1-2-3 Beer Bread Recipe
1 can (12 oz.) beer – I use Shiner
2 tablespoons sugar
3 cups self rising flour
Place in cold oven and turn on oven 350 degrees.
Bake 50 minutes or until bread is lightly browned.
Remove from pan. Bread is done if it sounds hollow when tapped on bottom.
Cool on wire rack.
I’ll need to build one for my Honda Fit
"MINI-FINI and their Teardrop Trailer"
Zombie Cake
Yes. Yes. …and Yes.
Travel Nano Stand
with Turbulence Control/Anti-Slip Device(TM) engaged.
Allows for hands-free video viewing on airplanes to facilitate the knitting arts.
(Yes, this is a Nano rubber banded to a monster binder clip boosted from work. The rubber band is from Whole Foods takeout though…)
Oh-oh at the late night, double feature, picture show.
(well, it was a matinee really.)
At the risk of jinxing things, Bunny has been doing really well since that one bad weekend. I built her a half-assed tent since she didn't seem particularly interested in going back into the oven as it was on the bed. I took a pop up laundry hamper (not the vertical version, the horizontal version) , my ever present polar fleece swatch, a set of #15 wooden knitting needles and then just pulled it around one half of her bed. The knitting needles help with a bit more clearance.She walked right in and got comfy.
I didn't know how much it would help, but apparently it does a good job as her ears remain warm now that the house is a bit colder.
Other than Bunny maintenance, I have been planning trips (short necessary trips) and working.
There was a series of days where Bunny would wake me up every 2-3 hours to eat, which kicked my ass, but lately she's let me sleep (either that or she hasn't been able to wake me up). There's also some sort of flu crud going around which I touched on but didn't let take hold; unfortunately, I think Tex did get it… and of course, when men get sick the world ends. Sigh.
Some knitting going on, but not a whole lot, I think I have developed tennis elbow from having to carry my 7 pound stinkpad home from work every night in case Beast's fuel pump decides to die (and now if I stop taking the behemoth home, then the fuel pump will choose that moment to give up the ghost.) Micheal, my pet mechanic, says that "dropping the fuel tank and replacing the pump" won't be a big deal… but it SOUNDS like a friggin' big deal. So, my arm hurts and knitting isn't terribly comfortable. Lifting a can of soda with my left hand is excruciating.
Sunday the 4th was a pleasantly unscheduled day, so we went to see the Toy Story double feature in 3D… the theater was full of kids as I expected, but they were 99% quiet for the whole thing. I was very happy about that and most of the time forgot I was surrounded by the wiggling petri dishes for 3 1/2 hours. It also helped that we were in a row that was a walkway and had room to stretch our legs (mine less so than Tex's…and oh… my little alien guys in 3D! So much fun!
My brain is food-ing again, too. After Toy Story we went to On The Border (surprisingly, consistently good Mexican food) and I had a combo platter with enchiladas and fish tacos. I normally LOVE fish tacos, but they were just ho-hum and I skipped the corn tortilla, but the enchilada was fantastic. Spinach and mushroom sauteed in a bit of butter with sour cream sauce over the top.
I'm going to try it sometime soon.
The other thing that I want to see how turns out is a roasted acorn squash with quinoa stuffing… I googled other quinoa stuffings to see how I could jazz it up (as I removed some of the exciting bits from the original recipe) and found one with crunchy bacon bits in it… hmmm. That might be an experiment for this week as well.
I also need to set up better lights for food blogging in the kitchen.. or just a good place to photograph things (I suspect this means that I will need to clear off the kitchen table, but I don't feel like it right now). The stove, while clean, has ratty looking patched (an apartment stove, you see) and the counters are not very big and I end up seeing the fake butcher block pattern under the slab of leftover marble from mom's kitchen redo years ago.
Anyhoo, busy and I am looking forward to some quiet time, though I doubt it will happen anytime soon, but I'm not really worried about that right now. I can sleep later and knitting on the plane will probably be a good diversionary tactic with my ipod playing audiobooks in the background.
Daily Bun
Bunny's numbers came back…and improvement on most things… though when she eats now, she gets pretty sluggish.
I though it was the anemia, but I don't know now. The vet just lowered her Aluminum Hydroxide dose (and gave me a script that only cost $13 rather than the $90 I was paying for an equivalent refill. Every little bit helps.)
Anyhoo, I'm still miffed at my vet for letting too many other things get in between him and his focus on Bunny, but I haven't totally decided to switch vets yet. We'll see how pissy I have to get to get his attention.
(Picture Dirty Harry in the role of Aurora in "Terms of Endearment" and you'll get an idea of how I will go after any neglect of the Bunnycat.)
Still, it was a tough weekend and Bun is definitely feeling less perky than she was a few weeks ago.
We're both tired.
