What should my resolution be?

     MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM TEA KETTLE

     There is a whistling noise in the house, only at night.  It sounds like my old red tea kettle did that didn't really whisper but did make a noise.  I think to myself have I been making tea and do I need to check the stove top?  Living in a different house every year or so for the last 8 or so years has me more forgiving on odd quirks (I still don't know how safe radiators are) and different designs.  Like making the bathroom door only fully open from inside when you wedge yourself into a corner between the toilet and the shower.  Or why everyone uses shower water at the exact same time you took your off-time shower.  Every oven I cook in has its own quirks and for sure the current gas stove and oven has the most to get used to.  In return my kitchen is never cold because the upstairs hot-water pipe is right in the middle of my kitchen and will burn you when on.

     Kindle update!  I have yet to do anything more with it.  I'm terrified to bring it out without a case or something, I'm really thinking about a sock, to cover the fancy screen.  Unfortunately (what, no! Never!!) I'm still going through my physical books.  Two came in from the library today!  Psycho, oh, maybe you saw the Hitchcock film?  Yea, that one.  And FINALLY The Fantasy Worlds of Peter Beagle who is most well known for his story The Last Unicorn.  This book was ordered nearly two months ago and it hadn't been returned until this week.  I feel like it wasn't that long ago I was unicorn obsessed.  Maybe like 15 years?! ohGODnoway.  Yea, wow, my (so long ago!) childhood fascination with unicorns and their magical powers and even more amazing was that they were fantasy and if they could be real (yea, I dare you to explain medieval theology to a seven year-old) then anything could be real.  And Hobbits!  And umm, I dunno, what did I believe in as a child?  Umm.. Santa Claus?  Sure.  Let's go there.

     Tomorrow is New Years Eve.  As is tradition since everyone was a kid I should name a resolution or two.  I want to simplify my life but most of the sites I've been looking at for ideas give vague useful suggestions with nothing that I can put into practice.  Own one car per family.  Done.  Eat mostly at home.  Done and double done.  Make meals ahead of time.  Err, my freezer barely fits a bag of milk buns and some frozen blackberries.  And I share it with, not including Tad, three others right now.  Wake up an hour earlier and exercise.  I wake up around 4:30 AM four days a week.  Yea, I don't think so.  One thing I really want to get back into is growing my own herbs or veggies.  I don't know when I can start here in the North.  The light lasts much less time than I thought.  Yea, what's up with Winter.  Sucks. 

     Back on track.  Veggie garden.  I would like to grow at least 3 herbs and two veggies.  Sound ambitious?  I hope not.  I miss being able to harvest ingredients watch as I neglect them.  Just something green.  Or a cat.  a green cat?  Sure.  Green cat for my resolution.

     Or maybe I'll make my resolution an easier one.  I will not start new tasks (not new books though!) before finishing any older, similar tasks.  I picked up some baby alpaca yarn to knit but I still have an unfinished pillowcase to embroider.  Bad pillowcase.  Finish yourself!  I haven't been really inspired to work on that at all.  I need more thread to finish the interior stitching I'm doing and I need a central design for the main piece.  There's the real reason I haven't worked on it.  I need a design.  I'll have to start looking.  But not today... Not today.  Good night everyone and enjoy the New Years with friends and loved ones.  jaa.

Day after Christmas is lame

     I had not only an amazing Christmas (I did not close Christmas eve for once) but made amazing food!

     In ode to Tad's new worry about his cholesterol levels this is a no cholesterol (ok, very little in the whip cream) chocolate olive-oil cake.  And let me tell you it is DELICIOUS!!!  I cooled it out of the pan then sliced neatly in half and filled with sliced strawberries and whip cream.  A little powdered sugar on top and voila!  New delicious foods. 

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Chocolate Olive-oil cake

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3 Tbsp cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/8 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup cold water

Oven preheated to 350 degrees F.  Mix all dry ingredients (flour to salt) then add wet ingredients until well combined and smooth.  Pour into a oiled and floured cake tin or 9x9 baking dish and bake for 30 mins or until baked dry in the middle.  Remove and cool in pan for 10 mins then on a cooling rack before decorating.

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     I got a new Kindle Touch from Santa for Christmas!  So far I have almost thrown it at a wall when it wouldn't connect to the computer than have read free books on it in between the two other books I'm reading.  I do love to use the touch dictionary when I'm uncertain of a word.  I wonder if I can get the Oxford English dictionary as my standard?  I'm sure that one will cost much more than this free American Heritage version.  I'm more than halfway complete reading The Island of Doctor Moreau on my KTouch.  KT?  Touch is an iPod product... hmm.. I need a term for it.  But yes I'm finishing off my sci-fi novels on my sci-fi device!  Nothing finished yet.  May go see a movie tonight, we'll see.  Jaa.

Til the morning comes...

Er, that was actually the lyrics to a Smashmouth song in my head, not a vague omen or such.  I ordered Stitch 'n' Bitch a few days ago and it should be coming in on Tuesday, thanks Amazon.  I was trying to get it used but when they have super-saver shipping it isn't worth the two dollar difference between new and reused.  Also, joined the Target book club (on Facepage) with other peoples from work and am hoping we will start it up soon.  I've been a bit of a busy bee this week between long walks with Tad around the area (just over seven miles on Wednesday) and going to the movie store in the mall for 50% off clearing out prices I've got us dental appointments and the car is going in and arrrgg!!! School still starts Monday.  ::sob::  ::sigh::

     Enough on the personal fronts, as for my awesome cooking skills: bourbon chicken.  Just like the mall, except better because it takes about 40 minutes to make.  See?  Much better.  I actually got a picture because some friends came over to eat it.  So I present to you my dinner (that I didn't eat).

