pollen fallin'

A red-tailed hawk has been spending a lot of time in our backyard lately.

I'm usually alerted to his presence by the cawing of crows.  A group of crows can 'mob' a hawk in a pre-emptive strike, and it's interesting to watch them gather on branches around the hawk and engage in intimidating swooping.  I wonder if this is the same hawk that spent so much time around here last year.  Check out that red tail!  

 

Hawks are doing slow circles in the sky every day.  They  make beautiful silhouettes.

The birds are definitely out lately.  When I go outside in the morning to feed the strays, it's usually still dark.  But there's a cacophony of sound from the birds.  I do my best to identify calls.  I love hearing one of my favorites, the house finch.  They're such cheerful little birds, and now they're everywhere, preparing nests! 

It's a bittersweet time of year, because the camellias are finished.  Oh, I can still get a few from the bushes, but they're limp within a day or so.  The azaleas are popping out, at least!

Even my favorite azalea is opening up.

The usual bouquets...they make me happy.

A brief period of pollen...

...and more signs of spring.  New fern fronds unfurling in our backyard...

...and woodland flowers in the woods.

Sweet Clotilde sleeps on our back stairs, watching it all happen!

Meanwhile, I have done little knitting and no sewing.  Just so busy.  But I did take some time out to bake a cake when we had company recently.  I used to bake layer cakes, but we'd always have so much leftover cake.  Now my go-to is the simple chocolate loaf cake from Smitten Kitchen.  It doesn't need any embellishment, but sometimes I whip up a little sour cream chocolate frosting.

Absolutely perfect...and nearly no leftovers!  :)

Have a great week! 

Back For S'mores

We were out of town for a few days recently, and when we came home, found that most of the leaves had dropped.

Our front beds are choked with leaves:

Our driveway is nearly completely hidden:

The roof, cleaned off just two weeks ago, is covered again:

The trees around the pond are pretty bare.

We have two Japanese maple trees.  The one in the backyard makes a nice bright contrast to the evergreen magnolia tree. 

I love these leaves!

The berries on the bushes around here have matured completely.  I've discovered that they maintain their plump, round shape and red color for weeks when kept in water.

When picking camellias today, I noticed some spots on a few of the leaves.

I believe this is algal leaf spot, which can do damage if present in large amounts.  Only a few branches are affected here, so I'll leave them alone.  To be honest, I love their feathery edges.

I've seen a few ladybugs around...

...but I think it will be a few more months before I start seeing insects again!

Holiday knitting has shifted into overdrive.  It's December, and I have one unfinished project and one in the queue.  I'm going to have to work really fast to move things along, but I'm glad I was able to squeeze in a quick baby jacket for a friend who just had a baby.  It's a simple design, knitted flat (on two big needles).  It buttons down the side for easy removal.

I love the little silver buttons (a major score at the local thrift shop for .50):

I stamped out a quick tag, bagged it up, and it was ready to go!

Of course, being the holiday season I'm in the midst of a baking frenzy.  Last week I made a rather unusual cake: a s'mores layer cake.  I don't have permission to post the recipe, but it's from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook and I believe the recipe can be found online if you Google it.  It's a basic layer cake, but part of the flour is replaced by graham cracker crumbs.  In between layers, I spread a thick chocolate ganache:

The ganache was thick enough to stay put and not run down the sides, which would make this cake even messier than it already was!

The cookbook recommends a 7-minute frosting, but I had a different idea.  Sweetapolita lists a fabulous marshmallow filling/frosting on her website:  Marshmallow filling/frosting

It is heavenly.

Unless I really concentrate and take my time with a cake (and sometimes even when I do), the cake comes out lopsided, as was the case here.  That's all right...it was still delicious.

(night photo):

I liked the cake, but it was definitely different.  The addition of graham cracker crumbs gave the cake a rather heavy and chewy texture.  The graham taste came through nicely, and it meshed well with the chocolate/marshmallow combination (unlike the pumpkin/caramel/chocolate layer cake I made for Thanksgiving - yuck!).  It was awfully sweet, though, and this is from someone with a major sweet tooth.  I suspect that could be the reason that 7-minute frosting was used in the original recipe.  Still, I think I'll make this again. 

Back to work...have a great week!

a perfect fall meal

One of the pitfalls of bringing my camera outside is that I usually take close to (or more than) one hundred photos at a time, sometimes daily...leaves, insects, webs, a beautiful light pattern, birds, or anything else that catches my eye.  This is a danger when my goal is to have a relatively balanced blog, with equal parts knitting/crafting, cooking, and nature.  Nature usually wins out in a big way, and I guiltily store my recipe shots for another week, and then another...I have been knitting, and I have been cooking, although that isn't always reflected here. 

