squash
September 30, 2012
Ready for roasting, and so pretty.
Posted by jodi on September 30, 2012 at 9.10am
found
September 28, 2012
A piece of the triforce?
Posted by jodi on September 28, 2012 at 1.56pm
meet the kitties
September 20, 2012
This is Skeeter. She is about a year old according to the shelter’s estimate, and she is named after a country singer. This photo was taken on her first day with us, right after I shouted “oy!” to prevent her from scrambling from the window ledge onto the piano keys, Kevin style (yup, she’s a peckerhead). She’s inquisitive and full of energy, and had fully explored the main floor and basement within the first five minutes of arriving in her new home. On just her second day of going outside on her own, I looked out the dining room window just in time to see her come careening across the back patio in hot pursuit of a squirrel, both of them rolling over a few times before crashing into the side of the house together. Yup. She’s a peckerhead.
She does have all four legs, some of them just move quickly.
Skeeter likes: head scritches; running up and down like a wild animal; going outside and wedging herself under the front porch; being picked up and cuddled (for a little while); licking things; playing the bite-me game; scratching furniture. Skeeter dislikes: wet cat food; being touched on her sides; the guitar; the name tag that dangles from her collar; Wanda.
And this is Wanda. She is also around a year old, and she is named after the grandmother of rockabilly. Wanda is a little more cautious, and had found a good hiding spot behind the furnace within her first five minutes in her new home. Here she is on day two, nervous on the basement floor after I’d coaxed her out of her corner:
Wanda has long fur growing out from between her toes, which gave me the wiggins at first (although I’m beginning to get used to it). Although she seems to weigh about half a kilogram, she’s got a rich, deep, resounding growl which she employs pretty much every time Skeeter gets close to her.
Wanda likes: quiet places; pretty much every kind of snuggling; curling up to sleep next to wet, blocking knits; chasing yarn; yogourt. Wanda dislikes: being picked up; loud noises; Skeeter.
Wanda spends much of her free time peeking adorably out from absurdly inadequate hiding places.
Skeeter spends much of her free time blending in with the chesterfield.
Posted by jodi on September 20, 2012 at 7.33pm
red and sweet
September 15, 2012
A little more of the season’s preserving: this is about a quarter bushel of sweet red bell peppers, roasted and packed in oil. Best enjoyed, if you’re the vegan hippie type (hint: I am), like this:
Atop slices of wheat-free flax “bread” (recipe from Ani Phyo’s Raw Food Kitchen) spread with a gingery cashew pâté.
Posted by jodi on September 15, 2012 at 9.13am
the listening project road show: volume III
September 13, 2012
The Listening Project Road Show returns to Phog Lounge this Tuesday, September 18, for Volume 3. This time we’ve got a selection of the most recent releases in the LP collection for you to choose from. The poll is open now, so get your votes in for which records will be played! Right here: CLICK TO VOTE NOW
Then come on down to Phog Lounge, 157 University Avenue West in Windsor at 8:00pm, listen with us and join in the conversation. Don’t forget to bring your laptop, phone or other internet device, as the conversation takes place on the Listening Project website so that it’s archived for posterity.
If you want to be part of the project but can’t make it to Phog on Tuesday night, you can always join in from afar in the usual way: as the needle drops on each record, a post will appear on the main page of the website (http://listeningproject.ca) and you can join us there in the comments. Just keep refreshing the page to follow along. We don’t broadcast the music, but you can always listen along by getting yourself a copy of the records, or searching for songs and videos online. Or you can join in the conversation without listening: it’s only marginally about the music anyway.
Posted by jodi on September 13, 2012 at 8.43pm
the japanese knotweed is in full flower
September 12, 2012
And bigger than ever.
Posted by jodi on September 12, 2012 at 7.46am
banana bran muffins
September 10, 2012
I love that my mom, when she wrote this recipe card out for me, copied down the name of the person she got it from and the original date. I wrote in the note about the 3 bananas because, seriously, who measures bananas in cups? They are their own unit of measure already. Of course, my muffins always turn out a little too banana-y. Which maybe proves somethings about kids and moms, I don’t know.
Changes I make to the original recipe:
-of course I use a little less sugar. I ALWAYS use a little less sugar, in everything.
-use half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose.
-add about an eighth of a cup of flax seed; of that, about half is ground and half whole.
-I grease the pans with BUTTER! Because, duh. Butter.
Posted by jodi on September 10, 2012 at 7.20pm
new faces
September 7, 2012
We are diving back in right away and inviting two new kitties into our home. Last night we visited the Windsor Humane Society, where we faced the agonizing challenge of evaluating potential new family members based on their looks and how charmingly they greeted us through glass. Although some of my previous cats have been adopted strays (like Kevin), I’ve always received them from family members (my dad’s house in the country is a stray cat hot spot) and had never been to the shelter before. I had my heart broken a little bit about twenty times in there, but in the end we decided to bring these two sweet little girls home with us.
