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.

Picture Thursday

Little Scarlett

Slightly larger Mingus

Peanut-sized Fifty-Fifty and Greaseball

My first time pressure canning with the reusable lids! I'll let you know how it goes.

Further proof that we grow mutant vegetables. This eggplant has a kickstand.

Chinese Peanut Milk Recipe (One Step!)

Over 10 years ago, the boy and I took a trip to Chengdu and we biked over 300 miles around central China. What do I remember the most about that trip? I remember the peanut milk that came chilled and in glass bottles. After biking, I'd be counting down the miles until I could down a bottle of peanut milk and eat sunflower seeds.

Last Tuesday I finally made it over to the El Cerrito Farmers' Market, this time in search of some Asian vegetable stands because my CSA is a little more mainstream, and I was jonesing for some greens and ginger. The stand with the best looking ginger also had fresh, like just plucked from the ground fresh, peanuts. I bought a pound and tried to find a Chinese-style peanut milk recipe.

Since I made the unfortunately mistake of popping one of the raw peanuts in my mouth, I knew that I'd have to make the milk similar to soy milk because those peanuts needed heat to dissipate the raw, tannic legume flavor. However, I have a Vitamix, and the blender contents get piping hot after a few minutes on the highest speed.  After a few tweaks, I got what I wanted: a Chinese-style peanut milk that requires no straining, no stovetop cooking, and I can make it using one appliance. Now I have some of the milk chilling in the refrigerator, so I can reward myself after a jog or, more realistically, a vigorous walk with Mingus.

Chinese Peanut Milk

Ingredients

• 1 cup shelled, raw peanuts, preferably fresh
• 3 cups water
• 2 tablespoons evaporated cane sugar, or to taste
• 1 pinch salt

Cooking Directions

If you are using raw peanuts that are not fresh, remove the peanut skins. I've only made this in a Vitamix, and its ability to heat is key to the peanut milk.

1. Add all ingredients to the Vitamix and mix on High for 7 minutes. There is no need to strain the milk. Enjoy the hot milk right away or chill it.

Worms Eat My Garbage, But Now What?

Keeping up two worm bins was a great idea in theory due to the amount of kitchen scraps we produce weekly, but the homemade worm bin was always a bit too wet due to the too many holes on top of the lid and because it was plastic. Since I didn't have a good way to drain water from the bin, I'd often use a turkey baster to suck up all the worm tea. Gross.

So, now we are back to one worm bin with stackable layers. Before I could consolidate the bins, I had to empty out one of them and separate the worms from the casings. Oh, if only this was as easy as separating the wheat from the chaff! Using Mary Appelhof's book as a guide, I made several sticky, smelly worm piles and waited. The worms are light sensitive, so the theory is that they will retreat into the piles and I can take some casings off the top and sides. The newly exposed worms will retreat some more, and I take more casings off the top and sides. Repeat again 15 minutes later. Eventually, I should be left with pure worms. Well, the obstinate worms never retreated far enough for me to shave more than a centimeter of casings from the piles, and after a couple of hours, I gave up and tossed most of the contents into the communal worm bin. It felt like a waste of a rare, sunny afternoon.

Now, I'm reading Christopher Shein's permaculture book that mentions rinsing the worms from the casings and collecting the worm tea as an easy casing collection method. This sounds like a better idea, but I guess I have to use screen door mesh? It sounds like an unpleasant experience for the worms, but afterwards I'll reward them with new bedding and more food.

Does anyone out there have a preferred method for separating the worms from their casings?

I Should Just Start Numbering My Food Posts

This post should be called Summer Foods #2. This is a appealing to the same part of me that wouldn't mind wearing a uniform every day, but appalling to the part of me that can't eat a sweet potato and a tin of tuna for lunch day in and day out (yes, I knew someone with this diet). Coming up with the title for posts is the most tedious part of a blog.  I'm not sure what this says about me, and if I was sure, I probably wouldn't like it.

