Little Romper

I don't have too much to say about this one except that I found the pattern in The Expectant Knitter, by Marie Connolly, that it was super easy and fast to knit, and that I just freaking love it!  I can't wait to try it on my little one!

Baby Sweater

I made this sweet little sweater for my (hopefully) sweet little one to wear this fall/winter.  Looking at it hanging in the closet, it seems very tiny, but I imagine he'll be pretty tiny, too!  I found the pattern in The Expectant Knitter, by Marie Connolly, which is a really fun, cute book full of easy and fast patterns perfect for a pregnant lady with a short attention span or low threshold for frustration.

I also made this little hat for him to wear with the sweater, but, after comparing them, I doubt they will both fit him at the same time!

(Despite how terrible I am at taking photos, these two items are made out of the same color yarn and were intended to be a set.)

Project Ideas

I've had some free time to sit around and dream up new house projects lately, but not enough energy to work on them.  As my husband finishes up work on our new house, I'm coming up with little projects to decorate and furnish it on our budget.  There are some things I definitely can't do - like, say, make a couch - and we'll just have to wait until we can afford a comfortable couch that hasn't been sitting in our carport for 3 months.  But there are a lot of other little projects that I think would be a lot of fun and that I hope I have time and energy to work on during my maternity leave.

1.  Window pane photo display.  We took a bunch of old, oddly shaped glass windows out of our old house, that we are saving to build a mostly-glass shed/greenhouse someday.  One of the windows is smaller than the rest - about 3' x 4' - and I think it would make an amazing frame for our wedding photos.  I'd like to strip the paint off of the trim and stain it or paint it with diluted paint in a rose pink that would still show the wood grain underneath and just warm up the natural color of the wood, which is in pretty good shape.  Then I'd like to back it with a piece of plywood, which I would cover with leftover fabric from my wedding dress (my mom made it, so I have a fair amount of the fabric lying around).  I would then mount a whole bunch of enlarged photos from our wedding on the plywood, and secure the window on top of it.  I wonder how heavy this would be to mount on the wall . . .

2.  Photo Album.  I have been planning for a while to make a photo album for our wedding photos.  I'm planning to make the covers out of heavy cardboard covered in wedding dress fabric and paste the photos on card stock inside.  I always prefer pasting photos to nice paper to enclosing them in plastic.  I just don't like the feel of those plastic pockets, and it doesn't give you the freedom to arrange your photos however you want.  I'll tie the whole thing together with the ribbon we used as an accent for my wedding dress.

3.  Bench and Bench Cover.  I'd like to have one of those nice long benches in the entry to our new house and has tons of room for dirty boots underneath - I think my husband actually manufactures dirty boots, there are always more of them! - and a comfy surface to sit on.  I think I'll commission the manufacturer of dirty boots to actually build the bench, and then I'll sew a nice long pillow to go on top.  I'm thinking one of those ones with the little buttons that give it the nice gathered look.

4.  Chalkboard.  I already have a nice key rack to hang in the entry.  I'd love to add a chalkboard that sort of matches it for us to write important numbers and make to do lists.  The key rack is made from an old washboard which has seen better days.  Luckily, we also have a pile of old wood sitting in our back yard that I think would match it pretty well.  My idea is to paint a piece of plywood with chalkboard paint, then frame it with the distressed wood, including a little ledge for the chalk, which I would then oil to sort of match the wood of the washboard.

Hiatus

Man, it has been a long time since I posted anything here!  And so many awesome projects have been started or finished, or are still in project limbo.  I'm going to try to write some posts and post some photos of the finished projects.  The biggest "unfinished" project right now is my very own baby to knit for, due in September.  My house has been baby clothes central since we saw the first ultrasound and realized we were going to have a real live baby with the right number of fingers and toes.  

We are also in the middle of building the dream house that my partner has been planning and scheming about for the past three years or so at least, and this is a completely new type of project for me.  I mostly nod and smile while he talks about square footage and plumbing, but it is amazing to see a whole new house materialize next to the one we live in now.  The only really frustrating part of the process (other than the self-inflicted austerity measures) is that we lost access to the attic of our current house as part of the project, and every day I find something that I need for a cooking or crafting project that is packed away neatly in some inaccessible corner of the attic.  This means that, although the plum tree is bursting with ripe plums, there will be no plum jam this year!!  There will also be no bundt cakes and no cookie cutter shaped cookies and I will have to buy new ribbon to festoon my friend's bridal wreath.  Somehow, things like this are much more frustrating during pregnancy.  Luckily, I made sure that the sewing machine was downstairs before the seal-up happened, which has saved me (and my partner) from hormone-induced rage.

