The Great Bread Making Adventure: Scottish Morning Rolls & a St. Andrew's Day Feast

 

To honour my Scottish ancestry, I thought of observing St. Andrew's Day, November 30. Unfortunately, I have been so busy making quilts that I didn't get around to it until now. I had, however, done an internet search on how the Scottish celebrate St. Andrew's Day, and one of the things mentioned was eating haggis and Cullen Skink. I knew what haggis was but Cullen Skink? The name doesn't give me any clue as to what it is. Well, neither does haggis for that matter. But the internet is such a useful thing and not only did I find recipes for vegan haggis (Ultimate Vegan Haggis and Easy Vegan Haggis), but I also found out that Cullen Skink is a creamy smoked haddock soup, named after the village of Cullen, where it apparently originated. And skink? It is a Scots word that refers to a shin, knuckle or hough of beef that would traditionally be used to make a broth. But somewhere in its history, it must have been switched to fish. Whatever, at least it's not lizard soup, which is what a skink is in English in the rest of the world. And I was able to find a vegan version of Cullen Skink as well. And I was very thankful that the recipe didn't include seaweed to make it taste "fishy". Seaweed probably ranks higher than cilantro in my list of what not to eat. 
What else to serve? Well, my research said some type of bread and greens - cabbage or kale - and tatties and neeps. I already knew that tatties were potatoes and neeps were turnips or rutabagas (known as Swedes in Great Britain), often served together in the same "mash". I had some cabbage in my fridge, so I googled once again to find how the Scots served it, and found a recipe for Rumbledethumps, which is a mixture of mashed potatoes and cooked cabbage, topped with cheese and browned in the oven. That recipe was easy to veganize and incredibly tasty. You'll see it at the top of the picture. And that took care of the "tatties" part of the "tatties and neeps", so I just made mashed rutabaga as another side dish (on the left in the picture). 
The Cullen Skink was also very tasty. It called for a can of banana blossoms, which I didn't even know were a thing. Maybe I could find it in an Asian food store or one of the large supermarkets in the city. But I wasn't planning a trip to the city any time soon. Fortunately, the recipe did offer the options of artichoke hearts or green jackfruit, both of which I had. And I chose the artichoke hearts, which I should have rinsed as they had a bit of a tang, which I don't think was needed in the soup. But it was still delicious. 
I chose the Ultimate Vegan Haggis recipe and certainly, the ingredients are far more palatable than in the original haggis. I don't imagine I would have ventured to try it even when I was a meat eater. But, to me, nutmeg is a sweet spice, belonging in desserts. And I'm not even that fond of it in desserts. So, to put it in a savory dish just isn't my thing. The flavour is not horrible, but I think I might try it with a sauce or gravy to try and tone down the nutmeg. And if I ever decide to try it again, I might switch to sage or poultry seasoning instead of the nutmeg. I'm really not sure why people like that flavour in a savory dish. I'm also not to sure about the texture - is haggis supposed to be crunchy/tough? Because my steel-cut oats did not get well done, and I don't know if it's supposed to be that way. 
And since it was a Scottish meal, I decided to try the Scottish Morning Rolls for the bread, even though this wasn't a morning meal. The odd thing about the recipe on page 140 in The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making is that it includes no added fat: no lard, even though the description on page 55 states that they are made with lard; nor any butter, shortening or vegetable oil. That left me scratching my head, and wondering if the person writing the recipes actually corroborated with the one that wrote the descriptions. And also wondering how authentic the recipes actually are. And even though I had no intention of using lard, I wanted a more authentic recipe, and I would choose how to modify it. So, once again, I resorted to the internet, and found a more authentic recipe for Morning Rolls, which gave me the option of lard or vegetable shortening. I also switched out the white flour for whole grain (using a combination of hard red and hard white wheat flour) and adding extra water, since whole grain flours absorb more moisture than white flour. I probably should have added more as it was a rather stiff dough, and I'm wondering if there was sufficient liquid in the original recipe, as it says that it should form a "sticky dough" and it definitely was not, even with the extra water. Either that or I had very "thirsty" flour. 😁 One thing I found rather amusing in both this recipe and the one in the cookbook was baking sheet size. This recipe, which makes 8 rolls, says to grease a "large" baking sheet, and the one in the book, which makes 10 rolls, says to grease 2 baking sheets. For 8 rolls, I used one of my smaller baking sheets, and even then, there likely would have been room for a dozen rolls. And my largest baking sheets would hold enough rolls for a banquet. So, just how big are baking sheets in the United Kingdom? For that matter, how big are their ovens, if my smaller baking sheet would be considered large over there? Anyway, you'll see my results in the centre in the picture above. The taste was good, but I think the texture could have been a little softer. I also found that working in only 30 g of shortening into 500 g of flour did not yield a breadcrumb-like texture. I could barely tell that there was any fat in the flour at all. But I wouldn't want any more fat, especially since shortening is a particularly unhealthy fat. 
So Rumbledethumps and Cullen Skink are definite keepers. The haggis could use a little work, as could the morning rolls. 

I'll Fly Away

If you were to ask me what my favourite colour is, I would say purple. While my preference is for the bluer, darker purples, I like all colours in the purple family. And most people, when I ask their favourite colour(s), say green or red or whatever. They don't get incredibly specific and say emerald green or scarlet... That is most people. However, recently when I asked a friend what his favourite colour is, he said "sky blue." Since I was planning on making him a quilt, that made it rather challenging. What I would consider sky blue and what he would consider sky blue are not necessarily the same thing. I rummaged through my fabric stash trying to come up with what would be sky blue, which only increased my unncertainty. I actually googled "sky blue" and that just made things more confusing because it came up with multiple colours. 

