It's been 7 days since the end of our 4-day post holiday detox/cleanse experiment. I've eaten pizza 3 times: free pizza day at the gym, at a committee meeting, and pizza Friday at school, and I've thoroughly enjoyed every bowl of cereal I've had this week. My cough and cold are nearly gone and I feel back to my normal self.
So now that my head and body are back into the normal routine, I am in a good place to look back on our experiment and reflect on it logically and realistically.
So here we go.
The Hunger
I expected to feel pretty hungry. Looking at the meals, there was almost no protein, and some fiber, but not too much since the whole point was to give our digestive track a break. We were basically eating water mixed with fruit and vegetables. So we were hungry for most of the 4 days. The food was filling, but it only lasted about 2 or 3 hours. We tried to curb the hunger with herbal tea and tiny oranges, which did the trick, but just enough to get us to the next meal. We attacked each meal like zombies to fresh brains. The hardest part was at night. I feel like hunger pangs are much more painful when trying to fall asleep, and this was true for all 4 nights. It pretty much sucked.
The Food
Some good, some not so good, but when you're really hungry, any food is pretty darn delicious. There are some recipes I will keep in my arsenal, and some I will never make again. (Can you say green kale smoothie? Gross.) In case you haven't read the posts with the recipes that we tried, or would like to revisit them again here they are: The First 48 and The Final 40.
The Mind
Meh. I don't think I was any more or less focused or at peace. Just hungry.
The Body
I think my energy levels were up on the first full day, but after that, I can't say that I felt much different. Though we were hungry and knew that we had little by way of energy coming from our food, we made sure to do something active each day. On the first day we did some gardening and backyard work, on the second day we went to see the birds at the Nisqually wildlife refuge (a post on that to come later,) and on the third day we decided to do some gentle yoga. The yoga was NOT good for me. Halfway through, I felt incredibly nauseated and spent the rest of the afternoon feeling green and sipping on ginger tea. Shawn, on the other hand, stated he was feeling pretty darn energized on the third full day. He messed up his neck on the first day and was really feeling the caffeine withdrawals on the second day so the third day is when he finally was able to focus on how the detox was making him feel. He also noticed a big improvement in his digestion. I may have mentioned before, but we wonder about a gluten issue with him so this may be why he felt the effects of the detox more postitively that I did.
The Weight
We don't have a working scale at our house and I was afraid to know how much I weighed before the detox so I have no idea if I lost any weight or not. Probably not. I wouldn't be surprised if my metabolism decided to get back at me for not giving it enough energy by slowing down and storing as much as it could. Asshole.
The Lessons
1. Almond milk is delicious.
2. Coconut milk is not. Too thick.
3. Smoothies make great breakfasts.
4. Brown rice is nice and chewy.
5. It's ok to not have a large lump of protein with every meal.
6. Garbanzo beans aren't so bad.
7. Starving yourself of all the things you love about life is not the best way to feel better, or to make yourself eat less of those things. After the detox ended, I spent a couple days eating all of the things that I dreamed about during the cleanse. I don't think I overdid myself, but I did eat more that I normally would have. I just couldn't help it. I really couldn't.
8. Vegetables are delicious and I will eat more of them.
The Conclusion
After weighing the pros and cons, I think the pros barely outweigh the cons. I discovered some new ways to eat healthier and I know that I can eat less during the day and feel ok. I'm glad enough that I did it, but will never do it again. I just didn't feel "cleansed" enough. Sure, I felt alright, but it just wasn't worth it to me. It is just who I am to love sweets and delicious food and I just have to be able to live with this love in a way to have a relationship with food that is not abusive.
Shawn and I signed up for a 15k race in March so we have some serious motivation to get moving and train our bodies for a long distance run. I'm confident that this coupled with my new knowledge of food will get me the results that I was hoping for from this detox. That's the better way to do it anyway.
Final thought: My feelings and results from this detox are purely my own. We all have very different compositions and it could be that your experience will be very different from mine. So try it. And if you do, I want to hear all about it.
Showing posts with label FAIL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FAIL. Show all posts
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Thursday, October 18, 2012
All Life is Sacred... Unless It's That of an Ant
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| The Sounders say no to ants under the sink. |
Even before we officially moved in, I had a feeling ants would be a problem since they were crawling up the outside of the house. Within days of moving in, we were fighting them. They were coming in through under the molding around the front door to get to the cat food in the dining room, through a power outlet into the kitchen to get at anything on the counter, through a mystery access area from our closet to get to a hairball extruded by Gus in our bedroom, and through a crack in between our bathtub and vanity to get to water in our bathroom.
Seriously. Think orcs and uruk hai swarming the fellowship in Lord of the Rings. There's a never-ending supply of them, and they just keep coming, no matter what you do. The only thing to defeat them is something more sinister and evil than they are, or to just run away.
Since we can't run away, the only thing we've been able to do is kill the ones we see, try to close off entryways, and keep minimizing their food source by being extra clean and meticulous about putting things away in sealed containers.
We haven't had to resort to the real sinister stuff thus far. (By sinister stuff, I mean the hardcore chemicals.) First we put down a nice layer of diatomaceous earth all around the outside of our house. We definitely saw fewer ants after this. And dude, this stuff is CRAZY. While putting it down, we saw it in action. Any ant that fell into a pile would writhe in agony for about 15 seconds and would go still. It was AWESOME. How it works is that the tiny dead diatoms (one-celled organisms made of silica) instantly absorb the lipids on the outer layers of the ants' exoskeletons, causing them to dehydrate. I like to think of it as like the ants falling into a pile of super sharp samurai swords. (At least that is the effect it has on them.) Diatomaceous earth is considered a mechanical insecticide, and since it is not a chemical and is a naturally occurring substance, I feel completely at ease with using it around the house. This also took care of the ants coming in from the front door.
