Jessie

She is our guest dog for the day. Jessie lives in all over the USA
since she is an avid RVer. She peed on Mingus's head twice. I was told
that means she likes him a lot.

Kayaking in the desert

Dry up high and water below.

That speck is a wild burro

Miners abandoned their donkeys, resulting in wild burros. Despite
their party animal title, they are shy. We were lucky to see it.

The Desert Waves Hello

Such a Typical Photo

The Secret Love Child poses with hippy flowers. (Those are actually
two paintings my MIL is working on.)

Popcorn Blouses

They were all the rage at the flea market, as were visors with fake
hair on top (to cover your bald spot?) and dried fruits and nuts.
These blouses are space savers because in resting form, they look like
they fit a toddler.

Everything is bigger here

There must be something in the water.

Lutes Casino

They are "famous" for their special hamburger that consists of a beef
patty underneath a butterflied hotdog. Although I consider myself an
adventurous eater, I did not order this special burger.

Waiting for Chicken

The Secret Love Child is having fun hanging out with her parents.

Waiting for a Thought

to enter his doggy brain.

Waiting for Cheese

The Sonoran Desert

Or is it Mars?

Hoodoo you love?

This rock column is called a hoodoo. On the Painted Desert Trail,
there were a few of these formations, and at each one, the hoodoo puns
were flying.

A Different Type of White Christmas

It's in the mid-60s, and next week it will be in the 70s. Yeah, I can
get used to this. Just get me out of here ASAP once it is on the 90s.

I think snow and cold is way overrated.

My Running Partners

We ran three miles in the desert, and when I stopped to snap this
picture, I lost all of our run data.

Yep, my gadget works, but once again, the biological interface is
defective.

Christmas MinGoose

Beware, for now I can blog from my phone. You have been warned.

It's Mini Mitten Weather!

Pink Argyle has a fun little pattern posted for mini mittens. I decided to make a couple pairs of mittens to give away!

Because I dislike the fiddliness of small DPNs, I knit these mittens on 2 circular needles. I also made the following modifications:

• Using the cable cast on, CO 18 sts on one circular needle, and placed 8 sts onto the other circular needle (needle A).
• Knit 3 rounds of 1x1 twisted rib
  
• After the thumb was knit, pick up 2 sts using needle A, and then knit the remaining 6 sts. Now, both circular needles have 8 sts each.
• Knit all stitches after Decrease Round, and then repeat Decrease Round before cutting yarn tail.

The nice thing about mini knitted items is that you can pop them into an envelope with a card, and off they go to their new home! Standing in line at a post office during this time of year makes me a little batty, so I try to avoid it when I can. I figure that the time I spend knitting these is equivalent to going out and buying someone a gift, wrapping it, and then delivering it to the post office. In this case, I probably saved time since each mitten took about 30 minutes.

Of course, Vespa had to model these for me. Look at how the mini mittens are eclipsed by the enormity that is Vespa's Schnoz.

And, just because...

Roast-O-Rama

Yesterday's high temperature was 49°F, and since our house has virtually no insulation, the temperature inside was practically the same. Mingus is the only happy one when the temperature dips. The rest of us pile on clothing, huddle together, and in my case, roast.

Roasting is the silver lining to a cold house. I crank the oven up, and then let it produce braised meats, vegetables with lovely caramelized bits, and breads. I do minimal prep work, too, and the pace is so slow that it's easy to clean as I go, knit, and read a book (all the while huddled up to the oven).

Sadly, I have no pictures of the braised lamb shoulder I made last Saturday. The braising liquid contained mandarin zest, ginger, a cinnamon stick, bay leaves, and some honey. It was falling off of the bones - so good! If someone can inform me how I am supposed to carve a lamb shoulder, though, please do! It was so pretty in the pot, but since it had no structure after being braised at 300°F for 5 hours, it fell apart if you just looked at it funny.

I took better blog notes on Sunday so I could share with you a typical roasting day. I was able to pick up all of my produce from the Riverdog Farm booth at the Berkeley Farmers' Market.

Happily, the produce that is in season - Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, winter squashes, beets - is just begging to be roasted. I started my roast-o-rama by heating up the oven to 450°F. Once the oven temperatures was stable, in went the halved Brussels sprouts for 40 minutes. Since I had some leftover lamb fat from the night before, I decided to use that fat instead of olive oil or bacon grease to coat them. I also gave them a generous sprinkle of salt and freshly ground pepper. They turned out delicious!

Next was the cauliflower, roasted for 35 minutes. Roasted cauliflower is a treat I enjoy almost year round here. This time, I coated them with my favorite Bariani olive oil, course sea salt, and ground pepper.

After the cauliflower was roasted, I cranked the oven temperature down to 350°F and popped in the pumpkin, pumpkin seeds (tossed with olive oil, cayenne powder, cumin, and salt), and whole garlic. The pumpkin seeds were done in 30 minutes and the pumpkin and garlic took about an hour.



