Vstrecha-blog

FO: Minnesota Mitts

Pattern: All for One Family of Mitts
Project: on Ravelry

   
in progress… 

First in my Christmas present series! These were for my cousin (along with the Doctor Who cross-stitch you saw), who goes to the University of Minnesota. Apparently I matched the color pretty well. (Yay!)

Y’all, these were so comfy and so warm, I almost didn’t give them away! I’m definitely making a pair for myself, but maybe going up a size, so I can crochet them in DK with a smaller hook — that way the ribbing isn’t so bulky. These are super-easy to whip up, btw. I took my time with these (I didn’t want to screw up the cables), & it took me 2 nights per glove (one for the ribbing, one for the palm) working in front of the TV.

Adventures in Cooking: Carrot & Cilantro soup

Snagged this recipe from one of my mom’s Country Living magazines. I don’t really read the rest of the them, but man do they have some tasty-sounding recipes!

This one turned out as tasty as it sounded, though I have a couple of tips.

1. You see there in that list of ingredients where it says “1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed”? You can buy them at the grocery store 2 ways: still in seed form, or already crushed for you. On my groc list, all I wrote was ‘coriander seeds,’ so I got the whole ones. For the love of all that is good and holy, get the pre-crushed ones! They are impossible to crush. I slaved over crushing mine, with every tool I could come up with (back of a spoon, base of my knife, flat blade of the knife) and what you see in the picture above is the result. Not really that crushed. So every now and then in my otherwise pureed soup, i’d get something crunchy. And sometimes little pieces would get stuck in my teeth, like popcorn kernels. Not Optimal.

2. Maybe my food processor just sucks, but… a blender definitely works better to get your carrot/onion mix all nice and pureed.

2.5. I’m not very good at chopping cilantro, so I went ahead & pureed that in the blender too. I feel like this was a Good Decision.

Bonus, this soup is super-healthy too! Good for a night light soup/sandwich meal. I still have a container of this waiting for me in my freezer too. I’ll have to let y’all know how it keeps.

Adventures in Cooking: Thanksgiving Pecan Pie

For Thanksgiving, my dad requested pecan pie. Mom was just going buy one until I swooped in & saved the day said I had made one before. Which I (of course) did not save the recipe for.

After doing a bit of internet searching, I settled on this recipe for Southern Pecan Pie. I didn’t want any fancy variations, and I definitely didn’t want to have to roast the pecans (I did this for my first pecan pie, and it was a big fat PAIN.)

I was pretty sure I should pre-bake the crust, so the bottom wouldn’t be this soggy sugary mess. So I followed the directions on the pre-made crust box & poked a bunch of holes in the base and sides. The first iteration (which i’m not showing here) I didn’t poke all the way through, and the crust puffed up with this giant air bubble during the baking. (I tried to break the bubble & ended up breaking the whole crust in the process. That one went in the trash. I’m convinced this is why the company puts two crusts in the box.) Try #2 I made sure that my poked holes went completely through the dough. This baked really nicely, but became a problem later on when I baked the pie — the liquid filling bubbled through these holes & adhered the crust to the pan. Clearly there’s not optimal method here. Anyone know any other ways to successfully pre-bake a crust & avoid these issues?

The rest of the pie came together pretty easily, apart from the fact that corn syrup is really really sticky and somehow manages to get over everything no matter how hard you are trying to be clean. Since I pre-baked the crust, I covered up the edges when baking the rest of the pie, so they wouldn’t get burnt.

It was a bit of a trial getting the slices out of the pan, but the finished product was way better than any store-bought pie. YUM-O!