My Adventures in Cooking: Pin's Pot Roast

Today I went grocery shopping and found a $25 beef roast on sale for $6 so naturally I just had to buy it.  I called Mom and had her clarify some of the finer points of her recipe (really it's her father's recipe), and got to work.

So here it is: Pin's Pot Roast!  I'll put the recipe here in case any of you want to try it.

Pin's Pot Roast

Beef  roast

sunflower oil

4 onions, sliced

Bay leaves

Whole allspice

Potatoes

Salt

Sear beef in hot sunflower oil. Remove from pot, and brown onions in remaining oil. Return beef to pot, add boiling water to half cover, add salt, bay leaves and allspice berries. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add peeled, quartered potatoes, and cook for another hour, turning meat occasionally. Thicken gravy with cornflour.

My roast, and my nicely sliced sweet onions - and the big pot that is pretty much my pride and joy for cooking right now.

 As you can see, it was an extremely fatty beef roast, so I had to spend a considerable time trimming it.  Note to people trying this recipe for the first time - trim BEFORE you put the oil on to simmer...yeah.

 Like I said, it was a LOT of fat!  I considered rendering the fat and using it for something else for about six seconds and then my common sense took over and I tossed it all.

 Me browning the onions.  I tell you what, moving that roast in and out of the pot is damn difficult!  The next thing I'm coveting to increase my cooking potential are a very large knife, fork and spoon like Mom has.  I had to use a regular fork and a spatula, which worked out quite well, but still.  I now have a new page over which to drool in the Williams-Sonoma website/catalogues/stores.

 Once I've added the roast and the boiling water.  It looked a little weird, but don't worry, it looks yummy once it's cooked.

 I used four potatoes...I LOOOOOOVE me some potato-heavy gravy, and mealy soft potatoes to pair off with my pot roast.

 Everything in!  Now I just had to wait, and turn it occasionally.

 I let it sit for precisely eleven minutes.  Because I'm a crazy person, and ten minutes to let meat rest just won't do.

 My soft, delicious potatoes, and goopy, oniony, mouth-wateringly awesome gravy.

 Once I finally cut the roast up - I have to say, I am NOT gifted at carving.  I need lessons from Dad or something.

 DINNER!  Everything a girl could want in a meal.

 [insert]satisfied-belch[/insert]

Now I just need dessert.  Do I do pineapple?  Strawberries?  Oranges?  Or be evil and have ice cream?  Talk about the best decisions a girl ever has to make!

Everything I ever wanted

So it's 3 o clock in the morning and I'm at my desk, listening to NPR.  To my right, half-a-dozen paintings are gleaming with fresh paint, and my water cups are dry and holding newly cleaned brushes.  My bedding is "turned down" with my teddy bear waiting patiently, and a water glass and my kindle are set ready on the bedside table.

I haven't had a very good week.  Let's be honest: this hasn't been the greatest year thus far.  I've been ill for most of these three months, my work has been kicking my ass, and I haven't been exactly graceful through it all. 

But tonight, I talked to my friends (albeit online instead of in person), I watched silly television shows, I painted paintings and sketched potential cover art for the book I plan to (self) publish this week...I listened to NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and knew most of the answers, and I cooked myself a yummy dinner in my quiet studio apartment.

And it hit me - this apartment, this education, the painting, the writing, the rinsing my paint jars while listening to the news on the radio...that part was everything I ever wanted when I was younger.  I wanted an apartment and independence and art and culture...and now I have all of that...well, independence of a sort, I still feel awful about the fact I'm not earning right now, even though I have some work coming up in April. 

Of course, the things that are going badly are what I really need to work on.  But I'm taking my mom's advice and taking this weekend off.  And on Monday I will start tackling my thesis again, even though it is my spring break.  And maybe I will drive to San Diego and go to the zoo.  And if that "winter storm" stays away I'll go to the beach.  And maybe I'll do a nature walk at a nearby national park.  Or find somewhere I can pan for gold - there must be a touristy place to do that somewhere.

I have to say though, I still want that super hot, caring, loving, smart, funny, interesting boyfriend.  One who likes sports, and music, and will at least tolerate plays/ballet/the opera enough to take me once in awhile.  God, are you listening?  Please have him be dark-haired and have a decent name.  No Neptunes or Septimuses.  Oh, and have him like junk food AND real food - and be open to expensive beers and wines.  And if he can not like coffee and tea like me that'd be awesome.  If he likes HGTV and home renovations and gardening that would also be a plus. 

Yeah, that list could go on for awhile...I'll say goodnight now!

Squirrel Apocalypse

So, on my way to class today, just minutes after my last post, I got attacked by a squirrel.  Yes, you read that correctly.  ATTACKED by a squirrel - a SQUIRREL!  You know, if you type a word often enough, it looks funny...

