Which let me get to the store to get cheese, spaghetti, and a lot of stuff…the mouth is finally letting me eat something besides soup without pain, and we’re figuring on being snowbound, since tonight is supposed to put that half foot BACX on the driveway and it’s going to snow every day for a week.
We are supplied! We are going to be toasty and warm and well-fed, but I think going out for New Year’s is not going to happen this year!
Let me give you our favorite split pea and ham soup recipe: adjust the spicing to your own taste.
16 oz. bag of split peas, 6 cups water (precise), in saucepan, bring to boil: 1/2 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, celery seed, (not celery salt) and red chili flake. Potatoes optional. Add generous portion diced ham (pre-cooked) and simmer on low until cooked to green paste. The bag may say 30 minutes, but we put it on at one if we want it for supper at 4:30. IT looks like a Dr. Seuss concoction, but it’s tasty, especially if served with buttered seed-bread toast. This will warm the chilliest soul. Serves 4. The celery kick tames the ‘pea-ness’ of it and makes it savory.
Sliced carrots are good, also. (Orangey rounds in the green.)
Yes, Mom always put in a grated carrot. Don’t remember potatoes, at least in the final product.
Possibly less pepper and red chili flakes for my taste, but mmm, that sounds like a nice way to deal with some leftover ham. Will add split peas and (in case) celery seed to the list for tomorrow. Carrots always welcome.The recipe sounds tasty. Will have to hunt up where they hide the bags of split peas, dried. Mmm.
However, black eyed peas are a requirement for New Years’s. 😉
Have a reat holiday, one and all, and if snowed in, well, isn’t that good czy snuggling weather? Hmm, distinct lack of someone to snuggle, here, only drawback.
That, and it was unseasonably, unreasonably warm today. Odd.
Pease porridge in the pot. . .
Had ham for Xmas dinner at my mom’s. One of her guests absconded with the ham bone (with her permission) to make black eyed peas with for New Years.
Not all that cold here but windy as all get out.
Hopefully, your mail carrier will be able to deliver a small package which will be mailed to you Thursday. Kind of a first installment. . .
Finally able to be settling down to some serious shawl knitting after being so busy finishing up xmas presents.
Ya’ll stay safe and warm!
My sister and I had our Xmas dinner on the Solstice–just as well because by Christmas she’d come down with a bad cold, again. (She’d had one just a month or 6 weeks ago.)
Our menu was “Mexican Lasagne” made with shredded chicken, black beans, corn tortillas instead of pasta noodles, mozzarella and queso fresca, and red enchiladas on one end third, yogurt/sour cream white sauce in the center, and green enchilada sauce on the remaining third. Then some chopped olives made a rough circular image in the center. (It was a “by guess and by gosh” mash-up recipe we’d do a little differently here and there, but came out rather well and tasty.) Homemade Tempranillo wine washed it down. (If you don’t know Tempranillo, you should!)
Good that the snow was easily shoveled; toes crossed that it stays that way.
While you are expecting snow every day we are have spritzy rain today with temps in the high 50’s. It’s supposed to be in the thirties by tonight! Hopefully things will dry out so we can get a bit more done outside.
Proge roasted a duck on the grill for Christmas. Making duck soup today!
Enjoy a Happy and Peaceful New Year!
We like ham in our house, and I pick up one whenever the price drops to what I consider reasonable (generally around Easter and Christmas, sometimes a couple. Yay for chest freezers!) I have 3 ham bones that are going into the pot of Portuguese Bean Soup for New Year’s Eve. One was from Christmas Day dinner; since this year we elected to celebrate without a horde of friends over, we have mucho leftovers.
Split pea soup doesn’t get much traction in our house; like several other foods I grew up with and like, DH doesn’t care for it (won’t touch pigs’ feet and sauerkraut, either.) I have a couple of recipes for lentils, either with lemon and coriander, or cooked into a thick soup with carrots, onion and sliced hot dogs.
