Pink Hedgehog~~My Other Pursuits

I've been a crazy sock knitter lately!

2011-10-21T10:14:00.000-07:00

I can't help myself, I just keep knitting more and more socks! I have three pairs on my needles at the moment, and about 10 more ideas cooking in my head. I just finished a pair a couple of days ago and told myself, "no more starting pairs until you are down to one on the needles". Self is listening. I'm doing the heel increase for pair #1, nearly done with that, so the heel turn may happen today.

A few notes about my socks. I always use the two-at-a-time, toe-up method. I read about something called "one sock syndrome", it is a very real, and usually fatal illness. This is a disease infecting knitters who knit one sock at a time. Some socks can be difficult, or frustrating, and upon finishing the first sock, the knitter is reluctant to begin the next sock, thus being stuck with only one sock. I currently have this problem with a mitten. I finished the first one last winter, and the other still sits in the knitting bag, nearly done. Probably time to finish it!

Here is a link to a free pattern at knitpicks.com. This will help you get started with this technique if you have not tried it before. I have never knitted socks on DPN's, and I never will. I bought a whole, big, beautiful set of them, but discovered the magic loop method of knitting socks before I used them. I'm very content to let my DPN's sit and be used for other purposes, they do come in handy from time to time, for instance, when knitting an afterthought heel, but I get ahead of myself. Once you read and understand the concept of this method of knitting socks, you can make the changes I have, if you like.

I use Judy's Magic Cast On, just follow the link for a great youtube video showing this method of starting socks. I found the directions in the knitpicks instructions to be confusing. Videos help me a lot! Once you get to the heel, there are several choices, I'll explain them below after each pair of socks. I like to have a nice stretchy bind-off on my socks, and I tried a few until I found this one: Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. I find that it even works on a scalloped edge top, or any that you have to fold over and stitch down.

A couple of months ago, my friend Betty on Facebook started giving my socks a name. I realized then, that all handknit socks need and deserve a name. It's not fair to go through life with no name, what is the fun in that?

This fabulous pair is called Toad's Noses. They are now residing with my friend Jenice. She did some sewing for us and made fabulous aprons for girl's camp, so I made her a pair of socks. I think it is my favorite pair to date. Yarns used are from Knit Picks: Stroll Handpainted in Tree Fort Colorway, and Stroll Tonal in Canopy.

The pattern is from the Knit Picks Flash Dance Sock Pattern. I have made several pairs using this pattern. There are 6 different designs, and suggestions about how to use different kinds of yarns, to avoid pooling, or show off pooling. For those new to knitting, pooling is what you get when knitting with a variegated yarn such as the one shown above. Sometimes, you will get huge patches of one color that just happen to "pool" together. If you don't like that look, using a stitch such as the slip stitch shown here, is a great way to break up the pooling. This particular yarn doesn't lend itself to a great deal of pooling, but you can see it much more on the sole than on the instep.

I used the afterthought heel found in the Show Off Socks Pattern from Knit Picks. I'm not a big fan of this particular heel because it decreases in 4 spots, so you have a decrease going up the two sides of the heel, plus under the heel and up the back of the heel. I had never done an afterthought heel before but after doing this one, I found one I like more, you can find it here. I just adjusted the instructions and used the magic loop instead of DPN's. I did one heel at at time, rather than trying to do both. Heels are actually rather quick.

This pair of socks are named The Sea Babies. These socks are permanently installed on the feet of my Royal Sock Namer, Betty. The yarn I used is Knit Picks Stroll Multi in the Aloha colorway. I used the Fleegle Heel on this pair, and it is now my favorite heel method unless my design would be better off with an afterthought heel. You can find a tutorial for this heel here: Fleegle Heel. The pattern for the sock is from the Flash Dance Sock Pattern, linked above; I used the tents pattern. The cuff is a rolled cuff, just like the Toads Noses socks.

This pair is just a straight knit, toe up sock. I used Knit Picks Felici in the Aquarium colorway. I used the Fleegle heel on these, but as you can see, it made the stripe pattern a little wonky, so on my next striped pair, I used the afterthought heel. I like both of them, but I do think for striped socks I will stick with the afterthought heel. This pair is currently keeping my baby sister Mary's feet warm.

This pair also uses the Felici yarn from Knit Picks, but in the Tyrian Purple colorway. I opted for an afterthought heel and I like the way it turned out. I used a 2x2 ribbed cuff on the top. This pair, I sent to my sister-in-law Jennie.

This lovely pair of socks is called Panache. I sent them to my sister-in-law Gayle. She wears boots a lot, so I knew a knee length pair would suit her just fine. She loves quirky things, so I knew this yarn was perfect for her. It was a very fun pair to knit. The yarn is Cartoons colorway, and a Stroll Handpainted yarn from Knit Picks. This pair also uses the Flash Dance Socks Pattern, and is the slip stitch just like the Sea Babies. I used a 1x1 rib for the cuff and again a stretchy bind off.

This pair of socks belongs to my sister-in-law Patty. They are named Fading Sunset. I used the Fountains pattern from Sock Cocktails, again from Knit Picks. The yarn is also from Knit Picks and is a Stroll Tonal in the Queen Anne colorway. I used the Fleegle heel and picot edge for the top cuff, found in the Flash Dance pattern.

This pair, Chained Melodies went to my sister, Amber. I used a Knit Picks Stroll Multi in the City Lights colorway. I found the pattern at Ravelry.com, it's called Summer of 2008 Socks. I again used the Fleegle Heel and a 2x2 rib knit for the cuff.