"Sky Blue" from Wikipedia

Then I thought, well if he wants sky blue, I will give him sky blue. I have several "sky" fabrics in my stash. Initially, I was going to make him the dolphin quilt, which includes both sea and sky fabrics and is on my quilting bucket list. But then I thought I don't have time to mess with applique, and I'm not sure which fabric to use for the dolphins. This was before Christmas and I had to finish 3 quilts I was giving as Christmas gifts, in addition to wanting to get this friend's quilt finished as well. The dolphin quilt became a UFO and I decided to try something different. I decided to pull several sky fabrics from my stash, figuring he could pick which blue he liked as "sky blue" out of the various blues in this quilt top.

I didn't have a metre or yard of each, so I couldn't use a 3-yard quilt pattern. Instead, I devised my own pattern, using stash fabrics. And I think it turned out pretty nice. I "borrowed" the blue minky dot fabric I was going to use as backing for Eccentric to use as backing for this one. (I then used some black minky from a UFO to back Eccentric). 

As for the quilting, I picked Airplanes in the Clouds, and that's how I got the name for the quilt, I'll Fly Away. 
Just a doctrinal note about the song by that name, I'll Fly Away. It's actually not Biblical because we don't go straight to heaven when we die. We go to heaven when Jesus returns and raises His followers to life. To learn more about this, you can read, Are the Dead Really Dead? Or click on Ghost Truth or Hell Truth in the sidebar on the right. 
And my friend liked his quilt and said it was the right colour. 

Moving on from quilts to my kitchen, in the world of economics, there is a principle called "economies of scale". In a nutshell, that means the bigger the customer base, the lower the prices. So, in a country like the United States, which has a population of over 333 million, it's only logical that most things are less expensive there than in Canada, with a population of 41 million. And that things in Ontario (population 14 million) are generally cheaper than in Alberta (population 4 million). But customer base not only affects prices, it also affects availability. Recently, in my small town in rural Alberta, I looked for wasabi powder and tamari. I couldn't find them anywhere. 
Just one of my pet peeves about too many of my cookbooks: price and availability of ingredients. And it came up because I made the Beet Burgers from this cookbook: 

Don't get me wrong - I really appreciate the work of the authors in producing this cookbook.And so far, I've been enjoying it. But I'm sure that it's a lot easier to find wasabi powder where they live than where I live. And it may be fine for them to put a whole cup of nutritional flake yeast in a recipe of 10 or 11 burgers (Wow!), but nutritional yeast is not cheap where I live. 
So, using expensive and hard to find ingredients is one of my biggest cookbook pet peeves. 

As for the burgers, they weren't bad, but not great. I used horseradish instead of wasabi powder, and maybe I should have used more. And I only had about 2/3 cup of nutritional yeast left, so that's all I used. Perhaps those contributed to the fact that I found them rather bland in taste, even with ketchup and mustard. I think they could have used some salt. But, for the most part, the recipes in this cookbook do not use added salt. 

Beet Burger with Grilled Pineapple, saurkraut and alfalfa sprouts

Which brings me to another pet peeve. Too many whole food, plant-based/vegan cookbook authors seem to think that flavour mostly consists of "hot", as in spicy hot: chili peppers, wasabi, black pepper, hot sauce, etc. And I'm not a big fan of "hot". I actually enjoy the flavours of lentils, chickpeas, navy beans, and seasonings like oregano and sage, flavours which just disappear in the onslaught of "hot". I remember years ago, after visiting a vegan restaurant, discussing it with a fellow vegan, and I told her that the food had been too hot. She responded that she felt that too many vegan cooks seem to try to make up for the absence of meat by the use of hot spices. Maybe that's it, because the fat in meat carries flavour. But I've eaten lots of delicious vegan food without it singeing my tongue. 
I had really wanted to like these Beet Burgers (and I still have 9 left) because they are so nutritious, but they are fairly labour-intensive for a burger I just found rather bland. In my many cookbooks, I have lots of burger recipes, many I know that I like, so I don't think I want to buy wasabi powder or play around with other seasonings to try and give these ones more zip. And using a whole cup of nutritional yeast seems rather excessive as well as expensive. So, I likely won't be repeating these burgers. 

Vegan Under Pressure - A Cookbook Review

When I posted to a facebook group for vegan Instant Pot recipes that I had received my order of this cookbook from Amazon, I was asked to share my opinion of it. So I figured the easiest way to do that was to write a cookbook review on my blog. First of all, here's the link to the cookbook:Apparently if you purchase through this link, I will get some money. I have no idea how much because I have yet to earn anything by posting Amazon links... 😄
You might want to click on the "Cookbook Criteria" tab above to review what I look for in a cookbook.
Is it vegan/plant-based? Check.
Is it whole food? Not 100%, but most of the recipes are. It does have a couple of recipes for Seitan, plus recipes that use Seitan, which, of course, is not a whole food. Oil is called for in many recipes, but is usually listed as optional, and it's only small quantities. And the risotto calls for Arborio (white) rice.
Does it use meat analogues (fake meat)? Not that I could find. It even provides a recipe for making your own vegan sausage.
Does it limit the use of obscure, exotic and specialty ingredients? Not sure whether I should put tempeh into this category or the above or the below, but there are recipes that call for it. And tomatillos, soba noodles, ume vinegar, kombu, miso paste, okra... I'm talking about things that are not readily available in the grocery stores in my small town in rural Alberta. For this category, it depends on the individual recipe - whether the item can be left out or subsititued. Or if I, or another cook, really want to try the recipe with that ingredient, am I willing to include it on a shopping list for my next trip to the nearest big city? Maybe or maybe not. Most of my trips to the city involve fabric stores, which are not generally reliable sources of ume vinegar...
Easy to follow instructions: yes.
Limited use of ingredients I don't like: fennel, mushrooms, cilantro and tempeh are found in recipes in this book. However, I have found plenty of recipes that either don't include these or I can readily substitute. Unfortunately, the vegan sausage recipe calls for mushrooms and I'm still debating on whether I will be able to substitute eggplant...
Awesome food photography? Yes, but not enough of it to suit my tastes, and I would rather have it accompany the recipe that's pictured than lumped together in one spot.
Glossary? yes. Plus lots of tips for cooking with a pressure cooker. And seasoning recipes for the seasoning blends called for in recipes in case you want to make your own or can't find them in the grocery store. Also cooking timetables for individual foods (grains, beans, vegetables). Excellent!
While some of the above comments are negative, bear in mind that there are very few cookbooks out there that would have no negatives in response to my criteria. These criteria are ideals, not absolutes.
Now let's explore some of the recipes.

