Epic cookie-tastrophe

SO every once in a while I run across one of *those* recipes. The kind that sound tasty and innovative, but, when made, are a total fustercluck of horribleness.

This recipe is my latest example.

Eggnog cream-cheese filling in a ginger cookie? Sounds deliciously holidaytastic, right?

Well first of all, I'm expecting a retraction in next month's issue saying "Yes, you all were right, a 2-cup dry-ingredient to 2.5 sticks butter ratio is completely off."
So yeah, stickiest dough ever. A decent portion went down the drain, since I could not get it off the beaters.

Then chill the dough for 30 minutes, simple.
Oops, I read wrong, you were supposed to scoop the dough with a 2tbs scoop (right, like I have such a useless utensil taking up drawer space?) and THEN refrigerate them. Ok, they should be easier to scoop now that they're chilled anyway. Except that it's still the stickiest dough ever, except for the very outer layer, which is hard like, well, refrigerated butter.

But anyway, I scooped, quickly realizing that I DID NOT have enough dough to make 24 cookies. Re-arranged and scooped much smaller, more like 1 Tbs each. Still ended up with only 18 balls. Alright... now I'm supposed to refrigerate them. WHO HAS ROOM IN THEIR FRIDGE FOR 2 COOKIE SHEETS? Not me, that's for sure.

Rigging something involving beer fridge, chest freezer, and other freezer, I chilled dough and filling (which never really got firm). Once firm, I smooshed the sticky balls into volcanoes, with difficulty. Spooned in filling, with more difficulty. Attempted to "close tops to form a kiss" HAH! NOT POSSIBLE! The filling squishes out and the cold dough won't close over it.

Gave up, left cookies as volcanoes-full-of-lava. Put trays in oven for 15 minutes, wherein the dough melts (being half butter), and cookies spread all over the parchment. Rotate pans, as directed, noting that they are already fairly done. Cook another 5 minutes (10 still to go) and notice the edges are getting very brown. Remove from oven and transfer to rack.

Later, taste. WTF, THEY AREN'T EVEN THAT GOOD!!! The cookie parts themselves are like crackers, they have so little sugar, so if you get a bit without filling it's worthless. All together as intended they are... decent. Not even remotely worth all the struggle and mess.

EPIC FAIL, CAKESPY! Worst recipe I've made in ages.

August is over already?

Wow, this summer FLEW by, I can't believe it's September tomorrow! August was a busy month for me, though it really feels like I accomplished nothing. I did knit several small things as birthday gifts for my fellow nerds- I mean naturalists, but I still haven't finished the cardigan I intended on wearing to my cousin's wedding (well, the knitting is done, the sewing is holding me up- this is why I tend to only do seamless knits). The wedding itself was great, it was so fun seeing my cousins again. I wish I got to see them more often. The only bad parts were that I had to keep telling people I didn't know why my brother hadn't come, and that the couple that won the "anniversary dance" had been married the exact same length my parents would have been. I still love them, but it's hard being around my Dad's family without my Dad.

August was a month of great baking, as weird as that seems. I made this cake for Steph's birthday, these cookies for Kris' birthday tea (apparently I am on a chocolate & caramel kick). I also made scones several times, banana zucchini bread, R and I made apple crisp & peach crisp, and I tried this intriguing recipe for a famous dessert from a renowned Portland chef. Yeah, bacon + apricots + cornbread + maple ice cream. It didn't turn out as hoped though, we were out of white flour, so I had to sub whole wheat. Healthier? Perhaps, but a lot denser & coarser. I think September will be ice cream month- I'm making Coconut avocado ice cream for our end-of-year interpretive fiesta, and I also decided that we need to make some peach gelato with the 20 pounds of peaches R bought at the farmer's market last week.

Work was busy and good as usual, but I found out I now need to finish a few days early- I'm going to be long-term subbing for the new ESL teacher at the high school who just found out she has a major medical issue she wants to get taken care of before she moves to our little town. It will be interesting, but it's only every other day, so I think I can handle it. And it shouldn't be a problem to take time off in October for the girls' vacation in SF.

The garden is going tomato-rama on us right now, I think I need to make some salsa. Luckily we got some peppers in the CSA share last week, and we have plenty of onions & cilantro from the garden & garlic from our friends' garden. Those same friends have a prolific Gravestein apple tree, so a couple weeks ago we picked, processed & pressed 12 gallons worth of apple cider, which is currently fermenting. Yum!

R is away at a fire right now, the first one of the summer for him, so yesterday I made the house smell of sheep dyeing wool for a hoodie sweater. It started out faded-jeans blue and ended up a lovely violet with hints of magenta and lighter blue. I intended on it turning gray, but I'm really happy with the result, regardless.

And now I really need to get to bed before September starts!

