bunrab: (me)
... rather than as the recipe I started with called for it.

Turkey bacon - 3 slices, cooked and crumbled
Leeks - enough to make 2 cups of chopped pieces from just the white and pale green parts (I found that one package of Trader Joe's trimmed leeks, 2 largish stalks, was a bit more than enough)
Thyme - 2 sprigs of fresh, plus a sprinkle of dried - strip the leaves from the sprigs.
1 tablespoon plain flour - white or "white whole wheat" (I used the latter)
One largish russet potato, peeled and diced into 1/2 pieces
12 ounces clam juice - I used the lowest-sodium version I could find. Clam juice tends to come in 8-ounce bottles,
12-ounce can of evaporated skim milk
2 8-ounce cans of oysters - drain and reserve the juice.

If you've got a 4-cup measuring cup, whisk together the clam juice, evaporated milk, and juice from the oyster cans all in the one measuring cup - it'll make it easier to add later.

Use a large, heavy saucepan - my huge 12" skillet worked well - to cook the bacon, so that you have a little bacon grease left over for sauteeing the leeks. Remove bacon from skillet, add a bit of canola oil if there's not much bacon grease, and saute the chopped leeks and thyme leaves until the leeks are soft, about 5 minutes if one is avoiding really high heat so as not to set off the smoke alarm, which seems to be rather sensitive in this condo.

Whisk the tablespoon of flour into the liquids, and slowly pour the whole 4-ish cups of liquid into the pan with the leeks and bacon, stirring steadily (I stirred with the whisk, as long as it was there). Heat to almost a boil, then add the potatoes (and add the bacon back in). Cover and simmer until potatoes are fork tender, anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes depending on your interpretation of 1/2 inch cubes, the type of potato you use, and the phase of the moon.

While that's simmering, cut the whole oysters into pieces of about 1/2 inch - that'll be either in half or in thirds, for most oysters.

When the potatoes are tender, stir in the oysters and cook another 3 to 5 minutes at a simmer (but not a boil) until the oysters are just firm.

Serve hot, with oyster crackers, of course, and salt and pepper for people to add to taste. Makes about 4 servings.
bunrab: (chocolate)
[Poll #1303720]
bunrab: (squirrel_sweater)
Please note: the following does not reflect my actual views on rats. I love ratties. They are terrific pets. They are sweet and intelligent. But this is what sprang, full-blown, into my head after reading just the wrong page of a fantasy novel set in a medieval-ish setting, at just the wrong moment.
To Serve Rat



Rats for RenFairs
Rat Drumsticks
Because the rat drumstick is not as meaty as the turkey drumstick, it is only economical to prepare in large batches at once. However, one must take precautions when frying the drumsticks, so that they do not stick together in one large mass. Therefore, after dipping them in the usual batter, roll each drumstick in a coating of finely crushed cornflakes or riceflakes, before stacking in frying basket. Stir frequently while frying.

Rat On A Stick
Although the traditional method of serving rat-on-a-stick is to use the entire body, roasted on its own little spit, the average RenFair attendee is not prepared to deal with removing feet, wings, tail, or head. Therefore, to minimize trouble (and to minimize garbage and leftovers littering the grounds), it is best to prepare rat kabobs of rib, loin, and breast chunks; this satisfies the requirement of being on a stick, while being much easier to eat.

Fried Wings ("Rattalo Wings")
Because the rat wings are quite bony, as with most wings, it is not advisable to serve these to audiences which will be standing, walking around, and talking. Reserve bowls of Rattalo Wings for the dining pavilion, where dishes for the bones can be provided at each table.

Authentic Rat Dishes
Rats-Ear Soup
Perhaps the best known rat dish is the delicacy Rats-Ear Soup. This would be served around harvest time by wealthy land-owners, to prove that they had removed all the rats from their silos before completely filling them (and to show off that they had the servants and chef to prepare such a labor-intensive delicacy). For the less-wealthy, or for those who had enough cats, ferrets, or cobras that they never had a sufficient supply of rats, a Mock Rats-Ear Soup would be prepared using shavings of mushroom. Often the host would purchase a small bag of genuine rats' ears from a market, to sprinkle just a couple into each bowl of Mock Rats-Ear.

