Kitty Christmas Presents

The kitties made quite a haul this Christmas, getting both a new scratching mat and an activity mat, both of which have become quite popular around the house. I haven't managed to get activity mat action pictures yet, but I did manage to get a scratching post action shot. Sorta.

The timing for the scratching post was pretty great too because this is what our old scratching post looked like.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch some kitty action shots of the activity mat soon. Of course, "action shot" might be overstating it a bit since most of the "action" is napping. It's still cute.

See, I CAN Follow Directions!

I made ohagi again. This time I followed the directions to the letter!

Okay, maybe not "to the letter" but really close so that's gotta count for something, right? It asked for black sesame seeds, which I used. It said to roast them, which I did (well, for most of the rice balls). It said to grind them, and I kinda did. A little.

But yeah! I follow directions!

Though it is a bit vindicating that I think I like the sesame ones I made before better. At least compared to the ones covered in the roasted sesame seeds. The flavor is cleaner and nuttier.

See! That's why I don't follow directions!

You Know You Want It

Costco has the solution to all your canned air needs.

I don't know about you, but I think that's kind of awesome.

Merry Christmas

Well, I've been sick all week but I still managed to have a lovely Christmas. I hope everyone else did, too!

I did manage to have a little bit of a fun adventure despite my on-and-off fever. I got to play around my parents' lake land where they are building, not a barn, but a single purpose agricultural facility. Naturally, I took pictures.

Here, have a slideshow.

I'm So Tired Right Now

I really really should be in bed. I'm exhausted. But I'm overtired so I'm a bit cranky so I'm dealing with happy things to try and get out of my grump so I can get a good night's sleep.

So this is my fun. I got goodies in the mail today.

Yeah, Andrews & Dunham's Damn Fine Tea had a bit of a deal - free shipping, which saves about $5 and change per series. Not a bad deal! So I repurchased Series 3 (because the Caravan? FANTASTIC) and got the two new sets (Series 5 and 6) and saved over $16. Yay for saving money!

And yay for happy tea days! Of course, I didn't get a chance today to try them yet, but I'm thinking my Big Tin of Holiday Cheer will be cracked open tomorrow for a tasting. I've had Series 3 before so I know I greatly heart Caravan and their Earl (the Jasmine is decent but I don't typically like Chinese greens) and I'm 99% sure that Captain Assam is a reincarnation of Series 2's Thomas Sampson, so I know I like that one. (I went through two tins of Thomas before they sold out. I'm currently scraping the bottom of my third tin of Jackee Muntz, the other tea from Series 2.)

Likely no one really cares about the arrival of all this tea on my doorstep (which I totally typed as doorsteep - tea on the brain perhaps?) but I'm excited and it's my blog so there.

And now I'm going to bed.

Cleanliness is... Impossible

Since becoming the SAHW, I've made lots and lots of headway in making our house less embarrassingly dirty. I've even cleaned most of the windows. Go me! It's so nice to look outside and not think it is foggy.

But ultimately, we have seven cats so our windows will never truly be clean. Why?

Because of kitty nose prints. Yes. Kitty nose print. They like to look outside and when they do, they press their wet little noses against the glass, leaving streaks and smudges.

The above little set of smudges appeared less than 24 hours after I had cleaned the window off.

So now instead of the outside looking foggy, it looks like someone sneezed on our windows.

Sigh.

Historic Cheesecake

Dan and I had the Christmas party for our church's small group tonight. It was a potluck dinner with a white elephant gift exchange. Anyway, I made the coffee cheesecake that went over so well at Thanksgiving. And it was tasty. Only...

I tried to prevent the stupid spring pan from leaking butter over my oven burner like last time (lots of smoke!) by putting it on a pan... which I think messed up the cheesecake's cooling because:

Yeah, nice, huh? So I've officially dubbed this one The Cheesecake of Northern Aggression.

Apparently there was some sort of disagreement in the oven and now the South is trying to secede.

Fortunately, it still tasted really good so I'm sure the war will be over in about four more servings.

Motivation and Discouragement: Day 48

Well, I decided to weigh the kitties, giving them an extra almost-week to hopefully make some weight loss headway. Here's how it shapes up:

• Ashes - 9.2 lbs (starting weight of 9.4/total loss of .2lbs)
  She seems to fluctuate up and down by .2 so I'm not too concerned about the .2lbs loss. If she loses any more though, she'll be moved to a two pack-a-day tuna habit.
  


