Yesterday's squash soup-making extravaganza was successful. But it took forever.
Sometimes, I forget how easy-yet-difficult it is to make things. For instance: Yesterday, I forgot that it's really super hard to peel squash. It took me more than an hour to do just one squash. Just. One.
And maybe I'm particularly uncoordinated when it comes to squash, but I'm pretty sure it's the squash's fault, because it's all like, "Not only is my outer layer thick AND smooth, but if you leave me peeled for more than 4.589302 seconds, I'm going to sweat sticky stuff aaaaall over your hands. Haha, screw you."
But peeling the squash is only the second hardest part about this recipe. The first hardest is the onions.
Yes. Onions. We have a bit of a love-hate relationship. On one hand, they're delicious, especially when they're mixed with squash and curry and pureed. But on the other hand, they're so mean that they make me cry. I have tried everything, it seems, or at least everything that's been suggested to me to fix my alliumphobia. This involves two things- First, freezing the onion. Supposedly this freezes the cells and thus causes cleaner cell breaks when chopping. And secondly, putting the onion underwater. Neither one works.
I've given up my waged war, and given into the fact that I will simply be doomed to be a weepy chef for the rest of my life.
What brought me on this entire tangent was a peculiar smell coming from my hands. I forgot yesterday that my recipe doesn't actually call for garlic, and so I grabbed a few cloves and was about to mince them when I realized my mistake. It's a pretty big mistake, actually, because everytime I touch garlic, my hands retain the smell for a good week or so. I've also given up on this front.
I'm so French that I surrender to vegetables in my kitchen.
But it is good soup.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Spring? And Curried Squash Soup.
This morning's walk from the student parking lot was frigidly horrifying. Or so I heard, as I'm lucky enough to get dropped off at the door.
It seems almost impossible for the windchill to be 25 below zero, because yesterday, temperatures were in the low 40's. It's almost unheard of in February, although not quite. Tomorrow the temperatures are supposed to pick back up to around 40. Not that I believe in all of that groundhog's day guff...but maybe Spring IS coming early.
I know I don't put many recipes up here...but tonight is a squash soup night, and I think it's about time that I express my true devotion to this delicious concoction. It's perfect, and spicy, and you can put sour cream on top. What more could anyone want?
Curried Squash Soup (adapted by memory from some Reader's Digest Cookbook):
1 Butternut Squash. A Big one, peeled, seeded, and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces.
1 Medium sized Yellow Onion. Or two, if it suits your fancy. Chopped.
2 Medium cooking apples. Macs are fabulous, but Braeburns add an interesting sweetness. Cored, peeled, and diced.
3 T butter or margerine
Curry. The recipe calls for a teaspoon or a tablespoon or something ridiculous like that. I just take a few handfuls and throw it in. I like my soup to be spicy.
A few pinches of Ginger
Four cups of Chicken Stock
Melt the butter in a relatively large pot or saucepan. Throw in the onion and sautee for about five minutes, or until tender and slightly browned. Add the squash, apples, curry and ginger, and cook, stirring (more like flipping), for about 10 minutes. Add the chicken stock, and bring to a full boil, then cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
Take everything, and puree it in a blender or food processor. Serve hot or cold with sour cream on top.
Tahdah! It takes awhile to prep, but is definitely one of the best dinners I've ever had.
It seems almost impossible for the windchill to be 25 below zero, because yesterday, temperatures were in the low 40's. It's almost unheard of in February, although not quite. Tomorrow the temperatures are supposed to pick back up to around 40. Not that I believe in all of that groundhog's day guff...but maybe Spring IS coming early.
I know I don't put many recipes up here...but tonight is a squash soup night, and I think it's about time that I express my true devotion to this delicious concoction. It's perfect, and spicy, and you can put sour cream on top. What more could anyone want?
Curried Squash Soup (adapted by memory from some Reader's Digest Cookbook):
1 Butternut Squash. A Big one, peeled, seeded, and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces.
1 Medium sized Yellow Onion. Or two, if it suits your fancy. Chopped.
2 Medium cooking apples. Macs are fabulous, but Braeburns add an interesting sweetness. Cored, peeled, and diced.
3 T butter or margerine
Curry. The recipe calls for a teaspoon or a tablespoon or something ridiculous like that. I just take a few handfuls and throw it in. I like my soup to be spicy.
A few pinches of Ginger
Four cups of Chicken Stock
Melt the butter in a relatively large pot or saucepan. Throw in the onion and sautee for about five minutes, or until tender and slightly browned. Add the squash, apples, curry and ginger, and cook, stirring (more like flipping), for about 10 minutes. Add the chicken stock, and bring to a full boil, then cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
Take everything, and puree it in a blender or food processor. Serve hot or cold with sour cream on top.
