fall recipes

Holidaze are here..... I'm on a rosemary kick.

Brie Sliders
1 package those tiny pitas
1 slice of brie
4-5 baby portobellas
1 package baby arugula
2-3 sprigs rosemary
1 small shallot
your favorite balsamic vinaigrette dressing

Preheat the oven to "toast". Get yourself a knife, the brie, the pitas and a nice big ole cookie sheet. Cut the tiny pitas open pacman style, so you can put as much brie in there that will melt nicely and be delicious, but not so much that it spills all over the pan and makes a big mess or grease all over the outside of the pita.

Get yourself a nice cutting board, a bowl to put things in, and the rest of the ingredients out of the fridge. Stick the pans with the pitas in the oven, and get to work coarsely chopping the baby arugula and finely chopping the rosemary and shallot. Put all that in the bowl and slice the mushrooms in the way that it looks like a cross section of the mushroom. Take the pan out of the oven, slide the mushrooms on top of the brie and smash them in to hold them into place. Now think about the situation you are in. Are you serving these things immediately or later? Once you put the balsamic on the greens the smushy clock starts ticking, so wait until the very last minute to dress the greens and cram them into the pitas. NOM NOM NOM.


Cranberry Cheddar Casserole
1 bigass purple eggplant
1 stalk of brocolli
1/2 vidalia onion
10 whatever kind of mushrooms you like
6 cloves garlic
2 sprigs rosemary
the biggest slice of cranberry cheddar cheese from whole foods, shredded (we did ~1 cup, 2 cups would be glorious though. a sample of the cheese at the store was the inspiration for this recipe)
veganaise to taste (I used about 3/4 cup)
1 egg
lots of butter
breadcrumbs to taste (at least half a cup)

Cut up your eggplant into 1 inch cubes, cover it with water in a pot and boil the piss out of it for like 10 minutes or whatever. Collanderize it, and return to the waterless pot.

Cut up your brocolli, onion and mushrooms into even chunks (large or small) and mince the garlic too. Put that shit in a pan with sum butterrrrrrrr!! Stir it and make it smell good and feel squishy. Put it in the pot with the eggplant and stir it up.

Preheat the Oven

Time to make it creamy like a real, good, down home southern casserole should be. In a bowl, beat the egg, and combine half your shredded cheese, two "big spoons" of veganaise, 1/3 cup breadcrumbs, and your rosemary. Put this into the vegetable mixture and stiiiir. If it doesn't meet your standards of creaminess, add a "big spoon" of veganaise at a time until it is creamy as fuck.

Transfer this to your favorite casserole dish or big cast iron thingy. Make it smooth and evenly apply the rest of the cheese to the top. Some people like a lot of breadcrumb topping, some people don't for whatever reason. I think its the best part, so I would kill the breadcrumbs in a bowl and soak them in butter. Sprinkle all over the top of the cheese.

PUT IT IN THE OVEN UNTIL IT BUBBLES. DO THE DISHES WHILE IT COOLS DOWN AND DON'T BURN YOURSELF.

in defense of leggings as pants

Frequently I hear "those aren't pants" in reference to folks wearing leggings either in reference to "that bitch over there" or in an angry Facebook status. Basically these people are haters who do not know what pants are. I like this one from Wikipedia (linked to above): "an item of clothing worn on the lower part of the body from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately" Wikipedia goes on to clarify that : "Leggings are form-fitting trousers of a clingy material, often knitted cotton and lycra." There, it is settled, Wikipedia made it so.

Unfortunately for legging-haters, not only do they not understand the definition of a word they are trying to defend, they are missing out on the awesome utility of leggings as pants. Wearing leggings means being unencumbered and feeling free. It means having your ass covered in public without all that extra, pesky fabric. It means when unexpected athleticism is required, you are able to give it your all and certainly won't get stuck in an escalator or on chain link fence. Realistically it usually means going from yoga to the grocery store and the bank on your way home- surely haters can understand this, or do they keep loose-fitting trousers with them for maintaining the integrity of pants? Leggings do experience two primary utility losses compared to other styles of pants: they do not have pockets and they are not formal.

So in conclusion, leggings ARE pants. ~*SpEcIaL pAnTs*~ to be enjoyed by all but not for every application. For errands, friends and bar fights they are indispensable.

