Food, Knitting, and the Holiday Season

Wow! It’s been two weeks since I last blogged? I’d say I’ve been busy, but I haven’t felt very busy. I think I’ve just been go-go-go for a while with so many things going on, that when I finally had some down time, I just went with it and took some time off from keeping up with things online. Last week, I was pretty pre-occupied with Thanksgiving plans. I did a bunch of cooking and baking the weekend before Thanksgiving and even the day of. I was recently reminded of how much I love to be working in the kitchen when I spent most of the day baking a cake, making bread (rolls actually, but the process was about the same), and making lasagna.

Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
Recipe from America’s Test Kitchen

Rustic Rolls
Recipe from America’s Test Kitchen

Lasagna with Meat Sauce
Recipe from America’s Test Kitchen

All three recipes turned out fantastic! The rolls were really hearty and not quite what I was looking for, so Monday I tried out a yeast roll recipe I found. Maybe the Best Yeast Rolls.

Yeast Rolls

They were exactly what I wanted! SO GOOD. I highly recommend this recipe. I think the potato flakes really make it. I also made Apple Cake in a Cast Iron Skillet for Thanksgiving. It came out pretty decent. I ended up having to sub 1/3 cup whole wheat flour because I ran out of white flour. I’ll probably try it again, but cook the apples in the butter/sugar longer, possibly bake it a little longer, and use all white flour.

Apple Cake in a Cast Iron Skillet
(Photo from before flipping it over and out of the pan)

I’ve been knitting, too! I started Liesl. I need an updated picture because I’m just past where you separate the sleeves off, but here it is with the first one I made.

Liesl, Take Two (Long sleeve version)

I finished Multnomah. I’m hoping the sun will peek out again soon so I can get some FO photos to share.

Multnomah, blocking.

I started a scarf for Matt. He liked my striped Noro one and wanted one in “guy colors” for himself, so I picked out these two sock yarns. When I first attempted the scarf, I found that I needed to work it on size US 2 needles! That was not about to happen (scarf on 2’s? NO WAY). I finally got around to winding the yarn doubled up and started it on US 5’s. It’s moving right along and holding the yarn double hasn’t created any issues other then the occasional missing one of the yarns when knitting. So far, he likes it. 🙂

Matt’s Scarf

There’s a few other projects I’ve been working on (only one that I can’t blog about), but I’ll save those to share next time. I also have a pattern I’m going to share and a few in the works! Stay tuned. 🙂

Hope your holiday season is off to a good start! I worked last Friday, so there were no Black Friday sales that I went to. I wouldn’t have gone even if I did have the day off. It was quite at work with so many people taking the day off, so it wasn’t too bad to be working anyhow. So far we have a few holiday parties in the works, but only traveling within the area we live and most of the gifts I’m giving are knit. What about you? Any plans for this Holiday season? Traveling? Knitting/making gifts?