• Chloe - 13.4 lbs (starting weight of 15.0/total loss of 1.6lbs)
  With a .4lbs loss, it's not as great a showing as her last two weigh ins, but slow and steady wins the race, right? Good job to Chloe on her 1.6lbs total weight loss so far!


• Happy - 10.4 lbs (starting weight of 11.2/total loss of .8lbs)
  A little bit of a loss here but she's hovering around a good weight so good job Happy Doodle! (And further congratulations for not eating another kitty in her hunger.)
  


• Gidget - 8.8 lbs (starting weight of 9.4/total loss of .6lbs)
  A fairly dramatic weight loss here, down a whopping .4lbs which ties her for first place for most lost this weigh in. Of course, she didn't actually need to lose the weight but she's okay in the high 8lb area.


• Bitty - 6 lbs (starting weight of 6.2/total loss of .2lbs)
  A little bitty loss for the Bitty. She's on the skinny side of fine right now but probably doesn't need to lose any more weight. I have no idea how to make sure that doesn't happen.


• Cocoa - 15.6 lbs (starting weight of 17.0/total loss of 1.4lbs)
  Finally! A nice .4lbs loss from Cocoa who has stuck out at 16 pounds for what feels like forever. Hopefully this losing trend will continue for a few more pounds.


• Sam - 22.8 lbs (starting weight of 24.0/total loss of 1.2lbs)
  No weight loss here. Which is discouraging as Sam is the reason I'm jumping through all these hoops. But hopefully he won't stay on this plateau for long and we can get back to dropping the point-pounds. You can do it, Sam!

A little bit of a mixed bag on this weigh-in. Good weight loss by Cocoa, but none by the Samster-hamster. And no one logged a .6lb loss this time, either so it looks like weight loss may be slowing down some?

Given how hungry (and pissy) the kitties have been acting, I had hoped for more payoff (especially with Sam) but it's a marathon not a sprint right?

Plus, the kitties have lost a combined total of six pounds since the WLC began in November. That's the equivalent of 24 sticks of butter! Go kitties!

Grocery Overkill?

Apparently everything is my life is now blog worthy. This time, it's grocery stopping!

I might have gone a little overboard on the fruit buying today.

But I couldn't help it! The store had more of those apples that they said were Sansa (but are now calling Opal though the receipt still says Sansa and I still think they are GoldRush... but maybe they are actually Opals) so I had to get more of those. But they also had another fun little apple.

It looks like just another green apple, yeah, but this one is called a Green Dragon.

Dude. Green Dragon. You know I had to get it.

I also picked up some Yuzu, Cara Cara oranges, Pinata apples and some bananas.

Oh yeah, and some coffee.

Guatemalan Organic Coffee

It's really good - even better than the Kona Coffee from Costco. Which is kind of sad because in my world Hawaii should never lose to, well, anywhere, even Guatemala.

And I didn't get them today, but my grapes from this morning were interesting so I'm sharing.

If you were anticipating more SAHW drama, you'll be happy to know that I knocked the maple extract off the pantry shelf and broke it. Now our pantry smells like maple. Mmm.

Weight Loss Challenge: Day 45

Feeding Time

It is past time for a kitty weight loss challenge weigh-in post but I'm putting it off because I'm kind of disheartened. Cocoa has still not lost any more weight (and she is one of the three that really needs to) and that's got me feeling a bit frustrated. For that reason, I'm going to put off the weigh in for a week to see if we can get Cocoa off of this plateau.

On the plus side, Chloe does look slimmer so at least this is working for some of them!

More Tea-Nerdiness

After almost a week of deliberation, I finally busted open a new packet of sencha (one of the 5+ I got in Hawaii) and, because I can, I'm posting about it.

Oi Ocha Gyokuro-Iri Ryokucha 【おーいお茶玉露入り緑茶】

It's pretty different from my normal Japanese green in that it's not a heavily steamed (and thus sweeter) style. So a lot of the notes in it are kind of new to me. The leaf smells like sweet hay and something fruity, sweet yet tart. I'm going with plums. I've gotten hay from a Japanese green before, but not the plum thing.

Once put in my pre-heated teapot, the leaves smell dark and heavy, almost (but not quite) musky. That's something more normal to me. Japanese greens tend to be pungent and I love them for it.

After brewing, the tea smells sweet and tangy. The taste is slightly astringent and peppery which is something totally new to me. Pepper in a Chinese Yunnan? All day long. In a Japanese green? Totally new to me.

