I have watched three movies from my designated list (#67) since the beginning of the year and while I can't say I was totally bowled over by any of them, I wasn't totally disappointed either. Which, when I think about it, is probably what I expected to feel about them when I chose all these movies. They are each classics in their own right and are often referenced in other books and movies.
First was Jaws (1975). This one held my attention more than the other two... it is definitely dramatic and an adventure. And I have to say that I feel no need to go swimming in the ocean anytime soon! I was really impressed by the special effects, especially given that it was made almost forty years ago. And it was fun to see so many actors when they were so young. hee-hee!
Next up was Rebel Without a Cause (1955). I almost want to see it again, because I have a feeling I would like it much better the second time around. It was very interesting to see James Dean in the role that became the prototype for all other subsequent bad boys. I remember watching Beverly Hills 90210 and hearing all the reviews say that Dylan was the new James Dean, and now I totally understand why... the hair, the sleepy eyes, the red jacket, the slacker attitude... all there. The movie was actually kind of deep. Especially when you remember the era in which it was filmed. It's one of those things that helps me realize that the younger generation and these "modern" times are probably only about 0.5% removed from the generations before us. Times are not so different as we would like to believe. Or things were not so innocent and simple as we would like to believe. Anyway, it was a good movie and I enjoyed it. And it was fun to give myself another visual of Natalie Wood besides West Side Story.
Most recently was It Happened One Night (1934) with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. I think I remember hearing that this was the forbear for all modern movies, and it really was a cute romantic comedy. Change up the clothes and hairstyles, and we'd all be paying ten bucks to see it at the theatre some Saturday. And it's hard not to like Clark Gable's roguish charm. The gentleman/bad boy... my favorite kind!
So five down, five more to go. I think I made some pretty good choices here! Now I really need to get started on asking other people what their favorite movies are(#59). So... what is your favorite movie???
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
More Good Food
January really did turn out to be the month of many recipes. As evidenced by my budget. When I was working on setting up my 2012 budget, I realized that I had spent nearly two months' worth of money in one month because of all the cooking I was doing. Whoa!! So I'm going to have to scale back a bit for a while until things get back on track monetarily. But here are some of the results from the pre-money awareness phase...
This is the Crispy Squid from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express. I had actually bought all the ingredients a while back (the squid were frozen) and hadn't gotten up the nerve to actually try it. And I have to admit that if I didn't already know that I love fried calamari, I don't know if I would have tried it after seeing all those stringy tentacles and slimy bodies. Bleh. But it really was all very quick and easy. The tentacles were so funny, because thawed, they were thin and about 10-12 inches long. But as soon as they went into the oil, they drew up into the little blobs that I am used to seeing on a plate. This is definitely something I would do again for something different and fun.
The next night was Nigella's Steak with Lemon and Thyme, and let me just say that thyme is officially my new favorite herb! The steak was grilled on a stovetop grill pan, then marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest (got to use my new zester I got for Christmas!), worcestershire sauce, fresh thyme, salt, and pepper. I don't like lemon, but you really couldn't taste it specifically. Overall, it was just super flavorful and fresh. I also steamed some broccoli rabe in the microwave and boiled these itty bitty potatoes (from Trader Joe's -- their term, although it was quite accurate!). The potatoes were so small that they cooked up very quickly, and I just tossed them with a little salt, pepper, butter, and some of the fresh thyme. Mouth-wateringly delicious. The broccoli rabe made a nice alternative to regular broccoli, since I tend to eat a lot of that. And the leftover steak made a truly scrumptious sandwich the next day!
Looking for another quick and easy dinner recipe (this was a week when I worked 'til 6), this is another Nigella Lawson recip from the Express cookbook. Yes, Nigella again. It really was easy... naan purchased from the store, jarred pasta sauce (Barilla's tomato basil sauce -- absolutely the best jarred sauce! ever!), jarred marinated mushrooms, chunks of fontina cheese, and a sprinkle of fresh thyme. It was good, but I will definitely tweak it some the next time. I don't love tomoato sauce, so I'll probably leave that off and just use a little olive oil and garlic, which is what I usually do when I make pizza. I think I've had fontina before, because it tasted very familiar. It was very tasty, and I'll be adding it into my regular rotation of cheeses that I like to keep on hand. There was something slightly off about the mushroom and thyme combination, so I might look for other options in the future. The naan was great, though, because they're much cheaper and a little smaller than the Boboli crusts that I've used in the past for quick pizzas. So this recipe was not a home-run, but can absolutely be adapted into something great.
