I did it all by my self!

I feel like a big girl because I got to cook dinner all by myself tonight. See, here's the issue, while at my folks house, I have Poppy in the kitchen which is A) awesome because he enjoys cooking and B) let's face it, food always tastes better when some one else makes it. However I do miss being in my own kitchen cooking my own meals sometime. I found a recipe for "Chicken Under a Brick" in some America's Test Kitchen cook book and have been wanting to give it a spin for quite some time.

The idea is you butterfly the chicken, sear it on the stove top under weights (classically, a brick is the perfered weight of choice, but c'mon now, who has bricks haning out in the kitchen, so I went with a pot filled with water and the bottom covered with foil because I'm lazy and would rather waste resources than wash a pot. So there.) to get a crisp skin and then finish it in the oven. It's supposed to cut down the cooking time on a roasted chicken to under an hour. It took me longer than the recipe said, but hey who's counting.

America's Test Kitchen recipies can be a bit fussy. They do a lot of partial cooking so that things don't get over cooked. Usually it does work and the dish comes out delicious. In Chicken Under a Brick, once you get the butterflied chicken browned, you take it out and dump in some potatoes to the pan and rest the chicken back on top of the potatoes with a drizzle of some oil, garlic, lemon juice and thyme. The whole things then goes in the oven. Then once the chicken is done, you let it rest on the cutting board...

... while the potatoes finish cooking and get golden brown and delicious in the oven.

Well, I'm sad to report that golden brown and delicious potatoes did not happen, even with doubled cooking time and a jacked up oven. They were edible, and not bad tasting by any means but not golden brown and delicious.

All in all it was a pretty good meal and I made it all by myself!

And yes, I enjoy eating on divider dishes so that my food groups don't touch. Yes, I am a 12-year-old apparently.

And yes, that is a ruby red dot of Sriracha sauce.

Sriracha goes with everything. Didn't you know that?

Easter Egg Handspun My so called scarf

Easter Egg Handspun My so called scarf
Originally uploaded by amynowacoski

I finally decided it was time to make some stuff with my handspun, since I'm sort of low on things to spin. I had cast on the Yarn Harlots One Row Hand spun scarf, but I really didn't like the results too much. So I fell back to the old standard of the My So Called Scarf. Its a very easy pattern and is forgiving in the slightly think-and-thin nature of this hand spun. When i got my wheel, the owner of the shop gave me a "generous" 6oz of some Ashland Bay merino/tussah blend which I spun up in a fit of awesome joy. This will probably be a gift to someone tho I'm not sure who!

Sheep are dirty

Fiber washing3
Originally uploaded by amynowacoski

The pile in the front is a pile of fleece BEFORE washing. The pile in the back is AFTER washing. Man, sheep are DIRTY!!

Shower favor goodies

Shower favor goodies
Originally uploaded by amynowacoski

We made coffee cozies for the bridal shower! Funky fabric, funky buttons chosen by our knitting group. I filled the cups with chocolate covered espresso beans, meringue kisses, and Earl Grey Tea Cookies. We also made Whoopie Pies! YUM!