A Beginner Knitter

For the most part, I consider myself to be a beginner when it comes to knitting. Yes, as a child my grandmother introduced me to some basic knitting techniques including the knit stitch, and I learned how to cast on much later, learned to purl, taught myself the elongated stitch, and with my grandmother's help, even completed a keyhole scarf, but other than that I've never completed anything. I seem to keep coming back to knitting over the years, always tempted by the lovely knitting patterns and colourful wools, but I haven't accomplished much.

About a year and a half ago my sister and I were in a local wool store and suddenly got tempted by one of berroco's knitting pattern books. In particular, we really wanted to have the red sweater on the front, and so we quite spontaneously bought nine balls of berroco's blackstone tweed yarn with the intention that we would each knit half of the sweater. A year and a half later, I'm only just starting on it, and definitely not without a struggle. In case you're interested, you can find a picture of the sweater at the following URL: http://www.berroco.com/287.291/288/288_nectarine_pv.html.

I've found that the yarn splits very easily, so it took me a few gos before I managed to get the stitches cast on properly; I kept breaking the yarn and always had to start over. I finally cast the stitches on very loosely so that I wouldn't have to be as forceful with the yarn, and so far so good. I have about two inches of the lower ribbing on the back of the sweater done, with only one more inch to go before I have to go onto the next step. I'm quite please with the consistent tension of my knitting so far, and it already feels like a big accomplishment to have something that resembles a piece of the sweater.

I'll keep updating my progress here. Hopefully this is a knitting project I will finish!

A Homemade Meal: Hamburger Buns, Molten Lava Cakes, and Coconut Ice Cream

I haven't been cooking a lot lately, but recently I had a burst of energy and enthusiasm, and decided to dive into making some homemade hamburger buns for hamburgers. My mom has been doing a lot of the cooking lately, but upon wondering what we should have for dinner and discovering ground beef in the freezer, I decided making homemade hamburger buns was a good idea since we didn't have any store bought buns.

I decided to try the hamburger and hotdog bun recipe on allrecipes. It's probably one of the fastest bread recipes I've tried, and it was incredibly easy. I decided to brush the buns with a bit of egg wash and sprinkled them with sesame seeds before baking them in the oven.

These buns are incredibly soft and perfect for a hamburger. I'd definitely make them again.

In addition to the hamburgers and hamburger buns, I also decided to make molten lava cakes. I've never made them before, so it was definitely an interesting process, although easier than I thought. I used the recipe at the following URL: http://mehanskitchen.blogspot.ca/2012/02/molten-chocolate-cake.html. I just didn't use the liquor, espresso powder, or orange zest in it, although I'm sure either of these things would have been lovely. I just didn't have any of these ingredients on hand.

Homemade Pasta in a Bacon and Tomato Sauce

My sister and I decided back in August when our parents went away on a trip that it was the perfect time to make homemade pasta, as we would only have to make it for the two of us. Homemade pasta takes a really long time to make, as you have to mix the dough, allow it time to rest, roll the dough through your pasta machine (which can sometimes be really difficult), cut the pasta, and then finally cook it. When we make it for the four of us, we usually make two--three balls of dough, but this time we only had to make one ball. To be perfectly honest, it did still seem to be a lot of work to make just for the two of us, but it was so worth it.

You can find the basic pasta dough recipe here: http://www.italianfoodforever.com/2008/05/spinach-ricotta-ravioli/

One of our favourite pasta sauces is Canadian chef Michael Smith's Tomato Bacon Sauce, so that's exactly what we decided to use for this recipe. It's a very simple sauce to make, using only a can of crushed tomatoes, onion, garlic, bacon, herbs, and salt and pepper, but it makes for a very flavourful sauce. I think anytime bacon is added to something, a dish is brought up a notch, and it's astonishing how much flavour can come from adding a combination of fresh basil, oregano, and thyme from the garden. This recipe created a really lovely, smoky flavoured sauce for our homemade pasta noodles.

If I have one critique at all for this dish, it would be that we may have overcooked the noodles slightly, but it was still one of the best pasta dishes I've eaten.

Lemon Meringue Tarts

These lemon meringue tarts were made for father's day, but I thought I'd write this post any way. My sister and I decided to make these for our father and stepfather. We made something similar for our mom for mother's day, which she enjoyed, only we just used the tart shell and lemon curd, and topped them each with a raspberry and a bit of kiwi. The tartness and sweetness of the fruit went really well with the slightly tart and sweet lemon curd and added a bit of freshness to it. For father's day, however, we topped the lemon curd with meringue and baked them in the oven until lightly browned.

Lemon curd is surprisingly easy to make and takes few ingredients. This simple lemon curd included sugar, lemon juice and zest, and butter; I can't remember if there were any other ingredients, but I don't think there were. The lemon curd got cooked in a double boiler until it was very thick and then cooled and refrigerated.

I chose to use some frozen tart shells from the grocery store, as they are tasty and relatively inexpensive. The tart shells were pre-baked before filling them with the curd.

The final step was to mix up a basic meringue and put the tarts under the broiler to brown the meringue.