Damn, I cooked the shit out of stuff today. I promise to get at least one sentence written today so I can share it with you, but first:
Thanksgiving 2009
7 a.m.
Checked on pumpkin cheesecake made last night. Figured someone would notice if I had a piece for breakfast.
Rolled out and blind-baked pie dough from yesterday.
7:30 a.m.
Baked sweet potatoes in microwave.
8 a.m.
Mixed pie filling and baked.
Started grading papers.
9:30 a.m.
Put ham in oven.
More papers.
10:30 a.m
Didn't realize I needed more than a dozen eggs. Quick trip to the store.
11 a.m.
Made grits.
Started sweet potato casserole.
1:00 p.m.
Shit! I should have soaked the blackeyed peas overnight!
Found quick-soak method on internet.
1:30 p.m.
Put grits in oven.
Steamed squash in microwave.
Finished sweet potato casserole, set aside until marshmallow-melting time.
2:00 p.m.
Made corn fritter batter.
Put together squash casserole.
2:30 p.m.
Grits done.
Blanched greens.
2:50 p.m.
5-minute shower.
3 p.m.
Ham done.
Cooked onion and bacon for greens.
Sweet potatoes in oven.
Squash casserole in oven.
Fried corn fritters.
3:25 p.m.
Finished sauteing greens.
Put out vegetables.
Set table.
Poured drinks.
3:30 p.m.
Ate until cross-eyed.
4:30 p.m.
Made brown sugar-bourbon cream.
Ate sweet potato pie and cheesecake with a cup of coffee.
It's been a good day.
Showing posts with label domesticity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label domesticity. Show all posts
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thursday, August 06, 2009
This is the kind of thing I miss when I go out of town:
The Cupcake Collective is a charity cupcake party benefiting a kids' arts organization. Basically, you can pay $5 to make at least a dozen cupcakes and enter them in a category. Then you have to come to the party next Saturday and display them and be judged and everything. OR you can just show up empty-handed on Saturday and pay $5 to go eat other people's cupcakes.
As excited as I am to be starting my master's program, I am pretty bummed that it means missing a big cupcake party.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Tasty!
I spent the whole day today in the kitchen.
We bought a new smoker last weekend and about 12 pounds of meat to cook last night. We set up the brine bucket (when not in use for brine, it holds all my knitting stuff), and this morning I was up at 8 to rinse, dry, and put on dry rub. I put the pork shoulder on, wrapped the ribs in plastic to season, and started on the beans. Check this out:
Smoked Barbecue Beans
2 cans Bush's Maple beans
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup ketchup
1/2 T dry mustard
1 small can crushed pineapple
salt and pepper
1/2 onion
1 jalapeno
2 serranos
1/2 pound bacon
1. Cut bacon into 1/2" pieces and cook in a skillet until fat renders.
2. While bacon is cooking, dice onion and mince peppers. Mix all other ingredients together in a large bowl.
3. When bacon is done, remove from pan with a slotted spoon and add to beans. Saute the onion and peppers in the bacon drippings until the onions are browned.
4. Remove onion and peppers with a slotted spoon and add to beans. Stir everything together, pour into a deep 9" disposable square pan, and put in the smoker, uncovered, for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Remove to a 350 degree oven until very hot, 30 minutes to one hour.
When those went into the smoker, I added the ribs and started making a grocery list for the rest of the week.
This afternoon, I made an apple-raspberry pie with a vodka crust that was truly the best and easiest to roll out ever. The vodka adds moisture without messing with gluten formation in the crust, so you can make a moister dough (read: easier to roll), and the crust still comes out flaky.
THEN I made a pot of braised collard greens with onions and bacon.
The only think I don't like about spending all day cooking is that by the time dinner is ready, I'm tired of food. Good thing there will still be pie for breakfast.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Spartan vs. Athenian
So I flew out to my sister's in Rochester, New York, on Saturday, and, as usual when I am confronted with anyone still in college, I just started feeling...soft. When was the last time I learned anything? Wrote anything of consequence? Had a pointless, purely intellectual discussion? Bought an article of clothing ironically? Chatted up people in a public park (or any public place, for that matter)? She had a rehearsal from 9-11 (pm!) and then invited me to a party, and even though it would feel more like 8 or so my time, I still opted out and went to bed early.
