Taken with GorillaCam, edited with PS Express, Tiltshift Generator, and Lo-Mob

Taken with GorillaCam, edited with PS Express, Tiltshift Generator, and Lo-Mob

Taken with GorillaCam, edited with PS Express, Tiltshift Generator, and Lo-Mob

Oh, all right Spring, I guess you are welcome to come now, you and your pretty, pink, blossoms. 

I'm not sure which version I like best, I think the first one is my favorite. What do you think? 

Tonight is knitting group, so I'll show you some knitting in the next post. I've joined the Knit Knit Café Westknits KAL, which is fun, since I haven't really done a knit-along before. 

Here are some links I've been collecting recently:

I'd like this camera case for my iPhone.

Brooklyn Tweed is going to take us on a tour of the mill where Shelter yarn is made. The series starts here. I think this will be fascinating. 

Doesn't orange-vanilla marmalade sound delicious? 

I would love one of Ann Wood's ships, but maybe I can make do with my own teacup instead. She very generously shares the how-to. 

I'm currently cooking a lot of quinoa. These recipes look delicious, and this one is for sure. I know, because I've made it about three times in the last two weeks. 

I like brownies, but they are so rich, I don't have them often. These seem like a really good idea. White chocolate?! Raspberries?! Yes, a very good idea.

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I just had a four and a half day weekend, and not much happened and it was fantastic. In fact, I barely left the house, and when I did, it was purely on foot, with Winston, to walk through the frosty meadow in the middle of our little valley. I didn't drive anywhere once I got home Friday afternoon. I made sure to run all my errands, and did lots of grocery shopping on Friday so we were well provisioned. Saturday was an official pajama day, so I made a hearty breakfast of bacon, potatoes, and eggs, and then a good, warm pot of soup for dinner (sausage and kale, a favorite around here). There was a nap and a lot of knitting while sitting on the couch watching Netflix. I might have accidentally cast on three new projects, as well as working on that one existing one, but I will save all that for another post. They are all pretty quick projects and one is almost done, so I don't feel bad.  

Sunday morning, we woke up to the sound of the snow plows scraping the street. Finally, we had our first snow storm of the season! It came down heavily all morning, so we decided it would be wise to stay put, and there was still soup to eat, and I also discovered that Downton Abbey was available to watch instantly on Netflix. Have you seen it? Why did they leave us hanging like that? I was happy to read that there will be a second season. If you love a good BBC costume drama, and you haven't seen it, watch it soon, so good! 

So, with all this free time, I spent a lot of Monday and Tuesday in my little house studio doing some general cleaning up, but also a little sewing. I've been keeping all my DPNs collected together in a little ceramic pot, which looks really cute, but is super annoying when I actually want to use a set, and have to shuffle through and find a whole set in the same size. So I made a case that I can easily tuck into my knitting bag, and now I will always have the right size needles as soon as I need them. 

The new case is the one on the left. On the right is my much-loved case for regular needles from Yvonne from one of our annual Christmas swaps ages ago. And underneath is a binder with page protectors where I keep all of my recently-organized circular needles. Cute, right? Let me tell you about all the things I did wrong with my cute, new case. I should have made some sort of flap to go over the needles, because now, if you turn it upside down, they all fall out. I sewed a piece of ribbon on both short edges, which means that when it's rolled up, one is uselessly rolled up inside.

I didn't do the best job on my little labels. They're just scrap fabric, with the numbers stamped on. I cut them out rather unevenly, but they are just tacked in place with a tiny bit of fabric glue, so I'm thinking I might remove them and stamp the numbers directly onto the polka dot fabric. Ah well, I can just make sure to store it upright, and the one ribbon is long enough to wrap all the way around to keep it closed, and the number labels are still kind of appealing in their wonkiness. Not every project can come out perfect, and sometimes I can just be happy with 'good enough,' and I really like my new little case, despite it's shortcomings resulting from my inability to think it all through before I sewed it. And it turns out that I have four sets of size 7 needles and no eights or nines. 

 Project number two was to make a batch of marmalade, which is one of Mr. Heylucy's favorite things ever, apparently. I didn't realize he liked it so much, but when I brought home a bag full of citrus on Friday, and told him my plan, he asked me multiple times every day when I was going to make the marmalade. I was greatly inspired by this post from Putting up with the Turnbulls. Heart-shaped bits of peel? Yes, please! I had some organic Meyer Lemons and some mandarins, so I went to work. My heart cutter wasn't quite as cute, but it was just as tiny and blister-inducing, but totally worth the effort.

So I set to cutting and cooking. I didn't add the cinnamon hearts, I just wanted to do a simple marmalade for my first time. I cooked and cooked and tested to see if it was set. I checked the internet and read that it would set once it reached 220 degrees, so I got out my candy thermometer and watched the tempurature carefully. The recommended 30 minutes passed. I waited another 15 minutes, and still, we were only at 210 degrees. Another ten minutes, and it crept up to 216. Then it started looking a little too golden, and then it was sticking to the pan. Oh no! I stopped immediately, and got it into the jars, and then I processed them to seal. I had been licking spoons and tasting regularly and it was really, really delicious. I made myself some toast this morning, and eagerly opened a jar. Not only had it set, it was set more than any other jam or marmalade I had ever had. I could scoop it out with my knife, but it was kind of hard to spread so I just made due with a few evenly spaced chunks. So, another not-quite-a-success. It does taste delicious, but I obviously need more preserving practice. I think my thermometer is not quite accurate, it's the same one I used to make three batches of caramel, and the first two batches didn't work either. I also wonder if the tempurature thing has to do with our altitude at all. I know water boils at a lower tempurature, so maybe I'll try cooking it to 210 or so next time. I will keep experimenting and figure this out! So it was another failure, but a delicious one, and I will keep trying. 

