sequinK

jammin' weekend

Strawberry jam, that is.  Two batches.  My first exploits in canning.

Pretty, no?  I just love these new-fangled Ball jars ("Collection Elite Platium") I found at the local OSH.  So pretty.  Made me almost as happy as the jam inside.

I received an email from my old CSA regarding an overabundance of strawberries, and scored a gorgeous flat of organic fruit at their roadside stand in Watsonville for $22.  Sweet.  Notice the missing berries -- right within preschooler reach from the counter,...

I used a basic no-pectin recipe for both batches -- one straight strawberry with a splash of lemon juice, the second a no-sugar recipe with the addition of apples and grape juice concentrate.  The straight strawberry is really nice -- very strawberry fresh tasting, while the no-sugar is tangier from the apples and less sweet.  I'm not sure which one I prefer, though I tested both thoroughly last night slathered on slices of no-knead bread (the quicker version). Tasty.

Jam is pretty easy.  A great foray into home canning. Mash the fruit, add a few ingredients, cook about 20-30 minutes, jar, and process in boiling water for 10 minutes.

In terms of tools, I already had heavy pots for cooking and processing, but bought a jar lifter and a funnel.  The jar lifter was key, as I'm not sure how else you'd get hot jars in and out of boiling water without scalding yourself.  The funnel I didn't really use for these batches since the mouth of the jars are so wide and the jars are only half-pints, though I could see a funnel really handy with larger pint and quart jars. I didn't have a rack for water processing, so made my own from a few bamboo chopsticks and kitchen twine.  I also used chopsticks to fish the lids out of their pan of hot water, which worked fine, but a little magnetic jar lifter (which they were out of at the store) would probably have been easier.

And I went lo-tech on the labeling. I hit two office supply stores today looking for 2.5" round Avery stickers, but totally struck out.  So I ended up laying them out in Word, printing them on construction paper, cutting them out by hand, and then glue sticking them on the lids.

Here are both recipes, adapted/adopted from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

Basic Strawberry Jam (makes ~8 half-pints)
8 cups mashed strawberries
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 cups sugar

No-sugar Strawberry Jam (makes ~8 half-pints)
12 cups hulled, halved strawberries
5 tart apples (like Granny Smith), peeled, cored and diced
2 12-ounce cans of frozen concentrated grape juice (I used white to preserve the strawberry color)

Cake/beach/burger day

Gorgeous day for baking a cake!

This is the raspberry buttermilk cake recipe from smitten kitchen.  It's decent for a cake out of the oven by 9:30am.  I didn't have real buttermilk, and the organic sugar I used isn't as fine as conventional granulated sugar, so it's a little heavier than I think it's supposed to be, but pretty tasty nonetheless.

After our baking foray, we biked down to the beach, then stopped at Betty Burgers for lunch.  The morning seemed to wear my little sweet tart out -- she's napping for only the second time since she decided to flick afternoon naps in early March.  It's a lucky mama day!  I'm spending the afternoon cleaning up my desktop hard drive, organizing my iPhone downloads, and getting acquainted with Evernote.  Rockin' cool application.  I'll have all my crafty and foodie and kid stuff consolidated in one place now (well, two if you count Ravelry).

sweet!

I killed my first generation iPhone a few weeks ago, and was gifted a new 3G for Mother's Day -- yay me!

I just found the most awesome cover for it, I just have to share:

It's made by SwitchEasy, and is the CaspuleRebel model.  The colors are fantastic -- I got the happy happy Cherry. I love that it has the silicone soft cover for grippiness, and the ridged plastic reinforcement for protection.

getting back to my roots,...

This week has been all Korean, all the time.

I've been watching Korean Dramas (K-dramas) online.  If you have never watched asian dramas, all I can say is check it out -- pretty easy to digest, entertaining, and great to knit to (there's even a K-drama group on Ravelry!). And if you're like me, with marginal Korean language skills, it's great way to exercise your ear.

Basically, K-dramas are long miniseries, anywhere from 15 to 100+ episodes.  Typical story line (this would be an oldie but a goodie called Stairway to Heaven . I know, the titles are usually pretty unfortunate!): boy and girl are childhood friends, boy loves girl, girl's evil stepsister wants boy so runs girl over with a car, girl loses memory from the accident, evil stepsister starts dating boy, girl regains memory and hooks up with boy again (who never stopped loving her, of course), boy about to break engagement off with evil stepsister when girl learns she has terminal cancer and is going to go blind, girl breaks it off with boy without telling him she's sick, girl's stepbrother loves girl so much that he kills himself so that she can have his eyes and see again, on and on, you get the picture. Totally over the top, but completely sucks you in.

There are tons of bootlegs out there (mysoju.com aggregates the links to many of them -- I just watched "Bad Couple" there this week), but dramafever.com has actual licensed content, which means clearer video and professional subtitles.  It's in beta, but I got an invite in less than 48 hours.

I've also been cooking Korean this week as well. I made some kimchee chigae (kimchee stew) and kamja jorim (soy braised potatoes) based partly on what I remember from watching my mom, and partly on the video instructions on Maangchi's site.  My mom is a pretty good cook, but really didn't have much patience to teach me how to make Korean food.  So I've been making an effort the last few weeks to learn a few dishes, at least. I even dragged Miss H. over the hill to San Jose this afternoon to hit the Korean market for a few staples.  She was good with it as we stopped at the bubble tea place on the way home and got her plain milk with small pearls.  Big heart.  Like mother like daughter, apparently.

