Pattern: 16 Button Cardi from Simple Style

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino

Needles:Sz 8 KP Options

Size: Me ( I think I made the large)

Pattern Notes: I changed the bottom ribbing to be symmetrical because I decided the other way was sort of silly looking.  I also want to point out in the photo below that really cute twisted stitch up at the top.  Now I know this sucker lacks buttons but I ended up lengthening a bit and I need 22 buttons. I really have been unable to find 22 of the same button in anything I actually liked. Since I never button these suckers anyway I figured why not just wait for the perfect buttons…

Would I knit it again? Probably not. I’ve been reading a blog series on flattering your body type and this isn’t really for my body type.

Pattern: Strangling Vine
Yarn: Knitting Notions Merino Sock in Aubergine
Needles: KP options sz 4 (I think)
Size: It’s slightly over 60″ long
Pattern Notes: So I’m a total moron sometimes. I started this way way back when I had pregnancy brain. I picked it up every so often but I was under the deslusion I really had to keep track of where I was in the pattern. This meant I only picked it up when I knew I had the time to finish the 4 rows. So then one day I’m looking at the pattern and I realize that somehow in the  haze of a hormone induced idiocy I had neglected to realize that except for the opening 4-5 stitches the pattern is exactly the same and that I could always tell where I was based on where the previous rows yarn over had been.
Would I knit it again? I think I would. It turned out well.

All I can say is that these are freaking amazing. I would write up a more detailed post but I have family arriving in a few hours and I’ve been busy preparing for them.

The recipe is here.

My whole set of the challenge is here.

Puddin’ by zylllah

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Now I live in a smallish town. It is true that I can travel down to Nashvegas for exotic ingredients but I rarely go down there unless I can make a day of it and hit a bunch of places at once. Since I’ve had Elke that has become much more difficult. I did not want to skip this month though because I skipped both the baking and cooking challenge last month.  Even though I so rarely get time to do my hobbies these days I had decided that cooking and by that I mean good cooking was the one thing I would keep up even more so than knitting. Love knitting but cooking is much more of an instant gratification thing. Well more instant than the 6 months it can take me to finish a project.

Anyway I started looking at the links provided to find a recipe that fit the challenge and that I thought would actually get eaten since I am married to the most picky eater on the planet and I’m currently *trying* to diet. Eventually I found one that sounded pretty good to me from The Pudding Club:

Ingredients:

120g Unsalted Butter
120g Caster Sugar (I just food processed regular sugar)
120g Self-rising flour (I substituted AP with salt and baking soda)
30g Cocoa Powder (I used Valrhona)
2 Eggs
60g Chocolate Chips

Steps:

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and cocoa together and add with the egg, a little at a time, to the creamed mixture, beating well between each addition. Finally, stir in half the chocolate chips. Place a covering of the remaining chocolate chips over the base of a greased 1.1 litre pudding before adding the mixture. Steam for 1 ½ hours.

Puddin"

Review:

This is the second time I have used this particular cocoa powder and I’m just not loving it as much as I should for what it costs. I find it tastes slightly over roasted almost.  The first time was for Keller’s brownie recipe and I thought maybe it just was the recipe but no this time also it tasted too roasted. Also I think I might have overcooked it a bit. The toppings I slathered on it were tasty but overall…meh. It wasn’t quite mindblowing enough for me to make again. This is totally my fault though and not the fault of the Host. I am quite glad to have the steaming idea firmly in hand, I can see using it for other cakes. It would be interesting to try a sort of cheesecake cooked that way since it’s not that different than a water bath.