Which gave me time to practice living alone in an urban apartment building. The best part was the absence of crap everywhere--no boxes of clothes and toys set out three months ago for a trip to Goodwill that never happened, no inch-thick layer of dust on every flat surface (woo-hoo, humidity!), no closetful of boxes labelled "high school" or "art supplies" or any of the other things I've held on to because I've only had to move them twice and hey, they're already in their own box!, no as-seen-on-TV fitness equipment shoved into forgotten corners, no pile of bills on the desk--and the romantic, high-school appeal of throwing some clothes and the dogs into my car and just driving away was definitely strong (with or without Tyson, Nick, or cats, depending on the different permutations of the fantasy).
The problem is that I really like my stuff. This morning, my achy shoulders and back definitely miss my 1.5 acres of memory-foam-topped Sleep Number bed. I've finally amassed a small army of good-quality kitchen appliances. We have more books than we have shelf space, even with three walls of the third bedroom devoted to bookcases. I have not one, not two, but three motorized forms of transportation (and 4 kayaks, in case an escape over water is necessary).
Anyway, this is getting pointless, and I need to bundle up to brave the snow in order to get pastries for breakfast.
Which gave me time to practice living alone in an urban apartment building. The best part was the absence of crap everywhere--no boxes of clothes and toys set out three months ago for a trip to Goodwill that never happened, no inch-thick layer of dust on every flat surface (woo-hoo, humidity!), no closetful of boxes labelled "high school" or "art supplies" or any of the other things I've held on to because I've only had to move them twice and hey, they're already in their own box!, no as-seen-on-TV fitness equipment shoved into forgotten corners, no pile of bills on the desk--and the romantic, high-school appeal of throwing some clothes and the dogs into my car and just driving away was definitely strong (with or without Tyson, Nick, or cats, depending on the different permutations of the fantasy).
The problem is that I really like my stuff. This morning, my achy shoulders and back definitely miss my 1.5 acres of memory-foam-topped Sleep Number bed. I've finally amassed a small army of good-quality kitchen appliances. We have more books than we have shelf space, even with three walls of the third bedroom devoted to bookcases. I have not one, not two, but three motorized forms of transportation (and 4 kayaks, in case an escape over water is necessary).
Anyway, this is getting pointless, and I need to bundle up to brave the snow in order to get pastries for breakfast.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
I am tired.
School has been in session nearly four weeks now, and I am pretty exhausted. I am usually there from 6 to 4, then I come home, usually with more school work in tow, and make dinner (sometimes), clean up (on some days), do laundry, or just sit on the couch and ignore everything until I go to bed sometime between 8:30 and 10. (I'm usually quite proud of myself if I make it into double digits in the evening.)
So for everyone bugging me about not posting, fuck off.
And for everyone else (especially parents and in-laws), kindly pardon my absence from cyberspace.
Posting just feels like too much work after everything else.
P.S. Deidre: Happy Birthday. Your phone must be broken, too.
Friday, August 01, 2008
The Birthday Fairy visits early this year!
The best gifts (besides love and all that intangible crap that works great for Mothers' Day but doesn't cut it for birthdays or Christmas) are the ones you want, but for whatever reason won't buy for yourself. Ever stop to think about why twenty-dollar candles and baskets of bath stuff make such great last-minute, no-brainer gifts? 'Cause we walk by and want them, but sigh and buy that dollar bottle of Suave body wash instead.
I've been doing a lot of baking in the past few weeks--two kinds of pie, biscuits, blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, and so on--and after watching me cut 2 tablespoons of butter into a half-cup of flour SIX TIMES in my teensy one-cup food processor for things like biscuits and pie crusts, and turning out three lenticular pancakes at a time in my biggest pan on the stove, and not only flipping but rearranging roasted potatoes on the baking sheet so some would be on the light part and some on the dark part (P.S. that's the baking sheet I caught on fire a few weeks ago on the grill, and I still haven't scrubbed off all the carbon-powder stuff yet), Tyson visited our brand new neighborhood Target and bought me a food processor, a Calphalon baking set, and an electric griddle.
\m/(><)\m/
Monday, July 21, 2008
Pie!
Yesterday, Tyson was hankering for something tasty to eat, so I made us a blueberry pie. No kidding, I did the whole cold-butter-cold-shortening-ice-water pie crust thing, then made a filling with blueberries, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and rice flour to put in between.