As far as the ants coming from inside the house, we started off with Terro ant killer, which is basically a sugar/Borax mixture. (Borax is also a naturally occurring chemical known to nerds as sodium (tetra)borate.) This is a clear liquid that you drop onto a piece of thick paper. The ants take it back to the colony and it is supposed to kill the colony from the inside out. The bottle says that it could take up to two weeks to take effect, but we used it religiously under our sink for three weeks and the ants just kept coming.
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| Our semi-effective arsenal. |
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| Terro is delicious. But does it kill them? |
I hated ants before, but now my hatred toward them has reached an all-time high. I kill them like it's nothing. I squish them, decapitate them, stomp on them, collect their dead bodies on my fingers, and on paper towels, suck them up with the vacuum cleaner, wash them down the drain, and watch them try to run away from certain death and laugh as they die under the pressure of my finger. This is not the normal me. I love all life. Look, I'm a person who can't even kill a spider. I always take them outside. But ants are a different story. They are a different kind of evil, and when you come into my house and disturb my peace you are messing with a different kind of Hana.
But now I don't know what to do. Now that the rains have started, diatomaceous earth has lost it's power and I really don't feel like throwing away a bunch of Skipper's food every time the ants find it. The Terro stuff doesn't really seem to work and the spray has minimal usage. So now we are finally contemplating bringing in the big guns. Maybe an exterminator? Maybe buy a big bottle of the mean stuff at Home Depot? I don't know. What I do know is that I'm angry and frustrated and feel like killing millions of tiny... little... black... ants.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Restrictions.
Keeping "free range" chickens is awesome. It's really fun watching them scratch around and it feels really good to see them finding food in the most miniscule microscopic items found in the lawn, as well as using the unwanted weeds as forage also. The downside to all this free food and free weeding/pest control is that the ladies don't know where to stop. They first eat the weeds and the grubs, then they scratch deeper for smaller bugs, eat the grass, and once those are gone, will keep digging for more. They have those crazy big feet with crazy big talons and they know how to use them. Since we got the ladies nearly a year and a half ago, they have slowly but surely destroyed over half our lawn.
Now I am a strong believer in lawn alternatives for your yard. Lawn is a really rediculous idea when it comes to the environment. It's a monoculture that requires lots of herbicides to keep it weed and moss free, tons of water to keep it green in the summer months, and it provides absolutely no benefits to our natural environment. One of my readings in grad school said that "the American lawn is an ecological disaster." When I read this, I thought YES!
But I digress. Logically, I shouldn't really care if my chickens destroy my lawn. The problem is, it's not my lawn. It my landlord's lawn, and I doubt she shares my viewpoints of it's presence being en ecological disaster. Since there is chance that we will be moving out of this house in the next year or so, repairing the backyard needs to start now.
This leads to the title of this post. No more complete control of the backyard for the ladies. Clever rigging of random fences has restricted them to a small portion of the backyard that includes their favorite foraging area, the compost pile. We've also let them have the garden area since that's pretty much finished.
They took no time in stripping the leftover broccoli and kale plants down to their bones and should start working on the smaller stuff soon. Their poop should fertilize the soil and hopefully some bad bugs and weeds will get consumed. They really love scratching around in there, so I don't think these new boundaries are bothering them much.
Once sequestered, Shawn and I had a chance to survey the real damage. And there's a lot of it. Any and all areas that had a nice layer of moss are now completely bald, (I really like moss as an alternative to grass. Less water requirements, and it naturally suppresses weeds.) and the whole area under the fruit tress are pretty much cleared. Those bitches...
Today we started the grass reseeding process. We waited until all the bushes and trees dropped their leaves, which happened this week thanks to the storm. We loosened up the top inch or two of soil and sprinkled seed. Hopefully a sprinkling of soil over the top of the seeds will protect them a bit from the sure onslaught of tiny birds coming to eat the seed in the next couple weeks.
This whole lawn thing had really caused me some stress and sleepless nights. I know, it's silly, but our landlord is really opinionated about her lawn and likes to see a nice one. Hopefully this reseeding works and I'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Moral of the story: Chickens are tiny bulldozers. They will destroy all.
P.S. Sorry for the lack of posts as of recently, I got a mini job that has kept me busy. But now that I'm getting into the swing of my new schedule, I should be back again.
Now I am a strong believer in lawn alternatives for your yard. Lawn is a really rediculous idea when it comes to the environment. It's a monoculture that requires lots of herbicides to keep it weed and moss free, tons of water to keep it green in the summer months, and it provides absolutely no benefits to our natural environment. One of my readings in grad school said that "the American lawn is an ecological disaster." When I read this, I thought YES!
But I digress. Logically, I shouldn't really care if my chickens destroy my lawn. The problem is, it's not my lawn. It my landlord's lawn, and I doubt she shares my viewpoints of it's presence being en ecological disaster. Since there is chance that we will be moving out of this house in the next year or so, repairing the backyard needs to start now.
This leads to the title of this post. No more complete control of the backyard for the ladies. Clever rigging of random fences has restricted them to a small portion of the backyard that includes their favorite foraging area, the compost pile. We've also let them have the garden area since that's pretty much finished.
