1) The election! (I voted straight-ticket Dem, and it looks like everyone for whom I voted has won)
2) The weather! (there's a nasty Nor'easter headed our way, and I'm supposed to drive down to New Haven and back tomorrow.)
3) Volleyball! (my team's last game is tomorrow, assuming it doesn't get cancelled due to weather)
4) NaNoWriMo! (Yes, I signed up. No, it's not going well.)
5) NaRoWriMo! (Just heard that Avon is taking open submissions of romance novels until Dec. 10th. Pity mine isn't really a romance novel...)
6) Tired! (too many late nights, plus a nasty side-effect from some medicine that kept me up with horrible nausea and stomach cramps two nights ago)
7) Final exams! (starting Monday, for the fall term)
8) Dogs! (I want one very badly, and my allergist just confirmed that I'm not allergic to them)
9) Idiots! (some friends of mine are spewing a lot of hate around Facebook and Twitter, most of it connected to the elections)
10) Red Sox! (After this horrible, horrible season, it's nice to see some signs of hope, such as David Ortiz getting a 2-year contract for DH)
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Improvised pancakes
I improvised a pancake recipe this morning and I have to write it down, because they turned out great!
1 1/4 cup white flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup oatmeal
2 cups milk
a teaspoon salt
a big squirt (sorry about the inaccuracy) of agave nectar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2-3 Tablespoons canola oil (once again, dumped without properly measuring)
Butter (for pan)
Mix flours (reserving a little white flour) and milk together thoroughly. Let sit for 10 minutes or more.
Mix remaining flour with sugar, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder.
Combine everything and whisk thoroughly.
Melt a teaspoon of butter in a non-stick pan over medium heat. Cook pancakes, about 1/3 cup of batter at a time. Flip when bottom is getting brown and top has bubbles forming and not immediately closing.
Serve with maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey.
New recipe count: 27
1 1/4 cup white flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup oatmeal
2 cups milk
a teaspoon salt
a big squirt (sorry about the inaccuracy) of agave nectar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2-3 Tablespoons canola oil (once again, dumped without properly measuring)
Butter (for pan)
Mix flours (reserving a little white flour) and milk together thoroughly. Let sit for 10 minutes or more.
Mix remaining flour with sugar, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder.
Combine everything and whisk thoroughly.
Melt a teaspoon of butter in a non-stick pan over medium heat. Cook pancakes, about 1/3 cup of batter at a time. Flip when bottom is getting brown and top has bubbles forming and not immediately closing.
Serve with maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey.
New recipe count: 27
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Ten on Tuesday: 10 favorite mystery novels
This is going to be tough! Although I read a lot of mystery novels from the library, there aren't all that many that I would call favorites. Let me see what I can come up with...
1) Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (and everything else by her, also!) Although Peter is a terrible snot in the early books, Harriet is the perfect match for him and I love watching their courtship progress over the series.
2) I am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley (and the rest of the series, although I think this is the best). Flavia DeLuce is a marvelous narrator; think 1950's Harriet the Spy in England with a lot more snark, and a bent for chemistry.
3) Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett (and the rest of the Discworld stories about Commander Vimes and his merry crew.) These are fantasy - mysteries, so not traditional at all, but marvelously well done.
4) The Dead of Winter by Rennie Airth. I don't like the sequels as much as this one, which is the the start of the series. It's set in England, winter of 1944...
5) A Talent for War by Jack McDevitt. This is a perfect example of the science fiction - mystery, with a little archeology thrown in.
6) Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (and everything else she wrote, too!) This is a wonderful story of murder, mistaken identity, love, and double-crosses.
7) The Skull Mantra by Elliot Pattison. I don't love the sequels (in fact, I barely like them) but this book is a marvelous merging of locale (Tibet) and murder mystery.
8) The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth (and many of her others that star the marvelous Miss Silver. Other favorites include The Clock Strikes Twelve and Through the Wall.)
9) Rivers of London (also known as Midnight Riot in the USA) by Ben Aaronovitch (and sequels). This is modern police procedural meets magic realism and the results are magical.
10) Glass Houses by Jane Haddam, and many of the others in her long-running series about Gregor Demarkian.
1) Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (and everything else by her, also!) Although Peter is a terrible snot in the early books, Harriet is the perfect match for him and I love watching their courtship progress over the series.
2) I am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley (and the rest of the series, although I think this is the best). Flavia DeLuce is a marvelous narrator; think 1950's Harriet the Spy in England with a lot more snark, and a bent for chemistry.
3) Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett (and the rest of the Discworld stories about Commander Vimes and his merry crew.) These are fantasy - mysteries, so not traditional at all, but marvelously well done.
4) The Dead of Winter by Rennie Airth. I don't like the sequels as much as this one, which is the the start of the series. It's set in England, winter of 1944...
