Random stuff
Jan. 20th, 2023 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maeve66I risked buying a box of [Stash extra spice] chai flavored teabags, and the results are... adequate. Not really much like actual chai, which I love, and which is messy to make (get Assam leaf tea, one teaspoon per intended cup, plus one extra; put it in about one to two cups LESS than the intended cups' amount of cold water, with say two cinnamon sticks, several green cardamom pods, some powdered ginger and maybe a couple of cloves; bring it all to a rolling boil, and then add in the missing cups [one or two] of liquid in the form, for me, of half-n-half, though you could use whole milk, too, and bring THAT to a boil. Watch it carefully, and the minute it starts to foam, take it off the heat and pour into a pot. Use a strainer to pour it into cups. Mmmmm. So rich. So good. I do not like sugar in mine, but many people do).
Anyway, this has the spices right, though it doesn't have the richness or the sort of ... boiledness of the half-n-half. Acceptable, if you don't want to put in the work, sigh.
I am about to make my dinner to go with this tea (well, and with a pot of normal tea, which is more to the point with this particular dinner. "Dinner"?) A couple of sandwiches. Both on Beckmann's sourdough bread, fresh. One will be English seedless cucumbers and Dubliner cheese, on butter. The other will be Branston's pickle and Dubliner cheese, on butter. There are vegetables in this dinner! Maybe I can remove the scare quotes.
I am slowly trying to cook a little more than I have for ages. Ages = years, basically. On weekends, like tonight. Over the Winter Break, I made two soups while my father and stepmother were staying with me (for four weeks; they stayed with me for about four weeks... it was much nicer than I expected it to be in my anxiety beforehand... more on that in a bit). I made my old family standby, as I changed it from my mother's version: Bean-cabbage soup, which I've detailed in this blog before, a long time ago. It's the easiest soup in the world, and could certainly be vegetarian if you omitted the ground turkey.
Basically: brown about a pound of ground turkey with about an onion (or more, if you like them, which I do) chopped up, in olive oil or any oil, really, with a bay leaf. Then pour in one to two cans of chopped tomatoes, three to four cans (or more, depending on if you want it to be vegetarian, to make up for the turkey protein) of cannellini beans, one can of which should be mashed up with its liquid (but include all the liquid from the cans); as much chicken or vegetable stock as you want -- enough to cover the finely chopped head of cabbage. Add some salt, maybe some thyme and oregano. Cook it down for a good hour or more. Then, when it seems done for you (the cabbage should be soft), make a bagheer of cumin (that is, heat canola or some other non-olive oil in a small pan, and put in several heaping teaspoons of cumin until they start spattering, and then dump the whole thing in the soup and stir. It will make an impressive sizzling near-explosion.)
I love that soup. Extremely satisfying on a cold rainy day, which we have had plenty of in the past month. My mother's version was beef and kidney beans, and no bagheer.
But I also made a soup new to me that I have no idea why I never did before. I love pea soup -- it was a standard, when I was a kid, and it's easy as hell. This is almost the same but for some reason entirely different. The taste of yellow split peas is ... so different! And the savory. My father denied that that was an herb -- he's hilarious when he opines on shit he knows absolutely nothing about.
This was habitant soup -- yellow split pea soup, with ham shank (again, obviously one could leave that out). God, it was good. I have the ingredients to make it again this weekend, and I might.
If I get my fucking grades done. I am far, far, far behind on them, especially given some stupid tech fuckery to do with Canvas (a learning platform I hate very very much), and they are due on Wednesday. So I really have tomorrow and Sunday to do them. Gah. I am a world famous procrastinator, so I am hoping that those skills of last minute single-minded focus will come to the fore.
I will say, this sandwich is delicious. It works best when the bread is very, very fresh, as this is. Best of all would be a home loaf from a British bakery. That bread is incredible and I never, never, never see anything remotely like it in the US. I mean, sure, baguettes are nice and all, but honestly I prefer British baking.
