Man, I really wish I could get my blogging mojo back. It’s been gone far too long. I have a lot to share. I really do. I haven’t stopped cooking or crafting or enjoying stoopid-cute things my kids do on a daily basis. I just….well, I just run out of time at the end of the day, and my brain cells run out of juice and it’s so much easier to sit on the couch with my knitting and a DVD. Blah blah blah, here’s your random catchup post, alright?
First, I have a couple of shout-outs to cover. Jennifer over at Knits a Living was kind enough to nominate me for the Kreativ Blogger award. That’s very sweet of Jennifer (hi, Jennifer!) and I really appreciate it. I never seem to get tagged with these lovely awards that go around now and then, and sometimes, I feel a little left out when everyone else and their dog seems to have been tagged. So now I feel included and happy, warm and fuzzy inside. I’m supposed to nominate some other blogs, and perpetuate the awards.
Well, it’s hard. Everyone else and their dog has probably already received this award, and I can’t keep track of who has and who hasn’t. Plus, they probably don’t want an award from dopey old me. And how can I choose from all the amazing blogs that are out there. So, if you’re looking for some good reads, check out the blogroll over in the right hand column and you’ll probably find some good ones. Thanks again, Jennifer!
Shout-out number two goes to my friend and neighbor Laura. Now, she totally deserves a Kreativ Blogger award, or maybe a totally awesome, really cool knitter and generally fun person who also writes a blog award. Laura is this super self-effacing, never-gonna-brag-about-anything kind of person who is always doing cool stuff that I only find out about much after the fact because she doesn’t think it’s important enough to talk about.
For once, though, she’s speaking up and talking about her love for her performances with the Roseville String Ensemble. I really enjoyed Laura’s description of her relationship with her viola and the performance group, and on top of that, she’s trying to raise some money to keep the group afloat. Since she’s an awesome knitter, she’s pulled together some awesome prizes for a drawing, and is encouraging people to donate to her group when they come over to enter the drawing. Go read about it now, drool over the prizes, enter the drawing and send her a little donation. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Alright, now we’re on to the photo dump part of our program.
That’s Julie, modelling the finished slip-stitch quilted hat. I love how she insists on posing with a toy. It a huge improvement from refusing to have her picture taken at all, and it’s hilarious.
I also love this hat. It’s actually an adult sized hat that I made by following the instructions in my Slip-Stitch Quilted Baby Hat (available as a download on Ravelry, or at The Yarnery in St. Paul, and a few other LYSs.) Instead of knitting the hat with the called-for Koigu, I used Malabrigo Worsted to get a bigger gauge and therefore a bigger hat. I think I like this version better than the adult-sized Koigu version. Plus, it’s crazy soft and warm. It’s a bit big on Julie’s head, but I think I may knit her one of her own for next winter in some colors she’s more likely to wear.
I’ve started the next spinning project, and am a little more than a third of the way through it. I’ve got a pound and a half of this wool/seacell
It always amazes me how small the roving looks when it arrives, but then when I let it out of the package and fluff it up a bit, it kind of explodes.
I’m going to do a three-ply with this batch, just like the golden yarn I just finished. This will be more than enough for a sweater, and it is going to be yummy! It might take a while before the yarn is finished, though.
Oh, hey, look! A random stash photo. On the left of the top shelf are a couple of handspun yarns that have not yet been sold or wound up for projects, and on the right are a bunch of balls of sock yarn. That pile is my collection of wool/cotton/nylon blends. It’s actually smaller that it was a year ago – I’ve knit several pairs and controlled my buying on that front. Yay me!
The bottom shelf here is my stash of wool rovings. I think that’s a reasonable amount of unspun wool for a person to have, right? I had a little falling-down a couple weeks ago when Spunky Eclectic updated her shop, but I have no regrets there – I’ve been drooling over pictures of other people’s projects from her wool, and her store seems pretty picked over most of the time. I got some good stuff, and actually held back a bit on my order. I am declaring a moratorium on new roving purchases at least until Shepherd’s Harvest, when I’ll have the chance to shop in person for the wooly goodness. I need to make some room on the shelf in the mean time.
