kaffy_r | Entries tagged with food

Orange Cake and Daily Tasks

Very quickly, because I'm busy rewatching a Korean music group challenge show (because of course I am), I wanted to announce to a waiting world that the second time I baked this particular orange cake, it was just as good as the first time. I am satisfied.

Today was supposed to be the first day that I gathered up all the paperwork we need to prepare Bob's Canadian permanent residence application. I ended up dealing with other things, but I hope it wasn't just a case of me trying to avoid a tough job. It's undoubtedly not nearly as tough as my fears make it seem. I'm going to do my best tomorrow to get the job done. Then Bob and I will figure out the following day's tasks wrt the application. We figured that we'd try to tackle one job each every day, and we're going to try to stick to that.

Well, except for me, obviously. Sigh.

Wish us both luck tomorrow.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Kingdom: Legendary War

Bread Worked Out. Plus 2024 Ateez Coachella Performances Located

Yes, I am but a tiny speck on this globe, and my successes and failures are as unimportant as can possibly be imagined. Still, one takes one's victories where one can find them, she said pretentiously.

First the bread. I went back to a Kitchen Aid recipe for two loaves of white bread. I'd previously had minimal success with it, but I wasn't going to fool around with a completely new recipe, and potentially lose more ingredients, a la yesterday's whole wheat bread failure (I'm not going to call it a debacle, because I've learned from it.)

I was pleasantly surprised, to put it mildly. I paid a great deal of attention to the heat of the liquid into which I was supposed to put the dry yeast, and I'm embarrassed to say that was something I previously failed to do well. And surprise! The bread came together and rose beautifully, not just during the first rise, but during the final rise. They're now out of the oven and they look spectacularly ordinary, which was what I was aiming for. Huzzah!

The second bit of success was within the field of my latest obsession, the KPop group called Ateez. Like SKZ, they have eight members, and they debuted just a bit later (Oct. 24, 2018) than Stray Kids (March 25, 2018). The two groups are very friendly, despite working under different entertainment agencies.

Ateez songs, choreography, and lore differ noticeably from SKZ; to my ears, they're just a hair rougher than their hyungs. Both groups have labored under peoples' view of them as noisy, and I think that's one of the reasons they appreciate each other. But I digress. I was trying to find videos of one or both weekends they performed at Coachella 2024. It was difficult, but the KPop subreddit came to my rescue. And since Bob agreed to watch one of the performances with me, I now have something to show him. Again - huzzah!

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Ateez, "Say My Name" on repeat

Positivity Exercises

I was looking for positivity a day or so ago, and found it in a couple of livestreams and YouTube videos; certainly nothing productive. I needed some escapist activity because we got some unhappy financial news - nothing fatal, but something that has to be handled slowly just at a time when I need to work quickly. That was why Friday turned into a "Chocolate and Ice Cream Because Reasons" day.

Saturday was a tad better, although poor Bob was dealing with pain that he couldn't get rid of. He's no longer able to take any nsaids, and won't take any type of opioids, no matter how mild; too many bad memories from a few years ago. As of Monday, he'll be able to do something about that, but I still feel bad for him.

In terms of other evidence of positivity, I got something cooked or baked every day this week, from June Allyson-Velveeta mac and cheese (upgraded the next day with sauteed onion, peppers, mushrooms and bacon; the JA-V version was a necessary comfort feed, but as much of a faunch as I've recently had for Velveeta, it doesn't hold up well without such an upgrade) to potato soup and pan-seared chicken, and bread pudding. What's that, you say? Not very healthy? Yeah, and? The nice thing is that our freezer is now full of things I can pull out, defrost, and serve up for supper.

I almost forgot; we had the bathroom designer come in to take a look at our bathroom. The cost of a full renovation was way, way beyond our means, but the designer didn't look at us askance when we told her that. She suggested a strategy that we are going to try.

I finished reading "The City in the Middle of the Night" by Charlie Jane Anders; excellent reading, with difficult to like characters, almost all of whom I, as a reader, became fond of. And the world building is pretty breathtaking, as are the different human societies on a tide-locked planet. So, too, is the depiction of a non-human intelligent species. I liked it better than Anders' "All the Birds in the Sky" which I liked and was very, very good.

