on thursday i worked at my city job and came home early to the smell of over ripe bananas in the kitchen. interestingly, someone bought me a very appropriately titled cooking book for christmas, donna hay's no time to cook. in it was a recipe for 'simple banana bread' and given that most of my attempts at banana bread have been anything but simple i decided to give this one a go. it never ceases to amaze me that you can start with this:
and end up with this:
it was delicious, best banana bread ever. i am going to make it again and again.i made time for knitting at work by taking the second of the monkey socks that i owe bells for her christmas present and forcing myself to take a full lunch hour (or thereabouts) and work through one whole pattern repeat in between bites of my ham, roast capsicum and avocado sandwich (they have a great sandwich bar in the uni food court - bonus). at this rate, monkey number two will be finished in 6 more lunch hours, plus maybe a night time of heel turning and toe grafting. it felt good to be disciplined about it.
i also discovered that i had, quite by accident, knitted the required amount of drop stitch pattern repeats for the body of the weldon's scarf, and could start the second border. no crack scales required. i am pretty confident i have enough yarn, as i started with more than the pattern calls for. it took me quite some time to get my head around how to start a knitted on border that runs at 90 degrees to the body of the scarf. the way the pattern was written made no sense to me, and the more i thought about what they were asking the less sense it made. so i decided to just knit it like they said anyway and see what happened. the issue was that i had to crochet cast on 36 stitches, but the way the pattern read it would be on to the right hand needle and i didnt think you could do that. but you can, and i did, it was a bit awkward, but it worked and i am now working horizontal to the vertical body, picking up body stitches and knitting them to the border every second row:
thats why im not a pattern designer see! anyway, it too will be finished with a few more night time knitting hours.we have had a lovely weekend, doing some neglected house and yard work yesterday, getting all the washing done, home made pizza for dinner, even watched a movie on dvd. and then today we went off for a bit of a four wheel drive adventure, looking for a secret route to the old north road that the convicts built. there is a place where you can drive on to it, but we couldnt find it, and made do with trekking for a while on the shepherds gully track part of it. we could see parts of the original stone road under the leaves and rubble, and then we found a fantastic bridge-type part made of perfectly hewn sandstone blocks, with a tunnel under it to drain the water under the road. as i scrambled back up the bank from the tunnel, i pulled myself up using one of the large paving rocks, and i thought, i just touched a rock that a convict touched. sounds weird, but it was pretty amazing. 200 years ago they built that road, and its still there, it was pretty magic. we had a lovely lunch at the settlers arms at st albans and then drove back the other way, meaning we took two ferries to cross the hawkesbury. very cool.
and i still found time to stop and smell the roses. well, the tomatoes anyway. the cherry tom plants in pots are going mental,
and there were two red ones, i picked the smaller one (not pictured) because it looked red but when i got it inside it was still a bit orange. it was a bit tart but really sweet as well, yummo. i cant wait to eat the rest of them. is there a trick to knowing when to pick them, or how long to leave them to ripen etc? i am very impatient with these things....well ok with most things, i admit it.speaking of which, there is a border needing knitting. theres no rest for the wicked you know!
kxx
6 comments:
Oh how wonderfully productive you have been! As I said to you on Facebook, that Donna Hay recipe is a standby of mine. I go through phases of making it almost weekly and we have it for breakfast toasted some days. It's the only way I eat anything with banana in it.
And good work on the lunch time knitting and the shawl! Those knitted on things - a nightmare when you first do it. I learned on the pi shawls.
yay you!
Oh yeah, the convict thing - so powerful! I love it.
Too true about making time...
With toms I recommend they are ready when you don't have to apply force for them to come away from the plant - no good for shipping perhaps but great for eating!
Great weekend in Amsterdam, managed to make time to work on a European project proposal while sipping coffee and getting tattooed :) xxx
Baking is magic, isn't it! And best of all, it doesn't really take as long as you think it might!
Yay for knitting progress!
And I know exactly what you mean about the convicts - it's even more powerful when it's the Romans (or should I say their slaves?). Very cool.
Freaky - we were only talking about the Old North Road yesterday and how we'd like to walk (at least part) of it.
The knitted-on thing is magic, isnt it? I freaked out when I had to do it for my pi-blanky, but once it clicks, its amazing.
You can pick toms before theyre fully ripe (although I agree with fern about readiness) and ripen them on the windowsill. Even from totally green theyw ill ripen, but of course on the bush is best. I do this when toms are horrid in the sops in winter - buy the greenest I can find then ripen them on the windowsill, and theyre almost bearable!
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