So I went back and counted up all the new recipes I've tried since starting the project (#73), and I'm at fourteen so far. Essentially, I'm all caught up through February, so I can get back on track for one a month now. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to more good food!
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| fried calamari |
This is the Crispy Squid from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express. I had actually bought all the ingredients a while back (the squid were frozen) and hadn't gotten up the nerve to actually try it. And I have to admit that if I didn't already know that I love fried calamari, I don't know if I would have tried it after seeing all those stringy tentacles and slimy bodies. Bleh. But it really was all very quick and easy. The tentacles were so funny, because thawed, they were thin and about 10-12 inches long. But as soon as they went into the oil, they drew up into the little blobs that I am used to seeing on a plate. This is definitely something I would do again for something different and fun.
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| beef! |
The next night was Nigella's Steak with Lemon and Thyme, and let me just say that thyme is officially my new favorite herb! The steak was grilled on a stovetop grill pan, then marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest (got to use my new zester I got for Christmas!), worcestershire sauce, fresh thyme, salt, and pepper. I don't like lemon, but you really couldn't taste it specifically. Overall, it was just super flavorful and fresh. I also steamed some broccoli rabe in the microwave and boiled these itty bitty potatoes (from Trader Joe's -- their term, although it was quite accurate!). The potatoes were so small that they cooked up very quickly, and I just tossed them with a little salt, pepper, butter, and some of the fresh thyme. Mouth-wateringly delicious. The broccoli rabe made a nice alternative to regular broccoli, since I tend to eat a lot of that. And the leftover steak made a truly scrumptious sandwich the next day!
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| naan pizza |
Looking for another quick and easy dinner recipe (this was a week when I worked 'til 6), this is another Nigella Lawson recip from the Express cookbook. Yes, Nigella again. It really was easy... naan purchased from the store, jarred pasta sauce (Barilla's tomato basil sauce -- absolutely the best jarred sauce! ever!), jarred marinated mushrooms, chunks of fontina cheese, and a sprinkle of fresh thyme. It was good, but I will definitely tweak it some the next time. I don't love tomoato sauce, so I'll probably leave that off and just use a little olive oil and garlic, which is what I usually do when I make pizza. I think I've had fontina before, because it tasted very familiar. It was very tasty, and I'll be adding it into my regular rotation of cheeses that I like to keep on hand. There was something slightly off about the mushroom and thyme combination, so I might look for other options in the future. The naan was great, though, because they're much cheaper and a little smaller than the Boboli crusts that I've used in the past for quick pizzas. So this recipe was not a home-run, but can absolutely be adapted into something great.
So I went back and counted up all the new recipes I've tried since starting the project (#73), and I'm at fourteen so far. Essentially, I'm all caught up through February, so I can get back on track for one a month now. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to more good food!
Photo Challenge
I'm caught up downloading photos to the photo blog (#37), and I've made a couple of observations. First, I missed one day in January and five days in February. It really did slip my mind, so I was actually surprised that I had as many photos as I did. I'll make up the missed days at the end of the year. Second, I take a lot of pictures of my cat and the sky! I guess this isn't too much of a surprise. Nahla is generally the center of my attention when I'm at home, and I've always paid attention to the sky (this is what happens when your father is a meteorologist!). But it does make me want to branch out some... try to push myself to go a little outside the box. Also, I want to work on the composition of my pictures. I am purposely not editing or cropping these photos. The only one I cropped was the one of the goose, because it really did make a big difference in how it looked...
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| before cropping |
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| after cropping |
Speaking of sky, though, I want to include several photos I took on a cloudy from the roof parking lot at Fresh Market. It had been a bad day, and the store was out of the chicken salad that I went there to buy, but when I came out, this is what I saw...
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Just beautiful. And it's extra amazing that the photos were actually able to capture the colors and cloud patterns. These make me smile!
At any rate, I am making a concerted effort to get back on track with my pictures. Maybe I need to make a sub-task of making it through a whole month with no photos of my cat. But she's so cute!
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Making up for Lost Time (or How I Tried Five New Recipes in Less Than a Week!)
I didn't purposely set out to try so many recipes in such a short period of time (#73), but that's what happened. So here's how it turned out...
Every week I write out a to-do list for that week, so in an effort to remind myself to eat a little healthier, I put "eat fish" on the week before last's list. I had some ocean perch in the freezer, so I opted to thaw that out. And my friend has repeatedly talked about a sour cream and onion recipe that she uses for fish on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I didn't have the actual recipe, so I tried to make it up on my own. For starters, it took a lot longer to bake than I expected. So I ended up having a two-part dinner... broccoli and yellow rice to start, fish about 30 minutes later.
