Pork Vegetable Stir-fry

Have a half our? Is so, then you can make a stirfry for supper.

Today was a long day and it took me forever to get home by public transit. I didn't feel like cooking supper and it would have been easy to cave and get takeout, but decided I would make supper. My goal was to make something healthy and fast.

Last night I took a package of 3 boneless pork chops out of the freezer and put it in the fridge for tonight's supper. There was no recipe in mind for supper.

As I started cooking the pork chops in the frying pan over medium heat, I went through my crisper and took out vegetables and started chopping. You can add any vegetables you want and as much as you want. Maybe add a little bit of broccoli, celery, and carrots in with your dog's supper. Add mushrooms and spinach close to the end of cooking. Because I wasn't thinking ahead I forgot to cut up an onion and crush garlic cloves for this dish, so it's always great to have onion powder and garlic powder on hand.

Ingredients:

• 3 boneless pork chops (or any meat or tofu)

• 1 large carrot, sliced

• 1 stalk of celery, sliced

• broccoli

• green beans, ends trimmed and cut into pieces

• 3 large white mushrooms, sliced

• 10 grape tomatoes, sliced in half

• 2 large handfuls of baby spinach, torn

• Ground black pepper

• Herbamare, sodium-free

• Paprika

• Crushed chili pepper flakes

• Onion powder, you can add chopped onion 

• Garlic powder, you can add crushed fresh garlic

• Added a bit of leftover vegetable broth

• Added a bit of light Tamari

I split this recipe in 2 dishes and saved one of them for a lunch. You could split it between more people if you add rice or cauliflower rice to the stirfry. I didn't feel like waiting for the rice to cook and didn't want to thaw frozen cauliflower rice. This was my lazy part of the meal preparation.

Enjoy! What's your favourite part of a stirfry?

I Knitted a Bernat Seed Stitch Blanket

Knitting! Oh My!

Completed Seed Stitch Lap Blanket

I have watched my mom knit my entire life.  In my lifetime, my mom has knitted numerous blankets, sweaters, baby items, doll clothes, socks, dish clothes, which are the best for doing dishes, and my very favourite, mittens.  My mom makes the best mittens that keep your hands toasty warm throughout the winter.  My stock is dwindling because I typically lose a mitt each year.  I used to joke about a creating a blog called "Have you seen my Soul Mitt?" with posts of the remaining mitts.  When I was 11 years old my mom tried teaching me how to knit a basic scarf. I couldn't do it.  Maybe I didn't have the patience back then, but since then I could not be bothered with knitting.  There was no interest in it.  None.  My close friends knit and have made me wonderful items: a skinny scarf, a couple of cowls, and a felted bowl.  A couple of friends even took knitting class and I still showed no interest in knitting.

That is until a year and a half ago when I asked my friend Nina if she wanted to take a learn to knit class with me.  We learned how to cast on stitches, do some rows of knit, do some rows of purls, then some rows of knit and purl.  I must admit that those two weeks of classes and in-between were hard and frustrating.  The yarn was beautiful but difficult for a beginner since it was thick/bulky at parts and then it would be super thin.  I liked the bulky part, however, the thin section of the yarn was hard to knit.  I would get frustrated when I counted my stitches after a row and realize I there were more stitches than what was casted on the needle.  How does that happen?  I finally completed my first knitted project after my mom showed me how to fix my mistakes, bind off, and sew the ends together.  Since then I have knitted 3-4 scarves using knit 2, purl 2 and have knitted 5 seed stitch cowls.

Now back to the topic of this post, a few of my friends/co-workers are always freezing at work.  They have sweaters, cuffets, an assortment of pashminas and they are still cold.  One coworkers has a blanket/shawl that her grandmother made her.  I looked at it and thought I could make something like this for Ms D and told her I would make her a blanket.  I perused free patterns to see what was available for my level of knitting and for something that looked nice.  I found a pattern to make a seed stitch lap blanket on Yarnsinpirations website.  Yarnspinpirations has free patterns, sells yarns, patterns, and other tools, and it's for knitters and crocheters.

However, I did not want to knit a blanket with that many colours.  My mom and I went to Michael's to look at yarn and originally, I wanted to get multi-coloured yarn that had the same thickness as the yarn in the pattern.  We couldn't find any and decided to use the Bernat Mega Chunky yarn that was used in the pattern.  I decided to use 3 colours for the blanket: Dark Grey Heather, Light Grey Heather, and Teal.  My mom told me to start and finish the blanket with the same colour.  She also told me to start a new colour on a new row, not in the middle when I was close to running out.  This is the first time I've knitted with more than one colour.  I used smaller needles than the pattern suggests.

This pattern, yarn and needles knitted (if that's the correct lingo - someone will correct me) up really fast.  It took me a week to knit it.  It's a heavy blanket and it will be fabulous when it's cold outside.

The beginning - starting to see the pattern

I have a confession.  As I started knitting, I really, really liked the pattern and colours and thought about keeping it for myself.  Half way through I decided to keep it.  Sorry Ms D!  I'm working on another blanket for you right now.

The moment I decided to keep it for myself.  So pretty!

My mom helped me with the loose ends where I started a new colour.  Thank you, Mom! You're the best!

Here are the details for the blanket:

The pattern: Yarnspirations' Bernat Seed Stitch Blanket

Boye Anodized Aluminum Circular Needles size US 19/15 mm - 29 in / 73.6 cm

Used 10 rolls of Bernat Mega Chunky yarn:

• 4 Dark Grey Heather
• 3 Light Grey Heather
• 3 Teal

Pattern:

1. Dark Grey Heather
2. Light Grey Heather
3. Teal
4. Dark Grey Heather
5. Light Grey Heather
6. Teal
7. Dark Grey Heather
8. Light Grey Heather
9. Teal
10. Dark Grey Heather

Cast on 67 stitches:
1st row: K1, P1, repeat to end
2nd row: P1, K1 (seed stitch is you purl your knits and knit your purls)
Change to new colour at end of row.

Another view of the finished Bernat Seed Stitch Blanket