Thai Corn Chowder

I'm looking for ways to use up last years frozen foods still in the freezer, to make room for the new frozen foods I will want to replace them with over the summer.  Last trip to the Portland library, I found a slew of cookbooks in the NEW section, one of which offered up this recipe.  I suspect that the library does not love it when I actually use their cookbooks for COOKING, as opposed to just reading them on the couch or in my lawn chair in the sun.  I was careful though.  I kept the cookbook far away from the stove on its very own plastic bin.  This soup was simple, and delicious, and gluten/dairy free.  It was supposed to be vegetarion as well, but I was out of veggie broth base and replaced it with a packet of chicken base.  I suspect the secret to this is the farmer's market corn on the cob that I cut off the cob and froze last fall.  It was delightful in this soup.  I kept meaning to have just one cup with supper, and inevitably went back for more.

Thai Corn Chowder

125 Gluten Free Vegetarian Recipes

Carol Fenster, PHD

2 cups yellow corn (fresh or frozen)

2 cups unpeeled diced red potatoes

1/2 cups finely diced yellow onion

2 Tbsp grated ginger root

1 sm garlic clove, chopped

2 cups GF vegtetable broth

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 Tbsp grated lemon zest

1 can light coconut milk

10 lg fresh basil leaves, chopped

10 lg fresh mint leaves, chopped

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, divided

salt/ground black pepper, to taste

2 whole limes, halved

In heavy med saucepan, bring corn, potatoes, onion, ginger, garlic, broth, salt, red pepper flakes and lemon zest to a boil over high heat.  Add water if necessary to cover.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, 25-30 min, until potatoes are tender.  Add coconut milk, basil, mint, and half of the cilantro, and bring to serving temperature.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve in warmed soup bowls, garnished with remaining cilantro and lime halves. 



The License Plate Game

My sisters and brother and I grew up playing the "License Plate Game" during the summer.  Summer in Maine (not calendar summer) runs between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  During this time frame; we challenge ourselves to find license plates from all the US States; and being in close proximity to Canada; as many provinces as we can.  It used to be just all of us working together; but apparently it has evolved into contest between houses.

My sister in North Conway is currently in 1st place.  North Conway may have a slight advantage at the license plate game.  At least until we spend a day wandering parking lots in Freeport.

Now I'm sharing this game with Jupiter.

The game has also evolved into supplemental school.  And to be completely honest; we did supplemental school today instead of the math review worksheet that came home in her folder.  Now when we find out-of-state license plates; I send Jupiter at the end of the day to locate all the states we find on her wall map.  Today we got to find Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Florida.  And just something I found weird; Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Michigan were all parked in driveways on our bitty one way street. And I admit, I didn't recognize Michigan when we drove by and had to back up in the middle of the street to see what it was.  And if Tammy's Mom hadn't been out around town somewhere, we would have seen Vermont too.  As soon as I get around to getting some new stickers, we can put stickers on the laminated wall map.

Then we had a conversation about why we might see some states more often than other states.  When I asked her why this would be, Jupiter came up with "Some states are more closer" all by herself.  We also discussed how some states have more people than other states, and how Florida is further away, but like her friend Jesse's grandparents; lots of people here go to "vacation" in Florida during the winter.

So then Jupiter decided she wanted to assign points to all the states.  So we had to figure out which state we would be LEAST likely to see.  ("Can you drive a car from Hawaii to Maine?  No. Can you drive a car from Alaska to Maine?  Yes.).

I did actually see a car from Hawaii in the parking lot at Mart of Walls last week.  My other sister the referee says it does not count because it was the day BEFORE Memorial Day and not actually Memorial Day.  But for our house, it counts.  I'm not likely to see a license plate from  Hawaii again unless I actually move there.  Although I have hope that if they actually shipped a car here from Hawaii, they're planning to stick around awhile, and we may see them again.

Anyway, we also made a list of all the states (and provinces) to go on the wall next to the map.  I asked Jupiter if we should sort them geographically or alphabetically.  She said alphabetically.  Of course.  Alphabetizing is a great skill to work on.  It took me a really long time to alphabetize 50 states and the District of Columbia. It took me a long time to make a non alphabetized list of 50 states and the District of Columbia.  I had to look at the map because I was about five short.  I skipped Nebraska.  And Nevada.  Guess I don't like N states.  And there's that one Canadian Provicne that I can never remember (Manitoba).

Maybe the way we go to Freeport, we'll take a list and just mark off how many times we see each state.  Graphing, anyone?  I bet we can find things to do with this game all summer.  But apparently I need a wall map of Canada.  Maybe we'll have to go to the Delorme Map Store in Yarmouth.  They're sure to have a Canadian wall map.  And the world's largest globe.

Yes, I am a geek. 

