Today's Episode, in Which I Purchase a New Appliance and Ruin a Perfectly Good Green Curry,

Two Activities Completely Unrelated

Dear readers will remember that when I moved into my current abode, I had to replace the stove, washer, and dryer in the house. Lovely, big purchases made slightly easier by a Sears credit card (12 months, no payments, no interest - love love!). At the time, I did not replace the frig because I wanted to see if I could eek it out a bit longer.


Well, it finally was heading towards its last legs, sounding like a dump truck, not keeping frozen food frozen. Poor thing was nearly 20 years old!


So, Boxer and I went to Sears and purchased a new frig. It is beautious, although Blogger won't let me upload a pic so you can covet it.


It is a bit different though. It is actually a freezer that converts into a refrigerator, and vice versa. It works good for us, as we have a lot of produce and tofu and cheese and frig related food items. And not so much frozen foods. Or so we thought.


We managed to fit all the stuff from the old freezer into the downstairs freezer, but I will admit it is a tight fit. I have got to start eating venison and pork to free up space, so we can can all that summer squash we have!


Speaking of summer squash, last night Boxer and I decided to use a portion of our tremendous zuke and summer squash bounty to make a delicious squash and tofu green curry with lemongrass jasmine rice. I had everything going. It was almost together. Just spicy enough. Just enough ginger. Just needed a touch of salt. So I grabbed my salt grinder and gave a few grinds and *PLOP* the damn top fell off and into the curry. I quicked grabbed a spoon and scooped it out, hoping to have caught the worst of it, and asked Boxer to come and taste to assess the damage. He took a spoonful and yelled, "The salt! It burns!" and promptly spit it into the trash.

Well, hell.


So, in a vain attempt to save dinner, I poured it in a strainer and rinsed it and threw it back in the pan with some ginger and oyster sauce and sweet chili garlic sauce and heated it through. Not bad at all... but it wasn't the delicious green curry, either.

See, beyotch, better listen to me next time. I'm a supersoft early warning system!

EARTHQUAKE!!!!


So, my cats have been acting strangely the last couple of days. Pele in particular has been driving me absolutely bonkers. Refusing to leave my side. Crawling down my nightgown. Jumping, and yes I do mean actually jumping, on my head in the middle of the night. Racing through the house like a mad fiend. She even attacked Leo last night, with her tail all puffed like she was pissed and meant business.

All this is totally unlike her. She can be playful and obnoxious but nothing as bad as this. And she will wrestle with Leo but she never initiates it. She is very protective. This behavior was completely out of character. This was naughtyness to the nth level.

This morning in the wee hours, I woke to both of the beasties in bed with me, crying as if the world were ending, trying to burrow into my skin. And then the house started to rattle, just a little bit, kind of like it does if the furnace is really cranking and sets the pipes to shaking. Which was strange as I have the furnace turned very low this time of year and I knew it wasn't on.

So I listened. Maybe the trash truck had flipped over outside my house. Maybe the neighbor's son had his bass turned extra special loud just for my morning listening pleasure. And then it stopped. I smelled no smoke and heard no sirens and the cats had mostly settled down so I turned over and went back to sleep. When I left for work this morning, Leo was curled in a ball on his favorite spot on the raditor - the one where he can be warm and watch birds. Pele was zonked out in the front window with her head in her favorite plant.

In the way to work this morning, I found out the reason for the strange behavior and the rattling during the wee hours. We had an earthquake! 5.4 - decent sized if not California-grand.

No Cooking Due to Lard!

Sadly, I will not be cooking at all this week due to a malfunctioning kitchen sink.

Over the last couple of months, I have been having a real problem with my kitchen sink backing up. Both sides fill with water and various gunk and take forever and a day to actually drain out. Very annoying, but I figured I had probably caused the problem by putting something down the sink that didn't belong there, a kind of blaming the victim mentality. So, I betook myself to the local hardware store and poured out my heart to the store helper (an 85-year-old man who was terribly no-nonsense), who said "Buy this foaming pipe snake and run it down there. If that don't work, call the plumber!" Which I, personally, thought was great advice and something I never would have expected to hear from someone who could have sold me any number of very expensive products over the course of the next month.

I bought the snake and took it home and threw it down the drain and waited an hour. Then, per directions, I ran hot water down the sinks - only to have it back up. Great, now my sinks were full of water and dangerous chemicals. I quick locked the cats in the bedroom so they wouldn't be tempted and waited for the sinks to clear and wiped them out good.

On Monday, I want to Fac Man and begged for help. When I got home last night, I went to the sink and ran the water and there was no backing up. So excited. So Excited! I did a little dance.