I've put a hold at the library on Han Kang's "We Do Not Part," a novel that includes a retelling of a 1948 Korean atrocity. I'd never heard about the Jeju Uprising massacre, and it's horrendous, but Han won the 2024 Nobel Prize for literature in part because of this book. My recent interest in many things Korean doesn't always involve Kpop.

Current Mood: relieved
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: Stray Kids "Mountains"

Soup, Stays, Sliders and More

I'm ending the day with a smile on my face, for a number of reasons.

( And the reasons are under here. )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Stray Kids "Blueprint"

Three Things Make A List.

1. Adventures in breadmaking.

I ended up making two two-loaf efforts at breadmaking on Monday and Tuesday. I wanted to enrich the recipe I'd been successfully using, by adding an egg to make the resulting bread less dry. However, I did the opposite of what I should have in both cases; I went overboard on the various liquids in the recipe.

The first batch of bread didn't rise at all, and turned out two lovely-smelling bricks. I was able to turn one loaf into a cheese casserole, but the second loaf was deemed a complete and utter failure, and since I already have a couple of bricks to hold the door open when necessary, it was given a decent burial.

Thinking that I'd just communicated some of the recipe's commandments incorrectly to BB, who had to finish up when I had to dash to a physical therapy appointment, I ventured a second attempt. This time, it looked as if it was going to be successful. Nope. These two loaves are usable, and tasty, but I've learned my lesson. Back to the original recipe while I look for another one. (Usually I can experiment, but this experiment was a failure.)

2. Noted in passing

Fox News is not going to be airing the J6 public hearings live (or at least the Thursday public hearing). It can lawyer its way around that by saying that it is showing them live on ... wait for it ... Fox Business, and offering feeds and streams to its affiliates.* But still - Fox News is going to have a two hour J6 hearings reaction show in its Prime Time slot immediately after the hearing. Shocked and surprised, I tell you, shocked and surprised.

BB and I are popping popcorn and having a neighbor over to watch the hearing on Thursday. As my neighbor said, "it's going to be easier to watch with other people around. I told her I'd uncork the wine for her. Me, I'm opting for my usual Big-Ass Martini as I prepare for All The Fun (tm)

3. Oh joy, more sewer problems.

The headline speaks for itself. Sigh. At least I'm not responsible.

* I wasn't happy with Chris Hayes over on MSNBC doing a whole segment on the lack of Fox News coverage, without mentioning that Fox is offering coverage, just not on its flagship service. I loathe Fox News with the burning heat of 1,000 suns, and I hate to be seen as giving them any props at all, but bad/incomplete journalism on my end of the political spectrum is still bad/incomplete journalism. Hayes should know better; he's actually a pretty good journalist.

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: MSNBC

List-y Stuff

1. I made bread a couple of days ago. It was good bread, and my stand mixer's dough hook made kneading unnecessary (I used to love kneading, but my now-aged hands are very happy to employ that dough hook.) I plan to make some more bread tomorrow. w00t!!1!

2. I've made a bit more progress toward the end of my novel. Go, me.

3. I'm taking on a fic editing task after someone on an Arcane subreddit asked for help. Gotta get my editing hat on.

4. It's been cold and rainy. Ah, yes, spring in Chicago.

5. In CasaKaffy_r, the great "Let's not go into the red at the end of every month like we've, you know, been doing" budget exercise took important steps; goodbye to HBO Max, goodbye to Amazon Prime, goodbye to Pandora Premium. Also, goodbye to our paid Guardian subscription - only because we know we can still get it for free, and we have to pay for the Tribune, Sun-Times, and Washington Post. I feel really bad about that, and if we can eliminate another monthly cost a few months down the road, I'd like to re-up the subscription. But the work we've done means we should have a bit of a cushion at the end of every month. Keep your fingers crossed; if it turns out to be the case, I won't have to go back to work.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: MSNBC

Two Undoubtedly Unwise Things

1. I made banana bread and about 5 dozen pumpkin cookies today, for reasons about which I'm not entirely clear. For someone trying to eat more healthily, this was probably not the best idea, especially since supper then consisted of two slices of banana bread and 5 cookies. I'm thinking of pawning most of them off on a neighbor, with a few left for Bob.

