Things to Warm You

Due to spotty Internet service for the last day or so, I'm a little less organized than I would like to be; however, here's a couple of bits I've been promising:

The January Mitten:

Is clearly not going to be published today.  But the free Camera Mitten Pattern (particularly since WhipUp was kind enough to mention them!) may well be is in the right hand sidebar now, under free patterns.  Or go here: Download Camera Mittens . If the Internet connection doesn't go down again while I'm trying to load the file, that is.  The January mittens are, however, charted and well underway:

The Pepper/Apple/Peanut Butter Soup:

I'm not sure I've got my final favorite iteration worked out yet, but here is the gist of the recipe - it lends itself very well to experimentation:

Ingredients:

• 1 medium to largish yam - peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 apple - cored and thinly sliced
• 1 or 2 onions, peeled and chopped into 1 inch chunks
• several fresh sweet/hot peppers of various kinds (depending on availability and your heat tolerance) - washed and left whole
• a handful of garlic cloves - peeled

Toss these ingredients with a generous coating of olive oil, and roast in a single layer for 1 hr at 350 degrees F, turning 2 or 3 times during roasting so they brown evenly.

In a slow cooker, mix 1 can of beer and 2 cups of homemade chicken stock (or water or extra beer if you are vegetarian.)  Dissolve 1/3 cup of dark miso in the liquid. 

When the veggies have finished roasting, pull out the peppers, cut off and discard the stems and chop the peppers coarsely.  Add to the slow cooker along with the other roasted veggies and cook on high for 1 hour.

Add 1/2 cup of peanut butter and stir to dissolve (you can always add more if you want a creamier texture or something to buffer an overgenerous supply of peppers).  At this point, I also like to mash the yam pieces a bit.

Continue cooking on high for another hour - two if you want a thicker, creamier soup.  It is great on its own, or ladled over brown rice.

The key ingredients are the yams, onion, and miso, for a creamy texture and savoury-sweet flavour; and of course, the peppers.  This is a soup to warm you to the very core!