soy cube

brew days

2012-01-29T22:14:00.003-06:00

But of course, just because I've been occupied with sake for awhile doesn't mean I've forgotten beer. Two weeks ago we brewed a Pale Ale and a Brown Porter. Today we brewed a Red Rye and an Oatmeal Stout. Within two months, we'll again have well-stocked beer shelves.

DAY 13
Stir twice, 12 hrs apart
Bubbly, foamy, and sweet smelling (48 deg)

and then we rest

2012-01-28T22:08:00.000-06:00

The college Ultimate season is upon us, and practices for the UW-L Women's Ultimate team start this week. This means that Sam and I have practices and workouts to plan and attend. It also means that, once again, we will be busy for almost every night of the week.

It's really a good thing that the time-consuming parts of sake brewing have now come to an end. From here until the primary fermentation is complete (3 weeks-ish), I do nothing but stir a few times and make sure nothing funky is happening. The most difficult part will be trying to keep the sake at a temperature as close to 45 deg as possible. I think I will be moving the fermenting bucket back and forth from my three-season porch during the day to the basement closet at night. Here's hoping I don't trip carrying 4 gallons of liquid up and down the basement stairs.

DAY 12 (Tomezoe - final addition)
Drain soaked rice from DAY 11 for 1 hr
Steam rice for 1hr
Fluff and cool rice for 20 min
Mix rice and 6 cups cold water from DAY 11
Add cooled rice to mash (55 deg)
Stir and place in cold, dark place
Stir again 12 hrs later

beer vs sake

2012-01-27T23:03:00.003-06:00

Last night I went to a release party for Bell's Hopslam, an incredibly delicious beer that we wait for every year. A group of homebrewers all sat together, and naturally, talk turned to what everyone was brewing at the moment. Of course, I said I was brewing sake.

The thing with homebrewers is that many of them are engineers (at least in La Crosse), and many of them like to know all of the intricate things about brewing anything. So when I have to talk to a homebrewing engineer about brewing sake, I should know what I'm talking about. I am not that detail-oriented, however, and I still have a very rudimentary knowledge of how the processes work for brewing sake. So this is what I say.

"Basically, when you brew beer, you throw together the wort, yeast, and water all together. The yeast works aerobically for a day or so building itself up, and then switches to anaerobic action for the rest of the ferment to produce alcohol. When you brew sake, you buildup the yeast (aerobic), use koji to pop open the rice and make the starches and enzymes available, and the yeast then uses the starches and enzymes to make alcohol (anaerobic). This is done is a cycle: yeast buildup, koji addition, rice addition, and repeat three times."

This never satisfies them, but I hope to be able to speak a little more in-depth about it by the time I bring my sake to a meeting. I have two months to figure it out...

DAY 11 (Nakazoe - middle addition)
Wash 6 cups of rice in tap water for 15 min
Soak rice for 1 hr
Drain rice for 1 hr
Steam rice for 1hr
Fluff and cool rice for 15 min
Mix rice and 4.25 cups cold water from DAY 10
Add cooled rice to mash (55 deg)
Stir and place in cold, dark place

Prep for Tomezoe
Add 3.5 cups koji to mash
Add 10 cups R-O water to mash
Put 6 cups R-O water in fridge
Rinse 10 cups rice in tap water for 30 min
Soak rice overnight

Mash smells like bananas and is very bubbly.

bard-a-thon

2012-01-26T23:16:00.000-06:00

La Crosse is once again home to Bard-a-thon - seven days of around-the-clock Shakespeare readings at the Muse Theater. Last night I attended the reading of Othello and was given the part of Montano, a governor who tries to keep the peace and then gets stabbed. The great thing about Shakespeare tragedies is that pretty much everyone ends up dying in the end. Othello is 2.5 hours of chatting, which leads to 5 minutes of killing everyone off.

My favorite aspect of Bard-a-thon is the joy of finding old references to phrases still used today. A few of last night's examples include: the beast with two backs, crocodile tears, and green-eyed monster. A new term I learned is "pottle" or "pottle-deep." A pottle is a two-quart drinking vessel; so when you're pottle-deep, you're quite drunk!

DAY 10 (Odori - dancing ferment)
Stir in the morning
Bubbly and active at 57 deg
Add 2.25 cups koji to mash
Add 4.5 cups R-O water to mash
Put 4.25 cups R-O water in refrigerator

meditation on rice

2012-01-25T23:11:00.000-06:00

There is something incredibly calming about washing rice.

DAY 9 (Hatsuzoe - first addition)
Bring mash temp down to 55 deg
Wash 2.5 cups rice for 15 min
Soak rice for 1 hr in cold tap water
Drain rice for 1 hr
Steam rice for 1 hr
Fluff rice and leave to dry for 10 min
Cool rice to 60 deg with 1.25 cups water from DAY 8
Add rice to mash and stir for 5 min
Place fermenting vessel in dark, 55 deg closet

grechaninov

2012-01-24T22:50:00.000-06:00

Just in case you're planning a trip to La Crosse, my choir is performing Grechaninov's "Passion Week" at St. Mary of the Angels Chapel on February 11th and 12th. It is an intense piece of Russian church music with incredible bass lines and surprising chord progressions that will sound amazing in the acoustics at the chapel. In addition, I'm in the small group performing one of the movements!

DAY 8
Bring temp of mash down to 55 deg
Add 7.30 oz koji to mash
Add 1.5 cups R-O water to mash
Set aside 1.25 cups R-O water in refrigerator

snow biking

2012-01-23T13:59:00.000-06:00

Winter this year has been very odd. I was riding my summer bike all the way through until the beginning of January because we had warm temperatures and zero snow. Then we were blasted with below zero temperatures, and now we're consistently snowy with some sunny days to turn the snow on the streets and sidewalks into mush.

At the first snowfall, I put my summer bike away, and only rode my winter bike when the roads were really clear. Today, however, I biked to the YMCA when the streets were still very much snowy. And you know what? It was so much fun! I slid around a bit, but I never felt like I was going to fall over. In fact, I started purposely going through larger snow piles to see how I'd do, and it was easy. Forget the bus; I'll be biking all winter!

DAYS 6-7
Stir and check temperature twice a day.
Temp stable around 70 deg.

yeasties

2012-01-21T23:32:00.000-06:00

Sam and I went down to Madison on Saturday in order to be officially certified as Ultimate coaches. We learned about ethics, liability, professionalism, and how to run an effective practice. The best part of the clinic, however, was meeting other coaches in the region and learning what they do with their teams. We got some good tips on drills, and a lot of literature to read about fitness.

Because we left Friday night and didn't get back until Saturday night, I had to stir my sake a little early on Friday and miss one stir on Saturday. I don't believe this will be a problem, because the stirring is mostly to introduce more oxygen into the yeast mash to help the yeast reproduce. I guess I'll just have a few less yeasties to do the job.

DAY 5
Stir once in the evening.
Smells fruity, almost like ripe strawberries

the pure stuff

2012-01-20T19:44:00.000-06:00

According to the old German purity laws for beer (Reinheitsgebot), beer must be made with only water, barley, and hops. While these old laws have long since been repealed, they established the basic recipe for what we consider to be beer.

Japan has similar laws for determining what can be classified as what type of sake. What I am making is junmai (pure) sake which includes only water, rice, yeast, and koji. Other types include those with liquor added back in, fruit sake, and sparkling sake.

DAY 4

Stir twice, 10 hrs apart

Check temperature: 71 deg

"Smells like bread," says Sam.

Less solid, more liquid.

temperature flux

2012-01-19T23:47:00.000-06:00

Sake is traditionally made in the winter. This is because it requires low temperatures (45 deg) for fermentation, and refrigeration was non-existent until relatively recently. It was always easier to heat up a room in the winter than cool it in the summer.

I used this logic for brewing my sake as well. My house is warm, my basement is a bit colder, and outside is very cold. I thought that I could move my fermentation vessel around based on the required temperatures. I did not figure in the fact that my house is 63 deg, the first week of fermentation should be 75 deg, and the the temperature on my back porch is 2 deg.

This presents some challenges. To heat up the mash, I have put the vessel directly in front of a heating vent. I can get the temperature up to 71 deg this way, which will have to do. Next week I'll have to cool it down, and I'm hoping that the coldest closet in my basement works for this, or I'll have to figure out a way to insulate the vessel and put it on my below-freezing back porch.

DAY 3
Stir twice, 12 hours apart
Check temperature: 71 deg
Smells like yeast and a tiny bit of alcohol

the saga of the rice steamer

2012-01-18T23:30:00.000-06:00

I have an electric rice cooker, and I love it. I can put my rice and water in the pot, set the timer, and it will be done when I need it. This is not, however, a rice steamer. In a rice steamer, the water and rice are separated by a perforated layer so that the rice is never boiled, only steamed. Good luck finding one.

A large rice steamer is necessary for making sake because steaming rice cooks the rice without making it so gooey and sticky. The individually separated grains of rice have more surface area to interact with the koji and yeast, and are therefore more productive.

However, getting a rice steamer proved to be a bit of a hassle. I borrowed a rice steamer that was too small, I attempted to rig up a steamer using the things I owned around the house, and finally, I scrambled to the local Asian grocery to buy an overpriced authentic rice steamer while my rice was draining at home.

