Jamie Oliver at TED

Hot Dish Supper

Karen - who is one of David's employees, his fit model, and guitarist in the band who played at our wedding - has a summer tenant for the mother-in-law apartment over her garage who is from South Dakota. Since David is also from South Dakota, she decided it'd be fun to have a South Dakota party. Which, if you are from the region, would also be known as a Hot Dish Supper.

So David made green bean hot dish topped with canned fried onions, which is pretty much de rigueur for these affairs, someone else made creamed corn, and other people made other hot dish with dead animal in them and jello (also dead animal) with mandarin orange in it. Much wine (not South Dakotan) was also imbibed, and then for dessert the hostess made a very yummy rhubarb-strawberry pie (true story: David's mom's family hails from Leola, SD - Rhubarb Capital of the World - and in the mid-70's his Grandma Rose was crowned Rhubarb Queen). Also for dessert, David found this Memorial Day cake and piped on icing in the shape of Mt. Rushmore.



David would like everyone to know that while Mount Rushmore is the name of the mountain, the actual title of the sculpture is "Shrine of Democracy". And once he posed with a handbag in the old Visitor Center (since torn down) in the same spot as Eva Marie Saint in "North by Northwest".

In the course of the evening, we also found out that Chris, Karen's tenant, has family roots in Hecla, SD, which is where David's dad comes from. Considering it's a town of about 300 people, they're probably at least related by marriage somewhere down the line.


Other Food Stuff

I've been making quite a lot of yogurt lately, which is actually quite easy and very yummy. With this latest batch, I decided I'd hang it up in cheesecloth (actually, it's a loose weave muslin, rather than the cheapie disposable stuff from the supermarket) to drain off the whey and make for a thicker, richer end product.



Note how I cleverly framed it so as not to show the pile of dishes in the sink below. And yes, that is gift wrap ribbon used to tie it up. It's called recycling.

Nom Nom Nom

Proof that yummy food doesn't have to be pricey. Since I was short on foodstuffs here at work, I stopped by the local supermarket to pick up a few items and got fixings to make this tasty aloo matar (आलू मतर). I used curry paste, which makes the prep work much faster - always a good thing at work - and I left the potato skins on, which is my usual personal preference.

Speaking of Indian food, we went to our local Indian restaurant for dinner Friday night. It was the first time we'd been there since they remodeled and put in the dining room. Before, it was takeout only, but now it's a hopping place, which was very good to see. Raj, the chef, is a very sweet guy, and it's good to see him doing well. It was also good to see him and learn that his family in Mumbai are safe.

Progress on the Japanese sweater has slowed a bit, as I've been a little distracted by a new toy from the folks at Google. SketchUp is a 3D modeling program that's both way cool and a major time suck (Thanks, Leela! I think). I've been using it to try to create mock-ups of what I'd like the interior of our house to look like someday. This is my WIP for the upstairs:

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If I had the $495 to shell out for the pro version I could make an animation of the model, but times being what they are, you're just going to have to settle for 2D. The big long-term goal is going to be to open up the floor plan so that we can really optimize our usage of the space we have. Right now the flow is very poor, but by moving a few walls around - and removing a few outright - we should be able to have a huge impact on the feel of the house. And since it's timberframe construction, none of the interior walls are load-bearing, which will make moving them a cinch. Relatively speaking, anyway.

In the meantime, we've got a little bit of a dispute on our hands over some replacement sashes we ordered from a local building supply store for David's office. We were looking for and expected clad exterior with wood interior and tried to make that clear. What we got was described as "stainable interior" but turned out to be vinyl with cheap wood-print veneer.

The window sales guy is trying to convince us that it's a great choice, since it was his fuck-up to begin with (We think he didn't do his homework and didn't realize that it was veneer.) and he doesn't want to get stuck eating the cost of custom sashes. We don't have any intention, however, of settling for something we didn't want, especially when it's liable to get dinged up and look like shit within a few years. So e-mails have been sent, and we're waiting to see if he's willing to make it right or if we're going to have to push harder.

And if it comes down to it, it really won't take much to put me in a fighting mood.

Meatless and Potatoes

Just because I'm at work all night long doesn't mean I can't eat well.




And, Plotz!

You just cannot imagine how much I love this little face (even though he's about to shoot a laser out of his left eye).

Nom Nom Nom

Since it's raining and there's a hurricane on the way (which likely won't still be a hurricane by the time it gets here, so we're not fretting about it), I decided tonight was a night for split pea soup. I got some dried split peas at the store, but this time I didn't need to buy any parsnips, because I have some growing in my garden beds. I'd been holding off on pulling any, as they're supposed to be a bit sweeter after a frost, but I decided it was time and pulled this monster out.



That serving tray is about 20" (51cm) across, just to give you an idea. And even though there was some splitting along one side and a little bit of insect damage, there was still plenty for the soup pot. And the soup was perfect.

