It's so hard to keep things secret sometimes!!!

With the secret knitting mission taking place, I cannot really speak much of it here. This does not mean there are not other, non-secret project related knitting things to speak of.

First, this year for a holiday gift, I am so hoping to find from a certain Nature Boy a set of double pointed wooden knitting needles set that I pointed out. I am now hoping I pointed to them with a certain decisiveness, the kind of pointing where someone knows someone else means business.

Secondly, the new knitty came up as I'm sure all you knitty-head readers already know. I now have even more projects-to-be sitting in my brain, stirring things up. Thank goodness we never have run out of anything else to make, what a boring world this would be.

Here are the new contenders:
SURFACE
Knitty: Surface - Winter 2008
PLAITED POINTS
Knitty: Plaited Points - Winter 2008
and SOCKTOPUS
Knitty: Socktopus - Winter 2008
I also love the Latvian vest but Nature Boy would not wear such fun things.

Finally, I have of course begun the Holiday Baking. I made my vegan cut-out sugar cookies Saturday and Nature Boy saved the day by running to the store for some colored vegan decorating sugar. My India Tree red food coloring was making my sugar brown, not red, as after a year I guess it goes bad. Funny how Kay's food coloring would last for years. I guess that's one good thing about the preservatives! Anyhow, I baked them and froze them before taking any photos.


I did remember the camera when I was baking the Kolacky. Kay always made them every year and they are a very traditional slavic cookie. My recipe is based on the Chzech version (I think the Polish recipes sometimes use sour cream instead of cream cheese). I veganized me recipe and they are SO easy and SO yummy! I ran out of apricot preserves (the only filling Kay ever used) but luckily had a jar of unopened seedless raspberry preserves on hand so half are raspberry. The apricot remain my #1 though! Here's the recipe:
1/2 cup vegan butter, room temp.
1 8-oz package plain Tofutti "Better than Cream Cheese" also room temp.
1 cup flour
2 small jars fruit preserves

Beat the fake butter and cream cheese; mix in the flour. Using your hands, knead dough gently into a ball, divide into 4 equal balls. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm (maybe 30 mins).

Preheat oven to 375 F. Rough out one ball of dough on well-floured board until 1/8 inch or so thickness. I cut mine with a pastry cutter (knife works fine though) into equal size sqaures. Drop about 1 tsp. fruit in the middle of each square, then fold two opposite corners diagonally across and pinch the corners together, then fold them over to one side and pinch into the cookie's body to seal them up. Bake about 12 minutes give or take until lightly browned; remove from baking sheet and cool on cooling racks. Makes 4-6 dozen depending on the size of your cookies.