The Sweatshop of Lovers Blog

Fried Plantains, Veggie Burrito, Egg Sandwich, Rice

I’m sitting in a very empty apartment right now. It is only slightly emptier physically – I’ve lived here for over four years if I can even wrap my brain around that, and PT had only lived here for about 10 months, so most of the things are mine and still here. But I’m sitting in PT’s spot on the couch just so there is something in it. The bed is HUGE with just me, Velma, and Pudge. I’m not crashing into someone else cooking in the kitchen.

I’m unshowered, because what is the point? I’m wearing super ratty underwear, because what is the point? I’m baking bread – small loaf. I’m making granola bars – mostly freezer bound. I cleaned the cat hair off the rug this morning – PT’s job. There are pictures of us everywhere that I just don’t know what to do with.

My freshmen year of college was full of long distance relationship drama. It seemed like everyone I met had one, including me, and eventually they all failed. As far as I know. I moved to Chicago after one year so I didn’t get all the follow up stories. But there was always someone screaming on the phone, someone crying in the bathroom, someone getting drunk and cheating on their boyfriend in California, someone carrying their room phone around with them because their boyfriend was supposed to call them four hours ago and he must be dead.

White Whine Pasta with Mushrooms and Broccoli

Sure, we were 18. We were living on our own for the first time. We were in relationships with the first boys we ever kissed. Shit is bound to happen. My own freshmen long distance relationship fell apart before October.

I like to think that a lot has changed in 8 years. Maturity, self control, smart decision making, knowing what’s important: all of these things should have grown exponentially in these early 20s years.

PT as Frog

But who knows. I have a couple girlfriends in long distance relationships now; Chicago/London and Chicago/Spain. Which sounds a hell of a lot more challenging than Chicago/NYC. Technology makes it easy to communicate constantly with anyone willing.

It’s funny and fitting that most of the pictures from this past week with PT are of food. We had a seriously delicious lunch at Irazu – the site for many past PT/Allyson meals. We made lots of veggie pasta. And tuna helper.

Officially single but fielding/making phone calls and texts and video chats and gchats galore, who knows what the right answer is. If it’s meant to be it will happen. If it isn’t it won’t.

In the mean time I’m going to work like a crazy person. I’ve got all this room and time now magically. Work, work, work.

Slouchy Beret, Try #2

Words can not describe how happy I am to be finished knitting this hat.

It probably has some ill will knit into it, along with the few kitty hairs, but it is done and cute, if I do say so myself.

It took three whole days to dry without the help of the radiator. I kept this little guy very far away from any heat after the disaster last time.

But, it is in the mail to Heather, completing my blog giveaway knitting and my holiday knitting at the same time!

No Burning!

I’m not frantically knitting at all hours of the night to finish anything. So, August 1st is a completely acceptable time to start your holiday knitting.

Maybe it is because all the snow that fell in Chicago last week has melted, and it is about 40 degrees out, but I am not reveling in this accomplishment because I don’t feel like Christmas is next week. I’m sitting about 2 feet away from my Christmas tree, sure, but that is the only evidence I’ve got that Christmas is looming.

Cookies!

Not even the baking I’m doing is triggering Christmasy feelings, since I kind of bake a lot.

Cookie Logs

You know when you see a recipe that combines two things you don’t think should go together, dismiss, but then can’t get out of your mind?

Ok, yes, that sounds a little extreme. But if I said that about a pair of shoes it might not sound so wacky. And cookie baking is a much less expensive thing to get obsessive about.

Ready to Bake!

I saw the recipe for Earl Grey Cookies on Food Loves Writing and Kate in the Kitchen before I was sold. I love cookies. I love Earl Grey. But together?

Together they work. These cookies are light and buttery. I followed the recipe almost exactly, too, which never happens. I traded oranges for tangerines, and I wish I would have given it a squeeze into the batter before I ate it because a little more citrus would be welcome.

Roasted Eggplant Pasta

I love to eat them after meals like this; roasted eggplant, broccoli, and carrot pasta with white wine sauce and Parmesan cheese.

Roast the veggies in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes, meanwhile cook the pasta as directed, heat garlic and seasonings in oil, add white wine, add drained pasta and veggies, toss. Cover in cheese. Eat.

How fancy do I sound? Following up a meal like that with Earl Grey cookies. This is one fancy girl over here. One with no more presents to knit and a whole house full of yarn.

Look out.

I get some weird-o cravings, and the other night I got a mean one for some cheesy baked pasta and chili. At the same time. So I got a little creative and threw some black beans and kidney beans into my pasta sauce, threw it in the oven and out came a seriously amazing dinner PT and I both inhaled like there was no tomorrow.

