It is a mystery

I am officially boostered cross covid vaccine type, got the moderna booster. I also got my flu shot. I have literally nothing on my schedule for tomorrow, and technically I have no work related stuff required until wednesday so if I need more time off, I can take it

I slept like shit last night because my stomach has been upset about something, possibly the result of eating a piece of bread (it was warm and right out of the oven and homemade) and then lots and lots of food. This may also be an effect from my period. Hard to tell. I'm alternating between incredibly hungry and too full, can't seem to find a good balance.

I'm making rice for dinner in the new tiny rice cooker that Jade got me for $13. I used to have a rice cooker but didn't use it much because it had a minimum uncooked rice of 2 cups I want to say and I don't normally make rice in that quantity at once. This one is tiny and I'm betting it will be used much.

I had high hopes for a house I wanted to see today but I was too late to see it, my realtor said it had an offer late last night. It went on the market tuesday I think and I waited over the holiday instead of seeing it. Sigh. I know I gotta be patient but dang, places are going fast. Still better than trying to rent.

It snowed last night, first snow of the season. It's mostly gone now but it's supposed to be pretty chilly for a bit.

 Finally figured out that bob's red mill sells bulk stuff like duh of course they have stuff in bulk

so I've got about 12 pounds of rolled oats coming plus some other stuff because I can. 

(I'm making no bake cookies today and was contemplating how easily I run out of oats. truly a travesty)

On that note, I guess I really need to do the pantry cleanout I've been planning to do and get some room freed up in there.

 oh what a day

some white supremiaists are facing consequences to their actions and cheeto man has been banned from twitter

I ordered arepas takeout and ate so much cheesy corn deliciousness

I think this is as good a day as life can give me now

 I have most of the gifts ordered and on their way. They all should arrive in the next two weeks but we will see. I have one more physical thing order to make that I might send to my parents place. Isocation is in two and a half weeks oh boy. 

I'm making packing lists and I need to start looking at parks in the area where I'm staying so the dog and I can leave the house for something. I think we'll be fine but parks in December should be pretty empty, bigger concern will be if any are open to the public. 

I will be making food the weekend before, yogurt primarily since I don't know if I'll be able to make yogurt at Isocation House and it stores better than milk anyway. Also a big pot of brown rice and beans. I won't be bringing my instant pot and it makes the best textured brown rice and beans so I'm bringing other rice to make later. I need to email my mom the things I'd like her to get from the grocery store for my arrival to their place. Mostly yogurt. 

Of course, I've been reading the horror stories on the internet about people who caught covid while meeting up with relatives so that's making me nervous.

But my plan is solid. I won't be going into any stores or restaurants after Dec 6th, no shopping, no takeout, masks all the time while walking the dog. I will be loading up my truck and driving 2.5 hours to isocation house, no gas station stops needed. I will be staying in the isocation house, and only going to parks where no one else is and masked. I will be bringing all my food and dog supplies with me. If I need to get fuel, I won't go inside the gas station and I'm sanitizing before and after touching things. After the two weeks, I'm going to pack up, drive the last hour to my parents place. 

Only potential concern is arrival and when the person may have cleaned the isocation house before I get there. But I plan to ask them and see what they say and adjust plans as needed

I'm also taking all this week off work for relaxing time. I already starting baking things, cornmeal shortbread cookies and pepitas tonight. Pepitas are being split between dragonlady7 , who I'm seeing tomorrow (outside, masked) and my parents, which I will mail. 

Food plans are also a ham, which is currently defrosted. Mashed sweet potatoes for Jade. Mashed potatoes for me. Maybe some kind of corn dish. Ice cream since I have a million egg whites. Possibly squash pie but I might flip through some recipes I have saved and cookbooks and see what gets my interest. 

I spent all day yesterday playing video games, which hasn't happened in a long time. It was fun. I've also been spinning some of the flax that B and I have been working on and it's turning out really well. There's definitely a learning curve on spinning it that is very different than wool or ramie plan fibers. Better than the ramie types for sure. It's so dang slow though. I'm a little concerned I'm not putting enough twist in it because the ply checks don't look quite right but it's enough twist to hold together. I'm going to recheck one of my spinning books tonight and see what it says. 

 Hi all, I'm alive, crafting hangout is on for wednesday, same time, same link. I had a bunch of requests for my side job, which is good! Extra money! But also extra work and I don't feel comfortable doing side job stuff when technically I am doing my regular job from home even if I have no actual work. So I spent about 8 hours sunday getting a rush job done. Serious money from that one. 

Question: I made broth with a ham hock and then picked the meat from the bones and set it aside. Wtf do you do with the bones and fat and stuff? 

When I did it with a chicken, the bones basically dissolved. That was easy. The pork bones seem fine, lots of connective tissue and some meat I couldn't separate from all the fatty stuff. 

 I have a pork loin roast defrosting in the fridge for making Sunday. 

I need to figure out how I want to cook it (instant pot or oven) and what spicing, etc I want to use for it. 

I also want to try this potato recipe. 

