Beast knits and now I have a blog to prove it.

pictures?

2006-10-04T18:36:00.000-07:00

pizza dough (that looks like brain) and a close up of my amazing fruit concoction:

Left left: kitchen art and left right: me and krak-fek!

beaten up

2006-10-04T18:33:00.000-07:00

i am getting beaten up by my dog. she has puppy paws with puppy claws and puppy fangs and puppy amounts of energy and the inability to understand no. so now it looks like i was in a fight with something sharp and i lost. i'm tired. i don't want to study. i have convinced myself that i can't study anymore. perhaps it is because i still have another week until my exam. and i have my poster session in 2 days. the poster is more on my mind. i hope it goes well because i want to go to houston. that would be fun. especially when someone else pays for it.

ps. go to olive garden with good friends and have one of them hit on the waiters (regardless of if the waiters are male or female) it's good times and they bring lots of mints for the entire table (which kind of sucked because the mints had chocolate and i've still got 8 ish months of no chocolate) and i'm boycotting 23.

my most favorite recipe

2006-09-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

so the fruit crisp recipe i posted has made another appearance at my house... i made it again cuz it's just that delicious and easy. i was watching house and i was bored just sitting and watching, so i was like "ah-ha, i have fruit and the other ingredients... i will make my fantastic fruit crisp" and so there's 21 more minutes left until i can take it out of the oven (and then i get to go to bed)

today's been productive otherwise. gym, study, lab, school stuff, buying necessary things (including a 6 pack of multi colored peppers... duh) and now fruit crisp. that's all though.

ciao

i can't believe i forgot the marching band

2006-09-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

my school is INSANE. did you know that? those of you reading this probably do know that my school is insane. so we are made up of classes of about 120 per class... it's not big. we don't have sports. we only have 1 bookstore and the cafeteria is closed far more often than it is actually open. everything at my school is in an acronym. we don't have sports. yes, i know i said that already, but we don't have sports. but someone got the brainy idea to make-up a football team. being a big-10 college grad, you just don't do things like make-up football teams. but they did at my med school. and they gave us shirts and they faked captains and players and plays and everything. and today they had a "pep ralley" and we were told to wear our shirts. so we all parade into the cafeteria at lunch time (eating at lunch is a normal thing) and the school dean get's on the mic and says that there's a surprise... wtf. in MARCHES the marching band from the local high school. i've never been in a cafeteria with a marching band. i gotta admit, i kind of liked it. i still like real football better, but this was just damn amusing. i'll try and score some pictures of that too... just so you can see i'm not making it all up.

mother effing friday

2006-09-08T18:11:00.000-07:00

it's totally friday and i'm happy. we got done with class an hour early and i got to get in and out of lab (yay... our culture is growing 2 organisms and due to streaking skills we've got sweet isolation) it was a BEE-UUUU-TEEEE-FUL day here so i got home as fast as i could and went out for a 14.3 mile bike ride through the random country-side area here. i saw some cows and some people and some farms and i ended up near a fairground and although i made it back, i have no idea where i was. i thought my computer on my bike was freaking out cuz it stopped taking readings, but i got it figured out (that's why i'm in med school... i can figure shit out) so i got home and cleaned up and all that jazz, then i went to run some errands (yeah, i know, you totally want to hear my life story) i got a pretty tea-pot though, it's red and i got all the stuff to make my asian pasta thing, although, giant weasel didn't have hot pepper oil... the bastards. i made it, and it's decent. it needs something, maybe ginger, but i didn't buy that either. i bought some fruit to make another fruit crisp, but i don't think i blogged about the first one... so here goes:

i had a boatload of apricots that my grandmother gave me but i don't like apricots... they're ucky all plain. so i was going to make an apricot buckle like my amazing blueberry buckle, but i had no milk. so my mom gave me the most fantastic and easy reciipe. you should all try it:

~4-6 cups of your fruit (like i said, i used apricots and i added some raisens and 2 pluots... plum apricot combo fruit wierdnesses)
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1T lemon juice
-3/4 c instant oats
-3/4 c flour
-3/4 c brown sugar
-1/2 cup butter (i used a little oil cuz it was in reach, although i think this might be good with half butter half applesaucs)
-1/2 c chopped nuts

cut the fruit in slices (or whatever you want to cut them into... i don't care)
mix the dry ingrediants and then add the butter and lemon juice and mix until you get a nice crumbly mixture... put the fruit into the bottom of a lightly sprayed 12x8 pan. sprinkle the crumbly mixture over top.

bake at 375 for about 35 minutes (preheat your oven of course)

so yeah, this is really amazing with apricots although i talked with my mom and she did it with peaches and nectarines and said it was A-mazing! it's going to be a winter staple i think, but with apples and or pears. i'll post pictures tomorrow.

