Abandoned.

I had to send back a library book unfinished, but I didn't mind.  It wasn't that good--Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde

If I had nothing to do on my days off except sit around and read novels, like some people I know, I would have finished it but probably not given it a very good rating.  The plot was, "teenager gets stuck in a malfunctioning fantasy game and has to play her way out."   Neither original or riveting.

The China Study Cookbook recipe #11

Banana Crumb Muffins

Six tablespoons of sugar on top of fourteen muffins!  That's a lot of sugar, I'm sorry.  The muffins were neither good nor evil, but certainly not good enough to try again.  And all that sugar!

So there's my breakfast for the next two weeks.

I also knocked off Recipe #12 -- Tomatillo Tortilla Bake.  It was truly horrid.  I'm not posting a picture.  I used Picante sauce instead of salsa, which accounted for part of the problem.  And I had to sub a little red pepper flakes for the jalapeno.  But even if I'd not made those those changes, it would still be horrid.  It wants cheese!  Fake cheese, of course, but something neutral and binding.  Without cheese, this dish is pointless.  Maybe something could have been done with rice and soy milk.

I'll try the leftovers with a little Daiwa.

Annoying early March freeze

That freeze last night clobbered the cilantro--it doesn't look like this anymore!  I wonder if the roots survived?



I got carried away yesterday and made three recipes from The China Study Cookbook.  The first one, banana nut muffins, I still haven't tasted.   Here are the others.
The China Study Cookbook recipe#9
  Dominican Chapea

A chapea is a bean stew.  Wikipedia says: Cooked red beans or white beans with longaniza (Dominican sausage), rice, and green plantain are the basic ingredients, with cooked and mashed squash used as a thickener. The flavor is distinguished by the herb, cilantro, and a dash of sour orange juice (naranja agria).

By this description, the recipe was a fail--but it tasted so good!  It was brown beans with rice, butternut squash, cabbage and tomato paste.  While cooking I thought it was going to be bland--do the Dominicans not believe is spices?  But that was my fault.  I omitted the cilantro which would have given it a musty, pungent aftertaste.  Too much cilantro makes me nauseous, so I tend to leave it out or cut the quantity.  (My  love/hate attitude to cilantro is believed to be a genetic thing rather than a cultural one, so I'm not sure I'll ever develop a taste for it.)

The second dish was Couscous Salad.

Pretty, isn't it?  But I didn't like it much.  The dressing was too lemony!

However, since I failed totally at "fluffing the couscous with a fork", I had some big clumps of it in the salad.  Those clumps--undressed--were good!   I should eat this stuff as a breakfast cereal with a little honey or maple syrup!

And this also satisfies my food of the week--
Couscous is made from semolina, the coarse, purified wheat middlings of durum wheat.   Wheat middlings are the leftover products of making wheat into flour.  They (it?) have high energy content and are often used in pet food.  Durum wheat is just our typical modern wheat, bred for high protein content and low gluten.  So there is no reason to believe couscous is any better for you than any other product based on the human-engineered wheat plant.  So sad.  So yummy.


t

Going straight to the top of the "to re-read" list

 
Code Name Verity
by Elizabeth Wein





Why is this considered a YA book?   I saw nothing that would recommend it to the young adult market over a general audience.  It's gruesome and painful to the point where I'm glad I didn't read it at seventeen--it would have given me nightmares.


It's twisted in plot but never vague; a thumping good spy thriller; a World War II action movie where the battles are realistic and gritty and often hopeless, and throughout a masterpiece of friendship, love and honor.  It's probably the best book I've read in years.  The minute I was done, I wanted to pick it up and start over.

My recommendation is: don't read the cover blurb and don't read reviews.  Start on page one and allow yourself plenty of uninterrupted time--you won't welcome visitors.  Or listen to the excellent audiobook.by Bolinda Audio.  The latter will help you with the Scottish accents.

Heaven and purgatory

OMG.  Simplest recipe in the book and it took me half an hour and trashed my kitchen. 



The China Study Cookbook Recipe #8

Hummus wraps. 


Fresh, homemade hummus.  Compared to this, the stuff I bought in the grocery store tasted like creamed cardboard.  So it's worth the mess...but use the food processor, not the blender.  The blender didn't cut it.  (Punny)

The usual note to cookbook writers everywhere:  for every dish, assume the cook has never tasted it before.  Don't say, "to taste" to a person who doesn't know what a recipe is supposed to taste like!!!
If you're too much of a coward to write down the measurements you'd use, don't write the recipe!   Or, in the very rare case of guacamole, where the correct amount of salt cannot be guessed at, suggest a small amount to start with and then tell them to taste and adjust seasonings.

Then I planted some more spinach, lettuce, etc.  Hurried to the store and back to finish my hilling up.  Planted two very short rows of beets.  Then sprinkled everything because I don't trust the weather forecast farther than I can throw it.

Footnote to hummus--it has raw garlic in it.  The recipe called for two cloves, but I used one large clove.  But I ate two wraps, which appears to have been unwise.   It's been with me...the rest of the day...lurking in my shadow...like Voldemort stuck on the back on my head.

Blah post--shame on me!

Staff meeting last night and I suspect I forgot all about writing.  There's nothing interesting to write about anyway.  Tonight I looked again for miso paste and failed again.  I guess a trip to Whole Foods is in order.  I could go in the Oriental grocery that I drive by every day, but I'm not sure I could decipher the labels.  I can buy it on "soap.com" in a tub or from South River miso in a 16-oz jar.  So why can't I find it at the grocery store?

The weeds in the front yard think it's spring except it's going to sleet/snow/freeze Sunday night.  So be it--I'm planting spinach tomorrow!  Also, I'll be listening to an absolutely fascinating book--Code Name Verity.  It's the World War II novel I wish I could write!

Watering the garden, nutso?

Came home early to water the spinach and lettuce seeds.  It's supposed to get down to23 tonight--are you even supposed to water seeds when there's a heavy frost coming?  The cold water didn't do my hands any good, that's for sure.

Recipe #7 from The China Study Cookbook was



Breakfast Home-Fry Hash.



Minus the garnishes.  I don't top ordinary hash with cherry tomatoes and green onions and I'm not doing it with this one, either.

And the verdict?



It wasn't half bad.  Which is another way of saying that it wasn't all good.  It was just cubed fried potatoes with bell pepper and onion--same as what my mom made sometimes except she fried everything in oil.  This was "fried" in vegetable broth and it didn't develop the right flavor or color.  I'd make it again, especially for a group breakfast at work, but I'd turn up the heat and brown everything nice and dark.  .