if i passed up the opportunity to blog on LEAP DAY, i would have totally regretted it. so, what are you doing with your extra day this year?

you know what i am doing? i’m trying to figure out how to change the needle on my sewing machine. fellow sewers have probably lost all respect for me now. but please remember, i’m a novice…i only dug out the machine in july! i noticed on my last project, the needle was dull and it felt like operating a jackhammer instead of a lovely 1960s sewing machine. so i knew it was time. and i have another little project coming up that i need to start. and i want to start a quilt for our family. it’s about time i make something lovely for our little family. is it bad that i won’t let the boys choose fabric for the family quilt? i don’t think i’d like to display a living room “throw quilt” featuring elmo, thomas the tank engine, winnie-the-pooh and snoopy. because these are the characters found in fabric stores across the country. and strawberry shortcake…do they actually sell strawberry shortcakes anymore?

it’s a cold, snowy day. we’ve had a lot of these lately. i was talking to a friend of mine last night. she lives in the big city. she said, “it feels as though we haven’t  had a winter yet!” i think our country weather is so very different from the city’s weather, just an hour away. we’ve had several inches of snow on the ground (nothing like our friends in massachusetts, however!) for several weeks now, and it snows every other day at least. it’s beginning to feel a bit like narnia to me!

for leap year day, i will ignore the snow falling outside and dream of our yard in spring/summer. ahhhhhh….i love the warm sun.

i’ve recently stumbled on a blog that has changed my life. blown me away. made me rethink everything. okay, enough of the hyperbole.

in all seriousness, Et Tu? is one of those blogs that when i read, i have to make sure i have a good cup of hot coffee or tea, and no interuptions on the horizon. her blog tagline is “the diary of a former atheist” but that just touches briefly on what each post contains. i don’t want to divulge too much more…just get yourself into a state of solitude and read away. it’s good stuff (especially her “most popular posts” and parts 1&2 of her conversion story, both on the left side of the blog).

also, my brother is blogging again! go get subscribed to his new blogging home.

welcome to smithical!

please make yourself cozy and eat a lot of poundcake with lemon sauce. the weather is confused today – snow? freezing-rain? rain? it just won’t make up its mind, so we’re stuck inside.

the first week’s discussion and some very informative links can be found here at serina’s blog. also, refer to this post for this week’s discussion questions for Persuasion. a good conversation has started already in the comments section, so be sure to read those as well.

i didn’t start off not liking Jane Austen. I’d read her before (in college, on a whim, not for a class) and really enjoyed her books. but perhaps something has crept into my brain and taken away the part that enjoyed this type of writing; these kinds of characters. it’s all i can do to not roll my eyes and groan with the turn of each page. kenny laughs when he sees me reading. he knows that i’m bored out of my mind. and he’s right. i refered to reading this book as “my lenten discipline” because it doesn’t feel “fun.”

i read a lot of non-fiction these days. i read a lot of blogs, and from time to time, i indulge in a work of fiction. has my life been altered so drastically that my tastes have changed? i wonder if i would like A Prayer for Owen Meany as i had when i first read it (1990?).

so carry on the conversation – i’m enjoying the comments from yesterday and hope to respond soon!

**if you are having trouble leaving comments, you’re not alone! just email me (elizabethsmith AT zoominternet DOT net) and i’ll try to get the comment posted for you.

some questions/comments to chew on while you read the next 8 chapters for our online discussion tomorrow:

1/ please convince me to finish this book.

2/ i’m serious.

3/ what i mean is, in today’s society/culture, why read a comedy of manners of a culture that we really don’t understand?

4/ the only example that i can think of that is a modern-day comedy of manners is the TV sit-com, The Office. and this show is funny to me because i lived the life of Pam Beasly – the secretary/receptionist with an imappropriate-comment-making boss. So I can appreciate the humor in this program.

