out the door

Finally got these out the door!

My aesthetic with sock bands favors handwritten/drawn ones over ones I could design on my computer. It feels right being that the band is encircling handknit goods.

I try to make the cover personal.


I always include care instructions and fibre content.


And with these socks I decided to include some Fun Facts.


Unrelated: I just discovered that blogger has a new post editing template. Fancy-schmancy! I'm still trying to get the hang of it. So far, it is annoying me. Which is strange for a google product. Aren't they supposed to be like Jedi mind readers or something? Doesn't "google" really mean "intuitive?"

Also I want my images to be as big as possible (without getting really obnoxious) and my classic blog template is messing with that. Sigh. The images are getting cut off on the right. Probably has to do with the width constraints of this template. For now you'll have to click on the image to get taken to the full image. Guess I'll have to sit and monkey around with the code for awhile to figure this all out. Stay tuned.

plain-janes

(Trying something new: blogging via flickr. Let's see how this goes... I can't figure out how to make the photo bigger so I gave up. Grrrr...)

Did I mention that I knit a pair of gloves?

I started these last Friday while waiting for dinner to be done. A pleasant way to spend a quiet Friday night on the couch with m, watching reruns of The Office (the American version), a kitty or two tucked in between us.

I was done with one glove by the time we went to bed. How awesome is that?? I love you worsted weight yarn.

For now they are functional and pretty in a plain-jane sort of way. I have some thoughts to embroider the backs with a yellow snowflake inspired by something I saw in an old issue of Martha Stewart Living.

The best thing about knitting your own gloves is that you can get them to fit just so. Seems I have kinda big hands and long fingers. Most gloves do okay on the hand-fit but the fingers are always pathetic. Kind of like when you wear tights and the crotch hangs down between your thighs? The finger-crotches of my gloves always hung out lower than they ought to have. But with handknit gloves, no more!

I'll leave you with that thought.

(Ravelry deets here.)

progress

The och looks positively terrified. But I assure you that this is her normal facial expression.

me, leftie + the och

Every time I take a progress shot of my tummy I think "sheesh I am HUGE." I looked back at my previous progress shots and thought "look how much smaller I was back then..."

me+leftie at 30 weeks

It's all perspective you know.

chimichurri

M and I used to eat semi-regularly at this chain Argentine steakhouse that was just down the street from where we lived in LA. I'm not sure how authentic the food was but it was good, conveniently close by and very reasonably priced. Most of the stuff on their menu I bypassed in favor of something healthier (yowsers but do they like to deep fry! add a side of cheese with that too). One thing that we both really liked about that place was the dipping sauce they served with the basket of bread. I learned later that it's called chimichurri sauce and so easy to make.

I used this recipe following it more or less faithfully except for the bread part. I served the flank steak as the main course with the sauce on the side for additional drizzling or for dipping the bread (untoasted). Last night was the second time I made this dish and M couldn't stop talking about how much he enjoyed it. He even went as far as to say that it was the best meat dish I had ever made. Shazam.

I should note that I consider myself a mediocre (red) meat cook(er). I'm still learning how to work with red meat. I've overcooked it a few times and was so bummed that I tend to undercook meat most of the time figuring that it's easier to fix an undercooked piece of meat than an overcooked piece. Most nights I stick whatever I undercooked into the microwave for about a minute and a half and we're good to go. I'm sure there are chefs out there who would tear their hair out if they heard this, but shhh... let's just keep it between us, k?

I think that probably the problem is that I don't have optimum tools to work with (a grill, a stove top that sits level so my pans/oils/juices don't tilt/run all to one side) and also I need more practice cooking different cuts of red meat. But since we try not to eat too much of it I don't get the practice I need. Ah well. It's a learning curve.



With last night's meal I served the flank steak with mashed potatoes and I sauteed some kale in chopped garlic and olive oil with a teaspoon of chicken stock paste. At the last minute I added a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and covered the pan to let the greens cook down to tenderness. It was really good! I've been sort of bored with my cooked greens lately. Feeling like they all sort of have the same drab but nutritionally good for you taste. I mean I love vegetables and greens, don't get me wrong. But I was getting bored. Last night's kale renewed my interest in leafy greens. I'll have to remember what I did with them.