I think I will start keeping a batch of pie crust in the freezer for when fruit is on sale. I feel a lattice-topped peach pie coming on soon!
I think I will start keeping a batch of pie crust in the freezer for when fruit is on sale. I feel a lattice-topped peach pie coming on soon!
Monday, July 07, 2008
mmmmmmmmMeatloaf!
I make this meatloaf dinner almost every week during the winter. People in the know (such as my moms and Deidre) will recognize this as a recipe from The New Best Recipe book, great as a cookbook and highly informational as well. It took some experimenting to get the potatoes ready before the meatloaf cools because they cook at a higher temperature, and turning up the oven with the meatloaf in it makes it ooze way too much. You'll probably have to buy a full pound of veal and of pork; just put the rest in a bag in the freezer for next time.
Mix in a small bowl and set aside:
1/2 c. ketchup
1/4 c. brown sugar
4 t. cider vinegar
Sautee in olive oil:
1 medium onion, diced
Whisk together in a large bowl:
2 eggs
1/2 t. dried thyme
1 t. salt
1/2 t. ground pepper
2 t. Dijon mustard
2 t. Worchestershire sauce
dash hot pepper sauce
1/2 c. milk
Add:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground veal
16 crushed saltine crackers
sauteed onions
1. Mix thoroughly and shape into a 9"x5" loaf on a foil-covered pan. Your hands are all dirty already, so smear on about half of the ketchup glaze. Bake in a 350 degree oven until thermometer registers 160 degrees.
2. While the meatloaf cooks, cut 2 pounds of red potatoes into even pieces. Golf-ball-sized potatoes can be cut in half; cut larger potatoes into fourths or eighths. Put into a gallon-sized bag with 2T olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper and toss to coat. Pour potatoes onto a baking sheet and arrange in a single layer so that all potatoes have one cut side down. Cover baking sheet tightly with foil.
3. After 44-50 minutes of baking time, add the sheet of potatoes to the oven. When the meatloaf is done, carefully remove the foil with a potholder or tongs. No kidding, I've steam-burned myself here, and it's no good. Take the meatloaf out and cover it with the potato foil. Turn the oven up to 450 and cook the potatoes for 15 minutes.
4. Using a metal spatula, scrape the potatoes off the baking sheet and flip so that each potato has the other cut side down. Return to oven and cook 12-15 more minutes, or until skins are wrinkled.
5. To get everything done at once, use the oilve-oil bag to coat some asparagus spears. Put the asparagus on a baking sheet and add to the oven when you flip the potatoes. Depending on thickness, they will take 10-15 minutes to cook.
I hope you enjoy!
Friday, May 30, 2008
Cookies and a Contest
But not a cookie contest, unfortunately.
I am making my very very favorite cookies to celebrate Tyson's last day of school, which he is celebrating by playing poker. It is a combination of two recipes:
Kitchen Sink Cookies (with commentary)
2 sticks butter, softened but still cool (not margarine, not canola sticks, not shortening; real, honest-to-god butter)
1 cup brown sugar (the darkest you can find--better for brown sugar cookies later!)
1 cup white sugar (I used washed raw sugar last time because that's all I had, and it was good, too.)
2 eggs
1 T vanilla extract (don't be cheap; use the real stuff)
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t cinnamon
dash ginger or whatever else I'm in the mood for
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 c flour
3 c whole (not quick) oats
1/2 bag good-quality dark chocolate chips (like Ghirardelli)
1/2 bag butterscotch chips
1/2 c dried cherries (or Sunkist makes a really good mix of blueberries, cherries, cranberries, and raspberries, except I don't like the texture of the raspberries so I pick them out first)
1/4 c raisins
1/2 c walnuts or pecans (or a combination of both)
Beat butter until creamy; add sugars and beat until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla.
With the mixer or by hand, add the baking powder and spices, then gradually add flour until combined.
With a wooden spoon, mix in oats, chips, dried fruit, and nuts. Shape into 2-inch blobs on a cookie sheet and bake in a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes, rotate the tray, and bake 10-12 more minutes or until done. (For super-easy clean-up, line your baking sheet with parchment. I think this is supposed to help even out the heat distribution, but the jury's still out on that one.) Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool.
Really, wait for a good 20 minutes or so: this is one cookie that isn't as good straight from the oven. If you need something to tide you over, sneak a little of the dough.
