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Cyllan

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Termina Session Log: Pre-session entries [Apr. 17th, 2015|07:39 pm]
Cyllan
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Diary of Anges du Sacre Lac, pre-session entriesCollapse )
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Book Recs? [Sep. 21st, 2011|02:19 pm]
Cyllan
The Bitling has requested "Spooky Mystery" books for some of her reading. She's handling the 2nd-level reading books with ease, and is doing okay with slightly harder things so long as I'm there to help with some of the unfamiliar words.

So, anyone have any recommendations as to what she can read herself?

Also, we're about to the end of Harry Potter #2, and my mother is also running out of books to read to her, so I'm opening the floor for suggestions on read-aloud books as well. Help! What should I read my daughter?

Crossposted from Dreamwidth; comment wherever!
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Boosting for Signal [Sep. 20th, 2011|08:36 pm]
Cyllan
A friend of mine is working on directing and choreographing this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/698548099/come-with-us-into-the-dark-wood

The company does fantastic work; if anyone can boost the signal or drop them some backing, I'd appreciate it.
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Menu Plans and Cooking [Apr. 11th, 2011|08:41 am]
Cyllan
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Good weekend. Busy, but good. We're attempting to be more regular attendees at our local Unitarian church; this makes the third Sunday in a row that we've managed to get out of the house and be at church on time. It won't always be this consistent, but we're trying to establish the routine while we can.

Also spent a decent amount of time doing other productive stuff. I have a new, working keyboard that is much kinder to my hands. The job search continues -- albeit more slowly than I would like. Anyone know of any QA or Business Analyst positions in the Atlanta area?

And of course, I made a menu plan:
Monday: Duck in Dark Sauce, couscous, aparagus, salad
Tuesday: Stir Fry
Wednesday: Tuniscan Vegetable Stew
Thursday: BBQ Chicken, Butternut Squash, Broccoli, Rice
Friday: Boiled Shrimp, Brussel Sprouts, Salad, Quinoa
Saturday/Sunday: Quesadillas at some point
Monday: Curried Rabbit/Turkey, Cabbage&Onions, Acorn Squash
Tuesday:Wild Duck Soup, Salad, cauliflower w/ scallions
Wednesday: Cajun Skillet Beans
Thursday: At Casa Diaz
Friday: Couscous Paella

Duck -- and I know this; everyone knows this -- has an astounding amount of fat. I stripped off most of the skin (not needed given the recipe) and made an attempt at rendering it into duck grease. From two (fairly small) ducks, I came away with nearly 4 cups of fat. Four CUPS.

So, last night I cooked the ducks, chopped all of the veggies for the stir fry and the Vegetable stew, sliced the meat for the stir fry and prepped a marinade in which I'll put the meat tomorrow morning. I also cooked some artichokes and spaghetti squash just to have on hand if I need/want them.

The menu for the past two weeks was perfectly fine if not exciting. Touchstone's white-bean hummus was awesome and will go onto the LARP food list as a decided win. Persian rice was so-so. I modified the recipe -- skipped the chicken, added mushrooms and black beans. Next time, skip or greatly reduce the mushrooms, keep the black beans, add onions and bell pepper, up the spice level just a bit. Everything else was pretty well standard and serviceable.
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Dinner and Forthnight Review [Mar. 26th, 2011|04:04 pm]
Cyllan
The upcoming weekends are both pretty full. As such, it's time to pull out Stuff From Freezer as dinner options.

Fortnight Menu Plan
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Something I don't cook.
Monday: Pork w/ raisins, spinach, butternut squash
Tuesday: Pasta, fruit salad
Wednesday: Something from the freezer, cabbage&apples
Thursday: Lamb, corn (if available), broccoli, artichokes
Friday: C. Vegetable Stew (Freezer), Salad, rice optional
Saturday: White bean hummus, pita, cheese, apples
Sunday: scrounge/order/cookout
Monday: Chili from Freezer, asparagus
Tuesday: shrimp fajitas
Wednesday: Persian rice w/ portabella mushrooms, broccoli, collards
Thursday: At Casa Diaz
Friday: Catfish, spaghetti squash, lima beans
Saturday: Chinese!

* * * * * *
Comments From Prior Plan
Great Hump Backed Roast, despite having a silly name and using coffee as one of the main ingredients, turned out great. Worked well in the crock-pot, stayed juicy, was very very tender.

Wednesday night's cooking bore, in practice, little to no resemblance to the actual recipe. Still, it was tasty. Next time, don't use peppercorns; just heavily pepper the yogurt marinade.

Salmon fillets are Not Worth The Trouble. I'd rather have trout which is cheaper and less fiddly. The salsa was quite tasty, and would go well on a host of things -- fish, pork, possibly chicken. Asian shrimp wraps got a thumb up from everyone, as did the stir-fried veggies. The corned beef turned out really well -- we really should do it more than once a year.

Cannellini with veggies was perfectly acceptable although nothing to serve to company unlike the Rabbit Delight. Although I wound up making it with turkey thighs instead of rabbit (pork would have worked as well), the Turkey Delight lived up to its name. It's earned the "can be served to company" seal of approval. Also, it took less than 30 minutes to fix, start to finish, so it's doubly awesome.

