Orange Pork

Early on, I had this brilliant thought that I would write not just about my knitting and sewing projects but also my baking projects. Well, this isn't quite baking but it was a huge success, so I feel it must be written about.

On Mother's Day, a friend and I met up to go to the Shepherd's Harvest Festival, which was guaranteed to bore our husbands. The promise of llamas convinced them to stay through that and then they were gone to do "manly" things and drive the Telsa around. The original plan was to have our friends stay over for dinner so I took out some pork chops to grill. My husband is a genius when it comes to cooking meat with fire. Sadly, being responsible adults prevailed and our friends headed home.

So the meat sat for a few days. Come to this past Thursday (4 days past thaw out) and we needed to cook the meat. I ended up with a horrible headache but was determined to marinate the meat for at least 12 hours and then cook it on the wood grill/smoker outside. I mixed things together and stuck it all into the fridge to sit for 12 hours.

The next morning, I successfully made a fire though it took longer than normal. The main goal was to smoke the meat. Once the fire was convincingly not going to die, I seared both sides of the and then removed them from the fire, sticking them over to the side. This I have learned from my husband and there's some sort of chemistry change in the meat by doing this, but I'm honestly not entirely sure how to explain it. I know that I didn't hover over the meat and managed to give it just enough time to be done but not overcooked. The husband even gave me an A+ for my work. It was then that he realized that I actually am paying attention to what he is doing when I stand outside chatting with him as he grills.

So that I can recreate this later, this is roughly the recipe of what I did.

In a large bowl, add the following to pork chops:
-fresh grated orange rind from 3 Cara Cara oranges
-fresh squeezed juice from 3 Cara Cara oranges (same ones the rind came from)
-pulp from one orange
-Light coating of vegetable oil
-Soy sauce, roughly equal to the same amount of orange juice

Place in fridge and let marinate for at least 12 hours

Grill and smoke on wood fire. Gently sear each side and then remove from flame. Let smoke until pork is firm.

Orange Pork Chops, fresh off the grill.

Update on knitting

Husband Socks: Finished!

Earlier this month, I finished my first pair of socks for someone else. They were made for my husband so that he would have something with extra padding when he jumps through hoops on a tight rope. To the right is a photo of him trying them out on the wire the day I finished them. Of course, he's gotten so use to wearing shoes while on the wire, that the wire hurts when he's just in socks. We have talked about adding some suede to the bottom of the socks and turning them into pseudo-shoes.

He commented on how quickly this socks went compared to the last pair, the Ernies, that I made.  Even though his feet are HUGE, these took less time because it was mostly straight knitting and look at how short they are! It looks like he's wearing slippers instead of socks. Of course, that could be because of their construction.

I used a sock calculator to figure out the pattern or at least the base of the pattern. It's probably the only time that I've made a swatch sample for a pair of socks as I needed to figure out what my gauge was going to be. I ended up using a double strand of  worsted weight yarn that I had taken at a yarn swap. I got it because it was pretty. This was back in January, before I had gotten spoiled with really, really nice, hand-dyed yarn from the Cookie A sock club. This yarn is a 70/30 acrylic/wool blend and it will work out for my husband who will most likely end up destroying them, but not out of malice. If the do end up with suede on the bottom, they'll take even more abuse than on the wire and end up being his ren fest shoes as well.

While working on the first sock, I decided it would be a good idea for him to try them on. I was about an inch away from doing the decrease for the toe and I'm glad I had him try them on. The top of the foot was perfect but the bottom...sagged. A lot. I did some searching on Ravelry and decided that I could either decrease the gusset to have fewer sole stitches than top of foot stitches or I could rib the sole. I decided to rib the sole because it would make it thicker and he wanted it to be thick for the jumping on the wire.

They did end up being perfect and fitting his feet. Even though they are "just socks", he does like that they are made to fit his feet. And once I finished them, I was able to move onto my next pair of socks.

Pirouette Socks: In progress and stuck

A couple of months ago, I found some lovely yarn that was being sold as 2 for 1. It had this lovely strip pattern to it where one strand stayed a consistent pattern while the second strand changed colors.  Shortly after that, the second club shipment and patterns came and I realized that I must make the Pirouette socks with this yarn.

After a rough start, where I got confused (it's a complicated pattern and I was overthinking it) and had to recast on due to fix gauge issues, I eventually made progress. Well, now I'm stuck again. Once I got into a rhythm with the pattern, I was fine. Now I'm confused by the set-up for the heel flap. I don't understand the instructions, so I'm stuck. I really want to finish these socks before the next shipment arrives but I'm stuck on the first sock. I'm tempted to set them down and start a new pair just so I can have a project that doesn't annoy me.

Baby blanket

I'm also working on a baby blanket. The original thought was for my cousin but my husband has a cousin who had a little girl about 6 months ago, so I feel like it should go to her first, if it ever gets finished. The fuzzy yarn is frustrating at times to knit and the needles are the size for the gauge shown on the yarn which are size 5 needles...which means that this blanket, with 160 stitches per row, is going to take forever!  I've got 8 repeats of the pattern finished and need to do another 32 or so. At least it's looking nice. I just wish it would go faster. Last night I decided to try knitting continental style (I normally knit English style) to see if it was any faster. I honestly am not sure but at least I was a little bit less annoyed with the pattern and more annoyed with the new technique.

Project update

Yesterday I started on the second skein for the baby blanket. I'm not sure how long the blanket is going to end up being though I imagine it should probably be longer than it is wide. I'm guessing about 3-4 skeins total should do it. It seems as though it's going to take forever though. I measured it but I'm not entirely sure what it is off the top of my head. About 6" now I think.

I've broken my promise to only work on one knitting project at a time. I'm also working on knitting a pair of socks for the Husband. The first one was finished last week and he was delighted. There was some frogging to correct things so that it would fit his sock but he's happy with it. At least it means I can have two projects going and not get bored with either one. I started the second one this morning. Since it's a plain ankle sock, I've already started the heel flap. Maybe by next week it will be finished.

On top of all of that, I've agreed to make a costume vest for the Husband's circus performance next week. Out of silver lame. This will be interested but first I need to clean off the drafting table in my work room so that I can cut out fabric.