Recipe Sundays: Lasagna

Cold dreary days always seems to call for big and hearty comfort foods. In the dead of winter when everyone is snuggled inside on days off, slow cooked meals are easily some of my favourites to make. Although, today has been bright and spring like, this past week here in Vancouver it has been rainy and damp here. Earlier this week I came home in an absolute torrential downpour. Even though I had a ride, the walk to the house from the complex parking lot was enough to make me feel that damp cold in my bones. As soon as I got a hot shower in me, I got set to work on one of my favourite comfort foods of all times, lasagna. 

Now the thing I love about making lasagna is that when I make it, there's always leftovers. I build it 4 layers high and I can always cut and freeze. It always turns out exactly the way I want it to. The thing that sometimes turns me off from making it though is that it is pretty time consuming. I do take a few short cuts to save time like buying pre made tomato sauce and then spicing it to my own liking and buying oven ready noodles to save time on the cooking process.

Lasagna

Sauce: 

1lb ground beef

1 medium onion diced

3 cloves of garlic minced 

1 tbsp italian seasoning

1 can of premade pasta sauce 

In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, brown off ground beef with onion and garlic. Once browned, add italian season and cook for another 3 minutes to toast the seasoning to bring out more flavour. Add sauce, mix well and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and set aside.

Cottage Cheese Filling

1 500g container of cottage cheese

2 eggs

2 tsp salt

2 tsp pepper.

Beat eggs in a small mixing bowl. Add everything else and mix well. Set aside.

Assembly

1 pkg of oven ready lasagna noodles

Pasta Sauce

Cottage Cheese Filling

2 cups shredded cheese

In a rectangular baking dish spread a thin layer of sauce. This prevents the noodles from sticking and burning to the botton of your pan.

Place your first layer of noodles down.

Top the layer with 1/3 of the remainder of the sauce and 1/3 cup of cheese.

Place second layer of noodles.

Place the whole amount of cottage cheese filling spreading it evenly. Add 1/3 cup of cheese.

Place third layer of noodles.

Add 1/3 of the sauce and 1/3 cup of cheese.

Place 4th layer of noodles.

Top with remainder of sauce and 1 cup of cheese making sure to spread evenly.

Cover loosely with tin foil trying not to touch the cheese and bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

Remove tin foil and bake for another 15 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.

At the grocery store near my house they sell these garlic toasts that I just pop in the oven for about 5 minutes while the cheese is browning to add the extra touch.

What is your favourite comfort food?

Knitting Tuesdays: How To Spot A Bargain

My obsession with yarn has really grown the more I learn about the world of knitting and crocheting. Everywhere I look I see inspiration and I find myself wondering how I could go about knitting/crocheting it. Lately the obsession has been cowls. In the colder weather they are chunky and squishy, in the warmer weather they are light and airy just adding a touch of class to whatever you are wearing.

With all these designs in mind I have to find the right yarn. Now I know I can't always go to my local yarn shop. The hours are sometimes incompatible with my work schedule or the prices are sometimes just too much. I am a bargain shopper wherever I go. I went scouring for some online sources. It meant I could shop any time any where and let's face it, who doesn't love getting packages in the mail?

Well, from what I have seen, here are a few sources I have found helpful! :D

1. +Etsy  - That place is a plethora of ides, gadgets and supplies. The important thing to remember with Etsy though is that the prices on there may not be such a bargain after factoring in shipping costs, especially to Canada. I love handpainted yarn and sometimes I lose track of how much I might be spending so I always dial it back and calculate in all the factors which includes prices of the yarn, price of shipping and how much it would cost me to get it locally. It's hard sometimes. The other thing I do scour for on Etsy is destash. Destash yarn is from people who realize their yarn collection is too big or that they really have no use for a particular yarn they have in their inventory. It is usually sold at a discounted price. Just again beware of the shipping costs.

2. DBNY - So many good bargains here! Many local yarn shops that go out of business will sell their entire stock to this website and they in turn sell it at a ridiculously low price. I have seen everything from Noro to Bernat in there. The only catch is once it's gone it's gone. I sign up for their newsletter so I know when new stock comes in and I can browse for it. The important thing to remember with this site though is that sometimes they sell vintage yarns and that requires a bit of look up on Ravelry. Also this company does calculate their shipping by the weight so watch out for that. Always get the system to calculate the shipping before you order because sometimes the shipping is more than what you are actually paying for the yarn itself!