Steamed eggplant experiment

Eggplants are a tricky for me to cook without lots of oil. It's one of those vegetables that can be blissfully silky or disgusting and spongy depending on the preparation. My favorite Chinese braised eggplants involve deep frying eggplants in peanut oil, and then stir frying them with flavoring oils like chili and sesame. However, I like to use the slender Chinese and Japanese eggplants for that dish and the CSA keeps on sending me the globe eggplants. A Fuchsia Dunlop recipe for steamed eggplant had the potential to be a delicious and healthier way to cook the eggplant, so that was dinner last week. The dipping sauce, a combination of homemade chili oil, black vinegar, sugar, and light soy sauce, made me not miss the deep fried eggplant. However, it is questionable if this is actually healthier because I ended up mixing all of the dipping sauce with the steamed eggplant, which made a great room temperature salad.

Matcha mochi cupcakes are a win

This recipe for match mochi cupcakes was chewy and a good treat to bake up for someone who rarely bakes. I subbed out cashew milk for regular milk since I rarely have straight up milk around here.  Neither of us humans drink milk, although we are not technically dairy free because I usually have a tub of Strauss whole milk yogurt and the occasional pint of ice cream. If I make these again, I'd like them to be crispier on the outside with the aid of my convection oven. My oven, which I have had for almost 10 years now, has a convection setting, but I'm just now getting used to it. Crispy roasted potatoes in 15 minutes flat made me a convert.

Volunteer downspout mushrooms

I thought these mushrooms were porcinis, not that I'd dare eat them even after confirming that they have an olive brown spore print. They live in the backyard, a place where Mingus has free reign to do his bathroom business. Although I've never seen him pee on the downspout, I'm convinced everything back there is not fit for eating. Sure, now that I'm on the Bay Area Homesteader Hookup list, I've read about people much more extreme who use humanure from their compost toilets to grow food, but I admire that in a theoretical way and don't aspire to do that, not to mention that my backyard is small and the neighbors behind me can see into it.

My only productive zucchini plant

I still don't have zucchini coming out of my ears. One out of the three plants is producing one or two zucchinis a week although the plants take up quite a bit of valuable garden real estate. The other two plants are producing runty little 3-inch zucchinis that have blossom rot. Still, this is better than last year, and I know what now to do again next year. For example, no zucchini plant should grow in a pot. Although the raven zucchini seed package said it could be done, it is too hard to get the amount of water just right using our irrigation system.

Playing with my julienne tool yields zucchini noodles

I want zucchini coming out of my ears because I love cooking the nutty zucchini in my cast iron skillet with a bit of garlic and olive oil. Low and slow is how I prefer to cook this dish, although in time pinches I have only given it a quick shake in a hot pan. Both versions are good, and both versions take a boatload of zucchini for an adequate portion size (half our plate because we love it so).

Since I'm not crafting anything besides tiny hats and dishcloths, I've been catching up on Arrested Development (Season 4 was the best! Long live George Michael!) and reading. Since May, I've read Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan, Homeward Bound by Emily Matchar (interesting if you've ever pondered the questions of how the DIY revival and feminism can co-exist and if one cancels out the other), The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz (read this now!), and I'm almost done with Wild by Cheryl Strayed (a book I was reluctant to read due to its Oprah endorsement and my disdain for books about women overcoming obstacles, but so far I'm loving it). Most of these books came from my library's ebook lending program, which is the cat's meow. I'm almost done with Wild, so any recommendations on what I should read next? I have Lean In, Inferno (please don't give me crap for this one), Tiger Babies Strike Back, and Fairyland on my hold list.

Summer Foods

The boy has been brewing again, and that means that the freezers (yes, plural) are full of spent grain. A few times, by the end of the brewing process, we were too tired to bag and freeze the grains, so we dumped the whole pile into the compost bin. Since we have a slow compost bin that is open, this was not the best idea because it was a critter free for all and I was sure that I was going to get hantavirus. On the bright side, the "compostable" plates we used for a party finally broke down thanks to the molds that the grains introduced to the bin. 

Last weekend, I wanted the grains out of our freezer pronto, so I posted on the Bay Area Homestead Hook-Up* on a lazy Sunday morning asking to swap our grain surplus for some eggs. I got loads of replies from people who live 10 miles away or less, so that was a bonus! Within two hours, I had space for my ice cream maker, a dozen of mixed chicken and duck eggs, and I got to see pictures of a frizzle chicken and duck who are co-parenting a batch of eggs.

