Food pics from the last two weeks

Some pictures of food we cooked over the last two weeks (Sorry for my poor food photography):

Chickpea and spinach soup... the color is crazy! It was delicious. 

 Here is the appetizer we ate 2 Sundays ago. It's sliced baguette which was drizzled with salt flakes and olive oil, and then baked in the oven. Upon leaving the oven, homemade mayo and fresh scampi meat was applied. 5 stars to this - it was incredible.

 A picture of the champagne we enjoyed. It was really nice but a bit acidic for my tastes.

And here is the result of our hard efforts. Beef tenderloin crusted

with pistachio and bacon, and side of crisp sweet potato chips.

Carrot Banan Muffins 

Fresh salad

Vanilla ice cream topped with almond biscuits

and cherry sorbet

Making pirogis (stuffed with cheese and root vegetables)

Pirogis right out of the oven

12kg in 12 weeks challenge

One of Reddit's subforums is the "Body Transformation Fitness Challenge", hosting over 10,000 people looking to improve themselves. Several times a year they hold a 12 week challenge to see who can become the fittest. A new challenge is starting this Friday and I've decided to participate. My goal is a lofty 1kg (2.2 lbs) a week of weight loss, for the next 12 weeks. It's a high goal and I'm going to take it a week at a time, focusing on the here and now, everyday decisions that make or break weight loss. I already lost 3-4kg in January and I wasn't exercising all that much, so I think I can do it.


The cornerstone of my plan is of course healthy eating with calorie counting. No more than 1500 kcal a day, no less than 1200. I assume I'll be sitting more around 1500 a day which is fine. Eggs for breakfast, sometimes with a whole grain compliment, chicken salads for lunch, yoghurt and fruit for snacks, and then whatever for dinner. I'm already doing this and I'm pretty satisfied/happy with my diet.

As far as exercise, I had hoped to join the swim team but they are being coy and not writing me back, alas. So for now I'm going to focus on biking to and from work as much as possible, even when it's shitty out. This will be supplimented with running, hiking, and DDR when I feel like it.

I'm going to try and stay away from sugar as much as possible still, although I plan to allow myself occasional dessert, as long as I don't spiral out of control. Easier said than done, so that part will be tricky, but it's important because it leads to healthy maintenance later on.

I really just want to get rid of the rest of this weight. Andreas and I are thinking about kids again (Andreas will be 30 this year!), and our child deserves a healthy body to grow in. I'm hoping that thought alone will propel me towards my goal. It will also be great to be better able to keep up with Andreas, hike longer, do more, and feel better about myself.

Wish me well with the hard work ahead of me!

I did it!

I signed up for the swim team. Well, sort of. I made an account on their website and signed up for the Master's group, although according to their website, there is a queue. I also emailed, inquiring about the cost and training times, and if there actually is a queue... which would suck.

I'm proud I took this step. I am quite nervous about joining, for several reasons really. The largest one is that my ears are very sensitive and get easily infected, so I've been swimming with ear plugs for the last 5 years now. Which is great, except I can't really hear anything with them in, and I've never tried to be in a group training while wearing them. This would be scary enough, except add onto that, that the instruction will be in Swedish, and I'm wondering how that will work. Especially since I don't know any swimming terms anyways in Sweden. The ear plugs are pretty easy to pull slightly in and out, so that I can hear a bit. I was also considering that I can wear a plug in one ear, and switch for each swim practice, giving one ear a rest each time. Still, I'm worried for infection and pain.

Of course another reason is because I'm not that fit and I'm large. I should just get over it and feel awesome that I'm taking steps to get in shape, but that is easier said than done. I won't let this particular reason stop me either.

The last big reason I can think of is that it is a large time commitment... they train 4 evenings a week, which is a lot. And the times aren't always exactly convenient, meaning that I'll have to eat dinner at my office and work late some evenings, etc.


BUT, today I conquered my fears, and signed up anyways. Because if I don't even sign up, I never gave it a chance. There are so many benefits if I do start swimming!! Meeting a bunch of cool people, getting in shape, feeling good about myself, and getting to compete again. Huge reasons why I should do this.

We'll see what answer I get back from them!

Skirt: check! (maybe??)

I "finished" the skirt. When I say finished, I really mean that I ran out of yarn, and decided that this skirt has a chance of fitting me one day, so I wouldn't need to buy another skein (which possibly wouldn't match). When I say one day, I mean one day when I have a 31 inch waist...  maybe I should buy another skein? I don't know, I can't make up my mind. And I also realized I need to rip out about 6 rows if I truely am done, because I skipped the instructions at the end for the button band. Kind of important. Anyways, I marked this thing as done on ravelry and I'm going to let it sit while I contemplate what to do.

The skirt probably looks very small but it is extremely stretchy because of the type of stitch and yarn.


Meanwhile, I have decided to work on the baby blanket I had started. I have a lot of yarn sitting around for it, and it's actually a fun project. At the time I started doing it, I really wanted to learn to continental knit, and the patterns made that difficult. Now seems like a good time, at the beginning of the year, to finish up projects I have laying around.


On the sewing side of things, I've committed to finishing this box bag I started. It's not a simple pattern as it also includes special material for strengthening the bag sides (can't think of the name right now!). But I have already cut the fabric for the bag, so I might as well get on with it..

.. so that I can start my other sewing project...

(This fabric is for the kitchen)

(and this is for the living room)

 Curtains for the kitchen and living room!It should be simple, except that it is a lot of fabric and might be tricky getting straight lines through the sewing machine. Luckily curtains will be forgiving. I mean, I assume they will? Whatever, it'll work it. We bought cute fabric that will let some light shine through.