15 rows to ward off A/C

I found a singular white ball of Lion Brand's discontinued Thick n Quick Cotton in my mother's old craft closet. Not really enough for anything except to perhaps something to keep the A/C off my shoulders in the office. So I grabbed my #19s to make it stretch and cast on 43 sts and worked feather and fan:

Row 1: K2tog, *k, y/o, k, y/o, k, s1, ssk, psso, repeat from * 6 times, k, y/o, k, y/o, k, ssk.
Row 2: k
Row 3: k2tog, *k1f&b, y/o, k, y/o, k1f&b, s1, ssk, psso repeat from * 6 times, k1f&b, y/o, k, y/o, k1f&b, ssk.
Row 4: p
Row 5: k2tog, *k1f&b, k, y/o, k, y/o, k, k1f&b, s1, ssk, psso, repeat from * 6 times, k1f&b, y/o, k, y/o, k, k1f&b, ssk.
Row 6: k
Row 7: k2tog, *k1f&b, k2, y/o, k, y/o, k2, k1f&b, s1, ssk, psso, repeat from * 6 times, k1f&b, k2, y/o, k, y/o, k2, k1f&b, ssk
Row 8: p
Row 9: k2tog, *k1f&b, k3, y/o, k, y/o, k3, k1f&b, s1, ssk, psso, repeat from * 6 times, k1f&b, k3, y/o, k, y/o, k3, k1f&b, ssk
Row 10: k
Row 11: k2 tog, *k2tog, k, y/o, k, y/o, k, y/o, k, y/o, k, ssk, s1, ssk, psso, repeat from * 6 times, k2 tog, k, y/o, k, y/o, k, y/o, k, y/o, k, ssk, ssk.
Row 12: p
Row 13: same as row 11
Row 14: k
Row 15: bind off

or for the visual types:

\ is ssk, / is k2tog, /\ is s1, ssl, psso, X is k, O is y/o, - is p, and little x is k1f&b, work "backwards" from arrow

\XOXOX/\XOXOX/\XOXOX/\XOXOX/\XOXOX/\XOXOX/\XOXOX/ <-1
X <-2
\xOXOx/\xOXOx/\xOXOx/\xOXOx/\xOXOx/\xOXOx/\xOXOx/<-3
- <-4
\xXOXOXx/\xXOXOXx/\xXOXOXx/\xXOXOXx/\xXOXOXx/\xXOXOXx/\xXOXOXx/ <-5
x <-6
\xXXOXOXXx/\xXXOXOXXx/\xXXOXOXXx/\xXXOXOXXx/\xXXOXOXXx/\xXXOXOXXx/\xXXOXOXXx/ <-7
- <-8
\xXXXOXOXXXx/\xXXXOXOXXXx/\xXXXOXOXXXx/\xXXXOXOXXXx/\xXXXOXOXXXx/\xXXXOXOXXXx/\xXXXOXOXXXx/ <-9
X<-10
\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/ <- 11
- <- 12
\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/\XOXOXOXOX/ <- 13
X<- 14
bind off <-15

picture of it blocking is on twitter @knitshits

every morning

What to cram in my food hole and what fiber to cover my cram holes? Why some people leave color out of this equation on a regular basis is something I might have to wait until I'm older to understand.

knit bender hat

Here is my un tested pattern for the awesome crochet Bender Hat as seen previously on knithacker.com for @vayankeegrl.

materials

~2 hat's worth of worsted robot colored something or another
some white
an ity bity bit of black
the needles for your gauge to be 4-5 sts to the inch (youll fsho need dpns plus maybe a hat circ if that's your style, also the little girl in the picture has a really loose hat on so i don't know if its for a grown up but just on a little girl... if you want a loose hat like her's i'd aim for 4 sts to the inch and for a more uh face hugging hat go for 5)
fiber fill
yarn needle

method

cast on 105 sts, work 1x1 rib for an inch or so, then plain knitting until your tube is 6-7 inches long

begin decreases:

k5, k2tog - repeat to end of row
k4, k2 tog - repeat to end of row
k3, k2tog - repeat to end of row (mark this row)
k2, k2tog - repeat to end of row
k1, k2tog - repeat to end of row
k2tog across, break yarn, thread through remaining sts, etc.

using dpns pick up 28 knit sts in the marked row.