DAY 2: Shubo (yeast mash)
- Smack yeast pack
- Wash and rinse rice (12 oz) several times with cold tap water to remove starches (15 min)
- Cover rice with 2 in of cold water and steep for 55 min
- While rice is steeping, add yeast to the 2 cups of prepared water from DAY 1 (61 deg, 1 hr)

- Run to bus stop, miss the bus, go back home
- Drain rice for 1.25 hrs
- Run to bus stop, make bus (yay!), buy rice steamer, take bus home

- Clean rice steamer, start water boiling
- Lay down cheesecloth and layer rice evenly in steamer, steam for 1 hr
- Add koji (4 oz) to yeast/water mix (62 deg, 1hr)
- Check water level 30 min into steam

- Remove rice from steamer and "fluff" to separate and cool grains
- Add rice and chilled 1/2 cup water from DAY 1 into fermentation vessel (5 gal bucket)
- Stir and make sure temperature is below 75 deg (69)
- Add yeast/koji/water mix and stir slowly for several min (67 deg)
- Place in warm dark place and try to get temp to 72 deg
- My house is 63 deg, so 80 deg water bath in laundry tub to raise temp (2x)

- Move to lighter but warmer spot in front of heat vent
- Stir before bed (70 deg)

and we begin...

2012-01-17T23:03:00.000-06:00

...to make sake!

I've been wanting to brew seishu, or refined Japanese sake, for quite some time. It seemed like a natural progression for me after dabbling in wine and winning a medal for beer. Of course, the fact that I enjoy sake doesn't hurt, either. Here we go!

DAY 1: Prepare for shubo (yeast mash)
- Remove yeast from refrigerator 24 hours in advance of mash-in.
- Move koji (inoculated rice) to refrigerator from freezer.
- Prepare water by combining:

2.5 cups reverse osmosis water
1 teaspoon 88% lactic acid
3/4 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 1/4 teaspoon Morton's Salt Substitute
Pinch (less than 1/8 teaspoon) Epsom salts

- Cover and chill 1/2 cup of prepared water in refrigerator overnight.
- Cover remaining 2 cups of water and leave at room temperature.

relaxing time

2012-01-17T18:30:00.000-06:00

It's been a month and a half since we moved into our new home, and last night I finally used the whirlpool tub for the first time. I can definitely see why people like to install these in their bathrooms.

biking in december

2011-12-28T13:58:00.000-06:00

For reasons that involve a car accident and a longtime desire to live car-less, we are currently without a vehicle. So when we needed a few things that could only be gotten north of town, we had two options: bus or bike. Yesterday we made an adventure of it and biked up to the mall area for some shopping.

We took the bike path through the marsh on the way up, and it was traffic-free, but very hilly. It took us forty minutes from home to Target, where we had to buy a new bike lock because both of us had forgotten ours at home.

After a few hours, a few stores, and a lost mitten, we rode back south. This time we took the sidewalk along the highway. It was noisy and littered with obstacles, but all the hills were gradual. It took us fifteen minutes to get home.

All told, we biked 13.3 miles in a little over an hour in 30 degree weather midst the gift-returning/after-Christmas-sale mall traffic, and we only forgot one item. It was a pretty successful day in my book.

tiny poetry

2011-12-19T15:54:00.001-06:00

Anna at Mochimochi Land is an amazing knit toy designer who creates fun creatures often inspired by Japan. In addition, pretty much every week she knits a tiny object and has a caption or poetry contest inspired by her new creation.

This week she created a tiny yeti, and opened up a poetry contest. And this week, I won!
Go check out my winning entry and the other fun big, small, and whimsical things Anna knits!

wading through piles of squash

2011-12-16T15:40:00.004-06:00

This is a dinner I made with ingredients readily available in my house. That is, I had lots of squash and cabbage to use up.

On the right are butternut squash croquettes (or korokke in Japanese), breaded and deep-fried squash. I should have combined the mashed squash with mashed potatoes to provide a little more rigidity, but the creaminess of the roasted squash would not have come through so well.

On the left is a red cabbage and carrot salad with a rice vinegar dressing. Cabbage is always a great side to croquettes, and the colors here make me happy.

as i like it

2011-12-14T14:46:00.002-06:00

I also bought konyaku at Mitsuwa. Konyaku is a substance made of yam starch. Sometimes it comes in a block and sometimes in noodle form. I bought the noodles, which you can see in the upper right of this picture of the delicious sukiyaki I then made.

Sukiyaki is a hot pot traditionally made with beef and vegetables, but I just did without the beef. We had carrots, mushrooms, tofu, scallions, konyaku, enoki mushrooms, and spinach in a sweetened soy sauce-based broth. It wasn't exactly like my host mother in Japan made, but that's the great thing about sukiyaki: you can make it however you like!

breakfast of champions

2011-12-13T15:56:00.002-06:00

We stopped at Mitsuwa, a very large Japanese grocery in Chicago, on our way home from Thanksgiving break. It seemed like every Japanese person traveling through Chicago was there as well. Most of the clerks and about 95% of the shoppers were Japanese. I even got to speak a little Japanese with a few people. For a minute or two I felt like I was back in Japan!

The upshot of going to the grocery is that we came home with a few of my favorite Japanese food items, and I have been eating them bit by bit of the last couple of weeks. This one here is natto, a fermented soy bean product that many people describe as having the consistency of snot. Appetizing, right? But I love it on rice with nori (seaweed) for breakfast, and it is very high in calcium and other vitamins.

my life

2011-12-06T12:35:00.002-06:00

Indexed knows me well.

home ownership

2011-12-04T13:49:00.004-06:00

So, we bought a house! It's old and cute and we like it. That being said, it is a little more of fixer upper than we had originally thought.

We started out with this little list of things to do before/as we moved in:

-Caulk the floor/shower intersection.

-Strip and repaint a small section of the downstairs bathroom.

-Fix washer drain pipe.

-Clean the basement carpet.

-Curtains.

We've expanded this list to include these fun things we've discovered. None of them are immediate needs, but should be accomplished before long.

-Find a way to stop water from the shower from flooding the bathroom floor.

-Find a way to deal with the window in the shower in the bathroom.

-Taller/bigger sink in bathroom?

-Then again, let's just redo the whole the bathroom.

-Get electric outlets in the bedroom.

-Floor the back porch.

-Put a new door on the back porch.

-Take out the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room.

-Put in ceiling fans everywhere.

And I'm sure we'll find more. Plus, Sam and I are both the sort of people who want to get things done and want them to look right, which means there are so many more things that will probably get fixed in this house before we move again. We're just hoping the housing market will improve so we can get back all the money we're going to put in.

And so, onward to home improvement!

winter pie

2011-11-29T14:52:00.003-06:00

Sam says that my all of my posts should be accompanied by a photo because they look better in his RSS reader that way. So here's a photo of my vegetarian shepherd's pie.

We (well, mostly Sam) are attempting to perfect all of our go-to recipes and gather them together. My contributions are usually baked goods, and this shepherd's pie is sort of a cross-over. I am very proud of this recipe and the tweaks I've made to personalize it. My secret is a bottom crust made with lots of dill, and a hearty vegetarian gravy made with nutritional yeast to slather on top.

And maybe next time I'll have a photo of our new house to post here. New house!

goodbye neverland

2011-11-28T12:51:00.001-06:00

2011 has been the year that I officially grew up.

1. Got married.

2. Turned 30.

3. Bought a house.

Yep. I think I qualify now.

yarn time

2011-11-22T14:36:00.003-06:00

Winter and football season combine to be the perfect time for me to crochet and knit. It's too cold to play outside, so Sunday afternoons are spent tidying the house, watching football, and working with yarn.

Last year I became obsessed with knitting socks, but had to teach myself how to do so. This year, I picked up a the needles, and zoom! I started up a pair of chunky slipper-socks to wear around the house. I've finished one sock already, and will most likely have the second one finished by the end of Thanksgiving break. (Hours in a vehicle driving to Indiana for the holiday also provide excellent knitting time.)

I think I might try to do a few more pairs of slipper-socks for use when we tell people to take their shoes off in our house, but then make them hang out on our cold, hardwood floors. And then I might branch out into a pair of leggings. They're just long socks, right?

bountiful

2011-11-17T15:41:00.002-06:00

Our summer CSA ended last week, and I was sad. But then we signed up for the winter CSA, and I was happy again!

We got our first boxes last night, and it was more than I was expecting. How about 20 lbs of butternut, delicata, and sugar dumpling squash? I walked home with a backpack full entirely of butternut squash.

We also got several pounds of potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, and shallots. Then there were the stalks of brussels sprouts with the sprouts still attached, leafy greens, broccoli, and leeks.

I feel like I need a root cellar to keep all my bounty for the winter.

blank canvas

2011-11-15T17:58:00.002-06:00

Sam scolded me for not taking a picture of his beautiful dinner this evening. It was very colorful.

Red leaf lettuce. Orange carrots in a yellow sunchoke chowder. Green leaf lettuce. Purple cabbage. White feta cheese and black olives on the salad. Brown beer brats with yellow mustard. There was no blue food.

The juice from the purple cabbage ran over to the remainder of my yellow mustard and created a pink splotch. In the end, my plate looked like a melting watercolor painting.

tundra struck

2011-11-14T22:04:00.002-06:00

My mom came to visit this weekend. It was her first visit to La Crosse, and we did a little sightseeing around town. However, we also went down to Brownsville, Minnesota for a bit of birdwatching.

Winter and spring on the Mississippi River are great because this area is a stopover for several types of migrating birds. This time of year, the tundra swans are starting to come in. They stop in the shallow pools between islands in the wide Mississippi to eat arrowhead and pondweed in order to build up fat reserves for the rest of their trip to the east coast. There were about 8,000 swans here on Saturday, but there will be about 20,000 at the height of the migration.

