Stock and other Stories . . .
So, um, I started this post when I was making stock. On November 10th. And I'm picking it up here, nearly a month later. (Does this surprise any of you? ;-D)
When I got up on that Monday, the whole house smelled very good from the stock that had simmered all night long in the crock pot.
I got most of the ingredients out of the pot, and some of the fat. I wasn't sure how I could strain it, but my friend Michelle said that coffee filters work pretty well in the absence of a sieve. What a great idea! I have some coffee filters, and I have a couple of wide-mouth mason jars, so I grabbed some rubber bands. This was the result:
I got about a cup and a half this way, but it ended up being just too slow. So I froze what I had gotten, and then put the crock pot into the fridge.
Right above it is the chicken meat on the left, and the strawberries I cut up are on the right :-) I got right on to Amazon that morning and ordered a very fine sieve. It should be here today (back in November) so I can finish up. The good thing about having the stock in the fridge, is that the fat rises to the top and solidifies. I'll be able to get it all off tonight when I start.
I got this set of extra fine strainers, and they are awesome! Everything went very quickly once they arrived.
My friend, T, asked me yesterday how the stock was. I said I didn't know, that I'd find out when I used it. She was like, didn't you taste it???? And I said no, was I supposed to? I mean, it smelled pretty good. She started laughing and asked me didn't I taste stuff while I was cooking?
Um . . . You guys, I apparently don't taste things while I'm cooking.
I usually am cooking things that are simple and pretty straightforward because that's how I like to eat. I'm not keen on sauces or casseroles (other than lasagna, which I think qualifies as a casserole of sorts, but I don't recall tasting the sauce I make for that), so I guess the things I usually make get tasted when they are done. Now that I'm thinking back over stuff I've made in the past few years. I can remember these:
Do you taste stuff you are cooking?
In other news, I keep reading books. I'm really glad I set myself a reading goal for this year, which was 12 books, and I'm up to 44! (Well, now it's 48, but I'll tell you about the subsequent ones in another post.) I have some started that I would still like to get through this year. We'll see how that goes.
I started a historic novel about Hemingway and Gellhorn called Beautiful Exiles. I thought I would like it, but because I know so much about these two people already, I found reading the novel to be irritating. So much has been written about both of them, that I kept finding myself wondering if what I was reading was true, and I had to keep reminding myself that it was a novel. This was bothersome enough that I decided to let this one go.
It was brutally cold here in Chicagoland for the past couple of days (in early November). It was 7 degrees Fahrenheit here on Tuesday morning. I had to get out the Industrial Strength Hat, which I usually don't have to do until January.
This is very unusual for November. The water in Lake Michigan has been very high and recently there have been high wave and high water warnings with water flinging itself over the break rocks and on to the Drive (Lake Shore Drive). There is no doubt in my mind that these weather extremes are clear evidence of global warming . . .
Anyway - I got the set of sieves in the mail on Tuesday evening, and they are awesome! I used the larger one to skim the fat off the top of the stock, and I used one of the smaller ones to strain. It fit perfectly on top of one of those wide-mouth mason jars!
First, let's discuss the stock. Yes, it was good, I have used some of it to make rice. Yay! And there was very little fat to skim off! Yay again! However, see the one on the left? Lid is in great shape! See the two on the right? Let me just tell you that you should not stack these things up in the door, because when you open the door later, they will come flying out and when they hit the ceramic tile, the lids will crack and break, and pieces of them will fly all over the kitchen. I am majorly grateful that they were already frozen solid when I opened the door :-D It could have been way worse than some broken blue pieces of lid.
I gave you the report on finishing up the kidney stone medical study in my previous post, so let's move forward to a couple of days before Thanksgiving.
I was sitting in the sunroom that evening, minding my own business, when there was a big BOOM and (I think) a flash), and all the lights went out. It was terrifying. I was like - is the house on fire?!?! It wasn't My neighbors' lights were also out. The power came back up briefly, flickered, and went back down. I never did find my trusty flashlight and it took me awhile, but I did find my miner's light so I could move around the house in the dark.
I got this thing for a trip to Egypt years ago. One part of the trip was cruising down the Nile on a dahabeya. This was pretty great and the boat was not crowded (I was in Egypt about 3 weeks after the revolution in 2011). Our dahebeya had engines, but they were turned off at 6 p.m. every day. So, if you wanted to see where you were going once it got dark, you needed a miner's light. This goofy thing has come in handy more times than I can count! Sorry - I digress. :-D
ComEd got the lights back on in fewer than three hours. Based on the BOOM, I'm guessing that a transformer blew somewhere - one that powered only my side of my block! The other side was blissfully lit up - and, I'm sure, warm.
