Five for Friday
Absolutely no knitting was done this week, but I have a few neat discoveries I made this week (none of which pertained to knitting, though one is fiber-related).
1. Heidi Swanson. I discovered this name over at Fiber Fool a couple of weeks ago. She has a wonderful vegetarian recipe website. "I'm not vegetarian," you say. Well, neither am I, but go on over and check out a few of her recipes and come back. I'll wait. Personally, I think the Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa sounds delicious. I had to have Super Natural Cooking. It came yesterday and even though I'm not vegetarian, I think I'd probably eat most of the recipes in the book.
2. Artisan Bread in Five Minutes. I found out about this book from Missouri Star. (Blogs are very dangerous, aren't they? Especially when I not only find out about wonderful knitting supplies, but also cookbooks and more.) The bread is supposed to be made from a high moisture, no-knead dough that is kept in the refrigerator for about a week. You just cut off the amount needed for a loaf as needed and let it rest for a while, then bake. I haven't tried the recipes yet, but I plan to try one today.
3. I found a wonderful weaving program. It's a free download, but if you want the "save" and "print" options, you have to pay for the registration code. It's not cheap, but if I find myself using it a great deal, I might spring for it, but for now it's just a novelty. It helped me see the twill design for my scarf.
4. Anki is a flashcard program. It's a little different from traditional flashcard programs in that it is based on memorization theories. Basically, let's say you're learning a language and you have 10 new words for today (you put in your own material). If you get 5 of the words without a problem, you might click the "easy" button for those. That would put the initial review for those words at something like 8 or 9 days (default), so you would see those words again in 8 or 9 days. When you see them again, if you hit "easy" again, the review time will be greater the next time. Let's say you can't remember one of today's card at all, you can hit "again" and it will show it to you again at the end of today's review. The other options are "hard", meaning it will review the card again in a day or two and "good" which will review in a few days. Each time, as long as you get it right, the card has a little longer before it's reviewed, so you'll be reviewing it, just not as often as the new cards, or the ones you're having trouble with. I'm not sure of all the details; there is a demonstration on the site, but the documentation/manual is a little sparse. I've started using the program for my Latin and Greek vocabulary and it seems to be helping already. I can see how it will be useful for languages and some homeschooling applications. It's also a free program, but donations are accepted.
5. Just in case the fact that I find Anki really cool didn't clue you in on what a geek I really am, I also found Type Greek. If you were to type in Alison, it magically becomes Αλισον. (This should be in Greek letters; if it's not, you may not have the fonts on your computer to display it. Don't worry about it; it's not a big deal.) It is also designed so that you can put the accents and breathings in the right place. Yes, I find this very cool, don't you?
1. Heidi Swanson. I discovered this name over at Fiber Fool a couple of weeks ago. She has a wonderful vegetarian recipe website. "I'm not vegetarian," you say. Well, neither am I, but go on over and check out a few of her recipes and come back. I'll wait. Personally, I think the Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa sounds delicious. I had to have Super Natural Cooking. It came yesterday and even though I'm not vegetarian, I think I'd probably eat most of the recipes in the book.
2. Artisan Bread in Five Minutes. I found out about this book from Missouri Star. (Blogs are very dangerous, aren't they? Especially when I not only find out about wonderful knitting supplies, but also cookbooks and more.) The bread is supposed to be made from a high moisture, no-knead dough that is kept in the refrigerator for about a week. You just cut off the amount needed for a loaf as needed and let it rest for a while, then bake. I haven't tried the recipes yet, but I plan to try one today.
3. I found a wonderful weaving program. It's a free download, but if you want the "save" and "print" options, you have to pay for the registration code. It's not cheap, but if I find myself using it a great deal, I might spring for it, but for now it's just a novelty. It helped me see the twill design for my scarf.
4. Anki is a flashcard program. It's a little different from traditional flashcard programs in that it is based on memorization theories. Basically, let's say you're learning a language and you have 10 new words for today (you put in your own material). If you get 5 of the words without a problem, you might click the "easy" button for those. That would put the initial review for those words at something like 8 or 9 days (default), so you would see those words again in 8 or 9 days. When you see them again, if you hit "easy" again, the review time will be greater the next time. Let's say you can't remember one of today's card at all, you can hit "again" and it will show it to you again at the end of today's review. The other options are "hard", meaning it will review the card again in a day or two and "good" which will review in a few days. Each time, as long as you get it right, the card has a little longer before it's reviewed, so you'll be reviewing it, just not as often as the new cards, or the ones you're having trouble with. I'm not sure of all the details; there is a demonstration on the site, but the documentation/manual is a little sparse. I've started using the program for my Latin and Greek vocabulary and it seems to be helping already. I can see how it will be useful for languages and some homeschooling applications. It's also a free program, but donations are accepted.
5. Just in case the fact that I find Anki really cool didn't clue you in on what a geek I really am, I also found Type Greek. If you were to type in Alison, it magically becomes Αλισον. (This should be in Greek letters; if it's not, you may not have the fonts on your computer to display it. Don't worry about it; it's not a big deal.) It is also designed so that you can put the accents and breathings in the right place. Yes, I find this very cool, don't you?
Labels: misc
posted by Alison at 8:14 AM
4 Comments:
That quinoa recipe sounds quite tasty! Quinoa is amazingly nutritious.
I just had a tasty piece of artisan bread with peanut butter for lunch. Yummy! And I took just a few minutes to whip up a new batch that is now in the fridge marinating. I love that book! This weekend I'm going to look for ghee at Trader Joe's so I can make Naan.
I'm glad you've found Heidi's blog of value. I want to try her baked donuts one of these days. The quinoa would be good to add to the menu here soon too. I only pop in from time to time so I hadn't noticed that one.
I'm catching this morning and there's lots of good stuff in this post! The veggie recipe site, cookbook and memorization website are all things that will come in handy right now. Woot!
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