spinning...

Neither of which I know how to do, but remember what I said about time, google, and books.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Making Traditional Bavarian Sauerbraten

As some of you may know my mom's family is from Germany; Bavaria more specifically. My mom was born in Munich in fact. I've grown up eating some really great, filling, traditional German foods, and now that I'm older I like to try my hand at our recipes. I had a bunch of family over recently for Sunday dinner. Cooking German food for my mom's side can be tricky, they know what it's supposed to taste like, and everyone has an opinion, of course, on how sour or salty or sweet it should be. I've compiled the best recipes and advice from everyone and here's what we get for sauerbraten. It's mostly a secret family recipe, you lucky people you.

Ingredients for marinade:
  • 4lb pot roast (with fat trimmed off)
  • 1 1/2 C Red wine vinegar
  • 2 1/2 C red wine
  • 12 peppercorns
  • 1T mustard seed
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 4 whole cloves
  • 1 1/2t salt
  • 1/4t pepper
Ingredients for cooking:
  • marinated roast
  • 3T butter
  • 12 carrots, sliced thin
  • 6 onions, sliced

First combine all marinade ingredients (except meat) in a large saucepot, bring just to a boil. Let cool slightly.

Put meat in large bowl and then pour mixture over meat. Let cool, cover tightly, and put in fridge. Marinate for 5 days, turning meat daily.


On day 5 remove from marinade (save it, you'll need it later), drain and pat dry. Melt butter in a dutch oven, then brown meat on all sides.


I made 2 because I had a number of guests. Here's the browned meat and the other one just getting started.


Once browned, add 1C marinade, and the carrots and onions. Bring to a boil, cover tightly, and simmer for 2 hours. If you need to, add more of the marinade as it cooks.


Then strain the liquid in the dutch oven and use it to make gravy.
I'd love to tell you how, but I can't, it's secret, and umm... actually I'm not even sure how to do it right, that's Omi's department.

Along with sauerbraten we had semmelknodel, blaukraut, and creamed spinach. For dessert we had American favorites: pumpkin and apple pies. I think in the end everyone was pretty happy and full.

ummm ok I'm hungry now!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Making Horse Chestnut Soap

So I like to experiment with things. This year I've been trying out different wild foods. Some have been pretty successful, and others were an absolute bust.

Here's another experiment...

My neighbors have this huge Horse Chestnut tree, and this year it's dropped a TON of nuts. It seems like such a waste. Now these nuts aren't edible, they contain the saponin aescin and also tannin, both of them would give you a pretty nasty case of the "green apple trots", or worse, for toddlers could be fatal.

I've read that Horse Chestnuts can be used to make a soap, that's not lye-based, to use on linens. Supposedly it whitens and brightens them. Really?!

So here goes...... gather some inedible horse chestnuts.....

They're kind of pretty, some folks use them in decorating, in wreaths and such. I'm not a big decorator, so I'll make soap.....


I needed to crack this thing to get at the nut meat, so I tried a potato masher...

No luck
...maybe my meat smasher flattener mallet thingy..


Nope still fine...
Out comes the hammer, the trick was holding it still without hitting my fingers, which I eventually accomplished.


Peel the nuts


Slice meat into boiling water


Let sit in boiling water for 10 minutes or so.


Ok now I have boiling soap water, that I have to say looked and felt like it was not going to work, and smelled like potatoes. I was pretty sure I'd wasted my time at this point. Well except for the hitting the nuts with a hammer, that was fun.

Now for the experiment. I took one of my linen towels and dropped wine on them (ps this was a bad idea, I love this towel, I should have used a towel I didn't like).


Then I soaked one side in the horse chestnut soap, the other side I washed with woolite.


Here's the result, can you see that the horse chestnut soap side is better?

I was amazed actually, really surprised!


Then I washed the whole thing in horse chestnut soap to get the stain out of the woolite side too. Once it was dry the linen towel was pretty as ever, but stiff, like I'd starched it (which I guess I technically did, right?).


So the verdict is:

On new stains it works better than woolite, smells like potatoes, and starches your linen. Is a little bit of a pain to make, and not sure how I'd store it. Also I've no idea if it'd work on old stains.... an experiment for next time I suppose. Overall, if I had some stained linens that I loved and wanted to resurrect without using harsh chemicals, I'd make it again.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Newly knitted and work in progress

I loooove knitting socks, I just do, and I like wearing them too! So for all you knitted sock lovers, here's a fix!
Aaron's socks

I loved these sugary pink ones, but they weren't easy!
A client ordered these, but I night just make a pair for me, they're so pretty.



And these are the socks I'm working on now. Wool knee highs for someone's birthday. As soon as i finish these, I'm making a pair for me, I loooove these!