knit 3 rows plain
row 4: k2, k2tog - repeat to end of row
row 5: knit
row 6: k1, k2 tog - repeat to end of row
row 7: knit, cram as full of fiber fill as you can, break yarn and run it through, tucking in ends.

using dpns pick up the sts you just bound off from the bottom end of the row. you can also not bind them off and just keep working but i feel like a "wall" in between each of the 3 seconds for the antennae will help keep the fiber fill put.

row 1 and every odd row row at least for now: knit
row 2: k5, k2tog
row 4: k4, k2tog
row 6: k3, k2tog
row 8: k2, k2tog
row 10: k1, k2tog
row 11: knit

cram full of fiber fill, break yarn, thread through remaining sts then pick up the sts you just bound off.

row 1: knit front and back of every st
row 2: k1, k front and back - repeat to end of row
row 3: k 2 k front and back to end of row
rows 4 & 5: knit
row 6: k2, k2tog - repeat to end of row
row 7: k1, k2tog - repeat to end of row
row 8: k2tog to end of row, cram full of fiber fill, break yarn and thread through remaining sts and finish.

return on cast on edge of hat and pick up 20 sts along the cast on edge and work in garter st for 3 inches.

begin shaping on a right side row:
row 1: k4, ssk, k8, k2tog, k4
row 2: knit
row 3: k4, ssk, k6, k2tog, k4
row 4: knit
row 5: k4, ssk, k4, k2tog, k4
bind off, weave in end, and repeat on opposite side (yeah, it will be one st off, nbd)

now for some eyeballs!

using white, cast on 5 sts on dpns
row 1: knit front and back every st
row 2: k1, k front and back - repeat to end of row
row 3: k2, k front and back - repeat to end of row
row 4: k3, k front and back - repeat to end of row
rows 5-7: knit
row 8: purl
row 9: k3, k2 tog
row 10: k2, k2tog
row 11: k1, k2 tog
row 12: k2 tog across, cram full of fiber fill but not SUPER crammed, you want the decreases after the purl row to sit flat against the side of the hat, break yarn and thread through remaining sts.

using a little bit of black embroider pupils on the cats on sts.

repeat for other eyeball. happy happy joy joy!

this part is a little weird, because i don't know what would be more comfortable to do for you, to sew the eyeballs on first and then knit the cover around it, or to knit the cover and sew the eyeballs inside of it. either way, use the purled edge of the eyeball to sew the eyeball onto the hat. i would put on the hat and somehow stare through the holes in the mirror to find the best placement for the eyeballs. maybe borrow someone else's head. in the picture it looks like the eyes are right over hers= friggin hilarious. place st markers on the edges of where the eyeballs lay, and pick up sts in the round and work in garter for as tall as the eyeballs are, bind off. BOOYAH, slap that shit on your fancy face.

ENJOY! this is the first real life pattern i've ever written so this was fun practice for me and please be kind and let me know if its funky anywhere! and share your FO! happy monday!

freedom bag

headbands for men with lots of hair

^^love

the american dream

A knit! I'm took advantage of my bad cold to chip away my Google Reader bankruptcy due to post-New York and Paris Fashion Week videos. I was particularly inspired by this garment to use up some Gedifra Fashion Trend Gold that I did not buy enough of, if I'm only covering one shoulder, problem solved! I don't remember what show this is from.



I had three balls, and I allotted one to each of my three ideas for the garment. First, I wanted a one shouldered raglan yoke with a cap sleeve. Second ball finished the bottom and connected for the button band. The third ball was devoted entirely to a cowl neck. The result:





Some of my friends don't like this and I understand why, it is a "make do" garment. This is what happens when you don't buy enough yarn and end up hating it after the first swatch. I don't recommend this yarn, especially if you have sensitive skin. The gold leaf does. not. stay. on the yarn and after working it you'll be bedazzled. Hence only using knit/purl stitches.

vegan queso

2 parts nutritional yeast
1 part salsa
1 part milk of your choice, or veganaise/aqua

Credit to kiltoy for inspiring me to make this to cover some yammy sweet potato-black bean-quinoa burritos. Lotsa recipes floating around like this in the tubes that include all sorts of other spices (usually garlic powder and paprika), but I believe if you start out with delicious salsa, extra spices are unnecessary. Yesterday for lunch I put this on a egg-spinach-mushroom bagel-sandwich. Made sense to me.