Stuffed Rat
Because of the relatively small amount of meat on each rat, to stretch out each serving, a cook would stuff the rat. The fanciest preparation would be to stuff a mouse inside the rat, and an almond inside the mouse; this also served to supplement the amount of protein in the dish. A sauce would be prepared of cream, ground almonds, and, during harvest season, pomegranate seeds.
bunrab: (Default)

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Wednesday I saw the electrophysiologist my cardiologist had referred me to, the one who's something like head of the entire department at Johns Hopkins, and yes, he did manage to convince me that I should go ahead and get another defibrillator/pacemaker. If they can't get the third lead in, he promises that they won't spend a couple extra hours poking around; instead, they'll close it up as is, and then in December, after all my holiday concert obligations are over, I'll go back in for a separate procedure for a mini-thoracotomy, where they sorta stretch the ribs apart and go plunk the lead down on the outside surface of the heart. But maybe, just maybe, they'll get the third lead in when they put the device in. We'll see. That surgery is September 11. They'll keep me overnight just for observation, although pacemakers can be outpatient surgery; just my history and stuff. So, more news on that as it happens.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Surprising variety of low-sodium foods at Trader Joe's

I'm lucky enough to have a Trader Joe's about 5 miles away. If you are near one and haven't checked it out, try it. There are quite a few items that are low-so! For example, over in frozen entrees, there's two I particularly like: the Chicken Vindaloo (340 mg sodium for the entire 11-oz meal, and only 4 grams of fat), and the Thai Style Lemon Grass Chicken & Seasoned Rice (105 mg sodium!!, but 10 grams of fat.) In frozen veggies, there's Thai Style Soy Ginger Carrots with Toasted Almonds, 70 mg per 1/2 cup serving, about 7 servings per package - so if you're like me, and you're more likely to eat a larger serving, that would be 123 mg of sodium per 1/4 of a bag, or 163 mg per 1/3 of a bag (that last is the size serving I usually eat.)

They have a huge selection of unsalted nuts,and even some of their seasoned nuts aren't too high in sodium: the lime & chili cashews are 85 mg sodium per 1/4 cup. The Savory Thin Mini Crackers are 125 mg per serving, which sounds like it's edging on the high side until you read that a serving is 37 crackers!! (1/3 of the bag) - that's quite a big snack. And they have lots and lots of unsulphered, unsweetened dried fruit, no sodium at all and tons of fiber, and a terrific summer snack.

They also have quite a few varieties of potato chips and other chips that are much lower in sodium than the big-name chip brands. The Toasted Sesame & Ginger Potato Chips are only 85 mg per serving, while Roasted Garlic & Three Cheese Chips are 115 mg. And the Soy & Flaxseed Tortilla Chips are only 50 mg sodium per serving! Pair that up with some of the salsas that are lo-so (almost any of the fruit salsas, like the ones with mango or peach in them, are lo-so even in the big name brands) and you can really party.

And, I can't find a bottle right now, no idea where I put them away, one of their regular spaghetti sauces, not even designated as no salt added, is nonetheless under 200 mg of sodium per serving, which is quite low compared to most commercial brands on the regular shelves.

Of course, there are lots of similar items you can get from Healthy Heart Market (link over on the right) if you don't live near a TJ. But if you are near one, then you can save yourself both the shipping costs and the risk of shipping fragile items such as glass jars of spaghetti sauce or fragile potato chips, and save your HHM orders for the stuff that nobody carries locally, like the low-sodium olives and pickles.

