Archive for November, 2008

November 26, 2008 | Filed under: VloMo08

I utterly give up on VloMo. Daily-schmaily. I can’t do it. Maybe I’ll do it every five years.

Hey! Five years! That’s how long Brian’s trusty, rusty treadmill has been in storage!

Today we welcomed it back into the fold.

November 16, 2008 | Filed under: VloMo08, good eatin'

So yesterday was really 15 but I called it 14. Today’s video is 15 but really 16. Whatever. I tend not to pay attention to the date when I’m not at work. I also don’t wear a watch on my days off so I never know what time it is. Makes for the illusion that it’s one looooong day off with some sunshiny parts and some nighttimey parts in between.

You’re in for a spate of cooking videos. Why? Because on my days off I cook and I’m housebound. Cooking videos are marginally more interesting than sitting-on-the-couch videos, or sleeping videos.

Savory Hand Pies!

Pastry:
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbs spices of choice
1 cup butter or shortening (I use butter-flavored Crisco)
10-14 tsp icy cold water

Mix flour, salt and spices in a large bowl. I used cumin, coriander and tumeric for this particular chicken sausage meat pie. Cut in the shortening with either a pastry cutter or two butter knives (nice upper arm workout) until the mixture is predominantly pea-sized crumbs. Gradually add the ice water by spoonfuls till the whole mess just comes together. If you pinch it and it holds it’s shape, stop mixing. Form it into one or two balls depending on your counter space (i only have enough room to roll out two smaller ones), saran it and refrigerate it for one hour.

Filling:

This is the fun part. Pick your filling. Some kind of meat/veggie or chicken/veggie or potato/veggie combo cooking in a small amount of liquid (Worchestershire, Soy sauce, Lizano Salsa*, tonkatsu, hoisin, curry, whatever). Doesn’t matter what you use, just cut everything really small and don’t let it be too drippy. Past fillings have included

1. Curried ground pork, Yukon gold potato, onion
2. traditional Jamaican beef patty filling
3. Chicken sausage, Lizano, onion, red pepper, sweet potato
4. Sweet potato, leeks, mushroom
5. Chorizo, potato, chipotles, onion
6. Duck, scallion, hoisin

To Fill:

Roll out the dough to 1/4″. Cut out circles 2-3″ with a floured glass or biscuit cutter. Roll out circles to 5-6 inches 1/8″ thickness if you can manage it. Mine tend to be smaller. Fill w/2 tbs chopped whatnots, crimp, bake at 350F for about 30 minutes or ’till golden. (I like a light egg or milk wash as well…makes the crust all shiny and pretty!)

*INDISPENSABLE STUFF! Savory Costa Rican perfection for all meat pies! Painfully hard to find. I have mine shipped.

November 15, 2008 | Filed under: country mouse, good eatin'

14. I think it’s 14. I think I last posted at 10 or 11. Yeah, well…you wanna make something of it? It’s HARD posting daily! I knew that going into VloMo, of course, but between work and a cold and having a life where not a whole hell of a lot happens makes for a dearth of moviemaking. Sometimes I feel like I have to give my life a jolt just so I can have something to vlog about.

Today we finally bought a new dishwasher. The one that came with the house bit it (of course) a month after its 7 year warrantee expired. We’ve done without for several months and now realize that we go through WAY more propane than we did before. No goodskees. Had to bite the bullet and spend the cash to save money in the long run.

Also, I hate doing dishes. Loathe. Brian and I have a general “I cook; you clean” agreement, but sometimes…well…you know how that can go.

More important than the dishwasher, though, is that the appliance store is down the road from Friendly’s! PATTY MELT! JIM DANDY!

November 11, 2008 | Filed under: VloMo08, 20 seconds and under, good eatin'

A wee late, yes. I spaced yesterday. Spent the majority of it on the bus. Dreamed of fried apple fritters because really, who doesn’t?

November 9, 2008 | Filed under: VloMo08, big easy, Holiday! Celebrate!

WEEKEND REWIND!

March 2006, the first post-Katrina Mardi Gras. Join The Three Genes for some good clean Mardi Gras fun. FYI the near-constant interruption by Ray Nagin was provided courtesy of Gene3 (aka MichaelGene) and his “Mayor in your Pocket” key chain, a popular local novelty at the time.