The next night all I wanted to do was make that baked pasta with beans again. It was blinding! I couldn’t think of anything else.

‘PT, what are you thinking for dinner tonight?’ I called PT desperate for anything to get my mind off the pasta.

‘You know,’ PT said. ‘I kind of just want that baked pasta we had last night.’

Done! Only the second time I wrote down the recipe for y’all.

Bakes Shells in ‘Meat’ Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

Ingredients (for 2)

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, diced

4 oz whole wheat shells

2/3 cups beans – I used half kidney, have black

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 14 oz (or 1/2 a 28 oz can, like I used) tomatoes – diced, stewed, crushed, whatever!

Oregano, crushed black pepper, fennel seeds, or whatever spices you prefer, to taste

Cheese – I used Parmesan but would have loved to use mozzarella – as much or as little as you want

Directions

1. Cook pasta till al dente. Drain and set aside if it is finished cooking before you are ready for it.

2. Meanwhile, heat oil in pan or wok. Saute onion till translucent, add garlic and continue to cook on low till fragrant; about three minutes.

Bringing it all to a boil

3. Preheat oven to 400. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, beans, 1/4 cup of water, and seasonings to the onions and garlic. Bring to a boil. Carefully stir in shells to coat.

4. Pour mixture into a 8×8 or 9×9 baking dish or pan and distribute evenly. Grate cheese over top.

Ready to go into the oven!

5. Bake for 10-14 minutes, or until cheese is browned and sauce is bubbling.

Seriously. Seriously?! Seriously.

I think I know what PT and I will be eating tonight!

The best thing about working from home?

Pasta Lunch

All I could think about all morning was a mushroom and broccoli pasta lunch. So I made it! And am eating it right now.

I don’t know if it was the amazing weather we had here in Chicago this weekend or if I was just a girl on a mission, but I rocked this weekend so hard.

Costa Rican Fiest

It all started when PT and I couldn’t stop talking about Irazu. For some reason our solution was not to just go to Irazu but to try to replicate Costa Rican food at home.

The problem is that we think the burritos we make are way better than any burrito out there. That is funny, I know, living in Logan Square where there is a dude on every corner making burritos from his family recipe.

(Note to self: Write up burrito recipe to post on blog.)

So we started with a regular burrito I always make and set out to make some Gallo Pinto and Cabbage Salad.

Gallo Pinto and Cabbage Salad

This recipe for the Cabbage Salad is dead on. It is exactly like Irazu’s amazing salad! We halved the recipe and we still had salad left over for Saturday. This recipe for the Gallo Pinto is close, and I think with a little tweaking we could get it. We made about a third of the recipe, it still made a ton. And there is a critical flavor missing from this recipe that Irazu’s rice has and I’m determined to figure it out.

Amazing!

We had to have fried plantains, too, naturally. My favorite part of this meal was plating it! I love when there are many aspects to a meal that you can chose from. I’ve got a dinner party in the works for Friday, so stay tuned for try #2.

Sunday Pizza

Mushroom, Artichoke Heart, Caramelized Onions

And our Sunday pizzas were amazing! Mine was fresh mushrooms from the Logan Square Farmers Market, artichoke hearts, and caramelized onions.

PT's Pizza, with Bacon

Bacon-licious

PT’s pizza was the same as mine, only with bacon.

I was productive on the knitting front, too! I knit the two (Eric) Man-Hats, wrote the pattern up for them and posted it on Ravelry. I knit two elephant bodies and finished knitting PT’s Christmas Present (pics later). I know I haven’t done a Christmas Present Update for PT in a long time because, while I was working on it, it was painfully boring. I didn’t want to subject myself to it, much less you.

The Black Tape!

OMG!

And I managed to leave the house! We went to see The Black Tape Saturday night. I’m going to be writing their press kit so we had to go get the live experience. I’m an old lady and didn’t even realize it was possible to start doing anything at 12:30am, but I made it somehow!

I think I earned a little time to relax, but I’ve got some elephants to finish and some seeming to do. (And probably a trip to the gym to make!)

Ohh Baby!

Just kidding! But seriously, can you imagine? I wonder if this has been done before! I’m guessing at super drunken office holiday party.

I bet Meredith on The Office would rock this look.

It’s a habit of mine to throw a finished project on my dress form, mainly so my terror kitties don’t rip out the yarn strands before I get a chance to weave them in. And so they don’t get a chance to eat my project before I get to wear it or give it away.

