Vegan Sour Cherry Pie with Flaky All-Butter Crust (Knitted Cuteness: Snowmen, Gnomes and Stars. Is This Supposed to Happen with A Broken Ankle?)

Consider baking a pie for someone for Christmas. I did. Except I decided I needed my pie earlier and I baked this pie for myself on Thanksgiving. I ate most of it myself, too. I had never tried an all-butter (vegan butter) pie crust before. But my taste buds were not disappointed. The recipe could not have been easier--once you make your dough (time to throw together: about five minutes), chill the dough (a half hour), drain the cherries, reserving some juice, then add a little of this and a pinch of that (another five minutes), then roll the dough and place in pie plate and add the cherries (about five more minutes), and bake (forty-five minutes)--you'll be greeted with an amazingly delicious cherry pie extravaganza. 

Sideways Ripples Shawl: Finished! (Going Bread-Baking Crazy for The Farmers Market)

When you knit something for yourself, you hope it's "wearable. . . in public." I'll go out on a limb here and state for the record, "I've worn every single thing I've ever knitted for myself. Somewhere." As for knitted gifts--I don't do that as much anymore. Unless it takes less than a week--okay, maybe two--I've vowed to discontinue the practice of gift-knitting. It's best this way. But this does not include the man sweater I have been knitting for three years for DH. (However, I have vowed to never knit a man sweater again.)  

I knit this shawl for myself because I loved the symmetry. Such a clever pattern: 

Sideways Ripples Shawl by Kyoko Nakayoshi, I Raveled mine here. 

Apple Tart Cherry Crostata (The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook. . . And Showing Off the Mitts!)

Never in my life have I craved a pie as much as this. And being alone in this world of pie, I was left to my own devices as I went about my merry crostata-baking way. (Because it would have been too much bother to lift dough into a pie plate, pinch the border, bake the shell, fill the shell, bake again. You get my point.)

The Best Meatball Pizza Ever (Or. . . how my search for a lesson on "short row knitting" lead to Peter Reinhart's lesson on "pizza". It was a Good day.)

I'm not new to the homemade pizza making world. It's our second favorite food group next to chocolate. And while I try not to make pizza night an every night affair (I easily could), when I do throw down for some pizza crafting time, I am always amazed at how different the crusts seem. It's one of my favorite searches--like for the next best chocolate chip cookie--I've made over a dozen of each (pizza crusts and cookies), and after each try I tell myself, "That's it!". Invariably, I forget what and where it was I'd found said "it" recipe, and find I'm at it again with a whole new recipe search. 

Vegan Giant Ginger Molasses Cookies (And The Not-So-Secret Christmas Knitting)

If you are going to start baking cookies for Christmas, begin with this one. You will thank me. I begin thinking about my holiday cookies in mid-October. That's when I go a little hog wild and pretend the world will end and that I must own every cookie baking book on the planet to stave off the perils of living in chaos without proper sustenance. I don't know about you, but we could live off ginger cookies. They come in every shape, size and texture and I think I've baked them all until a new recipe emerges, I step back in amazement and proclaim: Yet another awesome ginger cookie--I rock!

The cookie book I turned to for inspiration this go-around is, Great Cookies by Carole Walter. I had to hunt down this cookie book. It took me months to finally decide I'd found a seller on Amazon who offered the book for a fair price--used, no less. I wore out my check out times at the library for three years pulling this book off the shelf, keeping it three weeks, then returning it, only to repeat the whole ordeal again and again. 

Sea Glass Basket Weave Cowl (My First Knitting Pattern!)

When I first began knitting, it was scarves, scarves, scarves. I couldn't get enough of them. I thought I had conquered the greatest thing: knitting! Forgetting, of course, that women had been making things out of string to cover the body since the dawn of time. But for me, I was bringing "grandma" back. (Because Grandma was the one who originally taught me to knit.) I then graduated to the "joined" knitting club. That is, I was now able to "knit in the round"--using one needle, not the dreaded two-sticks. I was in LOVE with knitting this way because this got rid of that gawdawful "purl". I hate to purl. I was in heaven. So I knit tubes. Lots of tubes. With every intention of creating a top of some sort. Some day. When I learned how to make sleeves. Or attach sleeves. Or just make more tubes.