Cooking | Page 2

Friday Roundup: Spring!

What I’m Knitting

It’s really starting to feel like spring around here, and that always makes me want to trade in my big bulky yarns for lightweight ones. Luckily, I finished the first of my secret designs (bulky yarn on US #15 needles!) and got to switch to another in light fingering weight yarn with US #1 & #2 needles. I can’t show you much, but here’s a little sneak peek at the yarn—the most gorgeous tonal gray—and the beginning of the item:

What I’m Cooking

Spring weather calls for spring rolls, don’t you think? I adore spring rolls, and this new recipe I tried with kale and tofu (from www.minimalistbaker.com) is now one of my favorites:

Peanut butter cookies were also made and summarily devoured.

What I’m Reading

I’m still working away on The Infinite Sea. While I really like this book series, and I think it’s extremely well written, I also find it a bit intense for long blocks of reading. There are lots of kids in mortal peril, something that didn’t bother me quite as much before I had a kid of my own! But I’m enjoying the read and will hopefully be done with it by next week’s roundup.

Friday Roundup: Hey, It’s Still Friday for Two More Hours

What I’m Knitting

I’m deep in the throes of secret commissioned knit design, which means I don’t have anything I can show you this week. So to distract you from the lack of actual knitting content, please enjoy this cute picture of my son. He grabbed my ChiaoGoos from where I’d left them on the couch, ran up to where I was standing, and shouted, “Knitting!” while clicking the needle tips together delightedly.

Heart. Melted.

What I’m Cooking

I’ve made vegan quiches with chickpea flour before, but this week I decided to go traditional with a tofu base. This recipe also used hummus, though, which gave it an awesome savory flavor! I paired it with garlic/almond green beans and salad. Yummy!

What I’m Reading

As promised, I finally finished the Zahn Star Wars saga. I picked up The Infinite Sea at the bookstore today. I really liked The 5th Wave, the first book in the series, so I have high hopes for this one!

New Pattern Release: Mystic Falls Hat!

What I’m Knitting

I blogged about the hat to match my Mystic Falls colorwork mitts a while back. Now the pattern has been officially released and I can show it off!

Here are the specs:

Pattern: Mystic Falls Hat (Ravelry link—you don’t need to be a member to purchase)

Yarn: Stitch Sprouts Yellowstone, a scrumptious wool/silk sport-weight yarn. I adore this yarn. I think it looks great in colorwork, and it was like knitting with butter. I wanted to cry when my next project used super-scratchy yarn, haha.

Notes: I had a lot of fun with this one! The patterning is very close to my Mystic Falls Mitts, but not exactly the same. Once you get in a rhythm with the colorwork, it actually goes very quickly (as my pattern testers agreed). It’s a good choice for beginner/intermediate colorwork knitters, since there are only two colors and very few places with long floats.

What I’m Cooking

I was really, really craving cookies this week, but I’m trying to keep my refined sugar intake low for the pregnancy’s sake. I compromised and made some oatmeal cookies sweetened with maple syrup and honey, but with the addition of chocolate chips. They were AWESOME.

I also tried out a new method of marinating and broiling chopped veggies, which turned out pretty good. Next time I think I’ll use less marinade. Yummy over rice with vegan “chicken” nuggets, anyway!

What I’m Reading

I’m still working on the last book in Timothy Zahn’s epic Star Wars cycle…

Friday Roundup: Eye Candy

What I’m Knitting

The yarn I’m waiting for still hasn’t arrived, so I’m plugging away at more squares for my lace/cable baby blanket. I finished and blocked the second square and am nearly done with the third… but it looks pretty much exactly like the crumpled, pre-blocked mess I showed off last week, so I’ll spare you.

I do have some yarny goodness to show off, though! Way back in January, I found out that I’d been randomly selected to win a spectacular prize in the Indie Design Gift-A-Long on Ravelry. Designer Casapinka on Ravelry donated a prize pack for her gorgeous Purpleplexy Shawl that included a gradient skein pack and a single skein base color of luscious Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply. I picked out the Gemstones gradient and Slate as the base color.

Here’s what it looked like in the package:

And since I couldn’t go another second without seeing the pretty colors properly (despite the fact that I’m pretty sure I’m never getting those little skeins squished back into their package), here they are in all their glory!

I am in looooove. Thanks so much, Casapinka!

