Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream and Chocolate

The colours are a bit wonky in this one, but there's only so much I could try using my primitive editing program...the kiwis looked much better than above.

I made this fruit tart a couple weeks ago when D's parents came to visit, and it turned out well - tasty and pretty. The recipe is from the Bouchon cookbook, which I can't post, but it's easy enough to make something very similar. Martha Stewart lists this pate sucree recipe that is practically identical to the one I used. For a thick pastry cream, try this recipe, which uses cornstarch instead of flour (you may want to increase the cornstarch - if it is too thick after cooking, you can always loosen it slightly by adding a little milk).

After your tart crust has cooled, brush the bottom with melted chocolate before topping with pastry cream and fruit. This was how they made all the tartlets at my old bakery, which I thought was pretty common to prevent sogginess, but everyone I served it to commented how much they liked the chocolate, so it's worth mentioning I suppose.

Off to my volunteer shift - see you later!

Wee Update

The Knitticrafty household is seeing some big changes this year. First a house...

...and now Gatsby is getting a sibling!

I've been sitting on our happy news for a while, and now seems as good a time as any to share it. We'll get to meet the wee one in February, and in the meantime I've got lots of little baby projects in mind to keep me busy. I figure that once baby arrives, my crafting life will be put on hold indefinitely. Must fit in as much as possible between now and then!

Today was a good finishing morning - I finally sewed in loose ends, kitchener-stitched toes together, and blocked. Here is my first FO for baby, the placket neck pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I know, I've already made it four other times, but it's just so cute. And you can't beat the minimal seaming - it's all knit in the round! The yarn is Kraemer Tatamy Tweed DK, an acrylic cotton blend that should be easy to machine wash. It's made right here in Nazareth, PA too!

Yarn: Kraemer Tatamy Tweed DK in Birch
Needles: US 7 dpns and circulars
Pattern: Placket Neck Pullover (Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Hoverson)

Next up, my mom's socks are done!! Yippee! I don't think she'll mind the fact that one is slightly taller than the other - can you tell in the photo? I guess I over-enthusiastically added half a pattern repeat. Not sure how that happened since I was trying to follow the chart...

Yarn: 2 skeins of Plymouth Happy Feet (from Conversational Threads in Emmaus),
with enough leftover for a pair of baby socks
Needles: US2 dpns
Pattern: Pomotamus Socks

Amelia is coming along as well...I've got the sleeves pretty much done, minus a couple more increases on one arm, and I've got about 4 inches to go on the body. Sadly, this cardigan is not going to fit around the girth of my ever-expanding middle - I should be able to button it up at the top for now. I've made a few mods so far: cast on for size 34" sleeves, but for the body I cast on 191 stitches to get approximately a 36" size (the pattern jumps from 34" to 38") and I played around with the positioning of the stitch markers to get more or less the right ribbing placement. I'm a little worried about washing this yarn...I touched it with a wet hand a few weeks ago and ended up with deep teal streaks across my palm. There's probably something I can wash it with to help set the colour or remove the excess dye.



Have a great week! I'm off to knit night tonight for a piece of chocolate cake...mmm.

Beef Liver Pate

Check out my pretty liver pate, made with the other half portion of grass fed beef liver:

The recipe was really simple, and quite tasty - I have unintentionally been on an Emeril kick lately...somehow all his recipes keep popping up whatever I search for. His calls for chicken livers, which I think would be smoother, sweeter and lighter-tasting. Nonetheless, D gave a thumbs up for this version. I made him eat it on crackers with lunch which he (politely acted as if he) enjoyed.


The recipe made enough for three small ramekins, so I froze two of them. Apparently they freeze really well, but who knows when I will want to dig these out from the ice box again.

Gatsby seemed to be curious about the liver, and was making it a challenge for D to eat his lunch. That, or he was still mad at us for going on vacation without him, and in need of some cuddles at the most inconvenient times...

