Sekanjabin

I found the minty drink so delightful that I've decided to re-create it, at home. I plan to drink it as is, and also to add rum to it, as the occasion demands.

The link in the title leads you to the recipe I decided to try out, first time around, to make the minty syrup that is the basis of the drink. In case you don't care to click the link, here's the recipe (slightly altered) in the post:

Ingredients:
4 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 cup white vinegar*
1 cup fresh mint leaves
1 sprig mint per glass, and shredded/grated cucumber to add to the pitcher or the glass

In a large pan over medium heat, bring the sugar and water to a boil. Boil for five minutes, then add the (correct amount!) of vinegar. Boil until the syrup drips slowly from the end of a cold spoon. Lower the heat, add the mint, and simmer for three minutes. Strain the syrup into a jar and let cool. Add three tbsp of syrup to each glass, fill with water, stir. Serve with mint, shredded cucumber, ice, rum, et cetera.


*I've just now realized that I doubled the vinegar without knowing, and nothing else. So, I guess I'll see if this batch turns out. Shame if it doesn't, given the amount of sugar required. Sigh. 

Pie for Breakfast

I've been eating pumpkin pie for breakfast all weekend, and of course loving it, because isn't pie one of the best breakfasts ever? At least, that's how I feel about pie for breakfast. I lie and tell myself that because it has pumpkins, or apples, or peaches in it, it's healthy. This time it's pumpkin, and it's left over from Thanksgiving.


Being in Canada, and not having many American friends (they're probably off to places like Europe, if they study abroad, because who goes to Canada if they can help it, right?) I thought I'd miss out on Thanksgiving, my second favorite holiday. But I got lucky - I happened to run into another American, whose roommate is American, and so she invited me to their mini celebration dinner. 


The highlights: 


1. Nobody'd made cranberry sauce, so we had cranberries with vodka. In juice form. 


2. We had chicken, instead of turkey, because we're still students, no matter that we're graduate students, and turkeys are frozen and HUGE. What student has an oven that big? 


3. I drafted myself to make the pumpkin pie, because I love making and baking pies, and really they're the only kind I like to eat. Homemade pies, that is. I had this recipe that called for anise seeds in the crust to give it an "Italian" flavor, but naturally my small neighborhood grocery store didn't have anise seeds. My crust recipe yields enough for a bottom crust and a top crust, and I got the really large can of pumpkin, so I got two pies for the effort of one! Which is why I can have pie for breakfast this weekend. Turns out my pie was a big hit (it's all about the cream-instead-of-condensed-milk). 


4. I was tired, but not hungover, for my Friday morning class. 

Mess and Biscuits

Yesterday, for some unexpected and inexplicable reason, I started to crave biscuits while watching Big Fish (honestly, biscuits don't play even a bit part in the movie). Having made them before, I figured, piece of cake. Only something went wrong. After sliding them in the oven on my admittedly dodgy baking tray, which only as two raised edges, I sat down with a glass of wine and pressed play on the movie, which I planned to watch for the ten minutes of baking time. Before half that time passed, I heard crackling and buzzing coming from the oven. The butter (all that yummy melty butter) was dripping off the edge to the bottom of the oven! The gas oven, I might add, with the fire at the bottom? Familiar? So I slid my other baking tray underneath it, which stopped the fizzing, but not the smoking. Oh, that smoke and heat. I spent the next hour off and on, fanning my smoke detector with a messenger bag, oven mitt (not the best tool) and kitchen towel. Opened my windows, turned on the fans, and still sniffed a bit of smoke this morning. To top it all off, I ended up with too-crispy biscuits.

On Drinking Water

Bottled water? Only until I buy a Kleen Kanteen or SIGG water bottle...

Filtered water? Well, I didn't drink it because the filter never gets changed in time, and they only filter out certain contaminants, not everything.

Tap water? Currently my water of choice, though I believe that will change... Generally, the standards for tap water are more strictly designed and enforced than bottled water, but I suppose the exception occasionally proves the rule. Thank you, Washington Aqueduct, for making tap water in DC and Northern Virginia the exception.

I think it's about time we changed the filter on our Brita pitcher.

Rediscovering "Family Time" at Dinner

There's something about eating with friends and family that just equals comfort. Comfort food on another level, if you will. Growing up, we always had dinner together as a family. Now that I live on my own, it happens far less frequently. Not all the siblings can gather together at the same time, because sometimes one is really busy and another is on travel or on the other side of the country. Only once have I lived with flatmates in a situation where we ate together most nights, because we alternated cooking dinner. All of us enjoy cooking, and they had a talent for it, luckily for me.