Gotta say that I wasn't that impressed. But that could be due to the type of fish I used or that I didn't have the recipe quite right. I'll probably give it another chance now that I have the actual recipe, and next time I'll use the same type of fish she uses.
Next up was Nigella Lawson's One-Pan Sage-and-Onion Chicken and Sausage from her cookbook Feast. It had an average five out of five stars rating on the Food Network site which is pretty amazing. And I have to admit that I love Nigella... everything of hers that I've ever made has been incredible. The only problem with this recipe was that it required cutting up a whole chicken. I have never been able to cut up a chicken. My mother tried to show me once, but I never seemed to be able to "feel the joints" and "just pop them apart". Normally I would get around this by buying a chicken that was already cut up, but I decided to grow up and cut up my own chicken. It felt like that scene in Julie and Julia when Julie gets herself all worked up over boning the duck! I put it off until about 11:30 at night, but I finally got up the nerve and lo and behold I ended up with ten separate (and only slightly mutilated) pieces! It went into a marinade of olive oil, onion, worcestershire sauce, sage, English mustard, pepper, and lemon. I don't generally like lemon and often leave it out or substitute lime, but kept it in this time and I am so glad. The lemon itself was so sweet that it smelled like fresh lemonade! After the whole thing sat in the fridge overnight, it went into a pan with some sausages and fresh sage to bake. It smelled soooo good! And it tasted great. I've been eating the leftovers all this week, and it has reheated really well. The juices are perfect sopped up with a nice piece of bread, too. Yum!
The same day that I made the chicken and sausages, I also made ricotta cheese which I talked about in a separate post. The ricotta cheese led to a Rachael Ray recipe for pizza topped with chicken, ricotta, sun-dried tomatoes, broccoli, mozzarella, and fresh basil. With the exception of keeping track of all the ingredients, it was fairly easy to put together. I used grilled chicken strips and fresh pizza dough from Trader Joe's and the leftover broccoli from my fish dinner a few nights before.
The broccoli seemed out of place at first, but the more I ate, the better I liked it. The whole thing was very filling... one-and-a-half pieces were plenty. But it reheated great in the toaster oven, and the leftovers tasted even better than fresh out of the oven. I think this recipe is a keeper, too!
The last recipe was pretty simple and just added fresh dill and chives to the rest of the ricotta. That made a spread on toasted ciabatta bread which was served with greens in a little dressing (my favorite Trader Joe's Tuscan dressing). I forgot to take a picture, but it made a nice light lunch. Very fresh.
So that's the saga of my week of cooking. Without even meaning to, I think I've made up for all the months that I skipped last year. It's gotten me in the mood to cook, though, so who knows what might be next?
Every week I write out a to-do list for that week, so in an effort to remind myself to eat a little healthier, I put "eat fish" on the week before last's list. I had some ocean perch in the freezer, so I opted to thaw that out. And my friend has repeatedly talked about a sour cream and onion recipe that she uses for fish on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I didn't have the actual recipe, so I tried to make it up on my own. For starters, it took a lot longer to bake than I expected. So I ended up having a two-part dinner... broccoli and yellow rice to start, fish about 30 minutes later.
Gotta say that I wasn't that impressed. But that could be due to the type of fish I used or that I didn't have the recipe quite right. I'll probably give it another chance now that I have the actual recipe, and next time I'll use the same type of fish she uses.
Next up was Nigella Lawson's One-Pan Sage-and-Onion Chicken and Sausage from her cookbook Feast. It had an average five out of five stars rating on the Food Network site which is pretty amazing. And I have to admit that I love Nigella... everything of hers that I've ever made has been incredible. The only problem with this recipe was that it required cutting up a whole chicken. I have never been able to cut up a chicken. My mother tried to show me once, but I never seemed to be able to "feel the joints" and "just pop them apart". Normally I would get around this by buying a chicken that was already cut up, but I decided to grow up and cut up my own chicken. It felt like that scene in Julie and Julia when Julie gets herself all worked up over boning the duck! I put it off until about 11:30 at night, but I finally got up the nerve and lo and behold I ended up with ten separate (and only slightly mutilated) pieces! It went into a marinade of olive oil, onion, worcestershire sauce, sage, English mustard, pepper, and lemon. I don't generally like lemon and often leave it out or substitute lime, but kept it in this time and I am so glad. The lemon itself was so sweet that it smelled like fresh lemonade! After the whole thing sat in the fridge overnight, it went into a pan with some sausages and fresh sage to bake. It smelled soooo good! And it tasted great. I've been eating the leftovers all this week, and it has reheated really well. The juices are perfect sopped up with a nice piece of bread, too. Yum!