If you'd like your own socks, or socks to give as a gift, check out our website:

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

making crabapple sauce

OR......... how to waste a few hours..................

Everytime we walk the dogs we walk by this really neat crabapple tree, and for the past 2 years I've been thinking about trying to make crabapple sauce.

So this year, we finally tried it.


We picked the crabapples, washed them, cut out the bad spots and put them in our dutch oven with a little bit of water so they didn't scorch. Cooked them, covered, until soft.



Don't they look pretty? They smelled good too.
Once they were soft enough I used my ricer to mush 'em up good.
PS...hot apple mush burns....

Then back in the dutch oven they went, and I cooked it down to a good consistency, and added my sugar. It tasted pretty sour and bitter, so I added more sugar, and more, and more, and more..... pretty much I added more sugar than apples....... nothing helped, it tasted awful, so it all went in the garbage! YUCK


The only good thing was, this was a test batch so I didn't pick a ton.

So.... I discovered those crabapples up the road, are not so good for applesauce....

Friday, September 24, 2010

Harvesting and making elderberry jelly

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

A few weeks ago, while walking the beasties, I saw some bushes loaded with berries that I suspected were elderberries. So I did some research, consulted with all my books, and a few folks I know and these are indeed Elderberries (Sambucus Canadensis).

Note: Be careful when foraging. Make sure you have correctly identified what you are picking. Elderberries do have some poisonous look alikes. Some people confuse them with poke berries which are poisonous, and there's a red variety of elderberries that aren't edible. Also the leaves and stems of the elderberry are poisonous.
I'd recommend buying a few books or even taking a class with a wild edible food expert.

Now Aaron had his doubts about making jelly out of berries we picked on the side of the road (or "crazy berries" as he called them). So I "correctly" labeled a couple jars just for him.

This is an elderberry, tiny aren't they?

So, once you have correctly identified plants, it's time to pick berries. Make sure you get ripe berries, not green (green makes you sick). Don't bother picking individual berries, just pop off the whole cluster at the joint. (gather about 3-4 pounds) Gather the rest of your ingredients.

  • 4 1/2 C sugar

  • 1/4C lemon juice

  • 1 packet of pectin
Gently rinse. Take the berries off the stems, this is a little time consuming, but I found the best method was to pick off and discard any undesirable berries (these were a little late so some clusters had little "raisins" and some wrinkly berries). Once those berries are off, then hold the cluster upside down and rake your thumb over the berries.

Then I rinsed the berries about 3 times, twice letting debris float to the top and pouring it out with the water.

Next mash the berries in a saucepot over medium heat. While it comes to a boil keep mashing to release the juices. When it reaches a boil, lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Then place berries in a jelly strainer, or a fine sieve would work, maybe even a few layers of cheesecloth. Let it strain out for a few hours. In the meantime you can prepare your canning jars. I used about 10-12 4oz jelly jars.
Measure about 3C of elderberry juice into a saucepot (use a big one this stuff foams up). (I found I got about 1C juice from each pound of berries) Stir in lemon juice and pectin.
Bring to a boil. Add sugar. Stir with a wooden spoon (this will stain your spoon purple, be ready)
Bring to a boil again, stirring continuously. Once it reaches a rolling boil that doesn't diminish when you stir, start timing. At 2 minutes remove from heat and ladle into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace.
Wipe rims of jars, position 2 piece lids.
Process in a water canner for 15 minutes.
Remove and let cool. Listen for the pop that means the jars have successfully sealed.

Enjoy your jelly!!! It tastes a little like grape, but with a wilder flavor.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

How to make peach pie filling

I loove peaches and peach pie, and I was tired of canning. So, I searched through my trusty, wrinkled, and stained copy of the Blue Balls Book of Canning, or whatever it's called, and found this recipe for peach pie filling that you FREEZE.

Here goes

Gather ingredients. (which I did first this time.)

  • 6 pounds peaches

  • 1 lemon (for 2t of peel and 1/4C juice)

  • 2 1/4Csugar

  • 1/2C flour

  • 1t cinnamon

  • 1/2t nutmeg
Wash peaches and blanch them in boiling water. This makes it MUCH easier to peel.




Peel and pit them, and cut into slices. Now the book says "treat to prevent darkening", I sprinkled lemon juice on them, but they probably meant their "fruit Fresh produce protector". Whatever, lemon juice worked for me.






 Combine sugar, flour, and spices.



Rinse and drain peaches. Stir into sugar mixture. Let stand 30 minutes or until juices begin to flow. LEMON!!

Stir in lemon peel and juice.


Cook over medium heat until it begins to thicken. That took about 10 minutes.
Ladle hot mix into freezer jars, let cool off for no more than 2 hours.  FREEZE This was easy peasy lemon squeezy (lol, get it?)

AND

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