More socks and a blanket

Seems I have been very eager about casting on for new knitting projects! I've been working away on all of them, but it's getting to that point where nothing seems to be getting closer to being done. Once again, I'm making the Pomatomus socks (my fourth pair), which I'm giving to my mom. I love how it looks in solid yarns! I honestly tried to pick a different pattern, but it just didn't look as good.

The pinwheel blanket is for one of many babies I know that are due early next year. The baby rush is still going strong!

Other news: I was officially chosen to be on the board of directors for my volunteer gig. Pretty exciting! Sounds important, doesn't it? First meeting is at the beginning of next month. It's nice to have a 'real' position to make up for not being able to work just yet.

Knitting and Pottery

Spending a week in Deep River was not only very nice family time, but very productive crafting time. There was lots of knitting and pottery, along with some good beaching, kayaking and swimming. And some good butter tarts.

I started the worsted-weight Amelia cardigan by Laura Chau, using Valley Yarns Northampton in Ocean Heather. It'll be fall before you know it, and I'm getting a start to my cooler-weather knitting. One skein has so far gotten me through 1.5 sleeves, which is good because I only have four more skeins left. I think I'll make it.

We tagged along to the pottery studio and played with clay while D's mom worked on new pieces for her display at the Valley Artisan's Guild (click to see some of her work!). Inspired by a photo, D made this cute Trojan horsey donut on wheels:

I managed to throw two rice bowls in a row that looked decent, despite not having been near a wheel in a year! Those cylinders, I tell you...I think it was a plot to prevent us beginners from making too many pieces and crowding the kiln.


I asked D's mum for a brown glaze with ash spots that I think will look really cool, here's hoping they turn out!

Today is the first day of school at D's college, all the eager young kiddies coming to class, probably terrified and getting lost on campus left and right. It made driving a pain in the arse because they were all J-walking all over the place. I told D he should really give them a good scare and tell them how hard his class was going to be...hehe. Seeing as it's not first day of school for me, I am going to spend the afternoon knitting, cooking, shopping, and doing some general organizing. Salmon cakes are on the menu for tonight. No more liver for me!

In Which I am Determined to like Liver

I knew someone once who was determined to like sea urchin roe, even though it disgusted him every time he tried it. When I asked him why, he seemed puzzled and said he hadn't really thought about it, finally concluding that it seemed like he should be able to like it, that as an amateur foodie he ought to overcome this food phobia, and that the challenge of it made the whole thing more exciting. I thought he was weird.

I have found my sea urchin roe nemesis. It is called Beef liver. It is one of those things I think I can and will enjoy, and in my mind has a particular appeal to it - in fact, I can actually imagine how it tastes, and it tastes good. Crispy fried, tender on the inside, with onions, bacon and gravy, I am drooling thinking about it. It has been a few years since I had the desire to try liver (last time was around 2005, I think, not a particularly successful attempt), but earlier this summer, I read a passage in Julie and Julia that reinstated the bizarre urge. In the book, she describes a delicious-sounding calf liver dish that is pan-fried, then baked with breadcrumbs in a delectable sauce that is creamy, rich and wonderful. Ooh. How could that possibly not be enjoyable? Second time's a charm?

Enthusiastically, I bought a pound of grass-fed, organic beef liver but continually chickened out of making it. What if I hated it? What if I could never like liver? It stared at me every time I opened the freezer door. I had returned the copy of Julie and Julia, so I couldn't turn back to it for inspiration. Then last week, after several discussions about cooking liver with D's mum and uncle, I finally got the nerve to cook this thing.

A pound is a lot for two people, so I would use half for our dinner, and half for a pate. I forgot to get D's mum's recipe before we left Deep River, so I used an Emeril recipe I found online - Calf's Liver with Bacon, Caramelized Onions and Sherry. Title sounded good.

Here is a tiny tiny photo stolen from Food Network.
Sorry I don't have a picture, but I was too hot and grease-covered to think about pulling out the camera.