Frittata

The number one thing I love about frittatas is that they aren't quiche.  A frittata takes one look at watery quiche in a bland crust and thinks, "I'm the man!"  Because it totally is.  It has all the things that make a quiche great (eggs and savory vegetable combinations) and none of the gelatinous ooze.  Tonight, as I was cooking slightly more ambitious food to eat for lunches and dinner this week, I whipped up a 20 minute frittata out of half a leftover onion, a couple of big cremini mushrooms pilfered from another recipe, and a red pepper.  Most of my actual time was spent roasting the pepper in the toaster oven!

I sauted the mushrooms and onions on about medium heat until the onions were brown and the mushrooms were soft, then added the chopped up roasted pepper.  I mixed it around a little in the frying pan, then poured six eggs beaten with a little salt and pepper over the top.  I made sure everything was spread out evenly, then let the mixture cook in the pan for about three minutes, then I popped it in the oven and broiled it for about five more minutes.  Right now, I'm eating a slice of frittata with a slice of buttered and toasted focaccia, as I browse other people's food blogs for inspiration.  Yum.

Cooking Day!

The morning started with a fluffy focaccia baked in the brand new stainless steel pan my mom gave me for Christmas.  She searched everywhere for a pan that wasn't coated in non-stick coating (which, when you abuse your pans as much as I do, tends to start flaking pretty quickly, and also killing you with its non-stick toxins).  Apparently, only super high-end cooking stores are carrying this type of pan these days, and they cost a mint.  I was particularly pleased with my mom's find because I found out that she found it on sale at T.J. Maxx for ten bucks!  Anyway, it conducts heat so much better than my old pan (purchased as part of a "going off to college" set a million years ago) and makes the fluffiest focaccia out there!  Plus, the bread doesn't stick to it at all and I don't have as many petrochemicals in my breakfast.  I win!

After that I slacked off for a while, but next up I'm going to be trying out some recipes from Smitten Kitchen to last me through the work week.  I love Cooking Day.

New Sewing Project

I've been spending my valuable non-work hours working on this fantastic dress for a masquerade party I hosted a few weeks ago.  I learned some valuable lessons for when I (n)ever attempt a project like this again.  1) Boning is for tension in the garment, it mostly doesn't need to hold you up on its own.  So . . . you don't need ridiculously rigid material for it.  I actually read somewhere that twist ties will work.  In this dress, I used commercial featherweight boning, and it was still to rigid.  After wearing (and dancing in) the dress for 6 hours, I had bruises and abrasions where the ends of the boning rubbed into my sides.  2) Don't cut corners with the nice fabric.  My pattern said that I could use cheap lining for the underskirt where it didn't show, but I found that the underskirt showed at surprising times, even when I was walking vigorously.  3) Do cut corners with extra frills and braid.  That crap is only useful for hiding mistakes.  In an over-the-top dress like this, you don't need extra frills.




Here are a few more photos from the amazing night:

Mini-Pies

Do you ever get desespere?  That's just a fancy word I use for being in a funk or feeling listless.  When I'm feeling truly sad or angry, cooking always helps, but it doesn't always work on desespere.  Thus I found myself on Friday night with all the ingredients to make multiple batches of mini pumpkin pies and mini quiches, and no energy or interest in making them.  I had promised my best friend that they would be ready by around noon on Saturday, but I just kept putting it off.  For once, I didn't think that cooking would fix my crankypants mood.  And then this happened:

As much as I grumbled while rolling out 40-some individual pie crusts, these little things are amazing.  I felt weirdly like a proud mom.  I made them, they're wonderful, and then I got to share them with all my friends.  So I guess the moral is that, even when cooking can't fix a bad mood, food is always a good thing.  As are very appreciative friends.

