Ten Soups

A friend of mine cross-blogs with someone who suggests topics on Tuesdays, and you have to list ten items that fit under that topic.  This week it was SOUPS and even though I didn't get it done yesterday, here are ten soups that I love:

1.  Italian wedding soup - love the little meatballs, the greens, and the pasta pearls.  Yes, the link is to a commercial canned soup, I get lazy for this one.

2.  Mushroom barley soup - an earthy soup, could be vegetarian but substantial enough for a winter meal.

3.  French onion soup, as long as it's not too oily.  I just love onions!

4.  Cabbage soup - not just boiled cabbage, but the sweet-and-sour type.  I probably have a taste for this from my Eastern European heritage.

5.  Tom Yung Goong - the Thai lemongrass soup that usually has chicken, may have tofu in a vegan version.  Tom Kai Gai, which uses cocoanut milk, is pretty good too.

6.  Chinese hot and sour soup is one of my go-tos when I have a cold.

7.  Almost any Japanese udon noodle soup.  Other ingredients depend upon the weather and my mood.  Sluuuuurp!!

8.  Speaking of weather, when it is hot I can eat (or drink?) gazpacho by the quart.

9.  Ditto borscht, which I can also take hot in the winter, especially if it has beef bits in it.  But in summer just the clear juices, with beet shreds in the bottom.  No sour cream, and not too sweet.

10.  Hard to decide what should be here.  My mother's lentil soup?  Chinese egg drop or Greek avgolemono?  I think it will have to be the chili my brother makes every Christmas eve.  Not quite the same as the one my father made when we were kids, but pretty good, especially with chunks of his homemade cornbread on the side.  No recipe, since everybody seems to have their own favourite.

My New Year's Shawl

It has become my habit, recently, to call the week between Christmas and New Year's my "Week of Selfish Knitting."  I do a lot of knitting and crocheting for others - this week is supposed to be items for ME, in part to mollify my grandmother and others who think that I do need to make things for myself.

(This does not stop my grandmother from raving about whatever I have made for her.  Her catchphrase this year is "the stole stole the show!" and almost daily we hear about someone else "fainting over it" when she goes down to supper.  My grandmother freely admits to wearing it with one tail hanging down her back so that people can see it, to show it off more.  My grandmother is nothing if not dramatic.)

When I made the Sweet Pea shawl for my friend Jenna, I liked it.  The pattern is kind of fun, it comes out huge, and worked up fast.  I thought about making one for myself.  Then, after I had cast on this shawl as my "selfish knitting," out of a hank of Brooks Farm's Duet yarn on the day after Christmas and worked on it fairly steadily through the week:

....I found exactly three balls of Bamboo Ewe, the yarn Jenna had given me for her shawl, in a pretty blue on sale at AC Moore.  I remembered that Jenna's shawl had taken a bit under three balls for the main part.  And I had a $10 certificate to spend, that would cover the purchase with a bit to spare.  Luckily, I needed one item to finish Eina's project, so - as my SIL would say, "Meant To Be!"

The colour is "Twilight," the hook is a US I-9, and I slipped the naked ball and hook into my pocket when I went out for First Night, knowing I would have some time while checking wristbands to get a bit of crocheting done.  Which I did:

You know how people wake up on New Year's Day with hangovers?  I woke up and found an error.  So I had to frog back and restart a row (yes, the above shows more than one row), and by the end of the day, with other things happening, I had achieved this:

I was already into the second ball.  At this rate, the shawl would be done quickly.  And thanks to having January 2nd off work as the official first holiday of the year, this much was done:

I continued the speed of a new ball each day.  It does help that the rows get shorter and shorter.  My friend Jenna told me to "stop speeding!" but crocheting does go fast!

Then work started, and I did slow down a bit.  I also had a problem - I was going to run out of yarn!  I'd added a repeat, since I wasn't going to add fringe (I do NOT like fringe) and thought I might have enough yarn.  No, by inches:

That knot is just short of the final scallop.  Happily, on the way to my knitting group's weekly get-together on Wednesday night, I was able to find one more ball at a store on the way, which was not only the same colour but the same dyelot!  How magical is that?

Also fun is that when I told the salesclerk what I was doing, she seemed interested so I brought in the shawl and showed her.  The clerk said that they don't often get to see the finished items, and she really appreciated the opportunity to do so.

