Salt

From Blockbuster.com

I watched this last night. It was the first time I'd bought a movie on Directv. A GREAT FLICK! I loved all the plot twists...right up to the very end. They left you being perfectly okay, but knowing you will watch sequels. Angelina Jolie plays a CIA agent that is accused of being a Russian spy. Lots and lots of cool science stuff and cool acrobatic combat. They didn't muddle it with a long love story in the middle. It's just a nice, tight, spy thriller. It reminded a little of James Bond without the sex. But a lot more of Mission Impossible.

Weekend!

It's been hard to get up this week. Unfortunately, it'll be hard to get up tomorrow, too, because my yogabuddy and I are going to an 8 a.m. class over by Lake Wylie. Still, I'll get my beloved nap in Saturday AND Sunday afternoon, so I'll still be ahead.

It's been a  hectic week at school as we've begun closing out semester 1 and begun preparations for semester 2. I like the second semester much better because it has a much faster pace. Seniors are getting ready to graduate, underclassmen are registering for classes for next year...but most of all, the daylight hours will be getting longer rather than shorter!

To complicate matters, we'll be also hosting 4 elections in the coming months. We have a special election for a fire district coming up a week from Tuesday, and then SC House primaries, probably a run-off, and then election. I suspect we'll be moving the precinct out of the High School as soon as we can for the next General Election. It's just too much to try to have school and have voters coming in. We have to keep them away from the students, but most of all we have parking issues. I've told the election commission that they'll need to provide one or maybe even two traffic controllers during school hours.

Back to this weekend: I think maybe enchiladas tonight with my leftover refried beans. And I've been yearning for chocolate, so I'm sure I'll make some brownies at some point. I'm off refined sugar again, as is usual this time of the year, so I'll be making them with honey. I did that last year and got some good ones.

How Sad

I haven't written. I'm not dead.
In fact, I'm quite, very much, alive!

We had a very nice Christmas with the guys and their friends. We went to a friend's house for a huge dinner. We exchanged a bunch of cool gifts, but nothing too extravagant. We took a family photo and even sent them out in New Year's cards:

(Bear is a little attention-deficit. I have no idea what he was looking at. There's just an empty dining room over there.)

We switched to Directv.
uh...that's it. I'll write about books...the stuff I'm reading. And really I have cooked a bunch. I need to work on writing about that. In fact, I'm off refined sugar again for 40 days, so I'll be playing with natural sweeteners again for a while. And I need to take photos. And learn Photoshop Elements version 9 or whatever it's up to now.
Sheesh. I'm kind of tired thinking about all that.

Paneer Indian Cheese

I'm attempting palak paneer tonight. I found this very simple video about making the paneer. I've made mozzarella before, which you have to have rennet for, so I'm not really daunted about this. I'm pressing my first batch right now. This video does not have any amounts in it, though. I thought maybe my large skillet (like the one pictured here) would hold a gallon of milk, but it's more like a little over 1/2 gallon. I used vinegar and put in only maybe 1 1/2 teaspoons. He does not say how you know if you are using the right amount, just that you want to avoid using too much! So I poured in about a teaspoon and let it curdle. Then I added a little more to see if it would curdle more.

I'll get back to you about the palak (spinach gravy), and how it all came out.

Pasta Salad: Part Deux

Today was our second monthly "Fat Friday." It's a day when we sign up to bring stuff and then all gorge ourselves on it all. I decided to try my hand at another pasta salad, this one with a Greek flair. I'm a sucker for feta cheese and kalamata olives, so this was right up my alley.

I found this recipe on a website called "Three Many Cooks." Check it out here.

They have a nice photo of the salad there, too. But because I'm trying to shoot more, I figured I'd take another of my own. I've never shot food from the side before. I'm pretty happy with it. I maybe could have used a slightly smaller aperture so I'd have more of the salad in focus, though.

Aloo Gobi & Naan

Sounds a little like a song, doesn't it?

So I made this Aloo Gobi, which is an Indian dish consisting of cauliflower and potatoes. You cook them with onions in a skillet for a while and then add this amazing sauce you've pureed out of tomato, garam masala, turmeric, cumin and chili powder. The garnish should be cilantro but I didn't have any. Also the recipe called for lemon juice. None of those around, but this lime was happy to fill in and add color to this photo.

Taylor and I had this with naan and I have to say this was my best batch yet! Each time I make it, I refine my technique just a little bit  more. Tonight's addition was brushing it with the milk solids I had saved from my super-clear batch of ghee from Sunday. Sprinkled on a little kosher salt and we were good to go!

So now I'm overstuffed with bread. Ugh. But a nice meal. It didn't take long to put together, either. I found this recipe on About.com. Here, try it.

On a side note, and completely unrelated, I accidentally called my poor mother this morning. At 6:30 their time. OOOPS! SORRY MOM! Each morning I call Taylor at 7:30 to make sure he's gotten himself awake. Since iphone STUPIDLY DON'T HAVE AUTODIAL, I use "recent calls" to call him each day. Unfortunately, I guess my finger slipped and I hit Mom & Dad's number instead.

