Eggplant Melanzone

I have an ongoing love/hate relationship with eggplant.  I love the way they look, the shiny skin, and all the funny colours and sizes they come in.  I fall for them every single time I find them at the farmer's market, yet I'm always struggling to decide what to do with them.  Eggplant cooked right is an amazing, meltingly delicious thing.  Cooked wrong, it is sad, squishy, grey, and depressing. 

This little gem is a home reproduction of an appetizer from one of the local pizza places I order from.  I actually tried it the first time because it was one of 2 possible gluten free appetizers, and it has turned out to be a staple. Quick, easy, delicious, and very few dishes to do afterward!

Eggplant Melanzone

1 Italian eggplant, sliced into 1/4" thick rounds
1 T olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C minced onion
1 C marinara sauce
1/2 t Italian seasoning mix
1/2 C shredded cheese (I've used Cheddar and Mozzarella, and both are tasty)
salt & pepper to taste

In a heavy, oven safe skillet (cast iron is perfect) over medium heat, heat the olive oil and sauté the eggplant just until it is starting to brown slightly.  You don't want to overcook it, or it will get squishy.  Remove slices as they are done, and put to side for the time being.  Brown onion and garlic, then mix in Italian seasoning and salt & pepper.  Layer eggplant slices over mixture, then pour marinara sauce over the top.  Sprinkle cheese over the sauce, then bake in 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, until cheese is melted through.

This is good served with bread, on pasta, or just eaten straight from the pan.  ;)  It makes good leftovers, cold or warm!

Rug Weaving - Ripsmatta

One of my big goals for this year is to start actually using my looms, rather than letting them gather dust in various corners of my house.  I've been a bit scared of the floor loom I picked up, so after three years of it staring at me dolefully every time I went to the shed to pick out fibre to spin, or yarn to knit, I've decided to give it some well-needed love.  I signed up for a rag rug weaving class, knowing full well that I'd have to warp a loom by myself as part of the class assignments.  (It turned out, I actually didn't have to do it all by myself, another student and I co-warped two of them, but at least I feel comfortable with the process now, and think I could do it on my own!)

We've been alternating through the individual warps we set up in the first 4 sessions of class, and this past weekend was my turn on the Ripsmatta warp, which is the most gorgeously cheerful of the lot.  For the weft, I dyed an old white sheet fuchsia, which faded to a lawn flamingo pink once it had run through the wash.  I alternated it with a Purple 8/2 carpet warp, to match the one in the warp.  I was afraid it might be too light before I started the weaving, but I think it turned out rather nice!  I'm looking forward to 'cutting off' day, so I can take it home and start using it.

Wafer Thin Mint, Sir

What to do with a gallon of leftover 'mystery cocktail' from that ill-fated Hallowe'en party?  Well, after a few transformations and incarnations (and at least one household member swearing it off from imbibing a weensy bit too much), I found myself eyeballing it from across the kitchen.  One of my favourite uses for Crème de Menthe is as ice cream topping.  My dad used to order that for dessert whenever we would go to the fancy restaurant in the next town over (contingent entirely upon my brothers and I getting good grades), and it always fascinated me.  Warm Crème de Menthe is an icy, delightful treat.  Room temp, it just seems sticky and redolent of toothpaste or mouthwash.  There was no ice cream in the house, but a cold cocktail seemed a great substitute.

Wafer Thin Mint, Sir

1 wee little martini glass (okay, a shot glass or something similarly sized would do in a pinch)
1 shot of cocktail mix (50/50 vodka/crème de menthe)  (This should probably be enough for 2 small drinks.)
Chocolate syrup, or hot fudge sauce.

Coat rim of martini glass with chocolate syrup, then put in freezer for 5-10 minutes to harden a bit.  Pour cocktail mix in the glass, pop the whole thing back in the freezer, and give it another 20-30 minutes.  You want it to be frosty!

I served mine with brownies, liberally coated in more of the chocolate sauce.  It was a decadent sort of night!  (Why, yes, I did lick the plate!)

Misty morning musings

A seasonal, yet slightly unusual blanket of fog has descended upon the Puget Sound area in the past week.  While fog is a common enough sight here, it usually sneaks in during the night, lingering through the early morning hours, dissipating into nothingness by noon, leaving the sunshine to reign supreme over the afternoon hours.  This fog is more ambitious, more clingy and lingering.  Fog with something to prove, if my memory of all those Hallowe'en horror movies serves me correct.

This morning (early, albeit not bright), as is my habit most mornings, I strolled to the bus stop far earlier than I needed to be there, to catch a few minutes of peace, quiet, and reading time, away from the chaos of home and pets and work and people.  It has become a little ritual of mine over the years, a way to enjoy the beauty of the morning and gain a little calm in my day.  This morning, the fog was thick and palpable, swirling underneath the street lights, creating little eddies and sketches on the roadway as the cars drove by.  Gone were all but the first row of houses on the other side of the street, gone the looming trees that dominate the skyline in my neighbourhood, leaving a little pocket of peace around me. 