I did not locate the dried split peas at the store; just the usual beans. Come to think of it, I did not find the mixed bean soup dried) bags either. Forgot to get celery seed. But these may go on an “Amazon Pantry” list. I will also be experimenting with Kroger’s new “Click List” app or feature, thanks to an in-store commercial.
@chnondrite — I think I still have lentils on hand and ought to use them up soon. Bth recipes sound intriguing, though right now, I have a Kielbasa sausage on hand, rather than hotdogs. If I have coriander, it’ll be with my seldom-used spices. I will look.
‘Tis amazing how much better the world looks after a trip to the store and a full stomach.
Yesterday and today have been warm to hot, not necessarily unheard of, yet really odd this time of year. I would guess it’ll be in the upper 70’s today. Haven’t checked the forecast. Sunny and pretty, though. Just odd.
The lemon and coriander lentil recipe calls for red lentils, if you can get them. The one with carrots and hot dogs (sausage should be fine as well, or ham) uses the generic army-green ones.
If I do have them on hand still (pretty sure) then they’re the plain greeny-brown / browny-green lentils. Red lentils and green lentils will be on the list after I use what I have, though. Good stuff.
Sausages and lentils can go together really well.
Sounds yummy, CJ! Only thing I’d suggest to add is a ham bone at the beginning, it adds much depth to the flavor IMO. Even better if it has bits and bobs of ham still on it!
I had an appt. today for an assessment on keyboarding and very, very basic Windows / computer skills. This went well, though now I know time with the small-size keyboard hasn’t overly affected me. I now know I am too out of practice typing in from a written page or from dictation, and my accuracy and speed are not what I expected. I will do some drills on this. I also tried to anticipate too much and got myself nervous, which of course didn’t help. The interview / case history and overall assessment went fine, and there will be two or three appointments upcoming in the process. One is a technology assessment and overview, in which we’ll discuss what I have, what I need, and will get to look at and try out a few tech gadgets and sofware goodies which may elp.
@chondrite, was that ClearText or ZoomText which you’d recommended? They are going to have me ceck out ZoomText and I ma try out JAWS. Don’t know for sue if I’ll need these, but I wantto try them. There are likely some vision aids and tech that I am not aware of, so it should be exciting, cool, fun to check them out.
Some sad news, though. I learned that one of the group of high school kids I went to computer camp with, many moons ago at the Lighthouse of Houston, a very talented jazz musician named Sebastian Whittaker, had passed away last year. The voc. rehab. counselor said Sebastian was also a big advocate and leader in technology aids and training. I got to share a memory of him at high school age, just starting towards his jazz career. There is one record available on iTunes, live sessions, original and improv freestyle pieces from him and the band, and at least one cover he admired greatly. I don’t know if he had other albums out, but now want to look. We didn’t stay in touch after the camp, we were just two high school guys from different schools, but I always remembered his talent and liked what I’d heard him play back then. I bought the record a few years ago. (Maybe 10 years now?) He was two, three years older than I at most. Sorry to find he had passed. He was a big gu, down to earth, liked to laugh, loved good music. I wish the dude much success in whatever awaits us after this life. I would guess he’s jamming out with some of his music heroes, and maye inspiring some talented girl or bo to make it big in jazz, R*B, something.
Also — I am about a third of the way through Finity’s End. Fletcher is just now grudgingly thinking these merchanters might not be so bad after all. He’s found that the fruit pastry has spices from Earth, flavors they don’t have on Pell (or he did not, growing up not wealthy). It’s fitting that he’d discover spices as a key to trade, one of the very things that helped restart trade and spark a light in the so-called Dark Ages, and lift Europe out of its isolation and backwardness, clear into the modern world. Fletcher is bargaining with himself, saying he can enjoy the spices and other nice things while he’s here. It has not yet occurred to him that this trade in novel things, or rare luxuries, or things much needed, is what holds the merchant trade and all three human governments and all of space, together into a functioning space-faring civilization. Or that, you know, he could like it all as an end in itself, or like these people he’s with. Even if hes begun to like Jeremy or notice good points about some of the crew.