The first meal I made was the Potato Vegetable Salad (page 140) and Black Bean and Quinoa Burgers (page 234), with a side salad. As I mentioned in my Cookbook Criteria, I do not like the taste of licorice. Anything with a licorice-like flavour is not included in my cooking. So I substituted fresh dill for the tarragon in the dressing. And it was delicious! The only correction I would make is that the directions fail to say to drain the potatoes before adding the dressing. Otherwise, you would end up with your potato salad swimming. 

Normally I use a canning jar ring and lid to make my burgers, and they turn out nice and round and uniform, but I couldn't find a lid. They still tasted good, but I felt that they needed some salt added. Perhaps it was because I used low sodium vegetable broth. Otherwise tasty and nice texture. 

The next meal was Graciela's Colombian Beans (page 108) and Basic Risotto (page 78). You'd have to really like "hot" in order to use a whole tablespoon of chili powder in the beans. I used only 1 teaspoon and I still found it too hot for my tastebuds. In step 4 of the recipe, you are to add the vegetables and either bring to pressure and cook for one minute or let sit with the lid on for 5 minutes. I tried just letting it sit for 5 minutes in my Instant Pot and found the veggies still hard and crunchy, so I then did the 1-minute pressure cook and they were fine. And the dish was tasty. For the risotto, I did not use white rice. I don't buy white rice. Instead I substituted short grain brown rice and cooked for 22 minutes, as per the instructions in the rice cooking table (page 53). I also sauteed the onion and garlic in vegetable broth, rather than oil. To the best of my memory, I have never eaten risotto. I wasn't even sure what it was, other than a rice dish. So, I googled it, and this turned out nice and creamy like Google says it should. I threw in some spinach for added nutrition. Afterwards, I looked down at the bottom of the page and saw that there actually is an option for Spinach Risotto, but it has more than just spinach added. I might try that next time. 

I get together with my ex-husband, daughter and grandson for Christmas, and all I'm generally expected to bring is my own vegan entree. So, while I don't generally make or eat Seitan because it isn't a whole food, I decided to give the Chicken-Style Seitan a try and make it "Kentucky Fried" using a so-called KFC Original Recipe that I found online. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture, but I will tell you what I did with the recipe. In the dough, I substituted 1 tablespoon of chicken style seasoning for the 1/2 teaspoon salt. (I used Blaney's brand, and if you're in Alberta, you should too, because it's a local product). In the broth, I switched Bragg's for the tamari and reduced it to 1 tablespoon, omitted the kombu and the ginger and added 3 tablespoons chicken style seasoning. It turned out delicious with a nice texture. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of following the recipe for KFC seasoning. It's been over 40 years since I've eaten KFC, but I highly doubt it was ever that peppery. And this was peppery in the extreme, to the point where pepper is about all I could taste. And I never was a pepper fan. So I definitely do not recommend that you follow this recipe without drastically reducing the pepper. But that's no reflection on this cookbook. The KFC recipe was from an external link. But here's what I actually did do differently with the KFC recipe: for egg, I substituted a ground flax/water combo and for buttermilk, I put a tablespoon of lemon juice into a 1 cup measure and filled it with soy milk and allowed it to sour. And I baked, not fried. If I had an air fryer, I would have tried that, but nothing would have helped tone down the overwhelmingly peppery taste. My grandson wanted to try it, but my daughter wouldn't let him after I commented on how peppery it was. Fortunately, I at least tried the Seitan before I nearly destroyed it with the KFC recipe so that I at least knew it had tasted good. 

Next up was the Spring Split Pea Soup (page 190). I'm not a seaweed fan (not to mention where do I buy it locally?), so I omitted the dulse. Instead, I added a couple of shakes of liquid smoke, and the result was yummy! The only change I'd make would be to cook it a little longer as I found the split peas still slightly crunchy. 

Finally, I tried the Herbed Polenta (page 70) 

and Greek Stewed Lima Beans (page 109). For the polenta, I ate a bowl of it, and then spread the remainder into a square glass baking dish, allowed it to cool, sliced it and baked it, topped with Daiya cheddar flavoured shreds (another product I seldom use, but I had it in the fridge and decided to try it on the polenta), in the oven at 450०F for 15 minutes. Next time I might try the broiler and crisp it up a bit. Otherwise, very good. Another first for me. I'm used to eating cornmeal mush for breakfast with maple syrup and milk. This is the first time I've eaten polenta. And it was good. 

For the lima beans, I swapped out the fennel bulb for celery and the fennel fronds for dill. And it was scrumptious. I brought leftovers of both these last two dishes to work and got comments, "Does that ever look good!" 

