[cooking] Shaggy Mane Mushroom Tart

Fall shaggy man mushrooms have started appearing on the lawn:

Also known as ink/inky cap (and lawyer's wigs), they turn black and drop ink pretty quickly. But there are a lot and new ones are popping up every day. I pick ones that are still closed:

The only hard part is cleaning them- getting every last bit of grass and dirt off. I use a couple damp paper towels and swipe down, from the top of the mushroom to the end of the cap. This is probably the most important step when prepping these.

They are easy to break apart length-wise with your fingers:

One was starting to go a little dark, so I threw it away. The rest I sauteed in butter until most of the moisture was gone. Then added garlic and chives.

I made some fresh pastry dough, rolled it out, layered some cheese and then mushrooms and folded over the edge:

I brushed the dough with milk and baked at 350 for 50 min. The house smelled so good.

It was so beautiful and perfect. And it tasted so good.

Also, this is a very Vermont tart:

Pastry dough: King Arthur Flour AP flour, butter (Cabot), kosher salt

Filling: Mushrooms (my front yard), chives (my back yard), garlic (local, from my CSA), cheese (Cabot)

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Pretty quiet weekend. Had grand plans to can some jam and pick wild grapes but ended up feeling a little under the weather. I did the above tart Friday night but Saturday was kind of a wash. Sunday I had a gigantic chunk of pork shoulder going all day in the slow cooker and watched the footballs. I puttered on some knit pumpkins during the games (which turned out soooo freaking cute).

Should be a busy week but I'm looking forward to the VT Sheep and Wool Festival this coming weekend!

[cooking] Apple Crisp

First apple recipe of the season:

The recipe is from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion cookbook. I used my long Emile Henry tart dish. This baked up beautifully- the Cortland apples held their shape after an hour in the oven (I love them for cooking- they don't turn to mush). I used maple sugar in the cider slurry that gets mixed with the apples. I used light brown sugar for the topping.

The ice cream is sweet milk gelato from Morano Gelato in Hanover, NH. (We went to see It: Chapter 2 at the Nugget last weekend- and brought home a to-go container of gelato.) I use my cookie dough scoop to get cute little balls of gelato.

After making this and using apples for the muffins and bringing an apple to work everyday, my pile of apples is down. I'm going picking this afternoon with my sister and niece. Maaaaaybe the special heirloom orchard will be open? 

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Last night I traced the remaining images I have onto bundt bags (autumn leaves, snowflake, house, yule log). I'm going to do the autumn leaves one first...

I finish the thumbs on the Latvian mitts. Just have to block...

This weekend I think I'll make some jam with raspberries I have in the freezer. Oh, and shaggy mane mushrooms appeared on the lawn yesterday:

I'm going to pick some to make a rustic tart tonight!

TGIFFFFFF

[knitting] Worsted-weight socks

Once I finished making stuff for the fair- there was a moment of "Well, what do I do now? I can make anything I want!" Unable to decide, I started socks. It's ways worsted weight socks when I don't know what to make. I have the pattern memorized and they're fast, reliable gifts for Dollar.

I only need to cast-on 48 stitches and they're worked on US 7 needles. I used a couple balls of Berroco Ultra Wool (with a decent amount of each ball leftover):

The yarn is great- superwash worsted and it comes in MANY colors. It felt great to work with and I encountered no knots. There are also a variety of weights. I'm glad I bought a couple more balls in another color.

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I went on a quick walk up to Kent's Ledge yesterday:

It was a nice day and I was getting antsy about missing peak foliage pictures. We're still not at peak but what a difference a couple weeks makes. Everything was totally green just a short while ago.

There were an insane amount of mushrooms along the trial. I found a nice spot of (what I think are) honey mushrooms:

Then I came home and made mac and cheese. I used the last of a couple blocks of cheese: Cabot 5-year-old cheddar, Shelburn Farms 2-year-old cheddar. It's not as laborious as I make it out to be in my head. I also baked a dozen apple-chai muffins for the band. My pile of apples is dwindling and I need to go picking again.

Should be a nice weekend. I think it's time to harvest some wild grapes. 

I'm getting so close to finishing the Latvian mitts- just the thumbs left to knit, then blocking. Going to wrap up the Lovecraft hat (will knit a lining for it but I want to block the stranded body first to see if I should duplicate stitch red eyes onto Cthulhu).

I also want to get back to embroidering Bundt bags. I have more patterns to trace onto bags... 

[crocheting] Little Lilac Doily

Used some misc cotton in the stash to make a little square doily:

The pattern is Doily #17 from Patricia Kristoffersen's 99 Little Doilies. The flowers and vase are a nice little surprise bouquet from Dollar.

