I made this rum cake that theldara linked to the other day, and oh, my god. Fabulous.



The only change I made was to omit the nuts and substitute a slightly lesser amount of chopped dehydrated apricots. You can see them on the top. I still sprinkled the brown sugar on them, too. Also--used dark rum rather than light.

I love these things. I got them for the BF, his father and my father as Xmas gifts, and picked one up for myself. Although I chose a set: Blue Powerball and "docking station". (Which is really a quick-start base that gets the blasted thing spinning without using your thumb or a string. I have a hard time zip-staring them with the string, although the BF does well enough with it.)

I play with it all the time to the point of fatigue, which is good. Avoiding carpal tunnel is my #1 concern. (There are other benefits, of course, but this is not on my Adult filter.)

Oh--you can get speedometer add-ons, as well, so you can track your high speeds. Nifty.

As you might have noticed, I've been organizing/weeding my books and moving them to the new shelves. As I move them, I'm making sure they're in my library database, Books. Books is an open source library database for MacOS X, and I fucking *love* it--particularly the new comic book plug-in. It also has plug-ins that allow you to import (or export) your data from other library databases, like LibaryThing, or book-lover sites like BookMooch.

Another bonus--I didn't have to buy a bar code reader in order for it to scan my books. It uses your Mac's built-in iSight camera and reads the ISBN right off the cover. (I've been using it for quite a while, and it hasn't misread one, yet.)

I made a decent donation to the developer, which was still less than I would have paid for other software and a bar code reader.

In short, if you're running OS X and you need a kick-ass library database but you don't want to pay big $ *or* shell out extra for a bar code reader, Books is perfect.

This is incredibly easy and fantastically rewarding. Just make sure you have an appropriately sized crockpot, bowl, and saucer, or you will be frustrated. (Or re-size the recipe for a larger crock.) Half the work is finding the cookware--the rest is cake. (Or pudding, in this case.)

If you do not have at least 6oz of leftover panettone in your kitchen *right now*, go to the store and buy one that is 6oz or larger. They're usually on sale at this point--so buy two. You will not regret it. (You should also make sure you have--or have access to--a small crock pot. A 2-3 qt model should do.) While you're at the grocery, make sure you also have at least:

abt 2 Tablespoons butter
*Slightly* less than 1/2 cup milk
*Slightly* less than 1/2 cup light cream (or half-and-half)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
a bit of sugar (to sprinkle on at the end)
1 oz golden raisins
1 oz dried apricots, chopped (The moist kind, not the thoroughly dehydrated and crispy variety.)
2 Tablespoons apricot preserves
2 Tablespoons brandy
(And don't forget the 6+oz pannettone!)

First, put the apricots and raisins in a bowl and let them soak in the 2 T brandy while you prepare the rest of the pudding. Also, put some water on to boil--enough to fill your crock about halfway.

Find a saucer that fits in the bottom of your crock. Turn it upside down and place it in the crock. Add enough hot (not boiling!) water to just cover the saucer, and turn the crock on High.

Find an oven-proof 2 1/2 cup bowl or dish that fits in your crock. (It should be at least 2 inches deep.) Grease the bowl with about 1/3 of the butter.

Slice the panettone into slices about 3/4 of an inch thick, or so. Spread the remaining butter on the slices (don't go crazy with it), and then spread on the apricot preserves.

Cut each slice into four smaller pieces and layer them in the oven-proof bowl. Scatter the apricots and raisins between the layers.

Whisk together the egg, milk, cream, vanilla, and any brandy that didn't soak into the fruit. Pour evenly over the panettone and gently press the bread down into the liquid.

Cover the top of the oven-proof bowl with foil and set it in the crock on top of the inverted saucer. Using the water you put to boil, pour enough in the crock that it comes about halfway up the sides of the oven-proof bowl.

Put the lid on the crock (which should be on High by now) and cook for 3-5 hours, or until set. Remove from crock (carefully!), remove foil, sprinkle the top with sugar (if desired) and serve with whipped cream.

Experience bliss.

(Does not re-heat well.)

