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It's wintertime
and therefore I'm nesting: getting the urge to make stew and chicken stock. At the store yesterday I noticed baking hens going for $ .99/pound, so I bought two, intending to make double stock - i.e. you make stock with one chicken, then you make stock with the other, using the stock that you made the first time round for the water the second time. It's a good way to make a flavorful stock when you can't get your hands on a good, tastly roasting chicken and are stuck with the flavorless hunks of flesh that pass for chicken nowadays. (And beef. I am sorely disappointed in most meat nowadays because what makes it to the grocery store is bland and flavorless. I'm really going to have to hunt down a traditional butcher to find something with flavor.)
Anyway, since I really don't have time to let it simmer for 8-10 hours today and then 8-10 hours tomorrow, I'm experimenting: I've got one chicken going in the stewpot, with onions and garlic and carrots and celery and ginger thrown in (I swear by ginger. Mmm.), and one cut up in hunks and thrown into the slow cooker with much the same vegetables and much less water. I have no idea how I'm going to combine them tomorrow, but it's going to be fun finding out. :)
I did what I usually do: run by Borders and snag four social history/biography type of books:
Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson
La Dame d'Esprit: A Biography of Marquise Du Chatelet
Court Lady and Country Wife: Two Noble Sisters in Seventeenth-Century England
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton
Making sure, of course, to choose books that I would want to read, so that I can either steal them from her or, if it turns out she's already read them, take that back with me. :)
I also wanted to get Mom something that she wasn't expecting, so Christmas would be slightly more interesting for her. :) Had no idea, of course, and wandered into World Market and started poking around. Ended up over in the candy-type aisle and started throwing things into a basket, deciding to give her a selection of little gourmet treat-type things. And decided halfway trhough, when I spotted the jar of Devonshire clotted cream and the lemon curd right next to the scone mix, that what I was going to give her was a cream tea, so I found some fancy tea and a bunch of other little jams and jellies and cake-type things to go with the scones and cream and curd. And a square basket with a cloth liner to put it all in - individually wrapped in inestimable![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
telophase style, which means "really badly". I was going to add two teacups and saucers in, and found two that were on sale for half price with the note that the discount would be taken at the register. The register didn't take the discount, and I couldn't get the guy to understand that (a) they WERE on on sale and (b) yes I WOULD like to buy them, only at (c) the sale price that they were SUPPOSED to be. Gave it up for a bad job - they weren't necessary, just amusing.
Add to that that the place where I sliced my thumb open on the TiVo box was hurting like a bitch - it's right on the crease of my thumb, so gets lots of action - and I slammed my foot into the cat's scratching post YET AGAIN - I should just cut off all my damn toes now and get it over with - so my next-to-last toe on my right foot may or may not be broken, but it's certainly also hurting like a bitch - and I was overheated because this is Texas and anytime the temp goes below 50 the stores turn the heaters on full blast so nobody accidentally freezes to death - and it was just not a good scene all around.
But I will have stock in a few short hours, which is enough to almost make me forgive my TiVo for trying to suggest shows starring Bob Saget.
Anyway, since I really don't have time to let it simmer for 8-10 hours today and then 8-10 hours tomorrow, I'm experimenting: I've got one chicken going in the stewpot, with onions and garlic and carrots and celery and ginger thrown in (I swear by ginger. Mmm.), and one cut up in hunks and thrown into the slow cooker with much the same vegetables and much less water. I have no idea how I'm going to combine them tomorrow, but it's going to be fun finding out. :)
I did what I usually do: run by Borders and snag four social history/biography type of books:
Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson
La Dame d'Esprit: A Biography of Marquise Du Chatelet
Court Lady and Country Wife: Two Noble Sisters in Seventeenth-Century England
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton
Making sure, of course, to choose books that I would want to read, so that I can either steal them from her or, if it turns out she's already read them, take that back with me. :)
I also wanted to get Mom something that she wasn't expecting, so Christmas would be slightly more interesting for her. :) Had no idea, of course, and wandered into World Market and started poking around. Ended up over in the candy-type aisle and started throwing things into a basket, deciding to give her a selection of little gourmet treat-type things. And decided halfway trhough, when I spotted the jar of Devonshire clotted cream and the lemon curd right next to the scone mix, that what I was going to give her was a cream tea, so I found some fancy tea and a bunch of other little jams and jellies and cake-type things to go with the scones and cream and curd. And a square basket with a cloth liner to put it all in - individually wrapped in inestimable
telophase style, which means "really badly". I was going to add two teacups and saucers in, and found two that were on sale for half price with the note that the discount would be taken at the register. The register didn't take the discount, and I couldn't get the guy to understand that (a) they WERE on on sale and (b) yes I WOULD like to buy them, only at (c) the sale price that they were SUPPOSED to be. Gave it up for a bad job - they weren't necessary, just amusing.Add to that that the place where I sliced my thumb open on the TiVo box was hurting like a bitch - it's right on the crease of my thumb, so gets lots of action - and I slammed my foot into the cat's scratching post YET AGAIN - I should just cut off all my damn toes now and get it over with - so my next-to-last toe on my right foot may or may not be broken, but it's certainly also hurting like a bitch - and I was overheated because this is Texas and anytime the temp goes below 50 the stores turn the heaters on full blast so nobody accidentally freezes to death - and it was just not a good scene all around.
But I will have stock in a few short hours, which is enough to almost make me forgive my TiVo for trying to suggest shows starring Bob Saget.
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Potato and leek soup is also awesome, and sinmple, if you make it with chicken stock.
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I ahvne't updating it ina long time, because while I've got a CueCat scanner, it involves bringing books all the way over ehre from the shelf, and I really need instead to get someone with a laptop to come over and help me scan at the shelf. :)
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