Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day has always been a big deal in my family- seems to be bigger than Thanksgiving even, but this year, while lovely, was weird!

Our local service was cancelled. I understand it as you don’t want all those seniors in a big crowd, but it was still sad. I have been at every service my whole life, so it just made the day feel weird.

It was a nice day though, don’t get me wrong.

I started with a run with Sarah and Dennis. We did a different route where we walked up the big hill by my house and then ran down through the trail and my old neighborhood to the lower road and then home along there and the inlet trail. It was awesome to have the first 2.5 kilometers downhill! I would love to do it again and see how fast I could come down that hill. It definitely helped that we had perfect cool, dry running weather this morning!

I then got home and tidied up my place and myself.

I then joined my two friends Melissa and Em for brunch. We had to wait in a lineup for 45 minutes! It was wonderful food though. I had the Hipster Hash in the big pancake.

I enjoyed the socializing, but brunch was super exciting because Alexa- one of the designers of Tin Can Knits was diagonal to us. I had noticed the two ladies knitting in line outside while we were eating and was dying to talk to them about knitting, but then I realized who it was and that was just even more exciting! I didn’t disrupt her brunch, but did send her a message on Instagram.

After my lovely meal, I had Brenda over for knit night, the afternoon version. It was lovely! I did a stripe on my Christmas socks and then worked on my baby sweater which is a Flax Light by Tin Can Knits.

Since Brenda went home, I have been knitting on my test knit. I can’t wait to be done so I can wear it!

Well, I’m off to knit more on this lovely bonus day, though I do also plan to do some upper body strength training this evening still.

Have fun!

AJ

Stretching My Skills With Sally

Baking (Stretching My Skills with Sally):

Last year I tried a few of Sally’s Baking Challenge items and quite enjoyed the challenge of trying new things. Most of the people in my life asked why I was doing this, thankfully there are people like Abbey! I was talking with Abbey of Three Cats and a Girl and we decided to both try these challenges and then link up to talk about our results, so please check out her attempts too. I was really interested in doing this because I knew she would be doing the recipes as called for while I would need to convert them to gluten free and dairy free. I should say that I change as little as possible and just sub in gf and df ingredients to see if the recipe will still work.

For March the challenge was crepes!

I have never made crepes before and I was a little nervous as they seem so fancy!

With the situation we are in, I hit WiFi and took pictures of the recipe, but didn’t get to watch any of Sally’s videos so that probably would have made a big difference! I found the recipe simple and easy to follow and I liked how it could chill in the fridge for 30 minutes or up to a day. I made the batter in the morning but then had the crepes for lunch.

My batter used Bob’s Redmill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour, Earth Balance vegan butter, and Earth’s Own Oat milk that was unsweetened vanilla. Everything else was just normal ingredients.

My batter made six crepes and boy did I learn a lot between the first and the last. I started with a pan that was way too big so after the first crepe I switched to a smaller pan. After the fourth I realized it worked better to just pour the batter into the very centre and let it spread by itself. On the sixth crepe I figured out the crepe didn’t have to be the size of the pan.

Mine are probably more brown than they’re supposed to be, but they still tasted good!

I had no idea what you put in a crepe as I’ve never actually ordered crepes before so I did one with herb cream cheese, one with peanut butter and one with cream cheese and jam. I think my favourite was the cream cheese and jam.

One thing I definitely learned is that crepes are not a diet food! The batter isn’t bad, but the amount of butter in the pan is crazy!

It is so cool that when Kathy read about Abbey’s and my challenge she decided to join us so make sure you go read about her crepe adventures too:)

Thanks Abbey and Kathy for taking on this challenge with me:)

I obviously wasn’t finished on the kitchen after the crepes because I also made hearty beer bread from my book, The Allergy Free Cook Bakes Bread. I used ginger ale instead of beer and it turned out great! I think I will make more tomorrow to use up more of the ginger ale, but I’ll know to only leave it in for the lesser time.

Exercise:

I forced myself not to run today and to do yoga instead. I spent about a half hour this afternoon and did feel as though I was stretching some muscles out. I know I need to do more of this right now since I can’t go for massages, but it’s really tough to not run since I don’t seem to be racking up the mileage very quickly this year:(

Knitting:

The whole rest of the day was spent knitting. I was very determined to finish my newest sweater and I did!

I did the Love Note sweater by Tin Can Knits. I had bought the pattern at Knit City last year. I love Tin Can Knits patterns because they come sized from newborn to extra large in one pattern.

This sweater is done in Ancient Arts superwash Blue Faced Leicester in Water Lily Blue and Georges Picaud Tricheuse. I quickly learned that my mohair was obviously not lace weight as it’s much thicker than the pattern pictures, but I was determined to finish this sweater because I loved the colour it was coming out! I had to switch mohair halfway through but I can’t even tell where I did it so I’m happy. The modifications I made were to do short sleeves and I didn’t do the high low hem. I just knit until I was almost out of yarn and then did the ribbing. The sweater only took two days with this thicker yarn, but I still want to make a finer gauge one too!

It’s back to the meditate cowl for me now.

I finished the evening off with a zoom conversation with my friends from work. Boy did two hours go quickly!!

Well I have a run in the morning so I’m off to bed.

Have fun!

AJ