I decided that since I had a nearly full ball of yarn left, I would add a border.  This took longer than I'd hoped, because I needed to adjust the spacing so that the scallops hit the bottom on top of the shell below, and ended at each side tip.  With a bit of ripping, adjusting, and muttering, I was done and on Friday morning, after the sun came out, I spread the shawl on my livingroom floor to photograph:

Complete with a closeup of the edging and stitch pattern:

Then I made sure that the ends were run in and finished, and wore it out that night.  Got a lot of compliments!  I am sooooo happy with it.

The other shawl does continue.  It doesn't look too much bigger, because of being squished onto a circular needle due to the number of stitches:

The center length is now 15" and there's still quite a lot of the yarn to go!  Luckily it fits into my purse so I can carry it and work on it whenever.  I no longer have the "selfish knitting" obligation, but I am definitely going to get this finished before I go to DFW Fiber Fest in March.  I did get my registration sent in before the New Year, thus classes at a discount.  One is a crocheting class that sounded interesting, the other an all-day class on knitting lace with beads.  I've got the concept but not the expertise, and thought it would be a skill to learn, especially as I keep making shawls.

Things I have knit recently - Christmas 2011 edition

Actually, most of these items are not holiday gifts.  But my needles and hooks have been busy since I returned from New Zealand.
First, there are all the chemo caps.  The receipient of the lacy peach one from the October batch was very grateful, so I was happy to finish this one for her:

It is a Red Heart pattern (I skipped the ribbing) using an odd skein of Deborah Norville yarn that I picked up thinking I would use it to make doll clothes for one of my nieces' American Girl dolls.  This seemed more important, and I have been told that the recipient really loves it.

Then my mother's godcousin (their parents were godparents to each other's children) had chemo and lost her hair mid-December, and my mother asked, pretty please?  So I whipped up these:

The multi one is the same spiral rib pattern that I often use, in Caron Simply Soft Paints, colour "Oceana".  I knit it over my Christmas trip, so the hat was finished for my mother to take home and deliver.  The other is a pattern I've wanted to try from New England Knits out of a ball of Red Heart Soft.  It went very fast.  I didn't use the pattern stitch on the top because after an inch, I was concerned it was rough, so I frogged and went back to 2x2 ribbing.  It looks pointy on top, but that smoothes out nicely when the hat is worn:

I had fun looking for the buttons and really like the pair I found at Joann's.

I thought I was done, but when I went to my dentist's office on Wednesday for a teeth cleaning I found out that he has been having chemo, when the hygenist mentioned that "he lost hair in this cycle."  Since I always knit in the chair (calming!) when the dentist came in to check my results he joked that I should make a hat for him.  Sure, I said, what colour?  "Surprise me."  I tried a dark red I had leftover from the Red Scarf Project, didn't like it, then remembered that I have some of the new Lion Brand Tweed Stripes that I thought would be a scarf and didn't want to cooperate.  I dug it out of the charity bin, whipped up a simple ribbed hat, same spiraled top as I used on the aqua cap above, and dropped it off the next day between meetings.  He doesn't work most Fridays so I had to do this quickly.  I was rushing so much I forgot to take a picture!

I did make a number of non-chemo items.  I always do a few for the Red Scarf Project.  This year I had time to do only two:

The one on the left is Jo-ann Sensations Rainbow Boucle, simple crochet pattern.  I have enough left for at least one scarf for next year.  The one on the right is also crocheted, of Caron Simply Soft Paints in "Sunset".

I'd been putting off the next project, which is part of a "Crafter's Pay It Forward" meme on Facebook.  Early in the year, we started posting and the first five people who responded were supposed to get something crafty from you.  I had only three people who responded on mine!  Silly people who skipped me.  I am still waiting for my friend Ches to send a tracing of her hand so that I can knit gloves for her.  The recipients are not supposed to know what they are getting, but Ches is very into gloves so that's a natural for her.  The second is my incredibly crafty friend Eina but I did finally think of something for her, I just have to see her because I didn't take it to our group's holiday party.  The gifts are supposed to be delivered before the end of the year, I'll count it.