But I'm rambling. As a young adult, living on my own, eating together happens very infrequently. Last night, for the first time, my newish roommates and I finally got around to having a "roomies dinner". And I discovered how much I miss cooking for people. Not that I'm exceptionally talented, nor do I have the time or inclination to cook for people every night, but once in a while I do really enjoy it.

So last night I cooked a chicken, which I haven't done since I first moved in. It all started with the usual debate about what kind of chicken to buy, the choices being chicken (not free range, unfortunately) not given antibiotics or fed bits of other animals, and preserved without immersing it in water (evidently the Europeans do it differently) and then organic. Look at Green Guides for an article on different safety/environmental labels for beef (not sure if they have one specifically for chicken). I went for the cheaper version, because it seemed healthy and at the same time was $4 cheaper than the organic birds. Of course we were running late, so had to rush a little in the eating, but it's not even so much the eating with others I enjoy as the cooking part. A glass of wine; chopping veggies; putting the bird in the oven; mixing the cookie dough; occasionally munching on the food that's supposed to be cooked; and chatting all the while.

Who else can't wait for Thanksgiving?

Fish Supper

Finally, after weeks of not having time or, admittedly, the inclination, to go to the grocery store, I grocery-shopped like it was my job. Kind of lost my head in the produce department, ending up with the usual bell peppers, bananas and spinach, but also asparagus, oranges and bok choi. I've decided I like asparagus and bok choi, both newly acquired tastes.

I even bought fish! That was exciting. At the fish counter I learned it's possible to get some of your "pound" of fish frozen, in individually wrapped packages. How cool is that? There's no way I can eat a pound of tilapia in one night, so it worked out well.

Per Nigel Slater's British recipe (because, let's face it, the British have to be the best at fish suppers), I fried my tilapia and made some fluffy mashed potatoes in lieu of chips (a.k.a. fries to the Americans). I can roast veggies, but chips are beyond me. Boiled some asparagus to go with it, and presto! Dinner was served.

I have regained my enthusiasm for home-cooked dinners. Not just eating them, but making them, too.

Keeping Your Refrigerator Happy

A friend passed me this link, a Consumer's Report about how to get the most efficient and cost-saving use out of one's refrigerator:

Consumer Report's Happy Refrigerating Tips

If I had cash, I'd go home tonight and perform the "dollar test".

To Do: Check refrigerator operations.

Why Bother?

I know a few readers and I have been having something of a debate to answer the question: What effect can one individual have on the Big Problem? (Whichever problem one might be referring to at the time, or indeed, all of them at once). In this case, however, we'll stick to the Green Problem.

This article, by Michael Pollan of the New York Times, proposes to answer the question, Why Bother ? Why bother growing your own garden, or turning off your water faucet while you wash your hands or brush your teeth? Why bother using a clothes line instead of a dryer, or handwashing dishes instead of using a dishwasher (see post about Dishwashing Dilemma, and article at Slate.com for more on that issue, however)... Why bother opening windows instead of turning on the AC in the summertime? Why re-use and recycle when the trash can is right there? Why make all these little changes in your life when it's easier, and more habitual, to go on as you always have?

What can one person do, when the crisis is already here? Does it really require legislation and different technology before the change can be effective? Then again, what happens when 300 million people make the decision to bother?

The Dishwashing dilemma

Shuffling into the kitchen after a wonderful family dinner, my mom yells after me to put the dishes in the dishwasher. I scrape the food off the plates and stack them next to the sink as I prepare to load the machine. I’ve always had a hard time trusting that the machine will truly clean the really grimy plates, and thus, I rinse off the plates before stashing them away in the strategically designed dish-washing shelves.

As I developed an environmental conscience, I began to question the need for another machine in our everyday lives when we are perfectly capable of doing the job ourselves. I brought this issue up with the kitchen master – my mom – and she claimed that using the dishwasher actually uses less water than what we would use hand-washing the dishes. I accepted this claim for a while and now I’m beginning to wonder if it’s really true.

Water conservation is not the only issue here. There are all the materials used to make the dishwasher, the energy used to put it all together, the energy used to run it, as well as the environmental damage done when it’s not disposed of properly.

I came across an informative article on Slate.com that discusses a German study that compares hand-washing versus the machine and it seems as though the results support the use of the machine. Yet, the study does not take into consideration the issues mentioned above.

The conclusion: both methods have their perks. If you choose to hand wash- use the method mentioned in the Slate article. If you use the machine, don’t rinse before hand- just scrape.