So those are the cookies. The very best thing about them is that it takes half a bag of the chips and dried fruits, so there's a built-in reason to make more before too long. And if you staggered the chips and the fruit, you'd become trapped in a delicious cycle of cookie making.
The contest is the link Tyson posted yesterday. First person to explain how it works wins. Maybe if you are Tyson, or Juan or Karen who live in our back house but probably don't read my blog, you win some cookies!
I am making my very very favorite cookies to celebrate Tyson's last day of school, which he is celebrating by playing poker. It is a combination of two recipes:
Kitchen Sink Cookies (with commentary)
2 sticks butter, softened but still cool (not margarine, not canola sticks, not shortening; real, honest-to-god butter)
1 cup brown sugar (the darkest you can find--better for brown sugar cookies later!)
1 cup white sugar (I used washed raw sugar last time because that's all I had, and it was good, too.)
2 eggs
1 T vanilla extract (don't be cheap; use the real stuff)
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t cinnamon
dash ginger or whatever else I'm in the mood for
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 c flour
3 c whole (not quick) oats
1/2 bag good-quality dark chocolate chips (like Ghirardelli)
1/2 bag butterscotch chips
1/2 c dried cherries (or Sunkist makes a really good mix of blueberries, cherries, cranberries, and raspberries, except I don't like the texture of the raspberries so I pick them out first)
1/4 c raisins
1/2 c walnuts or pecans (or a combination of both)
Beat butter until creamy; add sugars and beat until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla.
With the mixer or by hand, add the baking powder and spices, then gradually add flour until combined.
With a wooden spoon, mix in oats, chips, dried fruit, and nuts. Shape into 2-inch blobs on a cookie sheet and bake in a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes, rotate the tray, and bake 10-12 more minutes or until done. (For super-easy clean-up, line your baking sheet with parchment. I think this is supposed to help even out the heat distribution, but the jury's still out on that one.) Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool.
Really, wait for a good 20 minutes or so: this is one cookie that isn't as good straight from the oven. If you need something to tide you over, sneak a little of the dough.
So those are the cookies. The very best thing about them is that it takes half a bag of the chips and dried fruits, so there's a built-in reason to make more before too long. And if you staggered the chips and the fruit, you'd become trapped in a delicious cycle of cookie making.
The contest is the link Tyson posted yesterday. First person to explain how it works wins. Maybe if you are Tyson, or Juan or Karen who live in our back house but probably don't read my blog, you win some cookies!
Monday, May 05, 2008
In other news....
We are about to have our first rainstorm of the year! It is cloudy and windy and ominous-looking outside and I violently miss West Texas thunderstorms, but if this is as close as I get, I'll still take it. After new filters, a new pump, and a new motor (not to mention a new electrical hookup to replace the exposed, ungrounded death-trap of a socket on the roof) our swamp cooler is finally working, and it is deliciously cool and damp inside, with pulled pork cooking for dinner and a cat asleep on my lap. It's little things that get me through Mondays.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
New laptop woohoo!
I was minding my own business in the kitchen yesterday, making linguine with clam sauce and hot fudge pudding cake, when Tyson comes in with a NEW LAPTOP for me!
Okay, it's an old IBM ThinkPad his school was tired of using as a doorstop, but it has a working OS (would that be an operating operating system?) and a SOUND CARD, which I have not had in several years now. It also has some fancy-schmancy docking station so I can pile a whole bunch of peripherals on my desk and not have to mess with reconnecting them when I want to puck up my computer and take it with me. Finally, despite being a year or so older than my Dell, it is about 3/4 the weight and has a little smaller profile (it still won't fit in a manilla envelope like the MacBook Air, but whatever), so I can actually use it as a mobile computing device rather than just sitting it on my desk and only taking it somewhere when it's really worth it to lug 10 pounds of computer around.
Suffice to say, I am extremely excited about this. Now I just have to put all my old junk--Quicken files, a bunch of folders of old school things I'm not ready to sort through and delete, my photo albums, etc, back on this system (everything's spread between 2 flash drives, Tyson's desktop, and the laptop in the living room).
Oh, and did I mention I can listen to things now because the sound card isn't melted into slag? Yaay!
