Chana Masala

Adapted from several recipes found online and in cookbooks.
Serves 4-6

2 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
Take a cup of chickpeas and process/blend them into thick, smooth paste.

2 tsp coriander seed
6 tsp cumin seed
Toast the cumin and coriander seeds in pan or oven and grind to a powder.

2 tbsp peanut or canola oil or ghee
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 tsp asafoetida
1 1/2 inches ginger, peeled and grated finely
6 cloves garlic
1 serrano pepper, chopped
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
4 tomatoes, chopped
Cook the onion and the asafoetida in the oil/ghee over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the ginger and garlic, serrano pepper, and the ground spices from before and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the turmeric and tomatoes and bring to a simmer.

1 tsp garam masala
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp amchur (powdered mango); or use 1/2 lemon, juiced, or to taste
small bunch cilantro, chopped
Simmer the mixture until the tomatoes break down and reduce. Salt to taste, then add all the chickpeas and water. Simmer for 10 more minutes, until the texture is not too watery. Add the garam masala, lemon juice, and salt to taste. Top with the cilantro. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving to allow the flavors to come out.

DinnerRecipes

You must put the sugar and lemon on almost immediately and eat it pronto, because the flavors and texture are best directly out of the oven. We made two this morning and had them with fresh fruit. I think the pear butter would be delightful, but that seems it might be best in the fall.

Skillet-Sizzled Baked Pancake

Adapted from "1966: David Eyre's Pancake," New York Times, 3/25/2007
Serves 2–4

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Take out a small mixing bowl and a 12-inch cast iron skillet.

2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
Pinch of ground nutmeg

Lightly beat the eggs in the mixing bowl, then add the flour, milk, and nutmeg and beat again lightly until just blended but still slightly lumpy.

Put the skillet on the stove and turn to medium-high heat. Add and melt:

4 tablespoons butter

When the butter is completely melted and very hot, but not brown, pour in the batter, and place the skillet in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes or until the pancake has puffed up and the outside and top are browned to your satisfaction (I like the pancake to have a bit of chocolate color, but definitely not burnt!) Remove from oven and sprinkle on:

2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar, through a fine-meshed sieve
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Serve with fig or blackberry jam, pear butter, or any kind of marmalade (optional). I think I may like it best without any other adornments and with fresh fruit on the side.

BreakfastRecipes

Käsefondue

Serves 4 a lot of cheese for dinner, or 6-8 an appetizer

1. Chop up or tear the bread into 1/2 inch cubes.

2. Rub interior of a medium stainless-steel pot with garlic clove, then discard garlic. Add white wine and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

3. Combine grated cheeses in a bowl and toss with cornstarch and dry mustard. Add a little black pepper.

4. Transfer the hot wine to a fondue pot or chafing dish set over a flame. Add cheese mixture a handful at a time, stirring until fondue is smoothly melted and beginning to bubble. Add the kirsch and sprinkle fondue with nutmeg and a little more pepper.

5. To eat, spear bread pieces with fondue forks and dip in cheese, continuing to stir with forks as you dip.

If you use a chafing dish or a ceramic fondue pot with a diffuser, the cheese will stay pretty consistent throughout. If you use a metal fondue pot with no diffuser, you'll have cheese crust in the bottom center of the pan that you can scrape out and eat as a special treat.

I think if you add the cornstarch after the cheese is melted and then cook it for 5 minutes, it will probably come out thicker. I suggest trying this if you prefer a thicker cheese. If it gets too thick, I recommend adding extra wine!

FondueRecipes

Rosemary Lemonade

From "The Cafe Flora Cookbook".
Makes 2 quarts

1 1-ounce bunch of rosemary, about 8 6-inch sprigs
4 cups water, plus more as needed
1 cup sugar

In a saucepan, cover the rosemary with the water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the rosemary water into a 2-quart pitcher, and dissolve the sugar in the hot rosemary water. Set aside to cool.

When the rosemary tea is cool, add:

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 6 lemons)
Enough water to make 2 quarts

Serve chilled.

Note: This recipe is awesome with limes as well. Even better: Rosemary limeade with whiskey.
DrinksRecipes

Triple-Chocolate Cake with Chocolate-Peppermint Filling

From A Suite of Sweets: a collection of delectable dessert recipes, by Janice Gockel.

