Three New Patterns and Stitches Midwest!

On Wednesday, August 5, I released three new patterns! Two of them were shawls that were inspired by my recent trips to the Republic of Georgia; Lenjeri is a lace pattern inspired by a small village in Svaneti, and Polyphony was my attempt to knit a tangible interpretation of the traditional 3-part vocal tunes prevalent in Georgia.

When Doug and I visited Lenjeri on our honeymoon, we were enamored with the greenery and flowers finding homes within cracks of stone walls. When Leading Men Fiber Arts gave me a skein of green merino-silk lace yarn (the Ghost Light base) at Vogue Knitting Live, I immediately associated that green (Envy) with the green I saw in that small village. Fortunately, I had the chance to return this summer with my Georgian Choir on a tour to learn folk songs.

I'm fascinated with traditional Georgian polyphony, most often sung in three parts with close harmony (each word links to a different style of three-part singing in the country--I could not decide). I decided to combine this fascination with my love for knitwear design, and came up with Polyphony, a warm, color-block stole with a lace center. I tried to make the colors work together to make a whole, as well as illustrating that the middle part in Georgian polyphony is often the most detailed. I knit it out of Leading Men Fiber Arts Show Stealer base (80% merino, 10% cashmere, and 10% nylon) in the colorways Dames At Sea, Dusty Quartz, and Sandcastle.

I modeled it by a river in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
The third pattern I designed for the Leading Men Fiber Arts boot at Stitches was a fun hat pattern called Zipadee, using elongated slipped stitches forming zig-zag zippers that meet at the top.

I knit it out of their Playbill base (dk weight single-ply merino) in the Seaweed colorway. It was a fun, quick knit after all the shawls!
On to Stitches! We set up the Polyphony wrap on the model next to several kits that Steve and Andy picked out to go with the pattern.

I had a wonderful time meeting other designers, fellow yarn-addicts, and seeing some old friends.

If you came by the booth, thank you! I loved the opportunity to meet you!

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Operation Berry Pie

This has been the summer of pies. Usually I attempt one pie per summer, then being discouraged by the amount of work involved, I put off my next attempt for the following summer. Not this year! For my husband's 40th birthday he requested "pie" as his type of cake, and since I figured there would be loads of people celebrating that weekend, I decided to bake two. This is indeed the answer, because yes, it is a lot of work. But if you put in the work and it results in twice as many pies, why, it's really only half the work per pie!
A couple weeks ago I made two berry pies, but forgot to look at a recipe when I started. Therefore, I had to fudge a little bit, and it resulted in everyone asking for my pie filling recipe! I had to think about it, and just to make sure, I recreated the pies.

First, I prepared the filling (remember, this is for 2 pies):

• 4 cups sliced strawberries
• 4 cups blueberries
• 2 cups rasperries
• 1 1/4 cups sugar

I mixed them together, making sure the berries were coated, and set it aside.

I then made the dough. I increased the recipe by a quarter because I can never seem to make a pie crust that drapes over the edge of the pan and still have enough for the lattice on top.

• 5 cups flour
• 1 2/3 cups ghee (you can use butter, shortening, or lard, but I prefer clarified butter)
• up to 16 tablespoons ice water

Cut the ghee into the flour, first using two knives, then a hand mixer (I like my mixers analogue), till the largest clumps of ghee are the size of small peas. You'll still have a lot of loose flour everywhere, but don't worry about that; that's the ice water's job.
Add one tablespoon of ice water and toss it around, then press the dough to the sides of the bowl. Repeat this until you can make a solid clump of dough that can be formed into a ball.
Seperate your dough into four pieces. Roll out your first two pieces into 12" diameter circles and drape them perfectly over the pie pans with no cracks or holes.

I'm far from professional, but I bet even the pros have to play doctor some. Now trim your perfectly-draped (sorry--I just realized that maybe not everyone would recognize the sarcasm here--that's sarcasm) pie crusts and cover with cling wrap and put in the fridge.
Roll your next two chunks into similar shapes, then use a pizza cutter to slice each one into eight 1 1/2" strips. Lay some cling wrap on a cookie sheet, then arrange one layer of strips, then another sheet of cling wrap, and a second layer of strips. Top with a third layer of cling wrap and place in your fridge.
By now, the sugar has probably robbed your berries of some juice. Set up a collander over a bowl, and slide the berry mixture into the collander. Wait a couple minutes for them to drain.
Reserve 3/4 cup of the syrup for the pie. With the rest, I recommend sweetening a pitcher of black iced tea.
Pour your reserved syrup into the bowl where the berries were. Add:

• 4 Tbsp Minute Tapioca
• 3 Tbsp lemon juice
• a dash of cayenne (optional, though I added 3 dashes and it was magnificent)
• 1 tsp each of cinnamon, ginger, and vanilla (extract)
• freshly grated nutmeg (does anyone ever measure grated nutmeg?)

