Pumpkinspun’s Musings

Sisu
September ? 1980 - June 19, 2008

Today our sweet beloved Sisu crossed over the Rainbow Bridge; her mighty spirit was too big for her tiny body, and has been released. Farewell sweet girl, travel well, you will be missed by all of us.

I have a couple of thank yous to put out…

Friday I received the most gorgeous skein of hand dyed green sock yarn from Dawn, a new friend I met first on Ravelry, and later in person when she visited our town. Ann and I had coffee and chatted and knit together at a local cafe a few weeks back, and I later gave her a quick tour around town. Dawn, thank you SO much for this lovely lovely yarn! I’m going to have so much fun knitting it up!

Also on Friday I received a little surpise in my work email, of all places! A postcard appeared in my inbox, addressed to me, and from a woman named Joan, in Scotland, who had visited my town, and then recently saw our listing for World Wide Knit in Public Day (WWKIP). Just because.. she saw the listing and had visited Bennington.

As for WWKIP day for us locally, it was underwhelming. Way too hot and sticky. Thank you to Kristen and Fronia and Julie who came and knitted with me on the front porch at Hawkins House. Next year I’ll try and find a place with AC or lots more shade!

Ann promised folks at our recent knitting weekend that she’d share her famous granola recipe, and since I try and post family recipes on this blog anyway, I had her dictate the recipe to me this evening:

Ann’s Yummy Crunchy Vermont Granola

8 cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
1/2 cup oil (canola is good)
1/2 cup honey and/or maple syrup
2 cups assorted seeds and nuts*

*sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, almonds, cashews, peanuts, sesame seed, all raw, of course!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Get out 3 or 4 cookie sheets
In oversized bowl pour in grains, nuts and seeds. In 1 cup measure, fill halfway with oil, fill rest of way with honey. Pour over nuts and grains. Mix thoroughly. (Note from Ann: this is the longest part of the job.) Ann starts mixing with a spoon and ends up blending with her very washed hands.

When well mixed, spread out thinly onto ungreased cookie sheets. Place in oven, after about 10 minutes when granola starts to color, take out, mix granola up in pans and rotate position of pans in oven. Bake for about half the time again (another 5 minutes) until light golden brown.
Cool in pans, when completely cool store in airtight container. When cool you can add dried fruit to your pleasure. (wild berry mix dried fruit, raisins, cranberries, whatever)

Makes about 3 quarts of granola.