Mommy's Stockings

I knit a pair of these Christmas stockings a couple months ago for PT and I and, naturally, my mom had to have them! I used the same yarn, Caron Simply Soft for the red and cream, and Knit Picks Wool of the Andes for the light green.

The pattern is here. The only change I made was when I started the heel flap. With the MC I K11 STS from needle 1, SL remaining STS to needle 2, turn. P22 STS, SL remaining STS from needle 3 to needle 2. This just makes much more sense to me.

As we inch closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’m feeling good about the progress I’m making on my knitting list! I should, right? I started about two months ago.

Veggie Packed Pasta

We’ve got a ton of vegetables in the house and, specifically, a lot of mushrooms to use up. Mushrooms make me think of two things! Veggie packed pasta from my recipe, this time with broccoli and mushrooms, and…

Mushroom and Pumpkin Risotto

Risotto! I still hand pumpkin left over from the ravioli we made last weekend, so I made mushroom and pumpkin risotto. Risotto is pretty much the best thing to eat for dinner on a cold night. It’s like soup for people with more time.

Now that I’ve got those stockings finished the only thing left on my needles is PT’s Christmas Present! I’m shocked myself. I’m going to get an elephant going before I do something stupid like start a new sweater.

This is my 200th post! I’ve been psyching myself out a little about it. I saw it coming for a while, and in the back of my mind I was trying to plan something big. It’s 200! That is a lot of posts. That is a big deal!

Then I just let it happen. The Sweatshop of Lover’s Blog’s 200th post just naturally fell on the one year anniversary of the first time PT took me out on a date.

PT Working Hard

PT and I met at a Halloween party last year and, thanks to the magic of facebook, he found me and asked me out. We met at Green Eye the following Thursday, October 30th. PT was late and had no money. And when he went to the ATM to get money out, he had no money in his checking account to take out.

So, naturally, I didn’t think he liked me. I just giggled, paid for the beers, and figured I wouldn’t hear from him again.

Then, a year later, we are making pumpkin ravioli in the yellow kitchen of the apartment we share. So what do I know?

Anniversary Bouquet

I’m not anti-anniversary or anti-Valentine’s Day, but I am anti- ‘oh, it’s our anniversary? We better go out to dinner.’ It’s just boring. And PT and I don’t need an excuse to spend time together.

So we made pumpkin ravioli! I had half a pumpkin in the fridge already. The only ingredient we needed was fresh sage. The only fresh sage that Strack and Van Til had was super fancy organic sage wrapped up like a bouquet of flowers that cost $7.20. $7.20! That was more than the bottle of wine we bought for the night.

Ready to Bake!

We pulled out the pasta maker and made up some wheat pasta and the pumpkin filling. We stuffed and cooked the little ravioli, then made a butter, sage, and brown sugar sauce to pour over them while the browned in the oven.

Hello, Lover

Before we dug in we sprinkled with some Parmesan and more brown sugar.

Oohhhh!

The $7.20 sage really does make a huge impact on the taste of this dish. All the flavors are really subtle except the sage! And those browned and sugared leaves are amazing.

PT and Sequence

Me and Pudge Rodriguez

After dinner we opened the anniversary present we bought ourselves – Sequence!

And Pudge couldn’t keep herself away.

I can’t think of a better topic for my 200th post. PT is fast asleep next to me on the couch in the blue room. The Michigan game is about to start and I’ve got yarn piled up next to me just waiting to be turned into my rebound project. It’s Halloween! Life is good, y’all.

And I’ll tell you right now what Post 201 is going to be. My costume is ready and tonight is going to be a blast. Happy Halloween!

Me and My New Baby

I’ve had the same Dell laptop for 4 1/2 years. It was really slow (I got a lot of knitting done while it was loading pictures, though!), the internet barely worked on it. I couldn’t listen to iTunes and have two windows open at the same time. The CD tray started randomly opening whenever it wanted to, and not opening when I asked it to.

We’ve been through a lot, me and The Old Lady. We went to Prague together. She was my first laptop. I wrote many many many stories on her. But. Her time had come.

I was wheeling and dealing with my mom in the hopes that I could combine my Christmas and birthday presents with her and my grandparents in order to get a new computer in December. But The Old Lady and I had a rough week last week. She almost got thrown out the window.

And PT came to the rescue.

