Warm winter robes

I actually finished a project in a timely fashion! I made good use of my Friday off and finished the better part of two robes for husband and I (the last of mine was finished Saturday morning). I use Butterick 6837, robe A, as seen below:

Since the flannel I was working with was relatively light weight, and it gets very cold in here in the mornings, I decided that instead of just doing a contrast color on the cuffs and collar, I would line the whole thing by cutting out the pattern on the second color in reverse and putting it all together. I also left off the pockets because I have never found anything useful to put in a robe pocket.

The pattern was very easy, actually made easier by lining the whole thing then having to make my seams look nice and working with fiddly little facing pieces. The collar part was a little tricky, although to be fair I did not read the instructions thoroughly for that bit and just muddled alone on my own there. other than that it was easy as pie. One side of mine is a little bit wonky as the fleece stretched and the flannel didn’t…I could fix it relatively easily and probably would if I was making it for someone else. But the truth is, I’m far too lazy to rip out that many stitches for something that is, essentially, pajamas.

His:

Mine:

I love love love them!

Chicken Pot Pie So Amazing I Didn’t Even Have Time to Take a Picture

Seriously, this went FAST. I’m not really a pot pie girl… I like if fine, but I consider it husband food. And I usually make it with cream of chicken soup. But I decided to try it from scratch and it was a huge hit. I wish I had a picture because it was so lovely and flakey coming out of the oven. But hunger won out!

Crust:
1 stick salted butter, cold
2 c all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
approx 1/3 c ice water

Filling:
2 red potatoes
1 c chopped celery
1 turnip
1 parsnip
1 small onion
1 chicken breast

(Honestly, any combo of root veggies will do, but this is what I happened to have and it was a nice mix. I imagine celeriac, rutabaga, or fennel might add interesting flavors. I loves me my potatoes, though.)

Gravy:
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp lemon pepper
6 tbs butter
6 tbs flour
1 1/2 c chicken stock
3/4 c whole milk
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp parsley
2 tsp rosemary
1 tsp sage
1 tsp savory
salt to taste (This will depend on your kind of chicken stock… mine is homemade with no salt in it, so I always need to add salt. If you use canned you may not need to add any)

Start with the crust. Cut cold butter into flour and use your hands to crumble it throughout until it is well mixed with the flour. Add salt and then add ice water slowly, continuing to mix the dough with your hands. You want to add as a little water as possible and still get it to form a dough that you can roll out. Do not knead it. As soon as it is moist enough, stop adding water and form it into a ball. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least ten minutes while you start the veggies.

Chop all veggies and chicken into small cubes. Place in a wide-bottomed saucepan with about an inch of water on the bottom. Simmer this, covered, for about 15 mins or until the veggies start to get soft. Drain and set aside.

Take out your dough, divide in half and roll out for the top and bottom crust of your pie. Line the pie pan with the bottom crust and add the veggies. This crust will roll out relatively thick, for a nice hearty and flakey pie.

Preheat the oven to 425 and start the gravy. Melt the butter in a saucepan and saute garlic with lemon pepper until garlic begins to be transparent. Slowly add flour until you have a thick paste. Then pour in the chicken stock in small doses, fully incorporating it into the flour mixture each time before adding more. Add the milk the same way. By now you should have a robust gravy. If you feel it is too thick, add more chicken stock. Add Worcestershire and spices and simmer for a few minutes for full flavor. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

Pour the gravy over the vegetables in the pie pan and then put on top crust and seal. Cut hole in top to let steam escape and bake at 425 for 40-45 mins. Serve piping hot.

Try it! You won’t be sorry!

 

 

Food!

I’m not even going to comment on how long its been since I last posted something to either of my blogs…

Tonight I made our own dinner, prepped dinner for tomorrow, prepped lunch for tomorrow, and made a big ol’ pot of chicken stock.

Dinner tonight was Asian Style Salmon, with brown rice and steamed broccoli:

 

Ingredients:

2 medium salmon fillets
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 small onion, minced
1/4 c soy sauce + 2 tbs
1 tbs sesame oil
1/4 c rice wine
2 tbs brown sugar + 2 tbs
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp dill
1/2 tsp black pepper

Combine all ingredients, except salmon and 2 tbs each of soy sauce and brown sugar, in a shallow dish. Poke salmon several times with a fork and place face down in marinade. Marinate 1/2 hour to 3 hours. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pour off marinade into small sauce pan and place salmon in oven. Add 2 tbs brown sugar and 2 tbs soy sauce to marinade and reduce on stove until thick and syrupy. Bake salmon until moist and flakey, 10-15 mins. Serve over brown rice and pour sauce over all.