Then, the next day - the day before Thanksgiving - we had a wind storm. It was wild. I am not a small woman, and the wind was moving me right along!
Then, on Thanksgiving morning, once again, I was sitting in the sunroom, minding my own business and watching the Chicago parade, when I started to see ComEd guys. I went to the front door, and there they were - right in front of my house. They let me take a shower before they shut off the power. And I took a cinnamon loaf that I was going to take to my cousin's for dinner, cut it up, and took it out to them. I felt bad that they had to work on Thanksgiving. They must have liked it, because they ate every bit :-)
Here they are, taking their cherry picker between my and my neighbor's house (yes, my neighbors painted their house swimming pool blue years ago. I don't know why.).
Look carefully at the center of this next photo and you will see a very tall Blue Spruce that had live growth only at the top, lying sideways. Thanks to the wind and the fact that the tree is diseased, it fell over and was resting on top of the electrical wires. Well, that's dangerous, so ComEd had to come out and cut it down.
You might recall that I lost my stand of Blue Spruces in 2013 to Cytospara Canker. I told my neighbors back then that theirs were most likely infected and that they should have them removed. The Canker is contagious and no firs or spruces can ever be planted there again. They never did anything about them.
While I was checking out what was going on next door, I took a good look at my maple in the back. Clearly the deer find its bark either really, really tasty, or a really good place to rub up against. I will be going this weekend to buy some bark tape and hope that it's not too late to save it.
I managed to FINALLY block this shawl. It has been done since J. was here. In January . . . and just waiting for me to get my act together to block it. The pattern is Fanged, and the yarn was a Sun Valley Fibers Gradient Set that included the following colorways: Vintage, Road Trippin, Portage, Iconic, Storm Clouds, and Lonely Mile.
Yesterday, I got the second (and final) shot in the Shingrix series, which is the shingles vaccine. I had the first one back in September. This should protect me for life (Shingrix is 97% effective). So far I've had similar side effects as with the first dose, chief among them being a sore arm, and fatigue. I made it to the club this morning, but I had to stop my workout because all of a sudden it was like I was a balloon that all the air had been let out of. Walking across the Loop was challenging to get to work this morning, and I was pretty slow. But it won't last, and it's a small price to pay to never get shingles.
That brings us to this morning, and the frost on this shrub rose near the station.
I hope you had a Thanksgiving that was filled with joy and love. And I hope you can hold on to space for yourself in the coming juggernaut that is The Holidays.
This album remains one of my all-time Christmas favorites. Enjoy (there are some ads but you can hear most of it ad-free) :-)
When I got up on that Monday, the whole house smelled very good from the stock that had simmered all night long in the crock pot.
I got most of the ingredients out of the pot, and some of the fat. I wasn't sure how I could strain it, but my friend Michelle said that coffee filters work pretty well in the absence of a sieve. What a great idea! I have some coffee filters, and I have a couple of wide-mouth mason jars, so I grabbed some rubber bands. This was the result:
I got about a cup and a half this way, but it ended up being just too slow. So I froze what I had gotten, and then put the crock pot into the fridge.
Right above it is the chicken meat on the left, and the strawberries I cut up are on the right :-) I got right on to Amazon that morning and ordered a very fine sieve. It should be here today (back in November) so I can finish up. The good thing about having the stock in the fridge, is that the fat rises to the top and solidifies. I'll be able to get it all off tonight when I start.
I got this set of extra fine strainers, and they are awesome! Everything went very quickly once they arrived.
My friend, T, asked me yesterday how the stock was. I said I didn't know, that I'd find out when I used it. She was like, didn't you taste it???? And I said no, was I supposed to? I mean, it smelled pretty good. She started laughing and asked me didn't I taste stuff while I was cooking?
Um . . . You guys, I apparently don't taste things while I'm cooking.
I usually am cooking things that are simple and pretty straightforward because that's how I like to eat. I'm not keen on sauces or casseroles (other than lasagna, which I think qualifies as a casserole of sorts, but I don't recall tasting the sauce I make for that), so I guess the things I usually make get tasted when they are done. Now that I'm thinking back over stuff I've made in the past few years. I can remember these:
- Quick breads
- Regular bread
- Spiral Vegetable Tart
- Beef Wellington
- A variety of Cookies
- Shrimp and Pasta
- Tuna Salad
- Salmon Cakes
Do you taste stuff you are cooking?
In other news, I keep reading books. I'm really glad I set myself a reading goal for this year, which was 12 books, and I'm up to 44! (Well, now it's 48, but I'll tell you about the subsequent ones in another post.) I have some started that I would still like to get through this year. We'll see how that goes.
