salad

Friday Roundup: Another FO and Tasty Soups

What I’m Knitting

I have another FO from the Indie Design Gift-A-Long this week!

These felted mittens are to match Ronan’s aviator hat I showed off last week. Here’s what they looked like pre-felting (along with the yarn I had left—that was some serious yarn chicken with a hand-dyed, irreplaceable yarn):

Here are the specs on the mittens:

Pattern: Snow Day Mittens by Melissa Metzbower

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted, hand-dyed by my husband!

Notes: This pattern was clear and easy to follow, and I love that it includes sizes from teeny baby to large adult! I made the 24 month size for Ronan. They’re too big even after I felted them to within an inch of their lives, but that’s okay—with luck, he should be able to wear them next year, too. And he doesn’t mind that they’re big:

A few days ago, I received the yarn for three(!) secret deadline projects, so I’m afraid that’s probably going to be all of my Gift-A-Long knitting for this year. But I really enjoyed knitting other people’s patterns for a change. I can’t wait for next year!

PSA: if you aren’t sure what the Gift-A-Long is, come check it out in the Ravelry group! It runs all the way through New Year’s Eve, so there’s plenty of time to get in on the fun.

What I’m Cooking

I knocked out two cookbook challenge recipes this week. First up was this chef’s salad, featuring baked tofu, breaded cauliflower, and eggplant bacon. The salad itself was good (if a little too labor-intensive and fiddly for a salad), but the vegan “ranch” dressing recipe that went with it—OMFG. It tastes virtually identical to dairy-filled ranch! My husband and I practically drank it out of the bowl. Definitely a new favorite!

For my weekly dinner for a crowd, I tried the smoky split pea soup from the cookbook. The smoked paprika that gives it the sort of ham-like flavor turned the soup brown rather than green, but it tasted great.

I also made my favorite beefless-beef stew recipe. This stew often gets “Whoa!” comments from carnivores who aren’t expecting something that tastes so much like the beef stew they’re used to. I used the wine called for in the recipe this time instead of my usual veggie broth substitution, which made it that much richer and better.

I’ve decided to make a huge amount of cookies for a holiday party I’m attending this weekend—so tune in for next week’s Friday Roundup for the results of that!

What I’m Reading

I picked up the first book in a long-running YA series, Margaret Peterson Haddix’s The Missing. It skews a little young, maybe, but it has a bunch of elements I like in my books—adventure, mystery, sci-fi, and good writing.

Friday Roundup: Swatch City

What I’m Knitting

I finished the cable/lace hat from last week, but it needs a good blocking before it’s fit to see. So instead, I’ll show you the design swatches I’ve been working on! Here was my original swatch concept (this is for a dolman-sleeved Aran pullover):

I liked this swatch, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized I didn’t love it. The central motif is too small and a bit too plain for my liking (this is the cable on the left, which will be in the center of the pullover with the V cables arranged on either side). I also decided I wasn’t a huge fan of this yarn for this design—it’s on the thin side for a worsted weight, and the swatch had more drape than I wanted even with a needle size that gave a good fabric.

So I went stash digging… and made a decision. Remember this in-progress cardigan?

My Ravelry project page tells me I started it two years ago almost to the day—just a few days before I found out I was pregnant and went down the rabbit hole of baby knits! I tried to pick the cardigan up again, but I’m just not feeling it. Plus, I’m (ahem) a larger bust size now than I was, so it isn’t even going to fit me well when it’s finished.

Luckily, this yarn (Stonehedge Shepherd’s Worsted) turns out to be PERFECT for the new design I have in mind. It’s soft, tweedy, and has the body that the first yarn I tried was lacking.

After three swatches with this yarn and different cable patterns, I think I finally have a winner!

(You can see a bit of my design process in that pic—the second V is a little larger than the first, and I decided at the top I might like a slightly less tight rope cable to separate motifs.)

So now I just need to knit a few more inches of swatch, block it, and take some measurements. Then it’s designing time!

Oh, and since I’m lazy, I’m just knitting the swatch right off the sleeve:

What I’m Cooking

I knocked out two recipes from my personal cookbook challenge this week. First up, potato-spinach curry. It was pretty good, but my husband and I both agreed that we really missed the richness that some fat would have brought to this one. With some coconut milk in the sauce, I think it would have been awesome.

And then a less-guilty taco salad, which was delicious! The recipe used “guacamame” made with half avocado, half edamame to cut fat and calories. It tasted fine, and I liked that it also upped the protein content. The recipe said to layer the ingredients prettily and top with cilantro… but sometimes you just gotta throw everything together.

What I’m Reading

To my husband’s chagrin, I’m still working on The Shepherd’s Crown. A couple of early mornings with the little guy means I’ve been too tired to read before bed. But I should finish it within the next few days!

Friday Roundup: Uh oh…

What I’m Knitting

So I was pretty happy with the progress I made on the nautical-themed toddler sweater this week… until I took a good look at my WIP after binding off the cuff on the first sleeve.

It looks cute, but also out of proportion to me—that’s a long sleeve for such a short body! I went pattern diving on Ravelry last night and came up with every number imaginable for toddler sweater body and sleeve lengths. There’s clearly no standard. So what I’m planning to do is try it on my son when he wakes up from his nap and adjust accordingly. I’m thinking I’ll need to add some rows to the body (which will work out okay since I think I’d like more blue before the ribbing anyway).

This is one of those times when I’m soooo happy I knit this sweater top down!

What I’m Cooking

Still going strong on my cookbook challenge, but I only managed two recipes from it this week. First, a spicy blue potato and corn salad. Something I’d never make normally (blue potatoes were not exactly on my regular shopping list), but it was really good! I also used canned chipotles for the spicy part—another first!

The second one from the cookbook was a vegetable korma. It called for garam masala, which I couldn’t find pre-made at my grocery store, so I made my own with cumin, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, and a few other spices. Indian food purists would scoff, I’m sure, but I thought it was pretty good!

I liked the korma, but I’m a little spoiled by full-fat curries, so it did feel like it was lacking something. Next time I make it, I think I’ll use full-fat coconut milk instead of light.

I went off cookbook for my Wednesday meal for a crowd. Sometimes I absolutely crave comfort food, so I tried a new-to-me green chile mac and “cheese” recipe from Minimalist Baker. It was amazing (maybe because I’ve been eating all this low-fat stuff, haha). I served it up with some simple roasted broccoli and some toasted crumbled tortilla chips on top for crunch:

What I’m Reading

I’m well into my friend’s manuscript and loving it so far! It’s fun to read things well ahead of publication, but it’s tough when you want to share it with everyone you know and can’t….