Moving Woes and Trashy Hoes

Sunday was a big moving day. After living at one place for two years, you really accumulate a lot of crap... esp if the place came completely empty with only a fridge and a stove and a hall light. My kitchen cabinets threw up their contents onto the countertop and then my countertop contents threw themselves up into boxes... and then my boxes threw their contents up in my new place.... and now my life is in major disarray.

Moving has been a huge stress. remodeling has also been a huge stress.... and not having D around to help has made the stress even more stressful... but I survived! and i'm almost done moving! and the house is almost ready to be lived in! it's been an incredible stressful couple weeks... but now i think i can say that most of the move is done and i the best friends in the world. once i organize my furniture and finish cleaning the bathroom and floors... maybe it will be liveable. my life is still packed in boxes... i've lost my charger, and spare key, i lost so many papers and important documents... life is a little bit in disarray.

fiona's been pretty good about the move. she's still a little nervous around the house, but she likes to hide and sit on the bed and eat her food... at least she's not pooping everywhere out of anger.

one thing i noticed last night before i went to bed, was the silence. at my old place, you could hear the train every hour (i lived not far from the tracks), you could hear frogs and crickets all night, and around 4 in the morning, sometimes sooner, the birds would start chirping. the new place has nothing. the occasional helicopter flies overhead to go to the hospital, sometimes i hear cars drive by with deep pounding bass, sometimes i hear birds... but mostly... i hear the house. it's a little bit sad that i'll be away from all those familiar sounds, but i guess it'll be nice to be a 10 minute bike ride away from lab... instead of a 30 min bike ride.... and miles of high speed and no shoulder.

here, meet my lawn mower:



the thing is huge.

Graduations

My little sister graduated from college this past weekend. It was an amazing and fun time. The drive up to Chicago was a little bit terrifying. I happened to cross paths with some scary storms on the drive... The star marks my location.... the radar... marks the weather... the strangest thing was when I entered the city, there were stretches of highway where the lights were out. and to be driving on the express lanes with no lights overhead and torrential downpours at 10 30 pm is a little scary when you can barely see the tail lights in front of you or the lane markings on the road. but i made it.... and watched District B13 at home with the sibs. Funny thing though, I was talking to my advisor earlier and she said she had left just an hour before i did, and missed the storms completely. i swear, my life is just a series of bad timing.

Kankakee storm system

Chicago Storm System

But the weather let up and it was a beautiful Saturday. Went out at 8 to go take some photos... it was glorious!

Yayyy!!!!!

Stole of Gratitude

The graduation ceremony was held indoors in an unairconditioned arena. mind you it was over 90 degrees outside, and thousands of people were packed into this one room. The graduates were wearing their heavy polyester gowns and sitting amongs other sweaty peers.... needless to say getting outside after over two hours of speeches and calling out names and majors, it was great to go outside into the scorching sun!

The speeches this year were brief and very well spoken. The first words of advice being, live in the now and appreciate what is happening now, because the future will always be coming up. I forget sometimes, how we always look to what the future will be like, and simply ignore every amazing thing that happens to us on a day to day basis. The second words of advice were to make an effort to keep in touch with your friends. They are your peers and colleagues, and as it takes time to maintain your family, maintaining your friends will help you in the future. The third talk was less memorable... perhaps it was the heat and dehydration. Graduation ceremonies really wake the sadness inside me. They are such finite markers of when you finish something, and then you're left with friends dispersed across the country and the world, with no more real guidance and no real schedule and end to look forward to... It's a scary time, but it's a good time because you can then finally close that chapter and turn the page to start a new one, ready and waiting for you to fill the pages with experience and life.

After the ceremony, we walked for hours to the beach, got kicked off the beach, and then went to the Baha'i temple and sat in silence for some time before going to dinner.

Sails

Beautiful Temple

The drive back was pleasant. Here's a view of the sun set from my side view mirror.

