the winter of my discontent

[mamajoan]

Sigh, it is discouraging to me that I have so much I want to post about, but never get a chance until after the kids are in bed, and by then I'm too worn out to do it. I am thinking of starting a new thing where I write posts in Notepad during the day and then post them at night. You won't hate me if I'm quiet all day and then spam your flist come 10pm, will you?

We survived the storm yesterday. Ruthie went to daycare and Isaac and I went all over creation. It snowed less than predicted, which is good, but is supposed to snow again in a few days, sigh.

Today I spent the entire day in an offsite meeting, which was exhausting. Much of it was interesting, but much was also boring and I had to really struggle to stay awake. Plus I missed my internets. snif snif, woe, etc.

Ruthie's constipation problems are really starting to get me down and am not sure what to do about it. On the plus side, she actually pooped a teeny bit in the potty at daycare! My goodness. So I have started putting her on the potty here at home, which she likes, though she has not done anything in it yet. But she says very cheerily "ruthie on potty!" and is happy to sit on it for a minute or two, so that's a start.

Last week's new recipe (#3 I believe) was "Tofu in Gravy" out of The Vegetarian Lunchbasket. It is a very odd cookbook and was a rather odd recipe. Perhaps I shall find time to write more about this later. In summary of the recipe though: too bland, not at all what I expected from the name.

Tonight's new recipes #4 quinoa, which maybe shouldn't count since I just boiled it with some water, but what the hell, I never cooked quinoa before so it counts. I served it to the kids with a little soy sauce and they both liked it (yay!). Myself, I ate it on tonight's other new recipe, which I shall call #5 Improv Curry Tofu. 1/2 small onion chopped and sauteed in oil with 1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon curry powder; splash of coconut milk; 1/2 block of tofu, pressed and diced; small handful of frozen green beans for color more than anything. Salt to taste, cook until it seems done. I ate it with the quinoa and it was quite tasty. Nice mild curry flavor, quite out of proportion with how deliciously curry-y the house smelled!

Book-wise I am making slow but steady progress on both Misfortune and Carnival.

ok...like I said, have SO much more to say, but that's all I have energy for right now :(

Comments

[glaurung-quena.livejournal.com]

Quinoa with curry is a food of the gods. So is quinoa with a little sugar and milk or whatever you use in place of milk. It has the added benefit of cooking significantly faster than rice, as well. Just remember that you _must_ rinse it before hand, as there's a naturally occurring residue on the grains that doesn't taste very good. I once forgot to rinse it before cooking it and the result was nasty.

[victoriacatlady.livejournal.com]

Oh? That's a good tip; I'll have to remember it for whenever I try making quinoa. Also I'll tell my friend C., who just bought a bunch of different grains including quinoa, in case she doesn't know.

(The reason I know she bought a bunch of grains is that she's legally blind, so I drove her to Lifestyles Market (a health-food store) and read the labels on the bulk bins. She went nuts and bought at least ten different things, whole grain and flour both. I think quinoa was among them.)

I presume what you do is put the quinoa in water in a pan, stir it around with your fingers, pour as much water out as you can without losing most of the quinoa, repeat a time or two, then add what you guess is the right amount of water and cook? With rice, white or brown, I use two parts water to one part rice. With oatmeal I use a touch less water. What about quinoa?

[glaurung-quena.livejournal.com]

What I do is have a 2 cup strainer (with small holes) that I put the quinoa in, run water over it while shaking gently, and then drain it and dump it in the cooking pot. YMMV. Quinoa, like rice, is a 2 part water-1 part grain thing.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

The concept of a bland tofu in gravy seems approrpiate, if the gravy were to be made of tofu drippings, sort of like turkey gravy would be made with turkey drippings. Except that tofu drippings aren't exactly flavorful. :)

There's a good recipe in Cooks Illustrated for a vegetable based gravy; I think it may use chicken broth in a carton but you could replace that with vegetable broth; the important part is it starts by browning vegetables in a saucepan rather than by roasting a turkey. :)

[opadit.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was "gravy" in the sense of Thai gravy: the broth you get in rad nah noodles, or the sauce that's left over after you stir-fry something.

[nonethewiser.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmmm quinoa.

It's very classic to serve it with melty cheese, in Bolivia where they farm it. It's pretty good.

[retch.livejournal.com]

You won't hate me if I'm quiet all day and then spam your flist come 10pm, will you?

nope, writing good, write when you can. :)

[victoriacatlady.livejournal.com]

I am thinking of starting a new thing where I write posts in Notepad during the day and then post them at night. You won't hate me if I'm quiet all day and then spam your flist come 10pm, will you?

Nope. :-)