Waffle Iron Cooking

 I went on a LARP weekend event where I was cooking.  I brought my waffle iron.  Turns out that was a really good idea as there were few cooking options and it was a primitive situation despite having running water and electricity!  I learned that you can make delicious bacon using a waffle iron and that got the ball rolling on Waffle Iron Cooking.

There is another blog out there called The Waffleizer and it is the definitive place to go for info on this topic.  But I've tried out some of the recipes and here are some that work surprisingly well - and even better than the regular way of doing things.

Cinnamon Rolls - the kind in the tube that you buy at the store.  These are better in a waffle iron!  They cook faster and the divets created by the waffle iron hold icing!  Seriously - you must try this!

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches - a waffle iron is a pannini press with squares instead of lines!  You don't need to spend $50 on a pannini press, you can pannini with your waffle iron.  Fast, delicious!

Bacon.  Nuff' said.

homemade pasta with embedded italian parsley

 A few months ago, I got a kitchen-aid stand mixer and all the attachments and I have been going to town making pasta and sausage and other things you can make with a stand mixer.   Here is what you can do when you have a pasta roller -- Italian parsley is embedded into these pasta sheets.  Beautiful!

FRESH PASTA FTW!

Once you make fresh pasta, you never ever want to go back to the dry stuff.  

3 cups flour

1 t salt

4 eggs

1 T olive oil

• Mix all that up.  I do it in my stand mixer and use the dough hook.  It takes about 5 minutes to get to a great consistency.  The dough will look shiny and naturally wad up into a ball.   
• Wrap in a piece of waxed paper for about 20-30 minutes to rest.
• Roll out dough.  (I use my pasta attachment - but you can do it by hand using a floured surface and a rolling pin.)
• Cut in any way you like.
• This stuff is the best and cooks very quickly.  About 3-4 minutes in boiling salted water.

Below is a pic of a strawberry pie I made for a friend.  Pie is easy - like the phrase - if you keep it simple and not worry too much.  Also - a tip that will make it easy to handle the rolled out dough:  roll the dough between two pieces of waxed paper.  When it is flat enough, pull the top piece off and invert your pie pan onto the dough.  Flip it over and pull the other piece of paper off.  Voila - dough in pan with very little fuss!

Chili and Corn Bread

When there are a lot of people coming over, chili and cornbread is a big hit.

I made this last fall.

I try to use the crockpot as that frees up space on the stove for other things. 

Here's how I do it:

OMG Chili!

I make chili fairly often.  I have some secrets to impart.  Pay attention!  Use Cocoa powder!  It gives it a slight mole taste and it is more delicious this way!  Vegetarians - remove ground beef and add ½ cup oil.

1 pound Ground Beef

1 large Onion - diced

1 large Green Pepper - diced

2 Hot Peppers - Jalapeno or Serrano - finely chopped - seeds and insides removed

3 cloves diced Garlic

1 t Oregano

1 T Cumin

1 T Chili Powder

1 T Salt

1 t Pepper

¼ c Cocoa

1 large Can Tomatoes

1 Can Black Beans

1 Can Pinto Beans

1 Can Kidney Beans

Water as needed

• Saute ground beef.  
• When it is no longer pink, add onion, green pepper, peppers, garlic.
• When vegetables are wilted, add everything else.
• Cook covered for at least 1 hour.  When I use a crock pot I cook it much longer.

 Cornbread should be cooked in a hot cast-iron skillet.  That makes the edges crunchy and delicious!

Fruit!

Aprium Cobbler

My yard has 12 fruit trees.
3 cherry trees
1 lemon tree
1 apple tree
1 plum tree
1 aprium tree
4 plum/pluot trees

(does that add up to 12?)

Okay - my yard has 12 trees - 11 are fruit trees.

This past week or so the Aprium tree has been gifting us with a lot of fruit.  I have made use of it the following ways:
Aprium Cobbler
Sugar Free Aprium Jam
Aprium Tarts

Sugar Free Aprium Jam

And the tree isn't done yet.

A month ago, the plum tree was plummeting me with plums.  I made Plum Jam and Plum Wine.  The wine is still a work in progress and will not be completed til December.  So far it looks better than it tastes.  I'm hoping with the addition of stabilizer and sugar and some brandy (it is port which is a fortified wine) it will be good.  Either way some people will get a bottle as a christmas present.

Since the next question is what's the recipe?  I'll post that below:

A promise to myself

After a week of vacation wherein I did practically nothing productive or that *I* actually wanted to do I was driving to work on my ridiculously long commute and thinking.

I do a lot of thinking in my car because I have between 2-3 hours a day there and nobody can interrupt my thoughts except maybe a bad driver or a horrendous accident. 

I made a list of promises to myself of things that *I* want to do.  One of them was to resume this blog and really dig in and do it right.

I can do it!  If you -my one and only follower- have faith in me then so do I!