My roomie acquired a futon at a garage sale and part of our cleaning process included laying it out in the bright Florida sun for a few hours on both sides. I'm sick as a dog and figured the same concept could be applied to my body, so I layed out for the first time this season. Felt good, I do feel better. Some of my favorite people are on spring break from Boston schools this week, they say it was in the 20s up there. I love Florida, I love Orlando.

just a side knote

knitshits won't be on etsy anytime soon, but lil dubz does do barterable commission pieces with much joy. The purpose of this blog just sharing and caring, not to sell you anything.

perfect protein popcorn

It is widely understood and practiced that the best part about popcorn is licking up a the little extra leftover bits of topping at the bottom. And it is widely misunderstood that vegetarians have little to no recourse for protein beyond soy and "rice and beans"- two protein sources I get tired of very easily. They may never know nutritional and textural joy of licking up little bits of the beautiful multicolored topping from

Perfect Protein Popcorn

1/4 loose popcorn
2 tablespoons unrefined coconut oil
5 tablespoons nutritional yeast (don't judge me, its delicious)
3 tablespoons hemp seeds
a good pinch or two of Red Alaea Salt (I got mine from cocoacinnamon, its delicious and nutritious but more importantly I consider it crucial to the color story of the topping bits at the popcorn- red salt and green hemp seeds)

Heat the oil on medium high, add the popcorn, shake the shit out of it when it starts to pop. Transfer to bowl and top with the delicious bits.

If you're wondering why your hemp seeds are so expensive and dollar mcburgers are only a dollar, please contact these folks. Both hemp seeds and nutritional yeast contain a "complete" protein. And vegetarians don't get what?

cherry kombucha whoo haa

I took my Valentine to Asheville, land of plenty (of great food but not jobs), this weekend and we spent most of our time eating or buying food to eat later. At the WNC Farmer's Market we met Areli and Leon of cocoacinnamon where I picked up some yerba mate, red sea salt and Areli's Rihla herbal tea blend: lavendar, lemongrass, ginger and clove! Brilliant! I picked up the Rihla for kombucha (as they so nicely blogged about) and wanted to throw it out there that my mommy just had a baby who is up for adoption to a caring home in the Orlando area. I don't want to blog my bucha method because honestly it isn't down pat and there is already lots about it on the interwebs. But it is hard to mess up when you start with FANTASTIC sweet tea.

music for yo ears

End Media presents Sullivan Watts ft Kiltoy ... also ft knitshits locksocks! I love the slow moment at 2:09.

Sullivan Watts ft Kiltoy - Build & Destroy from ENDmedia on Vimeo.

a knit

The wool swatch I nearly ate thinking it was a triscuit became this dress:



I love it. All I wanted was for those two colors (offensive marigold and offensive dusty pink) to look weird together. Mission accomplished.



I would write a pattern for it but why? It is just a simple ass raglan sweater dress. I cast on for a wide neck, increased in a roughly 15/30/15/30 (obviously these numbers do not add up to 100% but you get the point) fashion until it felt loose and comfortable, and knitknitknitknitknit in plain stockinette alternating the colors every row with my favorite 1X2 twisted rib on all the edges. This dress was a favorite one for me to bring to the pub as motor skills and concentration are not required although a strong motivation to continue sitting in one spot is. I knit it on US #10 Addi Natural Turbos so it is quite loose and went quickly.

Knitting has been kind of slow recently because of the tape on my knuckles. I punched the wall on accident climbing.

gringos need mayo

As I mentioned before, mayo is essential to authentic Southern cuisine. Soy Floridian, but I was raised in a southern household (all three sides are from southern mississippi) and I love grapeseed oil veganaise. Here my favorite mayo recipe is:

Tostones y Southern Style Mojo

1 green plantain
1/4 cup veganaise
4-5 cloves of garlic
1 lime
1 fistful cilantro
safflower oil

Heat the pan and oil to medium high and cut plantain into 4-5 stout bits. They need flat ends to stand on. Stand the plantains up in the pan until both sides are golden and the middle feels kind of squishy. In the meantime, chop up the garlic and cilantro and combine with the veganaise and the juice from the lime. SMASH plantains with something wide and flat like a plate. Make sure there is plenty of oil in the pan and put the plantains back in. I like to fry the shit out of them until they are super crunch and just about transparent from the amount of oil they have soaked up. Maybe paper towel them, and be generous with the mojo. Feeds one.