The name for this pair, Birds of Paradise was suggested by my friend Sue. She threw out a name suggestion and my mind immediately went to this yarn I've had in my stash for some time. The yarn is Fiesta Yarns Baby Boom 100% Marino in the Amazon colorway. I picked it up at a local shop, Kathy's Knit Corner in the clearance yarn. I had no idea what I'd use it for, but the colors just grabbed me, they were so fun! The pattern is also from the Flash Dance Socks. I used the Fleegle Heel and picot cuff. Sue doesn't know this, but these socks belong to her. I'm going to deliver them tomorrow!

Well, that's it for my sock rambling for today. I've spent most of my summer knitting socks, and I don't see an end in site. They are very fun, and not too time intensive. The toe is quick, and before you know it, you are doing the heel increase, then the heel turn, and up the leg. If you make ankle socks, you are nearly done at that point! Is there a twelve step program for sock knitting addiction? I hope not!

Orange Yogurt Muffins

2011-02-13T16:37:00.001-08:00

I usually try to make a nice breakfast on Sunday mornings. Last week it was biscuits and gravy. I made heart shaped biscuits to show my hubby how much I love him. It was weird, though, they tasted just like regular biscuits...odd...

This morning I got it into my head to make yogurt orange muffins. I did a quick Google search and came across a recipe that sounded great. I made it, and sure enough, it was great! I found the original recipe at Taste of Home. I tweaked the recipe a bit by using half brown sugar and half white sugar, plus throwing in some whole wheat flour. I have also been known to use olive oil instead of butter in quick bread recipes such as this, though I used butter this morning. I'm a purist and don't allow margarine in my house, so I always, always, always use real butter (or olive oil)! A photo of my heart biscuits and my muffins are posted on Facebook.

The recipe calls for a lot more grated orange peel than you will need to make orange juice for the glaze. I sliced up the oranges and served them with the muffins along with scrambled eggs from our chickens.

Here's the recipe as I made it this morning. The muffins were nice and moist, a nice orange flavor, but not too heavy on the orange.

Ingredients

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons grated orange peel
2 tablespoons water
5 tablespoons butter, cubed
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt
3/4 cup 2% milk
GLAZE:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon grated orange peel

Directions

In a small saucepan, combine 1/4 cup brown sugar, orange peel and water. Cook and stir over low heat for 3-5 minutes or until sugar is dissolved. Add butter; stir until melted. Remove from the heat; set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and remaining sugar. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, yogurt, milk and reserved butter mixture. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
Coat muffin cups with cooking spray; fill each with a scant 1/4 cup of batter. Bake at 375° for 13-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Combine glaze ingredients; spoon about 1-1/2 teaspoons over each warm muffin. Remove from pans to wire racks. Yield: 1-1/2 dozen.

Heidi's Honey Oat Wheat Bread

2010-03-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

I went to a luncheon with some of the ladies at church for my friend Rockelle's 40th birthday. I had signed up to bring bread, so I baked 4 loaves of my Honey Oat Wheat Bread and took two of them with me to the lunch. I think there were about 8 ladies there, and a few kids, and when I left, I had an empty bread basket and lots of compliments.

This is a variation of a couple of different recipes and my own experience. I originally got the idea from the cookbook that came with my Kitchen-aid mixer, but my recipe is much different from the original. I don't have a photo right now of the finished bread, but stay tuned and I will post one next time I make the bread, probably tomorrow or Monday.

I always use fresh ground wheat flour in my breads unless I'm using only white flour (mainly French bread). I have hundreds of pounds of hard red winter wheat that I inherited from my grandparents. They stored it for years and years, and used a lot, but there is a lot leftover. Hard red winter wheat is just not the best for baking bread. It works fine in quick breads, but just does not have the gluten necessary to trap the gasses produced when yeast dough rises, and inevitably falls in the oven. I found, through many frustrating batches of bread that even when I added gluten and/or dough enhancer, I still did not get good quality, light bread; I mostly baked a lot of bricks.

I phoned my parents' friends who are renowned bread bakers and begged for mercy and for help, and luckily, they were ever so kind and taught me a lot. I still want to use this wheat I have been storing, but now, when I grind wheat, I put in 2 cups of hard white winter wheat to 1 cup of hard red winter wheat and it seems to make the perfect flour. I grind it at a nice fine texture and it works just great for all of my needs.

A note about baking pans: Everyone always raves about my bread crust. I cannot take credit for the crust, I must give credit where it is deserved...to the pans I use. I bake, for the most part only on stoneware baking pans, and I hope to never go back to metal, glass, or any other material. It is so worth the investment!!

OK, now back to the recipe! Rockelle has been begging me for the recipe ever since the luncheon, but it's only a recipe in my head, and I promised her I would take the time to type it out, so here goes:

Heidi's Honey Oat Wheat Bread

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2-4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. active dry yeast
2 eggs
1 beaten egg
1 Tbsp. water
Oatmeal

Place water, honey, and olive oil in small saucepan. Heat over low heat until mixture is very warm (120-130 degrees F).

Place white flour and 3 cups whole wheat flour, oats, salt, and yeast in mixer bowl. Mix at low speed (in Bosch or speed 2 for Kitchen-aid) for about 15 seconds. Continuing on low speed gradually add warm mixture to flour mixture and mix about 1 minute. Add eggs and mix about 1 minute longer. Continuing, add flour 1/2 cup at a time and mix about 2 minutes more or until dough clings to hook and cleans sides of bowl, adjusting speed as necessary. Knead about 2 minutes longer.

