I'm boring.

2012-02-09T21:50:00.003-05:00

Hey look! It's another post! This is no way guarantees future performance. Apparently I've heard too many investment commercials.

So I guess I should provide some other updates as well.

Well.

So what do I have to update.

The year started out with a bang. A bunch of changes going on in my life. Really stressful start to the year at work. A few weeks in, I was really disturbingly close to having a complete psychotic meltdown. Some may say I wasn't just close, but I was way over that line. Of course some would say I've never seen the right side of it. But I'm better now. Relatively speaking anyway. I never claimed to be the picture of normal.

Anyway....

I am preparing to start seeds for spring. That's all sorts of exciting. Except that I am so indecisive that I keep changing what I want to grow, where each plant goes, how I want to lay out the garden, etc. You would think, considering I now have probably double the space I have had before, I would have plenty of space for everything. But I keep adding more stuff I want to grow! Well (theorhetically anyway) I will have more posts in the future about that.

Now... I will actually publish this without a picture because it'll never get posted if I wait until I dig up my camera, take the pictures, copy the pictures over, choose one, post it... Yes I realize in the amount of time I spent typing that out I could've done all that.

This is a pretty simple recipe. A good way to get a nice sugar kick going. Maybe a way to kick off my return to blogging.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge
based off Alton Brown's fudge recipe. Google it if you want that instead of my version.

1 cup crunchy peanut butter
8 oz butter
1 lb confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Coat an 8x8 pan with cooking spray or butter. Heat peanut butter and butter in a pyrex bowl, covered, for 2 minutes in the microwave. Stir. Heat for another 2 minutes in the microwave. Stir thoroughly. Stir in confectioners sugar and vanilla until combined and mixture has a dull finish. Stir in chocolate chips and let sit for a minute to allow them to soften. Press mixture into the greased pan. Chill until firm. Cut into squares.

Playing House

2011-11-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

Yay for taking some vacation! One that I apparently desperately need. For weeks now, every time I would say anything, my coworker would respond with 'man, you really need to take a vacation'

I am taking the week off for Thanksgiving. I am cooking the turkey and stuff. I can't say it's a terribly exciting vacation but it's relaxing. I've sat around the house. Watched a season of Mad Men. Painted my coffee table. Played with my compost pile. Cleaned assorted surfaces. Although I still can't seem to get the grout in my kitchen/lining room floor clean. I lead an exciting life, I know.

After numerous rounds of scrubbing it with a toothbrush, scrubbing brush, all purpose cleaner, bleach and a mop. It's still not quite clean but at least it's better. A stiff toothbrush wes the best way I've gotten at cleaning the grout. The scrubbing brush just didn't get into the grout as well as the toothbrush did. I will probably pick up a bunch of them the next time I am at the grocery store. Although maybe an electric toothbrush would cut back the amount of elbow grease needed.

Anyway... this post is supposed to be about the coffee table.

There was a time when I didn't really care for this coffee table. It is a handmedown from my parents. Who had probably picked it up at the curb at some point. When I got my first apartment after college, they gave it to me. It was beat up. It's particle board with a wood veneer and the squares on the legs that you can't really see in the picture are plastic with some sort of coating on it. There are spots where the veneer is worn away, and paint drips and spots where it was warped from moisture. I decided I wanted to get new furniture but I'd hold on to this one until I got the new one. Well, it's been almost 10 years and... well... as you can see I still have it.

But I still don't love it. I put it in the basement, still with the intention of getting new living room furniture. I have accepted that I'll probably keep it for a while longer.

So I decided to at least make it less ugly. I sanded it down and painted the whole thing bright red. It's still back in my basement and at least the warped damaged parts of it are not so noticeable.

Compost

2011-11-15T06:42:00.000-05:00

The leaves have been falling and suddenly my compost pile is full.

Although actually it was a lot fuller a couple days ago when I loaded it up so hopefully the leaves will break down more before I have to add more.

And yes that picture was taken through my kitchen window. It's cold out and it's before 7AM!

On a related note, everyone who has seen my compost pile thought it was weird that I had paper in there. Why is that weird? Newspaper is a lot like leaves.

Though really I need some nitrogen in there. Any suggestions for where to get some that's free?

Honeycomb Candy

2011-10-12T20:27:00.001-04:00

I decided to take a day off from work. Didn't have a plan for what I wanted to do with my day off or anything but I figured I'd take it.

I dug up my yard. After changing my mind about 8 times on how I wanted to lay out the garden, I decided not to build raised beds yet. I dug up and loosened the soil where I think I want the beds to go. I'll try the garden as is, see how it does next year, adjust the lay out if needed, and if I like the layout and the soil quality isn't as good as I would like it to be, then maybe I'll build raised beds.

Naturally, since I was home, I had to make something. This was one thing I made. Also made a bunch of other stuff that I so didn't need to make. Maybe I'll get around to posting those as well.

I'd been meaning to try making this for a while now. It's pretty sweet so break it up into small pieces. But the soy sauce cuts the sugar a bit so I like to believe it's not sickeningly sweet. There are probably some that would disagree with that but oh well.

Honeycomb Candy
based off of this recipe

1 1/2 cups sugar
water - about 1/4 cup, just enough to dissolve sugar
3 tablespoons honey
1/3 cup corn syrup
1 tbsp soy sauce
4 teaspoons baking soda, sifted

Directions

In a pot, combine the sugar, honey, corn syrup and water. Boil until amber colored and the sugar looks like caramel, shaking occasionally but not stirring. Add soy sauce and swirl. Add the baking soda, and stir with a silicone spatula. It will foam up a lot. Pour the mixture onto a silpat and let cool. Break into pieces.

