home sick means movies! movies! movies!

i am sick sick sick and spending a lot of time draped over the sofa. the alpaca bed jacket has never been more practical. and of course the best thing to do when you're sick is to watch movies! monday was spent with the always charming cary grant.



the bishop's wife had been on my christmas "to watch" list but somehow didn't get watched in december. no matter the timing; it's delightful any time of the year. and is it just me, or did cary grant's ice-skating double look a lot like the rehearsal director in white christmas? i'll have to look into that...

yesterday was the also extremely charming sabrina, by the inimitable billy wilder:



i think i really need to tackle this dress. i have a black linen blend that's been waiting to be made into a summer dress, and i was thinking of something along these general lines, and it has such a lovely shape and lovely details:



meanwhile, i've finally finished this hoodie for the kiddo, complete with duplicate stich embellishment from watermellish. this little plane is called "zoomy." i'd never done dupe-stitch before as it felt like "cheating" - it's not knitting, it's embroidery, and knitting is supposed to be knitting! kind of like when i was struggling to get the bobble nose on the puppyboy hat, and a friend said "why don't you just make it separately and then sew it on." why? because it would be wrong, that's why. and yes, i know that's just silly. anyway, i really liked zoomy, and i really like the watermellish tutorials, and realizing that with dupe-stitch you can make a sort of "higher resolution" picture made me decide that it's not just the poor man's intarsia.



i've also cast on a little hoodie for a new baby! everyone is having babies these days it seems.

another busy weekend

yikes, almost a month since my last post? eep!

have been busy busy busy lately - settling in to my new job, taking classes, organising parent support groups, blah blah.

so busy in fact that this is not done:



it's meant to be a shadow-argyle cardigan along the lines of this one, for the cousin of the baby who got the first one. but since i have been riding my bicycle instead of spending hours a day on the ttc, i haven't got as much knitting done. and the shower is today. yikes!

will be heading out shortly for dimsum & to buy a little something for the wee bairn-to-be. meanwhile, i hope to distract everyone away from the lack of home-made-ness with a tasty dessert - something along the lines of a chocolate bakewell tart. i believe there is a recipe for such a thing in judith olney's joy of chocolate, but for some reason my eyes wouldn't see it on the shelf until after i had faked up my own version. ah well!

the inspiration was a punnet of raspberries the kiddo insisted we get:



so i took a half-started pastry out of the freezer (was going to bake a pie for a party, but then i was asked to bring a cake, so i just shoved the flour/butter/lard in the freezer for a rainy day), added cocoa and stuff and called it chocolate. then i made a custard based on a recipe in regan daley's in the sweet kitchen




i arranged the raspberries in the chocolate tart shell and then used a ladle to pour the custard over carefully, so as not to send them all rolling around. not fair if one slice has all the raspberries!





chocolate rasberry custard tart

chocolate pastry:

1 1/2 cups pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup cocoa
6 tbs sugar
1/4 cup cold butter
1/4 cup cold lard
1 tbs white vinegar
1 tbs black coffee
1 egg, beaten

custard:
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
seeds from one vanilla pod

filling:
1 punnet raspberries
1 egg white
1/4 tsp salt

pastry:

combine dry ingredients. cut cold butter and lard into little bits and rub into the dry ingredients with your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

sprinkle the coffee and vinegar over and mix in with a fork. add the beaten egg and mix in. work with your hands.

press the mixture into a flan ring and chill for an hour.

prick the bottom of the pastry all over with a fork, and bake blind at 375 f - for 15 minutes covered with foil & pie weights (i use beans), and 10 minutes uncovered. let cool.

custard:

whisk together egg yolks, adding sugar slowly. whisk in vanilla seeds and cream. scrape down the sides to ensure that all the sugar is incorporated and dissolved.

filling:

wash, dry, and pick over the berries.

whisk together the egg white and salt. paint the bottom of the pastry with this, and bake about 5 minutes at 325 till it is dry.

arrange the raspberries in the pastry. use a ladle to pour the custard carefully over all. bake for 35-45 minutes at 325 f, till custard is just firm.

it's nice too to drizzle with 2 oz of melted bittersweet chocolate. i didn't manage to get a photo post-drizzle though - we were in too much of a rush to get to the baby shower - and of course there were no leftovers!

hugo!

just came across this lovely sweater that was posted on ravelry - she made it for her son based on the title character in hugo. now i want to make the sweater and watch the film! i won't let my son help with the ball-winding though - not after the yarnbarf he produced out of a skein of wollemeise!

jungle birthday!

the kiddo has been quite insistent for the last entire year that his fifth birthday party would be a jungle birthday. so! we had face-painting, pin-the-tail-on-the-giraffe (which we ended up not playing, after the fishing-in-the-crocodile-pond debacle... some kids were just not ready for turn-taking and not always winning), and of course cake. i'd asked the kid a while ago what kind he wanted.

