Halloween snapshots

I meant to post about this last week but got distracted....hope you have a Happy Halloween! We'll be passing out chocolate at our abode while watching the original Halloween movie.

Photos from our friends annual Pumpkin Carving Party (it was the tenth one Doug and I have been to!) Our pumpkin was somewhat lame and I forgot to take a picture of it.

Last week I had knit night at my house for Halloween, mainly as an excuse to make Ham Face again. It was so much fun though and the weather was nice enough that we sat on my patio (especially helpful for those allergic to my cats). Plus it was the day after my friend Kenan's birthday so I made her a cake too.

These are apple-almond teeth made by Kenan, completely awesome.

These are some of my decorations from around the house

Tuesdays with Dorie: Ginger Jazzed Brownies

This week's selection was chosen by Hindy of Bubie's Little Baker. I'll admit this was one of those recipes I was somewhat skeptical about but I've learned Dorie is usually spot-on. I did make a smallish change to the recipe, I hate messing with fresh ginger, it's so stringy and I can never grate it well enough so I omitted it but increased the ground ginger and added crystallized ginger. These particular brownies were super fudge-y and the ginger added a nice little kick. 

Making & baking via Pinterest

I heard about Pinterest a few months ago and was king of 'meh' about it. I didn't seek it out really and figured at some point I'd get interested. Then about a month or so again a friend sent me an invite so I finally joined. I'm still not a pin-aholic, but I do like the fact that it's a place I can gather all the things I want to bake/craft/knit, etc.

In the past few weeks I've made these things that I 'pinned'.

Glittered pumpkins via Martha Stewart. I used glitter and glitter glue from Martha's line at Michael's (thank you 40% off coupon). It was a pretty messy project because there is glitter everywhere, I'm pretty sure I have glitter in my bloodstream now. Also you had to be really careful to not touch the glue/glitter before it dried. I love the way they turned out though.

Felt leaf garland via A Beautiful Mess. This was incredibly easy to make since I ran them through my sewing machine instead of stitching them by hand. I just traced a leaf shaped pattern on a piece of copy paper, cut it out, pinned it to the felt sheet and cut them out by hand.

Chocolate Almond Oat bars from The Pastry Affair. These are delicious and could not have been more simple to make.

White Bean and Parmesan Baked Orzo from How Sweet It Is. A really good one-dish kind of dinner, even Doug ate it!?

Tuesdays with Dorie: Classic Biscuits

It's been weeks since I've made a TWD recipe! But I did participate this week, making biscuits, chosen by Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort. I've made Dorie's Sweet Cream Biscuit recipe half-a-dozen times and the classic recipe is pretty much the same, except with whole milk instead of heavy cream. I baked four biscuits for our Sunday morning breakfast and froze the ones that remained for later use. Doug had his with strawberry jam but I used pumpkin butter for mine. Very good and miles better than those canned biscuits!

Knitting updates

Hey look finished knitted items!

Summer Flies, knit in The Sanguine Gryphon Skinny Bugga in 'Stick Insect'. This was an easy/fast pattern and the yarn is dreamy. I skipped the picot edging and just bound off like normal, which still created a ruffle edge. Excuse my smirky face, I couldn't get a picture I was happy with.

Right now I'm knitting the Imogen tee from Quince & Co. in Quince & Co. Tern yarn, 'Kelp' colorway. This yarn is 75% wool and 25% silk, it makes a really nice fabric and it's springy. However, since the yarn and needles are small it's taking a looong time to knit. Well that and I've knit several other things while working on it.

This a monster from Rebecca Danger's The Big Book of Knitted Monsters. It was a gift for my nephew who turned one last week. I used Stitch Nation yarn from Debbie Stoller, the Full O'Sheep version. I ended up left off the leaving off the arms because I couldn't get them to look right (need more practice) and I figured he might pull them off at some point anyway. I still think Mr. Monster is super cute looking, although my nephew wasn't as interested in Mr. Monster as he was the books we bought him.

This was a special gift for my friend Christiana's soon-to-be-born baby girl, it's the Heirloom Blanket knit in Madelinetosh DK, the color is Duchess, a dark purple/almost black. It's not a huge blanket, more like a crib or pram blanket, but it's very sweet looking I think. The second picture is more color-accurate.