The third is my friend Jenna, who was trying to learn to crochet so that she could make something called a "Sweet Pea Shawl" from SnB Happy Hooker.  Jenna was not enjoying it.  She asked me for help, which I gave, but for a beginner, it was frustrating.  We joked that Jenna should just have me do the shawl as her pay-it-forward, and the next thing I knew, Jenna handed me the bag of yarn (Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe in "Snapdragon") and pattern.

When I realized that her birthday was coming, I finally made the shawl:

It went fast, and was easier to follow the pattern than I thought.

I also knit a stole for my grandmother for Chanukah/Christmas, which she had requested.  Forgot to get a picture of it, I used a scarf pattern and knit in Red Heart Fiesta in "Wheat."  Usually I wrap the gift and leave it when we visit for Thanksgiving.  After the weather got cooler there, I kept hearing how my grandmother loved wearing the vests I usually give her, how they cause a stir in the building where she lives, people cannot believe I make them, etc.  So since I had some yarn waiting (I'd planned to make the usual vest until my grandmother requested the stole) I whipped up a simple vest:

My parents will deliver it when they stop to visit over New Year's weekend.  The yarn is a no-name endlot and I have enough for another vest, I think!  Pattern is just a tube to the armholes, graft the shoulders, add borders - really nothing to it.  My grandmother loves the style.

Next up for charity items will be a few scarves for the Special Olympics project, using up leftover solid red yarn that I didn't get to use for the Red Scarf project, because I ran out of time.  But first, my "week of selfish knitting" when I concentrate on making something for ME:

This is a shawl-to-be out of a hank of Brooks Farm's "Duet" yarn.  Not sure of the colourway, it may be "Bonnie", it was an odd hank I bought on sale at last year's DFW Fiber Fest.  It feels very silky.  Just shows that I can indeed make something out of other than mass-market washable acrylic yarns!  I wound the hank on Christmas Day and cast on the next morning.  That shows what it looked like on Tuesday.  I have knit on it all week (except for the dentist's chemo cap) and it's bigger although it's at the awful point when it doesn't seem to grow and the ball doesn't seem to shrink no matter how much I knit!

At least there's a long weekend ahead of me........

Penguins, Santas, and Black Bun for Hogmanay

I have been traveling madly (mostly on business) so my usual holiday cooking is well behind time.  In fact, when I go to a party this Wednesday, instead of my usual baked goodies I might be taking either Penguins or Santas.  I just learned about the latter from a friend's link on Facebook, and while they are easy enough to make I'd probably use currants instead of chocolate chips for the eyes.

The Penguins became a tradition in my family many years ago when I made them as a pre-dinner snack one Thanksgiving.  Since we now go to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving, and all is catered (the best thing my grandmother learned to make for supper was reservations), we now make these at Christmas.  The recipe was in a magazine a long time ago, but of course now you can find a lot of variations on the Interwebs.  In our family, they are just olives, carrot (fresh, not pickled, as some recipes have), and cream cheese.

(Picture added - very cute, very popular, VERY yummy!)

One thing that I should have prepared before now, so it would have a nice "cure," is my fruitcake.  This is not the weird, sugary, nuts-and-candied-fruit item so prevalent now, that're more candy than cake and tends to include something I've always called "that weird pickled green thing" and have learned is either angelica or coloured pineapple.  Neither of which is quite "fruit" in my mind, and I think the things are entirely too lacking in the "cake" element as well.

Many years ago when a beloved adopted uncle and aunt held Scottish First Footing parties, and I would travel up to Milwaukee for the night (and much of the next day), I decided to take something to add to the groaning board.  I can't remember how I decided to make Black Bun except that the recipe is in one of the cookbooks I bought when living in England, and it's Scottish and for New Year's!  But I wasn't confident in my pastry-making skills at the time, and dubious about baking a cake inside a pastry case.  So I skipped that part and just made the filling and told people it was Scottish Fruit Cake.

Some avoided it on principle, but I wheedled several into trying it with promises that it really included just FRUIT and CAKE and "no weird pickled green things."  All declared it quite yummy, and I get asked for the recipe.  So here it is, approximately, since I tend to adjust the fruit to what I have on hand or can find easily, and the liquid to what I think the recipients will enjoy.