Simple Style Cardi

I ended up working diligently on the simple style cardi but….things take longer than you want to think they will although I can see the end as a very distant point on the horizon.  I have finished the body up to where you join the sleeves to knit the yoke. I ended up adding a few inches since 18″ seemed a tad bit short to me. I think mine will end up being about 22″ long. So right now I’m well into my trip to sleeve island, I have knit the cuff for both and am almost done with the increases on one side. Once I knit the increases on the other side I’ll put them on the same needle so I can be sure they end up the same length. So far the yarn really is nice to work with. I’m rather surprised since I remember hearing horror stories about Cashmerino way back when. Assuming this one even bares a slight relation to fitting it’s working out to be my second favorite of the sweaters I’ve made. The first of course is my beloved Thermal.  So hopefully soon an FO pic.

New Machine, I named her Hilda

In other crafting news…So for Christmas every year I add up all the gift checks and try and buy myself something large. A couple of years ago I bought my DSLR, last year I got an Ipod touch (I was trying to avoid getting the phone but I ended up with the phone anyway so now I have an unused touch laying around). This year however I decided that I would get a sewing machine. It’s not like I have time for the hobbies I already have however I would like to learn to sew. I remember when I first started knitting how when I got decent yarn and needles it was like finding a totally different hobby. So I added up my Christmas loot and and started to look. I narrowed it down to not singer and not brother basically. On fleabay I ran into a fantastic deal on a Pfaff. It’s not the latest and greatest but there are still a few places selling them new. I figured either I’ll love sewing and thus have made a wise investment or I’ll decide I hate sewing and be able to perhaps make a few bucks on it. Although I’m a bit worried that the machine will get about as much use as my wheel. I love spinning but it’s such a PITA to have to put it away so the cats don’t chew on my drive band. I’ve gone through 4 of them I think since I owned it and it’s not like I use it even every month.  So far I love the machine but all I’ve really done is test out stitches to get a feel for her. This weekend though I’m going to go to the fabric store and find a nice simple skirt pattern and some decent fabric and try to get the crafting started.

Pattern: Garter Rib Sox
Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in Gothic Rose
Needles: KP Options sz 4
Size: Me
Pattern Notes: This was a quick knit. Even though I did make the cuff longer than I usually do. I really like the garter heel for house sox. It goes much more quickly than picking up the wraps with a usual short row heel. The sox are thick and comfy and hopefully won’t wear out too fast. Also since this is my 2nd FO out of the same yarn…what can I say but I love it.  However I will be looking forward to working with actual sock weight next time around.
Would I knit it again? Yes of course but as I’ve knit 3 0r 4 of this particular stitch pattern I think perhaps I should broaden my horizons.

Now I still have 3 wips left. I have the strangling vine scarf, the knitscene garter yoke cardi, and the simple style cardi. I have not made much progress on the scarf since it requires actual concentration. Elke keeps varying her wake up time so its hard for me to get up early enough to wake up enough to work on it before she desires my attention. It is about half done though. I preblocked it to see and I think it’s about halfway there.  The simple style cardi is an inch or two away from being divided for front and back. The pattern seems to come out really short so I’m adding a couple of inches to make sure I get enough length. So far the cashmerino is holding up really well but we’ll see what sort of pillfest I end up with after I wear it for a while. The garter yoke cardi was what I was working on before I went on my sockfest. It’s getting there. I enjoy the yarn but I’m terrified I’ll run short since garter takes up a freaking ton of yarn so I actually bought a few lightly used balls off someone as insurance. So hopefully I’ll in a week or so I’ll have another FO to talk about!

Strangling Vine

Simple Style Cardi in Cashmerino

Garter Yoke Cardi in Classic Elite Waterlilly

You can get the recipe here.

A full photoset of my adventure is here.

Unfortunately although this is late I don’t have the time to really do the challenge justice. My mom is visiting and she’s recovering from what appears to be a stroke. Long long long story. Anyway the point of the challenge was to make stock which I do make fairly often. Then you were supposed to make risotto with that stock.