My new hero
is Crazy Aunt Purl who knitted this masterpiece:
Photo copyright CrazyAuntPurl.com 2009 I found the pattern made with regular wool as well here but the Noro is so freakin' gorgeous, I might have to be a copy cat. See? Still pretty but not nearly as orgasmic:
Roasted Corn Pudding in Acorn Squash Recipe for Mabon
Happy Mabon, y'all!
In honor of the harvest festival on the Autumnal Equinox, I made a harvest-y dinner last night.
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/roasted-corn-pudding-in-acorn-squash-recipe.html
original photo by Heidi Swanson 101Cookbooks.com Isn't that beautiful? I edit things to my tastes, primarily to remove things I know I don't like (star anise) or to remove things that would kind of kill me (scallions, still…sigh)…though I would love to have had scallions in mine. Here is my version: Roasted Corn Pudding in Acorn Squash Recipe for Mabon
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup half & half
1 egg plus 2 egg whites
2 ears fresh corn kernels
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon garlic
1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/3 cup grated 2yr Black Wax Cabot cheddar cheese
1 sliced apple ( I used Honeycrisp because the name reminded me of autumn. Any tart apple will do.)
1. Turn on your oven to 350 F
2. Cut the acorn squash in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon
3. Drizzle olive oil and salt on the squash
4. Cook acorn squash until fork tender (~50 minutes)
5. Mix 1 egg plus 2 egg whites, 1 cup half & half, 2 ears fresh corn kernels, 1/4 teaspoon garlic, 1 cup grated parmesan cheese in a bowl (I suppose you could mix it on the counter instead of in a bowl, but it might get very messy.)
6. To keep the mixture from running out of the squash, I took a pair of tongs, turned over the squash and sliced a bit off the bottom to make a flat surface. Then set it back onto the roasting plate, filled them 3/4 full with the mixture and put them back into the oven.
I lowered the temperature to 325F at this point so that I didn't scald the mix.
It will set up in about 30-40 minutes. Test them for consistency around this point; you can pull them out earlier if you wanted more of a soup consistency or longer for a more firmly set pudding.
There was extra mix just as Ms. Swanson mentioned in her version, so I put it in a small oven safe bowl and baked it along with the rest of the squash.
7. Place on serving dish and grate white cheddar over the squash. I used a 2yr Black Wax Cabot cheddar cheese recommended to me by Jennifer… and it was spectacular in combination with the slightly sweet pudding and acorn squash mix. (I didn't brown the cheese in the broiler, but you can if that makes you happy.)
A tart white wine (not too sweet) or even a apple cider reduction drizzled on top would be really good with this… or go simply with the sliced apples that we had on the side.
Blessed be, y'all!
A Centro San Francisco
More pics from when Eden visited us west coasties…
Bunny wobble
Well, I think Bunny got a bit cold this weekend.
I'm sure her anemia is progressing, (hopefully it isn't to the point of needing shots, because that means that there is officially an expiration date on my cat) consequently that means her tolerance for anything that requires extra blood flow is slim to none.
Its kind of disheartening to see her a little more out of it and it was freaking me out.
The good news is that she just slept a little harder after eating (and she's still eating well) and I managed to not muck up her fluids while I topped her fluids tank off (I did a crap job of it the other night and she's a little wary of it now – which breaks my heart. She forgives me right after, but looks at me askew when I set up for it.)
She is fine today, though; yelling at Tex for brushies and eating well.
I'm the mess in this situation.
I hate emotion.
Bunny and the disembodied Hand of Tex (cue scary music here)
I've also cleverly scheduled some time off at the end of the year which will give me 10 days in a row for the price of 4. No plans yet. Well, I might plan some cooking and some footie jammies time with a whole lot of knitting, but that's about as ambitious as I plan to get.
My fuel pump is still suspect in Beast, so I drive it only to get to work and back, with very few other stops and starts. I also keep the revs under 2500 rpm to not really stress it… I get freaking amazing gas mileage this way but I get flipped the bird a lot more as well. I did get confirmation from my mechanic that the part I found on the web is the right one, so (4 weeks later, thank you Merc Rx communication errors) it is ordered. We'll see how long it takes to get here and get put into service.
I've also developed what I believe is tennis elbow (I haven't talked to Dr. Google yet) from schlepping my 7 pound work laptop home everyday just in case my car dies at some inopportune moment (when do they ever die conveniently?) and I get stuck at home for several days. Its my own fault for lifting it with my left hand, but now I need to get my arm fixed as lifting even a dish send excruciating stabs through me. I can lift my arm, I still have range of motion, but lifting is out. Fun.
Tonight is Mabon, so I will be cooking this ( http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/roasted-corn-pudding-in-acorn-squash-recipe.html ) as the Mabon feast. I'll edit here and there on the recipe, but the corn chowder in the acorn squash thing sounded yummy… and how can you go wrong with something covered in cheese? (I'll let you know if I manage to do so…)
Anyway, that's all there is. No wait, I did get new shoes…
That's really it. Yes, really.
Go home now.
Carcassonne at Night
Oh how I miss this place.
SW France seems like home to me.
