And then there's this...



Just before anyone goes thinking that I am some infallible domestic goddess (those who've tried my burned and salty chili can attest to the fact that I am not), this is what happened when I tried to make old-fashioned chocolate fudge. The fudge was setting as I was pouring it out of the pan. The butter fudge I made earlier behaved similarly, but not to this extreme.

I'm either going to have to never use this recipe again, or figure out what I was doing "wrong".

Dairy-free fudge!



Ah, fudge. How I've missed the unapologetically sweet, lightly salted, creamy, crusty fantastic-ness that it provides. Since becoming lactose-intolerant, it was relegated to the realm of Guilty Pleasure With Lactaid — a realm that I dare not visit often.

Having discovered that others have created (damned appealing-looking) vegan fudge with success, I decided to take a crack at substituting the dairy out of a traditional fudge recipe. In this case, I made "butter" fudge by substituting soy milk for the milk, vegan margarine for the butter and Lyle's Golden Syrup for the corn syrup.

As it turns out, the substitutions I made makes this fudge vegan. Whatever its "status" is, I'm thrilled that I've made a damn good fudge and I can eat it, too!

Why I've been quiet...



...I seem to have been bitten by the knitting-bug. Hard. I've knit more pieces in the past few months than I have — in total — for the past several years.

Years ago, I did a simple Fair Isle swatch in two colours. The swatches pictured above are my first crack at complex colourwork. These swatches use both Fair Isle and Intarsia knitting techniques.

I developed the colour charts myself (not that making a chart of 8-bit sprites is that hard) and am working on them to practice for a commission I've taken on. My plan is to complete all six FFI Before Class Change Party Sprites before I start the commissioned sweater.

I don't know how I could possibly make this any more nerdy than it already is.