In other news, we watched a really fantastic film yesterday, "Kyss mig" ("With every heartbeat" is the American title). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1859522/ The scenery and music complemented the story beautifully, and the acting was phenominal in my opinion. I highly recommend it. It was released in the U.S. in October last year, subtitled I believe. Check it out!

New House

We finally moved to Linköping, where I currently work. Our new house is wonderful; built in 2008 and shiny. Very shiny.

I also have my very own knitting/sewing room now!

On the knitting front... well I completed many, many projects since my last blog post and I don't really feel like detailing all of it. But what I am currently working on is a very fun, quick project.. the Carnaby Skirt from Knitty Deep Fall 2010.

This thing is gorgeous! I'm using Rowan Pure Wool Aran in the Ember (679) colorway. I'm a little over 1/2 of the way done. It's difficult to find time to knit with the move, but I'm hoping to complete this thing within a week or two. Andreas is in Holland right now so I have some time on my hands while he is away.


Besides the house and I'm knitting, I'm trying to move more in general, be it cooking, walking the dog, or cleaning. I developed some bad habits when I started working in September, and I want to get fit again! I really enjoyed this article I stumbled upon recently. The message is change who you are, not how you look or appear to others. I like that, it resonates with me. I hope I can change myself for the better this coming year.

Wishing you a merry 2013 from Sweden!

Food! Week 3 of 2013

I really like cooking, and I love food. We often plan out a week menu, which rarely has the same dish  on it except for some tried and true favorites. So I thought maybe I'd start putting that here on the blog in any case, as it forms a fairly large part of my life and day. I usually start the week from Saturday because that is when we go shopping.

Week 3 food:

We are going fancy on Saturday, lobster bruschetta with roe mayonnaise as a starter, followed by grilled beef tenderloin crusted in bacon and pistachios, with sweet potato crisps. Recipe source: Allt om Mat, Nyårs, Nr 1 2013. For dessert, a red currant pie, from "Alltid hungrig", Renee Voltaire. It has virtually zero sugar added which is great since I banned myself from sugar for the rest of January.

Rest of the week:

Chickpea soup, Alltid Hungrig, Renee Voltaire
Polenta cake with spinach and red onion, Alltid Hungrig, Renee Voltaire
Bell pepper pasta with prosciutto, Allt om Mat Nyår Nr 1 2013
Mexican Stuffed Shells, The Girl Who Ate Everything
Burritos with spanish rice, Fatfreevegan

I'll post some pictures of this week's food with next week's post. This is just a start. :)

Zombie Monster Pants

I know.. I suck at keeping this blog updated. I guess I'm just not a true blogger at heart. Or maybe it's that I don't have enough time for the 1,001 things that Andreas and I do on a weekly basis. Either way, I figure it's still fun to post from time to time.

Lately we've been very busy with the garden. Everything is growing nicely, even though it's been a rainy colder summer. Nothing like Holland of course, but not exactly perfect growing weather either. Andreas is building a greenhouse from scratch, which will hopefully be ready in another month or so. We won't get much use out of it this year, but next year will be nice.

When we aren't in the garden, we've been taking long bicycle rides and hunting for mushrooms in the woods. So far we've only found a few large edibles, but the famed golden yellow chanterelles are poking their squishy hats up already. In another week or so I expect we'll have our first batch of these beauties, and then we'll be simmering them into some delightful dish or another.

The rest of my time I spend learning Swedish, programming, running (I'm training for a 10k race a month from now), reading Swedish books, cooking, cleaning, more Swedish, applying for jobs, feeling sorry for myself and lack of money, scheming on ways to make money, and bothering Andreas ;)

On the knitting front, I've accomplished two projects. The first is a soft, washable baby blanket for my friend Prathiba, who is about to deliver a beautiful baby girl any day now.

The blanket:

The pattern was really simple, using single, double, and triple yarns overs which were later dropped to achieve the cool effect you see. It got a little repetitive at the end but I was so excited about finishing and giving the gift that I made it through it. The pattern is from Pickles, a Norwegian yarn company who has some patterns for free. You can find it here: http://www.pickles.no/breezy-winter-baby-blanket/ 


Funnily enough I used similar colors to their example but that is a coincidence. I asked Prathiba to pick out some colors she liked from Cascade 220 Superwash (the yarn I used) and then I came up with these three colors). The orange-ish one you see is actually pink but I'm a horrible picture taker. In any case, the baby shower is Saturday so that will be fun.










Besides that, I finally finished the monster pants (now called 'Zombie Monster Pants'.. you'll see why shortly). I took the plunge and figured out how to duplicate stitch. A friend of mine from my knitting group suggested I use a thicker yarn so I first started by trying to use some white worsted weight yarn that I had on hand. That was a disaster though, so I reverted back to the white yarn in the same brand and size (Drop Baby Merino) that I used for the pants themselves. Some of the green and pink shows through a little bit but for a first time, I'm satisfied. 


Here they are!

These are going in a tightly sealed box for a while yet, but I look forward to the day when we have a little cute butt and legs in these things, walking and crawling around. :) 




What's next? I'm learning how to crochet, so that is fun. Nothing serious yet, just learning the basic stitches. An added twist is I'm learning it both in Swedish and English, since you know, just learning something in one language isn't challenging enough! ;) I also want to start again on the Dane shawl, that tricky tricky piece of work. I know I can do it though! And there is the baby blanket I was making for myself, which I really should just finish already so it's out of the way. And I really want to knit a pair of socks. There's also that skein of yarn I bought to make Andreas a matching winter hat to go with his scarf....