Food, sustainablity, and some other stuff
Events from J’s and N’s lives.
My mom and I went to the big Goodwill in Austin today. It’s smaller than I remembered from my childhood, but still has a good selection of furniture, kitchenware, and computers. Anyone want a laptop for $80?
We bought some cool stuff!
We say lots of other cool stuff (of course!): stainless steel popcorn/mixing bowl, cast iron skillet, pyrex pie dishes, pyrex baking dishes, empty pillow ticking, oak cabinet with curved doors (my mom says probably early 1900s).
Enjoy your local thrift store!
My parents have a lot of food around (definitely enough to last the recommended 3 days for an emergency. In fact, it’s probably enough to last months). Unfortunately, this makes it easy for things to get lost or forgotten. We’ve had the same jar of Nutella for years (it expired years ago too, and the lid was used in a past automobile repair project by my dad). I was searching for a way to use it up before it goes rancid, and decided on brownies! The recipe I found uses almond meal and instant coffee, other remnant ingredients we have.
The recipe doesn’t actually call for Nutella. It calls for cookie butter swirled into the top of the brownie batter, but I figured I could sub in Nutella. I also used about 2/3 cup Nutella in the batter, as a replacement for the chocolate chips (I decreased the butter and sugar by about 25% each to attempt to accommodate the Nutella. I also added an extra ~1/4 cup almond meal ’cause the batter seemed too wet).
The recipe calls for baking at 325°F for 20-25 minutes. This was completely insufficient, unless you like uncooked brownie batter. I cooked the brownies for an additional 15 minutes, for a total of 40 minutes. Even then, the brownies were wet and fudgy, and incredibly tender. They needed to be eaten with a spoon. However, they had great flavor! Next time, I’d bake these at 350°F for about 30 minutes.
Since the last version of pad thai I tried didn’t turn out very well, I tried another recipe. It was sooo much better, and has very helpfully detailed directions.
This weekend I went on a very last minute trip to Napa with Friend A and Friend B. We decided to go the night before, and somehow we convinced friend B to drive us there. It was a lot of fun!
I think you’re supposed to have wine while you’re in Napa, but we ended up not having any. Maybe next time.
Many people rely on paper towels to drain excess fat off of fried foods, like bacon, tempura, and fried tofu (the fried things that we make!). However paper towels aren’t ideal because they’re disposable, and must be purchased again and again. Instead, J and I drain fried food on a cooling rack, like what you would use for cookies. We place the rack over a pan or a plate to catch the drips.
Bonus tip: The cooling rack is just the right size to fit into our wok, so we can use it as a steamer insert too! I love items that do double duty.
I’m making a pair of pants for sibling C. We don’t have a lot of pants patterns around (and those that we do have are from a past era), so I drafted a pattern based on C’s measurements and Donald McCunn’s book How to make your own sewing patterns. (I have read another book of his that is slightly more useful for creating new designs from an existing pattern.)
To make sure the pattern actually makes an item resembling a pair of pants, I mocked up a mini version about 15 cm long.
The pants will be made out of silk dupioni (or maybe it’s shantung? It was bought used from Austin Creative Reuse, so there is some question and I’m not well-versed in silk fabrics). C want them to have a drawstring closure – hopefully the fancy fabric will be able to pull them up to dress or party level! The pants will be lined with flannel, since C gets cold easily.
This will be my first time fitting a garment – wish me luck!
Amazingly, it’s snowing again! I’ll upload pictures tomorrow morning. Since it was cold today and should be for the next few days, it might not melt immediately!