My Adventures in Knitting, truly my Yarn-escape!

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Yarns- Back From The Adirondacks

     

Finished my shawl on the banks of my favorite swimming hole on the Ausable River.



      I'm just back from The Adirondacks and it's my birthday, so this is going to be a very short post before I get back to my books (starting "Wild" and a history of The Adirondacks) and several early Christmas presents - socks and Sockhead hats.  And I'm baking a small Lemon Cheesecake with a pecan/coconut crust.







     I finished my Just Knit It in Stripes.  I love it (still needs to be blocked).  I'll be washing it in Woolite, then soaking it in conditioner to see if it'll soften up more.  I love Hawthorne for its colors but it's not as soft as I'd like.


Up in an old turn of the century camp on
 Upper Ausable Lake for a few days


     I'm also reading the Culper Ring Series.  I loved the first book - "The Inner Circle", but the second one "The Fifth Assasin" I'm finding a bit tedious since it's the same characters and similar plot schemes as the first book.  Also, perhaps the theme of assassinations of presidents doesn't thrill me.  But I'm trying to plow on.  I'm getting pulled away by some very interesting reads - "Wild", and The Adirondacks: A History of America's First Wilderness, both I've just started, so more on them next week.  





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6 comments:

  1. Oh, my! What great photos! What a fantastic place to visit! And, I love your shawl! It is beautiful! And, perhaps a quick tip for softening that shawl up... Eucalan wool wash has a bit of lanolin in it and I have found it to soften up even the harshest of wools! My second "go to" is Soak Wash... it is a no-rinse wash.

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  2. Your shawls inspire me. I use people hair conditioner for softening wools up .

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  3. Lovely photos! And I can hardly read . . . having been totally distracted by oh-my-god-was-that-coconut/pecan-crust???? :-)

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    1. The cheesecakes were based on a basic recipe I've created. For every brick of cream cheese add an egg. For a full cheesecake that be 4 bricks, 4 eggs, and a cup of sour cream. Traditional recipes add a cup of sugar. I find less is more flavor. I used 2/3rd of a cup last week for an Oreo cheesecake. This time for half the recipe for 2 small cheesecakes I did 1/4 cp. sugar plus 1 1/2 Tbls. Honey. The tricky parts are using room temperature cream cheese and mixing it either by hand or on low as possible (so not too much air). At this point add flavoring vanilla for plain. Vanilla and lemon juice of one lemon and it's rind grated for lemon flavored. Or for an Oreo one add the white Oreo creme filling. Then add crushed Oreo crackers with 1/4 cup melted butter for a crust. Or about 1 1/2 cps. Graham cracker crumbs and 1/4 cp. melted butter for a plain cheesecake crust. What I did this time was melt 2 Tbls. butter (I halved the recipe) and I ground some pecans and added unsweetened coconut finely grated from Bob's Red Mill, I also added about a healing Tbl of honey (it was very good). Whatever you choose you press it down in your pan. Bake 350 for an hour till it is solid in the middle (it'll slightly jiggle in the middle, cooks as cools) or 45 minutes for small cheesecakes (don't overtake). Cool, chill at least 4 hours, best a day old. Oh and you want a chocolate cheesecake melt dark chocolate chips, cool for a bit and stir into room temperature cream cheese mixture. There, have fun!

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  4. Happy Birthday. I hope the lemon cheesecake is as delicious as the shawl is beautiful. Enjoy!

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