Black Friday
A blog about, well, anything really!
Today is my birthday!!! Aren't those flowers beautiful...Chris got them for me! Since he had to work most of the day we couldn't do anything too exciting. So, I planned to go to knit group and showing off my newly finished felt bag and then we went to a CC hockey game in the evening.
Well, I finally finished it. I decided to go with multi-colored handles and it looks great! :o) I felted it four times this morning with a big load of jeans. The first time, hardly anything changed with the bag, it just got a little fuzzier. The second time is started to shrink some, but was still pretty big. The third time the stitch patter was starting to just blend together and it was almost the size I wanted. In fact, I was worried that if I put it in again (since I couldn't pull it out half way through) that it would be too small. But I went for it and it came out the perfect size. It's a great size for a knitting bag, just big enough to carry the project that I'm working on right that moment. Although, I think that in the future I will sew the handles on a little differently so that they don't pull so much on one row of stitches. (Oh well, its all a learning process.) Anyway, I love how it turned out and Chris was shocked at how much it shrank. :o) That's wool for yah. Oh Oh! I have to say that the yarn I used was Lambs Pride wool with mohair so it's got this lovely soft fuzziness to it now.
Yesterday I decided to give this Sticky Chicken recipe off the Grocery Game forums a try. It's basically a rotisserie chicken recipe, minus the rotisserie. I made it in the crockpot, and finished it under the broiler to crispify the skin. It was amazing. I couldn't get it out of the crockpot in once piece because it was so tender. I served it with some mashed potatoes and the carrots that were in the pot. The really cool part that I figured out (after doing it once) is that you could practically use whatever seasonings you wanted on the bird.... Then just cook it the same way in the crockpot and WAH-LAH! Magic Rotisserie Chicken in the crockpot sooo tender that you won't need a knife to cut it.
Sticky Chicken
4 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 onion, quartered
1 cup baby carrots
1 (4 lb.) whole chicken
DIRECTIONS:
1. In a small bowl, mix together salt, paprika, onion powder, thyme, white pepper, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and garlic powder.
2. Remove and discard giblets from chicken. Rinse chicken cavity, and pat dry with a paper towel.
3. Rub chicken inside and out with spice mixture. Place onion and carrots into the cavity of the chicken. Place chicken in a resealable bag or double wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight, or at least 4 to 6 hours.
4. OVEN: Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). Place chickens in a roasting pan. Bake uncovered for 5 hours, to a minimum internal temperature of 180 degrees F (85 degrees C). Let the chickens stand for 10 minutes before carving.
CROCKPOT: Place 3-4 foil balls on the bottom of the crockpot, then place the chicken on top of foil balls and cook on low all day. (It's probably best to cook the chicken with the breast side down to keep the juices in the chicken. However, even if you put it in breast side up, the breasts still won't be dried out.)
*HINT: Instead of mixing all the spices, you could also use any chicken rub like Emeril's Essence, or Lawry's rub, etc.
Well, I FINALLY did it... I frogged the bag and actually started, and almost finished it. (Which is truly my lifes story...starting and not finishing half the crafty projects I set out to do...but that's for another post.) After finding out a week or two ago that the yarn I was using would not felt, I was glad that I had not tried to complete this project on my own in the year since I ambitiously started knitting. After frogging and balling the yarn-that-would-not-felt, I went home and pulled out some beautiful country colors that my Knit Group pal Christy bought for me this time LAST YEAR for my birthday! I set out to design a bag that was both colorful, easy, and well, used equal amounts of all the colors (since I only had the exact amount needed.) :o) I started with a pattern that Christy found for me online "The Skull Knitting Tote" and then modified it to my needs. I like the size, dimensions, and look of the bag, but didn't exactly care for the artistic design. Then I just knit, knit, knit away and finally found myself at the end. All that's left now is to make icord for the handles and felt it. But first I must decide if I want to make each handle one solid color, each a different color, each stripey of all three, if so, like the bag, or even chunks... Anyway, I will experiment further. I can't wait to finish this, it'll be the first thing I've actually knit for myself, and how fitting since the yarn was given to me for my birthday! Have a great week everyone!