My Favorite Food Made Better

I love butter beans. Or, for you non-Southerners, lima beans. Growing up, my favorite foods were cornbread and milk, Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs and butter beans.

You heard me right. A child whose favorite food was lima beans. That was me. But y'all, they are so good. Mind you, for them to be tasty (and not just hard little nuggets of pastiness) you have to cook them a while - about half an hour if they are frozen - and get them just a wee bit mushy.

When you get good butter beans, they have an awesome creamy taste to them. And I've been lucky enough to find some really awesome butter beans (baby limas, specifically, though I've found a few other tasty varieties, too) that are sold frozen in our grocery store (by 3-B Produce, just in case you happen upon the brand). Talk about buttery, creamy aftertaste. They are fantastic. Fan. Tastic.

I seriously thought that these butter beans could not get better. But tonight I found out that they can.

I have the recipe book Curry Cuisine which has a million and a half different curry recipes in it. Some of them I won't even attempt to try, but a fair number of them don't seem too intimidating. Mind you, I don't think I've ever been able to follow any of the recipes exactly (where exactly does one get black cardamom pods?) and a few of them have turned out to desperately need salt (how can something with so many different spices in it turn out bland?) but even with the hatchet jobs I do to things, I've never had something turn out worse than just pretty good from this book (especially once salt was added). (I did, however, make the lamb in rich onion sauce from this book for Easter... it said it should serve 4 but given that it has 6 onions and 5 tomatoes (I kid you not), I think "serves 14" would have been more accurate. It was wonderful, though.)

A while back I saw the butter bean curry recipe in here and huzzah! I love butter beans! I love curry! I want to make this! At one point a while ago, I did make it (but I was out of butter beans so I used English peas. It worked and was tasty but I still felt like I didn't get an accurate taste of what the recipe was supposed to be - you know, with the main ingredient being entirely different). So tonight I thought I'd make it again (but with actual butter beans this time).

Please ignore that the bowl was half eaten. I didn't decided I needed a picture until we were already eating. It was that good.

Mind you, I only followed the barest hint of the recipe. Mostly the fact that I used butter beans (though not in the form the suggested and I cooked them differently) and about half of the types of spices they called for. Since I'm not sure that the authors of the book would actually recognize that my dish came from their recipe, I don't feel bad sharing it. So here it is!

Butter Bean Curry (Adapted)

Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
- 2 onions, diced
- 1¼ inch ginger root, fresh, peeled and grated
- 2 large garlic cloves, grated
- 1¼ cup crushed tomatoes
- 3 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
- ¾ teaspoon coriander
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric
- ½ teaspoon red chili powder
- ¾ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon garam masala
- 2 dashes cayenne (or more)
- 1½ pounds butter beans (or baby lima beans), frozen
- 1 cup cilantro leaves, chopped
- salt, to taste

Directions:
1. Put the frozen butter beans in a pot. Add water until butter beans are just covered. Add ¼ teaspoon salt to water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 25 minutes. While the butter beans are cooking, prepare the other ingredients (onions, ginger & garlic, carrots, spices, etc).
2. Heat the oil in a deep cast iron pan. Add the onions and soften over low heat for about 10 minutes. Stir in the grated ginger and garlic and continue frying until the onions are flecked golden.
3. Add the crushed tomatoes and cook until they darken slightly. Add carrots and the spices (coriander, turmeric, chili powder, cumin, garam masala & cayenne). Cook briskly for a minute before adding ⅔ cup hot water. (The butter beans should be done at this point. Set the pot aside. Don't drain it - instead, use the liquid from the pot in place of the water.) Cover the pan and simmer until the carrots are just tender (about 10 minutes).
4. Add the butter beans and another ⅔ cup hot water. Half cover the pan and simmer for 10 more minutes. Add more water if needed. (Honestly, I just dumped the rest of the pot in. Not too watery at all!)
5. Garnish with chopped cilantro and service with boiled rice.

Seriously, it's delicious! Dan even said he thought it was the best curry I've done to date (and that's saying a lot because I've done a lot of curry) and even though I'm full, I kind of want to have more. Right now.

Mmm, butter beans.

