Category: cooking/baking

Warmer, and damp, but I’m still just Oggg and Thoggg, since I haven’t dragged out the ladder and replaced the batteries in the outdoor part of the weather station… National map says we could get rain or worse, lots of rain.  The yard could use it, but I have stuff to pick up.

Spent most of the day doing auction and computer stuff.   Also some cleaning the house, and it was haircut day.   I’ve been cutting my hair since tyrant codependency started and I’m ok at it.   It does save me $20 every 3 weeks.  When times get tough, people cut back on haircuts, either going somewhere cheaper, or lengthening the time between cuts.  I”ve been doing mine for convenience at this point, but the savings add up.   I do miss chatting with my barber, and getting a read on the world from his point of view.

Today should be more of the same.   Housecleaning (wife will return on Wednesday), auction stuff (hopefully a dropoff),  and maybe a pickup…  All while staying close enough and aware enough to pick up the kids from theater rehearsal after school.  It’s not a huge burden, but it does break up my day.

Dinner last night had both kids asking to learn to cook, and specifically to make the side dish.   I thought that was a huge score on  my part.    And it’s easy.   Fresh asparagus cut into 1 inch pieces (with diagonal ends if you want to be fancy).   Some thin sliced red onion for color and taste (not a lot, about 1:10 proportion).   Saute’ the onion and asparagus in a tablespoon or two of bacon fat until ‘blanched’ ie. darker green but still a bit crunchy, with the onions softening, or even caramelizing.   Add a couple of drops of vietnamese fish sauce and a few dashes of soy sauce.   Toss the mix to coat with flavor.   Saute’ briefly to thicken the sauce.  Turn off heat and let settle to soften the  spears a bit more.  Takes about 10 minutes total, including prep.  It is a little bit sweet, mostly salty, with good savory taste (umami).  Spear chunks should still have a little crunch, onion should be transparent and soft.   It’s a tasty colorful side, with a good smell and nice mouthfeel.

Anyway both kids liked it enough to want to learn to cook it.

It went well with frozen costco panko breaded shrimp from the oven, and a microwave tray of jasmine rice.  Not a bad meal to pull together in 1/2 an hour.  Call it “asian fusion”.

Dinner was followed by a long and frank discussion of racism especially as the kids see it every day.  They are getting tired of being punching bags for being white.   Did I mention that our district is about 85% non-white?  Or that D1 dyed her blond hair black for this school year?  I tried to give them advice about walking the tightrope- using facts, staying calm so the other guy looks bad, and using the language of the oppressed to flip the script.  I’m dismayed that neither could tell me approximately when the Civil War ended, or how many years the slaves have been free without a LOT of prompting.  D2 knew a bunch about lincoln the usurper and how he didn’t actually “free the slaves” at first, anyway, so that was nice.   It’s a tough world these kids are living in, and going to get tougher.

Stack some knowledge and techniques to use against those that would demonize and other us.  Stack some food too.

nick

Cold, still, but less so.   Should clear up for the next few days.   Never cleared completely yesterday.   Never warmed up much either.

Spent the morning taking D2 to the Orthodontist.   And today I have to take D1.   They are at different points in their treatment, and the office does one type of visit per day, so there wasn’t a way to get them both in on the same day.  I guess it’s what being the stay at home dad means, taking kids to appointments.

Spent the afternoon on auction stuff.   Got a few sprinkles of rain.  Nothing that stuck though.

Made a box meal for dinner and used the canned costco chicken.  I do that all the time.  You get shredded chicken instead of chunks, which alters the meal somewhat, but it still tastes great.   This time I used a “Tasty” Chicken Tikka Masala kit.   Subbed minute rice for the included rice as I didn’t want to wait.   It was really tasty!  Wife said she’d eat that again, so I went looking.   It’s not at HEB anymore.  Neither does the corporate website list it (or any food for that matter, only recipe books).  Searching amazon or the web for “tasty chicken tikka masala kit” is painful.   Folks, if you are going to start a company making food, don’t pick a name that is a common adjective for food.   You get the search results you’d expect for a generic keyword search.

In any case, no more of the product is available, that I can find.    One of the disadvantages of stacking and then not eating for a while is that the product might not be available to restock.

I have  a lot of ‘box meals’ that use hamburger, and a lot that I can sub in canned chicken.   Very convenient, and store well past their best by date.    There are also a lot of quick side dishes that could be fortified with canned meat or sausage to make a main meal.   Anything to save time, or effort, is a good thing in a disaster, and also in a normal busy life.

Commander Zero noted that his local store has Auguson Farms FD and dehydrated food on sale.   That led me to look at some on the ‘zon and since it was on sale, I bought some more.  FDs aren’t my primary stored food, but they do make a good long term storage solution.   Just don’t expect to get the number of servings on the can.  I treat the Auguson Farms FDs as a supplement to other food, not as complete meals.

Today I’ve got more auction stuff to sort and bin, and maybe deliver, after I get D1 back to school.  I might do some pickups today too.   I’m supposed to be meeting a friend, and I don’t know how long we’ll spend doing what he needs to do, so I might not get much done besides that.   But you know, meatspace baby!

Get out in the world this week.  Call up an old friend.   Stack up some good times as well as good stuff.

nick