Off the Hook: Hopecake

This is a gift for a friend of mine who watched the election returns with me. In anticipation of the evening, I baked some "Obama cookies" that were based on a Snickerdoodle recipe but were iced with a loose approximation of Barack Obama's logo:



We joked about making cupcakes with the logo, which would either be "Hopecakes" or "Copecakes", depending on the election's outcome. So, based on a pattern from bittersweetblog.wordpress.com, I made the following "Hopecake" out of Red Heart Sport (in Cocoa, Ivory, Dutch Blue, and Heart Red).

On the Table: Black-Eyed Peas

Black-eyed peas are a part of my annual New Year's Eve tradition. I don't make this recipe the traditional Southern way (there's no bacon or pork product involved!). I make the recipe a little differently every year; this year, it was based loosely on this recipe.

Ingredients:

Counter-clockwise, from center: black-eyed peas, fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, turmeric, cumin, cayenne pepper, and canned diced tomatoes.

Black-Eyed Peas
Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3-6 cloves garlic, minced
2 fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 can of black-eyed peas (15.5 oz)
1 can of diced tomatoes (14.5 oz)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Cook the onion in oil over heat; add spices and tomatoes and heat/stir for another 2-3 minutes. Add black-eyed peas. Serve over rice or couscous.

* * * * *

Unfortunately, there was one casualty in making this recipe.... my favorite wooden spoon kicked the bucket during one hearty thwack on the side of my wok. Ah well-- I suppose that's a symbolic way to end the year; out with the old, in with the new!


Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2009 from all of us here at the Sleepy Pumpkin HQ!

On the Table: Plum, Gewürztraminer, and Vanilla Bean Jam

Yet another recipe from Mes Confitures: a Plum, Gewürztraminer, and Vanilla Bean Jam. Pictured above are the plums in question, an Italian prune-plum purchased at the farmer's market. Those plums are mixed with sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla beans (split lengthwise to release the innards):


Heated over the stove:


Then the Gewürztraminer is added (I used a 2006 Villa Wolf Gewürztraminer), it's all canned, and then it ends up looking something a little bit like this:



Also on the table: a peach, cinnamon, and pinot noir (specifically, Castle Rock's 2006 Mendocino County Pinot Noir).

In the Stash: Catherine's Red Gooseberry Jam

Ordinarily, I don't post about stash additions in this blog, because I wouldn't want to draw attention to the disparity between the (high) rate of stash increase and the (low) rate of project completion. However, this addition to my stash is too cool not to share with the world. Back in July, Ms. Numma Numma did me a huge favor in getting some yarn to me super-fast so I could make the Go Blue! Afghan in time for my dad's surgery. As a token of my appreciation (and as a get-well to Allen for her own surgery), I sent her a jar of my homemade Gooseberry Jam.... and almost by return mail came a skein of Numma Numma Toasty in a new flavor called Catherine's Red Gooseberry Jam! Allen completely nailed the color of the fruit-- its deep reds, pale pinks, and pale greens-- and I am so flattered to be immortalized in one of Allen's delicious yarn names.

Now I just have to think about what to do with this scrumptiousness; my first thought was halcyon, but what would you do with ~475 yards of fabulous fingering-weight yarn? More photos below:

On (and off) the Hook: Go Blue! Afghan

Have you ever wondered, "Could I make an entire afghan in 9 days?" Apparently, for me, that answer is yes. I started this afghan officially on July 4th and finished it yesterday. (Why the clarification of "officially", you might wonder? Well, I tried two other patterns and two other hook sizes before I finally settled on this pattern and hook size, which means I technically started the project on June 30.)

I used ~3500 yards of Numma Numma's Texas Toasty yarn in Blue Corn Masa; I doubled the yarn and used an 8mm "L" hook. (And yes, picking a hook size was a bit of a Goldilocks process: the N was too loose, the K was too tight, and the L was just right.) The pattern is Plain and Simple from Quick and Cozy Afghans; it's a pretty straightforward pattern to memorize and debug, and I just love the scalloped edges (which are sort of the inverse of each other-- see photos below).

My finished afghan is about 43" wide x 55" long. I increased the pattern widthwise by one repetition because I thought it wouldn't be wide enough. I haven't blocked it yet, but it looks like it'll grow quite a bit lengthwise when I do.

   

On the Needles: Mediterranean Lace part 2

The above photo is what my Mediterranean Lace shawl looks like after I picked up the stitches around its perimeter for the border. I never realized how painful a process that would be, but now, 1,108 stitches later, I've got the foundation for my border. I had all the math worked out so I'd make the body of the shawl the right size; the original pattern called for 2 stitches picked up for every 3 pattern rows, so in order to keep that ratio, I ended up making the shawl 22 repetitions + 20 extra rows.... for a total of 89,676 stitches. And when it came right down to it, I didn't do a particularly great job of keeping with the 2 out of 3 ratio, but I think it ended up OK (tip for anyone else doing this pattern: once you've gotten one side done, put locking stitch markers on the other side to make the picking-up process a little easier). With 26 repetitions of the border pattern, I'm using just about every stitch marker I own. Oh, and I dropped down to size 1 needles for the border (was using size 2 for the body); the pattern called for a size 0, but all the reports I'd read from other people's shawls indicated that going down two needle sizes could be problematic.

Here's what it looked like all stretched out on my red striped rug, just before I started picking up stitches for the border. Unblocked, it measured about 58" long. I was worried that it might be too short (which is why I did so many repetitions of the body pattern), but now that I see it all stretched out, I realize that it'll be just fine.

On the Table: Gooseberry Jam

One of my favorite things about summer is making jam, and I finally got back in the swing of things last weekend with the gooseberries pictured above, purchased at the local farmer's market. As usual, Christine Ferber's's excellent Mes Confitures provided the recipe, which consisted of about 2 pounds of gooseberries, sugar, and lemon juice.