Cheesecake Ice Cream

2011-09-30T20:09:00.000-04:00

The bowl for my ice cream maker is in my freezer. I put it there when I moved in. As long as it's there, taking up precious freezer space, I figure it needs to be put to good use. The first batch was cinnamon ice cream. This was the 2nd.

This is actually what you should do, not what I did. I threw everything in a bowl and mixed. Then I got a whisk to break up the lumps as best I could but definitely still had some. Oh well. I guess I'll have to try again sometime.

Cheesecake Ice Cream
adapted from this recipe

8 oz cream cheese
8 oz plain yogurt
4 oz light cream
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
pinch sea salt

Cream together cream cheese and sugar. Gradually add the yogurt while stirring to get a smooth mixture. Continue with the cream. Stir in orange zest, vanilla bean paste and salt. Chill in the fridge overnight. Churn in ice cream maker.

Compost

2011-09-22T06:02:00.000-04:00

So it's mid September. Obviously I am not going to be planting a garden this year. But I can get things ready for next year.

Here is the first piece of my garden, the compost pile. I brought home some pallets from work. $2 for L brackets, and an hour to assemble and load it up. By load it up, I mean, move what looked like a trash heap in the middle of my yard so that it's contained by the pallets. My neighbors love me. At least my lawn isn't yellow any more, just green with weeds.

The compost pile is in the corner. The rest of the garden will be the dirt area around it.

I am deciding how I want to lay out the garden. The grid is 1 ft per box. The box on the top left is the compost pile. The other boxes are raised beds. That's as much effort as I am capable of putting into drawing this.

What do you think? Is 2 ft a wide enough aisle? I am thinking it will just be boards around the border. Not sure how I am getting 20' boards and bringing them home but we'll get to that. Or I'll get multiple shorter boards and figure out how to join them. Can I just screw together the corners or do I need something more to support it and keep it from falling apart once it's filled with dirt? I figure I'll till everything with my garden weasel before I build the beds. Hopefully that will give me a few years before I need to figure out how to till inside the raised beds.

No Knead Bread

2011-09-19T15:55:00.001-04:00

OK so everyone else blogged this years ago but hey, I'm slow. I might be slow enough for this to be retro cool rather than just dated. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So the reason I am actually baking the bread dough that was in my fridge is this. My coworker had egg salad for lunch yesterday. Suddenly I needed egg salad. Then I needed a carrier for the egg salad. I tried to dip some baby carrots in it and that worked kinda a little while the bread was rising but not terribly well.

If I were a more interesting person, this would be where I would insert a funny story. But hey, I don't claim to be exciting so it's your own fault for reading this.

My recipe is based off the Jim Lahey's recipe, published in the NYTimes. I added a little honey and upped the salt a hair because I can. At least right now, I am just keeping a batch of this dough in the fridge and baking it whenever I want bread.

The first time I made it, I made a big loaf in the dutch oven, like the recipe says. That always comes out with an amazing crust, perfect for slathering with butter or dip in garlic oil. This time I made some rolls in a muffin pan, uncovered. These are a bit softer but still with more of a crust than a lot of rolls that I've had at restaurants. At some point I thought the muffin pan size would be a good sandwich size but they are a bit small for that.

A batch made one big loaf. I used about half a batch to make a dozen mini rolls.

3 cups flour

1/4 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp honey

1 1/2 cup water

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Let it sit out on the counter for about 12 hours.

Refrigerate until you are ready to use.

The day you are going to bake, take dough out of the fridge and fold together into a ball or whatever shape you desire. Small dough balls in a muffin pan are also nice.

Place ball on floured towel, cover with another floured towel and allow to rise 2 1/2 hours.

During the last 30 mins of rising, preheat oven to 450.

Bake until you have a golden brown crust.

Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies

2011-09-14T13:33:00.002-04:00

Hey look! Another post!

Here's another recipe that I've made a bunch of times but when I searched here to find it, it wasn't here. So I guess I'm writing a blog post about how I didn't write a blog post. Exciting stuff, I know.

It's been a crazy week. Well, it'll be last week, by the time this post goes up. I like to schedule a few of them and space them out. You know, to have a post every few days rather than 3 in a day and then nothing for a few weeks.

Anyway... it's been a crazy week. I took the week off with the plan to relax, unpack some stuff, maybe buy a few things for the house, finish the built in shelving that I already posted. And that's how my vacation started.

But then Tuesday evening, I hear this tapping sound. I looked around and found out that water was coming down from my air conditioning vent into my living room. Not a lot, probably a quart of water total but enough to make me unhappy. So I contacted 3 roofers.

I spoke to the first one about 8:30 on Wednesday; he said he'd be there about 10-10:30 to check it out; I'm still waiting for him to show up.

The second guy came and looked at it and said it doesn't really look like it's a roof leak because the roof is in good shape, which I agreed with being that the roof is only 8 years old; he started looking at the siding and saw a gap where if the wind blows the right way might be able to get water in it and get to the duct.

The third guy came in, took a look at where the vent is, relative to the window, went outside to look at the roof, stepped 20 ft back and looked at it for a minute and said all he could do is replace the entire roof. Never actually looked at the roof or anything. Asshole.

So that's made my vacation fun.

