Projects Galore!

As I have been somewhat limited in what I can do, as it is so cold and snowy outside, I have been working on several indoor projects. Mostly to do with knitting things. I rather like knitting, as it keeps me busy and makes me much less antsy when sitting for long periods of time.

Thus far this month, I have finished:

3 pairs mittens - 1 each blue, black, and light brown
1 giant Christmas Stocking

(All had to be felted when I was near a washing machine that is top-loading, unlike mine, which is front-loading.)

1 lacy scarf - in black fuzzy-wuzzy yarn
1 plain scarf - in green fuzzy-wuzzy yarn

Here are detailed shots of each scarf:










1 small hoodie - in purple for my niece

Here is my niece wearing her sweater. Isn't she cute?


I still would like to make one more giant stocking so as to have a pair, and then I must start on a most complicated sweater for Nate. It will continue to be interesting as the sweater pattern that he has chosen has many things in its instructions that I have not really tried, such as bobbles.

Here's to gaining more knowledge in the New Year!

Lefse!

Last night we followed a Norwegian family tradition of mine and made lefse. If you do not know what lefse is, it is rather like a very thin tortilla made of potatoes. If it is as thick as a regular flour tortilla, you have Limpe. Lefse is generally eaten spread with butter and sugar, then rolled up into a tube. There are many debates raging as to if the butter should be melted or not, and if the sugar is white or brown. In my family, we eat it with spreadable butter and white sugar. Luckily for me, I married into a family that also eats it in this manner. This means no arguing about proper preparation, just enjoyment of the food.

We made our lefse with some friends of ours, and followed my aunt's recipe. She makes the best lefse I've eaten, including better than that I have sampled in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark! Making her recipe does take some time, as some of the prep work needs to be done the night before. It is easy, so it is not a lot of fussing about to get ready.

So, to start the preparation of lefse, you need to have potatoes. Lots and lots of potatoes, about 5lb or so. Russet potatoes make the best lefse.






You then need to scrub the potatoes, peel them, and cut them up into chunks. Put them in a Very Large Pot and cover them with water. It is best if the pot is already located on top of a burner on the stove, as it becomes Very Heavy when filled with water and 5lb of potato chunks. Do not add any salt to your pot, just water.

Bring the potatoes to a boil, and boil until tender. This can take awhile if your potato chunks are not cut small enough. Once the potatoes are soft, drain off the water and then find a Strong-Armed Person. You will need the Strong-Armed Person to mash the potatoes, as there are a lot of them, and the pot is Very Large. I am lucky, I have such a person living in my house, and he was very happy to mash the potatoes for me. After the potatoes are mashed, you need to find a Very Large Bowl. This is because you now need to rice the potatoes into the bowl. I do not have a ricer, but discovered that a food mill on the smallest opening works just great. Again, the Strong-Armed Person is handy to have around for assistance.

While the assistant is smashing and mashing the potatoes, you will need to melt some butter, 1/2c of butter, which is an entire stick. You will need to use real butter, none of that margerine, low-fat oily stuff that masquerades as butter, but the real thing. You will have to get over the amount of fat in this recipe, as you are just going to add more when you actually eat it anyways.

Next, add the melted butter, 1/3c of heavy cream, and 1T of sugar to the potatoes in the bowl. Mix it up well. It will be stiff to mix, as it is mainly potatoes and not actual dough. Then make it into a nice ball, and wrap the ball up in a dishcloth. Let the ball in its cloth sit on the countertop overnight. I decided to leave mine in the bowl, as it was more convenient that way.

On the next day, our friends came over, and we mixed up the rest of the recipe. I took the dough out of its dishcloth, and added 1T of salt and 2 small cups of flour. At this point it's just easier to mix everything with your hands - especially seeing as your going to get them dirty anyways shortly.

Once everything is mixed, we made the dough into little balls and put them on wax paper so that they didn't stick to the countertop.

Then starts the rolling. It is best to use a floured pastry board and a grooved rolling pin with a floured cloth cover on it. The potatoes get very sticky and stick to Everything! So rolling away we go - we need to get the piece of lefse out to about 12-14" in diameter. This means it is so thin that you can see the markings on the pastry board thru it.