5) A Talent for War by Jack McDevitt. This is a perfect example of the science fiction - mystery, with a little archeology thrown in.
6) Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (and everything else she wrote, too!) This is a wonderful story of murder, mistaken identity, love, and double-crosses.
7) The Skull Mantra by Elliot Pattison. I don't love the sequels (in fact, I barely like them) but this book is a marvelous merging of locale (Tibet) and murder mystery.
8) The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth (and many of her others that star the marvelous Miss Silver. Other favorites include The Clock Strikes Twelve and Through the Wall.)
9) Rivers of London (also known as Midnight Riot in the USA) by Ben Aaronovitch (and sequels). This is modern police procedural meets magic realism and the results are magical.
10) Glass Houses by Jane Haddam, and many of the others in her long-running series about Gregor Demarkian.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Ten on Tuesday: 10 things I did last weekend
It wasn't a vacation weekend for me (I get my long weekend NEXT weekend) but I still managed to get a few things done.
1) Coached my JV volleyball team to their first win of the season.
2) Got lost in Simsbury, CT.
3) Lost my cell phone for almost 48 hours.
4) Read the first chapter of This Case is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bornikova and got utterly hooked. (Human female lawyer in a male-dominated vampire firm. Clearly written by someone who knows her law firms.)
5) Caught up on the first 2 episodes of Bones.
6) Caught up on NCIS, also.
7) And NCIS-LA
8) Cooked shakshuka and a curried squash soup.
9) Cursed my doctor's office a lot (they won't handle refill requests on the weekend, and I ran out Saturday night... and they weren't open Monday, either.)
10) Started looking into switching doctors.
And oh yeah, cleaned the stove and watched a little baseball and graded a huge pile of papers.
1) Coached my JV volleyball team to their first win of the season.
2) Got lost in Simsbury, CT.
3) Lost my cell phone for almost 48 hours.
4) Read the first chapter of This Case is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bornikova and got utterly hooked. (Human female lawyer in a male-dominated vampire firm. Clearly written by someone who knows her law firms.)
5) Caught up on the first 2 episodes of Bones.
6) Caught up on NCIS, also.
7) And NCIS-LA
8) Cooked shakshuka and a curried squash soup.
9) Cursed my doctor's office a lot (they won't handle refill requests on the weekend, and I ran out Saturday night... and they weren't open Monday, either.)
10) Started looking into switching doctors.
And oh yeah, cleaned the stove and watched a little baseball and graded a huge pile of papers.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Ten on (Wednesday): 10 favorite Sunday dinners
Ahhh... Tuesday was nutso-busy and I didn't get a chance to blog.
I'm torn here: I have great memories of the Sunday dinners my mother and both grandmothers used to cook, but now that I'm married to a vegetarian we have a completely different set of traditions-in-the-making. So maybe I'll list both...?
Traditional:
1) Roasted chicken with a cut-up lemon stuffed inside it. Served with salad, fresh bread and butter, and maybe some corn on the cob.
2) Beef stew: my Scottish grandmother was a pretty lousy cook, but this was one of the few things she did well. I think it was all the beer she dumped into the stew that really made it sing!
3) Sweet and sour fish: from my Chinese grandmother. I hated staring at the fish head and used to drape a lettuce leaf over it. Served with Jasmine rice, stir-fried green beans, and a noodle dish (sort of like lo mein but much, much better.)
4) Coq au vin: my mother had a French cookbook (maybe by Julia Child?) and this was a classic from it. Served over rice with peas-in-lettuce on the side.
5) Totally westernized "chicken curry": my mother made a non-spicy version of Indian chicken curry, which was served with rice and a bunch of yummy trimmings to put over it, like raisins and toasted coconut flakes.
6 and 7) Sweet and sour pork chops: my grandmother had a very traditional Chinese version (soy sauce, vinegar, scallions) and my mother had a totally westernized version (ketchup, vinegar, and brown sugar). Both were delicious!
8) Kielbasa with pan-fried potatoes and onions: there was a Polish sausage factory a couple of towns away from us so we ate a lot of great Polish food! I can't remember all the varieties of sausages, this is just an example.
9) Peking Duck: this one's made by my aunt, and it's better than any I've had in a restaurant. (I'm not sure it compensated for seeing the plucked duck hanging up in the bathroom for two days, drying.)
10) Meatloaf: my mother doesn't remember her recipe anymore, which is a loss to society because that loaf was FABULOUS! I used to beg the leftovers for my sandwich on Monday.
Vegetarian:
1) Shakshuka: so easy to make the sauce ahead of time and then just reheat and add the eggs.
2) Stuffed shells: I add a lot of silken tofu to the stuffing, to give it some protein.
