attack of the finals

um, for all 3 people who read this... sorry, its been busy with final papers and finals and graduation and alll of that good stuff.

soon. i'll post something interesting soon. in the meantime, entertain yourself with this week's postsecret, especially the one about guitar hero.

Mrs. Weasley?

yay! i finished the gryffindor scarf that i was making for Stacia. I will try to take some better pictures, especially of it on someone so that you can get the full effect but for now this is the best that i have. The pattern is from Charmed Knits that i got from Rachel! I used (as recommended) Cascade 220 yarn, which comes in a lot of great colors and is relatively cheap. Even though knitting a whole scarf in stockinette got a little old after awhile, it was nice to do something that required almost no attention. no fancy stitches to keep track of, simple color pattern. The pattern doesn't even require you to weave in the color-changing ends because it's knit in a tube, they just hide inside!

As far as food and baking goes, i am guilty of buying the latest Martha Stewart book, which is ALL COOKIES. Look, i know that i can probably get all (at least most of) the recipes online, and i told myself a month ago that this book is unnecessary, once i saw it i couldn't help myself. not to mention that i had a few Border's gift cards in my wallet...



By far the coolest thing about the book is that the table of contents is made up of pictures of the cookies! They are divided into "chapters" like "crisp and crunchy" or "rich and dense" and you can see them all easily at once.

Within a day we (me and Stacia, the aforementioned roommate) made the cookie on the cover of the book, Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies, and within a day they were all eaten. They are pretty much like a Gingerbread/Chocoalte chip cookie hybrid and although i think they would make a better Christmas/Winter cookie that spring cookie, they were still delicious!

Knitting comeback!

I have really been slacking in the knitting department lately. I'm not really sure why, but in order to get myself quickly back in the habit, i picked a project that i knew would be really quick (that way it wouldnt just get lost in the sea of procrastination).

Luckily, i've had some Rowan Big Wool yarn around forevvver and could never decide what to do with it. So, i whipped out an Aspen Hat from Twinkle's Big City Knits.

I used size 15 needles, instead of 19, and subsequently added a few stitches to the pattern.

ALSO, i finally started knitting a Gryffindor scarf for my roommate. As she puts it, she cant have lived with 2 roommates who knit and leave without any knit accessory. I've been meaning to knit one of these. I'm using Rowan 220 Wool yarn, 2 skeins of each color. As you can see, i haven't finished yet, but it's nice to knit something so straightforward; it's knit in the round so i don't even have to purl!



May i add, that i recently became a Ravelry member! its a very cool site, and i would recommend it, it makes finding other people's FO's so much easier than scouring blogs and flickr accounts. Plus i'll probably put more pictures of FO's there, instead of here.

easter (not wester)

For easter last week my roomates and i made a nice, delicious easter lunch. Sorry, i'm not going to go into much details but here are a few pictures!


mmmmm potatoes au gratin



salad with blackberries, almonds, and green beans

DEVILED EGGS

grilled asparagus and corn

Also, there was a ham, but i guess because i don't eat meat i forgot to take a picture of it? i really didn't leave it out on purpose, and it smelled really good! all in all, it was quite a treat and we had leftovers for dayssss even with 8 people eating it!

"you're really taking that ape class seriously"

I think i am going to post two things today, this one right now because its easy, but check back soon because we also had an easter feast yesterday with tons of delicious food.

But i couldn't go without acknowledging one of the coolest things i got for my birthday last week: chimp cupcakes! Allie and Ankit made them for me! very cute, they are decorated with chocolate frosting, vanilla wafers and colored icing. Probably a lot easier than the monkey cake that Alex and i made for here birthday, which you can read about on Rachel's blog here. Actually, you can track the history of apes/monkeys in my and my family's crafting history in Rachel's blog. For instance there was the sock monkey "costume" i made with a pattern from knitty. Then of course there are sock monkey zombies... basically we have a long standing interest (obsession?) with primates in general in my family (i'm even taking a class this semester called "the ape within") .

