Basic Theme Challenge #2 (Month Long Special)

 First Saturday of the Month and our Basic Theme Challenge is back! This month we are focusing on Salads. Now Salads come in all different shapes and sizes. So this challenge is really an all month-long challenge! Salads are most commonly thought of as having lettuce and even then there are a million and one types of salad, you have Caesar Salad, a Chef's Salad, Cobb Salad, Waldorf Salad, the list goes on and on. But you also have Potato Salad, Macaroni Salad, Lentil Salad, things that don't always look like a traditional Salad but still are called that. And this month we are going to explore them all.

But today's challenge is to stick with the basics. Create a lettuce salad (any type you want - yes Kale counts as "lettuce") and make it the star of dinner tonight. Adding Chicken or Steak can really make a simple salad into a main dish, or even a few boiled eggs! Whatever you choose to do, enjoy!

Today we are going to share a Ranch Dressing Recipe. Again this is more of a guideline, you can feel free to play around with it and make it to your liking. (Also this recipe includes a Ranch Seasoning Mix that you can try on other dishes like vegetables and potatoes!)

Ranch Seasoning:

2 tsp Parsley

2 tsp Dill (or up to 1 tbsp if you really enjoy the flavour of dill)

2 tsp Chives

2 tsp Garlic Powder

2 tsp Onion Powder

(Salt and Pepper to taste - about 1 tsp each)

Now to make salad dressing, everyone is going to have a different way. Personally, we enjoy adding just a tablespoon of Mayo to the seasoning and slowly adding some Extra Virgin Olive Oil to make it thinner. We do this because we don't like a "tangy" Ranch. For a more tangy taste, try adding a tablespoon of Sour Cream to your Mayo and or 1 tablespoon of Buttermilk.

Freebie Friday - Greek Salad

 So today to kick off our Salad theme not only for the Freebie Fridays and the Cooking Challenges, today we are going simple. Greek salad is one of those things that it all depends where you go and what you prefer. A traditional Greek Salad is open to interpretation. Some places add Sweet Green Peppers, others do not. Most stick to traditional ingredients like Grape or Cherry Tomatoes, Black Olives (some will put Green also), Red Onion, and of course Feta. You can feel free to add anything you want to a salad really, this is just the basics.

Salad dressing for a Greek Salad is also a tricky thing. In Greece, most places use herbs, oil, and vinegar to dress their salad. In North America, most places use a more "traditional" vinaigrette and sometimes a creamy dressing too. Again, it is all about your preference.

Throwback Thursday - More Blog Posts

 Re-share from (2020). Amyl Creations is going to be sharing some of the products she loved and she is sharing updates on them so you can judge for yourself!

Before starting this website and blog, I had a blog on blogger. I would talk about Arts and Crafts obviously and about some of the products I would buy. This was before I got into most of the things I blog about and even sell now. I was just learning how to crochet when I started that blog and thought others would maybe benefit from seeing what I learned as I grew my skills in the crochet world. And that's really what I thought I would stick to. I thought I would learn more Stitches and Patterns and I would just blog all the time about all the wonderful new things I could do. And I was wrong.

After a while, life just got in the way and I felt a need to blog every day, and yet I didn't really have anything to say. Kind of like what happened with this blog after the first year and a bit. That's why I took a break and really decided to find more worth talking about. One of the things I did there, that I kind of carried over here in the form of Reviews was an "Amazon Addiction" post. And I would write about the stuff I bought from Amazon or that I was looking to get or had added to my wish list and that would basically be the end of it.

So now I have about 50 blog posts over on blogger that are just sitting in my drafts. Once I started blogging here I moved this blog over there and just unpublished everything I previously had. (I also ended up posting things here that I used to have posts of so that I could save them somewhere and share them at the same time). So I decided to update those posts and share them here. Maybe they will be useful, maybe not.

