More home made

You saw the curtains my mum made yesterday. But I have also been working on my stuff. Like the cardigan. I have already shown you one of them: the blue one with a red block. I made a red one as well though, with a lilac block and sleeve. I am very chuffed with them. They are two different sizes as well, which is even more fun.

When the second one was finished I started on a green one. But where the first two were a cotton (with some acrylic overlay), the green one is a wool one. And it just doesn't look as nice as the other ones. This is mainly to do with the fact that I used a smaller needle for the cotton ones and the set needles for the green one. And it makes it look sloppy.

So, when I made a mistake, I thought: forget this. I will unravel and start afresh with smaller needles, that way it will look nicer. I hope so anyway, as I haven't started yet.

Apart from doing up the room (finished) and knitting (never finished), I also have to cook on occasion. My parents and I share the responsibility, so we all have to take our turn to cook. But I don't always want to cook the regular things. Even if the dinner I had to heat up last Wednesday counted as cooking, it was just heating it up. The work of a minute really. 

What I am trying to say is this: occasionally I want to try my hand at something else. At the end of last year I saw a fish pie being made by the Hairy Bikers (love them) and I have made that one twice already: it is yum. Then a couple of months ago I made spare ribs from scratch. Another repeat offender there. 

This time around I thought I would try my hand at gnocchi. It sounded easy enough and indeed it turned out to be. I made a mushroom, spinach and blue cheese version for my parents (bland, not enough mushroom, too much spinach, blue cheese not strong enough were some of the comments) and a tomato, basil and mozzarella version for me (yum, too many tomatoes, didn't like the mozzarella were some of the comments). 

The main thing was though: the gnocchi themselves were okay. It was just the sauce or rest of the dish that needed some tweaking. I knew their version (the mushroomy one) was bland, as there was no mention of salt, pepper or any other type of herb or spice mentioned. Plus I don't taste ever, and definitely not mushrooms. My dad did like the spinach as it was put on, my mum didn't. And the blue cheese was definitely not very blue and it was on the lower end of the taste strength scale. 

Next time I will probably try a mushroom cream sauce with some garlic, then add some cheese at the end and put it in the oven for the last few minutes. The tomato/basil and mozzarella version was perfect as was, even though my mum thought the tomatoes were overpowering. She can eat the mushroom one!

PS: no photos were made of the gnocchi. Perhaps next time...