In order to get it off of the board and onto the griddle, you need to use a very thin profile turning stick. You must slide the stick between the board and the lefse, and then pick it up to put on the griddle. This takes practice to not tear into the lefse. It took us a few tries to get it right.

Here you can see the lefse on the griddle - it is a bit bigger than a medium-sized hand. You want to have the griddle hot so that the lefse cooks quickly. First you cook it on one side until the brown spots appear, and then you flip it over with a thin stick to brown the other side.


Once the lefse is cooked, you can either let it cool in a stack on the countertop, or spread it with butter and sprinkle it with sugar.




Roll it up into a tube and Eat! We were very hungry by the end of this cooking adventure, and luckily there was plenty of lefse for all to eat.

Reports from the Small Town

Ski Report: Yesterday we went skiing again. Again to the flat ski trail (as I am not yet willing to do much hill work). By now I have investigated the length of the trail, just to see how far I actually CAN ski in one go. I had to use the Summer Trail Map, as there is no Winter Trail Map. Which is rather puzzling, as there are definitely metal signs bolted to posts that very clearly tell one which way for Snowshoeing, Hiking, and Skiing, both with and without a pet. I have seen several people obeying the signs, so I know I'm not the only one to wonder.

Anyways, using the Summer Trail Map, I figured out where the parking lot is, and where our Ski Trail starts. It follows a Summer Trail for quite a ways, then cuts off a portion that goes over a bridge. The Summer Trail is marked as 2.7 miles long. Going on a very vague scaling system, I very subjectively am figuring that our Ski Trail is approximately 2 miles long.

This means that on yesterday's outing, I skied 6 miles on the groomed trail, and then we went 1.5 miles on a trail that theoretically is usually groomed. This means that the snow was about 6" deep where the trail should be, so if one stops at all, one starts sinking down, which makes it that much more difficult for one to extricate one's self when one wishes to start forward movement again. In a nutshell, this is what happened to me - quite a lot in fact. We took this route in order to try a small hill, both up and down, to give me some practice. The up part took quite alot of work and reminded me again why I was not fast in skiing my race last year. The downhill part allowed me the chance to go "Whee!", and was over much too quickly.

In addition, we found a posted Trail Map at the bottom of the hill. Of course, it too was only a Summer Trail Map. Oh well, I guess an estimate is good enough for now.

Snow Report: After the ski outing, it began snowing again. And snowing and snowing. I think it ended up snowing at least 11" when it was all over. Then it started blowing. This meant that we had drifts of snow as tall as the hood on the cars.













It also meant that the snow was so high that it was taller than our snowblower! In fact, we are now over 14" of snow on the ground. Too high for the ruler, so out came the tape measure.

Our Small Town has rather efficient snowplows - they go by about once every two hours to try and clear the streets of the town. As a result, none of the streets are entirely plowed at an intersection. During our digging out process, we ran out of gas for the snowblower, and when I tried to go and get some, I managed to get one of the cars stuck twice in 2 blocks. Luckily I revved the engine some and popped over the snow bumps.

The efficiency of the snowplows also means that there is a Very Large pile of snow at the end of the driveway. At this point, thus far, this snow pile is almost as tall as I am! And it's only mid-December!

I Ski, You Ski, We All Ski... Nordic Style!

I, probably more than the average City Girl, like to spend time in the out-of-doors. This includes things like hiking, backpacking, climbing, canoeing, camping, etc. I am also one known to try the impossible - i.e. hike up not One, not Two, but Three 14,000ft mountains in under 2 days - which I did with some friends of mine 2 summers ago. I finished 2.75 of them, and only turned around because the wind at the top of the 3rd was getting to be in excess of 50mph, which due to my size, makes me rather like a leaf - I go where it wishes me to go. And, as I did not wish to go tumbling down the mountain with the wind, we turned around.

I have about one of these "impossible" goals each year - I guess it keeps me motivated. The summer I decided to learn to rollerblade, I skated the Northshore Inline Marathon at the end of the summer. It is indeed an entire marathon, all 26.2 miles. A few summers ago, I gave myself the goal of being able to run a 5k, even though I really very strongly dislike running. The end result: 2 - 5k races in less than a week. With a minimal amount of training. This gave me very sore muscles.

