Hummus Among Us

 Yesterday I made hummus!  I love the stuff and always bought it ready made in the store but my sister and her husband have made it at home for years using canned chickpeas.  We stayed at their home in Rochester for Easter and I always have to make a trip to the International Spice and Grocery when in town.  I am never disappointed there and stocked up on all kinds of stuff.  Not only did I buy the tahini and dried chickpeas for the hummus, but I also got citric acid and almond oil for bath bombs, 20# of kalijira rice, Bosnian/Turkish coffee, a couple different teas, CHOCOLATE, etc.  It is a little oasis for the Muslim community in Rochester.  They have international newspapers and movie rentals, toiletry and hygiene products that are also common in the UK, Bosnian/Turkish coffee sets and cezve/ibriks, cookware and bakeware, etc.  I love this store and usually have to be dragged out of there.  My brother in law is pretty chummy with the owner too, so I feel like I have connections!  ;)

Back to the hummus.  I started from scratch with my dried chickpeas and used this recipe.  DEE-lish.  You rinse and cook the chickpeas in a crack pot and let them cool.  Then process them together with garlic, salt, lemon juice, olive oil, water and tahini which is sesame seed paste and tastes almost like a slightly bitter peanut butter.  Here are the chickpeas after they've been pulsed a few times because I forgot to take a picture of them just cooked.  One pound of dried chickpeas cost $2.99 and made almost 6 cups of hummus.  I packed it up in old Noosa yogurt containers and will freeze them and use as we go.  I've thrown away a lot of hummus over the years because I didn't eat it before the expiration date.  I had no idea you could freeze it.  This hummus was no frills, no pine nuts, no red pepper or the sundry of varieties available, but it is so flavorful.  It just pops and my brother and I ate a whole container full with a sleeve of crackers in one sitting last night.  I read that if frozen for any length of time, it is still just as nutritious, but the flavor dulls.  I am very loyal to Sabra brand store bought hummus, but it doesn't hold a candle to this homemade.

And speaking of crack pots, RIP my beloved crack pot!  :(  My mother gave this to me back in 2000 when I was still in nursing school so it's had a good run.  I put my chickpeas in before I went to bed and set it on low.  Woke up the next morning and ran out to check them and it was just barely warm.  I tried a few different outlets to make sure it was indeed the crack pot that had failed and deduced the poor thing had died.  I'm just thankful I didn't have a $20 roast in there!  Luckily my aunt Julie gave us a larger oval crack pot as a wedding gift so I used that one instead and the hummus was just delayed.  I was really spoiled with 2 crack pots.  They are so handy when company comes and we had both of them running nonstop when everyone was here for Christmas.  Even though this one is no more, I am going to save the actual stoneware crock and lid.  I'm sure I can use it for something.

50 Shades Of Lefse

Oh what a wonderful day it was yesterday!  I had my first glass of stevia sweetened iced coffee from the batch I'd made the day before.  The coffee concentrate is made 2 quarts at a time using this recipe.  I baked frosted sugar cookies for upcoming Easter and then decided kind of at the last minute to make a batch of lefse.  I had about 4.5 pounds of russet potatoes that I needed to use up and set to work making some lefse.  It was a beautiful warm sunny day and I got to stare out the window and deck door at the pond while I was baking.  We even got a mild thunderstorm last night.  Bliss.

 I really appreciate lefse and realize that many who eat it do not understand the ins and outs of it.  The dough is simple and delicious.  You roll it out paper thin and can see the eyes of the potatoes as flecks in the dough.

 It is baked on a 500 degree griddle and as soon as it is transferred onto the heat, it blisters and bubbles up, shrinking at the edges.

 It is turned once and the first surface is freckled with brown spots where the bubbles rested on the griddle.

 Then it is flipped onto a dish towel to cool and the other side has a shinier surface and darker brown freckles.  The wonderful scent of potato bread wafts from the griddle and it is hard to not eat from the pile!  My go-to recipe for lefse is 5 pounds of russet potatoes peeled, cooked and riced twice.  Allow to completely cool before adding 1/2 c. butter, 1/2 c. cream and 1 1/2 Tbsp. salt.  Stir in 2 cups of flour, portion out, roll, cook.  Num num.

