October 23, 2012

Autumn Harvest Bread

Apples are falling from their trees, hazelnuts are showing up at market and winter squash is everywhere. It’s time to bake some bread!

  • 1-2/3 cups flour – I blended all purpose and spelt, try out your favorite grains
  • 1-1/2 cups raw cane sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon real sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1 cup pumpkin. (Skip the can: it’s so easy to make your own ‘canned pumpkin’ to be used in all sorts of recipes. Simply flip your oven on to 350 degrees, half or quarter your favorite meaty/sweet winter squash and bake until soft. Scoop out the flesh in 1 or 2 cup portions and freeze in ziplock containers for later use in quick breads and soups.
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 duck eggs
  • 1/6 cup canola oil
  • 1/6 cup applesauce
  • 1 cup chopped peeled tart apples
  • 3/4 cup chopped hazlenuts

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients and spices. In another smaller bowl, whisk the pumpkin, applesauce, water, eggs and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in apples and nuts.
Pour into a greased 9-in. x 5-in. loaf pan. Bake at 325° for 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 hours or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool. Makes 1 loaf.

If i was to make this again, i’d chop the hazlenuts up much more finely. This bread is AWESOME and great toasted with some butter.

 

Recipe adapted from Taste of Home.

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October 22, 2012

Stuffed Squash – Not Exactly a Recipe

It’s winter squash season, y’all! One of my favorite things to do with a squash (delicata, acorn, kubocha, etc) is to stuff it. Instead of serving the squash as a side dish, it’s featured as the main course along with something savory. The blending of sweet squash and rich meat (or mushroom/other protein something) is really delicious and can be served up looking quite fancy and impressive. I went low-frills for this particular meal, but you can really dress up a stuffed squash dish, making it the perfect choice for entertaining the in-laws.

Stuffed squash isn’t exactly how it sounds…. you generally don’t actually cook the “stuffing” inside the squash. The squash is usually baked on its own and the stuffing added right at the end. This is how i made THIS meal of stuffed squash: get inspired and try your own. Fillings could be meaty, mushroomy, light or decadent, topped with cheese or gravy, dressed up or served rustic style. Have fun!

1. Choose a nice squash. I used locally grown Delicata from Gathering Together Farm. Their delicata squashes are particularly sweet. The size of a delicata is nice: half makes a perfect serving for one. Choose a squash that will be the right size to be halve and serve two people. You can cut it long ways or short ways, depending on your presentation. Cutting short ways makes for a beautiful plate, but long ways is easier to cut and eat.

2. Bake your squash. Halve, remove seeds (save for roasting, or discard – don’t save for seed as the squash was most likely grown near other types of squash and won’t be true), salt and place on a buttered baking sheet, upside down. Bake on 400 for about 30 minutes, or until soft.

3. Cook your filling. While the squash bakes, saute up something delicious. I cooked up some local ground lamb (that was REALLY fatty), removed as much of the grease as i could, then tossed in a chopped onion, some garlic and a green pepper. Cook until the meat is done and the veggies are soft.

4. You can either remove the squash from the oven, plate it and stuff OR turn it over in the oven, stuff it, sprinkle with cheese and put back in a few minutes for the cheese to melt and brown. Your preference! I plated and stuffed because i didn’t feel like dropping filling all over my oven.

That’s it! Served with a side of wilted greens, easily cut with a knife for bites of equally balanced squash and filling. Fist pumps all around! Does it get more autumnal than this? Maybe serve it with a glass of locally pressed cider for a fall feast!

What’s your favorite filling for stuffed squash?

 

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October 21, 2012

Wordless Weekend: Still No Word

Still no word on the house. Still in the apartment. Since June 2011. Pocket says “this back ‘yard’ is just not sufficient.”

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October 19, 2012

Fiber Fridays: Cowl = Fail

So, remember that experiment with lace i was working on a week or so ago? Yeah, that pygora cowl turned out to be a total fail, though i’m honestly not  surprised.

I really have no idea how to knit lace other than the basic “yarn over/ knit to together” every other row with a row of purls between. That’s great an all, but when you pair a lack of lace knowledge with a lack of cowl knitting experience, you’re bound to fail. Add on some handspun pygora that was spun from poor quality batts that were full of guard hairs: you get an itchy fail. That’s a fail not worth salvaging. The yarn really was too thick for a lacy treatment, and my attempt to have it curl on the edges, then have a lacy bit turned into just one long curled up mess. So, despite looking cute on Pocket, this cowl is on the docket for ripping out.

So – who has a great idea for me! I’m looking for a project that uses a relatively small amount of worsted weight (ish) softish/itchyish yarn. It’s super soft to touch, but itchy on sensitive places like neck skin. I’m thinking too nice to use on a mug cozie, but too itchy to use for a scarf. Comment with your best knitting idea!

*******The Featured Fiber Friend is Back! *******

If you’re a reader of this blog because you’re part of “Corgi Nation” you may be familiar with this week’s featured Friend. Dear Barney Boots was a friend to many on Facebook and online and was dearly missed when he recently passed away. I was touched when a friend to Barney (and Barney’s human folks) wrote to commission a custom Fiber Friend in his honor as a gift to his mourning people. I used a slideshow from The Daily Corgi to get most of the photos i used as reference, and had to fight through the blubbering sobs brought on by the acute pairing of “somewhere over the rainbow” and a shot of a sweet puppy in a bathtub. Cry fest. Seriously. I fought through the tears and am immensely proud of the finished mini Barney Boots, complete with his signature cheese head hat. I hope his hu-mom and dad love him as much as i did.

I dearly love working on commemorative pieces. Finding the “best” photos to use as reference can be a bit trickier, but it means so much to me to “bring back” a beloved pet for its mourning guardians. I have made it my policy to offer free shipping to anyone in such a situation: simply enter RAINBOWBRIDGE at checkout to get the shipping charges covered. It’s the least i can do.

Well, the holidays are in full swing here at Fiber Friends studios (ha, i wish. we’re still cramped into this danged apartment where my lap serves as the “shipping dock”) so you’ll be sure to find plenty of holiday themed critters along with my normal farm animals and corgis. I take requests, so feel free to post a comment about that too! The rain has come back to the Willamette Valley, so it’s high time to do some time knitting.

How are you spending the darkening days?

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