"lion cake."

"a cake that looks like a lion?"

"no, a cake that tastes like a lion."

well i made him the former rather than the latter.



the other trick to the party? allergies. and food sensitivities. so we did the whole thing with no gluten, no dairy, no tomatoes, and no articial food colouring/dye or additives of any sort.



someone had told me that "sugar high" and "the birthday party effect" should really be blamed on additives and particularly food dyes, so i thought it would be interesting to see if removing them had any effect.



nope, kids went wild.



on the menu: beef & bean chili, hummus, guacamole, corn chips, veg crudites (broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper, carrots, celery), fruit (cherries, honeydew melon, grapes, mini bananas), cake, and homemade icecream with almond milk and farmers' market strawberries i froze in the summer.



the lion cake was a recipe of "louise's party cake" from my beloved cake & cooky cookbook, substituting almond milk, earth balance margarine, and jeanne's gluten-free flour mix, and a triple-batch of salted caramel frosting, substituting almond milk and half-and-half earth balance and vegetable shortening. i baked the cake in one 9"x13" pan and one 8"x8" pan. the big rectangle was cut roughly in half for a two-layer body, and the square cake was cut into the head, legs, and ears.



i used some of the same classic vanilla frosting (substituting almond milk, corn starch, and a blend of earth balance and shortening) i made for the cupcakes to do the eyes and cheeks, and melted some chocolate chips into the leftovers for the mane and whiskers. wish i'd had more time to do a better icing job!



i also made a double batch of cupcakes because i was worried about running out of cake, and people not wanting chocolate. i must be losing my mind.



today the house is a disaster. but at least there's cake everywhere.



salted caramel frosting (single recipe - i tripled it for the lion)

1/4 cup sugar
2 tbs water
1/4 cup heavy cream (or almond milk)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup butter (i used 1/2 shortening, 1/4 earth balance margarine)
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp salt

dissolve sugar in water and bring to a boil over medium high heat. cook 6-7 minutes without stirring, until it is a lovely caramel colour. watch carefully!

remove from heat and, stirring constantly, slowly add the cream and vanilla. it will bubble and double, so be careful. stir until smooth. let cool.

meanwhile, cream butter, sugar, and salt.

beat cooled caramel into the butter mixture.

chill till firm (about 45 minutes) before attempting to frost anything.

n.b.: i find that non-dairy frostings tend to be quite soft, so be sure to chill well and don't leave your cake out where it's warm!

busy busy busy

eep, just realized i haven't even posted photos of the no-longer-super-secret xmas project yet! but it will have to wait, as i am in the throes of preparing for the kiddo's 5th birthday. done so far: dairy-free strawberry ice cream, cookie dough, and pin the tail on the giraffe. going to class tonight and hoping to pick up a few groceries after. then, tomorrow i'll do the baking and the crocodile pond, and saturday morning i'll do the decorating. friday night we're out for the birthday boy's dinner.

too much to do this week!

so close!

but not quite! much work done today, with the usual 4-year-old interruptions. all i've left to do is cut the top pieces (already measured and marked) and screw/hinge them on. here's a preview of what it will look like (the paper on top is the template i made to cut the top to size):



and a couple of shots of the frame:





the "character" (aka random asymmetry) of this old house made it all a bit more futzy work than it needed to be. but so very glad it is almost done! next steps will be a coat of paint, shortening the curtains and making the cushion. thinking i'll get enough fabric to recover the seat by the vanity as well.

although, i have to say, the idea of buying more fabric pains me a bit... after hauling my stash out of the crafting table, and then cramming it back in the three-quarters-finished window seat to make our room somewhat livable for the meantime. can't wait for thursday, my next day off. although i'll have the kiddo underfoot. we'll see how it goes.

happy holidays!

what to do on a rainy winter day, when suffering the effects of new year's eve (we weren't home till 4!) along with the effects of a day of hard labour? cookies! this sugar cookie recipe is from the same family circle cook book as the english lace roll ups i made in the spring. the kiddo tried out his new baking set (his current career goal is "police baker") and even got to put the mini cookie sheet in the oven by himself, with some nervous supervision. we took a plate of a dozen across the street to his friend's house. kitchen is now a mess.



and speaking of messes, i've got miles to go on the bay window seat. yesterday the rearrangement of the kiddo's room into something reasonable took precedence. i still have another shelf to build for him, but just could not make myself do it today. those things are heavy. still, his room is not bad at all at the moment. definitely roomier. and that yellow thing in the corner is his new ceiling light!