This is Gracie’s favorite thing to do when she’s not napping. She watches the visiting neighbor cats who seem to like our deck to hang out on. She has (mostly) stopped hissing and YOWLING at them through the window, but she keeps a very close eye on them. She  particularly dislikes Mocha:

But she doesn’t like his house-mate James, either. (I use the term house-mate loosely, because I don’t think their owner seems particularly concerned about letting them inside the house at night and when it gets cold. Maybe that will change when it snows or gets really cold.)

And here is a sequence of photos where she welcomes the other deck visitor, Al, to our back door. Please note the middle “action” photo. You might imagine the lovely welcoming sounds she made in that photo, to go along with her paw motions. Fortunately, Al doesn’t seem at all intimidated. (Click on photos to make bigger.)

My friend Claudia pointed out last week that all three of the visiting cats seem healthy and well cared for (despite their being out in all kinds of weather) and clearly Gracie doesn’t want any of them inside (although many of you have told me your own stories about adopting outside cats such as these), so we’re just going to continue to enjoy them on the deck. Well …. some of us will be enjoying them. Gracie, not so much.

Today’s recipe is one that I had on my Girls Weekend a couple of weeks ago. I came home and made it for my family that next week, and they all gave it up a thumbs up. I hope you enjoy it, too!

Apple Turnovers

2 apples (I used Granny Smith)
2 packages Crescent Rolls
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
8 oz. Mountain Dew
Cinnamon

Cut the apples into 8 wedges each. Unroll the Crescent rolls and sprinkle with cinnamon. Take one roll and wrap it around one apple slice, pinching the sides together so that no apple shows through. Repeat with the rest of the rolls and apple slices.

Melt the butter and add the sugar and vanilla extract, stirring until dissolved.

Grease a 9 x 13 pan. Add the pastry-covered wedges in two lines, lengthwise, in the pan. Sprinkle with more cinnamon. Pour the butter mixture over the top of the apples. Pour the Mountain Dew along the sides of the pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream. Easy and delicious!

What will you be knitting on this weekend? I am warping a new scarf and will try to finish up my Derecho #2. I’ll share my results with you next week on the blog. That helps to keep me accountable.

Sheri myderechocolorsaremorespringythanwintery.Ohwell.

Last night was an extra fun Knit Night! My friends Claudia (the Wollmeise on the left) and Maria (on the right) have been here visiting from Germany this past week. It has been so fun to have them here and I am glad we could share a Loopy Knit Night with them, too. We’ve done a lot of knitting, shopping, touring, and eating over the past 8 days. They’re heading back home to Germany today, but Claudia will be back for the Spring Fling in April. (Spring Fling information will be out next month.)

Here’s a super quick and easy dinner idea that my family likes. I hope your family will like it, too.

French Bread Pizzas (found on Pinterest, originally from the What’s Cooking with Ruthie blog)

French Bread (unsliced)
Your favorite pizza sauce (I like using my spaghetti sauce for this.)
Your favorite pizza toppings (We used sausage and pepperoni.)
Your favorite pizza cheese (We used Mozarella.)

Cut the bread lengthwise, so you have a top and a bottom.  Then cut each piece in half so that you have 4 large pieces from the loaf.

Spread the pizza sauce on each slice, then top with your pizza toppings. Finish it off with the cheese and bake it at 500 degrees for 5-7 minutes.

Sheri hopingyouallhaveafunweekendplanned

That’s a pretty good combination, isn’t it? First the cashmere show and tell. Elf Roberta knit up this beautiful scarf for her sister-in-law out of Sweet Georgia’s CashSilk Lace in the Summer Skin color. The pattern is Felicia’s CashSilk Fern Lace Scarf, which is free on Ravelry. It uses just one skein. I can tell you, it turns into a beautiful, lightweight luxurious scarf. I think that pattern would also look beautiful done up in fingering weight yarn – something like Madelinetosh Sock or Three Irish Glenhaven Cashmerino Fingering.

We tried a new dessert recipe at our house last week. It’s similar to this one (in a rather anemic looking photo) that I’ve shared with you before, but with the addition of peanut butter. YUM.

Peanut Butter Brownie Trifle

1 brownie mix (for 9 x 13 pan) + eggs, oil, water
1 large containter Cool Whip
2 large boxes of instant chocolate pudding
(prepare each box as directed, as you assemble)
1 bag of peanut butter cups, chopped
3/4 cup of smooth peanut butter
1 (8 oz) pck. cream cheese
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Bake the brownies as directed and let cool. When cool, cute them into bite-sized pieces.

Put the cream cheese in a mixing bowl and add the peanut butter and powdered sugar. Beat until well mixed and smooth. Fold in 1 cup of Cool whip.

Assemble the layers:
1/2 of the brownies
1 box of the pudding prepared as directed and not yet set
1 cup of chopped peanut butter cups
peanut butter/cream cheese/Cool Whip mixture (use the whole thing on this layer)
1/2 of the brownies
1 box of the pudding prepared as directed and not yet set
Frost with the rest of the plain Cool Whip
Top with remaining chopped peanut butter cups

Let set for a few hours (or overnight) and enjoy.

It was fun to read all of your comments on last Friday’s blog post. We’re so glad to have you all here with us on our Sixth Anniversary! I used the Random Number Generator to pick a winner from last week’s comments. The skein of Wollmeise Lace goes to Kimberly in Mt. Pleasant, SC. Congratulations, Kim!

We have another contest this week (since it’s our anniversary month, you know). This week’s question: What’s the best book you’ve read or movie you’ve seen this summer? (I’m looking to add to my book and movie lineup as we move into the fall.) Since this is our second contest of the month, we’ll be giving away two prizes – two of our Sixth Anniversary Kits, which will be making their debut next week. Leave your answers in the comments below and we’ll draw the winners next week!