If you want to do this really traditionally, you can look up a recipe for the details.  To make the pastry case, follow a basic two-crust piecrust recipe, and add about a half-teaspoon of baking powder, to make it a little flakier.  Roll out about 2/3 of it to line a deep casserole, a loaf pan, or some other deep baking tin, and keep the rest to make the lid later.

To make mine:
About six cups of chopped (see Step 1) dark dried fruit:  raisins, currants, prunes, figs, dates, etc. 
1.5 cups flour (if you want to go gluten-free, substitute GF baking mix)
1/3 cup soft brown sugar (light or dark doesn't matter)
Spices:  allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves.  Adjust to taste, about 2 tsp total, up to 1 T.
    NOTE:  It's better to go heavier on allspice or cloves and lighter on the cinnamon and nutmeg.
One-half teaspoon bakng powder.
One tablespoon brandy or orange juice or cider.  (If you are soaking the fruit, up to a 1/4 cup.)
One large egg.

1.  Chop the largest into pieces about the size of the smallest.  So the prunes and figs and dates get cut into pieces about as big as raisins and currants.  Do not use yellow raisins (sultanas) for this.  They are very good for snacking (especially mixed with toasted, salted pecans) and wasted in this recipe.  Be sure you take out any stones/pits and hard stem bits when you chop everything.  The finished amount should be six cups, be generous rather than scanty.

1a.  If the fruit is very dry, soak it in a bit of the liquid for a few hours or overnight.

2.  Start the oven at 325F/160C/Gas Mark 3.  If you are using the pastry case, make sure it is ready.  If you aren't, as I don't, just butter (or oil, or use spray-on stuff) the pan.  Flouring on top of the buttering is optional.  You can also line the pan with paper and butter the paper.  Some people just put paper (parchment or waxed) in the bottom of the pan.  My pans seem to release easily so I don't need to do the extra steps, but do them if you do, especially as this is a sticky cake.

3.  Stir the sugar into the fruit.  Mix the flour, spices, and baking powder together (stir or sift) and add to the fruit.  Mix the egg and liquid together and add to the bowl.  If you used the liquid to soak the fruit, REMEMBER THAT and don't add more, or the cake will be soggy.

4.  Now stir together until everything is well mixed.  The batter should be very dark and lumpy.

5.  Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, cover with a piece of foil, and put it into the preheated oven.  If you are using the pastry case, be sure to roll out the lid and fit it on top and seal the edges of the pastry before you put it into the oven.  You can use scraps to make additional decorations if you like, and if you want to be really fancy brush with a bit of egg wash (beaten egg thinned with water) if you like.  For really, really fancy, tint some bits of the egg wash with food colouring and paint the design, or paint a picture or message on the pastry top.

6.  BAKE for 2.5-3 hours.  Something like that.  Just go away and watch a holiday movie or something, then check.  At some point you might want to remove the foil so the cake (or pastry) can brown.  Alternatively, add the foil after about 45 minutes of baking.  Because of the sugar and fat content, the cake or pastry can burn before the cake cooks all the way through, thus you need to use the foil.  Test the cake to make sure it's cooked all the way through.  Ovens and the size and shape of the cake can affect how long it will take to bake.

When the cake is baked through, take it out of the oven and put the pan on a rack to cool.  If you did not use a pastry case, unmould the cake after about ten minutes and let it cool.  If you did use a case, leave it a bit longer before you take it out to cool.  When thoroughly cold, wrap the cake tightly and tuck it away until Hogmanay.  If you did not use the pastry case, you can brush it every so often with brandy or rum or bourbon or whatever you like to make it more alcoholic.  I don't do this.

When serving, cut thin slices.  You don't need to ice this, but you can do the traditional almond paste coat and royal icing on top if you want to get fancy.  I don't bother, as I like the taste "as-is".

Mittens for Akkol Campaign Contributions

I should write stories about the trip to New Zealand, or some of the other things I've been doing, but I'm still busy playing catch-up with my life.  So this will have to do for now.

After I was insulted twice in the blog for another charity, I was told about Mittens for Akkol and how they knit woolly items for children in orphanages in Kazakhstan, and for mothers and babies in "baby houses" there.  Since I have a lot of wool yarns on hand because of the previous charity's needs, I decided to switch and knit for this group.

