Congee, RIP, Stampede Accidents.

Having made myself (actually I got Matt to make it for me) some congee for my supper after my dental visit, I had intended to try it for breakfast, but Matt beat me to it and made our usual cereals. So, I had some for lunch, I sprinkled it with a bit of Worcestershire sauce and some drops of Tabasco and ate it with smoked salmon. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Having been researching the internet with regard to congee, I have all kinds of things I want to try with it. To make the congee, we boiled 3/4 cup basmati rice, in 9 cups of water and 1 tsp salt. It cooked steadily for an hour to 1 1/2 hours. I added it to soup on Thursday night, by Friday morning it was an almost solid pudding or porridge. You can water it down if you want to make it liquid again, and then add all kinds of things like pork, ginger, chicken, scallions, etc. etc. The options are very varied. We have some coconut milk left over, I am thinking of mixing it with the congee for breakfast tomorrow. If one’s ability to eat is restricted, it is wonderful stuff, also I understand, excellent invalid food. I am a congee convert.

Just caught a headline about the death of Oscar winning film producer Richard Zanuck. He was 77. He produced Driving Miss Daisy amongst other films to his record. That was a wonderful movie. Ernest Borgnine also died last Sunday, never did see a lot about it in the news. I always liked him. I just realised he was 95, that’s a very good age. I first remember hearing about him when he took the part in Marty in 1955.

A lot of animal rights activists are upset at the deaths of three horses during the chuck wagon races at the Calgary Stampede. The Stampede seems to have had some bad luck over the years, not so long ago a lot of horses got killed in the Stampede itself. Activists are trying to get rodeos banned completely, whether they will ever achieve that or not, who knows? Horses love to race and man is going to race them one way or another.


I forgot to mention that on Monday L. Diane Wolfe of www.spunkonastick.net is guest posting on my blog. I hope you will enjoy her post.

This sounds absolutely delicious. I haven’t tried looking for this hot bean paste, but we have a good supermarket and an Asian store in the vicinity.

Firecracker Chicken Thighs

Cooking.com
Makes 6 servings


Available in Asian markets and some supermarkets, hot bean paste gives a tingling spiciness to this dish. To toast the sesame seeds, place them in a shallow pan and bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 7-10 minutes, or 'til golden.

RECIPE INGREDIENTS


1 1/2 - 2 pounds chicken thighs
2-3 tablespoons hot bean paste
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds, crushed
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped green onions
4 large cloves garlic, minced (1 tablespoon)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

DIRECTIONS
Remove skin from chicken thighs. Score meat on both sides by making shallow diagonal cuts about 1 inch apart.

In a large mixing bowl stir together bean paste, soy sauce, sesame seeds, sesame oil, sugar, green onions, garlic, salt, and pepper. Pour into a plastic bag; add chicken thighs. Seal bag; turn bag to coat chicken. Marinate in the refrigerator for 4-24 hours, turning bag occasionally. Remove chicken, scraping off excess marinade. Reserve marinade.

Place chicken on the grill rack of an uncovered grill. Grill directly over medium coals for 15 minutes. Turn chicken over and grill for 10-15 minutes more. Baste both sides with reserved marinade and grill for 5 minutes more, or till chicken is tender and no pink remains, turning once. Discard any remaining marinade.

Have a great weekend

Moaning, Higgs-Boson, Blogging

Went to the dentist as I may have mentioned, and had both a filling and an extraction. She had to keep pumping anesthetic into me. When she got around to removing the broken remains of the tooth she had trouble a) getting hold of it and then b) removing it. Bloody thing just didn’t want to leave me. Finally it gave up the ghost and later, so did I. By the time all the anesthetic wore off I was in a lot of jaw pain and I was hungry. For supper I had some asparagus soup which I had doctored up with a couple of spoonsful of plain Congee to give it some extra body. Right now I would kill for a sandwich or something.

Once again, a video explaining the Higgs Boson – do you care? I find it absolutely fascinating. I discovered this video through the Blutonian Death Egg a blog by Rusty Webb.

I have been watching more and more videos and explanations and am beginning to get something of a grasp on this. The video above is pretty fast, but if you watch it a couple of times, it does help make things clearer. My first husband was a physicist and obviously would have understood all this. Not that that would have helped me, I could never understand a lot of what he told me, like if regular math wouldn’t solve a problem, you invented a math that would solve it. How can you do that? One and one is two surely? Apparently not always. Way beyond me.

Interesting post from Damyanti at Blogging A to Z yesterday as well, asking if blogging was obsolete and positing that most blogs are read by other bloggers. I do somewhat agree with that idea. Obviously I don’t know how many of my readers are bloggers, but I know a lot of them are and I know a lot of my friends, for instance, do not read my blog. I can understand reading it and saying “what a load of old rubbish, not reading that again”, what I can’t understand is not reading it a couple of times at least to see what its all about. Not only that, if you don’t like my  blog, there are thousands of them out there, many of the ones I have been discovering lately are very thought provoking or full of great information. Many of them deal with hobbies of one kind or another.

Needed a bit of good news yesterday, we discovered our pensions are being increased, not, of course, by very much, but nevertheless they’re going the right way. I had read there was an increase coming, but didn’t know how much, better than I expected.

Another good looking recipe from BBC Food – the recipe originally called for prawns but I changed it to shrimp as one doesn’t see prawns around here. In fact I have never seen them anywhere I have visited in North America.

Spicy Seafood Stew with Tomatoes and Lime

John Torode's Mexican-inspired one-pot casserole is packed with shellfish, white fish and plenty of chilli

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 2 dried ancho or guajillo chillies
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion , chopped
• 4 garlic cloves , chopped
• 1 tsp chipotle paste or 1 tsp smoked hot paprika (pimentón)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 700ml chicken stock
• 250g chopped tomatoes , from a can
• 200g large peeled raw shrimp
• 300g halibut or other firm white fish fillets, cut into 2.5cm pieces
• 300g clams
• 500g small new potatoes , halved and boiled
• juice 2 limes

TO SERVE

• lime wedges
• 1 avocado , chopped
• handful coriander leaves
• 1 small red onion , finely diced
• corn tortillas , sliced and baked

Toast the chillies in a hot dry frying pan for a few moments (they will puff up a bit), then remove. Deseed and stem chillies, and soak in boiling water for 15 mins.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, season and cook for about 5 mins or until softened. Add the chipotle paste, reconstituted chillies, cumin, stock and tomatoes. Sauté for 5 mins, then purée until very fine in a blender. Pour back into the pan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins. When close to eating, add the prawns, fish fillets, clams and potatoes. Place a lid on top and cook for 5 mins over a medium-high heat. Add the lime juice and serve with lime wedges, avocado, coriander, red onion and tortilla chips for sprinkling over.

Have a great day