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This recipe was my version of a recipe I saw on Tumblr which I can no longer find, more’s the pity. It assumes you’re going for a bunch of noodles rather than a bowl of soup. The main trick here is to re-use the egg-boiling water for the ramen and veggies.


 

Recipe under the cut )
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I saw a post on copperbadge's tumblr about an exploded pressure cooker, which prompted me to write up a memory from my youth.

My grandmother had a big house down on Cape Cod where she lived during the summer, and my family would generally go down a couple of times a summer. This particular time, I’d invited my best friend E along as well.


One evening, my grandmother decided to make pot roast for dinner. (You can see where this is going, right?)

I should say in my own defense that I know essentially nothing about how to cook large hunks of meat. At home such things were roasted, either in the oven or on my dad’s kettle grill (aka the best way). It may in fact be possible to cook large hunks of meat in a pressure cooker and not have it end up inedible. I just don’t know. 


My grandmother stuck the pot roast and some water into the pressure cooker, closed it, stuck it on a burner, and turned the heat on.

And walked away.

Most of us were sitting out on the back porch watching the sunset. At some point we noticed that in addition to the salt smell of the water below, there was a rather different smell coming from the house. The pressure cooker had gone completely dry - maybe it hadn’t been sealed correctly - and the object within was burned black.

I have no idea whether it ever occurred to my grandmother that not serving the pot roast was an option. In any event, served it was. I think we must have gotten the smoke out of the house by the time dinner was served, because I have no memory of smelling smoke during dinner. Or maybe there was still smoke in the air, but my sensory memory of that meal was entirely and completely overshadowed by the bite or two of dry, gritty, burned material boldly masquerading as pot roast. My mother told me later that my friend E gave her a look and whispered, “Do I have to eat it?” to which my mother (a reasonable person) whispered “No!” in response. My father, dutiful son that he was, ate his entire portion.

I think my grandmother must have gone to bed early, because once she was out of the picture the rest of us piled into the car and salved our poor taste buds with the sweetness of ice cream. 


And according to my mother, when she and my father woke up the next morning, the first words out of his mouth (before he said “Good morning” or “I love you” or anything) were, “That was, without a doubt, the very worst meal I have ever eaten.”


amethyst73: (tazz)
My parents’ microwave gave its last zap two weeks ago.  It’s an occasion that causes some reflection.  Don’t get me wrong - at roughly 30 years of age, the microwave owed nothing to anyone, and it deserves to rust in peace.  But it’s a box that did a lot in its time with my family, and I’d like to say a few words about its long and worthy life.

Stories of a microwave )

TVP!

Aug. 15th, 2012 09:42 pm
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A friend of mine just blogged about his experiments with textured vegetable protein (TVP), which brought back memories.

My mother's father was in the Air Force, and at some point in his life, either during his career or after, he acquired cans and cans and cans of various survival food items.  When he died, we inherited somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 gallon-sized cans of whole wheat, and a much smaller number of more sensibly-sized cans of other things: dried apples (tasty), vanilla protein powder to be added to milk (vile), and some TVP.  My mom tried cooking with it precisely once, if I recall; it just didn't work very well in whatever she was trying to make.  It and the vanilla powder got discarded quickly.

The wheat was a different matter.  My mother inherited, at approximately the same time as all this canned stuff, a hand grinder which was probably her grandmother's.  We tried to use it to grind some of the wheat, but I think it was probably meant for meat more than anything else, as it was just really hard work to grind the grain.  My parents also had a little electrical coffee grinder, colored beige and that shade of orange peculiar to the '70s.  It ground somewhere between a quarter and half a cup of stuff at a go, and my dad used it occasionally to grind up batches of the wheat.  He then added the wheat flour to muffins, pancakes, waffles, etc, and quickly learned to use some white flour as well as wheat, as the baked goods would come out uncomfortably heavy and dense if he used 100% wheat flour.

After storing the twenty-some gallon cans of wheat for something over twenty years (including taking them with us when we bought a house), my parents finally decided to get rid of the wheat.  I think they gave the wheat to a local food pantry.  I hope the food pantry was equipped to deal with the donation!

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Last night I put together the basic recipe for chocolate sorbet at epicurious.com. Preparing the recipe is ridiculously easy, though you end up with a lot of dirty dishes at the end of it. After blending the final mix, I left the mixture in the blender and stuck it in the fridge overnight. As the recipe warned, it didn't seem terribly liquidy this morning, but stirring it up with a fork produced a potentially useful stopping place: chocolate syrup! If you make this recipe with chocolate that doesn't have any milkfat in it, it's vegan- and allergic-to-milk- friendly. And given that it's (in my case) Ghirardelli cocoa powder plus Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate, plus some water and sugar and a little salt and vanilla, it's really tasty.

