Friday 8 June 2012

And now, for something a little different from me...

I should have done this step-by-step with pictures, but I wanted to share a recipe with you. I'm calling it poor-man's sausage casserole, because there are only 5 ingredients and it's super-easy! AND you can do it all in one pot!

Equipment:
A stone casserole dish with a lid - pyrex dishes are also good.
A wooden spoon or your preferred stirring implement.

Ingredients:
4 sausages. Good meaty ones are best. I'm using low-fat ones as they're what I had ready.
A tin of chopped tomatoes - 400g
A tin of baked beans
A couple of handfuls of mixed veg (if you like, you can used fresh veg and add whatever you like. Mine is a frozen mix of broccoli, carrot, cauliflower and peas)
A large onion, diced (again, I'm cheap so I use ready chopped, frozen onions)

Method:
  1. Pre-heat the oven to about 180-200 degrees C
  2. Put the sausages into your dish. You can spray it with a little oil if you prefer, but I (try to) use stoneware that's pre-seasoned, so I don't need to. Brown them off in the oven.
  3. When the sausages are done, take them out of the oven and chop them into pieces, you can generally get 4/5 equal sized pieces out of each sausage. Put the sausage pieces into the lid of your casserole dish (just to save that extra bit of washing up as you'll need the empty pot for this next bit)
  4. Put all the other ingredients into the pot. Beans and tomatoes first, stir them together, then add your onions and other veg.
  5. Add a little water to make the sauce less thick, then add the sausage pieces and stir them in.
  6. Put the lid on the pot and cook in the oven for about 45 minutes.

(I will add a picture of the finished result later on!)

EDIT: Here it is! I think I'd also add a little seasoning in there. Some herbs and spices, etc. But it was still pretty good!


Tuesday 10 April 2012

Pinterest Love!

Have you discovered Pinterest yet? If not, where have you been?! It's been one of my best sources of inspiration since I opened my account late last year. Seriously, I have found some awesome tutorials and learned so much about crafts that I thought I was experienced in - turns out no matter how much you think you know, you can always learn something new!

So, for a while (read: a LOOOOONNNG time, maybe even more than a year...) I've been working on a t-shirt knitting pattern for my daughter. The pattern was in a UK based magazine and I had a LOT of problems with it. I won't name and shame the company, but I ended up blagging my way through the pattern as it was so badly written for the size I was making. Today, I finally finished knitting the main body of it and ended up with something a little like this:


I wasn't entirely happy with it - not that I expected to be with the amount of trouble I had with it - but I thought it just needed a little something to add to it. So, I began my quest. I knew that I wanted to add a crocheted edge to the sleeves and the bottom, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Eventually, I stumbled upon THIS BLOG and decided this was just what it needed. It's simple to do and yet so pretty, it really finished off the sleeves nicely. I HAD to share this little gem of information, so I "pinned" it to my crochet-devoted board on Pinterest and within an hour, over 40 other pinners had repinned it, too!

So, here's what I did with this lovely tutorial:


So far, I have done this on both sleeves and am still doing the bottom part (there's almost 300 stitches in that round and I apparently cast off fairly tight...) but I'm really pleased with it and I'm also so pleased that I had the chance to share this information with so many other crafters!

You don't have a Pinterest account? Don't worry! Just drop me an email on thecraftyninjauk[at]gmail[dot]com with your preferred email account to use for registration and I'll invite you as soon as I can! I will warn you though, it's VERY addictive. Hope to see some of you there really soon!

Thursday 29 March 2012

April fool...?

I know I haven't posted in ages, I really do apologise for that. I just sometimes don't have the motivation to even craft, let alone blog about it!

But, something BIG is happening for The Crafty Ninja!

I have written my very first crochet pattern - only a simple baby hat - but it's all my own pattern. AND... this is the big news... It's going to be published in an online magazine! Excited, much?!

Released on 1st April (really, NOT an April Fool!), issue 3 of crafter...oo magazine has a fabulous source of information for all crafters alike! It's only £1.50 per issue and you can purchase past issues by signing up to the forum (registration is free!) and clicking this link and following the instructions.

How fabulous does this cover look?!

Do you think YOU have what it takes to be in the next issue of crafter...oo magazine? Positions are now open for submitting content for issue 4, scheduled for release in July. Just pop on over to the crafter...oo forum and sign up to express your interest!

And please make sure to purchase issue 3 on April 1st to find my baby hat pattern and lots of other fantastic, crafty talent and inspiration!