February's Sweater

... February's Baby Sweater, to be exact.

It has taken me a month to complete, but on the very last day of February this lovely little sweater will be finished and sent off to a baby girl, recently welcomed into her family.  The pattern is from The Knitter's Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmerman and it was my first sweater!

Forgive the lack of buttons.  I have only about 3 choices at the house, none of which are quite right, so I'll have to buy some and sew them on en route.  The pattern itself, once I understood what dear Elizabeth was saying, was easy enough.  I followed many others' leads on Ravelry who suggested knitting the sleeves in the round so as to avoid any seaming.  While I do hate seaming, I think that next time I might choose that over the several problems I ran into working in the round.  More on that in my ravelry notes.

 

The yarn is a wool/acrylic blend.  When on a budget and knitting for a baby, it seems like a better choice.  Hopefully the wool will make it warm and the acrylic will make it durable {soft} and machine washable - only I cringe at what EZ would say! 

The weather here seems to be getting warmer sooner than usual but not so warm that babies don't need to be cozy.  I think the pattern on the sweater also lends itself nicely to early spring weather as well.  Hopefully this little girl (or more likely her parents) agrees.

beauty in the mundane

Bringing Order From Chaos: Laundry Day

There are some days when pretty much all I do is laundry.  After reading Home Comforts, I've been inspired to do the laundry well in order to help our clothes last longer - this includes more sorting and hand washing than I'd been doing previously.  The result is that we have wonderfully clean, well folded and ironed clothes but the total process seems to take me all day and somewhere in the middle of it, I look around my house and just see laundry everywhere (yesterday I even had a tie hanging above the kitchen sink).

This is the moment I challenged myself to find something beautiful in it, so I picked up my camera.  Of course, to me, the most wonderful part of laundry day is slipping between freshly cleaned sheets at the end of it but the satisfaction in seeing a of a row of well-pressed, ready-for-business shirts is a close second.

Everyday may not be brimming with excitement, but everyday can be beautiful.

a few little things

Little knitted items for a soon-to-be-here little person.

Grady's co-worker is preparing to welcome a little girl into the world and we're doing our part to make sure this baby looks cute and stays warm.

These are Baby Janes.  Aren't they just so cute?!  The pattern is free on Ravelry, the yarn is Bernat Cottontots (not wool, I know ... but it's very soft and was already in my stash).  The cutest ladybug buttons are from my new favorite yarn store, Loopy Yarns.

This sweet little cap is supposed to have a ribbon running through the bottom edge.  Once I find a craft store, I'll be purchasing something red and possibly polka-dotted to match the ladybug buttons.  I made a few changes to this pattern (also free on Ravelry), which you can read more about in my notes.

These are the first items I've made for a baby and I must say it might become an addiction - they're just so little and cute when finished and they give you near-instant gratification because you can make so much in just a few hours.  Good thing I know another baby or two in the world who I'm sure would love to have a little knitted gift!

little gifts

So much knitting was done over the last month, even down to Christmas morning!  Yet that's not what I'll share today - knitting post forthcoming.  For a few more simple gifts this season, I headed to the kitchen where I made cookies for Grady's coworkers and in addition ...

Homemade Vanilla

It's really quite easy, so long as you're over 21.  I used a ratio of 3 vanilla beans to 1 cup of vodka.  Split the beans down the middle (I also cut mine to get them to fit) and put them in a jar with vodka.  Store in a dark place and shake every so often.  In a few weeks you get homemade vanilla!  Apparently when you start running out of vanilla, you can just add more vodka, as long as you keep the beans in the jar of course.

This gift hasn't actually been given yet, but I plan to put it in a pretty jar before giving.  The pictures were taken the day I made it - it's now much darker and almost at the point of being ready.  Next year, I'll start it before December!



Home-canned Pears

Not much to this one {aside from the fact that I canned my own pears!!!! hehe}.  Just come dressed up jars that we gave along with some delicious, hard goat cheese to family who graciously hosted us in their home for a few days.

 

Ooh!  One last one that I'll add although we didn't exactly wrap it up and present it ...

Homemade Eggnog

Yes!  It was so delicious and totally worth it.  No additives or emulsifying agents or high fructose corn syrup in this glass!  Just fresh eggs, milk, and a whole lot of whipped heavy cream {plus just a bit of dark rum - enough for flavoring - seriously}.

This is the only picture I have and it doesn't do it justice.  Believe me that it was thick, creamy and delicious.  We used the Cook's Illustrated Best Holiday Eggnog recipe that we got from their Best Holiday Recipes book/magazine.  Highly recommended!

Mmmm yes.  Holidays were meant to be delicious!

christmas baking

It's really coming!  Christmas will be here (and gone again) before this time next week.  I'll take this as a reminder to savor every last moment of it.  I will also be savoring every last, delicious cookie!

Late last week, Grady was in need of some basic gifts for his co-workers and so I decided that a day of baking was in order.  Above are your classic chocolate chip cookies.

Well, they are actually called "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" by America's Test Kitchen, the recipe for which can be found here.  I spent at least 30 minutes looking for what I thought might be the best recipe and according to many people posting on TasteSpotting, the New York Times recipe is actually the best ... but it requires a 24 hour refrigeration before baking and I didn't have that kind of time.  The recipe I chose seemed to be a good runner-up among these food bloggers.

But that's not all by way of cookie making!

A full 50% of my heritage is Norwegian - a fact I am proud of and one that my family acknowledges more than our other 50% (which happens to be German and Irish).  This is likely because my maternal grandparents are both 1st generation Americans and while their spoken Norwegian is a bit rusty by now, they are still very proud to be from that great land.  This is a fact that my family celebrates mostly at Christmas when we eat boiled cod and rice pudding (something that I'm sure will show up here later).

