Spicy Knitted Carboy Sweater

Hopefully, this is the last carboy sweater I knit for a long, long time. The summer of 2013 is forever going to be remembered as the time I knit 4 consecutive carboy sweaters. It's a rather pathetic label for a time that should be remembered as, say, the time I conquered stand up paddle boarding (I have a long way to go) or time I took a fab vacation to Italy. Still, it will have to do. As my friend said after she gushed about unwrapping a new kitchen sponge, sometimes being an adult sucks.

Numerous people have told me that I should make these and sell them because I could make so much money. These people think I'm a little lazy for not spending my time cranking these out. Then, I ask them how much they would pay for this sweater made of mostly acrylic. The answer? $20, max. I tell them that it took me probably 6 hours or so to knit this, and they now look at me like I'm a little crazy. One person had a novel solution: I should have a sweatshop in China where people knit these carboy sweaters. That's every young girl's dream, isn't it? To lord over a sweatshop in China! Ugh, no thanks.

This is why I sell patterns, but not handcrafted goods. Although desktop publishing makes me feel all stabby, the stabby feeling fades after a brisk walk with the dog, and I can resume wearing my rose-colored glasses. That stabby feeling would last 6 hours multiplied by the number of commissioned sweaters I made if I were to knit for hire. No thanks.

Who I'll knit for and what I'll knit is always evolving. Babies? Sure! I do love giving babies a hand knit sweater. Adults? It depends. I will happily teach adults to knit, but the thought of knitting something for someone who just wants to throw money at me never seems worth it. I'd be interested to hear other crafter's thoughts about this, and how you handle people asking you to make them things.

Top-Down Carboy Sweater Pattern, Finally!

Because I've knit this carboy sweater 3 times, each time taking notes and making improvements, it is time to publish a pattern to save others the trouble. When you are making this, do not dwell on the fact that you could be making yourself a sweater instead. No, no, no, that will make you bitter.

Instead, think kind thoughts about the person who spent 3 months fussing over every little detail about the sweater when she could have been making 3 sweaters for herself or 20 cat hats. And buy her pattern on Ravelry.

$4.00 USD

Because carboys with sweaters are happier, more productive  carboys, they reproduce. There is an additional carboy that just appeared in our house, and since I'm not one to discriminate, it will get its own sweater.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Beautiful cakes from Schuberts Bakery in SF

Happy New Year, folks! I hope the Year of the Snake brings everyone good fortune and much happiness. We celebrated last night with four mousse cakes, potato leek soup with dill, and a simple dinner of vegetarian tan tan noodles. It was an odd combination, but since we decided to not eat out, that's what I was able to make with the food in the refrigerator. A friend came over and helped me cook, and she brought champaign (bubbles are a must for special events) and the cakes.

One Chinese tradition that I find hard to stick with is to not sweep your floors, the idea being that sweeping your floors sweeps out all the good luck. Did the people who made these rules have cats or a dog who sheds his own body weight every 2 weeks? Or a house in the middle of a fireplace remodel? I think not! So, my workaround it that I'll vacuum and keep the vacuum in the house for the week. That way, the good luck can still marinate our house, because after last year, we need it!

Letting the oil cool before adding to the chile flakes

For the vegetarian tan tan noodles, I made quite a few substitutions using ingredients that we already had on hand. The recipe, loosely adapted from Fuchsia Dunlop's new book Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, calls for roasted chili oil and its sediment. Interestingly, one of her substitutions for dried, ground Sichuan chiles is to use Korean chile flakes. I usually have a big jar of Korean chile flakes on hand since I use them for kimchi and Korean chicken stew, so putting together the oil was a simple matter of weighing out the flakes, heating the oil, and adding them together with crushed ginger and sesame seeds. I love it when I don't have to run to the store for a specialty item, especially if I have to go the Chinese market whose parking situation is perilous at best, and just plain whacked out near Chinese New Year. 

Finished roasted chili oil

Another specialty item that I subbed out was the Sichuan fermented vegetables, ya cai. Since I only need 1.5 ounces of the stuff, I used kimchi instead since I had a jar aging in the refrigerator. It was perfect! We topped the noodles with toasted sesame oil (which I'm going to make next time in the blender), roasted chile oil, and finely diced shitake mushrooms and kimchi. I felt a little sheepish serving my friend refrigerator dregs, but in the end, I shouldn't have said anything because our dinner was delicious. I'm not a stickler about food being authentic so long as it tastes good, an attitude that reflects California cuisine.

