Snow Day!

Yes kids, that's right. Today was the first snow day of the year, even thought it was more of an ice day. I got to stay home today, that's what really matters. I did use some of my day, like a good teacher, preparing for my class tomorrow. Or theme appropriately this week is snow. I also made some serious progress on my Mom's socks. No more pictures of that yet. I do however have something much more exciting to show you.



That my friends, is my new local yarn shop. (actually it's the old yarn shop, but it closed down because the owner retired and is now re-opening.) The real exciting part thought is that this here yarn shop is on my street, just a few blocks from my apartment. It's true, I don't even have to cross the street to get there.

You'll notice that there is no snow in that picture, that is because I took the picture Saturday, before the snow came.

Now back to the snow day activities. My day off today also left me with some extra time to cook so I decided to try out a new marinade on some tofu. Well, it was so tasty I had to share it with you.



I used the marinade from this grilled salmon recipe at Everybody Likes Sandwiches, one of my favourite places to read about food these days. But I doubled it and instead of using a salmon steak, I cubed half a block of firm tofu, let it soak in the marinade in the fridge for about half an hour then poured the whole concoction into a frying pan and sauteed it until there was no liquid left and the tofu started to crisp up a bit. I served it with soba noodles, sunflower sprouts and avocado. The sunflower sprouts were an exciting find at the Garage this week, I had to restrain myself from doing a happy dance right there in the produce section. Delicious!

Better late than never!

So I wanted to knit my Mom some socks for Christmas, since she's been dropping hints since she started wearing the ones I made her for her birthday, but I totally ran out of time. My Grandpa got his but my Mom got a skein of Fleece Artist sock yarn and an explanation. I had planned to begin them right away but of course I brought the wrong sized needles so they had to wait until I got home.

I started them this weekend and so far so good...



I love this pattern. It is perfect for hand painted yarn like this. I'm not usually one to knit patterns more than once but I think this may be an exception because I think I need a pair for myself...

Now that I've eaten myself out of a mountain of chocolate,

I feel it is time to start blogging again. We'll see of it sticks this time. First of all I have some really exciting knitting news to share: I finally finished Icarus. I bought the yarn with some birthday money back in August and started it shortly after. So here she is,



The yarn is Misti Alpaca 2ply lace weight. I just love how it turned out, I had a little victory dance around my apartment with it after I unpinned it. Now I can't wait to show it off at work on Monday.

To totally change the subject, I found a really fantastic cookie recipe yesterday. Even though I'm still eating Christmas chocolate (the stash seems to be bottomless), I had a serious craving for some slightly healthier cookies (and my Dad and I finished off the cookies one of my students gave me) so I made these;



Coconut Oatmeal Cookies. I got the recipe here, although I did make a couple changes, I doubled the recipe and used half butter half canola oil. I also substituted sesame seeds for the sunflower seeds (inspired by the gifted cookies which were similar). They even passed the kid test tonight when my friend's children came over for one of our dinner and a movie nights. I also was able to use up my last batch of flour with my Christmas baking so these cookies were made with Organic flour.

I'm in a transition period right now as far as food goes, converting to an organic kitchen. I have a really great grocery store in my neighbourhood, Organic Garage who's focus if providing affordable organic and natural foods, I've also been doing a lot of reading about food. I have to recommend Grub, a guide to organics as well as well as a cookbook, and Fast Food Nation which will turn you off fast food for life and has also inspired me to stop eating meat altogether (I was only eating meat occasionally before).

Anyway, this is a knitting blog after all so I should be back to post about knitting in a few days . I'm working on my Mom's Christmas socks right now (I know, I know) and the Fleece Artist Sock yarn I'm using is so beautiful I can't wait to share it with you. Their colours are so rich, they always remind me of stained glass. But that's another post. Until then...