Pischi Days

I Scored

Spinach is back on the shelves at Publix. E coli be damned. I bought 2 bags and made our favorite, well, my favorite really. Here is the recipe...enjoy.

Spinach Custard Ring with Tomato Cream Sauce

 · 2 lbs. loose fresh spinach

· 4 large eggs

· 1 C heavy cream

· 1 ½ tsp minced fresh basil

· ½ tsp salt

· Liberal seasoning of freshly ground pepper

 

Sauce

· ¾ C tomato puree

· ¾ C heavy cream

· ¼ tsp salt

· Freshly ground pepper

· ¼ Cup freshly grated parmesan

 

Remove stems from the spinach and discard. Clean the spinach by dunking in cold water and lifting out, leaving the dirt behind. (I use bagged spinach.)

Put spinach in a large pot with just the water that clings to it. Cover and cook over low heat just until wilted (I microwave the stuff for 1 minute) Squaeeze out extra water and chop until fine.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat the eggs in a large bowl and stir in the cream, basil, salt, pepper, and spinach.

Generously grease a 1 ½ quart ring mold or loaf pan and fill it with the spinach mixture. Place the pan into a larger pan that is partially filled with water. The water should reach about half way up the sides.

Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a knife, inserted in the center, comes out clean.

While the ring is baking combine all the sauce ingredients, except for the parmesan cheese, and mix well.

When baked, let sit 10 minutes prior to unmolding.

Unmold into a quiche pan of another attractive baking dish. Pour the tomato cream sauce evenly over the ring, sprinkle with the parmesan, and bake for another 15 minutes until golden brwwn.

Yum, yum!

Time for some new dishes. Look at those scratches!

Better Late Than Never!

Julie and I were discussing the phenomenon that we don’t blog in a timely manner. Clearly things happen, pictures are taken and then, well, nothing happens. What we saw, did, and captured on the photo chip should be regurgitated right away or don’t bother. I see this happening when I load my pictures in my photo editing program. I take lots of interesting photos and they taunt me in the cards screen above my saved photos, I also don’t delete them in a timely manner. So I am giving you a rundown of happenings as they appeared on my photo disk.

First, joy and success!. I finished the Wild Stripes Baby Blanket. The blocking wires are worth every penny and the process worth the time and effort. After I removed the wires, the blanket was nicely squared. I sewed on the piping and backed the whole affair. Now, Julia, please finish the embroidery in a timely manner, else the child reached high school!

 

Every Wednesday I meet with Susan for coffee in our local café. Often we’re joined by friends and the group is always changing. I always knit. Several Wednesdays ago, a lady came to the table and commented, gleefully, on my knitting. She turns out to be a high school classmate of Susan’s and now lives in LA. She was contracted to do some work at the space center. She is a knitter and someone with whom I would love to knit with on a regular basis. Her thing is sweaters and felted bags. She shops here and here. Pats mom surprised us with a visit last Wednesday and brought a bag that she had made on a visit to her daughter. The bag is fabulous and the pictures don’t do it justice. I enjoyed meeting a fellow knitter and was honored that her mom would surprise us with her treasured piece. I hope that we see her every Wednesday!

 

This weekend was the district conference swim meet in Port Orange. Erik swam well and made it to the finals for a consolation swim in the 500 freestyle. During the break Julia, Heidi and I had lunch at the bar in the Olive Garden in Daytona Beach. Normally we would have gotten a table but its Biketober Fest and the Speed way was packed with motorcycles.

Saturday Sky

Here is a rare shot of International Speedway Drive with no traffic. Amazing.

Here is a typical parking lot.

Baby Blanket Blocking Blues

I have never seen or touched the revered Koigu before. So, when Julie dangled temptation in front of me I grabbed it...the 2 skeins, of course. The quid pro quo was to help her finish a baby blanket that she had finally knit the top for.

My challenge was just beginning. I have never blocked an item this large before, having limited myself to small project such as socks and baby garb. I started by choosing fabfric that had been purchased in Germany when Erik was a baby. I bought cording and cut fabric on the bias and made piping. Blocking can’t be too difficult, or so I thought. I steamed away it appeared the blanket was squared. Wrong!

Round 1

After sewing the piping around the blanket and taking measurements, I found one side longer than the other.

Round 2

I ripped off the piping and became the blocking process with all the canned goods that I could find stashed in my pantry. Wrong. The blanket pulled itself into strange shapes and scallops.

Round 3

I had read about things called blocking wires and how they were the secret to straight edges and blocking success. KnitPicks to the rescue! After an interminably long wait, my set arrived yesterday. I felt hope as I threaded the wires down the side and the ends. My trusty cutting board is just the right size. I misted the whole thing and pinned the edges. Tonight is the true test. My hope is that when I remove the wires, the blanket will have retained its shape.

Stay tuned!

When on the Weekend...

As I was driving to work on Friday  I passed a garage sale and was compelled to stop. Evidently an estate was bought out and the goods available were in insurmountable quantities piled everywhere. I ferreted out these hand colored postcards. The artist is Douky and all I find is that the cards are French and from the Edwardian era. The pen sketch of the Spanish Dancer is numbered and by an artist named Rothe with a first name that I can’t read. Anyway, I was pleased with my find.

Erik and I spent out allowance on books at our libraries book sale. We lugged home a box filled to the top. On the way home we stopped at a friends newly opened vintage store called “inventory”.

 

I bought this Saks hat and dressed it up with on of Terri's silver pins with vintage beads. Terri has a nice collection of vintage stuff that is artfully displayed in their renovated space that was once a hardware store, a joy to browse through. In addition to the hat, I took home a vase for my burgeoning basil cuttings.