3.Eat Sleep Knit - This is an amazing site full of delicious premium yarns. The possibilities are endless here! They don't have many sale items or bargain yarns but the reason I included this site is because they have something called the "Yarnathon". This program gives you rewards for the amount of yarn you end up buying. This can come in the form of accessories or gift certificates or discounts on your purchase. Some yarns have "power ups" which means the total yardage that you buy of that particular yarn is either counted towards the program by another half, double and sometimes even triple to get you to the next level quicker. I love that they offer this type or promotion for their customers because not many yarn sites offer any type of loyalty program at all.

4. Your Local Yarn Shop Website - I have visited many local yarn shops and after leaving decided that I needed more of what they have in there. It never hurts to call or ask the staff if they do shipping. The other day I was at Wool Is Not Enough and the proprietor told me she does flat rate shipping for $10. Cheaper than most sites out there by far! The Purple Purl in Toronto does a similar thing as well and they even carry my favourite hand dye artist Indigo Dragonfly.

Do you have any sites that you would recommend? I am always looking for new ones!

Knitting Tuesday: Crocheted Baby Blanket

Sorry for the late post! I really wanted to finish this project for my Tuesday post and ended up  finishing it late last night. But better late than never! It was still in my opinion a quick project. Took about a week and a half and the results were awesome!

Now I always believe that every baby needs a baby blanket. The reason is most kids still hold on to that very blanket like a favourite toy as time passes. They are and comforting at the same time. They are soft and warm. The love you put into a baby blanket for someone show through in the work and detail. Parents can never have enough baby blankets for the new little one especially here in Canada :D

Now I know that it says Knitting Tuesday but I recently learned to crochet and found this a quick and easy way to do up a baby blanket. I usually reach for chunkier yarns as well. This particular one is by Bernat Yarns a pretty inexpensive and easy to find brand of yarn. It is called Baby Blanket. Easily found at your local walmart or joann's. Now no one knows if the baby is a boy or girl so I went with a yellow base. The border is a colour by the name of "pitter patter". I love it because the colours remind me of cotton candy. I know the base does include bits of pink but should still be a gender neutral balanced out with everything else.


2 balls of bernat baby blanket in two different colors
8mm crochet hook
Scissors


Chain off 35 stitches
HDC 10 rows
Switch to second colour
HDC 4 rows
Switch back to original colour
HDC 10 rows
Bind off
Using your crochet hook pick uo stitches off the side of the blanket and begin to crochet the border. Crochet border for 4 round and bind off.

This blanket was so soft making it my puppy did not want to let it go! :D 

Any projects you like to do for the arrival of someone's baby? What is your favourite gift to give?

Recipe Sundays: French Toast Bread Pudding

Sundays and food have always gone hand in hand for me. Growing up, Sunday was church day. After service Sunday meant tons and tons of good food! Everyone always ate together after church. Several families including mine would all go out for lunch at one chinese restaurant or another. Some Sundays everyone would stay at the church and have a huge pot luck lunch. Kids would play, teenagers would look bored and gossip while scarfing down platefuls of food, parents would chatter and chase after their kids and the seniors would get a chance to catch up with each other. After lunch, the moms would all go to one family's home and prepare a huge meal for everyone with everyone chipping in for groceries. So big meals and big flavours were always huge for me on Sundays. 

Now that I am older and no longer living in that type of a community, I still try to incorporate cooking into this day every week if I am home to do it. Usually it's my big meal day. Lately at our house it has been chicken. It is also the one day out of the week I cook breakfast instead of just downing a bowl of cereal or eating a quick sandwich. 

While working for various restaurants, I have had the pleasure of making many a different bread puddings, everything from a sticky toffee caramel conncotion to a mexican chocolate version. The method is quite simple, it always involved eggs, milk and of course bread. The flavourings after that is completely up to the baker. It can be anything from savoury to sweet. One day I was making french toast for dessert and thought to myself, it is not that far off from a bread pudding! And voila! Recipe born!

Serves 4-6

8 slices of bread (hint I use bread ends that I froze from sandwiches great way to use it up)

4 large eggs 

2 cups milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375F

Cube bread into 1" cubes and place into a greased casserole dish

In a bowl, whisk together egg and brown sugar, slowly pour in milk, vanilla and cinnamon.

Pour mixture over the bread and gently toss to make sure it is coated.

Place in oven and bake for 45 minutes or until top is golden brown. It should be super puffy as well kind of like a souffle.

While still hot, drizzle with syrup and scatter 3 tbsp of cubed cold butter on top. 

