Walnut Scones, Yummmy!

I spent part of today listing the rest of my thrum mitten kits in my Etsy shop. I am feeling the need to knit a pair of thrum mittens-I'm sure someone could use a pair for Christmas-perhaps my Adirondack dwelling, cross country skiing daughter. Thrum mittens are fun to knit and the knitting goes quickly because they are made with worsted weight yarn. They originated in Eastern Canada-made for the fishermen who found the mittens perfect because as the mittens were worn and became wet they became felted which made the mittens waterproof. Both the fiber and yarn felted so the mittens were super waterproof and warm. I think they used more utilitarian colors than are found in my kits.

Here is a photo of the mittens I knit as a sample. They have had a lot of hands inside them, feeling the soft warmth. It's fun to listen to people trying to figure out what they are and which is the inside and which the outside. My favorite idea was the person who decided they must be for dusting.

When I finished listing the kits I decided this cold, blustery day was a perfect baking day. I chose to make scones, which are one of my favorite things to bake, and I haven't made them in a long time. They are a quick treat-it probably took me 10 minutes to put them together once I got out all the ingredients. This is a recipe I've made many times over the years. I don't remember where the recipe came from, but they are nice and moist-a problem I sometimes find with scones is they can tend to be dry. I think this comes from too much flour and not enough liquid.

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Walnut Scones

2 Cups unbleached flour

1 Tablespoons baking powder

4 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 Teaspoon salt

1/3 Cup butter or margarine

1/2-3/4 Cup walnuts

3/4 Cup milk

Milk and granulated sugar (optional)

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, 4 Tablespoons sugar and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Stir in walnuts. Add 3/4 cup milk and stir until dough clings together. Do not over stir or the scones will be tough.

On a lightly floured surface, roll or pat into a 7 inch circle that is 3/4 inch thick. Cut into 6 or 8 wedges. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. If desired, brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar (I used turbinado sugar).

Bake in a 425 degree oven 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

In place of walnuts, or in combination with the walnuts you can use other add ins such as chocolate chips, cranberries, candied ginger or anything else you think would be tasty in a scone.

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In knitting news I have been working on a scarf for Caitlin. When she was helping me at the Craft, Food and Wine Show we enjoyed checking out knits the attendees were wearing. A girl had a scarf with pockets on the end. I complimented her on the scarf and she said the pockets really come in handy. Caitlin liked the idea, so I am making her one using a skein of my Aran weight yarn. I designed the pattern myself-I will be writing the pattern up and sharing it on the blog once Christmas is over. It has cables, something I think I don't like to knit, but once I do them I remember how much fun they are. They are the kind of thing that entertain me as I am knitting and that makes knitting a scarf speed along.

Time for a cup of tea and scone and then bed. I'll leave you with a photo of Seamus modeling one of the hand dyed silk scarves I recently made.

Gerard wasn't quite as cooperative. He walked right out of his scarf. (Don't worry-the scarves were washed before they were sold.)

Can you see why I needed to spend a morning cleaning off my kitchen table?

Winter has Arrived!

I find it hard to believe how quickly December is speeding by. It's looking like we will have a very White Christmas. I have spent a lot of time in the last few days shoveling. Today it took me almost 2 hours to shovel the driveway and front walkway. I was so proud of me-I even managed to shovel the end of the driveway after the snowplows passed by several times. It helped that it was relatively light snow. I'm looking forward to a nice soak in the clawfoot tub later.

By the end of the winter this pile of snow will be my nemesis (a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent). The end of the driveway becomes narrower and narrower as the winter progresses and this pile gets higher and higher and it is harder and harder to throw the snow on top of the ever growing pile.

Here's a view of my winter garden. This is a chair that was not put away when all the other outdoor furniture was put away (why would that be Tim, Travis and Caitlin?) and it was lying down under the snow. I was able to extricate it and it has been safely stored, so it will see another summer. I don't think it could have survived a winter outside.

