Stuffed

Unfortunately, it's not the kind of stuffed that you get post-holiday. Out of control allergies + cold from flu shot = major cold. Boo! I thought that at least being in bed I could catch up on some knitting, but my head and chest is so clogged that I can't really do anything requiring coordination and concentration.

I did have a nice holiday though. A friend from high school with whom I recently reconnected came over on Thursday night. Then, a bunch of friends came over on Friday for a dumpling / potsticker wrapping party. We even made the skins from scratch!

The one productive thing that I did today was to relist some stuff in my etsy shop. I've been severely neglecting the shop and have not posted anything new. I do have stuff, but I haven't gotten around to photographing them. You'd think that relisting is simple, just clicking a button. It generally is, but I have been without internet for nearly 2 days! waaaahhhh! My wireless connection decided to go kaput and I've been trying to fix it in between naps to no avail. I'm not computer whiz, so I just now discovered and realized that I can plug my laptop to the network.

Anyway, I relisted some of my buttons:

Roasted Garlic Rosemary Mashed Potatoes

Every year, for Thanksgiving and other holiday feasts, I try to have people over for an "orphan" feast. Basically, I invite friends who aren't going home, don't want to or don't have family for a feast. I've been making my signature Roasted Garlic Rosemary Mashed Potatoes since I was about 20. I've decided to share my recipe! The only thing is that I don't really follow a set recipe and I don't really measure, and every year I make it a little different. So, use this more as a guideline and adjust to your own tastes.

I think fresh and organic always better, so I buy as much from the local farmer's market and organic as possible.

Serving Size: A big giant bowl of potatoes

Ingredients:

• 4-5 whole heads of garlic
• 3 large russet potatoes; whole, washed and unpeeled.
• 3-4 small to med. yukon gold or red potatoes; whole, washed, unpeeled.
• 1 large bunch of fresh rosemary; washed and dried.
• 1 tsp rosemary, very finely chopped (minced)
  
• 4-5 tbsp butter (or more if you like yours super buttery)
• 1 pint half and half (you won't be using all of it)
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• parsley
• optional: cream cheese, sour cream, parmesan and/or mozarella cheese

Roasting the Garlic (prepare this ahead of time):

1. Cut off the top of the garlic heads so that you expose the cloves. Don't cut so much off that you waste all your garlic. For the odder shaped heads, sometimes I take a paring knife and cut off the tops on the cloves that grow weird on the side.
   
2. Place 3-4 sprigs of rosemary on the bottom of a baking dish then put in the garlic heads with the tops facing up. I use a medium-sized glass baking dish, about 8" in diameter.
   
3. Drizzle olive oil over the garlic heads, so that nearly all the rosemary is covered. Cover the dish with heavy foil (or double layer a thin foil) and bake in the oven at 375 degrees until garlic is tender, brown and a little carmelized. A toaster oven works for this too. It usually takes about 30-40 minutes.
   
4. Remove from the oven and let cool.
   

Making the Potatoes:

1. Boil the potatoes in a giant pot with some salt and the rest of the rosemary until the potatoes are done and a fork can piece the potato easily. Be sure to check the potatoes and take out the smaller ones first. Don't overcook them. Let the potatoes cool a little bit and peel the skins off. Be careful, because the potatoes will still be hot. A paring knife helps me lift the skins so I don't burn all my fingers.
   
2. Put the potatoes in a big bowl. Squeeze out the garlic from about 2.5-3 heads, add butter, salt, pepper and some of the oil from the roasted garlic. The garlic should come out easily, if you have some trouble or don't want to get your hands all oily, use a cocktail fork to aid in this process.
   
3. Start mashing the potatoes and slowly add half and half until it reaches the consistency you want. I think lumpy potatoes go best with the roasted garlic.
   
4. Then add additional garlic, salt and pepper as necessary to taste. Stir in the finely chopped rosemary and parsley.
   
5. Optional: Sometimes for extra flavor or richness, I add a little bit of sour cream, cream cheese or any other cheese to the potato mixture. If I add cheese, I usually make the potatoes a few hours or a day ahead, then I top the potatoes with a little more cheese and then pop the whole giant bowl (make sure it's oven safe) in the oven for about 1 hour at about 300 - 350 degrees.

I usually have more garlic than I need, which I set out also for guests who like to spread the garlic on bread, turkey, and anything else on the table. The roasted cloves will also keep in the fridge for few weeks -- simply place in a small jar with a little olive oil. The garlic can be used with fish, chicken, pasta, or anything else (ok, maybe not dessert)!

Sweater Surgery

Sweater Surgery is a book that is due to be released in May 2008. Guess who has some projects that will be featured in the book??

Yep. Me! The author, Stefanie, was looking for some ideas a while back, and I submitted several ideas, including Shelly. Stefanie said she remembered Shelly from our episode appearance on Uncommon Threads. Yay! I don't recall how many projects I ended up submitting -- probably around 6-7. I would've come up with more, but it was kind of a last minute thing. Anyhow, I think 2-3 of my projects were selected for the book, but I can't be sure exactly how many made it all the way through until I see it. Who knows? Maybe they did some last-minute editing. I sure don't want to get disappointed though, like with Magknits.

Oh, if you're intererested in making your own Shelly, you can get instructions here. A viewer recently emailed me about making a bunch of mini-Shellys for her grandchildren for the Holidays.

The book image from Amazon.

Relative

Excuse my recent absence from blogging. For the past 6 weeks, I've had a variety of visiting relatives from out of town, including in-laws from overseas. So, I've been playing the nice dutiful daughter-hostess. I haven't done much knitting during this time, and I only managed to sneak off to my knitting group once. I was getting serious withdrawals from not seeing my knitting friends. Having some sort of routine is actually refreshing, especially when it involves a wonderful hobby like knitting, and good people like the folks in my knitting group. Also, seeing my knitting friends always cheer me up, even when sometimes I feel so down that I don't want to leave the house or go. It's especially helpful this time of year, when I am reminded by my mother's passing and the passing of my childhood best friend, who died very tragically shortly after her birthday and right before Christmas when we were in 9th grade.

Anyway, my relatives have left and I can now resume my weekly knitting group meetings. Yay! And, I can work on my crafty things! Well, I was not totally devoid of crafty activities during these few weeks, I've been doing stuff like preparing for me and Aubrey's business ventures like ordering yarn (yay! how exciting!) and writing business operations policies (okay, not as fun). I will post some photos and share with y'all all the yummy yarns that have come in fairly soon.
For some time now, I have been talking about a pattern that I had submitted to Magknits, to which the editor had emailed me and said that she wanted to publish it in February or March 2007. When it didn't publish, I emailed the editor, who said that she was going to publish it in April. April, May and June came and went. After that I emailed the editor 2-3 more times -- all those emails were ignored and I received no response. I have no idea why she did not respond, and I certainly understand her perogative to change her mind about publishing my pattern, but all I wanted to know was whether Magknits had changed its mind and/or when my pattern was going to be published. Anyway...I think I will self-publish this pattern. I already formatted it and everything, but I think I want to test it on a different yarn. Here are photos of the lantern purse. I call it "Fu" for the character depicted on the lantern. Fu means fortune or luck in Mandarin Chinese.