Plotz-Inducing Cuteness

While I was making soup, Tuck took a nap in his other daddy's arms. You can just barely see the tip of his tongue.

Harvest-y Food

But first, go enter the Raffle for the Critters. Only one person has entered so far, and I'm pretty sure her stash isn't hurting for this much more stuff. Plus, Carol of GKIYH has promised some of her hand-dyed Black Bunny Fibers sock yarn to sweeten the pot a bit more. Seriously, a tax deductible donation of $5 or more gets you a chance to win yarn with the holidays and cold weather coming up. I'll wait right here while you go to it.
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Okay, I haven't had much in the way of food pics for a little while, and this week has been a bountiful one in the garden. The other night, I made this garden veggie soup almost entirely with veggies from my beds. The store-boughten ingredients were onion, mushrooms, olive oil, butter, salt, pepper and miso. The homegrown ingredients were swiss chard, potatoes, roma tomatoes, carrots, garlic, noodle beans, broccoli, oregano, thyme and butterpeas (although those actually came from South Carolina and not my own garden).



Tonight we had the leftovers with these wonderfully yeasty rolls I baked - particularly nice considering the temp has dropped down into the 40's (It's currently 46.5F/8C) tonight:



For breakfast (which was at 6:30PM), though, I had my first tomato sandwiches of the season. I got my tomatoes in the ground a little bit late, and then for an eating tomato I went with Brandywine, which is a late season heirloom. I have to say that it was worth the wait - sweet, low acidity and wonderfully juicy.



The perfect tomato sandwich, in my opinion, is a very basic one. The fanciest I get is toasted whole grain bread. Other than that, it's just slices of fresh garden tomato with real mayo, salt and pepper. Anything else just tends to distract from the flavor of the tomato. That may be fine for a tomato from the supermarket, but I say that if that's where you're getting your tomato there's not really much point in making a sandwich in the first place.

Tofu Chocolate Pie

No photos because we ate it all, but this is yummy and super easy to make. And everybody knows tofu is healthy, so no guilt! Well, at least I don't feel guilty about eating it.

• two 12oz. packs of firm silken tofu (The silken part is very, very important. Regular tofu has the wrong texture for this.)
  
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
  
• soy milk (1/4 cup, give or take)
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  
• 12 oz. bittersweet chocolate (60% cocoa Ghirardelli chips work well)
  
• one 10" deep dish pie crust or two 9" crusts, prebaked (My preference is graham cracker, or a crust from those folks who make the yummy black and white cookies.)
  

Put the tofu in a blender, add the syrup, vanilla extract, and just enough soy milk for the tofu to puree well. Blend everything until nice and smooth, but still fairly thick. You may need to stop the blender and stir a little bit to get everything nice and uniformly blended. Melt the chocolate (in the microwave - stopping to stir at 30 second intervals - works well, or you can use a double boiler), pour into the tofu mix and blend thoroughly. Pour into pie shell(s) and chill to set.

See? Super easy. And have I mentioned how good it tastes? Seriously, you could feed this to a confirmed tofu-hater and they would never guess unless you told them. If you're careful to look for vegan chocolate, you can also make the vegans (and the lactose-intolerant) in your life very happy. I also plan to try making a crust with gluten-free chocolate graham crackers, since we are expecting to have both vegans and a gluten-allergic friend at our wedding and I'd like to have a dessert they can all enjoy (since the cake will be neither).

UPDATE:

VUBOQ asks, "Does it matter if the soy milk is sweetened or not?"

MollyBeees asks, "Did you use flavored soy milk?"

I used vanilla Silk, since that's the brand David prefers and therefore what we have in the fridge at all times. Really, though, I didn't use very much soy milk, so I'm not sure that using something else would have a huge effect on the flavor. As to MollyBeees other comment about this being "semi-diabetic friendly", I expect this could be very easily adapted to be sugar-free - switch to unsweetened soy milk (no maple syrup), use a bit of Splenda, fructose-sweetened graham crackers for the crust, and sugar-free chocolate.

Tongue Dyed

One of the techs here at work brought in some leftover cake from her son's first birthday party. For some reason (we haven't asked) she decided that the cake, shaped like a pig face, should be a deep fuchsia. Not that any of you need proof that cake dyes are good for dyeing protein, but I thought I'd share the results.



Imagine if it had been wool, instead. One of the receptionists discovered another effect of the dye, but I'll spare you, dear readers, from a little TMI.

Vest Progress and Recipes

Here's a detail photo of the center front with steek.



As you can see, it's not very far along, but progress is being made a little at a time. Hopefully it'll be steady enough that I don't end up in a mad rush come June.

