kitchen lessons

I've started cooking again. Occasionally. I didn't cook at all during my first trimester of pregnancy, and now I am starting to cook again and trying to empty the fridge/freezer. We are moving in three weeks.

I thought I'd put down a few things I learned about cooking so I can remember them. I'm sure there is a lot more to this list, but for now I am remembering just two things.

1) For sauces and soups, use white flour. (Gravy is an exception; whole wheat flour works fine in it and just makes it a bit more gritty. I usually use whole wheat flour when making sausage gravy for a biscuits/gravy meal.)  I created this rule for myself after using whole wheat flour as the thickening agent in some kind of soup. It turned out really strange. I wish I could remember what it was. If it is bread product, whole wheat flour works fine. But if its just used as a thickening agent, the results are unpredictable and might be less than delightful.

2) Don't assume that anchovy paste/fillets can be interchanged with sardine juice. I know I might be an oddball in liking sardines. Before I was pregnant, I was on a sardine kick and loved eating them on rye toast with cheese. There is always some sardine "juice" left in the tin after all the sardines are taken out. At first I dumped it in the sink, but then I got the idea that I should save it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer for some future use. David is not a huge seafood fan, but I have made a fish-base soup once or twice. Or maybe just once. I thought the sardine juice could go in something like that. So I accumulated leftover juice from 3 or 4 cans, adding up to about 1/4 cup.

Meanwhile, I read in cooks illustrated that adding tomato paste and anchovy past/fillets to a beef stew will add depth to the beef flavor (without making it taste like fish). There is a very good beef stew recipe that uses these ingredients and it is super awesome. As I said before, I am trying to use up what is in my freezer. Recently I was making another beef stew recipe and decided to throw in the frozen sardine juice. BIG MISTAKE. It made the whole kitchen smell like sardines, and you could definitely taste it in the finished product. It was still edible and tasted fine, but the sardine flavor ruined the dish in my opinion. Perhaps if I had used only 2 teaspoons of the juice it would have worked out perfectly. (The stew recipe that calls for anchovy fillets says it is 2 teaspoons worth.) But I probably won't ever try it again.

3) This is more of a complaint against blogger and its search engine. I have discovered, to my dismay, that when searching my recipe blog, the title is not searched, only the body of posts. HOW LAME IS THAT? Super duper lame. This means that I have to rely on my tags to find certain recipes. Or, I should just repeat the post title in the body of the post so it will be searched. I might go back and do that for all the posts.  Grrr.

the pregernaut + the importance of the star trek title sequence

I am the pregernaut.
Boldly going where no man has gone before.
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When I was young(er) (12 perhaps?), my parents always watched Star Trek reruns that showed at 10pm on weeknights. I think it was the James T. Kirk, but might have been Next Generation. Either way, everytime I'd walk by my parents door around that time at night, I'd hear the opening title sequence, or bits of it (this one from Kirk):

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Soon, I had it memorized. One day I typed it up and put it on the door of the refrigerator. My father was studying Latin at the time, and within a few days the Latin translation of the title sequence had shown up on the fridge also. It became a family joke. My parents are pretty big Star Trek fans. My mom even has some framed star trek picture with Leonard Nimoy's signature (you know, Spock). Whoa. And lets not forget the Christmas ornament in the shape of a shuttlecraft that, when you press the button, says (in Spock's voice), "Shuttlecraft to Enterprise, shuttlecraft to Enterprise: Spock here. Happy Holidays. Live long and prosper."

Meanwhile, time passed. I discovered the changes in the wording used in the title sequence for Kirk's Star Trek versus Next Generation. The most important part being, "to boldly go where no one has gone before." Apparently "one" is more politically correct.

The Latin translation was semi-forgotten. Then one day, out of the blue, a new Latin translation shows up on the fridge. My dad had a lot more Latin study under his belt, and had decided that his first stab at translating the star trek sentence was sub par. We wouldn't want that.

And thus, the story of the Latin translation of "Space, the final frontier..." earned its place in family legend.

the end.

provophobia (noun): fear of living in provo, utah

provophobic (adj) - suffering from provophobia

provophobe (noun) - a person with provophobia

Reasons for provophobia:

1) the people there have gone round the bend, as it were. (also known as the point of the mountain). teeheehehe

2) the zip code is very dull. not poetic at all. 84606? Psha. 40404 is poetic. Such beautiful symmetry...

