In which I think I’ve successfully copied my favorite canned chili beans, which I can’t find in my local grocery.
1 c. dry pinto beans, picked over
3 c. water
1-2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. onion powder
a glug of vegetable oil
Cook in an Instant Pot under high pressure for 25 minutes, followed by natural pressure release.
Remove about half a cup of the bean liquor to a bowl, cool a bit, and whisk in 2-3 tbsp. chickpea (or wheat) flour. When smooth, return to the pot. Next, add:
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tbsp. ground ancho chili powder
1 tsp. chili powder (the American-style blend)
1-2 tsp. apple cider vinegar, or to taste
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, to thicken, and then immediately reduce to a simmer. If the sauce is still too thin, simmer gently to reduce to desired thickness.
Serve over toast topped with cheddar and maybe a poached egg (this is a favorite breakfast of mine, for some reason), or use as a bean dip with tortilla chips, as a taco filling, or just eat as a bowl of vegetarian chili with your desired sides or toppings.
(This is an attempt to copy Kuner’s Chili Beans.)
In which his mom freaked out and sent us a ton of stuff! Four gifts each, eight total, more than doubling what we had under our little tree for each other!
Before:
And after:
I got an electric hand mixer! And a bath caddy! And other fun stuff!
And he got clothes and toys!
And I made an enormous Middle Eastern meal — falafel that fell apart, hummus, tabouli, marinated olives and feta, bread, sumac roasted potatoes with a cumin-tahini sauce — because Jesus was Middle Eastern, right?!
(“That’s a lot of tabouli,” he said. “A shitload of tabouli.”)
And we really should drive to the matriarchal home (after all, I actually got dressed today) and see my aunt and uncle, and visit, and drop off our tiny little gifts for them, buuuuuut I kinda want to just blob around here, in our cozy little house, watching terrible Christmas movies?
In which it’s cold and foggy.
lol oregon weather
In which there are leftovers.
I made aloo matar, carrot raita, and naan for dinner.
Even though I halved the naan recipe I still have four or five leftover, so have been surfing for ways to use them. Behold these fancy pizza ideas:
– Naan, olives, pesto, red pepper flakes, grilled artichokes, walnuts, chopped parsley, and a spritz of lemon juice
– Naan, garlic, shredded cheese/s, chili flakes
– Naan, parsley sauce, aged cheddar
(The parsley sauce is my own thing — parsley, olive oil, salt, and garlic in the blender so it keeps longer — and not actual parsley sauce.)
– Naan, pinto beans, cheese, salsa, and diced onion
– Naan, tomato, olive oil, ricotta salata
Would also be good reheated with some soup!
In which Christmas is in two weeks and I finally put up the tree!
How is it Christmas in two weeks?! What the fuck, time. Of course, in Minnesota we’d have already lived through two blizzards and weeks of sub-zero temperatures, so the lack of brutal weather makes it sorta feel like it’s earlier in the year than it is. BUT STILL.
We’d discussed getting a real tree, since we’ve got an entire house and plenty of space, but it looks like we’re not into the idea enough to, you know, actually go out and do it. So! Our sixth year with our tiny baby fake tree!
Here it is, on my guitar case! I just decorated it!
His mom’s been sending us proper, full-sized ornaments for a few years, so I put those on the avocado. Here’s a terrible picture of them!
I did the kitchen right after Thanksgiving, though, so it’s not like I’ve been totally laming off.
The table!
Christmas tea towels!
I hung ornaments from the valances!
So, yeah. You could say it’s quite festive up in here now. Maybe next year we’ll get a full-sized, proper, real tree!
In which I rode my bike to the store today!
When we moved to M-F I decided I needed a bike.
The grocery store’s a mile away, and there’s no way I’m hauling a gallon of milk an entire mile on foot. Work’s a half mile away, so a bike would cut my already-short commute time in half, plus I could haul stuff — packed lunches, extra jackets — more comfortably.
So there’s a cheap-but-new bike at the College Place Walmart I like, it’s a Scwhinn and it’s cute (I’m totally the demographic, the bike’s clearly designed for middle-aged white chicks; I know it’s tacky as fuck but it appeals to me). I decide I’ll buy it online and go pick it up! And then I’ll have wheels!
This was back before the winter fog set in, when the sun still shone, and there were still leaves on the trees, you dig.
Anyway, so I buy the bike online, easy peasy. Then I check back a couple hours later, and discover it’ll take over a week, nearly ten days, before the bike is ready? What the fuck, it’s literally right there in the fucking store, I’ve seen it, why can’t I have that one?
Oh, well, whatever, a week or so, fine. The reviews say it’ll be assembled, maybe they only have the floor model in stock, I don’t care. I can walk to work for a week.
So it finally comes in, and I ask my better half to go pick it up. He does.
It’s in a box and most definitely not assembled. I pitch a fit, he puts it together because he’s a goddamned SAINT, but parts are missing. The PEDALS are missing, for fuck’s sake.
So I open a ticket with Schwinn, and they send the missing parts. It takes about a week.
The parts arrive, I finish assembly, but because I’m an ass I don’t bother to adjust it, and the first time I try to ride the bike to work the derailleur goes into the spokes.
ARRGGHH!
So I contact Schwinn again to try to buy a replacement derailleur, and even though their documentation explicitly says bad adjustment is not covered by warranty, they send me a replacement for my fucked up derailleur for free. KILLER customer support.
There’s some delay with the package; it takes ten more days to arrive.
I read up on replacing derailleurs and watch a couple YouTube videos and think, “Fuck this, I’m taking it to a shop.” I mean, we have a garage and some tools, but I don’t have a bike stand and I’ve never done it before and it just looks like something I’d rather pay for.