Magically Growing Plants!

Look at how much my little plants have grown! They're all so tall!

Uh, okay, it's really not all that amazing because these are not my seedlings. My seedlings were either stunted or killed by dampening off. Blah. So Saturday, Dan and I ran out to the local(-ish) nursery and picked up all sorts of goodies.

We got:

• Okra x2 (Spineless of some type or another)
• Tomatoes x6 (Roma x3, Rutgers x1, Marglobe x2)
• Peppers x2 (Jalepeno and Hot Banana Pepper) [added to the Cayenne x4 remaining from the peppers my parents gave us that the sun didn't cook before I repotted them]
• Squash x2 (Crookneck and a white majestic or something-or-other that sounded interesting) [these were our unplanned impulse purchases... much better than the lime tree we were eyeing earlier (which is the result of a joke made a while back by Dan, but something I'm seriously considering apparently, which is absurd, but hey, that fits with everything else I do!)]

Those all got added to some cilantro that I had already planted [and whose growth has yet to be stunted... maybe] and two pots of Fordhook lima beans and one pot of Golden Zucchini that I planted today.

Honestly, if I had found either limas or a fun zucchini at the nursery, I would have gotten them instead of going with the seeds again - once bitten, twice shy and all. Hopefully this seed attempt will go better than the previous since my poppa came by last week and checked out my set up and gave me some advice, which Dan and I implemented Saturday before planting the new plants.

So fingers crossed!

I Forgot!

I meant to post about this a couple of days ago but I spaced it. But I remembered it tonight, so yay! I have good craft-related news!

Earlier this month, I got involved in a contest held by a totally awesome designer, Linda Browning, on Ravelry. For each completed project of one of her designs, she gave the knitter a free pattern of their choice and an entry into a raffle to get some yarn goodies. The designer has a lot of lovely lace patterns and since I was attempting to understand lace mysteries, it was right up my alley!

So for the last two weeks of March and first two weeks of April (the time of the contest ran), I made lots of fun lace!

Candle Coaster


Bedside Doily


My First Shawl!

See, busy! (I'll admit, while I love them all, the Tulipe doily (the middle one) is my favorite.)

Honestly, the free pattern thing was enough to make this whole thing worthwhile for me. I loved knitting the projects and learning more about lace. And then getting some more lovely lace patterns for free? Total win! But guess what? I won something else - yarn!

It's 437 yards of delightful lace-weight alpaca! Squee!

I already have a pattern picked out that I want to make with this. Now I just have to find the time (because I have about two dozen other things I want to make, too)!

Meh and Yay!

I've got a bit of a 'good news, bad news' thing going on in my yard.

First, the bad news: my veggie-type plants are unhappy. My one okra outside is still alive (though a bit nibbled on) however my tomato plans are dampening off. Basically, they are weak little seedlings and couldn't fight off fungus and are now dying. Sigh. I thought my okra was having the same issue, but this morning when I looked again it appeared to be okay. So I went ahead and planted the remaining two seedlings in the pot to see if they will all live (or die) together.

As for the tomato issues, Dan and I are going to run out this weekend to get some more grown up tomato plants to give it another shot with something a bit sturdier than a seedling. Hopefully that will get us back on track. I still have to plant the zucchini and butter beans. I'm waiting until it's a little warmer since it still has been dipping into the low 50's at night.

Overall not horrible news but the dampening off is particularly discouraging. Still unfun growing news.

So now the fun growing news! Another of my Clark Garden irises is blooming!

This one is labeled as Anaconda Love, but it looks nothing like what Google says Anaconda Love looks like. Not that Anaconda Love isn't a pretty flower, but mine, whatever it is, is much prettier. Look at that little glowing purply-blue in the middle of the petal? LOVELY! When I get sad about my tomatoes, I just look at my not-a-snake iris and have to smile.

No, Seriously. I Hate You.

Something is eating my okra. And it isn't me.

I planted 6 little seedlings earlier. Now they all look like this:

Boo! Something (that I hate very much) is eating all the leaves off of my okra babies!

