The freezer tragedy
It was a dull day. I opened the freezer downstairs in search of inspiration. As the cool freezer air washed over me, it raised goosebumps across my skin. I had to squint just a little to see past the momentary mist and into the depths of the big freezer and there it was…the awful tragedy in frosted over horrific despair: freezer burned beef.
There’s not much you can do with beef that is so freezer burned that it has turned that light, tough color of dried strips. There was nothing for it but for me to take it out, defrost it at room temp in cool water and do my best to salvage it rather than let it languish in the frigid eternity of freezer existence.
I made stew. Sort of.
You start with the basics: onions, carrots, potatoes, garlic. Chop them however you like (I like to mince my garlic fine and chop the rest a little larger than bite sized). Saute them in a hot pan with olive oil, seasoning them with sea salt and pepper. Add the meat, now cut into pieces the same size as the veggies so they’ll cook uniformly, seasoning that too. Saute for a few minutes more. Then add water and simmer until the meat gets tender. Depending on how much you’re cooking that could be 10 minutes, could be an hour.
And then I add the magic.
Curry is basically stew…but with curry powder or curry paste. Today - I decided to make Japanese style curry and so to the stew I added my seasonings. There’s Japanese curry burbling away on the stove right now and it smells so good. And honestly, once the meat is tender and because curry is so distinctive and strong (but Japanese curry is mild and not all that spicy, just warm and comforting) - my guys will never know the meat was freezer burned at all.
Whew.
read comments (0)Planting Lessons Learned
I planted a butterfly garden last fall on the side of our house with full sun exposure. Most of the day lillies, asiatic lillies, the butterfly bush and the tall snapdragons did well. I lost the echinacea and lavender. 
So after a bit more reading this year, I decided that my big mistake was to have planted those particular perennials in the fall instead of the spring due to my Zone 6 conditions. I plan to plant them again next spring in the hopes of an even better butterfly garden.
In the meantime, we’ve had a lot of visitors to my herb garden in the forms of gently buzzing bees as well as nice dragon flies at our pond. Dragon flies are good because they eat mosquitoes and I’m not really a fan of mosquitoes. 
Happy Dance: Bit of March
I have a happy dance! And it’s a stitching happy dance! Woohoo!
Flip It Bit of March
So the M was fully frogged and re-stitched correctly. I finished it up on the plane back from Colorado and I’m pretty happy with this particular month - I like the cute design of course and it looks neat and clean. It’s been such a long while since I had a stitching happy dance that I’m grinning pretty widly even though this is a small project.
As always, click on the small picture to see the full size picture.
Indulgent Foods
Sophie is coming for dinner tonight. She’s leaving on Tuesday to tour around Europe with her boyfriend from Austria. She hasn’t seen him all summer.
Since she asked me to cook for her I decided to make some of her indulgences - rich, luscious and full of vibrant color and flavor.
The menu?
- Apricot Glazed Chicken with dried plums and fresh sage
- Potatoes au gratin with lots of heavy cream and white cheddar cheese
- Young asparagus spears sauteed with sea salt
- Fresh avocado tossed with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil, splash of red wine vinegar
- Tomatoes (fresh from my garden) with buffalo mozzarella and fresh picked basil dressed with evoo
Hopefully she’ll tuck away a nice solid meal before her trip. 
Site Update
Well, this blog was long overdue for a backend update to WordPress 2.6. In the process of doing so, I decided to update the theme as well.
Things went fine, I think, with the exception of Categories. Somehow all of my post categories went to no content - all blank. So I had to delete them all and recreate my categories and go post by post to reassign categories. Not fun. I did the happy dances at least and some of the more recent posts. Maybe if I get caught in a really long telecon sometime I will finish going back to do more.
sbq: fabric vs. floss
This week’s sbq - which I haven’t done in quite a while…Â
If you had to choose, would you rather spend money on overdyed floss
or hand-dyed fabric?
Honestly? I think I’d go for the overdyed floss for the current stash that I have. The designs look so much better with the slight variations in color that that the overdyed floss has - and I really like the design as the focus and worry that normal floss on hand dyed fabric would take the ‘pop’ away from the design.
Stash! Yarn Shop in MD
So I decided to work remotely today and visit a bit with Alexd00 after my client trip in Rockville,MD. As part of one of our breaks, Alexd00 took me to a nearby yarn shop to see how it was (he’s a very tolerant buddy ^_^;).
They had some comfy sofas for him to sit in as I browsed the shop for 20 minutes or so and he settled in with his Gameboy DS Lite like a smart man.
It wasn’t a bad shop at all, although they didn’t carry most of the luxury yarns I tend to prefer. I did pick up two yummy yarns for fall projects because they did feel soft and silky enough for my taste and had the perfect colors. I’m not sure what they’ll become but they’ve definitely been added to my stash:
WIP: The Baby’s Blanket
Well, I’m moving along with the baby’s blanket. I only have another inch or two before I’ll have to decide on a border. The one I like best is a sort of ruffle border, but as Ami told me how to do it…it’ll be super tedious. Still, it’s not like I don’t have the time. I’ll just have to be sure I have the yarn.
This little conversation may also be amusing for you:
Me: Do you think it’s big enough?
Hubby: Not yet.
Me: How big do you think it should be?
Hubby: Well, it needs to be big enough for a kid, so is it big enough yet for a baby to fit in there?
Me: This is not a bag.
Hubby: Works out the same. Baby in a bag means baby’ll fit in the blankie.
-_- His logic actually kinda makes sense, which is the craziest part of it all.
Brilliante Weblog nomination
Angela was kind enough to nominate me for the brilliante weblog award.
I’m really very flattered and she had wonderful things to say about both my blog and my writing style. So many thanks!
I have to admit though that just about all of the other blogs I read have already been nominated, I think. So I’ll let this year go without nominating additionals because I think all blogs such as these are pretty brilliante to begin with and well, it’s just so hard to choose.
WIP: Bit of March
Well, I picked up cross stitch for the first time in a while. I did a bit of stitching on the plane to Cali and then did some more stitching when I got home while watching a movie with the hubby. That’s when I noticed it. Doh!
Do you see it?
The M for March is way too big…I accidentally left way too many spaces when I started stitching it from the bottom up. I’ll have to frog the whole M and start over, including the cute ittle yelow buttons. -_-
Hubby suggested I keep going, but I just can’t leave it that way, I’ll see it and know it for a mistake and it Will bug me. So I’m going to frog it and save the floss and re-stitch it. Then I’ll be much happer with the outcome.