Slurping brings out a sweet, fresh cut sweet grass taste and the aftertaste has a fresh floral note - both more normal for me.

There is a bitterness to it but not an unpleasant bitterness - more like the bitterness that comes with dark, leafy greens (collards, kale, that sort of thing). Astringency is one reason I tend to avoid lightly steamed teas but this leafy green bitterness is something I can totally get behind.

The mouthfeel is thin with a little of that peppery taste coming through on the texture - little dashes of roughness. It's not as sweet as I am used to but I'm kind of digging it. We'll see how much I continue to love it as I make my way through 100 grams of this.

Very exciting! (Well, to me at least.) Kind of off topic, but can you tell I'm enjoying my camera?

GPS

Just an FYI: the German potato salad turned out pretty darn good. Not as tangy as it could have been but otherwise yummy and best of all, blood free! Yay!

Do I Get Worker's Comp?

Just askin'.

(PS - I didn't stop cooking to take pictures. I actually took pictures while I was waiting for the cut to clot enough that I wouldn't bleed all over the potatoes. I'm making German potato salad. Blood-free German potato salad, even.)

I Have Been Disloyal

Costco is dangerous on so many levels. And apparently not just to my pantry storage space. As I discovered this weekend, Costco also makes it too easy to be disloyal to my tea.

Uh oh. Yes, Dan and I bought coffee at Costco. (Not a 20-pound bag or anything, so that's good. But still. Coffee.)

Back in October when we were in Hawaii, we ended up sniffing lots of Kona coffees at the grocery store while picking out souvenirs for folks. At the time we debated getting some coffee for ourselves (it smelled that good) but we decided not to. After all, we were tea drinkers.

But the temptation stuck with us. Of course, not too many places that have 100% Kona coffee as easily accessible as Hawaii, so the temptation just sort of lingered in the back of our minds, easily ignored.

And then we saw the coffee aisle at Costco. Where they had some Kona coffee. So we got some. And made some that night.

And drank it.

Tea is still my one true love (well, tea and Dan... and the kitties... but you get the idea), but I did enjoy drinking the coffee, especially since it was tasty even without milk or sugar (which is sort of shocking to me). In fact, this tasted a bit like it had sugar and creamer in it when drinking it straight.

So it was a nice discovery that good coffee does actually have nuances and flavor notes just like good tea can. Mind you, coffee is still strong as all get out. It might take us a bit of time to drink through this whole bag of coffee, but I think it will end up being a nice treat.

My Bold and Stupid Plan

You know when you have one of those lightbulb moments? Just a spark of clarity that sort of shifts your paradigm? I don't have too many paradigm shifting single thoughts - the Dave Ramsey you-don't-have-to-have-a-house-payment was totally one of them. And I just ran across another.

I don't have to have a microwave.

Sounds crazy, right? I mean, everyone has a microwave. How else do you reheat leftovers? But I came to this epiphany when I reheated some of my dad's Brunswick stew. One day, I did it in the microwave. Naturally, it tasted good (99% of what my dad cooks tastes good) but after heating it in the microwave it was a little chewy and while it was hot, the heat didn't seem to go all the way through each piece. I didn't even really notice these things until a day or two later, I heated up more Brunswick stew, this time on the stovetop. So much better! The texture was fresher and the heat seemed to have more staying power. And that got me thinking...

I'm sure people ate warm leftovers even before almost every home had a microwave. How'd they do that? There has to be other ways to reheat things without overcooking them. And that meant that I could do it too. Yeah, I had to research it a little but I found some different ideas.

Today marks Day 4 of not using the microwave. I've used a few different reheating methods - cooking it on the stovetop (great for soups and not really new to me - I'm not quite that much of a cooking newbie), using a double boiler (worked really nicely for my lunch yesterday!) and a steamer basket. (I know I could reheat in the oven, too, but it tastes so long to heat up, the other ways are much quicker.)

So far my favorite is the steamer basket. It works great for reheating multiple things at once, like Dan's lunch. Just put some water in a pan and start it to boil, portion out what I'm going to pack up for him to take in his bento box, wrap it in tin foil and drop it into the steamer basket. By that time the water has already started to steam a bit so in ten to twelve minutes it's all heated through and I've had enough time to get his fruit, dessert, morning tea and water canteen all set up and ready to go.

