Archives for the month of: November, 2007

Dinner and Knitting

November 30, 2007 //

What else can make a girl smile and be happy on a Friday night?

I defrosted a pork tenderloin this morning and came home to realize that it is not pre-marinaded! I franticly searched Food Network website and found THIS recipe.

Okay, if you know me, you know I don’t like carrots, but I got it for the picture

For the pork tenderloin, instead of using fresh lemon, I had some lemon pepper seasoning on hand, so I mixed it with some kosher salt and rubbed it away – took total of 15 seconds! However, the cooking time is not as fast as the recipe said (more like half an hour, not 6 to 8 minutes). For the applesauce, I used apple cider instead of fresh lemon juice, also with local honey too!

We heated up some frozen veggies and made white rice to go with the whole thing, but the recipe is super easy to make and it was actually very quick! Well, I do have David to thank for helping me peel the apples while I prepare the pork. Everything was super delicious that David and I both have two healthy helpings!

So on the way home, I picked up a copy of the Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts – so many pretty patterns that I want to make! Last year, I made mitten ornaments for everyone, and this year, I already found a perfect pattern. You see, we don’t really buy Christmas gifts, maybe just for our nephew, but not everyone else, which suits me just fine, because Christmas is about the family and the time spent together, the retail world had made it about shopping, but not in this household!

Also, I am almost all set for the package that I’m preparing for my Christmas Swapee. I hope she’ll like it. And I do have one more surprise, but I can’t say who is for and what it is yet. Probably not until after Christmas – or at least until the person receive the gift package.

By the way, we DVRed the Shrek Christmas Special on abc so we’ll be watching that now.

Categories Food

Diamond Spires Shawl

November 29, 2007 //

… is FINALLY finished.

However, it is unblocked. I’ll probably do it this weekend then send it off to Schaefer’s on Monday.

But right now, this is what I want to do:

Mick sleeping in MY SPOT!!! Can you tell he thinks he is a person?

So Night Night!!! Oh, and GOOOO PACKERS!!!

Wait, wait! One last picture:

Aren’t they adorable?!

Tags FO, Schaefer Yarn, shawl

Categories critters

Happy Thanksgiving, Belated

November 25, 2007 //

To all my friends and family!

This year we had a quiet Thanksgiving. David’s mom came and that was it. We actually have hot pot for late lunch (yummmm) and cooked a whole Thanksgiving meal later at night. We were only going to have the hot pot in lueu of the turkey meal, but work gave us each a turkey, so we donated one to the CT Food Bank, and cooked one. Here is our menu:

Honey Brined Smoke Turkey
Real Mashed Potato
Sweet Potato from this recipe- we only put half of a banana in and it turned out VERY banana-y, I would modify this recipe if I was to make it again.
Cranberry Sauce – half of the recipe, minus the sugar, instead, I used Brown Rice Syrup
Pumpkin Pie – I couldn’t find sorghum flour, so I used tapioca flour instead, and I used honey I bought from the farmer’s market instead of regular sugar for the filling.

Everything turned out so great. We had so much food and leftovers that our fridge almost couldn’t hold all the food we have (we have a big fridge!) Of course, the day was accompanied by football games on TV and some knitting.

The next day, we had potato pancake from this recipe for breakfast, using the leftover mashed potatoes. I had it with Chinese hot sauce… sooo good! After breakfast, David and I went to Clinton Outlets to find him a pair of shoes and some candles for my Christmas Swapee:

We went to Yankee Candles first and we ended up finding some very fall-ish tealight candle holders for our wedding next year. We took all 14 of them on the shelf as they were only $2 instead of $4.99 when we first saw them at Yankee Candle Village when we went to the Big E in September. Along with the candle holders, we got two of the tart burners for our table as well. I also picked up a jar candle for my Christmas Pal – Christmas Cookie Scent. Can you see all the cookies with sprinkles in the jar?

After we picked up David’s new shoes, we left the crazy outlet. There really isn’t anything that we need and it was just too crazy. We vegetated on the couch for the rest of the day, which in my opinion, is awesome.

Saturday, David went to work. Yes, you read that right, work! I went to Primerica training for the morning. In the afternoon, we watched a few movies on TV – Cop and 1/2 and The American President. They were both very funny and easy to follow, highly recommended for a nice relaxing afternoon movie. Don’t get me wrong, they are not some spectacular movies that won many Oscars, but they are just easy, fun movies to watch.

We decided that today, Sunday, need to be different. Instead of sitting on our comfy couch, we googled and found the Punk Rock Flea Market up at Hartford and also the Christmas Theatre Banquet. We decided to go to the flea market today, and purchase tickets for the show closer to Christmas.

On the knitting front, I’ve been trucking along with Diamond Spires. I need to get it completed by November and I’m pretty close to completing, with only 4 repeats left to go. I’m hoping I can get it done tonight, but I realized awhile ago that I am a slow knitter, so we’ll see…

Off me go to have some Turkey Shepherds Pie and more knitting. GO PATRIOTS!

Tags shawl, Thanksgiving

Categories Food, Holiday

Seattle Time Editor’s Response

November 20, 2007 //

I, like the Digestive Diva, also got an email back from the editor of Seattle Time, not the journalist herself, but the editor:

Thank you for sharing your concerns about the recent “Survival Guide for Holiday Hosting” story. We realize now that we should not have included “gluten-free” as an example in the “Diva” category, as a gluten-free diet often is a medically diagnosed need, not a choice. On our website, we have changed that sentence to say: “The Diva has driven us crazy with high-maintenance demands like special diets and fresh towels every day.”

In past articles, we have taken great care to address the importance of gluten-free diets, and have even printed recipes for those needing alternatives. That said, your note is a good reminder that we need to stay mindful of this issue.

