Misc.

Made some progress sorting a few boxes of stuff. Few more things going into giveaway, and more like things finding each other.

Staff class last night -- pretty good aside from my lousy rendition of hurricane knees. Have to work on that... although a lot of the work is getting in better shape. So, maybe a walk soon -- looks like it's going to rain today.

Instructor J told L and me on Monday that we're likely to be testing for white sash at the end of the month, so need to practice even more for that -- although my biggest personal worry is the PT because my asthma still gets in the way of the jogging part. So, more walking on hilly roads! Last night those in class got their pictures taken for updating the website. When that goes up, I'll post about it.

This coming weekend has become less stressful, as the project L was going to have to work on all weekend got moved to a weekend in June -- so, stress not ended, just delayed. That mean just Bergental Town Meeting on Saturday, 11am - 7pm, here at the farm, cleaning at the kungfu school Sunday morning and then lunch with the other folks cleaning, maybe a little more cleaning after lunch, and then choir in the evening.

Hm, and maybe a trip to the transfer point before town meeting, if we can manage it...

Gardening progress has slowed down.... I need to get all the seeds out and look at them, see what I have and when they can go out. I didn't do any starts this year, so tomatoes from seed might be um, interesting.

Dandelions are flourishing, so I really should go out and pick a couple bagsful for making dandelion wine. The stuff from last year needs to be decanted and then we can get that started.

Oh! And on my walk I should see if the fiddleheads are up yet!

Northeast Storms Coming, and One Recipe

Looks like the storms system that's been k-o-ing places in the Midwest and South are coming toward the Northeast.

Sharon Astyk's posted this fairly useful Power Outage Post

I agree with her on bathtubs leaking, _if they're new_. The old-fashioned ones that use an actual rubber stopper plug are still pretty decent. We have plenty of water here of course, but I'm considering doing some experimenting with the tub (the upstairs one is a typical fiberglass tub) to see if I can find something that works. Meantime, storing containers of water in the tub isn't a bad idea, if a storm becomes imminent -- even non-food-safe containers are all right, since you need water for washing clothing or doing sponge/washcloth bathing in the case of loss of water/power.

***
Sharon had the idea of experimenting with no-power weekends during the different seasons of the year -- some folks may get that chance....


Years ago I lived in an apartment and the refrigerator started cooking the food in the freezer. At least I still had electricity (now I have other options too), so since the fridge was dead I spent the day cooking all the perishables. If the fridge part had still been cool I probably could have just moved the eggs over to the pantry closet for a bit, but since everything was compromised I made hardboiled eggs -- and then put _those_ in the pantry :D

I didn't have a lot of meat to cook, so that and some of the veggies became stew. Since I still had power I could just keep that on low for a few days. Nowadays I'd probably cook some meat for immediate eating purposes, dehydrate some of it -- jerky's good traveling food after all, and then maybe have a little party if I needed to ;)

If you have a way to keep things kind of cool, cooked meat will be good for a few days. In the case of chicken or other bird meat, my Scarborough Fair recipe works well for keeping it from spoiling -- a week or more in the fridge, less in less constant circumstances. I've taken chicken cooked this way in a picnic basket to events for lunch or dinner, so it's pretty effective.

The primary 'saviors' in the recipe are probably the rosemary and sage. They're both good at helping to preserve things, and work even better in combination.

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Chicken Scarborough

Sprinkle some parsley, sage and thyme on the pan first. If using butter, lay a few bits of butter all over the pan bottom as well. How much of the spices? Just enough that there's a bit of each everywhere. We're adding flavor, not making astroturf (I've seen some spiced blackened foods that looked like burnt astroturf...)

Lay chicken pieces in pan. Put a little pat of butter on each piece (I really do mean little, like 1/4 to 1/3 of one of those commercial butter pats). Sprinkle with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. If you can, grind the rosemary a bit first. Don't put too much sage on or it may taste slightly 'musty' instead of blending in.

I also like to sprinkle a little bit of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves (yeah, eggnog spices ;) )

If you're using olive or some other oil, brush/wipe oil on all surfaces of chicken, then put pieces in pan and then sprinkle as above.

Cover pan and put in oven. I think 350F is the usual for chicken. About 20 minutes in, take pan out and rotate all the pieces. This helps spread the spices around more evenly and bastes the pieces more. If cooking skinless meat, re-cover for another 10 minutes before removing to do a little browning. If cooking with skins on, just put back in without the cover.

Total time for a pan of chicken is about 40 minutes, depending on your oven.

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Now, if I had to do this on a grill, I don't know what the times would be since I've never done it. But I expect you could still do something similar. Coat piece with oil, maybe mix up the spices in a bowl and then brush it on? Then wrap in foil and put on the grill for half the cooking time and then open foil for 2nd half? Or if you can cook it a little higher off the heat so that it doesn't get burnt, then maybe the foil wouldn't be needed.

The Wind Does Not Blow Only 1/3 of the Time!

The Wind Does Not Blow Only 1/3 of the Time!

Good little article on wind-generated power/capacity.

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Your result for The Social Persona Test (What kind of
man/woman are you?)...

The Rarity (QTAF)

Quirky Traditional
Alpha Female

You have an
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You are more
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When picking
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(Image from
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Take The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are
you?) at HelloQuizzy