So easy, so delicious!

Chop 4-5 large onions into rings. Place into crockpot with 1 stick margarine or unsalted butter (dot around onions). Place lid slightly askew. Leave on low for 8-14 hours, or until the onions are all a lovely golden brown.

Tips & Tricks:
Leave the lid askew! Previous attempts at caramelizing in the crockpot with the lid not askew have resulted in a soupy mess.
Toss the onions about halfway through. I did this overnight and when I came down about 8 hours after putting it in the crockpot, the bottom onions were cararmelized shading to burned, which the top layer were barely cooked. I'd say toss them around every 4 hours to try to keep things even.
Freeze 'em! Caramelized onions can be frozen! I put a bunch in some silicone muffin tins to freeze and then put them in a plastic bag in the freezer, to be pulled out later for soups, stews, pizza, etc...
Expect your house to smell like onions forever. I don't see this as a problem, but some people (like my girlfriend) do.

(Crossposted to what_a_crock)

So, stentoriansista comes home tomorrow night, so tonight is my last big night to get lots and lots of kitchen time in. And I'm gonna. My plan for the night includes doing the following:
-roast a chicken (good size bird, too - 6-7 pounds)
-roast potatoes (I have a drawer full of CSA potatoes that I'll quarter, toss in rosemary, salt and olive oil and roast underneath the bird)
-garbage soup in the crockpot for work lunches (ground bison, stock, leftover tomato soup & tomato sauce, kidney beans, cannellini beans, an onion, whatever else I have in the fridge that feels like going in)
-Peach honey popsicles
-Peach sorbet (I may not have enough peaches for both of these, in which case I'll try nectarine sorbet)
-pickled carrots (no really. I bought ground mustard and pickling spices the other day. I've just been too lazy to peel & slice carrots.) I also got a purple kohlrabi from Leigh on Wednesday, so I may do a pickled carrots and kohlrabi for the house, too. (Hopefully without incident)

I wanted to make stuffing for the chicken, but I can't justify buying stuffing mix, sausage, celery and prunes to make my mom's recipe when I've got a drawer full of vegetables I haven't eaten. Not to mention that serving potatoes and stuffing is a bit excessive on the starch. We've probably finally accumulated enough tomatillos to make a salsa verde (now that the purslane's gone, no verdolagas for me), so I may crock on a pork loin that next week.

I really want to go berry picking at some point and get a crapton of tomatoes, sweet onions, peaches and apples from Larriland Farm. They're quite a drive, but they've got a huge campus, great selection and decent prices. I've been toying with the idea of making lots of jams to can and give to people for giftmas (who doesn't love homemade onion jam, peach chutney or apple butter? No one, that's who). Of course, I'd probably have to buy my third immersion blender. (They keep dying. I miss them)

I also made this pasta salad the other day and I really liked how it came out. I added chicken, which made it a meal. If I had to do it again, I would have added finer salt, more of it, and mozzarella with the chicken, I think. Still, it's a good, healthy salad, even if it's a lot of chopping time. And orzo falls through the holes of my pasta strainer. In case you were wondering. Which you weren't.

I think that covers it. I'm going to be spending $42 on a 5 pound block of cheddar (and $8 for a 8oz bottle of raw agave, which I'm going to start subbing for sugar) from a local cheese group that my CSA guy works with. That's... that's a lot of cheese.

Have I mentioned how hard it is to find popsicle molds right now? Not because people are making popsicles because it's hot out in the heart of summer, oh no. Because around August 1st, all of the summer stuff goes away and the back to school displays come out. I spent $10 on getting 2 sets of 4 really crappy popsicle molds called cool cones or some shit. One of them broke falling out of the freezer last night when I was manuvering the ice cream maker bowl in. (I plan ahead, I do) Not that I'm bitter. I'd've gladly pay $10 for these instead except that BB&B didn't have them. (At least, when I asked the guy at the desk for popsicle molds, he showed me these freaking cool cones instead. NOT COOL, cones. NOT COOL)

Also, apparently we're going to run out of sugar. Which, you know what? Fine by me. I'm just having a bitter day, I guess.