Okay, it's an old IBM ThinkPad his school was tired of using as a doorstop, but it has a working OS (would that be an operating operating system?) and a SOUND CARD, which I have not had in several years now. It also has some fancy-schmancy docking station so I can pile a whole bunch of peripherals on my desk and not have to mess with reconnecting them when I want to puck up my computer and take it with me. Finally, despite being a year or so older than my Dell, it is about 3/4 the weight and has a little smaller profile (it still won't fit in a manilla envelope like the MacBook Air, but whatever), so I can actually use it as a mobile computing device rather than just sitting it on my desk and only taking it somewhere when it's really worth it to lug 10 pounds of computer around.
Suffice to say, I am extremely excited about this. Now I just have to put all my old junk--Quicken files, a bunch of folders of old school things I'm not ready to sort through and delete, my photo albums, etc, back on this system (everything's spread between 2 flash drives, Tyson's desktop, and the laptop in the living room).
Oh, and did I mention I can listen to things now because the sound card isn't melted into slag? Yaay!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Dinner is Cooking!
Well, it's brining actually.
Tonight I am butterflying and grill-roasting a chicken. I cut out the back (with my new kitchen shears; the old ones weren't quite up to par in the chicken-cutting department) of a 4-pound free range organic hormone-free blah blah blah chicken and it's soaking in salt water to help keep in juicy. When it's done, in about an hour, I'll break the breastbone so it will lay nice and flat on the grill. Then I'll chop up some chilies in adobo sauce until it makes a paste and add minced lime zest and cilantro and smear that all up under the skin. I'll put it on the grill for 15 minutes, smooshing it down with a cookie sheet with bricks on top, then flip it over. Near the end of the cooking time, I'll take a honey-lime glaze and baste the skin.
I am also going to grill up some ears of corn with some of the chili paste, butter, and lime juice.
Finally, I will go to the store and get stuff to make hot fudge pudding cake (even though I made brown sugar cookies yesterday and they are already gone) because I have to get butter anyway.
Can you tell I have been looking forward to this dinner all week?
Tonight I am butterflying and grill-roasting a chicken. I cut out the back (with my new kitchen shears; the old ones weren't quite up to par in the chicken-cutting department) of a 4-pound free range organic hormone-free blah blah blah chicken and it's soaking in salt water to help keep in juicy. When it's done, in about an hour, I'll break the breastbone so it will lay nice and flat on the grill. Then I'll chop up some chilies in adobo sauce until it makes a paste and add minced lime zest and cilantro and smear that all up under the skin. I'll put it on the grill for 15 minutes, smooshing it down with a cookie sheet with bricks on top, then flip it over. Near the end of the cooking time, I'll take a honey-lime glaze and baste the skin.
I am also going to grill up some ears of corn with some of the chili paste, butter, and lime juice.
Finally, I will go to the store and get stuff to make hot fudge pudding cake (even though I made brown sugar cookies yesterday and they are already gone) because I have to get butter anyway.
Can you tell I have been looking forward to this dinner all week?
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Wake and Bake
Well, after all that thinking I did yesterday about 420, my curiousity finally got the best of me.
I got up early this morning and made maple-oatmeal scones.
I got up early this morning and made maple-oatmeal scones.
Friday, April 11, 2008
My brain is full.
If you had any news for me today, sorry. I will not be accepting any new information; my brain is full.
I have just had 20 hours of training in adapting a business model for a classroom environment, and I haven't slept the last two nights trying to process all of it. If I was a hard drive, I'd be making that whirring sound that means something important is about to happen.
This whole time, I wasn't sure I was really "getting" it, but today when we started working on implementation steps with our principal, I had several people (including the trainer who came in from Salt Lake and her counterpart here at our school) tell me there was no way I wasn't going to make this happen.
Basically, we're looking at combining three classes--three teachers, three sets of state standards, and 90+ students--and using a business model to let students have choice and individual accountability to accomplish these standards. Our goal is to get out of the lecture-worksheet-test pattern of teaching and give students access to what they need when they need it. It really looks like a lot of work up front, and we put together a binder that's about seven inches thick and must weigh 20 pounds, but I think we have most of what we need.
I don't know how else to describe it without going into tons of details--we had three days to take it all in. But suffice to say I'll be doing as little thinking as possible for the next few hours. I'd take the weekend off, but there's a meeting tomorrow morning about possible scholarships for masters' degrees with the online university Tyson's going to, and then I have to get up to school to make up for the three days I haven't been in my room.
But for the next few hours, I'll be making homemade corned beef and vegetables and Irish soda bread instead of thinking about stuff.