Well, now I'm 30

Thanks so much to the people who called or sent birthday emails, it was lovely to know that you all were thinking of me! Sorry I wasn't there to get the phone calls though, I was on my way back up from the Redwoods.

It was a good trip, though it rained the whole way down. We took the dogs for a walk up a hill under the tall, tall trees (it was a closed gravel road, so dogs were ok) and a long walk on the beach. It was nice enough that evening to have a campfire & grill some dinner too. The next morning dawned sunny & clear, and we went to the beach again (briefly) after breakfast ("California Eggs Benedict" with avocado & tomato instead of ham really wasn't that great). Then we visited the HSU Marine Lab where we got to see assorted sea creatures in tanks, including intertidal animals in touch tanks outside. I got to show the boys an urchin's defense mechanism when it senses a sunflower star- it flattens its spines, stick out its pedicellariae, and runs away!

On the way up, Eli & I stopped at the Prehistoric Gardens, but only had enough time to take photos of the dinos you could see from the parking lot. As it is, we got home much later than anticipated, and had to rush around getting things ready for a murder mystery dinner party we were hosting that evening. But everything turned out well in the end (my tiramisu turned out perfect), and we had a lot of fun! I just wish those games allowed you to invite more people- 6 is so limited! We're going to try to write one for ourselves now.

This weekend was pretty rainy, so I had a dye-a-thon. I had bought some cheap Easter egg kits, and used those and food coloring to dye a bunch of yarn.
(please click to see whole pic- blogger doesn't play nice with picasa, even though they are both Google programs).
I used a lot of different methods, including my first time hand-painting (the orange, and another purple one that isn't pictured). Dyeing is fun! My knitting is going slowly- I really need to stop doing patterns with lace repeats in them, they take so long.

Tomorrow I'm babysitting my little friend Emily, whom I used to nanny (she's 6 now). I haven't seen her in a while, so it should be fun. I think we'll go to the yarn shop to kill some time & buy me a pair of needles to make a tank top while in Kauai. I hope I'll actually finish it in time to wear it!

So, less than a month until my birthday-

Do you all have your presents picked out and your travel plans arranged? Kidding, of course. It's weird that I'll be 30 in less than a month though. I know I'll at least have fun on my birthday, because Eli & Jack are driving down, and we are going to visit R in NorCal for the last day of his week-long training there. Then we'll be back here, I hope hanging out with other people who come visit, but at the very least enjoying ourselves immensely. Hm, I just have to make sure that if we go camping that night I can set up my tent sufficiently far enough away from the snoring....

Anyway, R is gone yet again this week, at a fire training in Redmond. He is enjoying spending his per diem on the abundance of restaurants there. I wish we had better restaurants here, or at least more variety (not that we ever go out). It's pretty much all your typical American-style food, including loads of Gringo-tastic mexican places, and a few totally old-school inauthentic Chinese food places. At least Porta is damn good Italian, and you can get good pub-grub at a few places. Apparently there is a Thai restaurant at the new concert place downtown, and there's also been an Indian restaurant sign up for months now with the place never open. 2 of the Oriental restaurants in town sell sushi, but at one a guy I know has gotten food poisoning twice, so that's not so hot. But tomorrow I'm going to the other one with a couple friends (well, at least Gloria, we'll see if anyone else shows up, it was kind of last-minute).

I'm kind of obsessed with food lately (well, more than usual) because I've been trying a detoxifying diet this week- no alcohol, caffeine, dairy, gluten, meat, or eggs, so that basically reduces me to fruit, veg, legumes, and nuts. It has me craving empty carbs and sugar like crazy, even the yummy coconut rice pudding I made isn't working. And honestly, I can't see that it's helped my stomach any, which is frustrating. Stupid stomach, just be normal!

As for knitting, I haven't gotten much done lately (sucked away by my first love- books), but I just got my Christmas present from V in the mail (call it a half-Christmas & birthday present!), the book "Custom Knits" which has some good patterns, but more importantly, teaches you the details of how to make a pattern that works for YOU and looks the way you want it too, hooray! I need to finish up my sexy vesty, I'm just in the middle of the back now and need to break into my third ball of yarn, unfortunately. Hm, I just looked at my projects page on ravelry, and learned that out of 50+ things I've worked on, only 1/5 of them were for me! I clearly need to be more selfish. ;)

Smarch marches on

March is supposed to come in like a lion, right? Well this year it certainly is, but sort of like a lion reintroduced to a game preserve to control the gazelle population. Sure we're getting loads of rain (and some wind) but we needed it!

