bekswhoknits

The dinner that almost wasn’t

Posted on August 12, 2011August 12, 2011 by bekswhoknits

A bowl full of J’s favourite foods;Bacon, hard boiled egg, grated cheese, mushrooms, andonions.
It had to be confiscated as he had planned to eat it all before dinner.
It was only the promise of combining the goodness with other magical foods that allowed it to survive.

The bowl of goodness was part of a greater plan (for world domination?) for dinner.
Potato salad and sausages.
It was a combined potato salad and layer salad, as I was too lazy to do two salads.
So into a bigger bowl went some chopped lettuce, then some boiled potatos and peas, which had cooled.
Then the aforementioned bowl of goodness (Bacon, egg, grated cheese, mushrooms, andonions) and some (storebought – naughty!) caeser salad dressing over the top.

With some cumberland sausages on the side (J’s contribution) it was a good dinner.

And yes that’s a stable table in the background.

One spoilt lady

Posted on August 10, 2011October 5, 2011 by bekswhoknits

My boy spoils me.
He cooks dinner for me, while I watch my stories.
And he makes the plate look pretty because he knows I like to take pictures.

So without any further ado, I present lamb cutlets, on a bed of potato mash, with beans and a mushroom sauce.

Lemony chickeny

Posted on August 9, 2011August 9, 2011 by bekswhoknits

After a hard day watching series 1 of Mad Men, dinner had to be easy. So I adapted my own recipe.

The chicken was coated in flour and lemon pepper, and then fried in hot oil.
Once the chicken was browned, a pint glass of chicken stock was poured over to bubble away.
Then an egg yolk and the juice of 3 small lemons was added.

The chicken was then poured over two packages of Mie Goreng noodles which had some frozen carrots, corn, broccoli, and cauliflower, in it.

Serve and done.

I added a little too much pepper for my liking, and a little too much lemon for J’s liking.
But it went down a treat.

Followed by some strawberry ice cream (with milo sprinkles), and a diamond fizz (because all I had to mix gin with was sparkling, apparently that’s a thing).

Apologies for the bad photos, I was hungry.

Saturday lunch – The Royal

Posted on August 8, 2011August 9, 2011 by bekswhoknits

In the middle of a busy weekend, on the way to pick up some dry cleaning, we stopped off at The Royal for a late lunch.
Sitting in the sun, after a rainy week, was just delightful.

The pints of heineken went down very easily. J had the chicken penne, whilst I had the hand torn pasta with lamb.
It was absolutely delicious.
My lamb tasted like a roast dinner on pasta. The roast vegetables were little parcels of goodness, and the hand ripped pasta was divine.

I didn’t know what sauce was on J’s pasta, but if ever figure it out I would make it every night.
And there was still more options on the menu that we wanted to try.

I’ve been to The Royal before, mainly for after-work drinks, a few times for lunch, but this was the best food I’d tasted there.
J had never been there before and he wants to go back (always a good sign).

The views are lovely, looking out over the water.
Hopefully next time we could take the boat and stop off for a spot of lunch.
Either way, we’re going back.

The Grates – Secret Rituals

Posted on August 4, 2011August 2, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Ahh, The Grates – Secret Rituals.
Now just a two piece after Alana went off to bake cupcakes, their energy and enthusiasm hasn’t worn off.

After releasing two album with some killer singles, Secret Rituals is no different.
Turn Me On and Sweet Dreams begin the album in the right direction. The promise of fun is just around the corner.
But we don’t get around the corner. There’s no Lies Are Much More Fun, no 19 20 20, no Carve Your Name, nothing that you can sing, loudly in your car. This is number one on my list of wants on a Grates album.

The album has its fans. They were loud and many at their recent appearance at On The Bright Side, and young enough to sing all* their songs.
I simply wanted more fun from this album.

The homespun album artwork is fantastic as always. So much love and care has gone into this album.

I just wanted more opportunities to sing along with Patience (loudly, in my car, annoying those stuck at the traffic lights with me).

*I’m way to old to be singing Change (AKA The Puberty Song) in my car.

etsy finds

Posted on August 2, 2011August 2, 2011 by bekswhoknits

i adore etsy, and as I also collect and admire vintage tea cups and teapots, this post was inevitable.
Enjoy my etsy finds.
Continue reading etsy finds

Lamb shanks

Posted on August 2, 2011August 2, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Let it be known that I love lamb.
Lamb cutlets, French trim, Lamb chops, roast lamb, and I am rather partial to a lamb shank.