I also thought it’s a telling point that three characters who won’t get a lot of mention in the book are still given importance, to show they do vital work to keep the ship going and they take pride in their craft: the ship’s cooks, Jeff, Jim T., and Faye. (I may have it wrong, it may be Jeff T. and Jim.) The passage takes time to show how valuable and appreciated good cooking, good food, is to the morale and health and happiness of the whole ship, and the work that goes into it; the laundry crew also. — Many books, many authors, would not take the time for that, for characters who don’t get a lot of time in the book. But they get enough to show they care about their jobs and their craft and making each crewmember happy with favorite foods.
Ah, and I had a much-needed salad for lunch. I like salads. There’s something to that old saying about the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Though I suspect it applies to women equally, and to more than romance or food, or loyalty.
After I found out you were writing an Alliance story, I went back and reread Finity’s End, Merchanter’s Luck, Rimrunners, Downbelow Station, and 40,000 in Gehenna. I’ve also got Tripoint in the queue, but it’s three books back (I just finished the first of a 4-book series).
An Alien Mind: Feline
The cats are not used to seeing me in reading glasses, since my Rx went bust some time back. As a quick fix within my budget, I found 6x reading glasses, from China, on Amazon. These help a good bit, and will have to do until things settle so I can get new glasses.
I had not realized my cats were so unused to me wearing glasses until a couple of nights ago, and again tonight. It had a side benefit: I got to see a cat’s mind at work, the wheels turning. I saw into an alien (feline) mind. Figuratively, of course. They’re not x-ray vision glasses, nor special psychic reader glasses. Ah, well.
The other night, I was putting on or taking off my glasses. They have shiny gold rims and they are the oblong, not quite half glasses currently popular. (They fit and look better than a pair with full lenses and equal magnification.)
Smokey, the younger, assertive one who looks and acts much like Shu-chan, was lounging beside my shoulder for attention while this reading thing was going on. He approves mightily of this reading thing and thinks I should do more of it, so he’ll get almost undivided attention, unlike when I’m at the computer and therefore too busy to give him all the attention he wants, you see.
He saw me with the glasses, they were shiny, and he put out a paw and then a mouth to investigate. “Hey, no chewing on the glasses. Do not chew!” He tried chewing again, and I objected with an angry swear word and said no, do not chew, and he took off for safer territory to wait out that strange fit of temper the human has occasionally about the oddest sorts of things (cords, keyboards, glasses, and such). A while later, and he was back, and of course, I was no longer mad. Whew!
Tonight, I had my glasses on, and he came up to say hi, to be acknowledged and appreciated. After all, he’s a cat. Everyone should give him attention.
There were those shiny glasses again. Hmm, now that was even more interesting than getting attention. Most curious thing, that shiny thing on Ben’s face. What is that thing? Is it OK? He wasn’t sure, and it required further, closer study.
Because he’d come up to greet me and get attention, I saw all this going on in those two green-gold alien ees, friend and hunter that he is, furry as he is. The wheels were turning in that furry head.
“What are those shiny things on Ben’s face?” He was wondering. Plainly. So he stuck out a paw, very gingerly, to touch and test. “Are those OK? Are YOU OK, human?”
I smiled, “It’s just my glasses, kitty, they’re fine. It’s OK.”
He moved to test with his mouth, not to chew or bite, but his only tools to test with are his senses, including touch and taste, so he was going to try both to best tell what these things were, and if they were hostile or edible or playful or just things, but they were sure shiny and funny-looking, and mine, and oddly placed, my face not being usual for such things to be. Thus they required close inspection to ascertain the possibilities of the situation and the shiny object. And whether I was OK with these things or they were somehow interfering with me, I think was his reasoning. Or perhaps something to play with.
“Sure aee shiny. What are they?” He wanted to know.