The bald eagles are out and about as well, swooping from the bluffs and fishing in the river. They are best seen in the spring when the ice is melting, but my mom was lucky enough to see them this weekend too.

nablopomo fail

2011-11-13T17:48:00.002-06:00

So, I officially forgot to post yesterday. This means that I have failed NaBloPoMo for the year, but I will still try to write something on here every day until the end of the month anyway. I really think I should have a theme next year; it definitely helps. I'll be taking theme requests next October.

flu-less season

2011-11-11T16:09:00.002-06:00

I got a flu shot today. This is perhaps the fourth flu shot I have gotten in my life.

My initial thought about flu shots was that "I am healthy and young and my body can deal with winter flu just fine." Also, I did not want to pay for it.

However, one of my host parents in Japan was a doctor, and one day he brought home flu shots for the family. I couldn't really refuse, so I got the shot for the first time. Did I get the flu that year? I don't know. I can never tell whether it's the flu or a cold or something else.

Later, when I got health insurance, I was informed that I could get a free flu shot every year if I so chose. I considered it, and thought, "Well, why not?" And so now I get the free shot provided to me.

Again, can I tell that I have held off the flu better with the shot than without? Not really, but I guess it can't hurt.

aging

2011-11-10T22:04:00.002-06:00

Now that I'm thirty, I am old enough to:

* play in Master's Ultimate.

* own a house.

* feel complimented when I'm asked for my ID.

* not be lumped with the twenty-somethings-just-out-of-college crowd.

I'm sure there are more, but I'm old now and need to get to bed early.

a good sport

2011-11-09T22:24:00.003-06:00

There were three young men sitting in the front row of the concert hall last night. They, and most of the audience, were obviously in attendance because their Music Appreciation professor had required it.

These young men started poking each other, whispering, and giggling almost immediately during the first song. At first I thought they might be enjoying the accordion, which is not something one usually sees. Then I thought maybe they found someone in the choir amusing.

However, their behavior continued throughout all five pieces. My eyes kept being drawn back to them, but I had to pull myself away because their laughing was starting to get contagious. The last thing I needed to do was start laughing in the middle of a song.

I have no idea what their issue was, but I have to say I'm glad they were enjoying something about the concert. The rest of the audience I'm not so sure about.

predictions

2011-11-08T15:58:00.003-06:00

It was busy at the co-op yesterday afternoon, and someone said the reason was the forthcoming snowstorm. Really? Snowstorm? Because every time I looked at the weather forecast yesterday, it called for a bit of rain and maybe some wintry mix, but nothing exciting. Ultimately, there was no rain, snow, or sleet last night.

At the YMCA this morning, my yoga instructor left us with the parting words, "Drive safe in the snow tonight!" and once again, I am wondering if we're just so tired of fall that we're willing the snow to fall. Any little snippet a weatherman says about precipitation is passed on from one person to the next with a little extra emphasis each time, like the telephone game, and suddenly we've got a snowstorm on our hands.

Perhaps it depends on your source of weather. WeatherSpark says it'll rain tonight and start snowing just a little tomorrow morning. The Weather Channel has bright red warnings and says we're going to get it overnight.

I never know who to trust. I like the old way of doing things; looking out the window works most of the time for me!

magic words

2011-11-07T23:42:00.000-06:00

My choir, the La Crosse Chamber Chorale, has three concerts this week/weekend.

Tuesday we participate in the UW-L New Music Festival. We'll be singing five pieces that were commissioned as part of the Words to Music Program, in which local middle school students write poems and local composers turn the poetry into a choral piece with accompaniment by at least one non-piano instrument.

The theme is "Magic" and we have everything from fireflies to abracadabra, and from bassoon to accordion. Harry Potter even makes an appearance.

These pieces will be reprised along with other famous words set to music, like "Father Williams" from Alice in Wonderland and several quotes from Shakespeare, in our fall concerts on Saturday and Sunday. If you're in town and looking for something to do, you might enjoy stopping by.

fall afternoon

2011-11-06T14:32:00.002-06:00

Today would be a perfect fall day if it weren't for the wind. That makes it a good day for house-cleaning, errand-running, and football-watching.

We spent the morning cleaning the house, and put some blankets out on the line to let the wind carry the dust and dead skin away. Then we went to grocery store to get the rest of the ingredients we need for most of this week's menu. And lastly, we cleaned up the remainder of the garden.

There wasn't a whole lot left in our garden, since most of our herbs are not hardy through frost, but we'd been holding off in hopes that the ground cherries would ripen. Alas, no luck there, and we pulled out the plant along with the rabbit fence. The oregano and parsley seem to be hanging in there, but they can just die with the first snow and we won't mind. We'll use them until they fade away.

And now I think I'm going to go attempt to go play some Ultimate despite the wind, but I doubt we'll last very long.

brew day rundown

2011-11-05T08:46:00.008-06:00

Today I am going to live blog the brewing process, for all of you who have been curious about exactly how a brew day goes. I'm making a very light American wheat beer to use as a base for three flavored beers - cranberry, chamomile, and rhubarb. Here goes:

7:20am: Sam gets out of bed to turn the heat on seven gallons of water, comes back to bed.
8:35am: Get up and shower.
9:15am: Make omelets and toast for breakfast.
9:30am: Bring up mash tun (converted cooler) and grain from the basement.
9:40am: Rinse out mash tun.
9:45am: Sanitize mash tun.
9:55am: Mash in - add 5 gallons of 170degree water to 11 lbs of grain, hold at 152degrees for 45 min.
10:05am: Start doing some work in the downtime.
10:50am: Mash out - add 2 gallons of 180degree water to mash, hold at 157degrees for 10 min.
11:00am: Drain off the wort into the boil kettle.
11:05am: Start making pizza.
11:10am: Welcome friends and start serving beverages.
11:40am: Sparge - add 2 gallons of 168degree water to the grain, hold for 5 min.
11:45am: Drain off the sparge wort.
11:50am: Put pizza in the oven. Starting making tortilla chips.
12:00pm: Take a gravity reading (1.046), and start the wort boiling.
12:05pm: Eat pizza.
12:15pm: Empty spent grains, rinse out mash tun.
12:20pm: Wort boiling. Add 1oz Sorachi hops.
12:30pm: Welcome more friends. Eat tortilla chips and salsa. Listen to music.
1:00pm: Add 0.25oz Williamette hops.
1:05pm: Check out the Breeder's Cup status on TV.
1:10pm: Add 0.25oz Williamette hops, 0.5oz Irish moss, 0.5oz yeast nutrient.
1:11pm: Wash dishes.
1:15pm: Add 0.25oz Williamette hops.
1:20pm: Turn off boil, add 0.25oz Williamette hops.
1:25pm: Start setting up chill plate.
1:28pm: Answer door and assure solicitors I will indeed be voting, most likely for the Democrat, on Tuesday.
1:30pm: Sanitize primary fermenting vessel.
1:35pm: Beginning transferring wort to fermenting vessel through the chill plate.
1:40pm: Oxygenate wort.
1:47pm: Add yeast.
1:50pm: Finishing transferring wort, and seal up with bung and airlock.
1:52pm: Put fermenting vessel in study to ferment.
1:54pm: Measure starting gravity (1.047).
1: 55pm: Cleanup.
2:20pm: Grab a homebrew and watch the Breeders' Cup.

And that's a brewday. In two weeks, we'll transfer the beer to three or four secondaries so I can add the flavors I want. And then we'll do it all again for Sam's Belgian IPA!

ultimate near the ocean

2011-11-04T23:22:00.002-06:00

Last week Friday I was in Florida for the USA Ultimate Club Championships. I was invited down as an observer, Ultimate's version of a referee. I knew going into this that I wouldn't have an excess of time to lay on the beach or wander among the palm trees, but it turns out that I had even less time than I expected.

I worked eight games over the weekend, several which where very close. And because the games were spread out to give the teams ample time to play and move fields, I never got back to my hotel before 6:00pm. Sunset is at 6:30pm, and the beach is far away.

I did make it down to the white sands once, though, with just about ten minutes to stick my toes in the water, watch the pelicans swoop down to catch some fish, and gather a few shells before it was time to go to dinner at Yoder's, an Amish restaurant. Believe me, I fully understand the irony of eating Amish food in Florida when my hometown is in Amish country, but I wasn't in charge of choosing the restaurant.

i want to ride my bicycle

2011-11-03T23:43:00.002-06:00

I got a new bicycle a couple of weeks ago (it is awesome), and today I went down to the police station to get a bicycle license. A license is not required, but I want to avoid a situation similar to what my friend encountered with his bicycle.

We were playing Ultimate in the park, when two women wandered by. They stopped at the tree near our bikes and bags, and started intently scrutinizing my friend's bicycle. Then one of them started yelling, "Hey, where'd you get this bicycle? This is my bicycle that someone stole last week. I swear this is my bicycle."

My friend denied that it was her bicycle and told them when and where he had bought it, but they were very adamant that they take "her" bicycle. They would not give up. He then pulled out the piece of paper he carried with him that was the receipt for his license. It indicated the license number and serial number of his bicycle. They had no choice but to believe him.

I doubt that something like this will happen to me, but if it does, I'll be ready. And my bike will be more easily returned to me if it does get stolen.

stone disc

2011-11-02T21:52:00.004-06:00

Tonight was the start of winter league for the La Crosse Curling Club.

Sam and I tried out curling last year as a new winter sport after Ultimate was finished, and we liked it enough to join a league this year. Our first night on the ice was pretty successful. Our team won 8-1, and I put half of my stones in the house, which is a great improvement over last year.