And the fun continued. Friday I went down to my basement to fix something. My finished, carpeted basement. I sat down on the floor and when I got up I noticed my shorts were damp. Odd. I didn't think I'd pissed myself and if I was having bladder issues, that was news to me.

So I start checking the floor and I found a maybe 5 sq ft wet spot on the carpet. This is the line of thought that was going on in my head. 'shit. shit shit shit. shit fuck shit. shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.' Very eloquent, I know.

So I raced to the garage and got my shop vac and started trying to suck up the water. I got probably a gallon up like that. You could barely feel the dampness in the carpet. I cranked up my box fan and dehumidifier, went back upstairs and sat down and let out a big sigh.

But then I started thinking about it a bit more and I started worrying about the carpet pad and subfloor. Ultimately, I ended up pulling up the carpet and carpet pad on about 1/3 of my basement. When it's on concrete, carpet pad is just glued down, which makes it not the easiest to get up. In case you were wondering.

Fortunately it wasn't raining so I took several of the carpet pads and let them dry outside and I got to work on drying out everything that was still inside. I used pretty much everything I have that can move air, one way or another. Box fan, space heater, blow dryer, dehumidifier and shop vac. All running on high. Can't wait to see that electric bill. At least I didn't trip anything out.

And yes, I sat there with the holding the blow dryer, blowing under the baseboard heater to try and get the concrete dried out. And in case you were wondering, you can burn carpet with a blow dryer if you hold it really close to the carpet. You know, if that was one of those things that you've always been wondering about.

I set up the space heater behind the box fan so the box fan was blowing hot dry air with a lot more fan speed than the space heater. When things got fairly dry, I just used the box fan and dehumidifier.

Every 3 hours, I'd go down, empty the dehumidifier (I moved it over to where the floor was wet and of course my hose isn't long enough to reach from there to the drain), move the fan, carpet pads and carpet around some to make sure everything gets really dry. 3 days of that. And yes, I set an alarm during the night to get up and do it every 3 hours. It's like I got a newborn infant dropped on me. At least I don't have to breast feed it or something.

At some point I started spraying everything with vinegar to help prevent mold growth. I used close to a half a gallon of vinegar. I'd spray, turn the fans off for 30 mins or so and then turn them back on. I'm sure the neighbors could smell it. But at least it's not as stinky as ammonia or bleach. And I don't see or smell any signs of mold.

Well between each of those 3 hour increments, I had some time to do other things, at least when things were pretty much dry. This was when I deemed the shelves done. Even though the finish isn't very smooth and I probably didn't give the polyurethane enough cure time. I also made some cookie dough. Sigh.

Anyway. Here's the cookie recipe. I'm done whining. At least for this post. You can stop scrolling now.

Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies

based on Dave Lieberman's recipe

1 cup hazelnuts

1 cup AP flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 stick butter at room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

3 oz dark chocolate

Toast the nuts in a dry skillet until fragrant.

Finely chop the nuts.

Cream butter and sugar together.

Beat in egg and vanilla.

Mix together nuts, flour, baking powder, salt.

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined.

Form into a log and chill for at least 2 hours.

Slice cookies and bake at 350. How long to bake will depend on how big you make the cookies. I did 16 cookies and baked about 15 minutes.

While the cookies are baking, melt the chocolate in the microwave.

Dip part of the cookies in the chocolate and drizzle top with the remainder after they've cooled for a couple minutes.

Built In Shelving

2011-09-11T12:22:00.001-04:00

So I've decided to call these shelves done. Not because I'm extremely thrilled with how they came out but because I've got too much other crap to deal with.

Before:

When I saw this space when I was looking at the house, I knew immediately what I was going to do with it. It just screamed built in shelving.

So now, who knows how many weeks, 4 trips to Home Depot and 2 trips to Walmart (because I just couldn't handle going to Home Depot a 5th time that week) here are my shelves.

If you read a blog that says 'slap a couple coats of primer, paint, polyurethane and done' or something like that be wary. Very very wary. I had started a post where I carried on about how much more work this was than that. Aren't you glad I forgot that I wrote decided to spare you of that?

My shelves have 4 coats of primer, wood filler, spackle, 3 coats of paint and 2 coats of polyurethane. Now to figure out how long it takes, each coat actually has to be done in 2 phases. You do one side, let it dry, flip it over and do the other side. So pretty much a day per coat. Well with the primer it went a bit faster but with the paint and polyurethane it was a day per coat. Not to mention the spackle and wood filler need time to dry as well. You do the math.

And that's just the painting. Maybe it's just me, but levelling the shelves is a royal pain due to the angle on the left side. And if you're off by 1/4", suddenly your board length is off by almost 1/2", which really sucks.

Before you start a project like this, you should check what's behind your walls. I assumed they were all wood studs. Well, that wall on the left is not the case. Apparently there is a metal stud in there. Wood drill bits will not get through a metal stud. Guess how I figured that one out. Needless to say, there are a few extra holes in the wall.... fortunately the boards and trim hide them well enough that I don't care any more. Of course at this point, as long as they don't fall down, I'm probably ready to call them good enough, at least for a while.

Another trip to Walmart got me the Bankers boxes and now it looks like this

And yes, there is a reason why every picture is cut off on the left side. I didn't say everything was unpacked.....

Now, back to trying to dry out my carpet in the basement. Sigh.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

2011-09-09T16:10:00.002-04:00

I just realized I never posted this recipe. Apparently I haven't posted a bunch of my basic recipes. Because I keep coming here to find my recipes and can't find them. And I'm too lazy to go through my recipe 'file' to find them. Sigh. Well, fortunately I remember this one enough to do it/make it up.

