Foodie Friday: Husk Cherry Salsa

Have you ever heard of husk cherries?  They are new to me.  They look like mini tomatillos and they are a relative.  They are cross between sweet and tart.  I tried some at the farmers market last Saturday and fell in love.  So of course I bought some and came home and made this fresh salsa.



1/2 pint husk cherries cut in half
4 small tomatoes finely chopped
1/2 red onion finely chopped
2 small cloves garlic finely diced
juice from 1/2 a lime
1 jalapeno finely chopped
salt to taste



If I had bought some cilantro I would have added some but sadly I did not.  It was sweet, a bit spicy and delish on some Silva's corn chips.  Yum!

Snack Time Crunch Time

I keep finding yummy things to make and share so I think I'll starting posting some Foodie Friday on Wednesday too.  I don't want anyone to miss out on the local farmers market bounty.

One of the things I like about about corn chips, pita chips, or wasabi peas are the crunch. Since I am abstaining from them at the moment I've been craving something to crunch and for some reason nuts and seeds just don't do it for me.   So when this buzzfeed link, 25 Baked Alternatives To Potato Chips And French Fries,  went across my facebook feed I had to take a look.  It was the answers to my crunchy craving.  So today I made kale chips and some zucchini chips too. 

The kale chips I cooked in my lower oven at 325 deg which is both convection and regular oven.  A fan goes on when it's just in the regular oven mode.  I think having that air circulation helped these crisp up.  I wonder if using convection would do even better?  I'm getting ahead of myself. 

I washed and veined the kale as a friend of mine said she found the veins didn't get very crispy.  Patted them dry and tossed them with some olive oil, salt, and garlic powder.  Basically cook until crisp.  I checked on mine every 5 minutes or so. They took about 10 plus minutes.



I tried this zucchini chip recipe.  As the recipe suggested do go light on the spices since the slices shrink quite a bit so it gets very concentrated.  So next time I plan to spice them near the end of the cooking to see if that helps. You cook these slowly at 225 deg for about an hour so plan ahead if you want some. 

These veggies chips are just the tip of the iceberg.  I can't wait to try some winter squash chips and maybe some beet chips too.  I'm not a beet fan.  Beets are so beety. I'm sure for a treat I'd love the ones here covered in bacon!

Monday Musings: A Confession

So I must confess. I am on a diet. Some of you know me and know I am anti-diet.  Ideally we make lifestyle changes and lose weight slowly.  I am making those changes. Yet, I am aware that I do want to lose at minimum 20 pounds. So it's there.  I need to be honest about that while also focusing on the healthier eating habits I learned from Mindless Eating.

And the diet I'm on is fairly drastic and a bit crazy especially for me.  We are loosely following the 4hour diet by Tim Ferris.  This web page here gets you the basics. You don't eat any grain carbs as well as fruit and cheese. Some nuts are good for snacks. You can eat beans, meats, eggs, and veggies.  On cheat day anything is fair game.  I picked this one as a starting point because I want see how I feel if I don't eat wheat in particular.  I tend to go for starchy and grainy snacks if hungry.  I've been feeling bloated and lethargic.  I can over due the dairy as well.

I admit I am a bit hungry in between meals.  It was worse the first week but easier the second week.  Since I believe in changing the rules  if I want to I do have 1/4 of greek yogurt during the day to curb hunger if I need to as well as a handful of almonds or pumpkin seeds. I can have a piece of chocolate and a glass of wine in the evenings too.  I do use milk in my coffee as opposed to cream. I've dropped the amount to 1/4 cup this week.  I might up it to 1/3 cup again as it's just not as satisfying. Food should be satisfying or why bother?

The hunger I have is different than the sugar crashing hunger I got before.  I'm hungry but I don't feel like I have to eat right now or I will die.   Now that I don't eat cheese every day when Stephen makes me an omelet on Saturday the melted cheese is divine. Everything I eat just tastes better.  Some of it could be all the great local produce.