What I’m Cooking

I made some oven-baked falafel and homemade vegan tzatziki this week. When I’ve made falafel before, it’s used canned chickpeas, but this recipe called for dried beans, soaked for at least an hour. I soaked them for two hours, but they were still as hard as rocks when I tried to process them together with the rest of the ingredients. I had to soak them for another couple of hours before I could get anywhere with them. The finished product was really tasty, though!

I threw together a quick tofu stir fry for dinner one night:

And a quiet morning with the toddler gave me the opportunity to make one of his favorite breakfasts—pancakes!

I attempted a Mickey Mouse pancake, but clearly there’s some class at parent-qualifying school I missed, because it came out pretty sad looking. The toddler scarfed it down anyway. :-)

What I’m Reading

I’m nearly done with the third book in the Thrawn trilogy and am at the point where I start to read slower/less so it will last longer. Does anyone else do that with really good multi-book series when you’re sorry to see them end?

Friday Roundup: Square Deal

What I’m Knitting

I finished the blanket square from last week and blocked it! I love, love, love the way it turned out. (Side note: I can’t get an accurate picture of this yarn’s color to save my life, even with post-processing fiddling. It’s actually more blue than green, although it looks the other way around here.)

The pattern was really fun to knit, although I guess I might be singing a different tune after I knit at least five more of them…

I have a couple of commissioned deadline projects coming up, so knitting pics might be thin on the ground here for a while. But I’ll try to get some sneak peeks!

What I’m Cooking

I made some lemon-blueberry muffins this week. My son and his little friend weren’t huge fans (maybe the lemon flavor is more of an acquired taste), but the adults DEVOURED them.

I also finally made homemade fried rice! It was so incredibly easy that I can’t believe I haven’t been doing it this whole time. Just stir fry some veggies, pop in some cooked rice, and pour a little soy sauce on top while you stir it for a few minutes. I served it with some vegetable gyoza from Trader Joes—mmmm.

What I’m Reading

I’m still working on Heir to the Empire (forgot how much I love this book!), but I should be wrapping it up today or tomorrow. The book I had on hold at the library is in, so I’ll have to decide whether to start that one or book 2 of the Thrawn trilogy next, hmmm.

And just because it’s Friday and we’ve been having such nice warm weather this week, here’s a bonus shot of a little boy who was really, really happy to finally get back out on the swings:

Friday Roundup: New Beginnings

What I’m Knitting

I think I’ve finally figured out a cable pattern I like for the Malabrigo Rios blanket I talked about last week! This is most of it, just minus a couple of rounds of cable/lace patterning and a garter stitch border:

I’m a teensy bit worried about how well the superwash yarn is going to hold a block, since I had to pull the square pretty tight to get the pattern to show up well. But oh well, I figure I’ll finish this square off and block it, then manhandle it a bit and see what happens. The nice thing about doing blankets in squares is that you’re not getting unpleasant surprises at the end of knitting a whole huge blanket.

What I’m Cooking

Hey, I’m starting to feel a little better! The morning sickness isn’t quite as bad as before—enough that I actually managed to cook and eat several things this week that I couldn’t have even contemplated a few weeks ago.

First up, my old healthy standby: quinoa, lentil, and kale stew. I’ve made this stew a lot, but it never fails to amaze me that it’s so tasty. I mean, it doesn’t really SOUND that tasty, does it? But it’s delicious, trust me.

I also made some vegan chili from a new recipe. It had several secret ingredients which sounded really odd to put in chili (maple syrup and lime juice???), but it was totally amazing! I also made some really tasty cornbread muffins and a salad to go with:

What I’m Reading

I have several books I want to read, but they’re all checked out at the library… so while I wait, I’m revisiting one of my old favorites. This is the first book in the Hand of Thrawn series by Timothy Zahn, sequels to Return of the Jedi. I liked the new movie, but I have to say, this will always be my favorite account of what happened after the original trilogy!

“Friday” Roundup: Big News!

So as you may have noticed, it’s not actually Friday anymore (oops).

I figured it was time to let you in on the reason I’ve been so flaky about blog posts, cooking, knitting, and other things over the past few months: we’re expecting another baby this August! Morning sickness (which is really inappropriately named, if you ask me, since I’ve had it all day, every day) has been kicking my butt for the past few months. Cooking was completely out of the question for a solid month. I’m just starting to feel a little more like myself, so hopefully I can get back on track!

Now, on to the regularly scheduled roundup post!

