2009.08.31

About a week ago, we had the following exchange in the car:

Peep:  I think I want a chocolate donut.
Me:  Not today, honey.
Peep:  Maybe we can make some at home.
Me:  Not today, I don’t even have a recipe.
Peep:  What’s a recipe?
Me: It’s a list you use to make things.
Peep:  We can get a recipe and make some.
Me:  Honey, we can’t make them today, we don’t have any chocolate.
Peep:  How about a strawberry donut?
Me: We don’t have strawberries, either.
Peep:  We have grapes though…

I ordered a donut pan and mix from our friends at King Arthur, and the box arrived on Thursday.  Somehow we got the boy to wait until Saturday.

Mixing the batter was simplicity itself; no more difficult than a box cake or brownie mix.

We cleaned up while they were in the oven.

And 14 minutes later, tah-dah!

We let them cool for a bit, then had one each.  A short while later I started chopping vegetables for soup.  I don’t have any photos of that, because it just wasn’t all that glamorous.

The other three donuts were gone before I started actually cooking the soup, haha.  They were “okay”.  They were essentially chocolate sponge-cake donuts, ie., a cake mix poured into a donut pan.  The donut pan had a couple of recipes printed on the label, so I think we’ll give those a whirl soon.

Oh, the soup?  Vegetable-Leek, using Alton Brown’s recipe .  I went lighter on the green beans because that’s what I had on hand, and I didn’t bother peeling the tomatoes before I added them.  Other than that I pretty much followed it exactly, and the only criticism I have is that he doesn’t specify what kind of potatoes to use – I used red bliss, and while they maintained their shape just fine, they were completely neutral, didn’t add or detract one bit.

In other news, my leg kicked up something fierce this weekend, so finally I wrangled an appointment with an orthopedic specialist today.  I don’t have ankle tendinitis at all.  They think I have a compressed nerve in my knee, and that’s what’s causing all the pain down my leg, through my ankle and into my toes.  Fun huh?

There is knitting progress, but I’m saving it for tomorrow.  Have a good night.

2009.08.28

My dad was looking after the Peep for part of the day yesterday, and after enough begging he agreed to straighten up the joint a bit for us.  So when the girls came over it wasn’t a complete disaster, yay.

(I wonder if any of them noticed how sticky the dining room floor was?  I must remember to deal with that when I get home…)

So yeah, the girls came over, and a good time was had by all.

Here are the in-progress shots of Liesl I’ve been promising all week.

I’m thinking the pattern will open up a bit during blocking, and the fronts will overlap a bit.  If it doesn’t, and I have to wear it open all the time, that’s okay too.  I didn’t work in buttonholes in any case, so if it does overlap, I’ll just use a brooch.

Here’s the back:

See?  Now isn’t that pretty impressive for one ball of yarn?

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t work on the sweater at all last night, although CC was plugging away at her afghan.

I was too busy teaching Veronica how to knit.

(Sorry for not warning you; I hope you were sitting down)

Yes, friends, after years – literally years – of vowing to never knit a stitch, the fashionista herself has caved.  How the mighty have fallen.

It started out innocently enough; all I did was forward this link to her, telling her that my knitting world and her fashion world had collided like something in an old Reese’s commercial (“you got chocolate in my peanut butter!” “you got peanut butter in my chocolate!”).  I mentioned that cowls are easy and fast to knit, and making one in even the most luxurious of yarns would still be cheaper than buying a crappy one at the mall.

And just like that, she wanted to learn.  So armed with an extra skein of superwash and some size 9’s, I taught her last night.

You don’t believe me, do you?  Just feast your eyes on this:

Sorry for the poor resolution; I’m sure I was either laughing or chatting or drinking as I was taking it.  Probably all three, actually.

No real weekend plans, although I do have a hair appointment tomorrow morning.  The forecast sounds pretty crappy – perfect weather for making soup.  And donuts.

And I’m going to leave you with that thought.  Have a great weekend!