So yesterday I (okay, Dan, but it was at my request) got some worm/caterpillar/larvae/etc killer (Dipel Dust) to hopefully take care of the problem. Fortunately, I have a few more seedlings on the porch that I was saving, just in case. Well, in case happened. I've planted one of the remaining plants outside as a buffet invitation for my okra-eaters and sprinkled it with the Dipel Dust. Hopefully, there will be some dead okra-eaters out there tomorrow.

In better news, some of my Clark Garden irises are blooming. Okay, right now it is just one of them, Brilliant Performance, but the iris-that-isn't-actually-Anaconda-Love has two buds on it, so hopefully in the next day or two I'll get photographic proof that it is something other than what the bucket is labeled. And then maybe I can figure out what it is. (Though I'm a bit doubtful on that since there are so many freaking varieties of iris (and I want them ALL!) and there are a lot of ones that look alike, so yeah, my chances are probably not good.) But until then, look at the pretty peach and orange iris.

Floral Adventures

I bring you pictures! Quite a lot of them, actually. Yesterday, Dan, my parents and I all went down to Clark Gardens since their claim to fame is irises (my favorite flower) and right now is the peak of the iris blooms.

Y'all, it was fantastic. So fantastic, that I took about 400 pictures. Don't worry, only 140 of them made it to "share-worthy" status. And worry even less, because I'm not going to post them all here. If you are so inclined, you can see all the share-able ones in my Flickr Album for the event, but here are some of my favorites.

I also bought 4 irises while I was there. I didn't get pictures of them before the travel made the blooms unhappy but here's what I got (with links to other sites for pictures): Anaconda Love (which I actually question because my blooms look rather unlike what I find via Google for that name - mine is like the light bronze version of Cantina), Brilliant Performance (peach with a vivid orange tongue), Cantina (purple with a glowing blue center bit) and Color Me Pink (pink like in the picture I linked to, I'm assuming, but I haven't seen it bloom). Hopefully I'll be planting them next month or so (you should do it about four to six weeks after the last bloom) when I'll remember to mark them so that whenever we move, I can easily dig them up and take them with me!

Still Growing!

Okay, first off, totally don't except (or fear) every-other-day updates for the entirety of the vegetable growing season. I'm sure things will taper off, it's just right now, lots of things are happening!

My tomato seedings are coming up (above), the radishes are being very enthusiastic (they are the tall things in the background of the pictures), my onions are very prolific (they look like a lot of tiny green snakes) and I even have a few spinach seedlings poking their heads out.

It looks like one set of radish seeds have decided not to do anything while most of the others have decided that at least two of them will sprout. (It does make me a little sad to know that I'll have to thin them out, but oh well.) I'm hoping the three spinach that are popping up are just the early ones and the rest will get their act in gear soon. I have zero complaints about the onions so far and I am already looking forward to thinning out the tomatoes (because I do not need the fruits of that many tomato plants).

I'm hoping that this weekend I'll be able to put the radish seedlings into their full-size pots (apparently I could have initially planted them in there but eh, live and learn) and get some other seeds started. Herbs maybe? We shall see. I'm sure I'll post about it!

Day 3 of Insanity

Things are starting to grow! Dan excitedly informed me this morning that green things are beginning to appear in my little mini-greenhouse I planted my veggie seeds in.

So far it looks like the onions are the early starters, but there is a tiny bit of green poking out in one or two of the radish spots so things seem to be going well so far!

Garden Weeds

I was outside weeding my iris beds when I found the weirdest weed ever.

Who knew those grew in this area?

The Insanity Builds

Maybe I have a bit of spring fever because I think I've descended into madness. First off, let's look at the cause of my issues: things are blooming like crazy.

Even my irises are getting into the display, including the super-shy white and pale lilac ones.

So what has this delightful and intoxicating display of color caused? Yeah, that's where the insanity comes in. This is what we picked up this weekend.

Yes. Do you see the insanity now? I'm going to attempt a vegetable container garden.

I've got a number of seeds (12, I think?) but I only planted four this morning, specifically the ones that I thought were the biggest risk/least likely to be able to deal with our heat: bunching onions, radishes, spinach and tomatoes.

