Posted on 11/19/2005 9:40:24 AM PST by Knitting A Conundrum
The Vast Right Wing Knitting and Needleworker's Circle
Ok, Weekend Chat. I was going to post last night but got way too involved with the live thread on the House vote last night. Too excited to even knit!
But now Thanksgiving is upon us. I am busy deciding what we will finally have: Goose or turkey? Dressing? Low fat/lowcal desserts?
Wanna talk about what you are doing, foodwise, craftwise, recipe wise?
VRWKNWC Chat Ping! Weekend and holiday discussion! Are we busy yet? Got any recipes to swap? Making anything fun? Interesting sights? (I saw a bunch of tundra swans last night at sunset...awesomely beautiful).
First time I ever saw them in flight I was out with my hubby as he duck hunted. It was snowing.
We heard them first, a raucous, yet beautiful call, not the same as Canada geese, not a honking, muffled by the falling snow.
Hubby nudged me, and I looked up, and against the dark sky, a perfect V of these beautiful white birds was flying, with a snow goose who had decided to hang out them them. They have the biggest black feet, but are so amazingly graceful when they fly.
Two things: First, could you pretty please add me to this ping list?
Second: I'm on the South Beach Diet right now, plus we are going to my SIL's for Thanksgiving (where she will do most of the cooking) so I'm not really in recipe mode right now. But -- I did have a fun craft idea that I'll share, if anyone's interested. JoAnn Fabrics has some very cute fake fur on sale right now, and I've been trying for weeks to figure out an excuse to buy some. It is very soft, looks like poodle fur, lots of bright colors, handwashable polyester, and I could not figure out one thing to do with it! I finally decided it might make cute scarves, so I bought some in a beautiful periwinkle blue, cut it and made 60" long tubes out of it. I got those sewn up a couple of days ago, and I also bought some varicolored glass pony beads to make a fringe on the end, mixing them with some AB periwinkle blue pony beads I found. *I* think they will be very cute for a couple of inexpensive Christmas gifts ... hope my two SIL's like them too!
Added!
I understand being not in recipe mode.
I'm on a South-Beach style eating plan myself, and I am going to do the cooking, so I have warned everybody don't expect any junk around here! But I am trying to figure out how to modify recipes to fit my new food sensibilities - little or no fat (I have a health problem needing very low fat, so the fats I get are quality, like the oils in salmon, avocado, nuts), restricted amounts of carb. It's interesting.
Scarves are cool! I knitted one last week, but now I seem to be in afghan mode.
Sounds gorgeous, Hetty. :-)
We're on a low carb eating regimen, too many pre-diabetics in the house. We're having a big turkey with lots of leftovers, squash custard (not pumpkin pie), lots of green veggies and apple brown betty with berries and cream for dessert.
I'm being lobbied hard for mashed potatoes. I always used to leave the skins on. I'm think of getting up early, throwing out half of the insides and making mashed potato skins with cream cheese, maybe some grated swiss cheese. Think they'll notice?
My fiber project right now is finishing a card woven sash for a friend of mine. It's green wool, about 4" wide. I'm hoping I can get it off the loom this weekend so I can start on several baby blankets next week. Everyone I know is having babies this year, it seems.
A couple of my favorites (shhhh!) are getting handspun merino wool, otherwise, wool yarn from my too-big stash.
For Christmas, my daughter is getting several blankets from an acrylic stash my mother passed on to me this summer. Lots of play and experimentation with patterns for no $$. And they're all machine washable. ;-)
My girls are planning to make scarves for one another for Christmas, as a surprise. lol And so the skills go on to another generation.
Great fun last night, I wove over 18" watching the Dems go down in flames. :-) Prayers for our troops and their Commander In Chief...
Pinz
Hey Pinz! Where you been?
Tell me about that pre-diabetic stuff. Mom was diabetic, grandpa was too, and brother is officially diagnosed pre. I got scared straight and now eat a whole lot differently.
I am thinking about making a pumpkin custard with non-fat milk and maybe baking splenda. I like plain pumpkin with pepper, no sugar at all or butter. But that dish doesn't seem thanksgiving-y enough.
I was also thinking about a fat-free coolwhip berry thingie.
I used to make a nice icebox pie/fake cheesecake out of sugar free jello, non-fat plain yogurt, and coolwhip. But I might be the only one around here who would eat it, and there would be too much for me. And I no doubt would eat it all...