In yarn procurement, this is what has come to live in my stash recently:

Madelinetosh Eyre Light in "Folklore" from the Magnolia Society

Madelinetosh 80/10/10 Sport in "Steamer Trunk" from the Magnolia Society

Madelinetosh Vintage in "Happiness" from Knit Happy. It's going to be an Heirloom blanket too, for my someday-baby stash.

 Madelinetosh Prairie in "Lichen" a gift brought back from PDX for me by my friend Lynsey.

 I finished my knit-a-long sweater weeks ago but haven't taken pictures yet. Soon!

Miscellaneous stuff I like right now

My Kindle. We bought it right before our huge roadtrip. I actually didn't use it very much until we got back (I'd rather knit than read it turns out). However, when we got back I started using it more often. I'm still not 100% sold on it for all my reading needs but I enjoy the convenience of it. As of today I have read since late-June: Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (good but bizarre story), Bossypants by Tina Fey (loved.it.), The Help by Kathryn Stockett (hated it), Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner (liked it okay) and I'm in the middle of Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff and yesterday, thanks to a friend's recommendation, I downloaded two John Green books, Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns. Since I go through books so quickly I like that I can have a new book almost instantly. It is hard getting used to not having an actual book to look through though.

This yarn (Madelinetosh Merino Light in Mineral)

I have cast-on-itis, I'm going to use it to make this sweater but I'm not letting myself cast on until I finish the other half-dozen items I have on the needles. The color makes me extremely happy.

Salads, my current favorite salad is baby greens, toasted almonds, dried cranberries, goat cheese, turkey and balsamic vinaigrette. I can't say it's super healthy but it tastes good.

Mad Men, we are so behind on this. I know everyone has talked about how great this is forever but we're just now getting around to watching it. We just finished the first season and both of us love it. I told Doug it's like candy, not only is the storyline completely addictive, the set design/wardrobe is so fun to look at.

The most recent Bon Iver (Justin Vernon) record. Beautiful and eerie. 

He's also doing this with James Blake:

Rebekka Seale's Dear Friend, blog. She lives in Nashville, takes very lovely pictures and is also a very talented artist.

I'm obsessed with these chairs. I would love a set for the dining room, maybe with a long wooden table.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Classic Brownies

This week's recipe was chosen by Anne of Anne Strawberry.

I'm not entirely sure I love these brownies. They taste great but they aren't my favorite kind of brownie. They're more cakey that I'd like them to be. I like a brownies with a dry, flakey top and an intense fudgy inside. These brownies, while delicious, are not exactly what I like. Also I think it would have been better if I had toasted the walnuts before they went in batter. But who cares, they're still brownies, they're still good and they're still a must have with a glass of milk.

Nutella love & the first pumpkin baked good of the season

Usually this is how I like to eat Nutella. Although it's really good on graham crackers too.

 

Over the weekend I made Nutella shortbread cookies with a recipe from Serious Eats/Cakespy. These cookies are a little more labor intenstive because you shape two flat pieces, fill them and seal the sides, so a little more work than your normal scoop and bake cookies.

They are super buttery/crumbly but very, very good.

 Saturday morning, before I made shortbread, I made pumpkin doughnut muffins (recipe from Martha). Last week in Memphis it was so nice weather-wise. The mornings and evenings were cool and even the day time was nice. Today and tomorrow temps are creeping back into the 90's but hopefully we'll cool down again soon. The cooler temperature put the desire for pumpkin baked goods in my belly so I made these muffins. They were easy and buttery and gave me the first hint of fall. 

They were also really good with this.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Cornmeal & Fruit Loaf

The TWD book is so close to being done and I am somewhat ashamed I haven't been participating as much, but I'm hoping to redeem myself. This week's selection was Cornmeal & Fruit Loaf, chosen by Caitlin of Engineer Baker. 

I got up early Sunday morning to get this in oven in time for our ritual of coffee and CBS Sunday Morning. I used a fresh pear and dried apple slices. I really like how this wasn't super sweet and the cornmeal added a nice texture to the bread. I am especially interested on trying it with diced bacon as Dorie suggests on the sidebar.