Care Package from “The Big Easy”; sock progress

  

Our niece lives in New Orleans.  Her “dues” to the hunting club this year were a few items from the area.  It was a box load, and was brought a long way to N. Louisiana to feed our addictions tastes for something a little different.

#1 item:  Blue Runner spicy red beans

 

We CAN actually get these here at one of the small stores, but only in the small cans.  When I cook, I cook BIGGGGGGG (so I don’t have to do it again any time soon!), so small cans just won’t work.  Since discovering these I NEVER soak dried red beans to make red beans and rice.  Brown some sausage, throw in some onions, bell pepper, garlic and brown a little.  Throw in a couple of cans of beans, then cook some brown rice.   Supper in about 30 minutes!!

Item #2

Olive salad relish.  We CAN get this here, but it is so expensive I can’t buy it… my frugality just won’t let me!  She gets it for about half what it costs up here.   Can you say, “Muffuletta”?  YUMMO!

I haven’t had much time to work on my knit-along socks, but I now have 1 1/2” of ribbed cuff done.  About 1 more inch of ribbing and I will switch to stockinet stitch, and my needles will fly!  Since we will be traveling tomorrow I really think I can get this ribbing finished tomorrow…. hope, hope, hope.  This is my least favorite part of the process.  The changing back and from from knit to purl is slow and clumsy, but I AM getting better, and I am LOVING the Continental style.  Hopefully the next picture you see of these will show me working on gussets!

Have a great weekend.  We are headed to TX for a day at the beach (Galveston), IQ classes, and a quick run by Quilt Festival in Houston, but this will be a very LOW-budget shopping trip due to the IQ purchase.  My friends tell me the venders really mark things down on the last day of the show so they don’t have to haul so much home.  Perhaps I can find some real bargains.

KAT