2. I'm thinking of doing NaNoWriMo this year.

Current Mood: full
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Ambient music. Don't judge; it helps me think
Crossposts: https://kaffy-r.livejournal.com/601429.html

Japanese Whisky FTW

Japanese whisky (yes, they spell it that way, as opposed to whiskey brewed anywhere else) is remarkably varied, and each variety is, unfortunately for me, really too expensive to imbibe regularly.

Occasionally, though, a half shot glass of Suntory Toki over rocks is just what the doctor ordered. (Suntory Hibiki is far to rich a habit to get into more than once or twice a year.)

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Japanese lo-fi
Crossposts: https://kaffy-r.livejournal.com/598077.html

Scattered Maunderings

I had a post started on Monday, which turned into a post I planned to write yesterday. And now it's Wednesday, and the post I'd planned to write really isn't germane two days on. So I'll maunder a bit.

( About writing )
( About ice cream )
In final news, the tiny hole in our dining room wall has been patched and sanded, and our curtains are back up. Huzzah!

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Takashi Kokubo, "Oasis of the Wind"
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/582008.html

Curtain Rods and Cuisine

I got up Sunday morning, went to open the curtains in the dining room, and had half the curtain rod come down on my head. When it did, it pulled itself out of the wall with a glorious vengeance, leaving a ragged hole in the drywall. This happened before my first cup of coffee ....

When Bob got up, he looked at the hole, sighed, declared the patching thereof to be beyond his skills, and I put out a text for Lori, our building's very capable maintenance person. With any luck, I'll get in touch with her sometime tomorrow, and I'll ask her if she'd give us an estimate for doing the job. Until the hole's patched, we're not going to put the curtain rod back up. Not that we'll be putting the rod anchor up in the same place, but we don't want to put the cur4tain up and then have to take it down to do the patching, if we can help it.

My Sunday culinary adventures turned out to be less fraught than the cashew chicken job. I made stuffed eggplant with some leftover cooked rice, burger, and the sauteed eggplant chunks I removed from the shell. Although the diced tomatoes I added to the mix had hot chilies in them, it turned out to be barely warm. The important thing is that it was very tasty. We also have enough for leftovers for dinner today.

Ah, domesticity.

And how is everyone else today?

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Telephonic hold music. Yay.
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/580585.html

Well, If Not Stupidity Then Unbelievable Ridiculousness

This week has been notable for only a couple of things chez CasakaffyrBB, (other than the 90 degree heat we're now experiencing) and both of them have to do with my apparent inability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

On Wednesday, I put together some cashew chicken, and mixed it up with some softened rice noodles in the wok. It smelled really good, although when I roasted the cashews and the tablespoon full of dried chilis, I started coughing. That should have alerted me to the problem, but didn't. Then when I taste tested the finished product, just prior to adding the rice noodles, I realized it was going to be hot. Very hot. Very, very hot. JFC HOT. I added a lot more rice noodles to the mix, and thought that might work to lessen the firepower.

Reader, it did not.

I went back and looked at the recipe just a tad more closely. Ah. It called for a tablespoon of sliced hot red peppers, alright. However, it was clear that it was asking for a tablespoon of fresh red chile peppers. Not - I repeat not - a tablespoon of dried red chile peppers.

This was not going to be pretty.

I warned Bob, and said it was going to be JFC HOT, and that we should have milk on hand. I could see he didn't quite believe me. Until he did.

The final verdict on Wednesday? The rice noodles did nothing to ameliorate the heat, largely because they soaked up the very hot sauce, so they were just as hot as the food I'd hoped they could help.

Reader, we stopped eating.

