The Crocheting Chemistry Professor

Here are pictures of a few of the crochet projects I have finished or am working on. More details later 😁

Four years is too long, and I had absolutely forgotten about this blog between teaching, moving twice, and the pandemic! I hope I can restart this blog with a mix of crochet, chemistry, and food. Not all at the same time, however. Yarn just doesn't go with food. Gross! Chemistry, however, goes with both, so don't be surprised if I write about the  polymerization process for acrylic yarn or why cooking spaghetti sauce after a batch of beans in the slow cooker gets rid of any leftover bean residue (psst, it's the acid in the sauce from the tomatoes!).

I've finally decided to get my email, blogs, and other web stuff out of graduate school mode and into chemistry professor mode, especially since I've been teaching college chemistry continuously since 2010! I'll be phasing out my other blogs, so I'll be posting content about my crochet projects, chemistry education, really bad poetry, recipes, and other stuff on this blog. Just a sneak peek at my latest project (pattern from Craft Elf) : So far I've completed 26 out of 42 squares: when I posted this Tuesday on Instagram and my personal Facebook (I no longer have the Facebook account), I had completed 20. I have the yarn for another version of this afghan.  The above project was completed in 2018 with additions in 2019 as the person who bought it needed additional length on the afghan. The yarn I'm using for the current and future projects is Caron Simply Soft. As of 2/22/22: Past project: Flowers in Pumpkin and Light Country Peach , leaves in Sage , and bord...

Sorry for the lull, but the last couple of years have been busy with teaching, and I'm also moving closer to the job in less than two months. Hopefully, I'll have something up before the end of the year.

My mother (from Virginia, not Texas) used to make this every summer, but I added ranch dressing as a twist to this recipe. Enjoy! Ingredients: 8 oz cream cheese (either regular or plant-based) 4 oz green olives with pimientos, sliced 4 oz ripe olives (optional) 2-2-1/2 tbsp mayonnaise (either regular or plant-based) 1/2 tbsp ranch dressing (homemade or store-bought) Preparation time: 15 min Directions: 1. Cut the cream cheese in smaller pieces, put into a medium bowl, and allow it to soften about 10 minutes. 2. Add the olives, mayonnaise, and ranch dressing to the cream cheese. 3. Stir until thoroughly mixed. 4. Allow to chill about 30 minutes. 5. Serve with bread or toast. Serves 4. Note: I've had to give up dairy due to allergies, so I've tried this with plant-based cream cheese, and it works just as well. Other seasoning variations may include buffalo sauce, Sriracha, za'atar, Italian seasoning, lemon pepper. You choose what you like!

Ingredients: 1 lb ground turkey 12-16 oz fully cooked sausage (for this I used 16 oz Jalapeno Slovacek sausage) 16-oz package of frozen stew vegetables 6 cups of water 1 packet of french onion soup mix 1/4 cup of flour (or packet of gluten-free brown gravy mix if avoiding wheat/gluten) 1. Brown the ground turkey in a skillet. Slice the sausage, then add it to the ground turkey just after the pink color has gone away. Brown both for 5-10 minutes. 2. Remove the meat from the skillet with a slotted spoon and add to the crock pot. Add the vegetables, french onion soup mix, and water to the crock pot. 3. Set the crock pot to Low and cook for 8 hours. 4. Add the flour one hour before cooking time ends. Stir thoroughly until all lumps are gone. 5. Serve what you'll eat; freeze what you don't ;) Note: I just recently found out that I'm allergic to wheat and gluten, so now I substitute gluten-free brown gravy mix for the flour.

Today wasn't the greatest of days -- cold, icky, a bit wet. Time for some comfort food -- what could be more comforting than mac 'n' cheese? Below is my basic recipe for mac 'n' cheese, and I'll post variations on it later. 1 lb medium shells or macaroni (regular or gluten-free) 8 oz natural cheese (cheddar, Monterey Jack, Colby/Jack, etc) or plant-based versions 8 oz Velveeta (or other processed cheese product -- you can also use cream cheese, but it doesn't melt as well as Velveeta) or plant-based cream cheese 6-8 oz light sour cream or plain nonfat Greek yogurt or plant-based sour cream Non-fat cooking spray (or butter if you don't care about calories ;) 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 2. Boil the shells or macaroni as directed on the package. Drain most of the water, but leave some for the cheese. 3. Add the cheese and Velveeta to the pasta, stirring until all the cheese melts. 4. Spray a 2-qt casserole dish with cooking spray, then dump the past...