Happy New Year
We began our new year promptly at midnight with a glass of port, a kiss, and Anthony Bourdain. Soon after, we went into the kitchen to soak the black eyed peas and put a turkey breast in the crockpot (I figured I'd see how it worked out). Then, Jessie spent a while messing around with a mirliton (or chayote squash), trying to figure out what to do with it for dinner while I made some Mexican cocoa (the kind with the mean-looking abuela on the box) in my wonderful Cocoa-motion. It was okay, but I'll stick to plain old cocoa in the future. The Mexican kind has cinnamon in it, and is a little spicy (tastes like it had red hots in it). We then went back to Anthony Bourdain. I continued reading up on Kevin Smith's boring ass life, while Jessie watched Anthony down some sheep's gut and steer testicles. I did watch when he got tazered, though (they replayed the scene about seven times) and where he busted his ass at a skating rink...it's funny to watch him suffer. When the mini-Bourdain marathon ended, we headed off to bed to read some more (Jessie reading some cookbooks) and watch adult swim...until Shin Chan comes on, and I turn the television off with great haste. I finish up 20 Sept. 2005 in the boring ass book and call it a night.
I got up at 8 to check the turkey, then read while Alex took over our room to watch the pokemon movie marathon on cartoon network. I checked the turkey again at 10, turned it from "low" to "warm" and then went back to bed and dozed off before getting Jessie up to start on lunch. We ended up deciding to postpone the new year's meal until dinner to allow the black eyed peas more time to slow cook, so we ended up with tacos for lunch.
After lunch, I surfed the net for pictures to connect faces to the names Kevin Smith drops in his blog, which ultimately causes me to spend a few hours reading the message boards on imdb.com, something I've not done in a while, but find greatly amusing. While surfing the photos at the actual boring ass blog, I find a picture of Jason Lee that reminds me of Jme's husband, and send her the link.
Dinner time rolls around, and I put up the laptop to go prepare the cabbage dish for the day, while Jessie continues to clean the kitchen between bouts of WoW. I got a wild hair up my butt yesterday to make Eggroll Soup for the cabbage dish (don't know where it came from, as I've never heard of it before, but it seemed like a good idea at the time). It turned out rather well. First, I marinated some pork chop strips for a few minute in sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Then I stir fried it with some green onions. While that was cooking, i threw some angel hair cabbage (the pre-bagged for slaw stuff) and carrots in the food processor. Once the pork was done, I also chopped it up in the food processor and then mixed it with the carrots and cabbage (this is my usual eggroll stuffing). Then I stir fried the lot, and while it was going, I filled the bigger wok up with water, brought it to a boil and added a knorr chicken bullion cube, green onions, and a couple drops each of sesame oil and soy sauce. After it came back to a boil, I added the stir fry and brought it back up. While I was waiting for the final boil, I heated up the fry baby and started frying wonton strips. Once the soup hit a boil, I put it on low to simmer, while I fried the rest of the wonton wrappers. Then I served up the soup in my cool Asian soup bowls (complete with cool Asian soup spoons) and topped each off with the fried wontons. It was pretty good, but could do with a little salt (I'm very salt intolerant, and the knorr cubes are pretty salty, so I didn't add extra salt for fear of over-salting). Next time, I don't think I'll chop up the angel hair cabbage or the match stick carrots. I'll just let them float around happily in the soup.
After the soup, we had the slow cooked turkey, which was extremely tender and moist, instant potatoes, Stovetop stuffing, and the black eyed peas (urgh). Man, I hate black eyed peas. No matter how they are cooked, they still taste gross (this year, we slow cooked them with salt pork and a little molasses).
Well, I'm off now to try to clean up the rest of the kitchen (or, more likely, go read some more of the blog book).
Happy New Year, all!
I got up at 8 to check the turkey, then read while Alex took over our room to watch the pokemon movie marathon on cartoon network. I checked the turkey again at 10, turned it from "low" to "warm" and then went back to bed and dozed off before getting Jessie up to start on lunch. We ended up deciding to postpone the new year's meal until dinner to allow the black eyed peas more time to slow cook, so we ended up with tacos for lunch.
After lunch, I surfed the net for pictures to connect faces to the names Kevin Smith drops in his blog, which ultimately causes me to spend a few hours reading the message boards on imdb.com, something I've not done in a while, but find greatly amusing. While surfing the photos at the actual boring ass blog, I find a picture of Jason Lee that reminds me of Jme's husband, and send her the link.
Dinner time rolls around, and I put up the laptop to go prepare the cabbage dish for the day, while Jessie continues to clean the kitchen between bouts of WoW. I got a wild hair up my butt yesterday to make Eggroll Soup for the cabbage dish (don't know where it came from, as I've never heard of it before, but it seemed like a good idea at the time). It turned out rather well. First, I marinated some pork chop strips for a few minute in sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Then I stir fried it with some green onions. While that was cooking, i threw some angel hair cabbage (the pre-bagged for slaw stuff) and carrots in the food processor. Once the pork was done, I also chopped it up in the food processor and then mixed it with the carrots and cabbage (this is my usual eggroll stuffing). Then I stir fried the lot, and while it was going, I filled the bigger wok up with water, brought it to a boil and added a knorr chicken bullion cube, green onions, and a couple drops each of sesame oil and soy sauce. After it came back to a boil, I added the stir fry and brought it back up. While I was waiting for the final boil, I heated up the fry baby and started frying wonton strips. Once the soup hit a boil, I put it on low to simmer, while I fried the rest of the wonton wrappers. Then I served up the soup in my cool Asian soup bowls (complete with cool Asian soup spoons) and topped each off with the fried wontons. It was pretty good, but could do with a little salt (I'm very salt intolerant, and the knorr cubes are pretty salty, so I didn't add extra salt for fear of over-salting). Next time, I don't think I'll chop up the angel hair cabbage or the match stick carrots. I'll just let them float around happily in the soup.
After the soup, we had the slow cooked turkey, which was extremely tender and moist, instant potatoes, Stovetop stuffing, and the black eyed peas (urgh). Man, I hate black eyed peas. No matter how they are cooked, they still taste gross (this year, we slow cooked them with salt pork and a little molasses).
Well, I'm off now to try to clean up the rest of the kitchen (or, more likely, go read some more of the blog book).
Happy New Year, all!