Let me know how you found me, where you're from, why you're here, a little about yourself, recommend a book, recommend a movie, tell me a secret, tell me something, ask me a question, etc. =)

Ad Astra,

The Bride of the First House.
bride (at) livejournal (dot) com

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		9.0°C
mood	:		*teehee*

How, exactly, am I supposed to pass up on something that looks as cool as that? Or this. Seriously.

I was at the liquor store last night while we were getting pumpkins for a quickfire pumpkin carving contest (more below if you want to read about that). The liquor store didn't have anything I liked, but they did have Hobgoblin Ale and the Monty Python Holy Grail in a special display in the middle of the floor. They only had these two, so I took one of each to try.

I tried the Hobgoblin Ale last night. I thought it was... confusing. I dunno... try it and talk to me. =)

Reading through the descriptions, I think I might like to try the Black Wych or the BeeWyched Honey'd Ale, but I didn't see any at the liquor store near home this afternoon.

I haven't tried the Monty Python one yet. I'm not banking on liking this one. From the description "plenty of fruity hops" tends not to be my cuppa... and that's not on the label, so I wouldn't have known when I got it.

Quickfire Pumpkin Carving Contest

So, Work has split the Vancouver office into teams of 5, we will be given a giant round pumpkin and some tools. And we're going to be told "Go!" =\

Ooo... chicken smells really good... (more below).

Friday was spent loosely discussing what the hell we were going to carve in between bug fixing and regression test cases.

We only have 1 hour between choosing the pumpkin and putting the candle in.

We briefly talked about doing the Autobot and Decepticon logos. They look easy and cool. Never having actually carved a pumpkin before in my life, if anyone wants to weigh in on this extremely uninformed opinion, please do. And quickly. =)

It would be cool if we could do both of them side-by-side, but realistically, I think we'll be too worn out by the time we finish the first one and we'll just leave it at that.

I've taken the two logos and fixed them up so that they're more suitable for pumpkin carving.

I've also passed them through the Ultimate Transformers Fanboy's Approval Process for Acceptable Alterations of The Logos™ (a.k.a. Husband Guy said "yeah, that's fine") =)

Here they are, in case anyone else wants to give me a Yay or a Nay:

Autobots: Original	Autobots: For Pumpkin Carving
Decepticons: Original	Decepticons: For Pumpkin Carving

The stuff in black is being cut out. I should maybe post a poll to get opinions...

Free Range Chicken

Co-Worker Girl of mine owns a small farm in Victoria, BC. I buy chicken miscarriages from her all the time =)

She sold me a 5½lbs free range chicken. We have no refrigerator or freezer space, so we're cooking it in the slow cooker on the 10 hour cooking timer. It has about two more hours to go... =)

It's the same recipe that fazia gave me all those (4) years ago. Basically throw it in the slow cooker with all sorts of your favorite chicken-friendly vegetables and herbs... shove some up the chicken butt, rub some all over, including the wing pits, etc. I was in too much of a hurry to even print the e-mail out and properly go shopping for all the stuff or follow instructions. I had to just go for it and grab whatever I could remember.

But the apartment is smelling wonderfuller and wonderfuller by the minute now. I'm slightly afraid of what it will smell like tomorrow, but hey, live in the moment... and open all the windows =D

At least we'll have tons of food.

weather	:		snowing
outside	:		0.4°C
mood	:		content

• Hurra Torpedo - Total Eclipse of the Heart. I saw it a while ago, but it's still cool. I would have made a helluva freezer lid and oven door player too if I hadn't gotten in so much trouble as a kid, trying to practice.

• David Armand miming Torn is pretty funny.

• Lasse Gjertsen - Amateur. He says he can't actually play the piano or the drums, but he put this together by filming individual plunks and bams, then cut and paste them together to make the whole tune.

• I found a whole pile of solidus form fractions (like ⅓ ⅔ ⅕ ⅖ ⅗ ⅘ ⅙ ⅚ ⅛ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞) while I was looking up the interrobang (‽).

• Brown rice, havarti, smoked salmon stuffed in red, yellow and orange bell peppers, then baked. I don't know if those things even go together. We have no idea what we're doing in the kitchen. It's probably not something that's presentable for other people. But we liked it.

• Dessert was smoothies done with blopping yoghurt into a blender and stuffing as much fruit as we could fit: pineapple, grapes, honeydew, cantelope, watermelon. If we ate the yoghurt and the fruit separately, there wouldn't have been extra sugar, so we didn't add sugar to the smoothies either.

weather	:		mostly sunny
outside	:		17.6°C
mood	:		...