I'll scrape out the pumpkin flesh and make either gnocci, ravioli filling, or a soup, the roasted garlic will go into just about everything this week - vampires (and friends) beware, and the seeds will probably top our salads and be useful for snacky moments.

We put up some red saurkraut yesterday, too. Since the organic red cabbage was on sale for 1/2 the price of the green ones, we decided to experiment. I'm really happy with how it turned out! Shades of crimson are my favorite colors, so hopefully I'll get tired of looking at the canned kraut soon and will use it for a meal.

Local Bread

My ongoing personal eating challenge has been to eat local, naturally produced foods. I'm not super stickler about it - I won't raise my arms and form an X across my mouth if I'm offered something not locally produced - but if given a choice, I do choose the product with the smaller environmental footprint. I even go out of my way, relatively speaking, to make sure I have that choice.

Enter local flour. Especially when the temperature dips below 60 and I'm freezing (remember, I'm a wimpy Californian!), I bake bread. However, after reading articles like this, I wondered if I could hold my flour to the same standards that I hold my produce and meat. My flour of choice is milled locally, however the hard red wheat is not grown in California.

Yesterday, I was delighted to come across local flour from Full Belly Farms at a cool grocery store, Star Grocery. It's a tiny store, but it really kicks ass! The meats are top notch, the prices are reasonable, and the booze selection is swoon worthy.

The flour needed a bit of coaxing to become bread. It lacked a lot of gluten in comparison to my regular flour, one reason for this being that it is made from soft red wheat instead of hard red wheat. Initially, I tried making a pain au levain, but my levain didn't have enough oomph to raise the loaf. Consequently, I had to add some commercial yeast and honey to my dough. I also had to use a loaf pan since there was no way that my bread could be free form - I would've ended up with a pancake!


The results were good, although not what I initially anticipated. The boy has requested sandwich bread for awhile, and I've always been too intent on making the perfect pain au levain to oblige, so he was quite the happy camper.

Mini Stocking Hat Pattern

The Tilden Park Scarf is an easy ruffled and ruched infinity scarf that adds a feminine touch to any outfit.

Why do your fingers need hats? Why, for the same reasons that your cats need hats! I wouldn't think about this for too long if I were you...


Although I saw other miniature hat patterns out there, none of the ones I could find were fingertip sized to accompany my mini sweaters. (The mini sweater pattern is by Everwhelming Liz.)


Materials
• less than 4 yards of sock yarn
• 2 US size 1 16 circular needles
(US size 1 DPNs may also be used instead of 2 circular needles)
• Row counter
• Tapestry needle

Special Skills Needed
• Knitting in the round using two circular needles
• Making a pom-pom

Abbreviations
[ ] repeat instructions between brackets
bo bind off
co cast on
k knit
k2tog knit two stitches together
sts stitch(es)

Directions
Loosely CO 16 sts on one circular needle (needle A). Slip half of the stitches to the other circular needle (needle B). Join to knit in the round, placing a marker at that point so you know where the round begins.

K 1x1 ribbing (k1, p1) for 2 rounds.
K 3 rounds.

Decreasing Rounds
On needle A, k1, k2tog, k until end of needle. Repeat for needle B.
K next round.

Repeat Decreasing Rounds until 4 sts remain. Cut yarn, leaving a 5 inch tail.

Make a pom-pom for the tip of your hat. When I make the pom-poms, I wrap scrap yarn around two size 1 needles, pull out one needle, and use a tapestry needle to thread the yarn tail through the scrap yarn and tie a knot. Once the knot is secure, I extract the remaining needle and cut the scrap yarn loops at the top of the hat. Admittedly, this is a little fiddly, so if you have a better method for making mini pom-poms, please share!

Finishing
Weave in all ends. Leave the mini hats around your house. When people ask why there are mini hats around the house, you can tell them that they are for the fairies.

http://spindlesandspices.blogspot.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Mini Hats... and Cats!

'Tis the season for knitting tiny things! Last year, we had a mini sweater infestation. This year, mini hats! Since I could not find any mini hat patterns tiny enough, I had to make them up myself. Last night, I was playing around with the hat decreases, trying to get the perfect stocking hat look on a small scale. I also attempted to make a mini ear flap hat, but it was a flop.

I prefer the shape of the stocking cap on the right. I took notes, too, so I can offer a pattern if there are any other tiny hat knitters out there!

Tonight, I plan on making more mini sweaters. Then, I'll be able to dress my fingers up even more! Someone pointed out to me that wearing gloves would be an easier way to keep my hands warm, but alas, practicality is not my strong suit. (Remember, I'm the gal who knits cat hats.)

The cats seem perfectly content to laze around the house these days, especially now that the temperature at our (uninsulated) house dropped to winter levels. It cracks me up that they usually have to sleep together, and oftentimes I'll spy Greaseball in very weird positions. Fifty-Fifty doesn't seem to mind, though. I suppose my cats have already proven that they can put up with a lot.