Epic Sock Project

It took me a year and a half to knit these socks. Mostly, I am just really glad to be done with them.

The technical stuff:

They are made of wool that I unraveled from a sweater that was really well made but terribly unflattering. Gauge, about 9 stitches/inch. Needles are a 000 40" circular, which I chose because I knitted them 2 at a time toe-up.
























They are far from perfect, because I fall much closer to the "project knitter" side of things than the "process knitter" side.

Things I like about them:

The ribbing at the top looks nice. I learned a new bind-off technique that allows the top edge to stretch very easily.
The fit at the ankle is nice and snug. No wrinkles or sags.
They're toasty warm- 100% merino!



Things I don't like:

That lace pattern isn't very stretchy. The ankles stay snug, but the knees don't.
And I really could have thought out the calf increases better. They're a little clunky looking.



Naturally, even though I swore the whole time that I would never do such a thing again, I started thinking about how to make the next pair better the minute I got these off the needle.We'll just have to wait  and see if that really happens.

BWAHAHAH!

Last night David brought home this giant-ass pumpkin.

Me: Ohmigod. Is that China? And Taiwan?
Him: It's the 'One China'.
Me: HAHAHAHAHA!

Me: Who the hell puts China on a pumpkin?
Him: I dunno...Chinese People?
Me: No dude, not even Chinese people would China on a pumpkin.

Me: Is that the Korean peninsula?
Him: I was thinking about it then I was like, nah, that's too hard.
( It occurs to me that China probably thinks the same thing)

Him: I was paying tribute to your people!

Noodle Soup

I feel like crap today, as I have felt for about 6 days now. I'm getting right tired of it. Meanwhile, here is a bowl of soup. I did not eat this soup today; I did not eat much of anything in fact, due to the crap-feeling business, but looking at this picture of soup from some time ago makes me feel better, so here it is.

There is fried tofu, and greens, plus noodles in fish broth, and I decorated it with minced ginger, green onions, and mushroom fluff. There is nothing mysterious about it (except maybe the mushroom fluff), it's just soup. It only looks pretty for about 30 seconds before you stir it up in to a mess and slurp it up, but those are an important 30 seconds, I think.

the heck is that mess

 

 
That's my first and probably only attempt to spin my own yarn. I've been curious about spinning forever and thought I'd try it out. So I grabbed a little 1 ounce baggie of prepared wool when I was at the store the other day and spent some time trying out various home made contraptions for turning it into string. Some things I discovered are:

1. It takes more coordination than anything else. It isn't physically arduous, or complicated, but it reminded me of learning to pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time. Or rotate my arms in opposite directions.
2. There are some weird old men who like to do historical re-enactments having to do with spinning flax on youtube.
3. A drop spindle is about the most low tech thing you can get, but there are better ways to make them and worse ways. I found that a bent coathanger jammed into a rollerblade wheel was more effective than a thing made out of a CD and a chopstick. The important thing is weight. The rubber wheel had enough mass to keep the whole mess turning for a good while, whereas the CD was too flimsy and just stopped rotating.
4. Between the two iterations of drop spindle, I had the rollerblade wheel jammed under a belt that I operated with the treadle of one of my sewing machines. That was much faster, but was like learning to pat my head, rub my tummy, and rotate my arms in opposite directions all three at once.
5. One ounce of wool will not make enough yarn to make anything out of, at least not if you're a beginning spinner. I would knit a bunch of little aliens out of it, but it's so unevenly made that it would make some very misshapen creatures.

how it looks stretched out, before washing

At any rate, my curiosity is satisfied. I now know that making string is about as interesting as you'd expect it to be for about 2 hours, and then I'm pretty much done.

Actual Banana Bread

  

Now with picture! Looks like any other bread...

  
Unlike what is usually meant by the term banana bread, which is in fact a sort of very moist cake, this is a formula for yeast risen bread, using bananas.

460 grams over ripe bananas. This was 4 medium sized ones for me.
525 grams bread flour
30 grams butter
7 grams salt
7 grams yeast

Peel and smash the bananas and then put everything in a bread machine to knead for 2o minutes. Proof the dough for about 2 hours. Deflate the dough and gently shape it into a loaf. Put it in a loaf pan and let it rise until doubled, then bake at 375 for an hour.

