Rainbow

Have been busy making lots of teeny tiny balls,pattern from the ever inspiring attic24 go to her blog Attic24 scroll down to bottom of post about crocheted lampshade ( on my to do list!!) and you will quickly be addicted.

 

I have also started making birds which I made up as I went along (winging it ...groan!) . I am making these to string up and hang like those cloth birds you get in hippy shops. Every time I see one I think....I could make that,so am calling myself on it!

This bird is basically a crocheted circle folded in half with a few stitches extended for the tail,this first one has a tail that's a bit too chunky so am going to change that for the next one.the eyes are chain stitch and the wing a semi circle,don't know if Its the right technique but I just started as if to make a circle and turned round when I got half way. Am happy with him,he's so cute!!!!

He's now got a friend and am much happier with his tail,it's so much perkier!!!!This is the wooly jolly mess my table gets in when I'm making things!! I was thinking about whether to just have birds and the teeny balls or whether to add other pretty happy things, hmmm... Went off in search of ideas and found a pattern on craftsy for a rainbow. many brain meanderings later I find myself on a rainbow coloured tangent making a rainbow picture!!!! The birds have no eye dear where I've gone!

The picture is supported by a canvas.i single crocheted the two sides together,then the baubles caught my eye,going with the idea that you can never have too much rainbow,I rustled up more little baubles and fastened them around the picture at the point of shells made of trebles ( oh how I love trebles!) very happy with the result.

Oh dear my table has gotten worse in the night!!!!!

Really want to crochet some more today but don't know if hands up to it,so many ideas so little time!!!!  

Now where did those birds go?

Raw Kale Crisps

Having tasted the amazing raw kale crisps from Inspiral,I have always wanted to make my own. I didn't really want to use store bought kale and have failed miserably at growing my own ( I do not have green fingers at all!) I looked all over Peterborough market to no avail,maybe it's not the season? So,cut to me emerging from Sainsburys with two huge bags of pre cut Kale in my arms.
I watched this video from the raw food world and used it as a starting point
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RyxVnBw10wY
Matt Monarch and his wife Angela Stokes Monarch are very well known in the raw food world and have various videos on you tube, They are very easy to watch and make raw food interesting and fun! Apart from you tube Angela has her own website and Matt has 3!,these can be found through the raw food world website
Raw food world

NOTE you will need a dehydrator for this recipe

Kale Crisps

Cashew nuts 500g soaked two hours to soften
Nutritional yeast
Lemon juice
Chilli powder
Curry powder
Turmeric
Paprika
Onion powder

I prepared the kale by cutting out all the stems that were left in from the kale being chopped up.I really would have preferred fresh,in which case i would have left the leaves whole and stripped the stems individually.I soaked a small bag of cashew nuts and blended this with the soak water. My blender is not a high speed oneso I ended up finishing it off in the nut grinder because there were small bits of nuts still showong. The nut blender makes the cashews smooth and creamy. Then its just a case of blending in all the other ingredients and pouring the resulting sauce over the kale.

This is the fun bit,to get all the sauce incorporated into the kale,use your hands to mix and massage the sauce well so all parts of the kale are covered,the lemon juice will wilt the kale slightly and soften it. When the kale is totally covered,spread it thinly onto dehydrator trays.

Dehydrate at 115 for about 4-6 hours or until crisp.

Try not to eat it all at once,beware this is incredibly more ish but luckily very good for you, kale is full of vitamins a,c and k and fibre among other goodies.
If I were to make this again I would use double the amount of cashew nuts to make a more "candied " texture.I would also use home grown kale as shop bought is chopped too small and will have suffered some loss of vitamins in the storage.I would also make much much more as its awesome!!!!