My trick is to always use a butter knife and try to poke some holes in the casserole so that every bite gets some syrup and butter.

Let rest until butter is melted and sprinkle with a dusting of powdered sugar.

Now I know all my dieting friends are probably going, ugh why?!?! This recipe can easily be done without the butter and try agave syrup instead of the regular syrup and powdered sugar for a lighter version of this. This dish is super rich so that's why it made so infrequently. Great Mother's Day or Christmas morning treat. When do you serve rich breakfasts? 

Valentine's Day: Easy Dinner for Two

As a cook, I work on days like this. Valentine's Day is the one night every restaurant expects to be busy. I don't think I remember the last Valentine's Day I had off was. We don't really celebrate Valentine's Day either. I go with the motto, you should show who you love that you love them no matter when.

Despite not celebrating it I did want my boyfriend to know I love him today so I decided to make his favourite meal, shepherd's pie. There's usually just the two of us for dinner so we always make sure there's enough for him for lunch the next day. This is my recipe for Shepherd's Pie for two!

Ingredients

1lb ground beef
1 medium onion diced
4 strips of bacon diced
1/2 pkg onion soup mix

3 medium sized potatoes (we like yellow fleshed because it's so buttery and sweet)
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste.

Quarter potatoes cover with cold water and set to boil until tender.

In a separate pan sauteed onions and bacon until onions are opaque.
Add ground beef to onion/bacon mixture. Cook until beef is browned. Add onion soup mix and toss.
Place into a small casserole dish.

Once potatoes are tender, add butter and sour cream. Whip until mashed with an electric hand blender (yup my little secret for fluffy potatoes. Season to taste.
Spread potatoes onto meat let set for 10 minutes and serve!

Super easy and always delicious! You can always switch it up and add more veggies or another favourite mashed potatoes  combo of mine is roasted garlic and a touch of goat cheese. How do you like your shepherd's pie?

What did you make or had made for you this Valentines? Happy Valentines Day!

Miso Crafty Knits: ISLAND // Review & Giveaway!!

Miso Crafty Knits: ISLAND // Review & Giveaway!!: It's absolutely no secret that I'm a huge fan of both Jane Richmond and of her work .  If you've ever had the chance to meet her or to ...

Hey everyone! Check out my friend's review and giveaway for the stunning book, Island. Jane Richmond has outdone herself with this exquisite coffee table style pattern book that you would be proud to have lying around! The patterns are easy to follow and bears amazing results! Enter to win!

Knitting Tuesday: The Knitted Bag

I love love bags. They are easily one of my favourite accessories and I cannot get enough of them. I love anything from a cute clutch to a huge carry all bag. I love reusable grocery bags and I love everything in between. There are not many things in life I would limit myself to buying. I am sure you all have yours and please tell me you do because then I don't feel like I am the only one. But bags, yup that's one thing I really try to limit myself from buying.

Now that I have started knitting however, I always find myself looking for "project bags". I try to use old purses but they don't fit into what I want to use that day so I leave those to my bigger projects. I go to my reusable bag stash but then I realize I need it for groceries and I didn't want to dump everything out. So then I thought to myself, what if I made my own bag. So off  I went to scour Ravelry. So many options but I decided on doing a variation of the Ilene Bag. So here's how I did it! :D

Materials:

1 skein of Cascade Ultra Pima
1 4 mm 16 inch circular
4 stitch markers
1 cable needle or stitch holder
2 4 mm double pointed needles

CO 40 stitches and work back and forth for 25 lines.
BO on rectangle.
Once bound off, use needles and pick up 25 stitches on the short side PM 40 on the long side PM pick up 25 stitches from short side PM then 40 stitches on long side PM. Be sure to keep it in the round.

A great video I found on youtube by +Knit Picks
Picking up stitches

Row 1- knit 25 PM knit 40 PM knit 25 PM knit 40 PM
Row 2- yo/k2tog until it makes 25 stitches PM yo/k2tog until it makes 40 PM yo/k2tog until it makes 25 stitches PM yo/k2tog until it makes 40 PM

Repeat until row 43

Row 44-50 Knit/purl

Row 51 BO 39 stitches. Place 26 stitches onto cable needled BO 39 stitches. Knit 26. Continue to knit 26 stitches back and forth into stockinette stitch. Make sure to have enough for 3 needle bind off.

3 needle bind off with the 26 stitches in the stitch holder.

3 Needle Bind Off

My end result?

It makes a great little project bag! Will have to experiment with more yarn and see if I can make it bigger!

If you were to make this bag, what would you use it for?