Chicken Soup Friday

So, last week was Chicken Broth...Now for the soup. (Doesn't it look delicious?) After you've made the broth, refrigerated it overnight and skimmed off the fat, making the soup is easy. Bring the broth to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Add any or all of the following: a chopped onion, chopped celery, diced carrots. One ingredient my family loves is a can of diced tomates (including the juice). Cook until the raw veggies are done, then add diced chicken, any frozen or canned veggies you like (green beans, peas, corn?) and bring back to a boil - you may need to turn up the heat. Now add your pasta and cook until the pasta is al dente. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat, serve, eat, enjoy.

One of the neatest things about making your own soup is that the amounts of ingredients are not that important...I usually use one onion, 3 or 4 stalks of celery, a couple cups of diced carrots, 2 to 3 cups cooked chicken, a cup or so of frozen veggies, a can of canned veggies... You get the idea. Same thing with the pasta - depending on what kind I use and how much broth I started with, I might add more or less. Sometimes I use a 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes, sometimes I use a 28 oz. can. Every batch of soup ends up being a little bit different, but they're all delicious.

Knitting? Yes knitting has been done (un-knitting, too). I finished the right "Twisted" sock. What can I say? I feel like I just completed a marathon. I'm a fairly experienced knitter, and have knit probably over twenty pairs of socks - employing quite a few different techniques. But these socks...not for the faint of heart! I think this is the first time I've used one of Cookie A.'s patterns. I wonder if they're all this involved/challenging. I learned some new stuff/techniques, and I really like the finished product. If I could change all the un-knitting I did to knitting there would probably be enough stitches for a third sock. And guess what? I'm already thinking about making another pair!!! But not right away.

Here's a pic showing the way the right and left sock "twist" in different directions. I had to pin them to the bed because they were pretty curly. (No, I don't generally block my socks.) One odd thing about working these socks...the right sock ended up being about 3/4 inch longer than the left sock. (Unfortunate, because my left foot is bigger than my right foot.) Don't know where or how I screwed up, but I'm not ripping these babies, no sirree!

And finally, the backyard bird feeders have been busy, busy. A California Quail showed up the other day (but didn't stay long), and Lazuli Buntings have been regular visitors for about a week now. They usually stop by our Treasure Valley for a couple weeks in the spring and then migrate to higher elevations (as weather permits) for nesting. Lots of black birds - Red Winged, Yellow Headed, Brewer's, Brown Headed Cow Birds. And a few Gold Finches, plus the House Finches and the House Sparrows.

(I uploaded an image of a Lazuli Bunting, but could not (COULD NOT!!!!) move it down here to this end of the post.) If anyone reads this and knows how to manage images in blogger, let me know. I've searched in blogger help, etc. and have yet to find any answers. FRUSTRATION.

Tip Tuesday

(I apologize! I started this post on Tuesday, but here it is Thursday - Maybe I should re-name the post "T[h]ip Thursdy" instead of "Tip Tuesday"!)

These notions of mine probably don't really qualify as "tips", but they're things I've learned over the years that make knitting easier for me.

So...stitch markers. At some point after I took up knitting again, I became aware of all the pretty markers you can buy or make and for a while I used those instead of my old plastic ring markers. But...the down-side to both of those types of markers (in my humble opinion) is that they both have this propensity for jumping off the needles right when you're trying to slip them from the left needle to the right needle, and even worse, some of them *poof* disappear once they hit the floor. Over time, my supply of stitch markers had dwindled. I don't think I thought up the idea of making little markers using odd bits of yarn but I began using those. When I began to try lace knitting, those bulky yarn markers were a pain, so I began making them using crochet thread. Now I use crochet thread markers in nearly every project that calls for markers. Easy as pie to make - cut a length of crochet thread about six or seven inches long, fold it in half and then tie an over-hand knot fairly close to the fold. Trim off the excess thread and viola, you have a stitch marker.

Some patterns call for markers that denote different areas or patterns within each row or round - and if all the markers look the same it can be confusing. In this case you can make markers from different colors of crochet thread, or you can just use multiple markers, i.e. one marker for the first marker of the round, two markers for the second marker, etc. (This last method only works well for up to three markers...after that it gets ridiculous.)

