Monday, July 30, 2007

Pickles, pickles everywhere

In the past 3 weeks, I have made 19 quarts of pickles. My neighbor had an overflow of cucumbers and kept leaving bags at my front door. (I had given him permission so it was ok.) I wanted to make pickles. And man I made pickles. They’re spicy and garlicky. I don’t like sweet pickles, although sugar is a required ingredient in any pickle recipe. I made spears and slices and 2 jars of small, whole pickles. I had fun.
I don’t have a set recipe as of yet. I’ve made 3 different brines but the basic ingredients are the same.

Mason jars
Vinegar- I used cider for most of it and a combo of white and cider for one time. Use any kind you like.
Water
2 T sugar
Salt
Pepper
Red pepper flakes*
Cumin*
Bell peppers, red and green
Onion
Garlic powder*
Onion powder*
Hot sauce*
Garlic cloves- Use however many you want.
Thyme
Dill
Jalepenos*
Cucumbers- sliced, speared, or whole if small enough.

Put water and vinegar in a pot, a 3-2 vinegar/water ratio works best. Add seasoning. Use whatever you like to taste. This is just what I used. Sugar is a must though, to help the cucumbers stay together. Bring brine to a boil and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Let cool.
While the brine is cooling, sterilize the mason jars by boiling just the jars for 10 minutes. Place dill, whole garlic cloves, onion slices or pearl onions, diced jalepenos, thyme, whatever other flavoring you like, in the bottom of the jar. Place cucumbers in jar, leaving at least ½ inch at the top. Pour the brine in, along with any other pieces like the bell peppers or garlic. Leave room at the top. Repeat for each jar. 8 cups of liquid makes about 4-5 quarts.
Seal the jars by placing the lids on them, and tighten but not all the way. Place in about 3-4 inches of boiling water, about halfway up the jar, and cover. You will hear a pop and the jar is sealed.
You can also use a pressure cooker to do this but as I don’t have one, this also works.
I made 4 quarts of salsa this weekend too. I need to make lots of sauce and more salsa next weekend. All this fresh, fun produce!* And it’s so easy to do!

*Sadly, I’ve had to buy tomatoes. All the rain we’ve had is not making our tomatoes do well- they’re just not getting enough sun. Plus we now have leaf-footed bugs which suck all the sweet goodness out of the ‘maters and prevent them from growing really big. It’s been hard to deal with because it’s always freakin’ raining and it just washes away anything you try to do. I’m using a soap and water spray to combat them but I don’t know if I can really save them. We’ll see. We did just get some baby plants so that might save the day.

Monday, July 23, 2007

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT FINSHED HP7! MAJOR SPOILERS

Spoilers about book 7 below.



I warned you.



They’re coming.



Here it comes.




Ok, Harry Potter Book 7 info below.



