Happy Birthday!!!

Today is the Little One's birthday. She's now officially 1! I can't believe how quickly the year has flown. We had an afternoon birthday party with family and cupcakes. I knit her a dress and it fits like a dream. (Dale of Norway book #208 in Dale of Norway Baby Ull, size 0 & size 1 needles) Her favorite gift is a xylophone which she banged away on for the majority of the party. Or chewed on the mallets. She's also entranced by the little accordion and her new set of wheels (Skuut). We had so many well wishes from so many people, thank you so much!!! I can't imagine a better little person to spend my time with and I'm excited to see what happens in the next year! Happy Birthday, Boo!!

Thanksgiving Redux

Tonight is Thanksgiving #2 as my first one was, well, unsatisfactory. A bit too stressful, a bit too tardy, and not enough conviviality to make up for it. So the Man and I are having Sister-in-law over for a veggie dinner re-do. My crust is in the fridge chilling before it becomes pear pie and all the fixings are prepped and ready to go. To share in the redux love here is my awesome vegan gravy recipe, great for vegans, veggies, and everybody else too!

Awesome Vegan Gravy

2 Tablespoons cornstarch
3 Tablespoons soy sauce or gluten-free tamari
1 1/2 cups water (you can use stock but I think it makes the gravy too salty)
2 Tablespoons tahini

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, whisk together the cornstarch and soy sauce until there are no lumps. Add the water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until mixture thickens, stirring frequently. (The stirring is really important, if you don't stir frequently enough you'll get gross cornstarch lumpy-burny stuff at the bottom.) Remove from heat and add tahini, stirring until a consistent color and thickness is achieved. This gravy thickens a lot if left standing so you can do it a while beforehand so it gets nice and thick and then reheat and serve.

We've also tried this with the addition of sauteed mushrooms which is quite yummy and adds a little more texture. Enjoy over mashed potatoes, turkey or turkey substitute, biscuits, and anything else that needs some gravy love.

Non-Turkey Rundown

After all the talk the past few days about Thanksgiving food and how good or bad it can be, or actually was, I thought I'd give a rundown of Turkey substitutes. This is the time of year where vegetarians usually get short shrift. My first veggie Thanksgiving, 12 years ago, I had dry vegetarian meatballs, no-gravy potatoes since there was turkey in the gravy, rolls, and green beans. My pie consumption made up for the lack of a tasty main dish but it was disappointing nonetheless. Since then I've tasted most meat analogs (appetizing descriptor, no?) and I've definitely got my likes and dislikes.

Tofurkey - the most famous to non-veggies and perhaps the least appetizing. It's got a tough "skin" on the outside and is rubbery and flavorless on the inside. Not too bad if you have absolutely no alternative.

Field Roast - Local to Seattle, and perhaps hard to find elsewhere, this comes in medium sausage-like packaging or a larger "celebration roast" portion. Made from a blend of grains and legumes, it has a nice texture and flavor. This one is best steamed on the stove top rather than baked since it can dry out quickly. It is also available in sandwich slices and regular sausages (we like the ones with fennel).

Quorn Turk'y Roast - My absolute favorite. You can find it in the freezer section and it comes in a fat sausage shape. This one has the best texture and flavor. It's made from mycoprotein which is derived, somehow, from mushrooms. It's also soy-free. It can go straight from the freezer into a hot oven and is done in about 45 minutes. My Goth ex-roomates, all voracious meat eaters, loved this and declared it "Just as good as turkey". This brand also carries cutlets, chik'n pieces, ground "beef" and a whole lot more.

I think those are the most common ones I see in my supermarket although there are probably more out there. Sadly, most all contain gluten, soy, or eggs or a combination of those ingredients so it's hard to find one for people with food allergies. Family gatherings can be difficult in more ways than just the food, I've found that telling my hosts waaay beforehand that I'm a vegetarian allows for menu mediation and I always offer to bring my own main dish and gravy. It relieves some of the stress from the host and I know I can at least eat something if not everything on the table.

I've got a kick-ass gravy recipe that I'll share in another post. It's gluten-free, lactose-free, and super duper tasty!