Anyway, the egg yolks are firm and an amazingly vibrant, very orangey yellow. And my god, are they phenomenally delicious in everything we make...

What I can't wait for is to try these eggs out with hotpot. Not sure if we'd do it this summer. Whenever we have hotpot, we beat one raw egg yolk into a small rice bowl, add soy sauce, optional spicy satay sauce, cilantro, chive/green onion shavings and that becomes the dipping sauce for all the stuff we eat. I think the raw egg is a Taiwan thing. No one in my family does that.

weather	:		sprinkley
outside	:		6.6°C
mood	:		...

1. A whole Chinook salmon — we got one from the Seafood City at the Granville Island Public Market. A 6-7 pound one will feed 5-6 people with some left over.
2. When we got it, the thing was already gutted and the scales scraped off.
3. Ask them to take off the head, fins and tail... save it for stock or whatever you usually do with fish body parts afterwards.
4. Rub salt and pepper into the hollow where the guts used to be.
5. Rub salt and pepper on the outside of the fish.
6. Grate lemon zest from two lemons and spread it around the inside.
7. Lay down 3-4 stalks of baby dill on the inside — I guess you could chop it up if you wanted to, but we didn't.
8. Cut the two lemons into 8 wedges and place most of them into the inside.
9. Place that whole chunk of fish and stuff into a barbecue smoker bag.
10. Put a few lemon wedges in the bag on the outside of the fish.
11. Stick it on the barbecue and cook until it's done... which was approximately two-glasses-of-red-wine later.

Mistooks #1: the Caesar salad with mustard/red wine vinaigrette was fabulous, but overpowered the fish just a titch. Uh, oops... =P

Mistooks #2: that particular red wine (which was distinctly not a Pinot Noir) probably didn't help things either.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I don't do this Eating™ thing very well either.

weather	:		mainly sunny
outside	:		6.0°C
mood	:		...

• peel, scoop out seeds and strings
• dice into 1" cubes (but cut them a little bigger than that because they shrink with all the stirring and flipping around)
• add salt and whatever other spices you think go with it
• stir-fry it in a wok
• add some water, cover, turn the heat down and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes
• once it's done, dump it all into a boiling pot of this stuff (1 carton)
• turn the heat down and wait a bit (I don't know why. Husband Guy is always telling me to "turn the heat down and wait a bit"... I don't see what difference this makes)
• add salt to taste

And that will NOT be butternut squash soup.

It becomes butternut squash sauce and it goes nicely with rice. With the three of us, I made 4 (uncooked) cups of rice and we had leftovers for lunch the next day.

If you really wanted butternut squash soup, you can buy it. =) Kidding. I guess you could just add hot water to that and mix it around a little.

The most important thing, though, is that my house is not on fire. Well, second most important. Everyone who ate this is still alive and it's been 72 hours now.

weather	:		light rain
outside	:		13°C
mood	:		accomplished

Feed the Husband. Said the Wife Manual.
Okay. Says I.
What about his friends? I ask the FAQ.
Uh... QA your work first. Said the Wife Manual FAQ.

I made a tuna casserole last night based on the implementation specs that cmshaw posted the other day. It was meant for Impoverished Students™, but I find that those kinds of things also work for Cheap-Ass Kitchen Challenged Wives Who Are Too Exhausted From Work To Be Bothered™. =)

Of course, I had to do it my own way. I used ritorti pasta instead. I like funky-looking pasta. I'll always take rotini and ritorti over spaghetti, linguini, vermicelli and macaroni or bowties.

While the pasta was going, I added half a can of water to the Campbell's mushroom soup in another pot and cooked the Green Giant frozen veggies right in the soup. I didn't see why I needed to cook the veggies separately. Soup is liquid just the same, it can be used to cook, yes? Add salt, pepper, oregano, paprika and whatever other spices in the cupboard that aren't fuzzy or squirming.

When the pasta gave me a "done" vibe, I turned off the heat. I noticed as I was adding the tuna to the soup/veggies pot that there is virtually no difference between tuna chunks and tuna flakes. We got one of each to see what the difference was. So, okay, whatever, mix it in, add more salt. Take the pasta pot to the sink, put the lid on slightly tilted and pour off the water. Strainers are a pain in the ass and are not allowed to be used in our house (like the dishwasher).

