34 Degrees in South Texas and Hobbits are Merry... except for that bit about the student loans.
It's 34 degrees in Austin today, and near 20 with the wind chill. "So what?" most of you are thinking. Well, look at a map. Every time I do, I am stunned to rediscover just how amazingly far south Austin, Texas really is. It's like way farther south than Los Angeles, for example! We live crazy far south. So weather this cold is a big, big deal here... at least that's what my native Austinite kittens keep telling me. As a result, there will be no leaving of the house for the hobbit if I can avoid it! I had little to tell you previously even with such exciting adventures as, "Trace at the Post Office!" and its sequel, "Darmok and Jalad at Hobby Lobby." While shunning the bitter cold in favor of warm and happy hobbit home, there is even less to report than usual. Which means my attempt to find something to tell you will yield results necessitating the LJ Cut because this entry is so long.
Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
Attempt #3 at a particular recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce beat the pants off attempts nos. 1-2 -- of course, since I burned the sauce the first time by letting it simmer too long, it really wasn't hard to beat the first attempt, I must admit. Changes this time included jaynefury's suggestion to use Hunts brand canned tomatoes. Normally I don't care for the sweetness in Hunts, or at least I think I don't, but whaddaya know, that turned out to be just right in the sauce! Fearing it would be too sweet, I left out the original recipe's call for a little bit of sugar in the sauce. What I did do was precisely follow its directions on how much oregano, basil, salt, and pepper to add -- which was about three times what instinct told me I should add. It was delicious! Ian's belly is not fond of too much garlic, however, so I skimped a bit on the recipe's requirement to three times the amount of garlic needed to put down a whole nest of vampires.
This sauce will be making a reappearance in tomorrow night's dinner: Lasagna!
Hobbit Roast Chicken
Last night's culinary experiment was a recipe for Roast Chicken Dinner -- one of those grown-up dishes with roast chicken with veggies stuffed under the bird. The recipe called to coat the bird in a mixture of the following: 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1.25 teaspoons of salt, 1.25 teaspoons of black pepper. Srsly?? That seemed like CRAZY amounts of salt and pepper to me! See above note about the difference between my instinct on spices and what recipes call for. I split the difference, and added an even teaspoon on both. The chicken was delicious! Crispy skin, juicy, not overspiced at all. Just normal roast chicken that made the house smell wonderful!
The veggies, however, didn't make it. My fault. The recipe called for roasting the chicken at 500 degrees for 30 minutes, and then broiling (which I fear) for a few minutes. I didn't trust that, so I went with my chicken baking instincts of 375 for 1 hour, 45 minutes. As noted, the chicken was down with this. I didn't think about the fact that the veggies might not like roasting for so long, and indeed, they did not. They were totally unable to be salvaged. At the last minute, I threw some tater tots into the oven. Good enough!
Other Stuff
Here's a recap on everything else in life:
Made it to the Post Office yesterday to mail gifts of recent knitting projects. New project is a hat for Ian's mother which I started back in November, messed up horribly, and had to entirely unravel. Will work up courage to try again soon.
We're having trouble with one of the companies that provided Ian's student loans; they sold half the loan amount to another company, then they stopped billing us. They forwarded our payments to the new company. Ian called, and they said they're getting out of the student loan business entirely, and we'd soon receive notice of where the other half of the loans went. When this never happened, Ian called back, only to be told -- sorry! We were misinformed about selling off the loans. Since they forwarded our payments to the new company, our payments to the first company are now past due 60 days. Despite the idiocy of this situation, we can't get anyone at that company to even attempt to fix it. Ian is really stressed out about it.
No further news for you yet on job applications for either of us. I found some promising looking jobs, and didn't get so much as a phone call from any of them. I've come to the conclusion that I have some sort of literary Turrets Syndrome and my resume says FUCK FUCK FUCK in every bullet point and I have some psychological blindness which prevents me from seeing it. Ian, meanwhile, is in the process of selecting screenshots of his work on Tatooine to get approved for release in his portfolio. You can see one of Ian's pieces here: Second row, on the right, the marketplace with the red awnings. P.S. How cool is it that I have a legitimate reason to add the word "Tatooine" to my user dictionary?
Ian has twisted my Year of the Renaissance arm to try something new by reading a book I would normally shun since, "I don't read horror," and I usually prefer to let a series get a few books published before I start it since I hate waiting. I'm now reading Book One of The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro (that guy who likes monsters with lots of eyeballs) and Chuck Hogan. Highly infectious disease AND vampires, all in one place! I'm 100 pages into it, and enjoying it so far -- but the horrific parts haven't really started yet.