All of the recipes I've tried so far are "keepers": ones that I will likely use again. And so this cookbook is also a keeper. In addition to really good recipes, it gives lots of worthwhile information on using the pressure cooker as well. While the author uses a stove top cooker, I personally own an Instant Pot, which is what I used to test these recipes, and found that they worked well. I did do a fair amount of tweaking of the recipes, but that's mostly a reflection of my personal tastes and experience in cooking for many years, not how good this cookbook is. I already have several vegan pressure cooker/Instant Pot cookbooks on my Kindle. But I prefer an actual book when it comes to cookbooks. This one came highly recommended and I second that recommendation. I already have several more recipes from it on my menu for the coming week. It's seldom that I trial this many recipes from a cookbook without having at least one dud. But so far, it's all good.  

My X-Day

Friday the 13th was my "X" day, which is the nickname we give to our scheduled day off. According to our union contract, we get one 3-day weekend (unpaid) every 4 weeks, and mine was a good day. It partially made up for the fact that I was sick over Christmas and while I had time off, I was too sick to do much of anything with the time. Anyway, the weather had finally improved to the point where frostbite was not an imminent danger and I felt comfortable going into the city to get some errands run.
I was notified by my cell phone service provider that they would no longer be able to support the technology for my old flip phone as of January 31. So, that was my first order of business - I had to get a new cell phone. Believe it or not, I had to buy it at a grocery store. My provider started out running grocery stores, then turned to banking and finally to cell phone service. I had already tried to replace my phone on a previous visit to the city last month, but the store I went to only had flip phones. Seriously? Even though they might have more modern technology than my old flip phone, I was trying to get away from that. So the store I went in yesterday initially said they didn't have any phones. Then they started rummaging in a storage room as one of the clerks thought she remembered seeing some somewhere. Then they rummaged in some drawers and cupboards and they managed to find 3 cell phones. One was not for my provider (apparently they sell phones for other providers, as well). Of the other two, one was some generic brand that I didn't recognize and the other was a Motorola. I went with the Motorola. Now I can text people without having to punch the same button 3 or 4 times. And I can access the internet, do Instagram, read my email... Fun!
Next I went to Lori's Country Cottage. I had purchased something in their Stuff Your Stocking event, but had totally forgotten about it. I'm sure it was the Lord that reminded me about it, as one morning before getting up it suddenly came to my mind. But I couldn't remember what it was. Somehow I thought it was a quilting ruler - a rather expensive one, as I seemed to recall. Sure enough, it was the Stripology ruler, plus a Stripology book and a quilt pattern that I hadn't remembered at all.

Plus I picked up some clearance fat quarters. I'm hoping the green will go with my Solstice Challenge blocks in case I need some fabric for finishing - sashing or whatever. And the good thing is, there's room on my pegboard for this huge ruler!
After finishing at Lori's, I decided to make what I thought would be a quick stop at a thrift store (Value Village). I was hoping to pick up a Fondue set as I want to try some of the fondue recipes from this cookbook:
I found one alright, but then decided to check out the book and craft departments. For whatever reason, there seems to be a scarcity of quilting books in the thrift stores lately. Maybe because I've bought them all already, so I didn't find anything on the bookshelves. However, the craft department was another matter. I just had to rescue this from the thrift store:

I think a crafter must have died or moved into a nursing home as, in addition to this unfinished afghan, I found another (uglier) one that was a bunch of granny squares made up but not sewn together and a bit of yarn - it was hard to tell as it was in a sealed bag. There was a smaller bag with finer white yarn and what might have been some granny squares as well. I was able to pass those by, but this red and cream one was calling to me. It's Canada's 150th "birthday" this year and I figured the colours were about right for a sesquicentennial afghan. And I decided to finish it in honour of the anonymous crafter who had to give up her craft. However, it's kind of curious. The final row completed seems to have ended in the middle of the row.

You can see the loop at the top where the row ended, but it appears to be a complete row, so how the yarn ended in the middle is beyond me. The yarn in the bag is a Sears Sayelle. And the bag itself has a Sears sticker on it The yarn label has French as well as English, so I know it came from Canada. Because it's "Sears" and not "Simpsons Sears," this afghan kit would have likely originated after 1978, when they dropped the "Simpsons." If anyone knows this pattern, I would appreciate hearing about it. It certainly would save me trying to figure out the pattern on my own.

Also in the craft department were a bunch of older knitting and crocheting books, which I figure had also belonged to the anonymous crafter. Most of them were too dated to bother with, unless I wanted to sell them as antiques. If I had a craft store, I would buy them for a display case. I do love vintage stuff, but one can only accumulate so much before it becomes a clutter burden. I did pick up a few of the books.

One of them is specifically Canadian knits, so that will make for good projects for this "Sesqui" year. The pillow forms in the back I intend to use for pillow projects from the 50 Country Quilting Projects book.

You might recall that I took a quilt embellishment workshop in September.

I was able to pick up quite a few beads to use to embellish my quilts. Not sure how realistic that idea was, however. I'm lucky to get time to get the quilts quilted, let alone sewing beads on them...

A couple of little sewing kits caught my eye because of all the notions in them, plus a "vintage" sewing basket that I intend to keep in my travel trailer - if I don't sell it in the meantime. The trailer, that is. I'm not a big fan of towing and I'm not sure if I'm prepared to invest in paying for a seasonal site for it. Plus, if I sell it, I could put the money towards a Longarm! Something to consider.

In the front of the above picture is this weird thing:

It was in the bag with one of the sewing kits. If anyone knows what it is, please tell me. I have no idea. At first I thought it was some kind of throat plate, but the upper left part is a cutting blade.

Amazing what you come up with when all you were planning on buying was a fondue set. And the fondue set that I did end up buying didn't come with fondue forks, so now I'll have to look for them.