We also figured out a way to make the chicken, cashews, sweet peppers and mushrooms edible; I teased out all the rice noodles I could, then pitched them. I made a great deal of rice, which BB and I realized doesn't soak in liquids quite the same way rice noodles do, then made a new cashew chicken sauce with absolutely no heat in it. Success! It was still hot, but not "I do believe I'm fixing to die" hot.

The second piece of stupidity/unbelievable ridiculousness? Apparently throwing out my vaccination card. I'm going to go through the piles on my desk again, but I have a feeling that I File 13'd it, not foreseeing that such a card might come in damned handy. I just figured it was something I could show to the nice soldier boys and girls who were giving vaccination shots to prove I'd had my first shot.

Reader, I am an idiot.

Ah, well. Such is my life.

Today, I made an apple harvest cake, and this particular iteration of the recipe came out really well. I think it's because I didn't make it solely with monkfruit sweetener, since I've discovered that the 0 calorie sugar substitute doesn't completely melt into the batter. I did a 50/50 mix with real sugar, and that was the right decision.

Current Mood: blah
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: big band music (Woody Herman, I think)
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/580152.html

Good Things and Other Things

Let's get the "other" part out of the way. This story from NPR, about how the efficacy of recycling plastics has always been a lie, one that oil companies pushed even as they knew it was a lie, has almost caused me to despair. It's certainly plunged me into an environmental Slough of Despond, from which I cry disconsolately "Why the fuck should I even bother?" What do you think, after reading it?

I'll follow that up with something slightly more positive: the potential for at least considering the likelihood of life on or above Venus. (I made that sufficiently equivocal, I think.) The information in this Washington Post piece was intriguing, to say the least.

Further things: I've made applesauce this afternoon. The old apple peeler/corer/slicer that we picked up at either Goodwill or the Sally Ann didn't work this time, although it was really helpful the last time we used it. I'll have to investigate it, but I think the blades involved are now too blunted. Or maybe the apples were too soft ... *wanders off, muttering*

Also on the cooking menu is a cucumber-onion salad. Hmmm; food considerations remind me that I need to create the menu for the rest of this week, because I'm trying very hard to be organized about things like this.

I'm also going to try to get a little bit more writing done on my slow fanfic WIP. Go, me. And the music I'll be listening to as I try is CBC radio, which I was reminded I have access to online. It's been very soothing; lots of diverse music, with quiet chat between pieces, usually with really interesting information about pieces or composers.

Speaking of Canada, now I really have to start watching Schitt's Creek, which I've been aware of for a few years but which I haven't watched, because the idea of a family living in limbo, no matter how funny, pushes the same horrid buttons that Green Acres used to.* It swept all 7 Emmy comedy-connected awards last night, and now that the series is over, I can maybe get started on it.

* When I was a lilttle kid with little to no taste in television, "Green Acres" used to drive me spare; why couldn't they fix the damned house, why were they living where they had to climb a pole to answer the phone, why didn't they just start making their home neater. Why couldn't they control their surroundings? Worse, why didn't they seem to want to control their surroundings? This speaks more to me than it speaks to Green Acres ... amusingly enough, I watched a little of a Green Acres episode not long ago, and really enjoyed it, probably because I could digest its surrealism and enjoy it. A little like not being able to stand blue cheese or dulse as a youngster - not even being able to understand how anyone would like them - and discovering years later how much I liked one, and could enjoy the other.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: "Early One Morning" Nana Mouskourinana
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/565424.html

Garlic and Ginger and ex-GOPers, Oh My

The entire house is redolent of fried garlic and ginger, thanks to my decision to cook this particular recipe. It turned out rather well, although I know that my body is not going to be happy with the oil content. (I mean, I put a little less oil in the recipe than it called for, and I definitely did not put egg yolks and dollops of butter on top of the dish, as the recipe called for ... yeesh ... but it definitely was tasty, rather than healthy.)

