A little pulled pork and yarn

Wow - I am not the greatest at this as you can tell.  I think it has been more then a month since I have written last but here I am back again....better then my diary as a kid ;)  So last time I blogged I mentioned that I was going to blog about some tasty pulled pork sandwiches that my cousin made us.  Well let's just say Curtis and I got spoiled that night.  My "little" cousin Justin invited Curtis and I over for supper on a Monday night.  He prepared that day to have us enjoy the flavourful tastes of Pulled Pork Sandwiches.  I have to say I was IMPRESSED!

He took the entire day to cook the pork in the slow cooker and had it soaked in his special sauce mixture.  He also added some tasty cheese to make it the perfect flavour.  Great job Justin!  We loved it!

Winston also enjoyed the evening meeting a new doggie friend and hanging out with us!

Also, last time I mentioned a project that I have been working on for quite some time.  I guess that is probably an under-statement as it has been since Christmas. lol.  My Grandmother had asked me if I would be interested in knitting the front of a throw cushion cover for a friend of hers and she would knit the back.  The pattern was definitely a lot more complicated then what I would normally knit but looked like a good challenge.  Here is the pic of the pattern that I received.

Well I soon began this project and although it is beautiful, I soon realized the amount of time it took me to make this cover.  I took a day a while back and went to Second Cup to just sit back and knit and here is where I finished off that day.

I was so proud of myself but time was running rather short on myself and well....I probably should have done loads more months ago but of course, my last minute self just couldn't resist the procrastination. lol.  Now last week I realized that I only had the week to finish off the front so with A LOT of work, I finally finished it on Monday night.  I have to say, there may be a couple of mistakes on here, but I am so proud of the work I finished.  This has definitely brought me up to another level in the knitting world.

Because I seriously have the best grandmother ever she had volunteered to darn in the ends of the pillow cover and sew it all together and I got the chance to see it all together before we gave it to the person who wanted us to knit it.  Between Grammy and I, I would say this was a pretty successful project.

 This was the final front portion.

And here is the back of it. 

I think we managed to make this cover look pretty sharp and now I just need to make one for myself. lol......maybe in a year or two that is :)

So now that I am done knitting the cover of the pillow, I need to make a little adjustment on the bag that I made for another friend of mine that just had a baby and then I can craft to my hearts delight :)

PS - If you would like to get this pattern, it is free online here:http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/celtic-knit-aran-pillow

Easter Weekend

It is hard to believe that Easter weekend has already come and gone this year.  Even though I lived in Newfoundland for 3 years, this was the very first year I spent Easter without my parents.  Yes I am 28 and a grown woman, however I still miss my parents especially during holidays when they are not around.  You see they are in Nevada at the moment heading to the heat in Death Valley (I know, weird name).  So mom and dad - here is a little bit of what we did this Easter weekend.

Firs of all Thursday night is family supper night for our family.  I especially love this night because I get to spend some time with my grandparents, my aunt and cousin and sometimes we even get special guests :)  This week we headed to Jean's Restaurant and had a yummy supper.

 

 

Here is my beautiful Tante and her handsome son....Also known as my cousin who is going for a mix of sons of anarchy look and a Leonardo DiCaprio look in Gangs of New York ;)  Love you Justin.

 

On Friday I can definitely say I slept in....well at least until 8:30.  It was so nice not to wake up to an alarm.  However my wonderful husband was not so able to sleep in, so he got up and completed the installation of our new dishwasher!  I LOVE IT! 

 

Three loads done since Friday :)  It was amazing!  My counters can get so clean so fast now ;)  Don't worry mom - I am not just using it as a storage device.

After a quick break - Curtis then started to assemble the new faucet we had just bought.  It is a beautiful gooseneck faucet with a pull down spray.  LOVE IT!  I think I am spoiled!

 

 

Friday night we had a great service at our church and Pastor Dave spoke an awesome sermon on no matter how far you may have gone from God, all you need to do is turn around and He is right there waiting for you.  We have the best pastors ever!

So Saturday came quick and we were having supper at my grandparents house for Easter.  I was in charge of the mashed potatoes and I decided to make a desert too.  I chose a desert called "Creamy Strawberry Pie" that I found on the Kraft Canada website. http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/creamy-strawberry-pie-143800.aspx

I started with graham cracker crumbs and some butter and mixed it together.

 

 

I then pressed this on to the base of a pie plate to create the pie crust and put it in the fridge until I was ready to use it. 

 

After that I had to cut up 4 cups of strawberries.  I ended up buying 4 packs of strawberries and I had loads left over so I only really needed two packs of them. 

After this it became a little more complicated.  I had to boil water and mix it with a pack of Jello, stirring constantly for 2 minutes.  After this I had to beat the cream cheese until smooth and then gradually add the Jello mixture to this.  Then I needed to set this bowl into a bowl of ice water stirring occasionally for 7-8 minutes.  Once that was ready then I had to add a cup of Cool Whip to this mixture and then put it in with the berries.  I found that after this step I had too many strawberries as it was less of the mixture and more of the berries showing however it still tasted yummy.  I added this to the pie crust then topped it off with more cool whip and strawberries.....Here is the finished product. :)

For some reason I can't rotate this pic so here is the sideways version of this pie. lol.  It tasted great and was low sugars too so diabetics were able to eat this.

