why didn’t I think of this before?

I like pancakes.  I like ‘em a lot.  I love chocolate.  I had buttermilk.

chocolate chip buttermilk pancakes

I was on Tasty Kitchen looking for buttermilk pancake recipes.  I had a hankering for pancakes for supper tonight.  (And yes, I speak “western” when I’m on Pioneer Woman’s site and TK).  The runner up was the truckstop pancakes, but I’ll make those next time.  Actually, the pancake batter I made was excellent – one could just omit the chocolate chips.  I’d never had chocolate chip pancakes before.  They were really tasty, but … dare I say … almost too much with the chocolate chips.  There are some left over, so I’ll revisit them tomorrow.

Last night I made Spicy Hobo Potatoes to go with our rib eyes.  The photo with the recipe is a little weird.  I don’t know what else they stuck in their foil packs, but ours were just potatoes and the seasoning.  Very tasty, though and I’ll make them again.  Microwaving the potato wedges really helps cut down on the grilling time and ensures they are fork tender when done.

Noro Mittens, rinse, repeat

Finished these yesterday:

Noro Silk Garden #323

I knit the mitten on the right first.  It was all lovely shades of that rust, brown and deep red.  Very nice.  then I began the second mitt starting off with the left overs of skein #1 from mitten #1.  After completing mitten #2 I realized that they looked like two completely unrelated  mittens.  No colours in common to make them seem a pair.  Grr.  This particular colourway didn’t have many points in common.  So I decided to rip back mitten #1 to just before the top shaping.  I scavenged some of the turquoise and knit up the top, then I did the thumb with some of the same colour that was the cuff of #2.

Next pair I’ll do striped again to use up all the snippets of yarn from this pair.

I cast on a Sockhead hat using some Zauberball  in #1508.  It starts black and gradiates to grey then white, then back to black.  I had been waiting to get a new 3 mm bamboo circular in the mail (the one I have has too-pointy tips and I keep getting holes in my index finger) but they haven’t arrived yet, so I’m gritting my teeth and knitting on.

lazy

I came across a recipe for Lazy Chicken on Tasty Kitchen.  I tried it tonight.  It was pretty good, but I had to make some changes to the method.  I had these gargantuan chicken breasts that must have come from the chicken farm downstream from the nuclear reactor.  The recipe says to cook them in the oven for an hour from frozen (mine were thawed).  Well, after an hour they still weren’t done, so I upped the temperature to 400° and they still needed another 10 or 12 minutes to test done by thermometer.  I used the seasoning mix at the end of that Tasty Kitchen post, except I omitted the curry and the ginger.

I made mashed potatoes and steamed carrots, in keeping with the lazy theme.  Nothing fancy.

But this:

Lazy Daisy Cake

is unbelievably good.  I came across a Lazy Daisy cake recipe in a library book, so I looked online to see what other variations there were.  This one can be found here. I substituted 1 c. buttermilk instead of regular milk; and for the topping I used 1/3 c. heavy cream instead of the evaporated milk.

another Turn-a-Square hat

I finished off the latest hat last night.  I didn’t quite have enough of the Silk Garden #325 so I used some of another colour … I can’t remember what it was left over from.  Maybe it’s #244?

still diggin' the raglan square top!

.

goof!

I’ve got another pair of solid Noro mittens underway – no stripes this time!  I might get through my stash of Noro making mittens and hats!

cheesy peasy

I made this macaroni and cheese for supper last night.  Important:  the flour amount should be 2.5 TABLESPOONS, not what it says in the recipe.  I usually use egg noodles when I make this, but this time I used macaroni.  I used 2.5 c heavy cream and 1.75 c 1% milk.  I also used a mixture of mozza and cheddar instead of the fontina/mozza blend.  And I add in some chopped green onion to give it a little zip.

delicious!

I have another recipe that I usually use that calls for a bechamel cheese sauce, etc. but this one is a lot quicker and easier.  It tastes more like a dauphiniose.  Very tasty!

Latest mittens

House of Contorted Greyhounds

Should I charge admission?

moderately contorted

Ichabod Crane-brina

"the grass is cool on my fur"

watering the neighbour's sunflowers & raspberries

two-headed greyhound! freak alert!

handsome is as handsome does (no, I don't know what that means)

they're aliiiiiive!

I’m almost done my second mitten (thumb just needs finishing).  I have a full skein of the Noro left and think I’ll do a matching Turn-a-Square but all in the Noro, no striping.  I think it will be enough.  If not, I’ll rip it out and do over with the striping.

it’s Sabrina’s turn

for the mosaic treatment:

When we go out in the yard and I’m snapping photos, I have my long lens, and the camera set on sports mode with continuous shutter.  So it’s easy for me to take 200+ photos in a very quick time.  For some reason, in sports mode the camera’s auto-focus struggles with Sabrina’s brindle coat and most of the photos are blurry (except for her tail – it has that white spot on the tip).  Apollo’s action shots are always pretty well-focused.

