Today, I picked up this cute Louet S15 Spinning Wheel!! It is single treadle, with a built in metal lazy kate. Found on Craigslist (thanks for pointing it out, Cosy!) It works beautifully - at least so far...I've learned a lot already after practicing on it for just a short while.
In other news:
A sunday ritual.
Baked a mulberry/apple crisp that was delicious; I modified a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Simply in Season. David picked and then froze mulberries from trees in our neighborhood and the apples were from the farmer's market.
Happy (early) birthday to me. Thanks Mom and Ron for the handcarders. They work beautifully.
I carded some of Godiva's fleece and started spinning. Lookin' pretty good.
Not sure if you've had any of this ChocoVine yet, but it is really tasty!
cheers!
The globe artichoke is also looking pretty good still; hopefully we'll be picking artichokes next year!
Our apricot tree seems to be unaware of the changing seasons and she is still hanging on to her leaves.
The end of the season always means we've got to clean up the garden. I took the umbrella down, put the grill under our back porch and went to work on the plants. After un-staking the tomatoes, I chopped off the tops of the plants and left them on top of the soil to act as mulch. Since we are trying to build up the soil, I left the roots of the plants intact and in the ground to hopefully minimize the loss of organic matter.
Before the first frost, David went out and picked about 63 pounds of green tomatoes, so we are trying to keep up with them as they ripen. I made more oven dried tomatoes and I've also made a couple batches of really yummy Roasted Tomato Soup (my mom sent me the recipe).Roasted Tomato Soup
Toss together in a bowl:
5# tomatoes, stemmed and quartered
6 garlic cloves, smashed
¼ c olive oil
salt and pepper
Transfer to a casserole dish and roast about 40 minutes at 450 degrees until very soft.
Saute in 2T olive oil over medium heat:
1 c onions, chopped
Stir in:
2 c water (if tomatoes are dry; otherwise, don’t use it…I did not)
2 tsp sugar (I used honey instead)
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
roasted tomato mixture, including all of the juice
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Puree the soup in a blender in small batches (no more than halfway full) until smooth
optional: add ½ c heavy cream (gradually so it doesn’t curdle).
