nathan and audrey

I write tonight to inform you, my readers, as well as make a commitment myself, that I’m going to start blogging in a different style. I think one of the reasons (one of many that is) I haven’t blogged for so long is that I was concerned with the fact that I was putting information onto an open forum that other people will read. As such I think I raised the bar too high (as another post discusses) and made it more about work and not about relaxing and just talking about what’s on my mind and heart.

Therefore, I am going to focus more on just blogging. Blogging about what is going on in my mind and my view of the world. This viewpoint is indelibly and ineludibly going to be fraught with frivolous and incorrect statements, but I’m not too worried about making that mistake. I think in life we are in a constant state of uncertainty — if not on the minor scale there certainly exists larger issues and concepts — and in such a state we must take each of the inputs in our lives and use those to come up with some type of worldview; an idea of how we perceive, think about, and react to the things we are seeing. This is the approach I intend to take on more things in life. I must begin to live in the now and not be concerned with the mythical concept of a perfect or right way to do things. I simply must be and do the best that I can.

I also want to explore language too. I really like the use of the exact word, and hopefully I will achieve these results in my writing. So if I use something terribly, please let me know. Okay?

::nathan::

Hi all!

Yes, it’s been around a year since I last posted. But, don’t fear, for I shall post again. Right now in fact. I just performed a major upgrade to my Gentoo installation and also switched from Apache to the Lighty webserver. I will say that it is a bad idea to attempt two major changes in your system at the same time. I instantly had some tremendous errors that appeared to be the problem of the webserver switch, but in fact turned out to be a PHP linking issue in Gentoo.

I decided to switch to lighty mostly because I heard it was smoking fast, and I’m a systems guy that likes to try new stuff out every once in a while. I’d like to offer up some notes on the process and what I think about Lighty.

Lighty has a simple configuration approach. I suppose it isn’t too different than that of Apache’s, but I liked it a bit better. I should be careful in how I state why I liked Lighty because most likely all of the things I configured could be done in Apache as well. With that said I liked how the Lighty configuration file is parsed as though it were a programming language. In fact it appears as though the config file is/can be parsed as straight Lua code. This felt more intuitive for me as I set up the virtual hosts. Lighty uses something called conditionals to test the current requested host for matches. To set up a virtual host all one has to do is put code in like the following:

$HTTP["host"] =~ "nathanandaudrey.com" {
server.document-root = "/var/www/nathanandaudrey.com/htdocs/"
}

As you can see that is the vhost configuration for nathanandaudrey.com.

In migrating, I had to deal with two major problems. The first, was to deal with permalink issues and the second was a problem with a plugin, which I promptly deleted. It seems as though permalinks cause issues with Lighty because there isn’t an .htaccess file for access control. I’m not sure why this is a problem. It appears as though WordPress uses these in some way to control symlink following and such. To solve the issue I reviewed the solutions at http://blog.forret.com/2007/03/urlrewrite-for-wordpress-on-lighttpd/. I was unable to get the full site working, so if you find glitches please be patient as I attempt to figure things out.

Overall, I’m not using any complicated configuration or dealing with massive performance needs. Lighty does extremely well under heavy load, but will be left untested in my system.

::nathan::

I doubt many midwestern restaurants feature Green Chile Stew on their menus, but where we’re from, it’s a staple. We snub our noses at poor quality green chile stew and angrily throw sub-par bowls of the mislabeled sludge against the wall. Perhaps that’s a bit extreme. But we certainly think about it.

Until yesterday, I had never made green chile stew, mostly because finding good green chile here is difficult, and I didn’t want to waste any of my dwindling stock for experimental purposes. Still, the mood struck, and I had to roll with it.

Green Chile Stew, a la Audrey
Serves 2

• 1 can chicken broth
• 1 medium russet potato, cubed
• 1/2 cup cooked and shredded chicken breast
• 1/2 tbsp. chicken better than bouillon
• splash of olive oil
• 1/4 onion, chopped into large pieces
• 2-3 heaping tablespoons of green chile (more of less depending on your chile’s natural heat and whether you want to burn your tastebuds off)
• 1/2 cup corn
• salt and pepper to taste

1) In a small crockpot, add the chicken broth, potato, shredded chicken, and chicken bouillon.