One chicken egg yolk was immediately transformed into aioli. I used David Lebovitz's recipe, using my mortar and pestle to both crush the garlic with the salt and to whip up the aioli. It was a breeze! In the past, I've used my immersion blender to make mayo because I was convinced it was the only way I couldn't mess it up, but the clean-up and the power cord bugged me. That aioli didn't last long because although its intended destination was a flop (oven roasted potatoes akin to patatas bravas) due to my inexperience with the convention oven, we found plenty of other things to dip into the silky, garlicy sauce. I have another chicken egg resting on the counter destined to become aioli.

Two other eggs became one of my favorite breakfasts: ginger and tomato eggs. Since we have a surplus of yellow snow peas, I chopped some of those into the mix as well.

The key to good ginger and tomato eggs is to use plenty of oil and to blister the tomatoes and vegetables. That little bit of char from the breath of the wok (wok hay) is why I will never part with my wok. Ever. I've worked diligently to get a good seal on it, and now my wok can transform anything that enters it into some damn fine food.

After you char the sauté the tomatoes and peas with ginger, take them out, add more oil to the wok, and  pour in a few softly scrambled eggs. When the eggs are almost set, put the tomato mix back into the wok, turn off the heat, add some roasted sesame oil and salt, and gently mix everything together. It's my idea of a perfect meal anytime, but it is especially delicious with homegrown tomatoes.

Oh, I've also knit another carboy sweater. This time, it's more dapper with the stripes. My next carboy sweater will be crocheted. We have a few sour beers that sit around the house for up to a year, and I am tired of the looking at the cardboard boxes in which they are housed, so I need to sketch up something cool that I can stand to look at for that long.

All my little lovelies

Have I talked about my love affair with Hida Tool in Berkeley? They carry, among other goodies, Japanese knives and ceramic sharpening stones. I bought a 10-inch sword knife there, and it brings me great joy to sharpen it and my other knives. Until recently, I was outsourcing my knife sharpening, but since I only had one chef's knife, I was left in a lurch when it was gone. I solved that issue by two things: buying a longer, sharper chef's knife from Hida Tool and learning how to sharpen my own knife. When you buy a knife in person from Hida Tool, you get a free knife sharpening lesson in a their dimly-lit back room. At first, I was pretty nervous about sharpening a knife on my own, but my teacher was patient and reassuring. It helped my nerve to read on an online knife forum (there are forums for everything!) that anything I could do to screw it up I could undo later as my skills progressed. Plus, ceramic takes very little material off versus those scary mechanized sharpening wheels. Sure, it takes longer, but it is deeply satisfying. Plus, no one f*cks with you while you are sharpening a knife. You get instant respect. In addition to the ceramic block, I have a ceramic honer coming in from Edge Pro.

I also gave away most of my other knives that I rarely used and the accompanying knife block, and I have plans on replacing the cleaver and the bread knife. I'm ready to graduate to a real Chinese cleaver that I sharpen myself, and that bread knife is a mere 7-inches, so it's a little too short for my round loaves. Since I'm knife obsessed, I'm going to stop writing about them now because I can go on and on. The boy is genuinely terrified of my Japanese knife, and he refuses to use it. That's fine. All mine.

* You can subscribe to the BAHH by sending an email to bahh-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.

Dog Meets Boy

Mingus has decided that kids are cool because they feed him animal crackers and they give him lots of pets. He even liked playing with the talking puzzle, although the talking part of the puzzle ended up frustrating him and I had to stop him from repeatedly pouncing on it. V is for violin! Y is for yak!

Kids even give him hugs and kisses (followed by some spitting out of fur). At first, Mingus was confused and a little alarmed.

Then, Mingus eased into the hug. He focused on the good things, like an endless supply of animal crackers.

The thought of animal crackers really warmed his heart, and he begin to enjoy the toddler version of a hug, which is more like a lean.

Mingus was showered with many more hugs that day, sometimes when he wasn't expecting them.  This visit is going into the books as a successful playdate!

Knitted Carboy Sweater

Click here for my Knitted Carboy Sweater Pattern!