Made a good soup in the crockpot last night. Went like this:
Mess of farm share potatoes (maybe 5-6 smaller ones?)
1 small onion
3 leeks
1/2 giant farmshare cabbage
3 garlic scapes
sprig thyme from backyard
1 box chicken broth
chopped chives (from backyard herb garden)
3 slices bacon, diced

Dice veggies and throw everything up to the chicken broth in crockpot and cook on low for 7 hours. Put bacon on to cook. Chop chives. Find immersion blender. Blend soup with immersion blender. Realize immersion blender is no longer working. Hunt for and rinse out suitable bowl to put finished soup in since you can no longer blend and serve from crockpot and cuisinart with appropriate bowl and blades. Realize bacon is burning. Remove bacon from heat. Accidentally melt the spatula on the hot stove. Accidentally melt a little of a plastic bag of kitchen gadgets sitting on the stove. Put 1/3 soup mixture in cuisinart and blend. Put into bowl and realize that it's the texture of applesauce. Regret that you considered putting in a second box of broth but decided against it. Put second third soup mixture in cuisinart with water and blend. Put into bowl and stir, to discover the texture is still a little rough. Put remaining third and a crapton of water in the cuisinart and blend. Add to the bowl, stir and taste. Realize you probably should have added salt. Add probably a tablespoon of salt & a little pepper to the bowl. Stir more. Taste again and wish you added more garlic and onion and remember that garlic scapes don't crock very well (they do fine in regular cooking, but it's my experience that they don't flavor as well as garlic cloves in soups). Dice unburned bacon. Ladle into bowls and add diced bacon and chives on top.

Makes 6 dinner sized servings or 12 side dish servings.

(So, if you're feeling the need to make some potato leek soup, I'd say: a good amount of potatoes, half a cabbage, 5 leeks, 2 small onions, 3 garlic cloves, 2 boxes chicken broth, 1 tbsp salt and a working immersion blender)

In the farm share this year, we've gotten cabbage. I got a head of cabbage last week and an even larger head of cabbage this week. It has perplexed both stentoriansista and I because neither of us really eat cabbage. So, I checked The Kitchn and decided that I'd make a braise. So, what I did was... sliced two baby onions and one large vidalia into rings at the bottom of the dutch oven. Added 3 small, tart, peeled and chopped green apples, one long chopped garlic scape. Washed, cored and sliced the green cabbage. Added 1/4 cup water and 1/8 cup honey to the dutch oven, light sprinkle red pepper flakes, salt, pepper. Oven was preheated to 375* for gooseberry cobbler, put in oven and turned down to 325*. Let cook for one hour, mixed with spicy bison sausage.

It's good, the cabbage still has a bit of crunch, and I think it'll reheat well, but the spicy sausage with the sweet cabbage don't work particularly well. Next time, I think I'll do a sweeter sausage. Also, dice the onion and cabbage, because the pieces are too big otherwise.

I'm going to try a potato, leek and cabbage soup with the giant cabbage head and two weeks worth of new potatoes from the farm share. I may end up carmelizing onions in the crock first, though. My aunt left me probably 4 pounds worth, plus we brought a couple vidalias over from the old place, plus I picked up a couple of sweets at the farmer's market.

They had rhubarb at the market too, so I am going to make rhubarb syrup. We bought a neat little cruet at the Container Store on Monday, so it'll seal nicely to keep in the fridge.

They also had kohlrabi at the farmer's market, so I bought a bunch. I've heard for yonks that it's delicious and the one thing in the CSA box that no one knows how to cook, so I'm looking forward to playing with that.

I just now have to find time to do it all. Yeah. That'll happen.

So, last week, I attempted to make this (vegan) bean dip but I made the fatal mistake of using the amount of garlic scapes called for by the recipe and the result was overpowering raw garlic taste. Much like eating an unroasted garlic clove. Bleh.

I decided that I could use it in a bread recipe, googled a bit and found this ranch style bread recipe and made it Monday. It's good! The garlic roasted, so it's a much milder flavor and the bread has extra protein from the beans. I'm using it for today's ham sandwich lunch... we'll see how it turns out.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to eat all of my lunch today... I put a handful of the mustard greens and a handful of the sorrel from yesterday's farm share pickup in a tupperware this morning. I had one of the mustard greens as I walked out the door... and let's just say my sinuses cleared out very quickly. Not sure if I'll be able to eat the rest. Is it weird that I didn't think that mustard greens would taste like concentrated mustard?

