Cranberry apple walnut pie

If someone were to ask me, I'd usually say that I'm a cake girl. I love a moist cake with a nice crumb, and you can deck them out with sprinkles (rainbow? sugar? dinosaurs? the possibilities are endless!) in a way that just doesn't work with anything else. However, there are some days when I crave pie. This week, with boyfriend taunting me with a delicious looking blueberry pie he has been eating, I've been craving that warm, fruity tang, and I began contemplating ways to satiate my craving. The tipping point was when I discovered some bruises developing on my apples and a partial bag of cranberries in my freezer. Hints received, universe!When I used to make pie with my housemates in college, a whole assortment of things would fly into our pies - bruised apples, sprinklings of any nuts we might have in our pantry, a whole lot of cinnamon, lemon juice, sugar.. you get the idea. It's not necessarily gourmet, but a bit of everything always gives it a unique depth and the flavours get to dance around in your mouth. I've always seen the pie filling as a place to experiment and play around, and today was no different. A 2/3 cup of thawed fresh cranberries, 1 golden delicious apple and 1 granny smith were the star players this time, with a liberal sprinkling of cinnamon. In lesser quantities were sugar, flour, nutmeg, balsamic vinegar (ran out of lemon juice) and a couple tablespoons of leftover walnut pieces.
Pie filling is actually my favourite part of pie, and it wasn't until I started dating boyfriend (who is a serial carb lover) that I even started thinking about and appreciating pie crust. I used the same vegan pie crust I've blogged about before as the base, and tried to experiment to see if I could roll it out into a sheet and make a normal pie top (unfortunately not). So I mixed together 3 tablespoons of butter, 1/2 cup each of flour and sugar, 1/4 cup whole oats, 1 tbsp water and liberal sprinkle of cinnamon and made a streusel topping for the pie. I must admit that this was my first time working butter into flour to make a dough (in the past, it was my housemate who would do this) but it was actually a lot of fun and not intimidating at all! The streusel topping might actually be my favourite part of this pie, although I'd add more oats for texture and less flour if I were to do it again. I think this officially marks the start of a timid curiosity for butter. I am thinking that my next pie will have a butter crust, maybe even with a lattice weave??

The one downside to living in a studio by yourself is that I always find myself within easy reach of freshly baked goods, with nobody else to easily nibble and snack with me. It makes holding back a little harder to do. But how often do we get to lounge in bed watching the snow fall, with a steaming slice of pie?

Mmm. pie.

Meet Henry

When I first got to know boyfriend, he volunteered at our local hospital, and would occasionally make paper cranes to entertain visitors. I wanted to make him a stuffed something as part of his Christmas present, and I have a soft spot for Canada geese, so this goose-crane hybrid was born. It was the perfect combination in my head, because I would be working off a pattern I knew well by heart (ie. paper crane folding) while also incorporating a little bit of sewing to make it extra special. So, I found this fabric in a fat quarters basket of a fabric store downtown, and folded it origami style:
I ironed down the folds as I went, which helped make it look crisp and neat, but my limited ability to visualize and place appropriate seam allowances meant that I ended up making a tailor's strap out of the leftover fabric and sewing it along the wingspan so there were no raw edges on the underside. Once it was folded open, it looked like this:
From there, it was a matter of pinning everything in place and sewing it all together. I started with the neck and tail, using an invisible ladder stitch (I have no idea if this is actually what it's called but this lovely lady has made a tutorial for it!) and stuffed it with some stretched out cotton balls. Henry is completely stuffed with dollar store cotton balls cause I had no idea where I could find poly-fill down in Philly. It was actually kind of a pain to stuff the body because I would consistently overstuff it, and that would make the wing folds open up. I ended up understuffing a little until I had sewed down one side of the tailors strap before stuffing a little more into the body. I cut pieces of felt in the shape of the wing and slipped it into the wing space so that it would be more substantial, and then sewed down the wings with the aforementioned tailor's strap.
Perhaps my favourite part (and proudest achievement) was the felt head gusset! Having never made a 3D toy before, I embarked on a massive google search, and found this website. She has absolutely amazing tutorials for the toys she makes, and it made visualizing the process so much easier. I ultimately chose to do a pointed oval gusset on the top of the goose's head. And it actually worked! I loved how easy it was, although it took a while of poking with a tiny crochet needle to get all of the beak inside out. The white chin strap was an easy addition, and after that I just plopped the felt around the neck of the bird and sewed that baby down. And so, Henry was born! Honk!