The stuff seemed to freeze pretty well, perhaps unsurprisingly; chocolate likes to solidify when it's cold, after all. (Note to self: if the opening of the container you plan to store the ice cream or sorbet in isn't all that big, knock the sorbet off of the paddle while holding the paddle over the freezing cylinder, not the final storage container. Otherwise you have a mess to contend with!) A small taste indicates that the final chocolate sorbet product is of reasonable smoothness and very chocolatey - what's not to like in the list of ingredients?

We'll do this again at Christmas for my husband's family, using a brand like theo or Scharffenberger that doesn't have any milkfat in it.
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I was given a spiffy new electric ice cream maker for my birthday back in October, with the (joking) condition that I use it to make a sorbet or two for the family gathering at Christmastime. (There are a couple of people who have dairy allergies, so ice cream, ice milk, and frozen yogurt are right out.) So I'm trying out recipes.

Lemon-Basil sorbet: recipe and notes )
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Had a busy but generally good week and weekend.

Pasted from G+ )
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Well.  The ginger syrup I made last night is... strong.  I think I probably had more ginger than the original recipe, and the whole shebang sat on the stove cooling overnight, then in my fridge all day because I didn't have a good container for it, so the various herbs sat in it for quite some time.

If you add it to your seltzer expecting ginger ale, you're going to be disappointed... but only in that it's so concentrated, you get a great deal of ginger without a lot of attendant sweetness.  But it *is* pretty tasty.  (If you taste it straight, take just a fingertip's worth.  Really!)
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Right now I am simmering together a bunch of ginger, some cardamom, star anise, allspice, and peppercorns, a la FormerChef.com, the blog on food, recipes, and travel written by [livejournal.com profile] orichalcum 's sister-in-law. 

My mom would have LOVED this.  She was a huge seltzer drinker for a sizable chunk of her life (guess who got me started?) and, as I've mentioned once or twice before, she really enjoyed cooking.  She would have thought the SodaStream was the best thing since sliced bread, and would probably have made three different syrups already.  :)
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I found the card with the recipe for my mom's cranberry sauce, which I promised I'd make for Thanksgiving, and thought I'd blog the recipe card and our attempts to follow it.
An exploration in recipe interpretation )

It tastes quite pleasant, though it's somewhat different from what Mom did.  Presumably everyone will enjoy it anyway.
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I was going to write a long, ranty, and hopefully at least somewhat amusing post about my allergies to the California privet tree and the miseries sustained thereby, but fortunately I think they're getting somewhat better. (Or at least I did till a day or two ago.  I think I need to switch allergy meds; my nose is just really sensitive now to anything floating by.  Afrin, here I come.) 

Instead, I will post the recipe for the Spanish rice that we made last weekend!  It was pleasant and easy, and I'd certainly consider making it again, with reduced amounts if it's just for the two of us, or similar amounts if we have guaranteed people to help us eat it.  This recipe comes from here, and the modifications come from the reviews

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups white rice (we used jasmine 'cuz that's what we have)
  • 1 small can chicken broth (about 2 cups)
  • 1 can plain tomato sauce (about 1.5 cups)
  • 3 cloves finely chopped garlic
  • 1/4 of a medium onion, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • some oregano (somewhere between 1 and 3 tsp)
  • splash of ketchup (about a tablespoon)
In a medium sauce pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add in the fresh garlic and onion. Saute for 1-2 minutes until softened. Add in dry rice. Stir for about 5 minutes until rice becomes a golden brown color. Add in broth and tomato sauce (Slowly into rice, not directly onto hot pan!) [NB - if you don't, you'll end up with chicken-and-tomato spatter all over.  You might still, even if you pour onto the rice.].  Add cumin, oregano, and ketchup.  Stir it up and bring to a boil. Once it starts boiling, turn the heat to low and cover. Let it simmer for 20 minutes and fluff with a fork.

Quite tasty while not being overly exciting; I imagine it's pretty kid-friendly.  Makes a bunch - if you have only two people eating, it lasts as a side dish for chili for several nights.
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Here's that lasagna recipe I promised people last week, courtesy of our college friend Desiree Henshaw:

1 lb ground beef (can easily be lowered to 1/2 lb)
32 oz red spaghetti sauce (I don't think it's possible to get a 32-oz jar anymore.  Just get a standard size and increase the water a bit.  Play with the variety of the sauce!)
1.5 cups water
2 C (15 oz container) ricotta cheese (we always use the lowfat kind)
3 cups (12 oz) shredded mozzarella or Monterey Jack cheese (reserve some for the top, if desired)
1/2 C shredded Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
1/2 C parsley
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
8 oz uncooked regular lasagna noodles
(optional: 1 package frozen spinach)

Preheat oven to 350°. 

Brown the beef and drain grease.  Add spaghetti sauce and water, and simmer till hot.  (Tip: use the water to rinse out the jar of spaghetti sauce.)  Optional: add 1 package frozen spinach.  This helps lighten the final product somewhat.

