breakfast, Cooking

The Best Thing I’ve Ever Made With Eggs

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Sunday Morning Frittata

Ingredients:
Olive Oil
1 Tbs butter
4 strips of center cut bacon
1 anaheim pepper, seeded and chopped
2 green onions, chopped
5 crimini mushrooms, chopped
4 eggs, whisked thoroughly
2 slices rustic bread, cut into 9 cubes each
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook the bacon to how to like it and set aside, reserving the bacon grease. When bacon is cool, break up into pieces. In a small saute pan, heat up a little olive oil over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms, green onions and pepper and cook till mushrooms are soft. Turn off heat and set aside. In a medium oven-safe saute pan, add some of the bacon fat and heat up about 2 Tbs of olive oil. When hot, add the bread cubes and toast on all sides. Add the butter. When melted, add the eggs and stir just a little bit. Let sit for about 30 seconds or so and add all the other ingredients and stir a few times. Let sit for a minute and then put the pan in the oven for 5 minutes. Serve with sour cream.

Knitting, Patterns

Chunky Fingerless Mitts

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These fingerless mitts are a Knit Nat original. They knit up quickly — perfect for the short attention span crafter.

Chunky Fingerless Mitts -- Free Pattern from Alaska Knit Nat

Ingredients:
Size 10 double point needles
One skein of Lion Brand Tweed Stripes in Caribbean.
Chunky scrap yarn
Darning Needle

Abbreviations:

  • M1FB – Make 1 stitch in the front and back of the next stitch, thus increasing the work by 1 stitch.
  • M1 – Make 1 stitch between two existing stitches.
  • K2tog – knit two stitches together

Directions:
Using 3 double pointed needles, cast on 26 stitches (8, 9, 9)
K1, P1 rib for 13 rows or until the cuff is as long as you desire
Round 14: K4, make 1 stitch in the front and back of next stitch (M1FB). Knit to last stitch on needle and M1FB again. K4 on the next needle and M1FB. Knit to end of needle. K4 on the third needle and M1FB. Knit to end of needle. You have increased the row by 4 stitches and should now have 30 stitches.
Knit 3 rounds
R18: M1, K1, M1, knit to end of round
All odd rounds: K one round
R20: M1, K3, M1, knit to end of round
R22: M1, K5, M1, knit to end of round
R24: M1, K7, M1, knit to end of round
R26: M1, K9, M1, knit to end of round
Knit 4 rounds
Transfer the first 11 stitches to a piece of scrap yarn.
Cast on one stitch. You should now have 30 stitches again.
Knit 6 rounds
K1, P1 rib for 4 rounds
Loosely bind off

Thumb:
Transfer the 11 stitches to two double pointed needles. With third needle, pick up and knit 4 stitches (make sure you leave at least a 6-inch tail of yarn). Knit one round. When you get back to the picked up stitches, K2tog twice, leaving you with 13 stitches total. Knit 5 rounds or till thumb is the length you prefer (you can try the mitt on at this point).
Bind off. Weave in tails. At the crotch of the thumb, use the extra tail to sew up any gaps.

Here is a pair I made with two kinds of worsted yarn knitted at the same time. They turned out really stiff and a little too big for my hands. They fit Stephen’s perfectly, but they weren’t his colors.
Knitting

The Grover Collection

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Merry Christmas to all! It was a relaxing day. I got sparkly Moon Boots and lots of yummy yarn. I am finally able to post some photos and patterns since they are no longer a surprise. Here is the collection I made for my sister with blue and teal yarn. The hat is a basic 72-stitch hat made on size 10 circulars. The ascot is the pattern I previously posted. The headband is a spin on Knitty.com’s Calorimetry pattern.The fingerless mittens are my own pattern, which I will post presently.

Now it’s time for Christmas goose and champagne!

Cooking, Italian

Lucy’s no-fuss spaghetti sauce

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We had a lovely Christmas dinner with my brother and his family last Sunday. I made his mom’s special spaghetti sauce with linguine and meatballs. She usually takes a basic Prego sauce and adds onions and mushroom. I make it from crushed tomatoes and add a little twist.

Ingredients:
2 TBS unsalted butter
1 TBS olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
about 1/2 lb. crimini or button mushrooms, sliced with a hard-boiled egg slicer (way fast!)
2 TBS dried basil
1 TBS dried oregano
salt and pepper
dash of red wine
sprinkle of red pepper flakes

Good for 1 lb. of pasta

Directions:
Add butter and olive oil to a large sautee pan over medium heat. Add the onions and mushrooms and cook till mushrooms are soft and have let off a lot of liquid and onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add more butter or oil if pan gets dry. Transfer to a medium saucepan and add the other ingredients. Simmer till pasta is done.