For more information on the actual pies, I used my standard 1 crust recipe (1 cup flour, 5 tbsp butter, cut into the flour, 1 tsp salt, 4 tbsp cold water, added slowly in case you only need three) and rolled it out into 16 mini rounds.  The first time I tried it, I rolled out all the dough and tried to cut it into rounds, but that was a loser.  It works much better to cut the dough into 16 parts, then roll each individually.  Rolling them out is a total chore.  But they taste way better and are much lighter than store bought crusts, so there's that.  I used a real pie pumpkin, of course, can't stand that canned pie filling anymore, and followed the Joy of Cooking pumpkin pie recipe.  Mmm, it is so delicious!  I had the last one for breakfast this morning!

Things I Love

Haven't had time for much blogging lately, although I've been cooking quite a bit.  Lots of winter squash experiments happening, summer fruit preserving, and general kitchen messes being made.  Hopefully I'll get some awesome posts up soon.  Apparently I'm supposed to go to work, too, which kind of cramps my style.  Here are some awesome squashes to make up for it:

Cool, right?!

Whole Wheat Baguette

I used a ratio of 1:2:1 of whole wheat bread flour : white bread flour : white flour and made two delicious and slightly nutritious baguettes!  Three rising periods made them lighter and crustier than baguettes I'd made in the past.  Weirdly, it also helped to cook them on the metal baking sheet they were rising on, rather than on my baking stone.  I'm wondering if the baking stone, which seemed like a really great recommendation at the time I picked it up, actually isn't the best for baguettes.  I think I'll try this on future baguettes and chart my progress.

Wedding Present Beer Coozies

Made these lovelies for my friends John and Lindsey as a wedding present.  Used yarn in their wedding colors (the hardest part was matching it to the invite!)  I love people who actually ask for homemade wedding presents ('cause everybody knows they're going to get them anyway!)

Wheat Sandwich Bread

One of my constant complaints about homemade wheat bread is that it's too dense and just isn't as fun to eat as most white bread.  Focaccia and baguette and fougasse and all the other lovely but nutrient deficient breads that I love are easy to eat with just a bit of olive oil or cheese.  But wheat bread is a project to eat.  So, I went looking for a better wheat bread recipe, and I found one!  Behold the power of the internet!  I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com.  It makes a basic sandwich loaf that holds together pretty well and is light and chewy.  I found out that it gets stale (or you can tell that it's stale) pretty quickly, but other than that it is delightful.

I only made half the recipe and ended up with two nice sized loaves.  Because of the size of my loaf pans, the slices are a bit small for a traditional sandwich, but I'm comfortable with eating two smaller sandwiches, in a pinch.  I think that in the future I might add a coating of oats and seeds to the outside, or even mix some seeds in, because this bread could be a bit more robust, but it fulfilled its promise of being easy to make and even easier to eat!

From the Garden

Somehow, even though I have totally abandoned my garden (best laid plans and all that) I managed to bring in quite a nice haul of chard and kale last night, plus a single beet and a head of garlic.  Veggie stir fry ensued.

Plum and Blackberry Jam

A friend has a huge plum tree in his backyard and invited me over this weekend to make plum wine. We spent a lot of time picking and sorting the under-ripe plums - figuring that the less ripe ones would make a flavorful but less sweet wine. Then it occurred to us that we were working ridiculously hard for something that we couldn't enjoy for three or four months at least! Being instant gratification types - and 'no project is too big' types - we decided to make jam as well.

I very loosely based the jam on some recipes from The Forgotten Skills of Cooking (best cookbook ever), mostly referring to it for general cooking times and pectin levels. I used 3 1/2 lbs of slightly under-ripe Italian plums, about 1 lb of blackberries, 1 cup of water, and 4 cups of sugar. In the end, the jam is a bit sweet for me, but not so sweet it makes me sick. Plus, the flavor is pretty potent, so you don't need too much of it.

I was a bit worried about the jam setting since I don't have any experience with plums and I know that blackberries have very low acidity. But I think we were saved by using under-ripe plums, and the jam set perfectly!

Also, I'm not sure that this has much at all to do with the process of making jam, but it is a very pleasant thing to make jam with an attractive man helping to pick and scrub the fruit.

Peach Marmalade: Fiasco or Fabulous?

