Weekend in review: mostly cooking
Apr. 3rd, 2011 02:32 pmI seem to be posting infrequent bursts of domesticity lately. I should really do something about the multiple tabs that collect in Firefox, but am perfectly ok with uneventfulness right now. REALLY AND TRULY. So be prepared for rambling accounts of my weekend.
Friday: grocery shopping after work while tired and hungry and coming home to collapse on the couch in front of the TV with grocery store chicken, potato salad and coleslaw.
Ominous spring snowstorm clouds. Forecast calls for 15-20 cm over the weekend. This does not bode well for driving to Calgary Sunday morning for friends' book launch events.
I finished knitting a sock! I now have four socks and a fingerless mitt. Sounds good, right? Two pairs? If only! These are four separate socks. I have four more socks (and a fingerless mitt) to knit. Have been informed that this is known as Second Sock Syndrome.
Saturday: Oh, spring snow. I sleep in,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
troutkitty get up and writes. Then I drive her to work, stop at local-coffee-place-that-roasts-its-own-beans for more beans, stop at the Asian Market to see if they have injera. They tell me not yet, but it will be in by two. I'm not sure if they get it daily, or only on Saturdays, but it's definitely made fresh. Mmm, injera. Sourdough-ish spongey Ethiopian flatbread.
Head home, look up recipes, discover I need more things. Back to the Asian Market an hour later, get still-warm injera and missing spices, stop at the grocery store for a handful of other ingredients, and another stop at the drugstore for a cheap coffee grinder for spice grinding. (We made Ethiopian last weekend with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zulu and bell. The coffee grinder, they will not be surprised to hear, is MUCH more effective than grinding things up by hand with a mortar and pestle.)
I got ambitious, and decided to make the spice mix (berbere) and clarified, spiced butter (niter kebbeh) that are used for most Ethiopian stews and such. I diligently followed directions and toasted the spices in a cast iron pan, and ground things as needed. It totally paid off, taste-wise, wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought, and means we have the ingredients ready to go. However, even a day later, the whole house still smells spicy.
I used the second berbere recipe and the first niter kebbeh recipe from this page. ( recipe )
I also made:
Iab cottage cheese and yogurt: good, but a bit bland. Maybe next time I'll drain regular cottage cheese instead of using dry cottage cheese curds. For the record, "salad herbs" in this case were parsley and a bit of basil.( recipe )
Mustard lentils: SO GOOD. I added 1 tsp fenugreek as well, which I'd seen in another recipe. Brown lentils that keep their shape work best. This is probably the one we're most likely to make often, since it only takes half an hour, and not close to two like the red lentils. ( recipe )
Red lentil stew: Also delicious! Could have been even spicier. I think the ground hot pepper I used this time was less potent than cayenne, so I underestimated. Also, I skipped the black cardamon on account of not having any, and used half an onion instead of a whole one. You need to use red lentils if you want them to break down into a paste. ( recipe )
Chickpea flour stew: This one was ultimately disappointing. Kind of gummy and, I dunno, maybe I undercooked the flour? It had a raw sort of taste to it. It was a half of the recipe, which serves ten as written. Maybe the leftover can be panfried as fritters or something. ( recipe )
SO good, overall, with a bottle of red wine. Then we watched the first few episodes of True Blood, and I knitted the cuff for a second sock.
True Blood verdict: kind of like the bastard lovechild of Deadwood-and-Justified with something like Smallville but with vampires? Much fluffier than Deadwood and Justified. I'm not in love with it, but mildly interested and enjoying it more than the books. I've read the first few, and found them kind of flat. However, now I am craving homemade iced tea with lemon. Might have to do something about that.
Today: Did not chance the roads and missed out on book launch activities in Calgary. Considering that the police were not advising travel in Calgary yesterday, though... if it had been a later afternoon event, we may have gone, but it was a lunch thing starting at eleven. Stupid spring blizzards. I slept in ridiculously long until close to noon and have been feeling overslept and groggy all afternoon. Linkhopped on AO3, and ended up rereading Written by the Victors. Need to get moving, eat something, and toss in a load or two of laundry. And make iced tea.
