cosmicpluto knits!

textures, and a recipe

I’m obsessed with making various neck thingies this week – cowls, scarves and shawls.

Mmmmmm.

But, since I don’t really have anything much more to show you, I thought I’d pop by with a recipe I’ve been making a bunch lately! It’s a great breakfast, and I’ve lightened it up considerably from its original recipe, so I thought I’d post it.

(I took this photo ages ago at my old apartment – sniff, there are lots of things I miss about that place.)

Dutch Baby Pancake

Ingredients
- 1-2 tbsp butter
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 cup milk (I use lactose-free, 1%)
- cinnamon, nutmeg, a few drops of vanilla extract

Directions
Turn oven on to 400F. Put the butter in a cast iron skillet or glass pie pan and place it in the heating oven while you mix the rest of the ingredients.

Mix the eggs, flour, milk and seasonings together – I use a large glass measuring cup, and I find that the immersion blender (stick/hand blender) does a great job of incorporating the flour quickly and adding some air. Otherwise, use a standard blender, or just a bowl and a good whisk.

Once the butter has melted and foamed in the pan, pull the pan out of the oven, pour the batter in, then stick it back in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until it has puffed up around the edges and is nice and brown.
Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with whatever you want – I use maple syrup and homemade strawberry jam!

A few notes: I think the batter puffs up the best with room temperature batter, but the reality is that sometimes I just don’t have time for that! Instead, I measure out out the eggs and milk the night before and put them in the fridge, and measure the flour and seasonings out into a bowl. That way in the morning I just have to turn on the oven, mix it all up and dump it in the pan.

And don’t worry if you get to about the 15 minute mark and it looks like it’s not puffed – it comes up really quickly at the end!

Nom. Perfect with a big cup of tea.

and a happy new year

I’ve been fighting a pretty nasty cold all week, so I’m staying in this New Year’s Eve. I don’t really have the energy for a recap either, so just a few happenings since my last post!

My yule log was beautiful – unfortunately the cake was kinda dry. I really liked the frosting though – Swiss Meringue buttercream, flavoured with instant espresso powder and vanilla. I’d definitely make that, and the meringue mushrooms again.

I knit an Attabi cowl in one day, out of Berroco Blackstone Tweed – it’s a sample that I’m taking with me to the January TNNA show next week. I love the deep purple!

Not so much a single day project (I had to keep ripping out for sizing), but on Christmas and a few days afterwards I knit this cowl out of Malabrigo Twist. It’s reversible, and super quick and fun! I used 2 skeins – look for the pattern in January.

That’s about it! Tonight I’m knitting, relaxing, and trying to kick this cold. Hope your New Year’s is fun.

happy christmas!

Friday morning I’m headed to my parents’ house for a few days there, most of which I think shall be spent making a Bûche de Noël! I tried making the meringues tonight at my house, but they didn’t really work out (I lack a mixer and metal bowls) so I’ll be making all the parts of the cake on Christmas Eve, then assembling it on Saturday for our big family dinner.

I’ve started a new circle scarf in Malabrigo Twist for Christmas knitting, and I could not be happier with it – I LOVE IT. The yarn, the stitch, everything. I think it’s going to be pretty quick, too, since I’m knitting it on 5mm needles. Of course, what with all the baking, we’ll see if I get through the two balls of yarn I wound up this evening, ha.

It’s getting pretty late to whip up a knitted gift, but homemade edibles are always appreciated! My caramel corn has been going over very well this year, and so I’m sharing the recipe with you all.

Ultimate Caramel Corn – inspired by gleek

12 cups popped popcorn (I do mine on the stove in a little oil, 1/2 cup of kernels)
1 cup or more unsalted shelled peanuts

1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tbsp fancy molasses

1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2-1 tsp kosher salt or fleur de sel

100g each white and dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 250F.
Place butter, corn syrup, molasses and brown sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil for 5 minutes, swirling occasionally.
Remove from heat and add baking soda, vanilla and salt – I like to use quite a bit of salt.

Mix the syrup with the popcorn and peanuts, and any other mix-ins you’d like – other nuts, pretzels, whatever! I just eyeball it and pour some peanuts in. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look even, you’ll be able to spread the syrup around as it bakes.

Spread the mixture onto baking sheets in a single layer. Bake, stirring every 15 minutes to distribute the caramel, for a total of 1 hour. Let cool on the pans.

Melt chocolate one at a time in a double boiler or in the microwave and drizzle over the cooled popcorn. You may need to pop the sheets into the fridge for a few minutes to firm up the chocolate if you’re in a hurry. Store in an airtight container, but if you take it to a party there won’t be leftovers anyway!

