Scaling Back

If anyone followed a link here and got a “page not found” error message I have pulled down pretty much everything except the patterns and the recipes.  Click on the tabs at the top for a list of both.

Thanks for stopping by.

Pattern Notes

I’m not even bothering to try to catch up on life at this point but I do have some pattern notes.

I made another slouchy hat in an aran weight yarn (Caron Simply Soft Paints) and I’ll be writing that up in the next few days.

I also worked up a pair of mittens for ChaosGirl (who is now hugenormous and reading everything – especially Junie B Jones books).

I hope to get these written up too along with an adult size.

We’ll see.

I’m published!

A Hat in Time is brimming with 37 hat patterns to knit and crochet, ranging from the simple to the complex, the traditional to the hip, the cozy to the cute. It was inspired by the generosity of campaigners who knitted hats for the now closed Knit One Save One Campaign. The book celebrates 90 years of Save the Children’s work for children and is sold in aid of the independent international children’s charity. All patterns were donated for this publication by their designers and all profits made from this book will go towards Save the Children’s vital work.

Steffi emailed me a couple of months ago on Ravelry and asked if she could include the Irish Hiking Hat and now an updated version of the hat pattern is in there!  Squee!

It supports a great cause and there are some seriously cute hats in there.  It’s on Lulu currently for purchase as a download but there are plans to also do a printed version.

Tooth Fairy Pillow

The first loose tooth showed up Sunday morning.  I knew I had seen some tooth fairy pillows on Ravelry and sure enough I had even thought to favorite one of them.  Given the looseness of the tooth I figured the simpler the better so I ended up with the KnitPicks pattern worked up in Lily Sugar ‘n Cream.

She wanted the pocket in blue and I added a face to the other side.

The tooth fell out Tuesday and the Tooth Fairy was much happier to get the tooth from the pillow pocket than to have to rummage around under her pillow.

Wow, it’s been a while. Have some banana bread

I hadn’t realized that it’s been almost a month since I posted last.  It’s all grading all the time here so there really hasn’t been much of interest to post. The semester’s over next week so hopefully things will pick up around here then.

In the meantime, have an adaptation of my standard banana bread recipe.

Really Good Banana Bread II

1/4 c. margarine, softened
1/3 c, sour cream
1/2 c. white sugar
1/4 c. light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 c. dark brown sugar, lightly packed
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. Penzey’s Baking Spice*
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. mashed banana
1/3 c. vanilla yogurt

Cream the butter, sour cream and sugars together. Add in the eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Add in the dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in the bananas and yogurt. Pour into loaf pan and bake at 350 for 50 minutes – 1 hour.

* Or you can use Penzey’s Cake Spice or  1/2 tsp. cinnamon with a dash of nutmeg and a dash of allspice

Carroty Goodness

A friend shared a truly yummy recipe for zucchini bread with me last summer.  The zucchini is long gone but I found myself some extra carrots today and thought – why not?  So I made carrot bread and it turned out to be delicious.  It’s even 5-year-old approved.

Carrot Bread (makes 1 loaf)

1 egg
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. crushed pineapple
1 1/3 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon AND 1/2 tsp. nutmeg (or substitute 1 tsp. Penzy’s Baking Spice if you have it)
1 c. grated carrot

Mix together the egg, sugar and oil. Add the vanilla and pineapple and stir well. Sift the dry ingredients together and add to the wet ingredients. Mix well. Stir in the grated carrot.

Bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees.

Let cool and serve plain or with butter or with whipped cream cheese.

Reasons I love Goodwill #567 and #568

On the left is a pure merino wool sweater knit in Ireland that looks to have been worn maybe a handful of times.

On the right is a Supergirl costume that was maybe worn once in ChaosGirl’s size.  Not only does she love it for playing but it looks like it gets me out of another year of fairy princess land at Halloween.

Score!

Does anyone know what sort of boots Supergirl wears?

Another Slouchy Hat

I know I’m late to the slouchy hat party. I’ve been looking for a pattern that looked a certain way and I just couldn’t find it. Something slouchy, but not too slouchy. Something with texture but not too complicated. Something that didn’t look totally stupid on me but yet kept my ears warm.

Could. not. find. anything.

So I made up one.

I present to you: Another Slouchy Hat

If you would like your own slouchy hat, please try the pattern: Another Slouchy Hat Pattern

And feel free to post comments and questions here or on Ravelry.

Enjoy and stay warm out there!

UPDATE: It seems that the video I referred to in the comments for M1P is gone. Here is another video by Flow Design Studio showing the stitch. It’s kind of like a purled version of kfb.

Biscotti

I made quite a bit of biscotti over the past month – some for us and some for gifting.  I’ve had a few requests for recipes so I thought I’d post them here.

The chocolate biscotti is from Farmgirl Fare: Easy Chocolate Biscotti.  I made it exactly by her recipe and we had some plain and some iced with white chocolate.  I added peppermint extract to one batch, instant coffee to another and cinnamon to a third.  All were delicious though I didn’t add enough coffee to really taste it well.  I think it would have been better with espresso powder.

The gingerbread biscotti is Barb’s Gingerbread Biscotti which I found as I looked for diabetic-friendly recipes.  The only thing I changed was to add about 2-3 more tablespoons of flour and not refrigerate the dough.

The cinnamon spice biscotti is my favorite.  I adapted it from an almond biscotti recipe substituting pecans and changing the flavorings around.

Spice Biscotti

2 eggs
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. Penzey’s Baking Spice OR 1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. finely chopped pecans
1/2 c. cinnamon chips

Mix the eggs, sugar, and vanilla together in medium-sized bowl.  Sift the flour, spice, baking powder and salt together and stir in until well combined.  Add the pecans and chips. The dough should not be too sticky. If it’s still really soft and sticky add another tablespoon or so of flour.

Shape the dough into a log around 4″ wide by 12″ or so long.  I bake this on a pizza stone but if you don’t have a stone you can use a cookie sheet.  If you use a cookie sheet I recommend using parchment paper because you’ll probably want to move it off the sheet to slice it.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.

Let cool for around a half hour to an hour.

Using a serrated knife (bread knife) slice the log into around 1/2″ slices.  You should get around 18-20 slices from the log.  Lay the slices flat on the stone or cookie sheet so that one of the cut sides is up.

Bake again at 275 degrees for 20 minutes.

Let cool and drizzle with melted white chocolate or white candy melts.

The tale of the ginormous sweet potato

Once upon a time there was a ginormous sweet potato.  Here it is with a Diet Coke for scale:

According the receipt from the grocery it weighs 3.87 pounds. An almost. FOUR. POUND. sweet potato.

It was only slightly smaller than ChaosGirl’s head.

After cutting off the ends it barely fit in my 1.5 qt crock pot.

After cooking I ended up with 4 cups of mashed sweet potato (and a cupcake).

What do you do with that much sweet potato?

Why, sweet potato pie of course! 4 cups of sweet potato will make two pies but I gave one away before I remembered to take a picture.

This is a custardy pie made with cream and eggs that has a light taste and a crunchy pecan topping.  Recipe after break…