Neverkont knit sample

 

At the knitting festival in Horsens this October I participate in two knitting work shop together  with an old friend from high school. The first work shop was a knitting technic called Neverkont,
which is knitting small squares, which afterwards will look like braided knit. Here you knit forward and backwards on smaller sections adding as well as reducing the amount of knit masks. And this knitting style gives smaller squares in a pattern.

At the knitting work shops I was testing out this technic in cotton yarn. However, I decided to try out this new technic again at myself using some thicker yarn. And above you can a photo of this knit test in full scale. I do not imaging, that I will ever knit a sweater using this technic, but perhaps a sofa cushion could be a option.

If you use yarn in different colours, as I have been doing the important thing is to use yarn with similar thickness. I did not do that for the finished knit test, so the squares are not equal in size, which pull the knit in different direction.

Finished Mosegenser

My Mosegenser sweater knit in silk mohair yarn (made form 60% mohair, 15% wool and 25% silk) from Sandnes Garn is now finished in time for the cold weather, which is now here in Denmark.

Once again a huge thank you to my rowing friends for their great birthday gift to me :-)

So, it is time for me to start knitting using some of the yarn, which I brought at the knitting festival in Horsens  beginning of this month.

Shopping of cake ingredients for Christmas baking in Germany

Saturday last week-end I was on a day trip to Germany together with mother to Neumünster. Besides from the tour to the shopping outlet in Neumünster we also went to the town center to have something to eat as well as doing some grocery shopping. For my part the shopping in the supermarket (Rewe) was to fill up on some spices for my upcoming Christmas baking.

So now I am ready to bake both Speculoos like these speculoos cookies as well as my favourite German Christmas cake Stollen such as these stollen bites,  stollen with fromage frais, stollen with marzipan and cranberries and Christstollen.

Before I get baking I can meanwhile enjoy these all ready prepared stollens, which I also found in the supermarket.

Mosegenser part 3

I am very close to be finish with knitting on my Mosegenser, so very soon I can start to wear this sweater and keep warm in the approaching cold weather. This is great :-)

Quince cordial

As I received a relative large portion of Japanese quinces, I would have made so many glasses of quince jelly, that never my colleagues or myself would be able to eat us through all this quince jelly. As the boiling part of the process to soften the quinces is similar to that of many jelly, I decide to try to make quince cordial as well.

The preparation of the Japanese quinces before boiling them is to wash the quinces and cut them into smaller size. You do not need to peel the quines. As usual I decided to remove the core with the seeds from the inner part as well, as I do not like the bitterness from the seeds of apples and quinces. If this is not concern for you, you can just cut the quinces into halves.

I did not weigh the amount of Japanese quinces, while making this cordial, as I started by boiling the quines soft in enough water to cover the quine pieces in the cooking pot. And when you have the quince juice, you measure the amount in order to calculate the amount of needed sugar to make cordial. I used the same ratio between juice and sugar as in this black currant cordial, crossing my fingers, that it would not gel like this red currant cordial.
It is quiet interesting to see, how the colour of the quince juice change from darker yellow to peach red after the addition of the sugar to the juice.

Now I just hope, that this cordial taste great !!!

Quinces jelly:

• Japanese quinces - washed, cut into 4 pieces, core & seeds removed
• Water - enough to cover the quince pieces in the cooking pot
• 1 teaspoon of citric acid
• 300 g sugar per 500 ml quince juice
• potassium sorbate - optional

1. Place the fruit and water in large cooking pan. Enough water to cover the quines pieces. Add citric acid as well. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat.
2. Let the quinces pieces simmer under lid for approx 1-1½ hour, until the quines pieces are soft enough to be mashed.
3. Mash the quines pieces.
4. Pour the quince mash into a sieve, and press the juice through the sieves using a cooking spoon.
5. Afterwards pour the cordial through into a jelly bag to remove the un-clarity/ruit pieces from the juice. 
6.  Measure the amount of fruit juice and weight out 300 g sugar per 500 ml juice.
7. Dissolve the sugar over low heat. The cordial should not be boiled.
8. Let the cordial cool down, so it is not to hot for the bottles, which it will be poured into. You can pour the cordial into glass bottles at higher temperatures compared to plastic bottles, which the cordial needs to be colder.
9. Store at ambient temperature. 
10. Dilute the quince cordial with water upon serving it.
11. Enjoy :-)

Gin & magazine shopping in England

I have recently been in UK on a business trip. I had a two night stay at a hotel in Manchester Airport, so in theory I could have travelling with a small suitcase, but as usually I went travelling with my large suitcase, so I could bring back several big bags of 1.4 kg of with my favourite müsli in form of Alpen No Sugar Added Müsli (the Alpen in the blue bags).

