We’re back from a week in San Francisco, where we hung out with family, cooked and ate great food, and did a little siteseeing. Selma is studying San Francisco in school, so we took pictures of her in front of landmarks to bring back to her class. Then we had a whirlwind one-day stop in Seattle where we saw friends and visited our favorite West Seattle haunts including the amazing Bakery Nouveau where I had supèrbe chocolate brioche.

Back here in Cordova, it’s a wintery wonderland. There’s lots of snow, and it’s a bit colder than normal, but really beautiful. I’m hoping the skiis James and I got each other for Christmas arrive soon so we can make the most of it. The kids both have skiis and the lake is a nice flat place to ski right outside our door.

I’m only in town for a week and a half, then I head to TNNA (The National Needle Arts Association) trade show. I’ll be working at the Stitch Cooperative booth (#624), and networking a bit. In the meantime, I have to finish up a bunch of editing and crocheting that was set aside during the holidays, so this will be a busy week. (I kept thinking it was Monday all day today, and had to remind myself it was actually Friday!)

Happy New Year, Everyone!

OK, I blame Julie, who commented on Twitter about making peppermint fudge. She got the idea from one of my favorite bloggers, Hannah Kaminski, who is, not only a designer of adorable crocheted amigurumi, she’s also the author of My Sweet Vegan, for which she created delicious recipes and rocked the photography. Oh, and did I mention, she’s still in college?

Anyway, I had not scheduled any time for holiday baking this week even though I knew I really wanted to fit it in. Then, after hearing Julie tweet about the fudge, I read the recipe, and decided it would be a pretty quick treat.

It was! After they cooled, I packed up pieces up to give to friends and neighbors.

Since I was going to be messing up the kitchen anyway, I dug out my chocolate chip macaroon recipe and made a batch of those while the fudge was cooling. They, too, got packed up.

We kept a few of each out to sample, but I plan on making more cookies and treats when we get to San Francisco next week and I’ll have access to all of my favorite baking staples.

Wreath Wrap on Flickr – Photo Sharing

I love this wreath adorning the door at designer Robyn Chachula‘s house!

I was helping a friend make the diamonds and shells scarf today when I noticed an error in the beginning of Row 3:

Instead of “Ch 5,” it should read, “Ch 1, sc, ch 4”

Also, Angela was having a little trouble interpreting the end of Row 2, so I re-worded it to be clearer, after the semi-colon, you may substitute, if you wish:

“end with sc, ch 2, dc all in last ch-sp.”

Angela is making the scarf in a variegated silk from Art Yarns, and it looks so pretty.

By the way, I’ve added a button to the individual blog post pages, that creates a print-friendly page. If you click on the title of a post from the main page, you’ll see the print icon at the top of the page.

I don’t know if you’ve ever decided to make a yummy looking recipe and realized that it had “chocolate wafer cookies” as an ingredient. They are a tasty simple cookie, that I think used to be readily available in stores, but now are limited to gourmet shops (Gourmet shops don’t exist in Cordova). These little cookies can be used in cookie crusts or in sandwich cookie desserts or pies or tarts or anywhere a bit of chocolate crunchiness might be a welcome addition–i.e. crumbled on top of pudding or ice cream or used to decorate the sides of a cake or as one layer of a trifle. At any rate, I had typically avoided such recipes because I didn’t have a ready source for chocolate wafer cookies, and I also don’t like to use a lot of processed foods in my cooking because, I’m a little perverse that way.

This weekend, I needed to make a dessert for a progressive dinner and I was devoid of inspiration. I felt tarted and pied and caked out from all of the fall fruit I had baked and birthdays I had fêted over the last few weeks. So it was time for something new. Thumbing through my cookbooks, I got a little obsessed with cheesecake. I had never made a cheesecake with actual cream cheese–In my days as a vegan chef I’d made plenty of delicious “cheesecakes” with tofu. But we’re in using things up mode since we’re travelling over Christmas, and I had a bunch of organic neufchatel cream cheese in the fridge from a bulk order earlier in the fall (when Jay was big in a bagel eating jag). Selma said, “Make a graham cracker crust!” But that didn’t really appeal to me. I definitely wanted chocolate involved. On top of that, my spring form pan has gone missing, or more likely didn’t make the move because the movers left my house without taking any of my baking pans, and tho’ I rushed a box down to them at the warehouse, it wouldn’t surprise me if something got left out.

One thing led to another, and I only had about three hours left before the party, so I got to work making the batter for some mini chocolate cheesecake bites, in tiny mini muffin tins with no crust. While the cheesecakes were cooling, I improvised this recipe for chocolate wafer cookies which served as the base or “crust” for the cheesecakes after they had cooled.

Chocolate Wafer Cookies

1 1/4 c flour
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1 T baking powder
1/2 c. canola oil
1/4 c. blackstrap molasses (important for giving the cookies a nice dark color and rich flavor)
1/2 c. maple syrup
3 T – 1/4 c. water

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, molasses and maple syrup. (TIP: if you measure the oil first, then the molasses and syrup will slide right out of your measuring cup). Add wet to dry and stir to combine, kneading with your hands when the mixture is too thick to stir. If it seems to dry to hold together, add a Tablespoon of water at a time until the dough can form a ball. Use immediately, or chill until ready to use.