Suprise Wild Strawberries

The volunteer wild strawberries in my garden have borne fruit.  As I recall, last year I was picking wild strawberries the third week of June, so they are a bit early. Which is good, since they have spread to the point of taking up a large part of the garden itself, but once they've blossomed and I know they're going to set fruit, I can't bear to uproot them. 
So on Saturday, we were picking berries.  Jupiter ate them fresh off the plants, despite the dirt, but I managed to hoard a small handful.  Not near enough for jam.  But maybe enough to flavor something else.
I had some fresh homemade yogurt that had already had the whey strained from it.  So I popped that into the donvier ice cream maker with 1/3 cup of sugar and the garden strawberries.
It froze into a delightful frozen yogurt in just about 10 minutes.
Completely excellent frozen yogurt, with still a nice yogurty tang to it.  And Jupiter didn't like it because she thought it tasted too yogurty.  So now I don't have to share it with her. 
Then I had to make more yogurt, so I can make more frozen yogurt.

I adore the yogurt maker and the ice cream maker.  Someday when I win the lottery, I am going to stay home and cook delicious food all day.

Jupiter's Ride a Thon Link

http://www.razoo.com/story/2012-Ride-A-Thon-1?referral_code=share#.T72FUlhOFwQ.facebook

AAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jupiter wants to know what this means.

I've been telling her for the last 20 minutes; at least.

Obviously it's not working.

Calendars

I cleaned my desk at work today.

Typically I'm so busy working as fast as humanly possible, I don't notice everything on my desk.  This is a relatively slow week; so I cleared the drawers and desk top and confidentially destructed a zillion pieces of paper. 

And the sheer number of calendars was revealed.

My desk calendar tracks the work meetings, appointments, birthdays, and activities; and the dates my numerous passwords get changed.

My regular monthly calender serves to track my PTO and if I just need to know what day of the week a particular date fell on.

My PTO calendar tells me when other people on the floor are not scheduled to be at work; or even better, when I am not scheduled to be at work.

The school district calender tracks no school days, early dismissal days, and the Last Day of School (30 1/2 more days).

So I thought for awhile about how that was just TOO.  MANY. CALENDARS.

Then I added a bunch of appointments and meetings to the email calendar.

Then about an hour later I saw the Baby Blues Page a Day Calendar.  That one serves no function other than to make me laugh because my life shows up in the pages so very often.


When I got home, Jupiter and I had to go through the hot lunch menu calendar.  She hasn't touched a hot lunch since kindergarten, until about two weeks ago.  Now she's all about the hot lunch.  So we had to post that on the fridge.

Which reminds me, I forgot to reset Jupiter's magnetic perpetual calendar for the new month. 

Active Kitchen

I love when my kitchen is actively cooking but I am not actively in it.

The yogurt machine is incubating.

Dried chickpeas are boiling away on the stove so I can freeze them to use for recipes.  I read somewhere (actually I think many somewheres) about how its cheaper to boil up the dried ones and freeze them; than to buy the cans all the time.  Plus you don't get the BPA from the cans in the food.  I bought the dried chickpeas a month ago, but hadn't gotten around to boiling them up yet, and finally ran out of canned chickpeas to work with. 

The bread dough is NOT rising, because I forgot to buy flour yesterday to make soudough bread.  I love the recipe, but it's very flour intensive.  But never fear, soon enough we will be making some pizza crust to rise for  Sunday supper pizza.  Not sourdough crust though.  Jupiter will eat homemade pizza if I make Plain Pizza Crust, so that's what we make.  Added olive oil makes everything better though.

A few weeks ago it was Mango week.  Last spring I happened to be in WFM one day, when they were handing out mango samples so we jumped right in line.  And it turned out they were Champagne mangos.  I've also seen them called yellow mangos or some other name which probably references where they are grown, but I can't remember exactly what it is.  They were totally sweeter and not stringy or fibrous and it was the most delicious mango I had ever eaten, so I bought and ate bunches of them.  Even Jupiter ate them last year. Then the season ended, and I waited and waited and waited for spring to come again so I could buy more of them.

Finally Mango Week rolled around again.  This year I bought a whole case of them; on a Tuesday after swim class.

By Sunday morning they were still in the case, moving quickly beyond the ripe stage.

Thus began the day of "active cooking".  By 7am, I was up and scalding milk for the new yogurt, straining the whey out of the last of the old yogurt and cutting up 17 mangos.  Also had to cut up a pineapple for Jupiter because during our last visit to WFM, the sample was fresh pineapple and Jupiter tried it and liked it.

Odd how if I hand her something and tell her to try it she won't, but if store person hands her something to try she will.  But it's a healthy choice, so whatver workds.

By 9am the yogurt was incubating and I had made 8 jars of mango freezer jam, and put the rest of the mango cubes into bags in the freezer. Finished straining the old batch of yogurt, and put away the cut up pineapple in the fridge.  It feels like I made something else that day too, but I don't remember what it happened to be.  It might have been the loads of laundry in between the fruit and yogurt processing.

Then we went to church.

Jupiter does not want me to post the picture of her stirring the sugar into the mango.

So today, the appliances are doing most of the work.  And I will shortly be repotting some baby plants into bigger pots while the appliances are doing their thing. 

Weekends should be longer. Or workdays should be shorter.