Recipes

As promised, here are recipes for the sweet & sour tofu and the green beans. Actually, there's not really a recipe for the green beans, per se. I stir-fried them in sesame oil with tamari until they were hot but still had a little bit of firmness to them, then added a couple of crushed really-freakin'-hot little Thai chilies near the end, tossed them just a little bit more ('cause the chilies let off fumes and make me cough), then turned off the heat and sprinkled them with sesame seeds - a fairly basic Szechuan-style dish.

So here, then, is the recipe for the tofu (all measurements are approximate):

Slice a one pound block of extra-firm tofu into pieces (I did twenty approximately 1cm-thick slabs). In a bowl, mix to a fairly smooth batter:

- one cup all purpose flour
- salt, pepper, and coriander to taste
- one cup water
- one large egg

Dip each piece of tofu into the batter, then dredge through a second bowl of flour until the tofu is covered in a nice heavy coating of doughy batter. While you are battering the tofu pieces, heat a pan of canola oil at least a couple of inches deep to medium-high heat. Place the battered tofu pieces a few at a time into the hot oil and fry until golden brown, remove with a slotted spoon when done and place in a colander or wire strainer to allow the oil to drain. When all the tofu has been fried, heat in a wok:

- 1/4 cup tamari
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 2/3 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
- 2 Tbsp. corn starch mixed into about one cup of cold water
- 2 cloves garlic crushed or sliced (I sliced, 'cause I couldn't find the garlic press)

Heat and stir until it begins to boil and the sauce clarifies and thickens. If it's not thickening sufficiently, you can always use a bit more corn starch. Turn off heat and add in tofu. Serve over rice.

And VUBOQ asked how the rhubarb wine tastes. In some respects it's not unlike a nice Riesling - a little fruity, a little tart (with a very light rhubarb-y flavor), and a little sweet - and it has a very slight blush to it. And since I have never met a Riesling I didn't like, this didn't disappoint, either (though it contains no Riesling grapes).

Super Fat Tuesday

Despite my Southern roots, I don't usually make deep fried foods. It being Mardi Gras, though, I decided it was time for an exception. So I made:



Sweet & sour tofu, which I served over brown basmati, and



Stir-fried green beans, and washed it down with this



Blacksmiths is a Maine label based outside of Portland. I had the occasion to treat their dog once and had a chat with the vintner, so I was very pleased when I started seeing their wines in the local supermarket. They import the grapes from other states, primarily Washington and New York, but they also have some specialties, like this rhubarb, that are primarily or wholly from local produce. So far we've tried this one and their blueberry wine. Neither has disappointed. If you want to try it, though, you have to come to Maine, because they're currently not selling it outside the state.

That's it for tonight. I'll try to get the sweet & sour recipe written down, because it was yummy. I'll also try to get some pics of the wedding vest. I'm almost to the point of making the first increases and it's actually starting to look like there's progress.

Craptacular

That's how I've generally felt today. Either I'm at the beginning of a cold or I overdid it a bit at the gym yesterday and the fibromyalgia is paying me back. Or maybe a bit of both. It didn't help that I spent the night on the couch to keep Tuck quiet, which meant a night of being awakened every ten minutes by the cats raising hell.

Yeah, I know, sleeping on the couch for the dog sounds a little crazy, but it (usually) beats the hell out of listening to barking all night and yesterday brought a bit of a change for him. I finally managed to de-Christmas the living room, moving our tiny, but very heavy, potted live tree off of the big dog crate, said tree being supported by three cases of motor oil stacked up inside the crate (no, really, we're not at all white trash 'round here). Tuck likes the new digs, but it means he has a clear view of me going up the stairs and leaving him alone. I also started him on amitriptyline last night to try to help him through his separation anxiety, but that takes time to kick in. So the couch it was.

Otherwise, yesterday was quite a productive day. Aside from the gym, I managed to get several errands run, the most important of which was this:



The dog license was the last bit of official business to take care of regarding Tuck. He has a home and family who love him now, which is as it should be. And next Tuesday, we're going to see what we can do about his airway issues. I'm a tiny bit nervous about putting him through anesthesia & surgery, as he had some problems when he was neutered, but these procedures should help at least to lessen the issues that caused those problems in the first place, and I'm taking him to a clinic with a laser surgery unit, which is the least traumatic option available.

More Soup, Please

I was a little surprised to see comments from so many people without pressure cookers. They're really very handy pieces of kitchen equipment, and for beans that take bloody forever to cook up, like garbanzos, they're damn near essential.

They're also available for not a huge amount of money. Mine is a super cheapo aluminum one that I bought at K-mart after moving back to Maine. It will likely give me Alzheimer's disease, being aluminum and all, but I was financially tapped out at the time and it has served well. Amazon has a reasonably-priced stainless model, as does Amazon.de (Interestingly, the German website uses the US product as the header photo for their Töpfe category on their main cookware page, but they don't appear to offer that model for sale). And yes, VUBOQ, canned garbanzos could be used. But would they be as tasty?