But look at the bright side...at least I had been a dutiful daughter yesterday and CALLED my mother. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been in "recents!"

Pure Ghee

PureGhee
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

This is my purest batch of ghee yet. I used my little slow cooker. The one that you use for stuff like appetizer dips? I put my 4 sticks of unsalted butter in there and just let it go.

I skimmed off the milk solids as soon as the butter had melted. I've left those in a bowl on the counter for now. I figure I'll stir them into something later tonight.

Then I just let it go for another 3 hours. The rest of the milk solids cooked to a nutty brown crumbly consistency. I strained the ghee through my All-Clad hand-held strainer and let it cool.

Considering the very small amount of work involved, and the high cost of store-bought ghee ($7 or $8 for this amount), I'd say I have now adopted a new habit.

Baby Carrots | Eat 'Em Like Junk Food | Indulge

Ok. NOW we're talkin' good advertising!

Pasta Salad

pastasalad
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

So I usually don't make pasta salad. And the reason is very stupid. It's because the pasta salads I've had have always been terrible. The one that brings bile to my gut has pepperoni in it and is made by dumping in bottled Italian dressing. Even worse, some is made with low-fat or nonfat Italian dressing. Ugh.

But today I decided to Google pasta salads. I'd been thinking of making potato salad, but by the time I got prep time for it, it was noon or 1 o'clock and would have maybe not gotten cold enough for supper.

So there are a lot of pasta salads out there and I decided to try this one from allrecipes.com:

1 (16 oz) pkg penne pasta (I used these here spirals)
1/4 C vegetable oil (I used Olive)
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp garlic salt
2 tomatoes, chopped (I used a pkg of grape tomatoes)
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 cucumber, chopped
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 c black olives, chopped

Cook the pasta.
Make the vinaigrette.
Chop up the other stuff in a big bowl.
Combine it all.
Chill for 30 minutes.

I think it will be good. It's chilling now. I'm serving it to the carnivores with their roast chicken. I'll have this and a green salad.

Graham Hill: Why I'm a weekday vegetarian | Video on TED.com

Graham Hill: Why I'm a weekday vegetarian | Video on TED.com

I like this. It should be easy enough, but I think still difficult for those families that don't have a cook. By that I mean there are many families out there that just don't use their kitchens anymore. They pick up prepped food, fast food, and eat out. Either they are too busy or just not motivated.

And then there are vegetarians and vegans that actually don't eat many VEGETABLES! I had a vegan friend of mine tell me last winter that he was trying a raw food diet because he wasn't eating enough veggies! Yes, some so-called vegetarians are filling up on carbs, simple and complex, and not getting their daily needs met.

btw: He's the founder of TreeHugger.com

Scam Cookies

Surely I've told you Mensa Boy's theory about oatmeal cookies. I have, haven't I? Well, to recap, he says that oatmeal cookies are "scam cookies" because they look like chocolate chip from a distance.

MB is a man of simple tastes. Ice cream should be vanilla and cookies should be chocolate chip. That's it. Oh. Pies should be apple. 

Here is a conversation I had with him via email today:

ME: I ate a scam cookie this morning. 

It was actually good. 
I suspect the icing on it helped.

HE: I’m glad you were able to get through it. Most people don’t survive the shock.

(photo stolen from http://www.joyofbaking.com. (thanks folks!))

It's Hard to be Poor

When you just want one of these:

Hiding

Pearl
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Do you ever feel like this?

Mistress of the Art of Death

Just finished this excellent book! I seem to be continuing down the path of historical fiction/medical-related! In this case, it's not a doctor, per se, but a coroner, whose skills I am reading about. This one takes place in 12th century England, where young children are being lured and then tortured and killed. Of course the Jews, who "murdered Jesus," are the only suspects. King Henry II, who is fond of the Jews because of how well they keep his coffers filled, has written to his friend William, King of Sicily, and asked him to send a "death master" to read the bodies of the murdered children in order to ascertain the true perpetrator.

Being 12th century England, the death master, who is a woman, for pete's sake,  is accompanied by her manservant and an investigator. The manservant acts as the true doctor and she as his assistant.

I'd say this is great murder mystery fiction a la Patricia Cornwell, but I think this one is actually better than Cornwell's novels. 

Fall Gardening

Here in the Southeast we get a second growing season for vegetables that lasts until nearly Thanksgiving. The fall garden goes in right about now and we are able to put in collards, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower and onion sets. I'll check for garlic locally. I haven't seen any yet, but if I can't find it, I'll order it online.