After mentioning that i also got a book about Nim Chimpsky a boy i know said "oh, you're really taking that ape class seriously"

...

i think this post has shown that that might be a bit of an understatement...

spring deliciousness

soo its been a little slow with the posting.. i blame spring break as i haven't been near the computer much. BUT that doesn't mean there haven't been fantastic food goods around so let's get started:


1) i actually didn't have anything to do with any part of the baking process, but since allie probably won't post about her cupcakes, i may as well do it since they were too cute to ignore. and tasty.

Anyway, believe it or not the recipe is from the Martha Stewart website and can be found here. They came out really well, and the frosting is maybe the best we've tried. it's really light, but just chocolately enough. also, the cupcakes have toasted coconut on top, and i usually hate coconut, but it went perfectly with the frosting and vanilla cupcakes. I would recommend them to anyone, even though they were a little labor intense.

2) Alex, Hannah and I had an Ecuadorian night, and made Locro, a potato and cheese soup topped with avocado (mmm) then watched Que Tan Lejos, a completely Ecuadorian movie, filmed there, their actors, etc etc.



and finally, I didn't make this, but for my birthday, i ordered myself a lemon raspberry cake from Flour Bakery (where i used to work, probably the most delicious place on the planet. I took a picture just for fun

mmmmmmmorning muffins (even Stacia likes them)

I am a big fan of the Whole Foods website, because it features a well-organized and excellent list of recipes. last night while looking for dinner ideas i instead came across a recipe for some morning muffins, so i went ahead and got the ingredients for them and made them this morning before my roommates got up. I dont know that it made me more productive or anything, but it was a nice way to start the morning and they are delicious. Also in the picture you can see the silicone baking cups that i got for Christmas from my friend Alex! they are really nice to use and easy to clean.

I made the Granola & Applesauce Morning Muffins, only i left out the flax seed because i was too cheap to buy it and added a little bit of cinnamon because it seemed like a good idea. It says you can use your favorite granola, and i think the one i chose is what made them so good, although i'd like to try them with a different type some other time. I used one Trader Joe's and it has little bits of blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. Usually i dont like fruit in baked goods, but i make an exception for berries in muffins, especially because these ones are really small pieces, so you get the nice flavor without huge chunks of fruit in the muffin, which is a plus for me.

Even my roommate who (seriously) hates healthy food liked them!


Plus, i'm a sucker for "cute" marketing. c'mon, that's cute.

just trying to make matt proud

Last night my roommates and I turned Chinggis Khan into Cosmopolitans. (and by that i mean the Chinggis Gold, Mongolian Premium Vodka that i got from Mongolia. ). Now, this isn't really a craft, or even an original recipe, but i mostly just think that the bottle of vodka looks really cool and I wanted to take pictures of it.



On a related note, i also got a book about Mongolian arts and crafts, and i hope to somehow incorporate something from that into a knitting/embroidery project somehow, but i really haven't figured out how, and as it is i have about 3 unfinished projects...

Also, i finally started crocheting a grocery tote bag out of old plastic bags. I've been meaning to do it forever, and even with canvas grocery bags, my roommates and i still manage to accumulate a lot of plastic bags. I'm working without a pattern and i've already had to start over numerous times, so i guess we'll see how it turns out!

last but not least, Rachel sent me a present for starting this blog! She sent me a copy of Charmed Knits so there should be a Harry Potter scarf, hat, sock in the near future.

Homemade Chicken Soup (Allie never posts!)

So since this blog is titled "allinny" Ginny reminded me that I'm expected to contribute, despite my lack of blogging skills and experience (Ginny, check it out, I'm blogging!). So here's my first contribution, a very delicious chicken soup. I'm a big fan of making soups because they're easy and don't take a lot of time, and you can usually get a lot of meals out of them, as well as a pretty balanced meal all in one dish. I've been wanting to make a chicken soup for a while that involved more than just opening a box of chicken stock and adding vegetables, and I finally did last week. I made a chicken soup with carrots, celery, and onion (a lot of onion, actually). The result was pretty good, although there were some kinks I want to work out the next time. This is what I did:

1) first I made the chicken stock. I'd never done this before and I wasn't following a recipe, but I figured it couldn't be that hard. It wasn't, but it took a long time. So I just boiled two chicken legs (with skin) in a big pot of water, along with half a large spanish onion, sliced into big pieces. Before boiling I cooked the chicken and onions a little bit over medium heat just to get them going. Once the water was boiling, I added 2 stalks of diced celery to it, as well as 1 large bay leaf, although really I think 2 would have been better. Then I boiled the broth covered for about 2 hours.

