Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Fall fun

I'm scatter-brained, and blogging while supervising an in-class writing activity, so you get a random listy version of a post.

1. Fun thing I learned this morning: I can ski on my Birkenstocks. I took the dogs for their morning constitutional around the park, wearing my green patent-leather Birk clogs. (The green isn't relevant to the story, but gosh they're spiffy.) It's been raining a fair bit here in the land of sog, and the park is becoming swampy. The girls both decided to run off after a squirrel, and at that point I discovered that the Birks offer no traction on the mud and loose leaves. Whee!

2. As I said, it's been raining a fair bit here. We're only 0.05" away from the record rainiest month. It's in the bag, baby. I'm excited. I figure, if I have to live through the soul-sucking downpour, I should get the honor of living here at a historical moment.

3. Thanksgiving is coming! I know that's not news to any of you, but I'm darn excited about it. Two couples are coming over to have dinner with us, and much cooking is planned. We're making the stock from scratch for the dressing and gravy because one of the guests is violently allergic to onions and garlic so store-bought is out. So, we're going to begin the cooking tomorrow.

Current menu plans are:
Roast turkey (brined and cooked according to Alton Brown's method)
Gravy (roux plus turkey stock)
Dressing: one batch w/onions, one batch with chicken livers and pecans
Braised mashed sweet potatoes (Cook's Illustrated recipe)
Green beans (unformed plan, possibly involving bacon)

Guests are bringing mashed parsnips, cranberry sauce, pie, and I'm not sure what all else. I made cinnamon ice cream a couple of nights ago. It's delicious, and would be yummy on an apple pie, but it's rock hard. It didn't freeze very well in the ice cream maker; the edges got rock hard and the paddle stopped, but there were still runny parts. Consequently, it turned into a brick when decanted from the maker and frozen. I wonder if you can thaw and refreeze home-made ice cream?

4. I'm having a very flightly knitting period. I'm making some washable hats for the Soaring Eagles project. I managed 3 rows on Carpathian Black Roses at Ferals last night. I've done one more pattern repeat on the red Wensleydale sweater. I'm slowly crawling toward the end of sock #1 of a pair of Fortissima socks. Nothing is getting done. Let us not even discuss the planned holiday knitting.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'll try to be a better blogger over the next few days.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think you can thaw and refreeze ice cream as many times as you want, as long as you keep it refrigerated during the thawing process to retard bacterial growth. And, of course, agitate it slowly while refreezing to prevent ice crystals.

Cinnamon ice cream sounds yummy!

8:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

slosh skiing! that's great! i'm just glad you didn't crash. i'll bet the kermit green shiny goodness has special powers. : )

p.s. who gets to come for tday? i'm so jealous. not that i care for holidays, but they get to see you and dine at your table.

9:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Our weatherman announced that Seattle had not had one day in Nov. without rain. You've gained national fame!

10:47 AM  

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