I don’t like the standard quesadilla I’ve experienced – cheese and meat mushed together in a flour tortilla. Definitely unappetizing. However, not too long ago, we had dinner at the in-laws, and as always, we were well fed. We met up prior to seeing Itzhak Perlman at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, so dinner was light. And that is when I fell in love with quesadillas a la Drew. And this afternoon, we had some.
These quesadillas are not slap-dash, but require a bit of time. For your pleasure, here is how they are made.
Ingredients
Large flour tortillas
Large peppers – red bell, pasilla, and / or other tasty peppers
Grilled chicken breasts
Sauteed onions mixed with chipotle and ancho powder
Grated jack cheese
Roast peppers over open flame until skin is charred. Steam in bag or closed container to cool. Peel and seed. Grate cheese, slice chicken. Sautee onions until slightly caramelized; add seasoning if desired.
On tortilla, layer cheese evenly over the entire surface. One one half of tortilla, spread out pieces of chicken, peppers, onions, and then place in hot cast iron skillet which has been sprayed with oil. Turn up heat, and cook open-faced until the cheese has melted. Once melted, fold tortilla in half, squish a bit, and let cook a bit more. Remove from skillet, slice and serve with sour cream and salsa.
Serve with Margaritas!
Roasted Bell Peppers Peel and Seed the Peppers Grate the Cheese, Slice the Chicken Cheese All Over Tortilla. Chicken, Peppers and Onions on One Half Heat in Iron Skillet Until Cheese Melts Fold Tortilla in Half Serve with Margaritas . . . Devour!
I have spent the last few weekends dyeing with quercitron and cochineal. I did not devote just one day to each color, but did both each day. The quercitron adventures yielded golden yarns and flammegarn, as well as exhaust baths I used with the exhaust baths of the cochineal. For both, I premordanted the yarn with alum and tartaric acid as I wanted to move toward reds and pinks, rather than the red violet or burgundy colors derived from unmordanted wool. I used handspun moorit shetland and commercially spun yarn for the cochineal.
First Dye Day
A couple of weeks ago, when I did the flammegarn, I did my first-ever dyeing with cochineal. Using the recommendations from Trudy van Stralen’s Indigo, Madder & Marigold, I set up my dye bath the day before I planned to dye. Tin Dissolved in WaterI ground up 5 g of cochineal, combining it with 2.5 g of tartaric acid, mixed them together, and let them soak overnight. The next day, as with the quercitron, I filtered out the bugs before starting the dye pot. Into this dye bath I put in 1 skein of commercially spun wool, weighing in at 50 g, and the handspun moorit, weighing in at 75 g. This was certainly more wool than the 10% cochineal / 5% tartaric acid weight van Stralen uses, but I wasn’t too worried. I wanted to see the results more than anything!
The wools were in the dye bath for 35 minutes (per van Stralen’s recipe). In the early minutes of immersion, the moorit and white took on orangish casts. These colors deepened the longer the yarn remained in the bath, moving closer toward red for the moorit, and pink for the white.
Moorit and White Wool - Before Tin Added to Bath
After 35 minutes, the yarn was removed, and 0.25% of yarn weight of tin added. Thus, 125 x 0.25% = .3125 g. I put in .3 according to my scale. Before adding the tin, the yarn was removed from the bath. The tin was weighed out in a bowl, water added, and then stirred into the dye pot. Tin is added to “bloom” colors toward the red side. Once done, the wools were returned to stew another five minutes, and removed. The moorit became a rather dull wine-red, and the white became a lovely pink color.
Moorit and White Wool - After Tin Added
Pulling the wools out of the dye bath was a pleasant surprise. Each color was harmonious with the other, intense without being displeasing.
Moorit and White Wool Just Out of the Dye Bath
The next step was to immerse the skeins in ammoniated water, to further push the colors toward magenta. The pictures show fairly well the before and after colorations.
Moorit and White Wool After Dipping in Ammoniated Water
The wool pulled up most of the color in the dye bath, but left behind was a pale orange. Another skein of white wool was placed in the exhaust, heated for 45 minutes, and then removed. It had a pale orangish color, but when placed into the ammoniated water, it turned a lovely sea shell pink.
Exhausted Cochineal BathWool Dyed in Exhaust Bath - Not Yet Dipped in Ammoniated Water
And you would think after all tihs activity I would be done, right? Nope! I had saved my filtered bugs and quercitron dregs, the quercitron dye bath, and the remainder of the exhausted cochineal. All these were warmed up together and yet another white skein immersed . . . but you will have to wait to see all the final colors in another installment.
