Kid-friendly, budget-friendly Lentil Stew

At least, this was friendly to my kids. YMMV.

2 cups water
1 cup broth
1 can tomato paste
1 cup cut-up, cooked meat (I used leftover roast; there's no reason why leftover chicken wouldn't work equally well)
4 carrots, chopped, or about a cup of frozen carrots
1 cup frozen peas
1 1/2 cups chopped cabbage
1/2 cup barley or quinoa or rice (I used barley)
1 cup red lentils (if using green ones, you'll need to cook it longer)
salt, oregano, and a bay leaf, all to taste; pepper is not a favourite of my daughters so I left it out.

Variations: Got a quarter cup each of four different frozen veggies that's just slightly past the point where you want to use them outside of a stew? Toss them in. Ditto with last night's leftover beans. This stew is the-more-the-merrier.

Throw it all into the pot and cook until everything's tender. Makes a lot. This is the first time I've gotten my kids to eat lentils without a fuss. Serve with a slice of bread. Recipe would likely be just fine without the meat, especially if your grain of choice were quinoa. Moreover, this recipe is extremely cheap: you can feed a family of four on it for two nights running for under five bucks.

I'm off to cool this down and freeze it in 1 1/2 cup portions for (my) school lunches. I'm working on a bunch of similar easy lunches that I can pull out of the freezer and microwave for lunch.

Knit through my stash project #2: Alpaca shawl sweater

I'm using my Peru 4 Less Mystic Alpaca, that has been sitting in my stash for about three years now, in a sweater that will use up most of it, I think. I've got one sleeve within an inch of done, but there was a problem. On this pattern, row gauge needs to be correct, and mine wasn't - I had an inch and a half more fabric than I should have had for the number of rows I'd knit. So I decided to leave the first sleeve on the cord and knit the second sleeve before doing the body. I love Knit Picks Options needles - I just unscrewed the needles from the cord and attached the needles to a second cord, and off I went, knitting the second sleeve on the same needles.

So I've now got the second sleeve almost to the same point as I left off on the first sleeve. When it's at the same row count, I'll block it and measure it and decide where to go from there. If my gauge is the same, I'll knit the remaining inch I need for each sleeve and then switch to the next size needle down for the body. The gauge is loose enough (lace weight yarn on needles normally used for worsted weight = VERY airy fabric) that it probably won't pucker, and if it does, it's at a spot where many patterns would insert a couple of puckers for effect - the top of the shoulder.

I'm still not sure what I'll do if the gauge isn't the same, though.

Some pics, ( Right through here! )