Archive for February, 2013
In the new house
Oops – I just realized I haven’t posted in most of a week. That’s because the intervening time has been all about moving. We’re not quite done yet; it’s amazing how much stuff there was to move from a furnished flat we only lived in for two months. A lot of it was groceries. Some […]
eyes
I was a bit worried about getting to the clinic and back because the streetcar wasn’t running normally today, but Trimet did a great job filling in with shuttle buses (and also, everyone else on the streetcar was going to the same place because my morning appointment was just in time for the 8AM shift. […]
flank steak
So far, that bland chicken pot pie has been the only recipe from Real Simple that has steered me wrong. (If I do it again, I’ll swap out the carrots, thyme and most of the peas for cilantro and chili, and make a New Mexico version). Tonight I made their Flank steak with artichoke/pepper/bread salad. […]
driving to a solution?
Well, I’m taking some concrete action on my driving issues. I’m increasingly convinced that the problem is something with my eyes’ focus (that caused that panic attack back in Taiwan that started all this). I feel like I can’t look straight at anything and keep a focus on it; a highway scene is just sort […]
Follow-up to the follow-up
The chicken pot pie looked great, but tasted totally bland. The only flavoring was from salt, pepper, thyme and the main ingredients (chicken, carrots, peans, onions). It didn’t help that the pinot gris I used was sweeter than it ought to have been for the recipe. However, it seems like a good base to work […]
followup, about work and strawberries
The strawberries are done. I couldn’t find graham cracker crumbs at the supermarket for the topping, and all the packages of graham crackers were very large, so I bought a small pack of Teddy Grahams and crushed them up myself. As you can see, I had enough crumbs and cheesecake filling left over to improvise […]
cooking and contentment
Those are the makings for dinner – shredded chicken for a chicken vegetable pot pie, with cheesecake-stuffed strawberries for dessert. I’ll be doing my first shift as a library volunteer this afternoon, so I figured I’d better do some preparation early. I’ve been doing some work (calling around about getting house utilities set up, and […]
more house ramblings
On the food front: today I’m making a pot roast, for the first time since returning to the US. I was never able to make a decent one in the Netherlands; something about the cuts of meat there meant that they always came up tough and dry. This time I’m using the Pioneer Woman’s recipe; […]
AKICILJ: a brief shopping question
When you go through Dutch museums and look at the old still-lifes, over and over from artist after artist, you see the same glass, like the one in this painting. (They’re from the days before forks; those bumps on the thick stem were to provide more traction for greasy fingers.) Since we do need to […]
chief cook and bottlewasher
Actually, that title is untrue; I am the chief cook and Ted is the bottlewasher. Since I’m at home now, I have taken on the cooking, shopping and housekeeping duties. (Previously we split the cooking and we’ve had a housekeeping service for the last fifteen years of so.) It has some odd side effects; for […]