Notes:

1. The variable nature of bananas as a unit of measure is somewhat irritating to me.
2. It means that either you will have to do some algebra to figure out how much flour to add, or just kinda eyeball it. I would hate to recommend using algebra. My 8th grade algebra teacher would probably laugh her ass off at me, sitting here trying to remember how to calculate ratios. Shut up, Anne Thomas!
3. Just eyeball it. Keep in mind that this dough should be quite sticky.
4. Because it is so sticky, you will need to flour your hands and work surface quite a bit in order to shape it into a nice loaf.
5. This dough rises quite slowly, but will poof dramatically in the oven. I think it's because there is so much sugar from the bananas.
6. Over ripe bananas means just that. Mine were almost totally black and I had started to worry about fruit flies and fermentation before I stuck them in the fridge to stabilize them until I could put them in the bread.

Dad used to make this bread regularly, there was also a version of it with raisins in it that I was very partial to. I didn't have enough raisins today, but maybe next time. I think this is the first time I've tried to make it and I'm really happy with how it came out. Mine is fluffier and chewier than Dad's banana bread, because he never used bread flour, only all purpose. It still smells the same though- kinda carameley and tropical. It smells like wellbeing to me.

Fred Meyer Rolls

 

How Bread! Much Roll!

 
I got the recipe from the website of a domestic advice mogul who I think is not only an unpleasant person but they make enough money already that I don't feel obliged to link to the page. Besides, I had to do a lot of math to convert the recipe from volume to weight in order to re-size the recipe so it would fit in my bread machine. What kind of fancy domestic expert are you if your cooking website and doesn't even have a volume-to-weight button for measurements?* I mean jeez, there wasn't even a button for the print friendly version of the recipe.

In any case, the rolls came out amazing!!!!!

500 g all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups milk or 170 g water and 25 g dry milk which is what I did
5 or 6 tablespoons butter- technically 2/3 of a stick which I kinda eyeballed
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
10 g yeast- this is a slightly skimpy tablespoon


The butter should be soft and the eggs at room temperature if you knead by hand, but since I kneaded everything in my bread machine for 20 minutes that's just a minor detail.

After kneading, let the dough rise until it has doubled in size or slightly more, then gently deflate it. That was about 2 hours for me.

Divide the dough into 20 pieces and put them on a buttered baking pan. To shape the rolls, first divide the dough in half. Gently roll each half into a rope, working the air out as you go, then pinch off bits. Don't worry if they're a bit lumpy, they will smooth themselves out. Let them rise until doubled. Pre-heat the oven to 375, then bake the rolls for 20 minutes.

Such Yum! Happy Cooke!

AAARRHHHGGGH! These are so goooooood. I have been trying to get my rolls to turn out like this ever since I started baking! They are just like the rolls you get at the grocery store, except butterier and fresher! I made them to take to David's folks' house for dinner and the car ride was torture because I wanted to snorf up the whole lot at once and I hadn't eaten enough lunch but that last part was my own fault so never mind. These rolls are mighty delicious. In case the picture is not convincing enough, let me extol the fluffiness, the tenderness of the crumb. I am overjoyed at the rich buttery mild sweetness, the thinness and crispiness of the crust. This is one of the rare things I have made where the pleasure of eating actually exceeds the expectations raised by the pleasure of looking.

To ensure that your rolls have similar quality of performance, please note the following technical points:

1. Rising time is very important. Don't let the dough over rise or it will start to taste fermented.
2. But don't rush it either. Once the rolls are formed, they need enough time to poof up or they won't be as light and squishy as they should be.
3. When shaping the rolls, make sure to work any air pockets out of the dough or there will be holes in your rolls.
4. If your oven heats as unevenly as mine does, turn the baking sheet around halfway through the cooking time or some rolls will be dried out and others will be pallid.
5. I used one of those insulated cookie sheets, which was probably a good idea because it made the bottoms of the rolls come out nearly as tender as the tops.

WOW!

As it turned out, I was not the only person to have brought rolls to dinner, which was great because it meant there were a bunch of mine left for me to take home. They are just as good toasted with butter for breakfast as they were last night. Mmmmmnomnomnom.

* King Arthur has conversion buttons. Two of 'em. One for imperial and one for metric! AND a print version button, so there!

Let that be a lesson to you!

I should really pay more attention to what I'm doing.

I wanted to make a version of the cream cakes I'd done before, but not only did I change the recipe, I forgot a major ingredient. Fortunately, the result wasn't bad at all.