Banana bread cake muffins

When I was young, my dad and I would occasionally share a muffin over the kitchen sink for breakfast. Our favourite part of the muffin is the cap: there's something extra delicious about the slight crunch and the fluffy underside that you just don't get with a muffin base. Often times, the cap would be quickly devoured and then we would grudgingly pick at the base so as not to waste food. We don't really buy muffins anymore, and I've been away at school long enough that I don't get to share breakfasts with him too often, but when I make muffins for myself, I always think of our mutual lack of enthusiasm for the base. Enter, mini cake moulds.

One of my best friends gifted me this mini cake mould this christmas - it's a silicone baking tray that has decorative icing ribbons built into the mould. I've never used silicone bakeware, but I admit that I was 70% hooked after I found out you don't need to grease the pans. I decided to make banana bread this morning since I have a whole bunch of very sad looking bananas in my freezer...

Seriously. How adorable are these???

And this was what the pan looked like after I popped all the cakes out. No scouring required. Definitely 100% impressed. But the most exciting part?? Baking the mould upside down means the base expands and rises like a muffin (= crunchy cap win!!)...

...and the traditional muffin base is made ten times more interesting because it has tiers and decorative ribbons!!

These are dangerously delicious and fun to eat.

I wanted to keep the recipe simple so I could try out the pan, so I took out a lot of the extras from the recipe. Here is the revised:

1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 mashed bananas
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix dry ingredients together in a big bowl. Mix wet ingredients together in a separate smaller bowl. Add wet to dry along with chocolate chips and mix until just blended. Bake for 22-23 minutes. I checked mine at 20 and they were undercooked and took them out at 25, and they look a little brown at the top tier, so I assume somewhere between there is perfect :) Happy sunday!

Tired

I'm closing in on the last week of classes before Christmas break, and every single day I spend studying feels more and more tedious. And yet the days are passing by so quickly: it's incredible that I haven't posted anything since October. But my hands have certainly been busy in this time making some cool crafty things! Many of them are Christmas presents so I can't show them off on here just yet, but there are several knits and a sewing project (it's been so long, and I've missed it!!) that will appear soon.

In the meantime, I have become completely obsessed with sunflower seeds over the past little while. Trader Joe's sells these 1lb packs for something like $2, and I've been eating them with my morning oatmeal, and baking with them. My absolute favourite concoction is a chocolate chip sunflower recipe that is made with oil..The recipe uses a mix of brown and white sugar, which adds some depth of flavour, but I love the texture and nuttiness of the sunflower seeds with the semisweet chocolate chips. They literally take 30 minutes from start to finish, and have been the perfect comfort food when I'm studying.

Adapted from this recipe:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 350F, mix the dry ingredients (including the chocolate chips and sunflower seeds) together, mix the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl, then add the dry to the wet and mix until just combined.

At this point I usually wet my hands and make little 1.25" balls of dough in my palms - usually I get about 25 cookies per batch. Bake them for 9-10 minutes, turning the pan halfway through if your oven is like mine and cooks unevenly. Enjoy :)

I also had half a cabbage, tomatoes, carrots and celery in my fridge, so I took a study break this morning to make a pot of borscht (I know, not technically borscht cause there aren't any beets), but its something my family makes every so often, especially with a turkey carcass after thanksgiving. I had no such carcass, so I brought in the flavour by sauteeing some diced chicken breast, frying a diced tomato, plenty of spices and pepper, and sauteeing the veggies before adding water. I then took another study break (as I said, running really low on motivation at this point) and made soda bread with sunflower seeds. There was a recipe I used when I was younger that was a photocopy of some old magazine that consistently made great soda bread with flax and whole wheat flour. I had neither that recipe nor the flax, so I tried a simple one from seriouseats, which I sort of screwed up, but it had a phenomenal crust and I may have eaten all the crust from half the loaf tonight.
I used plain yogurt in place of the buttermilk (score one more point for using things in my fridge up before I leave for the holidays!) but didn't score the bread deep enough or poke holes for aeration, which I suspect was what trapped the moisture and left the centre slightly undercooked. Part of my impatience stemmed from the fact that it was really sticky - my distant memories of the soda bread I made in my childhood was easy to work with and not nearly as frustrating, so after 15 minutes of trying to powder everything with more flour and not have such a sticky mess, I gave up and just plopped it into the oven. For gustatory excitement I added poppy seeds (2tbsp) and sunflower seeds (1/3 cup) - I love love love the texture they gave to the bread. Unfortunately I kind of burned the bottom from overbaking because of the undercooked centre. Blast (but not really cause it gave it a wicked crust). I can't wait to go home and find that recipe and make it for real!