Last year's unexpected goal was to Skate Ski the Kortelopet in mid-February. This is a ski race that is about 13mi long through a very nice woodsy area Up North. I had not Skate Skied before last November when I purchased said skis. I had only done Classic, or Diagonal Stride, skiing while growing up - this is the type you always see on the TV and in the movies with snow falling down - rather Christmas card-like. Skate Skiing is like ice skating or rollerblading, but with skis for skate blades - it is a challenge. I had also never been in a ski race before. I went out about 4 times prior to the race, and then drove up to the race course.

The end result: I did at least finish the race...3rd from last. Two people were slower than me out of the about 3,000 that started it. By the time I got to the end, they'd already taken down the finish line, and I got the very last bowl of chicken noodle soup in the entire recovery area. I guess, I should focus on the finishing aspect, the only 4hr 32min that it took me. On a positive note, I did get my very own school bus and driver to take me back to the carpark, at which I was easily able to find my car, as it was one of about 4 left in the lot.

This year, I think I will try again. I figure, I cannot really do a whole lot worse than last year. And this year I at least know what to expect. I am also trying to talk a friend of mine into skiing with me - that way I will at least have some company that skies at about my speed. She is working out in the City, and I am working out in the Small Town.

With all of the snow we have had recently, I've been able to go out skiing 2 times already. Once on a hilly course (very slow, lots of stopping for rests), and once on a fairly flat course (much more consistent movement). So far, so good - I've only fallen over once. And was able to get right-side up all by myself, with no assistance. I can manage to go about 2mi or so without stopping. I also need to figure out what set of clothing will maximize the warmth and minimize the overheating. Thus far I've overdressed for both of my outings.

So, the plan: 1. Keep working out at the gym to do cross-training. 2. Get out and ski more. 3. Keep working on the hilly trail to learn how to efficiently attack a hill going up (I'm much better at going down.) 4. Try to build up some sort of endurance - both physical and mental.

I've got a little over 2 months til race day. Here's hoping!

Snowfall Update

Again we have had another snowfall. This one combined with freezing rain to put about 1/4" of ice onto the horizontal driving and walking surfaces - causing me to take 20min to thaw my windshield wipers, and clear the ice off the car windows - and then it began to snow. And snow, and snow and snow and snow. And also blow. There are some Very Large Snowdrifts just a short ways out of town. I'm going to see if I can get a picture of them without causing an accident.

Here is the measurement taken at the start of the snowfall (it includes about 1.5" that fell in the 3hr I was at work):



That snowblower is looking to get a workout this year. Yay for the snowblower! It will be interesting to see who is right on the total snowfall amount for this winter, the news meteorologists, who predicted a low-to-average snowfall; or the Farmer's Almanac, who has predicted another winter like last winter, with snow banks taller than me.

Additional learning: If one wishes to measure the snow depth and document for posterity, one should try to find a ruler that is not clear, as it greatly confuses the camera flash, and makes it difficult to focus on. Maybe next time I will try and use the tape measure from the workshop.

Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

As I got up this morning, I could see that it was still snowing. It has been snowing since early morning on December the 1st. It is still snowing. The weather people around here have been revising their estimates of total snowfall almost every hour. At first it was to be only 1-2"; now it is up to 4-6" with no end in sight.

It is quite pretty, the snow. And, it necessitated the inaugural use of the snowblower.

I received the snowblower last year about this same time. It magically was placed in my garage, at the house in The City, by the Elves of Winter, aka Mom. This is after we had already had a rather large snowfall that I had to shovel. The outcome of the delivery of the snowblower was that we pretty much had no snow for the rest of the winter. Not so in my Small Town - last year was a record-setting year for snow. The snowblower moved with me to the Small Town, and has patiently waited in the back of the garage all spring, summer, and fall. It is now being pressed into service, and if all goes well, will be used frequently this winter.

Based on the last few days, I think that this is going to be a reality, not a possibility.

Here's a short video of how pretty the snow is against the evergreen trees.


Click the "Play" button to see the snow falling...

A Pretty Tree

Real trees are so nice to have...


Here is the Christmas Tree with its decorations. We managed to get it trimmed out the same night that we got it. It turned out very nice, and we made it fit quite well in the available space.


