Pepperoni - home made!

J tweaks me in my cooking challenges and he came up with a new one - make home made pepperoni. He came across a good recipe. It's Tammy's Spicy Pepperoni and it's SUPER easy to make. It just takes time to do. I'd say this was a three day process - and you need another day to let the rolls rest.

Here's what it looked like coming out of the oven.
I let it rest in the fridge over night and broke out my food processor to make the slices thinner.

It is really great. We used a VERY lean ground beef and I left out the crushed red pepper because M doesn't like spicy food. Next time I'll add it. It needs a little kick. I could also look at rolling it in black pepper next time, too!

Oh, and the following pizza is almost completely scratch made (I didn't make the tomato sauce). It's homemade crust (from the ABI5M), homemade mozzerella, and homemade pepperoni.


It was good.

I wish I had a better camera to do it justice.

Henson's 11

I was a huge Muppets fan as a teenager. This mash up made me laugh.

FO - Chemo Hat #2 for Edythe

Just another hat. Have one more on the needles and am thinking about making her a fourth.

FO - Chemo Hat #1 for Edythe

Just need to add a button to it. Will break out my FIMO clay to do that.



Yarn: Cascade Fixation
Pattern: Pi Topper Hat from Elann.com

FO - Hillary the Mermaid

This is crocheted and I was so slow at making it.

I am Officially a Hick

At least that's what J says. And here's why:

I am now the owner of a 1998 Pink Red Rider BB gun. Look in the trees - yes, they're can's of Schlitz tied to yarn and thrown into the trees. I use them for target practice.

For the record, guns scare the pants off of me but I do like to shoot targets with them. This is the first gun that has ever been allowed into my home. I needed to "shoot" off some steam. It's a lot of fun. I have never killed a living animal with a gun to date, but if those squirrels keep eating my sunflower seeds I have out for the birds, I may be tempted.

And, no, I won't shoot my eye out. I have protective eye glasses!

Got the LeGare working

And here's my first 2 x 1 sock done with a 54/36 combo.

I'm not happy with the selvage - seems like it's too loopy. Any of you CSM'ers know how to fix this?

Oh, and these are being modeled by my 7 year old. She's getting so big.

Passap is broken

Well, the other day I finally spent some time with the Passap and found that the yarn changer was broken - as in, I need to get a replacement part or the thing won't work kind of broken.

Damn.

Episode 011 - Siphoning Your Beer to the Bottling Bucket

I for the life of me couldn't figure out how to siphon my beer using the racking cane that came with my kit. This is a GREAT video that shows you how to do it.

FWIW, I bought what's called an Auto Siphon. Even though I've seen the video I'm blogging about, I would still go out and pay the $12 it cost for the auto siphon.

http://sdcollins.home.mindspring.com/AutoSiphon.html

10 years ago

I was studying to become a licensed professional Engineer. After the test (May) we had to wait for results. In order to keep sane, I made this rocket:
I passed, but the rocket didn't survive. :(

I loved that rocket. It was supposed to go 16,000 feet (not a typo - We had the FAA on the line to make sure we wouldn't hit any airplanes) into the air and return. It disappeared into a cloud, never to be seen again.

Where the hell did the time go?

I have succumbed to the dark side

I recently had an opportunity pop up when I mentioned on one of my many knitting lists that I started to feel the pull to buy a flat bed knitting machine. Well, one of these kind ladies offered up *her* Passup Duomatic 80 as she never was able to make it work well.

I am now the proud owner of a Passap Duomatic 80, complete with the Forma and Deco extensions.

Now I'll definitely have to join the D/FW Machine Knitter's Guild.

Daddy. . .

will you come out and watch the sunset with me?
(You can't really see it here, but they're sitting on large rocks being sweet to each other.)

We had a difficult, emotional day yesterday. M knew just what to do to diffuse the whole thing.

Machine Knitting

I took the LeGare 400 apart into all it's various little bits and let them soak in some Marvel Mystery Oil.
I let the machine soak for about a month - ostensibly because I wanted to let it soak, but really it's because there were SO many small parts that I was intimidated by the darn thing.

J's one of those people who is really good for me as he doesn't let me stay intimidated for long.

So this weekend I finally sat down and put the darn thing back together - and didn't have a single bit put out of place.

Yay for me!

Bad news, though: I need a new yarn carrier and possibly a new yarn mast. I stripped the threads on the end of the yarn mast. The yarn carrier keeps hitting the needles and isn't able to be adjusted. That's okay. I love the carrier I bought from Roxanna. I'll just have to get another.

