The Indian Accountant

Told me about the two specialty shops in her plaza. One Asian and one Middle Eastern. She told me about lentils and their many varieties. She also spoke of spices.

I put green lentils in the crockpot this morning. I prepared some clarified butter in which to mix cumin seeds, fresh ginger, curry powder, turmeric powder and coriander powder. In another twenty minutes (when the brown rice is ready) I will have lentils and rice with Indian spices.

 

 

Above- the bent spoon used to make clarified butter.

 

 

Who Am I?

I know I've asked that before after a cooking adventure or two but this new thing every week has now been going on for several weeks. Seriously, who am I?

I also found some medjool dates to make another batch of unbaked brownies. Furthermore I know the difference between medjool dates and the less expensive variety.

Greathusbandbob is out and about for the afternoon. This means that once I enjoy my lunch I will watch made for t.v. movies from the 70's and 80's and get the laundry done early.

Tomorrow I will make and freeze some bean chili in case I run out of lunches next week and will prepare the brownies. Knowing how good they are I must put off preparing them so I don't have an entire day to resist them.

Also I purchased the one liter size of olive oil because I keep running out. I almost bought the kind that is in a metal can like a gas can but thought that would feel pretentious and have a slight hint of cultural appropriation.

 

And while it doesn't necessarily photograph well, it tasted AMAZING!

 

I'm no empath...

And maybe these are just the post traumatic after-effects of that header I took a few summers ago, landing head first on the cement but....

Here are things that have made me twitch, squirm, blanch and quease of late.

The bandaid on my cousins nose where I know they had to take out some cancer cells.

The three inch (completely healed, mind you) scar on greathusbandbob's belly from the kidney removal.

The mere thought that someday I might have to have some sort of surgery performed on myself. I am so creeped out by that, it's nearly reaching my "fear of the dentist" proportions. Even though there is no surgery planned.

Watching one of the high school kids tackle another one. In football, with pads, on a damn little iPhone where they look like little bugs.

Any acted on television, not real, misstep, trip, bump, kick or jolt. Don't even get me started on the guy from the defenders (Netflix) flying from building top to building top.

I am a walking virtual reality bot. At school today the kids saw a production of you're a good man Charlie Brown. There is a point where Charlie pretends to bang his head against a tree and creates the sound effect elsewhere. I flinched and jumped at that. Aargh.

In other news, my accountant, who is of Indian heritage, said to try green lentils in the crockpot with turmeric and cumin so that may be this weekends cooking experiment. There is a Middle Eastern grocery store near her office. Also not far from Aunt's place. I picked up some lentils and some more dates for brownies. I may have to investigate Indian recipes. There were so many interesting items in that store.

I'm knitting a scarf based on Frank Lloyd Wright architecture. It feels Mondrian with more blues, grays and greens and not primary colors. Using the magic counter that knitnightmarc turned into an app makes lots of long boring rows move more quickly when there is a timer telling you what percentage you have accomplished and how much you have yet to go.

Weekend Dining

Come to find I am an excellent cook when making food I love.

This morning's activities started with some easy peasy hummus and again some leftover carrots.

 

The big experiment of the morning were chocolate covered Katie's ultimate unbaked brownies. The main ingredients are dates and nuts. It called for just walnuts but I had (and therefore used) a walnut/macadamia/cashew combo.

 

Dates are sticky gooey. Once food processed they make the processor tired. It becomes the texture of those little Debbie brownies. Cocoa makes it chocolatey. The frosting is coconut oil, vanilla, maple syrup and cocoa. I don't know much about dates. They kind of creep me out but the internet says they're good for you. It looks like this-

 

I don't know how they taste yet. After you make them they need to be refrigerated for two hours.

This was followed by the main course- brown rice with mushroom stroganoff. The bonus of using the stroganoff seasoning vs. just Italian seasoning is that the spice packet seems to have a bit of a thickening agent. Greathusbandbob ate it. I asked if it was good. He gave a lukewarm "yeah- I kept looking for the meat though". I thought it was spectacular and had the feeling of mushroom risotto.

There's a head of cauliflower in the fridge waiting to become cauliflower crust pizza tomorrow. Rather than using sauce and cheese I'm going to top with olive oil and garlic and use with the hummus. There will also be bean chili for lunches next week.

 

Just You Wait.

What not to say to your spouse who has been counting calories tediously since July- "while you're up there will you heat up that apple dumpling I bought and put some ice cream on it."

My internal response was are you f-ing kidding me? I managed to pull off a "really?" And he said, oh wait nevermind, I'll get it.

I love the guy So Much, but I'm thinking of starting a club called "think before you speak."

Talking to my doctor this week, he thinks it's emotional abuse to even have those treats in the house. If he only knew.

This week was a leftover week- some hummus, some bean chili, another batch of quinoa and black beans. I had quite a shopping list that never came to fruition. I'll try tomorrow. There is a recipe for no-bake brownies involving prunes and cocoa and there will definitely be many lemons and chick peas for more hummus.

And hopefully an interesting colorful blog post.

