Farm share and recent cooking escapades

Cooking has not been as prolific as I would like, I was busy. Now the quilt show is over, and I am trying to cook more. Recent attempts included a stir-fry and beet soup.

I used several things last night that are also going to be in this weeks box, "basic" vegie stir fry:
Olive oil
Cleaned and chopped leek (1 or 2)
2 large cloves garlic (last of last season's), smashed and chopped
Broccoli (OK I bought this, but it is coming this week), florets (could also use cubed/sliced stem bits)
Ginger (fresh would be better, but I was out so used dried)
Chard, washed and chopped - about 6-7 leaves
Sprouts (whatever was in box)
Sauteed leeks and garlic until soft, added broccoli, stirred for about a minute, sprinkled with ginger, added chard, cooked a bit more, then added a splash of water and covered to steam a bit, then added sprouts and recovered. Removed from heat until the rest of dinner was done.

This was served with brown rice and ham steak. I made extra rice so I could do a stir fried rice tonight, or tomorrow.

The other thing I made recently was beet soup adapted from Molly Katzen's New Moosewood Cookbook. Since the beets were cooked, it went together very quickly.
Olive oil
Chopped onion (1 large)
Chopped potatoes (2 cups)
Chopped, peeled cooked beets (2 cups)
Chicken broth 2-4 cups, must cover vegies!
Sour cream
Saute onions, add potatoes, saute some more, add broth, beets, cook until potatoes are tender. Either use an immersion blender or blend in batches until smooth. Add sour cream, salt and pepper to taste, enjoy.
In retrospect, some dill would have been good to add, and also garlic.

Quilt show over

Our guild show is now over for another two years. I got lots of nice comments about my Dear Jane My Way quilt . In my not so humble opinion it was one of the nicer quilts there. There were lots of nice quilts there, don't get me wrong, just I love my quilt. Good thing, since it took so long to make!

Right now I am taking a small break from quilts, and trying to make a jacket, the Journey Jacket II. So far, it is going slow. I recently got a Threads magazine that takes you through adding a dart to accomodate a larger than B bust, which I have. I thought it would be a good idea to add a dart. So far, I have just been modifying patterns. Now, I want to have this jacket done in about 12 days. So, do I make a muslin mock-up first or not? I could make a mock-up in some older cotton fabric I have (if I have a large enough piece) that I could actually use, but before I cut into the linen I bought for this project. But can I do both in 12 days? Maybe I could if I don't try to do the lining for the mock-up until later. I guess I am talking myself into it. It really is a good idea to do one before you cut into the more expensive fabric... For more Dear Jane quilts, including mine, click on the Flickr quilt show.

Knitting Socks

I have been knitting a little over a year now. I finally took a knitting class a couple of weeks ago to make a pair of socks. The class had some rocky moments, but I finished up my socks last night! Thank goodness for online videos. I used knit witch's kitchener stitch video to finish the socks, nice and slow to show each detail. In that two weeks of knitting socks I have tried various methods, short double pointed needles, longer dpn, and two circular needles. On another sock I tried a single 9" circular needle. The circulars are easier to carry around cause I tend to pull or push stitches off of the dpn when pulling the sock out of its storage bag. I have been bitten by the sock bug.