Then throw the pasta in and mix. It said to bake it, but it looked edible to me at that point and in no need of baking. Which makes it a Not Casserole... but, that was dinner.

Next time, I do it with my own veggies. Edamame, broccoli, aparagus, extra mushrooms, maybe even artichoke hearts. Now that it's gone through the QA cycle, I can release it for potlucks and such.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		11°C
mood	:		happy

It was quite good, but man, we better not have stuff like that too often. Whereas I try to find healthier food like the Beef Stew we made on Wednesday, he beelines towards the Artery Clogging section of the online recipes.

Beef, Potato and Cheese, Oh My!

*erm* It turns out that we, here in Canada, do not have these "potato flakes" creatures. We have "instant mashed potato", which is what this Shepherd's Pie is really asking for. That was our Costco hurdle.

So, we're happily assembling stuff in the pot today... it says to put the potato layer on top, cover and cook. Fine, we do that. We had to pack it down because it was a pretty tight fit. ... ... ... Then I noticed the bag of vegetables still on top of the counter.

Me: "Um, what were we supposed to do with the vegetables?"

Him: ".........ssSSSSSSSHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTT!!!!!!!!"

Me: *scoopa-scoopa* "ICANTBELIEVEYOUFORGOTTHEVEGETABLES" *scoopa-digga-dig*

I viciously accuse the Husband of wanting to omit the vegetables, which were the only saving grace in this entire pot of Undead Triglycerides and Pitchfork Wielding Low-Density Lipoproteins.

By this time, we're both laughing so hard, I'm almost flinging sour cream & potato everywhere. So, that's done and we pour in the veggies. He tells me that we have to pick out the ice chunks that have formed. I look at it and see ice chunks as well. I pick one up to throw it away. It's soft and squishy.

The bugger tried to trick me into throwing away the onions. He's racist against onions and pulls all kinds of stunts to get rid of them - he'd lead the holocaust against onions if I didn't stop him. I play-yell at him for being An Idiot™ and put them back. Mixed the veggies in and covered it back up with the potato. We had to pack it in even harder this time because of the increased volume. But we eventually got it all in and hit the button. =)

We now have just under 6 quarts of Shepherd's Pie (we've already eaten some) and I get chest twinges just walking by the pot sitting in the kitchen. I'm going to bring some over to my parents' house tomorrow.

weather	:		kinda sunny
outside	:		12°C
mood	:		happy

I really need to make double what the recipe calls for next time. It was probably written for a 3 quart pot. The ingredients reduced quite a bit and since it cooks from the side instead of the bottom, our 6 quart pot got this burnt ring of tomato gunk all around the side. =P

I substituted jumbo tiger prawns for shrimp, 6 pieces for $11 ($5.50/100g). That was most expensive thing in there. But I went with tiger prawns because digging prawn shit out of the six buggers was better than digging intestine out of the backsides of a zillion little ones the size of maggots. All the same, I think I'll be looking for other seafood or something less expensive next time.

Next time, I'd also like to add an Italian or German sausage of some kind. I just forgot about that when I went ingredient gathering Monday morning.

Yay for sane eating! =D

[Update - 1553h]

BTW, if anyone would like the recipe, I'd be happy to send it to you. It's not like it's a big secret or anything, everyone who has a Rival pot will have it. It's just that posting recipes is still a little too domestic and wifey for my comfort right now.

Just the fact that I'm talking about cooking has me a bit taken aback. =O

weather	:		rainy
outside	:		13°C
mood	:		happy
music	:	Cecilia Bartoli - Sposa Son Disprezzata (Vivaldi)

I checked on the chicken stock every hour and a half or so, but I really didn't need to. After 6 hours, it all got strained through a cheese cloth. The bones were so soft, I just had bones, marrow, mushy onions and meat scraps for lunch =)

I put the soup stock back on the stove and threw in carrots, celery, a little garlic, 2 bay leaves. On the side, Husband Guy made whatever pasta he could find in the pantry which turned out to be macaroni. That doesn't go, does it? Ah, whatever. When the vegetables were soft enough, the rest of the chicken from last night went in and the macaroni went in as well.