I actually anticipated when I started this that it would take a bit longer to heat things this way. And it might by a minute or two. But then, it might not. It's hard to tell and some mornings go better than others, but then this is just Day 4. I'm sure things will go smoother once I get more used to it. (In fact, they already are - today was much faster than Day 1!)

I'm going to give myself a month. If I can go for 30 days without using the microwave, that puppy is gone. I'm contemplating getting a toaster oven to replace the microwave and toaster. (A toaster oven was one method a fair number of people used to reheat things - and it would enable Dan to toast all four of his waffles at once instead of two at a time. How exciting!) But at the same time, things are going rather well without a toaster oven and that counter space sure would be nice to have open....

Confused But Tasty

If you read this blog much, you know I like food. From dragon fruit to purple potatoes and other random-ness. If it's odd or different and it's produce, I'll probably want to try it.

So when I saw a sign at Central Market about Sansa apples, saying they were sweet, crispy and resisted oxidation, I thought sure! I like apples, I'd love to see one not turn brown. The apples were pretty big (softball sized) so I just got one. And today I finally cut into it.

I cut it in half and ate one half with lunch, sticking the other half in a plastic bag in the fridge. Then, I pulled that half out about five hours later, cut it into pieces and served it with dinner as the dessert.

So after being cut at 1pm, refrigerated until about 6:30, the rest of the apple was finally eaten around 7pm tonight. And this is what the last piece looked like when finally I ate it:

So yeah, I'd say it resists oxidation.

But how does it taste? I mean, it can not turn brown all day long and that won't make me love it. Cocoa turned brown long ago and I still think she's the bee's knees.

It's really good. It easily falls into my Favorite Apples group (including Gala, Fuiji, Pink Ladies and Pinata apples). It's sweet, fairly juicy, crisp but not too firm. And it tastes a bit peachy. Yes, peachy.

So I found a very tasty apple that apparently has superpowers. Naturally, I had to blog about it. But then I started looking up "Sansa apples".

That apple? Pretty sure it's not a Sansa.

Sansas look more like Galas (apparently) and this one was full yellow, not red. And it was much bigger. So I looked up the "resists oxidation" part of it's profile and I think I found the answer. I am pretty sure this is a GoldRush. And GoldRush apples? Apparently pretty cool. They keep in the fridge up to the June after harvest. And they are harvested in November. Seriously.

I'm thinking that the next time I'm in Central Market, I'm going to have to stock up on some GoldRush apples if they still have them. Because apparently, they keep really well without any loss of texture or flavor. Add that to total deliciousness and I'm sold.

Tea Off

I've been trying to make sure my days contain fun things (mostly because I have a tendency to get too caught up in housewifing activities and can easily exhaust myself). Today's fun activity was a mini tea taste off. (I also cleaned the living room windows. Did you know that glass was supposed to be clear?)

I hadn't tried Adagio's Yunnan Golden Curls yet so I selected that one and put it up against a tea I had tried before (several times, actually), Chicago Tea Garden's Golden Bi Luo. I selected the Golden Bi Luo mostly because I figured the two teas were pretty similar - both Golden Yunnans with some fun twist or curl to it.

So yes, that was my fun activity for today. And now I'm sharing it with you!

	Adagio: Yunnan Golden Curls	Chicago Tea Garden: Golden Bi Luo
Initial Impressions	The dry leaf is very pretty - loosely twisted/curled with decent amount of fluffiness. The smell is very sweet. Post-steeping it smells sweet and malty with notes of tobacco and caramel.	The leaves are tightly curled and decently dense and heavy. They smell dark and malty. The tea smells slightly heavy/dark with notes of hay, smoke and something that brings to mind young tree limbs.
First Steep 3g/5oz/208°/1min	The initial taste matches the smell: sweet. I also get notes of pipe tobacco and a light honey. It's a fairly lightly textured tea. There is a slightly mouth-drying aftertaste that develops into a sugary aftertaste.	The taste dark and has a thick-ish feel to it. Slurping brings out bits of smoke or ash. There's an aftertaste of a dark, caramelized raw sugar or honey (if you could, you know, caramelize honey.) A sticky but not astringent aftertaste.
Second Steep 208°/1min	A hint of spice has shown up on the front end. It gives the impression of cinnamon or maybe nutmeg. Still sweet but is starting to come out with that 'stereotypical tea' taste. A hint of sweet ash pops up at the end and couples with the slight astringency to make a faint tart end.	Smoke, sweetness and that faint green woody note all pop up. The flavor seems very 'stereotypically tea' tasting but with an added hint of starch and an aftertaste of sugar. CTG mentions this as being a coffee replacement and the dark, heavy notes to this make me agree.
Third Steep 208°/2min	Now I smell brown sugar and chicory. The warm spice taste is still present and it gives me the feeling of sipping a mild coffee (or some chicory) with a hint of cinnamon. Slurping brings out a bake-y, smoke note.	Green woodsy still abounds, chased by flashes of sugar or honey.The taste is smooth and dark with a coffee-like (though milder) acridity. Slurping accentuates the raw quality and ash.
My Thoughts	Really a very good tea. It’s sweet so somewhat dessert-y but the flavor kept developing (and surprising) through multiple steeps (and all signs point to it being able to go for more). Later steeps had a heavier flavor so would be morning appropriate but it is smooth enough for any time of day. It’s definitely something I would buy again.	Remarkably unimpressive which is surprising because I know I’ve had it before and gotten sweet and milky notes from it (though perhaps it needs less leaf and a slightly longer steep time to bring those flavors out as I normally would do 2g/5oz at 1:30). But this experience was only okay.