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| Naked kale to the left. |
Once sequestered, Shawn and I had a chance to survey the real damage. And there's a lot of it. Any and all areas that had a nice layer of moss are now completely bald, (I really like moss as an alternative to grass. Less water requirements, and it naturally suppresses weeds.) and the whole area under the fruit tress are pretty much cleared. Those bitches...
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| Spot #1 of at least 4 areas to be restored. |
This whole lawn thing had really caused me some stress and sleepless nights. I know, it's silly, but our landlord is really opinionated about her lawn and likes to see a nice one. Hopefully this reseeding works and I'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Moral of the story: Chickens are tiny bulldozers. They will destroy all.
P.S. Sorry for the lack of posts as of recently, I got a mini job that has kept me busy. But now that I'm getting into the swing of my new schedule, I should be back again.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
The Phone Book
Yes, this is a phone book, and yes, it is sitting in the middle of my yard. Why, you ask? Well, old country wisdom, of course! This idea came by way of my grandmother talking with her friends about my difficulties with integrating our babies in with the other hens. Apparently the reply to this was "what, she doesn't use a phone book?" Apparently this tactic is common knowledge among older ladies living in Auburn, CA.The whole idea behind the phone book is that when laid out in the yard, the wind will flutter the pages. The hens should take complete offense to this and attack the phone book, thus creating a common enemy among all the ladies and a sense of camaraderie because they all hate/fear the same thing.
Maybe this works on country chickens. My city chickens, on the other had, just see it as an obstacle that they need to climb over to get places. No offense taken, whatsoever.
On a brighter note, the two gangs are sharing closer pieces of grass now, and they can be left to roam free in the yard without supervision. No chickie first aid needed in a while. Most of the attacks have ceased as well, though if Shawn or I pay any attention to the babies (like hand feed them garden greens and such,) and not do the same for Abby and Frannie immediately after, the older ladies attack the babies with a jealousy-filled rage. So now we just have to sneak the babies special snacks.
Pretty soon we're going to start the final phase of mission: chicken integration by putting the babies up to roost with their aunties at night. It'll be a covert operation that happens after dark, and I'll probably lose sleep over it, hoping and praying that the ladies don't kill them in the morning. I'll probably get up at the ass-crack of dawn just to get out there to greet them all in the morning to keep the peac. I'll keep everyone posted on how that goes.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
We've got a problem...
We've got rats in the chicken coop!!! Well, this isn't really new, we've known for a while, but they kinda scared me today. I went out to the coop to tuck them in for the night, and as I rounded the corner, I saw at least two scurrying away. One of them even ran head first into the door. It was really funny.
We knew that they were in getting in the first time the coop flooded in November since we found little poops here and there. We plugged up a hole that we thought they were getting in from and noticed that the feed was lasting longer. But, over the last several months, we've seen evidence of them here and there, including some poops that we found last time we cleaned the coop due to a flood. One even ran over Shawn's foot a couple weeks ago when he was in there in the dark. Spooky. I can just see my mom squirming right now.
So even though I've known about them for a while, now that I've seen them I'm officially considering it a problem. I don't really know what to do other than start the ladies on a meal regimen. When they're free-ranging, they're door is wide open with the food just sitting there, pretty much inviting the rats in. I don't really like the idea because that means more work for us and we have to make sure to be home to feed them all the time. I guess I don't really have a choice at this point. Boo.
Oh, I know what a rotten egg looks and smells like now. I was snooping around the coop today looking for rat entrances and found a Frannie egg behind the nest box. I did the float test and it got about a C+. My sister and her bf told me to open it so I did out of curiosity. Big fail. The white had a tinge of green and it smelled really bad. Some got on my shirt too. Gross. Maybe my mom is squirming again... My sis and her bf, even though they were the reason I opened the damn thing, were out of the kitchen in a flash. Thanks for the support, jerks.
Oh my broccoli has sprouted. Everything else, well... the spring that showed up for a couple days decided to go away again, so that's leaving the rest of the stuff dormant, even in the greenhouse. sigh...
I haven't posted a picture of Nikolai in a while...
We knew that they were in getting in the first time the coop flooded in November since we found little poops here and there. We plugged up a hole that we thought they were getting in from and noticed that the feed was lasting longer. But, over the last several months, we've seen evidence of them here and there, including some poops that we found last time we cleaned the coop due to a flood. One even ran over Shawn's foot a couple weeks ago when he was in there in the dark. Spooky. I can just see my mom squirming right now.
So even though I've known about them for a while, now that I've seen them I'm officially considering it a problem. I don't really know what to do other than start the ladies on a meal regimen. When they're free-ranging, they're door is wide open with the food just sitting there, pretty much inviting the rats in. I don't really like the idea because that means more work for us and we have to make sure to be home to feed them all the time. I guess I don't really have a choice at this point. Boo.
Oh, I know what a rotten egg looks and smells like now. I was snooping around the coop today looking for rat entrances and found a Frannie egg behind the nest box. I did the float test and it got about a C+. My sister and her bf told me to open it so I did out of curiosity. Big fail. The white had a tinge of green and it smelled really bad. Some got on my shirt too. Gross. Maybe my mom is squirming again... My sis and her bf, even though they were the reason I opened the damn thing, were out of the kitchen in a flash. Thanks for the support, jerks.
Oh my broccoli has sprouted. Everything else, well... the spring that showed up for a couple days decided to go away again, so that's leaving the rest of the stuff dormant, even in the greenhouse. sigh...