and it's really good on vanilla ice cream.

and by the way, you can not get vibrio vulnificus from hunting rabbits as i declared you could in front of my medical class today... it made sense to me. bass island... whatevers.

it's good to be home

2006-09-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

hi. how y'all doing? i'm good, sick of driving cuz i did a lot of it this weekend... (take a look at the picture, that's how i feel about driving right now) but it was all worth it... just don't ask me to drive 1000 miles in one weekend again. i didn't study at all this weekend which was cool at the time, but is kicking my ass right now. you try and memorize all the info in the "bug parade" whatevs. anyways, i haven't done much cooking recently, but my grandmother gave me a magazine and it had some awesome recipes. my next cooking adventure is going to be from vegetarian times and it's an asian inspired dish with edamame, carrots, scallions, spinnach, sesame seeds, sesame oil, noodles and other delicious ingrediants. it was the cover recipe from a few months ago, i'm sure mine won't look quite as gorgeous as the magazine, but it's going to be fantastic anyways. i'll post pictures.

gotta go study more... peace.

med school... meh

2006-08-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

Good Morning. It is currently one minute before the 8 o'clock hour. i am at school and i have been here for almost 1/2 hour. and i don't want to do anything. class starts in an hour, i'm the only one here and i need to be using my time more efficiently. i should be studying or reading up so i can work on my poster/abstract from my research this summer. and what am i doing? blogging. i don't have any recipes, nor have i been knitting. although, kabs, i know what you're getting for your graduation gift. it makes me happy, i just have to get around to knitting it. ok, i'm going to do something productive.

peace yo's.

recipeeeeee

2006-08-11T15:50:00.000-07:00

adding to the collection of butt fruit is this beautiful butt fruit specimen. what a lovely nectarine. i showed someone this picture and they actually thought it was a butt... totally smurfy!

now... if you ever want to make a delicious bread, here is the bread you need to make. it's whole wheat apple raisin bread and it's damn good.

here is a quick view of how i really feel about the bread:

and now the recipe:

2 packages yeast
2 beaten egg whites and a little bit of yolk
1 cup warm milk
1/4 cup honey
1 c raisins
1 c finely chopped apples
1.5 c whole wheat flour
2.5 c flour
1/2 c crached wheat flour or wheat germ
1 beaten egg yolk for the top and some granola for the top

soften the yeast in 1/2 c warm water. in a bowl combine egg, milk, honey, 1.5 tsp salt. add yeast, rasins, and apples. in large bolw stir together whole weat flour, with white flour, and milk mixture mixing all well. stir in cracked wheat. turn out onto floured surface and knead in remaining 1c wheat flour. knead 3-5 minutes until smooth and elastic. turn into greased bowl, turning once. cover. let rise about 1 hour until it doubles. punch down. shape into 3 loaves. place in 3 greased pans. cover. let rise again about 45 minutes. beat egg yolk with some water and brush on the top of the loaves. sprinkle with granola or seeds if desired. bake at 375 for 30 minutes. cover with foil after first 15 minutes. remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.

enjoy!

JAKE-US

2006-08-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

i got to play with jake-us! and not the cat jake... i mean the 120 pound rotweiller. he's big and slobbery and adorable. and his tongue is huge. i wanted to shake his tongue, but then i saw the teeth that were surrounding the tongue and i decided that it would be in my best interest to just pat him on the head.

now my cats are being psychos. so i'm off to prevent any further insanity. g'night.

YOUR MASCOT IS STILL A NUT!

2006-08-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

hi. look. new font. allrighty, picking one and sticking with it. so i've got a couple additions that you should enjoy... here goes:

in the past 2 weeks i've made pancakes twice, and i generally don't make them all that often, so i'm taking it as a sign to share my recipe (although, i didn't actually use this recipe on either occasion because all ingredients were not available, however, this one is THE BEST PANCAKE RECIPE EVER) it's complements of www.vegweb.com so check it out also if you want.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (or better yet, i use 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 regular... sooooooooo good)
2 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups soymilk (i use milk because it's what i normally have on hand)
(i also usually throw in a splash of vanilla extract because it makes things delicious)

Directions: Lightly mix all ingredients in a fairly large bowl; Its important only to mix the batter enough to moisten, as overmixing will make the pancakes tough. Gently fold down; let it sit for like 3 minutes if you get the chance, and gently fold down again. (It doesn't usually bother, since everyones starving!) Cook medium to medium-high on an oiled skillet till golden, carefully breaking apart any large lumps with the spatula. Serve immediately.