For years (over ten in fact) I didn't make pies because a local pie pantry made them better than I could but they have gone out of business so here I am making pumpkin chifon pies. Went out today and got a double boiler. I use mostly unsalted butter with a little shortening in the pie crust.
My hubby makes the best pie crusts. And considering how I hate to roll out piecrust, I let him.
I do have a great recipe for making fresh peach pie.
You cut ripe peaches into orange juice concentrate, enough to cover. 4 cups of this mix per pie. When peaches come into season, we make this up and freeze it. The orange really enhances the peach flavor. When you make your pie, which will be a 2 crust pie, if it seems a little thin, sprinkle a little flour on the top of the peaches before covering the pie. Bake for about an hour or until the crust looks properly done.
What a cute group! Can I join your Ping List? (I crochet, craft and sew.)
Foodwise: Thanksgiving will be at MILs this year (we all alternate) so she's only a few miles up the road from me. I'm in charge of Pumpkin Pie this year, so I'm making Pumpkin Pie Cheesecakes. Yum! Of course, some of the "traditionalists" in the family will whine, but too bad. Learn to bake your own d@mn pies, LOL!
Craftwise: I'm making Gift Baskets for most of my gifts. Each has a special "theme" for the recipient, but I'm also including crocheted dish cloths, homemade jellies and bread & soup mixes in Mason Jars. I'm crocheting a scarf for my sister with those fun yarns from Lion Brand, and I'm also making four of the pink Breast Cancer scarves for my three best friends and myself. (One survivor in the group, one that didn't survive...and who knows if we others will be so lucky?) I gotta get offline and get crafting! :)
Recipes: If anyone wants to make Gifts in a Jar, there are a WEALTH of recipes here. I've made a lot of them, and they turn out well and people ask for more:
http://www.recipegoldmine.com (Look to the massive recipe index on the right side of the page for "Gifts in a Jar.")
Got ya added!
The current Ping list, for any who want to be able to ping us:
Mercat, alwaysconservative, wildehunt, IN Farm Girl, proudofthesouth, HarleyLady27, EHC Southern Pride, xsmommy, Blue Eyes, pinz-n-needlez, kingu, Ladypixel, secret garden, FOG724, caryatid, A knight without armor, baker_girl, pbrown,cyborg, jellybean, utah girl,abner,KC Burke, LongElegantLegs,Mama25, mrs. a, Grammy,Jemian, Alia, alwaysconservative, hocndoc,moneypenny,AbsoluteGrace, Annie5622, austinaero, retrokitten, RandallFlagg, Hetty_Fauxvert, Diana in Wisconsin, Knitting A Conundrum
I love your gift basket idea.
We're not much for gift exchanges here, mostly just eating and talking. But I like ideas that are practical, creative, and with a bit of handmade included.
Pinz
I'm hoping to turn my Gift Baskets into a sideline soon. I use my friends and family as Guinea Pigs. ;)
I sell used books on the web as my home business, so I'm always in the Thrift Stores scrounging for books and other treasures. I can't believe the deals I've gotten on mixed bags of yarns and the like. Granted, you have to take some ugly stuff, but I've found $10+ skeins of hand-dyed yarns and Alpaca wools and the like buried in those bags, too.
I like putting together the Gift Baskets; gives me an excuse to be creative, plus shop year 'round for goodies, LOL!
I want to find a way to incorporate "reFURbished" Teddy Bears and bear-themed books as gifts for kids, too.
Too many ideas; never enough time or money! :)
It's fascinating to read these threads and see the creativity and resourcefulness of Freepers.
I'm inspired and humbled. But feel so lucky to have a forum to spin my ideas out, too. Sometimes they seem more real to read about them in black and white. :-)
I know that politics is the backbone of FR, it's nice to read the food threads, though, and now these.
Off to rest my arm in a hot tub. I can see the end of the warp, I will finish tomorrow! Yay!!!
Night all, thanks KaC. ;-)
Pinz
Thanks for the ping! I've been busy getting the food for Thanksgiving and an early Christmas party, as well as knitting scarves like a fiend, LOL!
Let me look for some interesting recipes to share and post later.
I decided 2 weeks ago I was going on the Cabbage Soup diet, so I did....for 3 days, I'm so sick of cabbage soup I could die....decided a few pounds overweight is just okey with me....lolol....I envy all these people that can stay with it....
I've been on a pretty successful diet for about 9 months, but now I am on a plateau and it's driving me crazy!
but I hve lost 60+ pounds.
It's a whole different way of thinking about food. But even with what I've done, I don't think I could do the cabbage soup diet either.