Okay, the tomatoes aren't a high risk thing but I am getting started on them late since I'm growing from seed so I figured I had best get cracking. I'm most hopeful about the onions but I'm thinking the radish and the spinach will be very unhappy since things are already so hot. But I did save some seeds so I'm going to attempt to grow them in the fall, too, which I think might have happier results. Wish me luck!

More Lace!

OMG, y'all. I think I'm finally starting to understand the mysteries of knitted lace. I just finished my third lace project, by far the most ambitious to date.

I actually made a few mistakes and had to go back and fix them, but I finally, finally have enough of a grasp of what is going on with all the yarn overs and decreases and all that stuff that I was actually ABLE TO FIX MY MISTAKES PROPERLY!

That's huge, y'all. HUGE!

Now, I'm not saying I understand enough about knitting lace to start designing my own or anything - I'll leave that to the knitting geniuses, of which I am not (I don't even dare attempt to design a crocheted doily - too much brainpower required!) - but the mysteries of lace aren't quite so mysterious any more.

As for the pattern, it is seriously awesome. I can't peg exactly why but I had a blast knitting this. Now, I did have one particular day that was a bit difficult, but that wasn't the pattern's fault. (Some days my brain isn't snappy enough to knit. One day I will learn to actually not knit on these days.)

I will say, I absolutely detested the yarn - Crystal Palace's Mini Mochi. It's a running theme with this yarn, actually. It's so pretty but it untwists, fuzzes and splits like mad. So not the right choice for this project, but I wanted a yarn with a gradual color change and that was what I had. But I still enjoyed knitting this so much that I am seriously considering making another one (in a different yarn). And I virtually never repeat a pattern once I've made it. It's like a video game - if I've finished the pattern, I've successfully completed that crafting level so why replay it? (It's not like a pattern has special Easter eggs to find.) But this pattern? I'm itching to make another one.

Long Awaited Chloe Update

Well, after medicines and surgery and bladder stones and more medicine and tests (on the bladder stone and on Chloe) and research, we finally have some conclusion to Chloe's recent medical drama. A least, I hope this will be the conclusion.

No kitties were washed during the making of this photo

First off, Chloe's bladder stone ended up being an ammonium urate stone. Apparently this is very uncommon in cats (less than 6% of stones). Dogs, specifically Dalmatians, tend to get them, so maybe Chloe is hiding some Dalmatian ancestry. Anyway, this type of stone can mean liver problems so we had to have a bile acid test on Chloe to rule that out. The test came back fine so no liver problems for our little Squeaker.

Typically (in dogs), to help prevent a reoccurrence of the bladder stone, the animals have to be put on a low protein diet (since the stones arise from the liver processing protein differently, leading to a build up of uric acid which, call me crazy, makes me think my cat is now prone to gout, just like Dan). Of course, low protein goes totally counter to what the kitties are eating now since we intentionally pick the grain-free high protein stuff (Wellness Core for a while and now Blue Wilderness because it has little vitamin kibbles in it).

So now Chloe (and just Chloe) will have to switch to a low protein diet. In fact, she's going to have to get some Rx food from the vet that has easier to digest protein. (It's also supposed to be good for cats with food allergies so it might help her with her obsessive hair nibbling behavior that is mostly stress-related but I think does do better when she's on more allergy-friendly foods. I know that food allergies can present in wacky ways; corn (and I think gluten) allergies can cause depression, panic attacks and the like. I was a much happier camper after finally getting my diet corn-free so maybe this new diet will make Chloe a much fuzzier one.)

Neither Dan nor I are especially thrilled about feeding one of the kitties food that has fillers and ten-syllable words in the ingredient list, but the granola pet food market doesn't have anything for cats that can't have high protein so we really don't have an alternative. Well, I suppose I could cook her some food from scratch if I really wanted to, but I think the other kitties might try to beat her up to get to her bowl during feeding time so probably not the best plan. And please, I love my cats but I'm not ready to cook them meals every day.

Anyway, I imagine I'll pick up the food Monday or Tuesday or so. Then hopefully Chloe will be able to maintain a healthy bladder.

I Got a Sunburn!