I had to shovel so I could get to the post office to mail my very late samples for Phat Fiber. This month the theme is "The Music Box" and I chose one of my favorite songs by Gordon Lightfoot to interpret called "Song for a Winter's Night". I dyed merino/nylon superwash sock yarn and created a batt from alpaca, merino, wensleydale, romney, tencel, superwash merino and angelina. I am loving the batts and think I may have to spin one myself.

The batt is black with some midnight blue and gold with dark blue angelina. The yarn is dyed in shades of midnight blue, sapphire, denim blue and gold. They will be available in my Etsy shopthis weekend following the box drop.

I had so many people at the Craft, Food and Wine show ask me where they could get my yarn and fiber locally that I have decided to set up a little shop in my front living room. (It's convenient to have three living rooms.) This is how it looked in the beginning.

As usual, I had a cat helper, which made it so much easier to accomplish my task and get the living room looking like this.

A visit to the shop will be by appointment-just send an email and a time will be arranged. This will also make filling Etsy orders easier-to have everything out and easily accessible. I filled an order this afternoon and it was lovely to just go the basket and pull the yarn. The yarn is already on it's way to California.

I'd better go and check to make sure the dastardly snow plows have not blocked me in . Stay warm!

Thanksgiving, 2010

Life is moving quickly on. It's hard to believe Thanksgiving has come and gone. We had Thanksgiving this year at the bed and breakfast where Caitlin is living this winter. It was a delicious meal and a lovely time spent with my children and their friends. It was most wonderful having dinner cooked by 5 professional cooks, with 3 of them being my children. And what a beautiful place to have dinner, a century old farmhouse in the middle of the High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains.

The thing I was most thankful for was having all four of my children together. We talked and laughed, cooked and washed dishes (commercial dishwashers rock when cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner for 8), ate delicious food, drank a little wine, did a jigsaw puzzle, and a little football was watched too. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.

Guess what these young men are doing.

Our feast.

Hungry group.

Begonia being contained so that she couldn't eat cats.

The happy O'Brien family, well fed and content.

I have returned home to prepare for the 2010 Craft, Food and Wine Show to be held at Cheel Arena in Potsdam next Friday and Saturday, December 3 and 4. It is my first year doing the show, and my booth will be next to my brother Tim, who is St. Lawrence Valley Roasters, and my sister-in-law Lisa, who is North Fork Gifts. It should be a fun time, and I hope to see a lot of old friends and make some new ones. I am putting together kits with Anne Hanson patterns and my yarn, and will also have some new thrum mitten kits, which will make a great gift for the knitter in the family. Because this is a non-fiber show, I have also knit some hats, socks and miscellaneous things to sell, since many of the attendees will not be knitters, spinners or crocheters.

I have a lot to do in the next few days. My least favorite thing will be taking Tim to the train to return to New York City and then onto Dublin, Germany, and Austria, his final destination. I know I will see him again in six months, which is a lot better than a year, but it will still be hard to say goodbye. He is heading off on another great adventure, this one on the side of a snow covered Austrian mountain.

The Wanderer Has Returned

I am filled with joy because my son Tim, who has been traveling and living in Australia, Southeast Asia and China, is almost home. He arrived in the states on Wednesday, and is currently in New York City visiting with friends and family there, and selling some things he has in storage. He will be continuing his travels in December and will be going to Austria to manage a kitchen at a ski resort. Since he is the only one of my children without culinary experience, I did ask if he had sent his brother's resume instead of his. (Travis has a degree in Culinary Arts from Paul Smiths College). Tim assured me he got the job all on his own.

When I think of the things he has seen and done in the past year it is mind boggling. Tim has been traveling with only a backpack that contains all his possessions. He told me the one pair of jeans he has is pretty bedraggled, but he is going to keep them because they have been on four continents. I will be traveling to New Jersey to pick him up soon, which will give us the opportunity to visit the old neighborhood. I can't wait!

