My Caffeine Diary

Expect a canning icon shortly.

2009-12-09T04:43:53Z

OK, I did it. I joined Can Jam Challenge. Canning 12 different recipes in 2010, one a month.

Bring it.

stentoriansista and I have been slowly working our way through the fruits of my August non-stop canning with delicious results, so I'm looking forward to this.

In Other Related News...

2009-11-30T05:15:02Z

There is a Cherry Blossom 5K in April 2010. Participants are being selected by lottery. People can enter the lottery in groups of up to 10 people. Lottery entry closes 12/11.

Anyone want to run with me? ninthraven? mel21clc? Anyone?

Ow.

2009-11-30T05:08:46Z

So, Tuesday, Mama stentoriansista and I went for a run out in the drizzle in Virginia Beach. I got about 2 and a half minutes into a jog before I twisted my left ankle pretty badly. And, of course, once you have badly twisted an ankle on a jogging trail, you have to walk the mile and a bit back to the car to get home. In what was now the rain.

So, we got back to the house, I got back to the room stentoriansista and I were sharing and I got into some dry clothes and had a good cry. Because my ankle hurt and dammit, I was disappointed! I was supposed to run in the Turkey Trot in two days! I'd worked really hard for it and I was looking forward to the race which I couldn't run because I couldn't put weight on my ankle.

So, it's been healing just fine. I can walk pretty much normally, though it tends to hurt quite a bit. I called my nurse advice line with my health care and they said it's pretty much normal and to continue to keep it elevated, ice and have advil appropriately. Obviously, I can't exercise the way I used to for a while, but since I don't want to get out of the habit, I thought I'd swim for exercise for the next couple of weeks.

But dammit, none of the Arlington County Parks & Recreation Fitness Centers have pools attached. And they're not a part of the gym system so it'd be a separate payment. Plus half the fun of doing this is that stentoriansista and I would both go to the gym at the same time. We could probably do TC Williams instead, but still... dammit ArCo, you're messing with my plans.

An Update. Try Not to Fall Over From Shock.

2009-11-19T16:57:55Z

I haven't updated in yonks, really. There hasn't been a whole lot to say. I've somehow become a runner and yesterday managed to complete week 4 day 1 of the Couch to 5K program. For those just tuning in, that's a 5 minute warm up walk, 3 minute run, 90 second walk, 5 minute run, 2.5 minute walk, 3 minute run, 90 second walk, 5 minute run, 5 minute cool down. That's INSANE to me. I did it very very slowly for the running, but I did it.

(Let's ignore the fact that I started my couch to 5K program 2 months ago and have just now completed week 4. Let's also ignore the fact that my 5K is next week and I clearly will not run the entire thing. Let's focus on the fact that I ran for 5 minutes. Twice. Dude.)

Since I've proven that I will exercise a heck of a lot more if I'm working towards something, I'm signing up for a 5K in March or April once I finish this one. (Isn't there a Cherry Blossom 5K or something?) I'm also treating myself to new, professionally fitted running shoes and possibly a zip up running jacket I've been lusting after at Target for months.

Speaking of being good to myself, I'm taking the plunge and switching my healthcare to goingdriftless's Dr. Almost-House. Well, not her specifically, but her practice, which is very holistic and focused on wellness. I'm excited about the fact that they will (probably) actually listen to me and understand that surviving is not an acceptable state of health for me and that I want to actively work towards feeling better. (Please note the above mentioned 5K) And I think they'll get my anti-dieting stance as well. The kicker is, of course, that they don't take health insurance. You pay upfront, they send a bill to your health insurance and the insurance reimburses you. I have a Flexible Health Savings Account, but it's still going to be a pain to figure out the best way to do it. (I can either pay upfront with the HFSA and then pay them the difference when I figure out how much the insurance will reimburse or I can pay with a credit card, get a check from my insurance for reimbursement for the visit, then submit a payment request to the FHSA for reimbursement for the remainder)

I also am pretty sure I'm going to need another crown. I've had a toothache for 2 months. Waiting for 2010 for renewed insurance to take care of it. Ugh.

Other than that, things are pretty meh. We're going down to Duck for Thanksgiving and it'll be lovely. I still can't find any pants that fit. I continue to have a fabulous fiancee who I love dearly. I continue to be amazed that I can say the word "fiancee." DC continues to be on the verge of passing gay marriage. I've been knitting a little bit (monkey, yes, but a baby blanket and a chemo cap as well). I want a hardcore massage to work all the kinks out of my neck and shoulder. The TV show Glee is the best thing ever and so is its soundtrack. stentoriansista and I are taking salsa lessons, which is really fun except for the whole 'wait, a girl is leading?' aspect and the fact that Joy of Motion has the worst customer service ever in DuPont. I miss Thursdays at Playbill with prettyprincessb and mareska. Everyone I know is pregnant, which is weird to me. I want to see both Precious and The Blind Side, so I can weep like a small child. Now that the monkey's done, I can read again and I've been devouring library books. Auditioned for The Vagina Monologues. That sort of thing.