Well, spring is officially here - the wildflowers are blooming like mad! Yesterday, Dan and I went to my parents' place for lunch and wildflower pictures. The weather was lovely - to the point of hot, actually. While walking around look at all the wildflower patches, I actually ended up getting sunburned on my neck! Which means pool season should arrive any day now. Yay!

Of course, it also means I took a lot of pictures. A lot. But I've narrowed it down to my favorite 60 or so. Hehe. I bet you can guess that this slideshow is a long one.

(You can always see them in non-slideshow format here on Flickr.)

Productivity Has Occurred!

My porch has had a rather difficult winter. Once fall truly hit, Dan and I pulled all the pool stuff in and put the plastic up around the porch... and then kind of forgot about it. I had intended to clean it up and get it neat all winter, but injuries, illness and cold weather all conspired against me. Last weekend I had plans to clean the porch but came down with some sinus issues and the weather was super cold so I let myself be lazy instead. This weekend, however, all the factors converged nicely and I was able to not only clean the porch, but repot a massive number of plants and clean off the super-messy plant stand in our bedroom. How exciting!

Okay, maybe not exciting for the world at large, but Dan and I find it pretty nifty. The porch is a useable room again!

And I repotted a lot of plants. Before the massive clean, I had one lonely plant on the outside plant stand. Now I have lots!

Some of these plants will move back inside once they've had a chance to root nicely (specifically the spider plants since the kitties like to snack on them) but until then, our inside plant stand is pretty naked.

I'm hoping (and aiming) for the inside plant stand to stay on the more spartan side of things even when I bring a few actual plants since before it managed to get pretty overrun. I should have taken some before pictures, but at the same time I'm kind of glad there is no actual proof about how bad it looked.

In other organizational news, I also managed to straighten up my tea pantry. Which is nice because it means I can find things easier, at least for a little bit. Want to see what just under one hundred teas looks like?

It's three and four tins deep in most sections. Also, I have it ordered by tea type because I'm a big giant nerd.

But I'm a big giant nerd with a lot of awesome (and accessible!) tea, a clean plant stand and a homey, comfortable porch so I'm happy!

33% Accomplished

I've got two goals for this year: read 24 books (not doing so well on that - I'm on number three) and

... try new tea vendors. Specifically TeaSpring but also Sugimoto and American Tea Room. Nothing too ambitious, just three new vendors spread over twelve months. (Of course, if I can fit Ito-en and Ippodo in there, it wouldn't upset me in the slightest.)

And done! Well, not totally done. Only about a third done. Because yesterday, I got this:

Yes, I finally ordered from TeaSpring. So happy. And even happier, I didn't spend a ton. I mean, it wasn't like a tiny purchase, but I could have gone much crazier. Much. I got 10 different tea, 9 of which I got 25g. One, the delightful Tan Yang Te Ji, I ordered in a larger amount. But only 50g. I really should have gotten something larger. (But I stuck with the 50g because I was trying to keep my order under $100. Next time, screw the budget, I'm going for 100g.) But anyway, tea!

Right now I'm sipping on some Zhu Hai Jin Ming to start my day and it is lovely. Lovely, I say! (Mostly Keemun-y with rye and faint toasted-smoke but with a nice Golden Monkey-like roundness and hint of creaminess.)

Anyway, huzzah for me! I tried a new tea vendor (one I've been meaning to order from for ages)! I think next up will be Sugimoto since I've had their Temomi Shincha recommended to me (which is a shincha that comes out in April, apparently). Until then, I'm going to work on my TeaSpring teas... and maybe finishing off some of my other teas. Because I currently have 96 teas in my pantry (not including a few one-cup samples from friends, of which I have about a dozen). I'm trying very hard to keep the "official" number of teas down under 100. I'm cutting it a bit close now that this new order has come in.

Oh, and one fun thing about this order - US Customs in New York was kind enough to open the box for me so I didn't even have to struggle with the tape. How nice of them! I suppose that's what happens when one is shipped a box of poorly labeled something or other (poorly labeled, you see) from Hong Kong. (Fortunately they just looked at the packages of tea and didn't actually open any of those. Which means if you want to send something less than legal through the mail, perhaps you just need to put a tea vendor label on it.)

