Smell-good Sundays

I've accidentally started a little tradition/trend for our little household- I do something in the kitchen first thing on Sunday "morning" (because we lately we're sleeping in on Sundays, so this is more like, noon-ish) so make the kitchen smell ridiculously good.

Last week it was whole wheat pancakes, this week I decided to try my hand at waffles.

I've traditionally had a hard time with breakfast foods, with the exception of french toast, which my husband doesn't really like (it's my favorite, so I've gotten good at it- especially at making french toast for one). I burn pancakes, and my waffles stick to the iron and fall apart.

Example.

This was a batch of waffles I made with some fresh blueberries and strawberries this summer. I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed the iron before each ladleful of batter went on, yet they still stuck. My waffles almost always looked like this. We think the problem may have been that the batter was too runny.

But, since I'm always up for attempting to learn from and correct my mistakes, I tried again on Sunday. I used:

- a brand-new waffle iron (bridal shower gift)

- a brand-new waffle recipe

- lots of non-stick spray

And the result:

crisp, fluffy waffles that tasted and smelled delicious. And maple syrup really brought out the cardamom in the waffles (very unexpected).

The recipe came from a French breakfast cookbook I bought at La Madeleine a few years ago. It uses browned butter, which adds so much to the flavor of anything it's in. I also added cardamom. This process was by no means quick, and I wouldn't recommend this if you have a household of hungry people, but for us (me with a full pot of coffee, and Clint, who'd decided to tackle cleaning out and rearranging our spice drawer), it was great.

Melt 12T (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Co

ok til it bubbles, and then watch it carefully as it browns- you want a caramel-color and for it to smell nutty. I usually take it off the burner when it's a light caramel, because it'll cook a bit more by itself, and you don't want to burn it.

Combine 2.25 cups flour, 2T sugar, 1t baking soda, 2t baking powder, and 1/2t salt in a bowl (I also added about 1-1.5t cardamom, and I was going to add orange zest, but forgot to). Whisk in 1.5cups milk and 1t vanilla. Beat in 3 eggs, one at a time. Add browned butter, and beat til just combined. (Edit: Before I said 2T baking powder, I meant 2t)

The batter was thicker than previous waffle recipes I've used (which, ok, is only the Bisquick box recipe, but in my defense, my mother will only use bisquick for pancakes, waffles, biscuits and muffins, and I only ever make waffles at her house (except once I made some yogurt waffles for myself- they were only ok)), which boded well.

Drop 1/2-3/4cup batter on waffle iron, and cook according to your iron's instructions. We got 7 waffles out of this batch, and because each took about 5min to cook, I placed all the waffles in a 200oF oven to keep warm and crisp.

The waffles tasted good- a little nutty from the brown butter, and just a little sweet, good for pouring maple syrup over. The kitchen smelled delicious. We munched on the first waffle, just plain, while we waited, and it was great. When we added the maple syrup, however, the cardamom flavor really popped.

So that was tasty.

In crafting news, Girl Friday is nearing completion, but she needs some serious blocking- horizontal ribbing always needs some coaxing. I had some fun with glitter last night, though.

I decided that Valentine's Day is a crafter's last hurrah- you get all crazy with Christmas crafting, it's suddenly over, but Valentine's Day is like a chance to do all the crafting you didn't get to do before- and if it's red, it works (well, unless it's red reindeer or something).

I saw this craft on the Martha Stewart show, and really wanted to make one, but I never had time.

(photo and directions at Martha Stewart)

So as I ran some errands yesterday, I stopped at Michael's to add to my glitter supply. I had red and silver and white (and green and some Halloween colors) at home, so I just bought pink tinsel glitter (and brownstone tinsel glitter that was on clearance) and some more glitter glue.

I cut corners a bit on this garland- I simply coated styrofoam balls (in 3 sizes) in watered-down glitter glue and coated in glitter- either tourmaline or garnet tinsel glitter, silver regular glitter, or a mix. at first I stuck toothpicks in them to be able to hold them, but then I switched to bamboo skewers, so that I could also stand them up as they dried. Tonight I'll string them on a length of red funfur (cheaper than Martha's tinsel idea, and now all my stupid funfur finally has some use!)

I also made candied grapefruit and orange peel last night. They still need to be sugared, and then I'll tell you about them, as well as another fun way to use your leftover citrus rinds.

Friday, Girl Friday

or, the Three Week Sweater

I've mentioned my Girl Friday briefly before.