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

melted butter and sugar for dunking

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Put cupcake papers in a 12-dish muffin pan.

Mix together all the dry ingredients, making sure the baking powder doesn't have any lumps left in it. Gently stir in the cream and mix just until it forms an even mass of dough. Divide into 12 parts. Roll each part in melted butter, then in sugar. Bake in the prepared muffin pan for 30 minutes. Remove from the pan immediately and cool on a wire rack. Serve with peaches, cream, and this butterscotch sauce which was the whole reason I made sweet biscuits anyway:

Fry half a dozen pieces of good-quality bacon in a heavy skillet. Use medium heat so that the bacon drippings don't burn. When the bacon is done, use it to make BLTs or something. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat and add

2 tablespoons salted butter
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt or more, depending on taste
about 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Stir everything together, and simmer for about 2 or 3 minutes to condense it slightly. Taste for salt and vanilla, it requires a surprising amount of both. While you shouldn't be too worried about adding too much vanilla (it's very difficult to over-vanilla something) it is possible to over-salt it. If you taste the sauce and it's just a little not quite quite, add a little pinch of salt, and taste again. Different kinds of salt do vary in intensity, so start low and build up.

The sauce is phenomenal. The original recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, but as soon as I saw it I thought it would be even better if I made it with bacon fat. The smoke flavor is very subtle, it just shows up in the aftertaste as a kind of outdoorsy effect. Like smelling your neighbor's barbecue while you eat dessert.

That aside, as a method for eating butterscotch sauce, the biscuits could use some work. To wit:

1. I forgot to add the sugar in the dough. The proper recipe calls for 1/3 cup.
2. Because I forgot the sugar, the dough was more dry than I wanted. Sugar adds a lot more moisture than you'd think.
3. Because the dough was dry, it didn't poof up as much as I wanted.
4. Although it's possible that my baking powder is too old.
5. Overall, they were tasty but I wanted them more moist and tender.

I can think of 3 ways to fix the problem.

1. I can put the dang sugar in like the recipe says. I don't like this solution because I like the less-sweet biscuit.
2. I can add more cream. This is probably the best option, although it might make the cooking time a bit longer.
3. I could add a smidge more baking powder and cook them for a shorter time at a higher temperature. Risky. After all, what I wanted most was a less dry biscuit, although having them poofier would be nice too.

Probably the best fix would be to add more cream and to buy fresh baking powder. I still have more butterscotch sauce to use up, but I might put it on pancakes and bananas instead.

The peaches were just perfect of course. It is the time of year for peaches, after all.

Nice Potato Salad

 

 
Not exactly a Nicoise salad, but still pretty nice. Har har. Moving right along...

I said I'd bring potato salad to Jej's picnic, and I'd had some little potato finger-food thingies that were 'nicoise inspired' which gave me this idea. Traditionally, Salad Nicoise has potatoes, green beans, olives, eggs, tuna and sometimes tomatoes on it. The hors d'oeuvres  were basically just tiny tuna-deviled potatoes with a green bean stabbed through the top and a sprinkle of "egg mimosa" which meant little crumbs of egg yolk to make it look fancy. The green bean was awkward to eat. But I liked the potato part, and as silly as it was, the green bean tasted really good. Still, what I wanted was potato salad, not tuna salad, so I came up with this.

1 lb tiny yellow potatoes
1/2 lb fresh green beans
a handful of parsley, chopped
a green onion, sliced fine
2 cold, hard boiled eggs, sliced
1/2 cup olives, coarsely chopped
zest of a lemon

dressing:

juice of a lemon, about 1/4 cup
2 T fish sauce
1 T sherry vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
pepper
2 T minced fresh thyme

Mix all the dressing ingredients in a small jar and shake them up. Set aside.

Boil the potatoes whole until you can stick a fork through them. Drain them, then let them cool completely. Meanwhile blanch the green beans. To do this, bring a pot of water to a boil, then dump in the beans. Leave the beans in the water just until they turn translucent and bright green. Drain the beans then either dump them into a pot of ice water or run them under cold water until they are chilled.

When the potatoes are cold, cut them into bite sized bits. Cut the green beans on and angle to increase the area of cut surface (and to make them prettier). Put all the salad ingredients in a large bowl and toss with dressing. The orange things in the picture are nasturtium petals, they're just to make it look fancy.

