Dan needed the laptop at work last week. Although, I still have Hal at home with me, he is 10 years old now. He can still make a mean excel spreadsheet, but crashes and burns when the latest Google products are opened. So, I have been unable to check my gmail account and update my blog. I’ve also slipped behind on my blog reading (137 posts behind!).
And I have much to tell you. Apparently, if you take away the computer, I can get a lot done.
Funny how that is.
Here goes – this is the first of 4 posts today.
Author: Marie Haigh
I started knitting 15 years ago right around the time of my marriage and the birth of my niece.
Chicken Paprika recipe
Since Dan complemented me several times on this dish, I thought I should share it. He’s a man willing to eat anything put in front of him, but it is rare that he raves about a dish.
Chicken Paprika recipe
4 cups shredded, cooked chicken, preferably leftovers from a whole chicken
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. olive oil, mild
2 tsp. paprika
1 cup sour cream
2 tbsp. white wine or chicken stock or water
salt and pepper to taste
Heat butter and oil in a saute pan. Toss in onion and saute until golden and tender. Add chicken and paprika. Stir occasionally till heated through. Add sour cream and wine (or substitute). Add additional wine if you desire sauce to be thinner. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat. Serve immediately over hot noodles.
Pumpkin Pie recipe
After my last attempt to make fresh pumpkin from a neck pumpkin, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to muster up the energy to do it again. After staring at the neck pumpkin for approx 3 weeks, I caved. My FIL requested that I bring a dessert to the upcoming mini family reunion. Dan suggested that I make the pumpkin pie again, since it turned out so well last time. It is his favorite pie after all and he only gets it a few times a year. With a host of reasons like that, how could I resist?
Without further ado, here is the recipe for Pumpkin Pie.
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 large eggs
2 cups mashed pumpkin
1.5 cups heavy cream
Mix dry ingredients together and set aside.
Whisk eggs in a large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar mixture. Gradually stir in heavy cream.
Pour into an unbaked pie shell.
Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional hour or until pie filling is set.
Cool to room temperature and then transfer to refrigerator.
Note: This pie is best if left to chill for 24 hours before eating.
Mohair Stole Blocking
The mohair stole is downstairs in the basement on top of the ping pong table being blocked. Even though I’ve poked at it and prodded it and glared down at it, it’s still not dry. It’s making me wait. I hate waiting.
To make me feel like I’ve made progress on it, I took pictures. Thanks to the lack of natural sunlight, the pictures are dark and difficult to assess.
Well, I feel better. I won’t bother it for at least an hour.
Finished Knitting the Mohair Stole
Weeee! I just finished knitting the Mohair Stole and weaving in the rest of the ends!
As you may recall, this is an xmas present for my MIL. I’m 1.5 months early. I’ve never been so prepared and organized. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself on Christmas morning. It’s been tradition to get up at 3am to finish whatever project I have still on the needles. Maybe I’ll get up anyway and make waffles, eggs, and bacon.
Here are 2 pics before blocking. (Post blocking pics will have to come much later. I imagine the mohair is going to take a million years to dry).
If you are eyeing the lovely, golf-green rugs, please understand that they came with the house. The house was decorated back in the 1970’s and as far as I can tell – never altered again. Slowly but surely, we are moving the rugs to find gorgeous hardwood floors underneath. In the meantime, we’re going for a kitsch decor. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Happy Halloween
I was trying to give my pumpkin a Fu Manchu. Despite my failed attempt, he’s still cute. Despite having gangsters, superheroes, Minny Mouse, pirates, and train engineers stop by last night, I still have half a bowl of candy leftover. Thankfully, I had ignored Dan’s doubts over my candy supply. If it was up to him, I’d have a whole bowl leftover.
What to do with all this leftover candy? I suppose the traditional answer is to eat it, but we’re not big candy eaters. I like my chocolate straight and dark. So instead, I plan to try out a new recipe I found in our Pottstown Mercury newspaper: Peppermint Pattie Brownies. The last time I snuck mint into the brownies, it wasn’t very good. Yet, hopes are high.
PS. I only have 7 more rows to knit on the Mohair Stole before it is done!
Accomplishing Nothing
I was hoping by my next post I would have something … anything! … to show you, but I come to you empty-handed.
The mohair stole is still not finished. I measured it on Friday and it was at 59 inches. I measured it last night and it was only at 60 inches. I thought for sure I knit more than an inch. I think it hates me. However, I do have wonderful news about the mohair. It seems that if you don’t try to fight with it, it self-patterns very nicely. Amazing, isn’t it?
