"Semi-homemade" Lasagne

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Fideos

I finally made fideos with proper noodles -- thus far I've just used broken up organic spaghetti. But this time you can see 'fideos' on the package. Epic. Made them with whey, red sauce, and chard; not mexican at all. The pic of the final product is horrific, but I'm including it cause I'm an honest chap.

USA vs. Slovenia

I 'listened to' this game in a pretty funny way. I couldn't find it live, but instead listened to the Scott and BR show on the mighty 1090. They were watching it a bar in SD, talking sports in general, but talked about the game alot, too. I have been down on our team, they didn't deserve to tie England, and they were down 2-0 at halftime. But that 2nd half was just awesome. And it was really cool hearing the enthusiasm from the bar. When I came in the highlights were great -- our goals were pretty darn high quality, and the 3rd goal should have counted! Made me proud.

Fresh off the plane from the States we went to Kruger first thing, July 1987.

France vs. Mexico

Ohhhhhhhh. This is going to be awesome. Mexico hit the post in the 2nd minute, but the guy was offsides. But still, aggressive.

Cuauhtemoc Blanco is in! I love that guy.

Mexico 1-0. They deserved the goal based on the run of play, but the dude was offsides.

2-0, Blanco penalty kick.

Vic Falls, July 1988. The Zambezi going down like France...

World Cup, 16 June

The time change isn't helping much. Completely missed the first 2 games. Uruguay looks good in the 3rd game. Happened to be wearing a shirt with a swiss flag on it today, and Switzerland beat Spain! Watched the replay, Switzerland did get a bit lucky -- Spain was attacking the whole game; they pass too much, needed more shots, need a stud attacker. Swiss goal was good but a bit awkward. Both teams hit the post in the last 10 minutes.
Chile won, a pretty exciting game -- like the Switzerland game except the aggressor won this time. #10 Valdivia is a stud. #7 Sanchez, too. Neither of them scored in this game, but methinks they will. Chile should have won 3-0, 'twas only 1-0.
Mexico vs. France tomorrow. Dream.

Baboon with baby, Kruger National Park, December 1988

High Class Yogurt and Applesauce

My favorite snack as a kid was yogurt and applesauce. Been making my own yogurt for a while now, and started canning my own applesauce, too. Last night I had goat yogurt that I'd gotten 1/2 off at the co-op with apple/pear butter from last summer. Luscious.

Underworld and sequels

I like vampire movies. I like Kate Beckinsale (look for a discourse on 'the Last Days of Disco' soon). I found Underworld pretty charming. It's about the war between vampires and werewolves. The commentary track aids the enjoyment quite a bit, as the movie was clearly a true labor of love. The guys who made it wrote it. Many of the visual effects were 'in camera,' including a cool bit where a guy runs down a speeding car from behind and jumps on it! -- he was running on a motorized carpet, which the car wheels straddled, which sped him up. Pretty clever. Last night I started watching the sequel. Nightmare. The first one must have made money cause everything is CGI in the second. I hate CGI. There is also some token nudity/romance in an attempt to appeal to a larger audience. C'est la vie.

Potatoes, Chard, Smoked Albacore

Really tasty dinner last night. The albacore was from the co-op. It was a little dry, I'm used to smoked salmon, but it was still quite good. The potatoes were from the garden, french fingerling potatoes. Lately I've been cooking/using chard stems as an onion replacement for body in dishes. That's the way I visualize them anyway, seems to be working -- cause normally I'm not a huge fan of chard. But free/homegrown food is free/homegrown food.... I cut the potatoes in half lengthwise, cutting along the wider axis (the potato cross sections were oval rather than circular) to maximize cut surface area. Artichoke oil/garlic then the chard stems. Then move that aside and the potatoes cut side down, on the bottom of the pan. Don't touch them for 10 min. Then I flipped them, threw the chard leaves on top, and covered the pan for 5 minutes or so. DELICIOUS. Potatoes were super sweet in that new potato way, contrasted well with the smoked albacore tuna.

pretty

tasty

potatoes getting some love from the artichoke oil

smoked albacore tuna

they got a little color. new potatoes cook fast.

the plate

Tapioca/Cocoa Pudding

Just messing around. The pic is terrible, I know. Flavor is alright, maybe a little more milk would have been preferable. Fun comfort food with the big pearls....

Big Pearl Tapioca/Cocoa Pudding:
1c big pearl tapioca
4c milk
salt
~1/3 c honey
~1/3 c sweetened hot cocoa mix

Soak tapioca in milk overnight. Add a little salt.
Cook ~30 min.
Added honey till it was almost sweet enough, then hot cocoa mix till it was sweet enough.

