Achievement Unlocked: Knitting Dish Cloths

A while back, like a year or so ago, I decided it was high time I learned to knit. I grabbed the needles I inherited and dove in, head first, as usual. I looked up videos on YouTube and struggled and struggled....and struggled.

Last summer, I had a great opportunity to visit my mentor and help her out. In return, she showed me how she knits and it literally opened the door for knitting. Seriously. Without her, I probably would have given up. I had a great start, but I did not like it.

Before, knitting felt clunky and I thought it should feel smooth like crochet, no matter the skill level.

After, I was whipping up my first dish cloth.

Continental Knitting made sense. I scoured YouTube. I watched the video my mentor sent me. I got it. I totally got it. It was similar to crochet and I made a dish cloth. Pictured here is dish cloth number 2. Dish cloths are easy to do and a chance to explore stitches. I do the same with crochet...if I'm not crocheting in the round (which I love!).

Lessons Learned:

• More like Achievement Unlocked! I can knit! I like knitting! It's easy and makes sense.
• Mentors are cool people. Even if I'm not in touch as much as I want to be/should be.
• My craft skills include: sewing, crocheting, knitting.
• After I get the first step, I can teach myself stuff!
• Knit dish cloths are actually a lot nicer than the crochet ones I've done...which is a bummer and awesome...

Gardening - 2014 - March 24 (Or, something happened to a seed starting pod so I got organic seeds.)

Last time I wrote about the garden, I had:

• three pods starting seeds: lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli.
• The pods were in a different window from last year because of Orange Cat 2.
• I had no sprouts and we were getting to the 10 day mark.

 What I did since then:

• I opened the pods and added more water because they looked dry.
• I moved them into the better window.
• The cat is not at fault for the loss of the lettuce pod.

Saturday. We had wonderful, open-the-windows kind of weather. The kind where you wish the whole world was off and you could enjoy the weather. The kind where you go home, grab Husband, and take a 1.74 mile walk around the large awesome park nearby.

The kind where Husband clumsily knocked the lettuce pod out of the window while I'm at work because he didn't check that the pod was sitting in the window track. I really don't know who is at fault here: me for putting it there or him for not checking. Either way, the lettuce pod was a mess of dirt inside of it (thankfully, it did not pop open and send dirt everywhere. OC2 would have loved that).

I was kind of bummed. Actually, when I saw it, I thought OC2 did it. It was right up his alley to just go "WHOOPS. (Not really). Feed me."

Nope. It was Husband and he probably could have blamed OC2. Husband's first thought was "You can just fix it."

"No. There is dirt everywhere. I have no idea where the seeds will sprout, if they do and if something else sprouts, I'll have no idea what's what. I have to start over."

So, he felt kind of bad about it. I said "I want these organic seeds I know we can get [here]. You can pay for the seeds when I figure out the brand name."

"Okay."

Sunday, it is colder and we have errands that will take us by the place with the seeds. We go there and at this point, I'm feeling less annoyed with him. I'm also wondering how the destruction of the lettuce pod means I get 7-8 packs of seeds. I forgive him (I forgave him pretty quickly because I decided the seeds weren't really working anyway. They are 5-10 years old. Same group as last year.). I decide to just pay for them myself and he decides he's going to treat me to pizza later that night.

At the store, I pick up seven packs of High Mowing Seeds. This includes: Brandywine tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Arugula, Basil, Romain Lettuce, Sweet Pepper, and Spinach. I was so excited. I love the idea of new seeds and possibly non-GMO ones? Yes, please!

What I did today (or status as of today):

• I set up more seed pods bringing the seed pods to the following:



Pods: Small, plastic take out containers, 4 egg slots of a paper egg carton, water, dirt (I'm using compost), seeds. Works very well with good lighting!

• Original: Brandywine Tomatoes (Burpee seeds, older), Broccoli.
• High Mowing: Brandywine Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Basil, Lettuce (not shown. In another window due to lighting and temperature), Sweet Pepper (this plant is for our Guinea Pig and is a total experiment)
• Broccoli has sprouted! Two of the four have come up so those seeds aren't "bad." That's from an older, refrigerated seed pack. Look at those sprouts!

Here's hoping the third year is a charm!

Lessons Learned:

• Read seed packages or research how to grow things. Most will do well where they are, but the lettuce will probably do fine at room temperature during the day and tucked into the pod at night. I learned so much by reading the packaging this year. Let's see if it translates into our own food.

Foodie Friday: Tofu Scramble

Remember my idea ages ago with Foodie Friday? Well, I'm trying again, but this time, I'm including stuff made by Husband. Why? Let's be honest, in this place, he does the cooking. I do the baking...usually. He's a good cook and we have a lot of recipes we've adapted for gluten free cooking.

Tofu Scramble & Rice

Today's comes pretty much gluten free right off the bat. Pro tip: just because you're gluten free doesn't mean you have to focus only on gluten free cookbooks. I'm really glad we don't because some of our favorite recipes come from general books. For example:

 Mushroom Scrambled Tofu (or as we call it: Tofu Scramble) which is in The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet by Nava Atlas (page 133). This book was an impulse buy from one of our favorite used book stores. It only cost us $5 and was like new!

The Cooking

Now, since I don't cook this, I really can't comment on it. The only thing I can say is that I'm so glad he uses an iron skillet. I personally think food tastes better when cooked in iron, but that's me.