New Lady/Old Lady

He bought me a new computer. Exclamation points at this point are redundant. Needles to say, I’ll be picking up PT’s 10 cent wing night at Cleo’s tab for the rest of time. It’s amazing. I’m on it right now! Its the big time! It’s a Dell something something. Its got a ridiculously large screen, as you can see. The Old Lady is trying to share it’s files with The New Lady, but The Old Lady is so old it took pretty much the entire weekend.

There is a learning curve to new things (it’s taking me a ridiculously long time to figure out how to resize my pictures, save them where I can find them, and upload them in the blog), but so far so AMAZING. PT is kinda the best.

Grilled Cheese and Veggie Sandwich

Veggie Pasta

Tomato and Cucumber Sandwich

I don’t know if you were aware that this weekend was NFL KICKOFF WEEKEND Y’ALL! I’m a huge University of Michigan fan, and the Wolverines won a huge game Saturday against Notre Dame! I’m also a huge Lion’s fan.

…

There wasn’t a lot of time between football games Saturday or Sunday to cook, but we managed to eat a few delicious veggie sandwiches and I even sacrificed some football time Sunday to whip up some Veggie Pasta.

Renegade Craft Fair

Crafty Ladies

We also managed to run to Renegade and check out the crafty goodness. And there was a lot of crafty goodness to be had. There were so many booths we didn’t even get a chance to really look at most of them. We did find our friends Jamie, Caitlin, and Kelsey, who were rocking it out (despite how they look).

Stockings!

In Three Months They Will Look Like This

With football season comes LOTS of knitting time. I like to watch at least two college games on Saturday and three pro games on Sunday. That is like 9 hours of sitting in front of the TV! At least.

I’m being productive, though. I’m not just sitting drinking beer. So I don’t feel bad about it at all. I did this weekend because it was 80 degrees and sunny both days and I was inside screaming at my TV…

But I finished the Christmas stockings! I love how they turned out. I’ve got to knit another pair because my mom caught sight of them and wanted some. They are coming, Mom!

Soon To Be Pillow

Pretty, Simple Cables

I also got a ton done on some cabled pillows I’m making for an upcoming wedding present. I can’t do much more because I don’t have a pillow form to size it over, but I think I’m pretty close to being done with this first one. I’ll just fold it in almost exactly in half, seam it up, add a button closure flap and call it good!

I’m playing around with the idea of dying or covering the pillow form in a solid cover fabric, so the contrasting color shows through. What do you think?

(Anne, if you are reading this, happy wedding!)

There are so many vegetables in my house right now I’m losing track of them! I set a bag of onions in the pantry that needed to be cleaned and just completely forgot about it. Last night I found them swarming with fruit flies and the skins covered in mold. I just cleaned them off and peeled a few layers off. I will smell like onions for the rest of the day, but I saved those onions!

Veggie Pasta Ingredients

My favorite go-to recipe when I have a ton of vegetables is a big veggie pasta dish.

Ingredients (for 2):

4 oz dry pasta

1/4 small can of tomato paste

1/3 huge can of tomatoes (diced, stewed, whatevs)

A splash of olive oil

Onion to taste (I use a whole onion, or half of a monster onion because I love onion)

Garlic to taste (I use two cloves because I love garlic)

Seasonings – I use fennel seeds, fresh cracked pepper, oregano, and red pepper flakes.

Veggies – I used fresh corn on the cob, baby bellas, and zucchini, but anything you’ve got works!

Since I had that corn, I shucked it and threw that on the grill pan right away. Zucchini takes a little while to cook, so I heated some oil in my wok, sliced up the zucchini, and got that cooking, too. The veggie cook times will vary depending on what you are using. If I had broccoli instead of zucchini I would wait until I threw my pasta in boiling water before starting to cook it.

While the zucchini and corn got a head start, I chopped my mushrooms and onion. I started boiling some water and threw in the onions with the zucchini, because that takes a little while to get soft, too.

I threw in the pasta and set the timer for 7 minutes. I threw the chopped mushrooms in with the zucchini and onion. The corn was done grilling so I took it off the grill pan and let it cool a little.

Corn Slicer

My mom picked up a couple of these corn slicer things that looked pretty silly in the package, but look at that! It totally worked. It cut the corn right down to the core, too; I always have trouble leaving too much corn on the core when I try to slice it off with a knife. As silly as this thing is, it worked, and I got a ton more corn than I would have had I tried to slice it myself with a knife. Silly gadget success!

I threw the corn in the wok, too, along with the garlic.

When there were about 3 minutes left for the pasta I dumped in the tomatoes, the tomato paste, and the seasonings and mixed it all together. When the pasta is done I drained it and added it to the wok and mixed it all up, too.

