Yarn Zombie

Yeah, it’s a biggun. Over 500 yards. Haven’t done this in a while, so it sort of felt like I spent a few lifetimes today plying it. I also got a bunch of other misc. unfinished yarns off my bobbins. This was all stuff that had been on the bobbins for forever, and has since lost any twist. Hooray for single plies?

I’ve gotten a bit more organized in the past week, and so can now find other fiber than just the Sheep Shed stuff. So I may start on a new yarn, or I may try weaving a rug with the Sheep Shed 2 ply. I’m a little concerned that it isn’t as thick as a rug yarn needs to be, and may wear out quickly, but I guess I can always repurpose it into something else, like a curtain or tablecloth or something. I’m not even sure where I can set the loom up to be warped at this point. Things are still kind of in flux here, with only about half the furniture that we really should have (Whither Ikea?).

In other news, here is a picture of the very nice stray cat who seems to have adopted us. I call her Skinny Black Cat.

Make a batch of crepes. Mine were chocolate, made with cacao powder, but whatever, as long as they’re sweetish. Freeze said crepes in between layers of parchment paper. Then, when crepes are frozen but you are hot and need a refreshing treat, remove frozen crepe from freezer, smear with a bit of speculoos butter, and then smear with some ice cream (I used vanilla, but again, whatever). Fold the crepe into a taco and nom. I think I just discovered what I will be eating the rest of the summer – ice crepe tacos with all sorts of different ice creams and add ins (Trader Joe’s roasted coconut chips and sliced honey almonds, I’m looking at you!).

No pictures because I ate that crepe taco scary fast.

In other news, still unpacking, starting to make the new place look more like a house and less like some crazy hoarder’s garage. Started the second ply of the Sheep Shed remnant yarn. I think I will weave it into a rug after it becomes yarn. House with hardwood floors = rugs. Lots of rugs.

There is a neighborhood cat who comes up on our second story deck and spies on us when we’re in the bathroom. I whipped up some sloppy curtains for that room, but still, I can feel Voyeur Cat out there, waiting…

So, we moved. Ohio wasn’t doing it for us anymore, especially not the tiny corner of it we were living in. Too long of a commute for Travis, too crappy of a schedule (or lack of one, really) for his work, too far away from good food and anything of any interest going on. We surveyed our options and landed, weirdly, back in Indiana, from whence we came. Well, a little different – we moved to Lafayette, a place I had only been to maybe twice before we decided to move there.

We’ve been here since mid-May, and so far at least, our quality of life has skyrocketed. Travis actually has a schedule now, with regular days off, and he’s home every night which is still incredibly novel to us. We’re renting an extremely odd half of a house and have free reign to basically do whatever the hell we want to it, which is awesome. Travis doesn’t have to mow the grass, so he’s happy. We live within about a 2 minute walk from downtown, so we’re super close to the restaurants and bars, and we can wander across the bridge over to West Lafayette, which is home to Purdue University (which we give no craps about, but university towns normally always have something interesting going on). I have a local yarn shop within walking distance!

As far as the food situation goes, I wouldn’t call Lafayette a food paradise, exactly, but I can say that every place we’ve tried has been fantastic (thank you, Urbanspoon!), and compared to where we were living, OH MY GOD, FOOD, GET IN MY BELLY, SO GOOOOOD! There is a tiny doughnut place nearby with angelic doughnuts, a Mexican bakery on the north end of town that I want to try every single pastry they have (we started with churros and cornbread – both amazing), a pizza place that makes fried macaroni and cheese balls with smoked gouda, and so much more. We have to actively stop ourselves from eating out all the time because there are so many places we want to try.

Fortunately, the kitchen in our new place is gigantic, and we’ve been cooking a ton, too. Travis has been grilling pretty much every day. We also planted an herb, veggie, and flower garden on our second story deck, so we’ve been able to harvest some greens from there so far.

The actual moving part sucked, though, as moving always seems to do. We’ve got so many hobbies, and so much stuff for all of them, I would just kind of freak out after packing for a while. I started to knit these yarn balls during my freak out times:

I was trying to use up weird bits of yarn and bags of fiber-fill. I made a buttload of these, and wound up using them as packing material for our glassware. Now I just need to figure out what to do with them now that we’ve moved. Maybe make a ball pit for the cat?