Once the chicken was falling off the bone, I took it out and removed the meat, discarding the skin and bones. Then I strained the broth and chilled it overnight, and removed the fat solids from the top of the broth the next day.

2) The next part was easy. I heated the broth, adding 1/2 a spanish onion, two celery stalks, and 2 carrots to the soup. The onion was really big, so I ended up with a lot of it in the soup, but I like it that way. Once the vegetables were almost tender I added matzo balls and simmered for about 15-20 minutes before adding the chicken back in. Once the chicken was heated through, I deemed it ready to serve.

The soup was really quite good, although I did have to add some storebought broth to get a better flavor to it. This was probably due to an error in my stock-making proccess, but I'm not sure what that was. I'm going to fiddle around with it and see what happens next time.

Other serving suggestions:
I used matzo balls from a mix, which you can find pretty easily in any grocery store. Leaving the soup plain, without the matzo balls was good too, and I'm sure noodles would be excellent as well. Also, making the soup with chicken breast instead of the legs is a healthier option. I didn't add a lot of spices to the soup, just some salt and pepper during the second cooking time.

Our first bread (and serving suggestion!)

Woohoo, yesterday allie and i made bread for the first time! Again, we used my Martha Stewart book to get the recipe (Olive Oil Loaf) but we had to make a few adjustments because we couldnt find the exact ingredients.

As is pretty typical with our baking, we didnt have all the exact ingredients or equipment, so we just improvise and do our best. The recipe called for bread flour and fresh yeast, but we couldnt find either at the grocery store around the corner so we used whole wheat flour and dry yeast instead. I think that we both prefer it with the whole wheat flour anyway, its nice and brown. Also, we don't have a bread stone to bake on, so we just had to use a regular baking sheet which the bread kind of baked onto and we lost the bottom most layer of our loaf...


making bread is a really long process because you have to mix it, let it rise, fiddle with it, let it rise, etc etc. until its finally ready to bake. Fortunately we had Kings Quest 6 to play (and beat of course) in the waiting periods.

then allll morning i kept dreaming about eating our new bread with some goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes, so i picked some up on my way home from class and it was all i had hoped! first i just had the goat cheese and tomatoes, but then i put a little basil pesto and mixed greens on top too and that was even better!

¡Que rico!

i originally intended for this blog to be a mix of cooking, baking, and knitting but of course once i started it allie and i didnt bake for a week and barely cooked anything interesting. But we've redeemed ourselves in the last two days. woohoo!

Last night for dinner we made "burritos" for dinner and they were delicious. however, i say burritos because i am quite the burrito snob, and i much prefer the Southwest mexican food style, but you really just cant get refried beans, mexican rice, and cheese in a burrito in Boston, at least not that i've ever found. at least not that tastes good. That being said, black beans, vegetables, rice, and (optionally) chicken still taste good wrapped up in a tortilla, and that is what we made last night, and it was really simple and tasty. Here's what we did:

1) chicken: We seasoned it with cumin, mexican chili powder, and red pepper flakes then grilled it up on a George Foreman.

2) veggies: We sautéd red onions, green bell pepper, and red bell pepper and added mexican chili powder, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.

3) rice: We used brown rice and added lime juice and a teeny bit of zest to the water while it was cooking, and then for the last 5 minutes or so added in some cilantro. The rice, i think was the best part...

Then we just heated up some canned black beans and some tortillas and put it all together (well, i left out the chicken and picked around the red bell peppers, but to each his or her own).