2009.08.27

When I was a kid, the playgrounds had all sorts of death-defying amenities:  the climbing structure shaped like a stagecoach (complete with wooden bench seating below the 7-foot-high bars), the swing set with gravel underneath, and of course the merry-go-round.

The merry-go-round at our park was metal, with farm animals to ride on (also metal), surrounded by gravel.

It was the best!  You’d sit on the animal of your choice and your friends would spin it around and around and around until you either fell off or got too dizzy to stand.   Any loose items that you were silly enough to bring with you – hats, candy, etc – were wrenched away by the mighty power of centrifugal force.

Whenever I feel like I’m running a little too ragged, I’m mentally right back on that merry-go-round again, losing my grip on everything in spite of my best efforts, and getting dizzy in the process.

Like this week….

Since I was in the office on Tuesday, this week’s laundry hasn’t gotten washed, and is starting to pile up.

Since my mother is somewhat focused on other things lately, my son has been at my mother-in-laws a couple of days.  Which means he’s out of his routine, with all the challenges that entails – he’s up much earlier, so he’s more tired by the end of the day, which means he’s overtired at bedtime, which in turn means bedtime has become a battle royale.

I’ve been too bone tired at the end of each day to do even the most rudimentary straightening up.

Did I mention we’re having company tonight?

Thankfully, they’re friends, and it’s not the first time they’ll be over.  I hope they’ll bask in the glory of grilled meat, juicy gossip, and knitting, and will be able to ignore the general disarray.

2009.08.26

I knit on Liesl for almost 2 hours Monday night, and still didn’t run out of the first ball of yarn.  I think there’s only about another two rows’ worth of yarn left.  I fully intended to polish it off last night, but then I didn’t.

No real reason, other than I just.  didn’t.  feel.  like.  it.

So there.

I tried it on when I’d stopped knitting Monday night, and it’s a couple of inches past the armholes.  Methinks that’s pretty impressive for a single ball of yarn.

Since I only have one other ball of this yarn, I decided I’m going to knit the body until it’s as long as my Whisper is, then take the remaining yarn, divide it in half, and use one half for each sleeve – when it’s gone, it’s gone.

I’ll probably knit some tonight, at least to finish that first ball of yarn.

The girls are coming over for dinner tomorrow, so with any luck I’ll get Veronica to take a couple of in-progress photos.  Look for those Friday, I guess.

In other news, I’ve been expanding my summer cooking horizon beyond meat + grill = dinner.  I’ve been getting my inspiration from the Pioneer Woman (it seems that everyone is lately), and have tried a couple of her recipes so far.  And bookmarked several others.

On Sunday, despite the fact that it was about 9800 degrees with 97% humidity, I slaved over a hot stove for about a half-hour.  Not even for Sunday dinner, mind you; for Monday night dinner.

God knows I’m not usually this organized.  But Monday I was supposed to be going to my friends’ monthly supper club (I didn’t actually get there, but that’s another story), so I made my portion of the meal in advance.  And even though I didn’t attend, I sent the food along nonetheless.

The other thing I did on Sunday was poach a couple of chicken breasts, for a riff on TPW’s Panzanella.  Which was supposed to be Tuesday’s dinner, but turned out we ate it Monday.  And as it turns out, the chicken may not have been completely necessary after all.

Panzanella is a great, simple, elegant dish.   It basically means “stale bread”, which happens to be the main ingredient, although TPW used pita chips in hers; I’ll give that a go next time.

So, here are the guidelines for my Panzanella – “guidelines” rather than “recipe” because it’s totally open to interpretation.

Summertime Panzanella

half a loaf of day or two old bread or rolls (I used 3 deli-style rolls)
1 pound poached chicken breasts, cooled and cubed (completely optional)
5-8 ripe tomatoes
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
1/2 red onion
couple of fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the bread into thick slices and toast on Light, just to dry them out a bit more.  Then tear the bread into bite-size pieces; no need for precision.