Not instant.

I did ask him though what he thought about cooking this recipe: "SOOOOOO easy. The only thing that would make it easier is if you used instant rice." He doesn't. He's been experimenting with cooking real rice. Anyway, I know this is a recipe he likes to make up because every week he asks "Tofu Scramble?" This is his go-to dish once a week for the simple fact it is easy. It also provides us with 4 meals: 2 for that night and 2 for leftovers.

Taste

When he first made this, I thought this looked like scrambled eggs. I thought it was going to be bland, but surprisingly it isn't and it goes great with rice (actually, there's curry powder in this). In fact, this is one of those dishes I look forward to as left overs. Unlike some other leftovers, this one keeps flavor and is fantastic mixed up in rice. I tend to have it as my evening shift dinner and I think it is a good match. It is light and delicious.

Modifications

YUM.

First, the recipe calls for margarine. Um. No. We do not do margarine in this place. We use butter. Butter is good. 

Next is the mushrooms. Whatever is on sale at the store is what we get, but no matter what, they work. I think at some point, he wants to experiment with rice and move us from white rice to something else.
 
Fourth, we've used both soft and firm tofu and it seems to turn out the same both ways, but the softer tofu is definitely better. 

[Edit from Husband: I usually add some salt to the rice, both as a counterpoint to the mushrooms and so the rice can stand on its own. We usually end up with some rice left over.]

If you can check out this book, do. We haven't fully explored this book yet, but just from this recipe, I think that there is probably more in here we'll love. We just haven't tried many yet. This recipe is (for the moment) in our rotation of recipes.
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PS: I'm still looking into affiliate programs for books so you can visit a site to check out the book. Any favorites? Any not so favorites? Leave me a comment.  (Amazon is out.)

Project: Cat Harness

I have this crazy notion that I want to walk my cat. Lately, the main reason has been Orange Cat 2 has SO MUCH energy, I think he'd enjoy it. I also want to take a walk with a pet and we aren't getting a dog any time soon (Mom's dog and I loved walks when I'd finally get to it). The issue was, we had this old harness and he hated it. Absolutely hated it.

I poked around. I found cat harnesses on Jackson Galaxy's store that said "Cats love it." Awesome.

But not at that price. I love my cat, but we've all ready spent so much trying to find what type of cat scratcher he'd like (cardboard=no, twine/rope=no, carpet like our floor=good, except he only likes the basic pole variety), what types of toys he likes (a particular type of ball, that rattles...anything with noise), to cover the toys he's apparently lost (5-10 balls so far and I've looked), and trying to figure out what food works with his stomach (one is great for Gray Cat, not so much for him). Oh, and vet trips are coming up.

I really didn't want to spend more money only to find out he'd snub it or it didn't fit.

Enter the Internet and a search for "DIY Cat Harness" or some variation. I found this post from SoSewLovely about a cat harness she made for her cats. She includes a pattern and instructions. It looks like the harness above (which I did love and want), but I can customize it.

I printed it out, went to the fabric stash and spent time looking for the right fabric to match Orange Cat 2.

I made the pattern up a month or so ago, but didn't have D-rings so it was just a harness, minus the ability to put a leash on it. This week, I picked some up and finished it. This was a fairly easy pattern to follow. When I do it again, I will print it smaller for Gray Cat (who seems "ok" with his when I tested it out on her, but she obviously needs a smaller harness and a color that matches her), and try to work the ribbon differently. I wanted to sew it on so it didn't fray. Overall though, I think it turned out great and Orange Cat 2 definitely doesn't mind it (most of the time)! Going out to explore though is a totally different experience for him.

Photo by LibraryElfDesigns. All rights reserved. You may not use this photo without permission.

THIFTING SCORE: Cake Thingy

I've been baking off and on the last few weeks. My favorite thing to bake right now is this chocolate-y g-free cake that has a main base of potato starch. It's from the book You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free. A fantastic book by the way for those on the g-free diet. Most recipes are made 4 different ways so, if you have a corn issue, you can try with potato or rice based instead or if you have too much rice in your diet, you can try another base.

Anyway. I've been eying this lovely thing for a few days now from Fresh Hot Vintage. Then I did what any person would do: searched Etsy for a variety of covered cake plates and favorited them. (Yes, I have a thing about roosters.) Now why do I want one?

I want to try a two layered cake soon, but need a way to store it. So, I put it out there over the weekend that I wanted to find one at the thrift store and I'd follow through by going today. I also put out there that I also really want a vintage cake decorating set. I didn't find that because I put the request out there this morning (probably need 24 hours for that to follow through but it is a long shot since the last one I saw at the thrift store was in the silent auction section. Cookie presses you can find dozens of, but cake decorators? HA. I've been lazily looking.).

I did find this though:

Just the top, first. How frustrating.

First, I found the top, then I spent another 10-15 minutes wandering to see if I could find a suitable bottom. Sure. I could just put my cake on a dinner plate and cover, but what if I want to travel with this thing?

Eventually, I found this guy:

TA DA.

 And together, it works pretty well. The cover part doesn't fit perfectly, but enough to stay on.

Yes, I have a K'Nex Light Box...

And the grand total of this purchase: $5.25.
Oh wait. I have a coupon for 25% off.
About $3.80 when all said and done. I also took my own bag.

SCORE.