Naturally, I have pictures.

Adagio's Yunnan Golden Curls








Chicago Tea Garden's Golden Bi Luo

It's Winter

But Gidget doesn't realize this. She thinks sunny = warm and wants to go outside.

Silly kitty.

New and Shiny

Uhm, so I sort of accidentally updated my blog template. And then I had to go through and re-customize it last night. Oops. So give me a heads up if something is wonky please?

Christmas is Here!

Dan and I don't always decorate the house for Christmas. Mostly because inside decorations get eaten or chewed on or batted around by kitties and because outside lights are time consuming. (Though we typically do some sort of lights outside since we found net lights. Once you make sure all the lights are working, it takes about two minutes to drape the nets over things. Yay for lazy decorating that still looks good!)

But this year we decided to do full on lights again. Yay! Or maybe a better phrasing would be I decided to do full on lights again and Dan was my evil minion. Or something like that.

Anyway, he did a great job. Our house looks nicely festive now!

Naturally, (say it with me now) I took pictures. Here, have a short slide show.

Can You Cook Meatloaf in a Slow Cooker?

I had another meatloaf-esque event today. But messier. Yes. Messier.

Today, I dropped the CrockPot lid from about six feet high. On to a tile floor. Needless to say, the tile won. Crash.

Though apparently my kitchen floor needed sweeping anyway if the kitty kibble in the picture is any indication.

Still, I needed to use the CrockPot to make dinner, so I had to figure out something because I'm pretty sure a lidless CrockPot is not the most helpful kitchen tool.

Thus one slightly too small casserole dish and some aluminum foil to fill in the gaps and, to paraphrase Tim Gunn, I made it work.

Looks like I'm going to get a new CrockPot!

Adventures of the Buggy Kind

Yesterday I was outside on the front porch cleaning windows and it ended up turning in to quite the nature show. A couple of bugs took an interest in me (well, initially I took an interest in them and then one decided it liked me back) and naturally, this turned into photo time.

This buggy (some kind of box bug, I think?) pretty much froze and tried to become one with the porch railing when my camera got near it. Fortunately, bugs that hold still are really easy to photograph.

Eventually it figured out I wasn't there to harm it and it wandered away.

This katydid, however, became very interested in my lens. I'm guessing it saw it's reflection in the lens and either wanted to mate with that other katydid or fight it.

Which meant that eventually, I was being chased by a katydid. It was running toward the camera so fast, I couldn't focus on it. Eventually it did get on the camera so that was the end of that picture session, but before that happened, I was able to attempt to use the video function of my camera. My focus issues reminded me that I really need to read the camera's manual soon.

Fun Time Cooking!

Yesterday left me a little grumpy - nothing big really happened, just a lot of little things that made me sulky (staining a shirt, a dish getting chipped, stuff like that). On the good side, though, I came across Japanese mochigome (glutinous rice) at the grocery store earlier that day, something that I thought I'd have to go to an Asian grocery store to find. This happy find in conjunction with the following grumpy evening made me decide that I needed to have a happy fun day. I was going to cook goodies!

So today, that's what I did. I made Japanese dessert rice balls! It was really time consuming and pretty messy, but the results are oh so tasty and it totally hit the happy fun day requirements!

Naturally, I took pictures.

I used the recipe in the book Japanese Family-Style Recipes. I'm definitely going to have to do it again!