I'm not craving the breads or cookies even.  Last Saturday Stephen made one of our favorite oatmeal cookies and I had one.  I didn't want another.  He did take the rest to work on Monday so we wouldn't be tempted. The kids made brownies and it wasn't a hardship to say no. I except that I hate to say no to my kids when they cook!

What was hard to not do was to nibble the crumbs in the pan.  That wasn't because I wanted the crumbs it was habit. I love to nibble.  Even though I don't want to go have a big bowl of pasta with sauce.   I find it really hard to not toss two or three pieces of the pasta in my mouth when I put the pasta away if the kids made some.

So one of my new food rules is to only eat when I am hungry and only if it's on the list.  So I only snack if I am hungry.  The other is eat more veggies at least 3 cups a day. Which I need to do on this diet but I want to keep doing forever.  The last one is kind of two rules together eat until I am stated by eating smaller amounts.  So I'm putting less on my plate than usual.

It sounds like my meals could be boring and bland but I promise you they are not.  So I'll be sharing what I eat.  I'm a foodie at heart.  I love food.  I take it as a challenge to make simple everyday fair delicious.

Sunday Book Review: Mindless Eating

So you have put on some pounds and you can't figure out why?  Don't want to go on a diet?  This is the book to read.  Not that anything one thing is an easy fix but just a few things in a years time can make a big difference.  Brian Wansik shares his research on our relationship to food and why it's it can be so hard to change.

Most Americans get visual queues to know they are done eating.  So if you use a smaller plate for your meal you will eat less and feel more satisfied than on a plate that looks half empty.

Put the good stuff to eat at eye level in your fridge.  I make a mixed bin of chopped veggies called Yuppie Veggies inspired by a local restaurant that is no longer in business.  Yuppie veggies include: broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and carrots. It's easy peasy for me to pull out them out then steam or saute them for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Seriously, I do have veggies for breakfast.

Because we eat mindlessly and it's actually challenging to get our selves to be mindful.  The ideal is to make small changes that are positive then those good habit become mindlessly "dieting."

Wansik suggest the power of three.  So maybe you want to lose some weight find three 100 calories things you can take remove without feeling deprived.  In a year you could likely lose 30 lbs!

Or maybe you want to eat healthier.  Then make it a goal.  Try keeping track of it with some awareness for a while.  He even has some free downloads on his web page. 

Monday Musings

It's a been a while.  I've been doing lots of stuff but not taking the time yet again to blog about all the happenings. I plan to again over the next few weeks.

Just a few hints to wet your appetite.

The boy kid and I went swimming regularly until it got so hot out it wasn't even fun going to the pool. The girl spent most of her free time helping at Theatre Lawrence.

My husband Stephen and I tried to get a garden going but the heat kicked us in the ass.  There is always next year!

Stephen was let go at his job but he got a new one, thank the gods with a nice pay raise so even better.

I've been working on my sweater yarn.



Eating healthier and walking at least 3 times a week.



Yarn Bombing, hanging out with my fiber friends, and knitting sweaters.  I know crazy in all this heat.  I was actually cold this morning eating my breakfast on the porch.



Last week we finally caught up with some homeschooling friends.  During the summer it just wasn't happening.

Fiber Friday - Time to Get Batty!

As I promised a quick look at drum carding process for my sweater yarn on my  Kitten drum carder. I flick carded and drum carded to get very clean smooth batts.  The fleece was dirty and the flick carding helped remove the dirt and vegetable matter that didn't come out with washing.

Maggie Casey's Start Spinning book and video has good information about flick carding locks. A video here is good. Carol Rhoades has a free article on Spinning Daily here.

I took small bits of washed locks and carded both ends of the lock to open up the fiber and remove bits I didn't want.    I like to flick card against my leg over a cut off bit of denim from an old pair of jeans.  Then I collect the flick carded locks into a basket to box to card later.  You can spin right away from flicked locks.  