Place dough in greased bowl (I spray with Pam), turning to grease top. Cover and let rise in warm place for about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

Punch dough down and divide in half. Shape each half into a loaf and place in greased (or Pam sprayed) pan. Let rise about 1 more hour or until doubled in bulk.

Beat together the egg and 1 Tbsp. water. Brush the top of each loaf with the egg mixture and sprinkle with oatmeal. Bake at 350 F for 25-30 minutes; the tops of the loaves should be golden, not dark. Remove from pans immediately and cool on wire racks.

If your family is like mine, one of these loves will never know what it is like to be cool!

Making Gnocchi Pasta by Hand!!

2010-03-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

It's funny how things evolve from one thing into another! I received a couple of boxes of Tastefully Simple's Chicken and Dumpling Soup for winning a contest. I made the soup for my family, and to be honest, it was terrible! It was a perfectly good waste of chicken and water, just yucky. Everyone ate, just because it was dinner, but we didn't even save the leftovers.....and, it's expensive at $8.99/package. Lucky for me I didn't pay for it.

Since that fiasco, I had been thinking that surely I couldn't do worse at making chicken and dumpling soup from scratch. That was the plan when I set out and started boiling a chicken. I boiled the chicken and let it cool, and then assigned my son Conner to pick the meat from the bones while my hubby and I were on a date last week. To quote Conner "ew, gross!". I told him to deal with it, he's a boy after all, and how does he think chicken gets into our soups? A real teaching moment.

K, so the chicken sat in the broth for a couple more days in the fridge before I got around to using it. I kept rolling ideas around in my head and deciding exactly what kind of chicken soup I wanted to add my dumplings to. Nothing really jumped out at me, so I kept thinking and looking online for recipes.

My husband loves the gnocchi soup at Olive Garden, and I've been thinking for some time about trying my hand at making gnocchi from scratch. You can see where this is going.... I was pondering the soup, and the gnocchi idea just kept nagging at me. Soooo....of course I had to make chicken gnocchi soup, and pitch the dumpling idea altogether this time around. Gnocchi are really little dumplings anyway, right?

If you have never tasted fresh made gnocchi, you are so in for a treat should you try your hand at this! I have never in my life tasted such tender, delicious little pillows of perfection. This soup was so good that my family fought over the leftovers and begged me to try making gnocchi chicken Alfredo and substituting gnocchi for spaghetti with my spaghetti sauce. It really was not all that time consuming, really, no...really! I spent probably 2 hours total in the kitchen from start to finish, and keep in mind I was a beginner, never making this before. I have never been that big of a fan of gnocchi until I tried these!

For the uninitiated, gnocchi are little pillows of pasta made mostly from potato, with a little flour to bind the potato together (as to not crumble while cooking) and, in the case of my gnocchi, also an egg. I found a gnocchi recipe on this blog, which frankly scared me silly after reading this:

"Gnocchi recipes aren't for the faint of heart. Many, many things can go awry. I'm not trying to scare you off or dissuade you, I just want you to know what you are in for. Gnocchi-making takes practice, patience, and persistance. At their best potato gnocchi can be light and delicate. At their worst, dense, rubbery, and/or soggy. The very worst are the gnocchi that come apart in the boiling water before they even reach your plate."

Yikes! I was already boiling my potatoes....what had I gotten myself into? The soup was in the works and I was ready to go. I highly suggest, for those who want to try their hand at gnocchi making, to carefully read that blog post at least a couple of times.

I am lucky enough to have a potato ricer. I've actually been lucky enough to have stored one for years, having been told once by Martha Stewart on some cooking show that every cook worth anything should own a ricer. I didn't want to be ashamed should Martha come knocking, so I dutifully purchased a ricer only to continue mashing my potatoes the old fashioned way....by getting a man to do it!

Who knew, that some day I would decide to make gnocchi and that a ricer would indeed become very handy. You see, when making gnocchi pasta, it is very important that your mashed potatoes have no lumps, and a ricer is perfect for that. The blogger I got the recipe from uses a couple of forks to mash her potatoes, but trust me, a ricer is not expensive, and a huge time saver on the potato mashing step of the recipe.

I won't go into the gnocchi recipe details here because she does a fabulous job on her blog and you can pop over there to read all about it.

So, in spite of being skeptical of the outcome, once my potatoes were cooked, I continued with my gnocchi adventure. Below you can see a photo of my completed pasta. It was not all that hard, at least not for me. I am an experienced cook, and have made pasta a few times, and bread about a zillion times...give or take a few.

Here is a photo of the finished pasta after boiling. I was so surprised at how quickly they cooked. The blogger said that when they pop to the surface, they are done, then wait 10 seconds and remove them from the boiling water. They seriously popped up in only about 30 seconds. I was not prepared for that, but I was pleasantly surprised. I just couldn't believe that they could be done already!

I wanted to make a simple soup, simple in ingredients, and simple in taste to allow the flavor and texture of the gnocchi to become the focus of the dish. I ran through my herbs in my head and just couldn't come up with a suitable flavor that I wanted to add to the soup, so rather than make a seasoning error, I allowed the celery, onion, garlic, and carrots along with salt and pepper to flavor the soup.

