Stuology

I made my trip to Penzeys today, so my spices are once again fully stocked–along with *um* a few that weren’t on the list, but that is okay.

Mac was very kind and made dinner tonight. I haven’t made my meal list for the week. Tomorrow I’m making slow-cooked ribs, but I’m not sure what I’m throwing on the side.

I also picked up more containers for all my various flours. I really wanted ones close to what I already have on my countertop now for my AP flour and sugar, but we could no longer find them in Lawrence. I finally decided to get the cheaper acrylic ones. The lid is easy to get on and off, sealing by pushing a button. Eventually I will have some place to put all my flours inside a cabinet, so the fact that they do not go at all with the rest of my stainless steel kitchen attire is fine. Also, thanks to a tip from Lydia, I picked up a few bags of frozen diced onions.

Ada is getting better at walking around in Animal Crossing. She got a little upset today when she couldn’t go in a house even after an explanation that she can only go in when the light is on. She finally believes me though, so now when she walks up to a house, she announces whether the light is on or off and if she can go in and talk to the animal. She also figured out on her own which button takes pictures and which button looks at the picture. We have a lot of pictures. I showed her the buttons to rotate through her tools, so she can also water stuff and dig a ton of holes.

I feel exhausted though–probably because of the 6 hours of sleep I got last night. However, because I was up late, I got to witness Ada do an awesome thing. She got up around 1:30am, went to the bathroom, and then crawled back into her bed and went back to sleep. The fact that she got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom is awesome! That means we are getting really close to having her housebroken.

Utopia in the Stugopolis kingdom will be discovered on StuDay^TM.

*Cool, of course, being an objective term for people who play Ikariam and/or are big dorks.

We were given a CD of songs for James recently. It will also be great for Ada. I finally got around to ripping it so we can put them on their iPod. The songs are sung at a little slower pace than usual which is great for helping Ada and James sing along and pronounce the words.

I’m listening to them now so I can label them with their title instead of it just saying Track #. We were warned that they were slow, but gawds! The only thing that the songs are missing is William Shatner.

Butternut Squash and Crab Bisque

Directions:
In a large stockpot on medium heat, melt the butter, then add the shallots and sweat them for several minutes until soft. Add the garlic and cook just until fragrant. Add the butternut squash, half of the crab meat, and chicken stock. Turn the heat to high until the mixture boil, and then turn back to medium and let simmer until the butternut squash is soft, about 30 minutes for me. I diced my squash to about 1/2 inch so it would cook fast. If the liquid gets too low while simmering, add a bit more stock or some water.


Once the butternut squash is soft, puree about 3/4 of the stock mixture using a blender or food processor. If you don’t want chunks of butternut squash, then an immersion blender will work.


Pour the pureed mixture back into the stockpot, stir in the heavy whipping cream, and simmer on medium-low for a few minutes.


Then season to taste, stir in the remaining crab meat, a squeeze of lemon juice (if you want) and keep simmering for about five minutes or until it is your desired thickness. You can add more stock if it is too thick.

The next time I make it, I’m going to roast the butternut squash to see how it changes the taste.

Butternut Squash, Peeled

I love this. I like it so much that I told Mac I was going to bathe in the leftovers. He gave me the look you would expect him to give me.

The photo isn’t of the soup, however. It is a photo of the squash after I peeled it. Doesn’t it look nice? For this recipe, I did want small hunks of butternut squash in the bisque, so that meant I needed to dice my squash and not roast my squash. That meant that I had to peel the squash. I’ve tried it before in the past, and it was painful, swear-worthy task, and most people will tell you to just roast it first so the peel just comes off. I really, really did want diced squash though, as did I in the last dish I used butternut squash in. Luckily for me, I found a painless, easy, swear-word free method of peeling butternut squash.

1) Fill a large stock pot, or in my case, my cast-iron dutch oven with enough water to be able to put in the squash without water spilling over. Make sure this pot has a lid.

2) Bring the pot of water to boil, and then put in the squash. Do not put it in before the water starts boiling.

3) Turn the heat down to low, put on the lid and let the squash cook for about 7-8 minutes. The test is that you can easily poke a skewer though the skin, but not too far into the squash.

4) While the above is cooking, get another large stock pot or bowl and fill it with ice water.

5) After the 7 minutes are up, take the squash out of the hot water and place it in the cold water to stop the cooking. This is the tricky part since it is hot water and the squash is a little unwieldy. My tool of choice was to scoop it up with my large grill spatula and use another large spoon to hold it onto the spatula as I moved it to the ice water pan.

6) After it has cooled for a bit, peel it with a vegetable peeler. You’ll be able to do it with ease. You basically cooked a very small part of the top layer of the squash which loosed the skin.

Now you can dice it with ease.

While I was sitting in the livingroom uploading this photo, the back deck door opened by itself almost half-way. The fresh air smells good, but the breeze is starting to make my feet feel a little chilly. Did I also mention that it opened by itself halfway? Ada was sitting by me playing in “Go Kitty.” She just looked at the door, and then looked at me, and then looked at the door.

Also, as I was about to post this, my coffee pot started grinding beans. Yeah, by itself.

The loaf I made with unbleached AP flour was very yummy. I wanted to make one with whole wheat. The first one I tried–eh. Not inedible, but not great as a sandwich loaf. I’m trying again today since 1) they are rebooting servers which I need to log into work, so I can’t until 1:00pm, and 2) most of the process is waiting, and I can work while it is proofing. My experiment today will use unbleached AP flour, whole wheat flour, rye and toasted wheat germ. My current wait time is over, so back in the kitchen.