3) there is only one public library. Palo Alto has 5 (though they don't have near as many books as Provo).

4) it is overrun with scary undergraduates. With cars.

5) there is no mocha ice cream flavor at the BYU creamery.

6) you can buy caffeine free diet coke in vending machines

7) University of Utah is where my heart is

8) BYU is in provo

9) The mountain has Y on it. As in, "Y are you a nutcase?" This makes one ponder self-worth. The U on the mountain behind the University of Utah is much better. It says, "U are a nutcase" and there is no need to think about it.
10) No Milk Pail grocery
11) pollution
12) weather extremes. How will I run in the snow?


And so forth. The last three are mainly complaints about Utah in general, or how I will miss the the lovely Bay Area. And I will definitely miss it. A lot.


I am consoled in this upcoming move by contemplating that my family will be nearby. It will be so nice to be able to see them more frequently. I am also consoled because after this move, David will start getting paid at a "real" job. Woot!

pregnant thoughts

Of all the unusual (and mostly unhealthy) food I have consumed in the last 3 months, it wasn't until I wanted to eat a baked potato that made David exclaim, "are you a different person?"

apparently so.
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Yesterday I got a surprise delivery from my friend Jennie. She gave me my first baby present! It was so exciting. Presents! In July! Totally unprecedented. 


I would like to state that I have no intention of turning my blog into a mommy blog. That is just too much effort, and it is too much like scrap-booking (which I loathe). So you can all either make a gasp of horror or relief. Depending on your preference.
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The people in my Spanish speaking LDS ward have been waiting impatiently for 3 years for me to be pregnant. The first year and a half in the ward, everybody asked me if I was pregnant. Even men. I wondered if it was because of the high-waisted dresses I was wearing at the time (I have worn nothing but skirts the last year and a half..in retaliation). Then they all finally clued in and then stopped asking me if I was pregnant. Instead, they started asking me when I was going to have a baby. Or they would ask David. The joys of el barrio. Sigh..


So now I finally am going to have a baby, and I can finally fulfill the dearest wish of apparently every person in my ward. How nice for them. But I did enjoy finally being able to use the word "embarazada" in a sentence. Not that I can say much in spanish, but I DO remember that embarazada does NOT mean embarrassed. It means pregnant:)

Napa trip

So I am finally getting around to reporting on a trip DH and I went on last February. To Napa. The land of wine and grapes.

We had some friends who invited us and another couple to help them use up some "points" that were expiring on a hotel package. Napa is about an hour and a half from Palo Alto. We had three rooms, one of which had a full kitchen. We stayed there Sunday and Monday nights, ate lovely food, even visited a winery!

Napa Valley is all about wine tasting and tours. We didn't want to pay to go on a tour when we were mostly paying for the wine tasting at the end that we wouldn't be tasting! We ended up visiting a winery and doing a short self tour. The shape of Napa Valley reminded me a lot of Cache Valley in Utah (minus wine and vineyards!). There is literally one vineyard after another. There are SO SO many.

Here are some pics while at the vineyard:

I'm inside a wine barrel!

Me, Christine, and Silas

1120 gallon barrel!

3 years of love and soap

Happy 3rd Anniversary to me! The soap saga continues. For earlier episodes, read here and here.

Our soap has survived 3 years in the Hansen bathroom. We use it many times a day. It is amazing supersoap. (I think it is because it is a low lather soap that it has lasted so long...that and it was huge to begin with).

Poor little soap. You have broken into tiny pieces. But you still live. For now. We thank you, soap. You have been good to us. 

David the Graduate + no more secret

Yesterday was David's graduation from Stanford. He looked super awesome in his special outfit.

You might think there is a degree certificate inside of that thing he is holding. But, no. Instead he has a certificate that says, Congratulations, You're Almost Done! (David won't actually defend his dissertation until early August.)

My parents and David's mother came to the ceremony. It was great! The commencement speaker put in all sorts of economics jokes which I even thought were funny. I guess I've been living with an economist for three years now:)

Another perk was that they gave us food. As a response, David said, "Economists know that hungry people don't donate as much money." Right. Economists are smart.

You can watch a recording of his "hooding" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_bJa3Wr13I

As for the SECRET, it is no longer a secret. Because we are telling it. Hence, no more secret. I am having a baby and it is due December 20th. We alternate between calling it the "poor little christmas baby" and "Emperor Palpatine." :-)