We made the most of a stormy weekend at home by doing things around the house. We made bagels and blondies, whole-wheat cinnamon raisin bread and winter squash risotto. Everything was really delicious, even though the bread didn't rise much in the breadmaker, so it was really dense. R brewed and made a pizza peel to use for baking homemade pizzas and bread. By the way- if you haven't tried the "Artisan bread in 5 min a day" recipe, you should, it's really great and just about the easiest homemade bread conceivable. Just leave the dough in the fridge until you want some bread/pizza/whatever. We even use it to make buns for sausages.

Luckily, Saturday afternoon was nice enough that we could take the dogs for a walk on the marsh trail. It's about half a mile round trip from our house, and the trail itself is probably just over a mile, but it was fun, and the dogs were certainly glad to get some good exercise.

I worked Friday and Monday (Dr. Seuss' birthday!), but now I have nothing lined up until my 4-day stretch just before spring break. Oh well, things tend to come up last-minute fairly often. I haven't gotten much knitting done, I don't feel. Lace patterns just don't motivate me because they are so slow, and I can't do other things while knitting them (like watch movies or read, which I can do while knitting plain stockinette or knitting or anything else I don't have to think about too much).

And finally, we attempted to buy tickets for Hawaii a few times over the past few days. The cheapest are on Priceline, which is an awful site. You go through all the steps over and over again: searching, selecting flights, putting in your info, picking seats, typing credit card numbers, only to get to a page at the end saying "sorry, we can't sell you those tickets at that price right now!" Then if you go back to the main search, sometimes the price has gone up $50, sometimes nothing is different at all, but you still Can. Not. Purchase. Argh! Also, I still have no idea where we'll stay the extra 3 nights we're there, we found one place, but then the nights changed slightly. Sigh.

accomplishments

Well, here is my new sweater: It's a lovely alpaca-merino blend, so it's very warm and fuzzy, though a tiny bit itchy. I finished a few days ago, and now am about an inch or so into the vest that is my next project.

We were actually social this weekend, which was fun. Friday night we baked Gorgonzola garlic fries for a get-together at our friends' house. There were only 5 of us who showed up (notice a pattern?) but we had fun talking and tasting beers and playing Mexican Train dominoes. Then last night R and I had dinner with Kris and her partner who were in town for the weekend. They made Ecuadorian potato soup, which you put popcorn on top of like croutons. It was a fun evening, and then we met Steph at a concert, Diego's Umbrella who were really fun! They call their music Mexi-Cali-Gypsy-Rock (though I've read "pirate" and "punk" mixed in as well) but they also include a bit of a Celtic or Spanish flair at times. Very danceable (and I am NOT a dancer), very enjoyable. Steph was a bit drunk and kept buying me beers, I hope I burned them all off by dancing!

It's raining now, so no hikes or kayaking this weekend, unfortunately. R is upstairs making onion soup, perfect for this cold weather, especially since we recently watched the onion episode of "Good Eats." I now feel vindicated for bawling while cutting onions- it's sulfuric acid in my eyeballs, even Chuck Norris would cry! I need to work to get in shape for Kauai, but I really want to make brownies. Hm.

I hope you are having a great weekend!

mostly boring

Well, I hope everyoe enjoyed their weekend. I feel like I didn't get much done, really. We did some errands on Saturday, stopping to have Thai food for dinner. Not very romantic, but we're not big into that stuff anyway. It's better to show that you love someone all the time instead of spending a bunch of time and money just a couple days a year. Eli has a theory that the amount you spend on Valentine's Day is inversely proportional to the health of your relationship, so I guess we're doing fine. ;) I made lemon profiteroles that were tasty though- not the traditional chocolatey heart-shaped thing, but good, with lemon curd and whipped cream.

I finished the sleeves on my sweater, so now all I have to do is hope there's enough yarn left for the cowl neck. I should be able to put up a picture of the finished product in a day or 2! I'm trying to figure out what yarn to use for a lacy vest, the pattern is only one-size, and the easiest way to make it smaller is to use smaller yarn, but sometimes figuring out what yarn to use is tricky. I'm still way too slow at the lace for Colleen. At this rate she'll get it in summer when she won't need a shawl!

We made Eli's Pea soup this weekend, it took us like 3 nights because each time we went to start it, we noticed something new that precluded us from being able to make it that day, like "pre-soak the peas for 12 hours" or "simmer 8 hours"! But it was as good as he claimed. We also made ricotta cheese (it's easy: milk + salt + heat + acid) and then turned it into lasagna, yum! We also made a bacon/onion/gruyere quiche with a potato crust for breakfast, highly recommended!

I'm working today, but other than this I have nothing for the rest of the month. Stuff usually comes up last minute, but it's frustrating to be working only one day a week. Other than that, I have book club on Wednesday, for which I must speed read the whole book tonight and tomorrow, and then there is a potluck get-together thing on Friday. Maybe I'll go to yoga on Thursday, and tonight and Thursday will be climbing. It's now only 2 months until we leave for Kauai- I need to work harder to get in shape for hiking and kayaking!