The hootch

I have over 100 bottles of home brew in various states. (Each crate in the stack holds 30 bottles and the top one has about half). The crate on the floor holds the clean empties.


I've actually started a Beer Calendar on Google to keep track of what's drinkable. We put letters on top of the bottles to denote what it is.

A = American Lager (from the "just add yeast & water" kit - excellent beer)
B = Bock (Just tasted one over the weekend and it needs another week so we can get rid of that yeasty taste)
C = Continental Light (Now it's called German Light)
R = Red (the bad batch that ended up working out okay)

I'll need to come up with a different letter for the stuff located in the Secondary right now as A for Amber won't work out.

J has been intrigued by the recent postings of people making wine out of Welches grape juice. So we ran by our favorite beer making place (Foreman's General Store in Colleyville). Here's our first crack at making wine - that yeast really made it active! It also drastically changed the color from a thick Mogen-David color to something lighter.

The bottles are from some cheap wine we purchased and consumed.

We'll see how it turns out.

Garden

I stumbled on the idea to use newspaper for seedling pots. We've planted carrots, squash, peas, peppers, and arugula. AND!!


I'm actually using my greenhouse. . .

We also planted onions, rosemary & potatoes

And we also planted a spearmint plant:

I'm hoping that will take over.

J got a true kick out of me while I was planting the seeds. "Hey, this looks like the seeds in "

We kicked around a lot when I was a kid. We were never living in one place long enough to plant a garden. I'm still nervous none of this is going to work or that it's going to be too much work.

Time will tell.

2009 Books

1. Naamah's Kiss by Jacqueline Carey
2. Cemetary Dance by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston
3. The Fire by Katherine Neville (lame ending)
4. Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child (predictable)
5. A Dangerous Man by Charlie Huston (quick read)
   
6. The Devil's Eye by Jack McDevitt
   
7. City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
   
8. Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey
   
9. From Dead to Worse by Charlain Harris
   
10. Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin
    
11. Dead and Gone by Charlain Harris
    
12. Storm Front by Jim Butcher
13. Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher (read 1/2 - decided to read first in series)
14. Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce
    
15. Terrier by Tamora Pierce
    
16. Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston
    
17. Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston
    
18. The Last Colony by John Scalzi
    
19. Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
    
20. The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
    
21. Old Man's War by John Scalzi
22. Tiger in the Well by Phillip Pullman
23. Shadow of the North by Phillip Pullman
24. The Ruby in the Smoke by Phillip Pullman

2009 FO's

Grumpasaurus
Felted Day Pack
CSM Socks
CSM Socks
CSM Socks
Heart for M

2008 FO's

Baby Sweater
Baby Surprise Jacket
Small Pocketbook
Flamingo
Easter Bunny
Trinomial Cube Afghan
CSM Sock - First Ribbed Sock
CSM Sock - Size 10
CSM Sock - Size 13
Charity CSM Baby Hats
Binary Hat
CSM Sock - Comfort Southland
CSM Sock - Comfort Hari Hari
Four Pairs CSM Socks - Knit Picks Essential & Felicity
Another CSM Sock - Comfort Yarn
CSM Sock - Comfort Yarn
First pair of CSM socks
Lucy Bag
Jaywalker Ankle Socks

More comments on Twilight

I noticed I got a comment from an anonymous commenter regarding my hate for Twilight.

First off, I love reading vampire novels and have read several.

Twilight just pisses me off. The novel just kept going and going and NOTHING REALLY HAPPENED.

Basically, I can sum up Twilight for you

1. Girl moves to cold place to live with a dad she really doesn't know.
2. Girl finds out the boy she likes is a vampire.
3. NOTHING HAPPENS with the boy/vamp.
4. The vamps have a baseball game and a psycho vamp decides he wants to kill the Girl.
5. Girl runs away from estranged dad to be tracked down by psycho vamp.
6. Boy/vamp kills psycho vamp.

The End.

There are better vamp books out there. Really.

The Susie Stackhouse series is the best, IMHO. There are others that are good, but Twilight is just filled with NOTHING.

I'm a fan of good story lines. I also really wanted Twilight to be a good book. I was very disappointed.

FO - Grumpasaurus

I mentioned that I finished a Grumpasaurus. Here he is in all his cuteness.


I'm also knitting a Super-sized Captain Underpants. I'll post the modified pattern once I have all the details worked out. Here's a progress photo.


Here's where I am on the crocheted Mermaid. I was waiting on getting some peach colored Berroco Comfort. That and I also got some Comfort Chunky for the hair.

I also finished a pair of CSM socks for my mom. I'll post a photo later.