Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Raw Cranberry Relish - Final Version

After the original recipe (click here, has more pictures), I have finally perfected a chop-and-dump version of raw cranberry relish. I have been making this quite often, and the natives get restless when I take it all to work, as I did today.  Who knew vitamins A and C (and Calcium and Potassium) would be in such demand?

Into a large bowl, dump 1/4 Cup brown sugar and three or four dashes of sea salt.

Rinse and drain one bag of cranberries, dump into a large food processor, and chop them until they are as fine as you want.  Dump the chopped cranberries into the large bowl.

Wash and rinse three oranges, then remove most of the outer skin with a potato peeler.  Cut off the ends of each orange and discard.  Cut the oranges in half.  Discard any seeds and place oranges in the food processor.  Chop until the oranges become liquefied, turning the processor off and on a couple times.  Dump the orange slurry into the big bowl.

Stir the contents of the big bowl until mixed thoroughly.  Place relish in sealable containers and store in the refrigerator.  I put most of it in a large yogurt container, and the rest in a smaller container.

Here is what it looks like when done:

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Avocado Green Smoothie

I made a new green smoothie today.  This was my first successful attempt at a non-sweet green smoothie.  My usual green smoothie tastes like apple pie with apples, spinach, coconut milk, ginger, and cinnamon.

No traditional fruits were used to sweeten today's green smoothie.  The ingredients are:

  • 1 haas avocado
  • three-inch piece of cucumber, peeled
  • handful of spinach
  • 3/4 can of coconut milk
  • five dashes of salt
  • one dash of lime juice
The taste is not exciting, but simply tastes like the list of ingredients.  The coconut milk and avocado make it very creamy.  I like it because sometimes un-exciting is good!

This batch filled a salsa jar and refrigerated so I can eat it tomorrow.  I put the rest in a coffee cup for my evening snack:

Sunday, December 11, 2011

How Slow (-ly) can I Sew?

Last weekend I showed you this:
... and in a whole week, all I've done is this:

I am going to lengthen this, the top section, by five inches.  The waistline, shown at the left, is more than five inches from the end of the fabric, which is off the picture to the left.  The bottom edge of the top piece is where I cut the pattern, but I also cut towards the edges of the fabric so that I can angle the side seams correctly.  I hope to take a picture when I do that so you can see what I mean.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Getting a Round Tuit

I'm getting a Round Tuit, and will share it with you.

First, I will show you the current sewing project which has been waiting for me to get that Round Tuit for about a week now.

I have decided to recreate an old skirt in a better fabric.  See the discussion here.

Shown on the cutting table is the New Look 6343 skirt pattern, pressed with a dry iron and ready to go.  Behind it on the right is the folded ponte roma knit in navy which I will use for this pattern.

And now for that Round Tuit I promised you:

Thursday, December 1, 2011

More Cranberry Relish!

After making raw cranberry-orange relish (click here to see) for Thanksgiving dinner, and again over the weekend, I had to have more.  I found the last bag of frozen cranberries in the freezer, and I thawed them.  Then I made a variation of the relish.

This time I used one bag of cranberries, one orange, one cored apple, and a generous spoonful of whipped honey.  Here's is a close-up picture, and how well one batch fits into my favorite yogurt container.