I went to one of the midnight release parties to get my book. I am a big dork. I had a good time though. There were lots of kids and adults in costume. At the Barnes and Noble that I was at, there had to be at least 5-600 people there. At least. They gave out tickets in groups of 50 from A-Z and they were on P for the reserved copies and were on C for the unreserved. It was madness but in a good way. I was in group J and got my copy around 12:45am. The line moved quickly and I was home around 1am. I was originally going to read until I feel asleep but I stayed awake until I finished the book around 5-5:30am. I think it was the combination of coffee and adrenaline that kept me awake. Plus I didn’t want to put it down for the last 200 pages or so.
Overall, I am happy with the book. All my questions were answered and then some. I laughed but I also cried. It was well thought out and very detailed, too detailed at times. The beginning flew by but the middle sort of got bogged down a bit. I really didn’t like the last chapter but I understand the need for it. It just didn’t seem to fit in for me, plus it gave me so many more questions like what does Harry do? What are the jobs? Who’s the headmaster or mistress of Hogwarts now? But that’s ok. There are supposed to be questions. I think that’s the mark of a good book. Plus it leaves things open for more.
There was no real wait to get to the meat of the story. The first chapter dived in right away to reveal Voldemort and his Death Eaters planning their overthrow of the wizarding world and the attempts to finally get Harry Potter. Voldemort wants his revenge and wants his one failure to be gone. But of course that doesn’t happen.
This was not a peaceful book. It’s dark and there is a lot of violence and quite a bit of death. Some you expected (Snape, and the big V, yes he dies.) but there were quite a lot of unexpected. I totally did not see Dobby dying. Poor little house-elf. And Hedwig! When Hedwig and Dobby died, I figured that anyone was fair game. I would have been ok if one of the core three had been killed but it wouldn’t have felt right. I had predicted that Neville, Hagrid, or McGonagall would die, but that was not the case. I’m still not sure how I feel about both Tonks and Lupin dying but I can see it to make Harry be the godfather that he never got to have. And what is George, holey George, going to do without his brother? I wished we had seen his reaction, though it may have been too much for readers to take. I did get some comfort out of the fact that Fred went out with a joke.
Dumbledore is not perfect after all, he is fallible. I had always suspected that he was up to something that belied his stature and grandeur but I never suspected the family story nor his long-ago friendship with a Dark Master who was very anti-Muggle. The quest for the Deathly Hallows, that makes sense to me. That fits Dumbledore’s personality. But the story behind his family was a bit of a surprise. Dumbledore had been rather full of himself but he also gave off the air that he understood it too. He made mistakes, quite a few of them, but didn’t always admit them to everyone. He did know his limits. (Never accepting the post of head of Ministry.) I think this realization and discovery did help Harry become a better person. Everyone does make mistakes and keep secrets.
I always knew Snape had some good in him and that Harry’s mother played some part in that, but it was still a nice revelation that he did end up caring for Harry because of Lily and her kindness, even though she did separate herself from him because of his dark tendencies. She was one of the few people to like Snape for himself. Snape’s capacity to love is what made him different. He loved Lily and was able to love her son. I loved how his Patronus was a doe and not something else. Snape really was an old softie.
Love, of course, was a big theme in this book. The ability to love and feel will conquer all. Snape could love, Dumbledore could love, the Malfoys loved their son, Harry loved and was loved, etc. We all know that Voldemort’s biggest downfall was his inability to love, to feel remorse, really to feel anything. He was all hate and pride, and that ultimately destroyed him. He couldn’t imagine that anything could be stronger than his supreme talent and power. I think that was a great theme for the kids to believe in, love is always there and always important, no matter what happens. If you can love, you can do anything.
There were a lot of other underlying themes- a lot of racial implications. The whole purity of the wizarding race just reeks of Nazism. They hunted Muggle-born wizards and forced them to give up their wands. They had no guilt in just killing off Muggle families. Half-blood wizards were seen as of lesser status. It’s all so reminiscent of the Holocaust. There’s a take off of a well known about how they came for the jews and I did nothing and they came for these people and I did nothing, etc. Lupin makes that point on Potterwatch about how first it’s the Muggle-borns, and then the half-bloods, and then the purebloods, and then it will be just the Death-Eaters. You can see the progression. The undercurrent was just there.
You can see it even more with the talk of Grindewald’s camp for non-followers, Nurmengard, and the slogan over the gate. (Wish I could remember it but it’s very reminiscent of “Work Makes You Free”.) It’s very World War II-like. (Even to the little details of no tv and just a wireless radio. Potterwatch and the Order= the resistance.) And it all stems from the fact that Voldemort was more or less screwed over by Muggles in his childhood, even though he is half-blood himself. (Sound familiar to anyone else?) Younger kids might not pick up on it, but anyone who has studied history most likely will. It’s not that subtle.
All in all it was a satisfying end to the story. The battle scene at Hogwarts was fantastic. Neville rocked as I always believed that he would. (And his gran? Awesome lady.) The little details were well thought out and interesting. (Loved the use of the Room of Requirement and McGonagall leading a battalion of desks was priceless!) The last chapter seemed a bit of out of place to me, but I can see where it would be necessary. It is nice knowing what happened afterward and it does leave an opening for more books featuring the kids.
I have so much more to talk about but this will have to do for now.
The books may be done but the phenomenon lives on. Long live Harry Potter.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Holy Harry Potter (36 hours and counting)