This recipe comes out pretty cinnamony. If you are a normal person, you may want to cut back the amount of cinnamon, like in half. When I tested it after it had steeped I thought it was way too cinnamony and that I should've checked the recipe rather than going off memory from probably 2 years ago. Whoops. But after it's frozen, the flavor isn't as strong so I think this is a pretty good amount.

It also has a pretty high fat content so it coats your mouth like a premium ice cream should but if you have a different ice cream base that you like better, you can of course use that but this is the one I chose today.

I like it drizzled with honey but it's also good straight up.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

2 cinnamon sticks

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

1 cup sugar

a pinch of salt

4 cups light cream (or 3 cups cream and 1 cup milk, or 2 cups half and half and 2 cups milk or whatever other combination you like)

5 egg yolks

Put the cinnamon sticks, ground cinnamon, sugar, salt and cream in a pot and heat over medium until it comes to a simmer. Turn down to low and allow to steep for 30 minutes. Slowly the egg yolks with the cream mixture and then return to the pot. Cook on low, stirring occasionally, until it coats the back of a spoon. Strain mixture into a bowl and chill overnight. Churn in your ice cream maker. Freeze.

Decapitated Giant Lego Men

2011-09-02T22:48:00.000-04:00

So I was intending for my next post to be lots of pics of my house after everything is unpacked and stuff. Or of the built in shelving that I am putting in, all shiny and happy and pretty. As the title suggests, that's not what this post is. 4 trips to Home Depot and the shelves still aren't done.... but I think I have everything now.... I hope... Of course I said that after each Home Depot trip so I guess we'll see. And I need these shelves so I can unpack boxes and put stuff in places. At one point it made sense to build the shelving rather than buy some random shelf.

So I decided to do something else. Why finish that project when I can start something else instead?

Now before you even consider thinking that I am creative and came up with a cute thing, I definitely stole this from someone else. Right down to the spray paint. And if I hadn't closed the window, I would give credit where credit is due but I don't remember and I don't feel like trying to find it.

So here are my decapitated giant lego men.

One will be a candy dish at work. Not entirely decided what the other two will be.

PS That is not some random crap stuck on my counter on the left side of the picture. It's the granite. I swear. I even checked when I saw it in the picture.

Linen Closet

2011-08-20T07:31:00.003-04:00

Project #1 in my new house: Painting the linen closet. When I moved in, it was completely usable but not pretty.

Before: Bare drywall and particle board

While I guess I could've just put my stuff in and then I'd be closer to unpacked but I decided I needed to paint it first. So that's what I did. And that probably explains why there are still boxes everywhere.

I had to trim the boards down a bit. The fit of the shelves was really tight before the paint. As in use a hammer to get it out tight. I was rather confused for a bit. Apparently the closet is not quite square. Who builds a closet that isn't square? By square I mean 90 degree angles, not L=W. Because lots of closets aren't squares. Usually they are rectangles. Why am I still typing?

So I trimmed off about 3/8" off the boards. By I trimmed, I mean I had J trim with the table saw at work. The boards are square (90 degree angles) so they don't fit 100% perfect but oh well.

After: 3 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint later.

Yes, that is a fan that was blowing on the closet to help it dry. No, it didn't bother me enough to move it and retake the picture.

Lesson of the day: Buy decent paint. Bought a quart of Kilz Casual Colors Semi-Gloss Interior/Exterior paint at walmart for $5. Used it as is since I was going for a crisp white. The paint has no coverage. I may end up repainting it again with better paint eventually but I give up for now.

And when you do that many coats of paint, they take forever to dry. Especially in the summer and the humidity is through the roof. As in 48 hours+ with a fan blowing on it and it is still a bit tacky.

Also, it's a pain in the butt to paint the inside of a linen closet. The closet goes up another couple feet or so above the door frame. And I wasn't going to just paint the back and sides even though no one will ever see the inside of the wall above the door. The door is too narrow for a step ladder so I stood on a bar stool inside the closet. Every time I moved, I'd get paint in my hair or on my arm, etc.

Oh well. At least it's painted and I can put stuff in it now. On to the next project.

I'm baaaaack

2011-07-13T19:26:00.001-04:00

*chirp chirp*

Hellooooooooooooo

Anyone out there?

That was an echo, by the way. In case you're wondering.

So I figure the only people who might read this are people who accidentally subscribed to it in a reader and never got around to deleting it. So you probably didn't notice that I haven't blogged anyway because you have 10000 other things in your reader and this isn't exactly anyone's top blog.

Well, I'll explain my absence anyway. Because I know you care deeply. hah. I amuse myself.

I'm lazy.

Did you really think there was going to be more of an explanation than that? Well then clearly you haven't actually been reading my blog.

I have a few excuses to go with it. I got a new job. Moved out of my old house. Sold my old house. Lived in a hotel. Couldn't afford the hotel. Lived in a short term rental house. Might be getting kicked out of short term rental. Buying a new house. But really, I haven't posted anything because I'm lazy.

But, I'm back. At least for the moment.

So I have a few thoughts with regards to my new house. I figure I'll throw them out there and see if anyone has any suggestions. I'll post more pics of the house... eventually.... after I actually own it.

1. Anyone used a reel mower? How hard are they to push? How well do they mow? My property is 0.1 acres and I'm figuring I'm going to turn most of it into a garden so I don't need much. And a reel mower is small and light and won't take up much space in the garage.

