Slow Food Festival in Italy

Food for Peace? Sounds like a good idea to me! Read all about it here.

Sgooooood

I haven't posted a recipe lately, and here's why. Every day for lunch, Dan and I eat curry. We cook one night, and eat lunch for two days. Every night for supper, we eat soup. We cook one night, and eat for two. It all works out quite nicely, cause I cook the curry and the soup on the same night, and have the next night off. Since Daniel cooks on weekends, I cook two nights a week, and he cooks probably twice on the weekend (and the other weekend meals vary from week to week, what with leftovers and functions, and also we sometimes cook together then.) So, anyway, the curry recipes are either recipes I've posted before, or recipes I figure you might not like (like ground lamb...I'm almost certain nobody buys that). And as for the soups, almost every single soup we eat comes from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. Actually, I think they all do. So there you go. So we've got the pink cookbook for curry, and the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook for soup. Come to think of it, that one's pink, too, because the one we're using is a special breast cancer edition.

Fart Ammo

Otherwise known as soup beans! I made up a big ol' batch yesterday when I was feeling down. Nothing cheers you up like the giggles brought on by a serious case of the farts!

So, here's how I made soup beans yesterday:

2 lbs pinto beans
large pot
water
salt
chili powder
diced dehydrated onion
garlic powder
cumin
can of cut cooked carrots
catsup

sort out any bad beans or pebbles missed at the factory. Put beans in pot. Cover with cold water. I was always told to remove the beans that immediately float, because they're bad, too. So I did. Add some salt to the water. Bring to boil over medium-high heat. Allow to boil for two minutes. Turn off heat and allow to soak in water for one hour.

Dump out water and rinse beans. Recover beans with water and put back on stove over medium heat. Add however much garlic, onions, chili powder, cumin and whatever other spices as you think will be yummy. Once it starts to boil, cut back to a simmer. Allow to simmer for about three hours, or until the beans are slightly mushy. At some point, add a can of cooked carrots, or diced tomatoes, or whatever else you think might be yummy on that particular day (sensing a theme here?).

Once beans are cooked, dish into bowl, squirt in however much catsup you think might be yummy (I told you there was a theme) and stir up. Eat and enjoy. In about an hour, let the farting fun begin!!!! Woo hooo!

If you like cornbread, the Jiffy premixed is always yummy and easy to fix to go with this.

"Tis the Season...

...for mulled wine, apparently. Actually, a random conversation last night with one of my favorite people sparked my curiosity about mulled wine. Never had it, heard it's good. So I surfed the 'net to find a recipe.

A Modern yet Traditional Mulled Wine Recipe:

2 lemons
2 oranges
1 - 750 ml bottle of medium, to full, bodied red wine Nutmeg (to taste)
Cloves (to taste)
1 oz brandy or Cognac (or to taste)
1 cup (250 ml) granulated sugar (optional)
Herbal or citrus influenced tea (optional but excellent)
Water (optional softener instead of tea)
4 large cinnamon sticks
4 candy canes


Instructions for making four large portions
-Cut lemons and oranges into slices.
-Pour the red wine into saucepan and gradually heat.
-Add fruit slices, nutmeg, cloves and brandy.
-Keep an eye on the mixture and wait until it becomes hot to the touch.
-At this point you could blend in sugar or water (if desired).
-Pour into glasses/mugs and add tea (to taste).
-Garnish with cinnamon stick and candy cane.

Serve


I found this recipe at http://www.thewineman.com/mulled_ns.htm. There are all sorts of neat suggestions, such as to NOT boil the wine, and instructions on pre-mixing this and heating it by the glass in the microwave. Once it actually gets cold enough here to have some, I'll try this recipe. Oh, wait, it NEVER gets cold here! I almost forgot!!!!!