Blackberry Dyed Yarn

I made some blackberry wine and spilled some.  I wiped it up with a towel, and it is now very stained.  So I wondered if I could use the spent blackberries after wine making to make dye.  I had always just fed them to the critters.  So I used information from this site to make a dye.  Basically you just simmer then berries and strain them.  You pretreated the yarn with alum.  Then you add the pretreated yarn to the dye, simmer it and then let it cool in the pot overnight.  Here is the dyepot with the yarn in it.

dye pot

Then you wash and rinse the yarn and let it dry.  Here is the yarn after drying, photographed in room lighting.

blackberry yarn room light

And here it is in the sunlight (where I think you can see the color a little better).

blackberry yarn sunlight

And here are the hogs still getting to eat the leftover blackberries.

pigs and blackberries

Happy Mexico Independence Day

To celebrate for dinner I made Chiles en Nogada. I am thinking it is not very authentic since dried cranberries are used,but it was still really good. It is supposed to represent the colors of the Mexican flag . I used our chicken and stock. I think I might make it each year.

I accompanied it with my favorite margarita recipe.

Spicy Pumpkin Soup

I have been cooking in my “vacation”, but have not been very successful. I have made Moussaka, Zucchini Lasagna, and Caribbean Goat Kabobs, but none were that exciting. I might be getting picky. But today for lunch I made this soup, and it was really good. I used our pumpkin and chicken stock too.

I paired it with my quince apple cider which worked out really well this was a great lunch in a rainy day.