truly random

Want some fascinating insight into the incredibly professional way that I organize my blog content? Because I’m obviously so timely and thoughtful about the pictures and text that go into this blog, a venture that gains me a huge amount of sponsorship and money?

</sarcasm>

So it’s incredibly sophisticated (not). I have a folder on my desktop entitled, rather obviously, “recent blog pix”. Sometimes the pictures I find on my camera organize themselves into fairly obvious themes (though that “Berkeley Springs” folder refers to a trip Steve and I took in, oh, August, which I still haven’t blogged about).

Others, though, get sent to the “random” folder til I figure out what to do with them.

Then some of them end up (sort of) sticking with a similar theme, and I can organize them once again into sub-folders.

Occasionally, though, I end up with something- yes, you can read- “truly random”.

Thus this post.

Some things in the random folder are a single snapshot of a moment I found amusing and/or delicious looking.

Steve and I took a walk on our trail, which goes right by a Whole Foods, where I always always stop to go to the bathroom. If we make purchases there, they are generally predictable- mine are obnoxiously food blogg-y and his are in very large quantities.

I won’t make you guess whose is whose.

 

Sometimes the things I put in the “random” folder encompass a single occasion but are not in and of themselves enough for an entire post. For example, if they’re taken somewhere poorly lit and I am too lazy to get off the couch and take pictures somewhere they’ll look nice.

Like last night’s rather tragic playoff game (if I knew where RGIII lived I would bake him some brownies and bring theme over. Poor kiddo.)

This picture was taken early in the game, when we foolishly believed we were doing great, had tons of positive momentum, etc. (In all seriousness, I care very little about the Redskins and sports. And limited exposure to football has really not properly insulated me to the reality that there are a LOT OF FOOTBALL TEAMS, and only ONE of them actually wins. That’s how the sport works. Yeah, duh, but when you watch football oh, twice a year, you get way more emotionally involved than is prudent).

I hadn’t planned on being hungry for a meal at 4 in the afternoon (…) but Steve brought out some gorgeous sourdough and some delicious apple and strawberry butters he and his roommmate’d bought when they were down hiking in the Shenandoahs.

DANG. My blood sugar spiking never tasted so good (well yes it did.)

  

Steve also made somewhat healthier his and hers parfaits, which involved plain yogurt, frozen blueberries, raw oats, and chopped almonds. I don’t have to say which is which.

The main event, which was mad tasty, was a big platter of stuffed peppers. Steve made up the stuffing which included rice, beans, veggies, and cheese. All pretty standard, til he had the idea to put a fried egg on top.

He was distraught when he broke the yolk of the one going on top of his. I took a picture anyway, plus the one of the filling on mine (I was so full from the other components of the meal I could only eat about half of it).

 

Quite nice.

Another random picture: someone was sick and I made them a tray of hot and sour soup. You know all you really need for hot and sour soup? Chicken broth (or even just veggie), an egg (break it in while the broth is boiling, stir constantly with a fork), soy sauce, hot sauce, and vinegar. Anything else is optional.

   

Here’s a meal I ate a long time ago I’m just now sharing.

Fact: I do well when I make food in advance and I can just reheat. Probably because once I find myself hungry I am HUNGRY. IMMEDIATELY. AND HAVE TO EAT IMMEDIATELY. And when I don’t have that advanced preparation, things like handfuls of cereal too often end up in my mouth.

So I made some whole wheat calzones- yum! You can put basically any leftovers (vegetables are always a good addition, obviously) in calzone dough.

This one involved beef and green peppers, yum. Truthfully I can’t remember if this is one of the ones I made with Mexican seasoning (cumin, tomatoes, etc.) or Chinese seasoning (ginger, hoisin sauce, etc.) Both incarnations were good, and invaluable when eating lunch in a hurry.

Rounding out the meal, I made a salad out of shaved summer squash ribbons (yum), shaved parmesan (yum), olive oil and lemon juice and BASIL, which I’m sure I grew, which shows you how old these pictures are.

Also some kind of yogurt with some kind of fruit puree.

 

And one of my many vices, diet soda. With How to Cook Everything Vegetarian in the background, since it is one of my favorite cookbooks and I read it for fun.

In retrospect, this meal was kind of huge. But I certainly don’t remember having any difficulty eating it.

      

I have seriously no clue what the deal is with these.

Clearly these are dishes of brownies and bread pudding.

I make both a lot.

I have no idea what I made these for. NO IDEA. Hope it was fun. And that people ate them.

Here was a nice family party. My aunt Dena had people over when my cousin Rachel, her husband Richard, and their bambino Jack were in town. They were visiting from Austin, TX, the city where many of my friends and family seem to’ve made a mass exodus. A city with amazing food and even better music. A city Steve is visiting next week and I am not because of stupid class.

Anyway, all the food was (par for the course) excellent.

 

Particularly noteworthy was this dish that’s a specialty of my aunt Kathy: baked brie with fig jam, wrapped in puff pastry (I mean come on…) served with tart green apple slices.

Do I even have to tell you how good this was?

 

Finally, I love Scrabble, particularly since Steve and I quit keeping score. We have an essential difference in worldviews: I like using clever and impressive vocabulary words… he likes getting obscene numbers of points. He’s one of those terrible people who knows all of the two letter words containing q in the dictionary. But not keeping score is where it’s at, man. It resulted in Steve playing this awesome word that I had to photograph.

And thus concludes the January 2013 randomness dump. Based on my attention span and sense of humor, I have no doubt there will be many more to come.