I haven't posted a picture of Nikolai in a while...
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| Hangin' out. |
Monday, February 21, 2011
Kasutera
You mention that word to any Japanese person and you are sure to get their mouths watering. Kasutera, or castella is a delicious egg and honey cake that is almost everywhere in Japan. It actually has Portuguese origin; it was introduced when the first missionaries came to the Islands and the Japanese have adopted it fully into their food culture and made it their own.
Wait, so it's a Portuguese/Japanese cake? Just like me! Except I'm not a cake, but that just means I have a special connection with it.
Ok, back to the cake. Basically, castella is a cake you can buy almost anywhere in Japan. They come in all different qualities, from slightly crappy versions that you can buy in a super market to super expensive, high quality cakes you can get in special stores. It's not often that people will make it at home, that's probably why there are so many different brands you can buy.
The cake itself is a super spongy, mildly sweet cake that almost has a bready consistency. The basic castella is yellow, but there are also variations flavored with chocolate and green tea. I decided to make the green tea kind and started with a recipe I found on this amazing blog. (Definitely holds a place up there in my bookmarks list with Dr. Fankhauser.) There are some things I changed about the recipe so here's what I did:
Ingredients: (Note this are incorrect. Scroll down to bottom of page for link to correct ingredients list.)
* 8 eggs
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup flour (all purpose or bread, not cake)
* 1 package instant matcha green tea powder (or you can use 2 tablespoons plain matcha powder)
* 1/2 cup milk
* 4 tablespoons honey
First you want to line the inside of your pan with parchment paper. If you spray it with cooking oil, the parchment paper will stick to the sides nicely. Don't worry about it covering it completely, just mostly. Sprinkle the bottom (so on top of the paper,) with coarse sugar. Set aside.
Combine the milk and honey. You may have to microwave it for 30 seconds so the honey melts into the milk. Don't heat it too much and cook the milk though, then it becomes a curdled baby puke mess. (Though it would still work, it's just kind of gross to look at.) In a separate bowl, sift the flour and green tea powder together a couple times so that it is nice and fluffy and combined well.
Whisk together the eggs and sugar. You want to do this in a medium sized bowl that can be rested into larger bowl with hot water in it. It's important that the eggs are beaten while they are lukewarm. (Don't ask me why, I still need to figure out the science behind it.) This is the part that takes the longest. You need to beat the egg/sugar mixture until it gets nice and foamy. The recipe says soft peaks, but after 20 minutes of standing there with a hand mixer, I gave up. It was pretty thick and foamy so I decided it was good enough. But like it says in the blog, it does take a loooooong time. I don't have a KitchenAid, which would make it much easier on the arm, but a hand mixer does the trick, especially if you switch off between two people, like I did. Thanks Shawn!
Once you finally get to the point where you say "eff it, that's good enough," (or if you get to soft peaks, which I recommend... see comments later,) whisk in the milk and honey mixture. Then switch to a regular hand whisk and whisk in the flour mixture, one tablespoon at a time. When it is incorporated enough that it doesn't have any lumps, pour it into the prepared pan and bake at 340 degrees for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The top will get dark quickly, don't worry about it, it won't burn, and it's supposed to do that anyway.
The website says this is a cake that's hard to make, which I didn't really believe, but I'm starting to think maybe it is hard. As far as putting the ingredients together, you need to follow the directions exactly. Now I've made this cake twice in the last week. I didn't blog about it the first time because it was a big ol' FAIL. It looked just like this when it came out of the oven, and a toothpick came out clean. But then it totally collapsed. My oven is a little weird so I thought maybe the temp wasn't right and that I didn't bake it enough. This time around, I made sure to bake it for the full time plus 5 minutes. And guess what? It still collapsed, worse than last time! Grrrr!
Nowhere in the blog where I got the recipe mentions this problem so I don't know if it's something I'm doing wrong. I read through the all the comments to the blog, and there were a handful of people who complained about the same thing. The blogger's responses are a little confusing and she seems to think that the people just didn't do it right. This got me thinking about the possible reasons why mine have failed. Maybe my impatience with beating the eggs to soft peaks is the problem. Or the fact that I baked it in a loaf pan and not a brownie pan. Or the fact that I added the matcha powder...
My sister and I were discussing the possible problems and she brought up the point that it could be like angel food cake. For those of you who've never made that, it's an egg-white based cake that has to hang upside down to cool to prevent it from falling. Since this cake is also egg-based and has no other leavening it may require some hang time. You'd think that if that was a requirement, it would have been mentioned in the bog. She mentions that I have to put the cake in a plastic bag while it's still warm to retain the moisture, but maybe that has something to do with it.
Oh well, I guess that's just a good reason to make it again. I am determined to succeed! I may have to look up other recipes and see what they say. I'll keep you updated! In the meantime I will eats lots of really dense, delicious kasutera with hot Japanese green tea. mmmm...
6/13/2011 UPDATE: I finally did it! Turns out I converted the recipe from grams to cups wrong and didn't use enough flour. So DON'T FOLLOW THE RECIPE ABOVE! Use this one instead. The directions will still be the same that are written here.
Wait, so it's a Portuguese/Japanese cake? Just like me! Except I'm not a cake, but that just means I have a special connection with it.
Ok, back to the cake. Basically, castella is a cake you can buy almost anywhere in Japan. They come in all different qualities, from slightly crappy versions that you can buy in a super market to super expensive, high quality cakes you can get in special stores. It's not often that people will make it at home, that's probably why there are so many different brands you can buy.