*roll over* *sigh* Two very happy tummies here. =D

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		15°C
mood	:		happy
music	:	Joan Sutherland - Norma, Ah! Bello A Me Ritorna (Bellini)

I've gotten rid of a lot of fat/oil so far. Oil skimming is a huge part of cooking in my house. We're Chinese, but we eat very lean. Husband Guy's family aren't nearly the Anti-Oil Nazis that we are. Cooking with his Mother for the first little while was almost more than my arteries could take... =}

The big oil globs, we scoop them of the top, but with the smaller piddly drops that run around all over the place, we use an oil separating pitcher. Rather than having the liquid poured out the top, there's a "blocker". It's a piece of plastic that allows liquid to be poured from the bottom where the oil isn't sitting. That's not a very good picture, but the layer at the top is oil. You still have to dump out a little bit of oil that gets trapped in the spout section, or you just have to live with that little bit, but it's a helluva lot less than before.

I very highly recommend this oil separation pitcher. It's called a "Broth Cooker for Microwave Ovens" or "Microwave Broth Cooker". It's made by Star Industrial Co., Ltd in Hong Kong. I can't find a good product description online. Maybe I should submit it to Epinions or something.

It doesn't look or feel like it should go in a microwave though (it's durable plastic, but it's still plastic). I use it exclusively for oil separation and only after the liquid has cooled a bit.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		12°C
mood	:		ecstatic

Then, the realization hits me that that might be because we have a much smaller bird than the recipe calls for. Check the recipe: "3-4 lbs whole chicken". Dig through the fat ass in the garbage to find the chicken package wrapping: "1.23kg" which is about 2½ lbs. Uh, it's done now. =)

And it was having a lot of difficulty maintaining molecular cohesion as I was trying to lift it out of the stoneware pot onto a serving platter. The legs managed to stay attached but both wings fell off. It undid itself at the seams in a few places after I got it transferred, especially when I opened the butt end back up to scrape out the onions (Husband Guy doesn't like onions).

The rosemary... I hauled out two empty rosemary stems. >KD I picked up as many of the needles as I could, but I was still picking out needles throughout dinner. =)

But dinner turned out fabulous! We just had rice and chicken in front of the TV (Mavericks vs. Trailblazers). We didn't bother making anything else because we knew we'd have way too much food if we did. The chicken turned out so well. The meat jumped off the bones for you if you stared at it too hard. The inner breast meat actually tasted really good too, I'm amazed. The onions were so sweet and yummy. If we had put any other vegetables in, they'd be incredible too.

We still had some left over, so I separated the meat from the bones and saved both. I saved the juice in a container as well. Tomorrow, I'm going to do The Chicken Vegetable Soup Sequel that Faz wrote about *teehee* I think I'll substitute rice for the noodles because we have plenty of that left.

Husband Guy and I are both very happily stuffed right now. =)

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter holiday!

weather	:		light rain
outside	:		11°C
mood	:		amused

I bought a small whole fryer chicken.

Over in the spices, I got a bottle of lemon pepper - um, I'm never going to be able to use this up in a million years, so I might look for people to share some with.

I saw these icky dried packages of bay leaves and rosemary needles, thought "bleh, guess I'll have to deal" to myself and took one packet of each.

In the produce section, grabbed an onion, carrots and celery. I scored fresh bay leaves and rosemary sprigs in Produce, so that was great. Ran back to put the icky dried stuff back.

I thought I'd see if they had small meat racks there. Alas, they didn't. But I did get cheese cloth that I'll need tomorrow. Cool.

Get home and start. I needed to skin the chicken and trim the fat. Wow, for a small chicken, that's a whole lot of ass in my garbage can. And the rest of the fat is blorping around in there too. Got it rinsed off and assembled in the pot. Turned it on, so that we could promptly ignore it for 6 hours.

Husband Guy and I have been checking on it every once in a while. It's a good thing it has a clear pyrex lid, for Lookie-Loos and Peekie-Poos like us. It's startin' to look and smell a little foodie in there. Emeril would be proud =) Eeeh, who am I kidding... No he wouldn't, he'd just point at me and laugh. I'd be doing well if my food tastes like Emeril Lagasse's pants.

More when it finishes and we get to try it... as frightening a thought as that may be...

weather	:		light rain
outside	:		11°C
mood	:		okay

Backstory: Husband Guy and I carpool because we work quite close by to each other. He works quite late most days, so I end up waiting for him until 1930h. It makes no sense for me to go home at 1800h, then come back at 1930h to pick him up again, I just work an extra hour and a half if I'm busy, then bill it as I see fit or just goof off or whatever. Usually, I work it.

This means that by the time we get home, it's almost 2000h. Neither of us are avid cooks, in fact, both of us are fairly Kitchenally Challenged™. Neither of us particularly care what we eat so long as it's at least vaguely food-ish-like in quality. Our brains are trashed by that time in the evening, so we usually end up cracking open the Chunky soup.