Yesterday we cleaned out the spent summer garden stuff...mostly tomato plants...they failed pretty miserably. I'm not sure why they did. But I do think we have to get over our loathing of the heat and take a walk through the garden every single day. I suspect that neglect may have been the culprit in some instances. Liz and I are gardening together and I think we each may have thought the other was doing things they weren't! At any rate, we learned a few things from our summer garden:

1. Lettuce was good but really we get perfectly good organic lettuce from the grocery store.
2. Cage and stake the tomato plants earlier.
3. Plant green beans. We missed them this year.
4. Weed control between the beds needs to have a higher priority. We lost plants in the weeds when they spilled out over the beds.
5. We can really get a great harvest of cucumbers, tomatillos and hot peppers! Also stevia turned out to be a GREAT GROWER!

But all in all, I suspect Liz and I are more cut out for fall gardening. We both are Vata doshas and tend to wear out quick in the heat.

We have some great bugs in the garden. I shot a photo of a writing spider there yesterday on a habanero plant. I used my cellphone camera.

The Last Jew

I finished the third of a bunch of books I've read by Noah Gordon now have ordered the only two others that our library has. If my love of this author continues I may have to (*gasp*) buy the rest!

My reading odyssey all began with "The Physician," which Nate gave me right before I left for Minnesota. I was turning the house upside-down for a paperback for the plane and he produced it. It was required reading for a class of his at Erskine. "The Physician" is about a little guy who loses his parents and is given to a traveling barber surgeon. Now, this is 11th century London, so he's a traveling "doctor," such as they were. The boy learns all about the business of helping people with minor ailments, as well as selling a potion they called "physick" and juggling and telling stories to bring in more income. After the barber dies, the boy decides he wants to be a real, learned medical doctor. But they are few and far between and the one he knows of and wants to apprentice with won't take him on because he's not a Jew. He travels to the school in Persia where the Jewish physician took his training and gains entrance to study under Persian physician Avicenna by pretending to be a Jew (there is a ban on Christian students).

It's a wonderful book that I hated to see end:


After finishing that one, I ordered "Shaman," which is about this same physician's descendant. It takes place on the Illinois frontier in the civil war era. I wrote about that one here, but didn't say much. It covers the advent of anesthesia and hygiene, as well as early American apothecaries and Indian medicine. "Shaman" is particularly interesting because this doctor is deaf as a result of contracting Scarlet Fever as a child.

The "Last Jew." Now this one was hard to get into at first. I actually started it and then put it down for 2 weeks. It's very dry at the beginning, but I picked it up again because I remembered that the other two were a tiny bit slow grabbing my attention. So I stuck it out a few more pages and then was hooked. It takes place during the Spanish Inquisition, and the "last Jew" left in Spain, who survived by keeping his Jewishness, (and his circumcised penis,) under wraps. Our hero, Yonah Helkiah, wanders around Spain after surviving the decimation of his family (he'd hidden in a cave). He takes on several odd-ranging jobs and names as he wanders, ultimately apprenticing to a metal master and then later, that master's brother, who is a physician.
Another book I hated to see end!

An Abridged History of American-Centric Warfare. Using Food.

Ghee

Ghee. Clarified butter, essentially. But cooked a little longer to really get the oil purified and separated from the milk solids. I've been reading quite a bit lately about Ayurvedic medicine and cookery and ghee is much-touted for it's healthy properties. So I decided to make some myself. I used salted butter because that's all I had, but it does turn out very very salty. I compensate for that by being doubly careful not to oversalt food that I've cooked in ghee.

Yesterday I had a hankering for french fries at lunch time but we didn't have any in the freezer. So I peeled a potato, cooked it in a sandwich bag in the microwave, and then sliced it. I fried the slices in ghee. I got some wonderfully golden brown and delicious home-fried potatoes! Ghee, since it does not have the milk solids, has a much higher smoke point than butter. In fact, I've read that you can deep fry in it.

I'll be experimenting a lot more with my ghee. I think the next thing I'll make is chapati. I've made chapati quite a bit, but have not cooked them with ghee.

Shaman by Noah Gordon

Get this book.

I read "The Physician" while in Minneapolis and had to get the next book, "Shaman." The main characters are the descendants of the main character in other book. But not hideously over-worked. There's a connection, but just blood. The stories don't dovetail or anything. GREAT BOOK! It takes place during the Civil War.

End of Week One, Day Five

We all breathed a collective sigh of relief today at school when the bell rang at 3:30. We managed to complete our first week of school!

Yes, there were a few kids that were mis-directed. Placed in the wrong classes. A couple of disciplinary incidents already. Still no receptionist. A few classes filled to overflowing. Much paperwork done and data entry completed. More to do in the coming weeks. But 3:30 came and we all bid our students goodbye and considered the weekend.

I grocery-shopped with Taylor. We parked in a "Customer with Child" spot. Just to be rebellious. He drove the car in the store. We discussed food. He chose tacos for supper and so I made those...bean ones for me.

I also made my first batch of ghee. A pound of butter, simmered for a couple of hours. Skimmed the milk solids off the top and used a bit to fry my beans. SALTY!!! I guess that's where all the salt in salted butter goes! I'll have to make the next batch with unsalted butter. I'm looking forward to playing with the ghee. I think I'll make fry bread tomorrow with it.