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| soaking up all those yummy flavors |
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| getting ready to go in the oven |
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| too bad this isn't a scratch-and-sniff blog! |
The same day that I made the chicken and sausages, I also made ricotta cheese which I talked about in a separate post. The ricotta cheese led to a Rachael Ray recipe for pizza topped with chicken, ricotta, sun-dried tomatoes, broccoli, mozzarella, and fresh basil. With the exception of keeping track of all the ingredients, it was fairly easy to put together. I used grilled chicken strips and fresh pizza dough from Trader Joe's and the leftover broccoli from my fish dinner a few nights before.
The broccoli seemed out of place at first, but the more I ate, the better I liked it. The whole thing was very filling... one-and-a-half pieces were plenty. But it reheated great in the toaster oven, and the leftovers tasted even better than fresh out of the oven. I think this recipe is a keeper, too!
The last recipe was pretty simple and just added fresh dill and chives to the rest of the ricotta. That made a spread on toasted ciabatta bread which was served with greens in a little dressing (my favorite Trader Joe's Tuscan dressing). I forgot to take a picture, but it made a nice light lunch. Very fresh.
So that's the saga of my week of cooking. Without even meaning to, I think I've made up for all the months that I skipped last year. It's gotten me in the mood to cook, though, so who knows what might be next?
Cheese!
Let me start by saying I love cheese. Cheese is probably my favorite food. When I was young, and I mean 5 or 6 years old, my favorite present was a gift certificate to Hickory Farms. I would go taste all the different kinds of cheeses (this was back when there were actualy Hickory Farms stores), and then select little tiny pieces of two or three different kinds. I could work a five or ten dollar gift certificate! (but I laugh thinking of what those poor store clerks had to put up with!)
I love cheese. So this is why, when I ran across a recipe for making your own ricotta cheese, I got very excited. I can't say that ricotta is a cheese that I have any particular love for, but being able to make any kind of cheese is totally cool. And that's why I put it on my list (#21).
Here is the recipe (courtesy of The Barefoot Contessa and Food Network):
I didn't have any kosher salt, and I didn't exactly measure what I used. It could have used a little more salt in my opinion, but all in all it was good! Very creamy and very fresh tasting. I ended up with more than two cups worth, so part of it went on a pizza and part of it got mixed with fresh herbs and became a spread. Yum! The whole process was totally fascinating, especially watching the curds start to form as soon as the vinegar was added. And then seeing the whey drain off and leave something that looked like actual cheese was pretty amazing. I am definitely doing this again sometime!
I love cheese. So this is why, when I ran across a recipe for making your own ricotta cheese, I got very excited. I can't say that ricotta is a cheese that I have any particular love for, but being able to make any kind of cheese is totally cool. And that's why I put it on my list (#21).
Here is the recipe (courtesy of The Barefoot Contessa and Food Network):
It was so easy!Ingredients
- 4 cups whole milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 tablespoons good white wine vinegar
Directions
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| watched milk takes a while to boil |
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| curds starting to form |
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| letting the whey drain |
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| it's cheese! |
I didn't have any kosher salt, and I didn't exactly measure what I used. It could have used a little more salt in my opinion, but all in all it was good! Very creamy and very fresh tasting. I ended up with more than two cups worth, so part of it went on a pizza and part of it got mixed with fresh herbs and became a spread. Yum! The whole process was totally fascinating, especially watching the curds start to form as soon as the vinegar was added. And then seeing the whey drain off and leave something that looked like actual cheese was pretty amazing. I am definitely doing this again sometime!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Why do things have to be so difficult?
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| January 5 - changing windshield wipers |
This is my picture from last Thursday, which was my day off for working this past weekend. The weather was gorgeous and after running some errands, I remembered as I was pulling into the garage that I had bought new windshield wipers over a month ago which I kept forgetting about. I realized that I really needed to take advantage of the nice weather and go ahead and change the wipers before I got to the point of really wretched wipers, freezing rain or snow, and trying to change them with gloves on (which is what I ended up doing last year!).