2. Building raised beds. How tall do they need to be to do you any good? I'm thinking I'm going to make them with either 1x12 or 2x12 boards, depending on my mood and the price so maybe 10" tall. Is that high enough? I am thinking I'm going to paint them to keep them from rotting. The other option I'm considering is concrete blocks. The raised bed kits are insanely expensive. It needs to be as cheap as possible. With all my savings getting eaten by the down payment, the budget's gonna be pretty tight.

3. Right now the landcaping on the house is very nice. I'm thinking of ways to ruin it. I am thinking I want to gradually replace the front yard with perennial edibles. I think raised beds would look weird in the front yard. And then build raised beds in the back for annuals (a lot of the stuff I grew last year and more)

I think I want to build a strawberry bed in the front yard. Maybe as a patch in the middle of the main part of the lawn?
I would like to put something else with the strawberries, so it's less farm like. Any suggestions? I am thinking a tree or bush. I want an interesting fruit, the ones I've thought of so far are blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, figs, persimmon, lychee but a lot of these will be tough to grow in zone 6. It probably should also not look ridiculous as a front yard plant in the middle of a strawberry bed. Although according to some random documents I read on my town, you cannot plant fruiting trees, nut trees or flowering bushes. I'm deciding how to interpret that.
I'm also thinking about interplanting some herbs with the strawberries: thyme, rosemary, mint. Maybe start them indoors through the winter and plant them in the ground in the spring.
I also want to grow asparagus. Maybe a row of asparagus next to a row of strawberries running from the curb to the fence on the left side of the house?

4. I really want some form of citrus tree. Again, in zone 6 my options are limited. Maybe a potted Meyer Lemon tree?

5. I guess I'm accepting that I'm not going to be growing anything this year but I can have everything ready for next year. Build raised beds, get a good compost going, turn the soil, kill the grass....

6. I want a compost heap. I figure in a back corner of the backyard. I am too cheap to buy one of the fancy ones. I've seen lots of homemade ones made from pallets that I may try my hand at.

7. I'll be repainting a number of rooms. I think I want to paint the upstairs rooms gray. Of course the last time I tried that it came out closer to light blueish purple than gray. So I'm taking recommendations on color.

8. Is it a bad idea to buy a 5 gallon bucket of primer? I figure I'll need 2 gallons to prime the 2nd floor (currently offwhite and pink, I think), at least 1 gallon for rooms (1 of the rooms has kids coloring marks on the wall) on the 1st floor and another gallon for the basement (currently bright yellow). And anyone have a reason why I should choose one brand over another? While we're at it, I'm taking recommendations for the other room colors as well. Of course I might decide halfway through that I just don't care enough and leave the room their current color or if I manage to prime them before I give up, white.

Here's a couple pictures from the original listing, because I know you are anxious to see the house. Hopefully I'm not jinxing the purchase by posting these and calling it mine now. Cross your fingers that nothing will screw up my closing date!

How sexy is that kitchen? You know you are jealous. Think of all the yumminess that's gonna come from this kitchen.

Broiled Grapefruit

2010-12-07T21:33:00.000-05:00

I had seen the episode of Good Eats were Alton Brown made Grapefruit Brulee. It's a fairly simple recipe. Cut in half. Sprinkle with sugar. Brulee. Sprinkle with salt. Eat. So naturally I had to mess with it.

Well the reason I didn't follow the recipe is I don't have a torch. I've thought about getting one but haven't yet. One of these days.... but then I'll brulee everything. Creme brulee, bread pudding, pumpkin pie, gratins, steak.... So maybe I shouldn't.

Anyway. Broiling didn't come out exactly as his did. I didn't get a nice crunchy brulee top. Instead the sugar melted down a bit and really seeped into the grapefruit. I thought it was pretty good anyway. And it's really easy. And you can call it healthy. It only has a 1/2 tsp sugar on each half.

Broiled Grapefruit

Cut a grapefruit in half, across the equator.
Cut off a small slice off each of the poles so that the grapefruit sits up on its own.
Place the halves on a baking sheet with the center of the grapefruit up.
Using a paring knife, cut along the edges to loosen the fruit from the peel.
Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp of sugar on each half of the grapefruit.
Put it under the broiler until the top starts to brown. The juices will probably start to boil up too.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle a touch of sea salt on top.
Eat immediately.

Roasted Sunflower Seeds

2010-07-12T22:08:00.005-04:00

I was told that you need flowers to attract bees to pollinate your stuff so that you get fruits/veggies. Naturally, I opted for flowers that I could eat. So I chose sunflowers. I decided to grow Mammoth Russian sunflowers. Then, when they didn't sprout after a few days, I got seeds for a couple others as well.

Well, the sunflowers grew in a couple weeks later and I had a lot of sunflowers. They are actually shading some of my other plants, which is probably not good, but a bunch of them are at least 9 ft tall.

Well, since I chose a flower I could eat, I figured I better figure out how I could eat them. Let me tell you, getting the seeds out of the flower takes FOREVER. One flower (and probably 2 hours of picking seeds out) gave me about a quart of seeds.

Next step, figuring out what to do with the seeds. I had gotten a couple of the smaller flowers a few days before. They sat in a plastic container for a couple days and got moldy. So I figured I needed to dry the seeds. I left them spread out on 2 sheet pans for a few days. Also, it was during the week and I had other stuff to do.