Sunset

And with that, my short... incredibly short stint in Chicago ended. Congratulations, my dear sister.... your whole life is ahead of you!

A quiche for you, A quiche for me

It's been a pretty hectic week. I closed on the house on the 10th. Then spent Fri-Tuesday reflooring the place... um which turned out awesomely. the 17th, i mowed the lawn for the first time in my life. it was.... fun and hard work. i'm thinking i need to get a new lawn mower. the one they left me is too heavy. sad story. I guess it just means that working out is in order!

Before

During

After

It was a lot of hard work. We also stripped wallpaper out of the bathroom and the front room. Now i just need to paint and move my stuff in. It's a little scary moving into a house that i can call my own... it's also a little scary to think that i can finally throw away those random boxes i throw in the closet... kept especially for moving.

To take a break from all this stuff at the house, i receded into the little kitchen of my current home and made a quiche... of course, my quiche making endeavors started just after midnight. To quell the insanity, i also bought a new pair of shoes. Hello, hipster fail! My socks never match and I biked in that day. I was a sweaty, hot mess.

Purple!!!

Broccoli and Veggie Bacon Quiche

1 potato, peeled and shredded
1 tomato
7 eggs
1/4 c milk
1/2 c shredded cheddar
1/2 c chopped broccoli (give or take)
1 tbsp butter
2 strips veggie bacon
dill

salt and pepper to taste

• Preheat oven to 375 F
  
• Peel and shred potatoes pack on the bottom of a pie pan and dry with a paper towel. sprinkle with some (garlic) salt and pepper and add a couple little pats of butter here and there
• Bake the shredded potato crust for about 13 min in the oven. while baking, prepare the filling
• crack eggs and whisk briefly to break up the yolks and sprinkle in a little salt and a lot more dill.
• chop up the tomatoes and broccoli and veggie bacon and set aside
• when the crust is done baking, fill the pie pan with the veggies and veggie bacon and sprinkle with cheddar cheese
• pour the egg mixture over the cheese and veggies, making sure the egg fills all the cracks between

• bake for 30-40 min until fully cooked

eat and enjoy.

Fighting the Weather with Pierogi Lasagna

When the weather changes, when the sun is hidden by dark, low hanging clouds heavy with rain, i can feel my heart sink. It sinks to the bottom of my stomach and a low grade chronic coronavirus infection takes over and i am overcome with general malaise and depression. just kidding... kind of. That's just me being overly dramatic.

Today's lab woes were again due to cell culture contamination. twice in two days, three different cultures... it's an anomaly. It's never happened this badly before in my 5 years of tissue culturing without any antibiotics in the media. I guess that's what happens when a mystery allergen is suddenly largely abundant in the vents. To fight this sudden onset of bad luck and bad mood, i turned to food. what else can cheer a dark and gloomy disposition than something warm and savory, something carby and potatoey... and cheesy?

I found this recipe for pieorgi lasagna and it looked absolutely perfect for a day like today. not to mention i had been meaning to make this for weeks now, and the only thing stopping me was... my lack of shredded cheddar cheese.... which i went out and bought today! WIN!

in between donning some newly bought shoes, hot pants and cleaning the kitchen, some heavy duty cooking was underway.

PIEROGI LASAGNA

2 lb red potatoes
1/2 c milk
1/4-1/2 c sour cream
lasagna noodles (~9 for my pan)
handfuls of shredded cheddar
dash of salt and pepper to taste
8 tbsp butter
1 large onion
garlic

Reds

• Wash and cut potatoes and boil with a little bit of salt until potatoes are easily pierced with a fork
• Boil a pot of water and prepare the lasagna noodles.
  
• When potatoes are tender, place into large bowl and mash or blend (with skins! of course :-D), gradually adding in the milk and sour cream. After the liquids are added to the potatoes, add the salt and pepper and a handful or two of cheese and let sit.