I also found several magazines in form of Country Living, Good Housekeeping with focus on Autumn and a magazine only with Christmas food recipes from BBC. And these types of magazine actually have a heavy weight.

And yes, I did find two new gins, one in Manchester Airport and the other one in Billund Airport. The gin selection in Billund Airport is quiet extensive.

The first gin is Chase oak ages sloe & mulberry gin (brought in Billund Airport). I am familiar with sloe gin, but the use of mulberry was new to me. And mulberries is a favourite fruit of mine.

The second gin is 9 Lives blackberry gin liqueur from Silent Pool Distillers (brought in Manchester Airport). The wording 9 lives and small figures of cats on the label was very appealing to me as the "land lady" of a ginger cat.

Quince jelly

The advantages of turning Japanese quinces into jellies are, that you do not have to peel the quinces. In principle you not need to remove the core with the seeds from the inner part as well. However, I usually remove the core and seeds from both apples & quinces, as I do not like the bitterness from these seeds. Off cause it takes more time to remove the seeds, but the big benefit for me is the better taste. And the peel and the quines on their contains enough own natural pectin to give a gel.

Based on some advise from some work colleagues, I also decide to add citric acid powder to the water during the boiling process as a lower pH will help on creating a gelled texture, which is required in jellies.

I did not weigh the amount of Japanese quinces, while making this jelly, as I started by boiling the quines soft in enough water to cover the quine pieces in the cooking pot. And when you have the quince juice, you measure the amount in order to calculate the amount of needed sugar to make jelly. I used the same ratio between juice and sugar as in this  red & black currant jelly.
It is quiet interesting to see, how the colour of the quince juice change from darker yellow to peach red after the addition of the sugar to the juice.

As I had received a relative large portion of Japanese quinces, I decided to make quince cordial as well, as the most of the process is quiet similar with regards to boiling.

I am planning to serve the quince jelly together with cheese. Perhaps you will have other suggestion, which you can share with me ?

Quinces jelly:

• Japanese quinces - washed, cut into 4 pieces, core & seeds removed
• Water - enough to cover the quince pieces in the cooking pot
• 1 teaspoon of citric acid
• 450 g sugar per 600 ml juice
• potassium sorbate - optional

1. Place the fruit and water in large cooking pan. Enough water to cover the quines pieces. Add citric acid as well. Bring to the boil. Reduce the heat.
2. Let the quinces pieces simmer under lid for approx 1-1½ hour, until the quines pieces are soft enough to be mashed.
3. Mash the quines pieces.
4. Pour the quince mash into a sieve, and press the juice through the sieves using a cooking spoon.
5. Afterwards pour the cordial through into a jelly bag to remove the un-clarity/ruit pieces from the juice. 
6.  Prepared the jelly glasses. I add boiling water to the glasses, while other will heat the glasses in the oven at 120 minutes.
7. Measure the amount of fruit juice and weight out 450 g sugar per 600 ml juice.
8. Pour the fruit into large cooking pan and heat up the juice to the boil.
9. Add in the sugar, stir until the sugar is dissolved.
10. Bring the jelly mixture to a rolling boil (the jelly mixture has a lot of boiling foam on top).
11. Let it boil for minimum 4 minute as starting point.
12. Test for a set after 4 minutes using the flake test (how the jelly is dripping from the cooking spoon). This is tricky, otherwise set, if the temperature is 104'C. I ended up with a boiling time of 10-12 minutes.
13. When the the texture is right, remove the cooking pan from the heat. Start right away to remove any scum from the surface of the jelly, using a large metal spoon.
14. Pour the jelly into glass jars, fill the jar to the top. Again remove any scum from the surface using a tea spoon.
15. Seal the jar with a lid.
16. Leave the glass upright and undisturbed to set.
17. Store at ambient temperature. 

Week-end DIY project with Japanese quince

Last Autumn it was the first time for me to work with quinces in form of the big pear quinces, which I turned into quince jam. It is pretty difficult to work these big quinces into smaller pieces prior to the boiling process. However, but the flavour of the raw quinces as well as during the cooking is fantastic and naturally the taste of the final jam is just great.

This time I have a cardboard box full of Japanese quinces from a colleagues garden. And on the way from work I had the most fantastic smell of quinces in the car.