Souper!

I have declared this to be soup week! My final year in college, R's roommates & Abby & I all took turns cooking dinner, family-style. We would often have theme weeks to keep things interesting, but I don't think we ever had a soup week, so I decided we should have one now. Monday night was french onion soup. Tuesday was toasted ham & cheese sandwiches with roasted red pepper & tomato bisque (not homemade). Last night we used up the rest of the duck & the bones in Chinese duck soup, which was pretty good, but again not delicious enough to justify the effort. Tonight we're using up some wintery ingredients that need to be eaten with Chestnut & persimmon soup- it's vegan! Other good soups we've made this winter include a soba & miso bowl with whatever random greens were still growing in the garden, and a coconut milk curry soup with noodles & baby corn. Mmm, soup is good!

I haven't gotten much knitting done lately- I'm a few rows from finishing the cardigan, but still don't have buttons, so that's not very motivating. I really need to work on my Aunt's shawl, but lace is not something I really enjoy (even though I got a good idea from Knitting in Plain English to make a mini-book out of the pattern instructions to keep from losing my place). It's not far enough along to show a good picture, so here is a some yarn I dyed for my Mom's Christmas gift. It started out a really light baby pink color.

I went to the dentist on Tuesday to replace an old root canal filling with a crown. I spent nearly 2 hours there, being drilled, prodded, scraped, and having forms full of gross-tasting putty shoved into my mouth, ugh. But the tooth will be better off now, and less fragile. They gave me nitrous, which I had only ever used before when my wisdom teeth were extracted, it was kind of strange.

The current weather is what we call "The Season of Nick;" that part of every winter where it's gorgeous and warm and sunny during the day but frigid at night. It's so warm in the afternoons that one could sit outside and read or knit in a tank top (if only I didn't have to work!), but as soon as the sun starts to dip down the horizon, the temperatures drop quickly to near-freezing. It was beautiful this morning to sip a cup of tea and look out the kitchen window over white-coated roofs to the fog rolling up the slough and golden sunlight bathing the trees. I hope you are enjoying whatever this winter is bringing you, and can appreciate nature's varied beauty!

This weekend was fairly relaxed- I had intended on going to a volunteer training for Shoreline Education Awareness, but it was at 8:30 in Charleston and I had a headache, so I slept in. Until my friend (the woman I used to nanny for) called at 9 to invite us to come visit them sometime that day, which never happened because we lost track of time.

For dinner on Saturday we went hoity-toid, making duck sauce to go atop fresh (homemade) pasta and homemade bread (from the Artisan Bread in 5 min a Day recipe). It was good, but not outstanding, considering the effort that went into making it all. Sunday we made spaghetti squash with jalapeno cream, a recipe from October's Sunset Magazine, which was really tasty. I knitted, R brewed, we took down the Christmas decorations, etc.

I finished my cardigan (got some good knitting in while subbing- video days are great) except for the button plackets, which I will have to do later; I really need to concentrate on the shawl- my Aunt starts Chemo in less than a week. It won't get to her on time, but the sooner the better. It's an easier pattern to remember than the blanket for my Mom, but it will still take a while, and is another project that requires my full attention- not something I could do during a movie.

I think I'm hosting book club this week- I'm going to make Brie en croute and a salted chocolate tart. In other food news, we're going to make Chinese duck soup (using up the other half of the duck from the pasta) at some point, I'm excited!
I'm working a few days next week, and then I have another training (Whale Watching Week volunteers) on the weekend. Other than that, I'm trying to knit, read the book for cook club, and research Kauai, which we may visit with my Mom in April. Yay!

Gray and blue

Well, I was feeling decently happy this weekend, after the country-wide excitement of election night, with Obama's rousing speech, not to mention the cessation of stupid campaign commercials. (It makes me MAD to think of all the millions spent on stupid, negative ads to sway voters, and what all that money could have been used for to actually do good.)

Sure it's been gray and dumping inches of rain, but I finished my sweater (except the hunt for buttons has thus far been completely fruitless, and I can't block it until I have buttons). Gymnastics has been going well; I can now do two back handsprings in a row on the trampoline-track, though my front tuck flip needs work (I'm doing weird, twiddly arm circles like I'm trying to swim myself through the air). We were going to take the dogs out to the woods again this morning, but the weather didn't cooperate.

So we're just sitting at home, having a cozy weekend. I made spinach/ feta/ phyllo pie (like spanikopita, but without all the folding) and baklava last night, and we are having ribs tonight. We've got a nice fire going in the garage stove, and R is slow-baking some ribs for dinner tonight. I'm putting together a knitting binder to keep my information in one place and dreaming about all the yarn I covet.

Then I learn my aunt has fairly advanced colon cancer. Good feelings gone.

