1. I decided to try my hand at homemade yogurt. I've been sucking down a bunch of yogurt smoothies lately (plain yogurt + frozen fruit + water + sugar) and love them. Yogurt is not exactly expensive, but making it yourself is uber cheap. Esp. when going through a little more than a half gallon every week. I did a bunch of research, talked some some of my Indian friends at work (as in from India), who make yogurt all the time.
Ultimately I decided not to get a yogurt maker, as they are single purpose machines which Alton Brown abhors and I have been avoiding. Luckily I found How to Make Yogurt. No fancy equipment and I already owned or could rig all the components except for one. I promptly picked up an inexpensive heating pad
from Amazon and waited impatiently for it to arrive. This morning, I used it in my first ever yogurt making endeavor.Today, I got up, heated milk in what is essentially a giant double boiler, then cooled it and left it on my new heating pad for seven hours. It was almost jiggly and reminded me of fresh soft tofu. And now it is in the fridge in two plastic quart sized yogurt containers, hopefully firming up. I will go at it in the morning and see if it's any good. I may adapt the recipe as I was a bit annoyed by the pace of the recipe. But we'll see...
2. Doughnuts. I kind of obsessively read the Pioneer Woman's blog yesterday evening. I used to follow her a couple of years ago, but had dropped her RSS feeds because they were so voluminous. It turns out she's had a busy couple of years! Anyhow, I zoomed through the story of how she met her husband, which is super romantic. And apparently will be published as a book next year. And she has a cookbook, which I was unaware of, but could have guessed as she's always had great recipes with awesome photos.
Anyhow, she posted a doughnut recipe and I decided that just in case the yogurt is a flop, that I should have some kind of comfort waiting. And if it's great, then it's a celebratory doughnut-fest. The husband was a bit confused but enthusiastic, as is the friend with whom he is currently playing Civilization
. Alas the friend moved his family down to San Diego and cannot stop in tomorrow to taste the goodness that will be these doughnuts.3. Quilting. I've been working on several things at the same time, which means none of them are done. I took a great Double Wedding Rings quilt class over at Bearpaws & Hollyhocks last month. Unfortunately, I was uanble to make the last class. Luckily Carolyn, the instructor, was willing to let me come in on a day when she was working and learn the last part of the quilt assembly. Unfortunately, she has been ill and it's been a month since I finished the components. So they're still sitting around.
I've also been working on another quilt. Last year, my wonderful friends Alex and Steph had another baby, Sophia. I made a quilt for Sophia. My friend Ruth also organized a quilt to which several people contributed squares. That collective quilt didn't quite get done, so I offered to help put it together. It turned out to be a bit challenging as all the pieces were...a bit different from each other. I did some ruthless trimming and framing and made my first set of wonky squares. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I sashed them all together and they're ready to be quilted once I finish piecing the back with the few pieces I had left over. It should get done in the next week or two.
And, of course, because there isn't enough quilting going on, I also started organizing the fabric for my first quilt for myself. I'm going to make a big quilt called a Sea Glass quilt. I can't find the link to the original kit, but the colors are very cool and soothing blues and greens contrasted with a lot of white. I think it will be my first quilt to be sent out to be quilted because I don't honestly know that I could manage to quilt a queen sized quilt with all the overhang that I'm planning for. I'm thinking of putting wool batting in, too, because it's pretty breathable, but I saw some silk blend a while back and may end up with that instead. Either way, I'm kind of excited to have a piece of deliberate quilting in my house.
4. Knitting. Last fall, I took knitting back up with a vengeance. I made socks and hats and I'm working on an interesting scarf-y thing. The socks were great for Christmas as everyone in the family has been very budget conscious. The thing about socks is that they take more time than money. I made custom fitted socks for my husband, mother and stepfather. I had offered for my brother, too, but I suspect the skepticism and the coincidental symbolism of socks as a gift were too much for him.
I just finish the first sock of a pair for my mother-in-law, which was fascinated by them when she and my father-in-law dropped by on their way home from a week-long road trip down to the Grand Canyon. And, of course, my Drew wants a pair. His feet are still so small that I'm not even sure how I'm going to make socks that small.
5. Bread. I'm kind of obsessed with it. Probably because I'm Asian and, well, we don't really eat that much bread. I picked up Jim Lahey's My Bread
which has been simply amazing. I've made the basic white boule, the wheat boule, and the stecca, which is kind of foccia-like. I'm totally into the stecca into which I embed olives, tomatoes, or crushed garlic cloves and top with a generous drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of really good salt. Sigh. Rich and Drew love the white boule. Drew amazed me one day by eating two huge slices of it while we were out for a walk. He doublefisted the bread and just followed along on the walk, noshing as he went. Sigh. He's learned so well.Anyhow, this bread obsession hasn't been too distracting. The bread pretty much does its own thing over 24 hours and then I just play with it for a minute or two and then let it rest and then bake it. That's it. I will admit to having purchased a 4 quart cast iron pot
so that my bread will rise higher. My 5 1/2
and 7 1/4 quart Le Creuset dutch ovens resulted in tasty but kind of squat bread. I am hoping the new pot will give me some nice tall slices.6. Weddings. Well, just the one. My best friend is getting married and I am the matron of honor. (I'm having a hard time with that matron part, but it's just a word, right?) I've been helping her with wedding planning as best I can from a distance, which means lots of emails and some phone calls. We went wedding dress shopping with her mom and sister, which was fun. And I directed her to some different invitation options, which I think worked out pretty well.
I've got to tell you - this is an odd year in general for weddings. After several years of one or no weddings a year, this year, I have three or four (the fourth depends on whether we'll be invited), one of which I'm actually in! I haven't had this many weddings since my 20's. And despite the fact that that wasn't so long ago, it feels like a crazy busy year.
7. Kindergarten. Now that Drew's in kindergarten, holy cow! There's homework every weeknight, most of which requires significant parental assistance. Plus, he's reading. Seriously! Reading! I can't get away with spelling things anymore because he can almost always sound it out and he's right 98% of the time. I'm so dead.
The other real consequence of kindergarten is that our mornings are a bit hectic. I generally don't shower until the boys leave. Rich gets in the shower while I get Drew dressed, fed, and lunch packed. Rich takes Drew in and then I get ready. Some mornings, because of conference calls, I don't get into the office until well after 10 AM.
8. Work. It's pesky, I know, but I got promoted! And we're super busy, which is kind of a relief given the economy. I feel really fortunate to be employed and be doing so well, but man, it's been rough. A bit more travel than I've had to do in the past, which makes all that stuff up above a little bit harder. I travel with some sewing handwork (a Grandmother's Garden hexagon quilt) and my knitting (thank goodness they let me take knitting needles on planes again), which helps. But mostly it's the being away from the boys that makes it hard.
We have managed to work out some video conferencing, which is fun for Drew. He likes talking on the computer to me. I show him my hotel room and the (nonexistent) views from the windows. One night we chatted while the power was out in my hotel in New Hampshire. He couldn't see me, even though the camera was on because...well, the power was out.
Anyhow, my delinquency is hopefully coming to an end. I hope. I'll blog more, I promise. If nothing else, to keep myself accountable for all my projects in progress.
Cheers!
0 comments:
Post a Comment