The cake itself is a super spongy, mildly sweet cake that almost has a bready consistency. The basic castella is yellow, but there are also variations flavored with chocolate and green tea. I decided to make the green tea kind and started with a recipe I found on this amazing blog. (Definitely holds a place up there in my bookmarks list with Dr. Fankhauser.) There are some things I changed about the recipe so here's what I did:
Ingredients: (Note this are incorrect. Scroll down to bottom of page for link to correct ingredients list.)
* 8 eggs
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup flour (all purpose or bread, not cake)
* 1 package instant matcha green tea powder (or you can use 2 tablespoons plain matcha powder)
* 1/2 cup milk
* 4 tablespoons honey
Combine the milk and honey. You may have to microwave it for 30 seconds so the honey melts into the milk. Don't heat it too much and cook the milk though, then it becomes a curdled baby puke mess. (Though it would still work, it's just kind of gross to look at.) In a separate bowl, sift the flour and green tea powder together a couple times so that it is nice and fluffy and combined well.
Once you finally get to the point where you say "eff it, that's good enough," (or if you get to soft peaks, which I recommend... see comments later,) whisk in the milk and honey mixture. Then switch to a regular hand whisk and whisk in the flour mixture, one tablespoon at a time. When it is incorporated enough that it doesn't have any lumps, pour it into the prepared pan and bake at 340 degrees for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The top will get dark quickly, don't worry about it, it won't burn, and it's supposed to do that anyway.
The website says this is a cake that's hard to make, which I didn't really believe, but I'm starting to think maybe it is hard. As far as putting the ingredients together, you need to follow the directions exactly. Now I've made this cake twice in the last week. I didn't blog about it the first time because it was a big ol' FAIL. It looked just like this when it came out of the oven, and a toothpick came out clean. But then it totally collapsed. My oven is a little weird so I thought maybe the temp wasn't right and that I didn't bake it enough. This time around, I made sure to bake it for the full time plus 5 minutes. And guess what? It still collapsed, worse than last time! Grrrr!
Nowhere in the blog where I got the recipe mentions this problem so I don't know if it's something I'm doing wrong. I read through the all the comments to the blog, and there were a handful of people who complained about the same thing. The blogger's responses are a little confusing and she seems to think that the people just didn't do it right. This got me thinking about the possible reasons why mine have failed. Maybe my impatience with beating the eggs to soft peaks is the problem. Or the fact that I baked it in a loaf pan and not a brownie pan. Or the fact that I added the matcha powder...
My sister and I were discussing the possible problems and she brought up the point that it could be like angel food cake. For those of you who've never made that, it's an egg-white based cake that has to hang upside down to cool to prevent it from falling. Since this cake is also egg-based and has no other leavening it may require some hang time. You'd think that if that was a requirement, it would have been mentioned in the bog. She mentions that I have to put the cake in a plastic bag while it's still warm to retain the moisture, but maybe that has something to do with it.
Oh well, I guess that's just a good reason to make it again. I am determined to succeed! I may have to look up other recipes and see what they say. I'll keep you updated! In the meantime I will eats lots of really dense, delicious kasutera with hot Japanese green tea. mmmm...
6/13/2011 UPDATE: I finally did it! Turns out I converted the recipe from grams to cups wrong and didn't use enough flour. So DON'T FOLLOW THE RECIPE ABOVE! Use this one instead. The directions will still be the same that are written here.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
School's out! It's cooking time!
I cook a lot. I pretty much try to cook something for dinner every night. Some people, it turns out, think I'm crazy. But my parents did that for us growing up, so I thought it was the norm. What, you don't cook every night? But, the last three weeks saw a major decline in my cooking due to the major increase in school work. We ate a lot of frozen stuff and mac 'n cheese. But now, since school is officially done (for now, not including stuff I have to keep up on for ongoing projects), I can cook again. Yay.
I had been saving my last sugar pumpkin because I always wanted to make pumpkin soup and serve it in an actual pumpkin. I took on that challenge last night. I looked up how to do it online and followed the directions. Well, not for the soup but for the pumpkin prep. I cut off the top and cleaned it out like a jack-o-lantern. I sprayed the pumpkin with cooking spray and put it in a 325 degree oven for about 45 minutes. During the hour, I sauteed my onions and celery, blah blah blah... whatever, I made the soup.
After 45 minutes or so, I checked the pumpkin and it looked perfect. Still nice and firm but also starting to soften up. I took some of the meat from the inside and added it to the soup, making sure to leave it nice and thick to help keep the pumpkin's structural integrity. I ladled the soup in the pumpkin and it looked great.
So why don't I have a beautiful picture of a glistening golden pumpkin filled to the brim with delicious creamy pumpkin soup? Because the pumpkin failed. Apparently, pumpkins cook a lot faster on the bottom than the sides, and the bottom of my pumpkin just gave way, letting all of the soup pour all over the stove. Lickily, 80% of it ended up on the cooking sheet so I was able to save most of the soup. FML. I cleaned out the pumpkin and threw it back in the oven to cook the rest of the way so I could puree it like the rest of its friends and use it for more delicious things.
So that's it. I'm never going to try it again. The need is out of my system. My sister made me feel better though. She pointed out that in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver did the same thing. That must mean I'm just like her. I'm cool with that.