Indian Summer

This was a lovely, summery weekend, despite the fact that it's late October. We took the dogs hiking yesterday in the forest for the first time. Stitch was hesitant at the beginning, and very apprehensive regarding trailing blackberry vines, but Lilo absolutely loved leaping through the underbrush. She seems to be equally crazy about the beach and forest, so I guess we'll have to go more often.

It was a beautiful drive up the river; the fall colors are beautiful, even if they aren't as amazing as those in the NE, mostly golds and oranges, with the few red splashes of vine maple thrown in. It is certainly striking to see bright pumpkin slashes in the deep green of the hillsides. This time of the year smells wonderful as well, the evergreen duff underfoot sweet and fragrant, woodsmoke on the breeze, and the occasional spicy whiff of myrtle leaves.

The evergreen huckleberry bushes were still chock full of berries, so we picked a bunch and had this for breakfast, which was excellent. Highly recommended!

I am getting antsy with my knitting now, NaSweKniMo starts in a week, so I can't do any big projects. I finished the wave-patterned hat for one of my nephew's for Christmas (I had to rip out & re-knit the top-- it was waaay too short), along with a stuffed snowman (decoration) and a hackey sack for R. Now I guess I should pick up my hibernating projects until I can start on my new sweater. I post pics of all my projects up on Ravelry, but any non-ravelers can see them here. And by the way, if you knit or crochet (or want to), you should join Ravelry, it's a great site!

Memories

It's a strange, quiet time of year right now. Perhaps the shortening days start to make people introspective? I've been thinking a bit the past few days about relationships, and how easy it can be for people to slip out of your life accidentally. I left my old blog because it felt weird to be there anymore, but that cut me off from some very cool people, and I've been missing them lately. So in memory of LJ, I'm going to do something I haven't done here before, a meme! This was taken from Ken , originally from here
1) Copy this list into your blog, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (Does alligator count? I'm counting it.)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht (I should get Brandy's recipe and make some, I've got beets in the garden)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (including homemade, too)
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (homegrown, even)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda (I totally want to try it though)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whiskey from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel (does lamprey count? I've eaten traditional Nat. American lamprey)--- Oh yeah, and sushi.
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (I've held over a dozen, but not yet eaten their gonads....)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi (I think I had some in Hawaii)
53. Abalone (I want to- I've heard it's amazing, even if it is a giant snail)
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (NOPE!!)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (also homemade)
59. Poutine (OMG, WANT TO TRY)
60. Carob chips (Yuck)
61. S’mores (YUM!)
62. Sweetbreads (Super yuck!!)
63. Kaolin (uh, like the clay?)
64. currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain (MMMM)
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (just caviar, it was gross)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost (also want to try: fudge-cheese!)
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (when I was wee & didn't know better)
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong (very smokey)
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a Michelin three star restaurant. (I'm not rich!)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers (Zucchini blossoms)
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate (At least I think it was- from Bastimentos)
91. Spam (Gross)
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

She's Crafty

Argh, trying to do a Halloween costume without a sewing machine is frustrating. It does make you come up with creative alternatives though. I was planning on using a costume I had previously created (for the 7th HP book release), but then I realized that the only of my local friends who might recognize Luna Lovegood is the one who can't host the party because she'll either be in labor or busy with a newborn/ being overly pregnant, so that's a bust. So instead, we are hosting the Halloween party, and I am going to be an obnoxious pseudo-punk teenager. I am thinking I might have to make the waistband of my gross red pleather skirt out of electrical tape. I just have to say, I dislike pleating fabric- it's tedious.

I've also been working on the dogs' costumes. Normally we don't dress them up, viewing that as a bit, uh, freakish, but since the party is at our house they will be SuperStitch and LiloBug. I'm sure there will be photos at some point. I've also been busy making bats & ghosts & things out of felt, and knitting black widows & eyeballs. I refuse to buy cheap plastic crap to bring out of the closet once a year as decorations. We've got lots of little pumpkins from our garden (and natural spider webs, ick) and I have felt & crappy yarn I bought previously to use a tiny bit for trim on a knitted item, so I'm making do with what I have. It's not exactly simple living, but it's better than going to Wallmart & buying junk.

On the food front, I made some blondies with dulce de leche for craft night tomorrow, but they came out way too gooey, so I'll make chocolate chip cookies instead (or something). Tonight we made chipotle chicken in the crockpot, which we ate as tacos with homemade tortillas (really, the only way to go, they are SO much better) and salsa (not always better, but it was this time), along with avocado & cilantro, very tasty. We're using the crockpot more often now, it's pretty handy.

Off to tape red pleather....

Maybe my blog should be called the beauty of doing something....