Bela seems to be doing pretty well in most regards. She’s been getting three decent sized walks a day, and has Travis home a lot more than in Ohio, so she’s happy. She is not happy, however, about the couch situation. We got rid of our old couch in Ohio, and haven’t replaced it yet. We basically have no furniture in our house for seating. So we’ve been sitting on the floor, pretty much, and Bela has to, too. She misses her old comfortable couch, and I bet she wakes up every morning wondering if we’re ever going to get a new one. Some day, Bela. Some day. Some day we’ll make it to Ikea and get some new stuff. But not today.

We still don’t have all of our crap over to the new place yet. We have some stuff in storage a few hours away, and we’re going to try and get most of that over here tomorrow. But the stuff we’re missing is things like shelving units, and until we get those and some other new stuff, we’ve got a lot of boxes that have yet to be unpacked. After a few weeks of unpacking and painting (I painted one bedroom lime green with fuchsia and orange trim. And the ceiling is midnight blue. And the walls and ceiling sparkle. It is INSANE!), I needed a break, so I took the evening off and spun the first yarn of the new place:

Most of my fiber is in storage except for one bin of random undyed Sheep Shed remnants. So, earth toned themed yarn it is! It felt good to spin for the first time in forever. It’ll be nice to get the rest of my fiber and fabric out of storage and in the new house. I say ‘new,’ but the house is actually old, like over 100 years old. It has high ceilings and huge windows and will probably be terrifyingly expensive to heat in the winter, but for right now it is still charming. I am going to make a small army of ass-kicking curtains. I am very much looking forward to that. I am looking forward to a lot of stuff here.

Working on a pair of socks for Christmas and using up one of my skeins of handdyed that didn’t sell. Ha! You fools! It is AWESOME! I love it so much. Variegated yarn rocks. I don’t think I could ever knit with a solid color yarn. It just sounds so… sad.

(Yes, I know this picture sucks, and all my pepperonis are over to one side, but screw it – this isn’t a food blog, and I don’t care)

Anyway, I just made this for lunch and it was AWESOME. Also, quick – from start to finish, it took less than 10 minutes.

Ingredients
1 egg
2 oz. milk
1 oz. flour
A bit of Italian seasonings (I just dumped a little bit of Penzey’s Italian Dressing Mix into it, but you could use oregano, garlic powder, crushed red pepper, etc)
Pepperoni
Shredded Cheese

In a small bowl, combine the first four ingredients one at a time, whisking thoroughly (I just used a fork) between each ingredient. Get a small skillet out and wipe it with just a bit of a stick of butter for lube. Heat skillet to medium heat, then pour the crepe batter in – you can pour half in for a thin batter and make two crepes, or just dump it all in like I did for a thicker crepe crust. After the bottom sets and the top isn’t jiggly anymore (but still isn’t cooked all the way), slide the crepe off onto a plate. Place pepperonis in the empty skillet, and then dump some shredded cheese on top. Don’t be afraid. Once the cheese is on top of the pepperonis, put your crepe, uncooked side down, on top of the cheese and pepperoni. Let cook until your pepperonis are crispy, your cheese is brown, and your crepe is done.

I picked it up and ate it like it was a big flatbread, but depending on what size skillet you use and how thick your crepe is, folding it in half or rolling it into a tube (and possibly stuffing it with more good toppings, like sauteed onions and peppers) would be the way to go. Actually, next time I might saute the peppers and onions in the skillet first, so it’s already pre-lubed and warmed with olive oil, and then cook the crepe in the same skillet. Heck, you wouldn’t even have to take the peppers and onions out of the pan, just pour the crepe batter on top and then cook as above. OMG! THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!

(Props to Michael Ruhlman, whose basic Crepe ratio is what I bastardized for this crepe. He recommends letting the batter sit for 1/2 hour before using, but dammit, I was hungry now.)

(Yeah, I know, I haven’t posted in forever. I don’t care.)

Last year, I tried making Smitten Kitchen’s Thick, Chewy Granola Bars. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, because I never do, but instead just threw anything that was vaguely granola-y together and called it done. And the granola rocked. So, that is now my go-to granola recipe.