I prefer a 1:1 ratio of tostones to garic cloves.

POPCORN!!

Love recently invested in a large tub of unrefined extra virgin coconut oil and filled up a jar for me. Over the last year I've been kicking a lot of old bad nutrition habits and one of my worst long time bad habits was microwave popcorn. Blast O Butter. The really bad stuff. It was the last thing that I was cooking on a regular basis in the microwave and it is a late night staple. One night I got home exceptionally late and inebriated and my roomies were already tucked away in bed so I made some popcorn with refined coconut oil on my camp stove outside. WOW. wow. WOW!! REAL popcorn! No microwave chewyness. No "butter". I was hooked.

Even more hooked when I tried it with UNrefined coconut oil- deep rich coconut taste on fluffy popcorn. I wanted that taste with curry and I knew Love, being from a curry loving culture, would want that taste, too.



I forgot to bring my loose popcorn and all he had was one bag of the Terrible Paper Bag Popcorn. So I was on a mission to save the popcorn from whatever lie within the paper bag. Orange poison. Curious, I put a generous fingerful in my mouth. Neon flavor. Absurd and single faceted. In context it is addictive, the flavor overrides all kinds of common sense mechanisms my body uses to communicate proper nutrition requirements. The real danger of poison-food doesn't come from what it does to your figure or arteries, it is in how it blinds your perception of food and your body.

In a mesh strainer, I ran the contents of the bag under hot water until I couldn't see anymore orange. Still greasy, of course, so I lobbed on the baking soda, again hot water, still greasy, soaked in vinegar, again hot water, wiped off with paper towels. Love thought it was OK to eat at that point but I swear I still tasted some of the Poison in the final product. We ate it all but I will have to make the real deal very soon. I don't think the microwave bag popcorn is intended to be used on the stove. Here recipe is:

Coconut Curry Popcorn

1/2 cup loose popcorn
3 tablespoons unrefined extra virgin coconut oil
1 tablespoon your favorite curry
sea salt to taste
the lid that goes to your pot

Melt the oil in a pot. You'll need a pot big enough to hold all the popcorn when it is popped but small enough to where the oil will come up about halfway on the kernels. Put the kernels in, cover, when they start to pop, shake the shit out of it (keep the lid on though). When the popping slows or you think you're burning it take the pot off the heat and give it a few more good shakes. Take the lid off and salt and curry it up. Enjoy.

friends, fiber and food

What's on my needles today. To be thigh highs for me, but mostly for my man.

I love my friends, I love how they think when I knit plain stockinette it is gorgeous and when I don't get as far as they thought I would on a sock they are disappointed and that they want me to be proud of them for quitting cancer sticks. I am very proud, I love my friends.



This is knitshits, and the more I learn about food and the more I learn about fiber the more I find they are kin. Food is medicine and fiber is food for the outside of your body. They are gifts from the plants and the animals and perfect for our minds and bodies. Lil Dubz is a new vegetarian and I want to share some of my shits along with my knits. I brought the ensalade de aguacates in the blue bowl to our potluck and here the recipe is:

6 hass avocado
2 big juicy tomatos
1 head of garlic
1 big bunch of cilantro
1/3 cup grapeseed veganaise
5 limes

Combine the juice of 3 limes, the veganaise, all the garlic all chopped up, and half the cilantro. Add one avocado and smash it and combine it as best you can to make the dressing for your salad. Cut up the rest of the avocados and tomatoes and gently fold them in. Finish with a wreath of cilantro and lime.

& mitts to match

I loved knitting the garter lace scarf for my Maw Maw so much I made little garter mitts to match.



Pattern is:

Cast on 27 sts.

First row and every odd row: KNIT

even rows 2-6 and 24-38: K, (K2tog, y/o, K, y/o, K2tog) 5 times, K

even rows 8-22: K14, y/o, K2tog, k2tog, y/o, k, y/o, K2tog, K2tog, y/o, k4. (knit mirror image for other mitt: k4, y/o, K2tog, k2tog, y/o, k, y/o, k2tog, k2tog, y/o, k14)

Bind off however you like and block with an emphasis on the scalloped edge. Mattress stitch selvedges to complete mitt and weave end ends.

Happy New Year, yall.