Ah fall, such a great time for baking delicious foods! In the past week or so I've made a blackberry and concord grape rustic tart (picked the berries, and got local grapes from a great produce stand by my Mom's house), a crock pot imitation chile relleno, an eggplant ricotta bake, an apple cake (with apples from our tree) and last night I made red cabbage to go with our beer-simmered bratwurst & onions. Yum! I really like food. We always have a list of things to make on the fridge.

I feel like I've gotten a lot of knitting done lately too, mostly because I'm doing small, fast projects, like these hats you see sprinkled throughout.
We'll see how I feel in Nov when I'm trying to knit a whole cardigan in 30 days. Or if my Mom decides she wants an afghan for Christmas- I already need to pick back up on the baby blanket for Jessie. But I've gotten 2 of my gifts made already, pretty good since it's only October! Right now I'm working on a few Halloween spiders and a Christmas snowman, an interesting combination.

Did I mention I can now do front handsprings in gymnastics (onto a big poufy mat, but still- I could never really do them before). I wish I could go tonight, but I've been looking forward to this book discussion for months now, so I HAVE to go to book club! I really enjoyed this book (Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love), even though it's another one of those travel novels that makes you want to scream "Why won't someone pay ME to go eat in Italy?!" Admittedly she went through a horrible soul-crushing period leading up to her year abroad (Italy, India, Indonesia to learn pleasure, devotion, and balance, respectively), but honestly, someone should pay me to go to amazing places! Sometimes reading travel articles in Sunset magazine make me so mad, they are CRAP, yet they get funded & published. (One that particularly steamed me was about a trip to the Olympic Forest, and all it said of "substance" was that 2 year old boys like slugs, and 4 yer old girls like swimming pools better than cold lakes, what the hell?) But then again, I haven't written anything in quite a while (besides here, which itself is very infrequently, I admit). Maybe some year I'll have to do NaNoWriMo, but not simultaneously with NaSweKniMo!

Hello, Autumn

Well, it’s been a while, but since I wrote last I’ve done a few things, here’s a summary: I FINALLY finished my sweater and started the striped scarf for the charity auction (for my father’s memorial scholarship). I brushed sand into the cracks between the new pathway’s pavers, did fall maintenance on the flower garden, and painted the bits of garage that still needed it. We harvested many tomatoes, lettuce, beets, basil beans, peas, and a pumpkin from our garden, and pears, apples & plums from a friend’s orchard.

On the Martha Stewart-ey front, I made batches of applesauce and one of oriental plum sauce (we ate some with homemade dim sum last night, it’s tasty), which we canned, and apple crisp. I'm currently working on pepper relish. We tried ratatouille (it’s excellent with chevre & fresh bread) from farmer’s market veg and found it to be an easy, hearty summer produce meal. Oh, and here’s my no-fail bruschetta- chop up fresh tomatoes & basil (from your garden or farmer’s market- too weak with store-bought), add cracked pepper, crushed garlic, olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar, grated pecorino or parmesan, and sea salt. Serve on bread slathered with garlic butter & toasted (preferably grilled), mmm.

The evening before my last day, Kris and I went berry picking (was supposed to be mushrooms, but we didn’t get any) and attended Steph’s evening program for fun. The next day we had tea together as our afternoon break with huckleberry-topped cheesecake & Steph’s fancy china! Then I had one day off and the next I subbed for one of my favorite classes, and in the evening Kris & Steph & I went crabbing (we caught mostly red rocks, so we made sushi). R & I went to a bluegrass concert in the park with friends from his work. Just before Kris left town (sad) we did yoga, I really need to go more often. I’m also thinking of signing up for a gymnastics class. R went out on fire again last week, so the dogs and I tried to be productive, but mostly failed. I read a lot though.

I’m still looking for flights to Cabo for Christmas, but currently it’s prohibitively expensive (~$700 per person!). I’d really love to do an Espiritu Santo kayak/ snorkel/ camp trip too, but that would add a lot more to the trip total without changing flight costs, unfortunately. But at least there’s Puerto Rico- one of the many, many things I need to do on our weekend in Portland/Seattle in Oct is sit with the SMA girls and plan our trip, yay! It will be good just to see them again, I never see them anymore.

Anyway, our internet is being a bit fussy- there was a week or so there when I couldn’t really get on at all, so I’ll try to update more often now. With luck I should have more time for fall projects and other things to crow about. ;)

A busy week

Last weekend we drove up to Portland, somehow managing to accomplish pretty much all our goals: we hung out with Eli, Fred & Melissa; attended the Organic Brewer's Festival & ate hotwings at Fire on the Mtn; had breakfast with Brandy & Evan at Petite Provence; met Mindy for lunch; went to Trader Joes & Costco as well as the brew store & Yarnia. We got to see Tina & Patrick; have brunch with my Mom & Aunt & 2 uncles; hang out with my Brother's whole family including holding the tiny new baby; and visit my Mom's new house. I also cast on for my new sweater on the ride up. It was very hot and very busy, but a good trip!