So you can look forward to seeing more about other things also, hopefully. Most of the old posts I had were crochet related, but some of them weren't. Some, like I said were about shopping and just stuff like that. So I am going to go through my drafts and my website and see which would be nice to share and hopefully I can squeeze some of them in!

Review Wednesday - HelloFresh (Week 3)

 Today we are sharing the third week of our HelloFresh adventure. This week, I discovered one of my favourite products! You can find more information about that here. This week we did really good with our orders I think. The meat was better this time around and it was pretty standard dishes.

Day one: Montreal Spiced Bacon-Wrapped Steak

Day two: Mexican Pork Tacos

Day three: Oven-Baked Chicken with Creamy Potatoes Salad

Knitting Tutorial - Casting On

 Last year, my grandmother passed away (not due to COVID-19 virus). And she was an avid knitter. I had never been into knitting but it was something we shared. She had given me yarn before passing away and once she was gone my family decided to hand her yarn down to me. I was very grateful. To have this connection with her still was an amazing gift. Unfortunately, I didn't know a thing about knitting. And though I used some of this yarn to crochet. Some yarn just works better for one craft versus the other. So I decided to learn how to knit.

My grandmother already had a scarf started so I started working on that first. However, the tutorials I am going to share this month are going to go in order so you can start and finish a project. So the first step to knitting is casting on. Now depending on a certain pattern, you can do this in a number of different ways. I found one video that has a few different options and it can be handy to anyone who wants to try the different styles and see which fits. I recommend the video below. I watched this one also and tried to learn the way she did it. It didn't work that well for me but I could see it working for others.

The one I learned and found the easiest to pick up was called a Long Tail Cast on and that's the one I am going to talk about. There is no right or wrong way that I can tell. Again this may depend on the pattern. I also want to quickly mention that unlike crochet, knitting takes two hands, so it is very difficult for me to take photos to show how to do this cast on. I tried and they really didn't turn out great. So hopefully with my comments and the video will be enough to help anyone trying to learn.

To start the Long Tail Cast on, you want to make a slip knot (just like crochet), leaving a long tail on one end and the working yarn on the other. Once you have this you want to focus on your thumb and forefinger of your non-dominate hand. Hold the needle in your dominant hand (the one you right with or crochet with). You want to hold your fingers in a way that makes it look like you are showing someone the measurement of an inch.

You want to take these two fingers and go under the yarn and bring them to the needle. Then lift your fingers up so that the yarn forms a loop around your fingers. Finally, you will want to hold the ends of the working yarn and the tail in your remaining three fingers. (Note this is not how she shows in the video, it is just an alternative.)

Once you have this you want to start casting the stitches on. You notice four strands, two around the thumb and two around the finger. You want to take the needle and go under the first strand (on the outside of the thumb, and go over the next two strands, and pick up that strand. Once you have that you want to go back through the loop on your thumb and pull tight. You must repeat this per stitch.

Mario Monday - Character Graph Standing (Week 1)

 Welcome to our Crochet Along (CAL)! This is our first graph of this new adventure. Again if you are crocheting all the graphs you will start with this one. If you are making just one blanket (Layout 1 or 2) we encourage you to pick one of the "Standing" graphs shared this month. If you are adding a graph border to your blanket (layout 3), we also encourage you to pick one of these graphs (in the month of February). If you are just interested in making the scarves any and all of these graphs will do.

Now without further ado, we have MARIO! Of course, we are starting with Mario for this CAL. You will notice he is slightly different than any Mario we have done before. He is blue in this one, which was the theme in a few Marios and I think the most commonly associated with him.

This graph is 20 x 35 and includes the colours:

Red (Cherry Red)

Blue (Light Navy Blue)

White

Skin Tone (Light or Dark)

Background Colour (Of your choice)

As mentioned above, sometimes we will have two graphs! And this week is one of those. You will notice they are very similar. In the one below you can see a second foot, this means he is probably in the middle of walking. So you can choose which you prefer.