I have just had 20 hours of training in adapting a business model for a classroom environment, and I haven't slept the last two nights trying to process all of it. If I was a hard drive, I'd be making that whirring sound that means something important is about to happen.
This whole time, I wasn't sure I was really "getting" it, but today when we started working on implementation steps with our principal, I had several people (including the trainer who came in from Salt Lake and her counterpart here at our school) tell me there was no way I wasn't going to make this happen.
Basically, we're looking at combining three classes--three teachers, three sets of state standards, and 90+ students--and using a business model to let students have choice and individual accountability to accomplish these standards. Our goal is to get out of the lecture-worksheet-test pattern of teaching and give students access to what they need when they need it. It really looks like a lot of work up front, and we put together a binder that's about seven inches thick and must weigh 20 pounds, but I think we have most of what we need.
I don't know how else to describe it without going into tons of details--we had three days to take it all in. But suffice to say I'll be doing as little thinking as possible for the next few hours. I'd take the weekend off, but there's a meeting tomorrow morning about possible scholarships for masters' degrees with the online university Tyson's going to, and then I have to get up to school to make up for the three days I haven't been in my room.
But for the next few hours, I'll be making homemade corned beef and vegetables and Irish soda bread instead of thinking about stuff.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
My Trite (TM) Weekend
Today I learned how a drain snake works: remove the pipe elbow and jam in the thingie, then turn the other thingie when it gets stuck, then swear and generally telegraph your frustration until a man comes to bail you out. It may be an imperfect system, but now I can do dishes, and we've both fulfilled our gender-normative roles for the day.
I also butterflied and high-roasted a chicken. The inside of a chicken is gross, my oven only heats up to 475 degrees, and my so-called kitchen shears didn't stand up so well to scissoring up a chicken, but it was still very tasty. It turned a very lovely gold color and because I brined it, it was very juicy. I also made sauteed zucchini with nutmeg.
I "paid bills" yesterday by checking my bank balance online then finding a heavy-duty Kitchenaid mixer on sale on Amazon and ordered it. (I am making pizza this week, and watching Alton Brown use his fancy-schmancy dough hook Friday night made me jealous and also ambitious).
I roughed in lesson plans for American Lit for the rest of the year.
I finally figured out the password to set up my email on Tyson's laptop. I am confused and perplexed by the new operating system, and I don't know that I won't just have to write it off for good.
I looked up Masters' degree programs and different state licensure standards. I want to learn about computers, specifically in the area of educational databases, so I'm checking out what it would take to get an MIS (Masters' of Information Systems), a library science degree, or a curriculum and instruction degree that would also complement National Board certification requirements. Right now, they are pretty prohibitively expensive--too much so for immediate consideration.
Tyson and I had a stellar dinner last night at Todd's. I really, really love food, but hate mediocre food. We had a great watermelon salad with cayenne, feta, and toasted pumpkin seeds, and split a great steak.
There is a chicken in my neighbor's juniper tree that showed up in the neighborhood on about Wednesday morning. Nobody knows whose it is or where it came from. I also found out that she is the grandmother of one of my students. Now I'm paranoid when I go out in my pjs to put trash at the curb or get laundry from the dryer.
I also butterflied and high-roasted a chicken. The inside of a chicken is gross, my oven only heats up to 475 degrees, and my so-called kitchen shears didn't stand up so well to scissoring up a chicken, but it was still very tasty. It turned a very lovely gold color and because I brined it, it was very juicy. I also made sauteed zucchini with nutmeg.
I "paid bills" yesterday by checking my bank balance online then finding a heavy-duty Kitchenaid mixer on sale on Amazon and ordered it. (I am making pizza this week, and watching Alton Brown use his fancy-schmancy dough hook Friday night made me jealous and also ambitious).
I roughed in lesson plans for American Lit for the rest of the year.
I finally figured out the password to set up my email on Tyson's laptop. I am confused and perplexed by the new operating system, and I don't know that I won't just have to write it off for good.
I looked up Masters' degree programs and different state licensure standards. I want to learn about computers, specifically in the area of educational databases, so I'm checking out what it would take to get an MIS (Masters' of Information Systems), a library science degree, or a curriculum and instruction degree that would also complement National Board certification requirements. Right now, they are pretty prohibitively expensive--too much so for immediate consideration.