In other news, my plants are growing!!! The tomato seedling added a third shoot (though there are two dead shoots, but they weren't looking good when I got the seedling). Basil's growing and mystery seedling (either oregano or marjoram) is looking good too. Picked up a parsley at the farm share today. It's freaking me out that I may be able to keep plants alive and then use them to cook. I feel all growed up.

Y'all, I don't know how I lived without this deliciousness before. Take 1 slice good bread (not sandwich bread unless it's homemade) and spread with butter, boursin cheese, cream cheese or a good chevre, sprinkle with coarse salt (if you have a sea salt grinder, use that). Top with sliced radish (French breakfast preferably, but any kind is good) and sprinkle with chives. It's really, really tasty. If you're hosting a party, you could easily make these using melba toasts for hors d'oeuvres.

So, I had yet another good cooking day today. I woke up this morning and put pumpkin curry soup in the crockpot before grabbing a quick breakfast (um... at 1pm. What?). Sat around for a while before running off to a quick Target run then hit the pool at the gym. Hadn't done that in a while. It was nice! It ended up being closer to an hour than the half hour I originally planned, but I had a good workout that left me a little drained for the rest of the day. Got home and put pork shoulder in to braise (subbed chili powder for paprika, but OMG SO GOOD!) and a beer and bacon bread in the bread machine (meh - it didn't notify me at the mix in point, so all the bacon ended up at the end the bread). So, we have tons of delicious food available for the week.

stentoriansista curled my hair. It looks wicked pretty.

Tomorrow is dinner with the aunt. Hopefully I'll wake up a bit. Hopefully our washer will get fixed and we can get started on the giant pile of laundry that's accumulated in the past week. Gotta clean up the kitchen too.

The other night, I did another variation on this random faux-Moroccan dish I made a couple weeks ago. Surprisingly, I didn't actually use my slow cooker. I really liked how it turned out, so here's the recipe...

4 cups chicken broth
3 parnsnips, peeled and chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chop
2 cloves minced garlic
2 chicken breasts (pork tenderloin works well too)
1 cup uncooked cous cous
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp thyme
salt & pepper to taste

In a dutch oven/large pot, heat the chicken broth to boiling. Add vegetables and spices and additional water to cover veggies (if needed) and simmer 20 minutes/until vegetables are soft. While the veggies are simmering, cook the chicken breasts (foreman grill works great for this) and shred with two forks. Once veggies are done, remove from heat, add the uncooked cous cous and chicken, stir, cover and let sit five minutes. Stir some more and enjoy!

If you have them, I'd recommend adding golden raisins to the mix with the cous cous and chicken for extra Moroccan feel.

Makes about 6 servings.

Girlyfriend is home! Goodness gracious, I missed her bunches and bunches. Also went out for anneball's birthday last night to Fado. Note to self: Don't drink strongbow on an empty stomach. I was almost past tipsy about halfway through the drink. (Then I ate. Then I was fine)

In the crockpot this morning is:
1 bag black beans, soaked overnight, drained & rinsed
2 onions, diced
1 can (30oz) crushed tomatoes
1 cup red peppers
4 sausages, diced
2 pieces of bacon, diced
4 cups turkey stock
1 cup brown rice (uncooked)
4 cloves minced garlic
seasoning (salt, basil, thyme, oregano, spike & chili powder)

We'll see how this turns out. I think it'll probably need more seasoning, since the turkey stock has none. Also, I left the turkey stock out on the counter to thaw overnight... and it didn't. Most of the middle was still frozen. Oh well, it's cooking all day on low (for the beans to cook), which will give it time to thaw.

Trying to figure out what black eyed peas to cook for New Years.

So, the first thing I did after dividing out my gallon of yogurt was to take whatever didn't fit in my tupperware containers and make frogurt (also cursed). I've been wanting to try this for a while:

Honey Plum Ginger Froyo:
1 1/2 cups low fat yogurt
3/4 cup plum puree
fresh grated ginger to taste
3 tbsp honey

Mix and let sit in refrigerator for about half an hour. Freeze in ice cream according to directions. Make approx 2.5 cups.

Verdict: With perfect, 20/20 hindsight, I can safely say that though the plum puree colors it pink rather nicely, you don't taste the plums. The puree was the remainder of some farm share plums that were just about to go bad. I skinned them, then pureed and froze them. I wish I'd made this fresh (we didn't have any yogurt at the time), and I put in way too much ginger (I just grated most of what was left of the stuff we had). As a result, it's really just pink ginger ice cream. It's still tasty, but it doesn't set my world on fire. The yogurt tastes quite good in this. I'm kind of glad I didn't follow a recipe and do yogurt, milk & gelatin. This had a fairly nice texture, I thought.