NOTE: I know some people are scared of using marinade that has touched raw meat as a sauce. If you can explain to me why eating a marinade that has touched raw meat and then been cooked at a high temperature for decent period of time is more dangerous than eating the meat itself after it has been cooked for a long period of time, then I will stop. Obviously, I never do this unless I am thoroughly boiling the sauce!

Tomorrow’s lunch is asparagus and fontina cheese sandwiches, and tomorrows dinner is chicken pot pie with root veggies – from scratch. I will post recipes if they come out okay; if they do not come out okay I will pretend they never happened and go get McDonalds.

Christmas Crafts, part 1

I have started  the great Christmas Gift Making Endeavor 2009. So far I have 2.5 gifts made, which is pretty good for the beginning of November. I probably can’t keep up this pace though because I am naturally lazy, and because my parents will be visiting from Thanksgiving to Christmas which means all of my free time will magically evaporate around Monday, November 23. I can’t post pictures of some of my projects here yet, as people they are intend for might see them, but I will put up what I can.

I’ve started on a purse for my friend and coworker, K. She likes dragonflies, and has several pieces of jewelry with dragonflies on them. I found some lovely dragonfly-printed silk in the remainders bin at Joann fabric and decided to make a purse. Unfortunately, I did not think to take pictures earlier on in the process. I’ve never made a structured purse before, so I had to design from scratch. I drew out a simple pattern on some muslin: an oval base and two trapezoidal sides. I cut the trapezoids in two pieces, so the bottom part would be the print and the top would be plain black silk. I cut the side pieces, sewed them together, and backed them with light-weight fusable interfacing and that stuff that sticks fabric together when you heat it, and then sewed the pieces to the bottom oval. What we currently have is this:

And the inside:

The sides I don’t think are stiff enough with the interfacing I had, and the bottom definitely isn’t stiff enough. At Joann I bought some of that plastic stuff people use for needlework projects which is pretty tough, and I am going to cut that to size and sadnwich it on the bottom between the outside and the lining. Then I’m going the side lining pieces and attach them to some seriously heavy duty interfacing I bought today, sew the lining together, sew it into the bag, and then carefully run the iron in there and hope it all fuses together poperly. I purchased some straps from Joann for that professional look, and some magnetic snaps for closures. Since this is my first purse I’m not going to try anything fancy with the closure or with pockets, although I may make a small inside pocket for a cell phone.

I also want to get some silver satin ribbon for the outside where the two types of fabric meet, and a decorative buckle to make it look really chic. Joann let me down on those two fronts, though, so I’ll have give Michael’s a try.

Also while at Joann (I swear, they aren’t paying me anything, it’s just the only fabric store around!) I found the best fabric for a robe for husband. Which led to a robe pattern, lining fabric, and fabric for a robe for me. But really, how can you resist dino-flannel for your paleo-oriented hubby?

You can so not tell in this pic, but the lining I chose is hunter green to match the T-Rex. Both are flannel. The pattern (Butterick 6837) calls for only accents on the collar and cuffs, but I’m going to line the whole thing to make it warmer. I chose something more girly for myself.

The flower print is flannel, the blue is no-pill fleece. I want mine to be very warm since I intend on not turning the heat on until its well below freezing out. Okay, maybe not. But I’m pretty hardcore about the electric bill. I wonder if I’ll have enough fabric left to make some slippers…

Duvet Cover, part un

Our lovely warm down comforter has sorely needed a duvet cover for years now. It used to be white and not have holes in it. Neither of those things is true about it any longer. This is what happens when you have cats and the bad habit of eating in bed while watching TV. For awhile we put a blanket over it, which helped aesthetically, but it soon was shredded by kitty claws and fell off a lot.