You can keep your fancy lattés, I'll take my morning coffee black, with extra fog, just how I like it.

BBQ Chicken Stuffed Shells

Some of the best meals seem to come from those nights when you have to wing it based on what is in the fridge, because nobody has the energy to run to the store for something specific.  In my book, any excuse to use BBQ sauce is a good excuse, so this worked out smashingly for me.  ;)

BBQ Chicken Stuffed Shells

 (Serves 4)

1 pkg large gluten free pasta shells (I used Tinkyada, by far my favourite)

12 oz cream cheese, softened
1 egg

2 chicken breasts
salt, pepper, and onion powder to taste

1/3 C mushrooms, diced
2 green onions, diced
1/4 C olives (I used a mix of green & black), pitted and diced
2 T parmesan cheese
1 t Italian seasoning mix

1/3 C BBQ sauce
1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese

Pre-cook the pasta shells according to the box instructions, but remove from heat and drain when they are just slightly undercooked.  You want them to be pliable enough to stuff, but not so cooked that they will get mushy or fall apart when they are baked.

While the pasta is cooking, sauté the 2 chicken breasts, liberally seasoned with salt, pepper, and onion powder, in a small amount of olive oil.  Remove from pan and let rest for a few minutes once they are cooked through.  Toss the mushrooms and green onions into the pan the chicken just vacated and sauté until golden brown, then remove from heat.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and egg until egg is fully incorporated.  Add mushroom and onion mixture, olives, parmesan cheese and one of the chicken breasts, diced.  Mix well and season with Italian seasoning mixture.

Divide filling mixture amongst the partially cooked pasta shells and place them, filling side up, in a lightly greased 9x13 pan.  Thinly sliced remaining chicken breast and scatter on top of the shells.  Drizzle BBQ sauce over the chicken, then scatter cheddar cheese on top.  Cook in 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, until cheese is melted and slightly browned on top.  I hear a rumour this made smashing leftovers!

Tour de Fleece, days 21-23

Sadly, the Tour always comes to a close with a bit of a whimper for me.  The ending weekend always falls the same weekend as the big, annual bellydance festival here in Seattle, and I spend more time performing and hooting and hollering for my friends than I do spinning.  Ah, well.  There is always more spinning time, the festival only happens once a year!

The most recent club offering from Southern Cross Fibres snuck onto the wheel after I finished plying David's Gift, mostly out of sheer laziness.  I wanted to spin, but didn't have an empty bobbin for more Bug's Life, wanted to ply Ribbons, but still don't have a Lazy Kate for a 3-bobbin ply, so.......I grabbed the fibre nearest the wheel and went with it.  This one is a nice, deep, rich bunch of blues and purples and a bit of blue that I think will work well for fingerless mitts for at least one lucky guy this Christmas (maybe two, depending on yardage).  I've never spun Texel before, in spite of having had a club offering marinating in my stash for the past year and it was a very nice surprise.  Super, super fluffy, easy to draft, it almost spins itself.  I'm basically treadling like a mad fiend, trying to keep up with the draft (a problem I never have).  This one will eventually be chain-plied to keep the colour progression and still be strong enough to stand up to the abuse all fingerless mitts seem to be subjected to.  :)

Tour de Fleece, day 20

In the spirit of full disclosure, I really started the plying after dinner on day 19 in a fit of optimism and total understatement of how very much singles were crammed on those two bobbins.  Sure, I'll finish that tonight!  Famous last words.  :P  I'd made it through 3 of the 5 colours in the progression before I was falling asleep at the wheel and decided it might be best to finish up today.

I had planned from the beginning to not try to line up the colours in the progression while I was plying, as I wanted there to be some overlap and blending.  It was really interesting watching the changes as I plied. The blues (first colour up) matched up almost perfectly.  The light green was slightly longer on one bobbin, and then things got completely muddled about halfway through the dark green.  It appears that my first set of singles wasn't consistent in size and got a bit bigger as the bobbin emptied, so the second set of singles, which I'd matched to the size of the end of the first bobbin ended up having quite a bit more yardage.  This is a good argument right here for not letting a project languish for a year between spinning sets of singles.  :(  Probably also a good argument for starting to keep a spinning log and a sample piece to spin to, which is something I keep meaning to do.....

Anyway, by about halfway through the dark green on my thinner singles, I was already on the brown on the thicker ones.  I had a wee bit of overlap where both singles were on brown at the same time, then the first bobbin ran out and I had to start improvising.  Without breaking the one single that was attached to the plied yarn, I wound the remainder off into an Andean plying bracelet (this is a wee bit awkward while still attached to the wheel, but it is doable if you're pigheaded patient enough), spit spliced the end of the first single to the end of the second, then finished plying from the bracelet.  Voila!  One continuous skein, no knots required.  Since I hadn't yet gotten through the last of the brown and into the orange, it actually transitioned quite smoothly and still gave me a good section of pure orange to end the skein.   It is intended for a shawl, probably top down, to showcase the colour progression.  Final yardage count is 600, at about sport weight, so it should be a good sized, snuggly warm shawl.