So, I don’t know that I mentioned it, but I decided to rethink my design for the Spindrift armwarmers. The pattern was okay, but not really what I’d envisioned. So I’m back down to a little bit above the ribbing:
I can’t tell for certain yet, but I think I like it better.
It’s kind of, sort of, maybe fall around here, so I’ve been cooking lots of soups in the crockpot lately. I’m a fan of making a large pot of something on the weekend and then eating for lunch or dinner for the rest of the week, which works out well with my hectic schedule of late. This week’s concoction was black bean:
Black beans are one of my favorite legumes (with chickpeas the undisputed top of the heap), so I really love black bean soup. My basic recipe for a large crockpot (~12 servings) of soup is:
4 c. dried black beans
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
2 medium onions, diced
5-6 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (I like my soup relatively spicy–you may want to start with 1/4 tsp and adjust)
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp coriander
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp olive oil
1 bay leaf
~4 c. vegetable stock or water (I tend to be lazy and use water with a bouillon cube)
Salt and pepper, to taste
Cook beans overnight in the crockpot. Drain water out, pour in stock, and turn the crockpot to low.
In a frying pan over medium heat, heat the olive oil and saute onions and garlic for a few minutes, until onions are soft and translucent. Add in the herbs and spices and saute for a minute or two longer.
Add the onion mixture to the crockpot. Stir in cayenne pepper. Leave to cook overnight or ~8-10 hours (this recipe is very forgiving).
Next day, allow soup to cool and then puree about half of it in a food processor, then mix pureed and unpureed halves together. And then you have soup.
An optional add-in that I sometimes like is to puree a bag of frozen collards and add those in before the overnight cooking. It adds some extra vegetable content and really deepens the flavor of the soup, but isn’t too bitter or green-y tasting.
Apologies for the lack of posting last week…we started a new quarter and I was super busy. I did, however, finish up that second Celia sleeve and get started on the yoke:
Hooray! I had the brilliant idea here of basically making two long floppy straight needles by attaching a needle to one end of a knitpicks cord, and an little stopper thingy to the other end. Then repeat for the other needle. It basically give me a longer cord to work on, which makes trying on as you go much easier. If you’re like me, and have a tendency to spend a fair bit of your yoke knitting time picking up stitches that got dropped when you tried to force a 24″ cable to go around your shoulders, because you were too impatient to string some of the stitches onto waste yarn or another set of needles, a longer cord is a lifesaver. If you’re actually patient and methodical about things, oh well. You probably wouldn’t see much added benefit.