As the Japanese quinces are much smaller in size compared to the bigger pear quinces, I decided to turn these Japanese quinces into quince jelly as well as quinces cordial, so I did not have to peel all these small quinces. However, I did decide to remove all of the seeds from the core, as I really dislike the bitterness from these type of seeds.

I will share the recipes on both quince jelly quince jelly and quince cordial in the upcoming week.

Mosegenser part 2

The knitting process on my coming Mosegenser sweater is progressing fast. I have now been knitting the two sleeves, which now have been added to the lower part of the sweater, so now I am knitting up towards to the upper and neck part of the sweater.

Knitting festival in Horsens October 2019

Two days ago I participated in Horsens Strikkefestival together with an old friend from high school. We had signed up for two knit workshops.

As mentioned previously we participated in two knitting workhops

The first workshop was on Neverkont, which is knitting small squares, which afterwards will look like braided knit. Here you knit forward and backwards on smaller sections adding as well as reducing the amount of knit masks. And this knitting style gives smaller squares in a pattern.

I will try to knit a bigger sample as a another test, so I/you can see the neverkont in bigger version.



The second workshop was double knitting, so the pattern on the back side is the negative side of the pattern on the front side. Here the yarn colours for test knit was quiet close to each other, so it is difficult to see the actual pattern.

This way of knitting requires a lot of attention, as the yarn is either behind or in front of the knit mask. Again, here I try it again on my with two yarn colours with bigger colour variation.

After the work shops we had a look around the exhibition area with the many yarn companies. And here I found yarn for three new knitting projects in form of a shawl in Autumn colours, a poncho in green colours and finally a sweater in the colour of orange. But first I have finish with the knitting of the Mosegenser sweater.

Pickled gherkins a la Lønnestræde

In connection with, that I got a bunch of gherkins, I have been testing out various recipes on pickled gherkins like these pickled cornichons as well as these pickled gherkins a la Rigeligt Smør. I also decided to make my own version of pickled gherkins.

After the pickling process the gherkins needs to mature for 3-4 weeks, before you can enjoy them.

Pickled gherkins a la Lønnestræde:

• 750 g gherkins
• 1 l water
• 50 g salt

Pickling liquid:

• dill crown
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 10-20 black pepper corns
• 4-6 bay leaves
• 1 clove of garlic - cut into smaller pieces
• fennels seeds
• 4 dl vinegar
• 200 g sugar

1. Bring the water to the boil, add salt into the water. Let the water-salt liquid cool down.
2. While the water-salt solution cools down, clean the gherkins. I used a sponge to clean the entire surface. Afterwards prickle the gherkins.
3. Place the pickled gherkins in the cold water-salt solution for 12-24 hours in the refrigerator.
4. Remove the gherkins from the water-salt solution.
5. Add all the spices for the pickling liquid in a empty glass or pickling jar. Afterwards add in the gherkins
6. Bring the vinegar and salt to the boil.
7. Pour the boiling vinegar liquid over the gherkins in the pickling glass/jar.
8. Fill the pickling glass/jar to the top, until the gherkins are covered by the pickling liquid.
9. Let the gherkins rest in the pickling liquid for around 3-4 weeks, before you start using the picked gherkins.

Prepared for the knitting festival in Horsens

I am prepared to participate in Horsens Strikkefestival tomorrow Sunday. I have buying some cotton yarn as well as finding some yarn leftovers. I need these yarns, as I have signed up for the two knit workshops. I am planning to use the cotton yarn afterwards to knit dish cloth, as I have used been buying a knitting book with dish cloth as theme.

The first workshop is Neverkont, which is knitting small squares, which afterwards will look like braided knit.

The second workshop is double knitting, so the pattern on the back side is the negative side of the pattern on the front side.

Naturally I will share my impression from the knit festival later on.

Mosegenser part 1

The beauty about knitting on circular knitting needle is, that you keep knitting straight all the time. So fare, it has been very easy to read and understand the knitting pattern for this knit sweater called "Mosegenser" even though it is in Norwegian. A little bit later it become a bite more complicate to read/understand. Next step is for me knit the arms, which afterward is added into the knitted blouse.

October - what´s up

October - what´s up

It is the second month of the Autumn season, and the season of pumpkin is right here and now. And they bring a wonderful bright orange colour. 

As recipe with pumpkin as main ingredient you could take at these suggestions: 

happy Halloween soup

pumpkin pie

pumpkin pie with muscovado sugar

pumpkin-pear jam

sweet pickled pumpkin