Just a warning: this recipe makes a lot a lot of pancakes. if it's just you, make a half batch... but i always forget to do that so i end up with like 50 pancakes. but if you do that, then toss them in some saran wrap and toss them in the freezer. then on a day when you don't want to make breakfast just throw them in the toaster. i can't explain how good these things are. i kind of want to make some now... dang.

here's the second recipe for AUSTRALIAN PASTA SPECIAL!

this recipe comes from forbesy, cuz she brings it to lunch all the time and it is such a visually appealing meal that i just had to make it...

Directions:
-cook some pasta
-cut up some small tomatoes (cherry tomatoes or the like)
-wash and lightly cook some spinach
-get some feta cheese (liz always has blocks that she cuts, but i got mine pre-chunked up, it's easier)
-obtain some pesto sauce
-mix everything and add some salt and pepper (it's best if you have coarsly fresh ground pepper, but that's all because bek has turned me into a pepper snob)

it's good hot, but it's good cold. and that's my australian pasta special.

and the reason that your mascot is still a nut is because of an interesting lunch conversation (oddly enough, the conversation was held over a container of pasta special). the mascot for the ohio state university is brutus the buckeye... and this kid who works in my lab is an OSU fiend, (not like i get it... penn state is so much better... but i digress) anyways, he was talking about how his school is so amazing and he was just kind of running at the mouth, so liz gave him a verbal what-for and said "your mascot is still a nut" which is true and very funny. and then the kid got real pouty, which was funnier.

i need your help. i need some new music... i'm listening to nickelcreek right now, but i need something new. help. i went to borders and noble tonight to get a book for school (starts in less than 2 weeks... meh) and the lady at the cash register was like, "oh this looks like a great read, should be really fun" i'm like "it's about a doctor dealing with the AIDS epidemic" she was like "oh, have fun" strange people... seriously.

i'm out. gotta do some reading, and then some sleeping. peace yo's.

parents are evils

2006-08-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

just read the title again. that's all i have to say for now.

just preparing you

2006-07-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

i just want to prepare you for a mega post that will occur later today or tomorrow... lots of fun stuff and recipes and sweet things of that nature!!!

christmas?

2006-07-23T18:13:00.001-07:00

ok, last post for the day. but i was just clicking on some button that takes you to the next blog that the computer feels like showing you... and the next one that i saw was entitled "christmas" (i think "beast knits and now i have a blog to prove it" is a little more interesting) but then i thought it might be interesting if i had titled my blog "christmas" considering it's a holiday i have never once celebrate. and not that there is a problem with christmas... i just thought it might be amusing if i had a post called christmas... so here it is. oh yeah, listen to johnny cash. he's amazing.

christmas?

2006-07-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

not a ninja right now

2006-07-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

I decided that i didn't want to be a ninja in colujmbus, i wanted to be a hippie in cincy today. it must've started at lunch at whole world in columbus this afternoon. (it's an all veg restaurant for those of you who don't know about it) bek and i split the blue corn tortilla nachos (one of our favs) and then she went with the garden tofu veggie wrap and a cup of cauliflower chowder. i had the garbanzo bean quesedilla (i can't spell... my bad) the nachos were good as always, and bek's soup was pretty good too. my food was decent, but there was some spice in it that i wasn't to keen on. whatev... kabbij you would have complained about the service, none-the-less... sorry you couldn't make it :(

so the hippie day carried on until just now. i was writing out some recipe's for amber and one that i decided she'd like was for my granola. so i wrote the recipe out and then i decided that i'd make a half recipe (the whole one makes over 8 cups of granola, it's an intense amount of granola no matter how much you like granola)

so here's the recipe. it's super easy, fast to throw together, easy clean up and it's good alone, on fruit, with milk... it holds pretty well too esp if you've got a good air-tight container. i highly suggest you give it a whirl sometime. (oh, this is for the 8 cup version... unless you want granola for the rest of your life... cut it in half)

1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
8 cups rolled oats (it's just oatmeal from the big container)
2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, or slivered almonds (i used whole almonds and i only had halved pecans... so i tossed the pecans in a bag and took a rolling pin to them... good stress relief :)
you can choose the fruit you want... after shopping in the pantry i have chosen to include raisens, dried cherries, dried cranberries, and apricots
i also tossed some sugar and cinnamon on top of the granola before throwing it in the oven

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and reserve. Combine brown sugar and water in a 4-cup microwave proof glass measuring cup or bowl. Place in microwave on high for 5 minutes and cook until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from microwave, add vanilla extract and salt. In a large mixing bowl, combine oats, nuts, and brown sugar syrup mixture. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Spread the granola onto cookie sheets and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour or until golden and crunchy. When the mixture comes out of the oven, it is still very pliable. You may choose to add in dried fruit as a finishing touch at this time. When granola has cooled completely, store in an airtight container.