I also got a refresher on some curling vocabulary.

stone: the 40lb thick stone disc we push across the ice
sheet: the curling court
one end: when all the stones have been pushed toward one target
hurry: sweep the ice in front of the stone
house: the circular target on each end of the ice
skip: person who directs the thrower where to aim

Here's hoping next week is even more successful!

NaBloPoMo

2011-11-01T23:45:00.002-06:00

Another year, another NaBloPoMo.

Some years I have a theme, and some years I don't. This will be a theme-less year mostly due to the fact that I have been too busy to think of one. I barely remembered to write this post.

We'll hope for better things tomorrow.

sweeties

2011-10-15T17:03:00.003-05:00

A couple weeks ago, we were just outside of Milwaukee for a tournament. On Friday night we walked across the street from our hotel to get dinner at the restaurant there. I don't remember the name, but it had a very hunting-themed decor.

As I was looking through the list of sides, I saw "loaded sweet potato," which I assumed to be like a loaded baked potato, only with a sweet potato. This is something I love, so I ordered it.

I wish I had a picture of what arrived at my table. It was a bowl filled with mashed sweet potatoes, and those potatoes were swimming in a mixture of butter, cinnamon, and caramel. On top were marshmallows and walnuts.

Now, I normally love my sweet foods, and I did try my best to enjoy the gooey treat in front of me, but the caramel and marshmallows eventually did me in.

I think I'll have my sweet potatoes plain for awhile, thank you.

chile rellenos ala sam

2011-10-03T20:07:00.002-05:00

Somehow between tournaments, work, practices, and trying to deal with preserving as much food from the garden and the CSA that we can, Sam managed to squeeze in cooking a good chile rellenos tonight.

Chile rellenos are, in general, poblano peppers stuffed with queso and fried. Sam has tried several times to make this dish, but the peppers have a tendency to fall apart. This time they held together pretty well, and the little bit of membrane he left in the pepper gave it just the right amount of kick. The homemade tomato sauce topping was the perfect complement.

The side dish was a simple combination of kale and beet greens added to fennel and bacon pieces cooked in the bacon's own juices. The fennel gave the greens a great flavor in place of the apple cider vinegar we usually use.

golden keg

2011-09-23T22:09:00.003-05:00

Today was the first day of La Crosse's Oktoberfest, which someone told me is second in size only to Munich's Oktoberfest. I missed the opening parade, but made it down to the fest grounds in time for the Tapping of the Golden Keg.

The tapping itself is not that impressive, but the people who line up to drink the special Fest Bier are well worth watching. I spent all afternoon admiring dirndl, lederhosen, and a wide-variety of specially made drinking shirts. Of course, I enjoyed a few Oktoberfest beverages as well.

bolting blossoms

2011-09-07T14:45:00.002-05:00

The garlic chives are blooming and the garden is full of bumblebees, butterflies, wasps, and a surprising number of flies feasting on the pollen.

fall brewing season begins

2011-08-27T16:41:00.003-05:00

We took a few months off from brewing beer due to the hot weather, but we're back at it again with two new beers brewed up today.

The first was a harvest ale. Thanks to Beth, Erik, and their hop plants, we were able to wet hop, which means we added freshly picked hops to our beer. We picked these hops last night, and when we opened the bag this morning, our kitchen smelled magical.

The second was a pumpkin porter. As I was researching this kind of beer, I learned that a decent number of pumpkin beers do not actually include pumpkin because the fruit is so bland as to not lend any flavor; most people just associate the pumpkin pie spices with a pumpkin beer. I wanted to include some fruit, but I also wanted to try to get some flavor from it. So I actually used butternut squash. I don't know yet whether any of its flavor will get through, but at least the spices and molasses I added give me hope for a really tasty beer.

garden playground

2011-08-18T23:17:00.003-05:00

It was petting zoo day in the garden today.

First, a giant fuzzy spider hitched a ride on my shirt when I was picking oregano. I noticed this as it crawled across my neck while I was rinsing the herbs. Based on my screams, Sam thought I had cut off my finger.

Then we found this pudgy guy gorging himself on dill seeds. He didn't mind being petted; he just kept on chomping.

His neighbor on the next sprig over was a dragonfly, which Sam kept poking. She would endure it for a little bit, move away, and then come back for more. Sam has that power.

along the platte rivers

2011-08-10T17:07:00.003-05:00

I've been to most of the states east of the Mississippi, but this last week I added one to my western states checklist: Colorado. Sam and I drove out for my friend Leslie's wedding and to visit his aunt and uncle. I would have photos of the gorgeousness of the high altitudes, but the camera lied to me when it said it had full batteries, so I was cut off before I could even begin.

Instead, I have a photo of this toad who appears to have taken a smoke break next to the curb where we parked our truck for the night in North Platte, Nebraska. The toad might have been the nicest part about North Platte.

Reasons not to visit North Platte, Nebraska:
1. Bar patrons who don't tip, and the barmaids who constantly complain about them.
2. Liquor store employees who call you a hippie to your face, laugh, show your ID to their friend, laugh some more, and call you a hippie one more time before you leave.
3. Overpriced donuts.
4. Subway employees who fondle your vegetables before placing them on your sandwich.

worm eulogy

2011-07-29T17:05:00.000-05:00

The worms are dead. Long live the worms.

It was a confluence of things. Sam says I killed them by giving them too much warm spent grain to chew on. I concede, and note that the excess food brought little buggy friends out of the woodwork for the worms to fight with. But these things might have been overcome were in not for the two weeks of ridiculous hot and humid weather. The worms could not handle the 85 degree basement, even though I tried to cool them off by providing ice packs.

Some tried to flee across the basement floor and ended up as dried worm corpses, and others suffocated in their bins, only to return to the dirt from which they came.

It was a sad day today, cleaning out the bins. But it had to be done so that I can welcome a new bunch of composters in the fall.

sam's home cooking: pasta aglio e olio

2011-07-28T19:06:00.001-05:00

Pasta aglio e olio

⅙ cup olive oil
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
⅛ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt
½ pound spaghetti*
⅛ cup fresh parsley, chopped (optional)
⅛ cup fresh oregano, chopped (optional)
Black pepper (optional)
Parmesan (optional)

Bring 4 quarts water to a boil in a large pot. Prep garlic.

Heat oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes in a small pan over medium-low heat. Stir frequently until garlic turns golden but not brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Add salt and pasta to boiling water. Cook until pasta is al dente. Drain pasta, reserving ⅛ cup cooking liquid. Return pasta to pot. Add garlic mixture, cooling liquid, parsley, oregano, and black pepper. Toss well to coat pasta and mix seasonings.

Serve immediately. May be topped with grated parmesan.

Roasted red potatoes

2 pounds red potatoes, halved into ¾-inch pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt & pepper
Optional seasonings: dill, paprika, rosemary

Preheat oven to 425. Prep potatoes.

Toss potatoes and oil in covered bowl. Season generously with salt, pepper, and optional seasonings of your choice. Toss again.

Arrange potato halves cut side down in a single layer in a roasting pan. Cover aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove foil and roast until potatoes touching pan are crusty golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and turn potatoes, taking care to protect the crusts. Return pan to oven and roast until most of the potato is crusty golden brown, 5-10 minutes.

Transfer to serving dish without ripping crusts. Serve hot or warm.

sam's home cooking: radicchio risotto

2011-07-27T18:51:00.002-05:00

Background: Radicchio Risotto

Olive oil
1 ounce pancetta*
½ pound radicchio, coarsely chopped
Salt and black pepper
½ cup onion, chopped
¾ cup Arborio rice
⅓ cup white wine
2½ cups vegetable broth, warmed
1 tablespoon butter
⅛ cup parmesan cheese

Heat medium skillet over medium heat and add a small amount of olive oil and the pancetta. Cook until pancetta releases its fat and begins to crisp, about 4 minutes. Add radicchio with salt and pepper to taste. Stir to coat radicchio with fat and cook until wilted, about 7 minutes.

Heat a medium pot over medium heat and add a small amount of olive oil and the onion. Sauté until soft, about 8 minutes. Add rice and stir occasionally until the rice kernels turn translucent. Add wine and stir until it evaporates. Add the broth to rice in ½ cup increments for 10 minutes, stirring regularly to keep maintain a lazy bubble. Adjust heat as necessary.

Add radicchio and continue cooking for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Risotto should be somewhat soupy and not too stiff. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Remove from heat and add butter and parmesan. Cover and let sit for 2 minutes. Serve immediately.

*substitutions: May use bacon instead of pancetta, but consider adding spices such as fennel seed, nutmeg, garlic powder, salt, white pepper, and others.

Foreground: Smoked Apple Sage Field Roast

Crumbled Field Roast sauteed with broccoli and crimini mushrooms in the bacon grease leftover from the risotto.

sam's home cooking: baby turnips

2011-07-26T18:44:00.004-05:00

The summer CSA is here and the heat has gone, which means Sam can spend lots of time in the kitchen turning fresh vegetables into tasty meals. The next few days will be a testament to his excellent cooking.

Roasted baby turnips

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1½ teaspoons whole-grain mustard
1 scallion, minced
1½ tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
24 baby turnips stems trimmed to 2 inches

Preheat the oven to 425°. In a bowl, whisk the vinegar with the mustard, scallion, parsley and 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Season the vinaigrette with salt and pepper.

Heat a rimmed baking sheet in the oven. Cut the turnips in half through the stems; quarter them if large. In a large bowl, toss the turnips with the remaining 1/4 cup of oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread the turnips on the preheated baking sheet and roast for about 18 minutes, until tender. Transfer the turnips to a platter and let cool.

*Saute the turnip greens in olive oil with a little salt and pepper for a light bed on which to place the baby turnips.

what the..