My next stop was Costco, where I was just going to buy a couple of bags of walnuts. I also thought my membership was up for renewal, but they didn't mention anything about it when I checked out. Which was a good thing. Those two bags of walnuts ended up costing me over $140. Interesting how that happens at Costco (yes, I need that, too, and I think I'll try that, and...). Unfortunately, the Moroccan Style Chickpea soup that I bought a case of didn't turn out to be delicious. I wish Costco would sell sample cans so that you can first determine if you like it well enough to buy a case of 8. Hopefully, the lentil soup will be better.

My final stop was the mall where I had lunch. I had neglected to take my water bottles along, even though I had them by the door when I left, so was very thirsty by the time I got to the mall. I got 2 - 591 ml water bottles with my lunch. That's 1182 ml or over 5 cups. And I had it all gone by the time I was finished lunch. My dehydrated body must have just soaked it right up because I didn't even stop for a potty break on my way home. LOL!

Knitting, Crocheting, Cooking and Vacuum Cleaners

Aside from yesterday's devotional, I realized it's been over two months since I last posted on my blog. So this may be a long update. I'll start with vacuum cleaners. In order to take some of the pictures for today's post, I wanted to vacuum the carpet first. With two cats in the house, one of which is long-haired, cat fur accumulates rapidly in my house. However, when I started the vacuum cleaner up, it was leaving most of the fluff behind. I also noticed a peculiar "whine" to the motor and the smell of burnt rubber. I turned the vacuum cleaner off and checked all of the extension wands for plugs: nothing. Then I remembered that the last time I had used the power head, I had problems with it and determined to take it apart and clean out all of the "stuff" wrapped around the roller. I hadn't done that yet. So I got my tool kit, sat down on the floor and took the power head apart. Yuk! What a mess of dirt, hair, cat fur, thread, yarn, tinsel, whatever! The dirt was caked on so thick that I was scraping it off with a flathead screwdriver and I was still not getting it all off. I finally resorted to spraying it with Fantastik and got it relatively clean with that. I didn't even know that there were instructions for changing the belt embossed on the inside of the top until I got it clean enough to see them. I was calculating and figure I've likely had that vacuum cleaner for about 8-1/2 years. And I've never taken the powerhead apart. I'm not sure where the instructions are for it, but I don't remember reading anything about taking the powerhead apart regularly to clean it. I guess I'll have to add that to my spring cleaning tasks. Hmm, just remembered that I've got a powerhead on my central vac as well. I probably should take that one apart too... And, in case you're wondering why I have both a canister vac and a central vac - I had the canister vac before I bought my house and the central vac came with the house. The central vac is really old, though it still works, and I just seem to alternate between the two of them. And currently the central vac is "out of commision" as I have taken the cannister off to get behind it to finish the drywall. It's in the sewing area of my basement, which I'm supposed to be renovating. 
And on the topic of the renovations - not much progress there. I just find it very difficult to work full time, cook, clean, maintain the yard, pursue my hobbies and complete renovations. And I'm a little bit intimidated about doing the flooring myself. So I have determined to get an estimate or two to see if I can afford to pay someone else to get it done. I'm really getting tired of not being able to quilt and having all of my supplies stacked in the living room. Kind of puts a damper on having company: "Just pull up a box of fabric and have a seat."
On the crafting front, June's "Learn a Stitch, Make this Cowl" was the Le Papillon Cowl. I'm not sure what "Le Papillon" has to do with it because I do not really see anything reminiscent of a butterfly in the cowl. I bought the suggested Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable yarn and began the cowl.

It really wasn't going well. And I have decided that I really don't like this yarn. While it comes in beautiful colours, it is not fun to work with. It's marked as a 4 weight, but it's unevenly spun and there are long sections where it's probably only a 2 weight between slubs of 4 weight. It also has a bit of a nap (I know that's a fabric word, but I don't know what to call it in yarn) which makes it really difficult to frog, and I ended up breaking it at least 3 times as you can see in the picture above. I'd had enough. 

And I'm puzzled. Red Heart has so many different yarns, so I don't know why they would choose to use the same yarn in more than one cowl. March's Lovable Cowl was also made with Unforgettable yarn. I had problems with that one, too, but I blamed that on my knitting skills. And both January's and April's cowls called for Medley, though I didn't use it for April's. And I decided not to use Unforgettable for June's either. I bought a skein of Super Saver in Monet and proceeded with that. 

Meanwhile I was having issues with the pattern.

I really didn't like the way the pattern said to do the bobbles. You end up with 11 loops on the hook and then have to yarn over and draw through all 11 loops. That is an awful lot of loops to get your hook through. I tried it and ended up with what looked like messy balls of yarn. You can see that in the Unforgettable yarn in the foreground of the picture above. Not only did I not like the look of it, but I thought all of those loose loops of yarn would be easy to get caught on something. So I decided to do the traditional bobble stitch with the Super Saver yarn, as you can see above, and I'm much happier with it. 

And here's the final product:

Super Saver was much easier to work with than Unforgettable. And I love the Monet. And here I am trying it on:

I also made progress on my grandson's cardigan:

This is the left front and I've still got a lot of ends to work in, as you can see. I've got the right front done to just below where the picture starts. His birthday is August 30, and I'm hoping to have it done by then. It's the first time I've tried Intarsia knitting and I'm not unhappy with how it's turning out. 

Also for my grandson's birthday is the Choo-Choo Train Afghan.

No choo-choo train on it yet, however, but the main body of the afghan is finished. I have to finish adding the fringe on each end, then crochet the train cars and stitch them on. You can see how little space I had to spread it out because of all the sewing room clutter in my living room.