Here is a photo of my new herb dish towel I got at The Afternoon when Melissa and I went in February.  My herbs are starting to wake up for the year.  The chives are sprouting through outside.  My sage has survived the winter on my window sill but the leaves were the size of my pinkie nail all season.  This last week, they've started getting bigger and longer which I find truly miraculous.  How does the plant know to do that?  How does it know it is spring?  Does it realize it is receiving the magic number of sunny minutes in a day?  I'm waiting to see if my rosemary goes crazy too.

 Notice anything weird about these ducks and geese?  They are not swimming, they are sitting on the thin glaze of ice that appears every night.  It just looks so strange to see them sitting still and not gliding through the water.  Every morning they just mill around waiting for the pool to open.  I had no idea ducks and geese had that kind of insulation/stamina.  Imagine how cold that water must be! 

It was nice to be outside this morning because I have been eating ibuprofen like candy and hiding in dim rooms since Sunday with a migraine.  I got an appointment with somebody/anybody at my regular clinic to either get some different medications, have my head cut off or be euthanized, whichever was easiest.  I saw a lovely doctor and her U of M medical student and they prescribed me a great different rescue med as well as a preventative med that I will take every night at bedtime.  I took the new med when I got home and laid down for an hour.  When I got up, I felt great with no headache and no muscular side effects.  I was singing in the choir again!  In visiting with the doctor, I'd mentioned that I noticed the headaches had slowed down quite a bit while I was cutting back on Diet Coke and she said that aspartame is a common migraine trigger.  Dang.  I guess that means I am a former Diet Coke drinker now.

 I finished my Aran snow suit and took it off the blocking board today!  I caught myself tossing it in the air like you would a baby.  This will look so nice with a fat baby in it!  I keep thinking of my grandpa Maynerd when I look at this.  He would refer to any small child as a 'little jigger' and I think any kid would look like a little jigger in this!

The yarn was kind of expensive at $12.50/ball and I used 4 balls for this but it is a very soft wool/silk blend and is nice for babies.  It is a light gray but could look like a pale blue or lavender depending on what you pair it with.  I used mother of pearl buttons to finish it.  I halfway want a suit like this for mySELF!  ;)

Context

 What a serene winter landscape.  Normally in November, this scene would be calming, welcome, and beautiful to a Minnesotan.  However, today is March 23rd and I'll bet everyone in the state could spit nails right now especially since 2 weeks ago we had temperatures in the upper 60's.  Mother Nature is such a tease around this time of year and I fell for it.  I re potted all my house plants and I started thinking about the garden, etc.  We always have to have a winter relapse or two before spring truly arrives and really this isn't too bad. 

I put out my Easter decorations yesterday including the wooden painted eggs I bought in Poland this fall.  I'd had this ceramic egg holder and used to put the real dyed and hollowed eggs Melissa and I've made over the years in it.  It was always short lived though because I'd end up putting it safely up somewhere the eggs wouldn't be disturbed and then no one would see them.  These are perfect because they aren't fragile.  They are proudly smack in the middle of the table.

 My parents returned home from their trip to Bosnia and Croatia on Saturday and we had an informal and late St. Patrick's Day meal waiting for them.  I made a corned beef brisket in the crack pot with red potatoes, carrots and cabbage as well as croissant rolls from scratch.  For dessert we had an Irish Queen of Puddings which is basically a milk, bread crumb and egg yolk custard on the bottom, topped with melted strawberry jam, and then the egg whites are whipped into a meringue and piled up and browned to finish.  Num num.  I used the heel of the french loaf I baked this week for my bread crumbs.  Recycling at it's finest!

Someone is sleeping on my pattern! I love my dawg!

Sensible Shoes

Yesterday I finished and blocked some booties and a little hat to go along with my Hoot Cardigan.  Everyone needs a pair of sensible shoes and when wearing this sweater, these booties fit the bill!  The hat pattern was made up using the owl cable motif but the bootie pattern came from Knitting Gifts For Baby.  I wanted to round out the cardigan so I could enter this as a 3 piece baby set in the fairs this summer.  Yes, I am already thinking about fair season.  Once a 4-H kid, always a 4-H kid.

March 17th

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I know these aren't shamrocks, it is in fact the ivy garland draped over my china cabinet.  The holly garland I found and put up over the holidays added so much and the hutch looked very plain without it.  Since then, we've had valentine garland for February, this ivy for March and for the non holiday portion of the year, and later this week I will put up the gorgeous Easter garland I got last year on ridiculous clearance but had no where to hang.  While shopping for some year-round greenery, I looked at some simple florals and vines and then found the ivy.  My Grandma Helen had an ivy kitchen:  ivy curtains and valences, ivy wallpaper, ivy potholders, etc.  Now whenever I see this, I think of time spent with her in the kitchen and our trips to Fargo.