2011-07-21T17:42:00.003-05:00

We were driving through a cozy residential neighborhood in La Crosse this morning when we passed a house under construction that had a horse hanging out under a tree in the front yard. It was casually eating hay, oblivious to the stares coming from every car driving by.

La Crosse just narrowly passed the backyard chicken ordinance. I'm pretty sure horses were not included.

summertime

2011-07-11T22:43:00.002-05:00

The Fourth of July has come and gone, but this grasshopper can't get enough of the American flag. The summer heat and all its buggy friends are frequent visitors to our house, but so far they are leaving the garden alone. The chamomile and rhubarb are on their way out, but the oregano, basil, dill, and mint are happy as can be. The leeks and cherry tomatoes are plugging along as well. I'm just waiting for my CSA to deliver some beets, and I'll be very happy!

wedded

2011-06-25T19:51:00.003-05:00

the falls and beyond

2011-06-24T21:03:00.003-05:00

After Michigan, we went up to Fergus, Ontario (an hour south of Toronto) for a ridiculous Ultimate frisbee tournament/carnival. The Ultimate part was mostly rained out, but we made the most of muddy Canada, and had a good time.

We got to Niagara Falls on a Sunday night, just in time for the mediocre seven-minute fireworks show over the falls. More enjoyable was the fact that we had brought our bicycles and parked a fair distance away, allowing us a leisurely ride through Queen Victoria Park along the falls.

We didn't stay long the next morning, because it was just a giant tourist trap. Instead, we wandered along the shore of Lake Eerie, stopping at an old fort, a winery, and Cleveland. And let me tell you, if you ever get to Cleveland, go to Melt Bar and Grilled. Go and eat the most ridiculous grilled cheese concoctions your brain could never imagine.

fo' sho

2011-06-23T20:03:00.006-05:00

It amuses me when I look up a phrase in my online Japanese-English dictionary and it throws in a ridiculous slang option.

I was checking 実際に for some possible synonyms, and this is what came up.

as a practical matter
for all practical purposes
in fact
actually
forrizzle
as large as life

lake and dunes

2011-06-23T11:20:00.000-05:00

We drove up the east coast of Lake Michigan and had the dunes all to ourselves one stormy morning. The last time I was at the dunes I was much smaller, and I therefore remember them being much more imposing. The hike that took all afternoon when I was ten took us about thirty minutes, and we were being leisurely.

The afternoon brightened up, and the drive along the coast was picturesque. We stopped by a few small towns and took in the view of the lake from parks, piers, and picnic stops.

mostly michigan beer tour

2011-06-22T13:30:00.000-05:00

It's been a couple weeks now, but we took a vacation of sorts driving in a loop from Wisconsin to Michigan, Toronto, Niagara, Cleveland, Indiana, Ohio, and home. There were all sorts of stops, but let me start with the first set - the beer.

Mostly Michigan Beer Tour
Tasting List

1. Three Floyds Brewing, Munster, IN
Ragnarok: Aesir robust porter
Pride and Joy: American mild
Black Heart: English-style IPA

2. New Holland Brewing Company, Holland, MI
Imperial Hatter: Imperial IPA
el Mole Ocho: Mole beer

3. Brewery Vivant, Grand Rapids, MI
Farm Hand: French Farmhouse Ale
Triomphe: Belgian IPA
Solitude: Belgian Amber
Rye Porter
Barrel Aged Raspberry Porter

4. Founders Brewing Company, Grand Rapids, MI
Empire Strikes Bitter: ESB
All Day IPA

5. Bell's Brewery, Kalamazoo, MI
Lager of the Lakes: Pilsner
Mild Ale: British
Oarsman: Sour Mash Wheat
Sparkling: American Triple
Hole in the Bucket: Experimental ale with 3-6-9 hops
Oracle: Double IPA
Wedding Ale: Honey Wheat

6. Dark Horse Brewing Company, Marshall, MI
Raspberry Ale
Reserve Special Black Bier

7. Canadian Randomness
Mill Street Tankhouse: Red Ale
Alexander Keith: Pale
Wellington Pale
Wellington Lager
Rickard's Red

8. Great Lakes Brewing Company, Cleveland, OH
Dortmunder Gold: Alt beer
Eliot Ness: Amber lager
Lake Erie Monster: Imperial IPA

And for those of you who think this is a lot of beer, it is. But it took us fourteen days to get through them all, and most were taster glasses. I even did a bit of beer-snobbery and wrote down tasting notes, which I have already put on a shelf and forgotten...

brew days

2011-05-30T10:23:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy spring for us, especially as we've been devoting a significant amount of time to brewing beer. Saturday we spent the day brewing two batches, which we found took only two hours longer than brewing just one batch. We've gotten the system down pat.

Our latest endeavors are listed below:

5. Oatmeal Chicory Stout: This was in the primary when I last updated about beer, but we got creative with it in the secondary and added coffee, roasted chicory, and licorice root. We bottled it last week, and I'm pretty happy with the roasted aftertaste. Sam thinks it's too much.

6. Weizen: This one was a little too warm in the primary, so it has a very banana aroma, but it'll make a nice summer beer.

7. Ordinary Bitter
8. Dunkelweizen
9. Extra Special Bitter

Our next brews will be a Rhubarb Weizenbock for fun, and a Pale Ale for Leslie's wedding!

early risers

2011-05-29T14:22:00.002-05:00

There is nothing like being woken up at 5:30am to the sound of ducks mating outside your window.

weekend activities

2011-05-24T09:26:00.003-05:00

Sam and I were flown out to Buffalo, NY this weekend to Observe the DIII College Ultimate Championships. Thanks to the five weeks of recordbreaking rain they'd had, the field site had to be moved to a smaller space, which meant that instead of five rounds of games on Saturday, there were eight. And more rounds meant more Observing!

Sam worked 12 games over the weekend and I worked 10. We both came home very tired and very sore, but we had a great time. All of the teams worked very hard, and it was obvious they appreciated our presence on the field. That's what makes it really worthwhile.

Driving home from the airport, we heard on the radio that there had been a tornado in La Crosse while we were gone. We were lucky that it hit 10 blocks south of us and we didn't come home to a missing roof or a tree on the house.

spring blossoms

2011-05-16T22:46:00.002-05:00

Last year, I was told not to plant my garden before the second weekend of May, which is the average last frost. I remember heeding this advice, but not really feeling like I needed to since the weather was warm by May.

This year was a different case. While we did have a few random days of 75 degree weather in April, most of the month was still 40 degrees with rain and wind. And then there were those four days of snow...

The weather finally seems to be cooperating now, though. We planted our basil, oregano, and spinach outside today. My flower seeds have started to come up, and the crabapple trees are in full bloom. They remind me so much of the cherry blossoms in Japan. Those blossomed and fell a full two months ago, but my crabapple tree is telling me its finally spring here in Wisconsin.

a new season

2011-05-03T15:36:00.003-05:00

The Ultimate season has officially begun, and we are well on our way to playing/observing several tournaments in a row.

This past weekend was College North Central Regionals. It was supposed to be held in Appleton, but northern Wisconsin has had nothing but rain and clouds for the past two weeks, so the ground was too soggy. The D1 (bigger school) divisions were moved to Madison instead, where the ground was less soggy, but the wind was ridiculous.

We observed six games, including Women's Finals and a bunch of games that decided who would or would not go to Nationals. I gave one Personal Misconduct Foul for a guy who responded to my call with "you should pay attention to the game." Other than that, the games were pretty clean and the players seemed to genuinely appreciate our presence on the field.

Once again I tracked the number of points total in each game and calculated the absolute least number of miles we ran. The absolute least we could run would be 70 yards per point, the length of the field between the endzones. Of course, this ends up being a ridiculously inaccurate number, especially in windy conditions when teams are just hucking up and down the field. But the low number for the weekend is 4.5 miles. I think I would at least triple it to get a better idea.

gold medal winner

2011-04-18T17:20:00.004-05:00

Sam and I began brewing beer at the end of January. Since then, we've brewed five different beers:

1. Pale Ale
2. IPA
3. Red Rye Ale
4. Brown Porter
5. Oatmeal Stout

The last two are still fermenting, which is why when the deadline for the Between the Bluffs Beer, Wine, and Cheese Festival Homebrew Competition came up, we entered what we thought were our two best of the three that were ready to drink: the Pale and the Red Rye.

This weekend we helped out at the judging of the Homebrew Contest, and were therefore immediately aware when our Red Rye won its division. That's right. Our Colonial Uprising Red Rye Ale won a Gold Medal!

We are very excited.

singin' in the rain

2011-04-10T17:14:00.003-05:00

I was eating a cookie at the reception after my chorale concert when a thunderstorm developed directly above the building. It rained, it poured, it hailed marble-sized hail, the wind blew ferociously, and then the sun came out and a beautiful rainbow appeared. All of this happened within about seven minutes.

As I rode my bicycle home through streets flooded with water the drains couldn't yet handle, I noticed how many people were outside their houses. I ride the same route a few times a week going to choir and Ultimate, and I rarely see people. But there they were, watching the hail in their front yards melt and wondering how long til the intersections were clear again. It felt like I was riding through an entirely different neighborhood.

And now the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I should really check the basement for water.

two kids and some chickens

2011-04-07T15:41:00.005-05:00

On Sunday we went out to Jarpal Farms, the homestead owned by my friend and coworker, Beth and her husband, Erik. The farm is home to two human families, over thirty chickens, seven ducks, five cats, and most recently, goats!

Clara and her brother Macaroon were born only a few weeks ago, and we went out to visit before they lost their baby playfulness. Clara was jumping around the whole time, so it was hard to get a non-blurry photo!