Caramelized Onions in the Crockpot!

2009-10-25T19:27:44Z

So easy, so delicious!

Chop 4-5 large onions into rings. Place into crockpot with 1 stick margarine or unsalted butter (dot around onions). Place lid slightly askew. Leave on low for 8-14 hours, or until the onions are all a lovely golden brown.

Tips & Tricks:
Leave the lid askew! Previous attempts at caramelizing in the crockpot with the lid not askew have resulted in a soupy mess.
Toss the onions about halfway through. I did this overnight and when I came down about 8 hours after putting it in the crockpot, the bottom onions were cararmelized shading to burned, which the top layer were barely cooked. I'd say toss them around every 4 hours to try to keep things even.
Freeze 'em! Caramelized onions can be frozen! I put a bunch in some silicone muffin tins to freeze and then put them in a plastic bag in the freezer, to be pulled out later for soups, stews, pizza, etc...
Expect your house to smell like onions forever. I don't see this as a problem, but some people (like my girlfriend) do.

(Crossposted to what_a_crock)

Sheep on the right, injuries on the left?

2009-09-18T17:06:00Z

So, we had a big meeting for staffing a work event a week from Saturday and there weren't any chairs. So, I sat on the floor. I put my left hand out on the way down and my wrist cracked when I put some weight on it to sit. It's a little red and it hurts now, but not swollen, which makes me wonder if I did something to it when I sat. Which would really just be the icing on the cake. My left ankle is crap from repeated sprains/twisting, during the course of yoga classes a few years ago, my left hip started clicking and if my left hip flexor isn't warm, it'll click and I'll limp a little (happens once or twice a month) and my left shoulder is where I get my wretched knitting knots.

So, yeah. Falling apart at the seams over here. Boo.

In other news, I just had a turkey and cheese sandwich with the sharp cheddar from Farmstead Fresh cheese and it's really good. (My CSA places a bulk order for his subscribers and we don't have to pay shipping. It's nice) I would highly recommend it, except that I wonder if I'm slightly allergic to it. It makes my tongue and the roof of my mouth tingle a little, which conventional cheese doesn't. Googling about allergies and raw milk cheese just seems to say that it's better than you than conventional cheese, which isn't helping. Maybe it's just psychosomatic since stentoriansista had a similar response when she tried it. I don't remember it when I tried it last night...

Yikes.

2009-09-14T14:34:36Z

So, I'm running a 5K over Thanksgiving. Don't ask me how I got into this, but it involves stentoriansista's mom and a lot of guilt over my fat ass (the guilt is mine, not from Mama stentoriansista, who is a lovely human being). The problem is, of course, that I am incredibly out of shape. Walked up the escalator at Foggy Bottom this morning (because it's broken, as usual, because this is why we can't have nice things) and was out of breath for far too long. Also, of course, my gym doesn't open until 8am on weekdays, which I realized after I got myself out of bed at 6:45 in the morning and tried to go in the door at 7am. (Consequently, I'd like to visit Snoozeville post-haste)

I've decided that mornings are my best exercise time (they just are, no matter how much I hate the idea of getting up at 6:15 on a Wednesday). I've bookmarked Couch to 5K. I'm almost certainly not going to run the entire 5K, but I'm going to try to run it. Probably. It's just a little daunting right now. I'm daunted.

The Washington Post Express Keeps Offending Me.

2009-09-02T13:48:01Z

So, a few months ago I wrote this entry about CSAs and how annoyed I was that the Washington Post Express chose to quote this entry about CSAs when they hadn't posted anything prior and why are they raining on my parade, wah wah wah.

And then, this week, the food section ran an article about CSAs - one of the writers wrote about her experiences with a CSA (she's about halfway through the season). Hooray! Visibility increases interest in the movement, which leads to more people getting food from CSAs which leads to more CSAs! Support for the small farmer. Then the author said that she was worried about the amount of food she was going to get... "And canning like a 1950s housewife? Not an option."

I'd go into a big long 'in defense of preserving your own food, you condescending prick' rant, except that I really don't feel the need to. I started a whole big 'opting out of corporate food' rant yesterday and didn't finish it because I got distracted and didn't want to, but it boils down to this. I know exactly what is in my canned goods. I know how they were made, where they were made, when the food was picked, if the workers were paid a fair wage, the number of food miles involved, how clean the kitchen was. Can you say that about your food?

Shortly before the knitting craze became mainstream, this is how people talked about it. It was something old ladies did. The fact that there were people writing blogs about it on the internet and pulling in two million viewers per page was just silly. Sewing your own clothes is something quaint or done (poorly) by wanna-be teenage fashion designers. Canning's just something my aunt does every summer when she makes jam to give to people. It's too much effort. It couldn't possibly have an impact on how I could live my life.