Well, of course there’s no bike shop here, and I have no car of my own, and I work Saturdays, and all the bike shops in nearby towns are closed on Sundays, and and and, so it takes awhile to get the stupid thing to a shop. Like, another week or ten days.
But we did finally get it done, and he picked it up for me yesterday on his day off (because HE’S AMAZING), and today I rode my bike to the store for the first time!
Yay!
It was glorious weather for a maiden voyage: bright overcast and cool. Allegro Cyclery adjusted it perfectly: shifts great, brakes great. The cheap saddle bags I bought seem to have turned out to be a remarkably good deal! And they’re lighter than the Wohl chrome baskets I’ve always preferred, which definitely matters now that I’m fat.
Having not ridden much in years, I have no quads, which sucks, but they’ll come back. Turns out the journey to Safeway is all sliiiiightly uphill, but check it: the journey back is all slightly downhill! Fortuitous! I don’t have to pedal much when hauling groceries! Whoo! Coasting rules!
I didn’t go in, because I don’t have a bike lock and I would absolutely flip my shit if the very first time I take the bike out I get the stupid thing stolen, but I’ve finally Been To The Store On My Bike, and it took a long while to achieve this feat, and I am SO pleased and SO stoked I just can’t even tell you.
I timed the ride from work to home: it’s four minutes. I have a four-minute work commute now. How glorious is that?!
I’ll just order a bike lock online and drive the Jeep over to Safeway later for the weekly shop, like a gas-guzzling asshole American.
In which THEY’RE finally actually HEEEEERRE!
A gift from my aunt! Brand new appliances, professionally installed! Whoo!
Now I get to do thirty loads of laundry, because everything we own is dirty.
Update: Two loads of clothes are clean, and I’ve washed the bath towels and our sheets. So far, so good!
In which my job is SO fantastic, and I truly enjoy it. (What a blessing, to not hate one’s job!)
Last year, I worked in a cheese shop in Minneapolis.
It carried hundreds of domestic and European cheeses, and it was really fun. I learned a ton about cheeses and cured meats, my palate evolved, and I even took online cheese classes.
I got into cheese, you might say. (It’s so much more pleasant than taking calls for Comcast, or slaving for Home Depot.)
Anyway, we’ve moved across the country, and now I work in a creamery.
I work in an actual creamery for a man who actually makes cheeses. It’s so cool! There are about three tons of cheese in the store at any given time, and many of them are truly wonderful. The coffee cheddar, the aged Tipsy Jersey, the cider jack, the ricotta salata–!
And he’s letting me expand the front end, the retail cheese shop: I’ve ordered goat and soft cheeses, as well as crackers and a couple cured meats–
Which means: we can now do cheese trays! For the holidays!
The ‘exotic’ stuff (bries, and goat cheeses, and prosciutto) won’t be here until next week, but the trays themselves arrived and we’ve already started. Just LOOK at this beauty:
(The salami is Italian, but the cheeses are all ours, and the almonds are Californian!)
I very much hope to help turn the place into THE one-stop cheese shop in the region; even though it’s a bit out of the way we’re still in wine country and on the tourism maps, and we’ll be able to do amazing high end stuff with mostly local, artisan cheeses and soft and goat cheeses and cured meats. And nuts, fruits, local mustards, local honey, local wine vinegar made from local wine…
Much of what I do at work is typically done, these days, by machines: cutting, packaging, and labeling the cheeses we produce for retail sale; but I’m abjectly grateful to have such a job that hasn’t been replaced by mechanization.
What a machine can’t do is be a cheesemonger: one of the funnest experiences is selling a cheese tray to someone who says, when you ask what they want included, “Oh, I trust your experience and knowledge, please choose for me!”
I’m going to join the American Cheese Society in 2020 and am working toward becoming a CCP, basically a certified cheesemonger, the year after.
Because I’m in my 50’s and need a hobby, I guess? One with certifications? Because I’m originally from IT, and what’s a job if you can’t sit a test?
I love cheese.
In which THIS IS THE WEEK the washer and dryer come!!!
My favorite aunt bought us a washer and dryer.
We ordered them back in October, but they had to be shipped in, I guess, and we had to wait a couple months for delivery.
They’re due ON TUESDAY, and they’ll go in this very corner right here:
It’s stupid to be excited about what is typically a boring chore, but I’m really very excited to do a bunch of laundry! In my kitchen!
In which it’s perfect and I love it so much!
We got a kitchen table (from an old BMI co-worker of mine, who offered it via Instagram when I posted we’d gotten this house to rent and needed furniture — thanks, Mike!) and it’s in the kitchen now and it’s exactly the right size and shape and it’s so great.
Like, I couldn’t have gone out looking and found a table more exactly what should be in this kitchen. It fits the space perfectly. It’s sturdy and rectangular and comfortable and not too tall.
This kitchen is ideal. I don’t know if I’ve ever liked a kitchen as much as I like this one, even if the fridge is in a sort of weird spot. There are windows, and soon there will be a washer and dryer (thanks, aunt Sue!), and there’s tons of counter space and tons of cupboards and it’s both big and cozy, and there’s a dishwasher!
And over the table is a bank of daylight ceiling lights, so it’ll be a perfect place to read and write or watercolor or knead bread or mend or sew, even at night.
I ate Sunday brunch (pot of tea, oven roasted potatoes, and a broccoli & cheddar fritatta) at the table today! With place mats and dishes and everything! Hurrah!
The table is used and worn, but I fucking love it, exactly as it is. It’s like it was made to be in this house!
The only problem with this house is that it’s too great. Next time we move will be a disappointment no matter what, but hopefully it won’t be for years.