Tahdah! It takes awhile to prep, but is definitely one of the best dinners I've ever had.
Monday, February 14, 2011
An Examination of Valentine's Day, or, Stop Slobbering and Get To Class!
Ohh, Valentine's day. The holiday has befallen us once more.
It's a difficult holiday to appreciate if you don't have a significant other- unless you're extremely comfortable in your single-ness. I have a few points under this topic.
Firstly, I would point out that St. Valentine was a martyr. However, this doesn't entirely un-hinge the whole idea of valentine's day being about love. In fact, Valentine was martyred for secretly marrying Christians, who the totalitarian jerkwad in power, Claudius, was busy trying to persecute.
Secondly, I feel as if Valentine's day is the most celebrated holiday in high schools. My father, who teaches at a high school, told me that on many days, for birthdays, but mostly on Valentine's day, the office is barraged by an unending slew of flowers and chocolates and balloons. Woohoo, public school administration, your own personal delivery service! This makes me wonder if the front office lady who drawls names across the intercom several thousand times a year ever gets tired of Valentine's day. Maybe she thinks it's cute.
Point 2.5: The deliveries are only half of the bru-haha on Valentine's. More couples than usual seem to be slobbering all over each other in the middle of the hallway. It's a dangerous place out there. Already this morning I've seen way too many plushie hearts. I can understand most of it. Couples want to scream their love for each other for all the world to hear. But the making out/slobbering/gallonsofspit exchanges? We could do without that. Also, plushie hearts? What are you going to do with them after today, sleep with them? Generally a useless item, also sort of ugly.
But the chocolate and the flowers, those are great. And that is why I love Valentine's day. At least for the time being.
Thirdly, there's a certain population of teenaged girls, similar in dynamic to a ravenous, hate-filled wolf pack, who proclaim their displeasure of Valentine's day loud and clear. [Almost louder than the drawl of the intercom lady, reciting her never ending list of names throughout the day.]
It's all fine and dandy to not like Valentine's day. I don't blame you. I've been there and done that. But there's no reason to whine about it. Go ahead and throw your anti-love parties, I just don't want to hear about them. Go somewhere else with your negativity. Maybe you could even teach those slobbering couples a lesson!
It's a difficult holiday to appreciate if you don't have a significant other- unless you're extremely comfortable in your single-ness. I have a few points under this topic.
Firstly, I would point out that St. Valentine was a martyr. However, this doesn't entirely un-hinge the whole idea of valentine's day being about love. In fact, Valentine was martyred for secretly marrying Christians, who the totalitarian jerkwad in power, Claudius, was busy trying to persecute.
Secondly, I feel as if Valentine's day is the most celebrated holiday in high schools. My father, who teaches at a high school, told me that on many days, for birthdays, but mostly on Valentine's day, the office is barraged by an unending slew of flowers and chocolates and balloons. Woohoo, public school administration, your own personal delivery service! This makes me wonder if the front office lady who drawls names across the intercom several thousand times a year ever gets tired of Valentine's day. Maybe she thinks it's cute.
Point 2.5: The deliveries are only half of the bru-haha on Valentine's. More couples than usual seem to be slobbering all over each other in the middle of the hallway. It's a dangerous place out there. Already this morning I've seen way too many plushie hearts. I can understand most of it. Couples want to scream their love for each other for all the world to hear. But the making out/slobbering/gallonsofspit exchanges? We could do without that. Also, plushie hearts? What are you going to do with them after today, sleep with them? Generally a useless item, also sort of ugly.
But the chocolate and the flowers, those are great. And that is why I love Valentine's day. At least for the time being.
Thirdly, there's a certain population of teenaged girls, similar in dynamic to a ravenous, hate-filled wolf pack, who proclaim their displeasure of Valentine's day loud and clear. [Almost louder than the drawl of the intercom lady, reciting her never ending list of names throughout the day.]
It's all fine and dandy to not like Valentine's day. I don't blame you. I've been there and done that. But there's no reason to whine about it. Go ahead and throw your anti-love parties, I just don't want to hear about them. Go somewhere else with your negativity. Maybe you could even teach those slobbering couples a lesson!
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Busy Season and Brian Jacques
Tomorrow marks the end of speech and debate season for Maine. It's aaaalll over after that. Well, except for the strenuous fundraising for nationals, and for those who make it to nationals, and also the famed Debate Banquet in March.
This means that one acts have picked up in full. This year we're performing Cut by Ed Monk. It took us about three months of reading tacky scripts to settle on this one, but I'm pretty pleased with it myself. Our school has been known to do much more serious, dramatic one acts in the past, but we haven't been doing so well with those this year, so we thought we'd go for something a little more, as my director puts it, "hokey".