(Forgot--recipe from Slow Cooking For Yourself by Catherine Atkinson. I picked it up in London this past summer, and it's fantastic. Oh, and most of the weights and measures are given in both US and UK standards.)

Generic Holiday cards are going to the post office in a few minutes. Baking days are Monday and Tuesday, wrapping on Wednesday, and more cooking on Thursday. So far, so good.

The Christmas tree remains mostly unmolested by the resident felines, although Moo *did* take the opportunity to explore it vertically after his Squooshy Mouse became lodged in it. (Due to a rather enthusiastic toss in the air on Moo's part.) Of course, Moo was obligated to mount a rescue operation to extract Squooshy from the tree. This involved wedging himself between the lower branches in an attempt to scale it ladder-fashion. The resulting treequake shook Squooshy free, but did not do much to get Moo out. (I had to extract him myself.) Now that he's spent the better part of two days trying to lick the sap out of his fur, I doubt he's going to try it again.

Sadly, I imagine I won't be able to prevent them from playing Godzilla with the train set. Every cat my family has ever owned has treated the trainboard and its little plastic houses like fucking Tokyo.

The mantle has been decorated with a garland of holly and one of those dead-common light-up ceramic Christmas trees. My aunt made this one, if I'm not mistaken.

I have a god bow for the top of the tree, and matching ribbon to use in lieu of tinsel (since tinsel is death to cats). I still need to get some of those lovely little zero-heat LED tree lights....

It's snowing, it's fucking cold, and both battery packs for the tool set have run out of power. Alternating between using the drill (battery #1) and the saw (battery #2) means that I have to wait around 2 hours for the batteries to charge. I will not be staring this mess again at 10:30pm. I've vacuumed, put away the sawhorses, coiled up the cords, and walked the dog.

And now, I'm going to get drunk and not mess with power tools.

I was awakened at the ungodly hour of 4:30am by the sound of mousie death. Pooky had captured a mouse, and then--bless his little heart--he took it into the bathtub to kill it, making it much easier to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, he's a bit of a gourmet, and mouse ass is not on his menu. To that end, he chews their tasty little heads off and leaves the ass behind. This means I had a mouse ass to clean out of the tub, along with all the other bits of whatsit one would typically associate with a small-scale evisceration.

(Note to self: When at the grocery, buy more Clorox Clean-Up w/Bleach. Blood really stains porous, old porcelain enamel.)

By the time I'd praised the Mighty Hunter and cleaned up the carcass, I was wide awake with no hope of returning to sleep any time soon. Making the best of it, I stripped the bed, hauled it all downstairs, and have now washed and dried all the bedding. While the washing was going on, I folded some laundry, fooled around with PackRat, and peeled and chopped a couple of butternut squash and made a pot of soup.

The soup will be ready to puree in a bit. Once it's cooling, I'll head upstairs to vacuum the mattress and make up the bed. Then, more packing up of downstairs stuff in preparation for the Floorening, which begins tomorrow.

I fear it. As much as I am looking forward to the result, I fear it.

Eh. We'll see how it goes.

Went for a late-ish lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with cearbhaill today. Afterward, we popped over to Bed, Bath & Beyond so I could replace my $#@%! kitchen knives. Picked up a mid-price set that actually fits in the very limited space where the old block was. I was lucky to get a decent quality set that both fit in the available space *and* included kitchen shears. I used the shears all the time, and most of the sets with shears were either in very wide blocks or out of the price range I consider reasonable.

I also picked up a couple of plastic bins for storing bags of flour and sugar, and I grabbed a set of flexible, plastic cutting boards/sheets so I don't trash the new knives by using them on my Pyrex cutting board.

When I got home, I cleaned the knives and put them away before deciding to cook my last buttercup squash for dinner. You have to cut them in half and remove the seeds before baking them (for about 40 minutes at 350), so I picked up one of the new knives and prepared to slice the thing in two.

And oh, my god. You have to understand that I've been using knives that wouldn't cut hot butter on a summer day, let alone a squash, so I'm used to exerting a LOT of force in these instances.

And the bleeding has stopped.