Mashy Goodness

• When noodles are done, spread them out on a cookie sheet and let cool.
• Chop onions into rings
• Melt butter in large frying pan
• When butter is melted and slightly browned, add in the garlic and onions and sautee until the onions are tender and translucent

Onions in Butter

• Take a spoonful or two of the onion garlic butter and spread along the bottom of the lasagna pan and add a layer of noodles
• With heaping spoonfuls of the mashed potatoes, sprad generously over the layer of noodles
• Pile on onions over the potatoes
• Add another layer of noodles, potatoes, and onions, and finally top it off with a last layer of noodles
• sprinkle shredded cheddar over the last layer of noddles and bake at 375 for ~20 min

I thought this dish would taste like mashed potatoes... because it was too simple with tons of potatoes and not enough kick! But i was amazingly surprised at how delicious it was. The onions gave the dish a buttery sweetness that complemented the cheddar and potates. Looks like this massive pan will be my lunch and dinner for the rest of the week. but hey, it's supposed to thunderstorm all day, so i'm not complaining.

Lets hope next week is less dismal and more successful in both the kitchen and the lab.

Mexican Grilled Corn

It looks like summer is here and life is moving forward for many of us.

Saturday was spent driving, eating, driving, and eating as we went to a farewell bbq followed by a house warming party. The game of the weekend was beat the rain or get caught in it. We were 2-1 us v. the weather but it was still a great time. Seeing old friends and meeting some new ones, it really made me think about where we were in our lives and what we were doing with ourselves. But aside from the people, the food was great. If i were of the meat eating variety, i'm sure i would have been amazingly impressed by the ribs, chicken, burger patties, slices of meat, etc... the smells that filled the house were mouth watering. but i was limited to my sad veggie patties, veggie hotdog (every bite was filled with different colors and textures of vegetable protein varietals :-D), salad, and fruit.... and dessert. It was incredibly bittersweet, tears were shed at the end of the night, but i wish them the best of luck as they go and spend some time in San Fran. We'll miss you!! but we'll see you soon :-)

After an entire Saturday of eating, Sunday was spent recovering from our postprandial stupors and went searching for coffee. Intelligentsia... you are a life saver. I haven't had good espresso in so long... where else can you pull a shot that tastes like chocolate.... ? armed and ready, D and I headed back to our sad lonely lives in academia. The view is deceptively beautiful.

The View from the Road

Coming back to take my 72 hour time point was far from joyous. it was somewhat closer to a 78 hr time point but i would say that the approximate 24 hours we spent in the city were well worth it. And inspired by all the grilling that happened on saturday, D and I went out and bought a little cute grill (maybe when i move into my new place, i'll invest in a sexy grill-- but for now, a little itty bitty one did the trick). T bone steaks, some random cut of meat -- maybe flank?, marinated pork chops were the meats of the night, to be enjoyed by the other guests. I prepared some sour cream mashed red potatoes, asparagus, and corn. Dessert was an attempt at grilled watermelon... but I need to work out the kinks in the glaze before it's ready for the world to see.

The star of the night was the Mexican Grilled Corn.


MEXICAN GRILLED CORN

Modified from here

1/4 cup Light Mayo
3 TB sour cream
3 TB minced fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
juice of half a lime
many splashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce
2 oz grated Feta cheese (Original recipe called for Cojita.... but we were pressed for time)
8 ears of corn, husks and silk removed

• Butter the ears of corn and wrap them in aluminum foil
  
• Toss onto the coals or bake them in the oven ~15-20 min or until cooked. If baked in the oven, roast them briefly over a flame until crisp and toasty

Buttery Corn

• While the corn is cooking, mix the mayo, sour cream, and cilantro leaves in a small bowl. add in the ground pepper and lime juice as well as a generous splash of hot sauce and crumble in the feta cheese. mix well, breaking up the larger chunks of cheese.
  
• Cool the ears when they're fully cooked
• When corn is easy to handle, spread the cheese mixture over the corn until evenly covered

Delicious Grilled Corn!!