In queue for freezing this week: honey froyo, peach froyo, and dulce de leche froyo. And maybe vanilla. What? We have a lot of yogurt to get through, even with the stuff I saved for a starter for the next batch.

This pumpkin cake was really good but would have been so much better if I had trusted the directions and broiled it for 3 minutes instead of five, scorching the top of the cake and all the pecans.

Still really tasty though. And I used fresh pumpkin that I roasted the other week too.

So, I made apple chutney last night and canned a lot of it. I just mixed the rest with some cream cheese, which sounded really good in theory but didn't taste too fantastic in practice. It's not awful but it's not great. The chutney, on the other hand, turned out middling well - I think I reduced it too much so there's a lot of apple cider vinegar tang, but it'll make an excellent marinade, I think.

Recipe
4 cups overly spiced nasty apple sauce
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 finely chopped onions
2 garlic cloves, minced
small handful chopped yellow and red peppers
medium piece of ginger, grated

Simmer under low heat for 20-30 minutes. Pulverize with an immersion blender until smooth.

(If you have not made nasty, overly cloved apple sauce, I would season with a little cinnamon (1 tsp), cloves (1/8 tsp) and some allspice (1/2 tsp). Also, you are far smarter than I)

Awesome new bread recipe.

Apple bread recipe (subbing 1 cup apple sauce for 1 cup oil made it a smaller, denser bread, but is still tasty)

Clean Out the Fridge Black Bean Stew
1 16oz package black beans, soaked overnight, drained & rinsed
1 15oz can diced tomatoes
2 onions, diced
1 small green pepper, diced
handful baby carrots, diced
1 Anaheim pepper, diced
3 mini hot peppers, deseeded and diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 boxes chicken broth
1 cup uncooked brown rice
cumin
3 chicken breasts

Combine all in your slow cooker and cook 8 hours on low. It's cooking now so I can't tell you how good/bad it is. It may be insanely spicy.

(Also, if you're only chopping & deseeding 3 hot peppers, your thumbs will still tasty spicy afterwards)

ETA: Needed more seasoning. Next time I do something similar, more garlic, more cumin, add chili powder and some salt (low sodium chicken broth). Also, this filled my 6 quart crockpot to bursting, which is probably why the beans didn't cook completely despite 8.5 hours of cooking. Could probably have used more chicken, though black beans & rice together are a complete protein.

This proves my continuing theory that alcohol makes everything awesome.

2.5 cups peach puree
1 cup water
1/2 - 2/3 cups sugar
1 tbsp dark rum
juice of one lime

Heat the sugar and water until the sugar is dissolved. Cool and then combine with puree, rum & lime. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to directions. Makes 4 cups.

Delicious. (At least in pre-sorbet form. It's churning right now) ETA: Oh, it's delicious. That's what I want girly drinks to taste like.

This was a super quick, what's in the fridge meal that ended up being incredible tasty.

1 can black beans, rinsed & drained
2 ears of corn, cooked and de-cobbed (strip the kernels)
3 tomatoes, diced, w/ juice
2 green bell peppers
1 clove garlic, minced
2 chicken breasts
oregano, cumin, red pepper, & salt to taste
chicken broth
shredded cheese to taste

Dice the tomatoes and peppers and mix with the corn, beans, spices and garlic. Mix thoroughly. Combine in skillet w/ chicken breasts over medium-high heat. Pour in chicken broth to just cover veggies. Simmer, covered, until chicken is cooked through. Shred and let simmer for a few minutes to mix flavors. Serve over rice or with bread. Top with shredded cheese.

It was really, really, really good. And easy.

I could not be more thrilled... I've spent a lovely weekend with stentoriansista. We went to Larriland Farms on Saturday and bought probably $75 worth of fruit - raspberries, white raspberries, blackberries, probably 20 pounds of apples and peaches. We've got a raspberry crisp about to be made, blackberry wine sorbet churning and we're going to make apple bread and attempt either apple sauce or canning apple butter.