Furious Needles

The last few weeks have been really busy. I'm wrapping up my work-from-home job (one more day), watching the Little One walk around the house and soothing the many many tumbles she has, and knitting like a mad woman. I wasn't going to knit for many people for Christmas but dragging
Little One around feral holiday shoppers doesn't really sound that great. I busted out a pair of Evangeline in a day. Knit in Malabrigo Worsted these guys take very little yarn, I think the pattern calls for 80 yards, and knit up soo quick. I do an extra repeat of the cable pattern to make them a tad longer so I'm guessing ~100 yards total. I'm not sure of the color I got it as a partial skein from a swap at my knitting group.


I also knit up a Theory Shawlette which is incredibly soft and beautiful. I'm already thinking about one for me! The cast on and subsequent 4 to 5 rows are a big huge pain in the rear but totally worth it. The cast on (backwards loop) makes a very nice finished edge to work from. I love the garter short rows in the Silky Malabrigo, they're so sproingy and texturey and everything garter should be. Oh, and the color is Plum Blossom. Pretty!
Last night I cast on for the Bodhi Mittens (and Fingerless Mitts) for me! Despite the number of mitts I've knit they all seem to have disappeared. Gifted? Lost? Dunno. We got the new Malabrigo Twist yarn at the shop recently and I thought it would be perfect for these. The pattern is pretty straightforward. I like the elongated stitches that make the flowery-looking things. The yarn is awesome and has great stitch definition. I finished up all but the thumb of the first one last night. My only issue is that the first one is fairly long. I'm not going to frog back but if I knit these again I would stop at a pattern row 8, just after a fancy stitch pattern row, and work either stockinette or seed stitch for a couple of rows before binding off. I don't mind the stockinette rolling at the fingers but I think seed stitch (which is on the cuff of the palm side) would make a more finished-looking edge. The color is Sealing Wax.

Caricia

My mini Caricia worked up beautifully and quickly and I have quite a bit of yarn left over. Blocking pictures never quite do it for me but they do show the pattern wonderfully. I really like that the upper border edging is knit as you go so there isn't any funky picking up or anything when you think you are finished. When you're done, you're done. Another fantastic thing about this is that the yarn did not rub off on my hands as I worked with it. I think that may be a first for me and my love of uber dark blues and it's a really really good thing. This is a mini shawl - just large enough to wrap around my neck and loop bandana-style to wear under my coat. I like this size, it gives all of the satisfaction of knitting lace triangles without the wearability issues of a larger shawl. If I use my knitting time to knit lace then I really want it to be wearable and not languish in the closet waiting for a "nice" enough reason to wear it. Plus it's a good size to use up all of that sock yarn stash that seems to be multiplying on its own. Isn't there some type of math equation that shows a correlation between the breeding rate of rabbits and the rate that sock stash seems to grow? If not, there should be, because even when I don't buy sock yarn for a while I go to my stash and I swear there's more of it. Really.

Jay Blue

I'm finally back from the last round of vacation craziness. California was lovely and the weather? Oh, 70-ish most of the time I was there. Ate at my favorite place (the Buddhist Temple restaurant complete with working monastery) and hung out with my family and even got an evening sans Little One so I could hit up a midnight movie which I haven't done in forever. But I'm home and I have lots of knitting to share but my batteries in my camera are dead and I have to get some more before I can snap and upload.

I'm about 99.5% finished with NaKniSweMoDo with just a little bit of blocking and finishing left to do on the last sweater. I had started a little shawl called Caricia out of this gorgeous skein of Hazel Knits, lost it, found it again, and realized there was a mistake in the setup chart. I frogged and restarted and am halfway done with the main chart. Well, I have 4 out of 9 repeats done in any case. It's a pretty flower basket lace pattern and it works well with the deep color of my yarn. The yarn itself is awesome to work with and for once the blue is not rubbing off on my fingers.

Post-Birthday or Birthday Post?

So my birthday was on Saturday and I got to do some fun stuff with my BFF (hee) who is visiting for the week. We went and watched Where the Wild Things Are which is AMAZING!!!!!!! Great all around and I love the soundtrack. I didn't really feel that it was a movie for kids though, maybe the older kid crowd? It was emotionally intense even for me and I'm relatively grown up. Nickie cried and honked her schnoz which kept me from boo-hooing. Post movie we hit up my favorite (cheap) mani-pedi place and got our relaxation on. Not a bad way to spend an hour. Lunch at Panera Bread since we were in the area and I had a hankering for panini. Relaxation at home with the Little One and the Man. Dinner at my favorite fancy-pants vegetarian restaurant Carmelita and a bottle of Persecco later and we headed home for a little movie watching. Not a bad way to spend a birthday.