Knitting, sewing, CSAs, canning - it's all becoming part of the DIY movement that's been slowly taking root in America. I actually really hate the term DIY, I think it comes from seeing 'IY' as part of a word, terrible spelling, gah! But the root of it is about opting out. By growing your food and putting it up for the winter, you're opting out of corporate culture. By buying tomatoes from the farmer's market in July instead of the ones from Chile in the grocery store, you're opting out of this screwed up philosophy of food that's becoming more and more prevalent. By sewing your own clothes, you're opting out of the fashion world's ideas about size and the values added to it. I read an article in the Washington Post about a woman who's dying slowly and horribly after eating a few spoonfuls of Nestle cookie dough. It's tragic and it's awful and they still don't know how the food got tainted with E. coli. You can't read that and tell me there's not something fucked up with our food system.

The joy of opting out is that you can occasionally opt in. If you know me, you know I love a Wendy's burger now and then. Or potato chips or store bought ice cream. My wardrobe is almost entirely Old Navy and Target (I'm not very good at sewing clothes). There's also a big difference for those who opt out of the food culture by choice or values or those who have to opt out due to food allergies. Don't put me in the same box as those with Celiac's or vice versa. I may choose to make my own bread, but if I want to, I can buy a loaf at the store that uses high fructose corn syrup as a starter. I know several people who can't. As another side note, it's a further example of our society's disconnection from food that everyone complains that there's sugar or high fructose corn syrup in bread they buy at the store. Can you believe it? Sugar! In bread! Have you ever made bread? Most recipes call for some kind of sugar because it activates the yeast in bread and feeds its growth! Most storebought loaves use HFCS as a starter because it's cheap and readily available.

(Side 'headdesk' note: Most of the pickled peaches and peach salsa I canned? I forgot to add lemon juice/citric acid to preserve the food and keep it fresh. Rookie mistake. Not sure if it'll be fine as is, if I need to repack and recan everything or if I need to throw it all out and start again. Sigh. #canningfail)

(Other side note: The WaPo Express actually offends me fairly frequently. Their snarky headlines and 'oh lulz' stories occasionally make fun of paganism and they tend to fall on the more conservative side in their reporting. Apparently I only really get riled up when it comes to food, though)

(Final side note: I have somehow ended up writing the rant I didn't mean to write. Oh well)

So...

2009-08-31T13:58:37Z

I haven't updated in a week. I feel like I should.

Um...

I've been canning. That's about it. I canned spaghetti sauce, peach salsa and pickled peaches. stentoriansista and mel21clc made peach handpies. We made raspberry sorbet. I still have a veggie drawer full of tomatoes, half a peck of apples and half a bushel of peaches. Since we're going out of town for the weekend, I've decided (this morning, because, you know, right) that this needs to happen ASAP. And I'm out of canning jars (OK, I've got 8 quarter pints left, but those'll get used). Luckily, I think we're going to go pick them up from the grocery store today along with more supplies. For those keeping track, I've gone through 26 pint jars, 16 quarter pint and 4 half pint. That's 46 jars. I've got tons more to do.

Friday night I went down for a nap around 8pm and got up at 11am the next day. stentoriansista and I had a little date in Shirlington and saw (500) Days of Summer and then had nummy antipasti. Good movie. Not a great movie, but a good movie and a lot of fun. I've started knitting a baby blanket for my preggo boss, but I've discovered that more than 2 hours of knitting gets back my crippling left shoulder pain, which sucks, because I'm enjoying knitting again these days.

Public Service Announcement, Part II

2009-08-24T18:15:05Z

I just realized I have 4 minutes left on my phone until the next billing cycle. This should be shocking to all of you since I almost never use the full amount of minutes. Ever. Or even come close. But, I had an hour and a half phone call with my mother the other week and with stentoriansista out of town for almost two weeks, there was a lot of phone going on.

Luckily, my minutes reset on Friday. Until then, I won't answer the phone or check my voicemail, due to not wanting to pay an extra $30 for the privilege of a 5 minute phone conversation. Feel free to text me all you want or call me on my work phone.

Things I Want to Do Tonight:

2009-08-24T16:08:25Z

-Make salsa/tomato sauce & can it
-Pick up DVR from Comcast
-Clean house
-Weave in ends for Becoming bag & strawberry baby hat and block Becoming bag
-Eat berries & drink prosecco
-Go to bed early (going to attempt to get up at 6am for pre-work gym. We'll see)
-Buy flour, white vinegar and white wine vinegar from grocery store
-make blackberry jam bread

I have time for maybe 4 of these things. Which 4? I can probably do the flour & vinegar on my lunch break, but that will not make the bus ride home any fun.