The next time I make it, it will be with day-old cold rice, rather than rice made earlier today. It was a little too glutinous, despite the considerable rinsing of starch that I normally do with rice of any kind, particularly short grain. But the carefully fried minced ginger and garlic - seven cloves, thank you very much, and we are oh, so lucky, that the condo above us is currently empty, else we might be dealing with garlic-suffused neighbors demanding to know why the hell SEVEN CLOVES??!? - was heavenly. The ability to use up some of my home made curry bricks was the garlicky cherry on top as far as I was concerned.

After reading this Mother Jones story by David Corn, I want to get "It Was All A Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump", by former Republican political operative Stuart Stevens. Unlike a lot of current or former Republicans and various assorted conservatives, this guy takes full responsibility for his part in the noxious quagmire into which the Grand Old Party has been turning over at least the past 50 years. I had to read the Mother Jones story to BB, because it echoes so closely what he and I have said in our own discussions.

That's about it, folks: too much garlic and just enough political mea culpa.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Nothing. Probably wouldn't be able to hear it over THE GARLIC
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/563180.html

Too Many Pastries, Just Enough Son

Knowing that Andy was coming home, I went to Bennisons Bakery in Evanston and got a mixed box of apple fritters, doughnuts, and iced fruit scones. He's not a big sweets fan, but he really likes Bennisons. (As one should. It's an awesome bakery.) It was a great idea.

Except that it really wasn't. It was a strategic mistake.

See, items in the Bennison box were also calling to me with the sweet siren melody of sugar. Lots of sugar. And carbs. Dear lord, the gloriously starchy carbs. I could not resist them.

I've officially had Too Damn Many, and have instructed my offspring to eat the remaining evil goodness. I've been eating raw green beans and drinking barley green tea to try to get my brain out of "Pour as much chocolate syrup, melted ice cream and simple syrup over this doughnut as possible, then stuff it down my throat and I will die happy" mode.

Still, it's been a pretty good day, even if totally unpredicted traffic problems forced me to give up my first volunteer shift with the Chicago Food Depository. I let them know why I didn't turn up, and they seemed to be pleased that I'd done so. I will reschedule another shift after Andy returns to Seattle.

We ended the day with Chicago deep dish pizza, an unexpected but delightful call from

a_phoenixdragon , and now I'm going to collapse and enjoy sleeping.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: BB and FB talking photography
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/562208.html

A Few Things I've Thought About Lately

( Tangential mentions of our current global medical situation, but with at least 1 and possible 2 giggles. Avoid if you'd like. )

3. I cannot bake cookies without making sure that most of them exit my domicile superfuckingfast. If I don't make that arrangement (with some left for Bob), I will do something vaguely equivalent to going face down in the cookie jar and coming up covered in crumbs. This is not a good look for me.

4. Today we had temperatures in the mid to high 70s (Fahrenheit). We wrestled a couple of our windows open to enjoy fresh air and a cross breeze. We'll have weather that's almost as warm tomorrow, and I am going to enjoy it like whoah.

5. I've managed a few more sentences on my cross-over fic. Having figured out the ultimate reason for the opening dilemma, my next big challenge is determining which characters from which canons get to talk to each other, and how.

6. Finally, here's the late, great Bill Withers doing a live version of "Ain't No Sunshine," complete with violins. I could quite happily listen to this on a loop almost any time, despite the heartbreak implicit in the lyrics (or perhaps because of it). Today it sounded even more lovely to me.

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Bill Withers "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone"
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/555985.html

Technology Television, and Books FTW

Bob and I got me an air-fryer (which Bob reminded me is just a fancy name for a small convection oven) as a birthday present, and we tried it out today, creating french fries without the deep fat frying that scares the living bejeezus out of me. I really am afraid of deep frying; a fear that wasn't helped at all by the first episode of Spooks, lo, these many years ago. So having fries that only needed to be tossed in oil? Yesssss!

My Donna & Thirteen & Shaun (oh my!) fic is growing, possibly to the point where I should turn it into a two chapter effort. Thus far, I'm pleased with it, and Bob has given it an approving WIP review. Go, me!

I wish I had something more monumental to talk about, but there you have it. Oh ... have yet to move beyond the first episode of Good Omens, but I will soon. I've also watched the first episode of Carnival Row, and although it's cliche-ridden, I'm enjoying it enough to continue watching. There - wow! Fannish TV.