Chop the tomatoes into about a 1-inch dice, and finely chop the onion.  Tear the basil leaves into small pieces.

Combine the chicken, bread, tomatoes, onion, basil and parmesan in a bowl; toss to combine.

Whisk the oil and vinegar together and pour over the contents of the bowl; add salt and pepper to taste and toss again.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter for 20-30 minutes.

Serve and enjoy.

Larry, the Peep, and I each had two bowlfuls.  The small amount of leftovers from dinner were perfect for lunch the next day; I was worried the bread would be too too soggy, but it wasn’t at all.

I could imagine adding red peppers (roasted or fresh), or some small bits of mozzarella.  The chicken was fine, but a completely neutral element; I think it could have been eliminated without anyone noticing.  That said, it did make for a complete meal.  Without the chicken, maybe you’d need a small sandwich to round things out.

2009.08.24

In the end, Larry and I went out to dinner at a local restaurant, and headed home.  We knocked off a few nagging chores between Friday night and Saturday morning, then headed over to pick up the Peep.

Sunday was spent avoiding the great outdoors to the best of my ability – it was beastly out there – hot and humid.  Even after a few waves of thunderstorms it was still soupy, ugh!

Nevertheless I managed to bring in another few pounds of tomatoes, a fat fistful of green beans, and these little jewels

which, while falling short of the packet’s estimated length of 5 inches (which I think is because the soil level in the bed where they were planted is only about 5 inches), is still a successful harvest in my opinion, having never grown carrots before.

It’s too late to plant another round of seeds this year, I’m afraid, but these give me hope for next year – I’ve even already got a deeper plot in mind.

I also worked away on Liesl, and have passed the armholes and am working down the body.  I will use the last of the first ball of yarn tonight, at which time I’ll take photos for you.  There’s only one more ball to go, so while there’s some worry about running out, I’ve got a plan.

I’ll keep you in suspense, til tomorrow.

2009.08.21

I finished the socks last night!

Having now completed 6 pairs of two-at-a-time socks, I can unequivocally say that I love the method.

The most painful part of the whole endeavor has been dividing out the yarn from one ball into two.  Which really only happens when you’re starting with a 100g ball, and then only when the pattern is a directional one and you don’t want the pattern reversed on one sock.

I should mention that I often have a similar problem whenever I’m starting with a sausage-shaped skein of yarn.  I’m sure there’s a technical term for that particular put-up, but just so we’re clear, I’m talking about yarn shaped like this:

The ones where you have to fish around in one side or the other to find the yarn end.  It rarely works out for me, usually I end up with a giant wad of yarn trailing outside of the outer casing.   Said wad inevitably tangles up, followed closely by my owing large sums of money to the swear jar.

So for this two-at-a-time business I’ve been fishing out the end and attaching it to my ball winder.  Then I put the larger cake of yarn onto a kitchen scale, and wind away.  When the yarn on the scale approaches the halfway mark, weight-wise, I cut the yarn, take the new center-pull ball off the winder, and re-attach the yarn end to the winder.

Once that second ball is wound off I’m a happy camper, and I forget all about my tribulations.  Until it’s time to start the next pair of socks, at which time it’s a lather-rinse-repeat thing.

Okay, enough about that.  Probably more than enough about that.

I also swatched for and began Liesl last night.  I bet I’ll have it done by the end of next week, if not sooner.  I’ll post in-progress photos next week, right now it resembles a section of tweedy-green fishing net.

The Peep is staying at my mother-in-law’s, so Larry and I will have the house to ourselves tonight.  At first we were thinking of going to the movies.  Then we thought about going out to a nice dinner.  Then we realized that the Sox-Yanks series starts tonight.  We haven’t quite decided on what we’re going to do, but there’s a fair chance we’ll be grabbing takeout and parking ourselves on the couch for the duration.  There’s a tick-list of chores in the offing, too.