It’s the middle of summer, and Travis and I are trying to eat healthier and also have portable food for when we go on bike rides. Today is the one moderately temperatured day we’re supposed to have in the next two weeks, so it was time to bake like the wind!

Adding a degree of difficulty was the fact that I wanted to make a ton of granola, and also try experimenting with different flavors. I wound up making 4 batches, each one different. I think they all turned out pretty good (except for the one that turned out awesome!), so here are the recipes, inspired by Smitten Kitchen. Each recipe starts with a base of 1 2/3 c. quick rolled oats, and a mixture of oat flour and flax seeds. Basically, since I knew I was making 4 batches, I put 1 1/3 c. oats and 1/3 c. flax seeds in the food processor, and whirred it until it was all flour-y. Then, for each batch, I added a quarter of this mixture. I wasn’t precise. You don’t have to be. It’s granola. Don’t stress out.

Each batch of granola has 2 1/2 cups of a combination of dried ingredients. I basically just got out a big glass measuring cup, and started throwing food into it until I reached a total of 2 1/2 cups. So, there are no precise measurements for each of these ingredients. Use whatever you have in a ratio that you think is best. It’s granola. Don’t stress out.

I had some ingredients that were larger than I wanted in the granola. So, I whipped out the kitchen shears and cut my dried fruit into smaller pieces. For things like nuts, I just tossed those in the food processor and gave them a whirr. Nuts are good for you, but I prefer to have them in tiny pieces in most foods. Also, be careful if any of your nuts are salted – some of my sunflower kernels were, and they wound up being almost overwhelmingly salty in the bites that they’re in. Use salted nuts sparingly, and if you are going to use them, omit the additional salt in the recipe.

Dry ingredients (oats, cereal, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, chocolate chips, sugar, spices, etc) go into one big bowl. Wet ingredients (butter, nut butters, vanilla, honey, syrup, water, etc) go into another bowl. Stir the wet ingredients until they’re combined. Dump wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir. Dump moist ingredients into a parchment paper lined 8×8 pan. Get out a piece of plastic wrap, place on top of granola, and smash the granola down with your hands. It’s fun! Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool, and then either cut yours into granola bars or, like I prefer to do it, just throw the whole thing into a freezer bag and deal with it when you go to eat it. Sometimes I like bigger chunks to nibble on. Sometimes I like small, cereal-sized bits to actually eat as cereal. It’s granola. It’s going to be good either way.

If I was an actual food blogger, I’d have some extremely pretty photo of the granola here, maybe a sample of each kind with tiny flags denoting which granola is what flavor. But I’m not, and hey, it’s granola – it all kind of looks the same! So here’s a photo of two of the batches cooling on my dining room table, complete with random papers and weird things in the corner. It’s not pretty, but it is tasty (the granola. Not the table).

Apple Cinnamon Granola
Dry ingredients
1 2/3 c. quick rolled oats
About 1/3 c. oat flour and flax seeds (see above)
1/2 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
2/3 c. brown sugar, loosely packed
sprinkle of grated nutmeg and powdered lemon peel
2 1/2 c. total of dried apples, pecans, sunflower kernels, Kashi 7 grains puffed cereal
Wet ingredients
1/3 c. almond butter
1 t. vanilla (I used Mexican vanilla, but whatever you have will be good)
1/4 c. honey
2 T. agave syrup (in retrospect, I probably should have used maple syrup, but didn’t think about it until it was too late. Regrets!)
1 T. water
6 T. melted butter

Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola
Dry ingredients
1 2/3 c. quick rolled oats
About 1/3 c. oat flour and flax seeds (see above)
1/2 t. salt
2 1/2 c. total of chopped peanuts, peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, sunflower kernels, coconut, Honey Nut O’s cereal (from Trader Joe’s), wheat germ
2/3 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
Wet ingredients
1/3 c. peanut butter
6 T. melted butter
1/4 c. honey
2 T. agave syrup
1 T. water

