food and sickness and knitting

We've officially had our first instance of sickness making its way around the family (at least, now that it's more than just the two of us). J. got a cold at Christmas. Then E. and I caught it in time for New Year's. Mine was worse than hers--I'm still sniffly a week and a half later and she's perfectly well. It was her first cold. Then J. came home from work on Thursday with more cold-like symptoms, followed by a fever and vomiting. He's still very congested and I'm crossing my fingers and hoping E. and I don't catch it. I suppose we'll know by the end of the week. I always tell people that she's up-to-date with her shots when she drools on them, but that's not really helpful for the things we don't have shots for. 

As we've all been varying degrees of ill lately, I have been somewhat inspired to make food. On Friday I made no-knead bread, bagels, and applesauce cake. Oh, and apple butter. The bread and bagels were partly an effort to use up some of the whey we have in the fridge. I made yogurt last week and then a batch of ricotta mid-week, so we ended up with a couple liters of whey that needed using up. I put it in pizza dough and in the bread and bagels. I think another loaf of bread is on the list, since there's still half a pitcher of the whey lurking on the top shelf next to the milk.

We've also been trying to use up the meat in our fridge since after it's gone, we're going to be eating a primarily vegetarian diet for a while (cue the random cravings for fried chicken and barbecued ribs that I have no current plans to bother trying to fulfill). I hadn't really realized how long it would take to use up the Costco-sized chunk of prosciutto we bought for our Christmas party back in December. This last week I did pizza and gnocchi to whittle away at what's left. Some kind of pasta is on the list for today.

Meanwhile, the knitting mojo's back! I knit E. a sweater, finished a hat for her, and have the last of a sleeve cap to complete on a sweater. The urge to make stuff has returned and this is good. The sewing mojo needs to show up next--I could do with some new tops and a pair of yoga pants.