little kid things

By the way, here are the patterns of the things I am knitting for Erin's baby Stella. These are of course, pictures of the pattern knitted by others, but it gives a good idea of what it will all look like, with some changes in color of course.


This is the sweater I'll be knitting, only in blue (KnitPicks' Crayon).

And this dress, in one of my Wool-Ease colors, haven't decided which one yet. This is actually meant for a two year old, which means Erin will have something for Stella when she gets a bit bigger.

And this bottle snuggly, in KnitPicks' Shine Worsted (Cream and Terracotta). It even has a cute little tail! So adorable.

I'm going to try and knit up bigger sizes of the clothing items (if yarn yardage allows), so that Stella will have clothes when she is a few months older, or if she's a bigger baby. Anyway, I'm pretty excited to get my yarn in, and I'm going to try and get as much knitting in here and there while I'm in school, but I don't think I will complete these gifts until after I graduate. That means that Stella will be about 2 months old at this point, so there's another reason for trying to make bigger clothes. I guess that even if I run out of yarn, I can always order more on KnitPicks, right? We'll see. Also, all of it will be knit in machine washable yarn!

Speaking of KnitPicks, I wish my damned order would come in. I wanted to get it today, but I probably won't receive it until my birthday (Monday!). Oh well.

The Famous Toby Flenderson 10,000 watt Smile

Hey doods! So, unfortunately, there hasn't been much on the horizon as far as knitting updates go. Although, Blake did spend some cash on me for some excellent KnitPicks wool yarn, and I'm really excited to get it in the mail. I'm planning on using most of it to knit a couple of baby Stella gifts for Erin. I've never knit anything for a non-adult before, but I've come to the following conclusion: baby/child gifts = smaller and less time consuming, even fun stuff like sweaters. So, when I have time to do so, I plan on knitting even more stuff for Stella, Livia, Emilie, and Landon. Pretty exciting.

So, I have a few pictures to share of my recent cooking exploits. I've made many, many more than this, but these were the most successful:

This is a spinach omelet with part-skim ricotta cheese on the side. I made this for Blake and I last weekend, when he was sick with a virus. This came from the Martha Stuart book (shown on the left)

This is something I made for myself one evening, also out of the same magazine. It is cayenne pepper chicken with an avacado lime salsa on the side. It's more like a salad I guess, as I cut the avacado extra chunky.

This is baked catfish with sauteed carrots and russet potatoes. The sauce on the side is a combination of low fat sour cream, horseradish, and dijon mustard. The recipe for the fish and sauce was taken from the Bob Greene recipe book my mom gave me. This is a bit large for a dinner, but we had it for lunch today. The catfish is breaded with Wasa fiber crackers. A bit starchy I know, but I'm glad we're getting some veggies in.

I made this tonight for myself. It's pizza, only better! I used a whole grain wheat tortilla instead of pizza crust, and I added a bit of tomato sauce, neufchatel and Parmesan cheese, artichokes, and mushrooms. It was so good! I'm going to try making this with some baby spinach next.

Blake and I were talking today and saying that we can't believe how we used to eat. We used to eat NO vegetables, a minimum amount of fruit, and lots of carbs and starches. I just feel that something has clicked, and I will never go back to eating how I did before. I've been really good about not skipping meals and eating lots of fiber, antioxidants, omega-3s, and healthy proteins. And I've been taking lots of good vitamins. I haven't weighed myself in a little while because I want to focus more on health than weight loss, but I can feel myself losing weight. It's really great.

Nietzsche wins a Toyota Tundra!

I can't take credit for my subject title...Blake and Doug are plotting a movie about Nietzsche that is essentially equivalent to Bill and Ted....what dorks.

Ok, so I've made a bunch of awesome dinners lately, and tonight, I took a picture of Blake and I's excellent meal. I made swordfish steaks, edamame, and quinoa. Quinoa is a super healthy grain (that is both a protein and a fiber) that has gotten a lot of hype in the States lately. I know that it has been eaten in South America for forever, but now it's available here! Check it out:

The swordfish is flavored with lemon juice, lemon pepper, and dill. The quinoa looks like it would be weird, but it is actually really good! It's supposed to be somewhat of a rice substitute. Looks delicious, no?

On the crafty side of things, I have decided that as soon as I get enough time to be more prolific with my knitted goods, I'm going to open up shop on Etsy.com and also in the Makery and sell some stuff. I'm really, really, really excited about it. I'm also growing more and more excited to move to D.C. I can't wait!

Life is awesome.

Frankenskein cooks!

So my mom sent me my birthday present early, and it is the best gift ever. So, this blog will now include my cooking exploits as well as knitting. Here is my present in all it's lovliness, although this a catalog picture (but it looks exactly the same...)

I knew she was getting me a food processor, but she got me a super nice food processor/blender combo! So, naturally, I planned an excellent dinner for me, Blake, and Kristine. My mom got this for me mainly because we are trying to eat better. So, I made a very healthy dinner. I am attempting to get all my fruits and vegetable servings in, as well as fiber and protein, and have smaller portions. Here's what we had (sorry no pictures this time...):

• Tina/Barrington (T-Bear) Coladas: A drink I thought up and aptly named consisting of Rum, Cream of Coconut, Diet Tropical V8 splash, lemon juice, and ice. It was served frozen. And it was delicious.
  
• Honey Dijon Baked Salmon: Dill-y dijon-y yumminess.
• Pureed Vegetable Soup: This was new and awesome for me! I cooked chopped onions, carrots, and potatoes in a sautée pan until soft, and then pureed them in my blender and mixed in vegetable stock. Presto! Soup! Very hearty, like thick tomato soup. And delicious.
  
• Baked Potatoes with fat free sour cream and butter

All vegetarian (for Kristine), and no fuck ups at all! I'll be cooking a lot more now that I have these two things, along with my excellent George Foreman grill. I love making low sugar frozen drinks! And, although I know its not healthy, I've been drinking Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat beer and it is excellent. I love beer. Well, when it's good.

Also, I got my official graduation notice through ze email today. I'll be buying the cap and gown soon. And sending fancy invitations to everyone.

Today was a good day.