Loquat Sorbet

I made it about 3 weeks ago, wasn't too impressed, but it's warmer outside now, and I am quite liking it with plain yogurt. Basically I took some of the liquid from the initial stages of making loquat jelly, sugar, a couple of bananas, the usual. Loquats get a cool cherry aroma when you cook them, it's there a little in the sorbet.

Loquat Sorbet:
4c loquat liquid
8 oz sugar
2 bananas

Stickblend everything together, I didn't use powdered sugar, just dissolved regular sugar by blending it. Then the usual freeze/stickblend/freeze technique.

New Nutritional Guidelines

This is all pretty much 'no sh*t Sherlock' stuff (eat more veggies, less salt, less saturated fat), but I'll post the link none-the-less.

England vs. USA

meh. Not sure why ESPN streamed video of games yesterday, but ABC is only showing it on tv. So I'm listening to the radio feed. The announcers are great, they are long-time soccer guys, but I'd have liked to have seen it. The brit goal sounded good. The american goal was a fluke.

Huge tusker and sweet Toyota, Kruger National Park, December 1988

New Books III

must... stop... buying... stuff... must... finish... dissertation...

How to Cook Everything - Bittman
the Complete International Sandwich Book - Uvezian
the Nasty Bits - Bourdain

+ a bunch of Ed Abbey + Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock

Ben Jaffe / Bob Edwards Weekend

Forgot to put up a link to this, from last weekend. Talking music in New Orleans.

K'naan

Clare got me into him, and then his song Wavin' Flag was chosen as the official anthem for the 2010 World Cup. Cool.

France vs. Uruguay

France doesn't quite deserve to be there this year, what with Thierry Henry's 'hand of god' goal to qualify. But I still love them. And the game is in Capetown. Kickoff is now.

the quotes begin: France look the class act on paper, but will they be on grass?

France should have scored at 6:30. Halftime. Uruguay is playing for a tie.

Uruguay should have scored at 72:30.

Nill-nill. Pretty good game. Zidane is missed....

Maribou Storks, Kruger National Park, December 1988. This is one of the best images my dad has taken, and he's a good photographer. I have a NWC art print that reminds me of this image. I'll take a pic of it.

Loquat Jelly 2010

nearly empty jar, batch #1

Ok, I've made 2 batches now, seems like the technique I'm using is working. I'm basically doing plum jelly -- unpeeled, unpitted fruit simmered in water to get out the flavor and the pectin. Then ~1/2 the volume of liquid in sugar, boiled up. Batch #1 set up for sure and was tasty, I've eaten some of it already. Batch #2 we shall see. Loquats, when cooked, make the kitchen smell like cherries! Very cool. A pictorial recipe:

Bucket of loquats
I stemmed them and washed them well, but otherwise they went in to a pot as-is. I cooked about 6Q of loquats/water to cover at a time.

Simmered them for a couple of hours, then pressed them in a colander with a potato masher to extract the juice. The 6Q of fruit/water yielded about 3Q of fairly thin juice, which I boiled down to ~1Q of happy red juice. Thus added ~1/2 Q (16 oz) sugar. Also I read in one of my preserving books that acid helps the pectin to set the liquid, so added 1.5 t of citric acid, too. Cooked batch #1 to 228 degrees F. As an experiment I used less sugar in batch #2, it only cooked to ~220 F. (Sugar raises the boiling point of liquid).

Canned by putting hot jelly in hot jars, lids had been simmering in water for ~10 minutes. Screwed down the bands, let cool, they popped. This method is not recommended in modern preserving books for lawyer reasons, but seems to work for me for jam/jelly.

Batch #2.
purty glass

Batch #1:
1Q fairly reduced loquat liquid
16 oz sugar
1.5 t citric acid

Batch #2:
~3Q fairly reduced loquat liquid
32 oz sugar
3t citric acid

Artichoke Oil Fried Rice

Last couple of nights I've had a variation on fried rice. I've used a combo of leftover oil from simmering artichokes in olive oil and dairy fat -- the cream top from Straus Milk 2 nights, and regular butter 1 night. To that 1 clove smashed/sliced garlic and a couple of dried chilies. Then chard or kale stems, salt. Let that go for a while. Chard or kale leaves, cover. Cooked rice, cover. The stems go soft and silky this way. Really really good.

Tim Russert / Harvard Graduation Speech / NPR

solid gold. highest recommendation.

Avocado Blossom Honey

This stuff is dark and rich. I'm addicted to it. I gallon lasts me 6 months, I put a dollop on my oatmeal every morning.