Since I am vehemently opposed to posts without picures, here's a picture that has nothing to do with what I just talked about:
I had been saving my last sugar pumpkin because I always wanted to make pumpkin soup and serve it in an actual pumpkin. I took on that challenge last night. I looked up how to do it online and followed the directions. Well, not for the soup but for the pumpkin prep. I cut off the top and cleaned it out like a jack-o-lantern. I sprayed the pumpkin with cooking spray and put it in a 325 degree oven for about 45 minutes. During the hour, I sauteed my onions and celery, blah blah blah... whatever, I made the soup.
After 45 minutes or so, I checked the pumpkin and it looked perfect. Still nice and firm but also starting to soften up. I took some of the meat from the inside and added it to the soup, making sure to leave it nice and thick to help keep the pumpkin's structural integrity. I ladled the soup in the pumpkin and it looked great.
So why don't I have a beautiful picture of a glistening golden pumpkin filled to the brim with delicious creamy pumpkin soup? Because the pumpkin failed. Apparently, pumpkins cook a lot faster on the bottom than the sides, and the bottom of my pumpkin just gave way, letting all of the soup pour all over the stove. Lickily, 80% of it ended up on the cooking sheet so I was able to save most of the soup. FML. I cleaned out the pumpkin and threw it back in the oven to cook the rest of the way so I could puree it like the rest of its friends and use it for more delicious things.
So that's it. I'm never going to try it again. The need is out of my system. My sister made me feel better though. She pointed out that in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver did the same thing. That must mean I'm just like her. I'm cool with that.
Since I am vehemently opposed to posts without picures, here's a picture that has nothing to do with what I just talked about:
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| Nikolai, cock down. |
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Chickie ER visit #2
Abby had to go to the chickie ER today. Let me tell you in fairy tale form:
Once upon a time, there are three chickies. Abby is the alpha. She always follows the humans, chases intruders out of the yard, and is super smart. Frannie is the big one. She looks like a scary vulture but is actually really sweet and is the best mommy. Mabel is the dumb one. She's very vocal and sometimes picks on the other two, but she sure is purdy! One day, Lady Owner came home to find Abby with an injury on her head. Oh no, thought Lady Owner, who looked closely to find Abby's comb partly torn off. Lady Owner couldn't help but panic, since Abby is her favorite. (Don't tell the other two.) She called the vet who said there was a cancellation that evening and she should bring Abby in to get it checked out.
At the vet, Abby acted her usual self and hammed it up. Everybody thought she was super cute, just the bees knees. The doctor looked at her, gave her some gas, sewed her up, and gave her a pain injection. Luckily Lady Owner was able to get her in so quickly that antibiotics were avoided. All was happy again, and Lady Owner was relieved as she took Abby back home.
However.... When Lady Owner and Abby got home... oh no! Abby's stitches were busted open! Bad girl Abby! Even though the vet's office was closed, Lady Owner (and Man Owner, since he was home from work,) had no choice but to take her back in, this time as an emergency. Poop. A different vet looked at Abby this time and sewed her up nice and tight, and even added glue to make sure it stayed together. Even though she's a bad girl, Abby was able to win over this dr's heart as well with her tender, mild-mannered attitude. Man Owner made sure to keep an eye on sneaky Abby during the car ride home so she couldn't ruin all the dr's hard work for a second time.
Lady Owner and Man Owner were super hungry so they decided to drive through the giant golden M on their way home, (much to the chagrin of Lady Owner.) The cashier at the M thought it was funny that there was a chicken in the car, especially since Man Owner ordered chicken nuggets.
Once home, Lady Owner and Man Owner had to sit and watch Abby for a while so she or her sisters don't try to rip out the stitches. Frannie and Mabel seemed ok, but that Abby, she's still tryin' to scratch 'em out. The two tired owners tucked them into bed with hopes that when they check on her in a few hours, everything will be in one piece.
It was an exciting night. Lady Owner is down $300 had to miss an important event at her great learning establishment. But it's ok, Abby's owner's love her and will do what they have to do to keep her happy and healthy.
The. End.
Here are some pitchures. They're hard to take when no one is holding her.
(You might be wondering why this is ER visit #2. #1 was by Frannie when they were still babies. She got really sick and had a bad fever, and was pretty close to dying. But she got antibiotics and got all better.)
In much happier news, today was our first 3-egg day. That puts us up to 16 eggs in 15 days. This is official proof that Mabel is now laying. I know for sure who laid which eggs today, so I can compare them to see any differences in them. Maybe I'll be able to tell who lays what from now on, when they're not all in sync. Fannie's are the darkest, Abby's are a little lighter, and Mabel's are the lightest and a little rounder and smaller. (They're all brown.) Frannie lays first around 11am, Abby lays around noon, and Mabel lays sometime in the afternoon. Or so it's been so far...
Once upon a time, there are three chickies. Abby is the alpha. She always follows the humans, chases intruders out of the yard, and is super smart. Frannie is the big one. She looks like a scary vulture but is actually really sweet and is the best mommy. Mabel is the dumb one. She's very vocal and sometimes picks on the other two, but she sure is purdy! One day, Lady Owner came home to find Abby with an injury on her head. Oh no, thought Lady Owner, who looked closely to find Abby's comb partly torn off. Lady Owner couldn't help but panic, since Abby is her favorite. (Don't tell the other two.) She called the vet who said there was a cancellation that evening and she should bring Abby in to get it checked out.
