I took a class...

I live within easy driving distance of WEBS; it's about 40 minutes away when there's no traffic. Yet I don't get up there often enough! I took one class last year (Rigid Heddle Weaving, loved it!) and finally got organized about my schedule and signed up for "Fixing Mistakes" on this, the last weekend of my Spring Break.

"Fixing Mistakes" was taught by Annie Foley. She's a great teacher: clear, calm, pretty organized, and very good at explaining things logically. She showed us how to drop down and ladder back up in both stockinette and garter stitch. We also learned how to drop down an entire section in a simple lace pattern and then build it back up. We went over duplicate stitch and finished up by learning how to fix selvedge stitches.

Anyway, I highly recommend both the class and the teacher. She's got me inspired to take another class as soon as I can fit it into my schedule.

Three new recipes in one meal

I suddenly had my energy back and some free time today, so I tackled three of the recipes that had been sitting in my queue for a while:

1) Mac and cheese from Slate.com's "You're doing it wrong" column. While I don't think this is the definitive Mac and Cheese, it was very tasty. I used half smoked Gouda and half sharp cheddar in the sauce, and panko breadcrumbs on top.

2) Potato Leek Soup, also from the same column at Slate.com. This was very good, maybe even the best I've ever made. And it was easy! Definitely a keeper.

3) Citrus-marinated tofu with onions and red peppers from SeriousEats.com. Not a winner IMHO... the recipe was hard to follow, never told me when to put in the honey, and didn't taste all that impressive. We're going to see if the leftovers taste better tomorrow.

And my New Recipe count is up to... ten, eleven, twelve.

New recipe: pineapple orange carrot smoothie

Does a smoothie count as a new recipe?

If it's far outside my comfort zone, does that help it qualify?

Yesterday I also made the Grown-up Smoothie by Martha Rose Shulman. For those of you who want to avoid hitting the NYT website, it's approximately 1/2 cup orange juice, 1 cup fresh pineapple, 2 Tablespoons granola, 2 ice cubes, and a small carrot. Blend for a minute or more. Serve immediately.

I think it would have been improved by a knob of ginger root.

New recipe count: nine

Another new recipe: butternut and sage on pasta

Today's recipe wasn't very photogenic, so I'll just let you click through to the recipe if you want to see some gorgeously styled shots of fried sage over butternut cream pasta.

The whole thing tasted like I had dumped a good butternut bisque over some pasta, but the addition of lots of fried sage elevated the whole thing to something a bit better than that. It was enough work that I probably won't make it again. (Seriously, make about 10 times more fried sage than the recipe describes.)

New recipe count: eight

10 on Tuesday: ten things in my purse

I love the simple ones, where it doesn't take a lot to actually answer the question...

1) My wallet
2) My keys
3) A lot of cough drops.
4) Tic-tacs (white)
5) My cell phone
6) My watch (if I'm not wearing it)
7) Some loose change that got out of my wallet
8) Chapstick
9) A couple of "feminine sanitation products"
10) A paperback copy of "The Complaints" by Ian Rankin, which is currently my waiting-somewhere-reading.

Note: I often have knitting in my purse, but right now the blue mitten has grown too big to travel easily, and the green mitten requires an entire book to travel with it. This probably means I should cast on for another sock.

project notes

For Lexi, who won the mittens in the senior raffle:

Dark green and white
something out of Selbuvottir
hands are slightly smaller than my own