Your average 20-something pretending to be an adult while cooking, knitting, decorating, and otherwise pretending that she is a decent Susie Homemaker.
December 10, 2009
And they said let there be chili. And it was good.
November 26, 2009
A word to the wise.
I went in to make gingerbread, so that I can make what is becoming my holiday signature, pumpkin gingerbread trifle. Box mix, nothing fancy. Well, now I have two apple cakes in my oven. And once again, I didn't have something I needed, so I improvised. No tube pan? Welllll.....loaf pans are about the same height right? Sure, let's use two of them! At least I have all the ingredients right for once!
But of course, now my kitchen is covered in sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Oh yeah, and that egg that got dropped on the tile. And some oil that dribbled on the counter where I got distracted by an inquisitive kitten nose investigating the gingerbread.
I should step away from the spatula now. But I can't! I might keep going! I have to make pudding! This was going to be custard, but I might have uh, used all my eggs. So pudding! Assuming I don't get murdered when Sean gets home and sees this mess, I will try and remember to post pictures of my hysteria.
November 22, 2009
I live with Hussey's and caught the floozy
That being said, I am excited about decorating my new house. Next week.
November 8, 2009
Spray paint, power drill, and 2 cups of coffe
Next up, buy some picture frames. I might stick with this spray painting theme and
just buy some cheap ones and paint them. I forget sometimes how something so simple as paint can completely change the look of something.
November 1, 2009
Baa Baa Black Sheep
So last weekend my mom, best friend, and her mom and I all went to SAFF. I'd never been before and will definitely be going again! I got a few things, pretty much blowing my entire paycheck from that week, but it was so much fun. I have a ton of animal pictures (okay maybe just a bunch of alpacas) on my mom's camera, so I can't show you those but here is my haul:
Don't have any fun knitting pictures to share atm, but I did buy a new camera card, so they will be forthcoming.
And because last night was Halloween, I give you our pumkiny goodness
October 10, 2009
Technological black thumbs strike again
Anyway, to today's regularly scheduled program. I'm being a little knitting ADD right now. My sweater is coming along. I'm having to make up the sleeves as I go, because I wanted long sleeves, and the pattern was written for either short sleeves, or long flared sleeves, and I have a VERY strong hatred for flared sleeves. They always remind me of the witch costumes I wore as a kid for Halloween, and not in a good way. I have also discovered that I abhor knitting sleeves. They're so damn fiddly. This is likely why I will never be a sock knitter. I will fondle, and love, and appreciate, but knit them? Bwahahahaha.
So currently, I got these mitred squares I'm whipping out to ostensibly make a throw pillow with, some apple core shapes I going to piece together to maybe make a rug with (it works in my head, don't know if it will in real life though). I also have resurrected my Moderne Log Cabin blanket. Now that it's getting colder, it would be nice to have, but all that garter stitch just gets incredibly dull, so it's being alternated with other fiber experimentation. I would post pics, but well, with no camera card, and minimally functional computers, you all in internet land will just have to deal with the anticipation.
September 19, 2009
We go together like rama llama llama dingy dingy dong
So before popping my food blogging cherry, here's a bit of back story. Sean LOVES pho. He is always bemoaning Asheville's lack of pho establishments (he thinks it's a pho-king shame bwhahaha yeah I went there). So the other day, I stumble upon this recipe: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/05/crockpot-vietnamese-pho-recipe.html and thought I would give it a shot. Went to the store, bought the ingredients, plus a few extras. Now I have only had pho once, and that was a good 10 or 12 years ago, so I had no clue what it was supposed to taste like. I thought it sounded odd, frankly. Well, 5-6 hours later, we sat down to eat the stuff. The reviews were mixed. I thought it was gross, picked out the mushrooms, ate enough of my noodles to not be starving, and gave Sean the rest. Sean liked it, but said it wasn't totally pho like. He assured me repeatedly that it tasted good, it just wasn't real pho. Would I make it again? Maybe, if he wanted it.
But to counter this flop (in my mind anyway) I made one of my favorite dinners of all time. The kind of meal that makes me feel like a kid again, and if I eat it prepared any other way, it is WRONG, and they obviously don't know how to cook, and sends me weeping to McDonalds. Okay, maybe that was just that one time in the UNCA caf where they used tempeh. Shudder. I find it simple, and delicious, and uncomplicated. What is this culinary delicacy you ask? How do I make this party on my taste buds dish you ask? What could it BE?
STROGANOFF. And here is my dad's recipe, word for word as it was given to me.
Ingredients:
A pound or so of ground beef (you can use slab meat cut into little cubes or shreds, but I thing ground beef is better)
A few fresh shallots (onions and a clove or two of garlic work if you don’t have enough shallots, but chop ‘em fine whatever you use)
A pound or so of fresh mushrooms (brown creminis are best, ordinary white ones are okay) sliced so they aren’t too big
Half a cup or so of white wine – something with a lot of flavor, like a white burgundy or bordeaux, not some weenie Italian white. (Red wine produces a really vile pink color, so if all you have is red wine just drink it and leave it out of the stroganoff.)
Butter (NOT olive oil)
Sour cream (not under any circumstances the low-fat shit)
Black Pepper
Grey Poupon mustard (do NOT use French’s. This is not a hot dog or a ham sandwich)
A small amount of beef base if you have it, but don’t worry if you don’t
Dried tarragon. This is non-negotiable. Fresh tarragon just doesn’t work as well, for some reason.