And this is a very good recipe which I found in a cookbook by West Australian authors, Dujour

It is a glorious book, with beautiful photos of food, and special embossed pages between chapters.

I’ve tried several recipes from it, but one that I keep going back to is their method for cooking lamb shanks.

I wasn’t particularly true to the recipe. So here’s my version.

I smeared two lamb shanks with minced garlic, lemon zest, salt, pepper, and olive oil. That went into a 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes.
While this was cooking I made scones (as you do, but more on that later), and boiled some potatoes.

I mashed the potatoes with some beef stock, milk, butter, grated cheese, and chives, and then spooned onto a baking tray. A smidgen more grated cheese over the top, and some garlic olive oil and then they went in the oven to brown up.

At the same time as the spuds were going in the oven, the lamb shanks came out and were covered in a tomato mixture, covered in alfoil and then back in the oven.
The tomato mixture was 1 tin of tomatoes, some chopped Italian sausage, a grated carrot, some red wine, and more salt and pepper.

At the 40 minutes in the oven mark I put some broccoli and cauliflower on to boil.

After 50 minutes in the oven, the potato was crispy and the lamb cooked.

We tried to rest the lamb but we just ended up eating it.
It was melt-in-your-mouth good.
I had my reservations about adding the Italian sausage but it didn’t make it too meaty.

Definitely make it again, although I wouldn’t mind finding some way to keep my olives.

It’s a kitchen invasion

Posted on August 1, 2011October 5, 2011 by bekswhoknits

I was all set to cook fish and chips for my boyfriend who had cooked the previous two meals.

I had some fish in the microwave defrosting only to discover once it had defrosted that it wasn’t fish, it was squid.
So J was called on to cook dinner, as I’m not too confident with cooking fish.

So he cooked up a seafood (prawn, squid, and barramundi all from the freezer) medley.
I put the chips in the oven (yay I helped!).

But while the oven was on I decided to make desert. And so I looked in my old high school cook book (yes I’ve still got it after all these years) and found a recipe. We’re not big sweet tooths in my household, so when I find a sweet recipes which can happily feed us two with no leftovers to go to waste, I hold on to it.
This quantity will easily serve two people, but you can have that amount to yourself with no problems.

3/4 cup milk, 1 egg, 2 tsp sugar, some nutmeg, and some vanilla were mixed in a mug.
Then poured over some buttered bread which had the crusts cut off, and placed in the bottom of ramekins.
That then went in a water bath, in the oven for 25 minutes.
It wasn’t fish and chips, but it was good.

I love the feeling of new sheets

Posted on July 30, 2011 by bekswhoknits

I love bed.
I love sleeping in. I love curling up in the blankets watching comfort tv. I love the feeling of new sheets.
The crispness. The comfort.

So ever since we got our new bedroom furniture I’ve wanted to buy new sheets and a quilt cover to match.
Of course J didn’t want to come with me, so I had to choose it myself. The only guidance was nothing hot pink and nothing floral.
Which in the realm of bedspreads is quite limiting.
Of course the other pattern that’s in style is birds, and as I have a mild phobia, I’d rather not go to sleep thinking of birds.
So I found one that I quite liked, a lovely old forest scene. Naturally when I got home J said that it reminded him of the ‘Blair Witch Project’ – thanks babe.
Next time he can come with me.

I splurged on some 1000 thread count sheets, which I am itching so get in to.
Is it bed time yet?

Frog it

Posted on July 27, 2011July 28, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Well this is the slouchy hat I started last week.
I don’t like it.
it’s the slouchy hat with picot edge available free on ravelry.

I ran out of pink/purple yarn so I started with some grey that I had left over. The colour combination wasn’t really inspired.
I also used 4.5mm and 5.5mm needles because I didn’t have any 4mm double pointed (and I figured that the 1mm change would be significant.
I also lost track of the amount of stiches I had during the increase row, and so I muffed that slightly.
And I didn’t leave enough of a tail yarn to turn up the edge.

It was a quick project to whip up, I just think my yarn choice (Moda Vera Cardellino) and increased needle size didn’t highlight the picot edge. And with the two colours? No, it didn’t work.

So after deliberating a few days, I decided to frog the whole thing.

I’d rather have those colours to work with, than a hat which I don’t like.

I think I need to find patterns for yarns that I can buy, and that way I know whether it’s my knitting skills or my pattern interpretation skills which are the problem.