Since then-

Don't feel like talking about school.  It goes on as usual.  The new schedule is heavy at the beginning of the week and falls away as the week goes on.  Since I've always seen kids twice a week and now it's only once, planning is a breeze- though content is taking a hit.

Of interest this week has been food.  It's been overnight oatmeal every morning made especially delicious with the maple syrup gifted to me by kmkat.  I made another round of meatless chili last weekend for some frozen lunches.

The new recipes of the week include one with quinoa and black beans- seasoned with red pepper and cumin.  While the recipe didn't call for it, I wrapped this in a tortilla shell and found it very pleasant.

Today I revisited (from several years ago) homemade hummus.  Chick peas, lemon juice, tahini, garlic and cumin.  It's kind of amazing the way you can put those things together and create such deliciousness.  

I've also realized that baby carrots have the superpower of being a hummus delivery device.  When we have them in the house they usually go bad.  Turn on their hummus delivery device super power and you run out of them well before you grow weary of them.

So far I think my three favorite finds in this adventure have been chia seeds, cumin and tahini.  Last night I had tahini, chia seeds and honey on some sprouted bread.  It was oh so filling and the opposite of chicken.  This only makes sense if you realize how I have come to detest chicken in all its incarnations.

There is a blog called chocolatecoveredkatie which appears to have quite a few interesting possibilities.  I trust her having had success with her black bean brownies.  It's a little bit crazy the amount of time I've been spending in the kitchen lately.  I might even learn to make it less complicated and enjoy it more.

All manner of kid things to make one smile.

The high school.  What a great gift this class was to my burnt out self.  The girl who I thought was suspicious of me declared me her favorite teacher this morning.  Although it might have been because she wanted a reference for a special activity but I kind of think it's not.

It was so much fun with the straws, we took some notes and moved to the trumpet mouthpieces and brass tubing.

The mouthpieces were $3 each so I let them keep them.  The above mentioned class member shared hers with her 2 year old sister and returned to class the next day with this-

THAT was so much fun that I rushed through my chat on orchestral and folk string instruments and brought the cigar box slide guitar kit for assembly.

Presenting the various eras of history and the music from each has the potential to be not as interesting. I've started brain storming about how to maintain interest.  As of now the plan is to play some Renaissance dance music on the ukulele.  Not sure what I'll do when we hit the Classical or Romantic period.

After we finish all of the instruments in the portion of the course on timbre, we will be talking about pitch.  I found out THIS was a thing.  It rolls up.  It weighs nothing.  It takes batteries or can be powered with a computer USB.  This will be handy.

With the younger ones I was asked to give some extra recess to K-er's this afternoon, looked up and spotted this- no one needs to be taught that trees are made to be danced around.  That tree must be so happy.

And finally from/for the youngest set.  Greatniece's baby girl due in October-  They had a shower where they live in New York and I finally spotted a theme to knit around.  The little mitts were to be fox faces but greathusbandbob suggested paws and that's the best.  There's also a standard baby sock pattern that I will do in the same colors so that all four "paws" are covered.

Just lots of things to smile at. I can't argue with that.

Introducing...

One of the three remaining people who read this blog.  I started blogging in 2007.  Kmkat started hers in 2006.  I believe we became friends shortly thereafter.  Today as she traveled through these United States, she stopped for dinner here in the 'burg.  I can only hope that she was as delighted with our company as greathusbandbob and I were with hers.

Yarn snob-Food snob. Same difference.

There has always been a certain amount of joking from knitters about hiding yarn from household members. We don't have that problem here because we spend allowances. Buy what you want, as much as you want and when you want as long as you are paying for it.

Of late resources have been diverted to food items and since those have to be stored in a shared space there is a certain amount of planning that goes into storage. As long as I keep the paper plates, salt and pepper in easily accessed places and things don't fall out of the cupboard, it's all good.

There may or may not have been eyebrows raised at the brown rice syrup, brown rice pasta and one pound bag of raw cashews but you really can't argue with the +/- 20 lbs lost. He knows my argument and has it with himself with every bag I bring in. It's easier that way.

However, countertop appliances are his nemesis. The blender is on top of the refrigerator. The mini-chopper has a cozy spot in the cupboard as do the canning jars. (I knew I'd eventually find a use for those).

In my car at this very moment is a life-size food processor. It's just the $30 one Athough anybody could have convinced me to go big or go home, I learned my lesson of not buying expensive tools until you know what you're doing and know if you're going to keep doing it.

I am waiting for a time when he is not closely scrutinizing what I bring into the house (like when he's not home!) for that. At the very least I want it to be out of the box before he sees it. And he hates cardboard boxes so I may leave that in the car. I can't hide it forever if I want to use it but the goal is to weave it into the fabric of our lives and pretend we've had it for years.

After a nap I will look into making plant based (no cheese sauce) macaroni and cheese. If this can be a healthy low-calorie alternative I will be thrilled (but will have to find a reliable source for nutritional yeast). Other weekend adventures include black bean brownies made with dark chocolate and the go-to honey oat granola bars.

What. The. What. I am cooking food. That's just cray cray.