Anyway, I was walking down a sidewalk (minding my own business) when a squirrel darts out of the bushes, jumps on my food, scratches my big toe, rebounds off my leg and disappeared back into the bushes!!!

When I got to class I put my stuff down and washed my toe with antibacterial soap in the girls' bathroom.  Hopefully the squirrel did not have rabies or the Black Death or anything like that.  I don't think it did, and it didn't break the skin either, so I'm not particularly worried.

Class was pretty good today - Dr. Lee was very pleased with my dogged persistence towards testing and retesting each NDVI to see which works best.  It was a little hard not to laugh when he praised my "determined focus" because I've felt so horribly unfocused for the past month.  But praise is a real relief, and it was so nice to feel like I earned some for real!

So I'm home (excitedly awaiting the Project Runway: Allstars finale!) and my spring break has officially begun.  Woo!

Blue, a thousand times blue

Today is one of those California days of brilliant blue skies, palm trees waving gently in the breeze, and the temperature hovering around 64F - although the weather channel warns a winter storm of rain and wind is due this weekend.

The weather, the warmth, the sun, all remind me of why I moved here to California.  On the face of it, I moved here for my career, but whenever someone moves to California there's always another reason - to meet people. 

Sometimes I wonder if my time here would have been different if I had met "those people", because I certainly have met people.  Judy stands among them as being unfailingly awesome, and she's probably responsible for about 70% of my social life here, not to mention she got me a job last fall.

My thesis isn't going well.  My sleep patterns have gotten worse and worse.  I'm lucky if I can fall asleep before 3 am, and I wake up frequently throughout the night...and getting up in the morning requires me turning on the tv (usually I keep the remote by my bed for this purpose) and listening to the noise and seeing the light.

Yesterday was something of a red-letter day because I got two important things done: my application to renew my greencard, and another signature on that stupid form.  I just need one more and then I can move ahead with the Margaret Mead Film Festival...I hope.

Everyone says how wonderful I am for trucking ahead with Margaret Mead all by myself, how great it is I'm looking for another job, and how well I'm doing in GIS and remote sensing...I don't feel wonderful.  I feel tired.  I want my thesis to do itself and I really want Dr. Lipo to let me collect the rest of my data. 

I have to go get ready for class.  Hopefully the job hunt will go better tomorrow.

It's Wednesday already?

Where the heck has the week gone?  Where has the month gone?  Where has the time gone?

I've been something of a mess over the past month...I just don't know what on earth has happened or how the time is gone.  I've been so tired all the time and I've been having such a hard time focusing, and I'm only just barely getting over being sick - still coughing a little.  And even though I've been tired all the time I've had a hard time sleeping too.

So, my plan has been to start taking caffeine pills again.  I've been feeling awake during the days, so we'll see how my sleeping adjusts. 

I managed to go to the meeting yesterday, my doc appointment today, and I need to get up early to go to a special lecture tomorrow.  And then on Friday I have a 2:30 meeting and I'll need to go to the bank for quarters and do laundry...let's hope I get all my laundry done so I can enjoy my Friday afternoon at least!

And somehow I have been gaining weight again, so I need to figure out a new diet plan.  This is incredibly annoying.

Not to mention my job at Bowers has ended and I need to find a new one asap...I can't believe Petsmart didn't want me.  That's so uncool, I really wanted to play with all the puppies, kitties, and rabbits they keep around.  And talk to the birdies and teach them cute one-liners.

Que sera sera...whatever will be, will be.

Marti Gras Par-tay!

I'm such a wild child!

This weekend I worked really hard - 9 hours each on Saturday and Sunday, and then 6 more on Monday before going to GIS (thankfully it was only 3 hours instead of the scheduled 5 hours - I might have died if it were the full length).  I somehow managed to be not-tired as soon as I got home and only went to bed at 1 am, and somehow managed to sleep until 11 am.  Then I had to rush off to Sam's Club to get the rest of my groceries - I got some of my groceries from Ralph's after work on Sunday so I wouldn't starve to death.

I had a hurried lunch and then went to class and spent the period listening to Dr. Lee lecture and then struggling to unpack .tiff files onto my 4 gig flash drive.  It's appalling to me that files can BE that big - now I'm going to have to bring my external hard drive to class instead.  Hopefully I won't rack up 500 gigs in class, although considering a single one of my "practice" folders from GIS class can be 2 gigs...you never know!  Luckily, I don't have to save my practice folders - they're not turned in or graded.

When I came home I cleaned up my apartment; I'll vacuum tomorrow - it's a little rude to vacuum after 4-5 in the afternoon, and took out the trash. 
Once that was done, I segmented the chicken wings I bought from Sam's Club, mixed up my bbq "marinade", separated them into two ziploc bags and they are now curing in the fridge.  They just taste so much better after a night or two of absorbing the marinade.  Plus, mine are baked (not deep-fried) so they're a lot healthier (and cheaper) than restaurant chicken wings, even if they aren't crunchy.