And now I'm off to have another steep!

I Made Lace!

I don't know why it is that when you crochet something out of thread, you are making a doily, but when you knit it, you are knitting lace. I mean, ultimately it's the same thing. Maybe because "lace" sounds cooler (and younger) than "doily"? Regardless, I had some leftover thread from the pretty I made a little bit ago so I though I'd try my hand at knitting a doily with it.

I think it turned out quite nice! I did make a mistake on it (which is fairly obvious to me but hopefully doesn't scream at any non-knitters too loudly) but I remember messing up and how I attempted to fix it so I pretty much know why it didn't work, which means hopefully I won't do that again in the future.

That being said, the mysteries of knitted lace still confuse me. I mean, I totally get crochet. I can look at a doily and break it down and recreate it without needing a pattern. And I grasp the basics of knitting. I can look at something and know it is knit and know how the simpler stuff was done. But you start getting into yarn overs and increases and decreases and I just can't track the flow. I made this and I still don't fully understand why it turned out like it did!

Well, logically, I kinda do. The bits where the lacy sections twist, well, I figure that has to be the knit rounds connecting them, right? But I don't' get why the combination of those stitches results in what it results in.

I think this means I have a lot more to learn about knitting. Which is totally cool because I like learning. Just as long as it isn't too over my head. Maybe one day I'll understand why this turned out like it did!

(Oh, and here is a link to my Ravelry project for this, if you want to see a couple of in-process type pictures. I used double-pointed needles for it! Go me! Only my second time ever using them and it went well. Woo!)

Stoned Chloe

Chloe is back home and settled into the guest bathroom. She'll have to stay separate from the other kitties for 10 to 14 days. Right now she's not too bothered by not being around her people but that's because she stoned out of her gourd on pain medication. Instead, she's a bit hyper and squeaking lots as she fidgets and rubs against everything with the force of only the truly stoned. Once she's off her pain medication, I'm sure she'll start getting a little unhappy about being away from us but for now, she's feeling no pain. Literally.

Surgical Chloe

Well, Dan and I just dropped Chloe off at the vet. She has surgery scheduled today to remove a bladder stone. Poor little girl. She's been getting bladder infections off and on for months now because of this. We tried to treat it with food, but no go. So surgery it is. She'll have to spend the night tonight but we'll have our Chloe back tomorrow, stone-free. Yay!

Update: Chloe came through the surgery fine! There were a few issues in regards to finding the stone - apparently it managed to slip out without being noticed - but it was recovered so it can be sent off for analysis (so we can figure out what diet change Chloe needs to have to prevent this from happening again). We'll be able to bring her home sometime tomorrow. Until then, she's doped up and resting comfortably.

And speaking of comfortably, or rather uncomfortably, this is a picture of the (eraser-sized/disc-shaped) stone that came out of her bladder!

The vet texted me the pic so it's not the most high quality thing, but honestly? It looks pretty nasty so I'm not sure if I want to see it in full detail!

Success!

Sunday, I finally finished Dan's gloves!

I made them to match his hat and just in time for spring!

Wait a minute...

Technically, these were for his birthday, but since his birthday was in February (you know, a month he would have actually gotten to use them)... I did cast on for them on his birthday, though. Which means it took me one month to finish them (and then two days to block them because, honestly, I forgot about them yesterday even though they were probably ready), so these are now officially gloves for the one month anniversary of his birthday.

Happy anniversary!

I will say that these gloves are pretty awesome. I want to make a pair for myself and I don't think my parents would mind getting some, either! There are a few things I'd do differently on the next pair (work the increases one stitch in from the purl stitch instead of right after it, in particular) but I'm really happy with how they turned out, especially since I had to do massive adaptations to the pattern to make sure they'd fit Dan's hands.

And just in case you are interested in those massive adaptations, here's the Ravelry project page for them.

Next up: I have no idea! But I have lots of options. Maybe I should make a roulette wheel of them or something...