Sheri goodgrief.OperaonthePandorastation.AbitmuchforFridayAfternoon.

As most of you know, we’re in our second year of Camp Loopy around here, and having a lot of fun with it this summer! Each month the campers are challenged with a new project and today is the day that Project Two needs to be finished and Project Three can be started. It has been great to see all of the photos that have been coming in. And on that note – it’s time to vote for your favorite project from the first month of Camp. You’ll find 768 photos in the Project One Gallery, and we need to award one the “Reader’s Choice” award. YOU are responsible for that! Please take a look through the gallery and email your favorite choice to support@theloopyewe.com. We’ll give it a week or so for voting and will announce the winners soon.

To go along with your camp knitting, I have a new s’mores recipe for you today. We tried it out a couple of weeks ago, and it’s wonderful.

S’Mores Dessert Pizza

1 tube of Pillsbury Sugar Cookie
Slice and Bake dough
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 Tbl. softened butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups mini marshmallows
1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cut the cookie dough into slices and then pat them out on a pizza pan or baking stone, so that it becomes one big cookie base.

Mix the brown sugar, oats, butter and flour together and sprinkle this over the cookie crust.

Sprinkle chocolate chips over the crumb mix.

Bake at 375 degrees for 5 minutes. Top with marshmallows and then bake for 10 more minutes, or until marshmallows are golden brown.

I’ll be knitting and watching the Opening Ceremonies tonight. How about you?

Sheri andmabyemakingS’moresPizzaagain

I found this over on Pinterest the other day (originally from this blog post, and it looks like she has all kinds of fun ideas there so take a peek around). We have tall ceilings here at Loopy, and I think a few colored (and big) yarn balls hanging from the ceiling in different spots might be fun. I’ll let you know if I tackle this project! Of course it would also be cute as lamps, but being a knitter, my mind immediately went to yarn balls.

Another thing from Pinterest? This Banana Poke Cake recipe, that turned out to be very good. This originally came from The Country Cook blog, where she also has recipes for Oreo Pudding Poke Cake, Boston Cream Poke Cake, Coconut Cream Poke Cake, and Jell-O Poke Cupcakes, if you’re so inclined.

Banana Poke Cake

1 (10 oz) box yellow cake mix
(plus ingredients to make it – oil, eggs, water)
2 (3.4 oz) packages instant banana pudding
4 cups milk
1 (8 oz) but Cool Whip, thawed
Vanilla Wafers, lightly crushed

Mix and bake cake mix according to directions, in a 9 x 13 pan. Cool for a couple of minutes and then use the end of a wooden spoon handle to poke lots of holes into the cake.  (Be sure to poke all the way down to the bottom).

Prepare pudding in a bowl with the milk and shake for 1 minute in tightly sealed container, to mix it all up. Pour over the cake, making sure that the pudding drips down into the holes you created.

Sprinkle crushed vanilla wafers over the layer of pudding.

Top with Cool Whip and let set in refrigerator for a couple of hours (or overnight).

Only one week left to get Project Two done and I am concerned. I’m on row 216 and I have to go to row 270 (in a half-circle shawl. So that tells you that my last rows are my longest.) I might be in trouble.

Sheri areweallowedtocallinsicktoworknextweektofinish?

Edit: P.S. Boy, the news is sad today, isn’t it? We are all fine here, but so heartbreaking for the families affected in Colorado.

Loopy Groupie Kim in PA had a great question that she wanted answered by all of you blog readers. She wonders if any of you have good ideas for shawl storage? I keep the ones I wear frequently draped over a mannequin in my office at home. It’s not the greatest system, but it keeps them fairly wrinkle-free. (Most of the shawls I’ve made are on display here at the shop. If I had to store all of my shawls somewhere, the mannequin would not work, as it would topple over!) We talked about where you store your “most wearable knits” in my blog post back in November, but really, shawls are different than scarves and take a little extra care to keep them looking lovely, especially when you have a lot of them. So fill us in. How do you store your shawls?

For all of you Camp Loopy campers, I tried a new s’more recipe last weekend and it passed the family taste test. (Original recipe from Mel’s Sweet Life via Pinterest. Check out her awesome looking Homemade Ricotta Pizza recipe on this week’s post.)

Peanut Butter Cup S’Mores Bars

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
16 peanut butter cups (regular size)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff (or mini marshmallows)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8 x 8 pan with cooking spray. (I did 1 1/2 times the recipe and baked it in an 8 1/2 x 11 pan).

With a mixer, beat together butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and vanilla and mix until combined. With mixer on low, slowly add in the baking powder, salt, flour and cracker crumbs.

Spread 2/3 of the dough into the bottom of your prepared pan. Lightly press the peanut butter cups into the dough and then spread the marshmallow fluff (or marshmallows) over the top. (Note: if you accidently buy snack sized peanut butter cups like someone in our house did – not mentioning any names – you can fill in the extra space with chocolate chips. Because heaven forbid that you don’t get enough chocolate in there.)

Press the remaining dough into an 8 x 8 shape on a non-stick surface (I used waxed paper) and then lay it on top and press down lightly.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the edges just start to brown. Let cool for 2 hours before cutting into squares, so that the bars have a chance to set.

I’m off to our TNNA Market to find fun new things for the shop this weekend. I get back on Monday, so the Monday blog and update might be a little later in the evening, but it will be a good one!

Don’t forget to tell us how you store your shawls!

Sheri hopingit’snottoohotinColumbus,OHthisweekend