The weather has been beautiful.  Sunny, breezy, and mid-70s during the day, and mid-50s at night.  Fall is here, and I am spending more time in the kitchen.  I recently found a local farmers market and stocked up on good local produce.  I used it to make a tasty fall-inspired meal for Todd, and I thought I'd share it quickly before it gets pushed to the back burner indefinitely.  With end-of-the-season fruits and vegetables still readily available, this is the perfect time to experiment!

The main course is a buttery galette filled with seasonal vegetables.  I took the main recipe from the always-reliable Smitten Kitchen blog and tweaked it a bit to fit our tastes.  The good thing about it is that it's easily customizable!  This galette has a pie crust base.  I recently had an older friend tell me that she's always been afraid to make her own crust.  Don't be afraid!  It doesn't have to be pretty, and homemade is always better.  Smitten Kitchen has a great tutorial here.

Late Summer Galette
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

For the pastry:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon table salt
8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup plain yogurt or sour cream
1/4 cup ice water

For the filling:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups cherry or grape tomatoes
1 onion, sliced
6 ounces mushrooms, sliced
8 - 10 basil leaves, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, diced
handful of cheese
a pinch or two of red pepper flakes

Make dough: Whisk together your flour and salt.  Dice up your butter and quickly "cut" it into your mixture with a pastry cutter or fork.  The bits should be pea-sized.  In a separate bowl, stir together your ice water (minus the ice) and sour cream or yogurt.  Add this to your flour mixture and toss.  You may need to add a bit more liquid to obtain a mass that sticks together when you pat it.  Lay out plastic wrap, form a large ball, and secure it in the plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for about an hour.

Make filling:  Use a skillet with a lid for this one!  Take your tomatoes...I found an amazing heirloom variety.

Heat your olive oil and sprinkle in your red pepper flakes.  Add your tomatoes and cover.  Make sure your burner is on HIGH.  Roll them around until the skins split and some of the liquid cooks out.

Once they're cooked down a bit, put them in a bowl to cool off.  Using the same skillet, add more olive oil and saute your onions until they're translucent and softened, about 10 minutes.  Throw in your mushrooms and cook for another five minutes, until they release their liquid and cook down a bit.  Finally, add your diced garlic and sliced basil.  Cook for another minute and then pour this mixture on top of your tomatoes, letting it cool.

Now, take that cooled pie crust...

 ...and roll it into a rough circle.  It doesn't have to be fancy!  I spread a healthy amount of cheese in the center, and then mixed more cheese in with my vegetables.  Spoon it on top of your cheese and spread it out a bit, leaving an inch or so all around.  Then fold up the edges.

Place galette in your oven, preheated to 400 degrees.  Bake for 30 - 40 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.

Yum!

It's healthy and bursting with seasonal flavor!

For dessert, I used some late-season peaches to make a simple cobbler.  This recipe comes from How Sweet It Is and incorporates browned butter, which adds a rich nutty flavor.  Again, don't be afraid to try this technique if it's new to you.  Practice makes perfect!

Browned Butter Peach Cobbler
Very slightly adapted from How Sweet It Is

1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
3/4 cup flour (I used a mixture of white and whole wheat)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamon
1/2 cup butter (I used a tablespoon or so less to make it a bit healthier)
4 ripe peaches, peeled, de-pitted, and diced

Preheat your oven to 350 and blanch your peaches.  Blanching is a simple process that involves quickly boiling them, then putting them in cold water, so that the skin peels off easily.  Directions are here if you want to try it.  Or, you could peel them the old-fashioned way if you'd like.  Dice the peeled peaches and set aside.  In a bowl, mix your dry ingredients together.  Brown your butter (directions here if you've never done it) and let it cool a bit.  Add it to the flour/oatmeal mixture, along with the vanilla, and stir until all the liquid is absorbed.  Mix your peaches in, and pat the mixture into a greased 8 x 8  pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes and let cool completely.  Then you can dish it out!

Hey, it's not pretty, and certainly not fancy, but both dishes got rave reviews from Todd.  Although it may seem like a lot of steps, the cobbler only took about 15 minutes to throw together, and the galette (minus the pie dough waiting time) was just about 20 minutes.  Paired with a healthy side salad, this is the perfect fall meal...until those apples and pumpkins start coming in!  Stay tuned, and have a great week!

