This Week in Knitting...

So, I've been up to a lot of knitting recently and have several projects on the needles right now. Just the other day, I finished a super-cute blessing bonnet for a super-cute baby. It came out just the way I had imagined it and it seemed to fit properly! I am excited because, well, that actually doesn't happen all too often when I try to mess with a pattern, hehe.

Now I'm working on two wool vests: one is this thing I've ripped apart several times (the yarn itself came from a half-finished FAIL of a sweater). I finally figured out how to finish it and make it look nice. Of course, had I actually followed the original pattern things would have gone smoothly, but I had to modify it somehow. Check out what I've got so far:

Newly-on-the-needles is a second wool/alpaca vest. This time, I did a tubular cast-on that looks really awesome. It was a little fiddly to do it for the first time, but it gives the garment a neat, finished look and is super-stretchy. I'm planning on making all the edgings on the vest the same way.

Next up on the knitting to-do list? I've got to get started really soon on knitting Christmas/holiday gifts! Plus Mr. S' birthday is coming up in 2.5 weeks! Yikes!!!

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Pomegranate Frosting

 

After visiting a restaurant that taunted me (and by taunt, I mean merely a cake sitting inside a display case) with large slices of lemon poppy seed cake smeared with delicious-looking frosting, I knew I had to make a vegan version. With a half of a pomegranate staring at me from the fridge, I had to incorporate it somehow. I know! Flavored frosting.

For the cake, I found a wonderful website, meatandeggfree.com, with a bunch of cake recipes. Here's the page... prepare to drool. I made the lemon version of poppy seed cake, although the orange did look quite enticing. Not to mention all the other cakes! Perhaps this is a good excuse to go on a baking spree?

Cake results: the actual cake itself was freaking delicious. Just the right combination of sweet and lemon-y goodness. The batter was much more strongly lemon-flavored than the finished product, but the lemon mellows out during baking. The epic fail came when I tried to remove the cake from the pan... breakage! Probably my fault for using pie pans instead of real cake pans. Now adding "cake pans" to shopping list. Otherwise, awesome cake.

For the frosting, I used this recipe. Instead of 1/2 C water for the simple syrup, I used 1/4 C water and 1/4 C fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice. (Anybody ever chugged that stuff straight? Whoa.) I don't if it was this factor or something else I did, but the frosting was an epic fail. The idea was to melt the sugar and combine with the shorting for a fluffy buttercream... but the sugar promptly re-crystallized upon cooling, resulting in a grainy mess, though it did taste rather good. But the texture... blah! I should have just stuck to a normal powdered sugar-style frosting.

Next time: better cake pans, powdered sugar frosting, raspberry jam filling instead of flavoring the frosting.

Rice Crispy Treats

To correct a major snack-attack that's been raging since late last night, I made rice crispy treats this afternoon. Nothing like snack foods when you're feeling a little ill, yes? Besides that, we've had a tub of Ricemellow taunting us from the pantry for the last week.

Recipe was super-simple, and I got it here from the vegweb site. My only alteration was to use tapioca flour instead of  the arrowroot powder. It's a sweet thickener, so I figured it was an appropriate substitute. I basically just gave it a big squirt of agave nectar to really sweeten it up as well.

The treats are now cooling in the kitchen... can't wait! I already ate every last piece still stuck inside the pan, the spoon, the whisk, the counter...

The New Blog

The Vegan Vacation is over. Well, the blog at least. Half the time I was itching to blog about something other than cooking... so a general "family life" blog was totally in order.

Expect to see posts about the baby and all the crazy new things she does. And some random, mostly silly pictures of Pear.

Example: tooth number 5 has definitely made an appearance... and is that #6 I see there? Scary.

Besides all the cute Pearmuffin stuff, I will write about notable recipes and dishes I come up with or test out, and I will certainly show off some of my knitting. I knit every day unless something has knocked me off course. Like, severe illness, for example.

I attribute the knit-every-chance-I-get thing to why it only took about a year to get really good at it. I'm making things I thought were impossible a year ago.

Anyway, I may do random posts about sustainability/green living as we go. And as we get back to spring/summer weather next year (um, thinking a little far ahead much) I'll definitely talk about gardening, canning and all that good stuff.

Plus, this will give me another reason to get out the camera and actually use the darn thing.

Onward!