At the vet, Abby acted her usual self and hammed it up. Everybody thought she was super cute, just the bees knees. The doctor looked at her, gave her some gas, sewed her up, and gave her a pain injection. Luckily Lady Owner was able to get her in so quickly that antibiotics were avoided. All was happy again, and Lady Owner was relieved as she took Abby back home.
However.... When Lady Owner and Abby got home... oh no! Abby's stitches were busted open! Bad girl Abby! Even though the vet's office was closed, Lady Owner (and Man Owner, since he was home from work,) had no choice but to take her back in, this time as an emergency. Poop. A different vet looked at Abby this time and sewed her up nice and tight, and even added glue to make sure it stayed together. Even though she's a bad girl, Abby was able to win over this dr's heart as well with her tender, mild-mannered attitude. Man Owner made sure to keep an eye on sneaky Abby during the car ride home so she couldn't ruin all the dr's hard work for a second time.
Lady Owner and Man Owner were super hungry so they decided to drive through the giant golden M on their way home, (much to the chagrin of Lady Owner.) The cashier at the M thought it was funny that there was a chicken in the car, especially since Man Owner ordered chicken nuggets.
Once home, Lady Owner and Man Owner had to sit and watch Abby for a while so she or her sisters don't try to rip out the stitches. Frannie and Mabel seemed ok, but that Abby, she's still tryin' to scratch 'em out. The two tired owners tucked them into bed with hopes that when they check on her in a few hours, everything will be in one piece.
It was an exciting night. Lady Owner is down $300 had to miss an important event at her great learning establishment. But it's ok, Abby's owner's love her and will do what they have to do to keep her happy and healthy.
The. End.
Here are some pitchures. They're hard to take when no one is holding her.
 | |
| Dinosaur eyes. |
 |
| This is her Badass face. |
In much happier news, today was our first 3-egg day. That puts us up to 16 eggs in 15 days. This is official proof that Mabel is now laying. I know for sure who laid which eggs today, so I can compare them to see any differences in them. Maybe I'll be able to tell who lays what from now on, when they're not all in sync. Fannie's are the darkest, Abby's are a little lighter, and Mabel's are the lightest and a little rounder and smaller. (They're all brown.) Frannie lays first around 11am, Abby lays around noon, and Mabel lays sometime in the afternoon. Or so it's been so far...
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Chicken FAIL.
I spent the whole day cleaning out our chicken coop today. Why? That crazy awesome rainstorm we had last night flooded the whole thing to the point that there was an inch of standing water in it. Luckily, it was night time and the ladies were up sleeping on their roost. They did, however, act very surprised when we barged in on them and turned the light on to find the disaster.
This is why it happened. Well, first some background info: For those of you who haven't been to our house, or "the fun house," as my gramma likes to call it, we have a pretty sweet party shack in the back yard. It's a very well constructed extra building that was clearly built for the sole purpose of partying. Now I don't know why since the last owners of our house were super duper old, but hey, maybe they were that cool. Old man Al really spared no expense on this thing: there's an uber rad retro bar with sparkly counters, a wood stove, propane rotisserie, speakers rigged up on all corners, and to top it all off a wagon wheel hanging from the ceiling. Rock me mama like a wagon wheel, rock me mama any way you feel...
Behind the party shack is an extra shelter that looks like it was built for storage... of party supplies, I assume. That is what we turned into the coop. We tore off the fiberglass roofing and added a real roof, with shingles we found under our house, cut a small door so the ladies can access their run that we built onto the outside of the shelter, and added a big door to keep them safe. It's really more square footage than they need, but hey, even chickens can appreciate living in a mansion, right? It's got concrete floors, so there is no chance of anything digging up into the coop to eat them and it saved us from having to build a coop from scratch. All in all, a pretty sweet setup, they have everything they need. This is when they were babies... awwww.
Here's why it flooded. You can't see in the picture, but the gutter for the party shack runs through the top edge of their coop. Usually this is not a problem. It was a little leaky at first, but duck tape fixed that problem months ago. There is, however, a very poorly constructed connection in the gutter in the middle of it where there's another downspout. And when it rained like it was the apocalypse last night, it was just too much water for the gutter to handle at once, and it spilled over into the coop like a waterfall. FAIL.
So today, since I had no school, I got to pull everything out of the coop, scoop all of the wet, angry straw and wood shavings out and use their heat lamp to dry the whole thing out. Whatever, it's done, I'm over it. I'm just glad it didn't rain today, and I guess it was something that we were gonna have to do sooner or later anyway. I even cleaned the gutter out thinking maybe there were leaves and stuff impeding water flow, but no, there was just that much water. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to prevent this from happening again, (if it rains as hard as it did last night... please, no) other than plugging up the downspout, which might cause the whole roof to fill up with water and... I don't want to explain it, I just know that that would cause bigger problems. All I can hope for is no more 3 minute angry rainstorms.
On a much more exciting note, Abby has been showing signs of her maturity lately. Her comb and wattles are fully developed and a bright red, and she's been hanging out in her nesting box too. However, she is also looking for a striking young lad, and seems to think that Shawn and I are what she's looking for. Every time we approach her, she squats down and opens her wings a bit. At first we thought she just learned to accept when we pick her up, but I think she thinks she's gonna get... um... fertilized. I'm hoping that this also means eggs soon, I hope they lay a few before the winter makes them stop. We kinda feel like expectant parents. (Actually, we know A LOT of people poppin' out kids these days, and we just want to feel like part of the club.)
BUT, I'm not ready for them to be grown up yet, so here's a picture of them when they were still awkward looking.
