Cheesecake!

With rum sauce and strawberries:

My first cheesecake ever.  The top was cracked, but the rum sauce was nice and thick and covered it all up just fine.

I should do more foodblogging...

I said it once, and I'll say it again

Just ordered a pizza, sitting in the living room, over the internet, from my phone.

I wish we had a moon base and star drives, but I guess this future thing is still pretty cool sometimes.

Boy oh boy...

I sure hope [insert team name here] wins!

No but really, just using the game as an excuse to go over to my buddy's house and play minecraft while eating barbecue ribs and tons of guacamole...

Molten Chocolate Cake

We had company over for dinner the other day, and my mother made these.  I have no idea what was in them--lots of chocolate, though.  They were cooked so that the middle was still basically warm liquid chocolate.  And real whipped cream on top.

Too bad you couldn't a been here.

So, went out for Chinese food...

...and my fortune read "If it seems that the fates are against you today, it's because they are." **paranoid glances back and forth**

I thought today was going pretty good, though! Guess I had better just go to bed, and not "tempt fate"...

Potato Chips!

Sliced a couple potatoes real thin, put them in a bag with olive oil, salt, garlic powder and pepper, shook them up till they were all coated nice, put them on a couple of baking sheets, and baked them for maybe a half an hour until they were all getting nice and crispy.

Brussels Sprouts

Sauteed in butter, with sea salt, garlic, cayenne pepper, and then deglazed with balsamic vinegar when ready to serve.

Spent the Day Cooking...

6:30 AM--Got up
8:00-9:30 AM--At church
9:45 AM--Started cooking
4:00 PM--Finished cooking

That's not counting the 4 or 5 hours we did yesterday...

There is now enough food in this house to make the Department of Homeland Security absolutely crap their pants. Heck, for most of the day there was 7 days worth of food in one corner of the kitchen counter!

So the freezer's full, and to cap it off I attempted to make no-knead sourdough again.

I think my yeast may have died off too much between now and the last time I tried it.  I resurrected the dough at the last minute by mixing in some baking soda--it's still pretty dense, but sure tastes good with butter on top...

Added: and now I'm sitting here enjoying a nice rum and coke.  Good day.

Today's agenda

We have a two-page shopping list to get through, and then we are planning on starting in on s "Once a Month Cooking" project. It will certainly last longer than just one month, with only two people and the possibility that we'll be eating other things as well--it sure is nice to have a lot of ready to go food in the freezer. The downside is that you have to dedicate pretty much a whole weekend to it.

Snack Recommendation

Cottage cheese with some sweet and spicy chipotle sauce on top.  Sounds weird, but really good.

What's Cookin'

Hint:  It has a roux and there's a bowl full of okra waiting off to the side...

Deep Philosophical Questions

Can it be a casserole, or "hot dish" to those of the more Northern Midwest persuasion, if it doesn't have some Cream of Something soup in it and cheese on top?

Hello? Are... You the... Future?

So I just ordered a pizza over the internet from my phone. No human interaction required.

We'll see how this works...

Cranberry Cake

My ranch family friends in Montana would make this dessert around this time of year.  We seemed to have come into possession of a couple bags of whole cranberries, so I hit up the Montanans for the recipe.

9x9 pan
3 c cranberries, rinsed and sorted
1 c sugar
2 c flour
1 c milk
3 TBS butter
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
350 degrees 35-40 minutes

Now, at this point you may be saying to yourself "Big deal! There's only one cup of sugar in this.  Not much of a cake, if you ask me," but you would be oh so wrong, for the simple reason you haven't seen this next part of the recipe yet:


Sauce:
1 c sugar
1 TBS flour
1/2 c butter
1/2 c cream
1 TBS apple cider vinegar
Put all in a pan, bring to boil, remove and add 1 tsp vanilla

That is what the recipe says, but then I upped the ante by adding another goodly sized glug of some Blackstrap rum.  Mmmmm, rum.

Perfect for those cold winter days!  Have it for breakfast, even!

More Thanksgiving leftovers

What, you have several pounds of leftover ham?

Why not make Split Pea Soup?

Adapted from this recipe-ish thing, though I used ham juice instead of chicken stock. If you've got it flaunt it, huh? Oh, and the carrots were frozen from the garden.

And that was the latest bread experiment, with the sourdough started added to the dough and then aged for about a day, cooked at normal bread temperatures (~375) in a sealed casserole dish. Turned out pretty darn good, though the crust is still a little thick for my taste. I'll keep experimenting, I guess.

A post-Thanksgiving question

Does pumpkin pie count as a vegetable?

That's the way ya do it

Let me tell ya, the Adaptive Curmudgeon ain't dumb!

Ok, that was a pretty poor (and rather out of place) Dire Straits reference, but seriously, he is doing Thanksgiving right.

Doing Things...

...all sorts of things.  Word of warning, I am going to be talking about quite a bit of stuff here, none of which is terribly organized, though I hope it all comes together in the end, and I hope there's enough random interesting stuff to keep you entertained as I wander, if not aimlessly, at least, slightly crookedly, down the paths of my recent experiences.

Yesterday I was at work and my mother called up, saying that her cousin and cousin's husband from Idaho (who are in the area for Thanksgiving) were coming up to town for the day, and "Do you want to have lunch with us?" Being that my boss was ok with me skipping out for the afternoon, and not being one to turn down a meal when offered, and being that said meal was to take place at my favorite microbrewpub, and being that said cousin and her husband are really cool folks, I happily accepted.

