Sauerkraut, Salsa and Rainy Days

Life has been crazy the last couple weeks, but things are calming down. I am, in fact, knocking on wood right now.

As I shared recently, we had a date with hubby's family to attend what has now become an annual sauerkraut making event. I've always enjoyed sauerkraut and we've been gifted homemade for years, but the tradition is now being passed down and 2 weekends ago, we attended our 3rd DIY kraut event. It's a relatively simple process with simple supplies: food processor, cabbage, salt, a bucket (ours was previously used for icing) and a good strong kraut smusher.

What is a kraut smusher, you ask? Well, this is ours and I suspect this is why we're invited. *wink* 

After layering shredded cabbage and salt, elbow grease is added and this happens:

Cool, huh? Our bucket of kraut is now fermenting in our basement and will be ready to eat in a few weeks. I can't wait! The day wrapped up with a delicious meal of dumplings, roast pork, sauerkraut, and apple crumble. All in all, a pretty fabulous day!

I also spent some time in the kitchen last week - shocking, I know. Taking the Veggie Fairy's warning that the peppers she delivered were "H.O.T.", I used these lovely veggies for One Tomato, Two Tomato's Roasted Garden Salsa.

Following a recipe is a rare thing for me and I'm so glad I did - it's fabulous and easy!

After adding some of our garden tomatoes, I ended up with 5 pints:

I haven't been in the kitchen much this week. Mr. Joey wasn't feeling well over the weekend and has been at the vet since Monday. After a few days in their care, I'm happy to report that he's feeling much better and coming home today. At nearly 13 years old, we know he's an old boy and we're lucky to have a little more time with him.

The last few days have reminded me how quiet a house without a bossy Siberian Husky is and I can't wait to have a full house again! Neither can this guy:

When it rains, Mr. Logan seriously debates how bad he really has to 'go'. For a dog that's 'all dog', I always find this quirk of his amusing!

I've also been knitting - a lot - so I'll be back with some yarny updates very soon.

Cheers! Alisa

Herringbones and Salsa

Fall is in the air and I love it! I've been waiting for the weather to cool down so I can wear sweaters and hats and mitts and shawls... Can you hear me *squee'ing*? It's only Thursday, but I'm already planning my weekend knitting - after all, there is a car ride to the sauerkraut making event. I do have a couple projects on the needles and you might remember this one from last winter. I wound these beautiful skeins of Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand Dyes:

and I cast on for this:

It's the Big Herringbone Cowl I blogged about here. Well, it took awhile to get into a rhythm with this project and it kept getting pushed aside (for months). The yarn is lovely - like, really lovely - and it knits up quickly, but I realized late into spring that I was doing something wrong at the beginning of the round (100% operator error) and asked myself the dreaded question: can I live with this? Sadly the answer was no and it was all wound back into balls in a matter of minutes.

Since then, I've been waiting for the weather to cool so I can cast on again. Well, it is cooling off and then this month we're having a Yarn Tasting at the shop featuring Worsted Hand Dyes - this combination proved just what I needed to get my BHC back on the needles. I re-cast on over this last weekend and I'm making great progress - almost through ball #1! I can't wait to finish it up and wrap myself in the luxurious goodness of Blue Sky's yarn in this squishy stitch pattern! It is going to be great!

Along with the knitting bug, I have a zillion things that I want to cook since grilling season is over. A dear friend (Veggie Fairy Jen) delivered this to me last week:Isn't it pretty?! Whenever I'm lucky enough to receive a veggie delivery from her, it's always presented beautifully - so beautifully that I don't want to disassemble her artwork and I grin from ear-to-ear each time. Everything in this bowl screams salsa with a deep, rich flavor, so I'm going to add some of our garden tomatoes for a Roasted Garden Salsa. The recipe is super simple and the addition of apple cider vinegar intrigues me. I'll report back...

Do you have a favorite salsa recipe that you want to share?

Cheers!

It was a GRAPE day!

My dear hubby and I have been together for 11 years and from the beginning, the first weekend of October has been about his Grandma and her birthday. October has arrived and this last weekend was my Grandma-in-law's birthday celebration, so we were off to northern Wisconsin again. October is the perfect time of year to head north and enjoy the changing of seasons.

After a wonderful birthday lunch for the special lady with 16 family members (that's a lot of 'smart' talking), we returned to Grandma's house where there are always fun surprises...

The backyard orchard had grapes that were ready to be harvested, and harvest we did!

I collected about 2/3 of a bag with some help, then hubby showed up... he's a great grape picker and he filled an entire bag! Note: we weren't sure what we were going to do with these grapes, we were just picking them. We're crazy like that.

This guy was there, too. I like him.

After returning home with bags of grapes, onions, potatoes, and pears, (Grandma's is a one-stop-shop) there was much discussion on what on we were actually going to do with our bounty of grapes.

We settled on:

• Grape juice: 1 cup of grapes, 1/4 cup of sugar and boiling water in a quart jar and water bathed for 10 min - this is the recipe we were given and they're resting now, so I'll update you when we try it.
• Grape jelly: I use Ball's Pectin Calculator for the recipe (it's really quite handy) and we used honey to taste with this low/no sugar pectin:

I've never made grape jelly and hubby has tested and approved my first batch, so we have more jelly making ahead of us this weekend.

Do you have any suggestions for making low/no sugar jelly or jam?

Next weekend we are off to our annual sauerkraut event and I can't wait to share the details on that!

Cheers!