Thanks again.
Colleen McBrinn
The Seattle Times
Weekend Living Editor
206/515-5655

It is the exact same letter, copied and pasted, from Digestive Diva. I am not completely happy as it still states “special diets” and sometimes special diets can still mean medical needs, but at least they recognized me and addressed the concerns. That will have to do for now.

Categories random

NOT Your Daily Knitting Digest

November 19, 2007 //

Today, I want to talk about allergies.

I think most of my friends have allergies, either air born or food. Now aday, food allergies are so common that people don’t actually think twice about it when someone say they are allergic to certain thing. Apparently, according to Seattle journalist, people who has special diets are “the Diva”. Click here to read the article.

The article has really good intentions, but it came out all wrong. The generalization had made it an bad article, especially at the paragraph about Divas. I mean, we can all relate to that ONE person who is never satisfy about anything you do, who is always criticizing, who is always demanding, who is always … The list goes on. However, people who has “Crazy Special Diets” doesn’t always want to be the ones that has the special diets!

I first read about it from Adventure of a Digested Diva, a lady who has Celiac Disease. David is allergic to gluten so about half an year ago, I subscribed to some “gluten free” food blogs to learn about the foods and recipes.

I sent an email to our dear Seattle journalist. I doubt I’ll hear from this lady ever, but at least, I gave her a piece of my mind. If you would like to give her a piece of your mind, her contact info is listed on the bottom of the article.

Good Night.

Categories random

12 Repeats Done…

November 18, 2007 //

… 12 more to go. This shawl is going pretty slow for some reason. It could be the center decrease is not always followed by yarn overs and I keep doing the yarn overs so I keep having to fix it…

I think I need to either start something or pick up something to make in between so I don’t get bored with this pattern. It really is a nice and easy pattern and when I’m in a groove, I can really go fast, but unfortunately I haven’t able to do that. Maybe I’ll finish my Irish Hiking Scarf that I started awhile ago but ran outta yarn. I purchased yarn awhile ago so I can finish the scarf, but I haven’t picked it up yet. This would be a good chance for me to finish I’m gonna go wind the yarn now.

Tags scarf, Schaefer Yarn, shawl, WIP

Categories Baby Makes 3

Stranger Than Fiction

November 16, 2007 //

If one day you woke up and were following your routine, all of the sudden, a voice showed up, describing what you are current doing, narrating your life, what would you do?

Meet Harold Crick, the hero in Stranger Than Fiction. Harold is the IRS agent, who has a routine and leads a boring, lonely life. But on this particular Wednesday, he woke up and started hearing an author narrating his life, and it changed his life.

When David picked out the movie, I wasn’t too interested, but I thought to myself that I can use the time to knit, so I agreed. But after sitting here watching it, I have to say the story is brilliant and I have never seen a movie like it, or even a book.

If you had doubt about this movie, not so sure about it, I suggest you to see it. It might not be to your liking at the end, but I can assure you, it isn’t a movie you will forget. There is just nothing like it out there.

Categories Movie

Petal Dishcloth and Some More…

November 14, 2007 //

Pattern – Petal Dishcloth by Hazel Schrock
Yarn Used – 0.5 Ball Reynolds Soft Sea Wool in #0650
Needles – Harmony size 7
Gauge – N/A
Knit – November 12, 2007 to November 13, 2007
Modifications – None

This is probably the quickest knit I’ve EVER DONE! It is so easy and so fast! I did it during my all day meeting break and I knitted this for my Christmas Pal. It is going to be a doily for her candles instead of a dishcloth.

Some progress report on the Diamond Spires Shawl – I got an email back from Laura from Schaefer Yarn with a picture of the model they have. I was not making any mistakes, it was just because my shawl was unstretched and unblocked so it looks like it has mistakes in it. PHEW! I thought I had to frog!!!

So while at the all day meeting today, I made some progress:

4 repeats down, 20 more to go.

Tags dishcloth, FO, Schaefer Yarn, shawl, WIP

Categories Baby Makes 3

On Hold

November 11, 2007 //

So Diamond Spires is officially on hold. I think it is just the way the pattern is written so that the bottom half of the yarn overs are nice and neat, and the upper half have stitches in between each odd row. It is driving me nuts, so I emailed Laura from Schaefer to see if she can send me a close up picture of the shawl knitted in Martha. She replied that she won’t be able to do it until Tuesday, so in the mean time, I started something for my Christmas Swap pal.

Of course, just as I was about to take a picture to show the world, I realized I mis-read the pattern and now I have to frog it… granted it is a really quick knit, but still. All of this I blame Ben.

Who is Ben? you ask. Well, Ben is a very good friend of mine from college. I haven’t seen him since my best friend got married (Labor Day of 2005!!!). He’s been in California, pursuing his PhD, and I’ve been working here on the east coast. He IMed me today while I was making the gift. Needless to say, I was very excited to “talk” to him and it was so great to hear from him. So my frogging, it is all worth it.

To be fair to Ben, I was also watching Family Guy – where at the end, Stewie was just having a simulations to kill Lois. David had figured it out and we’ve been anticipating it. But it was still pretty good to see how Stewie’s vision was and how they were going to do the whole episode.

Oh! How can I forget! Mel and Mer came Saturday and we went to Harold’s and tried on dresses. We actually decided on one and came back after an hour and half! I couldn’t believe we actually found a dress that everyone liked! And the price isn’t too bad either! For the rest of the time, we sat around, chatted about RPI, had Thai food for dinner and did some research for save the date and invitations. I gotta get going on those invitations, especially if I want to make my own!! They left today and I wish the weekend is longer! I love having my friends over!

Well, that’s all folks! Have a good night!

Tags Schaefer Yarn, shawl, WIP

Categories exchange, friends, wedding