In the spirit of trying new things, Ian agreed to my request to dine at a dubious looking Mexican restaurant very close to our house. The interior appearance is far superior to the expectations established outside. The cheese dip was delicious, chips hot and fresh. WINNAR. I hope to try it again very soon.
Ian bought me old video games for Christmas including the whole city-building series, Tropico, which I really enjoyed. I've been enjoying rotting my brain through that lately.
That's about all you can do with shrimp.
T$
Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
Attempt #3 at a particular recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce beat the pants off attempts nos. 1-2 -- of course, since I burned the sauce the first time by letting it simmer too long, it really wasn't hard to beat the first attempt, I must admit. Changes this time included jaynefury's suggestion to use Hunts brand canned tomatoes. Normally I don't care for the sweetness in Hunts, or at least I think I don't, but whaddaya know, that turned out to be just right in the sauce! Fearing it would be too sweet, I left out the original recipe's call for a little bit of sugar in the sauce. What I did do was precisely follow its directions on how much oregano, basil, salt, and pepper to add -- which was about three times what instinct told me I should add. It was delicious! Ian's belly is not fond of too much garlic, however, so I skimped a bit on the recipe's requirement to three times the amount of garlic needed to put down a whole nest of vampires.
This sauce will be making a reappearance in tomorrow night's dinner: Lasagna!
Hobbit Roast Chicken
Last night's culinary experiment was a recipe for Roast Chicken Dinner -- one of those grown-up dishes with roast chicken with veggies stuffed under the bird. The recipe called to coat the bird in a mixture of the following: 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1.25 teaspoons of salt, 1.25 teaspoons of black pepper. Srsly?? That seemed like CRAZY amounts of salt and pepper to me! See above note about the difference between my instinct on spices and what recipes call for. I split the difference, and added an even teaspoon on both. The chicken was delicious! Crispy skin, juicy, not overspiced at all. Just normal roast chicken that made the house smell wonderful!
The veggies, however, didn't make it. My fault. The recipe called for roasting the chicken at 500 degrees for 30 minutes, and then broiling (which I fear) for a few minutes. I didn't trust that, so I went with my chicken baking instincts of 375 for 1 hour, 45 minutes. As noted, the chicken was down with this. I didn't think about the fact that the veggies might not like roasting for so long, and indeed, they did not. They were totally unable to be salvaged. At the last minute, I threw some tater tots into the oven. Good enough!
Other Stuff
Here's a recap on everything else in life:
Made it to the Post Office yesterday to mail gifts of recent knitting projects. New project is a hat for Ian's mother which I started back in November, messed up horribly, and had to entirely unravel. Will work up courage to try again soon.
We're having trouble with one of the companies that provided Ian's student loans; they sold half the loan amount to another company, then they stopped billing us. They forwarded our payments to the new company. Ian called, and they said they're getting out of the student loan business entirely, and we'd soon receive notice of where the other half of the loans went. When this never happened, Ian called back, only to be told -- sorry! We were misinformed about selling off the loans. Since they forwarded our payments to the new company, our payments to the first company are now past due 60 days. Despite the idiocy of this situation, we can't get anyone at that company to even attempt to fix it. Ian is really stressed out about it.
No further news for you yet on job applications for either of us. I found some promising looking jobs, and didn't get so much as a phone call from any of them. I've come to the conclusion that I have some sort of literary Turrets Syndrome and my resume says FUCK FUCK FUCK in every bullet point and I have some psychological blindness which prevents me from seeing it. Ian, meanwhile, is in the process of selecting screenshots of his work on Tatooine to get approved for release in his portfolio. You can see one of Ian's pieces here: Second row, on the right, the marketplace with the red awnings. P.S. How cool is it that I have a legitimate reason to add the word "Tatooine" to my user dictionary?
Ian has twisted my Year of the Renaissance arm to try something new by reading a book I would normally shun since, "I don't read horror," and I usually prefer to let a series get a few books published before I start it since I hate waiting. I'm now reading Book One of The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro (that guy who likes monsters with lots of eyeballs) and Chuck Hogan. Highly infectious disease AND vampires, all in one place! I'm 100 pages into it, and enjoying it so far -- but the horrific parts haven't really started yet.
In the spirit of trying new things, Ian agreed to my request to dine at a dubious looking Mexican restaurant very close to our house. The interior appearance is far superior to the expectations established outside. The cheese dip was delicious, chips hot and fresh. WINNAR. I hope to try it again very soon.
Ian bought me old video games for Christmas including the whole city-building series, Tropico, which I really enjoyed. I've been enjoying rotting my brain through that lately.
That's about all you can do with shrimp.
T$