I have always been a size 10, but since I had a heart attack 3 years ago, my dr. says the statin meds I'm on are weight gainers, so I have gained about 60 pounds, and I have done everything to loose it, I walk, I mow the lawns, I clean the house, I care for our dogs, etc. and not an ounce leaves these hips....so I thought, hummm, cabbage soup....it will be a longgggggg time before I put another spoon of cabbage soup to my mouth....lmao......
And congrats to you....I am very jealous you can do this....maybe I will discuss this more with my dr next week.....:)
1300 cal a day average. Little fat. Lots of non-fat yogurt. restricted, but not elimintated carbs. Lots of fruit and veggies. Lean meat. Salmon regularly. Calcium supplemnts. Green tea.
Now I think I could live with that....I like everything on there so far and since I'm under the calorie level you said your on, it shouldn't be that hard....I'm on 1000 cals a day....
If your calorie count is too low, you can have more trouble losing weight, cause your body goes into starvation mode and squeezes every calorie three and four times.
You might want to add a couple or three hundred calories a day into it for a couple of weeks and see if that makes a difference.
It also gets mighty hard to maintain good nutrition under 1200 calories. You need to supplement with a good multivitamin if you aren't doing it yet.
That's kitties for you!
I'm going to do blueberries and non-fat coolwhip for dessert. Hubby will do Dryer's Light Grande Ice cream. Ice cream's not too big of a problem for me because I am lactose intolerant.
I told him I will not make pecan pie, though. Tooo tempting for me! Some foods I just don't keep around, because the odds are good I will eat them.
For gravy, I use mixes. Usually about 20 cal a portion, which seems ok to me. I don't make them from scratch any more, because of the fat content.
We will have roast goose, canned cranberry sauce, stove-top cornbread dressing (not my fav, but I make it without butter, and I won't have any leftovers), a green veggie, a little gravy to put over the cornbread, and then later the desserts I mentioned. Before dessert, probably less than 400 calories a plate.
I've been learning all sorts of tricks, like, if you get the munchies eat something like non-fat plain yogurt, high in protein, and it will kill the munchies.
If you add a teaspoon of baking cocoa to your powdered coffee creamer for your coffee, it only adds 5-10 calories, and you get the lovely chocolate antioxidants, and help feel not chocolate deprived. I allow myself 2 or so cups of sugar sweetened coffee a day (I don't like artificial sweetners in my coffee), for abour 40 calories each.
Save your fat calories for important stuff, like eating salmon, or avocado, or walnuts or almonds. I get some almond butter, and have one teaspoon of it a day, for about 30 calories, to get the goodness of nuts into my diet. Sometimes I add walnuts to my salad for the same reason.
When you eat out, order steak and plain baked potato and salad with oil and vinegar. Eat about the amount you would at home, and take the rest back with you, and you can eat out without grief.
If bread gives you craves, try to keep portions down to 100 calories worth at a time. That helped me a lot.
Genisoy soy chips are wonderful. And good for you.
8th continent light soymilk only has 60 cal a cup, and is sweet enough to sweeten hot tea.
I have other things I do, too.
My SIL tried the cabbage soup diet ... and stuck with it for ONE day! LOL! I like cabbage, but I'd never try that diet for fear I'd grow to hate it. :)
So far I have lost only five pounds in two weeks, but that's after trying other diets and not losing anything at all. So I'm sticking with the Beach for another couple of weeks at least and see how far I get.
I'm referring to the photo of the red, white and blue quilted throw you handmade for the FReeps Ahoy Cruise. You so generously donated it as a table prize. All our freeper cruisers oohed and aahed. I have a mental blank as to who was the lucky lady won it.
The throw was indeed a thing of patriotic beauty. I hope you'll share the photo with readers of this thread.
I wish I had such talent on loan from Gawdddddddddddddddd-ahh.
Leni (Bahama Mama for FReeps Ahoy Cruises)
I finished that Fun Fur scarf in only two days! It's about 7 feet long and three inches thick...Very fashionable. I almost hate to wrap it up.
I started another shawl in a thick yarn called HomeSpun. I had to switch from circular needles to straight needles because the stitches would shrink, hanging from the cord. Is there a way to prevent this?
It's pretty normal. The stitch looseness shifts, but doesn't go away. When you pull them back over the big part of the needle, they will resume their proper size. I've never noticed it actually affecting the gauge of something I made.
..."gobble-gobble-gobble" purl "gobble-gobble-gobble" purl "gobble-gobble-gobble" purl repeat
LOL!
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