It all makes sense now

I don't love to cook, but I think that's because nobody ever taught me how to do it well. A man at work I talk to frequently mentioned Rachael Ray because I was saying how by the time we get home from work I really do not want to spend an hour or so cooking and waiting for dinner, but I am sick of eating things out of a can or frozen food box. I checked out her site (her show is based on making meals in 30 minutes) and printed out a few recipes to try this week. I am impressed. While I can't always get it done in 30 minutes or less, its definately an improvement and the food is yummy. Today I made a pasta dish and it came out very well. One of the things I particularly like about her recipes is that they list times for things, "simmer until thickened, 1-2 minutes" that was always a problem for me, open ended statements with no time limit ... makes for distatrous cooking, LOL!



This is the Broccoli, Cheddar & Ham Bake and it really did take me only 30 minutes to prepare. I enjoyed making this because of the time limits I mentioned earlier, if I know I have 1-2 minutes for the sauce to thicken, I can then measure out the other things to add to it and not mess up the sauce. I also liked that it says to toast the almonds - for about 5 minutes ... if I had tried this on my own, I am sure they would have burned to a black crisp, LOL!

The squirells were visiting the back yard this morning. We only have 2 at the moment. We're surprised that there is so much wooded land around here and we rarely see critters. I did see some birds the other day, including a hawk, which might explain why we don't see too many critters out in the open ... they don't want to be lunch.





I am almost finished my Coriolis socks, I have the leg and cuff of the second one to complete, so those should be done this weekend. Not sure yet what my next sock project will be. I also have the Hobbiton pattern from the Lord of the Rings sock club on the needles too, so I will finish those up.

I was looking through magazines last night and found some nice Spring/Summer sweaters that I want to make, so I will reserve the yarn in my stash for really warm sweaters for later in the year. But that also means that I need to buy more yarn!