In fiber news, the newest Spindies boxes went on sale on Wednesday. They are gorgeous! I know this because I am the Spindies member who mails out the boxes, which is great because I get to see all the beautiful fiber each month. The colors this month are Harvest Night (navy blue) and Harvest Moon (gold). I twitch a bit when I say the colors blue and gold together and flash back to way too many Blue and Gold Banquets I have attended over the years, both as a child when my brother was in Cub Scouts, and when my own children participated. But when I see the fiber, all those bad memories are swept away and I want to spin the gorgeousness that is the boxes.

This is my contribution to the Harvest Moon box-"Golden Slumbers", a blend of merino, silk, cormo, tencel, firestar and angelina.

This colorway was my contribution to the Harvest Night box-"Blue on Blue, although my contributions to the box were dyed on Finn wool instead of this merino/tencel blend. I discovered after dyeing the contribution that I had no more Finn to dye.

I will be listing full sized samples of the box contributions in my shop today.

I spent an hour in this little country cemetery on Tuesday, where some of my ancestors are buried. A cousin is interested in genealogy and traveled all the way from Kentucky to visit this cemetery, when my brother finally figured out it's exact location. Look at that beautiful sky. We were blessed with a sunshiny day-the only one this week.

My mother's maiden name was Fish, and this is the Fish family stone.

We visited this cemetery at least once a year as children, because it was important to my mother to honor her ancestors. When I started looking around I realized that this was the cemetery where I had decided the names of the five daughters I planned to have-Faith, Hope, Charity, Remembrance and Experience. Turns out I had four sons and one daughter, so that plan didn't work out. I'm sure Caitlin is happy I changed my mind when it came time to name her. Here is the stone of Experience Bacon. Can you imagine having that name, not just Experience, but the combination of the two conjures a lot of images to my mind.

We had a lovely visit with my cousin and his wife. I'm glad they decided to come to visit relatives, both passed on and still here.

Time to take a sick kitty to the vet. Gerard has been sneezing and is congested. Right now he has taken over Seamus' spot and is asleep on my arm as I type.

Yummy Applesauce Cookies

I was cleaning my bedroom the other day and discovered this delicious recipe under my bed. I'm not quite sure how it got there, but I do remember going through some of my mom's recipes there a couple of months ago, and I'm assuming this one escaped from the basket. It seemed like a nice autumnal (love that word) recipe, so I made some and they were delicious. My one error was using sea salt to replace regular salt, since I seem to have no salt that isn't in huge chunks. As I was doing it I was thinking just skipping the salt would be a better idea, but I do love an experiment. It's a little odd to bite down on a chunk of salt in a cookie, but they are still tasty.

Applesauce Cookies

3/4 cup soft butter or shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup applesauce

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1/2 cup nuts, chopped

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix thoroughly together shortening or butter, brown sugar and egg. Stir in applesauce. sift together flour, soda, salt and spices and stir in. Mix in nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls on greased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy! You can also use pureed banana in place of the applesauce, and I increased the spices to 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of cloves.

I finished the Spiraling Leaves Fingerless Mitts I was making. It's a pattern by Lynne Vogel, very well written and easy to remember. I think it's a great pattern for someone just starting in lace knitting. I used some of my worsted weight merino yarn in the colorway "Celery Tonic".

I think the next pair I make will be fingering weight. I am looking forward to making another pair, and think it will be good to do it soon so I don't have to relearn the pattern. I did make two right gloves my mistake but realized my error before I was done and did a bit of frogging. They are very soft and warm and will bring some springtime cheer to a dark winter.

I know you are wondering if there will be a photo of a cat. Seamus has recently taken a great interest in helping me when I am at the computer. He likes to sit on my right hand as I am typing. Here he is in helper mode, not understanding my impatience with not being able to use my right hand, just purring away. He is a good hand warmer, but makes getting work done a bit difficult.