We had a few more deserts on Saturday night too but this next one was quite special.  Ever since we were kids Grammy would always get us a bunny cake from Tim Horton's.  Years ago, they stopped making these so it has probably been about 15 years since we have seen one.  However - Grammy just happened upon one at Sobeys so I thought I better share this one.  Pretty cute I must say. :)

The funny thing about Easter and me being 28 (almost 29) is that Grammy still has an Easter Egg hunt for Justin and I.  It is always a huge competition for us and we love it.  So here is a pic of Justin and I with out bowls of eggs and Curtis cuddled in between us :)

 

The last piece of my day I am going to share with you today is my special mug.  This is the only mug I will drink out of at my grandparents house.  I have no idea why but I REALLY love this mug.  I am not even a gold fan and there is gold all over this mug but I wanted to share my pretty little mug :)

 

Church on Sunday was amazing and we had lots of visitors out.  Curtis and I couldn't sing much due to our lack of voices but all in all it was an incredible weekend.  Thank you Jesus for your sacrifice and being our living God.  Hope you all enjoyed your holiday weekend!  Tune in next time for some new cable stitching knitting and some yummy pulled pork sandwiches! 

 

Pink, Pink everywhere

I know last time I blogged I talked about a project I have been working on that was a gift for a friend of mine who just had a beautiful baby girl last week.  Well I did give it to her on Saturday so I can finally share it with you :)

I actually found this pattern on Pinterest and I absolutely love it!  It is a messenger style bag that can be converted to a stroller bag.  Here is the original link from Pinterest.
http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2010/09/2-in-1-bag-stroller-bag-into-messenger.html

So I started out by cutting out all the peices and to be honest, this was the most difficult part.  Not so difficult but rather time consuming.  After that I got started on the bag and the straps and started sewing them together.

It was pretty awesome to see the progress so fast.  I am not sure if that I means I am getting quicker or it was just a less complicated pattern. lol  Either way I was quite happy with how it turned out.

As you can see I used two different materials.  The bright pink zebra print was actually a curtain fabric that was a bit heavier that your average material and the lining was a cotton which I totally fell in love with :) 

So here is the finished product.  I used snaps to convert from the stroller version of the bag to the messenger style as well as some velcro for reinforcement.

 You can see the velcro here and the two different materials.

I also made a wallet off of Pinterest that matches this bag.  I think it is awesome.  Here is the link I took the pattern from. http://modestmaven.blogspot.de/2012/02/bi-fold-wallet-tutorial.html

Again I had to cut out the peices however this was a lot less time consuming as they were much smaller.

This was kind of fun as I have never sewn a wallet before but here is the finished product.  Well almost finished.  I still have to add the snap to it but for the most part it is complete :)

You can see that there is enough space for 8 cards to be put as well as the wallet part.  I hope you enjoyed my crafts :)  And here is a pic of the babe that inspired it all!

Beautiful lady!

 

Fell off the wagon

So sad to say but this week has had nothing focused on this blog but today I am back at it.  I have started a few different crafts but I wanted to start with a couple of the recipes we had recently.

The first I will begin with was the romano Turkey Burgers.  Ok - I am not sure if any of you have had home made turkey burgers before but I can tell you this got a big thumbs up for me.  I had to start by mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl from the ground turkey, romano cheese, minced onions, garlic powder & salt and pepper....

 Then formed them into patties so we could eat them like burgers.

 The directions asked me to pace the patties on a broiler pan and broil for 10 minutes however I found that they didn't quite cook as quickly as I would have liked and I ended up finishing them off in the frying pan for a few moments.

In the meantime, I wanted to make a side with this so lately my specialty is cutting up potatoes and baking them in the over with spices so that is exactly what I did :)  I added my own special blend of spices and voila!  Here is the finished product.

Now I have been rating what Curtis and I have been giving this food however I think I rated this a bit higher then Curtis so we have agreed to settle in the middle at 8.5.

The next day we tried a little something I would have never tried on my own ever.  It was called Butternut Ravioli Stew.  This I have to admit is a MUST TRY.  This is definitely moving out of the comfort zone for me but I loved it.  Also there is no meat in this so for anyone avoiding meat - This could be a little treat.

I started out chopping my onions in my mini chopper as usual.  Anyone who knows me, knows I am not an onion fan but when in a meal, I can definitely pull it off.

After this I had to prepare the butternut squash.  This was a little bit of a process.  I had to start with stabbing it, then microwaving it for about 5-8 minutes.  Now looking back I could have probably put it in there longer to cook more but it worked.

Then I split it in two, deseeded it and then cut it in cubes.

After this was completed I took the onions and cooked them in a pot with a little butter then added the squash with some liquids and spices (cinnamon, ginger, broth) and let it simmer for a while.  The recipe states that 10 minutes should be sufficient however I undercooked the squash starting out so I wanted to make sure it was cook throughout now. 

 While that was being cooked, I them had to boil water and cook the ravioli.  Once this was done I was to drain it and set it aside.

Finally I was to go back to the squash and take half of it, put it in my blender and add 3/4 cup of neufchâtel cheese.  Well I am not sure if it is because that isn't common around here or I was just stunned but I couldn't locate this cheese anywhere.  I googled it and found out that this is comparable to cream cheese so I added a full block of cream cheese to this mixture and blended it all together until it was smooth.  Then I needed to add this back to the remainder of the mixture along with the ravioli.  Then I was to add some half & half and heat it until it was almost a simmer.  

By this point, my kitchen smelled delicious.  It was so aromatic and I was looking forward to eating this.  

We ended up eating this for a couple of days afterwards and I was not complaining.  Curtis and I would rate this an 8.5 out of 10.  We did truly enjoy this and would definitely make this again.  

As for my crafts, I made something for a friend of mine, who just had a baby and due to the fact that there is a chance she might read this, I am going to have to wait on showing you the finished product.  Hopefully by Sunday I will have it up here.  Until then hope you enjoyed our newest dishes :)