I soaked the liver in milk...caramelized onions...crisped bacon....breaded with seasoned flour...pan-fried to a beautiful golden brown...deglazed the pan with sherry...made a delicious gravy with some beef stock and mustard...it smelled sooo good. D kept hovering about the kitchen, unable to resist the enticing smells of frying onions, bacon, butter and booze. We plated it up with some mashed potatoes and dug in. The verdict? Tasty! Yummy! ...at first. I actually really enjoyed the first 5 or 6 bites I had. It was perfectly cooked, still tender inside. The sauce was great. But then suddenly it tasted too grainy, iron-y, livery and the texture and flavour started grossing me out. Plus, the thinner part of the liver cutlet tasted more liver-y than the thicker part, which I didn't like. Maybe I overcooked those bits.

To be fair though, the recipe itself was a success, if you were a capable, normal-eater of beef liver. D seemed to thoroughly enjoy his plate and polished off practically the whole thing. He informed me that if I didn't like this dish, than I would probably never like liver. My conclusion is that my liver enjoyment limit, served as a dinner entree, is a maximum of 3-4 ounces and must be disguised in breading and smothered with lots of sauce and bacon.

That still left me with the other half pound of liver to contend with. I couldn't face cooking more liver (even for a pate), so I left it until this morning to sort out. I made the pate this morning and it is now sitting in three cute little ramekins in the fridge, mellowing and developing its flavours. I am so sick of tasting beef liver pate. I still have a lingering liver taste in my mouth and throat even after brushing my teeth twice. I think the pate is good, but I'll have to ask D. I'll report back on that.

I haven't given up on hope on chicken and duck livers. I'm thinking that it's the beefiness I am averse to, and I've read that chicken is milder, sweeter and silkier in texture. I hope all this perseverance is rewarded.

Big Bad Baby Blanket

First, some chatter, and then the baby blanket.

How on earth did it get to be July already?! I've really been slacking with my blogging (sorry!), but it really doesn't feel like that long between posts until I check the last date. When I started the blog, I wasn't sure how much I'd be actively posting, but 2008 was a pretty good blog year, and I credit that to being much busier (with work) and thus motivated to multitask and write about all the things going on. Crafting for me seems to be directly related to how busy I am - growing substantially the busier my schedule is. The other change this year, though, is that I've joined a knitting group and I think that has become my new outlet for showing my finished crafts. And once I've shown it there, or talked about it there, I guess I feel less like writing about it on my blog a second or third time...but since I know you are all dying to see new crafts, I suppose I can try a little harder. :)

My other excuse is that June and July have been incredible busy for us. I think I mentioned a while back that we bought a house. Then we went on vacation for a week in June, and as soon as we got back we closed on the house, moved, and have been living in a state of semi-chaos up until now...I hope we never move again for a long time! Ugh! We love the house though, and it's great to be settling in. It looks a little bare, actually, since it's more space than we've ever had/needed. We're 95% there, but the last bit is always so hard to get done! We're lacking some serious closet space in the bedroom, I guess people didn't build houses with built-in closets in 1900.

Bakery work has been on hold since May...I've made a brief switch back to health care work, and I'm volunteering at a community non-profit organization for mental health, as well as the nearby hospital. In the fall however, I'm hoping to pick up a couple days at a bakery (or perhaps chocolate shop!) We'll be heading back to Toronto in a week or so - we're going to a wedding and looking forward to seeing friends and family very much. We'll be visiting all the babies that are sprouting up like crazy, and eating loads of delicious sushi and other Asian goodies. Yeah!

My recent knitting includes this baby blanket for baby Sophie, who was born on June 30. It's the Big Bad Baby Blanket pattern from Stitch n Bitch, knit in Bernat 100% cotton yarn, the biggest skein I have ever seen, and get this, not a single knot or break in this yarn the whole way through! It's probably about 400-500 yards total, I'll have to check.


Oh, and here are some pretty flowers from our garden! Unfortunately, Gatsby decided to eat have the bouquet and then promptly regurgitated it on the newly washed carpet. Dumb cat.