Happy Mother's Day

You may have seen this before but here it is with words!

Ketchup and Diet Coke

I'm sure that our knitting group is like most others and many topics come up for discussion when we get together. A few weeks ago some of our group (I'm looking at you Miss T) were totally grossed out and appalled when this "recipe" was discussed. Apparently it's a Weight Watchers idea and several of the group vouched for its tastyness. I decided what the heck, I'll try it. So I mixed 12 oz. of diet Coke and 1 cup of ketchup together and poured it over chicken breasts and boiled it all until the sauce was of BBQ sauce consistancy and then....we ate it! The Compadre pronounced it good and he saved the leftover sauce - he wants me to make it again!! I think that my homemade BBQ sauce is better but this is sure easier. I wonder if the diet Coke makes all the calories go away?

Guest post by Amy

I haven't been blogging much lately. I keep writing blog posts in my head and then never get around to posting them! I even told the Compadre yesterday that I'm tired of my blog!! I hope I get over it! Anyway my daughter Amy came to the rescue. Here is a guest blog post about their trip to Canada. She got to go to knit night and the Yarn Harlot was there! How cool is that - I'm jealous.

Canada, by Amy

A year ago I wrote a guest blog about my trip to the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival. Well this year we took a family vacation to Toronto, Canada instead. It was well worth it!

Day 1

Eric wanted to go to Toronto for a couple reasons and they both had to do with sports (for the record, I like sports too). The first thing we did in Toronto was go to the Hockey Hall of Fame. We could have spent all day there if we weren’t so wiped out. It was a lot of fun and Abigail enjoyed walking around (the exhibits were safely behind glass).

I wanted to go to Toronto for several reasons, the first of which was to go to the Lettuce Knit SnB. I was hoping to meet Laura of Cosmicpluto Knits (blog) and Stephanie of Yarnharlot (blog) and I met both! Of course I almost chickened out of talking to either of them, but Abigail makes it easier to talk to people. Stephanie remembered Abigail from last year when we saw her speak. I somehow managed to cast on for a toe up sock and I bought yarn in a gorgeous rust red for Laura’s B-side Cardigan. Space was tight and Abigail got cold outside so we left early, but I was still on cloud nine for the entire walk back to the hotel (at least a mile) and I think I talked Eric’s ear off. Of course, afterwards I think of all the dumb things I said or didn’t say to the people I met. Sorry mom, I forgot to tell them that you knit the sweater Abigail was wearing, not me.

Day 2

On our second day of vacation we went to the CN tower, which is the tallest building in the world. We went up to the glass floor level and looked down at the ground beneath us. Abigail was completely unfazed by it and was more interested in the cheerios I had.

Day 3

We went to the zoo, based on a lot of recommendations. It was a very long subway and bus ride, but well worth it for Abigail. She loved the tigers, the elephants and the hippos. She even tried to make the elephant noise that Daddy made. She especially enjoyed walking down the trails by herself. We really wore her out.

After she got some rest, we went to a Blue Jays game where Abigail got to run around some more. It wasn’t very crowded and we let her walk up part of the steep ramp by herself. Unfortunately, she wanted to run around during the game too and Daddy only saw half an inning.

Day 4

We were walking through the mall when we saw on a TV that the Blue Jays were in the 3^rd inning. Whoops! We had tickets to that game! We rushed back to the hotel and sure enough, our tickets said 1pm NOT 7pm like we thought. We made it to the game in the middle of the 6^th inning, which turned out pretty well. Abigail sat through several innings and then I let her run around while Daddy saw more of the game. Afterwards, Abigail got to “run” the bases, though I don’t think she thought much of Ace, the Blue Jay’s mascot.

Day 5

We’re all glad to be home. While waiting at the gate to board the plane, Abigail handed us her pajamas. We changed her and she slept the whole way home and then some more!

Perfect, easy peeling, boiled eggs

Back when I worked in a commercial kitchen making perfect hard boiled eggs involved steaming them in the steamer in a perforated pat for exactly 14 minutes. It was easy. But now that I'm retired I have to use the stove and boil them. Can you believe that I had to do some research into how to make the perfect boiled egg? And what I found was that there are many, many opinions on how to do this. I wanted an egg that didn't have that gray overcooked edge on the yolk and that was consistently easy to peel. Two separate problems to solve. I already knew that 10 minutes of boiling gave me an acceptable egg most of the time but the problem was the peeling. I like to make deviled eggs for pot luck type of situations and you want your deviled eggs to look appealing (get the pun) hee, hee. So with my research here is what I worked out. Your mileage may vary, this is what works for the altitude in Minnesota. I know for a fact that it doesn't work in the Colorado mountains at 9,000 feet - the eggs have to cook for some unknown time longer - I'll work on it when we go to the cabin this summer.