OOOooo

AAAAhhhh

I let mine sit on the stove top for a few minutes to work together the spices and burn off some of that extra tomato liquid. I hate extra tomato liquid.

Dish it up! Grate some parmesan over the top and in about 20 minutes you’ve got a fresh pasta dish for two that doesn’t even use canned pasta sauce. The only way to get this more healthy is to can your own tomatoes and make your own tomato paste, which I haven’t quite gotten to yet.

Still, this is pretty close to a perfect meal.

LOVE the Bread Maker

Bread?

I also had a chance to attempt making pumpernickel in the bread maker. I say attempt because I have trouble making bread. It’s an illness.

I thought I messed this up, too! I’ve never made pumpernickel before, but all the other breads I’ve made in the bread maker have needed 2-4 oz more water than the recipe calls for. So I added 2 more oz of water!

It was so watery, I really didn’t think it was going to turn out at all.

Delicious Pumpernickel Sandwich!

But it worked! I’m going to take out those extra 2 oz, though, because it deflated a little, but it made an amazing tomato sandwich this afternoon!

It is so nice having so many vegetables around! There are so many meal options at every turn!

Velma

Pudge

Kitties say, ‘Please come home so PT will stop torturing us.’

I leave tomorrow for Chicago. Have I done anything I set out to do? Absolutely not. I kept up with my blogging. I didn’t gain any weight, which leads me to believe that I have a tape worm.

Sleeves!

I knit the whole body and sleeves of my Vogue Cropped Jacket that I wasn’t supposed to be knitting.

Mommy

Zucchini, Green Pepper, Carrot Pasta

And I made my mom some veggie pasta with the tomatoes, like I’ve been making myself at home. As you can see, she liked it!

So I’m just wrapping some things up here at Biggby for the last time. It’s treated me well! Creme Brule coffee this morning again, which I think is my favorite.

On my way out tomorrow I’ll stop by and get some fresh produce, a few more groceries, then hit the road. This trip has flown by, like most vacations.

The party continues, though! My friend Elizabeth from my year at Adrian College is coming to Chicago and it’s going to be crazy! I can use a little craziness after this easy breezy Allendale visit.

Chicago, here I come!

I remember watching Amelie for the first time. I was a freshmen at Adrian College and it was like, foreign film week maybe? Adrian has less than 1,000 students total, it’s in the middle of nowhere south eastern Michigan, so foreign film week consisted of the hot, long haired foreign language teacher setting up a projector in a normal sized class room and showing movies to the 5 – 10 interested students.

We went because Amelie got a very good recommendation from Chelsea, who grew up in Royal Oak, where they get foreign films in their movie theaters. We all psychotically loved it, of course, but I remember thinking how weird it was that she made these elaborate meals for herself. She lived alone and would always be cooking or baking away. At the time I was eating cookies for lunch and fries for dinner and living in a dorm room, so the idea of cooking anything was pretty foreign to me.

Dinner for One

Saturday night I found myself sauteing fresh zucchini, broccoli, and mushrooms in olive oil and garlic, adding half a can of diced tomatoes and a tablespoon of tomato paste. I cooked and drained the whole wheat pasta and threw it in with the vegetables. I finished it with red pepper flakes and fresh cracked pepper. After I plated it I grated some parmesan on top. I walked back to my bed, unpaused Felicity, and ate it alone. It was amazing. The zucchini was perfectly cooked, the mushrooms were super meaty and the broccoli tops soaked up the tomato sauce and garlic.

I care about myself, so I cook for myself. I love cooking, so I cook for myself. I don’t need an audience.

In one of the last scenes, though, Amelie is baking herself a plum cake, I think, and she is out of baking soda, maybe? So she imagines that cute boy from the train stations stopping on his way home to pick some up for her. And she imagines him sneaking into her house to surprise her with it, and he makes a little noise to let her know he is there, but it turns out to be the cat making the noise, and she is all alone, with no baking soda.

That happens, too.

Or you make yourself an entire pan of brownies and eat them all with your hands while watching Amelie, saying over and over, ‘Without you, today’s emotions would be the scurf of yesterday’s', and ‘these are tough times for dreamers’, until you wake up the next morning covered in brownie drool.

People tell me I look like her sometimes.

Audrey

Me

It is easily my favorite compliment, and maybe we have similar eyes and eyebrows? Cheeks? Dimple, sure, but I’m pretty sure that is where the similarity ends.

That, and cooking. Because, obviously, Audrey is like Amelie pre-cute boy. Also, pre-The DaVinci Code. I’m sure she pretends, like I do, that that never happened.