Sweaters, Peach Salsa, and Pie

August is here, and it seems that summers in Germany are a lot like Fall in Maryland, except not as warm. It's not really COLD per se, just not summer. We did get a nice day in the 70's yesterday though and J and I went out and played some tennis, which was pretty embarrassing as I haven't played in like 13 years and wasn't very good then either!

I looove to host dinner parties, so I was very excited about having company on Thursday! Company is a great excuse to clean the house and make fantastic food we might not otherwise make. Here's the menu:

Homemade Guacamole with chips as an appetizer (I stood in the grocery store for like 10 minutes finding the perfect avocados! It paid off!)

Cuban grilled pork chops with Sofrito mashed potatoes, recipe courtesy of Guy Fieri; (He does the chops in a pan, but we like 'em on the grill). You MUST try the potatoes! They are one of my favorite side dishes of all time.
With Peach Salsa (recipe to follow)

Garlic-mint green bean salad

And Handpicked Blackberry and peach pie for dessert, with vanilla ice cream! YUM.
Throughout the route I take to go running are fields lined with blackberry bushes. I'd had my eye on them for days, and went out to pick them when they looked ready, but someone had beat me to most of the easy ones! I battled the thorns and stinging nettles though to get my 4 cups of berries! Unfortunately they were a little sour, but the ice cream helps ;)

Peach Salsa Recipe

I serve this over the pork chops instead of the garnish he recommends.

1/2 lb multicolor cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 large gold peaches, peeled, pitted and diced
1 jalapeno pepper (seeded)
2 cloves garlic
1/4 small red onion
Small handful of Cilantro leaves

Juice of one lime
A generous 2 pinches of kosher salt

Place the quartered tomatoes and diced peaches in a bowl. Finely chop all remaining ingredients and mix together. Add the lime juice and salt to taste. Allow to chill in the fridge for AT LEAST one hour before serving.

I was so proud of my nice tidy dining room I had to take a picture :)


I also JUST finished my Heather Hoodie Vest from KnitScene Fall 2009. (Click the link to visit Ravelry for more details) There are a number of sweaters I plan to make from this issue, but since this has short sleeves and I had the yarn for it I cast on in June to be ready for September/October. I reached my goal early! This was a pretty quick knit on size 10 1/2 needles.




My only issues with the pattern was the hood is way too deep, and a little short in the front. To remedy this I should have picked up fewer stitches for the hood, and done some short rows at the neck to keep it from pulling when up. It would be way too much work to rip out all the edging and the hood to redo it though so I'll just deal.
I do like the buttons I found, even if I had originally wanted green toggles:


Currently on the needles are some Wollmeise Hedera socks in Sonne, and I think I'll start another sweater!