ETA: Berries & prosecco, grocery store and early to bed. The alarm went off at 6 for me to go to the gym, but go I did not. Alas.

Public Service Announcement

2009-08-24T13:05:57Z

Work has now figured out the hack many of us have been using to get to our gmail accounts and blocked it. Wah. Also, I work in a giant concrete box and never get cell reception. So, if you want to get in touch with me during the day, email my work email, facebook or twitter at me and I'll get back to you. Otherwise, I'll send you an email when I get home and remember to check my email.

Fear My Productivity!

2009-08-24T02:13:50Z

I can't believe how much we got done this weekend! Yesterday, we slept late and then went berry picking - managed to get over 20 pounds of tomatoes & peaches, a tray of blackberries and raspberries and some apples. We got home, took a good shower and I started canning tomatoes. stentoriansista and I made a bison, mushroom and zucchini lasagna using the sauce I made on Monday.

Today I made a blackberry wine sorbet and stentoriansista and I peeled apples and threw them in the crockpot before going out to run errands. Picked up 3 flats of canning jars, bought a mattress from costco (shiny! new! soft! yay!), then ran out to G street for fabric for stentoriansista and two new work totes for me. Got home, canned the apple sauce, made blackberry jam and canned that. So really, lots of canning. I'm totally getting into canning - it's easy and fun, just hot. Gives a good sense of satisfaction and means less food to buy later.

I am a little disappointed at how the jelly turned out. I used low sugar pectin without realizing it and put in about the amount of sugar called for by the recipe. The result is very sweet. Canned 8 half pints and I have 3 cups more. Will probably make jam bread tomorrow to take to work... which still leaves two cups. I suppose I could can those. Hrm. Bears thought.

Ugh, tired like a tired thing.

Um... y'all? This is why I can't have nice things.

2009-08-16T20:28:55Z

Still life with jogger
Originally uploaded by kestrel127

OK, so I was in bed last night reading when I heard this weird noise. Like something fell over. I thought it might be one of the IKEA Grundtal's we have up in the next room, so I got up to investigate. No, that wasn't it. Didn't see anything amiss downstairs either. So, I figured some stuff fell down and I just didn't notice.

Except that, this afternoon, I went outside to water the flowers in the front yard and realized that half the freaking tree in my front yard broke off. HALF THE TREE. It's blocking the sidewalk and the walkway and broke the tree across the sidewalk, too. Called the condo association and by the sound of the chainsaws I hear, it's being cleaned up right now, but damn, y'all.

House, parked cars and joggers are all OK.

More pictures on facebook and flickr.

ETA: So, the three guys with chainsaws showed up about an hour after I called the emergency line, hacked up the downed branches, and moved them off of the sidewalk and walkway. That's it. I'm hoping that someone will pick them up tomorrow?

Banking Woes/A Commercial for Ally Bank

2009-08-14T19:45:30Z

Another one for bad_service. WTG BofA!

Last week, I was looking around on the internets for a savings account with good interest rates so stentoriansista and I can a house fund (yay!!!). The place with the best rate, beyond a doubt, is Ally Bank. They're giving 1.6% interest on their savings. By contrast, my Bank of America savings account offers .1% interest.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to go ahead and open a savings account without stentoriansista, figuring I'd add her as a signatory later. After the account was opened, I realized that, hey, that was a little douchey. Also 1.6% vs. .1% interest... it might be time to move my savings account over. So I did. I'm keeping the minimum required in my savings for no service fees so I can continue to Keep the Change. I'm also not switching banks completely because I really like BofA's online interface, their MyPortfolio and online bill pay. And also because I don't want to have to order new checks. Then stentoriansista and I opened up a joint savings.

Poking around the website, I noticed that they had great CD rates. In fact, they offer a no risk CD, like the one I had at Bank of America, with no minimum deposit rate and no penalty for leaving the CD early (just takes a week to actually get the money back - not a big deal at all). Their interest rate for this kind of CD? 1.85%. Bank of America's? .9%. That's a big difference and worth the hassle of moving it all around, especially since my CD matured last week and I'm in my grace period to move it.

So, I call Bank of America. After going through the command prompts, getting fed up and repeatedly mashing the '0' button, listening to stupid, too loud hold music for yonks, I finally get a person on the phone who goes through the whole process with me and then tells me that since I've moved in the past 3 months, I have to go to a bank and prove that I'm not some nefarious nefariousity schemer type.

OK, fine. The closest BofA is halfway between me and my eyedoc, so I schedule an eye exam for Wednesday at 12:30, figuring I'll get that done, walk to the bank, take care of that, then walk back to work and eat lunch at my desk. Wednesday rolls around, I get to the eye exam ten minutes early to do paperwork, they do the glaucoma test, and then the doctor keeps me waiting. For half an hour. As a side note, if on Monday, you have open appointments at 12:30, 1, 1:30 and 2, how do you get half an hour behind? By the time I get my contacts, pay for them and they fix my glasses, I'm about 5 minutes away from eating my own arm. It's also an hour into my lunch break.