I hope you’re having fun this holiday and spending it in a happy place.

summertime eats

Well, I’m knitting lots, but it isn’t very exciting to look at – mostly working on my cabled scarf (so close to the end!) and I’ve restarted that little shrug too. Really I’m just itching to cast on for some new fall sweater projects, but I really need to get a few things done first!

So today I have a little bit of food to share, instead.

I brought home rather a LOT of pickling cucumbers from the produce stores near my work yesterday, and today set about making some refrigerator pickles. No water processing required, no fear of bad canning, and they stay so very crispy, which I love!

I made one huge vat of cucumber garlic dills – it’s 1.8L/2qt! The slightly smaller jar in the back is beans, done up with basically the same spices and brine. They were yellow, green, and purple to start with, but unfortunately now they’re all kind of greeny grey. Oh well, they’ll still taste awesome.

Super Easy Garlic Dills

Veggies:
Whatever you like. I did sliced kirby cucumbers and trimmed green beans, I’m sure this would be great with carrots, cauliflower, radishes, whatever! I’m not sure how many cucumbers I used – probably about 10 small ones for the 1.8L jar.

Brine:
4 cups / 1L water
4 cups / 1L white vinegar
6tbsp pickling salt

Seasonings:
garlic, peeled
dill seed
red pepper flakes
black peppercorns
celery seed
fresh dill

Mix together water, vinegar and salt in a largeish pot and heat on the stove to a simmer. While it’s heating, prep your veggies and add seasonings to your jars.

For the 1.8L jar of cucumbers, I used: 4 cloves garlic, 4 tsp dill seed, a dash each of celery seed and red pepper flakes, 3 stalks fresh dill and a few whole black peppercorns.

Pack the veggies tightly into the jars leaving some room at the top (1/2″-1″, not as important as when processing because we’re just sticking these in the fridge). Slowly add brine to cover. Let the jars cool on the counter, then stick them in the fridge. That’s it! They’ll begin to taste pickled after just a few hours, but it’s best to wait at least a few days.

Wow, that’s a giant jar of pickles!

I also managed to find Ontario strawberries at the big chain supermarket, which I was pretty surprised by – I picked up three containers and made jam with half (I might get more tomorrow or soon and make more or ice cream!). I prefer freezer jam because it uses much less sugar, and has that just-picked-fruit taste that you just don’t get with cooked jam.

I just followed the recipe on the gelling agent packet and it came out perfectly. I’ll definitely have to make at least 1 more batch of freezer jam soon, maybe wild blueberry!

What are you doing with this summer’s awesome produce?

strawberry tart

Thanks so much for your reception of the Massey Wrap! I’ve been wearing it a lot – light enough for springy weather, but long and warm enough for the occasional blustery day like we’ve been having lately.

I don’t have much in the way of knitting to show you all, so how about some yummy dessert instead?

I made this for denny’s 50th birthday party at lettuce knit yesterday. I’ve had such a craving for a strawberry tart and haven’t found them anywhere – and of course, my homemade one is tastier anyway!

I used this recipe from Confessions of a Tart, slightly modified. I had an 11″ tart pan rather than a 9″ one, so I doubled the pastry recipe and had enough for a pretty thick crust on the big tart, and a couple of mini ones (which are still chilling out in the freezer). The fact that this pastry doesn’t require pie weights is great, since I don’t have any.

I made 1.5 times the pastry cream so I’d be sure to have enough, and I used half a vanilla bean in the milk rather than vanilla extract at the end. Delicious – the pastry cream is my favourite part, really. It’s quite eggy on its own but works so well with the strawberries. I don’t generally like to buy strawberries out of season, but this week I found some organic ones that actually smelled and tasted like proper strawberries and were cheaper than conventional, too!

No glaze; they’re kind of heavy and weird. This was all freshness. I’d definitely make it again – perfect for a crowd and would work great with all kinds of fruit – I think whole blueberries would be really good.

Happy Birthday Denny!

a slow re-entry

I spent all of last week in Boston, exploring, meeting up with friends, and eating. The weather was good for the most part – a little dreary during the week, but totally beautiful on the weekend. I spent a couple hours at the Museum of Fine Arts on a drizzly day:

I carried my camera around a lot, but I didn’t really take any other photos – like of biking around, exploring Porter Square, Jamaica Plain and the South End, and meeting up with people for drinks and Alice in Wonderland. I did, however, manage to take a few photos of food I made while there! Mmmm, food. (I didn’t make the Boston Cream Pie, that was from Flour Bakery!)

Back soon with Actual Knitting Content.