I started the potatoes cooking for the gnocchi, and while they cooked and then cooled (see gnocchi recipe), I worked on the chicken soup.

Heidi's Chicken Gnocchi Soup

1 chicken, whole, cleaned, covered with water, and boiled until tender and coming off of bones.
8 cups reserved chicken broth from boiling chicken
3 cans evaporated milk
Olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
6 stalks celery, diced
6 large carrots, peeled and grated
Salt & pepper to taste
Corn starch for thickening

Note: when I boiled the chicken, I didn't add any seasonings or veggies; I simply cleaned the chicken, covered it with water and boiled it until the meat was coming off of the bones. I also refrigerated the chicken in the broth overnight so I could skim the fat from the top of the pot.

To make the soup, cut the chicken meat into smaller chunks, and reserve 8 cups broth in a measuring cup. Add the garlic, onion, celery, and carrots to the cooking pot and drizzle with olive oil. Simmer the veggies until tender and add back in the broth and chicken. Add the evaporated milk and bring the soup to a simmer and allow to cook while you continue with the gnocchi making.

Once I reached the point that my gnocchi were ready to boil, I thickened my soup with a corn starch and water roux. I probably used 1/4 cup of corn starch and just enough water to make it liquid. You can add more or less, depending on how thick you want your soup. I wanted it creamy and thickened, but not too thick. It was more runny than a typical clam chowder. Once the soup was thickened, I turned it off and began boiling the gnocchi. As each batch of gnocchi finished, I just transferred them straight into the soup.

It was as easy at that, and our soup was ready to eat. Below you can see the finished product....mmmm....still makes my mouth water thinking of it!

A busy few months!

2010-01-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a long time. It has been a really busy few months around here. We had lots of company for the holidays, starting with Thanksgiving and moving right on through the new year. With so much family coming in and out of town, cooking, baking, cleaning, and visiting, not much else got done, including blog posts.

Time to get back into the swing of things.

The biggest thing going on is mission preparations for our oldest son. We are so proud of him, and pleased at his choices in his life. He is such a fine, upstanding example to his younger brothers and to the other young men at church. I am honored to call him my son and eager to hear of his experiences in England. For those who have not heard already, Thomas will be serving for two years in Leeds, England. He reports to the Mission Training Center in Preston, England on February 19th.

We have been busy since November helping him complete the necessary preparations. It's been a whirlwind of activity; passport application, visa application, temple trip, shopping, shopping, and more shopping, helping him decide what to keep, what to take, what to save, what to give away, and what to throw away. What a difficult thing to reduce your life to a couple of suitcases and packing the rest into boxes.

I've also transformed into a knitting fool, completing several projects that I have never attempted before. I started them long before Christmas and finally finished most of them last week. I made my first pair of socks, pair of mittens, and a wonderful super long stocking cap for my dear old Dad!

Here is my son Conner (13) wearing my Dad's stocking cap. My Dad is a little crazy and loves all kinds of kooky things. He regularly wears knit caps, but I bet he doesn't have one like this one! I made it using a bunch of different colors of Swish worsted weight yarn from Knit Picks. I made random sized stripes. The pattern was from The Nauti Knitter blog. This was so fun to make, especially when I started the decreases, after a while, the rounds went very quickly. I used a pair of circular needles and the magic loop technique. It's much easier to me than using DPN's. Hope you like this Dad, it's in the mail!

I made this pair of socks using Knit Picks Gelatto self-striping sock yarn. Knit Picks has a free pattern for two-at-a-time, toe-up socks. I used that pattern with a variation for the start of the toe. The one on the pattern just didn't compute in my head, so I used google to find this one. The wonderful thing about knitting two socks at a time is that you finish the whole pair at once, so you never get the "one sock syndrome". I know that feeling well. When I finished my first mitten, I started the other half of the pair and then got distracted by new yarn and a new project and it took me a while to get back to it. My youngest son didn't like the idea of just keeping one hand in his pocket (no idea why?), so I finally made the other one. I'll post a photo later when he gets home and I can take a picture of him with his mittens.

Here's a photo of our missionary. He's all ready to go, everything but having his bags packed. I never though I would miss him so much, but I find it's a bittersweet moment. I'm so happy and proud of him, but everything I do, I realize will likely be the last time I get to do it for him. I love watching him all grown up and happy and heading off to serve, but my Mom heart is a little sad, so many memories and so much ahead of him! My first little baby is all grown up and ready to leave the nest.....my first time at this. Doesn't he just have the best hair, though? We love it!

Tomato Cream Fettucini with Sausage

2009-05-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Here's what's cooking tonight!

This is a wonderfully satisfying dish, flavorful but not spicy. If you like more spice, try using hot Italian sausage.

I found a recipe a number of months ago on Simply Recipes for a dish similar to this one. It sounded pretty good as I read the ingredients, so I filed it away to try it. The original recipe calls for two cans of tomatoes and 1 cup of cream. I wanted a more creamy sauce, so I used 2 cups of cream and two cans of tomatoes. The original also called for 3/4 lb. of pasta, but since I feed 4 boys, 3 of them teenagers, I opted for a full pound. Another change I made is the seasonings, I omitted the shallots and sage, adding basil instead. In addition, I used Italian style tomatoes, which I normally do not purchase. I had them on hand because I sent my son to use a coupon and I figured they would come in handy sometime. It turned out very tasty in this recipe and I might have to make them a regular item in my food storage. The best thing about this recipe is the simplicity; it has very few ingredients. It's also fairly quick to prepare and easy to cook.