The cool thing about this one is that rather than having names, each character (except for the final director, a techie, Nick, Jack, Shannon and Jennifer) has a letter assigned to them, and you switch characters throughout the entire play. It's a challenge as an actor, because it forces you to examine how you're putting together a clear persona of one character, who could be the antithesis of another one you have to play in five minutes.
Character formulation is one of the most difficult things for me about acting. I'm not so much bad at it, but I have difficulty pinning down the precision in a character. For instance, how would this character stand, and what particular motions would they make? One might flick her fingers as she says something, while another might nod her head. So far, I haven't played a single character the same way twice. Eventually I'll settle down into each. Unfortunately for me, in this play, my letter ("A") doesn't go offstage once, meaning that I'll have to be perfectly in character the entire time. It will be exhausting.
Theatre season makes me busy, but it's the kind of busy I like. It's not a busy that has me rushing from place to place- on the contrary, on most days, I end up staying at school for several hours after the last bell has rung. It feels homey. I like knowing that I have to be on stage for two hours after school, to run the same section over and over again until I get it right. Everyone's got their niche, I suppose.
In other, completely unrelated news, Brian Jacques died earlier this week. He was the noted author of the children's book series, Redwall. My brother and I were both very fond of the series as children, and for awhile Patrick would only go by the name Matthias. I felt more akin to Cornflower, and I would spend more secret hours in the backyard pretending to be her. It takes a very particular kind of writing to be able to connect with children well, and Brian Jacques managed it with a well-worn flair in which good always wins over evil, but you're hanging off the edge of your seat anyways. Well done, sir. Rest in Peace.
This means that one acts have picked up in full. This year we're performing Cut by Ed Monk. It took us about three months of reading tacky scripts to settle on this one, but I'm pretty pleased with it myself. Our school has been known to do much more serious, dramatic one acts in the past, but we haven't been doing so well with those this year, so we thought we'd go for something a little more, as my director puts it, "hokey".
The cool thing about this one is that rather than having names, each character (except for the final director, a techie, Nick, Jack, Shannon and Jennifer) has a letter assigned to them, and you switch characters throughout the entire play. It's a challenge as an actor, because it forces you to examine how you're putting together a clear persona of one character, who could be the antithesis of another one you have to play in five minutes.
Character formulation is one of the most difficult things for me about acting. I'm not so much bad at it, but I have difficulty pinning down the precision in a character. For instance, how would this character stand, and what particular motions would they make? One might flick her fingers as she says something, while another might nod her head. So far, I haven't played a single character the same way twice. Eventually I'll settle down into each. Unfortunately for me, in this play, my letter ("A") doesn't go offstage once, meaning that I'll have to be perfectly in character the entire time. It will be exhausting.
Theatre season makes me busy, but it's the kind of busy I like. It's not a busy that has me rushing from place to place- on the contrary, on most days, I end up staying at school for several hours after the last bell has rung. It feels homey. I like knowing that I have to be on stage for two hours after school, to run the same section over and over again until I get it right. Everyone's got their niche, I suppose.
In other, completely unrelated news, Brian Jacques died earlier this week. He was the noted author of the children's book series, Redwall. My brother and I were both very fond of the series as children, and for awhile Patrick would only go by the name Matthias. I felt more akin to Cornflower, and I would spend more secret hours in the backyard pretending to be her. It takes a very particular kind of writing to be able to connect with children well, and Brian Jacques managed it with a well-worn flair in which good always wins over evil, but you're hanging off the edge of your seat anyways. Well done, sir. Rest in Peace.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Goodbye Snow...Goodbye Spring?
It's snowing outside, again. According to the local statistics, we've more than doubled our average snowfall between December and January, but I just don't believe it. It is a snowy winter, but we usually get about this amoung. Averages just don't work with things like snowfall in Maine, because you can have years like last year, where there's almost no snow, and it tips the average. So there.
I've been looking forward to spring, to squishing my toes in cold mud and breathing moist air and playing frisbee and everything else good that comes at the end of winter. I don't mind winter, and in fact, I tend to like it. Until around this time of year. It's too much black and white and slush for my tastes. Too much salt and brisk cold and snowfall. Too much, too much, too much.
I dream of spring. Speaking of which, I recommend Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury for these sorts of melancholy moods.
Unfortunately, my spring will be delayed, because I'm due for surgery on my sublexed tendons and fibular groove in March. It's sort of explained here.
The issue isn't so much the surgery, but the recovery. I've seen reports of anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months on that, but the consensus is that it's generally a crummy time for the type of person who has a subluxation syndrome. Apparently that person is usually an impatient athlete who wants to get back ASAP. Oh yeah. That's me. Yaaay. It's alright though, this will give me plenty of time to read everything that I've been meaning to read over the past year.
