Monthly Archives: December 2011

The Designing Day

Dropping the ball to bring in the New Year

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I promised myself that I would get this little Beaded Stress Ball pattern completed by the end of 2011. Well, here we are at the 11th hour! I should have my head examined for creating more stress for myself – ha! ha! I too often forget my own advice to take time to smell the roses. Well, that is what a new year is for, right? New resolutions and a new beginning.

 

Anyway, I’ve been having fun working up this pattern. And hope you will enjoy reading about it, too. If anything, I hope it brings a smile to your face. And you might even try it out yourself for some well-deserved relaxation in the new year.

The premise is that you can squish and roll this beaded ball around in your hands to provide relaxation and quick relief for stress, aching or stiff finger joints. Tiny pressure points of beads have a meditative quality. My idea for this was inspired by a small flexible bead-woven bowl I bought from a talented friend of mine, Brenda Harms. Not only was it a beautiful little container, but it fit in my hand and felt so good as a massage. That gave me the idea to come up with something bead-knitted that was both beautiful and fun that would function in a similar way for hand therapy.

When designing this beaded ball, I was really dredging up the old brain matter in trying to remember my solid geometry. It’s amazing how you can learn all those formulas in school, and then they just sort of want to vanish when you need them. I wanted the design to be symmetrical, uniformly beaded all over, and of course to look like a ball when completed. And here is the proof!

 

For those who are wondering what the heck the title for this blog article is about, it is a tradition to “drop” or lower the ball in New York’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. This is my toast to that. 🙂

Have a happy and prosperous new year! (and don’t forget to Take Time to Smell the Roses)

p.s. Remember that stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

 

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Friends of HeartStrings Gallery

Friends of HeartStrings Gallery: Vicki and her Filigree Lace Creations

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In today’s showcase of  “Friends of HeartStrings Gallery”, I am pleased to introduce Vicki Elster and some of the adapted versions of designs she has created based on the HeartStrings #A135 Filigree Lace Ensembles pattern.

Last week, Vicki emailed several photos along with the introductory message of  “Just thought you’d like to see how some of your patterns are enjoyed. I love your filigree lace patterns.” Of course, I thanked her for sending the photos and the kind compliments. I so much enjoy seeing what others are knitting with HeartStrings patterns! With her permission I am excited to share glimpses of her creations here for all my Jackie E-S Blog readers.

Vicki went on to say, ” I wanted to send you pictures of what I’ve made with your patterns. I tweaked the wrist warmers for myself (lime green), below, and also made the neck warmer go further out on my shoulders to fit under a boat neck sweater like a dickey.”

“And I’ve now completed two other sets of the wrist warmers for gifts. They came out lovely. One friend wanted hers similar to mine, but without the ruffle. Thanks for a great pattern.”

In ‘talking’ further to Vicki, I found out we had even more in common … “I first knew you from the KnitDesign yahoo group (I am dipping my toe into making up patterns and selling them, but just starting!) and then a friend bought this filigree pattern and I fell in love with it. I bought it, and have been enchanted by the wrist warmers. Made several for friends. Your patterns are very easy to do, and your writing of them is great! Several friends have been inspired and I’ve told them where to buy your pattern.I would be honored if you use me/my project photos. I’ll tell you what yarns I’ve used: the lime green is Shepherd’s Wool fingering from Stonehedge Fiber Mill. The darker green variegated is Melody from JoJoLand Yarns. The purple variegated is Serenity Garden Yarn, a Deborah Norville collection by Premier Yarns.Thanks, Vicki Elster”

Enjoy the no-calorie eye candy, thanks to Vicki. What could be better to offset the splurging I have done (and maybe you, too?) for the holidays. Interestingly, Vicki’s iPhone signature includes this cute saying: “If knitting were exercise, I would be sooo fit!.” Hee – hee. Tell me about it, lol.

p.s. Do you have photos and a story about HeartStrings patterns you’ve knitted? Email me and maybe you can be featured in the next “Friends of HeartStrings Gallery”.