This morning, I got a call from Fac Man. Turns out my problem actually wasn't fixed. The fix is just temporary. Apparently, these old houses had special points on the drainage system where "lard traps" were placed. Because people used to cook with lard and then dump it down the sink. Which is stupid and must be a city folk problem, because everyone that I know in rural areas that cooks with lard and bacon grease knows that you should keep it in an old coffee can on the back of your stove, where you can reuse it to delicious end, such as making friend chicken or homemade donuts.

Anyway, outside of my apartment, one of the lard traps has apparently rotted and the drain pipe has collapsed. Which explains all the weird debris and bad smells coming out of my kitchen drain. Getting this fixed is actually going to be somewhat problematic. Ideally, it would involve digging large holes in the front yard and putting new pipes. Which is somewhat difficult to do in January, considering that the ground is frozen and what all. Not to mention the fact that I can just see the neighbors throwing a hissy fit about the ugliness of the digging, dragging out the process for months and holding up permits, in which case I might as well just move and say screw it to the whole drain problem. Instead, they are having someone come in and reroute the entire plumping system to a new drainage point somewhere already existing in my basement. So, there will be lots of fun and interesting happenings in my basement for the next week or so.

And in the meantime, I am likely to not cook and to eat off of paper plates. It's hard to do when you can't wash dishes well....

Really, I just need to get out of my townhouse and find my own place. With a kitchen at least twice as big as I have now. Donations towards a downpayment would be appreciated and will be payed back in various delicious goodies and dinner parties.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

So, I have been doing a bit more cooking lately. Likely because it is winter, and I get the urge to cook (and eat!) more during winter. Sadly, most of my recipes have been meat or seafood-based, just because the veggies are not as nice in the winter herein the Great White North.

Here is a round-up of recent winners!


Tex-Mex Shrimp Saute

8 oz shrimp
3 medium, ripe tomatoes
1 medium onion
1 cup corn (I prefer Trader Joe's Fire-Roasted Corn)
1 T cumin
2 t Southwest Seasoning (Penzey's)

Chop the tomatoes (keep the seeds and skin based on your taste and patience level) and onion. Saute onion in some garlic olive oil. Throw in cumin and Southwest Seasoning (use chilli powder if you don't have the Southwest Seasoning and then go and get some, because it rocks the house). Throw in shrimp and corn. Just before the shrimp get all pink frmo their internal thermometers, throw in the tomatoes. Cook until heated throw and full of bubbly goodness. Serve over pasta or rice.


Fig-Stuffed Chicken Breasts

1 breast per person (make sure they are the plump and meaty breasts, not the skinny individually packed frozen breasts)
Your favorite stuffing mix
1 medium red onion
5 dried figs per person
.25 cup of pecans

Mix up the stuffing according to the directions on the package. Chop the figs and the onion and throw them into the stuffing (add less onion if you only have a couple of people eating). Mix in the pecans. Then, butterfly each breast and stuff with the stuffing mixture. Put into a high-sided baking pan and put in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes. Towards the end of cooking, slice some Fontina cheese and put on top. If you can melt the Fontina under the broiler so it gets a pretty brown crust. Just be careful not to burn the cheese under the broiler, which is easy to do.



Crock-Pot Venison for a Party Crowd


1.5 pounds of venison stew meat
1 handful of dried mushrooms (I use wild ones handpicked by mia madre but feel free to use whatever ones strike your fancy at the store - even try some morels! Yum!)
2 T dried toasted onion flakes
2 T garlic powder
1 T powdered ancho chillis (or chilli powder)
salt and pepper
even broth to cover the venison.

Throw everything in the Crock-Pot by 7:30 am. Turn on high. Come back at 4:45 pm. Turn off Crock-Pot. Using potholders, transport to car. Go to Party. Serve at holiday buffet. Take home an empty Crock-Pot.


And one loser -

Shrimp and Mushrooms in Chilli Garlic Sauce

Theoretically, this should have been yummy. I just used shrimp and mushrooms and a Cook-Do sauce. I love Cook-Do. For someone looking to have a lazy Asian supper, Cook-Do is the way to go. And I normally love the Chilli Garlic Cook-Do sauce. I don't know if the mushrooms were sliced to thinly or what the deal was, but this dish just did not speak to me. Actually, the only part I liked was the sauce, which I spooned over brown rice. The rest of it I chucked.

Which you should never be afraid to do. Ever. Just chuck it!

When it comes to meat, I'm an idiot

You might think from the few actual food related items I have posted on my blog that I am a vegetarian. I actually am not. But after this weekend's disastrous pot roast attempt – and long reflection on other disastrous attempts at meat cooking – I realized that I just am not that good at cooking meat.

What!?!?! I can see my friends now – what do you mean? What about that roast chicken? What about that time you grilled? Why the hell did I have you come to my friend's house and cook the Thanksgiving turkey if you aren't any good at it? Huh? Huh?

