Monday, August 23, 2010

Upper Canada Village

Myself, B and a few co-workers visited Upper Canada Village this past Saturday. I haven't been there since I was about 7-9 years old, and I loved it! It was better than I remembered and was expecting. My favorite parts were the spinning room:



The table full of yarn and what was used to dye them (carrot greens, onion skins, goldenrod, some Mexican beetle, roots, indigo, nutmeg and tree bark):



There is also a wool mill at UCV, where there are piles of sheep wool!



I also loved the printing press. All those letters! We even got to try our hand at typesetting. It was slow, but fun!



We also saw lots of animals... I loved the piglets.. one of them tried to suckle my finger and thumb!



And the sheep were so cute! This male came right up to us and posed for pictures.


Thursday, August 19, 2010

Chef at Home

I was home sick yesterday, and had my first "Chef at Home" moment. I was desperate for something to eat for lunch, and looked in the fridge and was uninspired as I didn't want to stand at the stove for any length of time while not feeling well. I remembered back last year around this time when B's (my partner in crime) friend A from London, England was visiting and she made a simple delicious pasta sauce. I used this as my inspiration. It was so simple and I hardly had to watch it at all! I fried up some onion in the saucepan with olive oil (didn't have any garlic, which is an essential in pasta sauce), and added in some chopped carrots and zucchini. Then I added in some split red lentils (dry, but ones that don't need soaking and about 30 min. cook time), the tomatoes (from the can), salt, pepper and smoked paprika and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. It made enough for a few meals, so I've jarred it:



Tonight I had my second helping for dinner:


Thanks for the inspiration! The best part, you can put whatever you want in it! Just take a look in your fridge and see what's there...

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Halfway through

I am halfway through my winter scarf! It is going very fast. I sat and worked out what I believe will be the pattern for the matching hat. I still haven't quite figured out what to do about the mittens, but I found a few simple patterns on Ravelry that I will try to adapt. Luckily I have a hat and mittens which fit me quite well (I have a small head and hands), so I could take measurements from them to estimate my new ones. Hopefully in another week or 2 my scarf will be done, and I will begin the hat.