vaguely tex-mex chicken soup.

Theoretically, this was supposed to be Taco Soup.  But as I was prepping it this morning I realized that if I wanted J to eat it... that wasn't going to happen.  I threw in other foods instead.

This is really simple.  I managed to get it together and going before work this morning and still have time to check my email (not eat breakfast though... probably should have reversed those).  It took... 15 minutes?  Ish?  I should have, and meant to, get everything ready last night so all I had to do was put the crock in the base and flip it on, but other things happened.  Like knitting.

Right.  Vaguely Tex-Mex Chicken Soup

Ingredients
4 chicken thighs, skin off, bone in.  This is where most of the fat comes from, so you can use breast etc to make it lower fat
1 large can diced tomatoes
1 small can diced green chilies
"enough" baby carrots.  I think I used about 1/2 lb? 
1 1/2 sweet yellow onions, diced.
1 quart box of low sodium chicken stock
1 tsp curry powder
2 tsp chili powder
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt, pepper

Method:
Chuck every thing into a crockpot.  Set on low, let do it's thing for 6-8 hours, stirring occasionally.  When chicken is falling off the bones, remove bones, shred slightly, and stir back in.  Serve.

"African" Chicken Peanut Stew

We were in the mood for something new, creative, and well, different for dinner the other night.  I'd seen this on Simply Recipes last week and it looked like something that would be right up our alley: Peanut Butter?  Chicken?  Sweet Potatoes?  Hells to the yeah!

I did make some subsitutions to allow what we had in the pantry.  Mostly, switched out spices for what was easily available.  The original recipe calls for fresh ginger root, coriander, and cilantro.  Which I'm sure tastes fantastic.  But we don't have these in the pantry.  So I used cayanne (in the recipe), curry powder, "Chili 3000" (blend of ancho chili, garlic, cumin, onion, cilantro, paprika, cayenne, lemon peel, mexican oregano, black pepper and jalapeno), and a bit of dried powdered ginger.  When I first tried this, it was far spicier than it ended up being.  After it's been cooking for a while, it actually lost most of the spiciness, so that it was well within the reasonable limit that I can have J eat without problems.

African-ish Indian-ish Chicken Peanut Stew.

• 2-3 lbs bone-in, skin on chicken thighs
• 2-3 lbs sweet potatos, peeled and cubed
• 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 large yellow or white onion, cubed
• 8-10 garlic cloves, chopped roughly
• 1 15-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup roasted peanuts
• Salt and black pepper
• 2-3 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp "Chili 3000"
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 Heat the vegetable oil in a large soup pot set over medium-high heat. Salt the chicken pieces well, pat them dry and brown them in the oil. Don't crowd the pot, so do this in batches. Set the chicken pieces aside as they brown.
2 Sauté the onions in the oil for 3-4 minutes, stirring often and scraping any browned bits off the bottom of the pot. Add the garlic and sauté another 1-2 minutes, then add the sweet potatoes and stir well to combine.
3 Add the chicken, chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, peanut butter, peanuts,  and spices and stir well to combine. Bring to a simmer and taste for salt, adding more if needed. Cover the pot and simmer gently for about 1 hour or until the chicken meat easily falls off the bone and the sweet potatoes are tender.  It should look similar to red curry at this point.
4 Reduce heat even further (medium low to low).  Remove chicken pieces from pot, remove skin and bones and shred meat.  Check spice level and add more if wanted or needed.  Add meat back to pot and bring back to simmer.
5 Serve over plain steamed rice.

We served 4 with plenty of left overs (I think we have enough left for 4 more bowls?  I didn't get any of the leftovers) Yummy tastiness.

Goals 2011

By Jan 31, 2011
finish Baby W's blanket  Finished Jan 15, 2011, write up coming here

finish 1 pair of socks Finished March 27, 2011.  No write up.  Not happy with them.
pick out yarn and pattern for Baby C's blanket- Done Jan 8, 2011
Finish C&C's Christmas present
start A's socks

By Febuary 28th
corset for A started (edit 3/11/2011, may no longer be on me, nor her other garb)
finish Baby W's booties Finished Feb 2, 2011, write up here
start Baby C's blanket   Started Jan 23, 2011
paint onesies for Babies W & C (possibly S-H?)
finish A's socks  Finished 2/22, 2011.  Write up coming

By March 31st
finish Baby C's blanket  Finished 3/10/2011, write up here
Corset for A done no longer my problem
kirtle for A started no longer my problem
pick out yarn and pattern for Baby S-H's blanket- pattern picked out Feb 26, 2011, yarn picked and ordered Mar 22, 2011
start 1 pair of socks Started March 31, 2011.

