Papa's socks

I made Papa John hand-knit socks for his birthday last year and he has mentioned several times how much he loves them. During the holidays he was wearing them and said if I ever got a hankering to, he would love a couple more pair, but just a bit higher on the leg. Papa works outside all year and in the 12+ years I've known him I've only ever seen him in long pants a handful of times. Mostly he wears cargo shorts and either his heavy boots or socks and sandals.

So for his birthday earlier this month I started working on his socks about mid January. I wanted to make them higher so started out with 3 skeins of sock yarn. I still worried that might not be enough as he also has a long foot, so added a contrasting color to stretch my original yarn a bit. I can usually knock out a pair of adult socks in a week but since these were so long and so tall each sock took almost 10 days. Good thing I started these in January!

Since I was using 2 plain colored yarns, I wanted a pattern that added a little bit of interest while also being easy to remember. I found this Ribes Jumeaux pattern on Ravelry.

Here is the finished product.

Close up of the heel and stitches

Another close up shot

I think Papa was quite pleased with his new socks as he immediately put them on after he opened them. The leg length was 11" but after he put them on I realized I could have added another 2-3". The foot fit him perfectly (it was also 11") so the next pair I only need to add to the leg length as I think he wants them to be knee highs. Did I mention Papa John is 6' 4" tall?

Polpette Di Lupo

Here are the step-by-step instructions for Mario Batali's Meatless Meatballs and sauce.

1 lb stale country bread, crusts removed and cut into thick slices
1 1/2 cups milk
3 large eggs
1/2 cup grated Pecorino or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/2 bunch Italian parsley, leaves chopped to yield 2 tablespoons
1 bunch basil, leaves chopped
1 garlic clove, minced fine
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Since I was serving this with gluten-free pasta, I thought I should make the meatballs using gluten-free bread. I found a great recipe on www.food.com for gluten-free bread in a bread machine.

I made the bread earlier in the week, then sliced it into thick pieces and laid them on a wire rack to dry out. 

Tear the slices into smaller pieces and put in a large mixing bowl with the milk. Allow to sit until the bread is soaked through. Then squeezed dry and put the slices into the food processor. Using quick pulses, make 4 cups of bread crumbs (this only took about half the loaf).


Dump the remaining milk out of the large mixing bowl and wipe out. Now add the crumbs back into the bowl. Then add the eggs, cheese, herbs, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix just like you would any other meatball or meatloaf. Form into round balls about 1 inch in diameter (the recipe said 2" but I was serving a dozen people and wanted them to stretch further). Set aside on a wire rack to dry for about 15-20 minutes.

In a saucepan or deep skillet over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil to frying temperature, about 360 degrees F. Fry the bread balls until brown on all sides. Remove the balls as they brown and drain on a rack covered with paper towels.

Now on to the tomato sauce. This Mario's basic tomato sauce. Now, I'm used to making sauce with lots of spices, garlic, and onions, and then letting it cook for hours on the stove. So I was a little apprehensive when I saw this recipe, but thought I would at least give it a try.

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 Spanish onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves or 1 tablespoon dried thyme
1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
2 (28 ounce) cans peeled whole tomatoes, crushed by hand and juices reserved

In a 3-quart saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and light brown, about 8-10 minutes. Add the thyme and carrot and cook until the carrot is quite soft, about 5 minutes more. Add the tomatoes and their juice and bring to a boil, stirring often. Reduce the heat and simmer until as thick as hot cereal, about 30 minutes. Season with kosher salt, to taste.
 

 

The sauce was actually quite delicious! It was like tasting a tomato right out of the garden. Fresh and juicy and not masked by spice. Plus the basil, parsley and thyme in the meatballs kind of evened things out.

Here I've poured the sauce over gluten-free pasta and topped with the meatballs and more fresh basil. I had additional cheese and olive oil on the side for anyone who wanted to punch things up a bit.

FoSaP for March - Free at Last!

I probably struggled harder with this menu than I have with any other monthly dinner. Only because I promised the items would be 'free' of something. My choices were meat-free, gluten-free, fat-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, etc, etc. I wanted to make things that people normally eat but the 'free' version isn't always a great alternative.

So here's how it broke down:

Appetizers - Totally Fat-Free

Microwave Potato Chips

Vegetable Rainbow

Curry and Apricot Yogurt Dip

White Bean Dip

Dinner - Gluten-free, meat-free

Mario Batali's Polpette Di Lupo (meatless meatballs) served over gluten-free pasta

Gluten-free bread made in the bread machine

 

Dessert - Sugar-free

Sugar-free apple pie (made with Splenda)

 

Personally I thought every single item was fabulous. No flavor lost with any of these!