Also I baked some bread to go with the chimichurri sauce. Had to or there'd be hell to pay. I've had some better luck with my bread baking. Although the very first half loaf I tried was the best and last night's would have taken a tepid second place. Let's not even discuss what happened with the second batch I tried to bake a week or two earlier.

I'm thinking though that bread baking is best done all in one go. I'd made up the dough the previous night letting it get one good rise before I'd punched it down and rolled it up and packed it in some plastic wrap for a sleepover in the fridge. I'd left my plastic bundle of doughy love to rest on top of the brita water filter and yesterday evening when I reached for the dough I found that it had overflowed out of the plastic and poured itself out over the filter and cascaded down next to a can of soda that was sitting behind the filter. It was kind of funny and amazing and grotesque. Go yeast! I guess. I had to pull out the filter, dough and can of soda all at once in order to carefully disengage everyone from each other. I set the clean dough aside on a baking tray after I shaped it so that it could have a second rise. But it seems that the dough had pretty much risen as much as it was interested in rising. I'll have to think about that and figure out where I went wrong.

The bread was good. But perhaps a little too doughy? And not crusty enough. The recipe I used instructs you to put a pan of water at the bottom of the oven while it's preheating and leave it in there while the bread bakes. I forgot to do that when I baked the best loaf. I remembered to do so last night and I think the crust suffered for it. Ah well. Learning curve I tell you.

turkey stroganoff, sort of

I made turkey stroganoff for dinner the other night. I used to make this all the time and then I sort of forgot about it. It shows in this meal above. Tsk, tsk, so many things I did wrong.

The recipe is something I whipped up one night and I've been calling it stroganoff but it's probably not a real stroganoff. I've never cared enough to check or correct that.

I sautee chopped onions and mushrooms in olive oil and then add some ground turkey meat to the pan and get that nice and cooked too. This last time around I used very lean ground breast meat and I think that was where my trouble lay. Next time around I'll get a small package of dark meat and sautee that up with the breast meat. I think this dish needed a little more fat in the animal kind of way. If you know what I mean.

And once the meat is mostly cooked I add a dollop of light sour cream and give it a good stir. I just keep adding more sour cream until the consistency is where I like it (runnier than a cream sauce). Then some herbs and seasoning: crushed garlic, dried thyme, paprika, a bay leaf some salt and pepper. This last go I added some dried oregano and rosemary but probably that wasn't the best idea. It was okay. But not the direction I wanted the flavor to go.

Meanwhile I had a pot of water going for the pasta. Again, I used a pasta that I'd not normally use for this dish. I think it works better with a spiral pasta or a wide noodle like parpadelle or fettucine. Oh well. It still tasted fine. Just not what I was intending. I get the pasta at not-quite-al-dente and drain. I add the pasta to the pan with the meat sauce and stir it up. If the sauce is a little thick, I'll add some of the pasta cooking water which thins it out some but not as much as adding water or milk. The glutens from the pasta will bind the sauce so it stays creamy. And at the end I added a tablespoon of chopped up tomatoes (leftover from something else I was making) and frozen peas.

So, like I said. The dish didn't turn out the way I'd intended or usually make but it was still a good dinner. Served with a side of steamed broccoli.

the walk home (fall)

Lots of changes around my office. Lots less green and a little more color these days.


The evening after I took this photo there must have been quite a bit of wind. The following morning most of the branches were bare.

You can see a lot further through the woods now with all those nekkid branches.

My camera batteries kept dying on me making photography a little trickier. Also I had a bus to catch that I didn't want to miss.


Otherwise I would have spent a lot more time trying to capture this guy on film.

socks, socks

and one more pair that I forgot to photograph... dammit.


modified "Conwy" for cousin T. I have got to get these in the mail.

And manly velvet plum anklets for my favorite circus artist. I have to wash these and get them in the mail too.