Switching gears again, you really must thank me for sharing only the visuals of this moment with you.
We had a play date one day last week, and one of the girls found a recorder among the musical instruments in the basement playroom. Immediately, the whinging ensued over who got to play it and how soon they should have to give it up for the next person’s turn. “Luckily” we have a small collection of recorders, so I dug them out and we had a few minutes of auditory chaos before my mom-friend and I declared enough is enough.
Here’s a quick view of our library materials ready to go back the other day. I took a picture to show you because I love our library, love that we can get new books every week. There is no way we could afford to buy all the books and materials we borrow from the library in the course of a year, and I am so glad that it is part of our routine. I wonder why my parents didn’t take us to the library more when I was little.
Also, there is a baggie of used-up batteries sitting there because our library has a battery-recycling bin, and it’s an easy way to deal with the suckers.
Man, this is a long post. But oh, there’s more.
Everyone in our family likes to eat at Chipotle. The other day I was at a loss in the grocery store trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I almost never make a meal that the whole family eats without complaint, and even though I know I’m a pretty good cook, it gets disheartening. So I thought, how about I try to make some burritos kind of like Chipotles?
I cooked some chicken in the slow cooker with salsa, garlic and chili powder (yum!), some brown rice, opened a can of beans, sauteed some onions and bell pepper, shredded some lettuce, heated up some tortillas, and pulled out the shredded cheese.
I even made them kind of cute by wrapping them in foil to serve – which also served to hold the buggers together, because they really wanted to fall apart. Well, after all that mess, the girls were not fooled. They only ate a little of it. Joe ate his without complaint, and I ate mine wishing that the tortilla were as good as Chipotle’s and that I’d bothered to season the rice the way they do at the restaurant. I’m not sure that I saved any money in this endeavor, but I do think my version is probably a bit healthier, and there were leftovers.
And finally, another pair of socks. I knit up another pair of plain-jane toe-ups using my own pattern and some Mini Mochi sock yarn for a store sample.
I really like this yarn – it’s soft and fuzzy, and the colors are fun. The only thing is, although it’s sold as sock yarn, it’s really not sock yarn. It’s a loosely-spun singles! I mean, so loosely spun that there were several times that I had to stop and twirl the sock around to put more twist in the yarn so that it wouldn’t fall apart as I was knitting it. I don’t think these socks will be very durable. On the other hand, it is really nice yarn, with fun colors, and I’m a sucker for those yarns with the slowly-shifting color changes. I think this would be perfect for a scarf. In fact, I think once the new colors come in, I might just knit a scarf up and see how it looks.
And that is all. I’m going to go try and sneak in a bit of knitting before bed.
Don’t know how healthy it is but my kids loved it.
Tator Tot Casserole
Brown about a lb of hamburger. (I used to add onions or peppers). Add about 2 tblspns of chili mix.
While the hamburger is browning cook up a package of tator tots.
Drain hamburger and put in pyrex (9×13) baking dish.
Add tator tots on top of hamburger.
Spread 2 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup (or virtually any other flavor, we found southwest cheese to be an interesting flavor)
Grate cheese over the top.
Toss in 350 oven till cheese is nice and melted.
Pull and serve.
To make the meal healthier add a side salad or if feeling lazy open a can of veggies and nuke till done.
This will leave a fair amount of leftovers that make for great lunches the next day.
Our kids thought this was just the greatest thing ever.
DOH.. that should be “Brown about 1lb of hamburger”.
The recipe could also be halved very easily..
I don’t necessarily have any great suggestions for you, but will be watching to see if anyone else suggests something.
As much as I whinged about helping with the “stir this” sauce as a child, my mom makes tuna noodle casserole with a bechamel sauce (so easy, but it does take stirring, hence the addition of the child) that I have started to fall back on about once a week.
If your girls like soup, and spicy things, this is the one for you:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pinto-Bean-Tomato-and-Butternut-Squash-Soup-103870
We love it!