Speaking of Fargo, I am about to do one of my most favorite things....start a new knitting project!  Weeeeeeeeeeee!  This is some Rowan Baby Merino Silk DK that I bought 2 Fargo trips ago at Prairie Yarns.  We were in town for my cousin's graduation and it was our first trip to Fargo with Lopi.  Again I must stress we are not pregnant nor trying but I've been dying to knit this Aran baby snowsuit and it seems appropriate to start some Aran knitting on St. Patrick's Day!  I have a couple items blocking as we speak and will post pictures of those later in the week.  Top O' The Mornin' To Ya!

Crocus Done!

 I finished and blocked my Crocus Blanket last night and am pleased as punch with it!  This pattern came from the book My Grandmother's Knitting.  Over the Christmas/New Year holiday, I discovered the fabulous closeout sales from WEBS and found the yarn first and then chose a suitable pattern. 

 The yarn was a wool/silk/cashmere blend from Zen Garden and even on sale, I paid $27/skein and used just over 3 skeins for the blanket.  It is a lovely soft fingering weight yarn and I used US 3 needles so you can imagine the work was slow going!  The blanket is 165 stitches wide and you start with 16 rows of garter stitch.  No problem there but it took almost 2 hours to do those 16 rows and then I screwed up on the very first 2 rows of the lace pattern and had to rip it all out.  I have never been more ready to quit something but I'd paid top dollar for the yarn.  I mustered my patience and started again.

 This was some fussy knitting but so worth it!  I stopped to count my stitches after each pattern repeat and kept track of each section with stitch markers.  This was not TV knitting and I had to really be mindful of watch I was watching or listening to because the work required all my wits!  I worked on the last big sections of it in the bowling alley watching Dave bowl.  The yarn is kettle dyed a pale yellow with some slightly darker mustard mottles.  Here you can kind of see some of the mottling.  Gorgeous.

I really feel accomplished as a knitter after making this!  When I was folding and arranging it for the pictures, I was reminded of the already knit lace shawls we bought in Russia.  I'm not comparing this to Orenburg lace by any means, but I made this!  Years ago I bought a pattern and yarn for a Shetland shawl IN Shetland in the hopes that some day I will be accomplished enough to knit it and I feel like I'm getting closer!  I love that you learn and become more experienced with each project tackled in knitting.  This will keep a baby very warm some day but my heart will bleed the first time it gets pooped on!

Pastry Practice

I absolutely love this pastry dough recipe and have wanted to try using it for things other than the hand pies in the recipe.  It is such a lovely flaky mock puff pastry that is a cinch to make.  The dough is assembled and ready in under an hour versus real puff pastry dough that takes all day to make.  It has just the right buttery salty flavor that works well with both sweet and savory baked treats.

 Last week I had some leftover chicken meat after I processed a whole chicken.  I'd never cooked a chicken like that before and it was delicious and moist.  It was also the cleanest I'd ever gotten the carcass!  We had all kinds of chicken pieces to top salads and I used some along with the broth for a fabulous chicken noodle soup.  The last of the leftovers were made into chicken pot pies.  I made up my own gravy using onions, carrots and celery softened in butter with some salt and pepper.  I added some flour and chicken stock for the roux and finished it with some dried thyme, dried sage and some frozen peas.  I let it cool completely before spooning it into my wide ramekins.  I topped each with a round of this pastry and baked it.  These made for some elegant work lunches in the break room!

Today is a glorious sunny day with temperatures in the 60's!  It's a regular heat wave!  I have the deck door and the bedroom window open to air out the house.  Lopi is laying in the sun on the deck and I am baking.  I only used half the pastry dough I mixed up last week and had the bright idea to try my hand at some sausage rolls.  These are eaten everywhere in England.  They are a crumbled sausage wrapped in puff pastry.  I had half a tube of Jimmy Dean sausage in my freezer that I browned and cooled.  The sausage in the UK version is more of a nutmeg sausage but this worked just fine.  Next time I will try to make some from scratch with some ground pork.  I used an egg wash and these browned quite nicely.  Num num.  Dave will have a nice after school snack today.

I was able to make 6 sausage rolls with the amount of meat I had so I used the last scraps of dough to make 2 jam tarts using my strawberry freezer jam.  Delish.  I never thought to use jam for these and almost wish I didn't know they'd turn out so well because now this means I don't have to wait for summer raspberries.  I can literally make these at the drop of a hat.

