Easy vegetarian lasagne (some assembly required)

A few days ago I was thinking about dinner and hadn't planned anything, but our garden's producing copious amounts of silverbeet at the moment, and I realised with that and a few other ingredients I conveniently had around, I had the making of a lasagne. And it turned out blimmin' delicious (in my own humble opinion). Anywho, I thought I'd share.

I'm a vegetarian, which is why I made it vegetarian, but I also think mince overpowers tomato-ey dishes (ie. mexican, spaghetti bolognese, lasagne) and that it tastes better without. So meat eaters should give this a go too.

Ingredients:

For the tomato sauce:

• two cans chopped tomatoes in juice
• 5 cloves of garlic (suit to your taste)
• a splash of vinegar (I wish I had a less vague measurement to give you but a splash is how much I put in all my tomato dishes)
• a dash of red wine (any will do, and this is another one of those measurements - you don't want too much or it overpowers the sauce, but it adds depth like no one's business)
• 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
• plenty of salt - to taste (I was using rocket in the lasagne so I didn't pepper it, I'll leave that up to your excellent discretion)
• some olive oil

(By the way, cook the above recipe for an hour or two and you've got yourself a lovely rich pasta sauce, just add fettucine and some cheese)

Other stuff:

• 250g pasta bows (this is what I used and it turned out great and is a lot less fussy than sheets, but again, up to you)

• 5 leaves of silverbeet (of course you can use less or more, or substitute with spinach if you like, etc.)
• a bit of rocket and italian parsley (but you can add any herbs you like, oregano might be nice for example)
• 250g tub of cottage cheese (I know ricotta is more traditional but I had cottage cheese on hand)
• some tougher cheese to crisp up on top - probably parmesan is the way to go, but I'm a poor student so I went for colby, and it was terrific :)

Method:

1. Get a big pot heating up for the pasta, make sure you salt it well, I think it's amazing how much better the pasta tastes when you've put a good tablespoon of salt in there, or more!) Chuck in your pasta when it starts boiling. Make sure you keep an eye on it and drain it and cool it with some cold water when it's tender but still has some bite (just eat some to check - should be around 10 mins).
2. Combine all the ingredients for the sauce in a new saucepan. Keep this cooking (stir occasionally) while you prepare the rest of the food. 
3. Cut up your silverbeet into thin strips (don't need to be fussy, just so that it can be sprinkled into layers. Cut up your rocket, parsley, or other herbs.
4. It's time to layer. I used a deep small casserole dish. So, now put half the silverbeet in the bottom of your baking dish, then some dollops of cottage cheese (about a quarter of the tub), then some tomato (about a third) and some rocket and parsley, then half of the pasta. Repeat those layers once more. On the top goes the rest of the tomato mix, then the rest of the cottage cheese (so there's a nice thick cheesey layer on the top, yum!) the rest of the herbs, and a smattering of other harder cheese to get crispy in the oven.

Now it should look like this:

Yum. Put it in the oven at medium heat until the cheese on top is golden. There's no set time, especially because everything is already cooked. You could grill it if you wanted to, but baking it for 20 minutes or so lets all the flavours meld together.

So the final product:

It doesn't look that flash on the plate, but it tastes pretty flash.

Enjoy!! I did.

Cabled beanie pattern

I seem to forever be making beanies for the same people. Mostly its because the negligent owner has misplaced it, but my brother's new puppy chewed a good sized hole into his, so I thought that was a good enough excuse to warrant a new one. This is it.

It's quite long and skinny, but that's what you want for a boys beanie (unless he's a hipster and wants a slouchy one). By making a beanie this shape, it should be nice and fitted and still reach his ears.

This pattern was just knit 6, purl 3, knit 3, purl 3, repeated 7 times.
Then every fourth row I'd need to do the cabling: pass three onto a cabling needle, knit 3, knit the 3 on the cabling needle, purl 3, knit 3, purl 3, repeated.

If you've got cabling, you should start (or end) with that, so it is along the edge of your knitting. This will make it tidier when it comes to sewing up the beanie at the end.

I used no. 4 knitting needles, and they're my go to size.

And that pattern was repeated seven times giving me 105 stitches. 105 is a good number of stitches for a fitted beanie with large cabling. If you have no cabling, more like 95-100 is good. And when I'm making slouchy losser beanies for girls I head for around 110-115.

When you've made a straight piece for about 25cm, you should start reducing down for the top of the beanie.

There are plenty of different ways to do this and I can't remember the exact numbers I used for this beanie, but I usually do it as follows:

Continue the knitting for 5 stitches, then slip one stitch, knit two together, and pass the slipped stich over (ss, k2tog, pssso) (this turns three stitches into one), then knit again for 9 stitches and repeat, ss, k2tog, psso, knit 9.... and so on, hopefully at the end you will be left with about 5 stitches (not a big deal if that's not the case)
Continue your pattern (adjusted to accomodate the missing stitches), for a row.
The next row knit 4 stitches then (ss, k2tog, psso, knit 7) repeat to the end.
Continue pattern for one row
The next row knit 3, (ss, k2tog, psso, knit 5) repeat to end.
Continue pattern for one row
Next, knit 2, (ss, k2tog, psso, knit 3) repeat to end
Continue pattern for one row
Finally knit 1, (ss, k2tog, psso, knit 1) repeat to end

This will create decreases above one another, so that it looks tidy.
Hopefully you will have left around 11 or less stitches (if more, p1, p2tog, and repeat for one row). Now just cut the yarn and thread it through the remaining loops and pull tight. I usually cut the yarn to leave a longish bit hanging off for sewing up the beanie, but cutting it off and sewing up the beanie with thread is equally sane.

Hope this inspires beanie making in you. I think they're so quick and wearable, they're very satisfying to knit.

Saving $$ On Yarn

I love knitting but all the yarns I crave are mightily expensive. So generally I buy cheap cute colours and pretend they're just as good. But recently, a very special Aunty (Mandy, if you read this, thanks!) of mine made a suggestion that I thought was blimmin' brilliant.

The idea is to scour the charity shops (like you would for old clothes still bursting with awesomeness) and look for good quality knitwear. Most knitwear is made in pieces and then sewn together so you only need unpick it and it should unravel beautifully. I did this with a big jumper recently that cost me $15 and now I've got three big balls of luxurious glossy cream yarn.

One thing I would advise (although I haven't tried) is that I don't think this would work on mohair or the like, I know I've always struggled to undo anything I've knitted out of that sort of yarn, all the fluffy hairs get all tangled.

I was also recommended that this is a good way to get your hands on some quality buttons.

Happy hunting!

Red-Breasted Robin Painting

Mother's Day has just been and I decided to paint my mum a picture. I also had been wanting to do another bird painting, since university has been forcing me to watch while it eats away at my beloved crafting time. Anywho, since I thought you might be interested, and because this blog is a mess of blatant self-promotion I thought I'd post a photo of it.

PS Love you mum!