Dumplings

Posted on February 6, 2010 by Frog

We were supposed to host an early Chinese New Year today but the huge snow storm put a stop to that. Since we had all the ingredients, we decided to practice making dumplings. We have Andrea Nguyen’s new book Asian Dumplings and she offers really practical tips and if you go to that link, she has videos to teach you steps like rolling out dumpling wrappers.

We prepared the pork and napa cabbage dumpling recipe (they are simmered for about 8 minutes) and we made the entire recipe but only put together a quarter of the dumplings. We’ll tackle the rest tomorrow. I predict we’ll eat some and freeze some for later (or we’ll just eat until we burst).

The whole process was surprisingly easy. I need to get better at shaping the dumplings, but that comes with practice.

Here’s an action shot of the better-half dunking a dumpling into sauce before hoovering it down in the time it took me to take the shot and put the camera down:

Because this killed me with the cute on Friday, I’m sharing it with you today:

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Perfect for nearly any day, but doubly on a snow day

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Frog

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Here’s hoping that school thing works out

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Frog

I have a course at work that’s very political in nature (office politics, not presidential) and it is a pain in the ass. I finished and published it one day and two days later five pages of really great suggestions came in from someone who is not my subject matter expert but someone who has power and is worth listening to about the course. I made the changes.

I have a training manager who doesn’t really manage so much as she runs around the office in velour sweat suits and spins like a top whenever she’s presented with a challenge. She is the manager for the trainers that I have to certify to teach the course. She asked me yesterday if two people could train the course instead of one. I told her no and if people needed help in getting over the jitters that was one thing but if they couldn’t meet the job description then maybe they shouldn’t train the course. She totally didn’t get it.

There’s a trainer who has serious reservations about teaching the course. My boss and I were supposed to talk to her today. I walked into my boss’s office at the appointed time and she was already on the phone, didn’t look at me and so I left to go to campus for another meeting. It was obvious I was ready for the teleconference as my copy of the course was on the table and a copy for my boss was on the chair. We’d only discussed both of us being in the meeting 20 minutes before it started.

I got home from the meeting on campus and looked at an email that says the trainer is coming into the office next week, could I meet and “we have problems” ends the email. W.T.F? Problems with the trainer or problems with the course?

So, I’m sure I’ll find out what’s going on tomorrow but seriously? Diss me on a meeting about MY course and then tell me there are problems?

See why I want to go back to school and figure out a way to rule the planet?

The better-half says I’m way too pissed off these days so I decided to lighten this post up with a picture of a shaggy flower.

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Banish?

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Frog

Could we all agree to stop using the word “hubby”?

I’ve seen it in an email recently and in an article in a newspaper.

The word has turned into some sort of code word for making sexist statements. Such as these gems: The kids and your hubby will enjoy the arcade room.
Keep a can of Pam in the garage so your hubby can get the grease off his hands.

GOOD LORD PEOPLE WE LIVE IN THE 21ST CENTURY, LET’S EVOLVE!

Posted in General Spleen Venting | 2 Comments

Snowdays

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Frog

I had to go back to work today and since there’s sleet in the forecast for tonight I brought work home with me. I prefer staying here rather than having to drive on half-plowed roads while watching a Bo Duke wannabe careen through turns at 50 miles an hour taking up both lanes and laughing as he passes two cars that he narrowly misses, mine one of them. I would have been seriously pissed if I just got an oil change and then some slack-jawed yokel slammed into me headfirst.

Anyway. Let’s just take a deep breath shall we?

The last three days have been filled with this:

We made several comfort food dishes. One was a roasted chicken. Yesterday afternoon I turned the carcass into stock and then we turned most of the rest of it into pot pie.

I’ll never win a contest for beautiful pie crusts, but this one sure tasted good.

The chicken pot pie recipe:
First prepared 2/1/10.
• 1-roasted chicken, make broth from carcass and reserve the choicer thigh, wing and other meat chunks for pot pie. Also can use some sliced meat from original chicken carving. Chop chicken into bite-sized pieces.
• 2 thick middle slices of an onion finely chopped (OK for more)
• 2 carrots finely chopped
• 1-2 stalks celery finely chopped (OK to use celery heart and leaves instead)
• 5 button mushrooms thinly sliced (OK for more)
• 1 potato, chopped into small cubes
• Garlic
• Peas
• Ground black pepper

Saute certain vegetables (carrot, celery, garlic, onion) in bacon grease (small amount) and olive oil. Then add potato, cook for a little bit. Add chicken broth to steam and cook the vegetable mixture. Add mushrooms to simmering mixture. Wait a little bit—then add chicken pieces to warm; bring liquid back to a simmer. Add some ground black pepper to taste. If salt is needed, add it; it’s not likely it’s necessary, though.
Prepare pie crust. Curse your lack of talent.
Make a roux of butter and flour. Turn it into gravy by adding some chicken broth. You are going to need more than you think. Add gravy to the vegetable/chicken mixture, keep adding to thicken the main pie filling.
Place pie crust in sturdy pie pan and then add vegetable/chicken/ gravy into the pie crust. If it looks at all skimpy, make another roux and then turn it into gravy.
Put the top on the pie crust and remember to make steam holes. You can egg wash or not, your preference.
Cook for 20-30 minutes at 400. You may have to protect the pie crust with foil around the edges or decrease the oven temperature as you near the end of cooking.
We didn’t have frozen peas but will add those next time. I’m pretty sure we didn’t use garlic and we’ll probably want to do that next time as well.