Add the berries from the collander, mix, and let sit for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, with two racks arranged in the middle two slots. Place a large cookie sheet on the bottom rack.

Take out the pie crusts and strips from the fridge. When the berry mixture is ready, ladle it in to the pie crusts, equally. Arrange the strips on top of the mixture in a woven lattice, then crimp the edge of the pie crust with your fingers. Seperate an egg and reserve the whites in a small bowl, and paint the egg white onto the lattice. Sprinkle sugar on top, generously, but don't go overboard.

Place your pies in the oven for 25 minutes. Rotate them, then turn the heat down to 350 degrees F. Cook for another 30 minutes. Take them out and let them cool to room temperature.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

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Roasted Almonds: A Formula

Recently I've been on a not-so-much sugar kick. It's several steps less virtuous than a no-sugar diet; I'll have dessert once a week (or maybe twice or three times...depends on the week), and then stick to fruit and leftover dinner for snacks.
This slight change in my diet has definitely made my baking-brain feel ignored. I want to be creative! I want to make you, my host body, something sweet to nosh on after you get home from work! OK, baking-brain, OK. I hear you. Let's make some honey-roasted almonds, and let's get them right!
A previous recipe I'd tried led to almonds that were stuck to wax paper like button candy. I tried it again, but moved it to the jar before it got to sticky, which resulted them to be stuck to the jar. This time I thought, "hey! My cooling rack has been lonely since I stopped making cookies, maybe that would work?" and bam! slightly-sticky honey-roasted almonds! They still stick to the jar, but will un-stick once I give them a good shake.
Now, on to the formula. You will need:

• 2.5 cups raw almonds (Costco, all the way!)
• 1/4 cup dry sugar (white, brown, turbindo, any natural sugar in crystal form)
• 1/4 cup liquid sugar (honey, maple syrup, agave, molasses, etc.)
• 1 teaspoon water
• Get creative with your favorite spices! I use about 2 teaspoons total of spice.
• 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt, plus more for sprinkling
• Saucepan
• Cookie Sheet
• Wax paper (if using parchment, wet it with a little oil.)
• Cooling rack (with holes small enough that an almond won't slip through)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pour the liquid and dry sugars and teaspoon of water into the saucepan and heat on medium until the dry sugar dissolves into the liquid. Lower heat and add the spices and salt, mixing until well incorporated. Add the almonds, stirring until each one is coated with the sweet, spicy, syrup. Turn off heat.
Line a cookie sheet with wax paper, then pour the sticky lump of almonds onto it. Use a spatula to spread them into an even layer, then slide the pan into the preheated oven.
Bake for 10-15 minutes, or whenever the smell reminds you that you had something in the oven. Maybe don't leave the room if your method is the latter.
Take out the pan, let it cool for a couple minutes, then lift the wax paper carefully by the corners and slide the almonds onto a cooling rack. Use the spatula to even them out.
Throughout the next hour, revisit the cooling rack, breaking the almonds apart as they dry.
After an hour, or as soon as needed if this is a last-minute present for someone and you need to get to their party RIGHT MEOW, transfer almonds to a jar or a bowl.
The two kinds of almonds I made with this formula are quite fun.

Smoky, Spicy Almonds

• 1/4 cup honey (liquid sugar)
• 1/4 cup white sugar (dry sugar)
• 1 teaspoon each of smoked paprika and chipotle (get creative with spices)

All the other ingredients were the same as the formula. These have a deliciouse, warm flavor. If I had hicory smoke powder I totally would have added that, but the smokiness was definitely present with the paprika and chipotle!

Vemont Vampire-Hunter Almonds

• 1/4 cup maple syrup (liquid sugar)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (dry sugar)
• 1 clove minced fresh garlic
• 2 teaspoons Gateway To The North seasoning from the Spice House (this contains a mix of maple sugar, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt, so if you don't have access to this mix, try using a teaspoon of garlic powder and a smidge more brown sugar.)

Add the minced fresh garlic to the saucepan at the same time as the sugars and water. Other than that, everything is the same as the formula!

Did you come up with a creative combination? Let me know in the comments!

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