Last weekend I got back to them. I kept them simple. I just wanted a light coating of salt so they would make a good snack. Google led me to a few recipes. Then I didn't follow them. Based very loosely on this post. Most people probably want more salt on them than this. I snack on them randomly. I hear they make a good long car ride snack.

Sunflower seeds

1 large sunflower (1 quart of seeds)
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Dry the sunflower seeds.
Rinse the sunflower seeds and drain off the excess water. Let them be damp but let anything that drains away go.
Sprinkle with the salt and toss until the salt is dissolved.
Toast in a single layer of a skillet until they dry and turn light brown. This could also (probably more easily) be done in an oven. 350 probably 20 mins but check regularly until slightly browned.

Garden Update

2010-07-08T21:23:00.001-04:00

The garden is doing well. I get about 3 gallons of assorted stuff but mostly tomatoes every 2 days. That's typically because I stop picking because it's a pain. At least at this point most of the lower branches have ripened and been picked so I don't have to stoop over as much.

My family visited recently. I sent them home with close to 50 lbs of produced from the garden. Which pretty much wiped out everything I had. I should have taken some pics but for some reason have not in a while. Oh well.

K has been on my case to post something about this so he can send it to D. *wave hi* Don't you feel special, you are D? If it makes you feel any better K is only K and at one point was K-Ram, like K-Fed except nerdier. You should call him that by the way. Also, I told him to tell you to plant pineapple tomatillos but I bet he didn't. It's probably too late now but next year you should. Those are by far the most popular item from my garden.

Anyway, so these are some of the organic ish home remedy type alternatives to pesticides. I have found them by googling/word of mouth.

Beetles - they were going nuts on the soy beans. I believe this applies for other beans too but who knows. The soy bean plants were doing well and then one day I came out and there were probably thousands of beetles on my half a dozen or so plants. I guess they are japanese beetles. Get a bucket and put a couple inches of water and a squirt of dish soap in it. Swirl it around to get the dish soap dissolved. Alternatively, put the soap in first and fill with a hose so it takes care of it for you. Put the bucket under the plant where you see a bunch of beetles. Knock the plant and the beetles fall into the bucket. The dish soap keeps they from getting out and they drown. Then smash the drowned beetles (I used a large branch I found on the ground) so their guts get all into the water. It was recommended to actually put them in a blender but I'm not getting a blender just for this. I left the bucket in the garden. When the beetles die they release some pheromones or something that repels other beetles. They recommended spraying this solution all over the garden but I just left the bucket there. Since I did that, there have only been a couple beetles out there each day.

Mosquitos -
1. it was recommended to plant garlic sporadically throughout the garden or around the perimeter or something.
2. another option is to make a garlic solution. I heard garlic, ginger, onion, cheyenne pepper with some wator in a blender. Then spray this all over the garden. I haven't done this but one of my garden neighbors did.
3. listerine. get a spray bottle and spray the whole place. i actually did this one. haven't gotten a bite since but i still douse myself pretty liberally with bug spray before going out.
4. grow mint. or catnip. or citronella. only trouble is they may take over your entire garden. and you need to have it spread around, like the garlic in #1 which helps with the whole taking over the world thing.

Slugs - they say this is for slugs. they also say it helps release calcium to make your garden grow nice and tall. like milk for kids or something. crush up some egg shells and sprinkle them all over. the sharp edges are supposed to keep the slugs out. don't know if this really makes a difference but I had some eggs so I crushed up the shells and put them out there when my plants were still pretty small. Didn't seem to hurt anything.

OK that's not that impressive of a list but that's all I got.

Also, if your gardening shoes are fairly open and your feet are exposed, when you are harvesting stuff with a knife, make sure not to drop it on your foot. It hurts. And leaves a mark. And is hard to deal with when you have packed your garden really really tight and you are standing in the middle of it. You end up hopping on 1 foot trying not to let that foot move because you don't want to step on your plants but you end up grabbing the cages so that you don't fall down and crush about 5 of them. It's awkward.

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

2010-06-27T00:03:00.002-04:00

OK this probably seems like a strange question but has anyone never been stung by a bee? I have not. Well, had not. I had started this post a few days ago. I got stung by a bee today. Somehow it got in the garage with me. I felt something on my arm so I went to brush it when it got me again. It stung me 3 times before I beat it. Apparently I had maimed it at first because it was laying on the ground still buzzing and moving a little but not able to get away. I didn't know where it was but I could hear it buzzing and I didn't feel like getting stung again. Then I found it. And I killed it.

Apparently this is unusual. I stay away from the bees. Why would you go near them? Seems to make perfect sense to me. But so far everyone I have asked has been stung at some point in their lives. Someone please tell me they have not been stung and this is not strange.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program. Well, your regularly scheduled program should've come out a few days ago so it's late but whatever.

I actually did make these. And I even started off following the recipe! Key word being started. Errr key words being 'started off'. OK this is clearly not going to be one of my more well thought out posts. Bear with me here. Or don't if you are already confused/bored.

I forgot to put the flavorings in the mousse and then I just never quite got around to making the mascarpone cream. I made the meringues fairly small and put a big scoop of the mousse on top. I still had quite a bit of the mousse left even though I was very liberal with it.

I brought them in to work. We were celebrating H's birthday. It wasn't actually H's birthday. We decided that any time we needed to do a food thing we would say it's H's birthday.

Anyway, that's my really incoherent post. I never bothered taking pics of these. I still have a couple in the fridge so I guess I still could but I won't.

