Archive | July, 2010

I love winter because winter means soup.

24 Jul

Here in the House of Frog, we are big lovers of Tex-Mex. Tacos, burritos, nachos, fajitas, quesadillas: you name it, we never met a Mex recipe that we didn’t like. I’ve even been known to make my own tortillas. But our hands-down favourite is chicken enchiladas. We have them at least once a month.

I use Old El Paso’s enchilada kit and slow-cook the chicken in the crock-pot, and then come dinner-time it’s a simple matter of assemble, bake and fling together some salad.

Anyway, last month I did them up as usual, and the next day when I looked at the leftover chicken, I thought “Nah, I don’t really want this as-is…” So I threw in a tin of beans, some chicken stock, and a couple of handfuls of frozen corn niblets.

Soup! Tangy with tomatoes, zingy with capsicum, chunky and filling with beans and corn and chicken and mushrooms. What’s not to love?

I did it on purpose this time, making extra chicken so
I’ll have enough for several days worth of lunches.

Happy happy joy joy.

Road Trip!

21 Jul

So, last Thursday I loaded up my baby car and headed off on my annual Epic Voyage to the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in Bendigo.

I have no photos of the actual fun and games to offer, as I was suffering my usual bout of camnesia, but if you go look here, there is a pool of photos displaying various acts of wool-fueled silliness.

A gorgeous time was had by one and all, the Hustler Street Posse (AKA Tinkingbell, Zephyrama, Donyale, TwoLittleFish and K-Girl) was once again the bestest group of girls who ever shared a house, plus I got to hang out with Dr Bones, LoomMonkey and the completely awesome FiestyWench, who has organised all the Bendigo Ravelry events for the last three years, and done a spectacular job of it. We ate too much, drank too much, laughed and talked and knit and laughed and talked, and I indulged in a little retail therapy:

Enough BWM 12-ply for a cardi for me

Sock yarn from EGMTK! Mandie

More sock yarn from Ms Gusset

Noro Silk Garden for a husband scarf

Some wool/silk, destined for a dip in the dyepot

A knitting book. 'Cause I don't have nearly enough of those.

Then I packed up all my goodies and came home. It took a couple of hours before I could peel my children off me, and about another 24 for my brain to reboot, and today I am back to reality. Reality looks like this:

Pegs, frozen into rainwater.

Sigh. Only 358 sleeps ’til Bendigo.

Eggplant.

6 Jul

My sister sent me some pics this morning.

Behold the Eggplant in all his glory:

 

Is that not just scrumptious?

The gospel of comedy.

2 Jul

For God read the works of P.G. Wodehouse and saw that they were good. And God spake, saying “Behold, I shall bring forth Actors to play these Roles”, and God created the Stephen Fry and the Hugh Laurie, and said unto them “Go forth and play the Characters of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster; this is the Reason for which you were born”, and they did as God said, and verily, God did see the Programme that they made, and God said, “Damn, I’m Good!”.  – The Gospel According To Saint Hilarius, Ch. 6 v. 42

While watching Jeeves and Wooster DVDs over and over again for the last week, I’ve finished several small projects that have been hanging around and generally cluttering up the place:

Seven days, six items, five projects. Boo-yah!

This means that my current WIPs number 3 (yes, that’s right: THREE!): Boyo’s gansey*, which is wanting only sleeves, socks for me, and the looooooong-running Mulberry shawl*, which I will be taking with me for knitting on at Bendigo (which is now less than two weeks away!)

*Rav-links