Our meal plan got mixed around when Ada said last night that she wanted to go to “the Apple place.” We entertained her and went to Applebees. It has been awhile since we have been there. I have to say that the food that was getting bad was last night just terrible. I don’t plan to make another trip to Applebees again (if it is my choice).

Last night’s leftover night is tonight’s leftover night. Hopefully it won’t be too terrible because “leftovers” means assembling another pizza. I had one more round of dough left, leftover sauce, and leftover diced peppers from dinner on Sunday. I just had to grate new cheese. The only thing that I did not have leftover was parchment paper. Oops. Even using semolina, the dough stuck and I could not bake it on my pizza stone. I had to bake it on the cookie sheet I use to transfer it to the pizza stone^*.

I need to replenish my parchment paper.

*I used to own a peel long, long ago. I have no idea where it is at. That was two houses ago. I have a new one on my wishlist for December. In the meantime, I use a flat cookie sheet. It has worked well, but I have to stick my arm in a very hot oven.

We had a teacher conference for Ada last Friday, and one for James the Tuesday before Ada’s. James has been doing great at drop-off until recently when he decided to revert back to crying and screaming and such. Distracting him with food has always worked in the past, but not so much now. He eventually gets over it and is fine the rest of the day, but geez. What’s the deal? James is working on exciting things such as going down the stairs, and two word phrases and understanding that when he throws the ball against the wall, it will bounce back. He shouldn’t act surprised everytime it comes back and bonks him in the head.

Ada meet all of her goals for the school year already. I believe that they are going to continue working on the same areas, but just up her goals. Most of her work is in the life skills area. She does things like folding napkins, washing dishes, cutting apples and bananas, making toast, using a screwdriver, riding a tricycle, building things out of blocks and so on. She works with an OT and a speech therapist on Tuesdays still. Her speech is getting quite a bit better. She is still behind for her age, but she is improving quickly. She does some work in the academic areas where she is ahead of her age. If she makes the same kind of progress in her speech and gross motor skills during the second half of the school year, her new goals that will be done in May for the next school year will include the academic areas. I’m excited for her to start reading, and not the “mimic and memorize” that make most parents exclaim “My child can read!” She can do that now, as can most kids her age. She will get to work on actual reading. And math! Of course, with a couple of Christmas presents that I have picked out for her, she will be working on math anyhow.

Ada has also earned the label “independent and stubborn.” There was hesitation before the word “stubborn” was used, but she is. Her most common phrase is “No thank-you! Ada do it! No, Ada do it! ADA DO IT!!!” She doesn’t want anybody to help her with anything. It makes it difficult when people don’t really want to do it for her, but just guide her on how to do something when she is having difficulties. However, she is sometimes too proactive on her approach, and she will spurt out “No! Ada do it!” if she perceives that someone is coming to try to help her with something, even though they aren’t. On the flip side, she will work and work and work on something until she gets it. She will not quit. She gets frustrated with it sometimes, but she doesn’t give in. That personality trait will be the most beneficial to her than any other. I couldn’t be more thrilled that my daughter is independent and stubborn. She is also a little too possessive with what she perceives as belonging to her at home. She has a Hello Kitty crayon and marker holder. She was playing with it this weekend on the living room floor when James walked close to her. She started yelling “No J! No J! Mine!” and then she threw herself on top of her crayons, lying on them so James couldn’t get them. He wasn’t even trying. He was just looking at her like she had gone crazy.

We picked up Animal Crossing for the Wii yesterday before picking up the kids. Ada and I played last night for a little bit. We haven’t even paid our house off yet. We may play a little tonight. She loves just waking around and talking to the other animals and collecting and counting cherries. She also named the town, so we live in “Go Kitty.” She is having an equal amount of fun in Viva Pinata. Her favorite activities for me to do there are to have the pinatas eat fruit and to water and fertilize plants. She doesn’t have the motor skills yet to work the controls in either game, so I do that while she hints at what to do. However, she can take the controls in Lego Batman and collect coins. My favorite moment in that games is when she gets near an edge and exclaims “Don’t go there. That’s where I fall down!” I may work with her though in Animal Crossing. I think with some practice, she’ll be able to walk around town and collect stuff.

Yes, you read that date correctly

I knew that I had it for awhile, but I didn’t realize just how many whiles it really has been. The problem is that I have cleaned out and organized my cabinets quite a few times and this was still in there. I’ve moved twice since this has expired, and yet, I still have it.

The refrigerator was easy. I threw out a few leftovers and found the bottles of salad dressing that were expired. The only thing I took out to clean were the crisper drawers. The rest I just wiped down.

I’m not even close to being bad enough to be on How Clean Is Your House or Clean Sweep, but I am a packrat.

The title of the post was what Mac said during dinner tonight. I made pizza dough earlier in the day. I also made the sauce–giving me the opportunity to use some of the tomato products I’ve been hoarding.

I cleaned out my cereal, chip, crackers and so on pantry tonight while chatting with a friend. He got to hear about all my expired stuff–including two bags of Cheetos that had expired in August. The bottom of the pantry is completely empty. I also found 9 cans of tomato sauce. I’m rolling in tomato products. I’m having cavatini this week, so I’ll make the sauce for that.

Tomorrow is going to be another day of cooking. My kitchen has been cleaned, so it is prepared for more.