3) Nordstrom's tomato soup with panini grilled cheese sandwiches
4) Vegetarian sausages with pan-fried potatoes and onions
5) Mock-chicken pot pie: exactly like chicken pot pie but with two packages of "mock chicken strips" in place of the real bird. I like a cornmeal crust.
6) Vegetarian longonisa (I'll have to write up the recipe sometime)
7) Okonomiyaki
8) Chocolate Black Bean Chili, recipe from The Moosewood Celebrates!
and... I'm out of ideas and time.
I'm torn here: I have great memories of the Sunday dinners my mother and both grandmothers used to cook, but now that I'm married to a vegetarian we have a completely different set of traditions-in-the-making. So maybe I'll list both...?
Traditional:
1) Roasted chicken with a cut-up lemon stuffed inside it. Served with salad, fresh bread and butter, and maybe some corn on the cob.
2) Beef stew: my Scottish grandmother was a pretty lousy cook, but this was one of the few things she did well. I think it was all the beer she dumped into the stew that really made it sing!
3) Sweet and sour fish: from my Chinese grandmother. I hated staring at the fish head and used to drape a lettuce leaf over it. Served with Jasmine rice, stir-fried green beans, and a noodle dish (sort of like lo mein but much, much better.)
4) Coq au vin: my mother had a French cookbook (maybe by Julia Child?) and this was a classic from it. Served over rice with peas-in-lettuce on the side.
5) Totally westernized "chicken curry": my mother made a non-spicy version of Indian chicken curry, which was served with rice and a bunch of yummy trimmings to put over it, like raisins and toasted coconut flakes.
6 and 7) Sweet and sour pork chops: my grandmother had a very traditional Chinese version (soy sauce, vinegar, scallions) and my mother had a totally westernized version (ketchup, vinegar, and brown sugar). Both were delicious!
8) Kielbasa with pan-fried potatoes and onions: there was a Polish sausage factory a couple of towns away from us so we ate a lot of great Polish food! I can't remember all the varieties of sausages, this is just an example.
9) Peking Duck: this one's made by my aunt, and it's better than any I've had in a restaurant. (I'm not sure it compensated for seeing the plucked duck hanging up in the bathroom for two days, drying.)
10) Meatloaf: my mother doesn't remember her recipe anymore, which is a loss to society because that loaf was FABULOUS! I used to beg the leftovers for my sandwich on Monday.
Vegetarian:
1) Shakshuka: so easy to make the sauce ahead of time and then just reheat and add the eggs.
2) Stuffed shells: I add a lot of silken tofu to the stuffing, to give it some protein.
3) Nordstrom's tomato soup with panini grilled cheese sandwiches
4) Vegetarian sausages with pan-fried potatoes and onions
5) Mock-chicken pot pie: exactly like chicken pot pie but with two packages of "mock chicken strips" in place of the real bird. I like a cornmeal crust.
6) Vegetarian longonisa (I'll have to write up the recipe sometime)
7) Okonomiyaki
8) Chocolate Black Bean Chili, recipe from The Moosewood Celebrates!
and... I'm out of ideas and time.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Ten on Tuesday: 10 things you love about September
I love September! Like our leader Carole, I adore autumn and nearly everything about it!
1) The sun doesn't rise quite so early anymore. (I have trouble sleeping in a bright room.)
2) The days aren't quite as hot.
3) Apple season is ramping up!
4) School starts. (Yes, I actually do love my job.)
5) The farmer's market is at its peak: tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, squash, gourds, peaches, apples...
6) The leaves begin to turn.
7) Some evenings it's actually cool enough for a fire in the fireplace.
8) It's once again appropriate to serve hot soup at dinner.
9) I don't feel weird about not wearing sandals.
10) My birthday is in September!
1) The sun doesn't rise quite so early anymore. (I have trouble sleeping in a bright room.)
2) The days aren't quite as hot.
3) Apple season is ramping up!
4) School starts. (Yes, I actually do love my job.)
5) The farmer's market is at its peak: tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, squash, gourds, peaches, apples...
6) The leaves begin to turn.
7) Some evenings it's actually cool enough for a fire in the fireplace.
8) It's once again appropriate to serve hot soup at dinner.
9) I don't feel weird about not wearing sandals.
10) My birthday is in September!
New recipe (so basic I'm embarrassed to count it)
In a desperate search for a quick recipe, I got suckered by that Hellman's ad where the busy mom smears Hellman's mayo and breadcrumbs over the chicken breast and serves her happy family 20 minutes later.
It actually wasn't bad, but I kept thinking about all the extra calories in the mayo and shuddering to myself.
New recipe count: 27
It actually wasn't bad, but I kept thinking about all the extra calories in the mayo and shuddering to myself.
New recipe count: 27
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