And finally, here is a photo of Lopi's blue feet.  She got ahold of a ball point pen and chewed it to bits.  She couldn't deny it if she wanted because the evidence speaks for itself!

Nuthin' says lovin'...

...like an electric ball winder! 

 Here is a dark picture of my yarn swift and my electric ball winder.  This was Dave's Valentine gift to me when we were dating!  Actually he gave me a Joann's gift card and this is what I used it for.  Skeined yarn needs to be wound into a ball before it can be knitted.  If it is a small skein, I can hold it on my knees or usually talk Dave into holding it on his hands while I wind it with my hand crank winder.  I put large or fuzzy/grippy skeins on my swift.  If they unwind nicely, I use my hand crank winder but if I have to untangle and separate while winding, I use my electric one and feed the yarn.

I'm currently on ball 3 of my Zen Yarn Garden for my Crocus Blanket.  Each skein has 400+ yard but it looks like so much more once it's wound into a ball!

Yarn Bomb!

 I had to run to the grocery store yesterday and I noticed this on the mailbox!  It's a yarn bomb!

I don't think I've ever seen a yarn bomb here in St. Paul! 

Bowl Cozies

 

 Melissa brought a tutorial on how to make bowl cozies.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  They are basically a fluted potholder that you set your bowl in when you're microwaving and then instead of burning your hands on the bowl when you remove it from the microwave, you grab it by the bowl cozy.  What a great idea!

 These are a fabulous little project because there is no pressing seams and each piece is made from 10" square pieces of fabric so fat quarters are ideal.  The only thing is you have to use 100% cotton fabric, thread and batting so you don't start a fire in your  microwave!  I use Warm and Natural cotton batting in all my quilts but apparently it is 88% cotton and 12% poly.  Pellon makes a Wrap and Zap 100% cotton batting and it says "microwave safe" on the package.  We made a special trip to Joann's and asked about microwave safe batting and I thought they'd think we were crazy but they knew just what we were talking about.  The other big project making the rounds with this batting is potato bags.  You microwave potatoes in these cotton quilted bags to make baked potatoes and there is a pattern on the bag for it. 

We  used a combination of several patterns to make this project.  Just google bowl cozy and you can't go wrong. 

Ax-Man!

 We also took Melissa to Ax-man Surplus on University while she was here.  I just don't quite know how to describe this store!

 I can remember coming here as a kid on the way to the Europe Reunion when it was more of a bona fide military surplus store.  Now it is a much funkier hardware/junk store.  This place reminds me of my dorm room in college because we had signs and pictures and garland and all manner of crap hanging from the ceiling and walls.  I say all the time that I like BUSY.  This store certainly is BUSY.

So far I've purchased paint brushes, a variety of scissors, empty bottles and jars, all kinds of lab glassware, plastic bags, patterned duct and packing tape, shipping envelopes, magnetic clips, pleather, silver plated pickle forks, self adhesive fake mustaches, measuring tapes, craft wire, gift bags, etc.  Even though I find all kinds of things that I think are useful, there is still plenty of junk to be purchased here.  You can get all kinds of electrical components, old VCR's, gauges, obsolete electrical items, etc.  We brought my dad here last month and he could appreciate this store.  Whenever we'd go to Fargo as kids, we'd always go to Mac's for an afternoon activity.  Mac's was on about the same plane as this store but not nearly as funky, at least as far as I can remember.

 Half the fun of this store is just wandering around looking at everything!  You find all kinds of things you never knew you couldn't live without.  For example, I paid 95 cents for a Stress Kitty.  It is a cute little stuffed cat toy....and when you feel stressed you can rip it's head off because it is velcroed on.  I thought that was hilarious.  They also have all kinds of gag/kid stuff like switchblade combs (remember those?) and whoopie cushions.  The only caveat is that Dave has to drive us because I'm too nervous to drive downtown.  Maybe someday I'll be confident enough to do it which will be good for him because after one trip, he'd seen enough.  He is such a good sport though!

That Melissa!

She's going to kill me but I don't care.  Melissa is one of my absolute dearest friends.  I talked her into walking across my pond so I could take these Olan Mills caliber winter glamour shots of her.  Isn't she gorgeous?