So. Knife set=very good. Very, very good. Nigh unto amazing.

Before I take my squash out of the oven, I'm going to take a moment to mention the fucking huge-ass blizzard that's been pounding the crap out of South Dakota for the past couple of days. Folks have been trapped in their cars for over 24 hours, in some cases. Scary stuff. Lots of power outages, etc.--very hard on the sick and the elderly. If I was the praying kind, I imagine I'd be hard at it.

And now, to scoop out the squashy bits of squash, and mash them up with some butter, pepper, and sea salt. (And *maybe* some paprika. We'll see.)

Squipped from beah and woodwardiocom, among others....

How well can you differentiate between colors/hues?

I got a 4. (A perfect score is 0.)

This morning, I set up the cats' new Drinkwell fountain. Mr. Moo *loves* to drink from a running faucet, and the BF was tired of said Moo's constant and very vocal demands that he be admitted to the bathroom every time we'd go in or walk by the door. So, enter The Fountain.

It was very, very easy to set up, and since the price is currently reduced by $20 and the filters are also on sale, I got the fountain and a year's worth of filters for the everyday cost of the fountain, alone. Sweeeeeeeet.

For his part, Mr. Moo *loves* the fountain and had no problem drinking from the falling stream of water. The only issue is that he seems to think that a monkey has to turn the fountain ON every time he wants to use it, so he has gone from begging at the bathroom door to begging at the already functioning fountain. (This should not surprise me since Moo had a similar issue with the taps in the bathroom. If we turned the water on for him before he was able to see it for himself, he would continue to beg until we turned it off and on again in front of him.)

I have it on the lowest flow setting, at the moment, and it is incredibly quiet. They're not put off by it at all. (Except for Pooky, but he's afraid of everything.)

Note to self: Definitely need a mat to go under the bowl portion since Mr. Squeek likes to drink by sticking his paw in the water and licking it off.

So far, it's five stars for the Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain! (Once I take it apart for the first cleaning, it might go down to three. I will mention that it's largely dishwasher safe, which is a HUGE plus.)

Spent a couple hours trying to get a terrified baby wren out of one of the outbuildings, wherein my father parks his "good pickup", as opposed to the thrice-resurrected 1985 Ford (with over 300,000 miles on it) that he usually drives. This particular building used to be the place where the potatoes, sweets and yams were stored over the winter for planting the following year. To that end, it has its own heater and the inside was covered with a thick layer of orangey-colored spray-on foam insulation that covers every surface but the floor. The problem with that foam crap is that it is a PERFECT surface for a little bird to cling to with his little feet, and he was clinging primarily to the ceiling, two stories up. The poor little bastard was newly fledged and still being fed by the parents, who were unable to coax him out the large, sliding main door.

My father was dead set and determined to get the bird out of there and close the door to the building to protect his precious truck. (He was mainly pissing a bitch because the bird--being a *bird*, and all--was going to shit on his truck. Hence his decision to kill it, his logic being that it was going to die anyway when he locked it in overnight.)

I, on the other hand, was dead set and determined that not only was he NOT going to lock the baby bird in there, but we were going to get it out without hurting it.

Let me tell you, that bird has NO idea how much I like animals. I climbed a wobbly-ass ladder nearly two fucking stories to get the little guy out of a corner he'd wedged himself in, and I HATE heights. HATE. Admittedly, hiding up there was a pretty wise decision on the bird's part, in terms of survival, but in this case it was NOT a move that was conducive to rescue.

Finally, my father got too hot and irritable to waste any more time trying to scare it out of the building, and walked away. I waited fifteen minutes, went back in, and explained the situation to the bird. While this was probably useless in any verbal sense, it seemed to distract him, and he peeped a couple inquisitive peeps. While he was distracted, I popped a net over him and took him outside. (I'd cable-tied a butterfly net to the end of a very, very long pole we use to check the amount of oil in the in-ground tanks.)

My father was thoroughly disgusted, but really, the man's an idiot to go charging in after the thing when it's already completely terrified. Bull in a fucking china shop--not a sensitive bone in his body, I swear.

