Foodiness and... bomb threats? WTF?
XD.... I have been in a cooking mood this week for some reason or other. I made pear-preserves a few nights ago (just a bowlful; didn't put any up, sad to say, but I only bought a handful of pears) and last night I made a pot of French Onion Soup that turned out, if I say so myself, to be worth every second of lung-killing onion fog that results in the early stages of making that soup.
The French Onion Soup Recipe (geared for 2 lbs onions; just cut it down to size as needed)
2-3 lbs onions, sliced thinly
1/4 stick butter
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp plain flour
3 1/2 cups chicken-broth
3 1/2 cups beef-broth
If available, 1/4 cup red cooking wine and 2 tbsp brandy
a little pepper and salt
ATTENTION: BEFORE COOKING THIS, OPEN YOUR BLOODY WINDOWS. ALL OF THEM. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
1. Melt butter in a deep pot that you have a lid for. Add the sugar and a pinch or two of salt. Add the onions; stir like crazy and bring to medium until onions are completely coated with butter (if cutting down the recipe, you can keep the amount of butter the same, it works fine.) When coated, lid the pot and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onions are extremely limp and soft. Make jokes as appropriate right here.
2. Remove lid and turn heat to HIGH. Yes, high. Stir like your life depended on it until onions are golden brown and carmelized; add the flour and stir again like wolves will eat you if you don't, for roughly two minutes. Remove from heat and take a break. Whew.
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients, and don't freak if you don't have wine or brandy (they do improve it, though; and regular wine will work just great if you don't have cooking wine.) Bring to a boil, then drop the heat to simmer for about 20 minutes or so. Mmmmmmm... Smells good, doesn't it?
4. Scoop out a hot, steaming bowl; top it with some toast and grated cheese (a nice swiss is best but any good cheese'll do) and enjoy. Freeze the rest when it cools in ziplocks and heat it up by serving when you come home and don't feel like cooking. ^___^
So: this morning, due to sitting on my ass and laughing over old Questionable Content archived strips, I ran late going to work and grabbed a few things to eat there for breakfast. The result? I lounged at my desk and had hot, tasty toast and a bowl of ice-cold pear homemade preserves. And a cup of yorkshire tea with lemon. ^_______^ How very hedonistic.
Dunno why I'm in a cooking mood; my mom used to do this too, she'd suddenly start producing cookies and casseroles, boom! and the rest of us would count our blessings and snarf 'em up (my mom was a good cook when she was inclined to be.) Did a bunch of cleaning around the apartment last night-- you can now see the entire extent of my futon couch for the first time in ages, both litterboxes were changed, I swept the bathroom and washed some of the dishes. Go Me! And Icka kindly swept and took out garbage and picked up things as well; the place still resembles an explosion in a library, but in a good way.
...and I just got two vases of flowers delivered to my desk (one from the company boss and one from my own supervisor) because apparently today is Admin Assistant's Day. w00t!!! Carnations and blushed pink roses-- okay, I would've preferred varigated red, but these are nice. And one of the carnations is purple and white, which is really pretty; huh. Today's starting out veddy, veddy nicely. Wow... **looks at the ceiling** This has to be either an apology for some of last week's shittiness or a celestial foreshadowing of future calamity. Hmmmmmm.
Or maybe sometimes good things are just good things. I can work with that. XP
Oh yeah, one more bit of amusing stuff: go here if you're at all archaologically inclined; this was pretty well done. Gods, I love The Onion.
LATER EDIT: Well, the gods are having fun with me today, apparently. About 15 minutes after posting, one of the management came around and quietly informed the staff that we had just received a bomb threat and the cops were here and 'if we felt like evacuating, it was probably a good idea to go get some coffee somewhere for an hour or so.' Not being an idiot, I took her advice and went to Barnes & Noble for coffee and paperbacks, both of which I purchased. Now I'm back and the threatener is apparently in police custody; no bomb so far, and the cops in the parking-lot didn't stop me from coming back in. Hooray.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeird day.
EVEN LATER EDIT: ...and now my sort-of-sub-supervisor just gave me a Target $15 gift-card as a 'thank-you for all your hard work.' This is a good thing and will probably metamorphasize into a wooden beaded curtain for the back porch, if Target has such a thing. However, as odd as this day is turning out, it made me twitch and calculate just how long it'd take me to get out the back door if I had to run for it. The world is playing Good Cop, Bad Cop with my head today.