Now I have been replacing my own windshield wipers since I was in college, but with my swiss cheese memory, I can never remember from time to time exactly how it works. I did buy the same brand as last time thinking that this should make the process a little easier. So I started with the passenger side, opened the package, pulled out the little instruction paper and studied the paper and studied my wiper and studied the paper and studied the wiper and studied the paper and studied the wiper. Flipped the wiper over, held down the little tab, popped the old wiper off, and slid the new wiper on. Success! I confidently moved over to the driver side, opened the package, pulled out the new wiper, briefly consulted the little paper, tried to flip the wiper over... and came to a screeching halt. The wiper wouldn't flip. I studied the paper, then studied the wiper, then studied the paper, then studied the wiper, tried to flip it again, studied the paper, studied the wiper, looked at the passenger side wiper, studied the package, tried to flip it again (and again and again, because you never know when it might just decide to work!), and collapsed across the hood of my car.
I am not a stupid person. I pride myself on being able to problem-solve and work out complicated situations. But the damn wiper wouldn't flip over!!! I ended up breaking the old wiper apart, so that just the bracket was left attached to the arm and just yanking on it so hard that somehow I must have hit that magic angle and the whole thing slid out. I was so shocked that I just stood there for a minute, and that's when I noticed that it was facing the wrong direction. In some bizarre twist of auto mechanics, I had managed to install the bracket upside down last time! The new one popped right on just like it should (right side up this time) like it was just mocking me. Stupid windshield wipers. Bah! I know that I was out there for more than 45 minutes. It was ridiculous. Why do things have to be so difficult?
Pictures
So I officially started my 365-day photo challenge (#37) on December 31st. It seemed appropriate since that was the one-year mark for starting the whole 101 in 1001 project. But, obviously, you have not seen any photos on here! Well, I was trying to figure out how best to archive the photos and make sure that it was easy for anyone who was interested to see them and follow the flow of the days. I initially started out with Picasa and within an hour or two decided that I hated it. I also accidentally deleted a bunch of pictures off my blog and had to repost them. It was not a good time. Picasa is officially not part of my happy place.
So, I have been searching the web for another site. This resulted in my opening accounts on several different sites, posting a couple of pictures, deleting the pictures, and cancelling my accounts. I went back to Picasa and this time noticed that just in the course of the past year, I have already used up 16% of the allotted free storage space! Well that was a shocker, and I quickly realized that there was no way I could post 365 photos plus all the other photos that I would normally post just as part of the regular blog without completely filling up the space. And I had already read about someone else's nightmare story where they lost all the photos off their blog because of that exact problem. I must have my camera set for a high resolution, so most of my photos are kind of large on the memory side.
Finally, this evening, I came across another article that mentioned Wordpress and the fact that they give you 3GB of free storage space (compared the 1GB on Blogger/Picasa -- because, yes, they are tied together, even if you didn't realize it, which I did not). After giving it a trial run, the uploading process is definitely faster on Wordpress, and it's much easier to add captions. So the result is that I have created a separate blog on Wordpress to be used strictly for the 365 day photo challenge. As it stands right now, each post will be titled with the date of the photo and have a brief caption. Then if I want to tell more of a story about a particular photo, I will post it here and blog about it. Confused yet? Welcome to my world! At any rate, here is the link to my new companion blog... http://thelist365photos.wordpress.com/. If anything changes, I'll be sure to let you know! Oh, and feel free to post comments about the photos on either blog.
So, I have been searching the web for another site. This resulted in my opening accounts on several different sites, posting a couple of pictures, deleting the pictures, and cancelling my accounts. I went back to Picasa and this time noticed that just in the course of the past year, I have already used up 16% of the allotted free storage space! Well that was a shocker, and I quickly realized that there was no way I could post 365 photos plus all the other photos that I would normally post just as part of the regular blog without completely filling up the space. And I had already read about someone else's nightmare story where they lost all the photos off their blog because of that exact problem. I must have my camera set for a high resolution, so most of my photos are kind of large on the memory side.
Finally, this evening, I came across another article that mentioned Wordpress and the fact that they give you 3GB of free storage space (compared the 1GB on Blogger/Picasa -- because, yes, they are tied together, even if you didn't realize it, which I did not). After giving it a trial run, the uploading process is definitely faster on Wordpress, and it's much easier to add captions. So the result is that I have created a separate blog on Wordpress to be used strictly for the 365 day photo challenge. As it stands right now, each post will be titled with the date of the photo and have a brief caption. Then if I want to tell more of a story about a particular photo, I will post it here and blog about it. Confused yet? Welcome to my world! At any rate, here is the link to my new companion blog... http://thelist365photos.wordpress.com/. If anything changes, I'll be sure to let you know! Oh, and feel free to post comments about the photos on either blog.
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