2) Heat up a bit of olive oil in a small sauce pan, then saute the onion and green chile until the onion is soft and transparent. Then add to the crockpot.

3) Thirty minutes before stew is to be served, add the corn. It’s important to let this simmer for some time–the stew-like qualities come from the dissolution of the potatoes. I let mine cook for six hours total.

4) Serve with warm flour tortillas, and if the chile is really hot, a glass of milk.

PS-The wonderful thing about green chile stew is that you can substitute. The chicken can be substituted with ground beef or shredded pork. Diced tomatoes lend a yummy flavor. Some people add lard to liven it up. Oh, the possibilities!

Hello!

Recently, we participated in an iron chef party: secret ingredient parsnip/persimmon. Fun, right?

We took this:

And transformed it into this:

Awesome, right? (BTW, that’s a parsnip and persimmon spice cupcake with ginger cream cheese frosting.)

For a more detailed account and the our recipe and its inspiration, check out Twenty-Fingered Cooking, where we’ve written up a piece on our daring adventure.

PS-Did I mention we had a lot of fun?

Last week I got to talking with a writer buddy of mine who drinks green smoothies every morning for breakfast. We writer folk are weird, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around a green smoothie until she told me the principle ingredient was raw spinach.

Um, gross much?

But then she went on about how the spinach wasn’t noticeable, and how these smoothies kept her full until lunch time. Trying to find a breakfast food to keep me full until lunch time has been near impossible, and if the addition of spinach to an otherwise fruit and goodness filled beverage would do it, then hallelujah! I’m more than happy to give it a whirl.

I present you, my very first “green” smoothie.

It’s not very green, though I’ll be honest, I threw a disgusting amount of spinach into the blender. At least as much as the fruit and banana I used. Granted, spinach is fluffy, so perhaps that skewed my color results. And I can taste the spinach, thanks-a-latte, but it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

I will let you know on the keeping-me-full thing.

Ingredients:

• one small banana
• 1/2 cup of frozen mixed berries (or really whatever frozen fruit you want to use)
• a big honkin’ handful of spinach leaves
• 1/4 orange juice

Apparently kale leaves are one substitution for the spinach, and other possible ingredients include plain yogurt–I imagine Greek yogurt would be lovely and add a bunch of protein–as well as flax seed oil, honey, milk, etc. I like the idea that you can throw whatever you’d like into the blender and pop out a relatively healthy drink. For all I know, this thing is loaded with calories, but as I’ve never been one to count calories, whatev. I just finished kicking back my first ever “green” smoothie, and while I’m disappointed that it didn’t achieve the glorious vibrant green of certain pictures I saw, if it keeps me full, I’ll eat ‘em. I mean, drink ‘em.

{Edit 12/15} The smoothie did not keep me full. However, I have to factor in that I’m currently producing food for another human being (El Garbanzo) so there’s a possibility that it may have kept me full otherwise. To be continued…

After breakfast, I decided to conquer the leaves in our front yard. There were a lot, but I thought to myself, one hour. Tops!

I raked them into several nice piles. That took about fifteen minutes.

Nathan came and joined me.

The bag decided to eat me. (Also, I can apparently be purchased at Wal-mart if you’re interested.)

Garbanzo woke up from his nap and had a lot of advice to give. Sue, his dinosaur, also added some constructive feedback.

Two hours later, between two adults, we managed this. There are nine bags waiting at the curb. Yikes!

For next weekend, the backyard……

Hello!

Oh wait. You’re over there.

That’s better. Hi! How are you? I have so many things to tell you!

Being six months old is awesome. Still no teeth, though my favorite thing in the world is to chew on anything I can stick in my mouth. I’m learning how to roll around on the floor, and I’ve been told I have the motor skills of a seven month old. (Not that you are surprised.)

