Think Of The Blanket

What We Had For Dinner-
Spicy Peanut Spaghetti w/ Thai Basil

1/2 lb spaghetti (12)
1/4 C thai basil, packed
1/4 C oil (16)
2 T creamy peanut butter (5)
1 T peanut oil (4)
1 T soysauce
1 large clove garlic, roughly chopped
2 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cumin
1/8 t chili garlic sauce

Boil pasta.
Blend all ingredients (except pasta) in food processor.
Drain pasta (you don't have to drain it super thoroughly).
Mix and eat. Yum!

This recipe came about because I didn't want to make pesto yet again and I was too lazy/didn't have the ingredients for the recipe our CSA sent this week for Thai basil. Said recipe did use peanuts etc and it kind of reminded me of a spicy peanut spaghetti recipe I'd made before, so I just subbed in peanut butter and blended it all up and added cumin for some reason and voila! It was really tasty. You should try it!

Next up is the first steps toward making Elderberry Sumac Jam. Eldermac Jam? Suberry Jam? Let's just call it good. Above you see the humble Elderberry. We had a bush of these in our yard growing up and I loved eating them. So, it was kind of tedious removing all the berries into the measuring cups to make 2 C, but it was also sort of zen. Don't eat any unripe berries, they're toxic.
Here you see my giant pot. Inside is all of the sumac, wrapped up in two tea towels, soaking away for the night. Some recipes call for mashing up the sumac (or even blending it!) and boiling it and then straining it etc. but that seemed messy and unsanitary or something (never mind me) so I just soaked them in the cloths. Maybe I only soaked out the tannins or something and not the malic acid, who knows. I think it will serve the purpose. As you can see below, it turned the cloths red-brown. I mixed a teaspoon of the sumac juice, a teaspoon of the elderberry juice and a teaspoon of sugar together this morning and it tasted really good. I'm excited. Today I will procure the canning supplies (I'm a cannin' virgin!) and then "Canning, ho!".

I typed out my lace pattern and saved it, so I can go back to it if I ever want to knit an entire blanket out of it or whatever. Now I'm kind of at a loss for the cabin blanket, I should grab some of my stash yarn and start working on it. Oh, and figure out if I have enough. Oh, and here's the real deal on that, my husband will kill me (this is a personal joke between us- I always rip out my work and reuse the yarn for whatever next catches my fancy), because I want to use the blue and green yarn that I bought for Samus and I just checked on Ravelry and I DO have enough to knit the blanket I think and this is so typically me- I start a project in the Fall, specifically a sweater project, vowing that this is the year that I will knit a sweater and then I stall and then I eventually rip it out. Yep- 8 months later and I'm bailing. But it's for a good cause, really! Think of the blanket, dear!

No reading; planning the next Great American Novel- will get back to you on this...