stoutfellow

Since the Thanksgiving feast,I've mostly been relying on frozen dinners (interspersed with cold cereal and various sandwiches). This week, though, I decided to cook something myself, and not a slow-cooker dish either. Slow-cooker dishes are great, but they don't give the olfactory pleasure of cooking up a mixed dish in a big pan.

So, today, I made "Chicken Pilaff with Mixed Fruits". Dumping chopped onions and green peppers into the pan to fry, stirring occasionally and inhaling the odors; adding the spices, the dried apricots and currants, stirring constantly; then the rice, stirring and waiting for the chicken stock to boil; pouring it in and letting it all simmer; and finally tossing in the slivered almonds.

I decided not to eat any of it tonight; I'll let the Law of Casseroles do its work first. It's sitting in the fridge, and the ingredients are getting to know each other better. Tomorrow, we feast!

I bought the fixings for the peanut soup and the cheesecake today. I didn't get the ingredients for the brown bread; it turns out that the recipe requires some kitchen gear that I don't have. Tomorrow, I'll probably make the first two, in between Gracie's trip to the vet. Tuesday, I'll have to run down to the UPS store to send something to my sister E; the Chef Shoppe is nearby, so on the way back I'll see if they have the gear, and if I can get it there I'll pick up the flour and dried fruit at Schnucks. So, everything should be together by Tuesday evening. (I will, of course, have started in on eating the soup and cheesecake before then!)

The former Shop'n'Save will be closing for good Sunday evening. (Rumor has it Hobby Lobby will be taking the space.) Many of its shelves are empty, and what's left is all on sale. I needed to buy a jug of milk, so I stopped off on the way home from work. I bought... more than milk, and probably would have gone even further if I'd had more carrying capacity than a shoulder bag. A packet of sharp cheddar, a couple of frozen dinners, and a pint each of Haagen-Dazs Coffee and Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge. (The ice cream was 50% off, and I resisted temptation as much as I could.) I felt kind of like a barbarian picking through the ruins of a conquered city. (The cashier did not find this remark amusing, sad to say.)

Next week, I'll have to switch over to the other Schnucks. Blah.

I was only out of coffee for two days. Goshen Coffee delivers quickly; the box, with three 12-oz bags of beans, arrived this afternoon.

I just drank the first cup of the Ethiopian. BLISS!

I spent the first week of summer break doing next to nothing. A lot of Civ VI, some perfunctory pokes at Taxonomy III, some reading, some cooking.

I'm working on a new system, as far as cooking goes. In the past, I've typically fixed a big pot of something on Sunday and eaten it all week. Last week, though, I made a batch of chicken/sausage soup, but only ate two helpings. The rest, I bagged in servings and put them in the freezer; I spent the rest of the week on scrap meals - a baked potato here, bacon and eggs there. Right now, I'm making some of that turkey chili I had last Christmas. I'll eat two helpings of that, then two helpings of the soup, then finish the week with scraps. Starting the week after, I'll be able to have two helpings each of three different dishes, and do something else on Saturday.

I have figured out how to write Taxonomy III. I was trying to introduce all of the new machinery at one gulp, and it wasn't working. Now, I've separated it into several coherent pieces, each to have its own section. I've also learned a few more things that will go into the later sections - stuff I'd suspected was true, but wasn't able to prove, until the newest pieces of the new machinery came on line.

I think I'll make an Amazon run tomorrow. There's something I want to get for my brother Don, and a copy for myself; I want to add to my selection of country - Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson, maybe Loretta Lynn; and there are a few more books and movies I want to pick up.

Somewhere along the line, I'll have to get my hands on the new Differential Equations textbook. I'll be teaching that in fall, and it's been a few years. (DiffEq is the one major area of math that I didn't study in college, but I've learned to appreciate if not like it. Better that than College Algebra!)

Since my father was in the Army, we moved a lot when I was a kid. My mother frequently added dishes to her repertoire from the places we lived. Since one of those places was Hawaii, I remember numerous meals with sweet-and-sour or teriyaki.

The thing is, what I remember is sweet and sour *pork* and *chicken* teriyaki. I have not seen either of those since leaving home; it's always sweet and sour *chicken* and *beef* teriyaki.

I guess the lesson here is that I need to learn how to make sweet and sour pork and chicken teriyaki, if I want to eat them.

Was Mom's choice of meats idiosyncratic?

It wasn't until a couple of days ago that I realized that, since I'm staying in Illinois for Christmas, I ought to make something special for dinner this week. I pulled out one of my slow-cooker books, flipped to the "Soups and Stews" section, and found a recipe I'd never tried before. The ingredients looked tasty and obtainable, so...

There is a big pot of Three-Bean Turkey Chili cooking away. The book said *6-8 servings", so it should last a while. (I also bought a bag of salad - hopefully better than the last one - and a Sara Lee carrot cake.)

I will say one thing for the new Schnucks: their selection of cheeses isn't much broader than SnS's was, but two things please me; they have an excellent Cheddar/Gruyere mix, and Vermont cheddar is back! (Love that stuff!)

My Thanksgiving-week cooking is not off to an auspicious start. I decided to bake the pecan pie first. As I began doing so, I discovered that my brown sugar was caked and rock-hard, and my molasses was crystallized. I checked the 'net and found ways of dealing with these, but they were time-consuming. Eventually, I got everything together and into the oven. What emerged looks a little darker than I expected... It's in the fridge now, at any rate.

Checking the details of the pilaf, I found that I don't have enough butter. It's pretty cold out today, so I decided to forego cooking the pilaf until tomorrow; in the morning I'll run out and get more butter (and a couple of other items that have run out).

:sigh: It will get done, and it will taste good. I have spoken!

I was very lazy about cooking this summer, subsisting on cereal, sandwiches, and the occasional frozen dinner. The last couple of weeks, though, I've finally gotten back into the swing. I just finished the first helping from a big pot of slow-cooked beef and barley soup, which (as is my habit) I will eat for dinner all week. It was delicious. I have to remember that I'm perfectly capable of making meals that taste better than anything Healthy Choice has to offer. (But not Marie Callendar, I'm afraid, though their meals have the signal disadvantage of being bad for me.)

I'm beginning to think about what I'll make for Thanksgiving week. Dessert is settled; I will make pecan pie. (I've done it before, I can do it again.) Nothing firm yet as to the main dish or the sides, but I'll think of something.