I was reading Fazia's blog and saw this wonderful slow cooker chicken recipe that I really wanted to try. We both love chicken and I was very interested in the slow cooker idea - it can cook for me during the day while I'm gone!!!

All week, I've been looking into crock pots between builds and script runs. And finally, yesterday, we bought one. It's the 6 quart Rival Smart-Pot 38601-W.

It comes with an instruction booklet that has a few interesting recipes in it. One of which was very similar to Faz's chicken one. There was also a Jumbalaya one that I thought I'd definitely try. There are a bunch more at the Rival website that I'll look through before I think about buying one of their cookbooks =)

Our crock pot came with a small ding pre-thumped into the side, which I thought was pretty brilliant of the Rival folks. Now we don't quite have to worry about breaking it in and making it fit in with our other hired help.

There was an Accessories Catalogue as well where I discovered they sold meat racks. I wanted either a small round one or an oval one that fits at the bottom. They didn't carry them at the store where I got the slow cooker =P I went around trying to find a similar thing at one of the kitchen gadget stores, but no one had a small one that would fit.

weather	:		mostly clear
outside	:		3°C
mood	:		brrrr...

I have a new snack fad for myself. Shreddies mixed in strawberry yoghurt. I love Shreddies. But I don't eat cereal because of my gag reaction to the smell of milk. Husband Guy put them together the other day and I stole some. Now I'm hogging up his strawberry yoghurt =D

I think it's 3 points (Weight Watchers). 1 cup of regular yoghurt looks like 3 points. 1 cup of dry cereal is 3 points. I put half a cup of each in a bowl.

The Reverse Weight Watchers thing has been interesting for me in the last little while. I'm in that stage of discovery where I'm finding out all the point values of different things. I have a point range of 22 - 27 points a day, but I try to stay near 27. So far, it's been okay. It's easy because Chinese food is hellaciously high in points, otherwise I'd be so toast. =P Today, my lunch came out to absolute 0, zero, de nada, zilcho, bupkiss points. This is what I get for snorting Rabbit Food.

weather	:		sunny
mood	:		buff nails on lapel
music	:	The Others - Opening Theme

The food at the Puzzle Party was potluck as usual. For those of you who may not know, I do not cook. I am as near Kitchen Impaired^® as they come. I only recently managed to boil water without setting fire to the kitchen. Only the microwave likes me. The rest of the kitchen appliances glare at me with disdain.

But yesterday, as I chirped at my friends: I cooked. With a kitchen.

I made the Four Cheese Pasta yesterday from the Gourmet Macaroni & Cheese recipe that magicwoman posted some time ago. I didn't know the recipe made enough to feed the entire Army, Navy and Air Force. =P

I kinda had to wing it and adjust the ingredients. And even then, I had too much sauce left over. There I go again, halving some of the ingredients and forgetting to halve some of the others =P

Some things I changed from the original recipe:

• I used rotini instead of macaroni - rotini is just more interesting to me.
• I added ground pork to it - what can I say? I like meat.
• I used a marbled cheddar instead of just white cheddar - I thought of using just the regular cheddar for some added colour.

It turned out well enough. I got compliments and it got eaten. =) And B (the hostess) even called me this morning with more compliments =D I asked if she'd talked to anyone else from last night and if they lived. Everyone is still alive and accounted for. *whew*

B made chicken and beef souvalaki as well as a Caesar salad, a Greek salad with Italian olives (which is apparently a gigantic faux pas that totally went over my head) and a garden salad with every single vegetable in the known Universe. There was also falafel and a Dellisio pizza. Buddy-Girl-K bought assorted fruit to make smoothies. We had excellent smoothies.

Good food, great company. I had fun. =)

[	weather	|		cloudy	]
[	mood	|		shocked	]
[	music	|	Steps - Say You'll Be Mine		]

I'm making food. I NEVER make food. I'm going to try an Apple Crumble.

B had me over for dinner the other night because I was helping her with some computer stuff and I helped her make an Apple Crumble for our dessert. It was really good. She gave me two jars of apple pie filling that she made herself.

B makes her own jams, chutneys, preserves, etc. She has BOXES full at her place. She grew up on a farm, so she makes a lot of things herself. It's not so much a snob thing with her though. It's partially a cost thing and partially an enjoyment thing for her.

So, anyway, Husband Guy and I are going out in a little while to get some rolled oats and anything else I need.