We played with the goats, Sam asserted his dominance over the chickens, and I curled up with a cat. Then we enjoyed quiche made from the chicken eggs and fresh goat cheese, and some great homebrewed beer. It was a wonderful afternoon spent on the farm with friends.

little house

2011-03-24T12:26:00.007-06:00

I was in line at the co-op when the seven-year-old girl in front of me started chatting with me.

"What's your name?" she eventually asked. When I responded, she got an excited look on her face and followed up with, "Are you named after Laura Ingalls Wilder?"

I was tempted to say yes, because that would probably make her day. Instead I told her, "No, but I read all of her books and I loved them!"

She explained to me that she's watching all of the movies, but some day she'll read all the books. And she's sure that the books will be better, because the books are always better than the movies. "There's so much more content in the books that they don't have time to put in the movies," she told me with the certainty of someone who's read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies in her life.

I told her that I agree, and she should definitely read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books soon, so she can find out all the exciting things they didn't put in the movies.

And then I reminisced about my kindergarten days when I wore my hair in braided pigtails and carried a bookbag with my name and some strawberries stenciled on it. A third grader on the bus used his powers of compilation to give me the nickname Laura Ingalls Strawberry. Luckily, it was a little too long to stick.

time warp again

2011-03-17T22:13:00.004-06:00

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," they say. So the few weeks of silence here have increased your anticipation of my next post, correct?

Let's do a quick rundown of the past couple of weeks.

Gallons of beer brewed: 10 (IPA, Imperial Red Rye)
Degrees warmer outside: 25 (45 today!)
Episodes of Sopranos watched: 4
Days went to the gym: 9
Socks knit: 1.5
Hours on the road: 23
New choir songs learned: 8
Bike tires pumped: 0 (but they really need it...)
Plans made: many
Work done: lots

Honestly, I don't know where January and February went, but I know that March will soon be with them. Even as the days get longer, I seem to run out of time and energy to do all the things on my ever-expanding list. None of the things on this list are really blog-worthy, but don't worry. Ultimate season is upon us, and I will soon regale you with stories of my prowess on the field, and how many times Sam gets complimented on his beard.

organics

2011-02-28T17:25:00.003-06:00

Every February, the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) holds their Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse, and every year I've been envious of friends who go and learn amazing things about organics, agriculture, sustainability, and so on. Lucky for me, this year I was able to go to the conference because the People's Food Co-op is a major sponsor.

This conference is the largest organic farming conference in the country, and it was amazing to see 3,000 large-scale and small-scale farmers, people interested in organic food and farming, and supporters of organics all gathering together to learn cool stuff. I learned quite a bit about policy and the government's role in organic certification, sustainable poultry farming, growing mushrooms, the ability of animals to seek out the minerals their body needs, growing hops, and much more.

Here are a few things I found randomly interesting.

- The USDA is supposed to regulate the labeling of organic fish, but it does not yet have a mechanism for doing so. If you see a fish labeled organic, it is most likely not.
- We Care Organics sells sewer sludge labeled as "bio-solid compost" in Home Depot, Lowe's, and other DIY centers. It is definitely not organic.
- Culture (for example, what your mother teaches you) plays an equally large role in what and how grazing animals and humans eat. It's not just genetic that an animal prefers a certain food.
- Hops will die rather than grow counterclockwise around twine. Always wind them clockwise.
- A vine has tendrils it uses to climb, while a bine has microscopic hooks. Hop plants are bines.
- You can grow edible mushrooms on a roll of toilet paper.

four-alarm foul-up

2011-02-18T18:30:00.004-06:00

Two or three times a year, my choir has a day-long rehearsal with a potluck lunch. Last time, a tenor brought what I thought was a very tasty Indian curry. I asked him for the recipe, and tonight I tried it out.

When I had this curry at the potluck, it had just the right amount of spice; the first bite woke you up, but everything mellowed out by the third or fourth spoonful. Tonight's version almost killed us.

Sam enjoys spicy food, but even he had trouble with this one. He went through a decent amount of rice and nan to finish his serving. I used a ridiculous amount of sour cream to cut the heat.

What went wrong? We think we'd like to blame the cayenne pepper. The recipe says 1 tsp, but Sam says you should think twice before ever using more than 1/4 tsp in an average-sized dish. I didn't know, and if the tenor cooked it this way, why was his not ridiculously spicy?

Anyway, as soon as dinner was over, Sam ran out to get ice cream. We're hoping some dairy in the tummy will protect our stomach linings as we digest this evening.

black curry experiment

2011-02-08T09:23:00.004-06:00

In the four hundred years or so since Japan opened its ports to the West, the Japanese have been adapting Western food to their taste. One of my favorite examples of this is Japanese curry. It's a sweet, creamy version of its southeastern neighbors' dishes, and it goes great with katsu, a crisp, breaded pork tenderloin.

Japan is the land of easy-made food, so of course, most people buy roux bricks to make their curry at home. That's what I'd always done until No Recipes, one of my favorite food blogs, decided he'd come up with a from-scratch curry recipe. I was excited. Then, he decided he'd try something different and make a black curry. With chocolate in it. Oh, yes.

So I gave the black curry a go. I had to make a few of the ingredients to go in this dish, mayu and tonkatsu sauce, and this took a lot of time. But it was fun to be spending an entire afternoon cooking a good and creative meal. I even made an approximation of katsu by breading seitan with panko, Japanese bread crumbs.

Overall, the curry was a great meeting point of the sweetness of Japanese curry with the spices (cardamom, anise) of farther east and the inventiveness (chocolate) of the crazy U.S. Sam says the flavors didn't blend well; he thinks you could taste each one individually. But I thought it came out rather well. The seitan katsu was a little bland, and next time I'll marinate the seitan in something to give it a little more flavor before breading it.

opposite of first place

2011-01-30T11:39:00.003-06:00

I am a fairly competitive person. I like to succeed at things, especially things that Sam and I do together. I like to do better than Sam at these things. But this has not been the case lately.

For example, yesterday Sam and I played in the Winter Rec Fest Euchre Tournament. This was ten rounds (seven hours, including lunch) of the Midwest's favorite card game* played by one hundred casual and serious players from the La Crosse area. After every round, the winners would move up a table, the losers would stay at the same table, and everyone would switch partners, so you rarely played with the same partner twice. Winners got 12 points, and losers got the number of points they received in the game.

Sam advanced steadily and ended up tied for 26th place. I stayed at the same table for seven rounds, won one game against an undefeated player, and secured last place in the tournament. Yes, I got 100th out of 100 players. I mostly blame bad cards, but Sam will never let me live it down, I'm sure.

*In the next room, there were about 120 people playing Sheepshead, another Midwest game I am very interested in learning. Although since it is more complicated than Euchre, I will most likely not be very good at it.

assistant brewer

2011-01-23T12:33:00.004-06:00

Twice this week I've had friends ask me what I've been doing lately. My instant response is "nothing new." This is a fairly accurate assessment, because what I have been doing that has been keeping me busy is the usual ongoing things, like choir, curling, working, knitting, and yoga.

That being said, yesterday Sam and I brewed a batch of all-grain beer. It is currently sitting a few feet away from me bubbling away as the yeast does its thing.

Sam had brewed an English ale with an extract kit a few months ago. It turned out good flavor-wise, but was flat. He did a lot of research, talked to the brew club guys, and decided that as a holiday gift to ourselves, we were going to invest in home-brewing equipment to brew all-grain beer with recipes we make up ourselves. And so we did.

Now we have five gallons of Pale Ale and a gallon of experimental malt wine (even though I said I was going to give up on wine to help with beer, there's still a bit of me that wants to keep trying). I'll let you know how it turns out.

i want arms like madonna

2011-01-05T13:46:00.004-06:00

I've been going to a yoga class at my local YMCA every week for quite some time now. The instructor for "my" class is great because she works muscles in a progression that warms them up nicely before bringing on the tough stuff. She also has a few difficult poses that we work on every week to try to improve little by little.

Madonna demonstrates the pose I am particularly working on, which is Eka Pada, or, putting your leg behind your head.

On a usual day, I can get my leg to just above my forehead. This week, the weather was nice, I was feeling good, and I actually made it all the way back behind my head! (But not quite to the neck) Yay! I could not, however, let go of my leg or straighten my back, so I still have a long way to go. But for now, I am very happy with my yoga progress.

deep-fried deliciousness

2010-12-27T22:05:00.003-06:00

I like it when Sam's on vacation because one of his favorite things to do when he has time is cook good food. He'll plan and make several new or tried-and-true recipes, and I'll be his sous chef.

For Christmas Day, we had a classic meal. Sam heated up the oven for a Tofurky roast with mashed potatoes, yams, carrots, squash, gravy, and rolls. (We find that the Tofurky roast is moister than the Quorn turkey roast, although we love Quorn otherwise.)

Today, we leaned toward fair food. Sam prepared Tofurky Italian Sausage topped with bell peppers, onions, banana peppers, and tomatoes. I made some beer batter and fried up some cheese curds and mushrooms. Really, if you are as fairly proficient at home deep-frying as we are (we regularly make tempura, falafal, and taco shells), frying up your own cheese curds is easy and much cheaper than at a restaurant. And if you have some flat homebrew sitting around that needs another purpose, this is a great use!

Here's the recipe, if you ever find yourself in the presence of some fresh cheese curds.

Deep-fried Cheese Curds

Deep-fry oil
1 egg, beaten
1 cup flour
1 tsp sugar
1 cup beer or milk
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 package cheese curds

Heat deep-fry oil in a medium pot.