That’s my dad. He’s starting to teach me how to wrestle, and he tickles me and snuggles me and throws me up into the air. My mom would like me to add that he throws me *gently* with no risk to my health because she would stomp on him if he did such a thing.

I guess that’s about it. I’m hungry. As you can tell by my voluminous rolls, I like to eat frequently. Time to get my grub-grub face on!

When Nathan is scheduled to leave town for a few days, I always get excited and think of all the delicious things I am going to cook in his absence. Before you start murmuring about what a hateful woman I am, I’m talking about things that Nathan dislikes, and, in some cases, would use the word “loathe.” Big steaming pots of baked beans, fresh green beans sauteed in garlic with grilled chicken, and my absolute favorite Nathan-loathes-it-dish, lemon chicken. And whenever he leaves, I always wind up eating the same couple of dishes: cereal and peanut butter and jelly on toast. (Somehow toasting the bread makes it more sophisticated.)

This last trip, I was determined to break the cereal cycle and actually make something worth eating. True, I did have one PB&J toast meal, but I jazzed it up with apple juice and a banana. My crowning glory was a pasta dish I made that I am still thinking about. In fact, when I talked to Nathan, I bragged about how yummy it was and how he missed it. He asked me how it was so tasty, and in fact, I’m not sure. I didn’t go crazy with anything, try a new ingredient, or even deviate much from my classical cooking education (ha!) But it still managed to turn out glorious, and I thought you might like to know how to make some of this for yourself!

Pasta for One
(aka, let’s get rid of everything in my fridge that may be turning shifty in the near future)

Serves 2, took me about 20 minutes to get from basic ingredients to my table

• Two servings of pasta–I used penne
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• a couple of handfuls of sliced baby bella mushrooms
• 1/2 cup of dry red wine
• 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• pinch of crushed red pepper
• 1/2 cup cooked ground beef
• 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce–I used a tomato and basil version
• 1/2 cup mozzarella

I made a lasagna last week (which sadly wasn’t that exciting), so I had some leftover ingredients hanging out in my fridge. What else was I going to use the last of the jar of tomato sauce on? Or the tiny amount of ground beef? And those amazing baby bella mushrooms (which I have a really hard time locating, for some reason) could not go to waste. It would be a crime. I added my pasta to a boiling pot on a back burner and turned on the medium heat on one of the front underneath a medium pan. As you might’ve guessed, I started with the olive oil and the garlic, sauteed that about half a minute before throwing in the wine and the mushrooms. I didn’t time it, but I let the wine cook down.

Once the mushrooms were soft and yummy-looking, I added in the ground beef and the dried seasonings. I whirled everything around in the pan stirred for about a minute. I turned the temp down to low and let the pan’s contents make friends until the pasta was done, approximately 3 minutes.

Now, you are probably telling yourself, this is the part where I throw the sauce onto the pasta and say grace and eat my food. Wrong! That’s normally what I would do. But this was my special meal while my husband was away! I had to do something crazy! (And join the kajillions of peeps who already do pasta this way.)

I threw the drained pasta into my saucepan and stirred everything. While I’ve mixed white pasta sauces and noodles together in a pan before, never ever ever have I done that with red sauces. It seemed slightly…wrong. But! Before I could think further on the error of my ways my ingenious new idea, I doused my soon-to-be-dinner in the mozzarella cheese, gave the pan one last spin with my spatula, and plated that fantastic smelling mess of goodness.

It was wonderful. And though there was quite a bit of food, I still stick by my original idea: I made pasta for one. There may have been enough for two, but the leftovers swiftly went into the fridge with a large sign on them that may have hinted at severe and painful penalties if anyone other than myself so much as looked at my pasta the wrong way.

I did feel a little sorry for the Bean. I was eating this delectable dish, and what was he left for dinner? Carrots. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

My first experience with pesto happened when I was in my third or fourth year of university studies. After one taste, I was shamed. Why was I not introduced to such a wonderful dish earlier in my life? While we flirted with each other over the tines of my fork, it was still another couple of years before our next encounter. Now I’m trying to regularize the connection, and learning how to make the dish would go a long way.