One more week till Christmas... can't wait to share all the handmade gifts after that :)

Happy birthday to me!

Last year, my brother and sister-in-law gifted me a skein of very expensive, very gorgeous silvery silk yarn. I started making an echo flowers shawl with it, frogged that, and started a dancing cranes stole. Which I knit, for an eternity. This was actually made worse by the fact that I got far more repeats out of this yarn than anticipated, which speaks volumes about my ability to do math and my pathetic attention span. But a couple weeks ago, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and miracles of miracles, the shawl is done. D. O. N. E. Seriously, waiting for this thing to dry after blocking was the longest 24 hours of my life. It was the culmination of 15 months of guilty looks from the corner it sat in in my room, where it would scream 'Why am I in a cheap ziploc bag? Why aren't you loving me??' Seeing it all pinned out, he love has hit me hard again. The pattern came through ten zillion times better after stretching it out and I am obsessed with following the squiggles and lines running through the stole.
Why yes, wearing soft silk around my neck will make me gape and stare in amazement. Believe it or not this picture was already one of the better ones.. I need to find myself a photographer.
I took these pictures this morning, and I'm not sure if it's the lighting or my camera, but it seriously doesn't do justice to the shininess of the yarn. This one is a little more like it.
Did I mention how much I love the squiggles?

I love them.

cheesecake brownies

This past weekend was one of the best I've had in a long time. Friends, boyfriend, NYC, fried chicken, a lovely dinner at home, surprises and these. Cheesecake brownies. Baked at 350 F for 30 minutes. In a pie plate because I don't have an 8 x 8 pan. Read the recipe card, that's all it takes. Why haven't I made this at least once a week for the past 22 years of my life?

I'm not really sure. But you've been told - now go make a batch!

quiche

Grocery shopping in Philadelphia is different from shopping at a Food Basics or Metro in Canada. I find produce here is generally a little more expensive: mushrooms never seem to go on sale, whereas broccoli (that is actually Canadian grown) has been in season and on sale, but still not as cheap as it was in Canada. Also, oranges here are fugly. I am crossing my fingers and praying that that is because it's not the season for them and that I will not be deprived of my favourite citrus fruit for the next four years. On the other hand, I can get 18 eggs at my local grocery store here for $1.99. Wow. I don't think I'm ever going to go back to buying a dozen, but I have been thinking of different ways to use eggs. Enter quiche.
Sorry, I was too excited to see whether or not it had actually set/tasted as fabulous as it smelled so I cut (and downed) a piece before I even thought to take a picture. Worth it. If I wasn't making it to share with someone, I would've eaten at least several more (and larger) slices. I used this recipe as a guideline for the egg:milk ratio. I used the following as my filling:

1 onion, chopped
3 giant leaves of kale, stalks diced and thrown into the pan first and leaves shredded
4 oz of mushrooms
liberal sprinklings of italian seasoning, garlic powder
small sprinkle of nutmeg
1 tbsp of ketchup
4 eggs
3/4 cup whole milk

And my go-to pie crust recipe, sans sugar:

1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp milk

I have something to confess: I have a terrible track record of finding vegan recipes and making them non-vegan for convenience sake.. In the case of the pie crust, I just used regular milk. I find they are usually healthier, and still very delicious. Plus, this pie crust is quite aptly titled, because it is the world's easiest pie crust. Instead of rolling it out into a sheet and placing into a pie plate, you mix all the ingredients together into a bowl and then pat the resulting dough out onto the plate. It doesn't do the whole puffing up and needing to be weighed down thing when you pre-bake it, which is one solid check mark in my book cause it means less cleaning.