Maybe I should qualify. Yes, I do make an excellent roast chicken, and my turkey is never over or undercooked and it's really very easy to get good flavor with the addition of a few simple herbs. But that's because I cheat. If the cooking of meat or fowl involves a Crock-Pot or an oven roasting bag, I am magic.

And I am a Grill Mistress. Maybe that's because I am in touch with my masculine side (the grill being a traditionally male form of cooking – how silly is that?) or maybe it's because as long as you are patient and have cool friends to spend time with whilst grilling, grilling is easy. Stick the meat in a marinade, light the charcoal, wait until the coals are the right temperature, slapped the meat on, wait, and you are good to go. Grilling is really a no-brainer.

In my attempt to make a pot roast this weekend, I thought it would be simple – some salt and onions and a bit of broth in the cast iron Dutch oven and voila! So not voila. It was just bad. Dry and greasy (at the same time – incredible). I think I cooked it for too long or maybe my oven just heats too high. It tasted so salty although I did not use that much salt on it. I can hardly stand it for cold sandwiches, but I'll be damned if I will throw it out – it's $7 of good beef, and I hate to waste it. Maybe I will throw it in the freezer and use it for soup or something – just to see if I can salvage it.

I think part of the problem is that I cooked it for myself. I hate cooking for myself. I admit it. In the summer, if it's just me, I will live on corn on the cob, tomatoes, microwaved "baked" potatoes, and a little steak cooked in the toaster oven. In the winter, I will make a big pot of soup on a Sunday and eat it all week. Otherwise, I find myself eyeing the Sapporo ramen and thinking, "well, I will just cook that and nuke some veggies and maybe a frozen chicken thigh and eat that." Or I will eat cheese. Just cheese, which isn't bad per say but is very calorie dense and you need to eat a lot of it to fill you up. When it's just for me, my cooking is so boring. Which probably explains why I have gained some weight in the last year. When I cook for just me, I cook boring and boring food – I have often found – tends to be the least healthy unless you are a strict vegetarian who eats no dairy, nuts, or oil.

Sadly, I don't think I am going to get another chance to cook for anyone other than myself any time soon. My coworkers are all married or in relationships and tend to go home and spend time with their families. I try to tell myself that if I cook something cool, I can write it up on the blog and share it with all my friends around the world, but it's just not the same – and involves way too many dishes to wash afterwards, especially when I don't know if anyone even enjoys anything I am posting.

So what is a girl to do? Go raw?

Another Certain Sign of the Impending Apocalypse

Forget the moon turning to blood and the dead rising from their graves. The last true sign of the apocalypse

Eeeeekkkkkkk! Excuse me. I was just attacked by a ladybug. Earlier today, I was attacked by a male member of the European Earwig species, which the Internet informs me, are not poisonous and are actually helpful insects in spite of their terrifying appearance and their tendency to reside in every possible room of my townhouse.

Anyway, the last true sign of the apocalypse is not so much that I have learned to sew (kinda), but rather what I am about to attempt to sew and then wear in public.

See, I started trying to sew this last spring. I've been buying fabric forever, because a former roomie was going to help me sew some things, but we know how things always seem to go with former roomies. So I figured I better do something with all that material rather than just chuck it.

I started out by buying some interesting patterns and then getting them home and realizing I had no damn clue how to read them. Or if they would ever really fit. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to do some freestyle stuff and started with the basic potato sack skirt. Which I can sew. Kinda. Well, at least it doesn't fall apart, even if it is way shapeless and hands on my as if I am a skeleton (which I am not, those of you who know me can attest).

Buoyed by my somewhat success in the potato sack skirt arena, I went this weekend to the huge Jo-Ann Fabrics near Lake Forest (man, does it put the ones on the East Coast to shame! It's huge! As big as the Super 88 Market in Allston) and purchased a pattern that claims to be very easy. And it is not just a pattern. It is The Pattern. The Pattern of the Apocalypse.

For with The Pattern of the Apocalypse, yours truly shalt maketh The Dress to End All Dresses.

See, a while ago, I hit this huge sale. I mean huge. I got like 6 yards of fake black snake skin material for about a $1 a yard. And, I tell you, I am making me a tight leather dress! That emphasizes the boobs. And I am going to wear that sucker, preferably on a date.

And I will certainly be wearing my new black leather boots, which make me feel tres sexy.

Poor date won't know what hit him……..

Anyway, what does this have to do with the coming Apocalypse, you might ask? Um, let's see – Heather, a pair of sexy black boots, a bosom-enhancing fake black snakeskin dress, and a possible date? Come on people! It very well might be the end of civilization as we know it! And won't it be fun!?