After lunch we split up, my mother and her cousin hitting the second hand stores, and me and mother's cousin's husband (hereby referred to as "Mr. R") hit the town. He had never spent much time in Happy Valley, so I decided to start off by showing him the recently revamped downtown. A hopping place, especially considering it was a Tuesday Afternoon (crap, now that song is going to be stuck in my head--curse you Moody Blues!) I admit, the main reason I like downtown is not because of the art on the corner, the nice landscaping, or the myriad of bike shops: I like it because of the homebrew store and Gelato Junction. It turns out, that's a big reason why Mr. R liked it too.

Soon enough the time on my parking meter ran out, and it was time to move on. But that isn't where this blog post ends.

Now, for a little background on Mr. R: he is a long time competition shooter, reloader, firearms instructor, a nearly professional guitarist, and super nice guy, as well as being a former Marine and Army Sargent, starting out in Vietnam and ending only recently with Iraq Try #2. Very interesting man, with a wide and varied body of experience, and very generous of his time, materials, and advice. Oh, and he has a very impressive beard, reaching nearly down to his belly button. It is funny to watch other people interact with him, as you can always see them start out thinking "What kind of crazy bum is this?" before they figure him out. I count myself very lucky to know him, and even luckier to be marginally related to him so I don't feel bad cornering him to talk.

Now back to my rambling.

Last weekend my mother and I went down to visit my Grandma and Grandpa (and pick out a cat). We've been going down there pretty often, every other weekend or so, as my Grandma is in the nursing home these days. While there, I like to go out to the back 40 and do a little plinking. This time I had that CCI CB .22 LR ammo that I bought for National Ammo Day, and I had my 10/22 to see if I could fulfill Butch's request for a function test, and since Mr. R was in the neighborhood (they were staying with my Uncle the mechanic, who lives practically next door to my grandparents--are you following all of this? Don't worry, I'm sure I'll stop soon), I asked him if he wanted to come back with me. Asking me if I wanted any instruction on shooting (what an offer! A few hours with someone who could be charging $100/hour, offering to teach me 1-on-1!) I readily agreed, and figuratively killed two birds with one stone by trying out the CB ammo at the same time.  By the end of the afternoon I had a nice 1" group at 25 yds, which made me happy.

Oh, and Butch, to answer your question, the CB ammo is quite amazing.  It doesn't have enough oomph to cycle my 10/22, relegating it effectively to bolt action territory (shoot, cycle action, repeat), but it is very accurate, and by golly it is quiet.  You hear a **pop!** when you pull the trigger and a **thwack!** as the bullet hits the target--no hearing protection needed (though I should add that I have a polymer buffer, which probably helps the noise as well).  Sounds quieter than someone hammering nails.   Enough power to go through a half inch piece of plywood at 25 yards, so fine for hunting wabbits, I'd say. Even Mr. R (who owns a brace of NAA Mini Revolvers for dispatching snakes, varmints, and deep concealment) was impressed, and put it on his shopping list.  In a lever action or revolver, I wouldn't even have the minimal complaint of the non-cycling semi-auto.

Now, back to yesterday.  So then, since we were done downtowning, we started to head for home, and happened to run into the local "real gun store" (as in, not a big box multi-use sporting good store, not a hardware store with a couple of shotguns, and not a pawnshop) and decided to stop in since we were there.  Luckily we did, for Mr. R found a shotgun he's been looking for for his wife (who remember, is my mom's cousin), a 12 gauge 8-rd magazine Maverick 88.  She is a big 12 gauge fan, but the only shotguns she has are really nice ones that don't get taken with them when they travel.  Oh, and don't tell anyone I said this, as the shotgun is going to be a surprise Christmas present.  As we were doing all this I learned today that you can legally buy long guns if you are out of state, in general, as long as the store policy says so, and in some areas you can buy handguns as well.  While we waited for the paperwork to go through, Mr. R had me check out the Ruger Single Six that was under the glass.  Very nice gun, and now I have yet ANOTHER gun to put on my ever growing list of things I want.  He also told me that his preferred .308 semi-auto is also the M1A. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a fine rifle, but it just don't click with me, and if I am going to spend over a thousand dollars on something, then by Grabthar's hammer it had better click!

But I digress. As we were shooting the breeze with the gun shop guys, the conversation turned to Mr. R's military days, and being a patriotic American small business, when we finally walked out of the shop it was with the shotgun, a free box of 12 gauge ammo and a free hat with the company's logo on it. I'd like to see an anti-gun shop do anything like that!

Whew, huh? I think I've spit out everything I've had bottled up inside, now. I'll see Mr. R again on Thanksgiving, though I'm not sure if we'll get in any more gun time. I know sometimes after the festivities there is a big trap shoot, but at last count there were 43 people planning on attending our big shindig, so we may be preoccupied with getting in all the awesome food--I know there will be turkey, ham, and probably prime rib, and the one guy who is a Louisiana transplant is bringing his famous stuffing, and my mother is making two different kinds of pumpkin pie... if you don't leave on a stretcher in a food-gorged coma, then it's your own dagblummed fault.

And, now... wait for it...

Fin

What to do with leftovers...

Had some leftover pork roast. Had some frozen green chilies. Had some limes that were passing their prime. What to do, what to do...

Green chili. Mmmmmmm...

You ever had a purple potato?

Tastes like a regular potato, but they really are a most beautiful shade of violet. Bizarre. I want to make mashed potatoes with them...