I’d toyed with the idea of making a quilted duvet cover for awhile, but hadn’t been able to think of a pattern that appealed to me. I wanted something sleek, but airy. Nothing cluttered or complicated. While I admire country style quilts and enjoy making them, it just doesn’t seem to fit with what we have going on the bedroom now, or what I plan for the future (which involved lots of candles, clean lines, and dark wood). I wanted something that showed of vibrant colors and different textures, while being simple and not difficult to piece.

At last, during an extremely boring conference in San Antonio last week, I hit upon a design I thought would work. Large, simple block in the same color family, each of a different shade, pattern, and texture. Plain sashing in between. As soon as I got home I took myself down to the local JoAnn Fabric, and after some intense conference with one of the helpful store ladies, selected these six fabrics for the project.

The lighting isn’t the best, but they are (clockwise from bottom right): an aqua calico cotton quilting print, a sea foam linen embroidered with simple daisies and tasteful sequins, a blue-green quilting cotton with a modern print, a teal satin crepe-type material, a silk sari fabric, and a turquoise broadcloth. The latter is very close to the current color of the walls. Here are some details of my favorites of the bunch:

In the store I was very concerned about whether they would work with each other and with the current decor, but I decided to take a chance. What was iffy in the harsh flourescent light of the store is much more elegant in the yellow tones and soft lights of the house.

The pattern I settled on is 7 x 6 10.5″ squares arranged with each fabric going in the diagonal, and 2.5″ white poplin sashing between each square. The border will probably be about 4″ to accomodate the dimensions of the existing comfortor. I have the top about 3/4 of the way pieced without the border.

The sari fabric and the crepe are by far the hardest to work with, as one wants to unravel, and one wants to stretch widthwise constantly. It seems to be working pretty well so far though, although there is some puckering from lazy stitching on my part, and some of the seams I will want to go over again when I get a zig-zag foot.

My next problem is how to assemble it as an actual duvet cover. I’m leaning towards quilting this to a back layer of plain fabric with no batting in between as if I were making a stand-alone summer weight quilt, and then making another, totally different pattern for the reverse side such as a horizonal irregular rectangle pattern in brown and red. In for a penny, in for a pound, and it would be nice to have the freeddom to change the decor at will. These two would be sown together with ties at the corners and an invisible zipper at the bottom. I’m worried the end result will be too bulky, however. Still, I think it could be very impressive and funky looking.

It has also occured to me that while I am making a cover for a somewhat delicate item, several of the fabrics I am using are even more ruinable and delicate than the existing comforter. I don’t imagine sari silk stands up to cat claws very well. It’s far too late to change things, so if anyone has any ideas on how to stop kitties from fighting on the bed when you have no way to lock them out of the bed room, I would love to hear it!

Best Chocolate Peppermint Cake Ever!

For Thanksgiving dessert this year, I decided to make something new. Bored with my usual pumpkin pie (and sadly unable to find my faithful cheese pumpkins locally) I was at a bit of a loss for what would be special enough for the ocassion. Thankfully, the December issue of Bon Appetit magazine came just in time, bearing on the cover an absolutely irresistable  and daunting Devil’s Food Cake with Peppermint frosting. The recipe can also be found at Epicurious, for those of you with the time and patience to undertake this monstrosity.

Weighing out the chocolate chips for the ganache filling. The recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate, but I used half Ghirardelli milk chocolate and half Ghirardelli bittersweet chips, which I thought gave a richer flavor – not that this cake needs it!

The ganache, before it cools. I cooled it overnight and then let it heat to room temp before spreading on the cake. In the the future, slightly warmer than room temp might have made spreading easier.

The cooled white chocolate ganache for the other filling, being mixed with the cream the next morning to make it spreadable.

All mixed and smooth. This is the stage where we add the peppermint flavor.

I was a little wary of the peppermint… I like minty things but I often find things listed as “peppermint” too harsh and strong for my taste. In this instance, however, I decided to trust the recipe, and I was rewarded. The peppermint flavor of both the white chocolate ganache and the icing was subtle, intricate, and just right. It tasted somewhat like high-quality peppermint bark. Only in a cake. With chocolate.

The cakes ready to go in the oven. In retrospect, I should have invested in quality cake pans that were as high as the recipe calls for. Why?

Because this happens. I also blame my slanty apartment, slanty oven, and very slanty cookie sheet (which I should not have used as a “stabilizer”)

I attempted to slice them horizontally in a manner that would correct the unevenness as much as possible, and this succeeded to a point.