Doesn't it look pretty all lit up in the window?

The Christmas Tree Farm

Today, Nate and I went to get our first Christmas Tree. Both of us love to have a real tree, even with all of the work that it entails. We did our homework, and looked up several farms in the area and investigated prices. Our backup was the local youth hockey tree lot just a few miles down the highway. The farm we chose was quite a ways out in the countryside. Even by Small Town standards it was way out in the country. It was cold, and snowing, which are, of course, the perfect conditions to hunt for a tree. Here, in pictures, is the Hunt for the Perfect Tree.

Where, oh where, is the Perfect Tree?

Yay! We found one. Look how nice it looks among all the rest.

Now to shake the snow off, so that it doesn't blow while we are driving.

Next, the saw. This is a job for Nate - it was too prickly for me. My job is to hold it steady.

My job is also not to drag the tree to the car. Nate is much better at this than I.

Heave Ho! Up on to the car it goes!

OK! Hold it. Hold it. I'm trying hard, but I'm not really tall enough. Luckily, the tree diameter is almost bigger than the car! We were down the road a piece from the main farm, so we had to drive back to the barn with the tree all bushy like this on top of the car. It made for Very Interesting corners while driving. We did get it bundled down for the trip back home, which made it much less interesting, but safer driving.

After we got it inside and unbundled, we began to think that maybe we should've paid attention to the warning of the diameter of the tree being larger than the car... It did take some minor rearrangement of the furniture to actually be able to view the TV while sitting in the living room. Now, on to decorating!

A Day of Thanks

Today was Thanksgiving Day. A day for giving thanks. Thanks for family, shelter, and good food. This Thanksgiving was the first time I actually cooked the entire dinner myself. I did try to plan ahead so that all I had to do on the actual day was stuff and cook the turkey, and reheat/cook the side dishes. Of course, I can't do anything the easy way. Dinner had to be served between 11:00-11:30am so that Nate could eat and still leave for work on-time.

Here's the menu that I had planned:


I did manage to get everything but the turkey and whipped cream done ahead of time. But, it was not without adventure. Of course, nothing I do can be done easily...

I put in the turkey to thaw out starting on Monday. By Wednesday morning, it was hardly thawed at all. How then, was I supposed to get the giblets, etc out of the turkey to make the stuffing??? The answer: thaw the turkey in the kitchen sink. In addition, I had to split the giblets, as Nate had requested his mother make her sausage dressing as well as my wild rice stuffing. After 8hr of thawing in the sink - almost thawed. I decided to run warm water into the cavity so that I could get the giblets out in time to get ready for work, drop them at my in-laws, and make it to work on time.

Lo and behold, what did I find when the turkey finally thawed?? NO GIBLETS!!! At ALL!! How could this be? Didn't all turkeys come with giblets? It had never occurred to me that this could even be an issue. So now what? I dug thru the trash for the turkey wrapper. No giblets in there. No info on the bag saying this turkey lacked vital parts. No time, also, so I had to think quickly. Grabbed some leftover frozen chicken giblets that I was going to use for stock. Head out the door.

Whew! I did make it to work on time. But, then after work, I stayed up until past midnight to get my stuffing done in time to stuff the turkey in the morning. Once the turkey was done, we let it rest for a bit. It smelled wonderful.


After all the rest of the side dishes were ready, it was time to set the food on the table.

First I brought in the turkey, to make sure there was enough space for it in the center. Then all of the rest of the dishes came in. Luckily we have a rather sizeable table, as we needed plenty of room for all of the food.




Once we finished up with the main course, it was time to clear the table for dessert. Seeing as there were only 6 of us, I only made one pie - of the pumpkin variety. I actually used a pie pumpkin, and cooked it down to make the pie. It was delicious. I also made cinnamon ice cream and bourbon-flavored whipped cream to top it. Everyone agreed that it was just right to finish off the meal.


And, even better, 90% of the dishes fit into the dishwasher! I love having a dishwasher.


This is even more amazing, when I realized just how much silverware I had left in the drawer...


Here's to a successfully cooked, first major family holiday, quite edible Turkey Dinner. It truly was a Day of Thanks!

It's Snowing!

