Thanksgiving Home Cooking

I'm becoming such a homebody these days (granted I still go out to bars and party with my friends). I crochet and am becoming a really good cook - well I think I am anyways LOL. All I need to do better is cleaning and I'll make my dog a really good housewife - mainly because I'm as single as they come and sometimes I'm ok with that :).
So for Thanksgiving, considering I'll be at work, my coworkers and I are going to celebrate together. Each of us will be bringing a dish in to share with everyone. For me, Thanksgiving means Portuguese stuffing, ham, and chourico and potatoes. My vavo used to make so much food and I can just taste it just thinking about it, but since she passed away, it was hard for my family to make all the yummy things she used to make because my vavo didn't use any cookbooks or recipes. It was always a pinch of this and a pinch of that. So for the past few years we've finagled the dishes she used to make and with each year it gets better and better.
I have given myself the task of making chourico and potatoes because I'm a big potato fan LOL. The only thing we knew involved in this dish was goya, chourico, potatoes, beer, tomato paste and crushed red pepper. The first year I made it I used what we knew my vavo to use and I asked my uncle's mother for her recipe and combined the two. I thought it was pretty good and I've been using that ever since, until today.  I didn't have any beer in my house so I used wine and no tomato paste - because the tomato paste was only used for color anyway and it always looked so messy. Using the wine I think worked out 10 times better than when I used the beer...I'm definitely using wine every year now because it tastes almost exactly like how my vavo used to make it - but of course it will never taste exactly like vavo's but it's still wicked delicious.

Here's the recipe if any of you want to try it out :)

preheat oven to 350degrees
cut up enough potatoes to fill the bottom of the roasting pan.
cut four chourico links and place on top of potatoes.
chop either a whole onion or a half an onion (depends on your own taste, I used a half onion this time around) and 3 garlic cloves (again to your own preference) and spread on top.
mix 6 packets of goya with 12 ozs of white wine (I used sauvignon blanc this time and I used 12 ozs because that's what a can of beer is...so I just switched it up) and pour over everything.
use wet crushed red pepper and pour a couple spoonfuls over everything.
sprinkle crushed red pepper flakes over everything.
bake for about an hour (my stove might be breaking because what usually took an hr took about 2 hrs for the potatoes to cook fully, so just keep checking)
ENJOY!!! :) Also, feel free to dip bread in the sauce...tastes wicked good!!!

Crochet Addict

So for the past month I've been getting into crocheting. Hello, my name is Veronica, I'm 27 years old and I have a crochet addiction :). I don't know what made me decide to pick up my vavo's yarn and start crocheting, but it just sort of happened. When I was a child, my vavo tried teaching me how to crochet but she always said I was holding the needle too tightly, and when I tried making more than one row it ended up crooked. But thanks to pinterest and youtube...I've learned a lot and am so excited to make the cutest hats, scarves and slippers imaginable!!! The only problem is, I wish I had this much enthusiasm while my vavo was still alive so we could crochet together while watching portuguese soap operas - now that would be AWESOME!

So far, I've only made two things. First was this headwarmer w/ flower. Now, when I was a kid I could never make a straight line...a blanket I tried to make for my newborn cousin turned into a triangle and I just gave up. So for a flower to be the first thing I learn how to make is absolutely hilarious to me. But anywho, I used a magic circle and with the help of the Daisy Cottage I created my first flower, and attached it to my black headpiece, and voila! My ears will be warm all winter, and they will be stylish to boot! :)

 

Second thing I made was this adorable owl hat found on the Daisy Cottage again. At first, I found it hard to make a hat big enough for my friends' baby (because I have never made a hat before) but after numerous tries I finally created this masterpiece. Can't wait for baby Hudson to wear it, and honestly can't wait to make more creations. I'm going to stick to the basics for a little while, because Christmas is coming up so I'm going to making most of my family scarves and maybe some beanie hats. But I'm seriously hooked. Everytime I go to a store like Walmart or Michaels, I end up with more yarn - I really don't need any more yarn considering I have a small bins worth of yarn, but its my obsession along with books - though I do have a Nook, but that's another story :).