Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Little Things

I made a few more wee hats, without umbilical cords this time.

I also made tiramisu on Sunday night. It hadn't been in the fridge too long before we attacked it, so the ladyfingers were still too crunchy for my taste. After some more time in the fridge though, it was just right.
I used the Belgioioso's recipe, as usual. I substituted khalua for the cognac/brandy. I also added a layer of lightly sweetened whipped cream. There's always quite a bit of the cookie soaking liquid left behind, so I usually add sugar and liquor and reduce it to a coffee syrup to drizzle on top of the dessert.

Monday, February 20, 2012

A New Skill


I learned Tunisian crochet with mom and Erica on Saturday. I'm a pretty crappy crocheter, so it was kind of a rocky start. But it worked out eventually, more or less.

After the class, I tried out some other stitches. Here's Tunisian knit stitch, which really does look like knit stocking stitch, though more so on the front than on the back, where you can still sorta see the vertical bars.
The Tunisian version is also much thicker. It's like two layers of stocking stitch in thickness. I also made a few dishcoths. This one's all simple stitch.
This one's in purl stitch and honeycomb stitch.
As in knitting, the purl stitch is more annoying to make than the knit stitch. I do like how purl stitch fabric stays flat, compared to the Tunisian knit and simple stitched above. From the googling I've done, I could see that "combating the curl" was a major reoccupation among Tunisian hookers. I can't wait to see how Google will deal with the phrase "Tunisian hookers" (sorry, visitors to this site who were looking for something else entirely).

In knitting news, I finished a ruffle scarf wip that had been lying around.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

What's Sour Cream Without Pudding?

I made the sour cream chocolate cake from the Betty Crocker cookbook. It looked promising. I was hoping it would be sort of fudgy.
The crackly crust had the potential of hiding a brownie-like inside.
But it turned out to be pretty dry. Maybe I shouldn't have swapped out the butter for shortening? I'm leaning toward taking a page from the last cake and added lots of pudding mix to the ingredient list!


Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Necessary Revision

I've hit a bump on the road to finishing these green socks. I'm making them for Jersey Girl. I had a tracing of her foot, but couldn't remember where I'd put it. So when it came time to finish the first sock in the pair, I guessed the length.

When I finally found the tracing again, I saw how wrong my guess was. I really should have looked harder for that piece of paper to begin with.