I think it might be rhubarb

When someone asks me what my favourite fruit is, I have difficulty answering.  Sometimes I think it is wild blueberries.  More often I am certain it is peaches.  But I think it might actually be rhubarb.  Although, I don't think rhubarb is actually a fruit but rather a vegetable.  So it might actually be peaches and then I throw rhubarb into the ... what is your favourite vegetable? ... conversation.  Actually, the question is probably easier to answer there.  While I like all sorts of vegetables, rhubarb would win that contest with very little effort.

Anyway, it is rhubarb season ... yay!  And I plucked some from my garden tonight for a crisp.  The crop isn't too plentiful yet so I mixed in some strawberries I bought at the grocery store from California or some other non local source.  I usually like rhubarb straight up but with strawberries find that I don't need to add much sugar.  Regardless, it was excellent.  And I have lots left over for breakfasts this week!  What?  It's fruit (or even better, a vegetable) mixed with oatmeal.  Health food!

First Impression ... Yummy

We're having fava beans for dinner.  It is rare that I see them for sale anywhere around here.  I saw them at one farmers' market one time a few years ago so this is the second time I've eaten them.  I liked them the first time but they were cooked a lot and pureed into a spread with a lot of other flavours so I don't think I got a very good sense of their taste.

For today's recipe, I took them out of their shells, boiled them for about 8 minutes to remove the outer skin since they were quite large and tasted a couple.  Yummy.  Just before eating, I'll warm them up in a pan with a bit of cream and herbs.  Can't wait.

Small projects can really make you feel productive

It is a bit of a false economy, I suppose.  You feel like you are making such a big dent when in reality the yarn used for 3 projects probably amounts to less than a full ball.  But it doesn't matter.  I'm getting rid of those odd bits of yarn that I keep just in case and never use.  First up, two dish cloths from the book Yarnplay at Home.  The first one I quite like.  It ended up looking sort of woven.

The second, I like the pattern but I think it is just a little bit large and puffy for a dish cloth.  Hard to imagine using it to wash a glass.  I ran out of white so used up the last of the blue and a bit of pink.  I thought it might look strange but have decided that I like it.  And at the end of the day, it is a dishcloth.  Not exactly something that is going to look pristine beyond 5 minutes.

Next, I made a coffee cozy.  Or a hand cooler, I guess.  My favourite coffee shop no longer automatically puts a sleeve on the coffee so I've been thinking I should whip up one of these for a while now.  I'll throw it in my purse and hope I remember it's there!  This pattern is from Ann Budd's Knitted Gifts.

All nice patterns and very quick (obviously) to knit.

Cupcakes

Despite the cupcake craze sweeping the country, I've never really eaten a lot of cupcakes.  No particular reason although I do find the ones that are commercially available at cupcake bakeries tend to be bigger than what I would eat if I cut myself a piece of cake.  On the weekend we celebrated a birthday in our house and I wanted chocolate cake.  Since I'm trying to behave myself, I didn't really want to eat cake for a week so I made cupcakes.

The cupcake recipe was from Flour and the icing was my standard butter icing ... butter, icing sugar, cocoa, milk and kahlua in this case for flavouring.  Simple and pretty much my favourite.  These were really tasty, perfect for a birthday treat and I stuck the leftovers in the freezer for lunches.