The French Onion Soup Recipe (geared for 2 lbs onions; just cut it down to size as needed)
2-3 lbs onions, sliced thinly
1/4 stick butter
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp plain flour
3 1/2 cups chicken-broth
3 1/2 cups beef-broth
If available, 1/4 cup red cooking wine and 2 tbsp brandy
a little pepper and salt
ATTENTION: BEFORE COOKING THIS, OPEN YOUR BLOODY WINDOWS. ALL OF THEM. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
1. Melt butter in a deep pot that you have a lid for. Add the sugar and a pinch or two of salt. Add the onions; stir like crazy and bring to medium until onions are completely coated with butter (if cutting down the recipe, you can keep the amount of butter the same, it works fine.) When coated, lid the pot and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onions are extremely limp and soft. Make jokes as appropriate right here.
2. Remove lid and turn heat to HIGH. Yes, high. Stir like your life depended on it until onions are golden brown and carmelized; add the flour and stir again like wolves will eat you if you don't, for roughly two minutes. Remove from heat and take a break. Whew.
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients, and don't freak if you don't have wine or brandy (they do improve it, though; and regular wine will work just great if you don't have cooking wine.) Bring to a boil, then drop the heat to simmer for about 20 minutes or so. Mmmmmmm... Smells good, doesn't it?
4. Scoop out a hot, steaming bowl; top it with some toast and grated cheese (a nice swiss is best but any good cheese'll do) and enjoy. Freeze the rest when it cools in ziplocks and heat it up by serving when you come home and don't feel like cooking. ^___^
So: this morning, due to sitting on my ass and laughing over old Questionable Content archived strips, I ran late going to work and grabbed a few things to eat there for breakfast. The result? I lounged at my desk and had hot, tasty toast and a bowl of ice-cold pear homemade preserves. And a cup of yorkshire tea with lemon. ^_______^ How very hedonistic.
Dunno why I'm in a cooking mood; my mom used to do this too, she'd suddenly start producing cookies and casseroles, boom! and the rest of us would count our blessings and snarf 'em up (my mom was a good cook when she was inclined to be.) Did a bunch of cleaning around the apartment last night-- you can now see the entire extent of my futon couch for the first time in ages, both litterboxes were changed, I swept the bathroom and washed some of the dishes. Go Me! And Icka kindly swept and took out garbage and picked up things as well; the place still resembles an explosion in a library, but in a good way.
...and I just got two vases of flowers delivered to my desk (one from the company boss and one from my own supervisor) because apparently today is Admin Assistant's Day. w00t!!! Carnations and blushed pink roses-- okay, I would've preferred varigated red, but these are nice. And one of the carnations is purple and white, which is really pretty; huh. Today's starting out veddy, veddy nicely. Wow... **looks at the ceiling** This has to be either an apology for some of last week's shittiness or a celestial foreshadowing of future calamity. Hmmmmmm.
Or maybe sometimes good things are just good things. I can work with that. XP
Oh yeah, one more bit of amusing stuff: go here if you're at all archaologically inclined; this was pretty well done. Gods, I love The Onion.
LATER EDIT: Well, the gods are having fun with me today, apparently. About 15 minutes after posting, one of the management came around and quietly informed the staff that we had just received a bomb threat and the cops were here and 'if we felt like evacuating, it was probably a good idea to go get some coffee somewhere for an hour or so.' Not being an idiot, I took her advice and went to Barnes & Noble for coffee and paperbacks, both of which I purchased. Now I'm back and the threatener is apparently in police custody; no bomb so far, and the cops in the parking-lot didn't stop me from coming back in. Hooray.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeird day.
EVEN LATER EDIT: ...and now my sort-of-sub-supervisor just gave me a Target $15 gift-card as a 'thank-you for all your hard work.' This is a good thing and will probably metamorphasize into a wooden beaded curtain for the back porch, if Target has such a thing. However, as odd as this day is turning out, it made me twitch and calculate just how long it'd take me to get out the back door if I had to run for it. The world is playing Good Cop, Bad Cop with my head today.