5/ jane austen’s books are considered “classics.” my husband remembers having to read “Pride and Prejudice” in 10th grade. and he hated it. do we need to force reading like this onto students of those ages?

so now that i’ve been outed as a Persuasion traitor (as Ellen so eloquently described me yesterday, ha!), i can move onto another subject for the week. but don’t worry Persuasion readers! i am still planning to host this friday and come up with scintillating discussion questions for our online time together.

but for now…i turn to the subject of the cookbook. i’ve been purchasing my own cookbooks for years. i constantly browse the cookbook sections when i’m in a bookstore (which is a rare treat these days!), and i’m always referring to several of my own favorites on a weekly basis: when i make up a weekly or biweekly schedule of meals. so today, i’ll list my favorites, but i want to hear from YOU to get your favorites. (we always need new cooking inspiration even if we have old favorites we’ll never give up!)

here are the ones i refer to on a weekly basis:

The Joy of Cooking
This book is opened several times a week either by me or by Kenny. I’m always looking for information on certain ingredients, ways of cooking meats, recipes for different cookies or desserts. This cookbook never fails me. The Oatmeal Cookie recipe is the best I’ve come across, the instructions on how to cut certain cuts of meat are invaluable for success, and the amount of ethnic recipes (it includes Doro Wat!) is impressive. Just this week, I used it to look up “short ribs” since we have a few of those from the 1/4 cow we recently purchased and I’ve never prepared them before. It has an easy recipe for “Braised Short Ribs” that was a huge success this week with all the men in the household (with a side of mashed potatoes and broccoli) I bought this book years before I met Kenny and it’s turned into his favorite go-to book as well.

The Enchanted Broccoli Forest
I love Mollie Katzen. I’ve been reading her blog for years. There is a vegetarian inside of me that I like to acknowledge every now and then, but we can’t be lifelong friends as I love meat too much. I have two of Katzen’s many cookbooks, but this one is my favorite. The actual recipe for the “Enchanted Broccoli Forest” is fun for kids. I use her recipe for quiches pretty exclusively (and we have a lot of eggs these days, so we need good quiche recipes!), but what I love best about this cookbook is that it was transcribed entirely by hand. Every single page, including the pictures were hand-written and photocopied. It gives it a personal recipe-collection feel.

More with Less and Simply in Season
I list these two books together because they’re done by the same publishers (World Community Cookbooks). My copy of More with Less is my mom’s original copy that she received either as a wedding gift or early on in her married life. I use the Honey Whole Wheat bread recipe when I’m in the mood to make our own bread (not so much lately, admittedly). There’s also a great recipe for Pakistami Kima which graces our table once every other week, at least. Simply in Season is a new cookbook that lists recipes by each section. This cookbook is common sense: use ingredients that are in season in your growing area, and you’ll save money (and if everyone eats this way, think of all the environmental changes for good that can happen! but i digress…). I go to this cookbook a lot in the winter when root vegetables and apples are in abundance and I need different recipes to keep those ingredients exciting.

And two “Honorable Mentions” as I don’t refer to them weekly, or even monthly, but I still love them!

The Complete Cooking Light
I found the best teriyaki hamburger recipe in this cookbook. It’s like eating chinese dumplings between a hamburger bum. Simply delicious. I love that this cookbook contains a lot of great, tasty recipes that aren’t filled with fat. I believe in eating whole ingredients…we don’t have margarine or skim milk. We eat the real stuff in moderation. But when it comes to fettuccine alfredo or grilled burgers in the summer, this is a great resource for lighter versions!

allrecipes.com
this is not cookbook, but i refer to it quite a bit. if i’m looking for something particular, and I don’t know if it’s in any of my bookshelf cookbooks, this is where i go. i have a huge online “recipe box” at this site and we use a lot of these recipes on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. i don’t refer to it weekly since i print out favorite recipes and put them in my recipe binder. i love reading through the comments on each recipe since you get different ways of improving on, or changing the recipe up a bit. our favorite Chicken Tikka Masala recipe is from here!