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Snowy Sunday Morning

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Frog

We have a foot, maybe a little more. When I opened the front door to take this photo some snow fell into the house. I guess we’ll be spending some time today clearing paths. I’m pretty sure I won’t be going to the office tomorrow.

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Seen at Flood Zone

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Frog

I’m dating myself, but here are videos for bands I once saw at Richmond’s Flood Zone.

Fighting Gravity (although I think they were called Boy O Boy at the time):

Shawn Colvin:

The first time I ever saw them was at the Flood Zone:

Cowboy Junkies singis a song about Richmond sometimes:

I never went to a Dave Mathews show there even though for awhile the band played every Wednesday night. Lame. Who knew they were going to be HUGE? Maybe all those people who showed up every Wednesday.

My friend J is a county music fan and I’m a fan of hers so I do things for and with her that I might not normally do. Way back during the Flood Zone years there was a place on Midlothian. It was basically a honky-tonk. We saw Collin Raye before he was huge. We drove home from that show with pennies under our tongues. Doesn’t he have a nice voice?

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Stink and Stupidity

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Frog

After laughing (again) over the horrible stank in the grocery store line last night, I can’t believe I didn’t post what happened the last time we went grocery shopping.

We put all our stuff on the conveyor belt and the Very Christian Checkout Clerk asked the better-half if he had any raw chicken. (Aside: She spouts Christian stuff every time I go through her line and she wears a gazillion Christian flare items on her smock.) I swear we both had the WTF look on our faces. After recovering, he said no. Then there was a slightly inane conversation about raw vs. cooked chicken and then we found out why the VCCC asked us about raw chicken. She claims she got sick from touching a package while performing her duties. She also added it had been about 1.8 years since her last illness and the she was felled by the raw chicken. Seriously?

Two odd points:
She kept track of time between illness and she got sick from touching raw chicken? Really. Think she marked her calendar everyday? Not sick again today, hooray!

She got sick from touching a package of chicken that leaked? How about she got chicken juice on her hands and then she touched an orifice. There are sanitizing wipes at every checkout line so why she’d get that funk on her hands and not clean up is SUSPECT. Also, could she really trace it to the chicken on the conveyor belt? Maybe she also marked her calendar for that?

At least she wished us a blessed day when we left. I told her to watch out for the raw chicken.

Posted in General Spleen Venting | 1 Comment

Predictions

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Frog

We have a prediction of snow for the weekend. Depending on exactly where the storm goes we may end up with as much as 10 inches. This news prompted us to talk about what we need to get from the grocery store. We’re not the people to flock to the store just because a storm has been forecast, but, honestly, we haven’t been to the store in a week and so we nearly are out of milk. The toilet paper stock is just fine, thanks.

If you’ve ever spent time in the Richmond area, you’ve heard the jokes about how bad weather and Ukrop’s, our local grocery store chain, go hand-in-hand. You can’t possibly survive a storm of any sort without making a run to Ukrop’s. We’ll see how the joke changes now that the Ukrop family has sold out. Personally, we shop more at Kroger and there wasn’t a Ukrop’s nearby when I was a wee lass so I’m not really that crushed that the chain is changing hands. Well, I certainly went off topic.

Here’s hoping for some snow.

We just got back from the store. Someone farted the stink of death around us. The guy behind us may have been the culprit because he backed up or he just backed up because oh-my-lord. It may have been the little pasty girl in front of us. Whoever did it is most certainly cleaning out their drawers now.

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Making Haggis

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Frog

We looked around for recipes and cobbled together several to make haggis on Sunday afternoon. This post really isn’t about the recipe. It’s about the mechanics.

First you start with a trio of meats and a half pound of suet:

That middle one is a heart. It’s really weird having a heart in your refrigerator. When you realize you have to touch a heart, you pour yourself a Southern Tier IPA and get out the oats:

Then, you get the heart out of the bag and admire how clean it is and you silently thank whoever cleaned it for you because you know cutting out all those arteries and who knows what else would have icked you right on out:

We boiled the meats (beef liver, pig heart and veal sweetbreads) for about 1 1/2 hours. The house smelled like crap or death or something quite unpleasant:

But, then the house smelled better as the aroma of the toasting oats took over. Mainly I put this picture in so you could catch your breath if this whole post has made you ick out.

So, you probably think three organs cooking in a pot would be the worst. Then you must know that haggis is traditionally cooked in a sheep’s bladder or its bung. You can’t really get that around here. So we bought a Genoa sack from the Belmont Butchery. Like everything this was made in China (really):

With the skin sack cleaned, the better-half started the grind. Don’t worry if it looks like some jack-legged thing, everything is very clean:

The main meats went through and then the suet. To the bowl we added a mix of spices, the toasted oats and two finely shredded onions. The broth we saved from the boiled meats went in the mix to bring everything together.

The better-half held the skin bag open and I stood on a stool to spoon the mixture into the bag…the bag was 32 inches long and I needed the extra height to see into the funnel he was holding at the open end.

The haggis went into a really large pot of water and cooked for about 2 hours. The house really started to smell yummy.

The outer part of the sack started to split and we didn’t want to risk plucking the haggis out of the water with tongs thereby puncturing the remaining layer so we made a sling out of cheesecloth.

When I cut into the haggis, the surface tension rippled the skin back in a really magnificent way.

Then we stone cold munched. We have so much leftover haggis that I froze three quart bags of it. We had some for dinner last night and we have even more leftover that will go nicely with some baked beans later this week.

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