Terrifying Tuesdays - catchup edition

Sorry I forgot to post about last week. It's been busy (yeah, like who isn't busy?) Last week was a delight, but yesterday terrified me to pieces - so I'll report on that first! (it's a bit of a PSA)

Yesterday I decided to make Kasha for the first time. I've had a bag of it (that I got from the local health food store) in my pantry for a couple months now and have been dying to try it. Remember, last fall I tried a bunch of new whole grains - barley, bulgur, quinoa. So kasha was the next natural attempt. I got the recipe from emails I get from Dr. Andrew Weil. It's called "kasha with vegetables".

First off, let me say that kasha is a confusing grain, if you are trying to learn anything about it off the internet. That's probably my problem. the internet. You get dribs and drabs of tips about how the grain needs to be toasted, and you need to coat it with egg whites so it won't get mushy, blah, blah, blah. That sounds easy, but execution was not pretty. Ick. So I need a little hands-on kasha 101.

secondly, if you like mushrooms, then you will like this recipe. It calls for 2 ounces of dried mushrooms. Doesn't sound like a lot, does it? I bought the prettiest bag of dried shiitakes, but only 1 ounce. It still looked like a good amount. The recipe calls for you to soak them, of course. WARNING: Dried mushrooms stink! I mean, really really stink! And since I'm not a fan of mushrooms, I tried to dice them instead of just slicing them. I ended up throwing out about 1/3 of them. One of them had become so HUGE it really creeped me out. Out that one goes.

At this point I had to light a cinnamon candle. It was a pathetic attempt to cover up the stench.

Here's a doozy - and a major part of the PSA - the recipe calls for you to use the mushroom soaking water. Just disregard that - unless you are wild about mushrooms and want to taste that smell. I was leary of this point of the recipe, so I had to veer from it. I used just a half cup of it, then a cup of chicken broth and the rest water. The total liquid was to equal 3 cups (and it did not call for chicken broth, that was my attempt to add a good flavor over the mushroom water). Lord have mercy. Don't use the mushroom liquid.

So the recipe is: toast the kasha, soak the mushrooms, boil the mushroom water, add the kasha, add the shrooms, add a sliced carrot and add chopped onion. And don't forget the salt. (yes, to top a horrifying dish off, I forgot the salt) Cook until water is absorbed.

I did the kasha wrong. It was absolute mush. Horrible. Bland because I forgot the salt. and stinky, because of you-know-what.

It goes without saying that it was a thumbs down all around.

It will be a long while before I cook kasha again. I shudder at the thought.
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So on to more pleasant topics. Last week's terrifying tuesday offering. It was a success. Thumbs up all around. It was a good thing...

A Martha Stewart Living recipe. Roasted carrots with lemon dressing. Yummy.
Roasted carrots alone are good, but the family prefers it with the dressing. It's easy so I'm adding it to the regular rotation.

(I'm not posting these recipes because they are easily found on the internet.)
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On to non-food topics! gas keeps creeping up: $2.27 /gal.

Jake has lost 2 teeth in 2 days. He has another tooth that is very wiggly and I wouldn't be surprised if he lost it today. ryan hasn't lost a tooth in over a year and non are wiggly. Yeah, twins, go figure!

I spend way too much time on the internet looking at rental houses.

Two weeks ago I had two spots frozen. One on my neck and one of the side of my face. The one on my neck is gone, the other is not. Not at all! So I need to leave a message with my PCM and she'll put in a referral to a dermatologist and he'll probably do a biopsy. I'm very fair skinned and I've spent a lot of my youth getting sunburned.

I'm supposed to be making an appointment to get an MRI in March. I don't know about you, but I can only handle one doctor appointment at a time. I've got an appointment on Friday to have my next door neighbor (the horror!) look at my, uh, surgical site, and deem it healed so I can start the tattooing process.

AND we hope to take a trip to Kauai during spring break. I need to avoid the dates when I'm making my appointments, because Gary's window of opportunities keeps shrinking. He's very busy at work. We hope to take a whale watching cruise (just a few hours) this weekend. Need to see them before they swim back to Alaska.