Salpicon (sal-pee-con) Cuban Meatloaf

Ingredients:

1 lbs of Lean Ground Sirloin
½ lbs of Ground Pork Medium each fine chop of green Pepper, red Pepper, Vidalia or Yellow onion

1 tbsp of minced garlic 6 tbsp of Badia Complete Seasoning or ( 1tsp each of garlic powder, onion powder, ground cumin, crushed bay leaves, parsley)

½ tsp of kosher salt

1 small can of tomato sauce

¼ cup of extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 hard boiled eggs
2 cracked eggs

Take the meat and add ½ the seasoning, salt and cracked eggs and combine well. Place a piece of aluminum on the table and dump the meat mixture on it, pat it into a rectangle. Place the 3 hard boiled eggs in the middle and wrap them with the meat sort of logroll style. Take another piece of aluminum and wrap the log in tightly. You can pressure cook this in a water bath for 45 minutes or leave it in the crock-pot with water at med temp for 6 hours. I don’t use a pressure cooker to I go with the crock-pot method. Once it's hardened let it sit and cool for a good 30 mins or so.

While the meat is cooling take the onion, peppers and oil and sauté in the pan until they are soft and the onions are translucent add the garlic the rest of the seasoning and tomato sauce.
Slice the meat roll into ½” slices and place in pan with sauce. Cover and simmer letting the slices pickup the sauce and flavors for 15 mins or until meat is heated through. Serve over white rice, mash potatoes or with a salad. If you have any slices leftover they are great in a sandwich the next day.

A Blog Awards

I few weeks ago Melanie of Nailventures
tagged me for this award. I of course don't really think my blog is particularly stylish or fashionable, but am flattered that someone thought it was. The rules are to share 7 things about myself, which I know I've discussed just about everything and pick 15 bloggers. If you want to play along, please take the pic and run with it, because I love so many blog to just pick 15 is really not fair, and tag back to my blog. 7 items I want to share about me:

1. I'm good under pressure, can' get through some hard stuff, hanging tough but after it's said and done I fall apart.
2. I have an internal fight always present between sharing my off time with my knitting or my weaving.
3. I'd like to take a year long sabbatical from everyday life and travel cross country in an RV
4. Sometimes I brutally honest, not always tactful, but working on it.
5. I wish work did not dominate most of my waking hours, seem like such a waste of life although necessary.
6. I have never understood the comment "once you retire you might as well die there's nothing to do", really??
7. I love the fall and winter seasons.

Lapping Waves Scarf

For those of you that choose along with Mr. Deepend, well you guys won! (once I reach the end of this scarf whatever is left will be in the navy, maybe I can get a moebius cowl out of it).
I started weaving last night and wove about 8" before I threw in the towel, The mohair was making my arms itchy and I could only get through that length without scratching my skin off. My hands not so much but the fly aways getting on my arms whoa, that was amazingly itchy and uncomfortable, I admire folks who find it soft and wonderful, of course they're not sensitive to it, which is why I'm happy for acrylic, cotton, bamboo, silk, linen, cashmere and alpaca.

I came up with a solution for the weaving session tonight, which is to wear a long sleeve tee. I have a very soft and lite one that will work great without making me sweat, yes it's hot down here already, today's high is 78* and the A/C has been kicking on regularly at night :( I so do miss the cooler temps and it won't be long before we're in the high 80's - 90's ugh!

I like this pattern it's simple to weave and gives an interesting movement to the fabric. I had to drop 5 threads to the end to make the pattern work, I guess I needed to keep a more accurate count while warping. I will next time.

I have always found that as I work I tend to improve or at least make life easier for myself. I'm the type of person that if I can get things done in two step then four is a waste, unless the steps are necessary. To improve my short time at the loom I asked the sheet metal guys at work to make me a draft holder, nothing fancy just a piece of metal that was sanded

with double sticky tape and voila instant pattern holder of course with the help of a magnet :) I had been taping up the drafts but they would fall off and I'd loose my place, very annoying but not any more, it's the simple things that make me happy hehe.. (I'm so easy to please)

I started weaving the scarf and am at a stand still. I woven all four colors to see what would work out the best. The turquoise although gorgeous is just too thin and doesn't work the way I thought. The Country blue is nice but no oomph jsut not special. I 'm torn between the navy and white, both show up the pattern nicely although the white is fluffier the twist is loose. I asked Mr. Deepend his pick is the white he states "it looks more wintery" uhhh?? Okay not much help, I still like the navy, but the white is really nice too, so I'm paused and undecided. What say you weavers, navy or white help me decide please?

Bit of Everything

I've been searching for a decorative pillow for this chair since I moved into the new apartment. We bought the chair and side table for the living room since we only had a love seat and Mr. Deepend's throne (recliner) for seating it was a challenge when we had more than two guests. As I was looking around in all the stores I was a bit floored by the fact that a 1/4 yard of fabric and some stuffing = $26.00+ pillow. I thought that it seemed expensive and never mind what Mr. Deepend thought, which were along the lines of "pillows, we don't need no stinking pillows" said with a heavy accent (yes, we are talented in recalling movie lines, if you could only hear the Scarface impressions it's scary and not in a good way either).
As I was walking around in Joanne Fabrics this Saturday perusing the fabric section, I found this eggplant fabric in the clearance section. I was so thrilled that I did a happy Snoopy dance in the isle, got some odd looks but I didn't care, no sir no one bit.

A while later and some stitching and we have a pillow that passes Sasha inspection and all, the best part it only cost me $4.50.

After my pillow accomplishment I was ready to start warping my loom has been nekid for a week and that is just too long not to weave. I picked these yarns from the inherited bins. Navy - 100% wool, Country Blue 100% Mohair, Caribbean Blue 75% wool, 25% alpaca and white 75% Mohair 25% wool. I wore gloves to wrap the warping board and to handle getting on the beam. The two yarns with Mohair gave me a bit of a workout since they kept sticking to each other and getting stuck on the lease sticks. I only broke two warp threads and was able to tie them back together.There is no rhyme or reason to the warp, I just picked the colors and randomly wrapped only counted the threads at the two ends for finishing symmetry the middle is whatever I felt like doing at the time.

Since the colors remind me of the ocean I thought this draft would be interesting to work. (blogger has put the pic sideways, ah Mondays they're tough on everyone) I like the fact that the draft looks like waves and the theme just continues. Will it work on this warp? I dunno but I'm planning on having some fun and finding out.

I made my mom another chemo cap, she had her 2nd treatment and is feeling tired, but in good spirits and is eating well. I need to find some buttons to compliment this one. It my own pattern and I used Caron Simply Soft Paints, that yarn is so soft it's a pleasure to work with.

I've also been working on my neice's baby gifts, these booties pattern is Classic Cashmere Booties

from the book Simple Knit for Cherished Babies. It's full of sweet little knits I got it at the library and am thinking about ordering a copy for my personal library.
Along with the booties I've been working on a Tomten baby jacket, which of course is an Elizabeth Zimmerman classic from the book Knitting without Tears. I love the way this jacket comes together. I'm planning a cap for this set.

On the weaving front, I have selected yarns for my SIL's scarf and will start winding warp tonight, I would like to have it tied up my the end of tomorrow and hopefully start some weaving next week.