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard

Barefoot Bloggers: Sour Cream Coffee Cake

2010-06-26T08:33:00.000-04:00

First off, I would just like to point out how wrong it is to have the AC running full bore and the oven on when it's 95 degrees out. For some reason that was the day I chose to do it. Of course it's been 90+ every day for the last week and will be as far as the 10 day forecast showed. There is a cold front coming through where it might get down to 92 in a few days. The joys of summer in the South.

Anyway. This recipe was chosen by Gwenn. I have been meaning to make her peanut butter pie but haven't quite gotten around to it yet. Maybe next week.

I made mine in a bundt pan so I put the crumbs on the bottom. My coffee cake, that is. Because who would make a peanut butter pie in a bundt pan? Oh wait, I probably would if I couldn't find a pie pan or something. Of course, I think I have 3 pie pans so the chances of me not being able to find one should be pretty slim. But then again, this is my house where an empty pan or bowl is the perfect place when you need somewhere to put something. Anything.

I added wonderberries from the garden into the middle layer with the crumbs. A wonderberry, aka sunberry, is extremely prolific. When ripe, it has a dull black/blue color. Uncooked, the flavor is fairly mild. However, when cooked with sugar, it tastes a lot like a blueberry. Or so I'm trying to convince myself. I picked about a quart of them in the last couple days and there will be lots more. Didn't think about what I was gonna do with them when I decided to plant them.

I didn't double the crumbs like a lot of people recommended. I figured 2 sticks of butter was enough. I suspect the texture of the crumbs would have been better if they had been on top in the oven but it would have been weird to have them on the bottom of the finished cake.

I just realized apparently I didn't make the glaze. Oh well. Pretty good even without the glaze.

The cake is very soft and fluffy. You know how some coffee cakes are more bready, a la B&W Bakery in Hackensack, NJ? Well this one is not. It's very springy and delicate.

I thought I did take pics although if I did, they are probably on my camera. My camera is downstairs. I am upstairs. So you see me dilemma.

This is one of my most incoherent blog posts. I blame the heat. Which means they aren't going to get any better for a while. Sorry, suckers. Your fault for reading :) I guess I should post this sometime before the end of the month.

Barefoot Bloggers: Scalloped Tomatoes

2010-06-20T22:03:00.000-04:00

The garden is doing quite well. I just started getting tomatoes. I have a feeling this is going to get insane in a few weeks. So this recipe is perfect to use up a bunch of these.

I didn't have (well, technically, I didn't see it until after I had already made this) any bread so I decided to use tater tots instead. Random, I know. I had some sort of craving at some point for tater tots so I bought a bag. They then proceeded to sit in the freezer until now.

The tater tots kinda fell apart once I put the tomatoes in. It was not the prettiest dish. It came out OK although I can't say I really loved it.

Flavorwise, it was very tomatoey. Yes I consider that a word.

Here's the recipe. I didn't take a pic because it was pretty unattractive. Dog food probably looks better. Oh well. The coffee cake is prettier. Maybe I'll post that pic.

Garden

2010-06-15T21:24:00.003-04:00

This is what happens when you don't check your plants very carefully. I checked my plants tonight in the dark after getting out from work late. I started nosing around the plants when I noticed a shadow under one of the zucchini plants. Well, this is what I found. Not sure how long it had been growing there but this monster was about ready to take over the world. Fortunately I found him and cut him off. I'm gonna need a whole bunch of zucchini recipes really soon. Feel free to share if you have any.

I took a bunch of other pics of the garden but none of them are motivating me to add them to this post right now.

Yet Another Garden Update

2010-06-07T20:23:00.010-04:00

Are you sick of these yet?

This is my plot from a distance. Definitely easy to pick mine out. It's the one with the giant sunflowers.

The sunflowers are now probably 7-8 ft tall. Too tall for me to guess at their height accurately. The first couple full fledged flowers have just popped up.

This is corn. Woohoo it's actually growing. Some of them have more than one ear of corn on them too. For some reason mine are a lot shorter than everyone else's. Mine are 2-3 ft tall whereas some other people who planted theirs a month after I had planted mine are 4-5 ft tall. But I have corn ears and they don't. So ha. Just have to figure out when to harvest. I don't think it's yet. Hopefully I'll figure that out before they are ready.

Here's the start of the tomatoes. These were supposed to be Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes. They never sprouted after 3 tries. I threw some slightly rotten cherry tomatoes that I got from the grocery store into the soil and sprouts came up. Thats' what's growing here instead. This one seems a lot more viney than the other ones.
Next: Lollipop Tomatoes. These should turn bright yellow when they are ripe.
Green grape tomatoes. Not entirely sure how you know when these puppies are ripe. I think my rule will be whenever I start picking the other ones I will pick these as well. That or I'll pick one every day and taste.
I know, I really should have learned to turn the flash off by now.
Cherry tomatoes. Someone explain to me why these puppies are over 2" in diameter. And why I keep referring to my plants as puppies.
Mini Orange Tomatoes
Dr Carolyn. These should turn yellow too. Apparently I was in the mood for yellow tomatoes when I ordered seeds.
Look they're yellow! oh wait, that's my crappy photography skills.
Wonderberries. These are growing like a massive bush. With about a billion little fruits. I just looked up what a wonderberry is. I had bought the seeds because they had a cool name. They turn a deep bluish purple. Mildly sweet and sour flavor, something like a blueberry, or so they say. I'll let you know.
Pineapple Tomatilloes. I was hoping these would be more prolific. There are a bunch of them, but no where near as many as say the wonderberries. And I know these are good. Still TBD on the wonderberries. Might just have a million little fruits that I don't actually like. That would be sad.