You'll remember that I've been working on the Vivaldi throw. Here it is to date:

Still a long way from being finished. And it needs to be done by August 16th. I had a friend offer to buy this one from me, and I told her that I don't sell my projects, but I kept the fact that she liked this one in the back of my mind. I didn't have a recipient in mind for it when I started, but when I found out this same friend is celebrating her 50th anniversary this year, I knew who the recipient would be.

One Sabbath morning when my daughter and grandson were visiting, my daughter was wearing a sundress for church. As it is usually a little chilly in the mornings, I asked if she wanted a wrap. But most of my wraps were more for winter and she said that they were all too heavy. I ended up giving her a large muslin scarf, but said that I would need to make her a lighter weight cotton wrap. I later bought some Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Lotus Blossom, but needed to find an appropriate pattern. As it is intended to be a summer wrap, I did not want a very densely crocheted pattern. It's not that I don't have patterns at home, but decided to look at what was available while I was at Walmart.  I found the summer issue of Crochet! Magazine, which had 3 wraps in it, none of which were done in 4 weight. But it's just a wrap, so I figured I could adjust the pattern. I really love the Feileacan Shawl, which has Celtic knot butterflies down the back. The pattern calls for a 2 weight yarn and so I decided to try the butterfly to see if it looked acceptable in 4 weight. I was happy with it and proceeded to make the right half of the shawl.

This is the completed right half of the shawl and the one butterfly. I haven't finished sewing the butterfly yet. I actually completed the whole right half following the pattern, but it ended up being much too long in the back, so I frogged enough rows to eliminate one butterfly down the back. Or was it two? Anyway, not all of the pattern was working to my liking - the rows weren't lining up the way they should. So I made my own alterations, but don't ask me now what they were. Hopefully I can remember them when I complete the left half. The Ravelry link that gives pattern corrections (but not the ones I wanted) can be found here. There are supposed to be beads added along the bottom edge of the shawl, but I haven't decided if I'm going to add them or not. The only ones I found that were the right size with a big enough bore hole are silver and I'm not sure if that's the best colour for this yarn. Besides leaning back against beads on a wooden pew might be rather uncomfortable. Feileacan, by the way, is Irish for butterfly. This is the first time I've attempted a crochet pattern with a rating of 6 (challenging). My daughter's birthday is September 5th, so I hope to have it finished by then.

July's cowl is the Love this Lacy Cowl. It's a knitted pattern and just emphasizes the reason why I prefer crocheting over knitting. Somehow I got my stitches out of order and the pattern doesn't line up like it should. But frogging when you're knitting is more trouble than it's worth. So I've left the mistakes in there and figure it will still be pretty. Just not perfect.

The pattern called for Red Heart Sparkle Soft, but I'm using Bernat Satin Sparkle in coral. I generally go with what I like that's available locally in the appropriate guage. I can't always make a trip to the city and don't necessarily want to have to pay for shipping if I order online. It's less than half finished and, by next weekend, the August cowl pattern will be available. For a pattern that's rated "easy," I'm not really finding it so. It will likely have to be set aside until September as it's intended for a Christmas present, whereas the above 4 projects have more imminent deadlines. However, my vacation starts Friday, July 31, and I'm hoping to get at least the Vivaldi throw finished during that time. I can't afford to go anywhere, especially if I end up paying someone to complete my renovations, but will hopefully get some serious crafting time in. 

July 31st is also the 7th anniversary of my divorce. Maybe I should do something to celebrate!

Meanwhile I actually had time to do some real cooking this week. By "real cooking" I mean more than just boiling some pasta and pouring on some sauce from a jar. I made Scrambled Tofu Breakfast Burritos. The filling is made overnight in a crockpot.

Yummy! This is from one of my new favourite cookbooks.

This cookbook is perfect for me. I love slow cookers and the recipes are for one or two people. 
Now it's time for lunch. I have a lawn to mow and a handyman to find who can give me an estimate on my renovations. Not to mention a powerhead to put back together now that it's had a chance to dry out after cleaning. So that's all for now.

Today's Progress

I was in Edmonton today for a wound care workshop. Whenever I go to one of these programs, I like to take a crocheting project along so that I can keep my hands busy. I find I can get more out of the presentations that way. I'm not as likely to get bored or restless. Today I brought along the purple and green afghan that I've been working on. It is getting pretty huge to bring along, but it still fits in the tote I've been using for some of my crochet projects. Here's how it looked at the end of the workshop:

 Here's how it looked before today:

So I've made some substantial progress. I think I completed 8 rows and it now measures about 43" x 53" or something like that. I actually left the workshop early, so I could have completed even more if I'd stayed. :-) It was supposed to end at 4:45, but I left around 3:00 before the final session, which was on incontinence. One of the other nurses that was there from my office had told me her plans to leave before the final session, so I looked through the handout for that session and realizing that I knew most of what was going to be presented, decided to leave as well. So did our third nurse that was there. That would get us out of the city before the worst of rush hour started.  
I had really been looking forward to the session on nutrition and wound healing. So Not Impressed! I was appalled at the presenter's ignorance: "I don't know how vegetarians can get enough protein." Grrr! It didn't help that she set the protein requirements at more than double what we actually need. No wonder there's an epidemic of heart disease and cancer. And she's a registered dietitian working with heart patients! I was tempted to go up to her and say, " You know I've been a vegetarian for over 35 years (almost 38 to be exact) and I had no idea I was so malnourished. Totally amazing that I was able to produce a healthy child considering the fact that I went vegan while I was pregnant."  
Well, the consolation was that I did win a door prize:

a solar light that I will use on my deck.

