March at Last!

So, it's finally March. February felt oddly long for me, but March is bringing a lot 0f change. New season, new course at uni, new plans, and so on. Oh, and now having to pay full price on public transport because apparently postgraduate students aren't real students *gripe*

Now while I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about this year and the coming month both, seemingly everyone else I know has taken it upon themselves to get sick (probably has something to do with that lovely alternation between searingly hot and cold and rainy that my beloved city tends to do so very well). As of right now, I do not have this dubious honour, and am attempting to continue on in this way by employing my three proven ways of staying well: resting, staying warm, and good food.




Homemade lasagne (vegetarian of course). Looks awesome, does it not? And it tasted even better...

I was particularly pleased with this one because it was the first time I'd tried my hand at lasagne, and I didn't use a recipe. I've noticed that more and more these days I tend to rely less on recipes. What I do instead (and this is made So Much Easier with the internet, and the wealth of information that it provides upon the simple entering of a few choice words into Google) is find a handful of different recipes for a dish, read through them, take note of the key points, and then make my own version. I did the same thing day before yesterday with homemade toasted museli (which may warrant a blog post of its own in the near future, so awesome was the result). While this method might not be for everyone, I'm finding it works really well for me. I'm very much of the opinion that one of the best things about cooking yourself is being able to tailor recipes to suit your individual likes and dislikes, and this method lets you do this while hopefully making a minimum of fatal errors (and while I dearly love doing my own thing, I'll be the first to acknowledge that cooking does contain a great many non-negotiable rules).

At any rate, for all those playing along at home, I filled my lasagna with instant dried pasta sheets, basic tomato sauce (made from onion, garlic, passata, bay leaves, olive oil and a slurp of some gifted red wine that was, ahem, not really a desirable drinking option, with some baby spinach tossed in at the end), thinly sliced zucchini and pumpkin, and a small amount of grated mozzarella cheese. I topped it with more sauce, poured some extra passata around the edges (because I was clever and didn't make enough sauce), and then topped it with some more cheese and some dried basil and oregano. Once it came out of the oven, I put some fresh basil on top, because I am a fiend for basil. And I lived off the leftovers for three days. Happy Anna.




In knitting news, the boy has been walking around wearing several shop bought scarves. As you can all probably imagine, this simply will not do. It's been a while now - I think I can tempt fate and knit him one. After all, they call it the "sweater curse", not the scarf curse. I am planning on knitting this scarf in the worsted Malabrigo pictured above, just like this version.

Yes, I think I might be in the middle of a bit of a cable binge. Oh well - at least there will be pretty things by the end of it.

Out the other side...

Well, I officially survived exams! Actually, they finished nearly two weeks ago, but unfortunately even once they were done my schedule didn't really include a lot of free time. I spent a lot of time working, and a lot of time catching up with all of the poor people I neglected while I was sitting exams and writing essays. So unfortunately I'm still tired, but at least the things that have been eating my brain have been more enjoyable than exam revision (and involved a lot more beer).

At any rate, I've at least found time for various new creative projects - though don't I always? Especially when I should be doing more constructive things...




I taught myself to needle-felt - it really wasn't very difficult. Basically you stab things with a barbed needle until they stick to the surface (felt/felted wool) that you've placed them on. I probably don't need to explain how this can be a useful stress relieving activity... I used the technique to decorate the felted bag that I'd made ages and ages ago. I liked the finished product well enough - it's not really structurally suited to daily out-and-about use, but I'm currently using it as a very pleasing and colourful laundry bag, a purpose which suits it very well as it holds a lot.




I also taught myself the bare bones of beading/wire jewellery, and made some basic earrings and stitch markers - I had gotten tired of all of the cool knitting kids having nice stitch markers while I continued using the dodgy plastic ones from Spotlight. I already had the bits and pieces for this lying around the house, as I'd been meaning to get into it for a while, so the gratification that comes with learning something new was pleasingly quick to arrive. I suspect that this might turn into yet another addictive hobby, so watch this space for more beading adventures.

I also started knitting another shawl as part of the continuing stash-bust - a red, lace-edged triangular number. Started and finished, to be more precise - I knitted the last few rows and bound it off this morning, and it's blocking as I write this. I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow when it's dry - it already looks rather lovely, if I do say so myself, so expect an enthusiastic post about that in the next few days.

Other than that, it's been business as usual around here. My mind is boggling at the amount that I've baked over the last week. I took some things into work on the weekend, and it was my father's 60th birthday yesterday, so in under a week I have produced three batches of brownies, a batch of cupcakes, a fruitcake, and as of tonight, a batch of almond biscuits. Not bad for a girl whose oven is on the brink of collapse.

I've also been dutifully cat watching. The poor old man is still around, but probably not for much longer. He's persisted for much longer than the vet was expecting, but now he's getting a bit dazed looking, and when you pick him up he hardly weighs a thing. So we're keeping a close eye on him, and when he doesn't seem happy any more, it's off to the vet for the last time. I will miss him horribly when he's gone.

Oh, and I've been playing around with the idea of a zombie-themed colourwork hat. Because that is what mature adults do, right?