Archive for December, 2007

6 Days Around Christmas

Published by kindli on December 29, 2007 in California, adventures, family, friends, townhouse and travel. 0 Comments

Gavin and I went to Palo Alto for Christmas.

Christmas Eve we went out to lunch at the Peninsula Creamery with Dana, once we got there, we joined Abby, Sara(h?) and Nick (friends of Gavin’s from high school). For Christmas Eve dinner, we enjoyed large bowls of Cousin Ann’s chili.

Christmas Day consisted of presents, waffles, a 3 mile “walk” with Winston and a wonderful Christmas Ham with roasted potatoes and green beans.

The Day After Christmas Gavin and I went to the Stanford Shopping Center to use up the remains of our Crate & Barrel gift card (a leftover from our May ’06 wedding), and do a little shopping. In the afternoon we set up Dulce and Stephen with their own LibraryThing account and entered about 630+ books for them. When I last looked they had 727 books entered.

Thursday’s adventure was a day-long trip to Carmel with the Family Hess. Gavin and I saw a sofa that cost more than our car, adorned with pillows that cost about half a month’s rent, and decided that even if we did have that much money that wouldn’t be how we’d spend it.

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On the beach at Carmel, photo by Joan

We drove back to Sebastopol on Friday, back to our very comfy bed, 1.5 bathrooms, empty fridge, and mailbox bursting with credit card offers and catalogues. All the plants that were alive when we left are still alive now. They don’t look any better, but they certainly don’t look any worse.

Presenting Dinner: Leftovers Stew

Published by kindli on December 20, 2007 in cooking. 0 Comments

Stew, with a collection cleared out of the veggie drawer, assorted flavorings, and crock-potted since about 10 am. 

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It needed more salt and pepper, and I’m not sure how well it will work as leftovers. Hopefully it won’t turn overly-natural shades of blue and purple like the leftover lasagna did. 

Not So Mini Mini-Bundt Cakes

Published by kindli on December 19, 2007 in cooking. 0 Comments

The mini-bunt pan my MIL bequeathed to me a few months ago has been languishing in the cabinets above the refrigerator. It was in good company, there are some other infrequently used platters and pans up there as well. It is a very nice mini-bunt pan, non-stick Nordic-ware, with a solid feel to it, but I just haven’t felt inspired to use it.

Today inspiration came: in poking around in the fridge, I realized the remaining three eggs were set to expire today.

Fortunately I’ve been amassing a collection of recipes to try, and they included a recipe for Not So Mini Cinnamon Swirl Chocolate Chip Bundt Cakes which would work in a mini-bunt cake pan, and required three eggs, and sour cream (another soon-to-expire item).

Happily, the recipe is straightforward, few things stick to non-stick (with an extra coating of PAM), and the oven is lined (some batter tried to make a bid for freedom and failed). The end result was six adorable little muffin-topped (muffin bottomed?) mini-bunt cakes.

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They are light and fluffy, and have a coffee-cake like consistency. Quite excellent with hot chocolate!

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Barataria Summer - now Available

Published by kindli on December 19, 2007 in books, family and reading. 0 Comments

Dad’s newest book Barataria Summer is now avalible from Amazon in both Paperback and Hardcover editions.

Maturity comes fast and furious when you are looking down the barrel of a Thompson submachine gun.

For sixteen-year-old “T’Eddie” Leymoine, a summer spent with an enterprising, gun-running uncle has no shortage of hair-raising lessons. Ventures with Uncle George in Louisiana bayou country expose the boy to alligator poaching, cock fighting, and the art of deceiving the authorities.

For more information on Dad’s books, please visit Dad’s blog at http://trudellsbooks.blogspot.com/.  

Adventures with Loaf Pan Lasagna

Published by kindli on December 18, 2007 in adventures and cooking. 0 Comments

Yesterday, after I assembled the ill-fated pot-stickers, I realized the ground beef in our fridge was about to expire. Not wanting it to go to waste, I decided to try a new lasagna recipe.

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As Gavin aptly pointed out yesterday when I brought this up on the drive home, I already have a great lasagna recipe and a really cool pan that I can bake it in, and it turns out really well (even when I slightly mess up the layering).

So why would I want to try a new (potentially less stellar) lasagna recipe? Well why not?

At this point Gavin argued that the lasagna I’ve made previously was amazing.

Tough. The new recipe was already assembled, sitting in the fridge (with one in the freezer) ready to be heated and tried.

I tried to point out the “new” recipe was specifically designed for loaf pans (sort of like how I make my Pastitio), which (theoretically) meant that it could be frozen in smaller 2-serving portions, instead of trying to chisel apart lasagna segments that had fused as they froze and microwaving them with varying results.

My logic was met with skepticism.

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Rice is Nice

Published by kindli on December 17, 2007 in adventures and cooking. 1 Comment

Gavin has always been quite supportive when I try new things. This evening was no different: tonight for dinner we had homemade pot-stickers* and rice.

I found the recipe for pot-stickers a few days back linked from Slashfood. I knew Gavin liked pot-stickers, so I decided to give them a try.