Last but not least i finally got some baking done because everyone in my apartment was having sugar/chocolate withdrawals. I got the recipe from my Martha Stewar'ts Baking Handbook (a.k.a. bible) but turns out the recipe is also on her website and can be found here. So tasty, but in the description she says the recipe has more butter and less brown sugar to make them crispier, i used a little less white sugar and added a little more brown sugar in hopes that they would be a little chewier and i they are definitely chewier than the last time i made them.

Lucha Libre hat

I haven't ever really properly learned how to embroider, but for a while i got really into it and bought several embroidery patterns from Sublime Stitching. I really really like the mexican-themed ones (yay Dominguez) especially the Day of the Dead and Lucha Libre patterns. I embroidered the lucha libre mask on some scrap piece of fabric, then cut it out and appliqued it to the crocheted hat!

For the hat, i used the "anarchy hat" pattern from The Happy Hooker and wool Cascade Yarn 220.

When i was finished i gave the beanie to my brother Matt, who i think wears it sometimes.

All about my Cables

My favorite thing to do in knitting is cable. I dont know, i think it's so much easier than working with multiple colors, but it still looks like you did something really fancy to the layperson (or at least that's what i imagine).

Two christmas's ago for my room's secret santa gift exchange Allie gave me the Vogue Knitting Stitchionary2, which features some 200 cable patterns... i really like it. So, over this last summer i made two scarves with some of the patterns, my favorite of which is a chunky yellow/mustard one, which I like. a lot.



I used two yarns to knit this scarf (you can kind of see the two in the 2nd picture) oh, to clarify i just knit with two yarns at once.

1) The first is from Art Fibers in San Francisco. Its a yarn called Celtic, (extrafine merino wool) Color 1. They sell some of their yarn online, which is cool because i'm in boston now, although i've never seen Celtic up on the website (maybe i just miss it?) but i could email them if i wanted it that badly. Anyway, it's gotten a little fuzzy/pilly, and it gets all over my peacoat, but other than that i love the yarn. It is realllly soft, never even remotely itchy, and very warm, perfect because it was 20° and windy yesterday.

2) you can almost see throughout the scarf another thin, slightly darker yarn. My friend got me a couple balls of yarn when she was in Peru. I think its an alpaca blend of some kind, but i can't really tell you anything else about it. except that i didnt think it would look good with anything until the girl at Art Fibers held it up to the yellow Celtic yarn... maybe it clashes but i really like it.

I think i knit it on US 19 needles, but it could have been US 17... i can't remember.

Either way, its only 13 sts across i think, knitting with chunky yarn goes so quickly, and i think everyone should have a chunky, braid-cable scarf. In fact, for this last christmas i knit another one for Allie in a lavender color (but with a different yarn), AND now my friend Alex is knitting one for herself in a really pretty orange. I don't have pictures of those right now though, so...tough.

First blog post!

So here's the story. My roommate and i have been getting progressively more into baking/knitting/crafting in general, and we talked once about hosting a blog together. Sooo she doesn't know about it yet, but i assume that she will be excited and make posts too. Since i doubt we'll ever really get our own Food Network show on which we can display our many baking/cooking/crafting abilities, we may as well still share them with the world via blogging. Although i fully suspect that only about 5 people will read this...

Also, to be fair, credit should be given to my sister-in-law who has had a crafting blog for awhile now, that i read regularly (Craft Buff)

Anyway, i suppose i'll start with our most recent project which has been baking heart-shaped cookies and making valentines for, well, valentine's day. I know heart shaped cookies aren't incredibly original, but they look really cute, and are tasty!



We tried a few different ways of icing them. Allie made me use the piping bag, which i think would have been more successful if we could have found a smaller tip... she wound up drizzling icing on with a spoon, which looked really cool. I think the only piped ones that came out well are the little ones that have the hearts piped on them.

Also, she did some cool marbled ones, by putting on some blobs of frosting, and dragging the color around with a toothpick end.


More to come! we bake at least once a week... it's bad