Choco-Berries Granola
Dry ingredients
1 2/3 c. quick rolled oats
About 1/3 c. oat flour and flax seeds (see above)
1/2 t. salt
2 1/2 c. total of wheat germ, semi-sweet chocolate chips, Trader Joe’s Golden Berry Blend (blueberries, golden raisins, and cranberries, I think), pistachios, pecans, coconut, sesame seeds, and Kashi 7 grains puffed cereal
2/3 c. granulate cereal
2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t. cinnamon
A sprinkle of powdered lemon peel
Wet ingredients
1/3 c. almond butter
6 T. melted butter
1 t. vanilla
1/4 c. agave syrup
1 T. water

Tropical Granola
(I think this one turned out the best, and I really regretted not having some dried pineapple or macadamia nuts to throw in it. It’s really good as is, though. Dried green mango is now my favorite thing.)
Dry ingredients
1 2/3 c. quick rolled oats
About 1/3 c. oat flour and flax seeds (see above)
1/2 t. salt
2 1/2 c. total of pistachios, peanuts, pecans, coconut, wheat germ, sesame seeds, flax seeds, dried apples, dried green mango, white chocolate chips, sunflower kernals, and Kashi 7 grains puffed cereal
2/3 c. Turbinado sugar
1 t. cinnamon
2 t. curry powder
2 T. crystallized ginger
dash of cayenne and powdered lemon peel
Wet ingredients
1/3 c. peanut butter
6 T. melted butter
1/4 c. honey
2 T. agave syrup
2 T. pineapple juice
1 t. vanilla

They’re all good, like I said, but the tropical one is the bomb. The curry and cayenne really add an extra layer of awesomeness to it.

In other news, I’m still busy with my Etsy camera shop. I’ve been messing around with Google+, which I like quite a lot so far. It’s nice for me, since I often have too many words for Twitter, but not enough to justify a blog post. Oh, and I’ve been doing a lot of knitting. See?

Yes, I made a weird I-cord rug thing, which is knitted and then crocheted. I don’t properly know how to crochet, but it seems like it worked. Also have made some scarves and socks, none of which I have pictures of, because it is SO HOT and I haven’t worn scarves or non-athletic socks in months.

I have also been spinning, a small amount, anyway.

I have not been dyeing anything, though, because I am so not in the mood to do so. Also, I have a boatload of fiber and yarn that needs to be made into things, so that is what I’m into right now. Actually, I mainly into riding the bike. I feel all healthy when I do, and it gives me a sense of accomplishment, like, “Hey, I actually rode from one town to ANOTHER town today! And back! I am awesome!”

Hello! What’s been going on? I’ve been busy, mainly with photography related stuff and the odd bit of travel here and there. We went to New York and New Jersey!

And South Carolina and Georgia!

Yay travel! But now it’s the summer (almost), and time to just hang out at the homestead for the season, enjoying our deck, doing various crafty things, and sweating. Heck, I even spun yarn the past few days for the first time in a million years.

Crazy, I know! I’m going to try making socks out of it eventually. One ply is bamboo and the other is superwash wool. I’m not sure how well they’ll hold up, but what the hell – I’ve got a ton of handknit socks, so there’s no reason not to experiment.

I’ve got a couple of projects I’d like to get on the loom, too. My aunt Dorie sent me a skein of really awesome felted wool yarn she bought at a farmer’s market, and it’s just crying out to be made into a rug. I just need to figure out something appropriately sturdy and earthy to use as the warp.

Last summer I got Michael Ruhlman‘s Ratio cookbook, and that turned out to be pretty inspiring. I haven’t been in the mood to cook much lately, but weirdly, after the temperature reached the mid-80s here, I got the strangest sense of de ja vu and was all, “Must… make… noms… from Ratio…” So tonight, I tried making homemade mayonnaise for the first time. It’s a simple combination of canola oil, lemon juice, egg yolk, salt, and water. I wasn’t too keen on doing fifteen minutes of whisking, so I used my stick blender instead. The emulsion broke the first time I tried it, but after adding extra water, it was all good.

Since getting into making old cocktails, I’ve overcome my fear of consuming raw egg. Still, I had to mentally psyche myself up to try it. It was pretty tasty! I had some on a sandwich (pastrami, mayo, cheese, and homegrown lettuce on wheat), but I think I would like it even better as a french fry dip, a la those wacky Dutch.