Then I started working on my spring fair poster - I really have no idea what to do now except use white paint to correct a few splotches here and there.  Guess it's going to be very simple...oh well.  I never said I was a poster genius!
I still have to make up all the trivia questions.  I wonder if there's a site on the internet that gives anthro/archae trivia questions and answers?  That would make my life SO much easier!

Right now I'm making chicken soup with the tips from the wings, three chicken thighs, and Mom's time-tested recipe...it smells SO good! 

Tomorrow I have vacuuming, a doctor's appointment, and my thesis to do.  I think that's everything on my list...it feels REALLY good to get stuff done, but I'm still a little sick and I'm not sure how long I can keep this virtuous boost up.  Oh well, I guess if I keep trying and sleep and eat properly I should be okay.

So there you have it - my wild, crazy Marti Gras!  I haven't even had a beer, nor do I think I will.  Maybe I'll feel like having one tomorrow.

One Hot Minute

So it's been awhile since I posted last, but things have been incredibly crazy and they haven't really settled down even yet.

I got a violent attack of something - the flu, I assume - and was confined to my bed for a full weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) , meaning I missed two days of work, and was so ill and miserable I couldn't even sleep, not even with sleeping pills.

Monday I spent most of the day in bed, but I did drag myself out for grocery shopping and class that night (which I barely survived) and felt so awful in consequence I skipped class on Tuesday (my prof was sick and skipped class too so I didn't feel too bad about that part).  Wednesday I didn't have class so I stayed in bed again, except for a doctor's visit, and Thursday I made it to class. 
Friday I intended to spend doing nothing, but I had a meeting, and when I got there, there was no one else present!  I got home and checked my email and the girl had canceled because I was the only one who had RSVP'd.
That Saturday and Sunday I had work again, and was still fairly weak, so by the time I got home both nights I just ate some food and collapsed onto my armchair until I dragged myself into bed and let myself sleep.

This past Monday I had GIS again and it was good, except I did four of the five practice assignments in the lab portion of class (it's technically 2 hrs of lecture and 3 of lab after the prof leaves) in about twenty minutes, and spent nearly an hour trying to get the fifth one done, and finally gave up in frustration when the twenty-seventh dataset finally downloaded and was found wanting.

Tuesday we were working on a modeling/vector lab in remote sensing and I finished the lab with the exception of one section no one in the class (not even Dr. Lee) could make work.  It was Valentines day, and I was so disgruntled I went home and drank a litre of beer and watched all the violent movies I own (The Expendables, Tropic Thunder, Iron Man).

Wednesday was spent grumpily staring at my thesis.

Thursday I was in remote sensing again, and since I'd already finished the lab I spent the entire class alternately reading some articles Dr. Lee assigned and twiddling with that one section I mentioned earlier.  We all kept getting the same error message: that there was "No Attribute Table".  Naturally, we all thought it was the raster image attribute table that caused the error, but finally I tried running the vector as points instead of polygons, and it ran to 99% before crashing (which is only to be expected, as the whole thing was set up for polygons).  So then, after some more twiddling, I opened the vector as an image and looked at THAT attribute table - lo and behold, though there WERE attributes for the points, there was none for the polygons!
So, I called over Dr. Lee, and HE said Aha! and that when the exemplar files were copied from the discs to the N drive that all students download our examples/base files from they were done with a regular copy function, and NOT the special vector copy that is  necessary to save all the vector attributes.  So he's trying to find the original file and run the whole thing on his personal computer and see if that indeed is the problem.

I really hope it is, because that means I did something GOOD and SMART on a COMPUTER!!

This weekend is dedicated to work - I worked today, and will work tomorrow, and Monday, although I get to leave early on Monday to make it to class.  Monday is going to suck - work from 9:30 am - 4 pm, and then class from 5 pm - 10 pm...oh man, it is going to be a microwave meal kind of night!

Tonight I am also making a poster for the mandatory Spring Festival this upcoming Tuesday (some days I really, really wish I weren't AGSA president, but mostly because the vast majority of my organization doesn't ever reply to bloody emails, or turn up when/where I want them to), and praying the things I ordered from Oriental Trading get here on time - they're due to be delivered ON the 21st but I don't know if they'll get here before I have to leave for campus or not.  If not...bah, CLASC agreed to provide beads, they'll have to provide them for me.

I'm planning on making flash cards with questions about anthropology and A) B) C) answers - if the person guesses correctly, they get beads.  Hopefully I can make enough questions to make it interesting. 

Oh well, poster is dry, time to paint some more letters on it.  And for the record, I am NOT the best poster-maker in the world...nor calligrapher...le sigh!