Tuesday, August 25, 2009

OwowfreakingOW

Hey, guess what! When you've been sneezing all morning and blowing your nose on paper products that weren't originally intended for noses and it makes that particular facial area all red and sore? Do not, I repeat do not try to cool and soothe the area with hand cream. Particularly black raspberry vanilla body cream from Bath & Bodyworks. You'll feel like you just poured kerosene on your face and lit a match.

Well, at least the runny nose can put the fire out around it, what-what?

Why yes, I did just watch The Madness of King George recently! How did you know?

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Glorious mess

Last week I finally admitted that my CSA vegetables age faster than I can use them, and that I need to start freezing things. A week ago Friday I made stuffed peppers with the 4 bell peppers they gave me the week before, and did my best to clear out the fridge in preparation for this week's haul.

Last night I blanched and froze three heads of broccoli...and set off the smoke detector in the process 'cause I forgot to turn on the hood fan over the range. Scared the bejeezus out of the cat. And probably my neighbors.

Today (after turning on the hood fan and pointing the living room's big standing fan out into the kitchen) I blanched 1/2 a head of cauliflower (that all that was in the crate. Still pretty big, though, even for a half), a bag of string beans (green, wax, and purple--though the purple ones turned green when they hit the water. Boooo.), and four ears of corn. Everything but the corn went into the freezer. The corn, along with some tomatoes, onions, a clove of garlic, and some bacon became this:

Mexicorn!

My Grandma Ruth used to make it, and she called it Mexicorn. I think it was a fancy word for summer-leftovers-that-need-to-be-used-up. Everything in this picture (except the bacon, of course) came from my CSA share. One of the tomatoes I used was yellow and green striped, green on the inside.

It doesn't look all that appetizing, but it tastes wonderful. Hence, this post's title.

Here's how it's made, if you'd like to try it:

Ingredients:
Bacon (I used 4 pieces, one for each cob of corn.)
Corn, cooked, cut off the cob (preferably. I've done it with frozen. It's not the same)
Onion (I used 2 tiny red ones and small white one)
1 clove of garlic (that's my own little addition. I don't think Grandma cooked with garlic)
Tomatoes, diced, preferably fresh.
Salt to taste
Ground pepper to taste

1. In a sauté pan, fry bacon until it's crispy. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.
2. Fry the onion and garlic with the bacon fat.
3. Add corn, stir.
4. Add tomatoes, stir.
5. Crumble bacon, add to pan. Stir.
6. Add salt and pepper, stir.
7. Remove from heat when mixture is throughly combined and heated through. Serve.
8. Try not to eat the whole thing in one sitting.

I have no idea what the Weight Watcher's points are for this, and I. Don't. Care! It's mostly vegetables anyway. Okay, so they're covered in fat and mixed with bacon, but it's not like I eat this everyday. I've been waiting for the corn to start coming so that I could make it. I've had a little bit, and now I'm gonna quick toss the rest in the freezer so I don't eat any more today.

Later this evening I'm going to try a fennel bulb and potato au gratin recipe that the CSA put in the bulletin this past week. Wish me luck! The fennel smells great, let's hope it tastes as good and freezes well.

I'm also going to cut up the rest of the tomatoes, the cucumbers, some onion, and the radishes and make some sort of marinated salad with them. I'll probably just throw Italian dressing on it and refrigerate it.

On tomorrow's agenda -- Cream of carrot soup. With leeks and ginger and a yam, too. I made this earlier this year, never took a picture, didn't think to freeze it in time and the soup went bad. Gonna make it again now that I know what I'm doing.

And pretty soon I'm going to make a recipe Pioneer Woman talked about over on her cooking blog for a pineapple-zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting. I'm going to bring that in to work. One of my co-workers is going on maternity leave very soon, and I feel like making a little fuss. We already threw her a shower, but I just want to do this. I also want to try the recipe, get rid of my zucchini , and have a piece of cake without having the rest of it leftover later. I'd say that's four birds, one stone.

Off to got pack up the mexicorn before I eat more of it!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Today's fun thing-Code Monkey

I ran across a YouTube video a while back (pointed there by The Bloggess) of someone dancing in their jammies to the tune "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton. I have fallen in love with that song. It's on my iPod now, and since I'm listening to it at work as I type (What? I'm on my afternoon break!) this I thought I might as well share it. It's a great Friday-afternoon-get-me-outta-here song.

He's released it under Creative Commons, which I guess means people are free to do with it what they will,and a bunch of people have put videos together for it. Here's one of my favorites:



And here's the one that got me interested in the song in the first place:

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Still here

It was pointed out to me a few minutes ago that I haven't posted anything in a while. Here's what's been doing:

I went to my parents' house two weekends ago. I was planning on going anyway, to celebrate my birthday and their anniversary. The visit took on more urgency a few days before I was planning to go, as my father spent their anniversary and the next 2 days in the hospital.

Doctors gave it some Latin name I don't remember but in layman's terms he has an irregular heartbeat. He's on medication for it now. He was so severely dizzy the day he went into the hospital that he couldn't even stand. And the blood pressure medicine he was on was making things worse instead of better. So off they went to the emergency room.

My sister and brother-in-law swung by Friday to pick us up -- since I was going for more than a there-and-back-the-next-day visit, the cat had to come with me. Needs her meds for her kidney thing daily. We got to Mom and Dad's place around 11:30. Dad was home by that point. Looked fine--a little tired maybe, but glad to be home.

Apparently people live with this condition for a long time. Burt, an 80+ man who works with my Mom and Dad, has had an irregular heartbeat for 30 years. It doesn't seem to have slowed him down any.

So anyway, after assuring ourselves that Dad was okay now, we relaxed and enjoyed the weekend. Well, my brother-in-law not so much. He had what later turned out to be poison oak all over him. Even in his eye (fun!). We left earlier than planned on Sunday so he could get to a doctor or a hospital back at home to see what was up.

But Saturday was a nice relaxing day. Mom drove us out to a field that was full of wildflowers, and we took pictures. Here's one of my favorites:

Sunflower close-up

And then we went to town to a shop called Olga's where we all bought some fancy yarn. I know, I don't need any more yarn! But I have some anyway, along with plans for its use.

Since then, I've been working, sleeping, weeding, and trying to keep up with my CSA shares. I just got more stuff yesterday:
CSA share 8/18/09

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Branching out

Y'know, being part of this CSA thing is really making me branch out, food-wise. Two weeks ago there was a great big bag of basil in my crate. The house smelled amazing. Ooof. I hadn't much of an idea what to do with it, so I looked up a recipe for pesto online, and then made some. Pictures will follow as soon as I use it. It's in the freezer right now.

This week was the best crate yet.

CSA share, week of 8/4/09

Buried amongst all that vegetable goodness there's another wee bag of basil. Not enough to make pesto with (though this week's CSA bulletin includes a recipe for pesto using the kale and some walnuts. Hmm. I might try that), but there was just enough to make this:

Caprese salad

Almost too pretty to eat. I managed, though.