But anyway. Mission accomplished.

In retrospect, I think the worst part was actually the pre-vacuum cat-wrangling.

Also--I hate sweating unless sex is involved. There was no sex involved. I must, must shower again.

She returned grades today. I managed to scrape by with a 96--and this from a professor with whom I have had some significant differences of opinion. Since this particular instructor is also the department head and a notoriously hard grader, I am tremendously relieved. She should be returning our term papers next week, so some of my angst remains.

Tonight: mid-term for Shakespeare III.

I sleep now.

Ivy: 2

University bookstore manager: 0

If I never have to deal with this woman again, it will be too soon. Still, I rather enjoyed gnawing on her dismembered carcass in front of her useless and apathetic staff, so perhaps it wouldn't be entirely unpleasant to go for round 3.

Breakfast was enjoyed promptly at 8am, next door at my parents' house. It was typical Sunday-breakfast fare save the coffee, which was just a teensy cut above turpentine since my father had just run out of the good stuff.

Opened presents after. I gave my father a wheeled stool/tool cart to sit on while he works in the shop. We assembled it beforehand, so I just wrapped the seat and stuck a bow on it. Also gave him some gadgetry for the shop and his truck, as well as another year of monthly Boca Java coffee deliveries. (Ocean Drive is absolutely the best everyday coffee I have ever had.)

My mother wanted an authentic German garden gnome. I got her one on eBay. I locked it in a cupboard every night before giving it to her because I didn't want the nasty little fucker roaming around the house in the wee hours. I'm glad to be rid of it.

Also gave her a huge scented jar candle, a datebook, a pen set, and some miscellaneous stocking stuffers.

She gave my father a HUGE flatscreen LCD monitor for his computer. It's large enough that he made the display size half again as large as it was on the old display, and he still has the same amount of screen real estate. kit_kallisti hooked it up for him before we left since he wasn't up to getting under the desk, just yet.

The 'rents spent far too much money on us. There should be a decent-sized HDTV sitting here in the living room by tomorrow night. I'm going to move the current TV (which is a respectable 27" as it is) into the bedroom to replace the 18" that is in there now.

After breakfast and present-opening we came back here, got some coffee brewing to get rid of the taste of the turps we drank at breakfast, and gave Autumn and the cats their gifts. Autumn got a HUGE BusyBone. The package said it was supposed to last at least 1 hour, but Autumn nuked it in 45 minutes. The cats got a package of furry mice.

Dinner was pleasant enough, despite my grandfather's typically curmudgeonly behavior. However, he didn't refuse to eat the mashed potatoes this time around--he shunned the cookie tray I made, instead. :P

We returned home once again to slob around and watch one of our traditional Christmas specials: A Christmassy Ted. We'd watched the BlackAdder's Christmas Carol last night.

Oh, and this past Sunday, I went to see Sweeney Todd with TBD and cearbhaill. It was *very* good, and we all enjoyed it.

My kitchen smells *soooooooo* good right now.

Baking apples seems to be one of those things we do the way our parents or grandparents always did, so your milage may vary right down to oven temp, cooking time, and filling. There really are myriad possibilities, and it really doesn't get any easier.

Pre-heat the oven to 350.
Wash off a couple apples (or more--as many as you can fit in your glass baking dish without touching) and core them.
Some folks like to leave some flesh in the bottom to hold in the filling, some just core the entire thing and use a bit of foil around the bottoms to hold things together--it's your choice.
Use a knife to cut a line through the apple skins right around the middles. (This keeps them from popping if the overcook.)
Fill the apples with brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, a bit of ground clove, cardamom, etc.
Pour a bit of boiling water, warm orange juice or warm cider in the bottom of the dish if the apples are very firm and thick-skinned--it will help soften them. "Eating apples" (as opposed to firmer, thicker-skinned "baking apples") are fine, too. They'll probably be done more quickly, and you can usually do without the water.
Bake for about an hour, or until the filling has caramelized and they're soft straight through.
Serve with caramel sauce, ice cream, cinnamon whipped cream, or whatever you like.

