Poor abandoned blog.

I’m still here, buried by work stress, but stitching and cooking away.  Here’s what my cross-stitch looked like last week:

And this week:

Last weekend I made mint chocolate brownies, using a divinely inspired recipe from Our Best Bites.  They were eaten before I got a picture, but I spilled flour in the process leaving this enjoyable footprint on the floor:

Spent this weekend making dumplings, which were delicious and it turns out my husband is a master dumpling maker!!

We made two fillings, one vegetarian (but not vegan), which I found on 101 Cookbooks, a great super healthy blog, if that is what you are into.  I improvised the other pork filling and wrote my own recipe, pulled from bits and pieces of other recipes.  Original recipes are not really my thing, so I am pretty impressed with myself when I manage to create a good one.  Here it is (heavily adapted from Gourmet 2004, as posted on Epicurious):

Ingredients:

1 (1-inch) piece peeled fresh ginger, finely chopped

1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tablespoons of light/reduced sodium soy sauce

2/3 bunch green onions, thinly sliced

1 lb ground pork

1 can of water chestnuts (drained), finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

1 tablespoon sriracha or other hot sauce

1/2 small white or yellow onion, finely chopped

1-2 packages of wonton wrappers

Preparation

Combine 1 tablespoon soy sauce with ginger and garlic in a small bowl.  Set aside while chopping and combining other ingredients.

Reserve 2 tablespoons green onions for garnish, then finely chop remainder and put in a bowl along with pork, water chestnuts, hot sauce, onion and remaining tablespoon soy sauce. Add garlic and ginger mixture.  Gently knead with your hands in bowl until just combined. Chill, covered, 10+ minutes.

Assemble wontons by laying wrappers on clean counter in a grid.  Put a scant teaspoon of filling in the centre of each wrapper.  Moisten edges with a damp finger.  Fold wrapper in half diagonally, enclosing filling, and pinch edges together to seal, ensuring no air is trapped inside.  Fold one corner into the centre and roll the dumpling into a little package.  Moisten opposite corner to seal if necessary.

Gently drop desired number of dumplings into a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling water, gently stirring once to prevent sticking, and cook 6 minutes. (Dumplings will float to top while cooking.) Transfer dumplings with a slotted spoon to a serving dish and sprinkle with reserved green onions.

Alternatively, fry dumplings in olive oil, turning once.  (Watch carefully, they cook fast!)

To freeze, line a baking sheet with wax paper.  Lay the dumplings on the sheet, ensuring they do not touch.  Freeze on baking sheet for one hour, then move to a bag or container for longer term freezing.  (This method ensures they do not stick to one another in the freezing process).

 

Literature Review

As all you potential or actual grad students and spouses of grad students know, it is vital for any good student to review the relevant literature in their area of expertise before embarking on their own study.  This helps the student get a feel for their subject, explore different perspectives and avoid re-inventing the wheel.  As a self-described “achievement whore,” I strive to be an excellent student in every area of life.  Accordingly, it is high time that I, as a student of stupid crafts, embarked on a literature review.  I’ve compiled a list of selected relevant titles below.  Please feel free to send me additional suggestions so that I can enhance my knowledge of the genre.

Needlecraft

1. Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes by Daina Taimina

This book, which combines crocheting with complex mathematics (non-Euclidian geometry), was the 2009 winner of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year.  Considering my crocheting knowledge (zero) and my mastery of mathematics (ahem – less than zero), I don’t think I will be exploring this area anytime soon.

2. Steampunk Softies: Scientifically-Minded Dolls from a Past That Never Was by Nicola Tedman

Scheduled for release on May 31, this brand new book is sure to inspire generations of hipsters to break out their needle and thread in an effort to produce adorably anachronistic stuffed dolls.  Dear hipsters:  I will sew you one of these dolls if you will trade me some of your cool.

3. Stupid Sock Creatures: Making Quirky, Lovable Creatures from Cast-off Socks by John Murphy

Having excelled at sock monkey-making, I could get into this one, despite the slightly terrifying appearance of the creatures featured on the book’s cover.

Baking/Cooking

1. Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine! by Chris Maynard

No amount of exclamation points will convince me that this is a good idea.

2.Cookin’ with Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price by Coolio (Dear Coolio: Really?  You wrote this yourself? I have a feeling a ghost writer was involved with this one.)

What’s goin’ on in the kitchen, but I don’t know what’s cookin’
They say I got ta learn, but nobody’s here to teach me…

Finally!  Coolio is here to teach me! (I guess Coolio found someone to teach him how to cook sometime in the intervening fourteen years?)

Pet Hair (!)

1. Knitting with Dog Hair : A Woof-To-Warp Guide to Making Hats, Sweaters, Mittens and Much More by Kendall Crolius

1. I didn’t know crafting with pet hair was a “thing.”
2. Eww.
3. The cute “woof” pun does not save this terrible terrible idea.

2. Crafting with Cat Hair by Kaori Tsutaya

Just because people suggest it is ok to knit with dog hair (it isn’t), does not mean that it is ok to “recycle” (reuse?) your cat’s hair.  No.

 

Monotonous Monday plus cookies.

Good morning, happy Monday to you!

I have temporarily scaled back my crafting due to an overwhelming and super-mandatory online course with an approaching deadline.  Boo.  I promise to create some hideous/uninspired art work for you all to enjoy as soon as that is done.

Here’s this week’s Monotonous Monday cross-stitching update:

You’ll recall that I warned you against false hope last week.  This is my I-told-you-so moment.  Incremental progress at best.  Wait till I have a long weekend.. then you will see some actual growth.

In the meantime, I did manage to make some oatmeal raisin cookies with the recipe from Annie’s Eats.  Yes, I am essentially a parasitic blog for her lovely, useful site.  I’m not even going to feign symbiosis.

Oatmeal raisin is my favourite kind of cookie and these ones are delicious.  Too bad I can only give you a picture and not pass them out through virtual land.  I know you want one.

I also spent WAAAY  too long making chicken chili verde this weekend.  While chopping peppers, I got jalapeño pepper juice in a little hangnail-type cut on my finger- ouch!  I didn’t think it would be anything terrible, but it got all hot and pulsy and took three soakings in milk (including one this morning!) to cure.  Typical me.

Anyways, that recipe in the Joy of Cooking takes 2.5 hours.  I’m so glad I doubled it and had lots to freeze because it doesn’t matter how good a dinner tastes, no single dinner is worth spending 2.5 hours of my weekend slaving over a hot stove.  Literally. I was so exhausted by the end of it, I had no appetite and didn’t even bother tasting it.  I’d show you a picture but it looked kind of icky and watery.  I’m assured by my husband that it was in fact edible…

Despite the crafting dearth around these parts, I have a simple one to tell you about later in the week.  Something to look forward to in these January-and-online-course-induced-dark days.