I've been looking forward to spring, to squishing my toes in cold mud and breathing moist air and playing frisbee and everything else good that comes at the end of winter. I don't mind winter, and in fact, I tend to like it. Until around this time of year. It's too much black and white and slush for my tastes. Too much salt and brisk cold and snowfall. Too much, too much, too much.
I dream of spring. Speaking of which, I recommend Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury for these sorts of melancholy moods.
Unfortunately, my spring will be delayed, because I'm due for surgery on my sublexed tendons and fibular groove in March. It's sort of explained here.
The issue isn't so much the surgery, but the recovery. I've seen reports of anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months on that, but the consensus is that it's generally a crummy time for the type of person who has a subluxation syndrome. Apparently that person is usually an impatient athlete who wants to get back ASAP. Oh yeah. That's me. Yaaay. It's alright though, this will give me plenty of time to read everything that I've been meaning to read over the past year.
Monday, February 7, 2011
This is Not A New Year's Resolution, or, Sir, We're Lazy.
I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. I know it's February, and I'm a little behind the ball on this post...
but I still just don't believe in them. It's sort of the same way I don't believe in diets. In each, you promise yourself to do something, either for a limited period of time, or permenantly, and in each, you end up stopping. I don't believe in the formality, because I believe in intent changes. So, I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. I do, however, believe in everyday resolutions.
Disclaimer: The following is NOT a New Year's resolution.
My family is super unhealthy. Especially this time of year. We're so inactive, and so busy that normal, healthy dinners fall by the wayside. Every night, we plop down in front of our screens and sit in the same room together for two hours, without saying a word to one another. It just seems all wrong to me.
My plan is to make my family healthier. Not just me, but my entire family. I hate the thought of seeing all of us turn into vegetables. Honestly, it makes me depressed. Which is why I'm doing something about it. The issue then lies in how I decide to go about this. It's much more difficult to say, "Hey, Mom, Dad, we're all lazy and fat, let's go run a mile!" than it would seem. Which is part of why I decided to officially create the first ever Pelletier odometer challenge. We're starting in April (or, they are. More on this later), when hopefully most of the snow is gone, and going to the end of September. The goal is to see who can get the most miles on their bicycle odometer. At first, this started out just between myself and my mom, dad, and brother. Then, after some online banter, an aunt jumped in. Then a cousin.
The competition just grew and grew, and now there are more than ten of us competing to win the pool of money (ten dollars for each contestant).
But that's just the beginning, and it doesn't quite solve the screen issue. This will take more effort on my part.
but I still just don't believe in them. It's sort of the same way I don't believe in diets. In each, you promise yourself to do something, either for a limited period of time, or permenantly, and in each, you end up stopping. I don't believe in the formality, because I believe in intent changes. So, I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. I do, however, believe in everyday resolutions.
Disclaimer: The following is NOT a New Year's resolution.
My family is super unhealthy. Especially this time of year. We're so inactive, and so busy that normal, healthy dinners fall by the wayside. Every night, we plop down in front of our screens and sit in the same room together for two hours, without saying a word to one another. It just seems all wrong to me.
My plan is to make my family healthier. Not just me, but my entire family. I hate the thought of seeing all of us turn into vegetables. Honestly, it makes me depressed. Which is why I'm doing something about it. The issue then lies in how I decide to go about this. It's much more difficult to say, "Hey, Mom, Dad, we're all lazy and fat, let's go run a mile!" than it would seem. Which is part of why I decided to officially create the first ever Pelletier odometer challenge. We're starting in April (or, they are. More on this later), when hopefully most of the snow is gone, and going to the end of September. The goal is to see who can get the most miles on their bicycle odometer. At first, this started out just between myself and my mom, dad, and brother. Then, after some online banter, an aunt jumped in. Then a cousin.
The competition just grew and grew, and now there are more than ten of us competing to win the pool of money (ten dollars for each contestant).
But that's just the beginning, and it doesn't quite solve the screen issue. This will take more effort on my part.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Adieu Empirical Formulas
Alas, interwebs. I must announce my defeat to you.
After a long and ruthless battle with me, it has finally won. I have finally succumbed to its power.
That's right. I dropped honors Chemistry.
Because it sucked.
January and February are notoriously busy. I know I say that about every month. And then we got to moles, which I could handle. But then... see now, I can't even remember what I left off on before departing the class. It was that confusing. Level 1 is much more comfortable.
After a long and ruthless battle with me, it has finally won. I have finally succumbed to its power.
That's right. I dropped honors Chemistry.
Because it sucked.
January and February are notoriously busy. I know I say that about every month. And then we got to moles, which I could handle. But then... see now, I can't even remember what I left off on before departing the class. It was that confusing. Level 1 is much more comfortable.
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