Garden Log

I've been slowly chipping away at getting our front yard sorted.  Last year we had half veggies / half weeds, and this year I'm shooting for half veggies / half plants (that are not weeds).

After the rains, our yard was totally overrun by Oxalis (aka sour grass or clover).  It's an issue where we live, but when the inlaws were in town a couple of months ago, they got to weeding a bit for us.

They cleared it all out, but of course, it started raining again, was too wet to garden, and it slowly started growing back.  Now it looks like this:

Better, but still no cigar.

I've already got a few things in the ground this year, slowly but surely.  Work is busy right now, but I try and grab a few minutes outside when I can sneak away.  I love gardening with Miss H., but she is much more interested in checking out what all our neighbors are up to, rather than getting down to business in our yard, so trying to garden when she's with me is an exercise in futility.

So far I have some tomatoes in--Sun Golds (my pick), Cherokee Chocolate (Miss H's pick, strictly because of the "chocolate" in the name), and Lemon Boy (the hubs choice). The mulch is an experiment--cocoa hulls.  It's prettier than bark or straw (it is our front yard, after all), and it smells like chocolate when you put it out! Its also supposed to keep the snails/slugs away--sweet.

Sweet green basil seeds have been sown, and one lonely pepper plant is hanging with the tomatoes. Two Albion strawberry plants also are in the ground, with more friends to join them soon. 

Our blueberries are ripening, and our potatoes seem to be doing well--both these in pots on the patio.  This is our first foray with potatoes in pots, but I have high hopes for tasty fingerlings through the summer and fall.

Sunflowers from last year reseeded a bit, so we have a few popping up on the dirt mound, and I have a few poppy seedlings to plant and butterfly friendly seeds to sow in one sunny section of the yard.  I also have squash, cucumbers, pole beans, pea pods, corn, eggplant and a variety of herbs and ground coverish flowers on the list.  Yay for Spring!

finally!

After weeks of searching fruitlessly for my camera, I sucked it up and ordered a new one.

It's a PowerShot SD1200 IS -- basically the new version of the previous three cameras I have owned.  Pretty though, isn't it?  By next week I will have no excuse not to have all my projects documented!

Now off to pay my property tax.  I'll need a stiff drink after writing that check,...

Picking up button bands

My ChicKnits Basic Chic Hoodie is almost done -- just the button band left to pick up.  Which I've never done before (I think).  So a couple of references for picking up button bands:

According to Lucy Neatby in the “Finesse Your Knitting 2” DVD, one should pick up 2 out of 3 rib stitches, 3 out of 4 stockinette stitches and 4 out of 5 neckline stitches (after knitting the first 5 stitches of the neck). I gleaned this info from a thread in Ravelry, and haven't actually seen this DVD, but have heard all her productions are fantastic -- they are on my must-see list.

I also found an online reference at Studio Knits -- How to Become an Expert Knitter -- with similar recommendations.

Back in the swing

Remember my Fir Cone Square Shawl from the Folk Shawl book?  What's the date on that post?  2005 when I started casting off?  Well, my "resolution" this year has been to dig out and finish one UFO for every FO completed, so once I got the Ene Shawl off the needles, I dug out the Fir Cone Square, determined to get that baby done!  It's a knitted cast-off edge, which is lovely but super slow going for me. It's coming along, but I'm getting short on yarn, I think.  And of course, there's no yarn band ANYWHERE, and no record of the yarn in a single blog post.  Silly silly knitter. So I made an educated guess, posted my request in the ISO section of Ravelry, and in just a few hours, have a ball of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in Graphite (discontinued, of course) winging its way to my from a lovely knitter in Seattle. 

Le sigh.  Je t'aime Ravelry.  And fingers crossed I put a call out for the right color!

And vacay was fantastic, as they generally are.  We rented a lovely oceanfront house on the North Shore of Kauai, right on Anini Beach, with my family.  The beach is protected by a huge reef, so no shore break, and the little miss could wade into the water for 20+ yards before it would get over her knees.  Nice.  Perfect for a family with small kids.  And decent snorkeling.  And really good coconut hunting too!

busy Wednesday and Valentines love

Today is my only day at home before we leave for vacation, so much to do, So Much To Do!  I have my list, I have my daughter all primed to "help" this morning.  She's sporting a lovely ensemble of a seafoam green hooded rashguard, green tights and flippers (I kid you not!), so all is well,...

I did want to share the paper cut Valentine I made from my husband this year -- I'm quite proud of it, actually.

On the back I wrote: "Valentine, I'll share my acorns with you anytime!"  Silly, but totally true.

I downloaded the template from A Little Acorn (no, I did not design this myself!), and cut cut cut away.  I do think I'm going to design my own soon, at least it's on the list, for my Ma for Mother's Day.

binding for years,...

At least that's what it feels like, and this is only a throw-sized quilt!  Clearly, I am not super experienced at hand sewing, but I'm finding it quite enjoyable.  Satisfying.  I'm glad I decided to go the "traditional" binding route as opposed to machining it all up.  So pretty.  But as soon as I get a sec, I'm off to the fabric store to get a thimble -- ouchy waa-waa! 

Again, crappy iPhone pic, but what can you do when your camera goes AWOL?

Two very helpful tutorials on attaching binding:

Heather Bailey Continuous Quilt Binding Instructions

Crazy Mom Quilts Binding Tutorial