Mix together remaining ingredients except cheese curds. Batter should err on the runny side, so add more beer/milk if necessary.

Roll cheese curds lightly in flour. (Cheese curds should be at room temperature so as to sweat a little bit. This will encourage the flour to stick to the curds.)

Drop a small amount of batter into oil. If batter pops up immediately, oil is hot enough. Dip curds in batter and drain off the excess. Deep-fry curds in batches for one to two minutes, or until batter is golden brown.

Remove the curds to a plate with a paper towel to absorb the excess oil. In order to keep the first batches of curds warm while making the others, put the plate in a warm oven between batches.

Enjoy the tasty goodness of fried cheese curds with or without dipping in ranch dressing.

christmas tragedy

2010-12-26T10:26:00.004-06:00

The first snowfall gave us an opportunity to see exactly what animals were passing through our yard. Rabbits, squirrels, and dogs made up the bulk of pawprints, but we were surprised to see a tiny shuffled path through the snow leading right up to a crack behind our kitchen steps. A vole, Sam said. A mouse, I thought, is living in our basement. Neither of us mind the spiders in the basement, and a mouse didn't bother us either, as long as it kept to itself.

Last week, Sam saw a little furry something running across our kitchen floor. It seemed that the mouse preferred the heat of the kitchen under the cupboards. This was too close to our food, so Sam went to the hardware and bought some old-fashioned mouse traps, which we set out with peanut butter crackers.

For three days, the mouse robbed our traps in broad daylight when we were just in the other room. Yesterday, though, we heard the snap, and the little mouse lost its life on Christmas Day.

Then Sam threw it out in a snowdrift to become a mousecicle.

soltice

2010-12-21T15:11:00.003-06:00

Thanks to the holiday cards and gifts Sam and I have been receiving in the last week or so, our holiday corner finally has some holiday cheer.

The little Norfolk Pine I bought as my Christmas tree last year survived but didn't grow much. It needed some help from the Kwanzaa kinara (not quite decked out in the appropriate colors), some Japanese candles and an origami crane for the New Year, and the cards and decorations sent by friends and family. The lemongrass snuck in to join the holiday fun too.

trailblazer

2010-12-12T16:35:00.004-06:00

I've been waiting for lots of snow ever since the temperatures started dipping in mid-November. There are two reasons for my anticipation:

1. Cold weather is horrible without snow to mitigate it. Snow makes everything pretty instead of gray and dreary, and it gives me something to kick or jump around in when I'm walking in the cold.

2. I'm ready to go cross-country skiing again. One time last year was definitely not enough.

The La Crosse Tribune says we have gotten 16.9 inches of snow in the past two days. The drifts in my backyard are significantly higher. There are all sorts of travel advisories and frostbite warnings, and the snowplows have yet to get to our alley.

But that's okay, because Sam shoveled the truck out this morning (just in case), and I used the unplowed alleys and the parking lot next door to create my own cross-country ski course, complete with a few snowdrift hills to climb up and ski down. I had a great time. In fact, I might have had more fun breaking my own trail around my house than I did skiing last year on the groomed trails in Hixon.

winter beer makes me warmer

2010-12-09T19:23:00.000-06:00

In the past, I made quite a bit of wine. Lately, I have been in the mood for beer.

My favorite beers are dark with roasted malts and hints of coffee and vanilla, and winter is the season for these porters and stouts. The Bodega has started to bring in the seasonal beers, and I'm well into sampling them, but this weekend I came across one of the best "Christmas" beers I've ever had.

Gouden Carolus Christmas by Het Anker (Belgium) is a Belgian Strong Dark Ale that smells like black licorice. In fact, it tastes like black licorice. If I were to have even considered making a beer flavored with anise, it would be this beer. I don't think it is overpoweringly sweet, like many of the reviewers say. I think it is a perfect balance of malts, anise, and other spices with a sweet, but not sticky sweet, finish.

I would drink the Gouden Carolus Christmas beer every day of winter if it weren't 10.5% and eleven dollars a pint. So in its stead, I often turn to the ever-tasty Dogfish Head Chicory Stout. Another seasonal beer, I wait in anticipation and then buy up a couple of six-packs to last me through the season.

Interestingly, Wikipedia just told me that chicory is one of the little blue wildflowers that pop up along the side of the highway in the summer. Next year, I am going to see what I can do with it!

curling

2010-12-08T22:10:00.003-06:00

Sam and I tried out a new sport tonight - curling!

Honestly, most of what I knew about curling before this evening came from very brief glimpses during the Winter Olympics and an episode of the Simpsons. It seemed to me to be like shuffleboard on ice.

And now I know that it is indeed like shuffleboard on ice, only with 42 lbs stones. The most difficult part is sending that 42 lb stone across the ice without falling over, releasing the stone too hard, releasing it too soft, curling it too much, or giving it a shove in the wrong direction. There's also a knack to sweeping the area in front of the stone to melt the ice and keep it moving or curving.

Mostly, curling appears to be a sport of finesse, and finesse takes practice. Unfortunately, the curling club meets only once a month for about three more months. We'll see how much finesse I can gain by in that time. Perhaps I'll even get to enter a spiel (tournament).

winter running

2010-12-04T13:08:00.003-06:00

Well, it's finally and officially winter in my book. We have six inches of snow on the ground here in La Crosse, and I've seen kids out sledding on hills.

The first snow of the season just happened to coincide with the first race of the Winter Running Series (one race a month December through February). Sam and I both signed up last year, but I decided not to this year since I chickened out of running at zero degrees last January and February.

The numbers were a little low this morning since the roads weren't exactly clear, but we made it to the race. Sam placed 21st out of 215 runners, and 3rd in his age division. My camera didn't like the cold, so I couldn't get a good picture of Sam's frost-coated beard, but I'm sure I'll get another chance for that this winter. (Sam is not in the picture above either. Sorry.)

another month gone

2010-12-03T16:06:00.003-06:00

Well, NaBloPoMo 2010 did not go entirely as planned. I had meant to include at least a picture or two, and more than three recipes, but work and life intervened. I'm sorry that you, my few readers, had to endure reading about two weeks of pumpkin bread for breakfast and a whole lot of leftovers. Oh, well, that's how it goes.

And now we're back to my normal blogging schedule: maybe once or twice a week, and usually a photo. Especially since we have a winter storm on the way, there might be a couple good photographs in the near future. But don't get your hopes too high, my fingers get cold quickly.

the end of the month

2010-11-30T20:03:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Yogurt with raisins and almonds; bagel with black sesame spread

Black sesame spread is one of those tasty Japanese foods that I can't find in any market over here. If I have a friend going to Japan/visiting here from Japan, I always ask them to bring me black sesame spread. It's like peanut butter, really, but made of black sesame and sweetened just a bit. It is wonderful on toast.

*Lunch: Leftover red beans and rice with lots of cheese

*Dinner: Fake beer brats, sauerkraut, and roasted root vegetables (beets and turnips)

I like most of the Tofurkey brand fake meat products, but I like their brats/sausages the best. I especially love the Spicy Italian Sausage. The beer brats go very well with this very German of meals we have occasionally, though. And as much as I hated sauerkraut growing up, I love it now.

oy vey

2010-11-29T21:05:00.005-06:00

It was a hectic morning. There was no time for breakfast.

*Lunch: Pasta primavera from the Co-op

*Dinner: Beans and Rice

Another one of my all-time favorites of Sam's cooking is his Red Beans and Rice. Again, it involves Worchestershire sauce (maybe this is the key). Since Japan, rice has become a sort of comfort food for me. In addition, chili with lots of kidney beans was one of my favorite meals. Red Beans and Rice brings together the two of these textures and flavors into a great rainy-day meal. And today was definitely a rainy day.

back home again

2010-11-28T23:11:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Cranberry-walnut bagel with honey-walnut cream cheese from Panera

*Lunch: Fake chicken nuggets and steamed carrots

*Dinner: Stir-fry with brown sauce

Sam bought some Chinese brown sauce a few weeks ago to add a different flavor to our stir-fry. It didn't work. In fact, I think he commented that the stir-fry had less flavor than before because the sauce masked the sesame and ginger. I think he was right.

on the go

2010-11-27T23:46:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: French toast

*Lunch: Pizza from a Fort Wayne pizza place

*Afternoon snack: Vegetable lasagna, strawberries in a chocolate fountain

My friend Abby got married in September in D.C. and had her Indiana reception today. She's vegetarian, and so provided an incredibly tasty veggie lasagna. Sam wants the recipe. I had fun dipping strawberries in the chocolate fountain and trying to figure out all the jelly bean flavors in my jelly bean cup.

*Dinner: Chili Rellenos from a Mexican restaurant in the suburbs of Chicago

We decided to spit up the travel home, so we made it out past Chicago and stopped for the night. We ate dinner and then relaxed in our hotel room. I made Sam watch Princess Diaries 2 (the only thing on TV, really) since I had been watching football and basketball for three days straight. He endured resignedly.

turkey and more turkey

2010-11-26T23:41:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Sam's Mom's potato rolls, grapefruit, kiwi

*Lunch: Thanksgiving leftovers at my Mom's house

*Dinner: Thanksgiving leftovers at my Grandparents' house

I really don't tire of Thanksgiving leftovers, especially when they come from different houses. Some people make candied sweet potatoes, some people make sausage dressing; some people have pumpkin pie, some people have lepkuchen cookies. And I rarely eat turkey any other time of the year, so I'm very happy to have multiple turkey meals in a row.

