pjbknit

Christmas Time, With No Knitting

I think the last time I knitted was at lunchtime at work the week before our holidays started.  I have been baking instead. I had to make gingerbread of course, and I made three kinds of biscotti. Biscotti was made first, so that I had some for gifting.

Cranberry almond

Gingerbread biscotti was next. My first attempt got overbaked the second time, and was greatly enjoyed by the dogs. They all love gingerbread. I haven't found a photo of it yet.

The next type was chocolate chip cranberry almond biscotti from a Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix recipe. They were good, just not as crunchy as the others. Here they are in one of my fancy Martha Stewart cookie boxes.

I made the dogs their own gingerbread dog biscuits for Christmas. They also got Milk-Bones and rawhide shaped like gingerbread men from my SIL's family.

We did have real gingerbread cookies for the humans here.

I have been on a turkey panini kick here lately, and made some rosemary focaccia to use for panini making. I think the panini press had not been used in a year or two.

For the past two years at work, we have had a brunch on the last day for faculty. This year's was December 16, and  I made mini pecan stcky buns and cinnamon rolls, using Pillsbury crescent roll dough.

I cooked a turkey breast in the crock pot the day after Christmas. I also made some cheddar parmesan biscotti to have with soup.

Today, on the 27th, I made butternut squash soup and ciabatta bread. Tonight's panini was made wth the fresh-roasted turkey  and the fresh-baked ciabatta.

I found this photo that I had forgotten about on my phone.  This is right before the model woke up and ran away.

 

 

Pears, Honey

Actually, this is pear honey. (I used 2 cups of pineapple and cooked it in a 3.5 qt Crock Pot on High until it got thick) I did not quite have enough pears for a batch, so I had to run out to the tree. I grabbed a limb, shook it and got outta the way as pears rained down. I also didn't have crushed pineapple, so I put chunks in the food processor. Think it looks OK.  The recipe yielded the equivalent of 9 half pints, in a combination of 12 oz, 6 oz and 4 oz jars.

I have finally, finally, reached the sleeve divide of the raglan cardigan Sedona in Rowan Calmer yarn.

Yesterday, I got my Margarita sock yarn package from Woolgirl.  Mine was strawberry, and had all kinds of goodies, includng a pattern, bag, stitchmarker, Jelly Belly beans in drinkie flavors, flipflop notepad, much more, etc. All PINK.

 

 

 

Jam Up and Jelly Tight

That was one of my mother's expression, though I never heard the song. YouTube. I made lemon basil and cinnamon basil jellies. It seems like cheating to use the Certo liquid pectin and have jelly so fast, while everything else I have canned has had to cook for a while.

Basil jelly photo shoot. The lemon is the lighter, more yellow one.

That is Genovese basil in the blue jar.  It is in the tomato jams I made earlier. It has rooted in water.  I always wonder what my antique Mason jars have seen-what they have held in their lives.

  The other thing that I have canned this past week is a second batch of Salted Caramel Pear Butter. I had some Fleur de Sel sea salt that I got to make caramels last Christmas, that got put in the pears with the brown sugar and nutmeg. I also broke out the Ball Elite half pint jars, as I now have a canner in which they fit, with a flat rack.

 

Canning and Caterpillars

I saw some decapitated parsley plants, and kept looking for swallowtail caterpillars. I found some in the next couple of days after finding the chewed parsley. They were on the dill in the next planter.  I was wondering if frass serves as fertilizer.The red in the background of the caterpillar shot is the periwinkle (vinca) that DH has nutured through 2 winters.

I left the pupa alone to try to see the butterfly emerge. I always wanted to do that when I was young, but my mother would rather have the parsley and dill plants.

I made real old fashioned fig preserves yesterday. No ginger, just figsm sugar and lemon. I have one Dutch oven that six pounds of figs and five pounds of sugar barely fit into. I cooked it over an hour, which is about how long it takes the canner to boil on the extra burner because we have a ceramic cooktop. I really have to start using the hot water pot.

I also made some more crushed tomatoes today-using the 5.5 qt Crock pot, rather than several. I made some oven-roasted sauce with onions and garlic and fresh basil, rosemary, thyme and oregano for lunch.

Speaking of tomatoes, I picked some cherry tomatoes (below) and froze them whole, after being inspired by this blog post. The Virginia Peach was too pretty to cook today.

In other gardening news, the gourd vine is encroaching on the patio. I have dubbed it the John L. Ells, Sr. memorial gourd vine because my FIL loved to grow gourds and make birdhouses. We think the seed was from one of his gourds. One year, a vine went up the gutter and on the roof and TV antenna.

Look, knitting! I have gotten a lot done on Sedona (in Rowan Calmer yarn) in the past couple of days. DH had gasric bypass surgery Wednesday, and I knitted in waiting rooms and his room. I have the pdf of the pattern on my new ASUS Transformer tablet. It is an Android 3.2 tablet, which looked really different from my Android phone, until the phone updated itself to Android 2.3.  Now they both really look pretty much the same. At least I only have to get used to the new operating system once. Does that even make sense?

UPS brought me a new canner. I broke down and ordered the Ball Elite stainless steel canner. I could hardly get my graniteware pint canner's lid to close yesterday with six pints of fig preserves. It does better with half pints.

I did not can anything today because I had a bad headache, plus, after it was gone, I spent time getting that label off. I peeled part of it off right away. I should have listened to the reviewers and either set the box outside for a time, or used a blow dryer on the glue. I refused to use Goo Gone and bring back my headache, so I tried soaking it in soapy water, and got the paper off. Then I Googled, and tried rubbing alcohol. Then I found the Simple Green and sprayed the glue and let it sit. Then I was able to get the glue off with an old  toothbrush and elbow grease.  There is a Ball logo above the label. as well as on the glass lid. It has a flat rack, which allows more jars to fit. I  need to pick figs.

More Maters and Stuff

I am still knitting on Sedona from the denim color Rowan Calmer yarn.

Yesterday I made pickled tomatoes with the Yellow Pear and Golden Gem cherry tomatoes. I found the recipe in a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I also used BHG jars.

Today, I picked a couple of baskets of assorted red tomatoes, and  cooked tomatoes in three Crock Pots-started out with 9 quarts.

Most of them were transformed into six quarts of crushed tomatoes in three slow cookers