Knitter in the Kitchen

Eating a homemade blueberry muffin

Knitting my Clapotis

Looking at my new vintage dishware

Baking Chocolate Anise Biscotti

Selecting stash fabric for my next project

Cooking yummy steak fajitas with Hubby

I realize that this is a knitting blog, but there certainly hasn’t been much knitting around here lately. The last project I completed was back at the end of February, so it has been almost a full six months since I’ve finished anything. Unfortunately I don’t anticipate finishing a project anytime soon, but I am happy to report that I picked up the needles again and started another Clapotis. I’ll show a photo once I have made more progress.

In the meantime, I’ll ramble about baking and cooking. Here is what we’ve been eating lately:

Banana Bread — this is the second time that I used the low-fat banana bread recipe from How To Bake. The first time the loaf came out gigantic (i.e. sandwich-bread sized slices in the middle of the loaf), so I wanted to see if I would get the same result again.

I did.

Now, I am not a banana bread expert, but doesn’t that loaf look unnaturally high? I used the right size loaf pan and the exact amounts of baking powder and baking soda listed in the recipe. If I ever make this again, I’m dividing the batter into two pans and going for short, stubby loaves. Trek kindly shared her low-fat banana bread recipe with me, so I will try that one next.

Broiled Salmon

We had some very yummy salmon at a friend’s house awhile back. We asked for her recipe and used it several times already. We like the light, slightly sweet flavor. Here is the recipe:

Marinade:
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons of lemon juice [I used bottled]
salt and pepper to taste

- Combine all marinade ingredients in a large ziploc bag.
- Cut salmon into serving size pieces. Put the salmon pieces into the ziploc bag, push the air out, and seal the bag. Marinate for at least 4 hours.
- Turn on your oven to broil (low broil if you have the option) and let your oven heat up for a few minutes.
- Lay salmon on cooking sheet and sprinkle each piece with black pepper.
- Bake for ~15 min. or until top edges are turning brown.

Beef Burgundy Slow Cooker Recipe from the Make it Simple special issue of Cooking Light (currently on newsstands) — I have two slow cookers, and haven’t used either one in about two years. I had given up on the slow cooker approach because I had a couple of dishes turn out really yucky. But this particular recipe looked promising, so I was optimistic. I didn’t make any modifications.

I feel ambivalent about it. It turns out that neither Hubby nor I like pearl onions and there was a whole 14 oz package in here. There is something else I don’t like about the taste, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. Overly tart is the best description I can think of, but even that isn’t exactly it. We did have to skim off the fat. The recipe called for lean beef stew meat, but I just bought the meat labeled “beef for stew” so it probably wasn’t particularly lean. The meat seemed overcooked to me so maybe I cut the pieces too small. Hubby thought it tasted fine. I didn’t think it was disgusting (which is a nice improvement from previous slow cooker meals), but I don’t know if I would make it again. If you have a slow cooker recipe that you love, please share it with me!

Cajun Oven-Fried Chicken from Cooking Light – Modifications – we used all drumsticks, removed the skin, and soaked the chicken in buttermilk for about 4 hours. The drumsticks came out very tender and tasted good. The exterior wasn’t crispy, but I didn’t mind that at all. Next time I might try using Bisquick instead of Panko just to see if there is any difference.

I have no idea what we’ll be eating for dinner next week — we might go the easy route and make tacos with packaged seasoning — but I’m planning to bake blueberry muffins tomorrow. My muffin pan has been sitting unused for two years so it’s time to put it to work.

Hope you enjoy a lovely weekend!