But pesto seemed so intimidating! So scary! So…I don’t know. My father, the amazing cook of lore, is not a pesto dude. He does not have a love-love relationship. (Which explains my late introduction, a sin for which I have nearly forgiven my father.) And when I was informed that pesto was not only super easy to make, but also contained only a handful of ingredients, I was in disbelief. (Happy disbelief, might I add.)

I found a recipe for pesto in my newest cookbook, Cook This, Not That, and went from there. By the by, this cookbook is awesome because it’s full of color and pictures, but I also find the sections at the beginning of the chapters very informative. They have a chart on grains, a chart of dairy, and a chart on meats that rank them from best to worst. For some reason, that kind of information makes me giddy with power.

The pesto I made was inspired by CTNT’s recipe:

• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp walnuts
• 3 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Easy, right? Except I do not grow basil, and I was unwilling to spend the ridiculous amount of money my local grocery store demanded for a small handful of basil leaves. Enter The Farmer’s Market. HUGE bag of basil for $2.00. That’s more like it. And except pine nuts (which I did not have on hand) I used walnuts (because that’s what I did have). I ground everything up in my food processor and voila! I had pesto genovese.

But now that I had it…oh, what to do with it? I went back to my roots and attempted the dish that introduced me to pesto. I didn’t measure anything because I’m trying to be more fluid with my cooking, so if you try to recreate this, you’ll have to be brave. I’ll try and provide guesstimates where possible.

Chicken and Mushroom Pesto Pasta for Two

• 2 tbsp. butter, separated
• clove of garlic, minced
• 8-9 ounces white wine (I used chardonnay)
• 6-8 ounces mushrooms
• 2 chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
• enough pasta for two, any type will do
  
• 1/2 of the above pesto recipe
• parmesan to sprinkle on top
• salt and pepper to taste
  

First, I melted 1 tbsp. butter over medium heat and sauteed 1/2 clove of garlic, minced. Next, I added 3-4 ounces of white wine and let that reduce for 60 seconds before throwing in 6-8 ounces of mushrooms. I sauteed everything until the mushrooms were soft, and I was left with beautiful, tasty garlicky mushrooms in a white wine butter sauce. I threw everything in a bowl and set it aside.

I kicked up the heat to medium high and melted another tbsp. of butter in the same, unwashed pan to preserve the yummy goodness left behind by the mushrooms. I added the other 1/2 of my garlic clove, minced, and sauteed before adding in probably 4-5 ounces of white wine. That reduced for 60 seconds before I tossed in the chicken. At this point I also sprinkled a little bit of kosher salt and a few twists of fresh ground pepper, but you certainly needn’t do that. Cooked the chicken until done, set in a bowl, and put aside.

While the chicken was cooking, I put two portions of pasta into boiling water and set my timer. I used rotini, but that doesn’t mean other pastas wouldn’t be just as lovely. We eat a lot of rotini here.

Once the pasta was cooked and drained, I gathered all of my ingredients: mushrooms, chicken, pasta, a small bowl of grated parmesan, and pesto! Salt and pepper were also close at hand. I had to retire my smaller pan because everything wouldn’t fit, and I threw the chicken, the mushrooms, and the pasta into my largest skillet. I added about 3/4 of the pesto I made from the above pesto recipe, which was probably a mistake. Next time I’ll go slower and only use 1/3-1/2. (The pasta was very pesto-y.) I cooked everything until it was warm, then added the parmesan and plated it.

It was awesome. Too much pesto, but otherwise super tasty and easy to make. So make it!

Mommy says it’s fall, and fall brings football season. I don’t entirely know what football is yet. I also don’t understand why my daddy sometimes wakes me up from naps because he’s hollering at the TV, or my mommy will talk about how dumb certain coaches look, or my parents will both groan about some dude named Musburger.

But that’s okay. You know what I think football is good for?

Snacktime.