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Musings

An old-fashioned Christmas day

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Working a puzzle on Christmas day was a tradition in my family. Now my parents have passed away and my sisters and I are all in different places. A simple online puzzle is not really the same, but it just seemed in keeping with the spirit of the day to put one up at my blog here.

So, to all of you my faithful readers and friends, today I am especially wishing you and your family an old-fashioned Christmas day … however near or far you are in distance … may your hearts be close in warmth and love.

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Cooking

Forgotten Kisses Remembered

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Memories of holidays past embrace the delicate confections of meringue that my Mommy would make for each Christmas. We simply called them “Kisses” although I’ve since learned that most people refer to them as Forgotten Kisses. Here is my attempt from yesterday to make the minty pink and green Forgotten Kisses with mini-chocolate chip as I remembered them. It didn’t turn out exactly as I planned, but I might also have discovered something even better.

In keeping with my usual fearlessness in making substitutions if necessary to accomplish a cooking objective, I couldn’t find the mint flavoring and mini-chocolate chips I thought I already had on hand. Oh well. I figured a quick trip to the grocery store would fix that. Unfortunately, my local No-Winn Dixie had neither. I bought some clear Creme de Menthe liqueur (a huge bottle just to get a couple of teaspoons worth!) and a bag of Ghirardelli bittersweet dark chocolate chips (there was only one bag left at the store, so at least I was not tempted to get more, lol).

The ingredients are simple and drop cookies are about the easiest type of cookie you can make. Here is an outline of the ingredients and assembly steps from yesterday’s cooking adventure. Enjoy!

Minty Pink and Green Forgotten Kisses with Ghirardelli Chocolate Chips

Ingredients
whites from 4 eggs
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons Creme de Menthe liqueur
1 – 11.5 oz bag Ghiardelli cups bittersweet chocolate chips
few drops of red food coloring
few drops of green food coloring

assembling the ingredients for meringue kisses
assembling the ingredients for meringue kisses

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line 3 large cookie sheets with waxed paper cut to size.

Separate whites from yolks. Set aside yolks for use in something else. Put whites into mixer bowl and let come to near room temperature.
With electric mixer and wire wisk attachment, beat egg whites until frothy.
Add cream of tartar to egg whites and beat the mixture until stiff.
Add sugar slowly, about 2 tablespoons at a time, and beat in thoroughly after each addition.
Continue to beat until mixture is glossy. Stir in Creme de Menthe.
With rubber spatula, fold in chocolate chips.
Put about half of mixture in a different bowl. Tint mixture in one of the bowls with red food coloring. Tint the other with green food coloring.
For each cookie, drop a heaping teasponful of the mixture onto a cookie sheet. Leave a bit of space between cookies for expansion and airflow.

spooning out the mixture for drop cookies
spooning out the mixture for the first tray of drop cookies

Put a tray in the oven and bake for about 20 – 25 minutes, or until just barely starting to brown and become dry and crunchy. Repeat with each of the other trays.
Meantime, let each tray cool somewhat and then remove cookies to a wire rack.

the meringue cookies baking
the second tray of cookies baking

After completely cooled and dried, store in a tightly sealed container or zipper bag. On the other hand, they probably won’t last long enough to store.

Makes about 90 festive meringue cookies. The red and green colors suggested in this recipe are for the Christmas holidays. Feel free to vary the colors for other holidays and special events such as Halloween, school colors for homecoming, etc.

