trying new recipes =P

About a month ago, I used part of an Amazon gift card and bought a new vegan cookbook, Chloe's Kitchen (kindle). I went through and highlighted all the recipes I want to try. Um, yeah, maybe I should have highlighted the few I don't intend to try. heh This is one thing I really prefer about the digital format (other than saving tons of space, of course). I highlight what I want to try, then delete the highlight and add notes after I've tried it. Makes it easy to find recipes quickly. I need to do this with some of my older digital cookbooks.

So, want to know what I've tried?

Doughnuts!

These were ridiculously good, glazed or unglazed. There's nutmeg in the batter - yum!

Teriyaki Sauce

Came together quickly and it's SO good! I'm a huge teriyaki fan so I'm thrilled I can now have it anytime I want. =)

Fettuccine Alfredo

The sauce uses raw cashews ground in the blender with water and a few other ingredients. This really could not have been simpler and it's amazingly good.

Chocolate Walnut Fudge

Minus the walnuts. lol Uses coconut milk and comes out nice and creamy and the perfect fudgey consistency after a chill overnight. Next time, I'll try adding some peppermint extract. Adding ribbons of peanut butter would also be yummy.

The only disappointment so far was the macaroni and cheese.

Her recipe uses nutritional yeast as the base of the cheesy sauce. Yeah, not such a fan apparently. It was okay, but not something I'll be making again. It comes together quickly though so if you like nutritional yeast, give it a try. I've heard many really like it. As for me, I'll be sticking to the mac & cheese recipe from Vegan Comfort Food. Now, what to do with a canister of nutritional yeast...

cushy!

So, even though I've been doing so well at getting rid of yarn lately, I caved this past weekend. I had a couple really good coupons for Jo-Ann's and Michaels and went in both looking for organic cotton or linen. I forgot Michaels doesn't carry fabric, but in my wandering, I spotted this yarn on clearance:

It just screamed KITTY BED!

It works up ridiculously fast.

I cast on 12 stitches and alternated colors ever two rows in stockinette stitch. This stuff is so thick that curling wasn't an issue. Working on such big needles and with suck bulky yarn, I felt like a kid playing with my mom's knitting. lol

Phoebe approves. =)

Yarny details can be found on my Ravelry project page.

a little yarny goodness

Ahhh, I finally got a bit of an urge to play with yarn again and pulled out my bag of WIPs last weekend.

Since I moved at the end of July, I've worked on a crochet bag (Ravelry link) a bit. This is what it looks like right now:

Yeah, I'm not impressed either.

There are also a pair of cotton socks in the WIP bag... that look exactly the same as they did when I posted about them last April. heh

The last thing on the needles is a blanket. I started the Moderne Log Cabin Blanket (Ravelry link) last April. Yeah, almost a full year ago and I was still maybe 2/3 of the way through the first block. lol That's what I've actually been working on a little this week. Now? It's about 16" x 20" and looks like this:

It's not massive yet, but it is garter stitch and done on a US6 so really, there's more knitting there than it seems. =) I'm liking the color combo though.

Weather's been crazy here, vacillating between snow, 70s, hail and torrential downpours (that we're having right now), but we have had some sunshine and critters are happy about that: