Russian "Winter" Salad

Winter Salad
Made this for book club tonight, since we were discussing The Master and Margarita. A Russian said it tasted really authentic.

For once, I'm going to be really specific about the directions, so watch out.

Winter Salad

4 potatoes for boiling (Yukon Gold works)
3 hard-boiled eggs
2 medium-large carrots
2 spring onions
a handful of fresh parsley
4 small gherkins
peas, canned in sugar, salt, and water
a few slices of ham
a few dollops of mayo and/or sour cream
most of a medium Granny smith green apple

• Scrub but do not peel the potatoes. Do not cut them up.
• Peel carrots but do not cut up.
• Boil potatoes and carrots in the same pot.
• When potatoes let a fork pierce them without much resistance, remove from pot, drain, and set aside to cool.
• Meanwhile, dice the gherkins into tiny pieces, like relish size.
• And chop the green onions into small chunks.
• And boil the ham if you need it. The ham shouldn't be like lunchmeat, it should be more substantial than that. Cut it into thinnish rectangles.
• Dice the eggs.
• Chop the parsley.
  
• When the potatoes and carrots are cool, peel the potatoes and cut them into bite-sized pieces.
  
• Chop up the carrots bigger than the gherkins.

Okay, now here's a tip: you eventually will be mixing all this together. But the more you mix it, the mushier everything gets. So I worked in layers, adding potato, egg, gherkin, carrot, onion, parsley, ham, peas (drained), and mayo.

THEN, dice up a slice of the apple. Dice really finely, as finely as you can. Add that to your layer and then mix gently. I used a spatula, wriggled it under everything, and turned everything over five times.

Repeat until everything is in there. Refrigerate for many hours to get all the flavors to mix. Serve cold as a side.

--BONUS RECIPE--

I didn't make this, but Erik brought it, and it was great. It may have made me like beets.

Borscht

First, sauté:

• onions
• garlic
• potatoes
• red cabbage
• celery

Then add that to:

• beef broth
• canned diced tomatoes
• canned beets

Stew for a long time.

Lentils And Everything You Got Soup

Sick. Paper, translation project, and exam yet to finish. Sentences... beyond my ability. But, recipe:

Lentils and Everything You Got Soup

lentils

stock (turkey)

onion

everything you got (can of tomatoes/okra/corn; can of mushroom pieces; bowl of cooked but left-sitting-for-2-weeks red kidney beans; leftover carrot--no, wait, it's rubbery; leftover fresh spinach; remainder of frozen chopped spinach)

seasoning (chili seasoning, parsley, curry powder)

Cook lentils til soft, drain.

Fry onions in butter. Add mushrooms halfway through. Stir-fry over high heat.

Thaw out homemade turkey stock (only 2 months old, not bad). Add a little lentil juice for good measure.

Combine lentils, onion, mushroom, and basically everything you got (except the spinach) into a big pot, and add the thawed stock. If the stock doesn't cover it all easily, add water and/or more stock, as long as the liquid doesn't get too watered down.

Bring to almost-boil, then reduce heat to simmer.

It's ready to eat whenever the flavor penetrates the red beans. Then add spinach and simmer for a few minutes more.

CAREFUL with that curry powder. Not even a teaspoonful.

Also, take the time to skim off the scum off the top. Don't say I didn't tell you.

Result: awesome.

My Old Friend, Mr. Blog

You ever pick up a book that you don't understand one bit, then take a class where the subject overlaps with the book's topic, then revisit the book afterwards, but not as if you were looking to test yourself and how you've developed, but more like you stumbled upon it when looking something up after a reference made in a conversation with your Dad whose interests overlap with yours exactly in the subject matter of this book, like, he's into philosophy and you're into math and the book's title is Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy? When that happens, isn't it awesome that you're like "hey, this totally makes more sense now!"

I've been done with classes for a week now and I had one day of extreme relaxation and satisfaction, then boredom settled in. I don't know what to do with myself. I felt a craving for a movie involving war and death, but friggin' Hollywood Video didn't have braveheart (!?), so I rented the first three episodes of Generation Kill instead. The next day I finished off the series. Sure, seven or so hours of tv will leave you feeling like you have a film of unproductivity slime covering your body, but I loved it. The problem was that I was hoping for something hollywoody and stylized and glorifying things, but this was just so real and made you feel moral hazards and gray areas and decision making hell. It was a bit heavier duty than I was expecting as an escape. Of course, I knew what to expect after seeing the creators' other show, The Wire - one of my favorite shows of all time, but still.

The boredom ends in two weeks when my summer semester starts. Meanwhile I get to dive more into my hobbies. In BJJ, I missed lots of guard passing lessons while studying for finals, which blows, but now I get to know all about leg locks. And in Tango gf and I may take private lessons because we think that's what we need at this point for further growth. There's also a dude in our class who proposed to me that we dance together outside of class for a while. He wants to learn how to follow (the man leads and the woman follows), and I do to, so we can alternate. I figure it'll make more sense in the future if I know what my counterpart is experiencing.

While I'm writing this Jimmy Fallon is bombing on the tv behind me. I hope he turns out better than this because it's just sad to watch. Nah, f*** it, I'll just enjoy watching the struggle.

Phew

Mid term and a computational project out of the way. One mid term left. That was a stressful week.

I've never done any computer programming except for a brief online tutorial I took once on html. Now I use matlab for a class. I have mixed feelings about the experience. Overall it was incredibly fun. It's extremely satisfying to type in a command and see all your efforts lead to one beautiful plot. It was very stressful, though, because I was trying to learn a whole lot of stuff at once for a deadline. I leaned pretty heavily on a former programmer friend of mine who had to put up with me for a couple of days saying "hey, dude, it's [h&c] again. Uh, how do you ______?"

My friend tells me that as far as programming goes matlab is very easy. That makes me excited to learn more.

I became compulsive with it and I felt like I was doing that empty vessel distant boyfriend thing during the past week. Glad that part's over.

One interesting part was finding out how juvenile I still am. When I was trying out simple programs just to learn syntax and such, I named them things like "eatme" and "gobblemy____." When I type "eatme" I think it gives out an collection of 8x8 random matrices :). I'm reminded of a novel where the main character was interacting with some programmers who created a virtual world. The dude went into this virtual world to do what he needed to do for the story then interacts with the virtual beautiful tour guide woman. When he mentions the programmer's name (we'll call him joe johnson), the woman chimes in with something like: "Joe Johnson is the greatest man alive."

Mexi-chuan Shrimp & Scallions

This weekend H-Mart was having a deal on scallions: 5 bunches for $0.98. Giant was having a sale on frozen shrimp: $8.98 for 2lbs (medium size shrimp). I searched in my Google Reader for recipes for these ingredients and found these two by Mark Bittman:

Sichuan Shrimp and Scallion Stir-fry

Chili-Fried Shrimp With Scallions

Both were excellent, but I liked the first one better for the unusually-green-oniony flavor. I had some shrimp left over and the scallions were due to go bad (I had purchased 6 bunches!), so I wanted to make the Sichuan one again. But I had 3/4 of an avocado to use up, plus I wanted more spiciness.

I added chili oil (the kind that you get on the side when you ask for it in Chinese restaurants) to the peanut oil before adding the shrimp. This made for a recurring kick throughout the meal that I enjoyed.

I started to add just a slice of the avocado, but then realized that my other avocado was going soft already. I decided to throw all 3/4 of it into the blender, plus a little lemon juice. I blended and BOOM, guacamole color instead of the vibrant verdancy of green onion. I tasted it and found I'd created a Mexican dish out of a Sichuan one.

It turned out really well. I had it on top of rice, but I'm wishing I had some tortillas to finish off the remainder.

Mexi-chuan Shrimp & Scallions

• Salt
• 3 bunches scallions, trimmed
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• avocado (maybe half? play with amount)
• dribble of lemon juice
  
• 1 pounds shrimp, peeled
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• one teaspoon of chili oil
  
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

First, if using frozen shrimp, take them out of the freezer and into a colander, and put them under cold running water (not too fast a stream). Shake them around every few minutes to distribute the flow of the water. They should be thawed in 15 min.

Boil water. Cut 2 bunches of scallions into 4-inch pieces. When water comes to a boil, dump these into the water and let cook for only a minute (just getting them bright green). Then drain, saving liquid for smoother pureeing. Then plunge scallions into icewater. Then drain again, not reserving the liquid. Put scallions, garlic, avocado, lemon juice, and a little of the scallion liquid into blender and puree.

"Roughly" chop the remaining scallions and cilantro. Peel shrimp if necessary.

Heat oil on high, adding a spoonful of the chili oil (with lots of the chili flakes). When chili flakes begin to sizzle, add shrimp and spread out on bottom of pan. Pinch some salt on top of them. Do not stir (for some reason) until sides look a little pink (a minute or less). Then stir to your heart's content. When everything looks pink, add the "roughly" chopped cilantro and scallions. Stir-fry for a minute. Then add avocado-scallion puree. Season to heart's content. Cook until everything's warm. Serve on rice or in a tortilla.

The Know-It-All Dilemma

3/16 Edit: writing this post merely vented steam and prevented me from writing an ill-advised email. Will delete soon enough. 3/19 RE-EDIT: Cut this post down to three questions and a statement.

What can you do with a person who says they don't like you because you and che (non-gender-specific pronoun) are both know-it-alls?

Doesn't J.K. Rowling decide whether her character is gay or not?

Is anybody really entertained or enlightened by Andy Rooney any more?

I am not a know-it-all, though I understand if it seems like it at times; I state strong opinions and often am wrong, but I never take it personally if you disagree.

Tearing It Up 2: Tearing It Down

Here's what I imagined occurred in the minds of the Hatandcoat blog's readers over the past week, in chronological order:

1. "Huh, no food posts. Aak probably forgot."
   
   
2. "Wait, no posts about the Baltimore Breakfast Feast and the crepes Aak made for it? What's going on?"
   
   
3. "Huh, no food posts, still."
   
   
4. "No food posts. It was kind of a silly thing to blog about anyway."
   
   
5. "No posts so far this week."
   
   
6. "..."
   
   
7. "What the hell is Aak eating? I MUST KNOW."

I apologize for creating a(n imaginary) demand and then refusing to fulfill that (imaginary) demand.

I got sick. Again.

The cold was on the edge of my awareness on Saturday, and so I packed very warm pajamas for my sleepover in Baltimore. I also started taking a multivitamin, echinacea, and zinc. All to no avail. I was feeling fine during the making of the Sunday Breakfast Feast, but afterwards, my sinuses began the long melt downwards. By Sunday evening, I was a puddle of congestion, coughing, and overall bleckiness.

Then I had a snow day, which is clearly evidence for the existence of Providence. I made lentil soup with cabbage, about which I will blog later, perhaps.

I made so much that I ate at least double portions of lentil soup for Monday dinner, Tuesday for all three meals, and Wednesday for all three meals.

I started biking again on Thursday morning, just in time for the warm-up. Very nice.

Now that I'm feeling better (still coughing, but it's not too bad), the question is, do I persist in detailing nutritional decisions and exercise quotients, or do I find another way to fill the empty space on this here blog?

I'm leaning towards stopping. It was interesting to focus so much on exactly how much I was eating, what portion size, and so on. I think I've internalized it pretty well, for now. As for the exercise, recording it or not made little difference in how much I biked, but I liked getting the stats. In a sense, I was trying to "game-ify" my life.

While posting daily was valuable and insightful (to me), I think I could derive some benefit from writing such posts weekly instead of daily. It wouldn't be scientific, but it might just be less annoying to you guys. If I really wanted to get scientific about it, I could enter calorie amounts into a worksheet and get real numbers... which leads into the second reason I'm thinking of stopping: inadequate time to navelgaze.

(I've slimmed down to the point where I can fit into my tightest jeans. I probably won't be able to maintain this state of affairs, but it's nice for today, when I have to wash my standard jeans.)

End Program.