Boredom Leads To Creativity

Merri Su and I joined our neighborhood association a few months after moving into our home. That was a very bad idea. It's not worth getting into. However, I must tell you that despite hating these meetings, I'm scared to miss them.

We attended the annual elections today. The nomination process was uneventful and boring. Not a single person questioned or challenged the suggested nominees from the current leadership. If someone did, they would have have been vilified by the vocal minority and likely asked to leave for not properly wording their motion in accordance to Robert's Rules of Order. OK, maybe that wouldn't happen, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

The nomination process did not lead to any voting since no one was willing to challenge the selections of the nomination committee. It was really boring. Instead of paying attention, I made these doodles.


This is Mr. Stephan Van Fatpants of the Connecticut Van Fatpants and his dog, Whiskers Van Fatpants.
This drawing, from Merri Su, is Mrs. Shinyhead No-Body. She is often mistaken for the sun, but that's just ridiculous.
This is Mr. Allister Catfancy, Esquire. He is the lawyer for Mr. Van Fatpants. Don't mess with him. You have been warned.
Finally, I give you Fishy "The Fish" Chang. I didn't want to name him, to be honest, but Merri Su was also bored and demanded a name.

New Driver's License

Note: We still owe you two Holidailies posts. This is one.

After a year and a half of marriage, I finally got around to changing my name. It wasn't because I was unsure about changing it, it was because I'm a bit of a procrastinator. Or maybe a lot of one. Anyway, I started the official name-change process just before Christmas. I went to get my new driver's license just before New Year's, and it just arrived in the mail today. Yay!

The next time you see me, you should ask to see the photo. My hair is HUGE! I knew it was a bad hair day going in, but it was the only time I could find to make it to the DPS office. At least the texture of the bad hair day is undetectable due to the black hair, but the SIZE of it! Geez! My head is three times as wide as my face due to the gigantic hair!

One good thing about the photo is that while I look a bit older than my last driver's license photo (I think that one was about 5 or 6 years ago), I look significantly thinner (and it's not just the size of my hair that does it!). It is a nice reminder of my weight-loss/health-gain accomplishment. It's especially good now, as I recover from the holiday excess of food and lack of exercise and get back into my healthy habits and routines. Now I'm off to get ready for tomorrow morning's 10-mile run!

How to Forget to Post on the Next-to-Last Day of a Blogging Challenge

Note: Today is the last day of Holidailies, but we've now missed two days of posting, so we'll keep going through Thursday instead.

Sometimes you might like to completely forget to post on your blog. If you find yourself in this situation, complete the following steps to expedite your forgetfulness:

1. Forget to pick up your dry cleaning on your way home from work so you have to turn around and leave as soon as you get home to make it to the dry cleaners store before they close.
2. Spend about an hour making dinner and cleaning up the kitchen.
3. Enjoy a nice, tasty dinner with your husband.
4. Unpack your new Wii Fit while your darling husband does the dishes.
5. Begin to set up your new Wii Fit account. Caution: The Wii Fit balance board weighs you. Prepare yourself for a change in the shape of your Mii based on the data the balance board collects. You might not like it. You might make faces. Ignore your puffy new Mii as best you can and continue with step 6.
6. Play lots of balance games and an aerobics game or two on the Wii Fit. Lose to your husband.
7. Fall asleep on the couch while your husband plays Tetris with Wii Fit the balance board.

New Year's Recipes

As promised, here are the "recipes" (aka improvisations) I used for New Year's Day dinner, turnip greens and black-eyed peas. Actually, this is less for our faithful readers than it is for me, so I know where to find the recipes next year when I make them again. I still don't know where my original recipes and notes are.

Turnip Greens
Ingredients:

• 6 bunches of turnip greens
• one box of vegetable broth
• 3(ish) Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
• one onion, diced
• 6(ish) cloves of garlic, minced
• 3(ish) handfuls of various dried mushrooms (whatever's available should work)
• 1(ish) Tbsp ground cumin
• 1(ish) Tbsp garlic powder
• 1/2(ish) Tbsp onion powder or dried minced onion
• salt and pepper to taste

Stem, rip up, and wash turnip greens.

