Striped Shoulder Cardigan

I love how the stripes on this cardigan stand out even more because of the row of garter stitches dividing them.  Based on this Super-Natural Stripes pattern, but I only used 2 colors (Lion Brand Nature's Choice Organic Cotton in Curacao and Petits Fours) and kept the sleeves short.

The sweater may be a little bit wonky in a few places (ahem, I ran out of blue yarn so the last stripe on the sleeves is too thin, plus I think I picked up too many stitches on one side of the collar, so it hangs a little low), but I think it's pretty cute anyway and hopefully you won't notice the flaws once it's on a cute toddler, namely Zoe.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

I have been on a raisin kick recently for some unknown reason (maybe I need iron?), and, after my bread-making success a few weeks ago, I decided to combine my raisin obsession with my bread making skillz. 

I popped open my trusty Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book and found a recipe for cinnamon raisin swirl bread made with a buttermilk dough base.  So good.  So, so good.  And so, so easy to boot since it's a no-knead recipe.  Tim and I could barely wait for it to cool before cutting into it and then subsequently ate almost the entire loaf in one sitting.

I haven't seen buttermilk here in Jakarta, so I used ye olde whole milk + lemon juice trick.  Also, I brushed the bread with butter and sprinkled it with a little bit of sugar right before popping it in the oven, which made for an awesomely crispy top crust.

Mango Cocktail

Tim was musing the other day that we should make a pineapple and vodka cocktail of some sort since the pineapple is so sweet and easy to get here (you can pick one out and have them peel it for you at the store...so easy).  My mouth started watering at the thought, but we didn't have a pineapple at that exact moment.  We did have a ripe mango, though, not yet earmarked for another purpose, so I looked up some mango cocktail recipes and immediately had at it, with delicious (albeit not very photogenic) results:

I ended up using this recipe from The Kitchn... mango puree, lemon juice, vodka, a little simple syrup and soda water.  So good.  Not too sweet, not too thick, extremely refreshing.  An exciting break from our usual, the gin rickey.

For a party I think you could make a big pitcher of the mango/lemon/vodka mix and then have people pour it in the glass and top off with soda water.  Also, I think a flavored simple syrup would do well here- ginger, lemongrass or vanilla, or maybe chili for some spice.  I guess you could do flavored vodka, too, if you wanted. 

Pineapple vodka cocktail recipe coming soon...

Cheddar and Veggie Pinwheels

Tim and I had some trouble with our propane range today- we were sitting around watching the Olympics and suddenly smelled gas (and I realized why I had such a bad headache).  The tank seemed to be leaking- we think maybe rubber ring that seals the tank to the tubing was worn.  We'll be looking into that tomorrow, for certain, but in the meantime we just turned it off and opened all the windows (thus letting in mosquitoes since we don't have any screens...sigh).

In the interim, I tried to figure out something for dinner that didn't require the stovetop... I settled on a recipe loosely based on these broccoli and cheddar pinwheels.  I had pizza dough in the freezer and a ton of veggies and cheddar in the fridge, but I wanted to add more flavor to the recipe by roasting the veggies with garlic and red pepper flakes instead of steaming it.  

Here's what I did:

- Mince 2 cloves of garlic 

- Finely chop about 3 cups of veggies (in my case I used broccoli, cauliflower and carrot)

- Mix veggies and garlic with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, some salt and pepper, and a couple shakes of red pepper flakes.

- Spread it out onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes or so at high heat (about 400F), until starting to brown on the edges; cool

- Shred 1.5-2 cups of cheddar cheese

- Mix cheddar, veggies, 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard and 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise

- Roll out 1 lb of pizza dough (I used this recipe from Martha Stewart) into a large thin rectangle

- Spread veggie and cheese mixture onto 3/4 of the dough, then tightly roll into a long tube

- Cut the tube into pinwheels

- Put the pinwheels on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake at 425F for 15-20 minutes

Pretty tasty!  

Loop Baby Toy

Made this cute crocheted baby toy to bring to baby Alex in August... really easy and fast, plus it uses up scrap yarn left over from other projects!

The pattern creator suggests putting jingle bells inside the tube, but I also think you could put something crinkly, too.

Pretzel Toffee

Omg.  This pretzel toffee stuff is addictive.  Pretzels.  Butter.  Sugar.  Chocolate.  Salt.

It's pretty hard to go wrong with those ingredients...  salty and sweet, crunchy and chocolatey.

Although, go wrong I did, but it turned out ok in the end.  I followed Smitten Kitchen's recipe, except I substituted the matzoh crackers with pretzels (a la this interpretation).  For some reason, though, my caramel went wonky, causing the butter and sugar to separate, which I didn't realize until after I had poured it over the pretzels.  Once hardened, it didn't seem to make much of a difference as far as taste or consistency, which is why there are only 2 pieces remaining for this photo shoot.  Addictive, indeed.

Salmon with Brown Sugar and Mustard Glaze

Mmm- good recipe find.

Super tender salmon with a sweet and mustard-y glaze based on this Bobby Flay recipe: rather than grill it, I put the salmon fillets skin-side-down on a tin foil covered cookie sheet, S&Ped them and then topped them with the glaze... baked them at about 450 F for 10 or 11 minutes until the glaze was slightly caramelized and the salmon slid right off the skin.

Served with a side of gingery/garlicky stir-fried baby bok choy, spiced up with a little bit of crushed red pepper.