We also just got an ice cream maker. I’ve been holding out on getting one, waiting to come across a good deal, and lo and behold! Costco had the Cuisinart 1.5 quart ice cream maker I was looking at for $40. And it came with an extra freezy bowl. And it was bright red. I’m a sucker for colors.

The first thing I tried making with it was the frozen yogurt recipe from 101 Cookbooks. I really liked it, but Travis was all “Eww! Gross buckets!” (paraphrased) But, you know, more for me. I ate the last of it this afternoon topped with fresh strawberries and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Holy good eats, Batman! Also, why the heck do I never remember that I really like strawberries? What’s up with that? I need to eat them by the bushel.

The second thing we tried in the ice cream maker was essentially frozen pudding. It was a recipe in the ice cream maker cookbook. Essentially, mix up milk and instant pudding mix. Insert into ice cream maker. And that’s it. It turned out pretty much exactly like it sounds, except the texture was kind of… odd. Unsettling. Maybe it needed to freeze longer. We ate it, but I can’t say I respected myself very much.

So, my next two adventures with the ice cream maker will be to make a strawberry-lime sorbet (complete with fresh strawberries, lime juice, and lemon and lime zest, for flecky goodness!), and to come up with a hybrid ice cream/frozen yogurt concoction that is frozen yogurt based, but tastes enough like ice cream so that Travis won’t be sad. I’m thinking about just mixing up a little of the creme anglaise from Ratio with some strained, sweetened yogurt. Also, if I don’t get to try this chocolate sorbet recipe from Vanilla Garlic soon, I think I’ll just die.

OMG… chocolate-strawberry-lime sorbet? Too many flavors?

I’ve got some Mexican chocolate (the kind that comes in wheels and is flavored with cinnamon) that I want to try mixing into some sort of frozen dessert, too. And hey, the ice cream maker is supposed to be the bomb for making frozen daiquiris and margaritas and such! The mind is boggling at the possibilities!

On a different note, I watched the Lost finale and liked it.

Do I wish the mysteries regarding Walt and the Dharma Initiative (Alvar Hanso, anyone?) had been solved? Yep. Do I feel like watching the whole series was a waste of my time? Hell no. You want to talk about a waste of my time? Let’s talk about the ending to the book Cold Mountain, shall we? I literally almost threw the book out the window when I got to the end of that. ARGH!!

So now Lost is over, and there’s just a few episodes left of Breaking Bad and Justified. I haz a sad. What will get me through the summer until Mad Men starts again?

And oh yeah, there are roosters in my neighborhood now. Sometimes, even in my front yard.

It’s all well and good until they wake you up at 4:59 am crowing. Then, not so good.

I’ve discovered two new (to me) food blogs that I’ve really been digging lately. The first is Ezra Pound Cake, which I was immediately drawn to because of the name. I’ve bookmarked about a million of recipes on there, including this Beer Bread we made about a week ago and didn’t photograph because we were too busy eating it.

The other site is Macheesmo, which I ran into a few days ago and have so far made 3 recipes from. We rocked the fire roasted salsa, blender style:

Made a Spanish version of pasta carbonara, using chorizo and manchego cheese:

And, because I had a few lonely balls of fresh mozzarella leftover from the last time we made pizza, I decided to give Macheesmo’s homemade fried mozz recipe a shot.

They were a little fiddly to make, and I avoid deep frying as much as possible (I hate the thought of pouring a ton of oil into a pan and then dumping it all out later), so I cut the mozzarella balls in half and fried them in just about 1/4″ of oil.

They turned out fine.

Well, more than fine. Delicious. Easily consumed. Longed after.

Travis and I also made some deep dish pizza for the first time yesterday. We used a recipe that I won’t link to, since the crust turned out kind of odd tasting. Not really tasty. The fillings were fine, and it cooked without any problem, the crust was just weird. I still like making regular pizza better, but I do want to give the deep dish another shot, this time just using our standard pizza crust. I mean, it’s cooked in a cast iron skillet in the oven – surely, using a different crust, it will turn out delicious, right?