The Christmas Tree Skirt has been frogged and recast on. My gauge was only off .25 of an inch from my swatch, but, oh, what a difference it can make.
Progress on my Alpaca Beaded Shawl is at a snail’s pace now. Each row keeps getting longer and longer as I near the top of the shawl. Plus, every 4th row requires the weaving in of 14 beads. I used to get excited for the bead rows (every 4th row) back when I only had to weave in 4 beads. Now, I get excited every time I finish a beaded row. And when faced with too many beaded rows, I pick up another project.
Let’s not even talk about my Mystery Project and the (lack of) progress on it. I’ve had two people stop by on Ravelry and let me know they’re excited to see what I create. Even my MIL asked me how the project was coming, since I had her running around Maine searching down the missing yarn for it. I am plagued with guilt and still I can’t bring myself to pick the needles back up. I HAVE to finish the stole, shawl, and xmas skirt first. Should I mention that I have wicked thoughts about knitting a scarf for my SIL? Somebody talk some sense into me, would ya?!
The Chili Pepper quilt is still missing its binding. The binding tape is laying on top of the quilt right now, but for some reason it won’t attach itself. Ungrateful thing that it is.
Baby Flick’s quilt still requires more machine quilting before I can stitch the binding on. Of course, I should mention that I haven’t even started to cut out the binding strips. Let’s not even talk about who is going to hand-stitch the binding to the back of the quilt. I’m on a hunt for that little green elf!
The Dining Room Roman Shades are still sitting in the sidelines waiting patiently for me to finish Baby Flick’s quilt.
And to prove it, here is a pic of my sewing room. 
What have I accomplished?
I raked all the leaves up.
I stuffed a Pumpkin Man.
I put away our summer clothes and drug out the winter sweaters.
I took Jake to the vet. Poor guy has a double ear infection.
I did knit on the stole, shawl, and tree skirt, but they are mocking me now.
Bound Off last night only to Cast On again this morning
I thought I was done with my Mohair Stole. I even laid it out on the dining room table and took a “Before Blocking” picture.
While eating waffles this morning (how happy am I to have a waffle maker again!), I thought about how much I love the stole I made for myself several years ago.
So, I pulled it out and laid it next to the Mohair Stole. It was 15 inches longer! Only then did I try on the Mohair Stole … (I was too excited last night about finishing it to think about such practical issues).
It’s too short.
%&*$.
Mutter …
So, I ripped out the bind-off row this morning over a cup of strong tea and attached the final skein of yarn. I am still trying to find the courage to change the stole from a completed project back to a WIP in Ravelry.
As I’m still mad at it, I don’t plan to pick it back up until tonight’s World Series game.
Quilt Frame in Basement
The quilt frame is back in the basement again. No more crawling underneath it to get to the other side of the quilt. No more knocking the closet door into it and having the whole frame collapse on me (the jury rigging is very fragile). Jake is also thrilled to see it go downstairs. He hated getting bonked in the head every time he came in to get pets or to remind me of the time (i.e. playtime).
Why is it downstairs? It surely isn’t because of any of the inconveniences listed above. The inconveniences were silly and trivial compared to its practicality and usefulness of holding the quilt in place. I only had to twist a knob and thread my needle before I could sit down to hand quilt. No, the reason the frame is in the basement is because I have finished hand quilting Baby Flick’s quilt!
I found hand quilting to be fun and relaxing. I even have a nice callous on my pointer finger to prove it. As this was my first time hand quilting, I kept things simple. My stitches simply followed the outline of the dragon, the clouds, and the framework within the four dragon panels. If you are new to hand quilting, I highly recommend this “technique”, if it can be called a technique. It saved me from having to search for an easy quilting design and from learning how to transfer such a design to my quilt front.
Baby Flick’s quilt has to go back on the machine to complete the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting, but that should only take me an hour or two. I’m so close to being done. Woo!
Mushroom Soup recipe
Ingredients:
- 4 tbsp butter
- 4 tbsp flour
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 4 cups chopped mushrooms
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup dry sherry
- Dash of cayenne pepper
- Salt & pepper to taste
Melt 2 tbsp butter over medium heat in a stock pot. Add all the mushrooms. Saute till tender. Transfer mushrooms to a dish. Throw 75% of mushrooms into a food processor and pulse till mushrooms are finely chopped.
Heat remaining 2 tbsp of butter in the same stock pot. Add the flour and mix till combined. Then, add the chicken stock slowly. Toss in the mushrooms. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.
Increase heat to medium. Add cream, sherry, and cayenne pepper. Stir till blended. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.
The Life, Designs & Crafts of Marie Haigh 