ENJOY!

I would have enjoyed trying the cojita cheese and a ton more spice to make it HOT. maybe next time, i'll throw some chipotle peppers into the mix. The summer is young. The grill, younger.

It's time to season and stir up some trouble.

Churros con Chocolate

Something broke in my brain this week, and I can't quite put my finger on what it was that triggered it. But a sudden and intense urge to devour churros overcame me. So I made some.

But besides only churros, I had an immense desire to consume chocolate with these deep fried delights. So let me tell you, drinking chocolate is not hot chocolate. drinking chocolate is essentially chocolate... that you drink. it is rich, and thick and delicious and creamy... i had it once at this cute little french restaurant, and never again. they had served us a tall shot glass worth of warmed chocolate, made with some sort of hazelnut paste, and it was decadent.

but let me tell you this too: i. need. these.


what other beverage glass is so perfectly suited to serve the melted chocolate drink in such appropriate portions and anatomical correctness? it would have been perfect for my churros con chocolate night... given that the only star tip i had with my piping bags was that of a miniature scale.


CHURROS

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup all purpose flour
3 large eggs
vegetable oil, for frying
confectioners’ sugar

• Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add water and bring to a boil.
  
• In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt. When the water and butter come to a boil, add all the flour at once and stir rapidly for a minute or two until the flour is incorporated.
  
• Put the flour mixture into a bowl of a stand mixer and beat at med-high speed. Add one egg at a time, waiting until each egg is well incorporated before adding the next. The batter will be wet and chunky, so keep mixing it until it becomes a smooth dough (at least for a couple more minutes after the last egg is added)
• When the dough is finished, scoop into a piping bag fitted with the largest star tip (i had a little itty bitty star tip so i made mini french fry like churros.... sad... )
  
• Heat the oil in a sauce pan (about two inches of oil) to 375 degrees
• Pipe about 4-5 inches of dough into the hot oil and fry for a few minutes on each side until a nice golden brown color.
• Once fried, lay them out on some paper towels to drain some of the oil and dust with confectioners sugar. (next time, i think i will also make a batch of cinnamon sugar coated churros.... once i buy a larger piping tip!)
  

DRINKING CHOCOLATE

modified from “Essence of Chocolate”

2 1/2 cups whole milk
4 ounces 99% unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla pod
1 stick cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1 tsp corn starch, dissolved in some water

• In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the milk. Split the vanilla bean long ways and expose the seeds and put into the milk with the stick of cinnamon and heat for 15 min until barely simmering.
• Remove the pod and the cinnamon stick, at this point, the seeds should be free floating in the milk.
  
• Whisk in the chocolate and sugar, and continue whisking for 1 to 2 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. When the chocolate has melted, add the corn starch and stir til incorporated.
  
• Reduce the heat to low. Chocolate should get thicker and have a nice creamy consistency. Serve immediately, or remove from heat and mix with a hand blender for a lighter consistency.
  

So, the chocolate turned out to be a little bit of a disappointment, at least to me. Next time, i would take the time to melt in some semisweet or milk chocolate, or add a little more sugar... and really whisk it. I don't understand how my nearly complete kitchen is still missing a real wire whisk and one of those burger flippy things. um, fail. but yes, the chocolate... it was good. it was rich and chocolaty, but kind of lumpy. My sad excuse of a whisk definitely did not break apart the little remaining chunks of chocolate, so it left small lumps of semi-melted chocolate that would disintegrate in your mouth when it hit body temperature. in a way, it was decadent. and in other ways, not so much. but dipping the poorly dusted churros into the bittersweet melted drinking chocolate hit the spot.

Mini Churros con Chocolate

then we proceeded to consume wine.

and for your viewing pleasure: fiona. trying to bat a treat out of my hand :-)

A Girl on a Mission

Almost got it...

til next time-- eat well, drink well, live well

:-)