Carob Berry Trifle

As I mentioned in a previous post, Wasn't That a Party!, the carob cake I made for my ex-husband's 60th birthday party turned out quite dense in texture due to outdated baking powder. The flavour was still good and I tried to redeem it by pouring Peanut Butter Carob Pie Filling over the top, but, while it tasted good, it still was unpleasantly dense. About half of it was eaten at the party, probably without much "relish" and so I had to decide what to do with the remainder. I hate to throw food away and so I put the cake in the freezer. Eventually, I resolved to use it in a trifle. I thought about doing it several times, for church potlucks or for my own personal consumption, but never got around to it till now. 
Today we had a barbecue at work. It was a fundraiser for the flood victims in southern Alberta, and included a silent auction and various raffle items. We paid $10 each for the burger of our choice, plus we were all to bring either a salad or a dessert. Just a word on the burgers: for the first time, they actually offered veggie burgers as an option. Hurray! I've only been working there 6 years... Three other people besides me ate veggie burgers. 
I opted to bring a dessert and decided this was the time to bring out the carob cake and make the trifle. It still had the Peanut Butter Carob Pie filling on top of it, so that went into the trifle as well. I used the basic directions for the trifle recipe from the  Seven Secrets Cookbook. Of course, I used my carob cake, cut into one-inch cubes, instead of the cake recipe in the book. And in place of the lemon pie filling or vanilla custard that was recommended in the cookbook, I used the Carob Pudding and Pie filling recipe from Whole Foods for Whole People. This cookbook is an old favourite of mine and I've made the carob pie numerous times. Yummy! Half of the cake cubes were put in the bottom of the bowl, then covered with the just-cooked carob pie filling. The remaining half of the cubes were distributed on top of the pie filling and pushed down into it. This was allowed to chill overnight. Meanwhile I made the Whipped Topping recipe from the Seven Secrets cookbook, which was also allowed to chill overnight. The main ingredient is a can of coconut mild, and it makes a very rich and delicious topping. 
Next evening after work, I added a layer of raspberries and outlined the dish with strawberries cut in halves.

I whipped the topping once more in the blender, as per instructions, added it to the dish, and completed it with more strawberry halves and some blueberries. 

Red, white and blue - looks kind of patriotic, dosen't it? 

Only about 1/3 of it went at the meal today, but considering how many people there were and about half of us brought desserts, that's not too bad. Besides I'll enjoy the leftovers. And it did turn out quite good. I just ate another bowl for supper. I might try it again some time, but next time I'll make sure my baking powder is not outdated. 
Just a couple of comments: In spite of the fact that there's all that info "out there" about the antioxidants in chocolate, there's still bad stuff in chocolate, some of which is a contributing factor to breast disease (See http://www.ucheepines.org/abstracts/). Personally, I once had a very painful cyst in one of my breasts and when I went to see the doctor about it, he asked if I used a lot of tea, coffee, chocolate or salt. I don't drink tea or coffee and don't think I use a lot of salt. I really didn't think I ate that much chocolate either, but that motivated me to quit and I didn't eat any for years and never had a recurrence. I have eaten chocolate occasionally more recently, but I prefer to get my antioxidants from things like the blueberries in this trifle, that I know don't have any disease-causing substances in them naturally. That's why I choose carob over chocolate. I heard Dr. Winston Craig speak and he said that it's okay to eat chocolate as long as you only eat as much as he does: about one or two squares a month. Note that's squares, not bars. 
The second point I want to mention is that, while I know there are ready made non-dairy whipped toppings available, I prefer to make my own if I have time. That way I'm in control of the ingredients.

Wasn't That a Party!

Yesterday, I hosted a dinner party for my ex-husband's 60th birthday. I know. That's more than just a little weird. Why would I host a party for my ex-husband? Trust me, there were many times leading up to the party when I did question, "Why on earth am I doing this?" Sometimes, I jokingly say that I'm too nice for my own good. And that's probably a big part of it. I knew that he couldn't count on our daughter to do anything special for him, a subject which I will not discuss at this point in time. His only other close relatives, his brother and sister, are not close geographically. They live in Ontario, whereas we live in Alberta, so there's no way they could plan a party for him. So that left me, and honestly, I still can't totally explain why I did it. As an ex, I certainly wasn't under any obligation. It's not like I owe him anything. And even though I maintain an amicable relationship with him, by choice, hosting a birthday party for him was a little over the top. However, it's over and done with and it was fun. I enjoy cooking and enjoy having company, though working full-time doesn't leave me a whole lot of time or energy for it. The one negative consequence is that I now have people speculating that we're going to get back together. Well, they can speculate all they want, but that's just not going to happen.

However, that's not why I'm blogging today. No, I want to talk about the FOOD!
Here's the dinner menu:

Zucchini Spinach Lasagne (Recipes from the Weimar Kitchen, p. 63)
Sweet Potato and Caramelized Apple Casserole (Holiday Collection 2011, p. 109)
7 Layer Salad (Give Them Something Better, p. 30)
Garlic Bread (my own recipe, based on how Mom made it, with a little help from The Five Roses Guide to Good Cooking)
Frozen Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake (Good Nutrition for Life, p. 117)
Carob Cake (Good Nutrition for Life, p. 113), topped with Peanut Butter Carob Pie filling (p. 122)