Here's the details:

1 lb. fettuccine
1 package mild Italian sausage
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 15-oz. cans Italian style diced tomatoes, with juice
2 cups heavy cream
2 tsp. basil
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese

Cook fettuccine in a large pot according to package directions, making sure not to overcook.

Cut skins from sausage links and place meat in medium-sized skillet along with garlic. Cook sausage and garlic until done, breaking up sausage while cooking. Add tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes. Add cream and basil. Simmer an additional 15 minutes; sauce will become thinner when cooking.

Drain pasta and return to pot. After sauce finishes simmering, remove from heat. Sprinkle grated cheese over pasta and pour hot sauce over the top. Stir until pasta is well coated and let sit 5 minutes. Stir once more and transfer to serving dish. If desired, add more grated cheese on top or pass grated cheese when serving.

Bon appetite!

Brandon Strikes Again!!

2009-05-08T22:18:00.001-07:00

Poor Brandon!! This photo from a couple of months ago shows Brandon and Rudy. If you look at Brandon's cheek, you can see the very beginnings of a nasty encounter with poison oak. He ended up being a pretty miserable little boy for over a week. This rash blistered up and turned into scabs. He also had some swipes on his arms. The worst part was the rash that covered his body from head to toe and itched like mad.

I was sitting up with him for two nights. He was alternating crying because Benadryl tastes bad and because he was itching, which is worse? He couldn't decide, the itching or the Benadryl. Eventually the itching won out and he took the medicine, then he could finally sleep. Brandon loves making forts and hideouts in the woods, but we need to check more carefully before he ventures out to see whether he's going to be encountering more of this yucky stuff.

So the real story happened last Friday: We have an old heat pump that was installed in 1991, so it could really die any time, though it's been working very well since we bought the house nearly 2 years ago. There are lots of incentives right now to purchase a new one, so we decided to look into it, just to get more information.

I had an appointment to get a quote on Friday morning. The guy came to the door and knocked. I didn't hear the knock since we have a big house and I was down in the office. Brandon was happy to answer the door, he's not a bit shy and loves to hold conversations. So, the heating guy asked Brandon to get his Mom, and here was Brandon's response:

"My Mom can't come to the door today. She's locked in the dungeon. We are not even allowed to give her bread and water, but she can have all the rats she wants to eat."

Luckily, the heating guy thought this was the funniest thing he had ever heard and thought Brandon was one of the brightest kids he's ever met. I think Brandon needs to write a book to put that superb imagination to good use!

My First Venture into Pasta Making

2009-05-08T22:02:00.000-07:00

I have had a Kitchenaid mixer for many years and use it constantly for everything from breads to cakes, frostings to cookies, and anything else you can think of. My hubby bought me the pasta maker attachment set a few years ago and I've never broken it out of the box. It has been cold and rainy here, which made me crave those thick homemade noodles in a nice hearty soup. I never purchase that type of pasta in the stores because I feed 4 boys, so the cost is just prohibitive. I am also a thrifty gal, so I buy only things that are on sale for a great price and keep a good food storage on hand, including dozens of bags of pasta I picked up for $.50 each.

This day, I just got the kick in the pants I needed to break out the pasta maker because I just couldn't get those noodles out of my head.

Making pasta was much easier than I thought. I just followed the basic egg pasta recipe that came in the Kitchenaid booklet along with my pasta attachments. The ingredients are simply egg, salt, flour, and water. It's so easy and cleanup isn't bad. I cut my noodles into fairly short lengths and tossed them with a big of flour so they wouldn't stick together

Here is my soup, it turned out exactly like I thought and was a huge hit with the family.

Ingredients:

1 package mild Italian sausage (you can use hot if you prefer)
1 medium onion chopped as desired
2-4 stalks celery, sliced
2-4 carrots cut into chunks (I used baby carrots halved lengthwise)
3 Tbsp good quality beef base
1 can diced tomatoes (I used petite diced)
1 Tbsp basil flakes
1/2 batch of homemade pasta (probably 2 cups or so)

Brown sausage and onions together and drain grease. Add beef base, celery, carrot, water, tomatoes and basil. Simmer until veggies are tender. Add pasta and cook just a few minutes, until pasta is done.

I love to serve this with my version of Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay biscuits or homemade, hot crunchy French bread. (Recipe to follow in a future post.)

Our New Addition to the Family!

2009-02-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

I know what you're thinking, but it's not quite what you think!

Here's the newest member of the family. After many years of thinking about it, planning for it, and hitting roadblocks, we finally took the dog plunge. Meet Rudy.

He's an adorable 15-week-old Golden Retriever puppy. He's seriously the sweetest thing, and I'm not even a dog person! He's a mellow dog, very curious but very well behaved. He's really not the typical hyper puppy I've been expecting. He's already had some training, is mostly house-broken, and will follow simple commands. He's only barked once so far and that was this morning when he first spied his "people" from his crate. He's just a quiet sweetheart!

The boys are loving having him around, the cats not so much. He's very nice to cats, just curious about them. The cats are not at all curious about him, nor are they shy about telling Rudy who is boss around here.

Rudy, formerly known as Barry, was supposed to be a breeding and show dog, but due to some, uh, issues with his man parts isn't qualified in that department. That's just fine for us because we wanted to have him neutered anyway. We couldn't keep the name Barry because my brother is named Barry. We talked about names all the way home from the breeder's place. Some runner-up names were Denny, Doobie, and Dewey.