I did think a reminder not to chew, a gentle admonishment, was in order. He got the message and didn’t bother them further. I took them off and put them back on, saying it was OK, they were just glasses, and I was reading.
This seemed to satisfy him, and the wheels were still turning, thinking alien cat thoughts about what the shiny glasses were and why I had them on my face like that.
He was still puzzled, but he was thinking, reasoning it out, and you could see that in his eyes, his body language.
I got up to check something, but for just that few minutes, I got to see a cat thinking intelligently about a phenomenon, and trying to test it and reason it out.
I seemed clear he was still mightily curious about the shiny glasses, but he was going to be curious respectfully, insteadof chewing or trying to play with them on my face or steal tem to play with them. Quite possibly, since they were on my face, and mine, and I’d “growled” before, he didn’t want to chance the big human’s authority and temper on that one. Being a cat, he of course is convincedhe’s the authority, but he’s willing to acknowledge I could be on some things too. He’s never entirely forgotten being a scared kitten who thought the monsters had got him and I, being the monster who had him in my lair, was going to eat him, or some other dire street kitten imagining. He decided long ago that if I fed him, liked him, let him play, and he had another cat for company, a whole house to explore that must mean he was safe with me and king of all he surveyed. But that kittenish fear from his wide-eyed first few weeks is still back in there somewhere too.
Well, so he’s still puzzled and thinking about the shiny glasses, it seems, but he’ll get used to them.
It was really neat to get to see the thinking, intelligent reasoning, going on in that little furry head, in those big hunter kitty eyes. He’s still a tad wild and street-born, still a bit feral under the happy, civilized exterior. I also see that occasionally. Usually, he’s eing a little so-and-so, a goofball, friendly and playful and curious.
But he was thinking, and I got to see inside that process, to know there’s a non-human, cat-shaped intelligence there. Different than ours, on a different level than ours, but there, in a proto-sapient form. Or occasionally more than proto-, like then.
What a remarkable treat to get to see that, a real gift.
I’m reminded of Dr. Irene Pepperberg’s interactions with the late Alex, an African Grey parrot. After a lot of teaching of English, with simplified syntax and a few letters left out to match Alex’s ability to make sounds, Alex had learned to count and distinguish shapes.
Dr. P. showed him a square, “What’s this?” Alex promptly replied, “Four-corner,” which is what he was taught, analogous to quadrilateral. Alex got the square to mouth and grab and play with. Then he was shown a triangle (English is so consistent!) “What’s this?” Alex correctly replied, “Three-corner.” Next Alex was shown the silhouette of a US football or rugby ball, roughly “()”, which he had never seen before. “What’s this?” Alex though about it a bit, “Two-corner”. Fair enough.
___
In smartphone news, various carriers are “bricking” Samsung Galaxy Note 7s, the phones with exploding battery problems. It’s kind of disquieting that they can do that, though probably a good thing in this case.
The parrot family is uncommonly long-lived, on par with humans or better. It gives them a long time to learn.
It’s amazing to watch their little kittie brains work. I had a rescue kitten, only survivor of an abandoned litter, hand raised by the shelter lady. I had her since 6 weeks until eleven years old, when her kidneys began to fail. Her half-Siamese, half-Godknows “big brother” loved to drink out of the bathroom sink. Of course, whatever he did interested my little grey girl. I had the privilege of watching her figure out how to drink from the running sink tap like her big “brother” did. It was fascinating to watch her work through the problem.
It’s amazing he would understand such a round shape with two angled ends as, “two corners.” I wonder if he would’ve siad the same for a pecan or other similarly shaped object. Or the leap to, “no corners” for a circle or oval. How surprising and wonderful if that level of classification thinking, vocabulary, and pattern usage (syntax, grammar) can be done by a higer bird.
