October 2006 – Page 2 – Hobbits In Rivendell

Endings and Beginnings

October 10, 2006

6:53 pm

No pictures for this one, folks. Just a quick entry to say that there’s going to be a lot of change around our lives pretty soon:

I gave notice today that I’m terminating my main contract, as it’s really been over with for quite some time, even though they won’t see it.
I’ve got a small contract lined up for the beginning of November, but have a MAJOR contract lined up beginning in like two weeks.
Major contract is only 20 minutes in hard commute traffic (10 min’s in off-peak time) from home.
Major contract is NOT with the State.

All of this means that I’ll be blogging a whole lot less, as I’ll probably be having to actually work for my money. On the up-side, though, the pay’s much better, and I’ll be in an organization which rewards people for working. And which has offices in France … so, all of my efforts to learn French in the car on the way in to work may pay off!

With the job change also come the facts that the sister-in-law’s not-wedding thing is now over, and that we’ve torn the garden out except for some onions & shallots, and that we’ve moved the portable a/c into storage & have taken down the deck umbrella. So, it’s fall, we’re looking more towards canning & being warm, and I’ll be closer to home for all of it.

I am content.

Sous Vide

by David T. Macknet

October 9, 2006

7:37 pm

1 Comment on Sous Vide

Food

After all the chaos of this weekend, we’re cleaning house … trying to unearth ourselves from the newspapers (and to read the backlog), and to just generally get ready for winter by moving the air-conditioner down to storage, pulling in the rugs from the deck, etc. In the process, I figured I’d do some tidying of the computer as well, so I’ve been uninstalling all the silly little things which, like barnacles, have encrusted this machine, and also tossing any pictures which haven’t proven to be worth keeping.

In the course of going through the pictures, I happened upon a gem, and realized that I hadn’t even blogged about it! The fish arrived, and that was all I said about it. Well, here’s to enlighten you: Sous Vide is absolutely fabulous, and I won’t be going back to the charred slab o’ meat method any time soon!

Instead of buying anything uber-useless like a vacuum bagging thing just for doing Sous Vide, I went ahead and just bought some chicken roasting bags. Good, cheap, hold up to just-boiling water, certainly, and worked quite marvellously. I threw in just enough wine to cover the fish, a handful of thyme, some onion powder, a good half-cube of vegetable bullion, and that was about it. I’m sure that I overcooked it even in doing the sous vide method … primarily because, even though I used my electric skillet, the temperature control on it isn’t really all that fabulous at low temperatures. So, next time it’s going to be the stovetop method, but either way, I’m quite pleased.

Back to recycle-mania.

End of the Garden

by David T. Macknet

October 2, 2006

6:23 pm

1 Comment on End of the Garden

Food, Gardening

This weekend we tore out the garden. With the nights dropping below 50°F, there was no chance of the tomatoes ripening any further, so before the rain starts we decided to get everything out. One more weekend for those pesky things like shallots & onions and we’ll have everything ready to turn under for the winter, and we can start worrying with planting things like Cabbages and Kale. It’s looking like rain in the next few days, but we’re hoping it’ll stay away through next weekend, so that everything can be fully harvested and for the first time in many years we can get it turned BEFORE the wicked weather comes.

We ended up chucking the green tomatoes into the deep freeze, so as not to have to deal with them until we’re ready to make chutneys & mincemeats. The ripe tomatoes will be dried or frozen as well, the peppers strung up, and we’ll be all snugged in for the winter.

The only transplant to overwinter is the little Chiltepín, with its pea-sized fruit of doom (aka “hotness distilled”). They’re not so mean as the habañeros, as they don’t linger, but they do pack just about as much of a bite. They’re supposed to turn red … but I’m doubting it, as the seeds were fully formed & the plant hasn’t turned out anything BUT the little round green fruit. I’m almost afraid to see what happens if they DO turn red … but I’m really hoping that it’ll survive the winter inside. They grow wild all over the southwest and Mexico, and are supposedly the precursor to the modern pepper. So, I’m thinking that maybe ours is just going to stay green

With the end of the garden comes free weekends, and more baking. And figuring out what to do with about 15 pounds of hot peppers. The joys of gardening.