My first big batch of kombucha

Since it is cold in this house all the time (hence the fireplace remodel that includes adding a gas insert), my kombucha is fermenting slowly. Ideally, kombucha should be kept at 80°F. Our house has been hovering around 50-60°F, but the SCOBY is still doing its thing. I made a big batch of Jasmine tea, added sugar, and floated the SCOBY on top. The tiny bit of kombucha from my last batch has been blended with tangerine juice, ginger, and bottled so I can enjoy it later this week with a little fizz.

My two workers are sleeping on the job!

Although we did the fireplace demo work, we decided to hire a mason to put up the ledgestone. Being people who like to DIY, it is strange to have someone in your house to do work that you feel you should be doing. However, the job this guy is doing is so much better than anything we would do because he has experience, the proper tools like a wet saw, and a lot more patience that us - he told me that he has to talk to the stone to figure out where it should go. The only talking we do when we're building things consists of expletives,  so I can't imagine we are nurturing our projects. 

So, the only reason I'm mentioning this is because I have a huge craving for kimchi fried rice or something else smelly to eat for lunch every time the mason and his assistant are over. Out of courtesy, I am not cooking said smelly foods although I'm sure they would be polite and not say anything if I did so. (I'm wondering now if cooking black bean chicken was pushing the smell factor a little too much, but I had to eat!) It gets to the point where I wish we were doing the work so I could eat my smelly foods with abandon, but I know that this craving stems in part because I'm telling myself I cannot do something. This is why dieting is something I cannot ever do, or else I'd be 3 times bigger. I have to concentrate on the wonderful things I can eat, not the things that I shouldn't eat, and make sure that junk food doesn't exist at our house.

As the Garden Grows

The radishes are ready, but not much else. We have pea and bean shoots galore, but no signs of blossoms yet. I told the boy that if we really want a reliable crop of greens, we should just plant 20 different types of radishes since they seem foolproof.

Not only are radish roots delicious sliced thin and spread atop a baguette slathered with sweet butter, but the greens make a mean pesto. Using this recipe, I made a pesto that went into an orzo, roasted tomato, and roasted gypsy pepper salad. Subsequent radish greens are going to get an Indian saag treatment.

For our winter garden, I want to start planting spinach, although I'm a little worried that the leaf miners that are attaching my beet greens are going to go nuts over the spinach. Oh well, only one way to find out.

Remember the miso pickle experiment? No? Well I didn't remember it either until I was trying to make space in our refrigerator. These have been doing the pickling/fermenting thing since August 2010, and I was going to throw them out until I read that several miso pickles sit for years. So, I rinsed one off and ate it. 20 minutes later, I still didn't feel ill, so I ate another one. And another one. And a few more. They are so good, albeit really salty. I'm going to serve the rest of them with some egg noodles or soba to dilute the saltiness. Next time, I think I can indulge in them after a few months, like my original intention.

No, this does not belong in a wide mouth Gatorade bottle

Another forgotten kitchen experiment, one I was less concerned about killing us, was this lemon zest infused vodka. My fear with this concoction was that since I never strained out the lemon zest after a few months, I was going to end up with lemon extract. Luckily, my laziness and forgetfulness paid off and this stuff is lovely! It's a good thing, too, since I have 4-bottles worth of lemon vodka. Between the vodka and all the homemade beer, we're doing our best to not only make pickles, but to pickle ourselves. (Mom, I jest!)

I got confirmation from our chicken lady that we have overwhelmed her with spent grains, so she is crying uncle. Today's task is to list our grains on Freecycle in the hopes that someone will take them off of our hands. I hate to put all that stuff in the garbage since it can get a second life, but because spent grains sour quickly and need to be chilled, they end up filling our freezer in a hurry. When it is summer and I don't have room for my ice cream maker, things get ugly around here.

For all of those people who mistakenly thought subscribing to my blog would lead to many pictures of cats and instead have to skim posts about food, I'm sorry. But, I'll throw you a bone: here's Greaseball and Fifty acting like they love each other. What you don't see are the hissing fights that ensue when Fifty, troll of the 2nd cat tree shelf, won't let Greaseball pass her shelf to get the 3rd food shelf. It's not pretty.

