Knit, Crochet, Cook

Hello, followers! I’ve been absent for a while--there was an allergy scare that turned out to be mostly ‘hey, you’re allergic to cat’s, there was a potential new job as a knitting instructor, there was moving into my own apartment...

But I have returned! And with recipes!

This one really does not work with a spiralizer, btw. If you like spiralized veggies, consider that the sauce is made of sour cream and therefore will be a bit on the thin side upon contact with vegetable water--it’s really easier to chop these up and throw them in.

Complete Meal Salad, for at least three servings (just up the proportions if you want more, but don’t up the sausage unless you’re doing a LOT more--you use quite a bit of meat in this):

Ingredients:

2 Cucumbers

Handful of Radishes (or, alternately, a packet of pre-sliced ones)

Handful of cherry tomatoes

1 pre-cooked sausage (I used beef polish keilbasa--CHECK THE INGREDIENTS HERE FOR ANY HIDDEN ALLERGENS! They use all SORTS of stuff to make sausage)

1 small sour cream container

Ground garlic

Dried dill weed

Salt

Recipie:

Wash all vegetables thoroughly. Peel cucumbers, dice, and throw in container. Chop cherry tomatoes (this actually can work very well with scissors) and throw them into the same container. Chop--or open presliced package of--radishes, and add to container. Chop sausage and add to container. Toss.

Open the sour cream. Add the spices (garlic, dill weed, and salt) to taste. Stir often.

To serve, take some of the salad and dump sour cream on, then stir. DO NOT STORE TOGETHER! The salad will get soggy and icky.

So my original plan was to make rice with some veggies and sausage for dinner...and then I ended up adapting my coworker’s recipie for a good meal.

Ingredients:

2 heads romaine hearts (or whatever lettuce you can find; just remember iceberg has the nutritional value and taste of unflavored snow cone)

1 pack sliced baby bella (or preferred) mushroom

1/2 white onion

1 precooked sausage, keilbasa style (or whatever cooked sausage you want)

2 packs ramen, whatever flavor--I used Original\Soy Sauce

Recipie:

1. Chop up all ingredients except ramen. Set into bowl.

2. Over bowl, crumble dry ramen.

3. Sprinkle contents of soup packets over bowl to taste.

4. Stir.

One of the new recipies I’ve discovered is Mexican rice. It’s pretty tasty, and this is the simple version--for a fancier one, add chicken broth to taste!

Ingredients:

However many servings of rice you want

1 small box tomato sauce (look in the ‘Mexican’ part of the store; there should be small boxes or cans of generic tomato sauce, and if you read the label you can pick one without any added allergens)

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Salt

Optional:

1-3 Bell peppers (the more rice you have, the more pepper you need!)

1 Sausage, with no added fillers--I prefer the Kroger brand ‘butcher-style’ sausage myself, but choose your own favorite!

Recipie:

1. Cook the rice: Put 1 1/2 parts rice to 2 parts water in a pot with a lid, cover, and bring to a boil. When it comes to a boil, turn the heat down to ‘low’, leave covered, and set a timer for twenty minutes. At the end of the twenty minutes, turn the heat off and fluff rice with a fork.

2. While the rice is still hot, pour in the tomato sauce and sprinkle in spices to taste. Stir. If not using the optional ingredients, you’re done here!

3. If using, chop the bell pepper and sausage. (Alternately, chop them while the rice is cooking.) Add them to the rice. Stir again.

Hello, followers!

I vanished for a while, and I’m sorry about that. Two things happened: First, I discovered that I’m allergic to just about every food out there. Second, I had to stop knitting for a while because I accidentally hurt my wrists.

I test out EVERYTHING that goes into this blog. The two combined meant I just didn’t have anything left to post. But I’m back, and plan on posting again--there will also be a new tag, ‘allergy-friendly’, to indicate recipies that are unlikely to trigger the major allergens of dairy, egg, wheat, and soy. (I say ‘unlikely’ because, while the recipies do not call for any allergens, you may accidentally buy something with an allergen in it--ALWAYS READ THE LABEL!) Ingredients will still be tagged so you can filter.

Basket-Weave Pattern

[img: a red ‘woven’ blanket over a chair, with an orange shirt next to it and some wall visible in the background]

The basket-weave pattern is good for beginners, because it only requires two stitches, knit and purl (k and p), and the yarn creates natural stitch markers for where to switch.

(ignore the orange in the picture, I’m wearing one of my sports shirts and they’re delightfully neon. The blanket is red.)

Start by casting on a multiple of four, no extra stitches.

K one to two rows.

K your multiple, p the next multiple. For example, if you cast on four, k four, p four.

Flip the blanket. P multiple, k multiple.

Continue 3-4 for the same number of rows as stitches in your multiple. If you have four stitches, do four rows.

Switch so you’re purling where knit is, and knitting where purl is.

Next row, k your multiple, then p your multiple. Do an inverse of line 4.

Repeat 6-7 for the same number of rows as stiches in your multiple.

[img: An apple pie with a slice missing in a white casserole dish, on a wooden cutting board with a red-striped white napkin and knife under it. A white coffee cup and plates are stacked in the background.]

New tags are here! Every ingredient in the recipe posted is now listed, so feel free to block for your disliked ingredients or whitelist your favs. ‘Suggested’ is used to indicate what is suggested but not required; ‘your choice of’ honestly means your choice of X range of ingredients.

Since I posted a fish recipe earlier, have a recipe for tartar sauce!

 Take a bigger spoon—not a serving spoon, the ones that are a size or two bigger than soup spoons—and measure about two of them of mayonnaise into a bowl. Add mustard and pickle relish to taste.

Can’t find the original recipe, so if anyone knows it, give me a shoutout.

2 cans tuna

1 egg

1\4 C breadcrumbs

1\4 C whatever else you want to add in (onion, mushroom, etc.)

Heat a skillet with oil in it. Combine the ingredients in a bowl and mash with your hands until they stick together. Form about four balls, smash them flat, and dump them CAREFULLY into the skillet. Cook at about medium heat until golden-brown on both sides.

Want stroganoff but don’t have spoons? 

1. Cook a packet of mac’n’cheese. Throw away the cheese packet.

2. Dump a spoonful or two of sour cream in a bowl.

3. Go nuts. Add whatever tastes good--garlic and salt are good places to start, but any kind of meat and hearty vegetables work well with this. If you’re especially low on spoons, add only spices. I would not advise plain sour cream on macaroni, but to each their own tastes.

4. Stir.

5. Eat.