Halloumi, Zucchini and Sundried Tomato Penne

 

This month has a been taxing on the wallet so I've been avoiding buying groceries and trying to make do with whatever I have in the house. That, combined with the fact that Matt and I have opposing schedules this week and haven't been eating together, allowed me to be rather creative in the kitchen. This recipe is one of my creations that actually turned out. I would actually make this intentionally now. So should you.

When I was googling zucchini recipes trying to figure out what I could do with the 3 I had in the fridge I saw this recipe for sundried tomato zucchini rounds and was all excited because I actually had sundried tomatoes too! But I didn't have goat cheese or chives. Then I thought "YAY I have halloumi!!" so that's how I came up with this dish!

Ingredients

250g package of halloumi, sliced into 3/4" slabs
300-400g of dried penne
3 small zucchinis, sliced in 1" medallions, then chopped in half again
2 gloves of garlic, crushed
1/4 of yellow onion, diced
4 tablespoons sliced sundried tomatoes in oil
1 tbsp oregano
olive oil
salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Boil penne until al dente, and set aside.
2. Grill halloumi on a greased grill, or in a frying pan with a bit of olive oil. This should take about a minute a side, and the cheese should be golden and firm where the grill/pan has touched it. Set halloumi aside on a plate.
3. Put a large frying pan on medium heat, drizzle with olive oil, add your diced onions and cook until soft. Add the crushed garlic and mix around for 30 seconds.  When chopping the zucchini try and make your zucchini slices the same size as the penne. Add the sliced zucchini to the pan, mix well and add more olive oil if it looks dry.
4. Season zucchini generously with salt and pepper and the oregano. Cook zucchini until firm yet soft on the outside, for about 3-5 minutes.
5. When the zucchini is done, add the pasta, sundried tomatoes, break up the fried halloumi into bite-size pieces and mix it all together. Fry until all the ingredients have heated up and married into a lovely harmony of flavours. Then eat! It's great the next day too.

Owl Mittens

I made these mittens as a part of a class at Stash Needle Art Lounge. I had done fair isle knitting before but I taught myself and I have been known to make some things up so I wanted to take a class to learn the right way. Low and behold, I did make some stuff up with my own creative fair isle technique. Before the class, I couldn't figure out how to wrap the main colour when working along patch of contrasting colour, so I would twist the yarns awkwardly which involved getting the two colour threads tangled most times, as my way to wrap the main colour. It seemed to work, but it defeats the purpose of fair isle two handed knitting, where your threads never get tangled. So I learned how to do that properly in the class (yay! no more tangled yarn cakes!) and I also learned how to do Kitchener Stitch properly! I found out that I also made up my own little way to do that. Trust me, the proper way looks a whole lot neater! Also a fun little tip I learned for when you join the first round on double pointed needles to avoid the little hole in joined-in joint.

Here's the tip:

1. Ok so you've cast on your stitches and distributed them around on your DPNs.
2. To join in the round, take the first stitch off the left hand needle and place it on the right.
3. Take the second stitch on the right hand needle over the first stitch on the right hand needle and place it on the left hand needle.
4. You have now joined the round by crossing over the stitches. And there's no little hole or jog on the seam edge! Wahoo!

I'm actually a little scared to post this because I already have 3 or 4 requests for a pair of these from people who have already seen them. I guess it is pretty hard to resist the cuteness!!

For information on yarn and the pattern you can see my ravelry project page. I've committed to actually recording my finished projects on Ravelry now because eventually I want to start test knitting so the project page of my Ravelry account will serve as a resume of sorts to showcase my soon-to-be-acquired-mad-knitting-skills.