I will post step-by-step directions for the Polpette Di Lupo later in the week.

Sugar-Free Ice Cream. Not bad!

As part of my "Free at Last" theme for dinner this month, I decided to make sugar-free ice cream. I churned the first batch last night and must say I was very happy with the results. Instead of sugar, I subbed with Splenda. Granted, there is a slight 'chemical' taste at the very end but if this was my only choice for a sweet treat, I would be all over it.

The recipe also called for Fat-Free Half and Half. I didn't even know there was such a thing. It doesn't seem possible...or at the very least an oxymoron. That's like buying fat-free butter, isn't it?

Gluten Free?

Yikes, my first attempt at gluten free bread.

It looks good, doesn't it? It actually turned out a nice light and fluffy bread that wasn't dry at all. I got the recipe from www.food.com. It's my go-to site when looking for recipes.

Check out the recipe here. It's actually for a bread machine but I made mine by hand. The dough was quite soft and I was a bit worried about it until it baked up.

I did have to go out and buy most of the ingredients as I didn't have tapioca flour, white rice flour, or xanthan gum in the pantry. The only truly expensive item was the xanthan gum but the recipe didn't call for very much so I think all in, it was about $1.50 for the loaf. Obviously quite a bit more than a traditional loaf of bread (for the regular bakers out there). I got the flours and xanthan gum at Winco but they didn't carry potato starch so had to run over to Bob's Red Mill for that. Once there, I realized their bulk item prices were almost the same as Winco. I would definitely get everything at Bob's if I decide to make more.

While the texture looks lovely, I'm more of a whole wheat bread kind of gal so it was actually a bit too light and fluffy for me. It also had a 'different' flavor. I made the loaf more out of curiosity than out of necessity. I think if I had a wheat allergy I could get used to it as a substitute for regular bread. As it is, some peanut butter and jelly with the bread made a pretty good lunch.

In the meantime, some cold cuts, pickles, cheese, and mustard go quite well with the bread. Especially when I put it in the Panini press to make a Cuban sandwich. Delicious!

The Country Cat

The Brunch Bunch invaded this SE Portland breakfast spot yesterday and I think for all, the experience was a positive one. Great cocktails, 'real' loose leaf tea, and amazing service added to high marks for the food offerings.

I started the morning with a Proud (bloody) Mary. The server set down this fabulous creation of tomato juice, vodka, and spices. I concoction was topped with a garnish of lime wedge, green olive, pickled golden beet and a big ole slab of beef jerky. I almost got filled up on the cocktail before my breakfast arrived.

Proud Mary

Fortunately my Brunch group are good at sharing. My sausage, goat cheese, green garlic and leek omelet was just so-so after I tried Candy's chicken fried steak over sour cream mashed potatoes with worcestershire gravy. Yummy!

Chicken Fried Goodness (mashed potatoes hidden by steak)

But the best thing I tasted was Kevin's fried chicken side dish. It was bacon and pecan spoon bread. It was the perfect combination of sweet and savory. I even found the actual recipe for the spoon bread.

You can check my actual review on Yelp here.

Exclusive? I think not.

Okay, so I had another photo submission accepted and posted on The Chew's My Bites section. I'm a bit less excited now. Was it Groucho Marx that said, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member"? That might be a bit harsh, but obviously getting submissions accepted is less exclusive than I thought.

So while I'm still thrilled that they will post most photos I submit, I now realize they will pretty much post everything I submit. I will just be a little more selective.

Check out the submission here.

The most recent photo was a dessert nacho I made for Nacho night for one of my monthly dinners. It was one of those 'draw a suggestion out of a hat' things and when I first read NACHO I dreaded it. I mean, how many interesting things can you do with Nachos? A lot I discovered.

The evening started off with a Nacho Cheese Fountain and homemade tortilla chips (I don't know that I will ever buy a bag of chips from the store again). Followed by a regular chicken nacho, a greek nacho (gyro meat, feta, cucumbers, tzatziki sauce, pita chips), and a buffalo chicken nacho.

Dessert is where I really struggled until I realized I could use regular pantry items made to look like almost every part of a regular nacho.What are the components of a nacho? Refried beans, ground beef, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, sour cream, guacamole, and chips, right? Now I just had to come up with clever sweet substitutes for those items.

