Slightly More than Nothing
October 16, 2011 at 12:49 PM | Posted in Adventures in S-Land, Intentions | Leave a commentKnow what I want to do today? Nothing. Guess what I’ve accomplished so far? Nothing slightly more than nothing:
I’ve got the bear meat that I corned this week cooking in my trusty 1972 Crock-Pot. This is actually my first experience with bear meat, corned or otherwise, since we never ate bear in my family. This is because bears in my hometown eat a lot of often-rotten fish and the occasional buffet de la garbagio. You are what you eat, even if you are a bear. But the guy who can fix anything comes from an area where bears eat berries and plants, therefore, his family eats bears. So now, I will eat bears too.
I fed Levi the Dog and Artemis the Cat. This doesn’t really count as something, but it’s technically more than nothing. Plus, if you ever want to feel like a superhero, find a dog and feed it. Their standards of heroics are low, low, low, but their enthusiastic responses are off the charts. Levi the Dog is currently composing an ode to my greatness:
I have read the news. If you haven’t experienced the news today, I will sum it up for you: things happened and people did stuff. I’m not sure why CNN hasn’t offered me a cushy desk job yet.
I caught up on my Old Farmer’s Almanac daily calendar. I was two weeks behind. See, I teach seventh grade, cook 90% of the meals we eat from scratch, write book reviews, and sort of run a jewelry business when I have a spare moment, so my days sometimes don’t allow for things like reading non-essential calendar pages. Or sleeping. Or moving at less than a sprint. This is why I wish to do nothing on weekends. Today’s calendar page inquires if I know which person was not a child of Erik the Red:
A. Freydis
B. Olafur
C. Thorstein
D. Thorvald
Answer: B.
Finally, I spilled tea all over the desk which was covered with papers that I am supposed to be grading. Awesome. I will tell my students that I antiqued their writing in order to add character to the pages. I’m crafty like that.
What needs to happen today is some letter-writing on real paper as a personal effort to aid the ailing U.S. Postal Service, decluttering the kitchen table since it has somehow become the junk mail center of the universe, going to church in clothing other than my pajamas, filling the three necklace orders that came in this week, and walking Levi the Dog so that I might achieve sainthood in the Kingdom of German shepherd-huskies.
Ready, set, go.
Bone Marrow Mashed Potatoes
October 1, 2011 at 12:09 PM | Posted in Eat this. | 1 CommentStop gagging, and just read. You wimp.
The guy who can fix anything, including well pumps, furnaces, and wonky toilet installations, has promoted himself to the guy who can fix anything and is now married to me, so he has a big list. I love that guy. I am glad he’s around all the time now. And I’m in all-wifey mode where I’m making beee-you-tee-ful dinners and roasting vegetables and baking vast quantities of banana bread. This works out nicely for the guy who can fix anything, etc. as that boy likes to eat. And he likes to bring home dead things to eat.
Now, if you are opposed to bringing home dead things to eat, please chillax. My husband and I are both big fans of the sanctity of life. We hunt and fish only what we will eat, and we kill quickly and mercifully and follow all fish and game regulations. We look with our mean eyes at those who don’t. I sometimes incorporate one raised eyebrow into my mean eyes. We do our part. And I can blog about it if I want. The First Amendment says so.
I’m deeply devoted to a quasi-subsistence, living off the land, berry-picking, spending a lot of time gardening lifestyle. In fact, you could say that I’m bone marrow deep into it. As in, I spread it on toast. I scrape it out and eat it plain. I make mashed potatoes with it. And I revel in every moment.
Bone marrow is fabulous. It’s delicious! It makes the most delicately-flavored and yummy-textured mashed potatoes ever. In fact, I don’t have a picture of them for ya’llses because we ate them. There was no time for pictures. Sorry. Put on your imagination cap and visualize. Or better yet, make your own bone marrow mashed potatoes if you want to see them in person. Here’s how:
1. Marry a guy who can fix anything and who thinks it is romantic to bring home a dead moose. If you can’t find one of those, you may buy beef thigh-bones at the store. If you must.
2. Make killer banana bread for guy who can fix anything. I like this one despite its profane name.
3. Now that the guy who can fix anything is all happy and banana bread fortified, have him cut the moose leg bones in chunks that will fit in the roasting pan you own. Or have the butcher at the meat department do that for beef leg bones.
4. Roast the bones at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until the marrow starts leaking out. Mmm.
5. Using thin, poky things (I use an iced tea spoon and a filet knife), scrape the marrow out of the bones and into some little dish thing. Let it cool.
6. Cook potatoes in water. I make a lot, like 10 good-sized potatoes or so. Use organic ones so that you can leave the skin on. The potatoes should come to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes.
7. Then, drain the potatoes and mash into them the cooled bone marrow with a few minced garlic cloves if you are anti-vampire or if you just have 85 thousand cloves of garlic from your garlic planting experiment last fall. Maybe this year you will only plant a few cloves instead of a few heads. Not that I would know anything about that. I’m just blogging. And add enough milk to make a consistency that you like along with salt and pepper to taste. Mash, mash, mash. I like to leave chunks of potato in the mix.
8. Then, sprinkle parsley on top because you like things to be pretty. You know you do.
9. Serve to unsuspecting guests.
Dear Trader Joe’s, I am mad at you.
October 1, 2011 at 11:39 AM | Posted in We Have a Bear on our State Quarter | Leave a commentThere is no Trader Joe’s in Anchorage. This displeases me, and I have to resort to buying all my Trader Joe’s favorites on eBay or hoping for relatives and friends in Trader Joe’s locales to take pity upon my poor, Sesame Honey Almonds-dependent soul.
But then it occurred to me, I could just whip up my own! The trusty Internet always has recipes. So I googled my way to veggiewiz.blogspot.com and found the following recipe:
- 1 cup almonds, whole with skins on
- 1 cup cashews
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 teaspoons almond oil or vegetable oil
- Spread the almonds and cashews in a single layer in a shallow ungreased baking pan and place in cold oven. Bake at 350F/180C, stirring occasionally, until the color of the nut is tan to light brown, 10 to 12 minutes. (The nuts will continue to roast a little more after they are removed from the oven.) Set the roasted nuts aside.
- Thoroughly mix the sugar, salt, and sesame seeds, and set aside.
- Stir together the honey, water, and oil in a medium-size saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir in the roasted nuts and continue to cook and stir until all of the liquid has been absorbed by the nuts, about 5 minutes.
- Immediately transfer the almonds to a medium-sized bowl into which some sugar mixture has been sprinkled. Sprinkle the remaining sugar mixture over the nuts and toss until they are evenly coated. Spread the nuts out onto a silicon pad or parchment paper. When cool, store at room temperature in a tightly covered container or plastic bag. Will keep up to 2 weeks.
Now if I could just find a recipe for Trader Joe’s Pomegranate White Tea. Trader Joe’s, why do you despise me and refuse my advances?
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