Ravelry details for the green socks here and the purple ones here. You have to be a ravelry member to see 'em (it's easy and quick to register!).

tutti frutti

Isn't this a great poster?

If you click on the image to see the bigger version you'll see at the bottom right that it finishes off the line of the song by Little Richard.

It's a hand printed limited edition screenprint by Phil Abel, Nick Gill and Rosa De Carlo available at the Keep Calm Gallery.

I think this would look great in our home... If I collected all the awesome art and posters I wanted I'd quickly run out of wall space.

wanty

I want some easy socks to knit. No more crazy patterns. Just some simple stockinette in a self striping yarn. I think these yarns from Lorna's Laces would do me just fine.

(clockwise from top left: 064 gold hill, 509 satsuma, 118 woodlawn, 808 maple grove)

indulge me

Yesterday was my 30 week doctor's appointment. My doctor likes to do an ultrasound at this point in the pregnancy so we got to see leftie up on the big screen again. I love that.

She's gotten to be such a big girl! Although, weighing in at the 53rd percentile at 3.9lbs seems awfully small. But she took up so much more of the screen than she had in previous ultrasounds.

Here's a profile shot of her.

The first thing I thought (after the ultrasound tech helped identify which angle we were seeing her at) was that she has my grandmother's chin.

Here's her chin:


And her mouth:

And her nose:


Do you see that? It's her left profile. Got that?

Now I understand that you probably have never seen my grandmother, and maybe this isn't the most accurate photo of leftie since it's just an ultrasound, so maybe I'll change my mind about it when she's on the outside, but from my viewpoint, that's my grandma's chin. You'll just have to take my word for it.

And here's another ultrasound photo of her face. Her chin's to the left and her forehead's to the right.


Here, if you rotate the photo around counterclockwise you can see it better.

Look at that! I have to admit I struggle between thinking that this is the coolest thing ever and that it's a little creepy. Is that wrong? Look at those round cheeks and that little nose! Wowsers.

I keep meaning to do another photo of my growing belly. A progress shot if you will. Now that I've got my camera worked out (just needed to buy New rechargeable batteries), I'll try to get that done. If the weather is cooperative and sunny that is.

today I am sad

I really want to take this sewing class offered in Brooklyn. Back when I lived in LA and she lived in Kansas I didn't ever think I'd have a chance to meet her or take a class from her. Now I am in Stamford and she's in NY. Dudes! How awesome would it be to take a class to learn sewing techniques from Jenny Gordy??

This morning as I was getting ready for work I said to m: I want to take a sewing class in Brooklyn and I have a feeling that I am feeling unreasonable about this. Talk me through the pros and cons.

And of course, wouldn't you know it, the cons outweighed the pros.

Anytime I say that I'm not thrilled with living in Stamford, CT because there is nothing to do, it's so suburban, it's out in the middle of no where, etc. People always say: yeah, but you've got NYC so close by!

F-you random unhelpful suggesters.

It's just close enough to present a glimmer of hope but far enough away that it makes getting to and from it a little unreasonable.

I could get a ride from my co-worker who lives in Queens each Thursday that the class is offered. That would be easy. He leaves here at 3:30 and says it takes him about 45 minutes to get home. I would carpool with him. Take the bus from Queens to Brooklyn, find a cafe to get a snack/early dinner and then head over to the class.

It's only an hour and half long class. It's only 4 Thursdays. I'd be done by 7:30. But then I'd have to take buses and trains to get back to Stamford and according to google maps that would take about 2 hours. Yikes. That's unreasonable, right? Like a little obsessive/crazy? Right?

See? That's why I'm sad. So close, yet so far...

more random and more of no photos

Wow. I have been really behind on blogging. How lame of me.

-- M and I went apple picking on Friday. We both took the day off to drive up to NH to see his parents. We decided to take a detour and pick apples. It had rained earlier and it was still gray and wet but it was awesome. Like we had the whole orchard to ourselves. Us and the people who work there that is. We picked something like 20 lbs of apples. I am in love with the Idareds (I think it's spelled all one word but I called them Ida Reds). Though let's face it. All fresh picked apples taste awesome. Except Red Delicious. Still couldn't get into that one. The farm we went to was great. I'm not sure if we'll be able to be back since I'm hoping we move away from this area next year. But I'd recommend it to anyone who is in this area. Very reasonable prices and a wonderful selection. And organic practices in their farming. Yay!