Potential Pineapple Vinegar

Wanting to squeeze every last cent of my impulsive pineapple purchase, I was reminded of this post from the Tipsy Baker. Using this recipe, I hope to have pineapple vinegar in as little as two weeks. Sans maggots, if everything goes smoothly. The potential vinegar is hanging out with a one gallon batch of potential s'mores beer.

If I see anything that resembles a maggot, the whole experiment is going into the compost bin. I'm still not recovered from plucking my potential Korean garlic bulbs from the garden two weeks ago. When I uprooted them and turned them around, what should have been roots turned out to be maggots or some other form of wriggly white cylinders. Blech. My Pam Pierce inspired dream of providing for all of our garlic needs were crushed, and the addition of maggots ensures that I won't try again for a long time.

Every night, the boy has been going out with one of his zillion head lamps (really, why does one person need more than one head lamp if he only has one head?) to go snail and slug hunting. Last night, he found 3 snails, 3 slugs, and 1 salamander. When he offered the salamander 1/2 a slug, the salamander bit it, but then decided that it tasted gross and left it there. Lazy, wasteful salamander. I guess I can't train salamanders either to go snail and slug hunting.

I think my squash and zucchini are actually shrinking! Too much water? Too cold? What is wrong? If I can't get a batch of summer squash, it doesn't bode well for an off-the-grid future. We'll have to trade beer and bread for our staples in the post apocalyptic society, but how will we grow the wheat?

Miso Decanting

The sweet miso I started last month is finally done! Well, it's a little overdone, but more on that later. When I first opened the crock, it smelled strongly of sake, a logical smell since koji is used in sake production.

I spooned it into the food processor and let it whiz about until it was blended to a velvety smooth paste, about 3 minutes.

 The end result was 5 cups of sweet miso. Due to the actual summer temperatures early on during the fermentation time, I think I could have pulled this miso out of the crock about a week earlier. I can taste lactic acid, one of the main acids that gives sauerkraut and sourdough bread their tang, in the miso. Still, I made a batch of miso soup with it, and it was very warm and comforting on this drizzly, gray day. I even got the boy to down a mug, without force, which was a surprise. He wasn't thrilled when I fed him a spoonful of plain miso paste earlier in the day, so the fact that he voluntarily drank that soup is a testament that it wasn't too sour.

I don't know if I'll be using this batch of miso for salad dressings, but I do think it will be a wonderful addition to marinades. Any additional thoughts on what to do with tangy miso?

Deadly Hot Sauce and Miso

After a long day at work, it was a treat to come home to a huge Yucatecan feast made entirely by the boy. He even made a habanero chili salsa, complete with a custom graphic of a skull that somehow still has eyeballs. Other delights were cochinita pibil (pork slow cooked with an annato paste and banana leaves), lemon pickled red onions, black beans, and a huge stack of corn tortillas.

The more we cook at home, the more picky we become about our dinners out. This, I've noticed, leads to us cooking in more often.

Surprisingly, we manged to use all but 10 lemons from the freaking huge bag. Not bad! Thanks again for all of your suggestions. Seriously, there is no way I could've thought of all those things myself.

 

 I spied this tub of koji in the refrigerator, noticed I had dried soybeans, and finally put the two together the other day. In 4 weeks, I should have a batch of homemade sweet miso. I bought the koji at Berkeley Bowl for about $5.

If it turns out good, I can use the excess to make more miso pickles. I think there is at least 2.5 pounds of miso here.

Dry Cider

After 10 days, we decanted our hard cider experiment and enjoyed! It was quite dry, which is the way I like my cider, and there wasn't any funky aromas like the hard cider I recently drank at The Trappist. I'm going to pick up some spiced cider today to start another batch, and I'm sure this next one will take longer to ferment since the weather has cooled down considerably and I'm now wearing a down jacket around the house. (OK, so I don't live in WEATHER, as some of you in snowy areas pointed out, but I'm a wuss who hates to be cold.)

The fact that it's the day after I enjoyed the hooch and I'm still here to blog about it means that it didn't kill me. The boy was worried that our concoction would make us go blind, and I'm still scratching my head over why he would think blindness would be an issue. Headaches? Sure, I buy that (and, no, I did not get a headache). But blindness? Since my vision is far from perfect to begin with, if the hard cider made it worse, I can't tell.