So I made stock. I used my standard method of what do I have that is left over or about to go off. I buy whole or rotisserie chickens every so often and freeze the carcasses for stock. I throw in some parsley and garlic and peppercorns along with a bay leaf or two for flavor. The whole point is to extract goodness i.e gelatin from the bones.  Just after Christmas I extracted so much from one batch that it set up like a tasty meat jello in the fridge. I usually let it go for a couple of hours though I did let one cook for about a day when I was doing turkey. I’ve found that less time is fine depending on how much I want to concentrate the flavors.

Anyway so I made stock.  I had chosen to do a mushroom risotto since it went well
with the chicken I was planning on serving with it.  When I make it again I want to
save some of the mushrooms and roast them for additional flavor.

Here is the full photo set.

Now Tiramisu is not new to me, I make it several times a year since it’s Justin’s favorite dessert. However I had not tried that particular version of it, nor had I ever made my own marscapone so that was interesting to me. I usually use Kahlua in mine for flavor but this called for Marsala. So I decided to go with the Marsala and also to make a hazelnut flavored one since that is another of Justin’s favorite add-ons to coffee and chocolate. I had actually meant to start earlier in the week but my stupid overpriced dishwasher decided to break itself so I was dealing with that (it’s still not fixed).  Anyway Friday I started with the marscpone.  It was an easy process and reminded me quite a bit of making ricotta except for the change in fat levels of the dairy and acid.  From milk to cream and from vinegar to lemon juice.

So anyway it went for a long night of rest in the fridge but I stupidly forgot to take a picture after its naptime.

Another element to Tiramisu are lady fingers. I’ve made them before but as my piping skills weren’t quite up to the task since then I’ve done the insides in cake pans and just bought some for the outside. After the last one I made I decided in the future I was going to make enough filling to use it essentially as a frosting since the store bought ones are not nearly as good. This recipe did differ in the order egg whites to yolk folding but I think it yields an easier batter to work with so I will be using it in the future. I also chose to make smaller rounded shapes since I thought it would be easier to use them in parfaits with the leftovers.  Also in the last photo you can really see a difference in the ones I baked first and the ones I baked last.

The recipe called for adding a vanilla pastry cream and a zabaglione. Since I was doing two different flavors I had to make two different zabagliones.  All three recipes called for lemon zest so I dutifully microplaned some. Maybe I’m overly sensitive to the flavor but I couldn’t taste anything but lemon. It’s more than possible I added too much since I was unsure exactly how packed it was supposed to be.  I decided to use it as an accent when plating rather than adding it to the marscapone.  To be all food snobby I was hoping for a pleasing brightness but I ended up with oh my god it’s lemonaid.

So for the filling I portioned out my marscapone since I had just made double of everything and I whipped my cream. I ended up frankensteining the method I normally use and this recipe. Normally I mix everything into the marscapone and add my cream and whip it all together. I add the sugar last since I like to adjust the sweetness down a bit. This time I whipped the cream with the sugar and the vanilla.  It actually made for a lighter and less grainy texture. I also used the whisk attachment to my hand blender rather than the stand mixer. I thought it made for finer control and I will continue to do that in the future.

Whipped Cream

Putting it all together couldn’t have been easier. I made the two different dipping syrups by using instant espresso powder, warm water, some sugar and the liquor. I did add more liquor since I liked it to be a tad bit more strongly flavored. So I lined some of my mini bread pans with plastic and did my layers. The only difference between them was I had ground up some hazelnuts to add to the cocoa powder layer. With the leftovers I made some parfaits. I actually still have quite a few ladyfingers and syrup and marscapone in the freezer. I’ll probably make a casserole of it for Justin to take to work. Now the one thing I do not have is a beautifully plated finished dessert to show you since we’re having it for dinner tonight.