He's settling in very well and we are quickly learning not to leave any legos, socks, or other goodies laying on the floor. That's fine with me because I've been harping on that for years. Who knew it would take a dog for me to get my way!

Welcome Rudy, and here's to many happy years!

Hats Off to Me!!

2009-02-03T07:37:00.001-08:00

I decided to knit a hat for my Dad. One problem? I have never knit a hat and didn't really understand the process and knitting physics behind hats. I looked around among the free knitting patterns on the internet and after reading quite a few patterns decided I could figure it out. I initially started following a pattern I found at Lion's website. I wasn't sure how big the hat would turn out, but since I have kids, it was no biggie if it was too small.

Below is my first attempt at a hat. I found that rib knit hats are great because they are more stretchy because the ribs want to shrink more than a stockinette knit does. For this hat, modeled by my son, Conner, I followed the directions to the letter, except I added a stripe of green. This hat is knit with Knit Picks Swish in worsted weight. The colors are Dublin and Truffle. The pattern for this hat is a simple knit 4 purl 4 repeat with 2 extra knits on the end for seaming. I quickly learned that it is much easier to knit in the round when doing hats, the seaming on this was rather a pain!

Jessica's hat: This was actually the 3rd hat I made. I found the pattern and tutorial at www.knitpicks.com under videos. It is a simple rolled brim hat, which rolls all by itself because of the nature of stockinette stitch. I used some yarn from my stash, some cheap stuff from JoAnn, but nice and warm and very pretty. I made her a scarf a couple of years ago for Christmas that was a fuzzy blue and this will go nicely with it. Off it goes to Idaho today, I'm sure she can use it out there!

Finally!!! Dad's Hat! After knitting the hat that ended up being Conner's, I decided that my Dad's hat not only had to be bigger, it needed to be a LOT bigger. I wanted to have a brim he could roll up to put a 2nd layer of knitting over his ears to keep them super warm whe he's working outside. Admittedly, the dog is not the best model, especially since his head doesn't really fit the hat. I had to stuff some bags up inside to fill up the top of the hat for a photo. What can I say? I had a lack of willing hat models (nobody else home) and the dog didn't complain!

This hat also uses Knit Picks' Swish worsted weight, I used Dublin, Truffle, and Camel. I wanted at least 2 inches to roll up on the hat, so I knit a total of 7 inches of Dublin. I knit 3 rows of the other colors for stripes and finished up the hat with Dublin. I'm very happy with the way this turned out, especially since I'm not really experienced with stripes, and this is the first hat I ever knit in the round and the first time I used double-pointed needles!!

Here's the front view! Don't you love how happy the dog looks to be wearing this hat? Well, this hat is going off to Washington today. I hope my Dad loves it!

Chicken Rustling Anyone??

2009-01-19T19:43:00.001-08:00

Anyone who knows me knows that my youngest son Brandon is always coming up with some new scheme of one sort or another.

This is a photo of the imp in question. He turned 8 in September and began his journey as a Cub Scout. Since he's our last boy, it's Dad's last chance to do Cub Scout things. They built this bird house together to meet one of his requirements to get his Wolf Badge.

Now to the chicken rustling story:

My son Stephen called me on my cell phone and said, "I think Brandon stole a chicken."

I said, "He stole what? It sounded like you said he stole a chicken."

Stephen said, "Yeah, he stole a chicken."

Then I said, "You mean a chicken, like out of the freezer, or from a store?"

Stephen said, "No, like a real chicken, there's one in the travel trailer."

I said, "THERE'S A DEAD CHICKEN IN OUR TRAVEL TRAILER?????"

Stephen said, "No, it's alive, and there's a bunch of bread in there too."

I'm thinking immediately, "at least I have another good story to tell."

I knew right away where he got it from, but I couldn't figure out why, or how.

Our neighbors at the top of our driveway keep chickens, and Brandon has been fascinated that they lay eggs and that you can actually eat the eggs. When we first moved to the country, he was openly in awe at their house to see this phenomenon. I could just see what they were thinking when he said, "You mean you get eggs from ducks and chickens and you can really eat them, just like from the store." They must have been thinking, "City kids!!!"

Well, apparently Brandon decided we needed an egg source. I asked him why he stole the chicken, and he said, "So we could get eggs."

Never mind that I purchase eggs in quantities of 10 dozen to feed this hungry bunch of boys!!

Here's the story according to Brandon: He went in the pen and just chased the chickens around until one ran into the corner by the door and got trapped so he could catch it. He thought the back room of the travel trailer would make a perfect chicken coop, so he put it in there. We don't use the trailer much in the winter except when we have company, and then we turn it into a guest room.

He gave the chicken some bread to eat and checked on it from time to time. He kept it there for a couple of days until it got discovered. We really don't go into the trailer much, so it was lucky our son went out there to get something and discovered our new friend.

As for the chicken, we made him put it back and apologize for taking the chicken. I think he should have to apologize to all of the chickens for scaring them. But that begs the question: How do you apologize to a chicken?

Chili & Cornbread

2009-01-15T19:15:00.000-08:00

For dinner tonight, I made chili and cornbread. My chili recipe is very simple and uses lots of stuff from food storage with the exception of ground beef. You could even make it with canned beef chunks, if desired.