The world isn’t ending but Harry Potter is.(And if you haven’t figured that out yet, what rock are you living under? Seriously.) That great book phenomenon comes to an end this Friday at midnight when the world finds out whether Snape is good or evil, which 2 major characters die, and most importantly, whether Harry lives or dies. Will good vanquish evil like it usually does? There will be unanswered questions, there always are, but I hope that most are satisfied. I just want to read a good book.
Yes, I have read the news reports about all the spoilers but I’ve tried to keep myself from reading them. I accidentally heard something on the radio but I don’t know if it was one of the real or fake spoilers and I don’t care to find out. Whoever posted them has way too much time on their hands anyway. I know people pay big money for something like this and there are the few that will do anything to find out what happens, but part of the hype is waiting and finding out with everyone else what happens. Boo and hiss on those people who are trying to spoil it for everyone. Most people don’t really want to know right now. Really. We can wait.
I am a Harry Potter fan. I really just fell into it in college when I was home on break and a neighbor said here, read this book. (I baby-sat for them and we exchanged books once they realized what a book nerd I was. The dad introduced me to Douglas Adams too, something for which I will be eternally grateful.) I don’t care if these books were meant for kids. They are very well written and draw you into the story. You can imagine yourself as part of their world. I think that’s one of the biggest draws of the story. Plus the attention to detail is incredible. Yes, it’s a trendy thing in some ways but it really is a worthwhile series. I’d read it if it weren’t popular.
I will be at the midnight release party at my local Barnes and Noble. (The closest store to minimize time not reading.) I want my copy as soon as possible so I can start reading. (Yes, I am one of those fans. I don’t care.) I probably won’t stay up all night reading but I do plan to spend all Saturday reading. I won’t go immediately to last page. I’ve never done that and don’t plan to. Plus the last page doesn’t always completely give away the ending anyway. I’ll probably end up posting something about it this weekend, so if you are a slow reader or waiting, I’d watch out. I’ll note major spoilers and all that but if you are in any way connected to the world, you’ll probably know by then anyway.
It’s nice that this series has promoted reading and has sold record numbers of books, but literacy is still down. People just aren’t reading like they used to. Library hours have declined and their use is really now more for computers than books. It’s sad. I got special permission to start checking out more adult books when I was 9 or 10 because I had already gone through the children’s area. I feel sad for those kids who will never understand the thrill of reading and imagination. It’s about creating a fantasy world with your own pictures, not one that someone else has given you. (The movies about books do spoil that somewhat, though I will say that the movie HP looks a lot like how I imagined him.) I hope that the kids reading Harry Potter continue reading in any way possible.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Mondays are just not so fun

I, like pretty much everyone else, really don’t like Mondays so much. It’s hard having to get up and go back to work after the weekend, especially when you realize that you didn’t do everything you wanted to do, mostly because you just wanted to relax on the weekend. Ah, the vicious circle of having a job. It does pay those bills though.
Our AC is now running better than ever. It’s been nice. We can actually feel the air coming out of the vents upstairs now. We just thought it was old ductwork but that obviously wasn’t the case. The AC guys said it was one of the worst cases they had ever seen, it was that bad. But there’s definitely no way we could have got it that bad, having only been here a year. Bad previous owners!
We went to a friend’s going away party this weekend. They are moving to Atlanta for grad school. We volunteered to do the food for the party as it’s easy for us to do. We scaled back from what we would have normally done (stuffed pork tenderloin, homemade coleslaw, hummus and pita, and stuff like that) and just did fajitas and a lovely watermelon spiked with vodka. I made salsa and pico de gallo from the tomatoes in our garden and the peppers that I bought at the farmer’s market. It turned out excellent. Recipes follow.