Tyson and I had a stellar dinner last night at Todd's. I really, really love food, but hate mediocre food. We had a great watermelon salad with cayenne, feta, and toasted pumpkin seeds, and split a great steak.
There is a chicken in my neighbor's juniper tree that showed up in the neighborhood on about Wednesday morning. Nobody knows whose it is or where it came from. I also found out that she is the grandmother of one of my students. Now I'm paranoid when I go out in my pjs to put trash at the curb or get laundry from the dryer.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Proactivity Saves the Day! Woo Hoo!
Tyson's and my dinner date was cancelled tonight, so I came home and started laundry and chores. I am going to watch Battlestar Galactica guilt-free tonight (and not only for watching TV with undone chores! Now I won't have to feel guilty on my date about secretly wanting to be at home watching BSG even though it was dinner with a friend who is about to move to the east coast).
Hooray!
Hooray!
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Waffles Woo Hoo!
I was so excited to find this in my inbox yesterday! This, my friends, is widely reported to be OMG THE BEST WAFFLE RECIPE EVAR (or so all the Switzerland people said this summer), and the translation from the French is really, really cute:
2 quarts and 1 pint liquid (half mineral water, half full milk)(2,5 liter)
2/3 ounce of yeast (20gram)
1 lb of flour (1/2 kg)
5 oz diary [sic] (cream) butter which you melt in a bain-marie (a "double" boiler)(150g)
1 spoon of (salad) oil
3 or 4 eggs, depending on their size
4oz of sugar (100 gram)
a pinch of salt
Heat the liquid up until it is tepid. Take a cup of it apart and let the yeast dissolve in it. Sift the flour into a bowl; sprinkle the salt around the edge of the flour and make a hole in the middle, where you pour the dissolved yeast and the melted butter.
Add the egg yolks, the sugar, and the remaining liquid in the hole. Kneed the mass from the inside out until you have a homogeneous dough. If necessary, dilute it with a little liquid.
The dough should not be so liquid as for pancakes. Whisk the egg whites and scoop them carefully with a slice through the tough [sic].
Cover the dough and leave it to rise in a heated place (if in winter) until its volume has doubled.
Pour some dough into the heated and greased iron. Close the iron immediately and bake until it gets golden brown.
Now, I have never seen a yeast-risen waffle recipe, but it looks worth a try. I will certainly give it a shot and let you all know.
2 quarts and 1 pint liquid (half mineral water, half full milk)(2,5 liter)
2/3 ounce of yeast (20gram)
1 lb of flour (1/2 kg)
5 oz diary [sic] (cream) butter which you melt in a bain-marie (a "double" boiler)(150g)
1 spoon of (salad) oil
3 or 4 eggs, depending on their size
4oz of sugar (100 gram)
a pinch of salt
Heat the liquid up until it is tepid. Take a cup of it apart and let the yeast dissolve in it. Sift the flour into a bowl; sprinkle the salt around the edge of the flour and make a hole in the middle, where you pour the dissolved yeast and the melted butter.
Add the egg yolks, the sugar, and the remaining liquid in the hole. Kneed the mass from the inside out until you have a homogeneous dough. If necessary, dilute it with a little liquid.
The dough should not be so liquid as for pancakes. Whisk the egg whites and scoop them carefully with a slice through the tough [sic].
Cover the dough and leave it to rise in a heated place (if in winter) until its volume has doubled.
Pour some dough into the heated and greased iron. Close the iron immediately and bake until it gets golden brown.
Now, I have never seen a yeast-risen waffle recipe, but it looks worth a try. I will certainly give it a shot and let you all know.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Whole Bunch of Crap
While Whole Foods definitely appealed to some of my more romantic, white-privelege impulses, I don't think I'll be switching grocery stores anytime soon. (At least until the Fresh and Easy opens up down on Boulder Highway by the KMart.) Here are some of the several conundra I faced:
Pro: Pick out a vegetable, and they'll grill it up for you. Right then. While you are watching and feeling all smug about it.
Con: $6 a gallon for milk.
Pro: Two words: bulk bins.
Con: Many bulk bins full of food items I can't even identify, a source of culinary guilt (or, at the very least, minor discomfort).
Pro: Sliced-to-order barbecue brisket and tri-tip.
Con: $8.99 a pound for chicken breasts.
Pro: Approximately 11,078 types, varieties, and sizes of honey.