Today's recipe:
 Chick-Pea Salad
2 cans no-salt-added chickpeas (garbanzos)
1 small onion, diced small
1/4 of a bunch of parsley, stems removed, cut into small pieces
6 low-sodium black olives, diced small
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup red vinegar (red wine, apple cider, whatever vinegar you like)
2 Tbsp olive oil

Rinse the chickpeas, and remove any of the little translucent outer skins that are sliding off - just to make the salad more attractive. (It'll taste the same, but look a little odd, if the bits of outer skin are loose in there.) Then mix all ingredients in a bowl, toss thoroughly, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, shaking the bowl occasionally to redistribute the vinegar and oil.

bunrab: (Default)

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

This week's article:

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Well, the stress echo shows that my ventricles are discordant - one side blobs OUT when it should be squeezing in; when I exercise, my EF DROPS from 20% down to the 10-15% range. (In the middle of the walk, my blood pressure started dropping because of this. Apparently, this is significantly abnormal enough to wind the test down early.) The bi-ventricular pacemaker would definitely be at least a partial fix for this, if they could get that bi-v lead in, and it looks like it would be worth a third try at it. So, my cardiologist called another EP (electrophysiologist, the pacemaker surgeon) and I go in to see him in a few weeks, and we discuss what we'd need to do to make sure that a third try at putting in a third lead would not be a complete waste of time and money; what can he do differently to avoid the stuff the other EPs ran into? Since the new pacemaker would need to go in a different spot, because the old location is all scar tissue now, where, precisely, would we put it? (And if I was freaking out airline security before, having a pacemaker when I'm not a little old lady, imagine if I have a pacemaker in some spot other than the upper left thorax!) And a few other questions. But anyway, there's no question but that my heart needs the help.

I asked Dr. G, "Why don't people just believe me when I TELL them I get really tired when I walk?" (This is sort of a running thing, because every cardiologist I've ever seen says things like "Oh, you've got to walk more, it will help!" And I keep saying, no, it doesn't build up my stamina, it makes me feel worse! And they never believe me.) And he says it's because I don't panic enough. When I was on the treadmill, I was muttering that it was boring and that I'd like something to read, and maybe I'd just critique the technique of the painting I was staring at, and when the speed and incline increased, I told him that I really wouldn't want to do this for very long, and that it's not a pace I would choose if he weren't making me. Well, that was true. However, according to him, from what the echo was showing, what I *should* have been saying was "This is too much, stop the test, let me off this thing" while panting for breath. Because I wasn't panting for breath, and I could still finish a whole sentence, they didn't believe it till they could see the heart itself.

So OK, I'm supposed to get more upset and panic more often and get hysterical if I want people to take me seriously? C'mon.

Can I help it if playing the saxophone all these years has done wonders for my breath control?

Anyway. I also asked him about the beta blocker research I mentioned in my previous post, and he has read about that, and thought of me, too, and will be keeping an eye out for testing as soon as it's available. He's not so concerned with how much the Coreg costs me and my insurance company, as he is with not having the side effects if I don't have to. He expects the test to be available pretty soon, as these things go.
Baked potatoes with "steak" sauce:
2 large baking potatoes
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 4-ounce can NSA sliced mushrooms (see the link to Healthy Heart Market at right)
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup pine nuts
4 ounces Mr. Spice Garlic Steak Sauce (HHM has this, too)

IN saucepan, melt butter and stir in the pine nuts; stir them around for a minute or so. Add the mushrooms and garlic, and stir them occasionally till the pine nuts brown slightly. Add the steak sauce, stir, turn down heat, and simmer, while you nuke the potatoes for 8-10 minutes.

Slice potatoes open, serve sauce over them. This is a lot of sauce for 2 people (the way I like it) or a modest amount of sauce for 4 potatoes. The Mr. Spice sauce is both low-sodium and fat-free. To make a balanced meal out of this, serve it with salad that has diced fresh mozzarella in it - the kind that comes packed in liquid, in round balls - fresh mozzarella is only about 15-25 mg of sodium per ounce. This'll add some protein to the meal, 'cause the pine nuts alone aren't a whole lot of protein.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

I read a short blurb somewhere recently, that said that researchers have discovered a genetic basis for whether or not heart failure patients respond successfully to beta blockers, and that they are developing a fairly quick genetic test for it. This should mean that it will be possible to test new patients and see whether or not to waste anyone's time, energy, and money on expensive drugs such as Coreg, which also need complicated titration over a period of weeks. Since even my co-pay is expensive for stuff that's still brand-name only such as Coreg, and since the insurance company's share is even more, I'm sure they'd be happy to pay for the test the minute it's available. Since my EF has never noticeably improved, despite all the meds, it could be that I'm one of the people for whom beta-blockers don't work. It would be nice to be able to discontinue one of the meds, if that's the case. I mean, it would be nice if the drugs DID work, but if they don't, I can save some money and eliminate a few side effects.