—–
And the day was going so well too. It looks like I’ll have to find a service person to come check my oven and stove. I am not using the oven until it’s checked and fixed. Just now, I put in a frozen pizza to heat for an early supper as a treat. Fortunately, I stayed a bit doing other things. I stepped away a second and heard a *pop* from the oven. So I checked it. Something glowing near the bottom heating element, I think near the point where it plugs in. While I was trying to see if there was anything stuck there (I didn’t think so, and it shuld be clean) This heated more and I heard a loud fizz and pop like from an electrical short. Oh, heck, no! I closed the door fast and turned the oven OFF. (And hope its circuit board obeys). I took out the pizza and put it back in the freezer, still cold. (I wrapped it so it won’t get freezer burn.) The oven is still too hot for a closer look. It is not pristine clean, but should not have nearly enough of anything to cause a problem. So this concerns me.
I can afford a service call. I might be able to afford a repair. I cannot afford to replace the ovej/stove uni5. I can’t recall how many years it’s been since I replaced it, but I think less than 10 and more than 5 for sure. So if the repair is too extensive, I will be without a conventional oven. I’m hoping the stovetop is fine. The microwave is fine. I might have to buy a toaster oven or the like. Dang. When I bought this one, it was around 4750 or $900 to $1200, I 5hink. So, dang. Leftover ham and a canof pork and eans was a quick fix. Will try the stove top tomorrow, and see about a repairman.
I recall a similar occurrence with the stove in the house I rented. Loud pop, bright flash, and I found that the heating element had broken. The flash was the arc, and the pop was the mini-clap of thunder.
I did some research online and found a replacement heating element for $80. A service call from General Electric, or whoever would have made the call was a minimum $80 just to come to the house, not including the part or the labor. So, I replaced the element myself, which took about 15 minutes. I know that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to do that, nor that this is the same problem I had, but if the element is the only problem, then it won’t entail buying a new stove.
Fingers crossed that it’s a simple problem – at least, to fix, and won’t break the bank.
Weighing in late as usual — you may have had a repairman checking out your stove already — but it is just possible it’s only the element. I had that happen; the thing popped and glowed as it actually melted in one small area. And it was a simple fix, and not too awfully expensive. They pulled out the old element and plugged in a new one, and I had no more trouble. Hope it is that simple for you!
And actually you can heat a frozen pizza in a pan on the stovetop if you watch it carefully to keep the bottom from burning, and use a lid to hold the heat in. Yes, this is the voice of experience. I am a veteran of many kitchen disasters!
Happy New Year to all, just in case I don’t get back to posting before then.
BCS, there are a couple of sites I use to keep costs down – I hope they’re available in your area. First is Freecycle: you have to join and give something away, but you’d be surprised at the things people are willing to recycle for free. The second is letgo, not free but negotiable and can be cheap! I see lots of stoves for sale. Hope this helps. I’d send you a stove but don’t have any extra at the moment!
Thanks, WoW. 🙂
Our weather here went from too warm back to hey, it’s winter, overnight. About three or four days ago, I couldn’t sleep and was awake nearly 24 hours straight, then slept some but not enough. I should’ve known that was a sign my biological clock was trying to reset again. It does periodically, but never settles into a normal sleep-wake mode. So two nights ago, I was awake during the night, and again last night. I slept late yesterday and dragged around, did some, not a lot. The day before had been productive except for the oven problem. Today, I’m up but blah, tired, and may go back to bed and nap a while, then read.
I am likely going to wait until Jan. 3rd about an oven/stove repairman. It can wait. I used the stovetop yesterday and watched it assiduously while waiting for the tea kettle. It’s working fine, so the stove portion seems OK and I can cook, but not use the oven, such as to bake. Maybe this afternoon, I’ll feel more like fooling with it and will call someone out, but I think it’ll wait until the 3rd.
Meanwhile, as a precaution, I hunted up an electric skillet and ordered it, which is scheduled to arrive Tuesday. It was affordable, Amazon’s best seller and had good reviews. I was almost ready to buy one from the brand my grandmother had liked and used most of my life, but then saw their current model had a known heating element problem and several reviews reporting it was fine until the heating element shorted, then a sudden hazard, so don’t buy. So I went with the better recommendation.
