Chocolate chip

We had dinner at a friend's house last night and it was a terrific time. In typical fashion, the kids (nine of them) quickly finished the business of consuming their pepperoni pizza and spent the rest of the evening running around in a happy frenzy between indoors and outdoors, upstairs and downstairs, wielding light sabers, swords, and Nerf guns... you get the picture. Morgan was a good sport about being the only teenager in attendance. She maintained a fine balance between politely chatting with the adults and alternately promoting mayhem with her brothers and the other younger kids.

The grown-up food and wine faire included an herb-stuffed pork tenderloin roast with truffle sauce, asparagus risotto, a tossed fields green salad and a goodly cheese platter paired with a couple of bottles of syrah and pinot noir. The children certainly enjoyed running around like maniacs while the adults maintained a more stationary venue at the dining room table--- but we still rivaled the kids in the amount of fun we had with such good company and food to enjoy.

Earlier, I broke out the ol'rolling pin & mixer and made an apple pie and some chocolate chip cookies to bring for dessert. Of course with something as basic as a chocolate chip cookie, everyone has their own personal preferences for taste and texture. For instance, Green Girl in Wisconsin has made mention that she likes her chocolate chip cookies to be crisp on the outside and gooey inside. I happen to like eating the cookie dough as much the cookies themselves. So I'd say my favorite would be a very dense cookie that's baked only just long enough to cancel any rawness of egg--- with chocolate kept from becoming overly melted, and cookie kept from becoming overly brown (Air Bake cookie sheets are great for this.) Mike's mom gave me this recipe when I was still a newlywed and I've been making these lil' suckers for the past 16 years now:

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Bake 325 degrees for about 12-14 minutes
(Cookies will not appear completely set until they've cooled)
Makes about 2 1/2 to 3 dozen

Ingredients in order:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
(Cream butter and sugar then add:)
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 packet instant oatmeal (1.5 oz.)
(Mix these ingredients then add:)
3 1/4 cups flour
1 Package milk chocolate chips or M&M's (11.5 oz.)

P.S. My fave chocolate baking chips: Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate



Bon appetit, fellow dough-lovers! What's your favorite cookie?

Sweetness

I'm by no means what anyone would consider a gardener. Several years ago, I bought a few peony bulbs at Costco and plunked them into the ground with only a vague idea of the proper method. To my astonishment, we actually had peonies a few months later. I realize that's the whole point of planting perennials--- but it never ceases to amaze me when they return every Spring, without the slightest bit of effort or thought on my part. Sweet! Now that's my kind of gardening.


Maybe because I've been taking photos lately of my knitted works-in-progress, I suddenly felt the urge this morning to snap a few pics of these plants in-progress too. Aren't the buds just as exciting as the flowers themselves? And isn't it bittersweet when the peonies finally bloom, since they won't again for another year?



I had a major breakthrough in spinning this weekend thanks to a couple of ladies at the Eastside Spinners group. Stephanie saw me struggling with 'The Beast' (my Louet S10) and took it upon herself to assist. She gave me lots of roving (that she'd dyed herself) and taught me how to pre-draft it. It turns out that the wheel that I use is known for having tons of torque, so it really pulls against your drafting efforts (the process of smoothing and pulling the wool fiber to a desirable density just as it's twisted into yarn.) One of my fellow Ravelers recently told me that spinning on his S15 was like wrestling a bunch of squirrels! I like my wheel, but I completely concur. Pre-drafting was the solution though, and I began spinning like crazy.
After noting my progress, my friend Tara sat down next to me and taught me how to ply my yarn! So guess what I was doing the rest of the weekend?

One spindle...


Two spindles...



Two-ply yarn! Copperwood:


Here's my second 4 oz. hank of merino top: Pearl Drop


There's been a slight problem, though. I've been using my kitchen scale to weigh exact amounts of roving for each spindle. Even so, one spindle has been consistently running out before the other when I ply. I'm not able to spin evenly enough to balance the yardage yet.

So I guess I'll need to figure out what I can do with my leftover one-ply yarn:



Here's a one-ply Ocean for my half-finished Nemo fish. What do you think?
Uh-oh. Now I've really gone off the deep end...



And finally, the wonky yarn that started it all. Tara helped me ply this with the stuff I made from Stephanie's colorful roving.


I think I'll call it, Kid in a Candy Store. *Wink-wink!*

May Day mystery...

Yesterday, we found this on our front doorstep:



Inside, the note read:



And the back:



We'd be willing to bet that this is the little lady responsible for our secret May Day greetings--- our neighbor, Madeline. Here she is, visiting us at Halloween:

Hey Little Missy, I recall seeing posies of the exact same variety growing in a planter by your front door... So we guess who is you! And we owe you our thanks--- for brightening our day!


Hope y'all had a Happy First of May!