I might have to give bell peppers another shot. I don’t like them raw, but when I have them cooked in something like the black bean soup I just made for lunch I don’t get the aftertaste I don’t like. I’ve made black bean soup before without it and it tasted lacking, and now I think I know why. I also threw in a couple of coriander seeds since I've ( Read more... )

I've been experimenting with various sandwiches to take with me to work, and one I've played with is chicken salad. My version has  just a little bit of tarragon and some hard boiled egg. Speaking of eggs, I'll also try egg salad, since I actually used to hate egg salad as a kid, but maybe that was just the version the elementary school cafeteria ( Read more... )

I've noticed that my roommate can be a bit flaky when it comes to leaving food out, but the other day he horrified me when he left raw chicken in a containing to thaw on the counter and left for the night. I promptly stuck it in the refrigerator when I realized that and explained to him when he got home that doing that is a very good way to get ( Read more... )

Tarragon in chicken salad adds an interesting twist to it.

I also bought labels for my spice jars since I accidentally used thyme when I meant to use rosemary the other day since they look similar, and instead of labeling rosemary with its name I just put "yours truly" on the label. That will confuse anyone who is not me.

Glad to say that I successfully managed to roast a whole chicken last night without completely smoking up my apartment. It's been on the list of "stuff I should probably learn how to do now that I'm an adult" and I did the math and realized it's more economical to get a whole chicken and use it for several things. It was even cooked to the right ( Read more... )

Yeah, good thing I'm not a vegetarian, since I just got ten pounds of various types of meat in my PeaPod order, so if I was a vegetarian I'd be the worst vegetarian ever.*

There is method to my madness, since I freeze it, and when I put in a PeaPod order it generally lasts me a few months. I generally reserve PeaPod orders for when I'm running low ( Read more... )

"In this book all ingredients except rhinoceros are available in the U.S.A."

I swear I'm not making that up. It's a Chinese cookbook first published in 1959, and there's a lot of unintentionally hilarious bits in it on account of it being published 50 years ago. There's also casual mention of M.S.G. as an ingredient, lard as an ingredient, and ( Read more... )

Gah, definitely allergy season. Developed a splitting headache during the day, lay down for a bit, and slept for about 3 hours. I then woke up groggy, but pulled myself together long enough to make dinner.

I was woken up by a thumping sound, and a couple minutes later there was a knock on my door. My next door neighbors were trying to move a couch ( Read more... )

Today as part of my CrimJ seminar we went up to the State House, which is literally right around the block, and had a tour. I'd been in the State House before and seen some of it, but this was a different sort of tour and in parts I hadn't seen before ( Read more... )

I'm putting this down here so I don't forget what I did, but I figured out how to make english muffins from scratch after two tries. I did a mish-mash of two recipes and got a pretty good result.

( Recipe for 18 muffins )