My cousin Sarah said she had five Thanksgiving dinners. I had three and a half, and I wasn't disappointed in any of them.

thanksgiving belly

2010-11-25T23:52:00.003-06:00

*Breakfast: Sam's Mom's potato rolls

*Lunch/Thanksgiving Dinner/Dinner: Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, courtesy Sam's Mom

Turkey
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce (made with Wisconsin cranberries)
Cornbread Pudding
Stuffing
Green Bean Casserole
Acorn Squash and Tempeh Stuffing (Sam's contribution)
Rolls

Peach Pie
Apple Crisp
Pumpkin Pie

According to the Muncie paper, I would have to walk 60 miles to work off the calories from this Thanksgiving meal. But I enjoy sitting around the table talking, watching football, and generally relaxing instead.

on the road

2010-11-24T20:47:00.002-06:00

*Breakfast: Veggie and egg scramble, courtesy Amber's home-cooking

*Lunch: Subway in Bloomington, IL

*Dinner: Pizza King in Muncie, IN

After sleet and rain for 10 hours, we are safely where we need to be, and ready for food and family for Thanksgiving. Yay!

coconut milk is my perhaps my favorite milk

2010-11-23T20:01:00.001-06:00

*Breakfast: the last of the pumpkin bread!

Sam didn't even have one piece.

*Lunch: the last of the squash soup!

*Dinner: Squash Curry from a Laotian restaurant in Madison

We're on our way back to the family for Thanksgiving and stopped off in Madison for some tasty Asian food. Oh, tasty Asian food! Why can't there by any tasty Asian food in La Crosse?

scrambling around

2010-11-22T19:58:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Pumpkin Bread

*Lunch: Leftover squash soup

*Dinner: Mini pizzas and Brussels sprouts

spicing up life

2010-11-21T18:13:00.002-06:00

*Breakfast: Peach scone

*Lunch: Pesto spaghetti

*Dinner: Curried butternut squash soup

This fall, I modified a butternut squash soup recipe I found online somewhere to fit what we had a lot of in the house, namely squash and basil. I thought it was a great variation on traditional butternut squash soup. Today I made it again, with a few easy substitutions, and it was almost as tasty. (I do believe that no-chicken broth is better than vegetable broth for this recipe. Also, I think a more pungent cider gives a better flavor than a sweeter cider.) I also kicked up the spices a notch today, and it was definitely more curry than butternut tasting. Perhaps next time I'll add coconut milk!

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

1 medium butternut squash
3 baby leeks
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup fresh Thai basil
2 tbsp butter
32 oz no-chicken broth
1/2 cup to 1 cup apple cider (depends on your cider)
1 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
milk to taste

Cut squash in half, roast cut side down in 1 inch of water at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, or until soft. Peel skin off. Cube squash.

Saute leeks and garlic in butter until soft.
Add basil and cook down.
Add broth, apple cider, and cooked squash.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes, or until squash is tender.
Add spices, cook for 5 minutes.

Turn off heat and puree to your desired texture with an immersion blender.
(Or pull out the chunks, puree in a food processor, and add back in.)

Add more spices, including Thai basil, to taste.
Add milk (or coconut milk!) for creaminess if desired.

carbo-loading

2010-11-20T23:28:00.000-06:00

*Brunch: Eggs Benedict at Ardie's

Our friends Amber and Steve were in town, and they ran the Turkey Trot 5k with Sam on this cold, windy morning. I'm rehabilitating my knees, so I waited in the warm, and then went out to cheer them on at the finish. I missed them by about 30 seconds. Anyway, after showering we went out for a celebratory brunch at Ardie's, which was voted "Best Breakfast Menu in La Crosse." I don't know that I agree it is the best, but it's pretty good.

*Dinner: Pesto and veggie spaghetti

It is so wonderful to be able to just pull out a pesto cube from the freezer and have a taste of summer!

here's how!

2010-11-19T23:14:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Still working on the pumpkin bread.

*Lunch: Grilled cheese sandwiches, leftover stir-fry

*Dinner: Tuna steak and grilled vegetables at Nell's City Grill

We got in the truck to drive to a north-side restaurant we heard had Indian food. It was closed. So then we drove back south toward a restaurant near the brewery that Sam had heard of. So after twenty minutes of driving, we ended up two blocks from our house. At least the food was good, and the murals depicting monks drinking beer were interesting. According to the history on the menu, "Here's how!" was an earlier equivalent of "Cheers!" The murals exclaimed "Here's how!" in various languages. My favorite was "Oogy wawa!" (Zulu)

inception at the rivoli

2010-11-18T22:00:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Yogurt with pomegranate seeds and walnuts, pumpkin bread

*Lunch: Leftover Philly cheese-steak

*Dinner: Mediterranean pizza from the Rivoli

The Rivoli is our local 3rd run movie theater, and it is awesome for several reasons.
1. There are what I'd call "Romeo and Juliet balconies" built into the walls. (That is, little places for Juliet to stand and call down to Romeo.)
2. They sell good beer for enjoying during the movie.
3. They sell pizza, and they will bring it to your seat during the movie.
4. Four dollar tickets. (2 dollar matinees).

i can't say I've ever had a real cheese-steak

2010-11-17T19:28:00.003-06:00

*Breakfast: Plain yogurt with pomegranate seeds and almonds, and pumpkin bread

*Lunch: Leftover stir-fry

*Dinner: Seitan-style Philly cheese-steak, roasted turnips, and steamed broccoli

My first real fake meat experience outside of Japan (which has wonderful tofu, of course, and gluten options if you look hard enough) was in Bloomington, Indiana. Sam introduced me to the delicacy that is Bloomingfoods bbq seitan grab-n-go. I loved the chewy texture, and the bbq sauce the used was awesome. It became a staple of my grocery shopping trips.

The closest I come to the Bfoods seitan these days is Sam's philly cheese-steak. He uses the same style of seitan, which mimics beef tips, and marinates it with a tasty vegan worchestershire sauce. Put it in a toasty bun with swiss cheese and sauteed onions and green peppers, and it is one of the meals I crave the most. Delicious.

too busy to write more

2010-11-16T21:02:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Pumpkin bread and an orange

*Lunch: BBQ seitan sandwiches and collards

*Dinner: Stir fry

home cooking

2010-11-15T22:02:00.002-06:00

*Breakfast: Oatmeal with cranberries, and pumpkin bread

*Lunch: Leftover southern style mixed with brown rice in a fried rice sort of dish

I love combining things, especially things that have no business being combined.

*Dinner: Salad with feta, pomegranate seeds, and spinach; walnut burger; homemade french fries; cauliflower

There's an inn and restaurant in Trempealeau up the river that makes a tasty walnut burger. They sell packs of them frozen at the co-op too, and we've gotten them twice. The first time we cooked them they fell apart. This time, they burned. Perhaps we'll just have to go back to the restaurant where they know how to cook them up right.

bacon is the exception

2010-11-13T23:51:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Tamago-yaki, bacon, and toast

When we were in Japan, my friend Mayo taught Sam how to make tamago-yaki, eggs cooked into a layered roll. We even bought the special rectangular pan and brought it back from Japan with us so we can make them here. Sam usually makes the eggs more American by adding cheese and veggies to the roll, but today we kept it simple and Japanese.

*Lunch: Cupcakes

My choir, the La Crosse Chamber Chorale, had concerts this weekend. Sunday's was at 3pm, but my call was at 1:30pm and I had a late breakfast. So I did not eat lunch, and instead waited for the cupcakes at the reception celebrating the 25th Anniversary of our choir. I ate a few more than I should have.

*Dinner: Bacon-wrapped chicken breast stuffed with cheese and veggies

Holmen Meat Locker is the place to get freshly butchered meat around here, and we've been twice in the last two months. But Sam's vegetarian, you say. Well, Sam's vegetarian, except when our CSA supplies us with so much kale, collards, beet greens, and turnip greens that we decide we must try to cook them the old-fashioned way: in bacon grease.

During one of our trips to the Locker, I picked up this frozen chicken thingy. I love chicken, bacon, and cheese, so I thought it was a good bet. Halfway through I realized that I've been eating vegetarian for so long that a giant hunk of meat is no longer appetizing.

finally, a weekend with a little free time

2010-11-13T16:40:00.003-06:00

*Breakfast: Mexican Chipotle fake meat sausages and scrambled eggs

Also, I made pumpkin bread, which was like a snack somewhere between breakfast and lunch. My pumpkin bread tastes a lot like my zucchini bread. I'm beginning to think that most veggie breads are just bread with a tiny bit of veggies. I must find recipes that use a larger proportion of vegetables than sugar and flour.

*Lunch: Southern Style (hominy, black eyed peas, collard greens, and bbq seitan)

*Dinner: Wild rice and feta-stuffed delicata squash

Really, all the free time ended up being Sam's. I have work to make up from being sick on Thursday, in addition to the two choir concerts I'm singing in this weekend. So Sam made the food today. Sam says my hunger after the concert made this dish seem tastier than it was, but I am partial to things that have butter and cheese in them.

nothing exciting yet

2010-11-12T21:53:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Cereal and toast

*Lunch: Veggie black bean burgers and Brussels sprouts

Did you know that "Brussels sprouts" is the official name of those little cabbage-like veggies? I always thought we had taken the proper name of the city out of the name and just called them brussel sprouts. I was wrong.

*Dinner: Grilled cheese sandwich

sick day

2010-11-11T21:28:00.000-06:00

*Breakfast: Toast

*Lunch: Split pea soup

*Dinner: Chicken noodle soup

A special thanks to Sam for going out and getting Mrs. Grass chicken noodle soup, a favorite of my childhood days and a comfort to my upset stomach.