Salsa
4-5 tomatoes, chopped to fit in processor
1 onion, quartered
3 cloves garlic, peeled
2 cayenne peppers*
1 serrano pepper*
2 anaheim peppers*
2-3 jalepeno peppers*
1 red bell pepper
1 purple bell (green also works)
1 small bunch cilantro
1 ½ limes
couple tablespoons olive oil
salt
pepper

Roughly chop and put all ingredients into food processor and pulse. You may have to puree some of the tomatoes down at first in order to fit everything in. When done, you should have a semi-chunky but smooth mixture. Almost but not quite a puree. Let sit for one hour or more for the flavors to mix. It gets better as it sits.
For extra spice add Tabasco or siracha sauce. Extra peppers work too. A scotch bonnet would be a great addition or maybe instead of the anaheims. For a slightly different flavor, roast some of the peppers.
Remember, all of this is to taste. Add/delete what you want. This is a bit spicy- it creeps up on you. Leave out the * peppers for less spice. There’s so much you can do with it to make it your own. Cumin and chili powder work. Maybe some paprika.

Pico de gallo

2-3 tomatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalepeno, minced (optional)
1 small bunch cilantro, rough chopped
1 lime, juiced
salt
pepper

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Let sit for one hour to let the flavors mix. Sometimes I add garlic powder for a little extra flavor.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Damn those previous owners!!

You know it’s hot when Gabby, the whiner and talker, doesn’t say a thing. She was just looking at us, flopped on the tiles. Every once in a while, you’d hear a very weak mrow from her. Punk just lay there. It was too hot for her to say anything and there was nothing I could do about it.
The stupid AC decided to not work properly. It would blow cold air but it just wasn’t blowing enough. You could turn the AC on and in 4 hours it might go down 4 degrees. That’s not right, especially when your house is 89 F. Plus the humidity. It was nasty.
Thankfully we have tile floors in the kitchen and hallways downstairs, so that was something cool for the girls to lie on in the heat of the day. Gabby positioned herself in front of the one blower that is near the floor. Smart cat that one.
Other than that, they just lounged on the floor and gave us piteous looks as if to say- It’s awful. Please do something! So we did- we let them outside at night. We normally don’t do that during the week but it was cooler outside than inside. (If we had a hammock and mosquito netting we would have been there too… or a tent.) They thought it was the greatest thing ever. Of course I woke up to a few dead lizards and bugs, but that’s a small price to pay for the kitties comfort.
AC repairman #1 came yesterday. He found the problem within minutes and basically knew what the problem was as I described it. Unfortunately, it’s going to cost us to repair and it’s not even our fault. The coil and duct are completely gunked up and blocked. So while we could feel cold air coming from the unit and it was working really well, there was no air distribution whatsoever. Apparently, the people who owned the house before us, which I’m now convinced was an elderly couple, never changed their air filters or never even had them. It’s that icky. The guy opened up the heating unit and just grabbed a handful of stuff to show me. He said that the people who installed the BRAND NEW unit should have noticed this or at least the guy who was here, not even a month ago, to fix our clog should have checked it. Heck, our house inspector should have noticed it. Argh.
But at least he said that our unit is really good and even our heating unit is pretty good. It just hadn’t been maintained properly. It definitely wasn’t our fault on this one. He could tell that our house is relatively clean (mostly clutter) and that we changed our filters. He even gave us really good tips on how to service it ourselves and help keep our cooling costs down. I think we found our HVAC/AC company.
It all makes sense now. It hasn’t been cooling right at times, there has been a dank, musty smell every once in a while that we could never figure out. The clog in the condensation pipe makes sense now. So fun. At least the company gives discounts to us home warranty people so it’s not as bad as it could be, but still. It was still awful in the house last night but at least we knew we could run the air all night.
The people will be coming later on this afternoon to clean everything up. I can’t wait to have a cool house again.
Lesson(s) learned: CHANGE THOSE AIR FILTERS!! (We change ours every 60 days.) Check every little thing if you are buying an older house. There are so many details we should have looked at that we know about now.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Ah Reality