Butternut Squash. Between, Dr Carolyn and Wonderberries. There are also 2 pepper plants in the back somewhere but I suspect the butternut squash is gonna take those over. Harvesting is gonna be interesting.

And peppers. I have 2 of these growing so far. 2 peppers. On at least 4 plants. Sigh. Hopefully the others will grow something too.
Basil. Which I meant to harvest some for a caprese salad with the heirloom tomatoes I got from the farmers market. Maybe I'll remember tomorrow. Hopefully I'll remember before the tomatoes go bad.
Zucchini. Once again. Me and flash just don't get along. I harvested a couple that were about 6" on saturday. Sauteed with some onions and mushrooms on a pizza with gruyere. Yum.
Cucumbers. No fruit growing yet but there are some flowers. Not sure what I will do with them if they are very prolific. Any suggestions?
Watermelon. Right now just leaves and vines and weeds. Hopefully the first 2 will win and make me some watermelon. And if you are wondering about the newspaper in the corner, well, everyone else was doing it. And it seemed to help with the weeds in their gardens. I might have been a bit late putting it down though and I didn't really have all that much paper so I only did a small section.
Cantelope. Yes, I know, the weeds around them are much bigger. But at least they have true leaves growing now. If you squint hard enough you might even be able to see them.

I forgot to take pics of the dill but that is doing very well. The lettuce bed and the rest of the herbs... not so much.

Daring Bakers: Piece Montee

2010-05-27T19:47:00.003-04:00

Well I followed the recipe for the profiteroles, pretty much exactly. Are you impressed? No, I'm not dying. Profiteroles are fairly simple and straight forward. There wasn't all that much for me to mess with.

You notice how some are swirly like they were piped and some are more like blobs? There IS a reason why pastry chefs use piping bags. The edge seals on the bags were not so well done. About halfway through it burst. By it burst, I mean the entire side seal split open. The rest of them were shaped by me frantically trying to keep the batter from ending up on the floor. They're not bad looking when you take that into consideration, eh?

Sorry, I'm not building a sculpture. I can't even pipe the profiteroles, a sculpture was not going to happen. I cut them in half and filled them with vanilla pastry cream and macerated strawberries and then glazed the top with chocolate. And they were good.

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Barefoot Bloggers: Grilled Herb Shrimp

2010-05-27T08:44:00.003-04:00

Another loosely followed recipe. Chosen by Penny.

A fairly simple recipe. Marinate the shrimp in some herbs, garlic and lemon juice. Cook it up.

I didn't actually used the specified herbs. I used random unidentified herbs from my garden. The only herbs that are doing really well in the garden so far is this random herb mix that I got. I don't actually know what most of the herbs are in it but most of them seem to look like lettuces and some parsley. I recognized that one.

I had mine over an herb salad. This actually would have been good with that risotto from earlier in the month. If I had thought ahead I would have had them together. Oh well.

I cooked them in a skillet rather than a grill pan. I hate cleaning a grill pan. It takes forever to get down into all the little grooves of a grill pan and I never seem to get it clean so I almost always opt for a skillet or griddle over the grill pan. Someone please tell me I'm not the only one. Maybe I need to cook a bunch of bacon on it to get a nice season on it. Maybe I'll just stick with the skillet.

PS I uploaded my pic of the spring risotto. Are you proud of me?

Another Garden Update

2010-05-23T19:56:00.007-04:00

Yes, you will get these way more often than is sane. It's aliiiiiive. You can feel free to skip to the next post if you are bored. I'll have both the Daring Bakers AND Barefoot bloggers posts later this month.

OK let's start with the pineapple tomatilloes. I only had them once and they really do taste like pineapple. Only thing is these puppies are tiny. Full size ones are maybe a quarter inch in diameter so these guys are really tiny. I didn't even notice them for a while.
These are wonderberries. I don't know much about them but they have a cool name. These are probably half the size of the pineapple tomatilloes. Just for scale.
Blueberry bush
Watermelon. Other people have flowers on theirs. I'm not cool enough for that.
Cucumber
Zucchini
Butternut Squash. Look the first one has started to form!
OK now let's go to some of the herbs. First up, dill. This is the most prolific of the herbs. Besides the unidentified herb mix.
Sage.
Thyme
Basil
Back to veggies. Peppers. Not sure what kind.
More peppers just sprouting. I am hoping these ones will come in a bit later so not everything comes in at once.
Beets and carrots.
Corn and soybeans
Tomatoes. I think these are cherry tomatoes.
Here are more tomatoes. I am not sure which ones are which. I think they are lollipop and green grape tomatoes. These ones popped up out of nowhere. I was taking pics and I figured I'd take a more careful look at all my plants and went whoa there's a whole bunch in here.

Woohoo!!!

Barefoot Bloggers: Spring Green Risotto

2010-05-13T08:42:00.005-04:00

YES! I am totally making all the recipes this month for all the cooking groups. The first one for the month is this one. This on is Spring Green Risotto chosen by Kim.

By making the recipe, I mean vaguely following it. I had the arborio rice, asparagus and peas. I halved the recipe, added edamame, replaced the mascarpone with cream cheese, upped the lemon juice, replaced the wine with chicken stock. Not to mention I don't measure anything. But it came out pretty good. I would like to believe it was pretty healthy too.

I said I would make them. I didn't say I would have anything interesting to say or download and post pics.

Edit: Here's the pic.