We also enjoy these simple cookies called krumkake.

I received a special press to make these from my grandmother for our wedding but this was the first year I actually set about using it.  My chocolate chip cookie batter made about 20 cookies ... my krumkake batter made about 60, yes, 60 cookies.

Traditionally, we eat the krumkake rolled with whipped cream and sometimes raspberries stuffed inside (although if we were good Norwegians I'm sure they'd be lingonberries).  For Grady's workplace though, the rolled ones are more fragile and make more of a mess and I couldn't send fresh whipped cream with him - so I sent mostly flat cookies.  The fun part about the flat ones is that you can appreciate the beautiful little design on them.

This is the thing about Norwegian cookies (also food, decor, and most else that is "Norwegian" with the exception of knitted garments) - they are very plain.  As a child, chocolate chip cookies were always chosen before the krumkake.  But now I find myself appreciating the simplicity a bit more.  Just butter, sugar and eggs with a pinch of cardamom.

Tomorrow we leave for our annual journey back east so I may not be in this space for the next week or so.  Perhaps a photo or two will make it to these pages over the busy days ahead though!  I hope that we will all be able to drink in the fullness and joy of this time and allow our hearts to celebrate.

O come, O come, Emmanuel.

God with us.

dinner from a chef

After my most recent trip to the library, I came home with the usual pile of books that can be sorted into 'Food Books' and 'Baby Books.'  {Just to head-off anticipated questions, we're not trying to "start a family" right now ... although of course we are a family even without children but I think you get the meaning I'm getting at, no?}.

On the top of my 'Food Books' pile, was a little audio version of In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.  I am probably one of the few who is very enthused with the local, clean food movement who has not read the book that preceded this one, The Omnivore's Dilemma.  While I plan to pick it up in the future, I also know plenty of the wrong that he writes about and am already convinced it's not a good thing. 

Enter: In Defense of Food.  This book was intended to be a follow-up to the Dilemma and offer some ideas of where we should go from the point of "lots of bad things are happening in the industrial food world."  Let me just say that I got this audio book simply to entertain me while I was knitting furiously and instead I listened intently and vowed multiple times during the listening to change my lifestyle and tell the whole world!  {When ideas strike me as true I get rather passionate :-)}.



I would beg you to please read this book (traveling for Christmas?  Take it with you!).  I'll try not to make it out to be the most awesome thing ever, but he draws many aspects of food and culture into his writing that I think strike at the core of what needs to change and why and he does so without sounding too much like a crazy "you must eat local, organic and not to is sinful" kind of person.  If you want to hear him give a sort of short summary of the book, watch this video.

All this to say, I became much more highly motivated to make good, real food and enjoy, even savor it!  Thankfully I had checked out another book to help in such a quest: Harvest to Heat.

The pictures are gorgeous - the stories of chefs and farmers are enchanting - the titles of the recipes make your mouth water {they are written by famous chefs, after all} - the foreword is written by Alice Waters.

My highly motivated, Saturday-morning-fresh self picked many of our meals for this week from this book - including last night's supper of "Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Braised Plums and Crumbly Blue Cheese."

Hours after commencing, we enjoyed the product of our (rather significant) labor.  A dish that could have been served  - albeit, not made by me - in some fancy locavore restaurant!    Delicious?  That wouldn't be the exact word I'd choose - an interesting taste experience - would be more like it.

More importantly, it was a meal that reminded me that it is worth it to spend hours cooking from scratch, using foods that are full of nourishment for both body and spirit.  I am by no means a gourmand, but I do enjoy putting effort into something that I can be proud of and that my little two person family can take pleasure in.

What have you been cooking these days?  Any delicious ideas to share?

Clam Chowdah!

We did some good eating this weekend!  This is thanks in large part to Grady, who can throw together a meal that tastes (and looks) excellent without hardly thinking about it it seems.  I'd be jealous of this skill except that I benefit so much from it.

Our plan for dinner Saturday was "fish."  Which turned into "fish soup" when we realized we had fish stock in the freezer {homemade - aka I boiled fish heads, which is kinda gross}.  Grady, seeing clams at the fish counter and upon seeing, desiring, decided that Clam Chowder was on the menu.

A can of clams (less mess, less expense, clams didn't have to fly here from the ocean) and a few flourishes later, we had ourselves one delicious bowl of chowdah.  I have gotten in touch with my New England heritage!  Haha.  Maybe a little late since I now live in the Midwest where there is no ocean but, because of my Midwestern-yet-seafood-loving husband, I feel a little bit closer to home.  Of course, I never liked seafood growing up but I do love the ocean!

Ah, yes.  I could just feel the salty wind on my face and hear the crashing waves.  I imagined us sitting together in a little cottage by the sea, cupping our delicious bowls of chowder and keeping warm from the salty, cold air outside.  Too much from a bowl of soup, you say?  Well, perhaps you're right ... or perhaps my imagination will prove a reality someday when we are much older.

It also reminds me of a book that was a childhood favorite - One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey.  A girl live on an island in Maine and goes out one day with her father and little sister on errands, including digging clams.  Many excellent things happen along the way but the last page is the girl in the back of her dad's little boat yelling, "We're going to have ... CLAM CHOWDER FOR LUNCH!"  Or at least my dad always yelled the last part.  Finally, I understand the excitement.

Post-dinner time brought a makeshift "fire," roasted almonds and cuddling on the couch.  It may be cold outside, but I don't mind if it means more candles and soup and cuddling.