If one of the markers manages to jump off the needle, they don't usually go very far - they tend to stick to the knitting, or to your clothes. And if they do make it to the floor, they don't roll and bounce the way plastic/decorative markers do. Nope, they're not very pretty, but they do the job.

On a completely different subject, there were a couple of "new" birds at my feeders this morning - Yellow headed black birds! I've seen this kind of bird before, but not for many, many years. What a nice surprise. (Embiggen picture if you can to actually see those yellow heads.)

And finally, (I'm tempting fate here) here's the heel flap of my second Twisted sock. The first pic shows the heel flap from the right side of the sock. Second pic shows it from the wrong side. (Actually these socks are reversible so there's technically no right or wrong side.) I love the texture on these heel flaps!

Food Friday

It's been a long time since I was here. A lot has changed in my little world since last summer. But knitting is still going on... More about that in a minute.

I'm going to try and do a "Food Friday" every week. Today it's about Roast Chicken with fennel, lemon and potatoes. This is my take on a recipe I first found through a TV program - can't remember which one, sorry. Here's my version:

Roast Chicken with fennel, lemon and potatoes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Wash a whole chicken with running cold water, remove any giblets and trim away any excess fat.

Place chicken, breast-side-up in a rimmed baking sheet (grease or spray it first)

Cut 2 fennel bulbs in quarters length-wise. Trim away the core at base of each quarter. Arrange fennel pieces around the chicken.

Cut 2 lemons in quarters. Place one or two lemon pieces inside chicken cavity. Arrange the rest of the lemon pieces around the chicken.

Scrub six to eight medium potatoes and cut into quarters. Arrange them in the pan with the lemon and fennel pieces. (I most often use plain ol' Idaho potatoes, but reds or Yukon Golds are delicious, too.)

Drizzle olive oil over the chicken et. al. (2 to 3 T)

Sprinkle with Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Bake/roast in oven about an hour or until chicken is done - test by piercing thigh with sharp knife or fork - juices should run clear. Or cut into thickest part of breast - there should be no pink showing and juices should be clear.

Serve with a salad or your favorite green veggie. Delicious!

For some reason, I don't like left-over chicken reheated. (I don't mind it cold, though...) I usually strip the carcass after the meal, dice or cube any leftover meat and either freeze it or refrigerate it for sandwiches, chicken salad or soup or whatever. I usually save the bones/skin for making chicken stock. Maybe next week's "Food Friday" will be home-made chicken noodle soup. It's so much easier than you might think. And, no I don't make my own noodles - but the home-made chicken stock is just so good!...

OK. Knitting. I don't even know where to begin. Guess I'll start with a current WIP - "Twisted" socks from a recent Knitty. I started these on April 7 and whizzed through the leg and heel of the first sock. Made the mistake of bragging to a knitter friend (he's "Bugzen" on Ravelry) that I was so proud of myself - no unknitting or mistakes. Yup, you guessed it...I got past the heel and had to rip back not once, not twice, not thrice but four freakin' times. And when I got to the toe??!!!?? Oh, my gosh - what a mess! I had been knitting on two circs (my favorite method for socks) but realized after throughly trashing the toe that I needed to switch to dpns and trade out the plastic-ring stitch markers for crochet-thread markers and even then it was dicey for those last few rows. You're supposed to decrease to 8 stitches and then cut the yarn and thread it through those last stitches. I think I got down to 12 stitches and Just. Couldn't. Do. It. Any. More. so I threaded througth 12 and the toe looks fine and I'm not gonna worry about it.

The yarn is Bamboo and Ewe by Sensations and I made the largest size - yup, I have humongous feet. I haven't used this yarn for socks before - in fact it's yarn that was leftover after I made a scarf (of sorts). I'll blog about that sometime soon.

I'm now about three fourths the way down the leg on the second sock. But I'm not going to mention/brag that so far things are going well. No sirree! I learned my lesson!

Before I go for now, one of the things that has changed for me since last summer is that I recently moved from Boise to Star - a small rural community a few miles from Boise. I'm very isolated out here and have to depend on my two adult children for transpo anywhere. I'm lonely (watch out! pity party looming). If anyone out there reads this and knows of any knitters in the Star/Eagle area, let me know. I'd love to join a knitting group or help start one.