We Match

When Dan and I were in St. Louis, Dan's mom got some nifty little nail polish strip things (specifically Sally Henson nail strips). I didn't get a chance to try them out while we were there (thanks, stomach flu) so she let me take some home to play with. And that's what I did last week.

As of last night, they started to chip a bit, but honestly, they've lasted six days, which is pretty impressive. Most of the time polish on my fingernails only lasts two days, three if I'm really lucky. And even though they have a few chips now, they still look nice enough that I'm in no hurry to take them off.

Not that anyone needs to know about my manicure, but I thought they were pretty wild. Plus, kitty picture!

I Made A Pretty

At least, I think it is pretty.

And good news: crocheting doilies? Nowhere near as awkward as crocheting potholders. Huzzah!

And speaking of crochet versus knit (sorta), I attempted to do some knit lace yesterday... It didn't go so well. I'll try it again later with hopefully more success.

Therapeutic Crafting

I think it goes without saying that I've been quite down lately. I've still got Dan's gloves to finish (just the fingers left, though) but I've felt like that project requires a bit too much thought for me to deal with at the moment. So instead, I've fulfilled my need for distracting crafting by doing something simple: magic potholders.

I've done two other magic potholders and they were quite easy but really nifty and delightfully functional. My mom mentioned when she saw mine that she'd like one, so I figured that this need for simple and distracting crafting would be a good opportunity to fulfill that request.

This is the first crochet project I've done since I taught myself to knit. It was kind of strange... the process felt a bit clunkier and not near as smooth as knitting. It was really weird and a bit unsettling. After all, I've crocheted for years (and years). It shouldn't be supplanted in my craft-love by the newcomer of knitting. And yet...

Due to a variety of factors (the need for more mindlessness, a decent stash of cotton yarn, the urge to go back to the smoothness of knitting), I made a second potholder but this time, I knitted it. I didn't have a knit pattern for the magic potholder, but I figured it wouldn't be too hard to make something up as long as I could get the cast on right. I found a cast on for making socks toe-up, did a couple of kfb increases at each end, knit around and around (and around,) then grafted the open end closed.

The yellow with cream stripe is crocheted, the red/beige/cream one is knit

I think next time I will cast on more stitches (maybe 90 instead of 80) to make the potholder closer to 9" at the corners (it's currently 8"), but I really like the results of the knit version. The material is still nice and thick but it's a bit more flexible and supple than the fabric created with crochet. I think that's just the joy of knitted fabric since the hook/needles were the same size and the yarn is the same size and material. Which makes me think that knitting kind of wins all the way around.

I'm not saying that I'm going to eschew crochet. I actually have plans/hopes to use some of the lovely thread I have to make a doily or two and, while there are some nice knitted lace doilies, I haven't really found ones that speak to me as much as some of the available crochet ones out there. But I am kind of thinking that knitting might be on the way to officially becoming my favorite craft style. I just have to get over the feeling that I'm treating crochet like a red-headed step-child.

I Want a Refund

Noro is a fun brand of yarn. It's what I used to make my hat, scarf and mitten set and my colorful wrap. I also have a couple of skeins of it hiding in my yarn cabinet earmarked for socks and slippers.

The norovirus has nothing to do with fun yarn. Or yarn of any type.

I feel cheated....

Yes, I am sick. Which is actually better because what I was before was almost dead. So sick is an improvement. Dan and I went to St. Louis to visit his family and managed to participate in passing around the stomach flu, aka norovirus, which again, has nothing to do with yarn. Instead, it is a big ball of vomiting and stomach cramps and misery.

Other than the sharing of icky germs, it was a good trip. Saw lots of folks, cuddled with some kitties, saw some serious snow and got some super fun yarns (which I might end up flooding my Flickr account with so I can add them to my Ravelry stash once I feel more up to it). Also got the chance to give MIL her (slightly early) birthday hat. I totally forgot to get a picture of her in it so this will have to do:

It's super-cute, even if I do say so myself. A slouchy cabled hat that was fun to make and I got to learn a new cast on. Add on to that, MIL seemed to really like it so win all around!

Well, except for the norovirus. No win there.