Chocolate Mint Cake

Ingredients

Filling
8oz Imported milk chocolate
1/2 cup Whipping cream
1 tbsp Light corn syrup
1/2 tsp Peppermint extract

Cake
1 cup Flour
1/3 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder, such as Scharffen Berger
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) Room temperature unsalted butter
1 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Dark brown sugar
2 tsp Vanilla extract
3 Large eggs (room temperature)
1/2 cup Buttermilk
1 1/2 cups Semisweet chocolate chips

Chocolate glaze
8 oz finely chopped Bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate (I suggest 70%)
1/2 cup (1 stick) Unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 tsp Peppermint extract
1 tbsp Light corn syrup

Garnish
12 chopped Peppermint candies (I like to have a nice variety of sizes--completely smashed to 1/4 round)
Fresh mint leaves (peppermint probably makes the most sense)

Directions

Filling
1. Place chocolate in medium bowl. Heat cream and corn syrup in small pan until nearly boiling. Pour hot mixture over chocolate; add extract and let stand 1 minute. Whisk until smooth.

Cake
1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter one 9-inch diameter cake pan. Line bottom with buttered parchment paper. Dust with flour.
2. Mix first 5 ingredients in medium bowl.
3. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in both sugars, then vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk in 2 additions each. Mix in chocolate chips.
4. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake cake until tester comes out clean, about 1 hour 5 minutes. Place the cake, in its pan, on rack for 5 minutes. Turn cake onto rack. Cool.
5. After the cake is cool, using electric mixer, beat filling until fluffy, 30 seconds. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake horizontally in half. Put a cooling rack on top of a baking sheet (a place for chocolate to drip on). Place 1 cake layer, cut side up, on rack. Spread filling over cake layer. Top with second layer cut side down, then chill the filled cake 20 minutes. While it's cooling, prepare the glaze:

Glaze
1. Stir chocolate, butter and corn syrup in heavy pan over low heat until melted and smooth. Mix in extract. Cool until lukewarm but pourable, about 20 minutes.

Assembly
1. Pour 1/2 cup of the glaze over the center of the cake. Spread that over the top and sides of the cake. Chill until glaze sets. Pour remaining glaze over center of cake, then spread quickly over top and side. Chill again until glaze sets. Sprinkle candies around top edge of cake, then garnish with fresh mint leaves.

CakesRecipes

Here's a short video of Simon and Oliver together. Simon's very enthusiastic about being a big brother. He couldn't remember all the words to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, but his improvisation was also pretty cute ;)
Tags >> Blog - Simon - Oliver

Here's the recipe.

Green Rice with Chard (Arroz verde con acelga)

Adapted from Saveur

1 small white onion, peeled and quartered
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 1/2 cups fresh swiss chard, chopped
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup long-grain white rice
2 tbsp. vegetable oil

1. Place onions, garlic, chard, and 1 cup stock in a food processor. Process to a fine paste. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Rinse and drain rice. Heat oil in a heavy pot over medium-low heat. Add rice and sauté, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add sauce and remaining 1 cup stock. Bring to a low boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove pot from heat, but keep covered, allowing rice to cook for another 10 minutes. Fluff and serve.
Recipes

Today I was messing around with the two, and I've decided that one way that Last.fm might actually do a better job of playing like music, stylistically speaking, is by genre. So, I wanted to listen to Hawaiian music. If you want to try to build a genre station using Pandora, you have to simply add artists that make sense given what you want, and then listen to it for a while, thumbing songs up or down depending on whether it sounds Hawaiian or not. Pandora wasn't very good at this, and one reason appeared to be that the kinds of things that make Hawaiian music Hawaiian weren't really counted as "stylistic" characteristics (for example, use of slack key guitar). As such, my attempt at adding a bunch of slack-key guitar artists to a station resulted in tracks being chosen because they had, for example, "folk influences, great musicianship, acoustic sonority, demanding instrumental part writing and major key tonality." Obviously a lot of music that is not Hawaiian will fit that bill.

On the other hand, I thought, Last.fm gives you the option of playing tag radio, that is, a radio station put together of tracks, artists, and albums that have been tagged a certain way. So, I tried the "Hawaiian" tag radio, with far greater success. While the music definitely didn't always match stylistically, all of it was definitely Hawaiian, with no exceptions. I got, for example, ska and reggae, hip hop, Britney-esque, and ambient psychedelic techno sort of stuff, but all with a Hawaiian flair--along with a good deal of traditional Hawaiian slack-key guitar, hula music, and Don Ho.

Techcrunch has more on Last.fm and Pandora. Note that Pandora has attempted to create special genre stations--probably because of this very problem.

