Finally hooking again

I took the whole summer off of crocheting, but now I'm back in the game. I wanted to make some fingerless gloves for my friends birthday; I didn't want them very girly though. Found a free pattern on ravelry.com that I loved so much I made a pair for myself.

My sister in law got me this really pretty and soft variegated yarn for my birthday, but just one skein. I was able to make 1 pair with enough left over to make a mug cozy to match. I love the yarns softness and it is a "no-pill" type of yarn which I thought perfect for gloves.

I was making the birthday girl's gloves during some downtime at work, and was commissioned by a coworker to make a pair for her. She even brought me yarn.

Please excuse my slightly unorganized picture placement. I am experimenting with blogging from my phone. The back gloves are the gift, and the others are mine.

<3 nik

Still planning!

Menu planning is still going strong. I didn't do anything yet on pinterest, but that's ok because I still have foods at home I can use.

I did make some more baked oatmeal for breakfast. This recipe has no refined sugar in it! Only honey. I added walnuts and blueberries and they are great. Took a chance to use my new Halloween ramekins.

Week 2 of Menu Planning

The first week of my menu planning was what I would consider a success.  I managed to make meals and snacks for both Tuesday and Wednesday.  The baked oatmeal muffins I made sustained me the whole week, and I even had enough to share with my room mate too, for his breakfast.  I would heat up 2 or 3 (depending on the size, b/c I learned that they don't rise much) and a glass of milk, and I was good till well into the afternoon (when I would wake up, given my odd schedule).  I didn't need to make the lassi or banana sushi on Thursday, I had yummy breakfast muffins. 

This week I wasn't on top of things as much as I was last week (we spent the weekend out of town visiting J's family), but tonight I think I have managed to pull together a menu for the week.  I originally thought of making more breakfast muffins, but I might just do an English muffin with peanut butter.  I love them toasted with a glass of milk.  I don't know if I will have time tomorrow to go shopping, as well as make a weeks worth of breakfast, and make lunch for work. 

But the overall goal of saving cash is really being accomplished.  I have now realized that not only is it saving me money by not ordering out at work, but it is also saving me money at the grocery store.  I am really trying to incorporate items I already have in the pantry, freezer, or fridge.  You might notice that I have had a quinoa recipe both weeks, it is because I have a big bag of it in my pantry.  I am having to adapt some of the recipes so that I am not making a bunch and then they end up going to waste.  Luckily there aren't a lot of things my room mate won't eat, and he is happy to eat leftovers. 

I didn't want to get confused about what recipes to use, since I plan to keep this (hopefully) going more than just a few weeks.  The board with my past recipes can be found here.  While the board with the recipes for the current week are here.

Anycrap, no fancy pictures of food today.





<3 nik

Menu Planning! Go!

I went grocery shopping today with my handy dandy list for all my recipes I had pinned for my menu planning.  [shameless plug] Here is my Pinterest board for my Weekly Menu Planning.  I made a change to it today, because I had forgotten that J and I had made a trip to the Asian market and we had gotten a package of 4 eggplants to split.  So I changed up my edamame to eggplant for Wednesday. 

I suppose I should clarify for anyone that might actually be following this.  I am doing my menu planning roughly from Monday-Friday.  Monday I am off work, and we usually do meatless Mondays at Js' place.  I work Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday nights.  I didn't make a mean for Thursday night because J always makes me lunch and brings it to me.  I will probably bring snacks.


Anycrap, here is my amazingly small grocery bill, it really helped having a menu and shopping list to reflect it. 

I was amazed!  This is just for my food at home and for work during the week.  It doesn't include any eating out that I do with J.  That was still low this week though, about 25 bucks.

I made one of my recipes, the blueberry banana baked oatmeal tonight, so that I could put it up and munch on it the rest of the week.  at $.52 cents a serving, I am gonna be eating some really yummy breakfasts this week! 

Check them out!

I am not a fan of making something in a big pan and then eating off it the rest of the week (I am also not a leftovers loving person) so I made mine as individual little muffins, if you will.  A couple of these with a glass of milk, or tea, or BOTH! 

I am finally executing some menu planning, and am really excited about it!


<3 nik

My Millionth Attempt at Menu Planning [week 1]

So after visiting the website for my bank account and seeing the break down of how much I spend on food, broken down in a nifty pie graph (ironic much?) I decided it was truly time to really focus on menu planning, not only for health, but for saving some cash. 

So I decided to let Pinterest help me, since I never seem to find a menu planning app that I just love.  I tried to use pepper plate, but they don't support one of my favorite websites that I like to get recipes from (budget bytes).  So for now I have a board on Pinterest for A weekly menu.  The plan is to change it weekly.  I am trying to combine 1 new recipe, as well as using items that are already in my pantry. 

So, to be a spam whore, here is the link again  A weekly menu.  Follow my menu planning journey.

<3 Nik

Matcha Green Tea Bowl

A fun trip to the Asian market resulted in J getting a bigger bowl to mix his matcha green tea in (this is the green powder we used to make our green cupcakes).

I saw another opportunity to use the Sharpie and make a hilarious bowl. This time I used Gary Coleman as my muse. I hope you like it.