Ground beef - I put some chocolate chips in the food processor and pulsed just enough to knock the sharp corners off.

Cheese - I melted white chocolate and added yellow and orange food coloring until it resembled cheddar cheese. I then poured in into a shallow square dish and put in the fridge to harden. Once hardened, I grated it just like regular cheese.

Lettuce - I found some great flaked coconut at Bob's Red Mill and put in a Ziploc bag with a tiny bit of green food coloring. Once the coloring was fully incorporated, I just repeated the process until it was the perfect shade of iceberg lettuce (this photo is NOT the perfect shade).

Now to assemble. I started out with chocolate pudding that I allowed to fully chill and set, then whipped it a bit to add some air before spreading on the platter as my first layer. Next I sprinkled the chocolate chips, followed by the cheese, then the lettuce. Fresh strawberries made the perfect substitute for tomatoes, whipped cream for sour cream and pistachio pudding filled the spot of the guacamole. 

The finished product

For chips, I cut flour tortillas into 8 pie shaped pieces, brushed both sides with cinnamon/sugar and baked for 10 minutes at 325 degrees F.

Oh yeah, and I had to serve with these mini strawberry margarita jello shots.

Check out the recipe at Bakers Royale

Hair Ironic is that?

It's kind of ironic that the previous post showed me with a beautiful bald guy and now I'm going to be talking about hair. Hmmmm....

I've been growing my hair out for quite a few years (as near as I can tell it's about 13). Now I didn't intend to grow it out to donate but in the end that's kind of what happened. I would say it was about 4-5 years ago that I thought of cutting it off, or just enough that I could actually do something with it besides wear it in a pony tail. But someone mentioned Locks of Love and I got to thinking that perhaps I would just keep growing it out until I hit the big 5-0. I figured women after 50 really don't look good with long hair (though, of course, I see contradictions to that almost every day).

2 years ago I cut about 14" off, intending to send it in right away. Next thing I knew, I was just months away from my birthday. So I hung on the ponytail and made an appointment with a hairdresser friend to cut the rest of my locks off. She actually separated my hair into four pony tails and cut them off. That way she was able to still leave me with shoulder length hair.

This photo shows my hair AFTER the first amount was cut off (below).

Here's the first cut to the hair.

And here is the most recent amount cut off.

The best part is that I've received so many compliments on my new hair style. Most people say it's taken at least 10 years off my looks (and when you already look 10 years less than your age...haha). I know most people felt I was probably lazy or vain and that's why I kept my hair long as many years as I did.

But I really did become a garden of hair, cultivating it for others to be able to have some enjoyment from. I certainly hope I can bring a smile to a deserving boy or girl with those luxurious locks.

Tyrone Wells and friends

Finally! The radio station posted the pictures from Tyrone's performance at the Bing Lounge.

I just love this guy.

Enough said!!!!

Phone sock

So one thing I hate to do more than exercise is spend money. Especially on things that aren't a necessity. For instance, a cover for the new (to me) phone I just got. It's actually got a nice shock resistant cover on it but the face is unprotected. Now, I know I could go pick up some of those LCD screen protectors, but I didn't like the phone being in my bag or purse without some added protection against stray lipstick, pen residue or even dings from my giant keyring.

What does a girl do when she needs a cover for her phone and isn't willing to spend any money?

Well, she could resort to just using a child's sock to hold said phone.

Workable? Certainly.
Free? Absolutely.
But stylish and well fitting? Not so much.

Or she could take a few hours away from knitting socks for Papa John's birthday and make herself a sock for her phone. It took a few tries to figure out exactly how many stitches to cast on to get a snug fit without struggling to get the phone inside. Once I got the correct number (44 BTW), I did a few rows of K1, P1 to create a bit of ribbing, then just knit away until I had the length I needed to hold the phone securely inside.

I just used some leftover sock yarn so totally free! And it works great!

I did find a great pattern for a Tardis cover for a Kindle that I want to revise to fit my particular phone.

TARDIS Kindle Case

But that's going to have to wait until I finish the socks for Papa John...oh and then I've got a pair for Candy I have to get done. Yikes! Then there's Mackenzie's birthday. Oh and Alyssa. And Jordon.

Oh my! I had better quit messing around on the computer and get busy knitting!!!!!!