-- M and I took his mum to see Young@Heart in concert on Sunday. It was a belated birthday present to her. The show was so kick-ass. See the documentary if you haven't yet. Try and catch them in concert if you can. I do believe that their cover of Bob Dylan's Forever Young is probably my favorite of their numbers.

-- It snowed in Worcester, Mass which is where the concert took place. SNOW! I kept my cool over my excitement. The locals get a little grumpy when Californians get all excited about snow. My in-laws are no exception.

Reasons for why people get mad at my excitement over snow:

It's freaking October 18th! When does it ever snow in the middle of October? (more or less a direct quote from M's mum).

They have had some pretty nasty and/or long winters the last few winters and so they're all sort of sick of winter. Snow=winter.

Snow also = shoveling. And scraping. Angelenos and other warm climate friends: This means shoveling your car out of the snow bank so that you can get into it. And scraping the windshields and sometimes windows so you can see through them. Apparently this is not fun or exciting or magical. It's work. And sometimes you have to do it 2 or 3 times a day (before you head off to work in the morning, sometimes after work when you get back in your car to drive home, and sometimes anytime in between when you need to get to your car -- hmmm... seems to me that if you didn't have a car, this wouldn't be such an issue. Another point for public transportation, my friends.) Multiply this by 5 months and you can see why there are so many haters when the first snow hits.

-- I'm starting to freak out about the holidays already. I think I am behind on my handmade gifts. This is because I haven't started making any of them yet. And my sister-in-law has already begun her holiday shopping. Eep!

random and no photos

--I decided to give the no-shampoo thing a try. The last time I shampoo'd my hair was last Monday. I did a baking soda/vinegar thing over the weekend. So far so good. I wondered how my long thick asian hair would fare with this but like I said: so far so good. I asked M to smell my head the other day just in case I did smell bad and didn't know it. He said my hair/head smelled fine. Then again he's gone shampoo-free too. He said he wanted to support my cause. I think he wants to shave another minute out of his shower time :)

If you're interested in trying out a shampoo free life, I got my inspiration from Amy and her resources (the shampoo-free link is towards the bottom of the post). Also the folks who shout out in the comments offer some interesting advice too.

--I'm so in the mood to bake these days! I think the apparent fall weather has something to do with it. The smell of the oven going with that crisp autumn air is just super. I made this banana bread into muffins a few weeks ago (following the suggestions of reviewers with the 1/4 cup brown sugar+1/2 cup white sugar combo). They were killer! Sorry, no photos. I brought half of them to work and ate most of the other half myself (M's not much into bananas. He showed quite the restraint even though I kept mmm-ing and such over how awesome these muffins were). And I learned the hard way that bananas do not agree with my pregnant lady state. (I'd always heard that they bind...)

--I've gained way too much weight in this past four weeks. Overall I'm where I need to be with my pregnancy and weight gain. But I can't keep gaining at the pace I've been doing lately. I blame the desserts. My first trimester I barely gained any weight and there was a little concern. So I figured I owed it to leftie to fatten up a bit. Usually I'm careful about how much sweets (and how frequently) I consume. Whoops. I guess I went a little too wild with those desserts. So even though I totally want to bake this amazing sounding carrot cake (into cupcakes of course) which I have been craving for like a week, I'm going to have to resist the urge. When I made those banana bread muffins? There was one day when I ate 4. Poor digestion is the only thing that kept from repeating that experience.

--I finished two pairs of socks this week. A third pair forthcoming too. Yeah! One was started back in February or something and the other back in June. One for me and the June ones were deadline socks (long missed) for a special someone. Deets and photos to come.

