Category: Knitting

I finished the edging on the Blue Blue Blue Baby Blanket late last night. I decided to save the grafting bit until daylight when I was rested (I know, an uncharacteristic decision for me).

Grafting went quickly and here it is.

Not blocked, but done, done, done!

I have to get it in the mail on Thursday if it's getting out of here before our vacation, so I'm off to soak the thing. We'll see if it dries in time.

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John and I bought an Instant Pot a month or so ago, and LOVE it. We had a traditional stove top pressure cooker that we've used for years, and have upgraded that once or twice over time to better technology. We eat a lot of beans and lentil-y kinds of things, so a pressure cooker really comes in handy.

We finally decided to cave and replace the one-pony-show stovetop thing with this. You can sauté in it, pressure cook, and slow cook, though we haven't used it for that yet. It makes hard boiled eggs like nobody's business. Once you set it, you can walk away and not worry about leaving a pressure cooker on an open flame.

Today's feature is bean soup. The place I buy most of my dried beans and legumes from is Purcell Mountain Farms. They have a huge variety, they are fresh, and the beans are impeccably clean. We eat a lot of beans, so it matters to me where they come from.

This started with a pound of their Paris Bistro Mix.

Lorette's Paris Inspired Bean Soup

1 Pound mixed beans/legumes/grains

Chopped yellow onion, about a cup, but whatever. If you have half of a big onion use it, or all of a smaller onion. Leeks would be good, too.

Olive oil, for sautéing (or your favorite substitute, we often use avocado oil for this)

Some Garlic. I used 2 big cloves. Your mileage may vary. This was for me to freeze for work lunches, so I didn't want to overdo it.

Sliced celery. Again, I used about a cup. As you might notice, I'm not big on specifics.

Carrots, peeled, cut in half lengthwise, and sliced. About the same amount. You can vary all of these by what you have. ***

A small bell pepper, diced, this was a purple one I had in the fridge from last week's farmers market foray.

A handful of fresh herbs, chopped. This had parsley, marjoram, thyme, and oregano from our patio herb garden. And a bay leaf.

Pepper, fresh ground. To taste. I like pepper, so a big hearty couple teaspoons, sometimes I use more.

A half a can of diced tomatoes, more or less, partly drained. Freeze the other half of the can for the next batch of beans.

1 32 ounce box of chicken stock

1/2-3/4 cup of white wine, or vermouth

1/2 lemon, juiced

Salt, again, to taste. See below for comments on salt.

Water. You want enough to cover the beans by at least 2-3 inches, but don't overfill the pot. The pot should not be more than 2/3 full.

You could use all stock, or all water. I tend to use a mix of both, since canned and boxed chicken stock is pretty salty.

Sauté the onion, celery, and pepper in some oil. Add the other ingredients, bring to a simmer. Change your settings to the pressure setting, and put your lid on etc based on your cooker's instructions.

Bring up to pressure, cook for 20-25 minutes. This will vary depending on the bean varieties you pick. The Purcell Paris Bistro blend took 23 minutes at pressure to all get soft. If you're not sure, go a few minutes low and do a quick release to check. I hate mushy beans, especially if they are going into the freezer.

Quick release, taste, add more time if you need to.

I'm not going to get into whether you should salt beans before you start cooking, at the end, or somewhere in between. When I cook them on the stove top, I tend to add the salt about 3/4 of the way through the cooking time. It's more fidgety to do that with a pressure cooker. I'm not 100% convinced that adding salt at the beginning is a bad thing, especially if your beans aren't from five years ago. And it changes the flavor when you add it just at the end, like a lot of seasoning. Since this was the first time I did this mix in the IP, I started at 18 minutes, it wasn't quite done, so added the salt and did another 5 minutes. The canned tomatoes and chicken stock add some salt, so take that into account.

I didn't soak these beans, since most of these were pretty small so I didn't bother. If you are using bean varieties that are larger, I'd probably soak.

And there you have it. Bean soup! I'll portion this out into serving size containers, and freeze for my lunches****.

Four for the freezer, and a larger one for me to eat this week!

***Other veggies work too, and you could do potatoes, or add some rice or pasta at the end. If you are using softer veggies, I'd cook the beans, release, add the stuff that doesn't take much cooking, then cook on the sauté setting until those were done. Since I'm freezing this for lunch food, I don't usually add stuff that turns to mush in the freezer.

****Of course, there won't be wine with my work lunches. Drat.

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Or,

Please Send Whisky

I was moving right along on the Eerily Electrifyingly Blue Baby Project. We took a trip to the Olympia Farmers’ Market today to stock up. I shoved it in my bag to knit on the way.