Salt
Process:
1. Put some butter in a large-diameter high-sided pan and melt it. Don’t be stingy with the butter.
2. Toss in the shallots and sauté them until translucent. If you use onion & garlic sweat the onions good, then add the garlic when the onions are about to be done – otherwise the garlic will overcook and be bitter like folks in small-town Pennsylvania.
3. Add the beef and brown it good, breaking up the big chunks. Add several grinds of black pepper.
4. Remove the beef & shallot/onion/garlic mix from the pan, leaving as much of the meat juice/fat/butter residue in there as possible. Don’t worry if you leave a few bits of the meat & stuff in the pan – you’re mainly making room for the next step.
5. Put the mushrooms, white wine, and about ½ a teaspoon of the tarragon in with the meat juice, etc. Cook this until just about all of the liquid is gone but not until the mushrooms get dry. It will take awhile, as mushrooms are mostly water. Adding a pinch or two of salt will help draw the water out of them, but don’t go overboard. FYI, the reason you removed the meat from the pan is the shrooms cook a lot faster when it’s gone, and it’s easy to determine if most of the water is gone, which you want – it will be a pain in step 9 if you don’t cook off most of it now.
6. Put the beef & shallots back in the pan.
7. Add several really big globs of the sour cream and about a tablespoon of Grey Poupon. Stir until everything is well mixed.
8. Taste it and see if there’s enough pepper to suit you and to see if there’s a stroganoffish balance between creaminess and mustardy sharpness. You can put in some more tarragon here if you want to, or add a bit of the beef base if it tastes wimpy. If you’re going to use beef base, use like half a teaspoon at the time, and remember it has a hell of a lot of salt in it. Don’t add salt until after the beef base is well and truly assimilated and you’ve tasted it again.
9. Cook this until it’s as thick as you want it, but don’t let it boil. This might take awhile as you’re basically getting rid of the remaining liquid from step 5, as well as what’s in the sour cream. During this step you can fiddle some more with the sour cream/mustard/tarragon balance if you need to
10. Serve over noodles.
DISCLAIMER: As far as I know, there is no one of Eastern European descent in my recent gene pool who would know how to make true stroganoff. It is entirely likely I could eat this in Russia, made by someones babushka, and think it was wrong, because it wasn't my dads recipe. But this is GOOD. Not healthy. But who cares, cause it is YUMMY.Knitting disaster to be posted tomorrow, so sharpen your tenterhooks.
September 5, 2009
With a knitters yell, she cried more more MORE!
I also whipped this up, and want to make more, because I think they are really pretty!
I've got another row done on the Drexel Puzzle, and I think I have 2, maybe three more to go, but I can crank those squares out fast. No reason why it shouldn't be done by next weekend, just in time for Charles to take to school!
August 29, 2009
Busy beaver (bee? whatever)
So this is the before and after picks from the yarn stash reorganization project. I think it looks great! There's no strict system, but I do have it so that I can see everything that I have. One of the drawers has loose needles (I don't have many, I always use my KP Options), and another has scrap balls, which will eventually be used for my Tessellating Fish. I threw away almost one whole plastic bin of swatches, scraps, and tangled messes. Sort of cathartic, wish I could do the same thing with my brain sometimes.
Erica is going to see her sister and her kids this weekend, so I cranked out these guys:
Both patterns are from Knitty. The turtles shell comes off, and there are some different outfits you can make one. I messed up somewhat in assembly (his eyes are in the wrong place, and one leg is crooked) but no one but me really knows, so I guess it's alright. The penguin required learning how to w&t, which not being a sock knitter, I've never really done before, so that was cool.
Now I have to do some serious cranking on Charles' afghan, because it would be best if I could get it to him by next weekend, cause mailing that thing would be a bitch, it's going to be HEH-EH-VY.
August 23, 2009
New projects
This is a DSi case I am concocting right now. SWS in Natural Earth. I gotta say, I love this yarn. Lovelovelove. Anyway. I'm doing a rectangle in a double knit, cause I was the plushyness for protection, then putting a zipper on the top. Going to put some sort of side pocket on for games as well, but that's more experimentation.
This is Charles's re-done afghan, which I am trying to get done before he leaves for Drexel in a few weeks. I am optimistic. I think it's going to look really cool, I just hope he likes it!
Next up, I have to whip something up for Sean's sister's new baby, and I found some really cute little tops I want to make his nieces, which I am shooting to have ready for xmas. I also want to find a great pattern for Elizabeth's new one, but I am waiting to find out that she is actually pregnant, I don't want to jinx it for them! I'm thinking about doing a Hoover blanket (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall03/PATThoover.html), but doing one side in a self striping, and one in a solid. I've been wanting to make one for awhile, and this gives me an excuse!
May 10, 2009
I suck ass at posting
THIS.
I am actually pretty freaking proud of this. Dimensionally, I'm not a huge fan, but I like the design. Debating writing up a recipe/pattern for it. Wasn't difficult in the least. I want to do a little more experimentation with it, because I'm not sure I did it in the most logical way, but I do like it.
And given that I bought new bedding, for the new house (squeee!) I am using it as an excuse to knit a new afghan for our bed. So far I got this:
The plan is strips like this in green and brown, and alternating them with some sort of leafy lace pattern in beige. As usual, I'm going to change my mind another 15 times I'm sure, but for now, that's the plan.