Random Statistics (Sorta)

Currently, I'm working on "real book" number two for my year of 24 "real books" (yes, I'm behind already) and I ran across something interesting. Or at least, I find it interesting.

The book is Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection. It talks about the issues Japan's having with its social policy by focusing on two main topics: the change in Japanese large businesses (decline in lifetime employment, capital leaving, etc) and the change in the young women of Japan (choosing career over family, etc). Right now I'm reading a section that discusses the changes in this current generation of women vs. their mothers - more go to four-year universities, fewer want to be housewives and stay-at-home moms, etc, etc, and it mentions a survey that specifically asked about views towards childrearing.

While 72 percent of U.S. mothers and 54 percent of Koreans said they found child rearing to be a "pleasure," just 23 percent of Japanese mothers said so.

Okay, I know the book focuses on Japan and that 23% number is shockingly low. But check out the U.S. percent. 72%. That means that 28% find child rearing not "a pleasure." Which means one in four people you know that have kids? Apparently don't enjoy the experience. One in four!

And people wonder why I have cats.

WHOO!

I finally finished my seemingly-cursed-from-the-start colorwork fingerless gloves!

I think they turned out pretty nice!

I did finally have to give up on attempting to do the colorwork two-handed. Holding both yarns in my right hand was much happier. MUCH. Because of the issues I had with them (not just tension issues, I had major issues casting on for two at once knitting and I also ended up breaking a pair of needles on this project and the first replacement arrived in the mail broken, too), I wasn't really feeling the love before I blocked them. The stitches were uneven, they were kind of stiff and felt restrictive. But blocking them helped a bit with the uneven stitches and turned the yarn soft and supple so they are tons more comfy.

I'm still not one hundred percent thrilled with the yarn - the colorful yarn is super fuzzy so it looks like the dye bled a little (though it didn't because that look goes away if I brush the fuzz around) and the quality of the knitting could be better but hey, it was a learning project so I'm not too upset with it. But at least after doing this I feel confident enough that I can successfully knit a colorwork hat that I want to make. It has llamas on it!

(If you want to read way too much information on the issues I had with these gloves, check out the notes on my Ravelry project. Oh the drama!)

Next up: gloves for Dan! (They are his birthday present. Which kinda sucks for him cause today is his birthday and I'm hoping to cast on for them tonight... though it might be tomorrow.)

Sweet & Sour of Awesomeness

I've been in a condiment mood lately. This past week, I've made corn- and gluten-free versions of recipes for yellow mustard and ketchup. Both of these turned out pretty fantastically. So I thought I'd try my hand at something more challenging.

Dan and I had a ton and a half of trouble finding a me-safe sweet and sour sauce. The one we found was pretty freaking awesome. But recently, the grocery store stopped carrying it. And even more recently, we ran out of the last bit of our jar of it. But the jar did have an ingredient list on it, which wasn't that long, so I thought maybe I could use that as a jumping off point to try and figure out how to make a version of it.

That's what I did tonight.

I made sweet and sour pineapple pork and it was wonderful. And the sauce is what really made it. I know this was just my first shot at replicating the sauce, but it was so fantastic. So I thought I'd share.

Sweet & Sour Sauce

Ingredients:
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup cider vinegar
- ½ cup pineapple juice
- a dash of cayenne
- 1 green onion, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon white pepper
- 2 teaspoons arrowroot powder (approx.)

Directions:
1. Combine ingredients in sauce pan and bring to a boil
2. Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes.
3. Add arrowroot powder to thicken (try dissolving the arrowroot in a small amount of water before adding to the hot sauce). Stir in powder then remove from heat.

(The original ingredient list included serrano pepper (instead of cayenne) and bell peppers (which I hate and thus will never buy from the store, much less cook with).)

See? So simple! So I stir-fried up some onions, pork cubes and pineapple then, when it was all cooked, I dumped in the entire sauce recipe. It was perfect!

Now I want to make more of it to bottle and stick in the fridge because it's really good on veggie patties, too. (According to Dan, it's also good on a spoon.)

What Season Is It?

I just had to turn on the air conditioning in the house. It's 80° in here. Yes, 80°.

What month is this? Because I'm feeling a little confused.