To make the cookies, roll the dough out between two pieces of parchment paper or waxed paper to a thickness of 1/8 – 1/4 inch. Cut with a small biscuit cutter or cookie cutter. Bake for 9-10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. It is very hard to tell if the cookies are done by sight, if you can smell them, they’ve probably been in there too long.

Makes approximately 2 dozen, depending on the size of your cookie cutter. This recipe is easily doubled.

I’ll post more about the cheesecakes soon.

The Interweave Crochet Winter preview is up, and I have a simple little lace scarf pattern in there. (Does it seem like I was in a scarf rut this spring? Really it was all coincidence that I designed three in a row, I’m not usually a scarf-making person).

The idea behind this scarf was to create a pretty lace pattern that a beginner could easily make to build lace-crocheting skills–with actual laceweight yarn. In this case, a lovely lace merino from Skacel. I’m always worried that photographs show patterns the way I imagine. I was pleasantly surprised. I love how the stitch pattern shows up against the model’s red coat. I’m looking forward to making my own scarf to keep just for me. (someday, when I’m not up to my ears in teddy clothes).

This issue is particularly packed with nice giftable crochet items. It’s a shame it won’t be out in time to make Christmas gifts for this year–but you could get an early start on next year, or make gifts for other occasions. I’m enamored by Marly Bird’s Thrummed Mittens and Lisa Naskren’t butterfly shawl.

Orange scones on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

How about a recipe? I’m planning on slowly moving the recipes from my languishing food blog over here, since I see no reason to keep the two separate anymore. I developed this scone recipe for Selma’s seventh birthday–she had a tea party complete wtih little sandwiches, tiny cupcakes, and these scones which happen to be vegan as well as delicious.

Orange Scones

1 3/4 cups unbleached flour
1/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour (or whole wheat flour)
1/2 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/3 c. Earth Balance margarine
zest of one organic orange
1/2 c. soy milk

Preheat oven to 350

Combine flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk to combine. Cut in margarine with pastry cutter. Add orange zest and stir to incorporate.

Add milk, and stir with a fork until milk is worked in, then mix with your hands. Dough should be soft–add more milk a teaspoon at a time, if needed. Form a ball and press dough into a circle 1/2″ thick on a
floured cookie sheet.

With a floured knife, make 4 cuts most of the way through the dough creating 8 triangular pieces. Bake for 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Serve warm with margarine, jelly, soy whipped cream… enjoy!

p.s. If you’ve tried to leave a comment on the blog in the last week or so, and haven’t seen it appear, my apologies–the blog was attacked by spam comments–over a thousand of them, and I’ve just finished wading through and deleting the offenders, so things should be back to normal now!

Right now, I’m in what I think of as the doldrums of my crochet book–the exciting beginning stages are over–I’ve done the creative work of coming up with the designs and choosing the yarns, sketching, swatching. And while I do enjoy doing the stitching (a lot, actually) the sheer volume I have to do in the small amount of time detracts a little from the excitement of the creative process.

So, my brain starts to wander. I think of all sorts of other things I’d like to be doing creatively. I bought a small needlepoint kit the other day, but I won’t let myself start it. I stare longingly at my spinning wheel, I do knit a couple of rows a night on a sweater for Selma, but it doesn’t count because it’s a Tomten Jacket, and while it’s relaxing and fun, I wouldn’t call it creatively stimulating; it is pretty much mindless garter stitch. So last night I found inspiration in an unlikely place: crochet.

I needed to take a break from teddy bears to do a swatch for a non-bear related project. I had been thinking about it a long time while waiting for yarn and I knew the technique I wanted to try but I hadn’t played with it yet. It’s mosaic crochet–there are a few books about the technique, and I have a small leaflet with some afghan patterns. Essentially, you’re creating geometric two-color patterns, but using chains and spiked stitches only one color is worked per row, so it makes a nice supple fabric. For charts I turned to Barbara Walker’s Mosaic Knitting book. It was the perfect remedy to the crochet doldrums,  I got my brain working again deciphering a new technique and I feel better about leaping back into the book projects–like the amigurumi baseball bat and ball I plan to finish tonight.

Out of this world: British teddy bears strapped to giant weather balloon pictured at edge of space | Mail Online

These little teddies endured -54 degree temperatures and a ride into near-space on a weather balloon, but they survived due to the special clothing created and developed by the elementary students in Britian who sent them there. They made it back safely too due to parachutes! The project was a collaboration between a college science program and a primary school.

I designed this scarf for the new Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders book from Storey Publishing, edited by Judith Durant. The book came out last month and I recently got my copy. I also got the scarf back which is a nice treat–I’ve been wearing it a lot. (Even in the house where we keep the heat at a sometimes chilly 64 degrees). The Blue Sky Alpacas Royal is wonderfully soft, and the scarf is long enough to wrap around your neck a few times. It’s a beginner-friendly scarf as proven by my friend Angela who’s making one as her first crochet project.