I'll keep an eye peeled for more details about this one, and keep you posted.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

The July issue of Prevention magazine has ratings of various salsas they tested. Salsa certainly adds zing to food, and has the added advantages of being low-fat and generally low-cal. However, finding low-sodium salsa can be a pain. So, from among the 9 salsas that they gave the highest ratings to, here are the ones that are

Green Mountain Gringo Mild Salsa - 90 mg sodium per 2 Tbsp; available at natural foods stores and some grocery stores
Stonewall Kitchen Mango Lime Salsa - 35 mg sodium per 2 Tbsp; order at http://www.stonewallkitchen.com
Newman's Own Black Bean and Corn Salsa - 140 mg sodium per 2 Tbsp, which is right on the top edge of "low sodium" but this one has the advantage of being available in most supermarkets.
Robert Rothschild Farm Fiery Raspberry Salsa - 109 mg. sodium per 2 Tbsp; order at http://www.robertrothschildfarm.com

Sunday, July 02, 2006

New recipe:

Meatless Loaf

1 can NSA (no salt added) chickpeas/garbanzos
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup NSA bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated or shredded cheese - whatever you have on hand. Mozzarella, parmesan, romano, lo-so-cheddar... whatever.
about 1/3 to 1/2 cup finely chopped carrots - I started with shredded carrots and then chopped them further in the food processor
one 4-ounce can NSA mushrooms
2 eggs or equivalent egg substitute (e.g., EggBeaters)
4 to 6 tablespoons of barbecue sauce, to taste
1 heaping teaspoon all-purpose saltless seasoning (whatever brand you like - the kind with onion powder, garlic powder, parsley, and a bunch of spices)

Drain and rinse the chickpeas, then "rice" them. If you don't have a ricer (a sort of potato masher) then you should smush them with a fork. You don't want to use a food processor, unless it's a very weak one, because processing will turn it to mush, which won't have the same texture that ground meat does.
Drain the mushrooms, and chop them fine - a food processor pulsed for just a second or two will work for this.
Mix all ingredients thoroughly together, including the barbecue sauce.*
Pack the mixture into an 8 x 4 or 5" loaf pan. Smoothe the top.
Topping:
Sprinkle another Tbsp of bread crumbs and another Tbsp of grated cheese across the top. Then spoon 2 more Tbsp of barbecue sauce on top, and spread it around so it covers most of the loaf.

Bake at 375-400 degrees for about 35-40 minutes, or until the top looks done. Let sit in pan for 5 minutes before slicing. Makes 6 slices.

This is pretty complete protein-wise, and has the carrots and mushrooms in it, just about any sort of green vegetable or salad is a good side dish to make it a balanced meal.


*That's what really makes this taste like a meatloaf! If you are a strict vegetarian, make sure you get a barbecue sauce that has no animal products; some have worcestershire sauce in them, and worcestershire sauce has anchovies. So read the ingredients!! If all you're looking for is low-sodium, and you're not worried about the animal products, then you can try, among others, Stubb's - although it's not "low" sodium, it's about half the sodium of most other barbecue sauces. And tasty, too.

bunrab: (afghan)
Sleight of Hand, the latest by Kate Wilhelm in her Barbara Holloway series. I'm getting a bit tired of Barbara's waffling on personal relationships - the mystery and law parts of these books are still wonderful, intricate, intelligent, but Barbara as a person, well, she's grating on me.
Starwater Strains, a collection of short stories by Gene Wolfe - not my favorite author, and most of the stories are so-so to my taste, but the one about the dog who's pictured on the cover is pretty funny.
Nail Biter, latest in the Home Repair Homicide series by Sarah Graves - it's good except for the end, where first she kills off a continuing major character in a particularly unlikely fashion, then she suddenly throws in a touch of the supernatural from out of left field.
Screaming Science Fiction: Horrors from Out of Space by Brian Lumley, another short story collection, some OK stories, some I skipped over after the first page or two.