She and  her daughter came to visit and stay at our house this week!  We had an aggressive 2 days of crafting as well as a full day of shopping at The Mall of America.  Here we are in my living room painting and embellishing dominoes for ornaments/key chains/necklaces/pins.

 I love when she comes to work on things because it forces me to dig out components and findings from my various satellite craft caches around the house.  I found all kinds of stuff I'd been looking for!  Later when we were cutting out fabric, I agreed to cut out her batting and in exchange, she organized all my craft stuff for me!

 We went to the aquarium in the Mall Of America.  It costs $25 for adults and $18 for children 3 years and older.  I'm a tightwad and nearly soiled myself but they DO give you a free return ticket with your ticket purchase.  I gave mine to Melissa because my husband would never shell out $25 to visit the exhibit with me. 

I have to say I think it was worth the price of admission!  Everything was beautifully exhibited and arranged and it was just enough to hold your interest.  You start in an area where you can touch starfish and sea urchins and then you move through to large aquariums where they have jellyfish and sea horses and all the Finding Nemo fish before you head towards the aquarium tunnel.

The tunnel was awesome!  All the animals swim over and around you and you get a much closer look at them.

They had several different kinds of sharks.

I think the manta rays were my favorite.

I think Serenity enjoyed the aquarium!

Dog Shaming

Lopi was a very bad dog yesterday.  I walked in the house after work and Dave had put the new Joann Fabrics sale flyer in front of the door so I had something pleasant to temper the bad news he had for me:  Lopi had chewed up and wrecked my digital camera!!!  Until recently, we always kenneled her for the hour between me leaving for work and him returning from work and I always felt bad locking her up like that.  We slowly began shutting her in downstairs in the living room after "dog proofing" the area and she's been so good.  She's spent up to 8 hours at a time alone down there with no problems but I guess she just had to remind us again that she is a dog and we need to be better dog parents.  I always put away my knitting and any pens (she chewed up a Harry Potter wooden pencil too yesterday!) but now I guess everything will have to be put in a basket and put up while we're gone.  I don't understand what was so appealing about that camera that she felt she needed to chew it up.  AND I'd even filled her Kong with treats before I left the house!  Bad dog!

She knew she was in trouble too because she was skittish and darting around and not making eye contact even when I got home hours later.  She'd chewed the strap and zoom/shutter control off the camera and chewed up the body a little.  You can still turn it on and toggle through the pictures but you can't take any pictures.  Not a lot of damage but enough to render it useless.  Lucky for her, Target has this very model on clearance this week and I just ran out and bought the display model--the last one left--to replace it.  I am picky about my cameras because I don't trust one with a rechargeable battery.  I'm always afraid I will run out of juice and I like knowing I have lithium batteries in my purse.  This is another reminder that children, whether 4 legged or 2, will eventually destroy all your nice things and I really like my stuff.  I think children with opposable thumbs can wreck more stuff! 

I spent Saturday baking and frosting 10 dozen heart sugar cookies.  I love these small foil
'carry out' containers from the dollar store because they make perfect little baking care packages.  One of these went to my parents in law yesterday and I packed up and froze 2 more for my Grandma Helen and Uncle Doug.  Normally I mail these to the Fargo relatives but this year I will get to hand deliver them when we go see her next week!  2 dozen cookies went with my brother up to Duluth for him and my nephew and niece in law to eat.  The rest were packed up and frozen and will be doled out during the week as work treats and next week as travel treats.  I fuss and gripe the whole time I'm frosting these and I make thousands of them, but I'm always happy I did and there never seems to be enough to give away to everyone on your list.

 I'm taking a break from my black hole of a Crocus Lace Blanket to make a dent in another vacuous hole of a project.  This is The Beekeeper's Quilt.  You make literally hundreds of these little "hexipuff" pillows that are stuffed with polyfil and then you sew them all together to make a "quilt".  I think this is much more practical as a seat or couch cushion/liner rather than a blanket.  I'm starting small and shooting only for a seat cushion for my sewing room chair.  The pattern says a 2 x 2 foot quilt requires 102 puffs.  I have 11 and it takes me about 45 minutes to make one.  I have a way to go!  I do love this project because it is mindless and portable, plus I'm using up all my beautiful Koigu and various sock yarn scraps!

I spent Monday in bed with the dog and that flu-been-hit-by-a-truck-feeling.  I felt awful and accomplished absolutely nothing and I can't stand that.  Dave surprised me by bringing me home a donut and these roses!  I don't think he's given me flowers since we moved into the house and I just love them!  What a guy!