Anyway, last night I made another soup for dinner, this one not requiring a pressure cooker. I decided I wanted split pea soup and had to go with yellow peas, since that was all the local supermarket had left on the shelf. Who knew it was such a popular idea? Truth be told, there's little difference between this soup and the garbanzo one, except that peas cook up nicely without the pressure cooker. I didn't put any cumin in this one, and I cut up an onion and a few parsnips in it. I also crushed a few tiny-but-potent hot chilies that Don brought us when he visited before Christmas, just to give it a little bit of kick. It turned out very tasty, as you might imagine.



Travel Plans

Since I have to do the end-of-life talk and play the role of grief counselor so often at work, I registered last night for a symposium on veterinary hospice care in March at UC Davis. This will be my first trip to California at all in just over 6 years and the first time I've been within reasonable travel distance of San Francisco in nearly 14 years, so aside from getting in my continuing ed credits for the year, I'm hoping to be able to catch up with some friends I haven't seen for a while and meet a few folks I've only known virtually up to now.

I'm just a little excited.

Comfort Food Leftovers

In the interest in using some of our stockpiles of dry goods and because it's serious comfort food season, I've been in a beans and bread frame of mind lately. Last night it was garbanzo stew with maple walnut spelt bread, and I brought leftovers to work with me tonight. And since I've got little else to say at the moment, I thought it'd make for some good blog fodder.

So without further ado, here are a couple recipes for your consideration:

Easy Pressure Cooker Garbanzo Stew

When I lived in Spain (20 years ago this spring!), I boarded with a family and Berta, the wife, would often make different bean stews for the midday meal, using a pressure cooker to save time. Garbanzos were a popular choice, though this one isn't identical to hers. The quick way to cook these is to presoak the peas for a couple of hours by bringing them to pressure in the cooker and turning off the heat as soon as the steam starts venting. After letting them soak, change the water, making sure there is about 1 inch of water above the level of the peas and adding a couple tablespoons of olive oil to prevent foaming and two to three sliced cloves of garlic. It is important NOT to add any salt or anything acidic at this stage, as it will keep the peas from getting tender. Bring the pot back up to pressure and reduce heat so the vent is just rattling and keep at pressure for 20-25 minutes.

At the end of the cooking period, remove the pot from heat and place in the sink under cold water to reduce the pressure so that you can remove the lid. Then add one 12 oz. can of chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, 3-4 bay leaves, cumin, thyme and coriander to taste. Simmer on the stove top until the stew is creamy and serve.

Maple Walnut Spelt Bread

- 3 cups whole grain spelt flour, plus additional for kneading
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup plain yogurt
- 3/4 cup hot water
- 1/4 cup maple syrup (the real thing, NOT Log Cabin® or Mrs. Butterworth's®)
- 1 packet bread yeast
- 1 large egg
- olive oil & butter

Mix the hot water, yogurt and maple syrup and mix in the yeast, then set aside to let the yeast proof. Mix the flour, salt, and walnuts together. Once the yeast solution is foamy on top, beat in the egg and then mix with the flour. This will make a fairly wet, sticky dough initially, but my aim was not to work it too much, in order to avoid making a really dense bread.

Beat for about 30 seconds to one minute in the bowl to activate the gluten a bit, then turn onto a well-floured board and begin kneading in additional flour just until the dough is cohesive (again to avoid making it too dense). Oil the bowl well and return the dough to the bowl, cover with a clean dish towel and place in a warm dark area (I warm the oven just a bit) for an hour or two until the dough has doubled in bulk.

Punch down the dough and knead again for about five minutes. Separate the dough into two loaves and place in two bread pans that have been greased well with butter. Again cover with the dish towel and place back in a warm spot for the second rising.

Once the loaves have doubled in bulk again, preheat the oven to 400°F(205°C) and bake them for about 30 minutes, or until the loaf is dark brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped. Wrapping them in a dish towel briefly softens the crust. Slice and serve.

This recipe was developed on the fly, but my main aim was to make a whole grain bread that wasn't overly dense and I think I succeeded. Because the dough wasn't worked too much, it resulted in a more crumbly than chewy bread, but the flavor is excellent and I'd definitely make this one again.

Cheez Sammedge Sez...

"I'M IN UR KICHIN, MAEKIN UR MISO SOOP"





Yet to come (because I forgot to take a photo): Startitis, or Why I Just Had To Cast On That BSJ

You Know the Old Saying,...

...when life gives you too many apples to eat before Rhinebeck, make applesauce.*



We took it along and ate it there, and it was perfect.

As was Rhinebeck. A more proper accounting shall occur once I've had a chance to rest. And upload photos. And take some pics of my haul (hint: small but very expensive). Suffice to say, the kilt was a hit.

*At least, I think that's how I learned it.