Sweet potato scones

Been dreaming about some gluten free sweet potato scones for a while now, but something always came up.
Well, yesterday the stars seemed to line up - I had some cooked sweet potatoes and the energy to make some scones out of them. Plus, my mom had just bought me an awesome potato ricer from the thrift store, which I was eager to try out. 

My new potato ricer - Thriftstore score!

After searching for a perfect recipe, and not finding any to my liking (or not having the flour the recipes called for) I came up with my own version and am absolutely in love!

In a small bowl whisk together:

Yes, I ate 2 pieces before I remembered to take a picture

about 1 c riced sweet potatoes 
2 T maple syrup
1/4 c coconut milk

In a larger bowl sift 
1 c almont flour
1/2 c coconut flour
1/3 c tapioca flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp each ground ginger & cinnamon
pinch salt

Cut in 4 T cold coconut oil.
Mix in sweet potato blend with a fork until just combined. Turn dough onto clean surface, press into a flat disk, aprox. 1" tall, and cut into 8 wedges. Place wedges onto greased cookie sheet and if desired, place a pecan half on each wedge.
Bake in a preheated convection oven at 350 for aprox. 20-25 mins. 

Bon Appetit!

                      

after I made these, I realized they were not only gluten-free, but also dairy-free, sugar-free and vegan.  

Chocolate mousse

The other day I was craving something chocolatey-mousse textured. 

Found a can of Trader Joe's coconut cream (LOVE that stuff!) in my cupboard & got to experimenting. 

First I just started whipping the solid chunk out of the can. It only takes a few beats with a whisk to make it smooth & creamy like whipped cream.

Added 5T of cocoa powder and 1T of honey to sweeten it.

Few ingredients resulted in a scrumptious result. Really delicious eaten straight up or chilled (and a bit more solid). 

Go ahead & experiment by adding a little subtle flavor a too! My sis added some Frangelico, but I bet it's just as delicious with a little Grand Marnier or Chambord.

A knitted dress

Plates of unspun Icelandic Lopi

Last Fall I decided to knit myself a dress.
I had all this lovely Icelandic yarn
and a book full of gorgeous patterns.

book by Védís Jónsdóttir

After much deliberation and considering, I decided to make the body of the Klukka dress, and combine it with the yoke style of Kedja, but using the flower pattern a second time.   

It was a little hard to follow the pattern, because there was not much sizing information given - nothing on waist or bust size. I forged ahead, eliminating one increase above the waist.

I knit a dress!

I am not super happy the way the cast on for the sleeves looks, is too loose, but I left it for now.
It is an incredibly warm (albeit also a little itchy) dress, even after soaking it in vinegar, but I got to wear it a couple of times skiing.

For next winter I might soak it in more vinegar or in some conditioner(as suggested) and maybe try to fix the sleeves by crocheting an edge around them.

mmm ... brownies

Every now and then you need a Brownie. Soft, chewy, moist.  

I found this recipe in my "Make it Paleo" book and I am hooked. As with every recipe I tweek it just a bit to make it how I like it.

Anytime I bring these to a party, no one believes there's no sugar or flour in them and asks for the recipe. 

Almond Brownies

1/2 cup of coconut oil

1/2 cup of butter

5 oz bittersweet chocolate

1 cup pure maple syrup

heat on low in saucepan til chocolate is melted. remove from heat.

sift & stir in 1/4 cup of cocoa powder until evenly combined. Set aside to cool.

preheat oven to 350F.

Blend 4 eggs, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda & 2 tsps vanilla extract in a medium bowl until smooth.

Add 12 oz Almond Butter and mix well. 

Slowly add the melted chocolate, continuing to blend.

Add 1/4 cup coconut flour and blend until mixture is evenly combined. 

Pour into lightly greased 9” x 13” glass baking dish & bake 30 mins. 

Have a bite  :)

Hollyhock dyed yarn

I have been wanting to dye yarn with plants and berries for several years now, after receiving a book about it as a gift. The color result from Hollyhock flowers intrigued me. 

Picture from Harvesting Color: How to find plants and make natural dyes

Sadly the last couple of summers my hollyhock flower stayed dormant. 
However, this summer while visiting my mother-in-law and her vast garden, I found to my delight a hundred dried, dark purple Hollyhock flowers.  I soaked these in water overnight, resulting in a most gorgeous deep purple (not close to what the book showed, but I stayed optimistic)

As I did not know where to find Alum, I made a rusty-nail mordant and soaked my yarn in 3Tbsp of the mordant and 2 Tbsp of vinegar for 30mins.  Then added my yarn to my dye pot. 

Kept on heat for 2hrs & let sit for another 2 hrs before rinsing & drying. 

End result is not what the book claims, but it's still beautiful.

Science Class

For a while now I've been wanting to dye some more yarn. I had great success with coffee, I have my dried Hollyhock flowers, but I don't think I'm ready for that one yet. I thought I'd go an easy route and do some Kool Aid dying as a science class with kiddo. 

After doing a bunch of research - I found some helpful information here and I really liked the color combination charts from this site - kiddo & I decided to take a rainy Saturday and dye some yarn and he would get science class points.

We soaked the yarn in lukewarm water and a drop of dish soap. As we were dying 3 different colors, but I did not want to do it in separate pots, I used mason jars. Our colors were to be a dark orange - we were going to try to blend 4 packages of orange and 2 package of Ice Blue Lemonade according to the color chart of the dyeyourownyarn website. Thanks to an insta-hot-water tab we dissolved the packages in 2 cups of hot water and poured this over our yarn in the mason jar. 
The second hank of yarn was going to be 2-colored - we used 4.5 packages each of Lemon-Lime and Grape. Each was dissolved in the hot water and poured over the yarn in the mason jars. Trying to avoid white spots I did the green first and then pulled the green half out of the mason jar and over to the other side so I could cover it with Grape.  Then all 3 jars were set in a hot water bath.

Everywhere I researched it said it would take 45mins to an hour for the color to absorb from the water to the yarn. I wonder if it was because I dissolved the KoolAid in hot water, but it was done within 15 minutes. The strange thing on the Orange - it had soaked up all of the orange - but left the Ice Blue behind. 

We rinsed the yarn out and now it's hanging to dry. We are happy with the results.

 

Finger Fitness

What have I been up to, you're wondering? 

My fingers and arms have been getting quite the work out. 

Rolling and shaping and baking these gorgeous loaves of bread for work.

Trying to keep up with this little monkey climbing walls.

             

And as always, whipping up yarn projects. Look at these lil guys. Aren't they fun?

                           

And still I can't do a pull up even tho I also did the 8-week strength training from "training for the new Alpinism" 

week woman arms :(