Instead of self-cannibalizing, I walk to Bank of America. Get in line for the teller, talk to a teller and am pointed over to the 'sign in and wait' area, where there are already 4 pissed off looking people. Oh. Great. At this point, I'm an hour and a half into my 1 hour lunch break and well... I'm already running late. Sign in, wait twenty minutes, nibble a few fingers (not helpful), finally get my name called, sit at the desk of a very perky woman, inform her that I'd like to close my CD, she opens my account and... tells me that she is unable to process the transaction since I originally opened my bank account in California (10 years ago). Bank of America has always had some weird thing about California accounts being separate from anywhere else. I never bothered to transfer it over (see above about checks) and aside from moments like this one, I haven't had problems with my account being in California since 2005... until now. I raised my voice. I didn't yell, but I was loud. I was a little angry for a minute. I nearly cried. The very perky lady told me that it could be done over the phone, just explain everything blah blah blah...

The end result was that my hour lunch break lasted nearly two and a half hours (with travel time) for no real resaon. And I called that night and I got a supervisor who took me through one of those quizzes where they're verifying your identity for your credit report. Let me tell you, when she asked me who I bought my property from, I nearly had a heart attack. I, of course, don't own property. But I had my social security card in my wallet when I got mugged and I live in fear that someone has set up a separate identity for me. (Thus far, they haven't. Or if they have, they're incredibly off the radar)

And here's what kills me about this process with BofA. When I called to close the account the first time, the first thing they have you do? Verify your address. I wish the original CSR had seen that a) I live in Virginia, b) the account was opened in California, therefore c) I wouldn't be able to close the CD by going to a bank in the DC metro area. It's not particularly obvious, but it is there. Gah. Whatever. I'm saving with Ally now, great rates, yay, heartily recommended.

(For those thinking that the Ally rates are too good to be true, they kind of are. Ally Bank is the new version of GMAC, so they're offering awesome intro rates to drum up capital. FDIC insured, so even if they end up going under, you're good)

There's a lot of talking about food going on here...

2009-08-14T15:10:23Z

So, stentoriansista comes home tomorrow night, so tonight is my last big night to get lots and lots of kitchen time in. And I'm gonna. My plan for the night includes doing the following:
-roast a chicken (good size bird, too - 6-7 pounds)
-roast potatoes (I have a drawer full of CSA potatoes that I'll quarter, toss in rosemary, salt and olive oil and roast underneath the bird)
-garbage soup in the crockpot for work lunches (ground bison, stock, leftover tomato soup & tomato sauce, kidney beans, cannellini beans, an onion, whatever else I have in the fridge that feels like going in)
-Peach honey popsicles
-Peach sorbet (I may not have enough peaches for both of these, in which case I'll try nectarine sorbet)
-pickled carrots (no really. I bought ground mustard and pickling spices the other day. I've just been too lazy to peel & slice carrots.) I also got a purple kohlrabi from Leigh on Wednesday, so I may do a pickled carrots and kohlrabi for the house, too. (Hopefully without incident)

I wanted to make stuffing for the chicken, but I can't justify buying stuffing mix, sausage, celery and prunes to make my mom's recipe when I've got a drawer full of vegetables I haven't eaten. Not to mention that serving potatoes and stuffing is a bit excessive on the starch. We've probably finally accumulated enough tomatillos to make a salsa verde (now that the purslane's gone, no verdolagas for me), so I may crock on a pork loin that next week.

I really want to go berry picking at some point and get a crapton of tomatoes, sweet onions, peaches and apples from Larriland Farm. They're quite a drive, but they've got a huge campus, great selection and decent prices. I've been toying with the idea of making lots of jams to can and give to people for giftmas (who doesn't love homemade onion jam, peach chutney or apple butter? No one, that's who). Of course, I'd probably have to buy my third immersion blender. (They keep dying. I miss them)

I also made this pasta salad the other day and I really liked how it came out. I added chicken, which made it a meal. If I had to do it again, I would have added finer salt, more of it, and mozzarella with the chicken, I think. Still, it's a good, healthy salad, even if it's a lot of chopping time. And orzo falls through the holes of my pasta strainer. In case you were wondering. Which you weren't.

I think that covers it. I'm going to be spending $42 on a 5 pound block of cheddar (and $8 for a 8oz bottle of raw agave, which I'm going to start subbing for sugar) from a local cheese group that my CSA guy works with. That's... that's a lot of cheese.

