First thing this morning there was an email from Nick saying he was about to catch a bus to Siem Riep, Cambodia. It's so far away, and I'm starting to feel terribly hollow from missing him. He's been away four months now.
We never did get any of that rain, and we need it badly. Send it up here, will you, please?
Last night the kids came for dinner - steak and chicken on the barbecue, roasted potatoes and carrots, green beans and corn on the cob, followed by little sweets from the bakery down the street. We had a wonderful evening, lots of laughs, and little Vanessa was running around having a grand time. We hung the hammock out between the two maples and she squealed with delight as her daddy swung her higher and higher, back and forth. Amongst all of us, not one functioning camera. (Tony left his charger in Boston, asked his m-i-l to mail it to Wisconsin as they had planned on spending a week there at the family cottage on Elkhart Lake, then opted out at the last minute. Who knows where the darn thing is now.) That's at the top of my list this week.
Moore - recipe for potato-less gnoccis, please? We have a fantastic cheese factory here that makes ricotta fresh every day. Nothing as heavenly as hot, fresh ricotta!
It must be hard having your son that far away! How much longer are his travels? A friend of ours has a daughter in New Zealand, she was telling us bout all the crazy things she's doing, like sky diving and cliff diving. Wow! I have a theory that the more secure the kids feel in their own home, the more they will experience in life.
You guys sure cook up some good feasts. I get a little lazy in that department. I'll make a good dish every now and again, but all those side dishes! too much work for me. Nothing is ever done at the same time, and some things end up cold. I need a double oven.
Today my dad is coming up with his truck, I bought Ryan a new bed set. They wanted $90 to deliver it about 5 miles. My dad has to visit anyway, I've got some of his stuff I borrowed for the graduation party, and I got him a bottle of wine from Michigan.
I might add more songs to my mp3, I found a lot I like, I get 30 days free on rhapsody, but then I guess the songs delete after 30 days, not sure how that happens, but I'll enjoy it while I can. I like alot of songs, but I'm not always sure who the artist is
The day after my birthday, always feels like Summer is coming to an end. kind of a let down every year....
I took today off from work, and I am trying to get some stuff done around the house. I have already been to Home Depot, where I picked up some odds and ends to tackle some small stuff that is just hanging out there.
I have already been down in my basement, working on the insulation. It was sagging in some sections, so I bought the wire fasteners and I have about 3/4 of it done. I can't stand having the goggles, mask, sweatshirt and gloves on, so I may call it a day for that. I am also incredibly itchy, so I am headed for the shower.
I have an appointment at 5:00 to get my nails filled, and a pedicure, otherwise the rest of the day is my own.
We had more torrential rain storms here this morning, and it is incredibly humid outside. The weather forecast says thunderstorms for the rest of the day, and hopefully the humidity should be gone tomorrow.
That's about it, here in my corner of Massachusetts!
Yep, Tina, it is hard having kids far away. When Mike was in New Zealand last year, he too did the sky diving and hang gliding thing. Good thing he didn't tell us about it until after the fact.
Nick was originally planning to be back home for Christmas, but his gf had to delay her trip to join him since she broke her leg snow boarding, got her return ticket for February and now Nick says he may stay away until then. Much depends upon their money situation, and whether they find work back in Australia after they've toured SE Asia. That's the plan, anyway, but anything could happen. They were so relieved to leave Oz, I just don't see them returning there.
Tess, good grief! You couldn't pay me enough to work with insulation. That stuff is nasty, so please be careful, okay?
Yesterday, after I got back home with my new $3 apiece stem glasses, I loaded them into the dishwasher and the damn thing flooded my kitchen. Long story, but what a mess. Lesson #1 - never put regular dish washing-up liquid into a dishwasher, even in tiny amounts. Argh. Many years ago, when Ted was batching it in California when I'd come back to Toronto to visit family, he accidentally put Tide in the dishwasher. That was a real horror, lol. Apparently the suds went knee high through the kitchen and into the dining area. Took him hours to clean it up.
There's a new You Tube promo up for OLTL. I'll see if I can post it here. Mikey and John regarding Tommy.
KaeEll: "Moore - recipe for potato-less gnoccis, please?"
My pleasure!
I'll give you the basic recipe, but I have to tell you that I always DOUBLE it. If you're going to make all of these little gnocchis, you may as well go ahead, and make a bigger batch. The smaller recipe calls for 15 oz of ricotta. However, our larger containers of ricotta come in 32 oz sizes down here, so it's a double amount of ricotta, plus a little extra. Therefore, I double the flour, but add an extra one or two tablespoons. Just wanted to clarify that first...
And, don't forget to double everything else!
RICOTTA GNOCCHI
Mix together:
1 15 oz container ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (Use the good stuff, NOT the canned!)
1 small clove garlic, pressed or minced finely. (I don't double this because it becomes overpowering, but use a larger clove instead. This is a very light and delicate gnocchi.)
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup flour (Note, if doubling this recipe, use 1-1/2 cups flour PLUS 2 extra tablespoons IF your large container of ricotta is more than 30 oz.)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup snipped fresh parsley. (This is what the original recipe called for, but I didn't have any fresh parsley on hand at the time. Consequently, I added a little dried oregano instead. Tasted great! I have also used a little bit of dried basil too, or Italian seasoning. If you have either fresh oregano or basil, you could most certainly use that. Whatever you happen to have! The trick is NOT to add too much which, like too much garlic (and this from a garlic lover!!!) may overpower the gnocchi. I would say a teaspoon or two would be enough, or slighly more if you're using fresh.)