It was a fascinating comparison, and I think I'll play around with it a bit more. What genre next?
MusicMLA

Speaking of our Hawaii trip, there are a ton of photos.
TripsPizza

Simon thought this program music was so hilarious, he wanted to try it himself. This is what came of that attempt:

It's a little gruesome, but a pretty good story nonetheless. The music's not bad, either...

SimonVideo

Well, anyway... I'm sorta glad that the walls aren't white, but the two-tone thing is pretty annoying about now. At least they left the paint chips.

Update 3/27/08: alright, a heck of a lot of people are finding this page because they actually wanted to know about two-tone paint schemes. What can I say? Well... if you own your own place, and you are thinking about doing a two-tone paint scheme:

1. Please pick paints that're easy to purchase more of later.
2. Please keep the paint chips. Even if you are repainting later, it'll be a lot easier.
3. If you do leave the place, any amount of explanation you can offer the next owners will be a major boon.
4. If you really want to be nice, leave a little bit of the actual paint there. We bought some small canisters of the stuff, both colors, and left it there for the new owners.

Also:

• When you're testing, try painting two boards, one of each color, then you can hold them up and see what it looks like.
• You'll find this out for yourself, but mostly you're going to find random articles about this on the web and not a whole lot of helpful articles. However, there are definitely some random tips.
• There is a lot more information on the web about car colors than house colors.

If you came here looking for useful tips and all you got was my useless drivel, sorry to hear that. Good luck!

House

If all that weren't enough, we're also expecting another child in May. Yes, Simon's finally going to have a sibling. It's all a bit of a blur, but that's nothing new. Please buy our house! ;)

BlogTripsSimon

1997

Jon had just moved to Lincoln; we went to Noral and Cindy's place in Omaha. Finding some family nearby is really nice when you're new to an area!

1998

Back in Seattle after all the weddings, we had Thanksgiving dinner at Ron & Dianne's, and Rachel & Mike were there and she brought a beet for supper. We also went to Cindy & Brian's for dessert. I recall there was a pumpkin cheesecake involved.

1999

Back in Nebraska, We went to Fremont, Nebraska at Susan Kiesling's house. We were asked to bring a cake, so we brought a black forest torte. It turned out that cakes were actually for after supper (read: leftovers, in the form of turkey sandwiches et al.) and we were having pies after dinner... and this was normal. That was a ton of food... although, there were a ton of people there. There was also a mandatory walk around the neighborhood in between meals.

2000

We had Thanksgiving dinner at George Ritchie's house. Admired his built-in organ and incredible speaker system; found that we all agreed on nearly every political subject. I'm pretty sure it was this year, but I'm having a hard time remembering... good thing I'm writing this now, otherwise I'd probably have forgotten everything!
Had dinner with Ben Carlisle and Kelly Grey at Ben's place a couple of days after Thanksgiving? I sort of don't remember exactly when. I don't remember everything we had either, but there was definitely a ton of butter involved (a stick of butter per potato, I recall...?!) and a game of mah jongg maybe, and we watched Fantasia 2000 for sure.

2001

Back in Seattle, we went to Janice & Tim's new house. There was a brouhaha over the number of chairs available and the possibility of inviting certain individuals, but we had a good time anyway. It was amazing that they managed to get their house ready for Thanksgiving dinner so quickly.

2002

Still in Seattle... went to Janice & Tim's again, I think. For some reason, I get 2002 and 2003 mixed up, but I'm pretty sure we all went over to the Brandts this year. I sort of recall Grandma Herr getting driven around to various locations... but maybe that was the previous year.

2003

Assuming I'm remembering correctly, we had dinner at Ron & Dianne's place this year and again a great time was had by all.

2004

First year in Ames. Went to Peggy Earnshaw's house with 6-month old Simon. They were very generous! Played with the harpsichord a bit, and listened to some fine trumpet playing.

2005

Went to Dick & Jan Harken's place in Boone. We enjoyed ourselves a lot and had a good time with them and Dick's mother. Simon had a good time too although I recall it was bitterly cold and windy outside.

2006

Dick & Jan's again, this time with Leigh Anna & Andy as well... visiting from Chicago. They announced that they were going to become vegan as of Jan. 1, 2007. We argued a little about orthorexia, philosophies of nutrition, and how to deal with the problem of capitalist food supplies, and generally had a good time.

2007

We're at home! And having a ton of turkey and other fun dishes. Our house is on the market (more on that later) so we have to keep it clean. There's snow on the ground... and we had to borrow a roasting pan because a) we don't have one and b) if we did, I don't think it would've been big enough for this bird!

Blog Trips