if you want to keep some bigger clumps in the granola, just let it cool without mashing it up... then you'll get bigger bits rather than a lot of individual oat pieces.

so that's my granola recipe. enjoy :)

I AM A NINJAAAAAAAA

2006-07-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

i am a ninja in columbus. beware.

a little explanation

2006-07-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

so i received one question about the last post (thanks for caring cabbij or however you and crak-bek are spelling it) let's just say i was overthinking things and being tired while overthinking and it just put me in a bad mood. i'm over it as much as i can be... i'm tired. i have to wake up extra early tomorrow to run more experiments in lab too... and then drive to cols and then to the ak-rowdy.

i have to have a poster-presentation done in like 3 weeks and i haven't even started the research that the poster is committed to be on. shite.

:(

2006-07-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

yeah... i'm just going to say :(

perfect porter

2006-07-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

this is not porter. these are tomatoes. i was trying to be artistic and take pictures of nature. this is what happened.

meet porter. the newest member of our family. bow down to her cuteness!

aren't we ADORABLE!!!

She even looks good in profile!

look at this little grass-eater. How could you say no to her?

yeah, so we've got a dog now. and she's so adorable. right now she's absolutely passed out. we played outside for a bit, and she tried eating grass... but she likes dog toys so she's easily distracted. sooooooooooo cute. she has little puppy paws (but they come with little puppy claws attached) anyways, i think she's a keeper.

as a random side note to provide entertainment for anyone who actually reads this... my mother has decided to play matchmaker... i'm trying to avoid it, but she's like... "oh, there's this boy and his dad is nice..." yada yada yada... save me. bek... i'm putting you in charge of the chalky acquisition job... haha.

and in more randomness... the no chocolate for a year is going well... it's been uhh, 6 days. nice.

updates updates pictures pictures

2006-07-02T19:10:00.000-07:00

first bit of news... my poor jiffy has to have surgery tomorrow because she got attacked by something and now has to have it all cleaned out and a drain put in. but she's pathetically cute with her little lampshade collar thing... she fell asleep the other day with my sister, and they were cute.

this is not my cat, i think it's flash... or taylor... i can't tell them apart, but they like the sink and i think it's funny. so there.

these are the cookies that i made. but i'm no pro cookie decorator, but not bad :)

this is a butt-bun. (you kind of have to use your imagination with this one)

<-- cat eye.

oh! and i found a yarn store in cincy!!! i haven't actually been in it, but it's a yarn only store and it looks decent. i'll keep you updated.

GORDITO

2006-06-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

OK, the hedgehog's new name is gordito... for little fatty. cuz, he's a little fatty. haha. so are my cats...

bastard blogger

2006-06-23T19:10:00.000-07:00

so i just did this fantastic post... but it got eaten by the evil computer blog eating monster. here are some pictures. i'll deal with the descriptions later.

the happiest day?

2006-06-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

I just read that June 23rd is supposed to be the happiest day of the year for the most people... so happy happiest day(???)

i haven't done much knitting recently. it's just been to warm to knit. i did however make a wonderful batch of cookies today. i will post pictures and more info about them, but i can't reveal too much info just in case the person who the cookies are for reads this... needless to say, they're delicious.

i can however say, that the cookie-ing was quite a process. i wanted to make them the other night, but it's been so damn hot and humid here that the dough just went -flop- and didn't do much of anything. so i had to put it in the freezer/fridge so it would chill. the a/c is working so the cookies got made and frosted.

ok, peace.

oh, and when i get unlazy i'll post pictures of the butt-peach (like the butt-shrooms... check out http://www.pequalsmd.blogspot.com)

screw it... here's the butt and a taste of ungordo.

Gordo on a diet

2006-06-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry about no posting for a while, there's been no knitting as school was winding down and moving was winding up. Anyways, today my sister and I headed to one of my favorite yarn stores and i brought the hedgehog. I thought that since it was the store where I was inspired to knit the hedgehog, i would bring it to show the people. although, they seemed less than impressed. the knitting lady people said i should have felted it more... yada yada yada, but they did say he was cute and soft. i got home and decided to un-seam gordo and un stuff him and take off the eyes and nose and i felted him again. it worked much better this time. hot water + dawn dish soap + agitation only + gordo in a pillowcase = nice felting. i've restuffed him for the shaping/drying process and it looks like it's going to be quite a victory. his body is now nicely felted, and he's actually shrunken to a respectable size (hence the gordo on a diet thing). i'll deal with pictures when he's done... again.