This Tuesday I had paperwork/orientation for my Park's job, which should be all naturalist work, thankfully, but is unfortunately only about 9 weeks long this year. Bummer. It's been good to get back to the park though, and I jumped in feet first with a tidepool tour and my first attempt at my Sea Otter presentation on Thursday. I have to come up with a good idea for a program, and I'd like to do one that doesn't involve powerpoint, so send any ideas my way-- what kind of Ranger program would interest you if you went camping on the Oregon Coast??

Anyway, it was a long week, and yesterday had both vastly disappointing (losing the top half of the octopus beak we had just spent 20 minutes removing from a carcass on the beach while stupidly trying to rinse it in the waves) and some very exciting events (seeing the first whales of the summer -breaching!!- and a pod of harbor porpoises), so I'm glad it's the weekend.

Today I took it easy, sleeping in (it's really nice to have a day off with R during the summer, typically I get random weekdays), working in the garden, knitting, making mint oreo ice cream & banana zucchini bread, talking to Victoria. Tomorrow Steph and I are playing tourist, we're going to take a road trip a bit south and stop at every roadside stand and cheesy gift shop from here to south of Bandon, it should be fun.

Welcome, Jessie John!

A baby, a baby! Dee had preeclampsia, so they induced labor yesterday at around 11, and 7 hours later, a new nephew for me. Congratulations to my brother & family! I hope we will get to see them this weekend; from what I understand, everyone is doing well. I've nearly finished the baby outfit, just need to complete the crotch flap & add buttons, though it's far too big for a newborn anyway. He's only 5 lbs 6oz, apparently, which is 6 oz bigger than I was at birth. Wow.

We've been surprisingly social this week, which is part of why it took me so long to finish my knitting. Last night we had dinner at Wendy's house (I nannied for her kids one winter & occasionally babysit) to hang out with her & the kids & her new husband. The night before Kris came over and we made fritatta and watched the 3rd (new) Star Wars movie, which neither of us had yet seen, being disappointed by the 2nd. Both nights I made fresh bread (it's a good recipe, if anyone is interested, very easy) and salad from the garden.

I've got a lot to do today though, need to finish painting the shed walls so it can be put back up soon. We managed to move the pieces enough yesterday to put up the screen door, so finally we will be fly-free on nice afternoons!

R got called to work on a wildfire in Cali a few days ago, but reluctantly turned it down, this being our last weekend to do anything this summer. As usual we have far too much to do in not enough time in Portland, and so many people we want to see. I need to talk to people tonight!

books & missing mornings

Book club was last night; I always really enjoy reading the books (often ones I wouldn't have found on my own) and the group discussions are great. (Emilie, you really should start coming!) We do a good job of discussing the book, but it also always leads to discussing our lives and other things. It's just really great to have a fun & interesting group of women to talk to, even if it's only once a month, and I don't really know them all that well. I guess I need more of that in my life, and I miss it, so I really appreciate book club & craft night.

Today kind of disappeared- I got back late last night(construction slowed my return trip quite a bit, I got home after 10:30) and wasn't feeling well (I need to remember to bring lactaid wherever I go, or learn to turn down ice cream, even if it does have fresh strawberries on top), so I slept in this morning. The rest of the day has just vanished. I need to get started painting the shed walls so they can be put back up this weekend (there goes our lovely sun deck in the back corner), but I have fuzzy, clean dogs at my feet here, so I'm comfy. At least I already did the laundry & started the sponge to (attempt to) make fresh Pugliese bread tonight. We have fresh spinach pasta left over from the rotolo, so I'm going to make a simple sauce with butter & wine & garlic & things to toss with crab & the noodles.

Here's Eli's birthday hat: I hope it fits; I'll give it to him in a little over a week. I need to write back to Brandy & call Tina & talk to Mindy so we can try to see everyone when we're up in Portland in a couple weeks. We never have enough time! We just need to take a full week up there, but it won't happen soon. We already have a whole list of things we need to do in the 3 days we'll be there, which doesn't yet include all the people we want to hang out with!

Hyooge hats & endless scarves, or Knitted Gifts

Heh, I finished Eli's apple hat the other day, except for the leaves, but I'm worried it's too big. I actually accosted 2 of Ryan's friends when they came over for beer last night & made them try it on. One of them is the same hat size as E-ster, and it actually appeared a bit big, damn. I will try shrinking it in the dryer, it's mostly cotton.