And I have moved my crock pot and need to find it. Plan on using it some.
So although I’m ticked and disappointed about the oven and nervous budget-wise whether I can get it fixed, I will have options to tide me over a while.
Whoa, holy moley. That’s the fastest I think I’ve ever gotten an order. The electric skillet arrived days early. One suspects elves and reindeer, and som really motivated shopkeeper wanting to move inventory before year-end! This is outstanding.Boy, they didn’t call it “Pres Ito” brand for nothin’, did they? Heh. I’m stunned. I ordered last night, I think. Or last afternoon. But the expected delivery date was Tuesday, which I thought might be sooner than it’d get her, with the holidays. Wow, this much early is phenomenal. I didn’t pay extra for fast delivery, either. Outstanding. Something goes right in spite of something going wrong. Nice win. Impressed. Hope it works as well as the one my grandmother had for yers. Different maker, but this one had good reviews and as moderte a price as I could hope for, so, I will likely be happy. Golly. Fast. Local, must e.
And now I’m confusd, and possibly in some sort of temporal displacement reality distortion field. So I looked back at Amazon. They show the electric skillet as “Shipping Soon!” Not as, “Delivered!” Uh…it’s arrived before it was shipped? Whazzat? Someone really got way ahead of themselves, or the software hasn’t updated fast enough, or something. Or some Santa’s elf or Rudof has a transporter. Or…wow. Okie-dokie, I’m not even gonna question it. I’ve got an electric skillet that arrived on my doorstep just like they said, only before they said it’s shipped.
As long as it doesn’t turn into a pumpkin and some mice, or an old slipper, or outright vanishes while cooking, I’ll count it a win. If I get a second one delivered, I’m gonna donate it and not question it.
I don’t know if that elf has a name, I sould presume so, but thank you, elf.
So what do you call a good gremlin, a reverse gremlin? Is that a house elf? A brownie? A hob? Huh. Could be I’ve got one anging around? Or there’s one at the Amaazon shipping warehouse? Huh. Seriously, is there a name for such a one of the fair wee folk? Pssibly should be.
Some possibility I may get to spend a week in Kauai in October. I’m thinking maybe staying in the south coast, Po’ipu-Koloa area? Out of the big city, but not so far out of the way as Hanalei or Princeville. Good idea? Bad idea? Took the week-long, 4-island cruise a couple years ago, but only had a day–did the river cruise to the Fern Grotto. Ship cruised past off the Na-Pali coast “on the way” back to Honolulu. They’re off the list. Anything else not to miss?
Get a car, and drive up to Kokee State Park and see Waimea Canyon, the ‘Grand Canyon of the Pacific’. Spectacular views, but don’t let the ‘native jungle fowl’, aka chickens that became freerange 25 years ago when Iniki smashed a lot of Kauai, coax you into feeding them. The north shore, from Kilauea up to Hanalei, is worth a look; Hanalei is the jumping off point for the Na Pali Trail and a lot of surfers hang out there. Poipu is where many of the big resorts are and prices are likely to be somewhat higher there. Princeville has a lot of rental condos; there are at least half a dozen big timeshare type developments in that area. The area from Kapaa down to Lihue is probably your best bet for budget rentals or hotels. The west side of the island around Hanapepe is much more rural/farm land, but I don’t know much about vacation rentals there. Once you leave any of the towns food options become very limited, so you may want to make a habit of bringing a cooler of sandwiches and drinks on your expeditions. PM me if you want and I can give you a rundown of what I remember from the last time we were there.
Thanks, I’d like to take this offline, but how? Shejidan has sometimes been a help, but I don’t see “chondrite” in the member list. Nothing stands out here, and, well, these days, privacy must be protected. Only answer I can see is, I’ll email herself, asking her to forward it to you? When she has time.
You can contact me by going through rubbahslippah81 at hotmail dot com