In a large bowl, mix ricotta, mozzarella (~2 cups if you want some on top of the lasagna), parmesan, eggs, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Layer the ingredients in a 9x13" pan as follows:

• enough sauce to cover the bottom (~2 cups)
• lasagna noodles
• sauce to cover noodles (~1.5 cups)
• 1/2 of the cheese mixture
• more noodles
• more sauce
• the rest of the cheese mixture
• remaining noodles
• cover with the remaining sauce
• top with remaining mozzarella, if desired

Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake at 350° for an hour.  Remove the aluminum foil and bake an additional 15 min to brown the top.  Remove from oven and allow to cool and set for at least 15 minutes before eating.  Makes a LOT, but keeps pretty well in the fridge.
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• This has been a pretty busy work week-and-a-bit.  After some initial kerfuffle with the cells we needed to transfect, we started The Transfection Part only a few days later than originally scheduled.  With one person being responsible for maintaining, splitting, and aliquoting cells, and two of us doing the transfections, we got through all 264 transfections in the projected time.  And early Western results show that we're getting good expression of the proteins we're trying to make.  Yay!  We will be able to embark on the actual screen for novel binding partners within the Ig superfamily (IgSF) within Drosophila sometime next week.

• Huz is on the last section of Metroid Prime, having defeated Meta Ridley with the help of a walkthrough.  I am nowhere near done, being just about ready to get the Heat Visor.

• Tried out the demo for Miles Edgeworth last night.  Walking around to examine things feels kind of klunky - at least using the interface they had in the demo.  But the story and characters look to be their usual crazy, marvelous selves.  (Who knew Edgeworth was a fanboy of the Steel Samurai?)  Will keep my eyes open for a used copy.

• Speaking of which, someone thought it would be a good idea to write a musical using the characters and concepts of the Phoenix Wright games.  Youtube of the first segment of the musical is here.  Weirdness: all the characters seem to be played by females -- eh, whatever.  From the little bit that I've seen (the equivalent of the 'intro' section of one of the cases), I can't tell whether it's any good or not.

• Our New Zealand trip is coming right up!  I went and got new sneakers today. At least I have that concern out of my mind now.

• We have a bunch of Meyer lemons, thanks to a labmate of mine.  Meyer lemon bars for D&D tomorrow!
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Today was overall quite nice, with some excitement scattered here and there.

Trees, travel, cooking and sleep )

Soon it will be bedtime!  And then it will be the weekend!  Skating, Harry Potter, and sleep, yay!

Weekend

Jul. 18th, 2009 09:14 pm
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- Tea eggs for the win!  Thanks, [livejournal.com profile] digitalemur !

– No skating class this AM, but we went skating during public session and got Very Tired.  Reverse Killian position feels *really* weird.  But then again, so did standard Killian at first.  Practice practice practice. 

- Speaking of practicing, there were about three different kids all working on their routines for ISI Worlds, which happens in about two weeks.  They took it in turns out on the ice: the "Ease On Down the Road" girl would go, then the girl with the vaguely recognizable music, then the James Bond boy.  Then they'd do it again.  And again.  That's quite something, in kids none of whom is over the age of about 11, if that.

- Speaking of ISI Worlds, why is it that I can't find ticket information anywhere???  Grmph.

- Having fun with Tactics A2.  Everyone's about level 14, and I clearly need to buy some more spiffy weapons so folks can learn more skillz.  (No, it's not really spelled that way.)  It's a slightly odd system, if like me you never played Tactics Advance but loved the original FFTactics: equipment teaches you how to do stuff.  And everyone gets ability points, even if they didn't participate in a given battle.  Huh???

I Like Weekends.  :)

Various

May. 23rd, 2009 04:57 pm
amethyst73: (Default)
• Suave's so-called lavender and lilac-scented shampoo smells to me neither like lavender nor lilac while using it. It smells quite distinctly of apple.

• Had a lovely (and productive!) day with [livejournal.com profile] nezumiko  yesterday.  Acquired new sneakers, new jeans, and new tea and adorable teacup.  Then we went back to her place, watched the last four episodes of Fruits Basket, and made Tea Drinks!  We need to name them though.  The recipes are below.

My drink:
    Brew a cup of Teavana's Rooibos Key Lime tea.  Add a dollop of Bacardi Limon and enjoy!  If you wish, you can also add a small amount of honey, further smoothing out any edge that the alcohol might have.  But mostly it doesn't have any in the first place.  It's a quite refreshing drink, and I bet it would be simply lovely over ice.

