Tag: recipe

Knitting

Knitting and Pancakes, Love ‘Em Both!

Iris Rose

Here we are, almost into April! My goodness how the time passes by when you are not looking.  I have been busy this week.  Two new charity hats are in the bag and I have knit three babies and two mermaid dolls.  I have a big bag of unfinished dollies now so I better get to work on the sewing and stuffing.

I have been procrastinating about publishing my little cardigan pattern. I finally finished the test knits and have them blocked so will push myself to get the final draft of the pattern out next week.
In the meantime, I have been playing with my knitting machine (still) and spent my spare time this week embellishing a little pullover with crocheted appliques. I was hoping to finish it yesterday but, life, you know how that goes. Here is the almost finished sweater. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I used to make a baby version of this but haven’t done one for a while. I never write this type of finishing down, I should but I do love the creative process of just winging it!


Do you have plans for this long weekend? We are having the family over for a visit and dinner on Saturday. I can’t wait! I always love to see my kids and grandkids. I always like to make a special breakfast for DH and myself on Easter Sunday. I think that this year I will make pancakes with my homemade sausage and cook a couple of eggs as well. If you missed my pancake recipe that was featured in a prior post and would like to make it this weekend, here it is again. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Iris Rose’s delicious pancakes:
These ingredients will make two very large (plate sized) pancakes.
3 Tbsps of butter
Melt the butter in a 9” or 22cm frying pan over medium heat. I use two pans to cook both pancakes at once and melt butter in each. You will be using the excess butter in the pancake batter but leave some to brown with the batter.
1 cup of flour
1 & 1/2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
Combine these ingredients in a bowl big enough to hold the wet ingredients too.
1 egg
2 Tbsps honey or maple syrup
1 cup of buttermilk (Don’t have any buttermilk? Just add a tsp of vinegar to plain milk or mix in a good dollop (2Tbsps) of sour cream or yogurt to plain milk to make a cup.)
I mix these ingredients using a 2 cup measuring cup in the following order: beat the egg, beat in the honey or syrup, mix in the buttermilk.
Pour most of the melted butter into the wet ingredients and stir. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet. Mix with a few quick stirs until all of the dry stuff is wet. Don’t worry about lumps and don’t overmix.
Pour half of the batter into each pan. Here is where you make them fun. Top the batter with sliced banana, sliced peaches, blueberries, sliced apples, you get the picture.
If you want savory pancakes, top the batter in the pan with cooked diced ham, cooked sliced mushrooms, grated cheese, shrimps and so on.
When the pancake has some bubbles that pop and is starting to look dry around the edges, be brave and flip the whole thing over. Your added goodies should have sunk into the batter and will cook while the second side is cooking. I wait a couple of minutes and turn off the stove at this point as there should be enough heat in the pan and the cooked side to finish the pancake without burning your yummy addons.
In a couple of more minutes, flip the pancake onto a plate and admire the pretty pattern made by the additions. Serve with syrup, preferably maple, and enjoy!

Knitting

Baking for Breakfast

Iris Rose

I like to bake on Sundays.  I usually make bread for the coming couple of weeks and make biscuits or scones or muffins for our breakfast bread.  Last Sunday, because I hadn’t baked for a couple of weeks and my freezer was empty, I really went to town and made bread and muffins and biscuits.

                                                                                      

Multigrain buns, plain biscuits and Blueberry Orange Muffins, breakfast taken care of for the next little while!

Today, instead of yarn crafts, I am sharing my Orange (or Lemon) Blueberry Muffin recipe with you.  I make them in the large, six cups per pan, muffin pans but you can easily make them in the smaller, dozen cup pans.  The recipe makes twelve large or twenty-four regular muffins.  They freeze well and thaw quickly for a quick breakfast.

Start by setting your oven to 375 degrees and either lining your pans with paper cups or spritzing them with cooking spray.

Muffins:

4 cups of flour (all white or half white and half whole wheat

½ cup sugar

2 Tbsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

Zest of two small oranges or one large orange or one lemon

 

Mix these together in a large bowl.

4 eggs

½ cup oil (canola or your favourite one)

Juice of the orange(s) or lemon that you zested

3 ¾ cups buttermilk

 In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, beat in the oil with the eggs, add the juice and buttermilk and stir well to mix all together.

 2 cups fresh or frozen, unthawed blueberries

 Add the blueberries to the dry ingredients and stir gently.  Make a well and pour in the wet ingredients all at once.  Stir until just mixed, do not beat.

Fill the prepared muffin pans to just under the top edge.  Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until lightly golden and slightly cracked on top.  Like a cake, they will spring back when lightly tapped on the top.  Let them sit in the pan for about ten minutes before removing them to a rack to cool.

These are best fresh or frozen to keep longer than a day.  Enjoy!

Knitting

Love Shrimps? Easy dinner tonight!

Iris Rose

 

I like to cook, I really, really like to cook.  I find that putting together a dish that looks and tastes great is almost (and I did say almost) as satisfying as finishing that great sweater.

Earlier this week I put together a shrimp dish that hit the spot both in taste and eye appeal.  This recipe is for two but can be easily expanded to feed more.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did and we will be back to either knitting or crocheting next week with a neck warmer to match last week’s cable hat pattern.

Ingredients for main dish:

Shrimp, fresh or frozen, about 250g or ½ pound or more if you love shrimp as I do.

One zucchini, cubed

Four small tomatoes, cut into wedges

One clove of garlic, chopped

¾ cup of cream or whole milk

1 Tbsp of butter

¼ cup of mixed chopped herbs (I used parsley, basil and sorrel)

Pepper to taste

½ cup grated parmesan cheese (fresh is best)

Fettuccini for two

 

Marinade for shrimp:

¼ cup olive oil

2 Tbsp lemon juice

¼ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp garlic powder

¼ tsp chili flakes

Mix all of these in a sealable food bag or container.  Add the fresh or thawed shrimps and refrigerate for a couple of hours. 

For the main dish, start with bringing a pot of water to the boil for the pasta.  Start the pasta cooking.  In a sauté pan over medium high heat, melt the butter and cook the zucchini until it just starts to soften.  Add the chopped garlic and stir it to release the fragrance.  Start heating a second pan for the shrimp.  Add the tomatoes to the zucchini and stir.  When the tomatoes are hot, pour in the cream, stir it quickly and then add one half of the cheese.  Turn down the heat to low.  Place the shrimp, without the marinade in the waiting hot pan and cook until done, turning half way through.  This should only take a couple of minutes, don’t overcook.

Drain the pasta and, dividing in half, serve on two plates, top with the sauce and the rest of the cheese.  Serve the shrimp over the pasta sauce and serve.