Monday, October 15, 2007

Not So Canny

The weekend past was intended for experiments in putting up food, but I scrapped canning after getting advice from canny knitters blogless Kelli and Kim at MY SnB. There's nothing like consulting group wisdom. Apparently only a well-regulated pressure canner will kill botulism bacteria and I don't have access to one. So I oven-dried and froze stuff instead, which is easy and safe, but not as photogenic as pints full of garden goodness.

Oven-dried cherry tomatoes

See what I mean? These cherry tomatoes might as well be raisins. I made the mistake of drying some of them until they were crisp as potato chips. Blech. About the moistness of a prune seems to taste best. Even only partially dried, it's amazing how the former superabundance now fits neatly into a small corner of the freezer.

While the tomatoes dried, I finished Sockapalooza angel socks for D; they jumped in the mail today. They're BRIGHT, to amuse her patients. I hope they fit and D wears them in good health!

Fire on the Mountain socks

These Cedar architecture socks may be the handsomest socks I've ever made. I can't get over how the sear-your-eyeballs Fire on the Mountain colorway knit up so nicely in plain old stockinette stitch. The STR also washed beautifully – the wash water was perfectly clear (excellent dye job!). I used Soak in the limited edition A Scent for Celebration fragrance, which is pleasantly cinnamon-y.

While the socks dried, DH and I saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The movie owes more to fiction than history, but was cheesy fun, with able actors, sumptuous costumes, and great locations (including The Escorial and the white cliffs of Dover). The spectacle is definitely worth seeing in a theater. On the downside, the story is hackneyed, the pace is ponderous, some camera movements are annoyingly intrusive, and I spent 'way too much time over-thinking the title... which wasn't canny.

4 comments:

dragon knitter said...

i beg to differ with tomatoes. they are a high acid food, which means you can can them in a boiling bath with safety. ask your local extension agent. he/she will tell ya the same thing.

fire on the mountain rocks!

Anonymous said...

Very cute socks! The tomatoes look good - how nice that you will be able to have your own tomatoes all year round!

Anonymous said...

The Fire on the Mountain socks turned out spectacular! Lucky pal! Good idea to dry the tomatoes and you could rehydrate them and give them a twirl in the food processor for yummy sauce. They remind me of dried cranberries and are way more photogenic than a jar of botulism.

StepNurse said...

Thank you again! No lie-those socks fit better than any pair I've knit myself. Even the hubby complimented them, and my stepdaughter saw them and wanted to know when I'm going to make her some :)

Those chocolate eyeballs are SO good! Thanks for the extra goodies!

Darra