Vacation is so nice. Since the 4th of July holiday was in the middle of the
week, I decided to take the rest of the week off also. We didn't have any plans really, we just needed to unwind. And unwind we did. We didn't really do much of anything. Tuesday night we drove down to the La Vernia house and just hung around there. We played cards and darts, smoked some ribs and chicken, and that's about it. We would have done more but it rained most of the time. Like it has been doing for the past month. Just rain and lots of it.
We came back early Friday and didn't do much more around the house. The boy managed to mow the lawn before it started pouring again and played with some plants. I didn't feel like mustering much energy to do anything so I didn't. I cleaned a bit and did laundry and stuff but that's about it. We didn't even cook, that's how off we were.
The girls were way happy to be outside again. Punk had caught and killed a bird on Tuesday. I came home to lots of feathers but didn't see a bird. I had to hunt for the pieces. Yes, pieces. Ugh. Then on Friday, the two if them maimed a bird and spent the better part of the afternoon stalking it. They weren't doing much to it, just following it around and cornering it. Every once in a while, Gabby would take a swat or two, but that was about it. They broke its wing and all the poor bird could do was walk around.
The boy put the bird on the other side of the fence when we went inside, in the hope that it would waddle away. We brought the girls in with us and shut the door as it had decided to storm. Again. He thought the bird might have escaped to safety somehow. That was not to be. After the storm, we let the girls back out. It was either that or a night of constant meowing, begging, and craziness. (Plus the weekends are their special nights out.) About an hour later we hear a thunk at the front door and a muffled Gabby meow. I open the front door, and there is Gabby, sitting on the windowsill, waiting to be let in. Apparently, she had jumped the fence but couldn't get back over. She came right in and Punk came in through the back door. Not long after, the boy went around the corner of the house
to check on something, and discovered the dead bird. Punk must have jumped the fence to attack the bird and Gabby followed, as she always does. Punk however, can jump back over the fence. Gabby was stuck. This is the third time it has happened. Someday she'll learn.
Today is the boy's birthday. So Happy Birthday!! (His fam doesn't really do birthdays or anything but I made sure the guys at his work knew so they could make him a special meal.)

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

A Rat in the Kitchen and more

No, there wasn’t one in mine, but I wouldn’t be shocked to find a dead one there someday. No, I’m talking about that cute rat movie, Ratatouille. We saw it last weekend through a website that streams videos and things and happened upon a screening that had been uploaded. We didn’t even realize that it wasn’t out yet. Ooops. But we hooked up the S-video to our tv and watched the film. Pixar has done well.
The movie is about a rat, Remy, who isn’t satisfied with just garbage to eat and becomes infatuated with the chef du jour, Chef Gasteau, whose philosophy is “Anyone can cook.” Remy’s ability to taste and smell wonderful foods are not wholly appreciated by his rat clan, yet they are his family. He ends up traveling to Paris and ends up in the kitchen of Gasteau’s restaurant, helps a hapless boy become a talented chef by pulling on his hair and well, any more and I would spoil the rest of the story.
It’s well voiced and a cute story but the real star, for me anyway, is the food and the restaurant. They really hit the nose with the set-up of the restaurant and the food presentation. It’s a really great showcase of a restaurant kitchen. The attention to detail is impressive. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have Thomas Keller as a consultant, but still. It’s a great food film and it will leave you hungry. Plus the animation ain’t so bad either. It’s very old-style, which is nice.
If you like to cook, go see this movie. Don’t be squicked out by the idea of rats in the kitchen. It’s really not that bad. (They get cleaned.)

With all that, I felt like cooking this past weekend. I made a pork loin stuffed with goat cheese and mango, wrapped in bacon. To go with it, I made an Asian-flavored slaw.
Ingredients:
Red cabbage, shredded
Green cabbage, shredded
Shaved carrot
Scallions, diced
Bell peppers, all colors, diced
Sesame seeds, toasted preferably
Sesame oil
Rice wine vinegar
A little bit of sugar
Lime juice
Salt
Pepper

Mix all ingredients together, to taste. I have no idea how much I used. I just added stuff until it tasted ok to me. Let sit for a few hours, it will get better the longer it sits. Really. Mix every time you walk by the bowl. Enjoy.

I also made pickles this weekend. Recipe to come as they came out really yummy and spicy-garlicky. Good stuff.