Mini Pies

I finally found the right jars and had some sent to my local hardware store so today I'm making mini pies! I found the tutorial here. As part of a two-person household I think its a great idea. Chris isn't a big desert eater and I really shouldn't eat an entire full-sized pie myself, so whenever I make pies we end up eating a few pieces and then the rest goes bad in the fridge. Or I eat the whole thing because I don't want to waste the food, and then feel guilty for eating so much pie! That got me thinking of other people who don't really need full sized pies. Like my grandparents or my aunt who lives alone lives without any other humans. And since they are frozen and just need to be popped into the oven they are perfect for my grandparents who don't do much cooking anymore. So guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year?

I used this crust recipe (so simple!) for all the pies. The blueberry pies are from this recipe using frozen blueberries.

Chocolate Chess Pie
from my great aunt Kitty, as dictated to Will Bullins
3/4 stick butter, melted
4 Tblsp cocoa powder
1 cup white sugar (a little bit more)
2 "egges"
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Mix it all together. Pour into pie crust. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.


Apple Pie
from my mother in law, Dianne Lough
I used an assortment of types of apples for the apple pie- pretty much one of everything they had at the store. Dianne recommends 3 granny smith and 4 golden delicious cut up apples and put into bowl with fresh squeezed orange juice (to prevent browning) in separate bowl, mix together 1 cup sugar, 4T flour, 1t cinnamon, 2 dashed nutmeg, dash salt, 1 tsp cold butter. Mix with apples until coated and microwave for 4min pour apple mix into crust, add top crust and brush with milk, sprinkle with sugar

Instead of the traditional top crust for the apple pie, I used a crumble made with 1 part butter: 1 part flour: 3 parts brown sugar and a handful of pecan bits

Sharing Our Gifts: Project 3

Every month the Sharing Our Gift group selects a charity in a different state to knit/crochet/sew for. The December charity is The Oklahoma Brain Tumor Foundation. Here is the information posted by the group:

From the OKBTF website, here is some information about the origin of the foundation:
“The Oklahoma Brain Tumor Foundation (OKBTF), was founded by Nancy Thomason after the death of her son Cade Thomason to a brain stem PNET tumor on February 17, 2000. She vowed to fight the disease in honor and memory of her son Cade.

OKBTF is dedicated to meeting the needs of Oklahoma families, caregivers and patients affected by primary brain or central nervous system tumors. We work to provide for needs through education, advocacy, research and service.”

OKBTF provides services for 227 families and approximately 908 caregivers and immediate family members of individuals with brain tumors.

THIS PROJECT:
For this project, we will be creating hats, scarves, or shawls to donate to the organization. As always, these can be knitted, crocheted, or sewn, and they must be handmade.

DEADLINE:
Deadline to have these items received by the project coordinator is January 5, so please allow appropriate mail time. She will be delivering to the facility on or about January 8.

Now I'm off to search through my stash and look up some patterns. I'm thinking maybe a warm, chunky shawl, perfect for snuggling. What will you be making?

Cheesecake with my Friends!

My birthday is next week and I had been planning to just go out to dinner with DH and leave it at that. But then I got a craving for cheesecake. And I realized that birthdays are for celebrating with friends. So today I threw myself a birthday party at Cheesecakes by Alex. In attendance were Kelly, Tamsie, Eliza, Alli & her Peanut, my mom and Chris. The weather was amazing, especially compared with the terrible rain and wind we've had all week, so we were able to sit out on the patio. After taking a picture of the cheesecake and the beautiful flowers that Kelly brought me, I put my camera back in my bag and forgot to bring it back out. Thankfully Tamsie was much more diligent and got pictures of everyone which you can see on her blog. Even though I told everyone not to bring gifts, Tamsie gave me this beautiful yarn bowl from Dancing Pig Pots. I've been wanting a yarn bowl for years- how did she know? And whats even better- it was filled with luxury yarn. Two balls of super soft cashmere in a nice, neutral light brown and a ball of Sanguine Gryphon's sock yarn (one of my favorite dyers).

My mom also brought some presents, a couple of new tops (all which I love and fit perfectly) and my new mp3 player! I've been looking forward to it since I picked it out online a month ago. Only, its so tiny! I didn't expect it to be so small. I'll have to make it a little case or else I'm certain to lose it.

On the way home, DH and I stopped by Best Buy to pick up his present to me- new speakers! These are for my studio so that I can listen to podcasts and audiobooks while I dye yarn. I've been using my laptop but its speakers are so quiet that I can't hear some podcasts over the noises of dyeing.

And since there happened to be a Barnes & Nobles in the same shopping center we stopped in to pick up a copy (or two) of the new Yarn Forward (Thanks for letting me know its out now, Tamsie!). Usually I just buy the digital version but this month I had to have the real thing because of Laurel Coomb's gorgeous sweater pattern "Ruth's Tunic", designed for Gradiance yarns.

All in all, a great day! Now I think I'll curl up with a hot drink, my knitting and my sweet husband!

Support Testicals!

And Prostates. And mustaches. November, I mean MOvember, is the month that men everywhere grow their mustaches out to make people more aware of men's health issues, in particular prostate and testicular cancer. There is so much attention and funding given to research for breast cancer, which is great, but not as much attention or $ given to the male equivalents. The boyfriend of a friend is participating by pledging to grow his mustache for the month of November in exchange for donations. Its like a marathon, but for lazy people. You can support Michael and all men by giving a donation. Even a few bucks is fine-- it all adds up! Click the button to donate or find out more.