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I've had a couple three-day weekends in a row, so this measly little two-day weekend felt far too short. I had all sorts of grand ideas for Projects-with-a-capital-P, but ultimately I only ended up doing a couple very small things (besides laundry, grocery shopping and other miscellaneous errands). So this is probably the most exciting blog post you will read all week, I'm sure. 

First of all, I am overwhelmed with the state of our cupboards and closets. So I'm tackling them one at a time and doing some thorough cleaning out, scrubbing down and tossing of junk. I started with the spice/tea & warm drinks/sweeteners and small baking items cupboard. I like all my mis-matched, hand-labeled spice jars, but I also have a spice addiction, and am regularly bringing home new spices. I had organized them pretty well last summer, but the addition of two-tiered lazy susan makes it much easier to find what I'm looking for and fit them neatly into a fairly small space. I actually found a box of chamomile tea with a best before date of 1995. How is that even possible? I don't know, but yuck! Now that I thinned our tea collection down to just a half dozen or so, it's much nicer to make a cup or pot and know that it's relatively fresh and it's a flavor we like. 1995! Yeesh! 

I like this shelf a lot:

Second of all, I don't know if I should even admit this, but I've never made oatmeal from scratch, and had no idea how to do it. I guess I must have known that there were directions on the can, but for some reason I thought it was really complicated and time-consuming. I don't know why, but I guess because I think of oatmeal as weekday breakfast, I was fine with a little packet of gummy, instant oatmeal, dressed up with some brown sugar and dried fruit. In the cleaning of the aforementioned cupboard, I unearthed no less than three containers of oatmeal, two steel-cut and one regular old-fashioned oats. I'll save the old-fashioned for cookies, but decided to try my hand at cooking the steel-cut. Just in case there are other oatmeal novices out there, the ratio is 4:1, boiling water to oatmeal. Just sprinkle in the oats when the water is at a rolling boil and heat to a simmer. Let it cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. I added a dash of salt to the water to get it boiling faster and for flavor. And now, I don't think I can eat those little packets of instant oatmeal ever again. I had a nice warm bowl with a little golden syrup and dried cranberries and almonds and cashews. I never thought I'd get cravings for oatmeal, but I think I might have some for dinner tonight, it was so delicious.

Does anyone else not know how to make something that everyone else probably knows how to make? Am I ridiculous for writing about cleaning a cupboard and making oatmeal? I think I might be, but darn it, opening that cupboard door makes me pretty happy right now. 

And my Shelter yarn from Brooklyn Tweed arrived today, so I will be spending the rest of the evening winding it into balls and starting a new project! 

Oh, and the book of the week (on audio) is Leviathan , which I am really enjoying. It's imaginative and original and a rollicking adventure. 

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I bought a giant cantaloupe this past weekend. It was one of the sweetest I have ever had, and it was only 50 cents. So I made some parfaits. One melon ball in the blender and one for me is about how it went while I was making them.  

 If you find yourself with a super sweet cantaloupe, I suggest you do the same.

In addition to my dessert of the week, I should probably also do a pizza of the week. For this week: drizzle the crust with olive oil, layer thinly sliced potatoes in concentric circles, top with gorgonzola crumbles, pile on some baby spinach, and crack an egg right in the middle. Drizzle with a little more olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or until egg is set. I don't have a picture, I pulled it out of the oven and ate it straightaway.

Speaking of no pictures, Winston spent six hours at the groomer yesterday, getting his summer haircut and clean up. He was exhausted last night, and Bear didn't recognize him at first. He kept growling at him. Winston slept like a log last night, and is back to his chipper self this morning. I think he feels much better now. I'll try to take photos soon. 

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I made up a cake recipe. Well, I started with a recipe and tweaked it so that it now bears little resemblance to the original. I have a fruit dessert thing going on this summer, I think I'm on dessert four for four consecutive weekends. 

This week at the grocery store the plums looked especially nice. I love upside-down cakes. You don't have to frost them, and I love the caramel-ly, fruity goodness on top. I had some almond meal that needed using, and I figured that this is the kind of cake that could benefit from the dense, moist texture. I made two cakes, one for Independence Day and the second for a potluck at work. The first one (above) I made in a springform pan, which resulted in a big, sticky mess on the bottom of my oven despite the fact that I wrapped foil around the bottom and outside. Oops. The second time I made it in my cast iron skillet, and it was a tight fit, there was still a little bit of overflow. Luckily, I put a big roasting pan underneath to catch any drips. 

Plum Upside-down Cake

12 T. Butter (a stick and a half)

1 c. packed brown sugar

5 plums, cut in half, pit removed, and each half cut into wedges

1/2 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. white whole wheat flour

1/2 c. almond flour

2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. salt

1 c. sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 t. vanilla extract

1/2 c. cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter in a 9" cast iron skillet. Add the brown sugar, and stir until sugar is melted and syrupy. Arrange the plum wedges in concentric circles in the bottom of the pan (or transfer the butter/sugar mixture to a 9" cake pan). Set aside. 

In a large mixing bowl, beat the remaining 6 tablespoon butter with the sugar, until fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat until smooth and fluffy. In a smaller bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Whisk to combine. 

Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, alternating with the cream. Stir just to combine after each addition. Spread batter over plums, and bake for 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. 

Cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes or so, then place an inverted plate on top and quickly flip it over. It should come out nice and cleanly. It's good slightly warm or at room temperature. Top with dollop of whipped cream, if you like, although we had it plain, and it was delicious!

Let me know if you try it, and what you think! 

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