I'm up to my neck in dates (the fruit, of course) and I don't want them to go south in the fridge, so I decided to make the Date Pecan Muffins from The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. (Except mine are called Date Walnut Muffins because these days, I'm all about using what's around...)
And what's around are these awesome muffins. They are not too sweet, super super soft, nutty and just plain good. I plan to freeze them so I don't devour two or three in one sitting. (Because if that happens, then I am going to be blogging about celery and taking pictures of celery with raisins on it [blech!] because I want to lose all my Date Walnut Muffin weight.)
The base is so good for these muffins that you could probably substitute different dried fruit and nuts for the dates and walnuts. As soon as I run out of dates (ha!), I might have to try dried cherries and some dark chocolate chips. Stay tuned for the update!
About a year ago, right before my youngest daughter was born, I completed my first knitted baby blanket. Despite its endless use, I must say it's held up pretty good.
It's a substantial size, but by the time I was eight months prego, knitting wasn't exactly what was taking "the long time." The pattern is from Leisure Arts: Our Best Knit Baby Blankets. I ended up changing the pattern slightly only to exclude repeating knitted bunnies the author had included on the blanket. I really liked the seed stitch stripe and border and didn't want to take away from the simplicity of the blanket.
The seed stitch (what you see on the border and in purple) is easily created by repeating knit 1, purl 1 on one row and then on the next row, repeating purl 1, knit 1. This series of stitches is continued for however tall you would like your block of seed stitch.
I wanted to use a yarn that was soft enough to match that of a baby's cheek, but I didn't want to spend a fortune. I stumbled across a brand of yarn at Hobby Lobby called I Love This Yarn (aptly named) and not only was it soft enough to earn its place next to my newborn baby's cheek, but it was also very inexpensive.
Before settling on the purple for the stripe, I remember standing in front of what seemed like hundreds of skeins of yarn praying that the ultrasound technician got it right when she said, "It's gonna be a girl!" Luckily, she was right.