--I'm also really in the mood to sew inspired by this gal. I recently finished stalking her via her blog. Her clothes are so cute and then I got absorbed into her thoughts about motherhood/parenting/being pregnant/etc. Plus she lives in New Zealand which feels so glamourous.

--I finally got my library card and have been putting it to good use. My local branch does not have a great crafts/sewing selection. Too bad. But they have a decent DVD selection and so I've been picking up dvd's that I mean to watch but haven't gotten around to. Ones that M will never watch because they are too girly. Or ones he's already watched and I wasn't in the mood to see it that night and then I regretted it when he sent them back to netflix. It's a good way to pass the time while dinner's cooking and I'm waiting for him to get home from work so we can eat.

Confession: I still haven't watched Dirty Dancing and after Patrick Swayze passed I was reminded to check it out. Me and probably 30 other people who borrow from my library. I still haven't found it at my local library.

--M's office is having a fancy holiday party the first week of December. I told him I didn't want to go but he said we should postpone this discussion to another time when I was less grumpy. True, I was a bit grumpy at the time. But I'm not grumpy now and I still don't want to go. I think I am going to lose this one. He forwarded the invitation to me via email and it said that it's formal wear. Eep! What sort of formal wear am I going to find for this pregnant booty?

--I really hate shopping for clothes these days. I can't afford any of the stuff I'd like to buy. And the stuff that I can afford is made so cheaply and usually looks like crap on the body that I hate spending any money on it. The solution of course is to sew my own clothes. Or win the lottery. I'm currently looking for maternity formal wear patterns for a dress for that party.

fluffy pancakes

I was having issues with my pancakes. I used the recipe from m's second hand copy of The Joy of Cooking. I don't know what I was doing wrong but the pancakes were so dense instead of being light and fluffy. Last weekend I did a search for pancake recipes and found one to try. I can't remember where it came from (sorry recipe source! If you recognize this recipe, please let me know and I will give you credit) and I certainly don't want to lose it because it made the BEST pancakes EVER. Light, fluffy, soaks up the syrup. So good!



The photo is blurry because my rechargeable batteries don't hold their charge long and within a day of putting freshly charged batteries in my camera they give up and the camera says I need to change the batteries again. Argh.

Also I put too much butter in the pan for this batch so they sort of fried in butter instead of searing on a hot pan. Still tasted good.

Fluffy Pancakes

1.5 cups of flour
3.5 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 Tablespoon of sugar
1 1/4 cup of milk
1 egg
3 Tablespoons of melted butter

Melt the butter.
Mix all the dry ingredients together with a whisk. Make a well in the middle and crack the egg into it. Pour the milk into the well and then the melted butter. Mix well. The batter should be thick and a little lumpy. That's okay.

Heat a pat of butter on a skillet on high heat. I usually turn the skillet to spread the butter around. Sometimes I'll use the spatula to help out. When the butter starts to make a little noise, turn the heat down to medium-high and add scoops of batter to the pan spaced out at least 1" apart.

I used a large soup spoon to spoon the batter into little pools. The batter spreads a bit and if it's not as big around as I like I add a little more batter to the top and watch the weight of it spread the pancake out further. When the edges start to harden and the pancake starts to rise a bit, I slide the spatula under the side of the pancake to test the give. If it feels sturdy enough, I take a chance and flip. I didn't time it to see how long it would take to brown enough for flipping, I'll try to remember and do that next time and edit the info here.

Once flipped, watch to see that the doughy sides have hardened/cooked through. That's when you know that the pancakes are cooked all the way through.

I place the cooked pancakes on a plate and stick that in my oven (unheated) while I make up the rest of the batter.

Serve with syrup or jam and enjoy.

crochet necklace

I don't wear much jewelry. I forget that part of getting dressed in the morning. Most days I feel like if I walk out the door and I'm not naked I'm doing a good job. But if I were to begin buying and wearing more jewelry I'd love to have one of these:

(image from wrenhandmade)

Isn't is just the prettiest thing you ever did see? Laura Normandin crochets these unique little charms by hand. Her crocheted flower pins are also pretty freaking awesome.

See more of Laura's work here. Her shop is here.