Then this happened.

Well, just screw this, I say. I’m close to the end of the first skein of this, I’m tempted to just cut it off and try to unravel it later if I need it. But if I NEED it, it will end up being on the knitted on edging. This thing is one of those (secret until the baby is born) three part projects: big center thing knit flat, then pick up stitches and knit a bunch in the round until I have a million stitches, then an endless lace knitted on edge. I really wouldn’t want to have to splice in more yarn at that point. So I’ll pour some whisky and get it unraveled.

Here’s another photo with the famous Batdorf and Bronson* goats.

I was hoping they’d help, but no such luck. And after all, this just wouldn’t be The Knitting Doctor without knitting screw-ups and whisky, would it?

*For the longest time, I couldn’t remember the company name, even though we buy their coffee all the time. So we started calling it Batman and Robin, which it has remained.

And another Solstice is in the history books.

I don't have a lot of photos of the actual event, John has a few on his “real” camera, but we tend to not take a lot of photos once the actual party starts. This year's dinner was a six course sit down meal for ten of our friends, most of whom are also neighbors. I consider myself a lucky woman to have that many people to cook and enjoy a fine meal for/with, and the fact that they are neighbors as well is a lovely bonus. I know a lot of people who don't even know their neighbors, much less like them enough to invite them to dinner.

Here's Lewey at the groomer getting ready.

That's mostly correct. The pork roast recipe came from the December/January issue of Fine Cooking, I did the roast per the recipe, but just ended up making up the sauce. The dried morels were hideously expensive, so I used part morels and part cremini mushrooms, and it was white wine and cream instead of red wine. I sauteed the sliced crimini mushrooms in butter, added white wine and the morel soaking sauce and cooked that down some, then added cream and cooked it more to thicken it. I added the morels at the very end so they didn't fall apart. The sauce in the recipe called for using the pan drippings, but I just made it ahead so I didn't have that last minute thing to do.

The appetizers were Jacques Pepin's salmon rillettes, from his new cookbook and PBS series. This was a huge hit, and can be made well ahead. I have two of these little pots of rillettes left. I'm thinking football game day food. This was served with crackers, though it would be good on baguette slices as well.

The other two appetizers were from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table cookbook. Seriously, go buy this. Most of the recipes are not fidgety, they can be prepared with readily available ingredients, and work well for parties (or just-the-two-of-us meals). The herbed olives are just that, olives in a herb blend that really kick up a plain olive mix. The tomato tarts as she does them are for more of a larger sit down course, I made them as individual tarts. They use puff pastry that you can bake ahead, then top with tapenade (I used store bought), a slice of tomato and mozzarella. Pop them under the broiler for a few minutes, then add salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil and good balsamic vinegar and basil.

The ceviche was also from her cookbook.

No photo of the soup, also Dorie's recipe. I made this on pure faith, pretty convinced that it would be weird. It uses pears, leeks, onion, celery, and vacuum packed chestnuts, all cooked together in stock ( I used turkey stock since I have a surplus in the freezer). When it was done I ran it through my food mill. You can made this ahead, it doesn't have any cream/dairy so it keeps for a few days. I stirred a bit of creme fraiche into it before serving. It was actually very good.

The salad was mixed greens: romaine, radicchio, escarole, frisee, tossed with a basic vinaigrette, and topped with chopped pecans.

The pork couldn't have been easier. I've never done one of these, but you just season it with the herb blend the day before and let it sit uncovered in the refrigerator, then roast when you need it. Ask your butcher for a bone-in pork rib roast, frenched. Count on one rib per person for a generous serving. I served this with the mushroom/white wine cream sauce. Did I mention there was a lot of cream in this menu?

One of the things I've discovered over the years of doing big dinners like this is to minimize the number of last minute fidgety things that need to be done. We served from the kitchen in courses, so while a guest or two are helping clear the previous course, I have time to plate the next one. Plenty of wine helps as well to keep people occupied during course changes.

The other important thing is planning. I plan the menu well ahead, get all the shopping done based on the menu, then have lists and more lists. I have a detailed game plan of what gets done when, which helps me identify stuff that can be done ahead. It also helps identify when I've planned a menu with too many last minute fidgety things. John periodically reminds me of THAT ONE year when I didn't plan so well, and there was a lot of chaos at dinner time. Planning ahead also helps cut down duplication, for example, if I have multiple items with chopped or sliced onions, a detailed plan lets me know that so I can do them all at once.

There you go. I think it was a successful event, if the number of wine glasses are any indication.

And here is my pretty table before dinner:

And cleaned up, ready for the next meal!

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