BBQ chicken pitas did well. The Bit enjoyed helping to make them, and they were tasty and easy. Greek Pitas were also pretty good, although they needed ... something. I'm not sure what yet, but it's worth fiddling with the recipe and retrying. The cauliflower soup needed more pepper (and probably some spicy pepper) and more salt, but was still perfectly okay.

On the whole, success!
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Dinner Planning [Mar. 11th, 2011|08:45 pm]
Cyllan
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For those who are interested:

Monday: BBQ chicken, salad, couscous, broccoli
Tuesday: great hump backed roast (Bison), asparagus, sesame spinach
Wednesday: chicken breast w/ yogurt & saffron marinade; pear, raspberry, avocado salad; butternut squash, bread
Thursday: salmon fillets with pear,pineapple,mango salsa; broccoli, spaghetti squash, rice
Friday: Asian shrimp wraps w/ lettuce, stir-fried rice w/ veggies
Saturday: Corned Beef, cabbage, mashed potatoes, soda bread
Sunday: Leftovers

Monday: Cannellini w/ veggies
Tuesday: BBQ chicken pitas, salad
Wednesday: Rabbit delight, brussel sprouts, wild rice
Thursday: At Casa Diaz
Friday: Cauliflower soup & Vegetarian Greek Pitas
Saturday/Sunday: Leftovers, Pasta

Menu planning this go-around took somewhere slightly over an hour, but that's mostly because I am making a lot of stuff that I don't usually make. This means that I needed to look up the recipes and ingredients for each meal instead of just listing them off the cuff as per my usual. I also have no idea where I'm going to put all of this food. My next refrig should contain a portable hole somewhere.
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By Request: Weekly Dinner Menu for the Next Two Weeks [Feb. 28th, 2011|10:49 pm]
Cyllan
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Monday: BBQ Chicken, lima beans, artichokes

Tuesday: Kale and Canneloni over pasta

Wednesday: Artichoke Fish, asparagus, linguine

Thursday: Soy chicken, rice, salad, broccoli

Friday: Meatloaf, collards, acorn squash

Saturday & Sunday: Leftovers/Order In

Monday: Carribean Vegtable stew, fruit

Tuesday: Black Bean Soup, salad

Wednesday: Pork w/soy sauce marinade, rice, spinach

Thursday: @Casa Diaz

Friday: Shrimp Stir Fry
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The Mighty Cooking Prep [Feb. 27th, 2011|11:18 pm]
Cyllan
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Sunday is Dinner Prep Day. Normally I let it pass without comment (because who really cares about my weekly dinner menu?) but tonight's effort was particularly valorous. Tonight, the Shakespearean Rat and I engaged the kitchen in a battle to the death and emerged victorious.

Our fallen foes:
  • Pork cutlets - trimmed fat, sliced into serving-sized portions, froze;
  • Whole chickens - skinned, trimmed fat, cut into pieces, frozen for Thursday;
  • Chicken Thighs - skinned, covered in BBQ sauce, baked for Wednesday;
  • Shrimp - peeled and deveined; frozen for next week
  • Prepped meatloaf - diced a ton of veggies, mixed up sausage, veggies, ground beef, frozen to be cooked on Friday;
  • Kale and Canneloni over Spaghetti Squash/Spaghetti - for Tuesday;
  • Cooked artichokes for some day this week;
  • Artichoke and Red Bell Pepper Tilapi - for Tomorrow;
  • Roasted Turnips for Tomorrow;
  • Sweetwater Blue - opened for tonight.
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Dear Facist Bully Boy Winter, [Jan. 20th, 2011|07:15 pm]
Cyllan
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Perhaps you got confused. This is Georgia. We're a state somewhere in the Southern United States - one of the lower ones. We don't get snow 'round here very often. It's rare to see it more than once a year, and any accumulation of more than an inch is cause for grave concern.

And yet, we have already had two snowstorms this year. The first was lovely, coming as it did on Christmas and giving us a pretty white landscape to look at when few people wished to be out and about. It left the roadways fairly clear, and melted on schedule. The second was less fun. 5 inches of snow is more than generous, and when you then coat it with a half-inch of ice, it is really too much. You shut down the city for a week and nearly drove parents insane. I would have thought that would have done it for you.

But no. Looking in my forecast, I see not one, but two possible days in the near future when snow is predicted. Look, this must stop. Take the snow to Georgia the country where it belongs (at least in the mountains, I'm told) and leave us poor folks alone. At the very least, please dump it somewhere that has snowplows because we don't, and we never have.

Boom shanka,
Me
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Quiet in the House [Jan. 15th, 2011|08:08 am]
Cyllan
I know it can't last, but for the past 10 minutes, my house has been quiet. Everyone is sleeping, and all is well. Four days of being house-bound because of snow makes for a somewhat twitchy me, and the opportunity to sit and read for 10 minutes without anyone else saying anything is a marvel.

We survived the storm with barely a hitch -- the power flickered out twice, but was back on within minutes. There was sledding and snow-candy and bowling the Bit. (Take one very slick patch of icy snow. Add one small child who really really wants to go sliding. Bowl small child down the patch of snow. Wait for giggles.) And (thankfully) this weekend there should be enough rain and sun and warm weather to make all of this stuff go away. Silly snow.

Alas, time's up for me. Must go start the day. More updates later, I hope.
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