Tiramisu

I’m just warning you this will be a picture heavy post….(here is the full set from the feast since there is no way I’ll use all of them)

So I was really excited by this challenge. I love hummus and pita and I had been meaning to get around to making hummus from scratch.  Making the pita just gave me a +1 to my cooking skill.  So those were the two required elements and then whatever you wanted to add to the feast was up to you. I did this last Sunday so I could have help with the baby minding while I cooked. Sometimes Elke doesn’t quite get that something needs to be done right then.  One day though she’ll love the fact that I cook, I hope. Although I can see her deciding to never cook because she resented the cooking I did or something. Anyway I ended up making:

The Feast

Pita

This came out amazingly good. I think I let it rise too long because it wasn’t exactly pita-like in its consistency. However they were quite tasty and I’ll never buy pita again. The only changes I made were that I baked them on foil since I wanted to be able to quickly change them out and I hate baking things directly on my pizza stone. Also I was out of parchment paper. This exercise also highlighted the fact that I really do need more practice in my rolling out skills since they ended up rather amoeba shaped.

Pita Dough ready to rise

Pita waiting to be baked

Hummus & Dill Hummus

Now when I say I did this from scratch, I mean from scratch. No canned beans here. However I’ll probably try canned beans next time to see if there is any appreciable difference other than bragging rights. I soaked the beans for about twenty-four hours, before I started to cook them.  I had never actually cooked beans before so I was a bit amazed at how long they took. Also I’ve got to say what a horrid smell. So once they were cooked I processed them with the other ingredients. I thought it ended up slightly stiff  and my garlic was a bit strong but in the end it beat the pants off any bought hummus I’ve had. I also did a batch of dill since that and roasted red pepper are my favorite of the flavored varieties that I’ve bought. Assuming the canned version is as good I’d totally make this again. I am not sure I will make it that frequently if I have to cook the beans myself.

Soaking Beans

Hummus

Dill Hummus

Roasted Garlic

I wrapped it all up in foil and roasted it for quite a long time. The problem was this was unusually strong garlic so I didn’t quite get that garlic candy I was hoping for.

Oh so strong roasted garlic

Yogurt Dill Dip

I made this up as I went frankensteining a couple of different recipes. I used plain full fat yogurt, cumin, fresh parsley, dill, some garlic and lemon juice.I was finishing up though I realized it was ‘off’ in some way so I looked up a few more. One of them on Allrecipes.com (which I remembered using before) suggested adding mayo. Once I added a decent sized glop of it, the dip/sauce was perfect. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise since I’m sort of an improvisational cook most of the time.

Yogurt/Dill Dipping Sauce

Falafel

Right so I was especially happy to try this from scratch. I love falafel. The mix though is usually a bit well dry and not quite as good as I’ve had in restaurants. I should have been more vigiliant though when I measured the cilantro because it really tasted like soap. It was fine once you dipped it in the yogurt sauce but ugh. However the texture was fantastic and Justin already wants me to make them again. Since I tasted them before I fried them I knew they were off so fortunately I had a package of the mix in the pantry. It was funny because even though those didn’t taste too cilantro-y hands down we reached for the from scratch ones.

Falafel Pre Chop

You can sort of see which is which in this picture

Grilled Chicken

My last dish was some grilled chicken because Justin just won’t eat a meal without meat of some kind. I did a variation of the marinade I use for chicken tikka masala but with more of a middle eastern slant. It’s yogurt with various spices, some lemon, ginger and garlic. Then I grilled them off. They were fantastic just a bit hot with lots of flavor. We loved them.

Chicken swimming in its yogurt spice bath

Tasty Grill marks

Final Thoughts

Enjoyable and tasty! Will definitely make again. Particularly next time I have people over.