I haven't knit a sweater in a long time- at least a couple years (not counting baby sweaters). I enjoy knitting big things, because you can just start knitting and go, but sweaters have two problems: lots of seams to sew (this is my least favorite part of knitting), and you actually have to make them fit. My go-to baby sweater pattern is Peapod, and the body of the sweater is knit in one piece, so the only seams are the arms (which could easily be done in the round) and shoulder seams. And with baby sweaters, they don't actually have to fit the baby. Babies grow so quickly that they should be a bit big anyway, or else baby will wear it once, and that'll be it. Babies also don't care if their sweaters are boxy, or the sleeves are too long. Babies generally don't have any sort of fashion sense. So grown-ups like me take advantage of this, and knit them things they'll regret in their dating years.

But sweaters for me are not so easy. Out of the 4 pullovers I've knit myself, I've worn 3 of them once, and the last one never. Of the 3 cardigans I've made, I've worn one once (it's super heavy and thick), one several times (it's white, good for DAR, and the size issues are partially fixed by pretending it's a wrap sweater) and one once, with the intention of wearing it again.

So with this track record, starting a new sweater was a little daunting. But, since knitting myself a sweater and actually wearing it (no matter how many times I need to frog and rework it) is a 2010 goal, I decided to start one asap. I went with a cardigan- easier to fit. If it's not perfect, I just wear it open. And with this pattern, I can make the edging wider if it's too small to button decently. This is what the sweater should look like:

(photo by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark, more info on her and her pattern at knitty.com)

I placed a knitpicks order when I knit myself a Christmas stocking, and got 12 balls of Swish worsted in Truffle (as well as sock yarns for Clint, myself, and an unspecified pair)

And so, on December 27th, once all my Christmas knitting, was done, I cast on (using size 8 needles).

On Day 3, the back was finished.
On Day 7, the front panels were finished.
On Day 16 (after going back to work, and no more long distance car trips), the sleeves were finished.
On Day 20 (today), the body of the sweater is sewn together, and I've 1.5 inches into the 3-4in (I'll have to see how I want it) collar. The sleeves are not yet sewn in.

The morning before I started sewing seams (before blocking):(Pansy likes to help with these pictures)

And a close of up the lace pattern (which is said to be very easy to memorize, and this is very true)
Now I have to think what to knit next- and we're going to a hockey game tomorrow night, so I need to think fast. I'll probably use my Christmas yarn to knit some of Cookie A.'s Monkeys (socks).

The healing properties of Nutella

I had a bad day yesterday. Nothing serious, just many, many little things going wrong, culminating in getting a trojan virus on my computer. Luckily, my virus protection software is up to date! Thank you, Norton! But needless to say, by the time I returned home, I was in kind of a mood.

Now, the day before, I'd read the newest issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. I really love this magazine, but this month I think it's really surpassed its previous excellence in giving me a ridiculous number of delicious (and healthy!) recipes to try. The very last recipe of the magazine is always a cookie recipe, and this month it's nutella sandwich cookies, using whole wheat flour and oats- so it seems rather healthy! (apologies- I can not seem to find this recipe online, or else I would definitely post it. I'll copy it down and post when I make a batch, though.)

With nutella cookies on my mind, I was eager to make these. However, after more thoroughly reading the recipe, I saw the dough needs to be refrigerated (and you can skimp on the time of fridging, but you can't really cut it out altogether), and the idea of rolling out whole wheat dough (it can be tricky) was very unappealing.

So I opted for another nutella treat. A friend made these for a party I threw back in April, and actually gave me the rest of the nutella (did you know nutella has a shelf life of about a year?), and her bars were ridiculously good. So I made them instead.



I made Nutella Blondies.

These were very easy. You simply melt half a stick of butter, and mix it with 1 and 3/4 cup brown sugar- that's a very, very high sugar:butter ratio. Then beat in 2 eggs and some vanilla and let it get fluffy (it gets very fluffy). Add in 2 cups of flour that's been sifted with 2t baking powder and 1t salt (I'll try 1/2t salt next time, they were overly salty, but noticeably salty), and then stir in a heaping tablespoon (and I mean heaping) of nutella and 1/3 (I used 1/2) cup toasted hazelnuts (I used almonds- I don't keep hazelnuts on hand, and I toasted the almonds for about 15 min, from the time I turned the oven on to the time it was finally up to 350oF).

Press it all into a greased 8x11 pan (I don't have such a thing, used 1 loaf pan and 1 8x8 pan) and back 25 (I did 30,, which was maybe a hair too much) minutes. Let them cool and top with a little dollop of nutella.

Now, you can see that they look good. You can imagine that they taste good. The one thing I did not expect was how ridiculously good they smell. Clint was in the living room while I baked these, and when I opened the oven to peek at them after 23 min, he had to come into the kitchen to investigate the heavenly aroma. I thought we were both going to pass out from the delicious smell. You may think I'm kdding, but I'm not- not completely.

