Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Commitment issues.

I was thinking about saying I'm taking a formal hiatus from blogging (because I know the throngs of humanity that read this are trembling on the edge of their seats for the next entry), but then I figured I'd want to write something the second I posted it, so I did nothing.

But just in case, I figured I'd write that work is like a terrible hemorrhoid that won't go away. Or how I imagine a terrible hemorrhoid that won't go away would be. It's consisting of a lot of writing which on one hand is good because it means I've made meaningful progress, and on the other hand is bad because it's sciencese. I don't think in sciencese, I can't force myself to, and the whole process blows. When I ask how I should set up my figures, no one tells me, and then I have to redo them like 14,987,677 times in like 3 different file formats in multiple separate completely inadequate programs that I have to learn and I suck at computers because dealing with computers is like dealing with passive aggressive people which I hate.

So yeah, I'm eating. I'm eating well. :) But beyond discovering that I can make a spinach/garlic/egg white omelette in one nonstick pan with the tiniest bit of oil, I haven't exactly been making culinary fireworks happen. I have an entry in my head about making red chile sauce a la New Mexican cuisine, but I want to experiment with the chiles I use. I made it once with just Anaheim chiles and it was incredibly flat and disappointingly mild. It does, however, taste good on top of the aforementioned omelette. But I'm going to work it into something that is a good chile sauce, but it lets you know what's what. I'm not going for authenticity with this one. Anyway, we'll see. Man, I hope I graduate before I completely lose my mind...

Sunday, January 3, 2010

RatatNEWouille.

So I just redid more ratatouille the way I did it here in this post, sans biscuits, soy sauce, and tempeh bc I'm craving a simple vegetable stew. I haven't eaten this much crap for so long in like forever, and I need to clear my head. Not that the crap was bad per se but the usual proportion of fruit + veg to, well, everything else was heavily skewed toward "everything else" for too long a time. Although somehow my insides continued to function properly, happily enough... :-P

Anyway, I realized a great way to add body and depth to the veggies is the old standby of dumping in a bunch of anchovies. Yeah. Funky fish is the reason Thai food tastes so meaty and awesome, and I'd be willing to bet that much of the pasta sauce bought at various restaurants gets an umami kick from anchovies, too. When you use them this way, several tossed in with the tomatoes, the fishiness is dispelled immediately. Tastes awesome.

I like the Cento anchovies. I've tried Roland, but they're redolent of dirty underwear IMO. Granted, I've eaten them without dying or getting sick. You can't really tell once they're in whatever you're making, but I like to eat the leftover fillets with salad or on bread for some salty omega 3's, so the whole dirty underwear thing is completely unappealing.