A Mile of Fair Isle (Help! I'm Stranded!)

I love frost.

I love how it gives a silvery outline to plant leaves.

I love how it accentuates and complements their natural colors.

I love how it lightly speckles the insides of leaves.

We've gotten an occasional snowy day with no real accumulation and a few frosty ones. While the cold reigns outside, I'm working inside on a project that's eluded me for the past year: learning fair isle, or stranded, knitting. My two biggest problems are obtaining even tension and having the dominant color show through the work when I carry floats.

Working laboriously through YouTube videos, I taught myself to carry a different yarn color in each hand. I decided on a thicker, more forgiving yarn, and light colors. My first project this way was a simple pair of mittens. Unblocked, they don't look like a success. They're bulky and the tension seems off. But apply water and some light stretching...

...and everything smooths out. See the difference between the blocked (left) mitten and the unblocked (right) mitten?

They fit perfectly and I'm absolutely thrilled with them!

The pattern is very forgiving, with no "floats". When you knit a stretch of at least 5 stitches in one color, you need to strand (or "float") the other color along with you so the strands inside your project remain small and tight, rather than loopy. You'd create quite a loop here if you knit 15 stitches in blue and then pulled your white across the back of your work to knit the next few stitches. You'd catch your fingers on it, and it can wreak havoc with your tension. Thankfully, no color went for more than 5 or 6 stitches here, I didn't have to worry about catching any floats.

Here is another example. My next project was a pair of stranded toddler socks in thick yarn. Inside out, you can see that none of the white stitches stretch for more than a few stitches. You can imagine the big loops if I tried to carry them much farther. This way, everything is tacked down nicely.

I learned something else with this project: afterthought heels. Basically, I knitted a tube that began with 1 x 1 ribbing and ended with a series of decreases that became the toe. Halfway through, where I wanted the heel to go, I dropped my green and white yarns strands and knit several stitches with some throwaway tan yarn. After knitting them, therefore placing them on my right needle, I slipped the stitches back onto my left needle and knit on as the pattern dictated with my green and white yarn. It's really easy and doesn't require any special skills.

Here you can see the tan line that designates the placement of the heel.

When I was ready to start the heel, I took a needle and ran it through the left "leg" of each stitch that held the top part of the tan stitches. Stockinette stitches have left and right "legs" and either is fine to use. I did this on the top and on the bottom of the row of tan stitches.

Then, I snipped away the tan stitches. I'd already captured the stitch legs with my needles, so no stitches are dropped.

Next, I slipped half of the top stitches and half of the bottom stitches on new needles and started to knit in the round with my green yarn.

I did a simple series of decreases, just like with the toe. In no time at all...a heel.

I'm really pleased with how they turned out, too!

I tried to tackle my next weakness, the floats that show through knitting. I started on a pair of white gloves...

...but even though I'm sure that I'm doing the technique correctly, the stranded blue yarn still showed through the white yarn.

Being the perfectionist that I am, I may have to frog these and try another project!

Cranberries were on sale at the grocery store last week. I don't like cranberries, but Todd does. I'd found a tasty-sounding recipe on the Smitten Kitchen website and decided to try it. The resulting muffins were so good that I was eating as many as Todd and loving the cranberries!

Cranberry Vanilla Coffee Cake (or Muffins)
Smitten Kitchen
Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
One teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 cups fresh cranberries
2 cups + 1 tablespoon flour, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick + 1 tablespoon butter, softened and divided
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Directions
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease your muffin tins. In a bowl, mix vanilla extract and sugar together until well-blended. Take 1/2 cup of this mixture and your cranberries and pulse in your blender or food processor until finely chopped.

In a separate bowl, mix together 2 cups of flour, salt, and baking powder. In another bowl, beat together 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of vanilla sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. With your mixer on low, add half of the flour mixture, then half of the milk, and repeat. Mix until just combined.

Spoon batter in muffin tins, only filling halfway. Place a dollop of the cranberry mixture in each tin, and then cover with the remaining batter.

To make a crumble topping, mix the remaining 1/4 cup of vanilla sugar with the remaining tablespoons of butter and flour and crumble over the muffin tops. I skipped this step and didn't miss it a bit!

Bake for 1bout 18 minutes, until golden brown.

Oh my goodness...these were amazing. Sweet, tart, and flavorful.

I hope you make some this week. Enjoy!