I started a historic novel about Hemingway and Gellhorn called Beautiful Exiles. I thought I would like it, but because I know so much about these two people already, I found reading the novel to be irritating. So much has been written about both of them, that I kept finding myself wondering if what I was reading was true, and I had to keep reminding myself that it was a novel. This was bothersome enough that I decided to let this one go.
It was brutally cold here in Chicagoland for the past couple of days (in early November). It was 7 degrees Fahrenheit here on Tuesday morning. I had to get out the Industrial Strength Hat, which I usually don't have to do until January.
This is very unusual for November. The water in Lake Michigan has been very high and recently there have been high wave and high water warnings with water flinging itself over the break rocks and on to the Drive (Lake Shore Drive). There is no doubt in my mind that these weather extremes are clear evidence of global warming . . .
Anyway - I got the set of sieves in the mail on Tuesday evening, and they are awesome! I used the larger one to skim the fat off the top of the stock, and I used one of the smaller ones to strain. It fit perfectly on top of one of those wide-mouth mason jars!
And that's as far as I got with this post back in early November.
Alrighty then.First, let's discuss the stock. Yes, it was good, I have used some of it to make rice. Yay! And there was very little fat to skim off! Yay again! However, see the one on the left? Lid is in great shape! See the two on the right? Let me just tell you that you should not stack these things up in the door, because when you open the door later, they will come flying out and when they hit the ceramic tile, the lids will crack and break, and pieces of them will fly all over the kitchen. I am majorly grateful that they were already frozen solid when I opened the door :-D It could have been way worse than some broken blue pieces of lid.
I was sitting in the sunroom that evening, minding my own business, when there was a big BOOM and (I think) a flash), and all the lights went out. It was terrifying. I was like - is the house on fire?!?! It wasn't My neighbors' lights were also out. The power came back up briefly, flickered, and went back down. I never did find my trusty flashlight and it took me awhile, but I did find my miner's light so I could move around the house in the dark.
I got this thing for a trip to Egypt years ago. One part of the trip was cruising down the Nile on a dahabeya. This was pretty great and the boat was not crowded (I was in Egypt about 3 weeks after the revolution in 2011). Our dahebeya had engines, but they were turned off at 6 p.m. every day. So, if you wanted to see where you were going once it got dark, you needed a miner's light. This goofy thing has come in handy more times than I can count! Sorry - I digress. :-D
ComEd got the lights back on in fewer than three hours. Based on the BOOM, I'm guessing that a transformer blew somewhere - one that powered only my side of my block! The other side was blissfully lit up - and, I'm sure, warm.
Then, the next day - the day before Thanksgiving - we had a wind storm. It was wild. I am not a small woman, and the wind was moving me right along!
Then, on Thanksgiving morning, once again, I was sitting in the sunroom, minding my own business and watching the Chicago parade, when I started to see ComEd guys. I went to the front door, and there they were - right in front of my house. They let me take a shower before they shut off the power. And I took a cinnamon loaf that I was going to take to my cousin's for dinner, cut it up, and took it out to them. I felt bad that they had to work on Thanksgiving. They must have liked it, because they ate every bit :-)
Here they are, taking their cherry picker between my and my neighbor's house (yes, my neighbors painted their house swimming pool blue years ago. I don't know why.).
Look carefully at the center of this next photo and you will see a very tall Blue Spruce that had live growth only at the top, lying sideways. Thanks to the wind and the fact that the tree is diseased, it fell over and was resting on top of the electrical wires. Well, that's dangerous, so ComEd had to come out and cut it down.
You might recall that I lost my stand of Blue Spruces in 2013 to Cytospara Canker. I told my neighbors back then that theirs were most likely infected and that they should have them removed. The Canker is contagious and no firs or spruces can ever be planted there again. They never did anything about them.
While I was checking out what was going on next door, I took a good look at my maple in the back. Clearly the deer find its bark either really, really tasty, or a really good place to rub up against. I will be going this weekend to buy some bark tape and hope that it's not too late to save it.
Yesterday, I got the second (and final) shot in the Shingrix series, which is the shingles vaccine. I had the first one back in September. This should protect me for life (Shingrix is 97% effective). So far I've had similar side effects as with the first dose, chief among them being a sore arm, and fatigue. I made it to the club this morning, but I had to stop my workout because all of a sudden it was like I was a balloon that all the air had been let out of. Walking across the Loop was challenging to get to work this morning, and I was pretty slow. But it won't last, and it's a small price to pay to never get shingles.
That brings us to this morning, and the frost on this shrub rose near the station.
This album remains one of my all-time Christmas favorites. Enjoy (there are some ads but you can hear most of it ad-free) :-)
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