January 12, 2013

Buttery deliciousness

Tonight for dinner?  Biscuits!


Mmmm, don't they look delicious?  I've been wanting some good, flaky bread lately, and didn't want to wait for anything to rise.  Don't get me wrong - perfectly risen bread is delicious, especially the recipe we've been using lately.  But sometimes you just need little bite-size mounds of golden, buttery deliciousness in 20 minutes or less.  20 minutes!  I'm not even kidding, that's how long it took to make these biscuits.  The recipe is Never Fail Biscuits from Allrecipes.com.  

I'm used to making biscuits from a tube.  I've never really had anything to complain about them, except when I accidentally burn them.  But since we're doing the month of no pre-packaged foods, this time I had to make them from scratch.  And you know what?  It's so easy!  Easier than running to the grocery for a tube of biscuits!  And they tasted so much better.  I will be making these again.  

We also had Husband Soup for dinner, which is to say a soup made from whatever meat and vegetables we have lying around.  It always tastes different, which makes it exciting.  



So far, the month of no pre-packaged foods is going well!  There have been struggles and a few times of cheating when we're short on time (we went out for Mexican for lunch...), but it really has gone pretty well.  We noticed today that we use a LOT of butter, drink a LOT of milk, and eat a LOT of fruit!  Mmm.

January 7, 2013

Teaching Knitting

I learned two important things on Sunday.

1) A circle is not the best chair arrangement for teaching knitting.
2) If you're confident in what you're doing, people will listen to what you have to say.

Yesterday I started a group that for a long time was just an idea in my head.  Knitting is an important part of my life, and I have been wanting to share it with others.  I had many ideas of how this might work: teaching middle schoolers how to knit, crochet, and spin in a one-day workshop; teach knitting at summer camp; offer a Sunday school class on knitting squares for an afghan.

But as I talked about my idea with friends and colleagues, I realized that it wasn't just knitting that was important; it was spirituality.  To me, knitting and spirituality are incredibly intertwined.  When I knit, I get in touch with the spiritual part of myself, the part of myself able and willing to sit quietly and pray, or listen, or do nothing.  The part of me that is usually restless and fidgety is silent.  I often have a problem sitting still; I bounce my legs or tap my foot or finger.  But when I knit, all that frantic, endless movement is transferred into my hands and fingers, which are moving needles and yarn and creating something.  When I knit, I am calm.

(Unless, of course, I am knitting lace.  Lace usually makes things worse.)

The group of women who showed up to knit yesterday was varied, from middle school to sixties/seventies.  But they all came to learn to knit.  I listened to their stories: some had knit before and given up for this reason or that.  Some had never knit.  Many were former crocheters with wrist problems.  As a former crocheter myself with similar problems, I understood.

It is intimidating teaching something new to people who are twice your age or more.  These women had more life experiences than me, more stories they could tell, perhaps even a better understanding of "spirituality."  Why should they listen to me?  Why would they pay attention to what I had to say?  But I sat there and said my piece, explaining why we were there, why I loved knitting, and why I wanted to share this love with them.  And then I taught them to knit.

And you know what?  By the end of that hour and a half, every single woman there was knitting.  Most of them had at least four rows completed.  And all but one seemed eager to come back next week.  And hopefully they will, because I am even more excited and confident now!


January 1, 2013

A Month of Homemade Meals

2013 is starting not with a resolution, but with a month-long experiment.  For the month of January (31 days), my husband and I are not eating pre-packaged foods.

What does this mean?  Well, it probably means we are crazy.  Not eating pre-packaged foods??  How do you even do that in this day in age?  It's almost impossible to go a week without eating at least something that comes out of a package.  But we're going to try.  For one month, we are going to make our own pasta, pasta sauce, bread, mayonnaise, soup, etc.  We are going to forgo some of our favorite meals (JIF peanut butter sandwiches for me, ramen for him) en lieu of something that we hope will not only be healthier, but better tasting.

Why? Well, my husband says it's because he likes a challenge, and it will help us learn to cook better ("It's like Cooking 201," he said tonight).  I have a few reasons to add: 1) It should be healthier.  2) It will force us to think about our meals in advance. 3) It will teach us new recipes.  I also think it will be fun!  But I could be proved wrong once classes start.

But on top of that, I think there is something truly wonderful about creating something from the very beginning.  I noticed this when I created yarn from the start (cleaning the wool, combing it, spinning it, dyeing it).  It's something we don't do very often anymore.  In a world where we can buy sweaters in stores and food packaged and ready to be microwaved, we have little need to go back to the beginning.  But something is lost in this modern way of doing things.  We lose the appreciation for the thing, be it a sweater or chicken alfredo.  There is something incredible about this act of creation, something that is almost spiritual.  When you get your hands dirty kneading bread, or picking hay from wool, you understand the finished project better.

Today was the first go at this challenge.  We had a late start to the day, so our planned meal of sandwiches (with homemade bread and mayonnaise) did not happen.  But we did manage to make chicken nuggets with apples on the side.  Pretty good, though kind of salty.

Dinner was much better.  We decided to make chicken alfredo, with homemade pasta and homemade alfredo sauce.  We started by making pasta in the late afternoon, our first attempt at this.  According to my husband, rolling pasta with a rolling pin is hard.  I think we'll be getting a pasta roller soon.


I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com (my favorite recipe place).  It is the Basic Pasta Recipe.  Very easy to make, though it was difficult to get it thin enough without a pasta roller.  We also didn't have a rack to put the pasta on while we made the rest of the meal, so we had to improvise.


The alfredo sauce was interesting to make.  Again, from Allrecipes: Alfredo Sauce .  I didn't realize how much parmesan was in alfredo sauce!  It took 1 1/2 cups!  We used parmesan from Kraft because it was what we had (which does not count as pre-packaged because it is just grated  parmesan cheese, nothing added).  The result was a bit gritty, because the cheese did not melt.  Next time we will use fresh parmesan.  

The final result of dinner was delicious.  There are some obvious changes to be made (pasta roller = thinner pasta, fresh parmesan = less gritty sauce), but other than that the meal was wonderful!


On the menu for tomorrow: sandwiches made from homemade bread with homemade mayonnaise, and ham and potato soup!