while at the yarn store, i decided to look at some more patterns for felted items and i've found my new project... fiber trends pattern 207x... felted llamas and alpacas!!! :) they're adorable! i've decided to go with lambs pride bulky yarn, a nice wool/mohair blend in M-151 chocolate souffle. The pattern called for either 2 strands of worsted weight yarn that would be held together and knit or one strand of bulky, i liked the dark brown color that i found in the bulky, so that decision was made for me. i'll let you know how this goes.

my sister and i also each picked up one skein of Diakeito japanese ribbon-ish yarn. an acrylic/nylon blend in color 603. the plan for this is a quick headband, it should knit up nicely.

and as if these projects aren't enough, i am going to grab something from my yarn stash and knit up another chapstick holder for one of the chapstick pot things... should be good times.

that's all in my world of knitting, but i think it's enough.

Gordo

2006-06-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm done with the hedgehog... ta-daaaaaaaaaah. I got some nice buttons for eyes and the nose. The ladies at the yarn store were excited to see the hedgehog since they'd seen the pattern. But they were kind of the typical old school knitters. (fekster and cabbage you know what i'm talking about...)

At dinner this evening my friends decided that the hedgehog should be named Gordo (which = fat in spanish... it works since he's... umm, marshmallow-esque).

I also threw together a chapstick holder... finally. Not terribly hard. I used a basic acrylic yarn and knit on 4s... knit one row purl one row and then just stitched it up. Functional and fun.

So the important question... what next??? :-P

The felting!

2006-06-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, so i lied. i said i was going to felt tomorrow, but the greater knitting power said "there's no time to felt like today". so i did. Jamie was kind enough to let me use her washing machine... and we were both quite curious as to how the furry litte bastard was going to turn out. I decided to go with the hedgehog in a zippered pillowcase in the hot water with a squirt of yellow dish-soap... agitation only. And the felting went well, although it destroyed the pillowcase. I think the pillowcase was to blame though, not the felting process.

Anyways, now the hedgehog is drying out. Filled with fiberfill for appropriate shaping. He got big... real big. I can't wait till he's all the way dry, then I'll go on the hunt for eyes.

It's still been a positive process up to this point. Ok, so here are some details you might want: The pattern is from Fiber Trend, pattern 228x. Like I said, i used the super yak by karabella yarns in color 10207 for the body, and i used Galway pure wool worsted weight in color 9 for the paws. I think i lost the wrapper for the yarn snob fun-fur... but it worked well...

The hedgehog process...

2006-06-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of working on a knitted hedgehog and I'm very proud of him. I knit the grey body out of super-yak yarn and the furry part out of some yarn-snob equivalent of fun-fur. Although, his furry part is much softer than run of the mill fun-fur. I will get more specific with actual brand name and colors later. The entire thing is knit on 10.5 or 11 24" needles. I think for the grey part it could've been done on straight needles... but for the furry back part you have to use the ciruculars. The instructions were pretty decent, although, there were a couple of times I had no idea what I was doing. I just put faith in the pattern (and the advice I got from Jen after calling her frantically) It was actually a pretty quick knit too... only took me a week of knitting time. I thought it would be longer, so that was a nice surprise.

I have yet to felt him, that's going to have to wait until tomorrow. It will be my first felting experience. But I'm feeling prepared. I got a zippered pillowcase the other day, and I've got a clothes washer to use, and some soap and stuff... here's to hoping it goes well. I just have to figure out what I want to do for a nose and stuff.

The first picture in the top left is when I had just started the furry part of the back. I think the true "hedgehog-ness" started to appear after working the paws and starting the back, so that was exciting. And the other 2 are of the fully knitted hedgehog prior to felting. (he has a belly button, that will be dealt with after the felting)

again, wish me luck with the felting.

Day one of Beast's Knits

2006-06-06T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hello. So I was inspired by Jen being inspired to create not just another boring ol' blog, but a knitting blog. Now I can share what I'm up to when it comes to knitting (and maybe some other creative-ish things).

So that's me (as I point up to the picture) in a hat that I knit. It was knit on nice bamboo circulars. I love knitting hats, they're incredibly easy to make and they pack so nicely in a bag. Wonderfully transportable. Anyways, the hat is great because it matches a lovely vest that I've got, the only thing is that I don't like to wear hats...

I've decided to devote an individual post to my hedgehog, which has been my major knitted adventure recently. So as far as other creative-ish things in my life... I made a blueberry buckle yesterday, I haven't tried it yet, I hope it's good. Although, the recipe is pretty easy and it hasn't failed me yet.