By April 30th
Kirtle for A done no longer my problem
Over-dress for A done no longer my problem
Finish Baby C's booties Finished 3/20/2011, write up here

By May 31st
start Baby S-H's blanket
finish 1 pair of socks
pick out yarn and pattern for shawl

June 30th
Finish Baby S-H's blanket
finish Baby S-H's booties
start 1 pair of socks

July 31st
paint Baby S-H's onesies
start shawl
finish socks
pick out yarn and pattern for J's sweater.  Done March 13, 2011

August 31st
Knit 1 pair of socks
start sweater  Started March 14, 2011
reach at least half way on shawl
sew Starfleet Uniforms for Babies C and S-H

September 30th
start christmas/yule presents
finish shawl
reach at least halfway on sweater
start baby kimono

October 31st
start and finish 1 pair of mittens
finish sweater
finish at least half of christmas presents
finish baby kimono

November 30th
finish christmas presents
knit 1 pair of mittens

December 31st
knit 1 pair of socks.
make sure there are at least 1 photo of every FO in use
write goals for 2012

Baking! Gluten Free Chocolate Gooey Cookies!

I cheat, a lot, when I'm baking gluten free.  Every time I try to not cheat and just sub in gf flour mix (which should just sub in 1:1 with normal flour even!), I end up pie crust as hard as rocks, inedible cobbler or other, similar, atrocities.  So I cheat.

This time around, cheating took the form of GF Chocolate cake mix.  And, I suppose, doesn't even really qualify as cheating as the original recipe asks for box cake mix.  I made this pretty much according to directions, but with subsitutions.

Gluten Free Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies.

Having failed at actually taking pictures of the cookies in question, have Paula Deen's

Ingredients

• 1 8oz block of 1/3 fat cream cheese, room temperature.  (This might also be called Neufchâtel cheese, but should still be located with the cream cheese)
• 1 stick butter, room temperature.  I'm sure you can use stick margarine to make these lower fat still, but I've not tested it
• 1 (large) egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 18oz box GF Chocolate Cake Mix.  I used Betty Crocker's GF devil's food cake mix, but any should work fine.
• powdered sugar for rolling

In a mixing bowl, combine the butter and cream cheese thoroughly.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix in the egg and vanilla.  I stop midway and scrape down the bowl again.  Everything needs to be well incorporated.  Gradually mix in the cake mix, in batches, fully mixing in the previous batch before adding more. 

Cover mixing bowl and chill for at least 1 hour, 2-3 hours would be best.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll the dough into walnut sized balls and cover in powdered sugar.  Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Do not over bake.  Cookies should still be gooey when removed from oven.  Allow to cool for 1-2 minutes on sheet before evacuating to cooling rack.  Makes about 20 cookies. 

I have no idea how long these will keep for because, well, I'm lucky if they're allowed to cool fully before they're all gone.

Cigar gloves

And another project done for Yule.  Well, these were done after Yule and after Christmas even, but they're done!

"Cigar" gloves courtesy of Knitty.

as an example of how off the colors on my camera are: that orange in the upper corner?  Is actually crayon red.

Pretty much made these according to pattern aside from lengthening them.  I ran into trouble with the fingers and had *a lot* of sewing to do to patch up holes.

Next up:

Stocking Cap attempt 3.

Making a simple crocheted stocking cap should not be this hard, but I somehow keep screwing it up.  Attempt 1 was too small, attempt 2 was never going to turn into a hat (maybe a bag, but not a hat) and so was completely frogged.  On to attempt 3 tonight.  Probably at Stitch n' Bitch for a change.!

yule update 3

hey look, it's an update!

Most of the past month has been spent knitting, crocheting, cooking up a storm, a bit of sewing.  And of course, a good portion of the finished projects I failed to get photos of.  Add in the end of semester insanity as I edit papers for friends and help them study, and there's just not a whole lot worth writing about.

I have finished Mom's grinch green santa hat (crochet), a knitting needle or crochet hook holder for B (sewing), and a couple of coffee cup cozies for friends.  Nothing terribly exciting or even vaguely complicated.

Last weekend was Thanksgivayule.  Fed almost 30 people fairly successfully.  Bread, and pies, and roasted brussel sprouts and casseroles and everything.  We had help this year, but we did the vast majority of it ourselves.  Everyone said they enjoyed themselves at least.

I have 1 more project to finish, a pair of 3 fingered gloves, and 2 sewing projects to do.  I have hope of managing 1 of the sewing projects before we leave for my parents Thursday night, but the second i'm going to have to do after christmas/yule and ship to my sister later.

Tonight we're doing a small yule thing.  presents and candles and love.  hopefully love.  there's always room for love.

Yule update 2

Yay, another finished project!  I knew this blog would be good for my productivity!

J's PSP Cozy.

Jayne's Hat in the form I could get it done by Yule

All done except the pompom and the ties on the ends of the "ear flaps".  Both of which I was planning on doing at work this afternoon, but forgot the yarn at home.  Based off this pattern I found on Ravelry.  I have to say that I'm not terribly entranced with this method of cast on (figure 8 ?) but it does create a seamless bottom, which is a plus I guess.  It's certainly better than having to seam the bottom closed myself.

Other new skill learned?  How to pick up stitches in the continuing quest to pick up basic skills in the order I need them.

And now the progress shot of the baby blanket:

Folded in half.  Only about 45 rows left.

I've just about filled the 40 inch circular needle I have it on currently.  Still waiting to hear from the shop that the 60 inch I ordered has come in.  

And off to make another coffee cozy, this one should be able to double as hand warmers.