Ok, this was a pretty good salad, but some things occurred to me later, namely

1. It would have been better if I'd roasted the bitty potatoes instead. I think little toasty parts would definitely add  a more complex and interesting flavor.

2. I might put in tiny red tomatoes. Both for color and because tomatoes.

3. Tuna in olive oil. Yes, the fish sauce is fine, but the fish itself is actually more important to the whole nicoise thing than just being a way to add a certain fishy something-something. I think partly it's texture, and partly because fish sauce is fermented, which gives a very different character to things.

4. It would look better if you just decorated the top with egg slices. The egg yolks get all smushed up if you stir them into the salad.

Gadget

AAAAAARRRGGGH!!! I want one of these SO BAD! I don't even drink coffee! I don't care! It takes 10 minutes to brew a cup of coffee! Irrelevant! I will set off my smoke alarms! A Mere Bagatelle!!!!! There is no room in my tiny kitchen! So what! I would keep it on my bedside table if I had to!

It's so Shiny!

A Better Tortilla Formula

    

The trick is to use boiling water, and to smash them as you are frying them.  Here's the recipe-

400 grams all purpose flour
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Put all the dry ingredients and the oil in the bowl of your bread machine and turn it on. Slowly dribble the water in as the beaters agitate the flour. Let the knead cycle finish, and you're ready to go.

Roll out the tortillas as seen in the video toward the end of this post. The process is exactly the same, just bigger. You should get 10-12, 11" tortillas. If you make them little, you'll get as many as 15.

Heat a heavy skillet to medium-high. Make sure it is completely dry, or the tortillas will stick.

Have a clean, damp towel ready to wrap the finished tortillas in.

When the skillet is hot, lay a tortilla in the pan. It should turn translucent in about 5 seconds, when you turn it over. Use a silicone spatula to quickly but gently smash the whole tortilla against the pan for about another 7 or 8 seconds, then scoop it out and put it under the damp towel. Repeat until you've cooked all the tortillas. 

 Here are a few more technical pointers:
1. Use enough flour when you roll them out, or they will stick to everything.

2. Roll all the tortillas before you start cooking them. They really do only take about 15 seconds in the pan.

3. I have one of those large, super flexible pancake spatulas to do the smashing with. The smashing is important, it prevents the tortilla from developing giant bubbles which make them cook unevenly.

4. You will need a bigger frying pan than mine, like a 14" one. I'm going to be looking for one at goodwill.

5. As you can see from the pictures, one side of the tortilla has more freckles. That's because when you first put them in the pan, you basically just show it to the heat before flipping it over. That way you don't overcook it by accident.

6. You could put the hot tortillas in  tupperware or a ziploc bag, but I find that a towel allows them to stay moist as they cool without developing slimy spots. Once they cool off you can put them in something airtight.

What makes this a better recipe? The boiling water. I find that if I use cold water, the dough is springier, and harder to roll out. That makes it harder to make a very thin tortilla. If they're too thick, they take longer to cook, which makes them dry out of you use a lower heat, or burn if you use higher heat.. If you don't cook them long enough, they just taste like raw dough. In either case the texture is a little stiff and papery.

On the other hand, using boiling water partially cooks the flour to begin with, which alters the elasticity of the dough. This recipe makes a very durable, forgiving dough that is easy to roll out, but difficult to accidentally poke holes in. They cook up tender but not gummy, delicately chewy, and substantial enough to make a good burrito even when they are very thin.
So, what's in the bowl? Tortilla soup of course. This is a 'cheating' recipe, because it uses a can of Trader Joe's Cuban Style black beans as a main ingredient.

David helped me make it. My instructions to him over the phone at about 3 o'clock were something like

"Get the big cooking pot with the silver handle sticking off it. Fill it half way with water. Put it on the big back burner on high. Put 3 frozen chicken pieces in it, 4 if they're small. Chop up an onion and put that in. Open the can of chilis in adobo and put 3 chilis in the pot. When it boils, turn it down to 5 and ignore it until I get home."

When I got home at 7, I added a bunch of cumin, garlic powder, a blob of tomato paste, a dash of salt and the aforementioned can of beans, cranked the heat back up to a boil, and waited until the soup had reduced enough that it looked tasty. It was, very. You tear up chunks of the fresh tortillas and put them in your soup and they get all dumpling-y. You can add fresh tomatoes and cilantro, but I was out of those things the day I took the picture, and it was still very good.