This cornbread is the best recipe I have ever tasted, and that includes restaurants! I got the recipe from a church cookbook from our BYU days. It was submitted by Heidi Johnson, and once I tried it, I never looked back. It is nice and moist and everyone who eats it asks for the recipe. I always double this recipe and cook it in a 9" x 13" pan.

Ingredients:

1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oil (I use olive oil)

Mix together egg, sugar, buttermilk, and oil. Add dry ingredients and stir well. Pour into greased 8" x 8" pan and bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Mine usually cooks for longer, make sure to test for doneness with a toothpick in the center.

Here's the chili, still steaming from the pot. I was tempted to throw in a can of green chilis for a twist on the original.....maybe next time. Growing up, I learned to cook with dried pinto beans from my Mom. She always brought her beans to a boil, turned off the heat, then soaked for an hour, rinsed the beans, then proceeded to cook until soft.

As a teenager, I worked at Taco Time. They combine beans, salt, onions, and garlic in a bucket and cover with water, then refrigerate overnight. I like this method as well, but it also means I have to think of it the night before.

I got a tip at my bridal shower and ran across it a few years ago to soften beans in the following manner: Sort and rinse beans, then cover with water and bring to boil in a pot. Remove pot completely from heat and add 1 1/2 Tbsp. baking soda to water and let sit for 15 minutes. I learned the hard way that it is very important to have the pot off of the heat, even on a gas stove, move it to a cool burner. I also learned that less is more in the baking soda department, just use 1 1/2 Tbsp., even if using a larger amount of beans, unless you a using a gigantic pot and an industrial quantity of beans!! After 15 minutes, drain and rinse the beans, cover with water and simmer until soft.

One important note when working with pinto beans. Do not add tomato products or salt until the beans are completely soft. These ingredients slow the softening process and it will take forever to cook them to an edible state.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups dry pinto beans
2 lb. ground beef
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 29-ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 Tbsp. mild chili powder (hotter if you like spicy chili)
1 tsp. cumin powder
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Soften beans according to one of the methods listed above in a large stockpot. Once soft, continue simmering and add all ingredients except beef, garlic, and onion. Brown ground beef with onion and garlic in skillet and drain if necessary, then add to bean mixture. I like to simmer mine at least 2 hours more to combine flavors, we also like our chili on the soupy side, so I add water as needed during the cooking time.

You can top with cheese, onions, or sour cream. My kids love to dip in chunks of the cornbread and scoop up a big spoonful of cornbread and chili. Yum!!

My First Knitted Afghan

2009-01-11T10:51:00.000-08:00

I saw a pattern for a gorgeous afghan called the Ebb Tide Afghan at http://www.freepatterns.com/. I decided to make it for my hubby's sister and her husband for Christmas. This is my first time using circular needles and my first time following a lace pattern. I was so frustrated at the beginning because if you don't get the count exact and catch every "yarn over" and "k2got" it messes up the whole thing. I finally, after several unraveling sessions, counted and recounted super carefully and got the project going. I love the finished project, the color is great!

It called for cotton yarn, but I wanted a lighter weight afghan so I opted to use a merino superwash wool I purchased from Knitpicks.com. I used Swish Worsted Weight in Camel Heather. The yarn is soft and easy to work with and comes in tons of great colors!

This was also my first experience in doing any seaming with finished pieces. For this afghan, you knit the body of the afghan separately from the lace edge and then stitch them together. The only really boring part of the afghan was knitting the lace (After about 2 feet I had enough of knitting it and lots more feet to go!) I do love the look of the edging and I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring this all out!

This photo shows a closeup of the design in the afghan. It incorporates a large cable with lace in between. It was kind of tricky and I had to be sure to count and recount everything, but it really turned out with only one mistake and I don't think they'll ever see it!

Here is the finished project! I hope they love it because it took me countless hours to complete.

The 10,000 Toothpick

2009-01-03T15:09:00.001-08:00

On August 2nd, we hosted a wedding for my brother-in-law Scot and his new bride Destiny. Some of the wedding party stayed here at the house, and others stayed close by. We held the rehearsal dinner here and all week long, before the wedding, there was a parade of wedding goers, flowers, bows, and ruffles through the house. The rehearsal dinner was on July 31st, two days before the wedding and was a great success! It was so much fun having a big group here, eating fajitas and enjoying the celebration of the upcoming wedding. We loved getting to know some of Scot's and Destiny's friends. Some of them we had heard about for years, so it was nice to put names with faces.

What does this all have to do with a 10,000 toothpick, you ask? Well, I'm getting ready to tell you!

At the wedding reception, there were small champagne bottles of bubbles for us to blow as the bride and groom left the party. My 4 boys were the only children at the wedding and enjoyed the bubbles more than the adults. My youngest son Brandon decided to ask all of the adults for the leftover bubbles and, consequently, gathered up about 20+ bottles to bring home with him.

We have a very large deck across the width of our home with a fabulous view of the valley. On August 6th, Brandon took his bubble stash out on the deck and started to blow bubbles. Unfortunately for the bubbles, we tend to have at least a bit of a breeze most of the time. As Brandon tried to pop the bubbles, they were blowing out of his reach. Due to his undaunted personality, he devised a great plan to reach any stray bubbles. This plan involved a box of toothpicks and a bunch of rubber bands. He decided that if he took 10 toothpicks and bundled them into bunches of 10 with rubber bands that he would have nice "bombs" to throw at the bubbbles.

