Honey-Jalapeño Chicken

I get a lot of emails from cooking and knitting sites. Kinda predictable since this is a blog about cooking and knitting.

So, I open an email a few days ago from The Splendid Table and this deliciousness appeared:

The Designer Show House

Due to various engagement conflicts, instead of our usual Wednesday evening dinner, Foodie, Singer and I decided to pay a visit to the Community Arts Center DESIGNER SHOW HOUSE.  The house, Fishing Rock Farm – named for a popular fishing hole – is located in Media, PA and is an absolutely stunning multi-designer renovation project. The elegant farmhouse built in 1928 by EK Crothers, sits on 5 acres overlooking Ridley Creek. The entrance off of the main road leads to a cute little wooden bridge, flanked by two beautiful stone pillars.  The bridge could only be more adorable if it were an elfin covered bridge!

I was super excited!

Until my camera died.

Too bad, but….

….thank goodness my iPhone saved the day!  Athough the photographs are nice, I was not able to capture some of the delightful nuances of this yesteryear masterpiece.  Regardless, I hope you enjoy the vicarious snapshot tour of this lovely home!

Grand Staircase and Entrance Hall, Savery Design

A Bibliophile’s Study, PVM Designs

The Salon/Living Room, Turnkey Spaces. 

Love the painting in this room!

Camelot, Dining Room.  Simply Divine Interiors.

An Artful Transition, First Floor Porch. Decorating Den Interiors. My favorite room.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the metal root chairs!

In Bloom Nursery, Jane Eustace Interior Design.

Elegant English Retreat – Master Suite, Maria V. Nelson Interiors.

Home Office, Michele Plachter Design.

“Framed: - Second Floor Enclosed Porch, Barlow Tyrie Inc.

Back Hall, C Barry Marron, Embellisher.  I love the detail of the wallpaper on the ceiling.  Pieces cut and installed asymmetrically.  Fabulous.

Sewing Room, Janice Martin Couture

Kitchen, Michael Shannon Designs.  My second favorite room.  I adore the wall paper…colors, scale, everything about it!

Love the window blinds...they remind me (in a good way) of those in my Grandmom's house!

This was a monumental enterprise….Bravo CAC, bravo!

We stopped and had a glass of wine and dinner at Piccasso's afterwards. Met several other Showcase house visitors there! A wonderful evening.

The Porch

You might be familiar with this practice.

You have an absolutely functional and fabulous covered outside space, perhaps a porch or patio, and it becomes so loaded with stuff that the producers of Hoaders could justifiably pay you a visit.

We all seem to have the propensity (in varying degrees) to store old windows, doors and maybe even a radiator (or two) in such a space with good intentions of properly discarding or reusing the retired items.   They sit and sit until, one day you decide enough already and you get the crap hauled away, freeing the space to be used as intended.

Or so I’ve heard.

I have a lovely screened-in porch on the side of my house that fell victim to such an indignity…she was just pleading with me to beautify her, and so I did.

I had old shit stuff hauled away.

I replaced the screen door.

I had the floor sanded and painted a beautiful shade of YELLOW.

I gave the screen frames a fresh coat of paint.  And…

I got a new wicker rocking chair.

I think I'll get a ceiling fan too....what a serene and comfortable space now!

The best part...people walking by have absolutely no idea I'm there!

Strawberry Shortcakes

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest sources.  

Like when I’m on the plane coming back from Hawaii (because it’s not like I had anything else to do for 10 hours) and while browsing through the complimentary in-flight USAirways Magazine (see, some things are still free) I see this recipe for individual strawberry shortcakes.

So, I ripped the page out and decided to make them the next time my assignment was dessert…which was last week but I’m posting the recipe this week because I forgot to take photos of the dinner I made this week.   Spaghetti and meatballs but you can read about that here in a previous post.

I had to (once again) borrow sugar from my neighbor who also shared her simple but sensible secret for sweetening homemade whipped cream…or as youngest daughter used to call it “whooped cream.” She also used to say that we lived in “Baltimorrow” and we used to go out to eat in “Resternauts.” Anyway, back to the point, my neighbor uses confectioners sugar to sweeten homemade whipped cream…it dissolves more evenly and nicely.

I am writing sugar on my grocery list now.

Individual Strawberry Shortcakes

For the strawberries

2 pints of strawberries
3 Tablespoons of sugar
2 Tablespoons of lemon juice

For the Biscuits

(I used the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box)
1 cup of Bisquick
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup of fat-free milk
Few drops of vanilla extract (my addition)

For the Whipped Cream

1 cup of heavy cream
1 Tablespoon of confectioner’s sugar

Heat the oven to 425°.

Slice the tops off and quarter the strawberries.  Place berries in a bowl and sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice.  Stir gently and let stand until a light syrup forms, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir Bisquick, sugar, milk and vanilla until soft dough forms.  Drop 4 spoonfuls on to an cookie sheet and bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

While the biscuits are baking, add the confectioner’s sugar to the cream and whip into soft peaks.

When the biscuits are done, let them cool a bit and assemble the shortcakes by slicing the biscuits in half, add some strawberries, place the lid back on, top with whipped cream and more strawberries and syrup and serve!

The Amazing Mother's Day Self-Striping Yarn Shawl

I see this pattern for a shawl on lionbrand.com and it calls for using six skeins of “Amazing” self-striping yarn. The pattern seems easy and I am fascinated by how self-striping yarns work to produce such an even, non-random pattern. I decide to knit one for my mom for Mother’s Day who is always cold when she comes to my house.

They say the skin thins as we get older making it harder to stay warm.

Another thing to eagerly anticipate.

Anyway, first I decide to investigate this self-striping business (maybe I’m just dense and the rest of the world gets it). Here are my search terms:

The first result is from one of my reliable go-to answer sites, about.com. They tell me that “self-striping yarn is yarn that is dyed in a specific, technical manner to ensure (or at least make it pretty likely) that the color changes will line up more or less in stripes along the knitted fabric.” They also say the yarn works best on projects using simple patterns, such as the stockinette stitch. So glad that I decided to follow the Lion Brand pattern instructions or I may be giving my mom a jagged mess – although I suspect that she would love anything I knitted for her. I used five balls of Lion Brand Amazing's self-striping yarn in the Glacier Bay color so it's not as long as the pattern calls for.

Redwood Shawl
Lion Brand® Amazing®
Cast on 81 stitches.
Row 1: Knit 1, *purl 1, knit 1; repeat from * across.
Row 2: Knit.
Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until about 2 yds (2 m) of yarn remains. Bind off. Weave in ends.

Here is my finished shawl. Lion Brand touts that this line of yarns “creates gorgeous color combinations without changing yarns.” I agree and would love to hear what you think. I think my mom will love it and I won’t have to turn my thermostat up to 80º the next time she visits!

This shawl was truly a labor of love (because of the stitch repetition especially considering the length and width) and --bonus -- it's been to Ireland! For an Irish lass, that will make this gift even more special. I knitted on the plane to pass the time.

Incidently, some of the search results showed how to dye your own self-striping yarn.

That would be pushing it…besides, I don’t own any sheep.

My next project is a felted clutch....it should be done by Christmas!