I had big plans today of doing some baking, making something yummy for supper, working on my mitten de jour.  Yesterday I spent many hours working on budget documents for work and doing other computer tasks.  Today I had to uninstall a program I need to do web editing for my job; it had been causing error messages in MS Word and Excel and once I uninstalled it, the error message went away.  However, when I tried to reinstall it, the same error message reappeared and prevented me from installing it again.  I tried it on my big laptop, then on my netbook/mini and had the same result.  I restored both computers and ended up restoring my mini to factory.  So then I had to reinstall the software I’d put on it in the past 6-8 weeks since I bought it.  Aggravation.  I still don’t know what I’m going to do for my web editing software.  Argggh!  I have both computers back up and working, but not with that software.

I’d rather have spent those many, many hours today knitting.

red velvet and pink poodles

So the big fella said the other day he needed to bring a cake or something for a birthday dessert potluck at his office.  I just got the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook from the library and she has a recipe for Red Velvet Cake in it.  I liked the look of it, but didn’t like that it called for 1 cup of shortening.  Blech.  Butter – always butter!  I had used Pinch of Salt’s Red Velvet Cupcake recipe before, so I tried the cake recipe on her site here. Her photos are much better than mine and show the rich red colour much better than the one here.

Red Velvet yumminess!

I used a 9×13 pan instead of layers and made a half-recipe of the cream cheese icing.  I had to test a piece there before releasing it to the wild.

super pink cake batter

Oh, you’re probably wondering where the pink poodles come into this …

Sabrina spazzes out in the yard

We sat out in the yard a bit last night.  It was pleasant and there were no few bugs.

Mr. Handsome exceeds his handsomeness

What a dreamboat!

the latest mitten

This is the Classic Mitten pattern using Cascade 220 Heathers in #4011 (sparrow) and Noro Silk Garden #325.  I’m making these a little larger, using a 44 stitch cast on instead of 40.

cue the Jaws music - or the creepy stalker music

I’ll have more yard pics tomorrow.

Where’s Waldo?

or Sabrina?

where could she be?

There’s no point to making the bed until she decided she’s getting up.

it was chilly over night and I had the window open a bit

She dug and nested the blankets but couldn’t quite get covered up, so I helped her out.  She was cold.

Yesterday I made another Turn-a-Square hat:

96 stitches

I used 96 stitches and worked the crown to 6″ before beginning the raglan decreases.  This is Noro Silk Garden #284 left over from the mittens, and Cascade 220 Heathers in 2447.  Rav link here.

mugshot

The Cascade has some little twists of purple in the blue.  Really nice colour.

Apollo is ambivalent

.

as is Sabrina

I  was messing around with my zoom lens the other night.  I was thinking of getting another lens for my birthday but wasn’t sure which one.  Maybe a wide angle?  I can’t think of what else I’d like.  Maybe a minivan, but the big fella refuses.  [pout]

everyday chocolate cake

I had seen this recipe for Everyday Chocolate Cake on Smitten Kitchen the other day.  I threw it together this afternoon and made it up before I started to prep supper.

Everyday Chocolate Cake

I used Fry’s Cocoa which, I am given to believe is Dutch-processed as the recipe directs.  The photo shows the cake lighter than it is (flash wash).  It’s a deep dark chocolate brown.  Some of the commenters on Smitten Kitchen said they found the cake was dry and crumbly, but I didn’t find that at all. It has a good cocoa flavour, but I thought it wasn’t as chocolatey as cakes made with melted chocolate. I’ll have to have another piece to verify that, though.

snoozin' in the sun

whut?

we luvs you, Mommy

back to our snoozin'

zzzzz

Oh, by the way, for supper tonight I made Giada’s Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables. This is one of our favourite dishes and even Mr. Meat & Potatoes big fella loves it and comments on it every time we have it.  I used zucchini, white mushrooms, red peppers, red onion and some grape tomatoes that needed to be eaten.  I used a portobello marinara sauce for some extra flavour.  Hmmm, so good.

Had my board meeting yesterday and after getting groceries and running some errands this morning, I’ve been working on minutes and follow up.

Things I’d never thought I’d post

Alas, Ande’s evil influence has come to this. Yes, those are Crocs (but they’re turquoise – how could I refuse?). I’d found lately when standing in the kitchen a lot, my knee was getting achy. So I’ll wear these around the house. They will never see the light of day outside my front door!

Crocs call this "sea blue" but I say turquoise!

(Actually, the “model” of Crocs is “baya” and they say “crocs” on the side instead of just the regular holes.)

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