Check out Everyday Italian on Food TV web page. There are two recipes that are our go to recipes. I have 2 pickie eaters – so I pull out their portions before I start adding the additional ingredients.
Turkey sausage, noodles, white beans & mascarpone cheese. While the pot of water is coming to a boil brown the sausage – breaking it up as you go. Once the water is at a boil throw in a handful of salt and the noodles. To the sausage throw in the can of drained beans and a bit of the cooking water from the noodles. Just before you add the noodles into the meat mixture – drop about 2 tablespoons of mascarpone cheese in and stir. Then add the noodles -dripping wet. You will need the cooking liquid to make the sauce. This is a 20 minute meal.
We mix it up too – adding onions, or different beans (though the white beans are the best as they are very creamy.)or throw in what ever produce to saute.
In the summer we do her Tomato basil noodles. This was off a Barilla commercial. Start a pot of water boiling, grab a bag of fettucini or other long noodle. Fresh tomatoes – as many as you want! While the pot of noodles is going – coarsely chop your tomatoes and toss into a large shallow pan, add a bit of olive oil black pepper and some garlic if you like……saute till the noodles are ready, toss the noodles in and toss with chopped fresh basil. We love this dish. I've also mixed it up with adding proscuitto, ham, chicken, as well as onions, bell peppers or sugar snap peas. And you can also make a 'pink' sauce by adding mascarpone cheese. (Oh and you will need a bit of the cooking liquid from the noodles to make the sauce.)
Serve with some fresh french bread and your done.
Any leftovers make a great lunch for the hubby to take to work.
I enjoy your “catching-up” posts.
I expected someone who knits as much as you do, would have a MUCH bigger stash. That looks entirely reasonable.
When my kids were little, the library was a great way to figure out which books they really loved. Then we would buy some of the ones that were their favorites.
Wait until yours get to the age of doing reports for school. You’ll love the library even more. When they had summer reading lists, we could often get the books at the library instead of buying them.
My kids loved “Lazy Lasagna” It’s just ziti with Ricotta, mozarella and parmesan cheese, mixed with an egg and layered in a baking dish with spaghetti sauce.
I would have listened to the recorder concert!!
I don’t know it you would consider this a main dish (although my MEAT eating husband has acquiesced to this as a main dish with no meat in the meal every once in a while!
http://creditcardhell.blogspot.com/2009/01/quinoa-broccoli-cheese-bake.html
Had to laugh at the Chipotle re-dux – I’ve given up on trying that. If we crave Chipotle, to Chipotle we must go!
Have you seen the baby slouch hat by Susan B Anderson (on her blog)? She used the mini mochi sock yarn for the hat and it looks great – I’m thinking it could work nicely on a grown-up version too.
Congrats on your nomination!
Those hats look so amazing and colourful; perfect for Spring
Easiest meal I do at the moment is chicken with roasted veg.
Put lots of veg eg chunks of onion, peeled garlic, muchrooms, carrot, leeks, parsnip and anything else that will go in the bottom of a caserole dish. Drizzle over a little olive oil and shake around. Arange raw chicken pieces on top (breast, drumsticks whatever) and roast in a hot oven till the chicken is cooked. Can add potatoes to the mixture to make a real one pot meal, or cook them separately if there isn’t room in the pot.
dawn
I hope you compile these recipes for those of us too forgetful or lazy to come back and check out the responses, there are some good ideas here!
Our latest favorite “quick” meal is Chicken Tetrazzini (or something). You cook up some spaghetti. While it’s cooking you take a can of cream of mushroom soup, 2 cups cooked chicken breast (perfect for leftovers!), cut up, a few tbsp of chicken broth, 1/4 cup cream, 1 cup frozen peas and 1/2-to-1 cup grated parm. Mix together then throw in the pasta and mix. Put into a greased casserole dish and cover with a mix of 2 cups bread crumbs and a few tbsp of margarine. Bake at 325 for 25-30 min or so. It’s yummy!