Variations on the theme (and there are many) include the addition of ground walnuts, pecans, raisins, honey, maple syrup and/or ginger brandy in the filling. You can also replace the usual butter/sugar mixture with some brie, chopped pecans, and your choice of raisins, dried cherries, or chopped, dried apricots. You can do any of these with pears, as well--just keep in mind that they're usually smaller, thin-skinned, and less firm, so they cook a bit more quickly. I'd stop at 30-40 minutes, depending on size.

It's your party--use what you like.

These were taken in the churchyard of Old Swedes Church (aka Trinity Episcopal) in Swedesboro, NJ. There's another old burial ground that belongs to Trinity, but it's a bit farther up Church St. Despite the cold, I'm glad I made the effort to get there before all the leaves had fallen.

The little building in the background of the next three pics is the Schorn log cabin. It dates back to the 1600s and was moved to the cemetery in the late 80s after the last owner deeded it to the Gloucester County Historical Society.







( Image heavy--17 more photos behind the cut. )

All you kitchen-witches (and warlocks) are posting simply amazing recipes, and that's great. It's always a thrill to discover some new, wonderful dish that will become a Thanksgiving tradition... But I think that we're going the other way with it, anymore. Back to the standard country comfort foods my father and grandfather grew up with.

Dinner this year was probably quite dull by some standards, but to me, it was perfect. Turkey with cranberry stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, peas, cranberry relish, and corn muffins. Dessert was a mince pie completely unadulterated by whipped topping of any kind. (And I DO thank god for that.)

My contributions were the corn muffins and the mashed potatoes. And since we're posting recipes, I'm going to go against the grain a bit and talk about making those mashed potatoes, because really, there's nothing sadder and more unappetizing than instant potatoes (no matter *what* flavor they claim to be), or dry, crumbly, starchy, gluey, flavorless mashed potatoes. What a waste of carbs! No, mashed potatoes should be a foundation dish playing second only to the turkey and stuffing.

I made twice the amount I needed to because the leftovers are so useful, so I started with a 5 lb bag of russet potatoes, scrubbed clean (but not peeled), rinsed, and halved when they were particularly large. I stabbed them all with a fork, here and there, and put them in a large pot of boiling, salted water with a couple cloves of garlic in it. They stayed there and boiled gently until they'd softened enough, which I monitored by poking them with a fork every so often.

When they were mashable but not mushy, I drained the pot into the sink and returned the potatoes and garlic to the stove, sitting the pot on the now-cooling burner they'd been on a minute before. A stick of butter then went into the pot, cut into 4 pieces. A heaping spoonful of minced garlic was next, along with two large tablespoons of minced, fresh rosemary, some black pepper, a little white pepper, and a bit of salt.

After having at it with a standard potato masher until well incorporated, I added a 1/2lb block of extra-sharp white cheddar cheese (shredded) and about 1/2 cup of sour cream (for consistency). After another go with the masher, my work was done.

And of course, my grandfather wouldn't touch them. "What's this in here, Lyn?" he asked my mother while he poked at the potatoes on his plate. "What's this brown stuff in here?"

"That's a potato skin, dad."

"Why in the sam hill'd ya leave the skin in there, girl? Too lazy to peel a potato, are ya? When I was in the service, I had to peel 100 pounds of potatoes a day!"

"Uphill, both ways?" I asked.

My mother cut off any cantankerous reply he may have made by saying that in fact I had made the potatoes, and that they would have been instant if she'd done them. This set off another tirade about laziness, but I didn't care. The entire time my grandfather was bitching, my father had built a mound of potatoes on his plate that cast a formidable shadow across the surrounding foods. Gravy ran down the sides like lava from a volcano, and a pat of butter poked from the side.

"My god, Dion!" My mother turned her attention away from her father to gawp at my father's plate. "You're going to give yourself a heart attack if you eat half of those!"

"Then I'll die trying. Damn, these are good. What did you put in here?"

He didn't wait for an answer, but I gave him the short list. By the time I mentioned sticks of butter and bricks of cheese, he'd already decided that he leftovers could stay in their refrigerator for safekeeping.

I left them half. :)