]]> http://www.geekdomme.com/cooking/feb-2010-daring-cooks-challenge/feed/ 2 http://www.geekdomme.com/spinning/the-state-of-the-knitting-or-should-i-say-lack-of-knitting/ http://www.geekdomme.com/spinning/the-state-of-the-knitting-or-should-i-say-lack-of-knitting/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:03:17 +0000 zyllah http://www.geekdomme.com/?p=663 Current Mood: Happy

First off let me apologize for the signs of construction here. My old theme wasn’t really working well with the new version of wordpress so I’m in the process of searching out a theme to modify. I’m fairly pleased with this one beyond some of the color choices so we’ll see. I am way too lazy these days to deal with doing it from scratch.  I have a good excuse because who could resist this face…

Elke's first Bubble Bath

Knitting has been sparse since we decided to build a house and I became consumed with finding flooring and paint and what not. So you’d think the problem would be solved once we moved right? Oh no because then Justin went off for a year and here I was in a house we’d just moved into with 90% of our things in the garage. I told the movers to leave most of the boxes in the garage so I wouldn’t have to look at them as I was unpacking. What I didn’t realize was that out of sight= out of mind and also that less than a month later I would find out I was eating for two. So for me anyway with pregnancy came exhaustion. Of course my under-performing thyroid didn’t help matters. Sure I take synthroid but between the two of them any excess energy I had went into getting the house into a state you could live in. Since I sure as hell knew I wouldn’t have time after she was born. Anyway I think I managed to finish a clap and a scarf I had started months earlier. It was just so much easier to read. Then after Elke was born I was going to the NICU to visit her 2x a day and well yet again it was much easier to read or stare at a dumb show on TV. Now I did make her a couple of hats and a pair of socks back then. Now that Justin is home and she’s a little older I’m managing to carve out some knitting and spinning time. I love to spin and knit but by the time I’ve made dinner and cleaned up, it’s like 9 pm and I’m tired. Also Star Trek Online came out and I am a supergeek so…. So unless I get up before she does it just doesn’t happen. So my current projects are:

1. Spinning this green Corriedale I bought from a local-ish dyer at a fesitval. It’s really easy to spin and it’s very relaxing, however I feel like I’m almost relearning how to spin. Which is more than fine I just seem to need that mental break every day.

Thick N Thin since I am out of practice

2. Garter Yoke Cardigan (Rav Link)

I started this a couple of weeks ago and so far I like it I think. I’m using Classic Elite’s waterlily which is sort of their response to the semi sold craze.  I have too many sweater amounts of Worsted so I’m trying to get through them by making tons of different cardigans that I can wear in the house or under a coat where they won’t really show.

You'd think it would go quicker with just garter...

3.  16 Button Cardigan (Rav Link)

Yet another worsted cardigan. I’m modifying the pattern though so the ribs on the bottom are all of equal height. I just didn’t want to bother keeping that much track….plus I thought it looked kind of goofy. The yarn is Cashmerino, we’ll see how it wears. It will probably turn into pill central. However the yarn is nice to work with.

Started this Months ago...

4. Strangling Vine Scarf (Rav Link)

Oh Boy I started this like a year and a half ago but I’m finally getting serious about it. I think it’s incredibly lovely in this yarn. The yarn is Knitting notions in aubergine. I bought it as sock yarn but it was that really thin henry’s attic sock yarn that for me is just *too* thin. Like I’d have to knit it on a 0 or a 000 since I like a tightly knit sock. Anyway I saw this pattern and put the two together. I went down a needle size to compensate for the ultra thinness of the yarn. I’m about half way done maybe it kind of depends on how it blocks so I’ll probably do a soak and a pin out soon so I can judge how much more to do.

I love the colors in this yarn

5. Garter Rib Socks (Rav Link)

I always seem to come back to these. I like plenty of other sock patterns but for some reason these really work for me. I love lace socks but I’m always worried I’ll lose my place or whatever. These are in some leftover DIC worsted in gothic rose. I actually finished sock #1 last week but I haven’t starIted sock #2 yet. It’s been a busy week….

This is such fantastic yarn. Not too many other companies manage to make yarn that doesn't Pool

6.  Log Cabin Scrap Blanket

No rav link because although I’m using the mason dixon blanket as inspiration it’s really just a way to use up scraps leftover from various sweater projects. Also even when I’m super tired I can manage garter…

Who doesn't want an almost totally mindless project that will eventually get destroyed by the house felines?