So anyway, these are very easy, they're very good (the best blondies I've made so far, so I'm keeping this recipe to modify as needed), and interestingly enough, they're actually really low in butter. The same amount of ingredients for cookies would have 4 times as much butter, so it's possible these are healthy (I may try substituting 2/3 cup of whole wheat flour for the same amount of regular flour). Note: I'm kind of ignoring the nutella I added to this, which was about 1/3 of the total fat- nutella is unfortunately very unhealthy (I'd like to note that a friend pointed out the irony of the commercials where the mom gives her kids whole wheat toast spread with nutella, as a way to get them to have a healthy snack. Nutella is delicious, and by definition, terribly unhealthy).

Speaking of healthy, and I don't have an accompanying photo (but they weren't pretty, anyway), I made whole wheat pancakes this weekend. A friend gave me her mother's super awesome pancake recipe, and since Alton Brown taught me how to make pancakes decently (not perfectly, but I'm getting there), I've been going to town on this recipe.
2.5 cups milk
2 eggs
2T melted butter
1/4cup sugar
2cups flour
2t baking powder
1t salt

Whisk milk, eggs and melted butter, stir in sugar, add the rest of the ingredients. Cook on a greased/buttered skillet (friend said butter, but I'm finding that either works well enough). Normally I halve the recipe and add whatever fruit we happen to have in the freezer (usually blueberries, sometimes strawberries). This weekend, I wasn't in a fruit mood, I was in a gingerbread mood.

So.
substitute whole wheat flour to be one third of the total flour (i.e. 2/3c whole wheat, 1 and 1/3c regular flour)
brown sugar instead of white sugar
2t cinnamon, 1t ginger, 1t nutmet, 1/2t cloves.

Yum! It had a nice flavor from the brown sugar and spices, and an earthiness and more texture from the whole wheat flour.

Again, no pictures, because even though I can make pancakes, I still burn most of them, and you don't want to see burned pancakes when I'm trying to suggest a recipe.

2010: new year, new recipes

And the first new recipe of 2010 is sage-covered pork roast with dried fruit compote.

PSA to southern New Englanders: Big Y is having a special on pork roasts this week, buy 1 get *2* free! My mom emailed me about this, so of course I high-tailed it to the grocery store last night. I got 3 2.4ish lb boneless pork roasts for $14.50, and I cooked one. Sadly, I have no pictures, but next time I do this (there will be a next time), I'll photograph it. (ETA: and 5 days later, there was a next time)


Pork roast:
trim off fat, rub with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Lay some sage leaves covering the top, arrange in rows, and tie on with kitchen twine. In a oven/stove cooking vessel (I used my Le Creuset braiser for the first time! love it), brown the pork on all sides- about 10-12 min total. Wrap in parchement paper, and bake for 50 min in a 375oF oven, until it reaches 170-175oF (the recipe I found said 160, but mine got up to 175 and was just barely done enough). Remove roast, let rest for 10 min on a platter, then unwrap from the parchment and pour the juices back into the cooking vessel. Add 1/3cup each of chicken stock/broth and apple cider. Cook til reduced, add 1t (recipe said 1T, but we're trying to be healthy) butter and cook til reduced to 1/3cup total. Pour over the meat.

Dried fruit compote (to serve on the side):
while the pork is in the oven, combine
3cups apple cider
3/4cup raisins
3/4cup dried cranberries (cherries would have also been good)
1/2-3/4cup roughly chopped dried apples
16 dried apricots, cut in quarters
1 cinnamon stick
zest of 1 orange (and juice, if you want- the zest adds enough orangey flavor)
1inch piece of peeled fresh ginger (or some large pieces of crystallized ginger)
dash of pepper

in a medium-large saucepan over medium-high heat, cook, stirring occasionally, for 20-30 minutes, until thick and gooey and delicious-smelling. Remove ginger and cinnamon, and serve warm.

These two items were delicious. We also had roasted sweet potatoes (toss sweet potatoes cut into finger-like pieces with some apple cider, salt, pepper and chopped sage, spread on a foil-lined cookie sheet (spray the foil) and bake in the oven for as long as the meat is in it- 40-50 min at 375), garden salad, and boiled wax beans (broccoli the 2nd time around).


Then I was lucky enough to have the same thing today for lunch :-D

Craft update:
I'm knitting Girl Friday in KnitPicks Swish Worsted in Truffle (a chocolately brown). So far, so good. In 3 days I finished the back. In 4 more days, I finished the panels for the front (it's a cardigan). Now I've been on the sleeves for 3 days, but am only halfway to the elbow. However, this progress, after I told someone there was no way I'd ever finish it in time to wear this winter, but maybe on chilly spring evenings, is impressive. And after knitting all those adorable, yet full of ends to sew in, korknisse, a large thing like a sweater is a joy to knit.