Saute the diced onion and minced garlic in olive oil. Add turnip greens in handfuls to fill the stock pot. Add vegetable broth when it starts to look to dry in the pot.

As the greens cook down, add more handfuls until all are in the pot. Add mushrooms and seasonings and stir to make sure everything is submerged.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about 4 or 5 hours. Serve hot.

Slow-Cooker Black-Eyed Peas
Ingredients:

• 2 pounds of dried black-eyed peas
• 3(ish) Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• one box of vegetable broth
• 3(ish) handfuls of dried mushrooms (use same as in the greens)
• one onion, diced
• 6(ish) cloves of garlic, minced
• one 28-oz can of diced roasted tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• 1(ish) Tbsp ground cumin
• salt and pepper to taste

Soak peas according to package directions (I used the quick-soak method). Add all ingredients into large oval slow cooker, cover, and cook on low for 8 hours. Serve hot.


Cornbread
Prepare cornbread according to Alton Brown's "Cornbread No Chaser" recipe in I'm Just Here for More Food. (This one is a very traditional Southern cornbread.) And/or the "Crunchy Munchy Corn and Millet Bread" recipe in the January '09 issue of Eating Well magazine. (This a yeast bread and more chewy and bread-y than Alton's. It also takes 2 days to make.) Serve both with butter. Yum!


You might want to prepare another main dish, like chili, for folks who aren't into black-eyed peas and turnip greens (who perhaps you might be married to).

Possum-Breath Chili (modified)
An R. Wilson Original
Ingredients:

• 1 pound of ground turkey breast
• 10 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 can no salt added tomato sauce
• 6 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
• 3 Tbsp tabasco sauce
• 1 Tbsp dried oregano
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
  
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 oz grated bitter chocolate
• 1 1/2 to 2 tsp salt (to taste)
• 1 can of diced roasted tomatoes + water sufficient to equal 1 quart
• 1 Tbsp cocktail bitters
• 1 c. brewed decaf coffee
• 1/2 c. masa cornmeal
• crushed pepper and garlic powder to taste

Brown meat and drain. Dump everything but cornmeal into a large Dutch oven or crock pot. Heat just to boil. Immediately cut heat, cover, and simmer for 6-8 hours. Begin tasting at 4 hours and add whatever needs adding. Stir in cornmeal. Simmer uncovered for an additional 30 minutes, stirring on occasion. Serve hot. Can be made ahead (preferable if you're making all of the above as well) and reheated on the day of serving.



If you try any of these at home, let us know how you like them!

P.S. Everything went over very well with our dinner guests, and several took leftovers home to enjoy later.

Falling Behind!

Here we are so close to the end of Holidailies, which runs through January 6, and we're falling behind! We owe our faithful reader(s) a post from yesterday AND today. Yikes! We're definitely going to follow through and finish strong, we might just bend the rules a little bit and post the requisite number of posts, just not on every day of the project.

As I've mentioned before, I'm training for a half-marathon, so this morning I ran 13 miles (nearly the distance of the race). It was a bit miserable weatherwise (it was so hot and humid (76 degrees on January 3!) and cedar season has started, which means I have itchy eyes and ears and plenty of sneezes). It was a pretty good run, though, and I saw plenty of interesting things on the run. The most notable thing was a pair of chickens in an urban, residential neighborhood, just strolling along the side of the road. There was a reddish brown hen and a pretty black rooster with a glorious fan of tail feathers. Strange and weird and yet not completely out of place for this great town we live in.There were also a lot of people out running, some obviously training for the marathon, others out for walks or jogs or bike rides, enjoying the spring-like weather.

In these final few days of Holidailies, you can look forward to posts that include New Year's recipes and photos as well as a meaty restaurant review. And whatever else we can think of.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! That's us at the beginning of last night's party, all dressed up and fancy-looking (not as much as the college girls sitting behind us, though). I'm totally pooped from cooking and getting ready for our dinner party. Don't worry, it's a good tired, from spending time with friends, feeding them good food, and celebrating the start of a brand new year together.

That's not everyone, but that's the best shot of the house full of friends, food, fun, and laughter that I got. I'll post more about the food I made later. For now, I want to wish everyone a happy new year and say that I agree with Brian about posting more here in 2009 (I'm glad we signed up for Holidailies!).