 

Vespa, the dog who would be a smoker if she could, was giving Mingus nibbles. Mingus, attention whore that he is, loved it. He even rotated ever so slightly so she could reach new spots. My theory is that since all the animals live in a small space, they become weird.  Yeah, I'll blame it on the space.

A New Toy!

Over the weekend, the fermentation crock I ordered from Isidora Spielmann arrived! It's both beautiful and functional, very high compliments in geek-speak. I have two heads of green cabbage bubbling away in there, slowing converting to sauerkraut.

 I love the whimsical details adorning the fermenter's sides. Even the weight stone is a piece of art!

Sunday was a total food immersion day, starting with a trip to the farmers market (carrying 10 pounds of cabbage makes for a good workout), followed by gluttony at the Spice of Life Festival (Chairman Bao's truck is worth the wait! And Masse's Pastries is serving made-to-order churros and Mexican hot chocolate!), and ending with some kimchi and sauerkraut festivities.

For comparison, here is my Harsch crock. I still feel nothing but love for it, but it's huge and merely functional in appearance.

I realized today that I need some local fermentation buddies. Sure, there are online groups aplenty out there, and I have loads of friends who will share my finished goods, but sometimes a gal just needs to compare notes with people in person. Not to mention the exciting possibility of food and beverage swaps! I'm trying to convert the boy into a fermentation buddy by insisting he reads the same beer brewing books I am. I already assigned him the boring but necessary job of equipment sanitization.

There has to be some kind of club out there for people who like to ferment things... Imagine the cool parties we'll have with cheese, beer, sourdough bread, and kimchi! Plus, everyone will have excellent digestive health, which has to be an added bonus somehow. Hm. Must think on this.

Hooch

Inspired by Brew Bakers in Huntington Beach, I decided to try my hand at making hooch. This formerly child friendly apple juice from Trader Joe's will hopefully transform to a non-child friendly dry hard cider through the power of fermentation.

Brew Bakers has a unique setup where you can pick your beer recipe and make it with a beer making guru guiding you through the steps. No shortcuts here: you start with grains to make your mash. It was fascinating watching the entire process, and since all the beer for sale here is made by them, it instills confidence that I, too, can make this stuff. I had an excellent sour cherry beer while I watched the process, and I got to talk to the person who made it. Since I was a fan, he cracked open and shared another sour beer he brewed which somehow was even better than the sour cherry beer. The boy is in full support of this new interest (surprise, surprise).

The whole setup hard cider was pretty cheap. I paid less than $3 for the rubber stopper and the airlock, both from Oak Barrel Winecraft. The half gallon jug was free with a purchase of cherry sour beer (so, so good - much better than the Flemish brown ales commercially available) from Brew Bakers. The apple juice may have been the most expensive item, and it was around $4.

The picture shows day 3 of fermentation. Initially, I covered the mouth of the jug with cheesecloth and a rubber band, which gave the whole project an illicit feel. Woot, we're making moonshine! Once the fermentation really got going and it was bubbling, I fixed the airlock and stopper into place. Now, more waiting.... I'll taste it periodically until it is quite dry.

Pickle Making Made Easier

The back story: I'm watching Hoarders on DVD, and every time I watch the show, not only do I become increasingly agitated about two boxes of electronics the boy stores in our office (they must go!), but I have the urge to do some crazy cleaning and purging. Like, take-apart-the-range hood-and-clean-it-at-midnight crazy.

So, I find myself at Ichiban Kan because they sell Mr. Clean Eraser knock-offs and microfiber cloths crazy cheap, and what do I find? Japanese pickle making containers! For $1.75 each! I've never seen such containers, but judging by the animation on the label (imagine talking cucumber slices and a talking salt shaker), these are for Japanese pickled cucumbers.

Although I prefer to ferment in glass or ceramic, these were too darn cool to pass up. And because I seem to be learning nothing by my nightly prescription of Hoarders, I bought the last two pickle makers in stock. But, unlike a hoarder, I'm using them immediately! See? You all are my witnesses! I am not becoming a hoarder.


These are so dang cool. I can hardily stand it. So tidy!

If these Mexican carrot pickles turn out any good, I'll post the recipe.