Here is where I come in. I walked by one of the office chairs in my office area and saw a large pile of Brandon's "bombs" on the chair. I put a stop to the manufacturing process and told him to put the toothpicks and rubber bands back into their proper places. I also advised Brandon that if he should leave even one toothpick on the carpet that someone could get it stuck in their foot. We have Berber carpet in our family room and office area, which I concluded would be even more likely to cause toothpick, uh, complications.

So, Brandon did as I asked. The problem? He missed one. And, only 30 minutes later, he was running through the family room (which I also think is against the rules) and started screaming that he had a toothpick stuck in his foot. I looked, and sure enough, he had a toothpick embedded in the fleshy part of his foot just below his big toe. And, to make matters worse, the toothpick broke off, leaving about 2/3 of a toothpick (about 1.5") stuck inside the foot. Of course this happened at 8:00 PM, so the only medical option available to us was the ER. I really dislike going to the ER and waiting for hours. I assessed the situation and since he had feeling in the toe and was not going into shock, I phoned the on-call Dr. at our pediatrician's office and followed their advice to bring him in the next day. (Can you tell I keep a cool head during emergencies?)

August 7th: As we went to the Dr., he advised us to go to the ER because they have better equipment to deal with the problem. Great, just great. At least I was grateful that we were spending the day in the ER instead of spending the night in the ER. At this point, I should also mention that Tom (the hubby) was out on the Oregon Coast at Camp Meriweather with our two middle boys at a week long Boy Scout camp. I should also mention that I was also in charge of a dinner at church this same evening for about 40 women.

OK, so we reached the ER, and after we finally got seen, the first thing they did was to send him to x-ray his foot. This was basically useless because toothpicks don't show up on x-rays. A bit later, a nurse practitioner came in to care for Brandon. She numbed the foot and attempted to remove the toothpick. All she managed to do was break off a small piece, which allowed the remainder of the toothpick to disappear completely into his foot. Next, they brought in a doctor, who attempted to cut the toothpick out with no success. After that, he brought an ultrasound machine to check the position of the toothpick. He could see it was in the foot but the test wasn't able to pinpoint the location. They brought in a surgeon who decided it would be better to take it out in surgery instead of in the ER.

August 8th: We got to the hospital nice and early for Brandon's surgery. The surgery went smoothly and very well except for one problem: They were unable to locate and remove the toothpick. They stitched up his foot and sent us home. I think they were pretty sure I was nuts and that there was no toothpick in his foot. They said if there was a toothpick remaining in the foot it could be absorbed by the body, or it could work its way out.

August 20th: Brandon had a follow-up appointment with the surgeon and got his stitches out. His foot was still swollen and tender.

August 23rd: I spent the day at the beach with the women from church. After arriving home, I kissed Brandon good night and realized that he felt hot. This was about 11:00 PM; I checked his temperature and he was running a fever of 101. I checked his foot first thing and it didn't look so great. It almost looked like the toothpick was coming back out, so my hubby checked it with tweezers, which resulted in a fountain of pus coming out of the foot. After consulting with the surgeon's office, they determined that he needed to be seen that night because of the fever. I took Brandon back to the ER, but by the time he was seen by the Dr., his fever was falling because the infection was draining. They told me to just keep it draining until we could see the surgeon.

August 27th: Brandon visited the surgeon who decided to schedule him for an MRI. His foot was still draining and not happy. It would take a day or two to schedule the MRI, so we went home to wait. Later that night, Brandon started hollering that the toothpick was coming out. Sure enough, I looked at the foot and that darn toothpick was starting to emerge. I grabbed the end with my bare fingers and it came right out, about 1.5" long, and none the worse for wear. It just looked like a regular, old toothpick!!

September 3: On the first day of school, Brandon made his last visit to the surgeon with a much happier foot and the toothpick in a baggie instead of in his foot. Hurray.

In all, that darn toothpick cost approximately $10,000 to NOT remove it from his foot!!

Welcome to my world as Brandon's Mom. He's always up to something, though this was by far his most expensive adventure!

My First Post

2008-10-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

I decided to start a second blog focusing on my many other interests. I will include my other interests besides papercrafting here. First of which is raising my four boys. I have stories to tell about these monkeys! I also love to travel, we lived overseas in Israel for nearly 3 years and loved every minute of it. I adore cooking and I guess I'm pretty good at it since there is not much talking around the dinner table....mostly slurping. I like to read, mainly mysteries, but I'm also working my way through some classic literature as well.

I run my business Pink Hedgehog Paper Crafts from home. It comes in handy when one of my boys breaks their arm, gets sick, or if there's a day off of school. I have a BS in psychology but I've always been a stay-at-home Mom from the day I graduated in 1994. I tell my kids I use my degree to mess with their heads, and it's not far from the truth!

I also love cooking and have recently taken up knitting (about a year ago). I plan to archive my knitting projects, share recipes and cooking tips. Watch for more stories and events. Here's a couple of teasers:

The $10,000 toothpick
Happy Family Potato Soup
His & Hers Wedding Scarves
What do you do when you have to pee and you're on the top of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris?
World's Best Enchiladas
Globe Trotting Cat
What's Rubbish?
Leave the Dead Gophers in the Ground.
The 6 Year Old GI Joe
When a boy plays fetch by himself.

That's just a few of the tales I have to tell. Watch for lots of recipes and photos of yummy food. I'll show my knitting projects in progress and tell goofy stories about my kids.

That's all for tonight, but I'll be back soon!