Knitguy

Apparently my petpeve for being late doesn’t transfer over to bloging Daring Bakers chalanges but here goes…

The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.

The origional recipe tells you to bake it in a tart pan, but knowing that there was no way I’d be able to easily eat an entire tart over a week I figured they’d be a little more manable in tartlet form (that way I could take them places as a very sweet snack). I was a little worried about how they’d come out of the muffin pan but clearly my buttering and flouring wasn’t in vain – they came out very easly.

That being said some of the bottoms weren’t thick enough and at times the lingonberry jam filling wanted to ooze through them. Either way, they were amazing, a bit too sweet (I could have used less jam) but very very good.

This is my newest toy that I got today at Black Sheep. A Strauch Petite drum carder that I bought from Carolina Homespun this afternoon. I made a bee line over to her booth when I got out for my lunch break during the my first of two Nancy Finn workshops this weekend. Today’s workshop was Lanaset Color Wheel Workshop. Basially we dyed a bunch (63) of samples (silk fabric, they didn’t need setting and they dry super quick) from combinations of red, blue, and yellow along with black. Tomorrow’s workshop is Rainbow Dyeing with Lanaset Dyes which broken up between tomorrow afternoon and Sunday morning. We’ll be dyeing silk blends tomorrow and then we can bring in our own stuff on Sunday.

This month’s Daring Cooks challange was brought to us by Jen over at Use Real Butter. The challenge was, as you can see, potstickers. Now, as much as I love most filled dumplings (as long as they don’t have cheese in them) and despite the fact that I can totally do the pretty little turns that seal the edges of empanadas, I can’t for the life of me crip a a posticker.

Despite their sad appearance they turned out fine though, very tasty with nicely browned bottoms. The dough on all of them has a bit of a orange ting from something that I added (may have been the 5 spice powder).

On the fiber front, I’m spinning up some of the merino cross I got earlier this year for a possible cardigan. I have about a third or possibly half of the singles spun up. Also, next weekend is Black Sheep Gathering down in Eugene. I’ll be takng two dyeing classes with Nancy Finn (of Chasing Rainbow Dyeworks and will try to blog while I’m down there (”try” being the oprative word there).

I’m a day late for posting with Daring Bakers this month but such is life I suppose. The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

So I’ve had a lot of apple strudel in my life and in reality – it’s not my favorite thing in the world. I like it, but I like a lot of other things (specifically a lot of other Viennese desserts). That being said – I know How it’s supposed to look and this – well it’s like a lazy person’s version, or at least it looks that way. The dough its self was actually really easy to roll out, it it was thin enough and large enough, where I ran into problems was the whole “roll it out with a table cloth under it” bit. I don’t think we own a table cloth which meant that I had nothing to help roll it up with and yea – it was a bit of a mess (I rolled it out on our glass table). That being said it tasted amazing! There also wasn’t any oozing of anything which I was a bit worried about because of the sheer lack of structural integratity.

This was also the first posting month of Daring Cooks. What was the recipe you ask? Ricotta gnocchi – let’s note I LOVE gnocchi but generally can’t stand anything that is based in cheese (I don’t like most cheeses – see the cheesecake daring bakers challange). Of course I didn’t make the gnocchi because no one would have eaten them but yesterday I did make potato gnocchi with beef ragu from my favorite Epicurious recipe.

This is possibly my favorite recipe ever for both gnocchi and ragu. It makes way more gnocchi than I can easly eat with in a week but thank god they freeze really well.

And because I promised new knitting, I finished these today.

They are knit out of handspun that I spun up months ago from some Allspunup fiber. I think it’s merino but I’d have to double check to be sure.

I’ve been really bad about posting lately (suprise suprise) so finally, this morning, I decided to take the time to take some pictures of what I’ve been up to as of late. The socks above are the Barber Pole socks that have been on the needles for about a month now. They could have been done weeks ago but I proceeded to loose my cable needle (I need to just keep a large stash of them somewhere). Of course when I bought a new one last week I was already onto yet another sock which meant this one got set further aside.

I also spun up this:

Which has become this:

I finished the first sock yesterday and will hopefully cast on the second either tonight or tomorrow morning.

The April 2009 Daring Bakers challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. Now lets note – I don’t generally like cheesecake. It’s not the texture that I don’t like, it’s the fact that it has cream cheese in it and me and most cheeses don’t mix. Cream cheese is especially bad to be because it has that tangyness to it that I really just can’t deal with so my goal was to create a cheese cake that doesn’t taste like a cheese cake, that doesn’t have that cream cheese charactoristic.

I ended up deciding to make a tiramisu cake heavy on the chocolate, figuring that the espresso and the chocolate should overshadow a good amount of tang and substituting mascarpone cheese (a cheese I don’t mind at all) for half of the cream cheese. I also used lady fingers (and butter) for the crust and pieces of lady finger in the batter its self (they had a tendency float to the top). All and all it tasted really good (especially considering that it was the first time I’d ever made cheese cake), but when it came down to it – there was still enough cheesecakeyness for me to not really enjoy it. My mom only at a sliver and proclaimed that it tasted too much like coffee for her tastes (she hates coffee).