Bachelorette #1*:
and Bachelorette #2**:
Both of them are about a year old***; Bachelorette #1 is an owner surrender because the owner had more animals than they could take care of; this tells us that this girl is going to be okay with having another cat around. She cottoned onto us immediately, and seems like a perfect personality type for us: chill and affectionate but not too clingy (of course, we thought Kevin was pretty chill at first too, but that was before we discovered his low-blood-sugar MUST DESTROY spazz attack alter ego). Bachelorette #2 was a stray and is a bit more nervous with us, so she’s a bit of a wild card and we’re just hoping against hope that the two of them will get along. We are bringing them home later on tonight.
*, ** not their real names. Their shelter names are cutesy and unacceptable, and we have not yet settled on new ones. I have a few ideas, but Peter is VERY resistant to Kenny and Dolly, for some reason.
***it amazes me that at the shelter they consider one year old cats to be “older”. They kept saying how great we were for wanting to adopt “older cats” after we declared our interest in these two. Our last cat before Kevin was 16 when she came to live with us.
Posted by jodi on September 7, 2012 at 4.33pm
making the most of
September 6, 2012
We eat a lot of cruciferous vegetables here in the jodi’s weblog household, and our little freezer fills up quickly with all of the stems of broccoli and cauliflower that I can’t bear to throw away, and the stubby little middles of carrots whose sweet outer layer I’ve grated into something or other. These scraps used to go into the stock pot to make vegetable broth, but ever since I discovered this lovely vegetable bouillon recipe there has been little need for stock around here. The bouillon packs a lot more flavour and takes up considerably less of our precious freezer space (I’m constantly “suggesting” to Peter that we invest in a tiny deep freeze, but for now we’re just using the little fridge-top one). So, what to do with all those frozen vegetable bits now that they’re being evicted from the freezer by a giant hoard of roasted tomatoes?
Broccoli soup.
I started with a chopped onion fried in a giant amount of butter mixed with olive oil, then threw in three stalks of fresh broccoli, stems and all (peeling the stems first). Then in went the contents of all of those bags, probably at least twenty whole broccoli stems (unpeeled, but freezing and thawing seems to make the stems less woody, so I didn’t worry about it too much), maybe six heads’ worth of cauliflower stems, and a handful of carrot bits and ends. All this was allowed to cook down a bit with a lid on for half an hour or so, then a couple of generous dollops of that frozen bouillon, some freshly ground black pepper and enough water to boil it all went in and it simmered for another half an hour. Then it all went through a blender (I had to add some water to get it all to blend nicely) and pressed through a colander (the only tedious part), and back into the pot to warm it all back up before eating. After straining, there was very little woody material left behind from the frozen broccoli, but the soup was perfectly creamy and smooth.
We served it with a little mound of brown rice, topped with dry toasted slivered almonds.
There was enough soup to put a litre and a half into the freezer as well as a litre into the fridge for leftovers. Considering how much more freezer space the stock would have demanded (10+ large yogourt tubs vs. two 750ml jars) I patted myself on the back afterwards like I’d performed some kind of incredibly clever magic trick.
Posted by jodi on September 6, 2012 at 10.57am
notes on mustard, volume 9
September 4, 2012
In which we forget much of what we learned before and start anew.
It’s been six months since we made mustard, and in that time the original notes and handouts from Edward FitzRanulf’s class, which contained the recipes we’ve been using as a springboard for our experiments, have vanished beneath one of many piles of papers in this increasingly cluttered house. An internet search reveals that the website that contained FitzRanulf’s modern redaction of the strong mustard recipe has disappeared, so some guessing with amounts has had to happen. I’m certain it can’t be mucked up too badly, short of trying something foolish like substituting bourbon for vinegar.
So here is roughly what we did to come up with the Strong Mustard #5, after consulting with Digby to be sure we weren’t missing any ingredients:
-one cup of ground mustard seed, about a third of that rai kuria (yellow mustard seed, hulled and split) and the rest black; soaked in enough white wine vinegar to make a thick paste. Left overnight.
-one yellow onion, grated, and about three tablespoons of grated fresh horseradish, soaked overnight in red wine vinegar.
Both of these put together the next day and blended with salt, pepper, and dried ginger, in which we completely guessed at the amounts and also failed to take notes, because apparently we never learn. And enough additional white wine vinegar as was needed to get it to keep moving in the food processor.
This was all put up in a jar and left for a day at which time the memory of substituting ground almonds for FitzRanulf’s recommended bread crumbs surfaced, so the mustard was all tipped out of the jar, blended again with a cup of ground almonds, and piled back into the jar. I’m sure it will be fine.
Posted by jodi on September 4, 2012 at 9.36pm