Let's see. Xmas was nice. I wasted a lot of emotional energy being anxious about having my dad and Mary here from TWO WEEKS before I got off work for break to the day after New Year's, but in fact, it was really nice to have them in my spare bedroom -- as well as PQ (that's my dad, referred to by his initials as were we all, from childhood on) monopolizing the (really very large) balcony to smoke his pipe, and also monopolizing the dining room table to lay out all of his daily STUFF on. My apartment/condo, whatever I am supposed to call this place, was crowded but also very... comfortable. I mean, the apartment is comfortable. But it was nice having constant company, especially since PQ has ants in his pants and cannot stay in one place terribly long, so he and Mary borrowed my car for daily jaunts to various habitual haunts (e.g., a Starbucks up in Oakland by an old quarry that they like, and where Mary gets her daily NYT, my sister's house in Oakland, even though RQ and Tim were not usually there -- not at all, the first week, since they also were still working... Any of several Bay Area bars he has been going to since 1965...) I didn't even mind watching his endless, endless NCAA football Bowl Games, as well as the briefly resurgent Packers (though, it must be said, we all fucking hate Aaron Rodgers now, asshole anti-vaxxer idiot that he is). Or the daily news shows he is addicted to: CBS (I think, god if I actually know, though I watched it a lot with them) with some woman anchor they like, and the PBS News Hour, every week day, and 60 Minutes. As a Christmas present, I'd gotten him a month of Hulu + so these things were possible. I quit it the day he left.
I think I am finally, after these years of the pandemic, getting somewhat lonely. I was super outgoing and extroverted as a teenager and into my twenties and even thirties. But I retreated a lot in my forties and now. It's seemed fine to be quite introverted, but I am finding it less so recently. It's hard to know what to do, given my general difficulties with walking or standing. I have a travelscoot, but it's really hard for me to put it in my car. If I had a lot of money, I might get a car that had a high hatchback, like maybe a used Suburu Outback? I don't know. A used Honda Fit? But I don't have a lot of money, unless I raid my savings, and I don't want to do that.
It might seem not-exactly-perfectly-aimed, as a strategy to feel more connected to people, but I think I will try to write more often in Dreamwidth (lord, I still think that is a stupid name). The not many of you who read these entries are people I care about and would like to be closer to (What the hell is Devlin hearing outside my door; she's like a sentinal cat, but also extremely scared if anyone she doesn't know actually enters -- I don't think it's anything, actually. Silly girl.)
I might let LiveJournal lapse, too. I still go to the effort of posting here, and then copying and pasting and posting there, but it seems dumb -- and the Russians sent me a weird email saying my payment had failed... but that my "Professional Packet" (Professional what? Fanfic writer? I am not, though my older niece implores me to try it, I guess as an easing in to actual writing? Also because she worries about me being depressed, something she is familiar with) will expire... in January 2024. Uh. What? Did I pay two years in advance or something? It's hard to care about LJ. I did check to be sure DW has archived my NINETEEN years of entries (that is so bizarre... I started in November of 2003) and comments, and my first entry included the fact that I was far, far, far behind on grading and they were due that Monday. Ha.
Anyway, this has the spices right, though it doesn't have the richness or the sort of ... boiledness of the half-n-half. Acceptable, if you don't want to put in the work, sigh.
I am about to make my dinner to go with this tea (well, and with a pot of normal tea, which is more to the point with this particular dinner. "Dinner"?) A couple of sandwiches. Both on Beckmann's sourdough bread, fresh. One will be English seedless cucumbers and Dubliner cheese, on butter. The other will be Branston's pickle and Dubliner cheese, on butter. There are vegetables in this dinner! Maybe I can remove the scare quotes.
I am slowly trying to cook a little more than I have for ages. Ages = years, basically. On weekends, like tonight. Over the Winter Break, I made two soups while my father and stepmother were staying with me (for four weeks; they stayed with me for about four weeks... it was much nicer than I expected it to be in my anxiety beforehand... more on that in a bit). I made my old family standby, as I changed it from my mother's version: Bean-cabbage soup, which I've detailed in this blog before, a long time ago. It's the easiest soup in the world, and could certainly be vegetarian if you omitted the ground turkey.
Basically: brown about a pound of ground turkey with about an onion (or more, if you like them, which I do) chopped up, in olive oil or any oil, really, with a bay leaf. Then pour in one to two cans of chopped tomatoes, three to four cans (or more, depending on if you want it to be vegetarian, to make up for the turkey protein) of cannellini beans, one can of which should be mashed up with its liquid (but include all the liquid from the cans); as much chicken or vegetable stock as you want -- enough to cover the finely chopped head of cabbage. Add some salt, maybe some thyme and oregano. Cook it down for a good hour or more. Then, when it seems done for you (the cabbage should be soft), make a bagheer of cumin (that is, heat canola or some other non-olive oil in a small pan, and put in several heaping teaspoons of cumin until they start spattering, and then dump the whole thing in the soup and stir. It will make an impressive sizzling near-explosion.)