Have I mentioned how hard it is to find popsicle molds right now? Not because people are making popsicles because it's hot out in the heart of summer, oh no. Because around August 1st, all of the summer stuff goes away and the back to school displays come out. I spent $10 on getting 2 sets of 4 really crappy popsicle molds called cool cones or some shit. One of them broke falling out of the freezer last night when I was manuvering the ice cream maker bowl in. (I plan ahead, I do) Not that I'm bitter. I'd've gladly pay $10 for these instead except that BB&B didn't have them. (At least, when I asked the guy at the desk for popsicle molds, he showed me these freaking cool cones instead. NOT COOL, cones. NOT COOL)

Also, apparently we're going to run out of sugar. Which, you know what? Fine by me. I'm just having a bitter day, I guess.

Best Laid Plans...

2009-08-10T13:31:47Z

So, I'm stentoriansista-free for the next two weeks, which means I will be horribly snuggle deficient (I'm trying not to think about that last part). It does have some benefits - I can watch all the netflix I want! I can hit the snooze button as much as I want and sleep in the middle of the bed! I... I already miss her and it's been like a day. It's strange how quickly you get used to sharing your life with someone.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep busy. Thus far, I have the following things on the book for this week:
-pick up mail from old apartment (and stop by Target for popsicle molds)
-make cucumber chili lime pops
-refrigerator pickle carrots
-go grocery shopping
-make bread
-join Arlington County gym
-do at least an hour of cardio a day
-drink wine
-roast a chicken and make stuffing
-make cobbler
-make blueberry lavender sorbet?
-do lots of laundry
-restart the 365 project
-redo my finances
-watch all 3 of my netflix (Kinky Boots, The Aristocrats & Towelhead)
-work on my secret craft project
-block Becoming bag
-tidy
-go to the Thursday farmer's market at Archives to buy mushrooms
-eye exam & buy contacts
-schedule fan installation?
-restart 365?

I also reserve the right to not do any of this and sit on the couch watching Law & Order reruns.

kestrel127 @ 2009-08-05T10:12:00

2009-08-05T15:03:26Z

This morning sucks. Just one of those mornings where I'm too tired to function properly. Was going to have a lunch/work discussion with my boss today, but then she called out sick. So, that's probably for the good. Also, you can totally see my tattoo through this top, which I thought of on the bus going to the Pentagon, so sometimes there's nothing you can do.

In other news, I discovered ground cherries last night. They're delicious. I've been getting them in the CSA for years, but I always stuck them in the back of the fridge and forgot about them until it was too late and they were gross. They're kind of sweet and savory, like a fruiter cherry tomato. As a side note, my new plan for storing food from the CSA in open tupperware containers instead of in a plastic bag is going swimmingly. I use less waste and have an easier time remembering what exactly I have. Though the vegetable drawer is always a bit of a no man's land. I'd love to make a ground cherry jam, but I won't have nearly enough cherries. Wondering if it warrants buying some to make, but I have no idea where I could buy ground cherries!

In other news, the refrigerator pickled beets, carrots & kohlrabi all turned out well. I like the beets (pickled in cider vinegar) a lot better than the carrots/kohlrabi (pickled in white vinegar with dill and mustard). I think it's the dill & mustard in the brine that throws me off. I've got a huge bag of carrots and a Synergy bottle from some kombucha I tried at Java Green, which should do well for some long carrot sticks for work snacks. (As another side note, the kombucha was tastyish) I'll have to experiment a bit more and see what I like. Since pickled vegetables keep for months, this'll be a nice way to have veggies on hand without having to worry about mold. I may try to make actual pickles, too. I've been assured they taste nothing like store bought pickles (which I dislike). We'll see.

Pickling is hazardous to health and home

2009-07-27T14:21:29Z

I pickled some beets the other day using Alton Brown's pickle juice recipe and put it in the fridge. Haven't had the chance to try it yet, but it looks tasty. And it was easy. And I had two bulbs of kohlrabi still in the fridge so I figured why not pickle that too? Well, I'll tell you why. Using the vegetable peeler to peel the second bulb of kohlrabi resulted in me slicing the hell out of my left index finger. I mean, it could have been worse, it could have been my right index finger, but bleeding all over my kitchen floor is not my favorite thing to do. Still, I sliced the kohlrabi and sliced and parboiled the carrots, made my pickling mixture, didn't bleed on any of it, dumped it into an empty salsa jar, lidded it and fridged it. Hopefully I'll be able to serve pickled kohlrabi, carrots and beets at my shindig on Sunday. (By the by, it's finrto substitute prepared mustard for mustard seed in most recipes, but it does not do well to sub mustard in pickle juice. It breaks up weirdly)

So, that done, I shoved the carrot and kohlrabi peels down the disposal, turned on the water and ran it. Then the sink started backing up. The garbage disposal itself is clear, so whatever clogged it (either kohlrabi peelings or the outer garlic skin layer I think I shoved down there) is below the disposal bit. Baking soda, vinegar and hot water only resulted in me using up a bottle of white vinegar (we somehow have 3 in the house, so not a big). Plunging the sink just shoves water out of some kind of drain outlet next to the tap. One of the various answer sites said to run the dishwasher, which has resulted in the sink being full of disgusting gray water. Next step is Drano, which I hate because it's nasty, bad for the environment and frequently ineffective, but also a lot cheaper than a plumber. (This also begs the question of - do I tell my aunt I clogged the disposal? She might pay for a plumber but this also confirms to her that I am irresponsible and clumsy)

In other news, I love how much my side by side freezer holds, but the fridge holds surprisingly little. Though we do need to clean it out.