 I got a sidejob request this morning and I was waffling on going over and rippling so I decided to do sidejob work and that way I could make the pizza that I prepped crusts for earlier today. One crust turned out right, the other was basically thin crust because I forgot to switch them in the oven. Made marinara, had ricotta, mozzarella and sausage. Dumped it on the thin crust. 

Got most of the way through making stuff and I look out the window and there is a DOOM CLOUD. hmm I say. 

Five minutes later, an absolute pouring rainstorm happened so probably for the best I didn't go ripple. I mean, it could have completely missed the farm but I've got pizza now. 

I also made creamed corn with the tiniest bit of jalapenos in it and it is Good. 

 Meal planning ugh

So I'm still eating mediocre meat sauce. Whatever. 

I made enough pasta to go with it for tonight and tomorrow night. Then Thursday night I'm going to make two recipes from a book called "An Invitation to Indian Cooking" by Madhur Jaffrey which is really awesome and written in the 70s. But it focuses mostly on food from the Delhi region of cuisine in the north. So I'm going to make kheema, which is a ground meat recipe and moong dal and rice. I think I'm all out of stew meat from the deer so I've got ground and roasts left. I've got a lot more ground so I'd rather find more recipes that use that. 

That should last me through the weekend and into next week for dinners. 

I also need to bake some things. I think I'm going to run to the co op tonight or tomorrow night, leaning towards tonight. But I'm going to make cornbread tonight for lunch tomorrow, probably. Although it depends on when I go to the co op. Then tomorrow I've got squash that is thawing out which will be muffins and crustless pie, and probably gingersnaps too. The gingersnaps will be for my parents this weekend and the rest for me. 

I also need to get sidejob work done. Hmmm. I think I'd better get some things done. 

 I made the vindaloo recipe again and the potatoes didn't really cook. again. 

I boiled them in the stew for over an hour and some of them were still not cooked texture. They weren't hard but they were very odd. They were all in 1/2 thick or less pieces. I wonder if the lemon juice was stopping them from cooking? I can't figure it out. 

But lesson learned, cook potatoes separately. 

It could have been the type of potatoes but I just cooked that variety on friday as a whole potato in water and it boiled in a reasonable amount of time. hmmmmmmmm

So I made vindaloo on monday.

It was a recipe from Buck, Buck, Moose in the stew section because I had venison stew meat in the freezer. This was all of the really sinewy bits that I hadn't ground up, lower leg muscles and stuff. 

This recipe had a marinade, a curry paste and then the meat and potatoes. 

I did actually marinade the meat, it was ground cardamom, cloves, black pepper, fresh ginger, a little sugar and salt and I used lemon juice instead of the malt vinegar because vinegar is terrible. I did it that morning before I planned to leave for work and started doing the cooking around 5.

ran it all through the food processor although I didn't quite get the ginger as fine as I would like, but it seemed to cook down into nothing okay. 

then I made the curry paste. I didn't use garlic because heartburn. so it was ginger, peppers (I used a few of the dried hot paprika and one little bit of dried buena mulata pepper) cumin, coriander, tumeric, and lemon juice again instead of malt vinegar

no joke, I felt very hippy buying tumeric at the co op. also I'm still pretty bad at peeling ginger. 

ran all that with some water in the food processor and it looked good.

I also skipped the onions because heartburn. So I heated some of the rendered bacon fat I've been saving and just dumped in the curry mix with a little bit of asafoetida which is a spice that tastes a little like an onion/garlic combo. And I also added a little tomato paste. Cooked it for a minute and I dumped the marinade and the venison in. Then added the water. It looked like a lot of water to add in, but I actually didn't add quite enough because at the end it was like a very thick sauce instead of a thick stew. 

I covered the pot, cooked for two hours and the venison was just easy to pull apart with a spoon. Then I added potatoes in to cook. Unfortunately because I hadn't added quite enough water, the potatoes didn't cook quite right and really that's what caused it to thicken so much after I turned the heat off. The venison practically dissolved into the stew. 

So the first night eating it was not really a success because 1. the potatoes were a very weird texture of only mostly cooked and 2. it was so fucking hot I was red in the face and couldn't eat much of it at all. I had cut the spices by maybe half but I think I didn't really cut the ginger as much, which didn't help at all. It was just. I was like weepy because it was so hot. It was a slow burn too so the first few bites were incredible and delicious and then my mouth was on fire and I was regretting it. 

It definitely mellowed in the fridge overnight which is great and the potatoes absorbed enough liquid finally that when I reheated some in the microwave last night, the potatoes were great and it wasn't too too spicy. I was able to eat it like a normal person without yogurt, which was my plan if it was still too hot. 

delicious and I'm definitely going to make it again and honestly, I'll probably save more meat as stew meat next deer I get instead of so much ground because this was so so so good. Also portion control was once again, a problem, because I have probably three or four cups of meat/sauce/potato and I managed to eat maybe a quarter cup with my rice last night. 

If anyone is interested in the recipe, I'll be posting it in a bit. I still need to type it up for my recipe folder with edits.