FO: more mittens

Just dropping in for a quick update. It's been a crazy month, what with the end of school and my aunt dying suddenly. I continued to push through trying to make mittens for ALL the people at the elementary school who were important in my sons' lives. Here are the next two pairs:

Yes, that's DROPS 110-39 (rav link) being done as fraternal twin mittens in pink and blue. My younger son was quite insistent. Yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash, knit on size 3 wooden needles.

And these are another mild variation on NHM #5(rav link) same brand of yarn, same needles, etc.

More baked goods!

Tried Slate.com's recipe for honey whole-wheat bread. It's easy and yummy, but cut the salt in half (or more) unless you like your baked goods REALLY salty.

In a desperate attempt to use up all the lousy strawberry jam, I tried this recipe for jam muffins. They turned out really well and I will definitely make them again.

Last month my husband bought a huge bag of shelled pistachios, which we aren't eating fast enough. Since I don't want the super-expensive nuts going to waste, I found a recipe for pistachio biscotti with olive oil. I was, well, dubious, and the fact that I set the oven too high and singed them didn't help... but they're really good. And different. And hard to stop eating.

And, finally, I made a terrific Italian apple cake a couple of weeks ago. It was super-easy and my kids were begging me for third helpings.

New recipe count: 29

Flowering Tuesday

The previous owners of this house put in some wonderful flowers on three sides of the house. I didn't get a good shot of the irises and peonies in the back yard, but here's what the left front of the house is sporting:

And here's what the right side and east corner are showing off:

Two more pairs of mittens!

I nearly pulled an all-nighter to finish these! Went to bed long after midnight, up before 8:00, and knitting furiously until 9:57 when I tucked in the final end and ran upstairs to get dressed for Commencement.

Pattern: DROPS 110-39 (rav link), with a different thumb
Needles: size 3 wooden 16 inch circulars (a pair)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash

Pattern: NHM #12 (rav link), slightly rewritten to make them work with a larger gauge
Needles: size 3 wooden 16 inch circulars (a pair)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash

More new recipes (a dinner for a hot day)

It reached 90F in some areas near us on Tuesday, so I was feeling inspired to do minimal cooking and serve a lot of salads. I made steamed white race (always a must when my in-laws visit), steamed broccoli (which my kids like), and a big salad of romaine, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, toasted pepitas, and some shaved hard cheese that I found in the fridge. (It might have been an aged Gouda.) Dressed it with my go-to dressing of rice wine vinegar, olive oil, a little salt and pepper, and a trickle of agave nectar. All good so far.

The two new dishes were both hits with the family. First up was a vegan potato salad. The DH is considering going partially vegan for the summer, which has me in a bit of a panic because I've spent 13 years learning how to cook vegetarian for him but this is going to seriously limit what I can make. No cheese? eggs? milk? I told him he might be eating a lot of PB&J and cereal with almond milk. Since mayo isn't vegan (and none of us likes vegan "mayo") I tried this vegan potato salad recipe from Serious Eats. It was pretty straight-forward and everyone agreed that it was really yummy, but not quite as good as a standard mayo-based potato salad. (Part of what worked so well was that I undercooked the potatoes and let them finish steaming as I peeled them, so they were just past crunchy and held together really well.)

The other new dish comes from one of my new favorite food bloggers, Jamie at Cooking in Red Sox. She recently made a decadent lemon sauce to go with seared scallops, which I had to try at home. Now I managed to end up with the wrong kind of scallops, lemons, and white wine, but the dish still tasted fantastic! Even the kids went for seconds. (Obviously the DH didn't eat this, but he did like the lemon sauce on the broccoli.)

New recipe count: 25

Ten on Tuesday: 10 things to bring on a picnic

To be honest, we're not a picnicking family. Younger Son and I both have horrible reactions to bug bites and DH insists that everyone wash their hands just before eating. Older Son hates the heat and doesn't like most traditional picnic foods... and there you have it. We'd all rather stay inside and eat at the table in the air-conditioning.

But on the rare occasions that we go picnicking, this is what we bring:

1) Bug spray
2) Hand wipes
3) Citronella candles
4) Lots of blankets and beach towels for sitting on
5) Brownies
6) Lemonade and ginger ale (my favorite "mixed drink" ever!)
7) Hummus and veggies
8) Potato chips
9) My knitting
10) A word game

A bad soup and a good quick bread

Some more updates from last week:

The DH and I love cold soups, and I keep looking for the perfect vichyssoise, so I tried a new version and, alas, it was terrible. All the ingredients seemed out of proportion: the soup is rather too sweet for my liking and tastes only of leeks, and even after I doubled all the liquids it still seems far too thick. I will not be keeping this one.

On a brighter note, I dug up an old recipe for Pear Bread by Smitten Kitchen and, no surprise, it was terrific. I took it too work and convinced a wide array of people to try it - unanimous praise for its flavor and texture. Definitely a keeper!

New recipe count: 23