Next up: socks for Clint, using a pattern from my new sock knitting book, and knee socks for me- possibly in the reverse order, Clint's socks are my ravelympics project (start a project during the Olympics opening ceremonies, and finish it by the end of the closing ceremonies, and for me, probably only knit it while watching the Olympics, preferrably curling) and I'll most likely finish the sweater well before the Olympics start.

It's a winter wonderland!

We had 6 inches of snow this morning. I took a snow day- I'm not sure if I'll be in trouble at work for not going in, but after spending 2 hours watching cars fishtail all over the place on our street, I decided to play it safe. And do a bit of crafting.

We haven't decorated much, but all that's up so far is stuff I've made.
Above our mantle hang the two gumdrop wreaths I made. I got the idea from Martha Stewart. I used 2 12" stryofoam rounded wreaths with flat backs (a hemispheric cross section), my glue gun, about 20 glue sticks, and 5 19oz bags of red and green spice drops (which left me with probably 3/4 of a bag leftover). I just hot glued the gumdrops onto the wreaths, super easy, although a little tedious. It took under an hour for each wreath (2 episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" each)

Also, my little korknisse santas, my snowflake votive holders (trace a snowflake in glue on a cheap frosted glass tealight holder, sprinkle heavily with glitter, that's it!), the two Simon Pearce glass trees we registered for, and a centerpiece we bought at the Old St Andrew's Church (in Bloomfield, CT) craft fair.

And today I finally hung our stockings. Clint's is made following Martha Stewart's stocking pattern from the December 2004 MSL, and mine was done without a pattern (I've done enough socks not to need one).
This morning I worked on our Christmas cards. Good news- I have all the paper I need to make them! Unfortunately, though, I can't seem to find my stamp box, and my gold ink pad has dried up. I'll probably have to borrow some of my mom's stamping supplies- so let's hope I can assemble all the cards before Saturday, when I'll be home. The photos came yesterday and half of them have been decorated (you'll have to wait for more on that), I've cut half of the decorative paper into the proper sized rectangle, but they all need to have a cut-out done in them. I did 10 last night, and I'm tracing a cookie cutter with an exacto knife, which is very, very tedious. It's hard to do more than 10 at a time. I've made part of 100 paper pointsettias, and need to finish those and make 100 more. Then glue everything together "Happy Holidays" or something on the front, and sign them all. Clint's in charge of addressing the envelopes.

In case you're wondering, yes, I am worried I've taken on too much. My goal is to send out the cards by the end of next week.

In the cooking world, I have my Christmas Cookie 2009 line-up made.
chocolate chip
sugar cookie trees
gingerbread men
peanut butter kiss cookies
7 layer bars (because Clint's never had them, and mom always sends most of hers to my aunts in SD)
mint chocolate sandwich cookies
and maple cookies, which I made last night.

The maple cookies aren't especially pretty. They're a simple butter cookie recipe with maple sugar added. Then you reduce maple syrup (of course, I used Grant family syrup) and pour over the cookies. And sprinkle with coarse salt, "the enhance the maple flavor". The cookies are good, but they're actually really salty, even though I skipped the sprinkling at the end, and I don't find that it enhances the maple flavor at all. I think next time I do these, I'll cut the salt in the dough in half. They're a nice, simple cookie, and the maple glaze is nice (even though I cooked mine too long and it got a little grainy).

EDIT: so I kind of forgot about those maple cookies for a couple days (we had other cookies around), and after 3 days, had another one. And you know what? I like them a lot better than I thought I did. They seem more mapley now, and after a few days in tupperware, they're soft-ish- not chewy soft, not cakey soft, but not shortbread-crispy, like they were tending towards before. I think this is a good recipe (although I'm still cutting the salt in half, the next batch will be given to people on a low salt diet).

Now I'm back to watching all the Martha Stewart Shows on our DVR and tackling the Christmas cards, and later on, when I can't stand to see any more glue, knitting some more korknisse.

It's a major award, I won, I won, I WON!

Look what I won! Not a leg lamp, but a new knitting bag! I won Simply Simon's Sew Mama Sew giveaway. I'm very excited, because not only is this a lovely bag and it's mine, all mine, but it was one of the top things I hoped to win!!

yay!!!

I have other crafty things to share, but winning this bag totally takes the cake. :-D

Cute things

Normally I wouldn't dedicate an entire post to one cute thing, but this is about the cutest thing I've seen, ever. I'm officially in love with this felt "cookies for Santa" set.

Like, I kind of want to add felt in various colors onto my Michael's shopping list today.

Adorable!!