For the boy's birthday, I wanted to make his 6.5-gallon carboy a sweater of its very own. Since light exposure can lead to skunky beer, he had been wrapping his carboys in dog towels. While this practice wouldn't bother me that much if his beers were brewing in the back room, the fact that he insists on fermenting on our kitchen counter, where it was the first thing I'd see upon entering the house, started to wear me down. So, I guess you could say that I also knit this for myself.

See that blowdown tube in the above picture? That tube saves marriages. Seriously. It still makes me livid to repeat the stories (yes, plural), so just trust me on this one.

I decided to knit the sweater in 4x4 ribbing in a tight gauge, and I did want something that looked, well, classic. More Pottery Barn than CB2. It's hard to not think of yourself as a little odd when you're designing a classic sweater for a carboy, but I am pleased with the final result!

In the end, it was all knit out of leftover Wool-Ease I had purchased for a blanket (almost done, although I keep saying that!). There were several times during this process where I resented the carboy sweater because it was more knitting than I would have to do for a sweater for myself. Yet, it was the perfect project for that time because it was fairly mindless after a few easy calculations and gauge swatches. I knit it bottom up, but the next one I do will be top down. Although this is a ribbed sweater and it can fit both the 6.5- and the 5-gallon carboy, I do want to knit another one since the other carboy we have in the house is sitting in a cardboard box. Sour beers age for about a year, and I've been staring at that box in the corner of our living room way too long. If I don't knit it a sweater, I'm going to insist that the boy makes it into some sort of coffee table so that space isn't wasted.

A Small Amount of Kale Kimchi

One bunch of kale and 3 carrots yields about 2 cups of kimchi

Carrots and kale abound in our garden, although for this experimental round of kale kimchi, I used the kale and carrots that came in my weekly CSA box. The idea is that in the near future, I can make kimchi from all the things growing in my garden, sans ginger and garlic. Oh, I know I can grow garlic here because other people do, but my garlic turns out wormy. Two seasons of wormy garlic and my drive to continue growing it is in the gutter. 

Carrots and Russian red kale

Loosely, I followed this recipe. I salted my kale and carrots instead of drizzling them with fish sauce, and I added 1 T of hot Korean chili powder and 2 T of Korean chili flakes. I also added minced ginger and reduced the sugar.

Reducing sugar intake has been a thing around here thanks to reading Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar and Salt, Fat, Sugar: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. Admittedly, I am one bummer of a dining companion right now because I'll tell you how putting that sugar- and carb-laden dessert in your mouth will mess up your liver. Oddly, people don't want to talk about it, although I find it fascinating and I just bring it up because I think my companion will think it's fascinating as well and not because I am admonishing that person's choice of food. Apparently, I am out of control because the boy will come home, grab a beer, and go into another room as fast as he can so I won't talk to him about liver damage and visceral fat. He's glad that I'll be reading Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation next.

Beautiful red pepper paste made with fish sauce, rice flour, ginger, and garlic

More cooking thank knitting has been happening in these parts. I thought I'd be sick of cooking since we pulled off a party for 30 people with only 1 day of preparation and lovely friends who all pitched in, but it actually fired me up again. (You must make a Green Glove cocktail!) Well, that and the longer days. Staying inside and cooking when it is sunny outside is more appealing than staying inside and cooking when it is cloudy outside, although it makes no sense to me since I'm indoors in both scenarios. I guess I like the view best when it's sunny.

Tonight's dinner is pork belly braised with soy sauce, Chinese rice wine, star anise, cinnamon, dried chills, and plenty of ginger and garlic. The two pound pork belly from our meat CSA was beautiful, and I used half of it for a kimchi stew and the other half for this Chinese stew.

Time to eat! I hope you all have a wonderful summer!

Radish Pods

Last winter, I planted Munchen bier radishes in the hopes of reaping some lovely, mild white radishes that I could spiral cut and eat with salt, just like I did in Munich. Alas, since I was lazy and didn't prep the soil very well, our radishes were knotty, woody things that tasted too peppery to consume. But, these radishes give you a second chance! In addition to their root, they are known for their delicious pods! Spring has brought us an abundance of radish pods, and these are delicious on their own or pickled. I'm going to plant some more just for the pods.