Other than the hat & the baby onesie, I haven't been doing too much knitting, though I FINALLY finished the fringe on the Gryffindor scarf tonight at an excellent Crafty Night. I gave up on organizing those a while back because sometimes it felt like twisting arms to get people to agree to a date & actually show up, but I enjoy them so much, I might have to work harder now to make them happen. It was so fun! I brought coconut bar cookies, an improvised recipe with a shortbread crust, toasted-coconut carmel middle, and chocolate coating. They were delicious, but quite sweet. It's funny how some people bring the same things over and over again, and some of us choose a different recipe each time. And it was so cute to see Doris pregnant!

School is officially out now, so I'm done with subbing for the year. I still don't know exactly when I'm starting at the Parks, nor do I know if I'll be long-term subbing next fall. Oh well, not as though I have plans that would be ruined either way! Sometimes being flexible is very nice. I'm actually glad we are starting late this summer anyway, because we are going up to Portland the last weekend of the month. Eli is having a birthday party using a murder-mystery game I got for Christmas, and we're going to the Organic Brewer's Festival, and my Mom should be moving into her new house that weekend, and my brother might have a son by then! Very exciting stuff!

I don't have much else to say, except I keep getting these weird dizzy spells. It happened for the first time about a year ago, and it's been happening more and more frequently lately. It literally feels like someone smacks me upside the head, my brain does that slow-motion swirl thing, it's pretty weird. I asked my Dr about it and she wasn't concerned (and I've since had an MRI of my brain for other reasons which didn't show anything other than a tiny benign growth which makes me basically infertile without meds [not that I was trying], but probably isn't making me dizzy). But she's kind of a crappy doctor, and I know it's not normal to occasionally feel like someone flushed your brain down the toilet. Maybe it's an inner ear thing? Ugh.

Hey, June.

I'd like to take a moment to thank my peeps and homies, all you fabulous people who read this blog & even leave comments, I love you! And I love that I can keep connected to my friends through here, that you take the time to read even though my life can be boooring, and I don't do myspace or facebook. ;) HUGS TO YOU! I talked to my buddy Lee on the phone the other night for the first time in probably 2 years, which is ridiculous. I don't mean to loose contact, I'm sorry you guys!

I finished knitting Victoria's hat and the baby apple hat. I'll take pictures of the pompom hat later; here's a basically identical apple hat that I knitted a year ago. I've started doing a similar apple hat for Eli's birthday, but adult-sized and green with ribbing rather than a rolled brim. I bought yarn to make the Global Warming sweater, a wool-cotton blend from a brand that uses Peruvian fibers & donates money back to their community. I also started a baby onesie, based roughly on a Lion Brand pattern, but in ribbing and in some old hand-me-down acrylic I need to get rid of. It's the same blue variegated stuff I made the cabled coffee sleeve out of, so it should be good for a baby boy. (It's so weird that my bro is having a baby, and that he's got 3 stepsons! One or 2 of them might come visit me this summer for a bit while the household is adjusting to the new member).

I worked 4 days last week, (2 of the days were teaching Spanish, and 2 more this week) but still managed to get stuff done besides knitting and reading another 2 books. We planted more tomatoes (we have 19 plants now, insanity!) and did some other things around the yard. Now if only the weather can stop being schizophrenic and decide to be summer for real....
R peeled lemons to make limoncello (we threw in 2 grapefruits for fun) and I used the juice to make a pie, key-lime style. We also have the ice cream maker ready for some citrus sorbet/gelato, but it's too cold out for ice cream! I felted a sweater I bought years ago that has always been too big, it turned out really well. I also finally made my candied grapefruit peel (it took ridiculously excessive amounts of sugar), which will be great for making panforte and lebkuchen/ pfefferkuchen (I should get Vicky's recipe). We made a Thai-style roast chicken, which was really tasty, but the flavor didn't penetrate much into the meat, which was sad. Oh and we washed the car, woo.

We went out to dinner for our anniversary to the best restaurant in the area, Porta in N. Bend. It is authentically Italian (meaning not Olive-Garden-ey Italian, the chef used to work at Genoa in Portland) which inspired R to make up some fresh pasta later in the week. We had a butter-pepper-garlic sauce with pecorino, fresh basil, and prosciutto, YUM. Last night I made a bacon-shallot-cream sauce with peas, also YUM, and I made a loaf of French bread to go with it. This week we are going to try to reproduce the dish I had at Porta, a spinach & ricotta rotolo, one of the best things I've ever eaten. I was looking for inspiration for our fresh pasta and found the recipe for rotolo in my pasta book, it was meant to be!!

R brewed an Oktoberfest last night, he's only done pseudo-Oktoberfests before, because the beer is a lager & needs to be at a certain temperature, but I think he's going to put this one in the keg fridge to make a real lager. I need to go make some dog cookies with the spent grain now and get the kitchen cleaned up. The fun never stops here! And honestly, I think I sound a lot more productive than I really am!