Workshops at Knit Picky

If you are in NC and interested in fairisle knitting, Knit Picky is hosting a couple of workshops next weekend and still have open spots! I'm taking the color palette class on Saturday morning. See you there!

This week in crafts

Reading this blog you probably get the impression that all I do is eat. I'm o tend to talk about my food a lot. But I'm also quite crafty. Often I can't talk about my projects because most of what I do is knit, and most of my knitting is "secret" until the pattern is published. But this week I've been working on lots of little things that I can talk about (plus one sewing project that I can't talk about now, but will share photos of next week). We are going to Sock Summit next week to sell yarn and this is the biggest even that we have attended so we have been crazy busy preparing. Mainly this has meant dyeing pounds and pounds and pounds of yarn, but I've also had some fun little craft projects for the booth. As if the booth wouldn't have enough color already, I decided to make our signs colorful too! I bought a bunch of those cheap plexiglass frames and heated them so that I could bend the stand parts back so that they are flat on the back and then glued ribbon to the top to hang them. I haven't done any scrap booking in ages so it was fun to have an excuse to go shopping in the scrap book aisle. As a dyer, all the colors combinations in the paper aisle are a lot of fun!

We needed something to display the shawl sticks in but they couldn't be bulky, breakable or heavy since everything has to be shipped in boxes across the country. So I grabbed a couple of Crystal Light containers out of the cabinet (sorry about the little crystal light tubs everywhere, Chris) and covered them in fabric. I just used some scraps from previous projects and glued them to the plastic cups with fabric glue- no sewing required. A very quick, easy, cheap (free, since I used materials I already had) solution!

I also used up a bunch of fabric scraps making these half aprons for Kelly and I to wear
in our booth. Its very helpful to have a calculator, pen, and receipt pad handy to check people out quickly and at our last show it seemed like we were often misplacing these things. I'm also a bit worried about leaving cash in a box under the table at a show this larger. So I made these aprons with lots of pockets in the front to hold all the "stuff" we need and a big zippered pocket to put cash in. We'll probably still have a box to put change in so that we aren't weighed down, but this way we can have our bills/checks on our bodies at all times. If you click on the picture it will get bigger and its easier to see all the pockets.

I also whipped together this crocheted swiffer cover one afternoon when Avi's hair was driving me crazy. The swiffer works really well for getting up her hair and other dirt and debris tracked in from the back yard on the kitchen floor, but I often have to use two swiffer sheets to do the whole floor. This crocheted cover has little ruffles on it so its much better at catching hair and larger debris and can hold on to more at a time. Plus I can just shake most of the hair/etc. off into the trash can and re-use it. Once it gets too dirty to keep using I'll just throw it in the wash! The pattern is free and very fast and easy. I used acrylic yarn since it seemed like it might have more static cling than a natural yarn. Plus its a great way to use up acrylic yarn in your stash that might not be nice enough for other projects!


I haven't been doing much knitting lately because I've been so busy with other things. Last night I couldn't take it anymore, though. I had to knit something. I do have a lace project on the needles but I wasn't in the mood for something requiring concentration so I made a little heart sachet with some left over Green Sheep Worsted and filled it with a mixture of cedar chips, mint leaves and essential oils known for keeping away moths and other bugs. It was very fast/easy and I think I'll be making several more to give as gifts.

This week in food

Well actually I should say the past two weeks since I didn't find time to blog last week. On July 21st (last Tuesday) our CSA box contained tomatoes, potatoes, Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, basil, a head of garlic and cantaloupe. Chris cut the cantaloupe up before I was able to get a photo! We used the basil and some of the garlic to make a pesto which we mixed with cherry tomatoes (either the ones from the box or from the garden- I can't remember) and pasta for a light, but flavorful dinner. I roasted the rest of the garlic and plan to use it and the potatos in a loaf of garlic-potato bread, once I find a spare minute or two to mix up a batch of dough. The cantaulope was sweet and refreshing, perfect as a snack or even as a desert. Its been oppressively hot and humid lately so something cool and light is just what we've needed.

Our own garden is producing mainly jalapeno peppers right now, though we are beginning to have a steady stream of tomatoes and the occasional squash. The tomatoes we'll often eat sliced with olive oil and mozerella but the peppers aren't so easy. Chris will sometimes add them to a meal but even so he was barely making a dent on the pile of peppers forming in the veggie bowl. So he decided to make pepper jelly using this recipe. He had never made jam before but I have, so it was fun to have the chance to teach him something in the kitchen for once! While we had the big pot out for boiling the jars I also canned up some of the relish that I made a few weeks ago (it had been marinating in the fridge and waiting on me to find time to can it). I'd hoped to also make a couple of jars of blackberry jam this week, but its looking like I won't have time.

Today we actually got two CSA boxes. Several weeks ago we were out of town when we would normally pick up our box so we asked them to not pack us one for that week. That gave us a "credit" that we could use to get a second box the week of our choice. Since we are planning a BBQ with friends for this Friday we decided to double up this week in case there was anything in the box we could serve with dinner. And we got lucky-- it looks like we'll be having watermelon for desert on Friday! We also got more tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and red bell peppers plus our first eggplants. I have no idea what to do with eggplant, its not something we normally eat. So I guess we'll be experimenting this week!

I'm beginning to wonder if I should make some salsa or spaghetti sauce to use up all these tomatoes...