I should get back to making these little doilies. They are so fun and quick and I just want to have them on every surface in the house.

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I think it's going to be nice and sunny this afternoon. Planning to go up Kent's Ledge to get nice pictures of the foliage!

[spinning] Into the Whirled

Wrapped up the fiber I spun at the fair and the knitting retreat:

Two ply on the left (bulky weight), chain-plied leftovers on the right. Close-up:

The fiber is by Into the Whirled but I've lost the original bag, so I'm not sure the fiber or colorway name. So I'll treat it as NOT superwash. The large skein will probably be a hat or mittens. The little skein will probably end up a pouch or something.

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I tried a package of Beyond Beef last night and it was genuinely horrific. I knew it was going to be bad as soon as I touched it. I got a 1lb package of the ground "beef". I planned to use it for tacos. It would be fine in tacos, right?

Wrong. I grabbed a handful of the meat to put into a pan to brown and it felt wrong- lots of hard bits. Like if you grabbed a handful of chunky peanut butter- you'd feel all those hard peanut bits. They were white, to emulate fat marbling, so it felt like... broken up teeth were in the mix, I don't know. I didn't like it.

So I'm browning it and the smell is bad. It made the whole kitchen smell awful. But I add the taco seasoning and we carry on and make tacos. Maybe all the other accouterments will mask the meat. Nope. We couldn't even eat it and now we're extra resentful for this faux meat ruining tacos, which we patently adore.

I've made tacos with ground beef, ground turkey, a homemade vegan lentil mixture. We've liked it all. This stuff was so fake and processed and what even are these ingredients? I prefer to cook/make food with whole, recognizable ingredients.

Hang on, I don't want to be a hypocrite- I eat processed food. Cheese Doodles? Love 'em. Tater-tots? Sure. Ramen? You know it. But I buy them infrequently. I guess I should say I won't be buying Beyond Beef again- it's not for us. We're lucky where we live; I can buy local, tasty, ethically-raised meat. It's more expensive, so we don't have it every night. I find a way to make what we like without meat (the lentil tacos, bean burritos, veggie pizza, etc). Either eat meat or don't. I don't understand the "I want a vegan burger that bleeds" mentality.

[vermont] Last days of summer

It's officially autumn and I'm okay with it. I went for a long (longer than I expected) (way too long) walk on Saturday. From my house, up to the Joseph Smith Memorial, around back to their old Turnpike Road trails and even up the Patriarch Hill trail. 

Trees are rapidly changing color now.

I also went around my house and took some pictures of the remaining flowers. The last of the last of the daylilies:

Miracle of miracles, the Hollyhock is still blooming:

Japanese anemone took many (five?) years to establish in my garden but it's a reliable perennial now and this year will have the most blooms yet:

Bumblebees are still working hard. This is a relatively new addition to my garden- turtlehead flower.

So much for that frost warning last week. The last two days of summer were hot and humid. I enjoyed having the windows open again, as did Penny:

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After taking a week off, the two day weekend went by way too fast. We went to see IT: Chapter Two on Saturday. It was pretty good- not as good as Chapter One, though. The jump-scares started to grow tiresome. The cast was great.

Sunday I watched the Pats game and made an apple crisp. Lots of knitting- I should be able to finish up my Latvian fingerless mitts this week.

[knitting] January Hat

Another last-minute project for the fair:

This was knit over a couple days. The pattern is January Hat (free on Ravelry) from Kelbourne Woolens. They have been releasing a free hat pattern every month using their worsted weight Germantown yarn. I used a heathered Plymouth Galway from my stash for this.

Fun pattern- the bobbles slow things down a little but they are small and adorable. I would definitely make this hat again- maybe with a nice squishy merino like Malabrigo and with a longer fold-over brim.

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Washed my handspun yarn last night. Got into a cleaning fit and did all the dishes and laundry while watching the finale of Masterchef. Started my 2nd Latvian mitt from last weekend's class. 

No big plans for the weekend. Go for a hike, bake something with apples, work on the mitts, maybe start knitting some decorative pumpkins, redecorate the entryway of the house (which still has 4th of July decorations- don't judge me! being patriotic is always in season...) to be more autumnal. And couch-surfing/football on Sunday.

[knitting] Handspun Totally Biased

This is one of my last-minute projects that I entered into the fair last week. I pre-registered for an "item knit with handspun" but didn't have anything in mind, really. In just a couple days, I whipped up an infinity scarf with one of my favorite patterns: Totally Biased (free on Ravelry):

Looking at this project makes me think of the series Episodes with Matt Leblanc, which is what I was watching while I worked on it. (It's a great series- I really enjoyed all of it- it's on Netflix.)

