[baking] Homemade Cheese-its

A couple weeks ago, anticipating this quarantine, I bought my requisite toilet paper and groceries. I got a 3lb block of cheese, because... cheese. This is Vermont.

I made a quadruple batch of Spicy Cheese Cracker dough. The recipe is from King Arthur Flour- I can't find the recipe online; it's a recipe that I received when I took a cracker class at the baking school in Norwich, VT.

Anyway, it's a knock-off of Hot and Spicy Cheez-its and they are so good.



The ingredients are flour, butter, cheese, water. Then spices like chili powder, cayenne, paprika, pepper.



I baked some right away and put the rest of the dough patties in the freezer to bake later. I've already dipped into the dough reserve once to bake some more. They are so addictive.

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Social distancing / quarantine / staying home / teleworking is going okay. I feel like I'm putting more hours to do less work. There were some significant technical challenges more than a week ago but those seem to be resolved. It is nice to spend all day at home with the kitties.

[knitting] Fantastitch Progress

After finishing the socks, I went back to the Fantastitch shawl:

It is working up to be interesting- in colors and textures. It's been nice working on this in the evenings to relax.

[knitting] Aramis Socks - Finished

Finished Aramis socks:

Pretty bright and cheerful. I like that the pattern has you work the repeats in opposite directions for a left and right sock. 

It's still handknit weather here- there is a winter weather advisory for this evening with 3 - 6 inches of new snow forecast. I'm looking forward to fresh snow for some homemade sugar on snow.

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Things are pretty bizarre with all the social distancing. I knew I had such a gigantic yarn stash for a reason. I've not started any new projects- after finishing the Aramis socks, I went back to working on the Fantastitch shawl. I'm nearing the last few sections but the rows are getting really long. I'm tempted to start something new and quick to work on when I need a break.

[baking] Soft prezels

It's been a while since I posted. I was teaching last week and those days are so long. I didn't even have time (or motivation) to knit at all in the evenings. Friday afternoon, I was home with supplies to survive 14 days of isolation. I had to bake something and knit something.

Pretzels:

I have a mini-Zojirushi breadmaker that only makes 1 lb loaves. I never use it anymore since I just keep a bucket of no-knead dough in the fridge and tear off a piece when I need bread or pizza.

The recipe is Hot Buttered Soft Prezels from King Arhtur Flour. This recipe is pretty perfect: 

1. It makes 8 pretzels that fit on one half-sheet pan, so you don't end up making a ton. The salt on pretzels kind of weeps after a day or two and with only eight pretzels- they don't last two days.

2. I use my mini-Zo on the cookie setting to mix and rest the dough. I dump all the ingredients in and let it do what it needs to for 20 min: mix, rest, mix, then it turns off which is just another resting period until I get to it. Then all I have to do is cut, shape, soda-bath, rest, bake. The only hard part of the entire process is the soda bath, and that's just because I have to do the pretzels in two batches.

Maybe these pretzels won't be a weekly thing, but they could definitely be a monthly thing. My Zo would be happy to be used more.

[knitting] Fantastitch Start

Working through Fantastitch:

The colors are a little off because it's a nighttime picture. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about using single strands of Kidsilk Haze but I'm just going to keep plodding along. I have the urge to make another- in more rustic yarn and colors. I wonder if I should have two going at the same time... Should I be insane and cast on another? 

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Last night was a wash. I had a mid-day dentist appt that got moved to 4:15 pm. A few weeks ago I had a chipped front tooth and had some bonding done. 8 days later, I bit into a piece of toast and the bonding chipped. I was extra furious because they wouldn't be able to see me for another 8 days to fix it. Anyway, new bonding is now in place and I'm hoping I can go back to eating wacky things like toast.

[knitting] Aramis socks- fixed

This picture likes pretty much the same as the last one of these socks- but I ripped back and added the missing purl rounds after the cuff on the second sock.

I haven't worked on the socks since I started the shawl. 

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Last night I made a big batch of beef jerky. I only make homemade beef jerky a couple times a year because if I did it more, our diets would be 50% beef jerky. It tastes so good but I know it's bad for you.

Knit a little bit more on the Fantastitch shawl. I also reset the dye on a skein of yarn that was rubbing off on my fingers and needles when I tried knitting with it.

[knitting] Fantastitch colors

I picked my color palette for the Fantastitch shawl:

Left pink is cashmere, the rest of the skeins are alpaca. The fuzzy ones are kid mohair and silk. The bottom right ball is baby camel that I'm not going to end up using (It's three strands wound together and I was going to separate them but it would be way too much work.)

All luxury yarns. I've had all those alpaca skeins in my stash for more than a decade. I bought them from the A Touch of Twist booth at a past Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival and they still had the price tag on them- $7 per skein. That's an ancient price.

I've made it through several sections of the pattern- the early sections are short and it's a little addicting mixing up all the colors.

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Good weekend, if a little cold and surprisingly snowy. We took a day trip down to Brattleboro on Saturday and tried to have lunch at Whetstone Station. It was ridiculously busy so we tried The Marina. I loved it there- plenty of parking, tables open for lunch, good food and drinks.

Sunday I did the grocery shopping and worked on the shawl. Low key chill day. We rented Doctor Sleep and I really, really liked it. There were a couple gruesome parts but I loved the story and the filming was really great.