Cochineal is a dye native to the Americas, in use by indigenous peoples long before the Spanish came. Once discovered, it became a source of wealth for the conquistadors, and a well-kept secret. It replaced or supplemented many other natural red dyes, such as madder root, used throughout Europe and Asia. As with quercitron, Edward Bancroft wrote extensively about cochineal in his books about dyeing.
Cochineal is derived from bugs that grow on cactus plants. They are collected, dried, and then ground prior to use as a dye. Trudy van Stralen, inIndigo, Madder & Marigold, recommends grinding them up as fine as flour, using an old coffee grinder dedicated to that purpose. I have a molcajete, which I used. The result was very finely powdered bugs. An interesting odor arises when grinding them – rather sour – which is not something I expected. Also, the rather pale bugs release a deep red color. The molcajete was easily cleaned by running water into it while grinding with the pestle. It was then set aside to dry.
Indian Collecting Cochineal from a Cactus with a Deer Tail
Using van Stralen’s percentages, I used 10% of the fiber weight (here, 100 g) for the bugs, and 5% of that for the tartaric acid in the dye bath. Thus, 10 g of ground bugs were used with 5 g of tartaric acid. These were mixed together, and set aside to soak overnight in warm water.
As with the quercitron, I filtered the cochineal solution prior to placing it in the dye pot. Because the cochineal is so finely ground, coffee filters are very slow. Van Stralen suggests old sheeting, which I don’t have, so what I do is piggy back the liquid into a number of filters. When the filtering process becomes very slow, I lift up the currently draining filter, slide a new one into the cone, and decant the liquid from the old filter into the new. I also continue to pour the overnight stock into each newer filter. This time I used about 5 filters, but the process was not particularly tedious. The used filters, bugs and all, are then set aside to be used for later dye sessions.
Bugs Being Ground in MolcajeteFinely Ground CochinealCochineal Set Up for Overnight Soak
The final result is a very clear liquid, with little particulate matter.
Another UFO finished! You can find the pattern on the Patterns page.
I had some red yarns that I just couldn’t get into by themselves – the plain red KnitPicks Palette was just too plain, and the Noro red was just too noisy. So, to contain the exuberance of the Noro, these socks were born. And, it turned out, I really like them. The solid stripes break up the busy-ness of the Noro, and creates a structure that keeps the Noro patterning from getting out of hand. Add to this, the stripes sure make it easy for one sock to match the other.
This pattern does not tell you how to knit socks. You decide how you want to knit the heel – I think I used a Dutch heel here – and a classical toe. As easily, you could do any heel that allows you to create one in a solid color. Toes could be anything you want. These socks could also be knit from the toe up – just follow the striping.
And if you have read a bit of what I have written about using quercitron for the flammegarn, you will recall that I set it up the night before. For today’s dye bath, I used 15 g of the powdered bark, soaked in warm water. This morning, I strained it out, and set aside the coffee filter to reuse later. I soaked the yarn to be dyed while the dye pot was heating up. The yarn was premordanted with alum and tartaric acid a week or so ago.
Filtering out the dye matter is important. The quercitron is finely ground, and if left loose in the dye pot with the yarn, it would easily get entangled in the yarn or fleece, and require a lot of time to remove it. Trust me, it’s not worth skipping this step! Coffee filters are ideal, and then the sludge may be set aside to dry out for reuse. I do this with some other dyes, such as cochineal and brazil wood, even though subsequent uses will be weaker.
I used my largest dye pot, even though I was dyeing a small amount of yarn. The reason for this is that the temperature of the dye bath is more easily controlled. This is critical to keep the dye toward the yellow, rather than brownish, side.
When I made theflammegarnlast weekend, I kept the yarn in the dye pot only about 20 minutes. Today, the yarn continued in the pot on the heat for an hour, and then was given time to rest in the cooling liquor. After that, it was dipped in a vinegar bath, which, as Bancroft notes, causes the dye to move toward yellow rather than toward a brownish or greenish color. While I have not tried it, Bancroft states that “tin, mixed with a decoction of the bark, produces and exceedingly beautiful lively yellow.” Perhaps an afterbath of tin would be worth trying.
In the pot is lace weight alpaca, and handspun white fleece. The final results are below.
As you can see, the alpaca took up the color more deeply – perhaps it is the nature of the fiber.
Another UFO finished! You can find the pattern on the 
In the pot is lace weight alpaca, and handspun white fleece. The final results are below.
As you can see, the alpaca took up the color more deeply – perhaps it is the nature of the fiber.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 