Take the eggs out of the refrigerator and put them into a pan. Fill the pan with HOT tap water and put it on medium heat. Bring to a steady but not hard boil and boil for 10 minutes (use a timer). When the timer has about 2 minutes left to go, prepare an ice cold water bath for the eggs. Put a tray of ice cubes into a bowl and fill with cold tap water. When the timer goes off, immediatly drain the eggs and rinse with cold tap water. Then put them into the ice cold water bath and leave them until the ice melts. When you peel them, crack them all around the middle of the egg and the shell should just come off in large sections. Works for me - try it and let me know if it works for you. Popular folk lore says that you should only use old eggs for boiling but I've used them fresh from the farm and it's worked.

Here's one of the things I do with boiled eggs. This "recipe" comes from my grandmother so that must qualify it as an heritage recipe - except that my kids and the Compadre think it's gross so the recipe is bound to stop with me. Anyway, take a peeled egg and slice it. Drizzle oil and vinegar on it and then sprinkle salt and pepper on it. Mmmm, brings back memories every time.

If Only I Could Remember My Camera

If I could remember my camera then I would have wonderful pictures of the cute alpacas that I saw at the Minnesota Alpaca Expo last Saturday. It was a fun day. Although I have no knowledge whatsoever about judging alpacas it was fun to watch. Everywhere you looked there was a cute alpaca head looking back at you! Some of my friend's alpacas placed very well. I had the most fun watching the kids with their alpacas play "Simon says" during the lunch break. Little kids with their alpaca on a leash leading it around the ring. Cute and cuter. But sorry, I forgot my camera, you'll just have to imagine it. Oh, and there were vendors - yarn vendors. I bought another kit to make yet another tulip sweater for Abigail! I love, love, love making that sweater and Abigail looks so cute in it. Christmas present here we come.

And if I had thought that there would be a camera opportunity I would have brought it to the sock machine get together last Monday. We got a tour of the wooden box factory that is a family business for one of our members. It was like going back in time - the boxes are made with very old technology and this is one of the only places that makes wooden berry boxes. We saw the basswood logs being made into the thin veneer and scored and sliced into the pieces for the boxes and then watched them being stapled into the actual boxes. I just love factory tours and this was especially great because of its history and because I know one of the people involved.

I learned how to make the tiny felted mittens on my sock machine on Monday too. They are fun to make. The idea is to make coin purses out of them by sewing velcro in the top. When I got home and showed the Compadre what I had learned he started laughing! He pointed out that the entry for Monday on the Yarn Harlot's daily calendar was about making mittens because they're a small project. And she had the idea to sell them as small purses (tongue in cheek) because you don't need as many mittens as you do socks. And here I was actually making small mitten purses! Talk about a coincidence.


I'll leave you with a picture of a different baby! This is Natalie, she's the daughter of my nephew and his wife. They were visiting last week. Also in the picture is my son and his fiancée and my daughter. What a cute baby.

It Was A Very Good Trip

The Compadre and I went on a quick trip out east to visit Abigail – and her parents of course. The Compadre was on spring break. Funny, now that I don’t have to worry about the school schedules the Compadre does. We had such fun playing with a 15 month old Abigail. She is enjoying her mobility as she walks all over. Her other grandparents came too and so Abigail had what we called “staff”. If she started out walking somewhere she looked to see if someone was following – and if no one was she made sure one of us did! Amy was a little worried that when we all left Abigail would be a handful but as of our last phone call she handled it fine.

For such a short trip we packed in a lot of visiting, yarn shopping and eating out. I visited Amy’s favorite yarn shop – Stitches with Style on the way in from the airport. It was fun to see that Abigail is such a regular at the shop that the staff gets down on the floor and plays with her. She’s also been well trained that she leaves the yarn alone!! She does have her own yarn that she can play with. I did have to stimulate the economy there and I bought some sock yarn and a cool necklace made out of slices of aluminum knitting needles. We ate at wonderful Malaysian restaurant twice while we were there. I wasn’t too adventurous but I did eat a dish called Fried Pearl Noodles. The noodles were kind of the shape and consistency of gummy worms but they tasted like fried rice. Very good. We also visited Amy’s other favorite yarn shop Vulcan’s Rest Fibers. This shop is in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay. I wished we had had more time to explore the area. This shop had spinning and weaving supplies. Of course I had to stimulate the economy there also and I bought some more yarn and some roving. I wanted Amy to use some of the roving to practice her spinning but she is reluctant to use “good” fiber to practice. Keep spinning Amy, you’ll get better and better and then you’ll be happy to use good fiber.

Abigail was dedicated at their church on Sunday. It worked out that the dedication could be scheduled when we were there and so that was a bonus. We got to meet a lot of Amy and Eric’s friends too. Abigail wore a dress for her dedication that I had made when my girls were little. This particular one is one of a matching set that I made for Amy and her sister and it was worn by Anita. I need to re-learn how to smock so that I can make some cute dresses just for Abigail. Another bonus was getting to know Eric’s parents better. It was fun to spend time with them.

Take a look at this

I've been working making bread from the Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day cookbook but I have to say I need to do it a few more times before giving you my review. But in the meantime I discovered this video of a 93 year old woman giving her stories and recipes from the depression. I can remember my mother feeding us pasta with ketchup on it and as kids we liked it!! She has a total of 10 videos if you like this one.