tofu

Friday Roundup: Greens and Browns

What I’m Knitting

I’ve doubled the progress on the sweater from last week:

It’s about to go on hold, though, because the Indie Design Gift-A-Long starts next week! (If you aren’t familiar with it, check out the Ravelry group for the annual event here. It’s awesome.) This is pretty much the only time of year I knit other people’s patterns anymore, so I’m really excited. I’ve already got a pair of yummy cabled fingerless mitts in my queue. I’m hoping to find a small pattern to try steeking for the first time, too!

Twenty of my patterns are included in the Gift-A-Long sale (25% off from Thursday, November 19th at 8:00 pm EST to Friday, November 27, 2015 at 11:59 pm), and all of my paid patterns are eligible to win prizes. Check out the details in the Ravelry group, and you can see the patterns I’ll be discounting with this direct link to my Ravelry bundle.

What I’m Cooking

For some reason, everything I cooked this week happened to be some shade of brown. It doesn’t make for very exciting photography, but everything was delicious nonetheless.

From my Appetite for Reduction cookbook challenge, this is a mushroom and cannellini bean dish flavored with wine and smoked paprika, served with caulipots (the author’s tasty mixture of mashed potatoes and cauliflower):

The leftover caulipots went really well with the next recipe, chili-lime rubbed tofu:

The tofu tasted really good, but it wasn’t crispy the way I like my baked tofu. I think it’s because I didn’t press the tofu to get all the water out before baking. I really have to remember to do that 20-30 minutes before I start the recipe.

And overripe bananas meant I had a good excuse to whip up some banana-oat muffins. I found this recipe that doesn’t have any refined sugar and used local maple syrup that we bought recently. They were SO GOOD.

What I’m Reading

After completing my tour through Jane Austen’s world, I picked up the second book in the Cormoran Strike mystery series and just finished it last night. It was so good! Although this series (written under a pseudonym) is completely different from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, it still has a lot of the same compulsive readability. I’m hoping to grab the third book in the series sometime today.

Friday Roundup: Mystery and Tempeh

What I’m Knitting

After finishing the nautical baby sweater (still working on the pattern—and a good name that isn’t already taken!), I wanted to cast on for another baby/child garment. I have enough of this lovely yarn from a local Indiana company (Good for Ewe Yarns) for a vest if I’m frugal with the yarn. After several swatches, I finally hit upon something I like:

This is actually part of the garment itself, not a swatch! You’ll have to guess how this will turn into a vest. I just might spoil it next week, depending on how much progress I make.

What I’m Cooking

The next few recipes up on deck in my cookbook challenge were, again, ones I probably wouldn’t have made without this challenge. First up, blackened tofu (served with cauliflower/potato mash ):

It was really good! I’m not generally a fan of tofu unless it’s chopped up small or doused in savory sauce, but the Cajun spices worked so well here. Definitely making this one again.

The next recipe was Isa’s veganized, healthified version of her childhood favorite, Hamburger Helper. I think I only had it once or twice at friends’ houses, but I have to say, this tempeh helper did sort of remind me of it!

I also made a fabulous Arabian lentil soup from the cookbook this week, but I forgot to get a picture. Gotta get better about that.

What I’m Reading

Due to an unpleasant lack of time to read (grrr…), I’m still working on Wintersmith. But I should be done by the end of the weekend!

Friday Roundup: Winner, Take 2

Since I didn’t hear back from the winner I picked last week for the Golden Morning book, I went back to the random number generator to choose a new winner:

Comment #4 was Sarah, who said “My knitting changes a bit seasonally. I cannot bear to have a pile of alpaca on my lap during the summer. Lace is always a favorite, and laceweight yarn is a staple in my stash. I think I keep my knitting focus on smaller things that will not cover all of me as I knit them, but if they are large, they need to be light.”

Congratulations, Sarah! I’m sending you an email to get your address details and the pattern book will be on its way to you shortly.

Now to your regularly scheduled Friday Roundup post:

What I’m Knitting

A secret accessory design I can’t show you. I know, I know, I said I was done with these for a while, but a call for submissions that I couldn’t refuse came to my attention a few months ago and I got a design proposal accepted. This accessory is small and fun, though, so I should hopefully be back to something blog-able next week.

What I’m Cooking

I forgot to take pictures of the amazing (if I do say so myself) enchilada casserole I made for my usual crowd dinner on Wednesday, but I managed to snap a few pics of other meals.

Basil was on sale at my local grocery, so I snagged a bunch of it to try a vegan pesto dish from my favorite cookbook, Isa Does It. The pesto was tasty, but the real star of this dish is the breaded tofu on top. I’ve never tried to make breaded tofu before–it was much easier than I thought, and soo00 tasty. My 9-month old son loved it too!

I’ve never been the type of person who can whip up sauces without a recipe (kind of funny, since one of the first things I did when I started knitting was to go “off-recipe” and start making up my own things!). But I tried a almond-milk based cream sauce last week that was completely tasteless, so I started adding things to it (like miso and nutritional yeast, my favorite vegan flavor enhancers). The resulting sauce was so good that I tried it again this week, with different proportions of ingredients and a whole bunch of veggies.

It was amazing. I can’t believe how cheesy a sauce can taste with no cheese whatsoever. I think it’s the umami flavor (pleasant savory taste) that the miso brings to the table. I have a new favorite sauce recipe that I can tweak to my heart’s content! My son also loved this one, even though it was loaded with garlic and onions. He’s definitely my son. :-)

What I’m Reading

Not too much to say on this front either–I’m still working on my writer friend’s manuscript. Baby’s sudden sleep regression = major dent in my reading/knitting time, unfortunately.