I found out about them barely in time to contribute to the last campaign.  This time, I was almost too late even though I tried signing up immediately.  Some of those ladies are quick!  I was able to send these items:

Toddler hat at left was made from a free pattern on KnitPicks, out of leftover bits of 100% wool yarn.  The picture seems to be of the back seam, sorry!  It is very cute and very thick, will be nice and warm for a small child.  Also stretchy, thanks to the garter stitch, so not to be outgrown soon.

The yarn from the hat was originally part of the blanket below.  The other charity wants bigger ones that MfA does, so I ripped back the partly-done blanket and finished it at the required size.  It's a couple oddballs of shaded yarn done in two-row stripes, surrounded by aqua handspun and handdyed wool yarn that was a leftover in my wool basket.  I think it's pretty cute.  I folded it in half for the picture so I could get a closer shot:

They also wanted baby sweaters.  The first one is out of sock yarn, from a cute pattern and on US#2 and US#1 needles.  This is the three-month size, and I used a ball of striping yarn and a partial ball of the solid.  It was great carry-around because of its small size, but tedious:

Note that I changed the closure from loops to a proper placket.  I did something similar on this cardi, which is six months size and adapated to use some Limbo, a discontinued 100% wool yarn I had in the stash.  I just made pieces that reached the recommended measurements, sewed it together, added the borders and then added buttons from my stash.  They happen to be rose-shaped.

The socks below were knitted on two different choir tours!  One on the tour of Argentina in 2008, and

the other on our tour of New Zealand this year. I kept meaning to get the second one done..... Basic toe-up pattern, using SWS (Soy Wool Stripes) yarn in "Natural Earth" and US#4 and US#5 dpns.  They fit my foot and I do the K2P2 ribbing so they will stay up better on a leg, and stretch to fit different sizes.  I actually had a repair job to do after the second one that I will write up in another blog post.  They are fraternal because the balls started in different places in the colour sequence and to economize the yarn so the socks could be as tall as possible, I didn't get too particular.  This yarn is 70% wool and 30% soy and too warm for me to wear as socks.

Package was mailed with my usual prepaid, pre-addressed postcard for the organizer to send back so that I know it arrived safely.  She does post a list of packages as they arrive, but I got used to adding the postcard and it's a nice extra confirmation.

More photos of things I have created recently (I did a LOT of knitting and crocheting on the NZ trip) and my yarn purchases, the sock repair, yet to come.  Plus some tour reports, with lots of pictures!

Chemo Hats - an easy batch

My mother mentioned that one of her good friends was undergoing chemo, and would I make a hat?  I'd done some for a cousin of ours when she'd had chemo and lost her hair, and I told my mother that if her friend went bald I'd send hats.  On a call a couple weeks ago, my mother mentioned that her friend had finally lost her hair, and I quickly whipped up these hats:

The one on the left was finished on one of my trips to Long Island, I took the picture before I left because I didn't think I would remember there.  Very simple crochet pattern.  I mailed them, Mom delivered them, and her friend raved about them.

So I made more:

Actually, only the two knitted ones on the right are for the friend.  All the knitted ones are a plain hat pattern, just cast on a multiple of four stitches, work 2x2 ribbing for a bit, and then simple stitch pattern or not.  I can whip one out in a day that has a lot of conference calls, and they are all washable.

The crocheted one is for a court administrator that Mom knows who is also losing her hair to chemo.  I entered it in a local fair, it won no ribbons, but it took only a couple hours to whip out so I didn't expect huzzahs.  I did think that the pattern was too short for a chemo cap and added a round of the lace pattern to improve it:

Washed and ready, these get delivered to my mother this weekend, and she can hand them around to the ladies next week.

It's Breast Cancer Awareness month.  One thing of which people should be aware: The disease is not limited to women.  If you have breasts, you can get it, and this includes men.  Of course, men usually can rock the bald look better than women!  I have made hats for men, to help them stay warm.

The place I get my hair cut (and dyed when I feel like it) is doing a fundraiser later this month.  I have been thinking of making some funky chemo hats to let them sell or hand out or whatever, to people who need them.

A quote I like

I get the daily set of quotes from The Quotations Page, and like this one so much I want to share it.  Since it's too long for a .sig file, here it is:

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

                                Andre Malraux (1901 - 1976)