Crockpot Potato Leek & Cabbage Soup

2009-07-24T20:20:28Z

Made a good soup in the crockpot last night. Went like this:
Mess of farm share potatoes (maybe 5-6 smaller ones?)
1 small onion
3 leeks
1/2 giant farmshare cabbage
3 garlic scapes
sprig thyme from backyard
1 box chicken broth
chopped chives (from backyard herb garden)
3 slices bacon, diced

Dice veggies and throw everything up to the chicken broth in crockpot and cook on low for 7 hours. Put bacon on to cook. Chop chives. Find immersion blender. Blend soup with immersion blender. Realize immersion blender is no longer working. Hunt for and rinse out suitable bowl to put finished soup in since you can no longer blend and serve from crockpot and cuisinart with appropriate bowl and blades. Realize bacon is burning. Remove bacon from heat. Accidentally melt the spatula on the hot stove. Accidentally melt a little of a plastic bag of kitchen gadgets sitting on the stove. Put 1/3 soup mixture in cuisinart and blend. Put into bowl and realize that it's the texture of applesauce. Regret that you considered putting in a second box of broth but decided against it. Put second third soup mixture in cuisinart with water and blend. Put into bowl and stir, to discover the texture is still a little rough. Put remaining third and a crapton of water in the cuisinart and blend. Add to the bowl, stir and taste. Realize you probably should have added salt. Add probably a tablespoon of salt & a little pepper to the bowl. Stir more. Taste again and wish you added more garlic and onion and remember that garlic scapes don't crock very well (they do fine in regular cooking, but it's my experience that they don't flavor as well as garlic cloves in soups). Dice unburned bacon. Ladle into bowls and add diced bacon and chives on top.

Makes 6 dinner sized servings or 12 side dish servings.

(So, if you're feeling the need to make some potato leek soup, I'd say: a good amount of potatoes, half a cabbage, 5 leeks, 2 small onions, 3 garlic cloves, 2 boxes chicken broth, 1 tbsp salt and a working immersion blender)

Sigh.

2009-07-24T17:52:44Z

Delightful time out at karaoke last night, quickly followed by this morning, where I had to go to the dentist. Again. Went to get a permanent crown from last month and told them about how bad it's been hurting (4 advil a day bad). So, he put the permanent on and whittled it down until it cleared well, then decided that it was so whittled it needed to be polished by the lab, so the temporary went on again and got about an inch shaved off of it. My tooth still really hurts (despite the Advil I took two hours ago!!), but I'm hoping it'll go away in a day or two.

And, of course, on the way to work, I ran into the blood drive guy on the elevator. Apparently my top shows a bit of my tattoo if it's pulled down, so he asked me about it and I had to explain it and mentioned that was why I couldn't give blood. Sigh.

Also, everyone needs to watch this video because it's freaking adorable. (Yes, it's the wedding entrance one)

I'm making refrigerator pickled beets (and maybe carrots) tonight before watching the end of the Torchwood miniseries, which I DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT. I've got about 50 different things I want to make before next Sunday, not a lot of time to do it and, weirdly, not enough basil. Despite having about 5 plants around the house and the CSA of all basil all the time.

Cabbage? OK, I guess...

2009-07-16T13:39:22Z

In the farm share this year, we've gotten cabbage. I got a head of cabbage last week and an even larger head of cabbage this week. It has perplexed both stentoriansista and I because neither of us really eat cabbage. So, I checked The Kitchn and decided that I'd make a braise. So, what I did was... sliced two baby onions and one large vidalia into rings at the bottom of the dutch oven. Added 3 small, tart, peeled and chopped green apples, one long chopped garlic scape. Washed, cored and sliced the green cabbage. Added 1/4 cup water and 1/8 cup honey to the dutch oven, light sprinkle red pepper flakes, salt, pepper. Oven was preheated to 375* for gooseberry cobbler, put in oven and turned down to 325*. Let cook for one hour, mixed with spicy bison sausage.

It's good, the cabbage still has a bit of crunch, and I think it'll reheat well, but the spicy sausage with the sweet cabbage don't work particularly well. Next time, I think I'll do a sweeter sausage. Also, dice the onion and cabbage, because the pieces are too big otherwise.