I love that soup. Extremely satisfying on a cold rainy day, which we have had plenty of in the past month. My mother's version was beef and kidney beans, and no bagheer.
But I also made a soup new to me that I have no idea why I never did before. I love pea soup -- it was a standard, when I was a kid, and it's easy as hell. This is almost the same but for some reason entirely different. The taste of yellow split peas is ... so different! And the savory. My father denied that that was an herb -- he's hilarious when he opines on shit he knows absolutely nothing about.
This was habitant soup -- yellow split pea soup, with ham shank (again, obviously one could leave that out). God, it was good. I have the ingredients to make it again this weekend, and I might.
If I get my fucking grades done. I am far, far, far behind on them, especially given some stupid tech fuckery to do with Canvas (a learning platform I hate very very much), and they are due on Wednesday. So I really have tomorrow and Sunday to do them. Gah. I am a world famous procrastinator, so I am hoping that those skills of last minute single-minded focus will come to the fore.
I will say, this sandwich is delicious. It works best when the bread is very, very fresh, as this is. Best of all would be a home loaf from a British bakery. That bread is incredible and I never, never, never see anything remotely like it in the US. I mean, sure, baguettes are nice and all, but honestly I prefer British baking.
Let's see. Xmas was nice. I wasted a lot of emotional energy being anxious about having my dad and Mary here from TWO WEEKS before I got off work for break to the day after New Year's, but in fact, it was really nice to have them in my spare bedroom -- as well as PQ (that's my dad, referred to by his initials as were we all, from childhood on) monopolizing the (really very large) balcony to smoke his pipe, and also monopolizing the dining room table to lay out all of his daily STUFF on. My apartment/condo, whatever I am supposed to call this place, was crowded but also very... comfortable. I mean, the apartment is comfortable. But it was nice having constant company, especially since PQ has ants in his pants and cannot stay in one place terribly long, so he and Mary borrowed my car for daily jaunts to various habitual haunts (e.g., a Starbucks up in Oakland by an old quarry that they like, and where Mary gets her daily NYT, my sister's house in Oakland, even though RQ and Tim were not usually there -- not at all, the first week, since they also were still working... Any of several Bay Area bars he has been going to since 1965...) I didn't even mind watching his endless, endless NCAA football Bowl Games, as well as the briefly resurgent Packers (though, it must be said, we all fucking hate Aaron Rodgers now, asshole anti-vaxxer idiot that he is). Or the daily news shows he is addicted to: CBS (I think, god if I actually know, though I watched it a lot with them) with some woman anchor they like, and the PBS News Hour, every week day, and 60 Minutes. As a Christmas present, I'd gotten him a month of Hulu + so these things were possible. I quit it the day he left.
I think I am finally, after these years of the pandemic, getting somewhat lonely. I was super outgoing and extroverted as a teenager and into my twenties and even thirties. But I retreated a lot in my forties and now. It's seemed fine to be quite introverted, but I am finding it less so recently. It's hard to know what to do, given my general difficulties with walking or standing. I have a travelscoot, but it's really hard for me to put it in my car. If I had a lot of money, I might get a car that had a high hatchback, like maybe a used Suburu Outback? I don't know. A used Honda Fit? But I don't have a lot of money, unless I raid my savings, and I don't want to do that.
It might seem not-exactly-perfectly-aimed, as a strategy to feel more connected to people, but I think I will try to write more often in Dreamwidth (lord, I still think that is a stupid name). The not many of you who read these entries are people I care about and would like to be closer to (What the hell is Devlin hearing outside my door; she's like a sentinal cat, but also extremely scared if anyone she doesn't know actually enters -- I don't think it's anything, actually. Silly girl.)
I might let LiveJournal lapse, too. I still go to the effort of posting here, and then copying and pasting and posting there, but it seems dumb -- and the Russians sent me a weird email saying my payment had failed... but that my "Professional Packet" (Professional what? Fanfic writer? I am not, though my older niece implores me to try it, I guess as an easing in to actual writing? Also because she worries about me being depressed, something she is familiar with) will expire... in January 2024. Uh. What? Did I pay two years in advance or something? It's hard to care about LJ. I did check to be sure DW has archived my NINETEEN years of entries (that is so bizarre... I started in November of 2003) and comments, and my first entry included the fact that I was far, far, far behind on grading and they were due that Monday. Ha.