Speaking of which, I bought the 20th anniversary edition of Textual Poachers: Television fans and Participatory Culture, by Henry Jenkins, and I'm gingerly dipping my brain into it. Academic tomes and I aren't the best of dance partners, but I live in hope.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: the home office
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/530513.html

Hurrah! Tuesday Was Not A Loss!

I really don't have that much more to say, but after yesterday's rather flip post, I thought I should follow up to let people know I didn't have to slip into the Slough of Despond after Monday. Go, me!

Part of it was because I managed to make some excellent stuffed poblano peppers for supper. Both BB and I agreed they were excellent (and, surprisingly, not too calor- or carbonific.

Of course those are words. Ahem.

I'm going to go and cuddle with BB now; he deserves all the TLC.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: the home office
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/528166.html

Sunshine, Good Intentions, and Apples

One of my good intentions was to sit down and read the Mueller report. Yes, all 400-plus pages of it. Other folks have done so, and if I can read zoning reports, I can read this.

Unfortunately, my back started acting up again (or my leg. Or both, consecutively and concurrently). so I spent much of the afternoon lying in bed with a heating pad. I also did some exercises that are supposed to help strength muscles around my sacroiliac joints, so I feel as if I've done the right things by my back.

I did manage to make one of the larger amounts of applesauce that I've made in my life. It also has plums in it, since I needed to use some up before they went bad. It needed thickening after it was done, but I was able to thicken it up with Bird's Custard (WHAT??!?) and it wound up tasting very nice. Cinnamon., nutmeg, mace ... all the classic additions.

Almost the best part of making the applesauce was getting to use the apple peeler-slicer-corer that BB and I picked up at a second hand store years ago. I'd never used it before, but the large amount of large apples I had to peel (these days I need to eschew fruit skins, much to my sorrow) convinced me to find the thing and use it.

And it worked like a charm, a little - or a lot - to my surprise.

And tomorrow? In the morning, the Mueller report, at noon, an Easter brunch with my friends, and in the evening, Episode 2 of Game of Thrones. In which, I know, I just know, at least one of my favorite characters is going to bite it. Argh.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: the home office
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/520710.html

Well, This is Not What I Had Planned at All

I have now concluded to my unhappy satisfaction, that I am, for the foreseeable future, Off Cinnamon.

Given the huge place cinnamon has played in our menus, this involves a sea change in the way I approach non-savory recipes. It also requires that I give away at least one of the huge containers of cinnamon that I have.

The apple harvest cake will be divided, with one half for BB, and the other to be given to FB and Miss Em. Same for the cookies. Both have been pronounced excellent by BB, but both have provoked cinnamon reflux, for lack of a better term, in Your Humble And Culinarily Careless Servant.

And it's my own fault, for misreading the recipe in the first place. (Or not washing off the apples and starting fresh, instead of trying to make do.)

Damn.

Current Mood: disappointed
Current Location: the livingroom
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/466274.html

Saturday In The Kitchen

The kitchen is a sugary-cinnamony mess*. Particularly the cinnamon, since, while making my mother's Apple Harvest Cake - which calls for 1T of cinnamon on a bunch of cut-up apples - I misread the recipe and put 3 tablespoons in.

The cake turned out OK, largely because I separated the apples from the cinnamon sugar mix, and BB assures me the result is really good. But now I have a lot of cinnamon-sugar mix (I added what seemed like a metric shit-ton of sugar to the mix in an effort to balance it out correctly) that I need to make cookies with. I believe it will involve rolled oats, orange extract and chocolate chips. Hush, it will be wonderful.

Meanwhile, there was so much cinnamon in the air, and in some that I unwisely put in my coffee, along with sugar and milk, that I'm burping up uncooked cinnamon. It has an unpleasantly chemical aftertaste. That doesn't appear to have affected the cake; presumably the cooking process allowed it to become less chemical. But burping the stuff is not pleasant. My stomach agrees, so I had some cold, slightly salted rice, because I'm apparently incapable of leaving my stomach well enough alone.

