Knit night at Lettuce Knit

Maria and Joyce
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

Joyce and I designed a scarf to knit with my Silk Maiden. I casted on tonight and it’s working alone pretty nicely. I am so excited to finally be using this beautiful yarn. Everyone at complimented me on it. I’m gonna be wearing a nice colourful scarf in the middle of the cold dark winter. I’m so excited.

I also finally gave Stephanie the wedding present that I brought her from my trip to Mexico. It is a set of beautiful white placemats.
Here is a picture of us admiring our knitting and the placemats at the same time. I call it the Sears Catalog picture.

Here’s another picture of us posing and smiling and knitting and having a dandy time accompanied by some red wine (we actually put the wine aside for the picture, to give the impression that we don’t drink that much during drink night knit night).

Note that Joyce is picking peeking in the back. She totally wanted to get in all the pictures tonight.
So I took a special picture of her to show her how much I love her. She was winding some amazing 4 Ply Silk Cashmere for Bethany when I took the picture. Doesn’t she look like she’s having a great time?

Finally, a picture of some of the amazing yarn they have at Lettuce Knit. You can see Manos del Uruguay if you look to the right and left sides and Socks that Rock in the middle. Even though I am not a sock knitter, I can appreciate a pretty yarn. It’s beautiful!

Moebius

Moebius
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

I knitted a moebius for Eva. I used Malabrigo, about 3/4 of a skein and 9 mm Addi Turbos 43″ 60″ long. I used the standard moebius cast on and I was amazed at how easy it was.
It turned out really nice, I’m so excited!

James’s Scarf (an original Naked Knitgirl-design)

James’s Scarf
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

A few days ago James commented that he needed to buy a new scarf, I stopped him right there and told him that I would make one for him. He wanted it orange, so I stopped at Lettuce Knit to get 2 balls of yarn.
This is the final result, and I think it turned out pretty good. James went to Lettuce Knit with me yesterday and everyone was complimenting him on his scarf. It’s good to be complimented by a bunch of knitters!

Instructions

Finished length: 57 inches

Materials:
2 balls Araucania chunky 100% wool in contrasting colours. I chose orange (A) and brown (B). (these are beautiful kettled-dyed colours, I really recommend this wool).
Size 7 mm needles

Instructions:
Cast on 29 stitches with colour A. I used the cable cast on.

Row 1: with A *K2, P2*, repeat to last stitch, K1
Row 2: repeat Row 1
Row 3: With B *K2, P2*, repeat to last stitch, K1
Row 4: Repeat Row 3
Repeat rows 1-4 until almost out of yarn.
Cast off with B

A nice chunky rib turns out with this pattern, I hope you all enjoy my second original Naked Knitgirl-design ever.

Debit dilemmas

Want to go to a nice restaurant on a Friday night? Maybe make the weekly shopping at Dominion? Or stop at the LCBO for a six-pack? Do you want to buy a pound of coffee at Starbucks?
Well, I hope you have cash, because the debit (Interac) and credit card system is down. It’s cash or nothing.

Email me!

Huitlacoche enchiladas

On Monday I prepared another Mexican vegetarian dish for James, I made “enchiladas de huitlacoche”.
Huitlacoche, or corn smut is the mushroom (fungus) that grows on corn (or maize). Some people think it’s gross because it’s black, but it’s really delicious. It tastes like a combination of mushroom and corn. Here is the whole Wikipedia article on corn smut (link).
There are two steps in making the enchiladas. The first is the huitlacoche filling.
Go to Kensington Market and get a can of huitlacoche at Perola’s.
You will also need onion, garlic, serrano chiles, corn oil and salt. The challenge here is actually figuring out the amounts, since I just chopped the ingredients and made the filling without measuring. I used about 3/4 of an onion, 4 cloves of garlic and 3 chiles.

Place the onion, garlic and serrano chiles in the food processor and chop.

Saute the onion+garlic+chile combination with a pinch of salt on medium heat and about 2 teaspoons of oil.

When the onion is brown, add the contents of the can of huitlacoche and saute for about 10 minutes at reduced heat. The huitlacoche is black, do not be turned off by that.
Do not add more salt since the canned huitlacoche is usually already salted.

Set aside and proceed to make the sauce.

The ingredients for the green sauce are:
Tomatillos, onion, garlic, cilantro, serrano chile and the “secret” ingredient, a teaspoon of Knorr vegetable broth. Again I don’t have specific amounts, I just calculated according to what I had.

Chop all the ingredients in the food processor until smooth. This is a really good green salsa and you can keep some of it for later use on quesadillas or tacos.

For the enchiladas you need to cook the salsa, I used about 2 teaspoons of corn oil and cooked it in a pot simmering for about 12 minutes.

To make enchiladas, the tortillas have to be fried. I calculated 3 enchiladas per person, so I fried 6 tortillas. This has to be done at the last minute because you don’t want the tortillas to be cold and soggy when your guests eat.

To serve the enchiladas, just after frying the tortilla, fill each one with some hot huitlacoche filling, fold them and cover them in sauce. Serve with sour cream on top. I also served a side of sliced avocado.

Here’s a link to my previous enchilada recipe, another vegetarian meal that I prepared for James back in May, corn enchiladas.

Hope you enjoy your corn smut (it really tastes good, even if it sounds gross it’s actually a delicacy). Contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Email me!

Who took like 1,000 pictures of Frank with my camera during the party?

Email me!

Full House

Full House
Originally uploaded by ravenswift.

“Maria’s place is pretty small, and pretty… white. I was shocked when she said we were allowed to wear our shoes in… and even more shocked when she dropped her chicken wing!”

Yeah, I was pretty laid back. I guess it was the excitement from the party!
Go here to check out all the other pictures Kari took.

More pictures from my birthday

Natalie (the big winner)
Originally uploaded by Kaivalya.

Jayme posted great pictures from the party. Here’s a picture of Natalie during the Fatass contest. She was the big winner. Here’s another picture, it’s James setting up the candles (doesn’t he look cute in his tie?).

James places the candles
Originally uploaded by Kaivalya.

Mmmh, cake!

Here’s the link to all her picture sets. Link,

The party went well

There were more than 20 people in my tiny apartment.


There were three volunteers for the Fatass contest (Rannie, Joey and Natalie), the tiniest smallest person at the party won it (Natalie).
I was excited to see so many of my friends together.

There were chicken wings, nachos and cake. And lots of booze, yaaaah.

Email me!

Thanks everyone for the congratulations and birthday wishes.

I had a really nice day. I was able to leave work at 5 and had time to go to the LCBO and to Loblaws to stock up for the people who are coming on Saturday. Later I went for dinner with James at Fressen; just two words: “extra delicious”. We ended the evening with a nightcap at the Flatiron (OK, it was a pint).

But the most exciting part of the day, I got surprise flowers delivered to my office:

We saw the flowers arrive and everyone at the office was excited about them. It was a total surprise and we were all speculating about who could have sent them. They turned out to be from my beloved Clara. She won’t be able to come to my house on Saturday so she sent the flowers to make up for it.
I love them!

I also got Maria cookies from Linda. I loove them. We recently met these cookies when Eva brought me a pack from her trip to Holland. I ate a lot and tonight I brought a tube to Stitch ‘n Bitch at Lettuce Knit and shared them with everyone. It’s so exciting to have cookies that share your name.

Email me!