This is why it happened. Well, first some background info: For those of you who haven't been to our house, or "the fun house," as my gramma likes to call it, we have a pretty sweet party shack in the back yard. It's a very well constructed extra building that was clearly built for the sole purpose of partying. Now I don't know why since the last owners of our house were super duper old, but hey, maybe they were that cool. Old man Al really spared no expense on this thing: there's an uber rad retro bar with sparkly counters, a wood stove, propane rotisserie, speakers rigged up on all corners, and to top it all off a wagon wheel hanging from the ceiling. Rock me mama like a wagon wheel, rock me mama any way you feel...
So today, since I had no school, I got to pull everything out of the coop, scoop all of the wet, angry straw and wood shavings out and use their heat lamp to dry the whole thing out. Whatever, it's done, I'm over it. I'm just glad it didn't rain today, and I guess it was something that we were gonna have to do sooner or later anyway. I even cleaned the gutter out thinking maybe there were leaves and stuff impeding water flow, but no, there was just that much water. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to prevent this from happening again, (if it rains as hard as it did last night... please, no) other than plugging up the downspout, which might cause the whole roof to fill up with water and... I don't want to explain it, I just know that that would cause bigger problems. All I can hope for is no more 3 minute angry rainstorms.
On a much more exciting note, Abby has been showing signs of her maturity lately. Her comb and wattles are fully developed and a bright red, and she's been hanging out in her nesting box too. However, she is also looking for a striking young lad, and seems to think that Shawn and I are what she's looking for. Every time we approach her, she squats down and opens her wings a bit. At first we thought she just learned to accept when we pick her up, but I think she thinks she's gonna get... um... fertilized. I'm hoping that this also means eggs soon, I hope they lay a few before the winter makes them stop. We kinda feel like expectant parents. (Actually, we know A LOT of people poppin' out kids these days, and we just want to feel like part of the club.)
BUT, I'm not ready for them to be grown up yet, so here's a picture of them when they were still awkward looking.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
I'm Calling It...
It's official. My soybeans this year are a big giant, FAIL. Seriously. Imagine an F as tall as your house, bold, black, jumping up and down, pointing at you and saying "Hahaa!" like Nelson from the Simpsons... and on fire.
I generally harvest the pods in September-ish, but this year I started them a little late so I was giving them a little more time. When looking at my soybean patch, you can't help but think to yourself, "My, what a splendid field of soybeans those are!" But don't be fooled. On closer inspection, the pods are virtually EMPTY. WTF??? I know right? I guess I didn't really see any of them flower this year so that probably is why. But why no flowers esse? I usually get the seeds from the Central Market bulk department. I buy raw soybeans and germinate them inside for a week or two, then plant them outside. Doing it this way is much cheaper than buying the actual seeds, and soybeans are kinda hard to find as seeds anyway. This has worked beautifully in the past, and so I had no reason to think it wouldn't work this year.
I really had no reason to think anything was wrong. In fact, I was really optimistic about them because the seeds germinated beautifully as usual and the plants themselves grew bigger then ever. People would come over and say, "what's that?" And I would proudly report "those are my soybeans, aren't they pretty?" And my parents were super jealous of them because mine were growing way better than theirs. I planted them in 5 nice neat rows and was even called OCD because they looked so freakin' good. But alas, nothing became of them.
WHY???!!! I thought I bought organic beans, but what if I didn't? Were they out at the store? Did I settle with non-organic? Would I do such a thing? If they weren't organic, were they Monsanto-tainted, complete with the terminator gene that strips all seeds from having any possible chance of reproducing? MONSANTOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I made myself feel better by making coleslaw with the last two carrots that were still in the ground and the last half of the cabbage we pulled two weeks ago. And looking at this picture makes me feel better too:
Shawn and Abby are really excited about all the pumpkins we harvested. Oh the possibilities!
I generally harvest the pods in September-ish, but this year I started them a little late so I was giving them a little more time. When looking at my soybean patch, you can't help but think to yourself, "My, what a splendid field of soybeans those are!" But don't be fooled. On closer inspection, the pods are virtually EMPTY. WTF??? I know right? I guess I didn't really see any of them flower this year so that probably is why. But why no flowers esse? I usually get the seeds from the Central Market bulk department. I buy raw soybeans and germinate them inside for a week or two, then plant them outside. Doing it this way is much cheaper than buying the actual seeds, and soybeans are kinda hard to find as seeds anyway. This has worked beautifully in the past, and so I had no reason to think it wouldn't work this year.
I really had no reason to think anything was wrong. In fact, I was really optimistic about them because the seeds germinated beautifully as usual and the plants themselves grew bigger then ever. People would come over and say, "what's that?" And I would proudly report "those are my soybeans, aren't they pretty?" And my parents were super jealous of them because mine were growing way better than theirs. I planted them in 5 nice neat rows and was even called OCD because they looked so freakin' good. But alas, nothing became of them.
WHY???!!! I thought I bought organic beans, but what if I didn't? Were they out at the store? Did I settle with non-organic? Would I do such a thing? If they weren't organic, were they Monsanto-tainted, complete with the terminator gene that strips all seeds from having any possible chance of reproducing? MONSANTOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I made myself feel better by making coleslaw with the last two carrots that were still in the ground and the last half of the cabbage we pulled two weeks ago. And looking at this picture makes me feel better too:
Shawn and Abby are really excited about all the pumpkins we harvested. Oh the possibilities!
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