We were there for about an hour and a half at around 3 in the afternoon and when we got home, we were so wiped that we really couldn't move. The heat took it out of us, so we had a casual dinner, ate half the raspberries, watched TV and set up curried squash & apple soup in the crockpot.

Yesterday, I emerged from bed around noonish, cooked the chicken for the soup, pureed the soup and enjoyed a tasty lunch before doing a brief venture to the gym, Target and the wine store for prosecco (for the berries!). Then it was off to wiredwitch's birthday party, a Buffy the Musical sing along. While there wasn't a whole lot of singing along, there was a whole lot of verita, cheesecake, good food, good people, good times. Had to bug out a little early, unfortunately. I'd heard a lot about verita and after having had it, I must say... it was all true. Also, awesome.

Today we got up early so we could hit up G Street before stentoriansista had to work. Got a pair of work flats at Payless and stopped by Target for their wine cubes - got a sauvignon blanc for cooking/I feel like a glass of wine and a cab/sauv combo for the sorbet/I feel like a glass of red wine. Got home, took a nap, and then hit the pool for the first time in two years. And, y'all, I am wiped. I got a plan from SwimPlan, got there and then couldn't do a 25 meter lap of freestyle. So I threw it out the window, played with the kickboard and the pulley, and then felt better about it and did the remainder of the swimplan as written. So, my 30-45 minute workout took me a little over an hour. Got home, ate some food, got a couple of loaves of bread started and made the sorbet. And now I am sitting here. Very, very happy. We're going to have an awesome dinner of farm share food, fresh bread with the prosecco and berries and raspberry/basil crisp for dessert.

Blackberry Sorbet w/ Wine
(makes 4 cups)
2 1/2 cups pureed blackberries (about 4 cups pre-pureed - if you've got extra, freeze it to make blackberry ice cream)
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup red wine
lemon juice to taste

In small sauce pan, combine sugar and water. Heat until sugar is completely dissolved and then put in refrigerator to cool. (Most sorbet recipes want more sugar - closer to 2/3 - 1 cup, but I always find that to be too much sugar. Your tastes may vary) When mixture is cooled, combine it with wine and blackberries. Mix well. Add lemon juice to taste. Mix well. Taste and do a 'omg that's delicious' dance. Make in ice cream maker according to instructions. Rejoice again.

This is in the oven with 1/3 of the grated zucchini I have from the giant zucchini I got from the farm share. I subbed a cup of applesauce that I made from last year's fruit share for oil and swapped out a cup of flour for wheat flour, so I'll even feel good about eating it. And the batter was abso-frigging-lutely delicious.

I need to remember to either refrigerate the peaches from Leigh or eat them quickly. The ones I picked up on Tuesday are absolutely disgusting and moldy today. Yikes.

ETA: Yep. Two things: 1: My stove sucks. It took me an hour and a half to cook this shit and not 40-60 minutes like the recipe suggests (of course, I put them on the lower rack - I may change that in future. 2: This, even with all the healthy mods, is really, really good. Next time I might cut the sugar down to 1 3/4 cups.

(or to store the link for me)

Pecan, Brown Sugar & Bacon Ice Cream.

Bacon ice cream. You heard me.

This was one of those dishes... I was going to make white chili, but I didn't have an onion and the chicken breasts smelled off... but then I made this and while it's tasty, I don't think I'll make it again.

3/4 pork tenderloin, trimmed and cut into chunks
2 cans white beans, drained & rinsed
1 can crushed tomatoes w/ liquid
8oz pre-sliced carrots
4 ribs celery, chopped
2-3 cups low salt chicken broth
4 bay leaves
rosemary
thyme
oregano
2 tsps garlic salt (I forgot to add garlic and I'm out right now)

Toss everything in your slow cooker. Crock on low for 8 hours. Makes a pretty tasty soup!

3/4 pounds pre-cut stew beef
8 oz pre-sliced carrots
3 ribs celery, chopped
3 potatoes, washed & quartered
1 onion, chopped
1 8oz can tomato paste
1 15 oz can low sodium beef broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
various herbs, to taste (rosemary, thyme, oregano, bay leaves & I usually throw in a little chili powder)

Throw everything in the crockpot, putting veggies before meat. Stir beef broth, garlic, tomato paste & herbs together. Pour on top of everything. Cook on low for 7-8 hours. I don't recommend cooking on high as cooking potatoes on high causes them to lose their shape and become just a mealy broth in the stew - not tasty.