What I’m Knitting

While I wait for yarn for a commissioned design, I’ve been doing some swatching. I picked up a blanket’s worth of gorgeous Malabrigo Rios for the new babe, and I’ve been playing with some ideas for modular cable/lace panels. Here’s my current swatch—doesn’t look like much right now, but I’m going to wait until I get a few more inches to make a decision on whether I like it or not.

What I’m Cooking

Hey, I made something this week! Here’s some tasty tortilla soup. We’re still enjoying the leftovers a few days later:

What I’m Reading

After finishing the most recent book in The Naturals series, I haven’t picked up anything new yet. A trip to the library is in my immediate future!

Friday Roundup: The Waiting is the Hardest Part

What I’m Knitting

As promised, I’ve been working away on the hat to match my Mystic Falls Mitts! I finally came up with a swatch that made me happy, so I cast on and got to work. This is just a quick phone snap, and obviously blocking is desperately needed here, but I think you can get the idea:

I haven’t exactly figured out how I want to do the decreases in the colorwork pattern yet (I know, I know, bad designer!), but I’ll have to work it out soon. That’s 1.5 repeats of the pattern in the picture there, and I don’t think I want to go much past 2 repeats before starting the crown shaping.

What I’m Cooking

I hadn’t made curry in a while, so I whipped up a veggie-filled red curry over rice for my weekly meal-for-a-crowd this week:

It was delicious, but then you can’t really go wrong with full-fat coconut milk curries. Mmmmm….

I also baked some banana-oat muffins this week, which fascinated my son. I put him in his high chair right next to me so he could see the whole procedure. And then he was introduced to the joy that is licking the spoon after the batter has been mixed (vegan baking means no raw eggs to worry about, bonus!):

He was not, however, a fan of waiting until the muffins were cool enough to eat before he got a taste.

What I’m Reading

After devouring the first book in the Naturals series, I moved on to two and three! I’m halfway through book three right now (the most recent one published) and it’s just as good as the first two—love it when that happens. I’m going to have some withdrawal when I finish this one…

Friday Roundup: Back in the Groove

What I’m Knitting:

I’ve been doing a whole lot of planning and swatching this week for two designs. One is for a submission that I can’t show you, but the other is a hat to match the Mystic Falls Mitts I released last fall. These ones (did I ever show off the final pics here? I lose track of these things…):

I knew I wanted the hat to have a similar feel, but not quite the same pattern. The mitts were an experiment in yarn dominance and required switching the dominant yarn halfway through the back colorwork. Since I’d have to do much more than two panels on the hat, switching yarns all the time could get really annoying, really fast. So I’m scrapping that idea for the hat and focusing on getting the colorwork swirls along with the square check pattern on the palms in there.

My swatch has been ripped out a few times and doesn’t look like much at the moment, but here’s an idea of how it might look (as long as I like the way the swatch comes out!):

What I’m Cooking

Remember the tasty vegan alfredo that I forgot to take a picture of last week? Well, I liked it so much that I made it again this week. Over some gluten-free pasta and veggies with some garlic bread on the side, it was delicious:

For my weekly meal-for-a-crowd, I made shepherd’s pie with a new recipe, one that used parsnips (really good!) and skipped the lentils. The big revelation was the vegan, gluten-free gravy I tried out to go on top. I figured it wouldn’t be that great, but it ended up being delicious! (Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea.)

What I’m Reading

I finished the first book in a new YA series this week, The Naturals. It was really good, and I’ve already snagged the second one so I can keep going.

Friday Roundup: Not Much to See Here

What I’m Knitting:

I finished the large secret sweater project (yay!) and am working feverishly to get the pattern all written up by the deadline next week. So that means nothing new has been cast on, unfortunately. Hoping to rectify that with an instant gratification project tonight!

What I’m Cooking:

Look Ma, I actually cooked something this week! For my weekly vegan-meal-for-a-crowd, I went with a tried and true favorite: a soft taco bar. Cook up some peppers and onions, heat up some vegetarian refried beans, and provide lots of toppings (I wasn’t feeling the vegan cheese or Mexican rice, so that’s missing from my plate). Add homemade guacamole and chips on the side and it can’t miss.

I also discovered a much better way to heat lots of tortillas at once. I much prefer warm tortillas, but it’s a pain to microwave them or heat them on the stovetop if you’re doing more than 5-10. So I searched online and figured out that you can wrap stacks of 5 or so in aluminum foil and put them in the oven for 10 minutes. So much easier!