This past Sunday I sold hats and shawls at a crafts fair in Columbia. After last year, when the kitty ear hats sold out by mid-afternoon, I made lots of kitty ear hats for this year. Not a one sold. And only a few regular hats. But the shawls, which were an experiment - they sold well, 5 of them, which since they were $20 to $30 each, that's a goodly number to sell, at a crafts fair where most stuff is in the $2 to $10 range. The booth next to me was jewelry, and apart from a couple of pairs of small earrings, she sold only one necklace, and the one other knit/crochet booth, a woman selling scarves, sold only a couple, even though they were only $10 and $15 each. (Just garter stitch knit, but with 2 yarns in each, one a fancy yarn. Stuff I could do in my sleep and wouldn't really bother - especially since she sold fewer than half a dozen.) I did get a couple of commissions to make hats, to specifically match scarves that people bought from her! And I have a commission to make hat and scarf sets for a guy at the car dealer - the one we bought the Mazda from last December, where several of the salespeople bought stuff from me. When I bring over the commissioned pieces, I'll bring over a few odds and ends of hats and shawls, too, and see if anyone else there wants to buy some.

Rehearsal Monday night: Bel Air. I'm not playing the Bel Air concert on December 10, because it conflicts with Montgomery Village, so we're splitting it: [livejournal.com profile] squirrel_magnet will play with Bel Air, since they need him more than they need me and more than MV needs him; I'll do the MV concert, since they need me more than they need him, and they need me more than Bel Air needs me. There are three other tenor saxes at Bel Air right now. However, after Christmas that may change - one of them is a Harford Community College student taking band for credit, so he probably won't continue to play after the semester's over, and then Bob, our section leader (as distinguished from Bob, the bari sax player, and also Bob, Bob, Rob, Bobbi, and Bob in other sections) is beginning to lose it due to age; he has real trouble finding the place these days, coming in on time, distinguishing cues from regular notes, etc., and he's beginning to even realize that he's got a problem.

Rehearsal Tuesday night: Baltimore. I've got to woodshed a bit more on "Santa Claus comes to Dixieland" 'cause I've got a couple of real exposed duets with one trumpet, and while I have most of it down, right at the beginning it's not great. There are several other jazz-type arrangements, too, which have the sax section playing the melody. This is fun, being needed, and heard, and important! Now if only there were adequate parking spaces at CCBC-Essex where we rehearse, I'd be a really happy camper.

No rehearsal tonight. I am making roasted veggies to bring to dinner tomorrow at my brother G's place, and I've already finished the no-sugar, low-fat, no-cholesterol pumpkin pies. The pumpkin part will taste fine, but the pie crust is an experiment, so I don't know how it will come out. It uses low-fat ricotta cheese instead of butter or shortening or lard. We shall see.

Roasted winter vegetables:recipe behind the cut )

More stuff

May. 2nd, 2006 02:40 am
bunrab: (afghan)
Which to discuss first: the finished socks, the tuna salad recipe, the band rehearsal, or the medical update? Well, that's as good an order as any, I suppose.

