So I know this is a knitting blog, but boy am I finding it hard to chase after a puppy and do the knit thing lately.  Plus I’ve been so tired.  It didn’t help that Sunday I decided to power wash the parts of the house siding I could reach.  Although it was really nice to walk out on the front porch and it was spider free.  Mostly.  They’ve already started to move back in.

Anyway I thought I break the bread maker out again and give it a whirl.  This was so-so tasting.  However, it does look pretty.

I sliced it thin for a sandwich, but it was a bit too yeasty or maybe it was the sunflowers.  It was sunflower and flax seed.  It could’ve been the flax seed.  Anyway - taste was just ok.

One really nice creation was the waffles that DH made.  Gorgeous and tasty.  I sliced the strawberries.  DH also ordered the maple syrup from Two Pigs Farm.  Light and flavorful.  Sorry it’s already sold out.  Have to wait for next year.

So I thought I knit it more since the last picture… then I realized I did, but then ripped it.  I put the brown in and it just didn’t work, so again I ripped it back a bit. I think the light blue looks better, much better.

I’m hoping to make some more progress tonight.

So when DH has some time off to himself, he sure does love to bake.  We got not one, but two treats.

First a summer fruit pie

and next a lemon pound cake.

My contribution was quiche.

I have been having such a hankering for quiche.  I used this basic recipe found here and then added some bacon and some mushrooms to the mix.  I couldn’t wait to get into it and it’s totally delicious.  I used DH’s deep dish Emile Henry 9″ pie plate, so I made slightly more egg mixture.  I added 2 more eggs and 2/3 a cup more of half & half.  DH made both crusts from scratch and I think they were the best yet.

I was having a something fierce craving for chicken piccata today.  I decided to give it a whirl on my own.  Once a again a recipe I found on allrecipes.com.  Pretty simple.  I added the capers and used the suggestions from the first reviewer.  This is definitley a keeper.  Very yummy.

Tomorrow it’s leftovers and back to the knitting.  No this has not turned into a foodie blog.  My shawl is progressing nicely and it’s time to give a little show and tell.

So last night I took the day off to rest and decided to make up a little supper. I found a new fish recipe and decided to pair it with my very favorite potato recipe. Since they turned out well, I thought I would share them with you.

So my tasty super simple potato recipe came from a friend and I don’t know where she got it, but it’s easy peasy and can be done in the over or on the grill.

I peeled and cubed 6 potatoes and 1 larger size yellow onion. I added a few pats of butter and some salt and pepper to taste.

Bake until potatoes are soft and you have this lovely.

DH and I bought salmon from Wild Pacific Salmon, which I can wholly recommend. They have excellent customer service and we really picked up our good for you fish eating habits. We ordered 15 pounds in the late summer/early fall and were through that about February or March, so we put another order in for 15 more pounds.

Since so much is down in my freezer and it’s so easy to fix after a long day. I’m always on the look out for good salmon recipes. I used a super simple recipe I found on allrecipes.com, it consists of salmon, lemon, and rosemary sprigs, with a dash of salt and olive oil. I forgot to add the olive oil, but it was still delicious and I will be doing more of this dish. This is what it looked like when I put it together.

This is plated.

First let me say Thank You to everyone for the birthday wishes and nice comments about Butterfly.  I haven’t gotten through all my emails yet, but you will all be getting one back from me.  I had a really nice birthday.  Beautiful books for my collection as someone went a teeny bit crazy on my Amazon list.  A great dinner and then finished up another project while hanging out and watching two movies.

So what do you do what turkey day left overs?  For us it’s all about the pot pie.  Really not as much left overs as I thought.  We had a 14-pound bird for two.  Yes, seems like a lot, but after the big day and one meal of leftovers - not so much.  It amounted to 9 cups of turkey.  So this is the recipe I use - it took me about 1.5 hours from start to finish to get the filling put up for what looks to be 5 pies.

This is the filling.

This is the first pie.

This is 4 more filling that went to my freezer.

My baker was back in business this morning. He used Julie’s recipe and made some delicious Apple Coffee Cake.

Also there was some serious kitty loving on the dog. This one has no shame and can’t seem to resist Poodle top knot.

Well at least the foodie version is back with a vengeance. Yesterday Monsieur Purl and I stopped by the Farmer’s Market. He waited with the dogs, while I scoured the place looking for some good food finds. I was really looking for some fingerling potatoes and came up without any, but did find some really beautiful leeks and other varieties of potatoes. I also found some lovely greens, a small cauliflower, and some very mild radishes.

These leeks were $.75 a piece and he threw a few in for free since I was buying a lot of them, plus some of his other fare. Immediately tales of potato-leek soup jumped in my head and this beautiful bunch went home with me.

Monsieur Purl already had two meals planned for the weekend - one is chicken noodle he has been craving since the weather turned and the other was beef stew. I helped with the chicken noodle doing the dicing - I’m a bit faster - he is a bit more meticulous. However, I did the stew in a one-pot meal all by myself.

I dredge the stew meat in flower and then placed in a heated pan with a little oil. After that browned I added red potatoes, carrots, onion, and then towards the end some green beans. Also, don’t forget my secret ingredient - garlic. I add a few cloves to a lot of recipes that would never call for it. About 3 cups of water and my stand by onion soup mix and away we go. Within 20 minutes and some biscuits later your eating. Really even with the chopping if you go fast and not as neat, it’s just under an hour. It’s quite a hardy stick to your ribs meal.

Finally potato leek is based on several recipes and is going to be my own version. This will be a new one for me as well as Monsieur Purl asked that I add bacon to the mix. I’m like what? No vichyssoise? Normally mine is a meat-less version, with a milk base, but not quite as heavy, so this has been quite the adventure. After a final prep tomorrow, I’ll review and let you know my success and what I would change in the future.

Finally it hasn’t been all cooking around here today… the dye-pots have been fired up for two days as I’ve done a little experimenting as well. First let’s do the oranges. These dyes are all Cushing dyes. For the record I do normally dye this bright and have this good of luck. Toning it down it the challenge for me.

To the left we have what was mix of gold and maize. Gold was too yellow and maize was too dark. Put them together and just right.

In the middle a simple harvest yellow with a touch of lemon yellow. The harvest too dark and the lemon too bright, but a little lemon brightens it up. The right is the orange. Not nearly diluted enough - so it’s a shock of orange. Although - excellent pumpkin colors. When I started with the orange I thought - oh my… not just orange. Nothing in nature is one color… everything has hues and shades and so shall my pumpkins… so far so good.

Next up the greens. Much more challenging. The sleeper hit of the dye party last week was silver gray green. So I place that in one pot - which is the far left.

The next three are all from the same pot. Yes - all the same pot added at different times. First was the green, which was a comical green - not seen as much in nature, so what was I to do? Why add some silver gray of course. It still wasn’t quite right, so next I added a touch of medium brown and what we have is in the middle…well middle-left.  After about an hour I added the next to the right and you can see how it picked up some brown and at that point I added touch of yellow. I don’t normally dye brown, since that is easy to find in wool, but this is an interesting green over brown. The flash seemed to get more brown than the green. Finally to get the dye to fully exhaust at another 1/2 hour I added more roving and came up with a very light green. The flash washed it out to white, but really it’s a very light green. I really didn’t plan on dyeing as much green, but really everything in nature has stems and green - so it’s not a bad thing. Maybe I’m on my way to my knitted farmyard yet.