(I realize that in reading this, you may recoil from my cooking skills , adjudging them - possibly correctly - as non-existent. You may decide that you will, if presented with an invitation to dine Chez

kaffy_r , politely decline. And you may vow never again to read anything I post about cooking. I am taking that risk, because in this TMI age, you deserve to note my weird-ass culinary stumbles, as well as my equally weird-ass culinary triumphs.)

Once I've stopped burping cinnamon, I'll venture back into the kitchen to attempt the oatmeal cookie-things. Wish me luck.

*Update - I've cleaned the kitchen. It's much more civilized now.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: the livingroom
Crossposts: https://kaffyr.livejournal.com/465978.html

Kitchen Terror Unleashed

I have made 78 molasses ginger cookies with raisins.

Fear me.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: the livingroom & kitchen
Current Music: Mike Marshall & Darol Anger "Hot Nickles"
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/461344.html

Today I Made Pumpkin Pie

And I successfully used up some leftovers in the fridge to make a decent fettuccine dish for supper. These are both successes. And I realized that something I thought I had to get done in three days was actually something I don't have to get done for 9 days. That's lagniappe.

I also listened to a lot of Joe Hisaishi music. And now I'm going to bed, knowing I don't have to get up early in the morning. That's the best part.

No, perhaps tomorrow will be the best part.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Going to bed
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/446305.html

Is It Friday Yet?

I'm heading to bed, because I think I'm getting a head cold. I'll try to catch up with everyone tomorrow.

The car's working again, after almost $300 worth of work. (It wasn't the radiator.)

I made a mashed cauliflower casserole for supper. Yes, I know it sounds horrible; it wasn't. It was reasonably good. Unfortunately, cooking the cauliflower in water in order to make it soft enough to mash brought out all the odors that roasting cauliflower doesn't. Urgh. Maybe I should be glad my nose is starting to plug up.

Ah, me.

Current Mood: crappy
Current Location: Going to bed
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/442244.html

Thanks much to

thisbluespirit for something cheerful!

This lovely vid made me much more cheerful than I'd been before I watched it.

Watch on YouTube

And today is Friday; I have dined on turkey croquettes and maple-glazed fried parsnips (courtesy of BB) for supper. Our kitty, Alex, is feeling better after a trip to the vet, and I had a very productive Thursday and Friday. So I am pleased. And tomorrow BB, FB, and our friend Neil go to Hausermann's for their annual February orchid show.

I am a happy camper.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: the livingroom
Current Music: Eluvium "An Accidental Memory In The Case of Death"
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/440717.html

Cauliflower, Capons, Early Deadlines

I have just roasted cauliflower florets after tossing them with coarsely chopped garlic, red pepper flakes, salt and olive oil. It is really, really good. I don't know why I didn't think about roasting cauliflower before the age of 61. (Me, not the cauliflower.) I have a new side-dish for Thanksgiving!

I was playing around with the idea of having a capon rather than a turkey for thanksgiving dinner. After some thought and reading, I've decided not to do so. I'll just go with a smaller turkey and slow/moist roast it.

Can you tell I'm going into Thanksgiving dinner mode? Doing so makes me happy. We're having FB and Em, our friend JT, Drs. Gonzo and Bob (not my BB, a different Bob), and maybe a couple of others. BB has asked that we don't talk about politics. Knowing our friends, that may be impossible, but we'll try to minimize the talk. As he says, he'll even be willing to watch football if it stops the political talk. "I want to be thankful," he says, and I understand.

Early deadlines, early deadlines, early deadlines. Lord, what a pain. And I signed myself up for a Saturday evening assignment, which is also a bit of a pain, although it'll be an automatic 6 hours of pay.

And now, to sit with my beloved and watch anime!

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: the livingroom
Crossposts: http://kaffyr.livejournal.com/431236.html

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Grasping at Grace (and Growth)

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Entries tagged with food

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Dept. of Sunday Success

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Dept. of Family

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Dept. of Unfortunate Announcements

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