In order to put some content up - I'll be posting pics of some of my more recent creations and I have a promise to myself to take more pics...

A Sweater Story - Part Two - Conversion is a B*tch!

So my swatch of 4"x4" stockinette stitch measured 21 Rows and 17 Stitches.
The gauge for the pattern calls for 29 Rows and 22 Stitches per 4"x4".

OMG MATH!

What to do?  Search the web for someone who has an online calculator to determine your conversion factor - and voila - here it is:  The Knitting Fiend Conversion Page.

I popped the numbers in and now have my conversion factor - any # in the pattern for stitches is multiplied by .773 and any # in the pattern for rows is multiplied by .724.  I knit loose by a factor of about 25%.  (if this is wrong math geek friends, just let me know - I'll fix it)

Now I must go through the entire pattern and do math to it.  This is where excel is my friend...  Put that calculation into a worksheet and my speed typing should do the trick and I"ll have my converted pattern lickety split.  Well not lickety split, but maybe lickety.  Lickitung - remember that pokemon?  My favorite cause he ate sushi in that videogame.  Mmmm Sushi!

Okay back to Maths...

  So I put that calculation stuff into excel and started calculating the pattern and I discovered a really lucky break for me.  If I knit the pattern in the Large size with my loose ass knitting it will come out in my size - 3x!  Lucky Lucky Lickitung!

This is a crocheted Jigglypuff.

So- my dear friends, I am now ready to print that pattern out and start knitting like a (what pokemon knits?  I don't know  maybe Jigglypuff?)

The Dillema of Creating for My Self and a Sweater Tale Part 1

I have a deep problem.

I cannot seem to actually make something for myself!

I make stuff for my family, my friends, people I don't even know, their children - especially their children.  But when it comes to following through to making something for myself, I have good intentions.  I start - I buy the materials, the pattern and I think through the process.  But when it comes time to actually craft - to get to work - I procrastinate.  I stop doing for myself and go through a manic phase of making something for someone else.

Here is my most recent example.

The Beautiful Red Cardigan I'm Supposed to make for myself.

the super cute cardigan I AM going to make myself

The pattern is from Knitty.  If you are a knitter and paying for patterns, you need to check out Knitty.  It is a close fitting cardigan in red with little bobble flowers that go up the sleeves and one side of the cardigan.  Seriously cute, right?

I bought the yarn - Bamboo Ewe - 55% bamboo, 45% wool TOTALLY ON SALE at Michaels - $2.99 a skein - I bought all that yarn out of the bargain bin!

And then do you know what I did next?

I made an impossibly pink sparkly scarf for a friend and then two little baby hats (same yarn, I still had more) for someone at work who recently had twin girls.

REALLY Sandra?  You had all the stuff ready to go to make yourself a super cute cardigan and you started making impossibly pink scarves and baby hats?  Yes.  Yes, I did.  I confessed this to someone at work yesterday and she gave me the impetus to make this super cute sweater.  For you - and for her.  I am going to chronicle my process and put it on here so you can see what a big pain in the ass it is to knit a sweater!

A Sweater Tale - Part One

a skein of Bamboo Ewe - the color matches the sweater pattern!

The Yarn.  Bamboo Ewe - cute name, eh?  It is a mix of bamboo - who thought they'd make yarn out of bamboo?  But they do.  And Wool.  That's the stuff!  I have a very strong opinion that if you are going to spend literally dozens of hours knitting a sweater it had better be made of the very best materials you can get - because you want that SOB to last FOREVER!  I knit myself a sweater in the late 80's - a lopi cardigan.  The yarn cost a small fortune and my dad helped me pay for it.  I still have that sweater and I wear it when it gets cold.  More on that sweater very soon...

Knitting the Swatch

the swatch I finished this morning for the super cute sweater!

You must, Must, MUST knit a gauge swatch before you knit your sweater.  If you do not, you will suffer, as I did with my Lopi cardigan.  I did not knit a gauge swatch, I just grabbed that yarn and some needles and started knitting the pattern in my size.  What I did not know - being a neophyte knitter at that time - was that people knit differently.  The writer of the pattern I used was a tighter knitter than me.  I am a loose knitter.  Not only that, I am a combination knitter.  (more on that later - seriously the fodder for an entire blog post)  So my sweater turned out HUGE!  I had to buy more yarn because I ran out before I finished!  In retrospect, it was a good thing, because if it had fit, I wouldn't be able to wear it today with the weight I've gained since college!  LOL!  Also I wore it when I was 8 and 9 months pregnant in November and December 1990 and nothing else would fit - and it was frikkin cold!  SO - to reiterate - take the time to knit a swatch.

That is all I've done so far...

Here is what I'll be doing as soon as I publish this post:

Calculating the difference between the swatch I knitter and the gauge on the pattern.  This will involve measurement and mathematics.  So wish me luck!