Frugal Fun

This Thursday is the third Thursday of the month, so get out there and enjoy ArtWalk! If nothing else, go to the Museum of Glass and check out the great exhibit "Kids Design Glass". This continuing program has kids draw fanciful pictures the hotshop crew then interprets in glass. It started as a program for kids to design vessels and bowls, but as the gallery notes say, it was a "horrible failure"--kids don't design vessels or write artist statements, they design crazy creatures and write silly stories. The museum is free from 5-8pm.


Photos are from First Night, Tacoma's New Year's Eve party.
I did make new recipe number four, but forgot to take a photo. Chili Potato Wedges from Everyday Food.

New Recipes Two and Three

A friend has let me borrow many of her issues of Martha Stewart's magazine Everyday Food. What a nice little food publication; it's full of normal food and great photos!

In the past week, I've made two little side dishes: Mashed White Beans--white kidney beans with garlic and sage, and Chickpeas and Tuna--garbanzo beans, onions, garlic and tuna.


The Mashed White Beans turned out not-so white. I think I smooshed them in the simmering sauce too early, and they turned very grey and sad-looking. Tastes fine, although I wonder what I could add to give them a bit more flavor. They are pictured with pork shoulder roast, which I made with olive oil, Worchestershire sauce, and some peppercorn and garlic spice mix.


I think I used too many onions in the tuna and chickpea salad; it tasted a bit sharp and strong to me. An addition of some mayonnaise helped. My husband said it would work for him as a main dish.

I'm having fun looking through the many recipes and getting inspired! More good food around the house equals less snacking on unhealthy things!

Going to Knitting Group = No Knitting

Thursday I went to two knitting/crafting groups, one for three hours in the afternoon, and one for over two hours in the evening, each with friendly ladies from church. I pulled out a lace shawl project I started last summer (which I can't detail, since it's a gift), and did manage to figure out my scratchings and notes enough to get some rows finished. Even though there are fewer than 200 stitches on the needles right now, it felt like the rows were taking forever, and in all those hours I only did 6 rows. Yesterday I did two rows and timed myself. They took less than 40 minutes to do them both. I guess trying to knit when there are little sandwiches, tea, wine, friends and craft magazines around doesn't really work!

No Lace on the Plane

I thought I would be traveling yesterday, flying across the country, and spent a bit of time before thinking about what to knit on the plane. The lacy Swallowtail just would not do--too intricate a pattern and too easy to lose some stitches on a bumpy flight. Mindless knitting is what I needed, and dishcloths weren't sounding exciting, so I cast on a hat for my husband. So far it's easy k3, p2 ribbing. The trip didn't work out, so now I have two just-started projects hanging around.

The hat is Jacques Cousteau.

First New Recipe of the Year

Pasta with Chickpeas
from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites
I have a goal I'd like to try to stick to this year--making a new recipe every week. I'm not much of a cook, so I'd really like to pull together a bunch of recipes that are easy and yummy. I thought this one was really good, even though I'm not a feta cheese fan. It's basically noodles with a tomato hummus sauce. My husband thought it could be saucier, which could of course be easily fixed by reducing the amount of noodles cooked.

A New Year, A New Project

No matter how many things I have on the needles, I just have to start something new on January 1st! This is the Swallowtail Shawl, by Evelyn A. Clark, and I'm knitting it in a dark green/grey laceweight baby alpaca. This has been near the top of my Ravelry queue for a long time, so this year it's one of my Mission Possible goals. The Mission Possible group on Ravelry asks that you find 12 works-in-progress, or 12 yarns in your stash (or combo thereof) and commit to finishing them, using them up or just getting rid of them somehow. I have lots of stash, so I always try to participate and keep my new yarn buying to a minimum! When I've settled on my 12, I'll let you know!