Friday: grocery shopping after work while tired and hungry and coming home to collapse on the couch in front of the TV with grocery store chicken, potato salad and coleslaw.
Ominous spring snowstorm clouds. Forecast calls for 15-20 cm over the weekend. This does not bode well for driving to Calgary Sunday morning for friends' book launch events.
I finished knitting a sock! I now have four socks and a fingerless mitt. Sounds good, right? Two pairs? If only! These are four separate socks. I have four more socks (and a fingerless mitt) to knit. Have been informed that this is known as Second Sock Syndrome.
Saturday: Oh, spring snow. I sleep in,
troutkitty get up and writes. Then I drive her to work, stop at local-coffee-place-that-roasts-its-own-beans for more beans, stop at the Asian Market to see if they have injera. They tell me not yet, but it will be in by two. I'm not sure if they get it daily, or only on Saturdays, but it's definitely made fresh. Mmm, injera. Sourdough-ish spongey Ethiopian flatbread. Head home, look up recipes, discover I need more things. Back to the Asian Market an hour later, get still-warm injera and missing spices, stop at the grocery store for a handful of other ingredients, and another stop at the drugstore for a cheap coffee grinder for spice grinding. (We made Ethiopian last weekend with
zulu and bell. The coffee grinder, they will not be surprised to hear, is MUCH more effective than grinding things up by hand with a mortar and pestle.)I got ambitious, and decided to make the spice mix (berbere) and clarified, spiced butter (niter kebbeh) that are used for most Ethiopian stews and such. I diligently followed directions and toasted the spices in a cast iron pan, and ground things as needed. It totally paid off, taste-wise, wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought, and means we have the ingredients ready to go. However, even a day later, the whole house still smells spicy.
I used the second berbere recipe and the first niter kebbeh recipe from this page. ( recipe )
I also made:
Iab cottage cheese and yogurt: good, but a bit bland. Maybe next time I'll drain regular cottage cheese instead of using dry cottage cheese curds. For the record, "salad herbs" in this case were parsley and a bit of basil.( recipe )
Mustard lentils: SO GOOD. I added 1 tsp fenugreek as well, which I'd seen in another recipe. Brown lentils that keep their shape work best. This is probably the one we're most likely to make often, since it only takes half an hour, and not close to two like the red lentils. ( recipe )
Red lentil stew: Also delicious! Could have been even spicier. I think the ground hot pepper I used this time was less potent than cayenne, so I underestimated. Also, I skipped the black cardamon on account of not having any, and used half an onion instead of a whole one. You need to use red lentils if you want them to break down into a paste. ( recipe )
Chickpea flour stew: This one was ultimately disappointing. Kind of gummy and, I dunno, maybe I undercooked the flour? It had a raw sort of taste to it. It was a half of the recipe, which serves ten as written. Maybe the leftover can be panfried as fritters or something. ( recipe )
SO good, overall, with a bottle of red wine. Then we watched the first few episodes of True Blood, and I knitted the cuff for a second sock.
True Blood verdict: kind of like the bastard lovechild of Deadwood-and-Justified with something like Smallville but with vampires? Much fluffier than Deadwood and Justified. I'm not in love with it, but mildly interested and enjoying it more than the books. I've read the first few, and found them kind of flat. However, now I am craving homemade iced tea with lemon. Might have to do something about that.
Today: Did not chance the roads and missed out on book launch activities in Calgary. Considering that the police were not advising travel in Calgary yesterday, though... if it had been a later afternoon event, we may have gone, but it was a lunch thing starting at eleven. Stupid spring blizzards. I slept in ridiculously long until close to noon and have been feeling overslept and groggy all afternoon. Linkhopped on AO3, and ended up rereading Written by the Victors. Need to get moving, eat something, and toss in a load or two of laundry. And make iced tea.
