Monday, August 15, 2011

It's habit-forming




See ya, suckas.

What can I say?  Once again, I have no knitting or sewing content for you.  We've had such crap weather for MONTHS (we're going to get 20mm of rain between midnight tonight and tomorrow evening, for example) and when the sun pokes out, the LAST thing I want to do is stay indoors, at my sewing table. 

But, I did work in the garden for a while last week and have this to show for it:

Apparently, my basil and my black currants are having a disagreement.  The basil says my garden sucks and the currant bushes are thumbing their noses at the little punks.  So, what do I do with them?  Ideas?  I found a raspberry/currant jam recipe I might try...

Speaking of raspberries, I found an organic raspberry U-Pick patch a few towns over.  Run by a 12-year-old boy named Daniel.  It was awesome.  We picked and bought 14 kg of them.  They filled one of those big ice cream buckets they serve ice cream out of at a Dairy Bar.  I could barely pick it up.

So, we've been jammin'.

 
Also, I invented a drink.  It's called I'm-Sick-of-Drinking-Straight-Water-and-Since-I-Can't-Drink-Regular-Fruit-Juice-I'm-Going-to-Juice-Every-Citrus-Fruit-in-the-Fridge-and-Add-Some-Sugar-and-Water-to-it-and-Call-it-a-Cocktail.  Deeelish.

Speaking of designing food, I made up a new burger sauce.  See, I can't have ketchup or barbecue sauce these days.  Which makes burgers a little boring.  So, I raided the fridge (you noticing a trend, here?) and blended this together to make Awesome Sauce (that's what I'm calling it):

(Bear with the vague quantities; my husband chucked the piece of paper containing my notes...the infidel.)

1/4 cup of mayo (NOT Miracle Whip)
1 tsp-ish of maple syrup (I have to avoid brown sugar or honey or agave nectar, but you could try those instead)
1 tsp-ish of lime juice
1/4 tsp (MAXIMUM - this stuff is potent) of fish sauce (available at Asian stores in the Thai section)
a sprinkle of good curry powder*
a half sprinkle of chipotle powder

*There is a spice lady at the Farmer's Market in town and she is my idol.  She has taught me so much about spices, it's kind of insane.  I mentioned that I have not always enjoyed curry powder and she explained that it is because there was too much turmeric in it.  The store-bought stuff is commonly made that way, she said.  She sold me some stuff that she calls "Citrus Thai Curry" and oh. my. gawd.  Swoon.  Also, she sells Smoked Applewood Sea Salt.  Gah.  To die for.

4 comments:

  1. "A half sprinkle"?? That might be the most vague quantity I've ever heard!! :P

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  2. Yeah, well, you can't say I didn't warn you! You can blame J for throwing out my "recipe". The oaf.

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  3. We picked currants at my mom's house last month-she made juice that we added to ginger ale, a syrupy reduction to go over pork, and a jelly that had a habenero infusion. All were fantastic-I may need my own currant bushes.

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  4. "The oaf" here.

    In my defense, D leaves her stuff lying around everywhere and usually leaves the cleaning to me : )

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