I was watching criminal minds while I made the crust today, so I was a little distracted and didn't spend as much time patting it out and making it look pretty. Rest assured, the taste and texture did not suffer. It is flaky and delicious! I pre-baked the pie crust for 10 minutes at 400 F, then poured the filling in and baked the quiche for 40 min at 375 F. Took it out and let it sit on my counter until it had sunken down (quiches are so funny looking when they come out of the oven because they are all puffy and expanded!).

Om nom nom. Find some eggs and make it! Guaranteed a win.

Fresh start

Hello!

It's been a long time since I've tended to this blog... 2011 has passed by so very quickly, and there are some pretty big changes:

1) I've left Kingston, ON for good, and am now in Philadelphia, PA
2) I'm starting my first year of dental school!
3) I'm starting all of these things with a fantastic man who has completely and utterly swept me off my feet :)

Through all of this, I have been swimming, baking, knitting and running - these things have kept me sane and I can't wait to start sharing again. Without further ado, here is my version of the waffel hat!I made this hat back in June - the yarn is some beautiful seafoam Drops silke alpaca, which was a super cute and thoughtful birthday gift. The hat took just under 2 balls, knit on 4mm needles. I'd consider the pattern only semi-fun to knit, but I do love love love the way it looks when its stretched out. So simple, but so cool! I was given four balls, and I am currently dreaming of making a pair of fingerless mitts - I'm thinking something like fetching, but with the waffel pattern and individual finger holes for extra warmth. Stay tuned...
The only thing I changed about the hat pattern was the crown. I always have issues with knitting the crowns of hats, because I hate it when the crown pops up while you're wearing it or if it just doesn't sit right. I didn't really like the look of the ribbed crown, so I decided to kind of wing it and go for some symmetrical decreases around the crown. This way, I was able to continue the pattern pretty much to the end. I really like the way it turned out: it looks like some kind of flower or snowflake! The true test of whether it was a good modification will come soon: the weather down here is getting chilly and I have a feeling this waffle hat will get some wear soon!

Whee!

Roasted cornish hen

My parents sent me a cornish hen last term. It had been sitting in the freezer until last week, when I was sick and craving protein. Damn these birds are good!
I defrosted on the counter overnight, and marinated it in a bag in the morning. I used liberal sprinklings of thyme, paprika, crushed and chopped garlic, salt, pepper and a tablespoon of vegetable oil. After letting it meld in the fridge for the day, I roasted it at 425F for 45 minutes in the evening. The internal temperature was 15-20 degrees higher than the recommended (around 165F), so it could probably do with less time, but it was still very very juicy and the skin was deliciously crispy.
I ate half of hen for dinner and saved the bones and other half for stock and cream of chicken noodle soup (post to follow!). Thanks mom and dad!

Holiday knit

My grandpa, who lives in Hong Kong, turned 90 a couple of weeks ago. To celebrate with him, I took a short trip during my holiday break to visit. Since Hong Kong can get fairly chilly in the winter (it can get down to 10C, which doesn't seem that low, until you realize that few apartments have central heating systems), my mom suggested I make him a pair of fingerless mitts. I cast on during the flight over, and knit a bit every night, finishing the night before I left (9 days later). The pattern is Amy Ripton's Hedgerow Mitts, modified to have finger holes. I used close to one ball of Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply - it's wonderfully springy and easy to knit. Even though the colour (a beautiful burgundy) is fairly stain-masking, I'm glad that yarn is washable. I used a pair of 2.25mm circular needles, and switched to toothpicks for the fingers (which averaged 16-18 sts around, and 8-10 rows long). As ridiculous as it sounds, the toothpicks weren't too bad to knit with, and probably less fussy than if I had tried to wrestle with the long circular needles.
I like that there is so much elasticity in the ribbed pattern - it makes sizing pretty forgiving. My grandpa likes to sit in his chair and read the newspaper to pass the time during the day, so he really appreciated having the warmth of mittens with the functionality of being able to use his fingers. Happy birthday, grandpa!