After a 3-store hunt for won-ton wrappers, and nearly two hours of chopping, grating and assembling I had some semblance of pot-sticker. Not quite authentically shaped, but I had square wrappers instead of circular ones.

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Everything went well, I assembled about twenty or so of them, and put them in the fridge for later.

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Planet Chicken

Published by kindli on December 15, 2007 in cooking and movie. 0 Comments

This evening, Gavin and I finished watching Planet Earth. If you haven’t seen it yet by all means try to rent the BBC version narrated by David Attenborough (he does a better job than Sigourney Weaver who narrates the American version on the Discovery Channel). It is an amazing series with stunning photography, amazing cinematography, and it is very entertaining (be sure to watch the Diaries).

In watching Planet Earth I’ve noticed some trends, about 90% of it revolves around food. What the animals eat, how they hunt, how much time they spend hunting, how they work around food shortages. Don’t let this discourage you from seeing it, it’s an amazing series, but it really pulls into focus how important food is: the shark that swims all day seeking one little meal; the polar bear so desperate for a meal he tries to take on a walrus; the little lemurs who eat moths and hibernate most of the year.

Yes, food is important. I’m glad that I have more options than the seals who have to go past the great white sharks to get a meal. I’m luck enough that I can hop in the car and drive over to one of several grocery stores. No sharks, no angry walruses, no enemy gangs of chimps, no need to hibernate all winter (although that was tempting while we were in Boston).

I am also lucky enough to have the internets where I can search for recipes to make food more exciting. Tonight’s new experiment was Sesame Orange Chicken. It turned out really well, a little heavy on the coating, but that’s an easy enough fix. The chicken marinated over night (and there are two more breasts marinating in the freezer), and it tasted really yummy (although Gavin picked off about half the crusting… it was a little thick in spots). I can make it again, it got thumbs up.

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Sesame seeds and other figments of the Popular Imagination

Published by kindli on December 14, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Today my grocery list was deceptively simple: sesame seeds, napa cabbage, scallions, ground beef and won-ton wrappers.

So far I’ve learned International food means spaghetti, Matzo balls, taco shells, sushi wrappers, occasionally a token British tea or German chocolate. Sesame seeds are figments of the popular imagination, and you can do an amazing range of things with nuts.

I started at the Pacific Market, forty five minutes later, after walking up and down every aisle I left with an orange and some hot dog buns. The token associates I did find to ask were stocking pastas no where near the international foods and while very polite, were quite unhelpful. There were sesame seed candies, rice paper, and dried seaweed but no won-ton wrappers.

Next stop, Safeway: lasagna noodles and ground beef. For the first time that I can remember, there was no one readily available to ask. They had sushi wrappers, and loads of canned mexican-style beans. Not a single sesame seed, lots of peanuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, sunflower seeds, but not a single sesame seed.

Finally, I went to Whole Foods, behold, bulk bins and sesame seeds! Then, two associates later, won-ton wrappers, napa cabbage, and scallions.

Things I learned today: scallions is just a fancy name for green onions, and having lots of grocery stores is a Useful Thing.

I would like to note the other locations *did* have napa cabbage and scallions (once I realized what they were) but with out the won-ton wrappers there was no point

Amanda’s Baklava

Published by kindli on December 13, 2007 in adventures, cooking and friends. 0 Comments

Today I wanted to make something a little outside my range of expertise. A few months back a friend of mine and I traded recipes: I sent her my chili recipe and she sent me her baklava recipe.

Until today it lived in my “recipes to try” binder. The recipe looked easy enough, but Baklava!? It had to be difficult. All the little layers of flakey dough, the nuts, the just-right sweetness.

 

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Happily, I was wrong. The most difficult part of making it was dealing with the ultra thin phyllo dough. It snagged, ripped and didn’t want to cooperate.

I’m glad I spent the extra $2 or so to get disposable pans with lids. It is far easier to put the lid on the pan than it is to try and relocate the individual pieces into some other container.

I would say the baklava turned out quite well. It tastes quite similar to baklava I’ve had at restaurants (I’d venture to say better than some I’d had in restaurants).

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Oh Christmas Shrub

Published by kindli on December 10, 2007 in California and townhouse. 0 Comments

Living in a small townhouse, Gavin forbade a faux tree (they’re ugly and where would we store it?), and pointed out that a fresh cut tree was “pointless” (we’ll be at his parents for Christmas). Then there was last years tree ended up dead shortly after Christmas (it froze solid in one of the winter storms… the directions said to put it outside).

So this year I am once again trying a real tree. I picked one up at Safeway for $12, got a pot and miracle grow potting soil at Target, and gave the little tree a new home.

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A few lights, some ornaments, a felt-covered crate for extra height and a few preemptively wrapped presents and Gavin’s first comments were: “It’s more of a shrub than a tree, the pot is bigger than it is!”

Well yes, I want it to have plenty of room to grow. It looked more tree-like in it’s littler pot. Gavin is betting five cents it won’t last until next Christmas.