Check out how I sliced my mushrooms. It was an epiphany.

appetizers, recipes

Meatballs and special sauce

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Back in high school, my boyfriend’s mother used to serve at her parties Hillshire Farms Lit’l Smokies with this delicious sauce.  I loved her recipe and when I asked for the ingredients, she told me it’s their official recipe. I loved it so much that she brought it as a dish to our wedding upon my request.

For our work Christmas party this year, I combined my meatballs recipe with this delicious Hillshire Farms sauce. Super easy. Enjoy!

Meatballs and Special Sauce
Makes about 60 small meatballs

For the balls:
Two slices of white bread put through the food processor into coarse crumbs. Soak these in milk for a few minutes and squeeze out milk.
1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground beef
1 egg
1/2 cup grated parmesan
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 – 1/2 onion, chopped finely
1 tsp. porcini powder (optional)
1 TBS dried basil
1 TBS dried parsley
1 TBS tomato paste
2 tsp dried oregano
a couple of dashes of Worcestershire Sauce
splash of red wine
salt and pepper
a couple of shakes of pepper flakes (that rhymes!)


For the sauce:
1 jar of Chili Sauce (looks like ketchup)
1 jar of Concord Grape Jelly (NO JOKE)


Mix all the meatball ingredients together thoroughly and form into balls smaller than a golf ball. Place in a 375-degree oven for 30-40 minutes. Meanwhile, empty the chili sauce and grape jelly into a casserole dish or crock pot and heat until melted and combined. When meatballs are done, place them in the casserole dish and toss till balls are coated with the sauce. Serve with toothpicks at an ugly sweater party.

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Winter Solstice, Anchorage, Alaska 2010

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December 21 can be a strange day. In a sense it’s depressing because it’s the shortest day of the year. The sun rose at 10:11 a.m. and set at 3:41 p.m. Not a lot of daylight. But the solstice can also be uplifting. Every day after this day it will be lighter and lighter and before we know it, summer has arrived and the sun will never set.

We gained 17 seconds of daylight today.

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Quinoa Burritos with Baconated Black Beans

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These were the best beans I’ve ever made for taco night. No photo because we ate them all.

Baconated Beans
Add one can of black beans (do not drain) to a small saucepan. Turn heat to high and bring to soft boil. Mash up beans several times with a potato masher. Add one small clove of garlic, roughly chopped. Meanwhile, chop up a slice of bacon and brown in a pan.  Add the bacon and a pinch of salt and simmer till liquid cooks down, about 10 minutes.

Red Quinoa
Cook 1 cup of quinoa according to directions on bag. Add about 1/4 cup of spaghetti sauce, a dash of salt, a dash of chili powder, a dash of cayenne powder and a couple of teaspoons of cumin.

Brown some meat and add taco seasoning. Combine shredded sharp cheddar, baconated beans, red quinoa, lettuce, sour cream and salsa to a tortilla. Roll it up and eat it up!

Crafts

Pom pom party!

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A couple of month’s ago I acquired a big bag of craft pom poms (thank you Muggle in Pink!) and since then I’ve had no idea what to do with them.

Leave it to my favorite blogster, Attic 24, to inspire me with her pom pom creation

I don’t think anything is more satisfying than stringing multicolored pom poms. A 15 minute project that I’ll use all the time.

asian, Cooking

Homemade Shrimp and Pork Wontons

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As per Muggle in Pink’s request, here is my recipe for pot stickers/dumplings. You could use round gyoza wrappers to make a pot sticker shape, or you could use the square ones and make a dumpling where it looks like a Scrooge McDuck money sack.

Homemade Shrimp Wontons | Alaska Knit Nat
 

Homemade Shrimp and Pork Wontons with teriyaki sauce
Makes about 36 dumplings
 
Ingredients for pot stickers:
½ lb ground pork
Less than ½ lb shrimp, cooked or raw, chopped finely
2 green onions, chopped finely
Less than one egg, beaten
Salt and pepper
Dash of soy sauce
Dash of sesame oil
Dash of rice vinegar
Pot sticker or won ton wrappers
 
Ingredients for teriyaki sauce:
1 cup chicken stock
¼ cup soy sauce, or to taste
Dash rice vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
Directions:
Mix all the pot sticker ingredients together, making sure it’s not too sloppy (measurements may vary). Spoon about a teaspoon into wrappers and dab edges with water. Fold into half moons (or make little pouches with square wrappers). Crimp edges for decoration.
Heat a large pan with a little sesame oil and vegetable oil, enough to coat pan. When hot, fry one side of pot stickers till brown, just a few minutes. Then add the teriyaki sauce ingredients, turn down heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve with rice and steamed edamame.
For a vegetarian version of pot stickers substitute shrimp and pork for chopped cabbage, blanched for a minute in boiling water and one shredded carrot.
To make a wonton soup, use the square wrappers and use egg to seal pouches shut. Instead of frying, you can boil this in a pot with the teriyaki sauce and serve with thin rice noodles and the broth.
 
 

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