Finished socks: the brown pair. If you recall, this was the pair where I did the rest of the cuffs after doing the foot. The pictures behind the cut illustrate that process. This is one of the self-striping yarns, in a sport weight rather than a sock weight, so it's already too warm outside to wear these; into a mothproof plastic bag they go till next fall.
bigger pictures )

The tuna salad recipe:
2 cans tuna - depending on where you live, cans of tuna may be 6 oz., 6.5 oz, even 7 oz; doesn't matter too much for this. I use white chunk tuna packed in water.
2 stalks of celery, sliced and diced into small bits
1/2 white onion, sliced and diced
4 ounces of fresh white "button" mushrooms, sliced and diced
1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped pecan pieces

Dressing:
about 2/3 of a small jar of mayonnaise (reduced-fat or whatever kind you like)
1 tsp yellow mustard
2 Tbsp lemon-pepper seasoning (e.g., Mrs. Dash in the lemon-pepper flavor; you can use the kind with salt if you prefer)

Mix everything together. Taste. If it tastes bland, add more mustard and lemon-pepper seasoning. If you want crunchier, add more celery and pecans.

That's it.

Band rehearsal:
Sooner or later, someone is going to injure themselves in that overcrowded band hall... this was our last rehearsal before we go to Williamsport on Friday; we sounded pretty good! Not perfect, but the bassoons have it a LOT more together than they have heretofore. Some people did not show up for tonight's rehearsal, and did not call or email ahead of time; if I were the ruler of the universe, such people would be told not to bother to come to the concert either, but then, I'm mean.

Medical stuff:
Got some very expensive supplies covered by insurance and thence shipped to me, arrived today. Bandages that do not itch. That being the main problem now - the wound is healing fast, but it was reaching the point where all the skin around it was breaking into a rash or blisters if I so much as LOOKED at most bandages. So now I have some fake skin stuff called Primacol, and then foam sticky bandages called Mepilex (made in Sweden), and the foam bandages stick to the fake skin, which sticks to my real skin but in a much smoother manner, somehow, than bandages. What I'm calling "fake skin" is a "hydrocolloid dressing" and it's not really intended to be fake skin, but it is intended to rest on skin long-term, so that one does not have to peel off a bandage and then apply another one, and then peel off another one... Anyway, that's probably TMI, but if there are any medical trivia freaks out there besides me, I thought you'd want to know.

just stuff

Apr. 30th, 2006 01:48 am
bunrab: (teacupblue)
I think I have managed to categorize all the entries I wanted to put into memories; those of you who now want to, say, look for all the posts where I've listed dozens of science-related websites can now click on my memories category "science."

We went down to my brother's place this afternoon - I brought bean salad and tuna salad and macaroni and cheese and hummus and crackers and carrot sticks, and they bought a surprise birthday cake for S, and we had a picnic. J is due in three weeks; bed rest is beginning to wear on her! So we did our best to be entertaining.

My macaroni and cheese recipe: Macaroni Quattro Formaggio
Cook 12 ounces of elbow macaroni or other small-to-medium pasta (rotini, radiatore, etc.) according to directions on package.
Grate an 8 ounce bar of low-sodium cheddar cheese. Dice up 4 ounces of FRESH mozzarella cheese. (If you have an ounce or so of leftover swiss (gruyere, emmenthaler) cheese, you can grate that and add it too.) Mix these cheeses with the macaroni, and place in a casserole dish. Over the top of the macaroni, sprinkle about 2 ounces of grated Parmesan and Romano cheese, then on top of that, about 2 ounces (1/4 cup) of dry bread crumbs - I use seasoned bread crumbs but low-sodium - spreading the Parmesan/Romano and the crumbs as evenly as possibly across the whole top of the casserole. Then slice up 2 tablespoons of butter - I use unsalted, of course - and dot the top of the casserole with little chunks of butter. Over the whole thing, pour a can of evaporated milk - depending on where you live, that's somewhere around 8 to 12 liquid ounces; the exact amount isn't critical as long as it's at least 1 cup and not more than about a cup and a half. Place the dish, uncovered, in a 350°F oven, for 25 minutes, then switch the oven to BROIL and 400°F for 3 minutes, to brown the crumbs on top. Let the dish cool for about 5 minutes before serving.

The leftovers are extremely tasty cold, too; it can be served as slices, along with a salad.