Here’s the finished product. There are no pictures of making the icing, as it was difficult enough to get it just right without stopping to take pictures. I’ve never been much good at the frosting process itself, and there were definite gaps in the cake due to the baking issue. That also came back to haunt me after transit to my aunt’s house, when the entire easten slope suffered a slow motion avalanche.

Despite the cosmetic defects reviews were positive, and I really enjoyed eating it myself. Even I, in my extreme pickiness, couldn’t fault the flavor, only the presentation. I hope to try it again, this time with proper equipment! The recipe itself, although very complex and requiring a lot of time over two days, was relatively easy to follow. It was challenging enough to keep my interest, but not so challenging that I couldn’t comprehend it at 6 am on Thanksgiving morning.

I highly recommend this for people who have baking experience, but do not make cakes often and want something impressive and just a little bit daring.

The Rescue Files: Vlad’s Story

Brian and I foster cats for the Feline Rescue Mission, an excellent no-kill cat rescue which has found homes for hundreds of cats over the past couple years. Normally we just take whoever they give us, but at the end of this summer things got a little more personal.

Our feral cat friend, Bella

brought us an unexpected surprise one day. Four babies!

First we caught the two orange ones (Owen and Cope), then the black one (Vlad) and then the dilute tortie (Buffy). Vlad proved to be the quickest to tame, despite being nearly a month older than his brothers when we finally nabbed him.

One by one our lovely babies went off to homes. Owen and Cope went together to a family with kids. Buffy went to a couple of professors who work at the University, and Vlad went a nice older gentleman just five minutes away. We missed them all but were glad they had found such wonderful homes.

After a few months, Vlad’s new daddy called me and asked if we would consider letting him stay with us while he went to visit family in Colorado for a few weeks. We were more than delighted to have a visit from our favorite “son”.  By that time he had grown into a handsome teenager, and quickly made friend with Squirt and Stumpy, our two other black foster kittens.

Everything seemed great, but then, a week before his father was supposed to return, I got a phone call. Vlad’s dad would not be coming back for him – he thought he might be allergic and wanted us to take him back. Poor Vlad is homeless again.

Hopefully he will find another home soon, but until then he will be with us. He is still skittish from his feral days, and doesn’t like to be grabbed at, but as soon as you sit down he is all over you. In the mornings, he likes to stand on your chest and purr. He’s had a rough life, and I can only hope he won’t have to go through too many more transitions before he finds a real forever home.

Quilting Project: Cable Sampler Afghan

My first knitting project of the New Year is the afghan from the cover of Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman.

I’ve been coveting it for two years, ever since I first saw the book, but I knew I would never be able, emotionally, to buy nearly thirty skiens of yarn for the project. Thankfully, the Good Lord invented Christmas lists, and my mom got me the yarn!  I’m doing it in KnitPicks’ “Wool of the Andes” Peruvian highland wool yarn, in “Lake Ice Heather”.

So far I’ve done 6 of the 24 panels needed to make the afghan. Its been a very educational experience for me, as I’ve never done much charted knitting and some of the stitches were totally new to me, particularly for this panel:

I’m a little nervous about doing all the seaming so it doesn’t show, especially since the first four panels I did in size 8 needles, instead of the size 9 called for (oops!). They are the same length as called for and only about 1/4 in less wide, so hopefully it won’t be a problem come assembly time.

I’m also a little nervous about the border, as I have a bad track record with picking up stitches around the edges of things. Oh well, this is how we learn.

This last panel, the type of which I’m working on now, is a new style of cabling to me. It’s really easy, but I typically prefer the more standard aran style of cabling. Still, I’m sure it will look good with the rest of the blanket.

I don’t know how much longer this project will take me, but I’m hoping to have it done before the summer (I’m a slow knitter, and I have too many other hobbies) and move on to other, more wearable projects.

Introduction

This will be my blog for all sorts of randomness, mainly centering around cooking, creative projects, fiction, movies, and cats. In all honesty I probably won’t post too much here until sometime next week, as this week is going to be simply insane and after my surgery I probably won’t be in a crafty mood. Hopefully once all that is over with I will have pictures, recipes, and projects in abundance!

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