Thursday, February 16, 2012

Pecan crusted tilopia Here is another one of my favorite recipes. If you do not like fish this is a good recipe to start with. I made this recipe up after I had gone to a resteraunt that had it as a special. Tilopia filets ( I make two for each person eating) Olive oil Grated Parmesan cheese Crushed pecans I start by pouring some oil in the bottom of a 9 by 13. Enough to cover the bottom. I then dip th fish in the oil. I combine equal parts of pecans and parmesan, I usually add 1/3 cup each for 5 filets. I then dredge the filets in the pecan mixture. Then back to the 9 by 13. I'd there is any left over pecan mixture then you can pour hat on top. Bake in the oven at 400 for about 20 minutes. Or until they are white and flaky. I like to serve this with mashed potatos and asparagus.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Flower Forrest Scarf


I have recently fallen in love with a yarn, well at least the colors of the yarn. The yarn is Amazing by Lion brand yarn. http://www.lionbrand.com/yarns/amazing.html  Unfortunately I have to say that it is better suited for knitting. I won't scare you with any pictures of my horrible knitting skills, but I did come up with a pattern for crochet using the yarn. It is a simple scarf with some flower embellishments on the ends. The link to the pattern.

 I'm sorry I don't have the exact yardage that I used for the pattern. I have this bad habit of starting new projects with the leftover yarn before I've counted the yardage, but I can say that I used all of the first two balls and I had enough yarn left over of the third ball to knit two headbands.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Here is a quick thought, as I am trying to get everything done today. Mondays are my grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning the kitchen from not cleaning it yesterday days. I often hear people say they don't have enough time in the day to get everything done. I know I say it a lot too. The best advice I ever received from someone about time management was in the form of a question. "When you are waiting for things what are you doing?"
When you are waiting for something to heat up in the microwave are you standing there watching the microwave or are you cleaning the top of your stove? When you are waiting for the elevator are you just standing there staring at the elevator or are you checking your email on your phone? The main idea is that we have to be aware of what we are doing. When we are waiting for something we should be up and doing something. Before you know it all those little chores will be done, and you can actually have time to sit down and crochet while watching tv.

Friday, February 10, 2012

The Art of Roasting a Chicken



Since moving, and Justin starting a new job I have been trying to save money every way that I can. One of the areas that I have given a lot of notice to is our grocery bill. I have gotten to where I spend 70 dollars a week on groceries, for three people.  I guess that is reasonable. One of the things that I do to help save on groceries is to buy whole chicken instead of cut up chicken. In the five years that we have been married I like to think that I have perfected the way to roast a chicken. I have cooked it this way at least 100 times. There are 55 weeks in a year, so it might be more than that. The recipe is as follows:

One whole chicken, do not wash it (save your self some time in not disinfecting your whole kitchen after washing your chicken) Put it in a roaster.
 spray the chicken with cooking spray
salt and pepper the chicken
Add 1 tablespoon of dry basil, 1 tablespoon of parsley, 1/2 tbsp of oregano
Sprinkle on a couple of spoonfuls of minced garlic
then slice up a Roma tomato and spread out the slices of tomato on top of the chicken
cook the chicken at 350 degrees till the internal temp reaches 180.


I usually serve as is for the first meal. The second meal I will pick all the extra chicken off the bone, and make it in to a casserole. The third meal I boil the carcass into stock for a soup. The recipe for stock:

Put chicken carcass in a stock pot fill the pot with water till it covers the carcass.  I add whatever juices are left in the roasting pan, taking the fat out first. (this is usually a hard crust on top from being in the fridge). I add a whole onion and some celery, and salt. I let all of that cook for a few hours, till it is reduced to about 6 cups of stock.  

Sorry I don't have any amazing pictures, but when we ate our chicken yesterday we ate it before I remembered to take them.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Dora Bracelet

This design is for my daughter who loves Dora the Explorer. She loves having any thing that has to do with Dora. We have even recently gotten her to start eating yogurt again just because of the fact that Dora is on the package. This is a really simple pattern that I finished in about 10 minutes. Dora Bracelet . If I can figure out how I will be offering it for free on my Ravelry store. 

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Ok, my first blog. Things that I hope to provide on this blog are patterns that I come up with, good food, and tips that I have picked up on along the way. This will be really short because I'm on Justin's computer. One thing that is super exciting this week is that I have gotten another pattern published in www.crochetvolution.com . Because of this, I decided it was time to take the next step and get a little more professional. I will start with the blog and practice on to better things like maybe an actual website.

Maybe I should say some thing about my name.  I came up with the word diligence in college. The definition is to persevere, to keep going and to never give up. I'm not saying that I am diligent, not in the least. More than anything it is a reminder to myself to just try it one more time. So here's to me trying one more time, and having diligence with some thing that is completely new.