So, I finally finished picking off all the tiny scraps of paper on the back of the quilt top. That was the hard part. The actual basting, quilting, and binding were a piece of cake.

I had actually sewed all of the squares together a long time ago, probably circa 2004. I think my original intent was to make some grandiosely huge quilt out of millions of 3″ squares, but, predictably, I was distracted by something shiny and all of the squares and fabric I was using got put aside in a box to sit. For YEARS! Anyway, it’s done now, finally. The quilt wound up being a 48″ square, which is a perfect size to thrown on top of the coffee table/chest thingy in our living room.

Anyway, the squares were taken care of, but I was still left with a bunch of strips of fabric from my fabric cutting insanity when I was paper piecing the squares. Yesterday I sorted all of the fabric strips by length, and then started sewing them all together into longer pieces of fabric.

I’m not measuring anything. I’m not trimming off selvages, or unevenly cut ends. I’m not being anal about making sure all of my sewn lines are straight. To hell with it. I have a bunch of fabric strips that have sat around being strips for 6 years, and it’s time for them to get to work.

It’s actually quite freeing. Once I get my longer pieces of fabric sewn together, I’ll look at what I have and try to fashion all of the pieces into a biggish rectangle (I’m thinking somewhere around twin sized to a couch sized quilt). If there are any gaps, I’ll just fill them in with other big fabric pieces. Because if there’s anything I happen to have, it’s about 17 tons of fabric that’s waiting to be used.

Once I get done (that is assuming I get done without being distracted by something for another 6 years) with this quilt, I’m going to make some really big, bold geometric quilts. I’ve got a bunch of fabric I hand dyed a while ago, and I’m finally in the mood to do something with it. I want to do big, chunky quilts with gigantic shapes and crazy quilting. Monochrome quilts that use only dozens of shades of blue. Stuff like that. I did a few years’ time with paper piecing and applique and fiddly little sewing, and none of that really grabs me anymore. So big, bold, and messy is the way to go.

In addition to the quilt, also made some delectable, ohmygodthisissobadformebutidon’tcare chocolate caramel matzo cookies.

Except I had to use saltines because there was a mysterious matzoh shortage at Krogers. Which is kind of random. Anyway, they still turned out awesome. Recipe from Zoe Bakes.

Still on the sock repair knitting brigade. Finished fixing a pair of Travis’ socks a few nights ago, and have started in on another one. I feel a bit like I’m in knitting purgatory.

We went to go see They Might Be Giants again, this time playing a kids show in Columbus. My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew went, too, so that was fun. I mean, it has to be fun when this much confetti is involved, right?

Weirdly, we were allowed to take pictures and videos inside the concert. So I did.

Puppets were involved.

Yay, knitting! John and John are just barely visible in that picture – they’re down in the corner, playing puppets in front of the camera.

Here’s Istanbul (not Constantinople) with a wicked horn intro. Also, more confetti!

It was a good show. But any concert that features confetti, knitted puppets, giant foam fingers, and accordions has to be a great concert.

The weather this past weekend was pretty awful, cold and damp, but it looks like it’ll start warming up tomorrow. I’ve got some dyeing I’m going to get done this week to replenish the yarny goodness. I’ve also got some odd cotton yarns that I’ll probably post soon (in the next few days or so) that will be on sale, and some fibery samplers. I’m in the kind of mood that wants to clear out a bunch of the older fibery stuff I have in order to make room for new fibery stuff, so there will probably be a lot of randomness in the shop soon. Mmm, randomness…

I’ve actually been knitting a ton lately, but most of it has been repair work on old knit socks – a bunch that I knit a million years ago are starting to have the heels go out on them, so I’ve been doing a lot of reknitting feet. Yes, I’d rather reknit the whole foot of a sock than darn it. Is that weird? I hate darning.

I’ve also been kind of working on getting a small (well, 48″ square) quilt made.

This should just be a piece of cake – all I have to do is baste the top, batting, and back together and then do simple machine quilting, but unfortunately for me, all of the little squares are paper pieced, so Travis and I have spent the past week picking little bits of paper off the back of it. I expect to get the paper off in the next few days, and hopefully can get this quilt done before it starts to be a major albatross.