The Chew, part deux

Last week I was all excited because The Chew had accepted one of my photo submissions on the My Bites section of their website. Well, yesterday I received an email that they had accepted a second submission. Don't get me wrong. I love that I have a couple of entries on their website but the fact that I had two photos accepted out of only a few submitted makes me question just how selective they are.

Cheesy Mashed Potato *****

Check it out here.

What is the most hilarious part is that for some reason ABC has censored the word BALLS. I actually submitted the recipe along with the photo so everywhere the word BALLS should appear you see *****.

For the heck of it, I decided to try to see if this happened with similar recipes. Sure enough when I 'search' for meatballs and click on an entry, the word BALLS has been censored. If it has the word meat in front of it, not so. As long as the entry says meatballs it is okay. But if the submitter had typed meat balls it would appear as meat *****. How crazy is that?!?!

Now, one of the reasons I even submitted this photo is because I love how it appears there is light shining through on the right side. It wasn't until after it had been posted on the site and I was looking more closely at the photo that I realized these balls were in my shiny gold bowl so it's actually a reflection of the flash and not sunlight at all.

So my photo isn't exactly what I thought it was and the recipe isn't posted as it should be. Oh well...at least I got another submission published so now I can add 'published' photographer to my resume. Hahaha.

Tyrone Wells

My friend Candy treated me to the opportunity to see one of my favorite indie artists, Tyrone Wells, at the Bing Performance Lounge at KINK today. He usually swings through Portland at least once a year but it's been a little bit since I've seen him. He did a short 20-30 minute set and it was all new music so it was almost as if I were hearing him for the first time.

https://www.facebook.com/tyronewellsmusic

The only glitch was getting downtown. I'm not fond of driving and parking downtown so decided to take the bus. Not a big deal. I take the bus quite often....just not downtown. The Trip Planner told me to get off at 4th and Yamhill then walk 3 blocks north and one block west to arrive at 1211 SW 5th. Well, the bus never went on Yamhill so when we turned off Main Street at 6th, I figured I better get off. I walked down to SW 5th and headed north. After about 8 blocks I realized the street numbers were getting smaller. Oh dear!

So I had to turn around and walk back up 5th until I finally arrived at 1211. I rode the elevator to the correct floor the radio station was on only to be told to go back down to the lobby and out the back side of the building (on 6th) to arrive at the Bing Lounge. Fortunately I had planned on arriving quite early so when I got to the Lounge there were only three people in line and my friend was one of them. I began telling her the entire saga and as I was gazing north I realized I was only about a block away when I got off the bus at 6th and Taylor. Doh! I'm a good natured person and try to see the best in all situations so the first thing I did was check my pedometer and realized that at least I had my 10,000+ steps in for the day and it was only 11:00am.

We met some great people in line, one of whom gave me some information about checking with Mercy Corp to find out about helping with jobs/self employment. He said their big thing right now is trying to help people get into the food cart business. I then mentioned how I've always dreamed of owning a bed and breakfast. I don't really want to own a restaurant or even be a caterer because I want to have control over what I cook and serve and not be at the whim of a customer. So a food cart would be kind of ideal. Once we got our tickets Candy, Margie, Nick, Doyle and I went inside to have a seat until the concert started. Doyle came up with the perfect pitch for a Food truck. The NO BED & Breakfast truck. I could make the facade look like a cute little Victorian house and only be open for breakfast. And the best part is I could make and serve just whatever struck my fancy for the day. I wouldn't have to offer a bunch of choices. Awesome!

Almost as awesome as having Tyrone Wells sitting 10 feet away singing to a room of 50 people. Steve Pringle got him talking about his new baby so that was a nice little change up from strictly music. Afterwards, Candy and I waited in line to have our picture taken with him (hopefully that will be posted in the next few days...waiting on KINK) and have him sign our posters. I told him I always tell people he's my brother from another mother and he got a big chuckle out of that. I'm glad Candy was as taken with him as I am.

We then jumped on MAX and Candy took me to one of her favorite downtown eateries. We had an amazing lunch at one of the best Chinese restaurants I have ever tried. Delicious! She even sent me home with the leftovers. All part of my birthday gift from her.I am so spoiled!

On the way back home on the bus I got a message from her that she had taken the FoSaP cookbook CD I had given her to Office Depot to have them print a copy for her. I knew she planned on doing this and had told her it would be around $26 for the copy and binding. She hadn't inquired ahead of time what the cost was and when asked, told them to go ahead and print in color. The total cost was $108. Gulp!!!! I felt so bad. But at least she'll have the only full color copy of the book.