And yes, that is good short grained rice that is sticky and delicious.  The recipe was a mishmash of about 5 others on the web but it does involve a cup of bourbon whiskey so be prepared to drink the rest of your whiskey afterward. Last night I came home to a sick, stuffed-up Tad so I made from scratch matzo ball soup with the left over chicken.  I added a little lemon and ginger to it to make it a more invalid meal but he said it was delicious.  It looks amazing, I must say.  I also finally bought Tad's charger just yesterday for his phone.  Took me a while I must admit but there it is, done.

     Here's the recipe for my bourbon chicken:

• 2 lbs chicken breast, skinless, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 cup bourbon whiskey
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
  
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/8 cup rice vinegar
• 1/8 cup red wine vinegar (I might go balsamic next time)
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 smashed cloves garlic

      Add to taste: ginger, ketchup, lemon juice, dry mustard, salt, pepper. Mix everything but chicken in a bowl and let the chicken marinate for a few hours to a day to make it taste good.  Sear the chicken with oil in a larger skillet til brown and mostly cooked.  Remove chicken and add sauce and bring to a hard boil.  Replace chicken in the skillet and bring down to a simmer and let simmer  for 20 minutes.  This is not a sauce like a brown sauce so it won't thicken but you can pour the left over onto the rice you serve it on.

     I have also been knitting more.  Somehow, and I hope my book tells me, I have been picking up stitches as I go.  I started with 40, not a hard number but enough to make a decent sized scarf, and at the largest point counted 59.  I don't know how I do that.  I am almost through the first skein and am sometime today I feel will  be forced into the yellow and a new stitch.  If I follow what has been suggested to me it is seed, knit one, purl one.  I still don't know what purl is but there's a video just waiting to be watched!  Oh well, back to the cold dreary winter of my discontent.  And knitting.  The winter of my knitting.

Halloween

     Well it's been a few days since the last update but not too much has happened on major fronts.  Tad's home to visit for the weekend.  It's been hard, as usual, to get used to each other the first couple days and we had a bit of a fight this morning.  We're OK now I think but it's hard sometimes to readjust yourself back into your old habits.  I was making Tuscan eggs this morning but we misunderstood each other and I turned the "scrambled eggs" into more of a quiche.  Costumes were pretty good, OK, they weren't amazing but at least we had fun.  Tad was Dr. McNinja and I was Wendy from Peter Pan.  Laura was Dorothy and she made her own ruby slippers.
 
     Besides the quiche I made a caramel apple pie and two caramel apple tarts from the remains of the pie.  I didn't have some but everyone at the party did and they enjoyed it.  We had it pie a la mode style, vanilla ice cream!  Made Welsh Rarebit last night, very tasty as always and bought Newcastle beer to go in it.  Newcastle is one of the few I can drink and I blame the English as any type of beer on that island chain is just amazing to me.  Give me a Guinness any day!  Also watched Blade II which Tad pointed out (a lot) that in this movie the director realized the full point of Blade: to kill vampires in the most stylish way possible.  He constantly ignores the surest and quickest way to victory in order to have a more stylish moment in the film.  Plot holes abound and in the end nothing new was determined or discovered.

     I don't know if I mentioned in the last post, as I'm far too sleepy now to go look, but I am in fact working my way through a quilt for either myself or Tad.  I haven't quite decided.  I will add pictures next entry which should hopefully be tomorrow. 

     Still plodding my way through Age of Cathedrals although I've gotten at least half way now.  Also took out Twilight to see what all this huge fuss is about.  I may just read the whole thing in one straight shot so I can get through it as fast as possible.  The best descriptor of it seems to be that it is a Twinkie.  Well, give me a few days and I should have an answer to that assertion,.  Going to bed though as I've worn myself out with my crazy fun day.

Interesting facts about authors

    OK, more a single interesting fact about a single author.  Poul Anderson who wrote classic fantasy and scifi titles from the 50's and 60's including Three Hearts, Three Lions and The Broken Sword was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronisms which is pretty much a permanent, more fleshed-out Renassaince Faire.  Tad and I (hah! he said I could use his name) joined it to enjoy it (and spend hours researching something we love) with some friends last year but now we have parted and it isn't as much fun.  We are 9th century nobles from China and Japan, respectively.  That's why I want to sew my Heian costume for Halloween and he has a facsimile of a T'ang scholars outfit.  Created by yours truely!  I have some Poul Anderson books and to give you an example of SCA just read Three Hearts, Three Lions.  In the end it is an idealized dreamworld of an earlier period of knights and courtesy and plagues.  Ok, not the plagues so much.

     On the book front I am working through Out of the Silent Planet another scifi by an unexpected author, C.S. Lewis.  In his attempt in 'Catholicism throughout reading' he has broken free from Narnia and explored into the depths of space.  I'm only halfway through it because I made an apple pie yesterday.  But no icecream.  I also took out an illustrated version of Animal Farm, sure I know the plot but I have never actually finished the book.  The illustrations turn this from a story into a macabre children's book.  Just think about it for a minute and tell me it doesn't disturb you.  I bet it does.

     I actually forgot Silent Planet today and I'm stuck in the library for another few hours until I finish helping a friend with his math so instead I will grab yet another book to begin.  I was looking for Hermann Hesse (he wrote Demian and The Glass-Bead Game) but the library carries neither of these.  Also 1984, Catch-22 and at least one other book I looked for are all checked out until next year!  Actually, I own an audio version of 1984 and read at least half of Catch-22 before I had to return it last time.  Still, not complete!

     It looks like I might be starting The Invention of Morel but who knows if it's actually on the shelf.  Stupid people reading books.  That's my job!