A quiet weekend at home

[badseed1980]

That's pretty much what this has been. I went out to dinner with leenah and her friend M (another MIT person) on Friday night, which was nice, but I've been solo since then. And that's fine. I'm actually enjoying a quiet weekend. I intended to get more done yesterday than I actually did, but circumstances prevented it. I couldn't get started on much yesterday until after the National Grid guy came to turn on my gas again, because most of what I needed to do either involved leaving the house (and I had to be at home for him), required hot water, or required stuff that I needed to leave the house to get. So, I got a late start. I did get some lunch-menu planning done in the morning, and made up a grocery list. After the guy left, I waited until the water was hot, showered, and hit the grocery store. When I came back, I got everything all ready to rack my mead. Then, when I went to attach a length of tubing to the racking cane, I found that the tubing wasn't big enough. Crap. Fortunately, I managed to catch a bus to Davis, got proper sized tubing at Modern Homebrew Emporium, and came home. About 40 minutes total were added to the time this should have taken, due to late buses. Grr. But I got the mead racked and added the blueberry juice, without destroying anything. I'm just a little concerned because now, I can't see any fermentation activity going on. No bubbling at all. I want the blueberry juice to ferment a bit too, and not just be juice-with-mead-added. I hope it perks up.

Today is Bento Prep Day. I'm making stuff for bento lunches that can be frozen individually and popped into a lunchbox quickly: onigiri, teryaki chicken, and black bean mini-burgers. I'm also going to roast some delicata squash, carrots, and brussels sprouts. Those, I won't freeze, but they should last a few days. I'm enjoying the day of cooking. I have leftover oyster stew for lunch (skipped breakfast because I actually got to sleep in until almost 9 and wasn't yet hungry), and I believe I will order Chinese for dinner. That way I don't have to worry about cooking anything else. Also, I've been craving Chinese.

Also, can I just say how much I love this weather? I love this weather so much!

Comments

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

Hey, can you post your bento recipes? I just got a bento box!

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

To be honest, most of my "specifically for bento" recipes come from Just Bento (http://www.justbento.com). It's an awesome site, and has information about everything from how to properly cook Japanese rice, to the anatomy of a Japanese meal, to how to use bento as a healthy portion control method, in addition to all the great recipes. Right now, I'm getting all psyched right now to try the ochazuke bento idea that the blogger, Maki, posted about recently. I'm going to use one of the onigiri I'm making today, along with some of that teriyaki chicken, some sliced shiitake mushrooms (I rehydrated some dried ones in the process of making mushroom-kombu-bonito dashi for the rice), and probably some carrot and furikake.

I don't often do really decorative meals, I admit. Often, it'll just be leftovers stuck into a bento box. Lazy, maybe, but it's still a home-cooked meal!

[miss-lisa-ma.livejournal.com]

I haven't done bento, per se (okay, did it once in Japan, but not here), but the whole prepping-decent-food-for-the-week thing is SO underrated. It takes up a chunk of my weekend, but I eat better and save money by executing a large chunk of the food prep ahead of time.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm trying to get into the habit of doing it more. It's a challenge finding that delicate balance between what and how much to freeze, and what and how much to refrigerate. This is particularly true of veggies: I like having cooked veggies in my lunch as often as possible. They don't freeze all that well.

[delirifacient.livejournal.com]

A day of cooking is a truly relaxing gift indeed!

Hey, can we borrow some of your weather down here? 110 degree heat indexes and daily monsoons just ain't cutting it for me:-P

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Right now it's 63 and mostly cloudy, here. The sun keeps peeping through.

[delirifacient.livejournal.com]

Oooo, that sounds heavenly. It will probably be another two months or more until we hit a consistent lower 60s temperature range.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's more likely to be in the lower 70s this time of year here, but we've hit a cool patch. :)

[shroderdog.livejournal.com]

yeah, today was just gorgeous... all I wanted to do was get a press and make cider. the fall brings out the kitchen nut in me.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know a guy with an antique cider press, in Nahant. He has a big party every year where we just make cider all day long. Mmm.

[shroderdog.livejournal.com]

yeah I was FORCED to go to Kimball's for Ice Cream. Forced I say. (Company outing... nice thin about startups? open bar!) The 3 orchards we passed on the way down got me thinking about making cider... and other tasty things...

[evaelisabeth.livejournal.com]

Would you come over to my house and make lunches for me ? Everything except the brussels sprouts ;-)