I'm going to try a potato, leek and cabbage soup with the giant cabbage head and two weeks worth of new potatoes from the farm share. I may end up carmelizing onions in the crock first, though. My aunt left me probably 4 pounds worth, plus we brought a couple vidalias over from the old place, plus I picked up a couple of sweets at the farmer's market.

They had rhubarb at the market too, so I am going to make rhubarb syrup. We bought a neat little cruet at the Container Store on Monday, so it'll seal nicely to keep in the fridge.

They also had kohlrabi at the farmer's market, so I bought a bunch. I've heard for yonks that it's delicious and the one thing in the CSA box that no one knows how to cook, so I'm looking forward to playing with that.

I just now have to find time to do it all. Yeah. That'll happen.

So Much For That Idea...

2009-07-15T13:57:10Z

Had a dream this morning (well, not actually a dream, but one of those half awake, half not moments) where I thought I should buy that Dianne Sylvan book, you know, the one with the purple cover? I knew the title at the time, but all I remember now is that it had the word Goddess in it. Sadly, it does not exist (yet?). I will say that I am really, really enjoying her book, The Body Sacred. The problem I have with it is the problem I have with a lot of similar books - I can quickly read the book, but I can't find the time to sit down and go through the exercises. Something to work on, I guess.

kestrel127 @ 2009-07-08T12:00:00

2009-07-08T16:38:17Z

This is one for bad_service, except that I don't read or post in those communities anymore. Anyway...

I have Bank of America. I've had it since I was 18. Generally, I love Bank of America. Bill pay, direct deposit, easy online banking, and they added this thing called MyPortfolio where you can track all of your outside accounts through their website. I love it! I track student loans, joint account, IRA, 403(b), etc... It's a great tool for keeping it all in one place. I can track nearly everything there.

I say nearly everything because I can't track my Old Navy credit card, which I use mainly for clothing purchases. The Old Navy card gives bucks back with purchases, which is why I use it. You spend $100 at Old Navy, you get $10 bucks back, everyone's happy. It appeals to my bargaining nature. Unfortunately, while I can check my Old Navy balance and pay bills online, they don't have an interface set up for that card.

What's so very infuriating about this is that they have interfaces set up for Gap and Banana Republic cards. You can't log in for Old Navy via those sites (I've tried). So basically, they need to copy one of the old ones, change the name and the URL and they're golden.

You can also track your OldNavy.com purchases via their website through MyPortfolio. Don't ask me why, I think it's just weird, but hey. Every time I tried to log in to that (wrongly thinking it was the credit card), I get a generic error message that says that it should be fixed in a few days. I get this message every time I try to add it over the course of the month.

I sent them a very nice email about this basically says that I love MyPortfolio, it's a great service, I'm trying to add my Old Navy credit card and I keep getting this message about issues to be cleared up in a few days, what's going on?

And I get back a set of instructions on how to add an account to track manually.

In the inbetween, I played around with adding accounts a bit more, realized I confused the OldNavy.com with the Old Navy credit card and noted that they had the Gap & BR but not Old Navy. So I responded to that email saying 'yes, I know, I'm not an idiot, and actually the issue is not that I don't know how to manually track, it's that you don't offer the service. And actually, what I'm interested in is not something that you currently offer, but it could be really easy for you to do and can you please pass that feedback along?'

And I get a different, more detailed set of instructions on how to track an account manually. (When I say track manually, I mean you have to type in 'this month, owe $90.73', as opposed to detailed transaction lists that auto-update with auto accounts) As you can imagine, I am frustrated. I write back a rather bitchy response saying 'if you'd actually read this email, you'd understand that this wasn't the question, I'm not an idiot, I know how to do that, I'm just offering you a suggestion. And while I understand that whoever's reading this is bound to a set of form responses, you could actually address the issue at hand.'

They respond that they are sorry I have an issue and to call the customer service number. This is the beginning of June, I roll my eyes and forget about it. Today, after I updated my email address, I got an email confirming the change. I see the previous email and decide to go ahead and give the number a call. After navigating through 4 phone trees, I get a person on the phone. She tells me that the best way to give my feedback would be... to send Bank of America an email.

So, I did. I referenced my last previous issue, said what I would enjoy and if they tell me how to track an account manually, I'm seriously considering taking my business elsewhere. We'll see.

ETA: They sent me a response telling me how to track an account manually. I sent a response telling them they are idiots.

ETA 2: They sent back an email saying they understand and apologizing for being dumb. All they had to do was say 'Thank you for your feedback, we'll pass it along to the appropriate department. In the mean time, here's how to track your account manually!' THAT'S IT. Ugh. I'm done wasting time on this.

kestrel127 @ 2009-07-06T11:53:00

2009-07-06T15:53:44Z

Is it weird that I'm already planning on what I'm going to cook & freeze in the new place? So far it's just veggie stock and carmelized onions (both in the crockpot), but just you wait until we get berry picking...