O Canada!!!

And the mens hockey team wins again!  The gold medal game was excellent but I have to comment on the press and their flip-flopping.  A few days ago, before the Canada US game, the commentators were saying:  the US is the team to beat, Canada can't score, didn't bring the right players, etc.  Today they are saying that the Canadian team is the best team ever assembled.  Geesh (but in a good way).

Do it again

I can't resist the Tulip sweater.  I have made 3 for baby, one for a slightly older girl and the boy version, Rocketry.  I don't often want to knit the same thing twice, let alone several times.  But it is such a fun knit and I have tons of Dream in Color Classy to finish up in the stash so it was a perfect time to make another.

This is technically an olympic project by I'm not really finding myself compelled to get involved too much.  I am enjoying the olympics, particularly moguls, curling and hockey, and knitting while watching.  That's good enough for me.

I'll be up early tomorrow cheering for the Canadians in mens hockey.  Go Canada Go!!!

Reading in bed

Am getting caught up on old RSS feeds from my favourite blogs.  Squawkfox comes through again with a great tip and has introduced me to free magazines through a combination of my local library and Zinio.  She gives detailed instructions on what to do to get free access to a big selection of magazines here.  I downloaded about 1/2 a dozen just now and am getting to read as I take a nap after an intense weekend of curling (which we won - regions here we come!!!!).

The great exhale

Some weeks are challenging to get through.  This week, it is for no good reason other than it is f*(&ing cold outside.  Don't get me wrong.  I actually like winter.  To qualify, I like southern Ontario winter which generally is not too cold (my first winter here I wore a raincoat with a liner the entire season quite comfortably).  But this month-long cold snap is really getting to me.  Leaving the house involves about 17 extra clothing items and 15 minutes of prep time.

Anyway, I had to take my car in to the garage this morning (my car has been in the shop more in 2014 than I've been driving it but that is another very annoying story) and needed to get home from the train without the benefit of my in-house taxi service so, took the bus to, admittedly, not that far from my house, but was never-the-less very glad for my parka, hood, knitted hat, cowl and mitts.  When I got home, I was strongly motivated to order pizza.  Then I remembered that I don't have any cash, don't like using a credit card when ordering food, the aforementioned in house taxi service wasn't home yet and we still have good food in the fridge so … I decided to make some pizza.

The pizza dough comes from Fine Cooking magazine, a very quick, limited rise time dough and a bunch of yummy ingredients from the fridge (mushrooms, red peppers, pancetta, mozzarella, beet greens and goat cheese).  Combined with a nice bottle of Peller Estates Merlot and I'm feeling the relaxing effects of the great exhale.

Rise up

It is rather cruel that when you spend a couple of days and a few hours making bread that you aren't supposed to taste it until it cools for an hour.  Fortunately, I have a braise in the oven and the bread will go very well with it so I'm not too upset.  And the little bit of crust that stuck to the pan when I popped the bread out onto the rack was enough to tide me over for a little bit longer.  We'll have to see if I can hold out all the way to dinner.

About the bread itself … I have two of Peter Reinhart's bread cookbooks and I can't decide whether I like them or not.  I regularly and successfully make a really nice loaf from a fairly simple recipe.  Then I crack open one of Reinhart's books and the bread takes at least two days to produce.  The recipes require pre-mixing of certain parts of the dough the day before the double rising process.  And instead of the standard two loaf recipe, his recipes make one.  And I can't say that I have thought Reinhart's breads were so awesome that they were worth the extra time.  But I have had very good success with bread lately, and I'm giving the proofing feature on my new oven credit for that, so thought I would try again.  More to come after the official tasting later today.

And speaking of braising, I'm back into Molly Stevens' All About Braising book.  Yesterday I made a delicious braised tuna with chickpeas and radicchio.  It is a fairly quick recipe; a maximum of an hour from start to plate.

Today a little more involved braised oxtails is in the oven.  I have no idea if I like oxtails or not but I see them every time I go to my local butcher and decided to take the plunge.  If I don't like them, I can always have another slice of bread!
 

The sunny side of the street

We had quite a bit of snow with a quite a bit of blowing today.  The hood fan outlet has been banging away all night and much of today.  I just finished my second shovel of the driveway.  It is alway interesting how well my husband's curling schedule lines up to allow him to leave me with maximum shovelling duties.  Good thing I like doing it most of the time.

For now the snow has stopped and the sun is shining brightly.  One of the things I like about winter is the way the combination of sun and snow makes the world simply shine.  And it gives you that sense (as I look out the window anyway) that things will get warmer again.

I finished another project yesterday.  These mitts, which go with my new cowl are from the same Norah Gaughan book and are called Rosina.  These are not mitts I would have picked out to knit if I wasn't marching toward a goal.  But I'm glad I made them.  They look really nice and I feel so coordinated with my knitwear for the first time ever.

Almost

Yesterday, after writing about darning socks, I got the urge to keep going.  Nine pairs later and I now have an overflowing sock drawer again.  Yay!  The crazy thing, I can only say that I'm almost done.  I still have 2 or 3 pairs in the sock repair bin. I do like knitting, and wearing, socks.