Okay -- this mixture is very tender, but WILL hold together. You can either roll these gently into 1-inch balls, or drop them like dumplings from a spoon. I've done both ways, but think that the latter goes faster, and they taste the same! Your choice...
Bring some water to a solid simmer in a pan, and drop in the gnocchis. Don't overcrowd the pan. I've begun adding chicken broth to the water as well, but that's also up to you. I think that it adds more flavor to the gnocchis.
Cook the gnocchis for TEN MINUTES in the simmering water. By simmer, I mean to the point where there is definite water activity going on, but not a full-blown boil. That would break the gnocchis...
Remove the cooked gnocchis from the water with a slotted spoon, and drain off as much water as possible. I put them onto a nonstick sheet pan that I have in the over, just on warm.
When all of your batches of gnocchi are done, and are on your pan, you can melt a little butter to spoon over them. If you're avoiding butter, spoon a little chicken broth on top.
Salt and sprinkle with more fresh parmesan...
If you actually have some of that fresh parsley, you can throw some chopped on top too!
This is very easy to make. My explanations are more complicated than the actual execution, so don't be scared off.
Another tip: I always mix the eggs in last. That way, I can taste the mixture to see if I like the seasoning without having to worry about raw eggs.
*****
Last night, I actually saved the same chicken/water that I'd cooked the gnocchis in, strained it, added more chicken broth, and fresh lemon juice to use as my sauce on the chicken/prosciutto. The little bit of flour from the gnocchis helped to thicken it bit as I reduced it.
I mention this because I noticed that it tasted really good when it made contact with the gnocchi on the plate! If you wanted, you could make a similar sauce...
The original recipe had a cheese sauce to go on top, but I've never added that. As I recall (and I could be wrong), it was a cheddar sauce, and I seem to remember that I thought it kind-of defeated the purpose of using all that ricotta and parmesan in the gnocchis. Honestly, I haven't looked at the original in a long time...
I didn't make the asperagus last night because the asperagus absolutely SUCKED bigtime at our local store. Normally, it's very nice, but not yesterday! Consequently, I made some green beans in a tomato sauce with garlic. I normally add lemon to this too, but I had lemon sauce on the chicken, so I omitted it.
I have leftovers of EVERYTHING for my lunch today...
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
Thanks, Moore. I'll try that recipe on the weekend. Sounds divine!
I understand that quantities of flour will vary like mad depending on the humidity in the air, phase of the moon, whatever, LOL. Recipes are really just a jumping off point, non? I'll let you know how they turned out.
Oh, that's so funny about French. We all had to take French starting in grade one, all through high school, and I even took a few literature courses in university, but if I had to try to put together a sentence now, I'd be struggling. Even when we go to Quebec, I avoid using it like the plague that it is.
We sent our kids to a French Immersion School, youngest we switched to a private early on, so he escaped, lol. Anyway, the immersion seemed to have stuck as both of the older boys are completely fluent and use French at work all the time. Mike, the middle son, is a linguist with 5 or 6 fluent languages under his belt, so it must have been a good thing in some respsects. The one thing that it did kind of mess with, though, was spelling.
Here in North America, we're so bad about learning other languages as a rule because English is so widely spoken. But in Europe with all the little countries having their own languages, being unilingual is a big dsiadvantage, and most well-educated kids have at least three that they speak with ease. And what snobbery, lol. One of our exchange students was a Belgian kid who sneered at having to learn Dutch, a "stewpid ugly language". He, of course, was from the French part.
I've forgotten a lot of my French too, KaeEll, but some of it came back to me when my youngest daughter began to study it fairly intensely, and she speaks it beautifully now. I've told her not to let it slide or she'll forget a lot of it like I did.
Unlike you, I didn't start taking French until the 7th grade, but I fell in love with it, and took it all the way through high school, and college. Most of my teachers were actually French themselves, which was great, and one teacher (long story I won't bother to tell) could barely speak any ENGLISH, so it was a bit like being in an immersion class for about two months. She taught at my boarding school for those two months (senior year French class), but was primarily a French Literature professor at the Mary Baldwin College which was down the street from my boarding school.
Ironically, I ended up working for twelve years for a man from Puerto Rico, so it turns out that I would have been better off learning Spanish!
My oldest daughter speaks Spanish (reinforced by a having spent a month in Costa Rica her Junior year in college), but my son focused on Latin and even had a little Greek! I think he's nuts...!!! Before his infamous trip to Italy, when he ate all the prosciutto, he did Italian immersion. THAT's the next language I'd like to learn! And, oddly enough, I'd like to learn Japanese. I blame that desire on having read Shogun many years ago. LOL!
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
But, I have to confess that I wasn't really doing anything particularly creative. I was just transcribing as much actual dialogue that I could pull from the show itself while trying to set the scenes.
Even with the Tivo, unless I've actually recorded the show, it all moves along very quickly. I can stop and start the machine just so many times before the show catches up with me. I had A LOT of typos today!
SURE -- go for it KaeEll...!!! It's the now-closed "Tivo-Live" thread.
-- Edited by Moore ideas at 15:47, 2007-07-30
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
AMC is the only one that I follow these days. I love Zendall, and I have found the birth of the new baby to be must see TV. The show has really changed alot with the new writing direction, and it has much more of a balance of characters. There are still a number of them that I could care less about, but Zendall pulls me in there.
Tess, I'll give it a try and programme it for taping. I'll watch it tomorrow, promise. Anything has to be better than Ugly Betty reruns or Todd languishing in a hospital bed.
