For Christmas, my mom gave me an Indian cookbook (The Dance of Spices by Laxmi Hiremath) in the hopes that this would solve the problem of there being no good Indian restaurant in these parts. This was my first attempt at a recipe - chickpeas simmered in a tomato-ginger sauce. The picture is actually of the leftovers but featuring rice from my new cute little red rice cooker, since yesterday’s attempt at stovetop rice cooking once again ended in failure. (Yes, that is inauthentic brown rice, not basmati, but this was for an Indian meal cooked by a WASPy girl in Alabama so authenticity was not high on the agenda.)
Verdict: Success! The sauce was spicy (cumin, coriander, cayenne, cloves, tumeric) without burning off my taste buds. Overall the cooking process went pretty smoothly since I assembled all the ingredients in advance and was able to follow the recipe fairly seamlessly - the only hard part was getting the sauce from step 1 into the blender for pureeing without spilling it everywhere.
I made this last night and it is truly delicious. I’m not a fan of pumpkin pie because I think it smells better than it tastes, but this tastes even better than it smells.
November 18, 2008 at 6:46 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized
I’m still not dead. I’ve even been crafting, but I can’t show you what I’ve been working on because it’s getting to be that time of year, if you know what I mean. So instead here are some pictures of cute animals with Santa.
I took these pictures at a church event on Saturday. All of these animals are adoptable - contact the Animal Rescue Foundation of Mobile, Alabama, if you’d like to know more.
This lovely lady is Sweet Potato. Isn’t it funny to see a dog wearing a cat sweater?
And speaking of cats, this fellow is named Clark.
This little guy is Rory.
Cooper is a bit of a wiggleworm.
Here are PJ and Timio. I met them when I took pictures at the ARFanage this summer and I can’t believe how much less timid they are now.
I’ve been reconsidering my blogging and have decided that I’m tired of having little bits of stuff scattered all over. For a few months I’ve had a Tumblr but I’m not really that fond of the platform. I had a Blogger blog which was basically supplanted by the Tumblr. I’ve decided to make this blog my primary means of information dissemination, which means that 1) I hope to actually update it regularly, 2) this blog won’t be, per se, a craft blog. Don’t worry - craftiness will remain an important part of my life and the blog, but now you will start to see information about some of my other pursuits. I’ll be moving my occasional “What I Ate” updates over here.
I forgot to mention earlier what my new sewing project is. I’m working on making the 1914 Afternoon Dress from Sense and Sensibility Patterns. I was almost done with a muslin of the bodice when the feed dogs stopped working.
I’m using this dress as a sort of sewing lesson for myself. My plan is to do all the things with this dress that I don’t generally do - such as trace the pattern pieces rather than just cutting into them and make a muslin and alter the pattern accordingly. We’ll see how it turns out.
What I’ll actually do with a 1914 afternoon dress is a question to be resolved at a later date. I’d say Halloween, but I am committed to this costume already. Can’t you see me at work in that? I am so serious.
First, the good news: The Urban Aran Cardigan is almost complete. I’m knitting the collar now. I needed to get another skein of yarn to finish it (my math skills were missing when I did my initial yarn order) and Knit Picks even sent me the same dye lot. I think this is going to be a great sweater/jacket to keep in my office for the frigid summer A/C.
Now, the sad news: my beloved Janome is in the hospital. Her feed dogs stopped working in the forward direction! I trust that the caring technicians will get her back to working form very shortly - although I’m going out of town for a week, so we will be separated for a while. *Sniff*
I’ve been working on the Urban Aran Cardigan for a while (mostly at knit nights) and was very excited that I had reached the last piece. While knitting along last night, I pulled out the left front to compare it to the right front in process and something seemed funny. Wait… Don’t tell me…
Yup, I’d made a mistake on the side cable on the left front, which you can see does not match the right front nor the back. Oops. I decided to finish knitting the right front and then frog back the left front to the cable to reknit it. I got that done last night. So once again I am excited that I have reached the last piece… AGAIN.
Here is a picture of my sewing studio. It’s a fairly small room so I can’t quite get a picture of the whole room without getting the door frame in the picture. Opposite the sewing table is a desk that I use for paying bills, etc.
The blocks for the star quilt-a-long are on homemade cork boards. I bought cork squares and used Liquid Nails to adhere them to pieces of 1/4″ wood. I may hang them up on the wall, or I may keep using them leaned against the wall. I haven’t decided yet.
Last night I went to Goodwill in search of a chair. I didn’t find any decent furniture, but I did hit the vintage sheet motherlode:
I turned one sheet into a pair of PJ pants. These go just a bit past my knee. The fabric is so soft and light that it feels almost like wearing nothing:
I used the top hem of the sheet to form the cuffs of the pantaloons:
I’ve done some other sewing lately too. Here is the very popular Simplicity 3835, in a fabric that reminds me of fireworks. I sewed it on the 4th of July, which seemed appropriate:
I’ve made this shirt three times now and it gets easier each time. Don’t worry - it’s more flattering on me than on the hanger.
Then there’s this shirt:
This shirt is an example of why one should always make a muslin when attempting a garment for the first time. I took my measurements, made the size that should have been correct for me, and ended up with a shirt that is WAY too low cut and small. Oops. The sleeves are also *seriously* poofy. Oh well, the fabric I used was quite inexpensive.