This showed up at my door last week! After a few weeks of emailing back and for the Morgaine at Carolina Homespun my 25 inch Schacht Flip is finally here! It took a few weeks because I originally ordered a 24 inch Kromski Harp and then called them so I could also order a Will Taylor JMM Lazy Kate (they aren’t listed on their website), then she had to go to a retreat, then when she got back it turned out that the Harp was back ordered for 6 weeks so I decided on the Flip (which she had in stock) and a 4 yard warping board.

Originally that was wrapped up in a few yards of bubble wrap (which I’m still having fun popping because there does still seem to be a 6 year old in me) and you can still see the plastic wrap that’s holding together everything that came with it. You can’t see it in the picture, but there’s also a manual, 2 locking screws (one for each side), and 10 apron cords in ziplock bag.

Here it is completely assembled. The flip comes almost entirely assembled (thank god if only because as much as I love putting things together, it looks like it they assembled it better than I would have been able to) with the exception of the apron rods which are attached with two dowels (neither of which you can see in this picture) and the apron cords. It also comes with two loom clamps (which I still haven’t really figured out what to do with), a warping peg that has a clamp attached, a heddle hook, 2 stick shuttles, and a 8, 10, or 12 dent rigid heddle (I chose the 10 dent).

Here it is warped with some Jamison Shetland and the finished table runner (clicking the pictures will get you bigger pictures).

As I said in the beginning, I also ordered a Will Taylor JMM Kate (which is also called a Crazy Kate) in walnut. There are two more pictures here and here.

I’m back again, kind of. My life has been really crazy lately but in short I am on medical leave from Sarah Lawrence (I should be going back in the fall). I flew back to Portland last Thursday morning and am just kinda hanging out at home. So yea, that’s where I’m at right now. I’m not exactly happy about being back (though I do love Portland), but this does make cooking in general a lot easier (and more enjoyable, which leads nicely into this month’s Daring Bakers challenge.

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

So the real challenge of this DB challenge was making the pasta by hand. It was a spinach pasta, hence the green (and I so made it after St. Patrick’s day) and I ended up having to add just under a quarter of extra water to make the dough come together (even after a reasonable amount of kneading).

After cutting the dough in quarters and letting it rest came the “oh – I have to roll this out and I forgot the good rolling pin at Sarah Lawrence” part. So I ended up rolling it out with both our really bad rolling pin and heavy bottle of wine (actually it was a small bottle, but it happened to be right infront of me) and, after rolling it out to as thin as I thought I could by hand, I cut it into strips, and did a few more passes ont he single strips alone.

Because I generally hate all things dairy (with few exceptions) I didn’t put a whole lot of the bechamel sauce on it and I didn’t put any cheese on it (I grated fresh parmasian on after I took this picture). I also used my standard goto ragu that can be found here (the pasta recipe and other ragu recipe is here). All and all it was pretty good but there seemed to be something off. I think it’s more of a function of me almost never eating lasagna (by choice) because my mom loves it.

My life has been a bit stressful lately which is the main cause for my lack of frequent posting, but I have still been doing fibery stuff.

I got a three pound babydoll south down fleece last week from the same woman I got my last south down fleece from. This one is really really nice. A bit of vegetable matter, but considering I flick card it before combing it, it’s really not going to be an issue. That’s a picture of it after I separated chunks of locks for washing. I washed it yesterday and it’s laying on my sweater drying rack attempting to dry as I type this.

This is what it’ll turn into, a two ply merino/babydoll south down blend. I combed the two fibers together and then spun the resulting top worsted. Because I knew the babydoll would make it bloom, I washed it as if I was washing a woolen yarn. The result is a really soft, springy, squishy yarn. I really like the heathered look that this blend makes as well.

I also started Chrissy Gardiner’s Barber Pole socks that are in the current Twist Collective. I’m knitting it out of the most recent Crown Mt. Farms superwash merino I spun up and I’m really liking how they’re turning out. I’m almost done with the first sock (I could easly finish it with in the next hour) and I like that it’s not turning out as dense as some of my other handspun socks have. I also am happy that the stripes are close enough in color (or rather, are in the same family) that it’s not obscuring the cables too much.

It’s not so much that I haven’t been doing a lot lately – it’s that I’ve been too lazy to post. I figured I should post now because a. it’s been way way too long and b. there might be a snow day post tomorrow (Monday – yea I know it’s already Monday, but it’s 2am so for all intents and purposes it’s still Sunday). With that, on to the yarn!

That’s my newest handspun (ok not true, it’s the newest handspun who’s picure is on my computer and is more than a sample skein). It’s heavyish fingering weight three ply yarn out of Crown Mt. Farms’ superwash merino (the same stuff they make Sock Hop out of) in the Knocking on Heaven’s Door colorway. It’s 8oz and around 390 yards (dense much…).

This is 100g or so of the lovely merino that I got in raw form earlier this year. This is my (rather large) sample skein of it. I spun it out of top that I combed and it was really great to spin. It is a bit overspun and think and thin in some spots, but generally speaking I really love it (and really – it’s just a sample skein).