Nezu's drink:
    Brew a cup of Teavana's Earl Grey Creme.  (Straight Earl Grey would probably work too; if you do it that way, add a little vanilla extract to the mix.)  Add a jigger of Tuaca (it's an Italian liquer) and enjoy.  It's quite good just like that; add a spoonful of honey to turn it into liquid candy, and some half-and-half on top of that to turn it into a drink you could seduce someone with.  (This is the drink that really needs the name.)

We're now hanging about waiting for Super Shuttle to turn up, which they should do in another hour or two.  We'll be in Boston tomorrow through early Friday, then down to the Ancestral Homeland for Huz's reunion.  See you!

Various

Apr. 6th, 2009 10:23 pm
amethyst73: (Default)
• For the record, Bacardi Limon mixed with ginger beer is pretty good.  It's pretty darn sweet at first, but once things have had a chance to mix (and perhaps several tastebuds have been put temporarily out of commisson by the Bacardi?) it's good stuff. 

• Note to self: Next time the sewer cleanout shows signs of backing up onto the lawn, call the town to get it snaked for free BEFORE you discover on a Sunday afternoon (when the town doesn't answer phone calls) that there's a high level of standing water in the thing and you have to pay someone to come snake it.

• Huz is home safe!  He had a good and productive time at the NCBI workshop he went to.

• Worky work.  Worky work occasionally kind of frustrating.  Why oh why don't my cells want to express syg-2??

• Singy sing.  I'd forgotten that having voice lesson on the same day as symphonic chorus rehearsal leaves my voice reeeeeeeallly tired after rehearsal.

• Game-game.  Finished Zack and Wiki; will happily lend.   What to play together next?  Thinking about New Play Control! Pikmin, Fire Emblem, and Broken Sword Director's Cut.

• For those planning on descending on the Ancestral Homeland in late May for Reunion, call the Duncan Hotel - they started taking reservations about a week ago.  And man, they are CHEAP!!!!! We're paying only about $90/night, and that's with tax.  (Shampoo not included.)

Stuff

Feb. 8th, 2009 07:41 pm
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• Have purchased tickets to Boston and from New Haven in May for the huz's reunion.  Flights, do me a favor this time and STAY AS YOU ARE, PLEASE!  (Including the o/n direct SFO to Boston on JetBlue, pleeeeze...)

• Invented okay peanut sauce at lunch today.  Into a small frypan, put:
 - probably around 3/4 cup water
 - about 3 T peanut butter
 - maybe 1/2 tsp roasted garlic stuff
 - a shake of red pepper flakes
  Smush peanut butter around till it's kind of dissolved in the water.  Boil awhile till it thickens.
  Add a shake of sesame oil.  Serve over noodles that had been sitting around long enough that we were worried about the integrity of the peanut sauce that came in the accompanying packet (best by sometime in 2006). 
  Add salt, which improves it a lot.  Next time, have some onions or scallions or something along those lines on hand, and add some soy sauce at the end of cooking.

• Got first place in 100cc Leaf Cup on my first attempt (though not first place in all races).  Must be getting better at this racing thing.

• There was something else, but durned if I can remember now.

EDIT:  Oh yah, now I remember.  Damned ankle acting up again.  Time for new orthotics, methinks?
amethyst73: (Default)
It's cold.  I'm hungry.

I want a snack that's warm, but preferably reasonably healthy.

We have bananas; what can I do with bananas that's not too much work and should be tasty?

Amethyst's Spur-of-the-Moment Orange Sauce
Mix:
   1/3 - 1/2 cup orange juice
   cautious sprinkle of cloves
   somewhat more generous sprinkle of ginger
   scant 1/2 tsp cornstarch
   scant teaspoonful of honey (I just squeezed what seemed like a good amount out of the jar)

Pour into small saucepan or skillet.  Cook, stirring on low-mediumish heat.  Allow to bubble 5-10 minutes till thick.  Cool a little, and pour over substrate of choice.  Sliced bananas are fine (you can then add leftover finely chopped almonds, which adds some nice texture); this would also work well over ice cream or cake - chocolate would be preferable, but a good pound cake would also work well.

This is, no doubt, what comes of having the cover of Ratatouille staring at me for the last couple of days.  :)

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Heh! I kind of like this meme, courtesy of [livejournal.com profile] ladybird97 and others. (Very simple: just post about something that makes you happy on a daily basis.)

• Bishop Marc Andrus visited our parish today! Very active, engaging speaker, I liked him a lot. And we had a really good trumpeter for the service, and excellent cake during coffee hour afterwards.

• After suffering TOTAL FAIL in our attempts to acquire copies of Mario Kart Wii online for standard retail price (all the big shippers are sold out, so those hawking used copies are getting around $70 for them), we found two copies of it locally. And - extra score - the huz found a copy of Zelda: Wind Waker, for which we've been searching for as long as we've had our Wii. [big grin]

• Late afternoon tea and cookies. Delightfully civilized and pleasantly yummy.

• Caldo verde soup for dinner tonight!

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