The lasagne recipe is a tried and true recipe that I've had good response to previously. I'm a little frustrated with how the recipe is composed, however. It gives a list of ingredients, amongst which is "2 c. tomato sauce (see recipe)". It doesn't even give the page number for the recipe, and when I check, there are actually two tomato sauce recipes in this book. Which one am I supposed to use? Does it matter? And I'm not happy when I have to make the tomato sauce recipe first, then add it to more ingredients to make pasta sauce. Why not just list all of the ingredients and make the whole sauce at once? So, on the very back page is a place for "notes." And here I wrote down all of the ingredients to make the sauce to do just that - skip the step of making the tomato sauce first, just make it all in one batch. I also added a note in the recipe to just use 5 - 5-1/2 cups of prepared tomato sauce for when I'm too lazy (or pressed for time) to make the sauce from scratch. The second thing I wasn't sure about in this recipe was the fact that the zucchini is added to the sauce and the spinach is layered in the lasagne. I always felt that it made more sense the other way around and that's how I've always made it, with good results. I'm sure either way, it will still be delicious. The "cheese" in this lasagne is a Cashew Pimento Cheese Spread, found on p. 33 of this cookbook. I find it annoying when a recipe calls for another recipe from the same cookbook, but fails to provide the page number. However, I don't hesitate to write the page numbers in myself. This lasagne was well-received, even though not all guests were vegan or vegetarian. Regarding the cookbook, I've made some really rockin' recipes from this book, as well as a few ho-hum ones. It's a keeper. 
The sweet potato dish is definitely yummy. When I first tried it last Thanksgiving, the comment was, "This tastes more like dessert." Just a couple of minor changes to "veganize" it: I substituted Becel Vegan margarine for the butter (I think I used Earth Balance at Thanksgiving and either way turned out great). For the whipping cream, I used Silk Creamer. While this is definitely not a vegan cookbook, lots of the dishes are readily "veganizable," and I've tried several recipes that I've been very happy with, though one or two could use a little tune-up. The main dish section is almost exclusively meat dishes, but there are two recipes that are vegan: Ethiopian Vegetable Stew and Moroccan Vegetable Ragout. I've tried the stew - very good, but very spicy hot, so next time I will reduce the cayenne, and adjust the cooking process because some things turned out "crunchy" that shouldn't have. 
The 7 Layer Salad is a fun recipe that doesn't require a whole lot of work, other than chopping and slicing vegetables. And it looks very pretty layered in the bowl. But you have to have the right bowl for this salad: tall, straight and clear glass. I found mine at a Thrift Store. Here it is:

I probably should have photographed it against a plain background, so that it would show up better, but I wanted to show off my orchids. Can you tell which one is real? It's the one on the left. It's an Ice Orchid that you water by giving it three ice cubes once a week. We'll see if I can keep it alive. It was given to me by one of the guests at the party last night. The one on the right was given to me by the daughter of a client to thank me for all the work I'd done for her mother. So, back to the recipe - the dressing can be made either using the Aioli recipe in the cookbook (and yes, it does give the page number) or a commercial soy mayonnaise, to which you add 1/2 cup of lemon juice and 1/4 cup of sugar. The first time I made this, I used the Aioli, which also has lemon juice in it, and I found it tasted too strongly of lemon juice, though I still got complimented on it. I was planning on reducing the lemon juice when I made it for the party, but was using Vegannaise instead of the Aioli, so I opted to include the full amount. I was pleased with the result, and again got compliments on the salad. The dressing turns our fairly runny, but it needs to be in order to trickle down through all the salad layers. This cookbook I've mentioned in a previous post, when I wasn't happy with the pancakes. However, after making the carob cake (discussed following), I realize that a big factor in my unsuccessful pancakes was my outdated baking powder. Whoops! Much more to explore in Give Them Something Better...
Garlic bread - who doesn't like garlic bread? Made with a 900g loaf (that's 2 lb.) of light rye bread, I used two whole cups of Becel Vegan margarine and 24+ cloves of fresh garlic. Honestly, it's been many years since I've made home made garlic bread, so I consulted both my Five Roses and Purity cookbooks. Purity only called for 2 cloves of garlic per 1/2 cup of margarine and I knew that was not enough. If I want to eat garlic bread, I want to really taste the garlic. Five Roses called for 6, so for 2 cups for margarine I used over 24. Some of them were too small to be considered full cloves. :-) Wrapped in foil and baked 30 minutes at 350 degrees, and enjoyed by all. 
I have to admit that in all my years as a vegetarian and vegan, I have tasted some pretty poor excuses for dessert. Some just tasted too "healthy" to be dessert. I want dessert to taste like dessert. Can't something be both healthy and delicious? Well, the Frozen Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake could make a believer out of anyone. This dessert is fairly labour intensive, but it's well worth it. My only complaint is that it freezes too solid. The suggested 10 minutes defrosting time is not nearly long enough. I had it out since we sat down to eat and it still was pretty solid. And the carob layer in the middle is the hardest part of all. One of the male guests, as you can see in the picture at the beginning of this post, actually took over slicing it for me, as it required some "brute strength." But it's very tasty. I just wonder if there's a product that could be used to help keep it from turning into a rock in the freezer...
As mentioned above, I discovered that using outdated baking powder doesn't work very well. The carob cake didn't rise like it should have, and ended up quite dense. The flavour was good, but the texture was not. In order to attempt to redeem the texture, I made the Peanut Butter Carob Pie filling, poured it on top of the cake, and poked holes in the cake with a knife so that the filling could seep in. It didn't help. The pie filling was very tasty, however. I used unsweetened carob chips for this recipe and it gave it almost a dark chocolate taste. 
I bought Good Nutrition for Life primarily for the Frozen Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake. As I have a very large cookbook library, I have many cookbooks that haven't seen much use yet, and this is one of them. But there are some promising-looking recipes in there. 
All in all, I think it was a great dinner. I believe everyone enjoyed themselves and the food, and I enjoyed making it. I have enough leftovers that I've frozen some and will be eating more for most of this week...