Also, I cannot recommend this low fat sweet potato, pork & apple stew highly enough. It is delish. Like, I made it twice in two weeks delish.

Folks on what_a_crock really like this Mexican chicken chili, but either my mild enchilada sauce was not mild or I threw in too much chili powder, because it's wicked hot and therefore not that tasty to me.

2 cans white beans, rinsed and drained
2 chicken breasts, cooked & diced (or if you're lazy & pressed for time, mostly defrosted and chopped and cook for 2 hours longer)
1 onion, diced
carrots, diced (1-2)
celery, diced (2-3)
1/2 carton chicken broth
3 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 bay leaves
cumin (tablespoonish)
thyme (tablespoonish)
oregano (tablespoonish)
bay leaves (4-5)
pepper (1/2 teaspoonish)

Throw it all in a crockpot. Cook on low 6 hours. Will let you know how it turns out (it's currently in the pot).

Last night, I was going to make baked apple ice cream, but I baked the apples too long in a dish that was a little too big and the sugar burned, as did most of the apples. So, I made pink lemonade ice tea sorbet instead. Will try the apple ice cream later - and I won't go by recipe times, I'll go by what the apples look like (I always forget that).

This is sorbet #2 in the ice cream maker and in both cases, I've used less sugar than the recipe required (I did about 1 2/3 cups instead of 2 for the sorbet last night... because I ran out of sugar) and both sorbets have tasted too sweet straight out of the maker. Of course, they usually go from the maker to the freezer and the watermelon sorbet last night tasted fine, so... yeah.

I just rejoined my CSA for 2008. It's an investment, but it's a worthwhile one. I was just thinking last night that it had me trying (and liking!) vegetables that I wouldn't normally eat otherwise, it's relatively inexpensive and it makes me feel good about what I'm eating. I just have to actually eat it before it goes bad and pay a bit more attention when I pick out veggies - I had to throw out a couple of apples last night (including one with worm holes, ew) as well as the radishes that had gone shrivelly and soft after sitting out for 6 days.

So, I'm wearing this hoodie that has a faux drawstring at my bustline. How do I know it's faux? It just fell off.

Dresden Files rules, roommates who keep knocking crap off of pans in the oven, causing it to smoke constantly and me to go crazy with baking soda drool.

anneball in town on Friday! Whee!

So, I made jambalaya. This is what I actually put it:
( ingredients, whee! )

When I tasted the finished product, it was really underseasoned, so I started throwing in salt, garlic salt, black pepper, red pepper, thyme, oregano and chili pepper... probably a teaspoon to a tablespoon of each. There was too much chicken, not enough rice, veggies or broth. I think if I were to make it again, it'd look a bit more like this:

2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
3 links chorizo, sliced & cooked
3 cloves garlic
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
5 ribs celery, diced
5 pods okra, diced
2 cans diced tomatoes, with liquid
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup uncooked brown rice
3 bay leaves
2 tsps each salt, black pepper, red pepper, thyme, oregano & chili powder

Since everything that needed to be cooked was pre-cooked, everything was fine for the four hours on high that I had it - the rice cooked in that time and the vegetables cooked too.

The shredded chicken is really easy to do - just get a good size chicken, remove gizzards & excess fat, season with salt & pepper, stick about half a stick of butter in the cavity and put it in a crockpot on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6-8 hours. When it's done, the meat pretty much just falls off the chicken - little to no carving necessary. I usually just put the excess in tupperware and throw it in the freezer for meals just like this. There's also about a cup & a half of chicken stock at the bottom of the pot that you can freeze for later dates. I fit a 5 pound chicken in a 4 or 5 quart crockpot without issue.

Of course, I haven't had lunch yet, so I don't know how good it is. Will let you know in a bit.

So, problem the first - I decided to do MS3 on a size smaller needles for the first, 50 row chart, just to see if I like it better. I like it better. It's tighter, the stitch definition is better, blah blah blah, I'm redoing the whole 105 rows that have taken me a week and a half. Awesome.

Problem the second... I made goingdriftless' cheesy chili tonight but forgot the second can of tomatoes. I've only separated out one serving, I guess I can just throw in the rest, but this is annoying

ETA: I'm 76 rows on size 3s into the 106 rows that took me two week on size 4s. I guess that's what happens when I sit at home and watch bad TV all night.