I have been doing some knitting as well. The Candle Flame shawl has a second repeat to it and the Iris Garden socks are also receiving my attention. There has been some talk about a knitter’s thimble on the 6 Sox site. In my investigations into purchasing a thimble online I tripped across the Sundara Petals Collection sock club that has reopened and promptly joined. What a segue!

Saturday Sky

Really a Sunday mornig, 6:30 AM sky. I was getting the newspaper and, yes, the clouds were really that pink.

Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program...

6 Sox Knitalong Iris Garden Sock is my first attempt at intarsia. I had a skein of Amber sock yarn in the Lemongrass colorway from Rae’s Yarn Boutique in Lansing. As the pattern is her creation, it's only fitting that I am working it up in her hand painted merino. The contrast color is Gloss, a new KnitPicks yarn whose texture I love. After listing to Brenda Dayne and her toe up adventures, I tried the Magic Cast On and I’m pleased to report that it worked like a charm first time around. The toe is now complete and I am a few rows into the foot pattern.

DaCapo is also in rotation. The jacket is still my favorite mindless knitting project. I have progressed to joining the sleeve to the back and am working the front panel. The construction of this jacket is sheer genius. I see that Hanna has a new design called Diva.

Julia and I are still working on the Candle Flame shawl for 2. Another first for me is lace knitting. I chant each pattern row because I get lost reading the grid chart. The little ball of Shimmer seems to remain the same size in spite of my row increases. I really became intimidated by the photo of the 2 additional hanks that are in need of winding and knitting. My respect for the lace knitters has increased dramatically.

The first Yarntini sock is complete and I have cast on the cuff of sock 2 during breakfast at Deleon Springs last weekend. The Old Sugar Mill Restaurant is located in the park. Its charm is that guest gather round a table fitted with a griddle and cook their own pancakes. The wait for a table is long but oh so worth it. After a satisfying breakfast a paddle around the springs in a canoe or kayak.

My newest acquisitions...

Karabella Gossamer

Gedifra Colorito

It is the Sock That Doesn’t End

And it goes on and on my friend.

Patricia started knitting it

She knew just what it was

And she continues knitting it forever just because

It is the sock that doesn’t end ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,ø¤º¤º°`°º¤

I have been knitting the Susan Yartini Cosmopolitan sock for far too long.

The swim meet was wonderful. Eleven teams from all over the county showed up to compete. Erik knocked 30 seconds off his time in the 500 meter and placed first in his heat and 15^th overall. Yeah.

After the big meet, I introduced Julia to All Strung Out, a great little yarn shop in Cocoa Beach. I scored 3 skeins of Karabella Gossamer in a navy/silver combination and some multi texture Gedifra Colorito. Gail, the shop owner, was making a small scarf in the soft pink. The yarn should make a nice scarf in the black.

After yarn overload, we hit the Irish pub for some Black and Tans’ and a quick photo-op with Cosmo sock and our towns’ rival high school.

Saturday Sky was taken at 6:00 AM with a full moon. It was a funny thing, I had just talked to my aunt in Germany and she mentioned the full moon being a bright yellow. When I went to get the paper this morning, there it was in all its yellow glory. Small world indeed.

Welcome Fall..and Not a Day Too Soon

The leaves on my seasonal barometer tree are falling; a sure sign that autumn is on its way.

The past few week have been crazy busy and I can’t keep up the pace. Work in the form of remodels, new construction projects are piling up on my desk, my calendar is filling up with appointments and I’ve taken the mornings to revisit the gym prior to hitting the office. If only I could figure out how to knit on the treadmill without falling on my face. I’ll have to content myself with reruns of Cast-On and Lime & Violet on my iPod. BIG SIGH.

There has not been much blogging or blog reading going on. I have been knitting! First off, thanks for the socks Phoebe. Phoebe was my assassin from Tampa and I finally have a great pair of denim-like sock knit in what looks like Cascade Fixation. At least I can sport hand knit socks on the hamster wheel at the gym.

I am making Susan a pair of socks from a skein of my precious Yarntini. Susan has survived and awesome lung surgery, had her cancer eradicated, and is in recovery and looking great!

DaCapo is humming along. I finally see some shape taking place. The only things I see wrong is that it looks awfully small. I sport a size 12 and I don’t quite see myself fitting my boobages into the jacket. We’ll see...just keep knitting.

Rae, my SP6 swap buddy, designed the new 6Sox pattern after a Turkish sock. I have a skein of her hand dyed yarn Amber Sock Yarn in Lemon Grass. I think that I will mix it with some KnitPicks Gloss in Cocoa. What do think Rae? I like it!

Julia’s and my Candle Flame KAL for 2 is crawling along. My shawl anyway! Hers went on a fabulous cruise to the Bahamas. But did it make it to the midnight buffet? It’s not telling!

ErikMeister is swimming the 500 in conference on Friday. I’m so proud that he has come so far in such a short time. I’ll be poolside in Cocoa Beach, me and my knitting. Tomorrow is the shaving party. TomTerrific wonder what’s being shaved. Inquiring parents want to know!

Small bummer, I was planning on a trip to Ashville to attend the Sheep and Wool Fest last weekend in October. My traveling friend, Jane, bowed out due to her husbands participation in the National Skydiving Championships in Phoenix. She didn’t want to saddle TomT with all the kids. I said, “Why not?” I have no conscience. I really don’t want to go it alone. SIGH! Maybe Maryland in the spring. Anyone need a room at the Hampton Inn for that weekend. Speak now before I cancel.