I am too lazy at the moment to do the metric conversions in my head, or to look for a converter. Very lazy. I'm sure that if you really want macaroni and cheese and you're across the pond, you'll do this for yourselves.
bunrab: (teacupblue)
We visited with [livejournal.com profile] fadethecat and [livejournal.com profile] landley this weekend. We set out at 9 Saturday morning, and arrived in time for lunch. We left Pittsburgh at 10:30 Monday morning, when it was 71 degrees there, and arrived home in Catonsville Monday afternoon to a temperature of 81 freakin' degrees fahrenheit. (That's 27°C, for you metricoids.)
what we did in between )
The driving there and back was nice. It's less than four hours. For our Texas friends: I've already mentioned, Philadelphia, PA is closer to Baltimore than Houston is to Austin. Well, Pittsburgh PA is just about the same distance from Baltimore as Dallas is from Austin. The highway is a heck of a lot nicer scenery, too. Hills, hills, hills. Pittsburgh itself is all hills, as I remembered it being from the couple of times I was there a quarter of a century and more ago. I like it - it forces houses to be close together and neighborhoods to be compact and stuff to be nearby; it discourages the building of sprawling McMansions. I could stand to go back there with an electric scooter or a Segway and just drive up and down every street looking at the architecture; imagine an entire city of houses like Travis Heights, except mostly brick rather than wood frame. Most of the houses are from between 1900 and 1929, and are absolutely charming in style.
A digression about stew: (vegetarians will want to skip this part) ) Many people think they don't like parsnips, usually because they're actually thinking of turnips. But turnips are big white beets, whereas parsnips are big white carrots, much tastier. I happen to like beets and turnips as well, but I am aware not everyone does. Parsnips, however, should be much more popular than they are; everyone I've ever tried them on turns out to like them. Try some! Leeks, of course, just automatically improve almost anything. Well, maybe not dessert...
We managed to leave a library book there. With luck, Fade can find it and mail it back... no trip is without its little adventures.
We all had a lot of fun arguing with the GPS unit. Ah, new forms of entertainment in the 21st century!

We ate lunch, arrived home, and I took a nap until rehearsal. Then, coming home from rehearsal, part of I-95 was shut down, for no reason we could tell - everyone was just being shunted off to the I-895 spur. So it took us a bit of exploration to get back to the Broadway Diner on Eastern Avenue, which has the best dessert case we've seen so far in the Baltimore area. (And thank goodness for the GPS unit!!)

Now it's time for more sleep.

Soup

Nov. 27th, 2005 10:34 pm
bunrab: (chocolate)
the obvious thing to do with leftover T-day turkey is make soup.

Find a kettle/pan/dutch oven large enough for a big chunk of your turkey carcass to fit into.
Put carcass in, bones and all, and cover with water, plus another inch or so.
Cut up the leftover potato that you didn't use for mashed potatoes.
Cut up the leftover carrots from the pre-dinner snack tray.
Cut up the leftover celery that wasn't used in the stuffing.
Cut up any leftover onions, parsley, etc.
Place them in the pot, too. Add more water, if necessary, to cover. Add a couple tablespoons chicken broth powder (I use low-sodium, of course.) Add some turkey seasoning, or Italian seasoning, or just pepper if you prefer.
Boil for about 20 minutes, then use a large fork to lift up the turkey carcass, and start scraping the meat off it back into the soup, and discarding bits of bone as you finish removing the meat from them. Having good tongs or a serious barbecue fork with long tines helps with this.
Once you've got as much bone removed as practical, check the water level again. Bring it back to boiling if it's calmed down, and throw in a handful of rice or barley. Cook according to the directions on the rice or barley - usually, bring back to a boil, then cover and simmer for somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes.
If you added Italian seasoning back there a paragraph or so ago, then instead of rice or barley, let the soup boil 10 minutes more, then add elbow macaroni and cook per package directions, usually cover and simmer for 10-12 minutes.

This will make a fairly chunky soup, more stuff than it is liquid.
It can be frozen, though the potatoes will be really mushy when you defrost it. The cure for this is to puree the whole thing after it's defrosted, then add a small chunks of freshly cooked chicken or turkey or meatballs as you reheat it all. So it's sort of a thick stew, to be served over more rice or pasta.

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