I've been saving the better flick carding waste to make some not so perfect batts at a later time.

I start by weighing out 15 grams of dark and light gray flick carded locks.




Then take a small bit of flick carded fiber.



Spread that bit out so it's very thin.  So thin I can almost see through it.



I did two more rows of the same, overlapping just a bit as I go. Some carders don't have much of a tray so adjust as needed for your carder.



Then I crank the carder and it looks like the photo above.  I started with the light gray then repeat the same steps with the dark gray then the light gray again.



Every so often I use my burnishing brush to smooth down the batt.  I hold the brush in my left hand the way the picture shows and crank the carder to the right.  I gently move the brush across the drum of the carder as I crank.

I'm only running the fiber though the carder once.  The flick carding has opens the fiber up so well that's all this needs.

FIber Friday - Fleece to Sweater Saga

So I've been busing making samples, dyeing some of locks, flick carding and finally started spinning on my single drive Ashford Traveller.

I spun up several different samples to decide what looked best to me.  All of it was flick carded then carded on the drum carder with only one pass.  Carding up no more than 30 grams / about 1 ounce at a time.  Then spinning that batt.  Then all was spun over the fold long draw.  Both the drafting style, over the fold long drawn, and the carded prep ration helps make a good woolen yarn.  One good sign I've succeeded is high yards per pound because a good woollen yarn is 90% air. Goal is underspun singles and overplyed yarn.

 

I spun a first sample but decided to test knit the second, third etc samples.

Second  Sample:
2ply yarn - comparable to a light worsted commercial yarn
Ratio: 5:1
Ply Ratio: 7.5:1

Weight: .46oz, .029 lbs

Yardage: 33.2 yards

Yards per pound: 1144 ypp

wpi: 11-12

Knit Sample
US 7 - 4.5mm Needles
Cast on 40 sts
5.25 sts/inch
7 rows/inch




Third Sample:

2ply yarn - comparable to a light worsted commercial yarn
Ratio: 5:1
Ply Ratio: 7.5:1

Weight: .68 oz, .0425 lbs

Yardage: 50 yards

Yards per pound: 1176 ypp

wpi: 11-12

Knit Sample
US 7 - 4.5mm Needles
Cast on 40 sts
5.25 sts/inch
7 rows/inch

Fourth Sample:
3ply yarn - comparable to a commercial bulky yarn
Ratio: 3.5:1 Jumbo Flyer, over the fold, gentle twist
Weight: .64 ounces, .04lbs

Yardage: 30 yards
Yards per pound:  750 ypp 


Knit Sample:
Cast on 30 sts

US 9 5.5mm
Did a 3 sts cable
4sts/inch
6rows/inch  

Liked the 3rd and 4th samples the best. I liked the 3rd sample best for a sweater and the 4th sample would be great for a hat or mittens. The 3rd sample seemed a bit smoother than the 2nd sample because there are three plys instead of two. It will make a more hard wearing yet still light sweater. All the yarn is finished hot then cold then hung to dry.





A nice comparison of the samples from left to right: 2nd sample, 3rd sample, and 4th sample.

Now that all samples are knit up and the fiber has been flick carded  I've dicied to blend the two differecnt colors that are in the fleece.  I add a thin layer of light gray then a thin layer of dark gray.  Making batts that are about 30 grams/1 ounce.   Running it through the carder once. I'll do a post later with some basic photos to get an idea what I'm doing.







Batt laid out flat. Split the batts down into thirds and pull off small chunks to spin over the fold.

Section of the batt.



Bit pulled off to spin over the fold.




Each bobbin will get about 30 grams of fiber then I will ply that together.



Using the little sample bit to make sure I'm spinning the singles as thin as I need to get the yarn I want. Little card has the sample and the larger card is what I've been getting which is close.

Just for the fun of it I dyed some locks.



Left to right: Purple but that separated to a blue and red in the fleece, Teal, and Burgundy







All flick carded and ready to card on the drum carder.