The peach marmalade I cooked up a few weeks ago barely set at all and is really more like peach sauce. But, it's delicious. I love the hint of cinnamon and the general brightness of the fruit flavor. Leaving aside the fact that you spoon it rather than spread it, it mostly stays put in a sandwich or on toast. Speaking of which, my favorite restaurant ever is/was called On Toast and they served everything, wait for it, on toast. It was my paradise.

Anyway, I think the marmalade is fabulous, and now I only need to find five or six daring souls who will take jars of it off my hands. I made a bit more than I can eat in the next year!

Marmalade

Since I announced earlier this week that I would be making peach marmalade, a few friends have asked me what this is or if it exists. I know that I love it, but I'm honestly not sure what makes it "marmalade" as opposed to jelly or jam. The internet informs me that marmalade is just what we call jam made from citrus fruits. It also informs me that peaches are not citrus fruits. Good to know. Finally, the Internet has informed me that in many languages marmalade is approximately the equivalent of the English word jam.

To recap: marmalade = citrus jam; peaches = not citrus; marmalade sometimes = jam; Meg eats lots of snobby European condiments.

That said, I found a great Italian peach marmalade recipe online!

This is How a Baker Says "I Like You"

We've Got Peaches

Oh my goodness, don't those look just delicious?!!!  I bought a whole bunch of them to make peach marmalade (one of my top five favorite things I've never made before - I repeat, this blog is not fact checked) but they just look so peach-y.  It seems like a crime to marmalade them!  I was going to make a peach and blueberry cobbler, as well, but I doubt the blueberries will last through tomorrow.

I wish there was a way to capture peaches and summer forever.  As much as I love and anticipate apple season, I love that fleeting moment of summer when there are more peaches and blueberries than we know what to do with and everything smells like peach fuzz.  I always want to hang onto it for just a little bit longer than it wants to stay.

That said, peach marmalade will suit me very well indeed in January.

Happy (Belated) Birthday

It was my birthday!  I know I didn't miss it, but the blog sure did.  Stupid blog.  I don't think we can even be friends anymore.

Anyway, I had a huge birthday party a few weeks ago, and I made this awesome tasting and totally structurally unsound cake.  I don't know what it is with me and cakes lately.  I cannot take them out of the pans without breaking them or finding out I've undercooked them!  I tested my oven with an oven thermometer, and it's working fine.  I think I'm just not very careful.  Or maybe it's Lindsey's fault:

Lindsey and I are birthday buddies (hers is the day after mine), and I find it suspicious that the past two cakes I've made have had Lindsey's name on them and have had some structural issues :)  Of course, it could also have something to do with my total lack of free time and attention span.  I managed to decorate this cake with enough little curlicues, flowers, and writing that it wasn't super noticeable that the entire cake was listing.  Plus, I throw a whiskey party for my birthday, so all my friends were listing too!

Jam Happened!

Jam happened over a month ago, right after I went strawberry picking with my awesome friend Beth, and I forgot to post about it.  I had tons of fun following Darina Allen's old fashioned recipe for strawberry jam!

I used to make grape jelly with my gram, and I was really weirded out by pectin.  I have always wondered since then whether pectin is really necessary for jam and jelly making.  Following Darina Allen's recipe, I used a little bit of lemon juice and a little bit of sugar, and my jam gelled perfectly.  And it was amazingly easy!

I remember spending ridiculous, long, hot days in my gram's kitchen with grape juice EVERYWHERE.  The hardest work I did, other than picking the strawberries, was washing and hulling them.  I did kind of get strawberry juice all over my kitchen during that process.  But then I just mixed the strawberries with some lemon juice and sugar (about half what the recipe called for, because I hate sweet jam), cooked and mashed it a bit, and let it sit overnight.  The next morning, I cooked the jam up for about 2 hours, tested it unsuccessfully to see if it would gel, and, because I was short on time, put it up in jars even though it didn't seem ready.  A few days later, I opened the first jar, and it was perfect.  It turns out I don't really love strawberry jam that much, but this is nice and tart and strawberry-y, and is really great on toast with butter or in a peanut butter and jam sandwich.

Note: if you butter a peanut butter and jam sandwich, it's amazing.  I learned that from my dad.