I've done this pattern half a dozen times, it's knit on a bias with periodic garter rows. The garter rows help keep the finished fabric flat- I've knit it entirely in stockinette and the edges roll in.

I chose to do my garter rows at irregular intervals because it's too hard (for me) to remember to do them at the right time. When I realize I've forgotten to knit on the wrong side, I can't be bothered to tink back and just decide, "Whatever, I'll just do them when I remember."

The yarn is pretty dense and I only cast on 38 stitches. It's nice and squishy and I'll definitely be wearing it a lot this winter.

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After work yesterday, I stopped by Poverty Lane Orchard to do some apple picking and picked up some cider. I'm starting to get into the fall spirit.

Then I stopped by a farm close to my house to pick up a couple acorn squash, a delicata squash and some corn. I had a hankering for buttery roasted acorn squash filled with black rice. Next time I might be extra and dress up the black rice by mixing in some cooked shallots, dried cranberries, pecans... 

Was able to wrap up some spinning last night. I started 4 oz of wool by Into the Whirled to demonstrate the at fair. I finished the singles at the Green Mountain Knitting Guild retreat. Last night I plied them. All that's left is to wash/dry.

Last night was chilly enough that I received a frost warning to my phone. I threw and extra quilt onto the bed and wore handknit wool bedsocks for the first time of the season:

It also helps when all the kitties are snuggled in with me:

[knitting] Child's Aran Sweater

Here's the finished bulky sweater for my niece:

I love it, it's super squishy. I think my seaming turned out well:

This received a 2nd place ribbon at the fair. There were no notes on the name card (there were no notes on any of my fiber entries- but there were on my baked items) so I'm not sure what the problem was. At first I thought it was the seaming but after a discussion about tension at last night's knit group, I think it's because you can tell (esp when looking at the wrong side) that my tension is off when I'm purling. Oops.

This sweater was knit in pieces. I can be a tight knitter but loose purler. And you can see that in the fabric. Oh well, something to think about (and remember) when making sweater pieces in the future. But I don't think my three-year-old niece is going to notice.

[knitting] Green Mountain Knitting Guild Retreat

Last weekend I attended the first annual Green Mountain Knitting Guild retreat in Greensboro, VT. It was a beautiful drive there, everyone was very nice, lots of great meals provided, wonderful two-part class on Latvian Mitts, a fun afternoon of dyeing yarn. 

Everyone's mitts by Sunday afternoon:

Mine is the blue/brown one at the top right.

All the different yarns we dyed:

The weekend was very fun and totally worth it. It makes a difference just getting away from home and having dedicated time to focus on knitting or spinning. I got so much done. At home, it's too easy to be distracted: I need to start some laundry, gotta think of something for supper and cook it, I should probably take the recycling out, I hear one of the cats barfing- I better go find it and clean it up.

Now I understand why my aunt attends quilting retreats. All your time (class time and free time) is dedicated to the craft and you get so much more done. And there is camaraderie in working with/around other people doing the same thing.

I'm looking forward to the next one!

[vermont] Tunbridge Fair

Vacation last week was awesome. Found a local hike (Kent's Ledge) and did it every day- except a couple when it was raining or I was prepping stuff for the fair. Here's everything I entered:

11 items: a quilt, child's sweater, fox mittens, papillon shawl, rose bundt cake, doily, handspun scarf, rose teapot cosy, green hat, lemon lavender cookies, lace socks. I had also preregistered for a wreath and wall hanging but I wasn't able to finish those in time.

So the cake:

I used my rose bundt pan and finally achieved a crisp/clean design (runny batter, banging the pan on the butcher block many times to loosen air bubbles). I mixed up some dragonfruit powder, powdered sugar, milk to make a runny icing to paint on with a pastry brush:

I'm really happy with how it turned out. It received good comments from the judges.

The other baked items I entered were the lemon lavender cookies:

I ordered some Nordic Ware cookie presses and there was a definite learning curve to using them but once I got the molds consistently greased/floured, the cookie impressions were clear. I also used a round biscuit cutter to make them all the same size. After baking/cooling the cookies, I brushed some lemon juice/powdered sugar icing over the top.

I went to the fair on Thursday to do a spinning demonstration at the Fiber Nook for a couple hours in the afternoon.

Came back later in the evening with Dollar to go fair-y things. Like getting Maple Creemees:

I also bought a pound of maple sugar while I was at the Sugar House. (I remember it being $9 in the past but it was $12 this year!)

Sleepy, perfect little piglets:

Then we went to Floral Hall and found all my items. And saw a Best In Show ribbon on my Papillon Shawl! 

I picked everything up Sunday night. Here's how I did:

Best in Show!!! Now I can start knitting whatever I want...