Spooky Tree

Lasagna

Quick Tortellini

15 minute tortellini
Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Add 1 bag frozen three color (vegetable) cheese stuffed tortellini. Boil for 5 minutes, then drain, do not rinse. Top with leftover salsa, cheese and sour cream.

Pumpkins

Bulldog Hat

Hey now bulldog, don’t you rush in with your eyes wild. Hey there big bear, take a moment to decide. All these angels scared to walk the wire line. Stand tall, angels, says the bulldog with a smile.

Beef Vegetable soup

Beef bones
2 onions
black pepper, 5 juniper berries, 1 bay leaf
6 cups water
5 stalks chopped celery
1/2 bunch curly parsley
1 C. green lentils
1 bag mixed frozen vegetables
1 C. leftover wild rice

Stuffed Porkchop

Make a small serving of stuffing and set aside. Butterfly two pork chops, season generously with bicentennial rub, poultry seasoning or sage and black pepper. Place a mound of stuffing inside and pin shut with a toothpick. Sear on each side. Place in a baking pan and bake for 25 minutes or until no longer pink. Serve with brussel sprouts (and bacon).

Tortoise

Tortoises (Testudinidae) are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles (Testudines). Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise has both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton. They are generally reclusive animals.

Pileated Woodpecker

even larger in person

Lamby Hat

I made another baby hat today. This one sports a baby lamby on the front. I did not add a pom pom yet because I was still debating between white, grey, or black. Size 3-6 months.

Soft Pretzels

Recipe is here. There are some things I observed while making these. Pretzel dough is sticky and pretzels are difficult to roll out to appropriate length. You boil these in water and baking soda, which gets very foamy. The pretzel will float after about 25 seconds if you are boiling the water hard enough. The recipe says "Oil the parchment" not "Spray some Pam at the parchment paper"; lay down some oil or you will be eating stuck-on bits of paper. Pretzels that were not brushed in egg yolks did not look appetizing and appeared a bit burned. Pretzel salt, Kosher salt, and table salt are not interchangeable. Mine turned out great!

Space Invaders Hat

I knit a space invaders hat for D in red and blue. This hat fits much better than the Denver hat. I used size 11 needles, and cast on 55 stitches using double strands of a worsted weight wool (Stitch Nation Washable Ewe). I knit in k3,p1 for the first 4 rows, then continued knitting straight for the next 6 inches. This seemed like a great place to include a little color work! I then worked a standard decrease: Row1 k4, p2tog Row2 k3, p2tog Row3 k2, p2tog Row4 k1 p2tog Row5 p2tog Row6 bind off and bring thread through all holes and pull shut.

Cleveland Cassata Cake

Recently I learned that there is such a thing as a Cleveland Style cassata cake. It differs rather significantly from its Italian-Style counterpart. Took me a long time to find a decent recipe, but HERE. Did you know this cake takes 11 eggs to make?! I made one for my apartment manager because she has been so very nice.

Baby Totoro Hat

Took a little bit longer than anticipated. The ears were causing me distress.

Caturday

Special animated edition.