TIP: If possible, make Kisses on a dry day. If it is humid, the meringue is more likely to “wilt”, and the cookies might tend to flatten out and lose their crispness.

~~~~~~~

The Creme de Menthe liqueur did not make the cookies as minty-flavored as I would have liked. But that might have been because the taste was overpowered by the fantastic aroma and taste of chocolate (i.e. 60% cacao Ghirardelli rather than the normal Nestles semi-sweet chocolate chip variety). No one can turn down good chocolate though. So even though these are not quite the traditional ones as I remember, they won’t last long.

Kisses

p.s. Some people also just turn the oven heat off immediately and “forget” the cookies for several hours. But this is not practical if doing a larger batch like this that takes more than two large trays and you have only one oven.

p.p.s. Now what do you suggest I use those egg yolks for? I am thinking egg custard or bread pudding? Other ideas?

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Cooking

Grilled Fish with Indian spice rub, cream and mustard

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Depending on the definition you adhere to, you may or may not consider a fish dish to be appropriate for Meatless Monday. In my definition, fish is not meat. It’s just fish. 🙂 Originally I had planned this blog post for a Monday. I didn’t finish it yesterday anyway, so maybe that is just as well for you guys that use a stricter definition of meat that includes fish. No matter … let’s get on and enjoy some more ideas about cooking good food.

Grilled Fish
Grilled Fish

Today  I am going to show you my version of one of the not-so-obvious dishes I stumbled across in Madhur Jaffrey’s Quick & Easy Indian Cooking. This is the cookbook I have been having fun going through this past year while learning some easy ways to prepare Indian-style food. The recipe I will be referring to is on page 68 and is simply called “Grilled Fish Steaks”.

There are no photos of this particular dish in the cookbook, so if you have the book (or might be getting it in the future), maybe my photos will be useful to you. And even if you don’t have the cookbook, you can probably follow my description of the basic ingredients and method to come up with your own ad hoc recipe.

By the name of the recipe alone, one might think this would be a healthy, low calorie dish. I did, at first, until reading further into the list of ingredients which included heavy whipping cream! But I justified that small indulgence by making a healthy choice of the fish I would use in this dish.

The recipe in the book calls for either fish steaks (which usually come with a central bone), or filleted chunks of haddock, salmon, or tuna i.e. fish with firm flesh that is firm enough to hold together like a steak. I didn’t have any of these, but neither is it unusual to let a little thing like that deter me. My local Sam’s store had a nice fillet of steelhead trout (which for all purposes is like wild-caught salmon).

steelhead trout fillet
steelhead trout fillet

Here is the fillet after I have removed the skin from the underside. My Victorinox 12-Inch Granton Edge Slicing Knife made this any easy job. While I was removing the skin, the skin side was down and I just skimmed the knife between the skin and the flesh. You can see how a a slight bit of silver-ish haze remains here and there on the side of the fillet that was next to the skin, but that is not going to hurt anything.

the fillet after skin removed on underside
the fillet after skin removed on underside

The ingredients for the rub mixture are salt (to your taste; I personally go quite light on this), freshly ground black pepper, turmeric, cayenne pepper, and garam masala. The recipe calls for heavy whipping cream, but I think half-and-half works fine (at least that’s only half as bad, lol). I don’t have the type of grainy mustard  called for in the book (Pommery Moutarde de Meaux), so I just used my favorite local Creole Mustard made by Zatarain’s.

ingredients for the rub and sauce
ingredients for the rub and sauce

The steps for assembling and cooking are pretty easy and straight forward. I place the fish on a large tray lined with foil. Dribble a bit of peanut oil over the fish, then pat half of the rub mixture into the flesh.

ready to start broiling the first side
starting to broil the first side

Broil about 4″ from heat source until starting to brown (start watching closely at about 2 minutes). Mix the mustard and cream together and brush half of it onto the fish.

fish brushed with mustard cream sauce
fish brushed with mustard cream sauce

Broil again another couple minutes until turning golden brown.

Flip the fish and repeat the rub and mustard cream sauce steps on the other side. Here is a photo of the completed dish. I’ve broken off a serving size of fish and placed it on a bed of plain brown basmati rice that I had cooked separately. I served with lime wedges, although you could use lemon wedges as called for in the cookbook recipe.

serving up the grilled fish
serving up the grilled fish

Bon appetit!

 

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