Con: Hot cocoa mix?
Pro: Reasonable selection of environmentally-friendly laundry detergents.
Con: Too many hippie-yuppies in store and parking lot.
Pro: Fresh-ground honey-roasted-peanut butter (AKA Crack on Toast).
Con: Employees too fresh-faced and innocent-looking.
All said and done, I think it would cost me about $50 to $70 more a week to buy my groceries there, if I could even count on finding everything I needed and not having to mentally reorganize my grocery list when I couldn't. So anyway, now I am working in my head on a worksheet I could carry around to a grocery store to see if I wanted to shop there. It would have a lot of items I buy often to make the things we like to eat, and I could wander around and just fill in the blanks. I am so not kidding about this, guys. I would really design and print a grocery store worksheet and go practice shopping at all kinds of stores to find the best one.
Maybe I should reinstall Sims on my computer? Or just stop making excuses to get out of reading Great Expectations.
Pro: Pick out a vegetable, and they'll grill it up for you. Right then. While you are watching and feeling all smug about it.
Con: $6 a gallon for milk.
Pro: Two words: bulk bins.
Con: Many bulk bins full of food items I can't even identify, a source of culinary guilt (or, at the very least, minor discomfort).
Pro: Sliced-to-order barbecue brisket and tri-tip.
Con: $8.99 a pound for chicken breasts.
Pro: Approximately 11,078 types, varieties, and sizes of honey.
Con: Hot cocoa mix?
Pro: Reasonable selection of environmentally-friendly laundry detergents.
Con: Too many hippie-yuppies in store and parking lot.
Pro: Fresh-ground honey-roasted-peanut butter (AKA Crack on Toast).
Con: Employees too fresh-faced and innocent-looking.
All said and done, I think it would cost me about $50 to $70 more a week to buy my groceries there, if I could even count on finding everything I needed and not having to mentally reorganize my grocery list when I couldn't. So anyway, now I am working in my head on a worksheet I could carry around to a grocery store to see if I wanted to shop there. It would have a lot of items I buy often to make the things we like to eat, and I could wander around and just fill in the blanks. I am so not kidding about this, guys. I would really design and print a grocery store worksheet and go practice shopping at all kinds of stores to find the best one.
Maybe I should reinstall Sims on my computer? Or just stop making excuses to get out of reading Great Expectations.
Mock Shop
I know I am a total dork when after a bureaucracy-filled year including mock attendance audits and mock evacuation drills (I made my students hold on to a rope to stay together and in a line, then put it on the grass and stand with a foot on it to keep them in place, kindergarten-military style), today I will be performing a mock shop at Whole Foods. Every time I go there (which is exactly twice, but Wild Oats is practically the same thing), I wish I were a rich yuppie who could afford to cook exotic things. I've decided that I could just about afford to shop there, as long as I don't buy any more than I plan to cook or eat in a week.
This Sunday on my weekly grocery trip, I refused to shell out 13 bucks for real vanilla extract at the regular grocery store--I know they have better and cheaper at WF--and basmati rice was $7, and 5 little cinnamon sticks were $6. So since I have to make a second grocery run this week, I figured, why not wander around and price-check some stuff.
Oh, and I am also a nerd who doesn't mind a practice run before the "real thing." There's nothing worse than being halfway through grocery shopping when you decide that grocery store sucks.
Update: Actually, what makes me a total dork is that I posted this and re-read it, and couldn't deal with the comma I'd inserted after "dork" in the first sentence, so I had to fix it.
This Sunday on my weekly grocery trip, I refused to shell out 13 bucks for real vanilla extract at the regular grocery store--I know they have better and cheaper at WF--and basmati rice was $7, and 5 little cinnamon sticks were $6. So since I have to make a second grocery run this week, I figured, why not wander around and price-check some stuff.
Oh, and I am also a nerd who doesn't mind a practice run before the "real thing." There's nothing worse than being halfway through grocery shopping when you decide that grocery store sucks.
Update: Actually, what makes me a total dork is that I posted this and re-read it, and couldn't deal with the comma I'd inserted after "dork" in the first sentence, so I had to fix it.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Bacon in the Oven
No, that's not some weird pregnancy euphemism. I oven-fried the shit out of some bacon tonight. It was weird not to have to make a mess of the stovetop, and if I don't overcook it next time it'll sure be easy.
Anyways.
Anyways.
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