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so, please share with me your favorite cookbooks or places of recipe treasures. either leave me a comment or blog about it at your place and let me know you’ve blogged about it. you can never have too many!

the discussion is now open!

happy valentines’ day, readers!

we had a fabulous day celebrating with lots of crafty hearts (melted crayon shavings between waxed paper in the shape of hearts adorn our back porch windows), coffee-in-bed (being careful not to spill it on the boys), chocolate cream pie, one of kenny’s favorite dinners (fettuccine alfredo from scratch!), and a few hours this afternoon in which i got to go thrifting! kenny loves to spring some “liz-time” on me from time to time and this morning he suggested i take a few hours this afternoon to do just that. that was AFTER he gifted me with a salon gift certificate. woo hoo! (i think i scared him last week when i told him i really wanted to dreadlock my hair. he made sure this salon was not the dread-locking type.)

last night, we treated ourselves (and the boys) to dinner at Primanti’s. it’s something you do once every 24 months. because it takes that long to digest. if you don’t know about the Primanti sandwich, just watch a nationally-televised Steeler game and you’ll see the same clip between commercials of them making the “2nd most popular item on their menu” (the first most popular being Iron City Beer), the cheese steak primanti (which doesn’t hold a candle to a philly cheese steak!). we enjoyed our beer-and-sandwich and the boys inhaled their macaroni and cheese and chicken fingers (you see why i said, “treated ourselves” as this was a decadent meal! at least tonight’s alfredo was from Cooking Light!).

so…valentines aside, don’t forget that tomorrow’s open “comment-conversation” is at serina’s blog beginning in the morning. start commenting when you see her post that opens the discussion.

now if you’ll excuse me, i have some reading to do!

am i ever glad we don’t have to out today. well, okay…i canceled a dentist appointment this morning (it was only a cleaning which was easily rescheduled for next week), but for the rest of the day, we can stay inside. i mean look at what we’ve been under over the past few hours:

our road has been plowed only once and it’s still covered in a few inches of snow. everything in the BIG CITY has been shut down or canceled, so we followed suit up here in the country and shut down.

we will probably bake something when adam wakes up form his nap…we’re reading books, knitting, and working (well, kenny’s working). it’s hard for the boys when we’re so cooped up. they have so much energy that by noon, they have way too much energy to burn. so they end up arguing or fighting more than normal. perhaps we’ll also take a walk later in the afternoon so that this evening isn’t so difficult!

for now, i’ll post one of the easiest curry recipes i’ve found. we ate it last night over basmati rice and frozen naan breads that i found at trader joes. even the three boys licked their plates! it was THAT good. i also added 2 diced potatoes (raw, so they cooked in the curry). yes, a lot of carbs, but it was cold yesterday and we were going swimming last night, so that’s how i justified it. and we love carbs.

curried coconut chicken

• 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
• 1 teaspoon salt and pepper, or to taste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons curry powder
• 1/2 onion, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed, diced tomatoes
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 3 tablespoons sugar

Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper.

Heat oil and curry powder in a large skillet over medium-high heat for
two minutes. Stir in onions and garlic, and cook 1 minute more. Add
chicken, tossing lightly to coat with curry oil. Reduce heat to medium,
and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink in
center and juices run clear.
Pour coconut milk, tomatoes, tomato sauce, and sugar into the pan, and
stir to combine. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, approximately
30 to 40 minutes.

it’s monday….i know, everyone’s favorite day of the week. i usually like it because it feels like you are given a fresh new start every week. who can resist fresh new starts?

speaking of fresh new starts…last night, i decided to go back to the very beginning of Persuasion because i was all the way through chapter 5 and had no idea what was going on. except that there were a bunch of characters with very similar names and some house that i have no idea how to pronounce (Kellynch….two syllables, or three?). i think this had something to do with the fact that i tried to read several of those chapters when i was sick and medicated two weeks ago. not a good combination with jane austen. so last night, i actually dove right back into the beginning and am grateful i did.

so…how’s your reading going? did you remember that this is the week for our online discussion? serina is hosting the first of our discussions (chapters 1-8) at her blog this friday. stop by, have a bite, join the discussion (or not), and have fun! the conversation will continue here at smithical a week from friday for the second bunch of chapters. serina gave an official “DELURKING” invitation and i will as well. please pop your head in and say hello during our discussion! even if you’re not reading along…at least you’ll hear our thoughts about ms. austen. or was she a mrs?…i have some research to do before friday, it seems!

this morning we woke up to falling snow and a few inches already on the ground. it wasn’t in the forecast so it was a pleasant surprise.

we took some time to sled-ride, feed the chickens, throw some snowballs, and build 2008’s first snowman: mr. snowy (we’re so very original with names, aren’t we?)

…after which we came inside and had steaming cups of tea with nana.

weekends are so nice.