Today was the first day of actual snow that we have had here in the Small Town. At least the first day that the snow actually stuck to the ground for more than a few seconds. It was beautiful. The entire neighborhood was transformed into a Winter Wonderland. The kids were out playing, and I even saw a few snowmen appear.

Here is a view from our backyard. The neighbor's tree looked quite nice against the fence and our back garden.


It stayed covered on the grass for a few days wherever there was shade. It was quite nice whilst it lasted, but, it is still too early and the ground too warm for the snow to stay put. Soon!

Final Harvest

Now that it is truly fall, and the weather is getting cooler, the final harvest from the garden has been done. Many tomatoes, jalapenos, habaneros, and ground cherries have been obtained. Some of the tomatoes are green, as they were rescued from the early frosts.


Additionally, a trip to the apple orchard was made to obtain apples for sauce, and apples for eating. This year I got Empires for eating and McIntosh for sauce. I got an excellent deal on the sauce apples - $12 for 20lb of apples! I generally do not put sugar in my applesauce, as I figure most of the recipes I use it in call for sugar anyway. And the people who eat it direct can have it tangy, as I like it, or add a bit of sugar to taste. Making applesauce is surprisingly easy - if you have a food mill, that is. Just wash the apples, chunk them into pieces (I like eighths.), put in a pot and boil with a little water until they are very soft. Run them thru the food mill, skins and seeds and all, and presto! you have applesauce. Yum!!

So, here is what the final harvest looked like.


It includes the above-mentioned tomatoes and peppers. We also harvested, and I canned, a ton of green beans. I am sure my mother is still wondering how she ended up with a child that LOVES green beans, particularly the canned variety, when she has abhorred them since Day One.

A Hike in the Woods

Today we took a short drive from our Small Town to one of the county parks. It is about a 15min drive on a Very Windy Road and has a lake to see. It is also has available trails for cross-country skiing with snow. We decided to hike some of the trails, so that I could see what they would be like for skiing on in a few months.


Off we started on the hike. It was lightly raining, but we were dressed well, so it was not too cold. And the overcast skies made for nice picture taking. The leaves were all kinds of colors - which was part of my reason for going on a hike. The changing of the leaves is amazing anew every year.











It is so interesting to see the different colors, textures, and shapes of the leaves that fall.

Near the end of the trails (we took trails 1, 4, and 3) you could go up some man-made steps to a tiny chapel in the woods. The chapel was built in the mid-1800s by German immigrants. It is a tiny room, only about 4x10, with a ceiling maybe only 6ft high. Even I had to stoop to get into the door. There is also a great view of the lake that the park is named for:


Of course, we could not have such an easy day of hiking... On the way out of the chapel, we discover that someone has no idea where their cell phone is. In the car? Nope. So off we go again on the trails to play detective and find the cell phone. Which is a dark grey. Not much darker than a wet trail with leaf cover.

And, we have to be somewhere for dinner, and are meant to bring a dessert. Steps are retraced for about 1/4 of the hike, then we decide to try the parking lot as much donning and doffing of attire was done here prior to the hike. Phone is not in the car, nor near the place we stopped to look at the map. It is also not by the lake, or on the path up to the top of the ridge. No, the phone was found (Yay!) after rehiking 2/3 of our original path.

In short, we did a 2hr hike twice in 3hrs. Definitely got good exercise for the day.

And we got to dinner on time, having made No-crust Apple Pie for our dessert. Yum. It was determined by all who ate, that a repeat of the dessert shall be had at some point.

Stocking Up!

So far this season, I have produced in my kitchen:

Jelly, grape variety - 15 jars

Juice, also grape variety - 3.5 quarts (mostly because I was getting sick of jelly)

Salsa - 8 pints (with more coming as tomatoes/jalapenos ripen)

Venison chili - 5.5 quarts

Pasta Sauce, red variety - 12 pints

Crushed tomatoes, yellow variety - 5 pints (or so, as I had to use jelly jars for some of it)

Pesto Sauce - 15 cubes (ice cube-sized), not in picture, as they are frozen


Doesn't it all look beautiful all stacked together? Along with a few items not yet put up - namely more beans! and also tomatoes, sweet peppers, jalapeno peppers, and a lone habanero.