Gladiolus from my garden

The last storm pushed her to the ground... so I gave her a second live in my living room:

Pink Shark - the FO

Finished my pink shark in Posh Yarn Martha - match make in heaven. Certainly not a colourway for the wallflowers among us.

Promised this one to my mom so it will soon take off to live in Germany (but psst I got a very similar colourway to make one all for me).

Check out the pattern Hitchhiker by the very, very talented Martina Behm - she has a lot of other gorgeous designs that I plan to make.

Thyme Butter

Delicious spread on fresh baguette all by itself or with heirloom tomatos or grilled chicken. Also like it on a baked potato.

4 tablespoon of room temp unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon of chopped fresh thyme

1/4 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)

1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated white pepper

pinch of paprika

Mix all ingredients and enjoy - keeps forever in the fridge.

Variation - add roasted garlic (cut entire garlic in half, lightly salt and put in aluminium foil with a tiny bit of chicken stock, bake for 45-60mins at 400F... squeeze out garlicy deliciousness and use for your respective recipes.

Pink Shark - WIP

I am officially in LOVE with this WIP (pattern: Hitchhiker by Strickmich: Ravelry)

Back in blogging land

Where did the last 6 months go... can't believe that my granny was right again - the older you get the faster time seems to pass (and I am not even that old ha-ha).

Tons of excitement over the last few months; most of it not so great at first but I may be on my way up the hill again - even though currently still facing a very tough choice at work... we'll see.

So to relax I will cook, garden and knit and hopefully blog about it more regularly again.

Stay tuned :-)

Fridge buster

I am apparently better at fridge busting than stash busting (that is a story for another time).

Today I realised that I did not get around to using the organic cauliflower and broccoli I had in my fridge and I already bought new batch (I have the urge to have enough food in the house at any time to feed an army and not just two or three).

Tired today so not in mood for big cooking session so soup came to mind.

I had also some chicken stock left in the fridge and crispy baked ground beef that I originally planned to use for pasta dish. Throw all of these ingredients together, season with cumin, turmeric and a pinch of nutmeg and you have a tasty soup in about 20 minutes.

Good job - just have to translate that into strategy for my stash of yarn now ... easy-peasy

Sweet little scallops

I bought these seasonal little scallops that are only a quarter of the size of the regular ones that you can get year around - I was just drawn to them by the fact that they are naturally bite size and my natural curiosity to try all kinds of food.

Yesterday evening I was wondering what do I do with them? Too lazy to look up a recipe I remembered that I really liked the bacon wrapped scallops that I made for a brunch a few months ago. Wrapping all these little suckers seemed to be too much work and I was also not sure if I would not overcook them due to their size when trying to get the bacon really crisp.

Decided to instead make it a one pan dish - I loved the result and it won't be last time I make this dish:

For 1 person (generous portion = main meal size)
1/2 pound of small scallops (if you get the bigger ones I would cut them into bite size pieces)
1 slice of thick cut Pancetta cut into cubes
Red Pepper Flakes
Maple Syrup
Salt/Pepper
Oil (used neutral one but Olive would be OK as well)

Heat pan over medium-high with one tsp of oil, once at temperature saute pancetta just until it gets crisp, reduce temperature to medium and toss in scallops. season with 1-2 pinches of Red Pepper Flakes, salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes turning 2- 3 times. Take off heat and drizzle 1-2 tbsp of Maple Syrup over top.
Serve hot with a slice of fresh baguette.

Enjoy!

PS: It smelled so good that I digged in before taking pictures :-)