Yes, it's been awhile.

So. Yeah.

Predominantly sheer laziness, a bit of post first draft hand-in celebrations and a hint of severely fucked up sleep schedule have been what's going on that's caused the lack of blog posts. I handed in the thesis on the 1rst of June, and I'm waiting on the comments from my reader. She's taking her time, which worries me a little since I have to hand in a second draft at the end of the month. I know she's busy, but I may send her an email on Sunday to quietly remind her that she'll probably want me to change some things. We'll see.

The initial, immediate celebration of the thesis hand in started with having to mop up a swimming pool that had appeared in my living room. I live in a highrise. On the 14th floor. Yep.

Please ignore that hideous, pink rodent cage that's the size of a bookshelf. My roommate is planning on moving her girls into bigger digs, and paint that monstrosity soon.

See those slightly blacker parkay tiles? Not really attached the floor in this picture.

We had all our living and dining room furniture pushed up towards the front door to allow the contractor to come in and fix the floor that bubbled and popped as a result of the water. They've also been on the outside of the building, hopefully fixing the actual problem, whatever it is. There's a couple of theories about why this has happened, and none of them have to with me leaving a window open during a rain storm. We have a nice, shiny chunk of floor now from the varnish though, so you win some things.

I pulled an all nighter on the night before the first draft due date to try and edit the thesis a few more times, and my sleep schedule has been out of whack ever since. The bright side to that is that I've been super cleaning the room and going through some stuff to try and purge things. I've also been working through some craft projects at three in the morning, as a result of finding some supplies in my closet. One of them is a tutorial for a Moroccan styled tea light lantern that I saw ages ago on Matsutake. So far the glass paint is producing interesting results. I have a lot of really amazing patterns on real Moroccan lanterns online, so I may try something a little more intricate than the original tutorial.

Crafting with wine!

I have actually been doing some cooking, especially since I purged a bunch of my old or not ever used cookbooks (Blasphemy!). I'm trying to really try some more recipes from the books that I have, especially my Nova Scotia Cooking and my Easy Indian Cooking cookbooks. I've neglected to take pictures of most of them, so there are hints of them in the iphoto library.

 Honey Grilled Scallops from Nova Scotia Cooking.

Coorg-style Pork Curry from Easy Indian Cooking.

That's my update for now, but as a final thing, I just found an amazing steampunk photo shoot by Pixie Vision Productions for Clockwork Couture with Grant Imahara. Yes. Please.

 The eye patch... the leather... the manliner. What I'd do to be that sword. That sounded creepy.

 Cutest, thing, ever. Melt, etc.

Dear god this is hot in so many ways! The whole shoot is on the Pixie Vision Productions facebook page.

A varied week

It has been an interesting week in the Casa del Raglan, filled with a fair amount of food, almost none of which I managed to document the entire way through. With every recipe I make, I am filled with enthusiasm and take pictures of the process as I go along, but as the dish gets near the end I forget to take pictures or get too busy with the cooking itself. This week is a tribute to some of those dishes. I did manage to have one recipe that's documented the entire way through, and one recipe that I have pictures of the finished product, not the making of.

This was an amazing recipe I found for Curried Pork Burgers on the Canadian Living website. I've never had the best luck with burger recipes, and the fresh coriander had me worried since I find it tastes awful at the best of times. However, this recipe was quite a winner, and the burgers were amazing!

This was a case of getting distracted by the meal, since once the burgers were finished grilling on my roommate's Foreman Grill, I was wanted to eat the burger immediately rather than take pictures of it getting cold. It was worth not taking pictures, this recipe is amazing!! Go try it! NOW!!

These were french fries that I made to go with a panko crusted baked fish filet for fish n' chips. The fish itself may not have been the best choice (Tilapia, a.k.a. tasteless), but the dish in general was quite good. This was pretty much the only picture I took of that adventure, the breading of the fish being really messy and not camera friendly.

I was quite proud of this. My Mom has a not-so-secret family recipe for Rigatoni, which I ate throughout my childhood and loved. I attempted to make it years ago and failed, miserably. I ended up throwing two thirds of the casserole out, it was that bad. I had bee a bit skittish in attempting to try it again until recently, when I was able to summon the courage to try it again due to a) Italian pork sausages being sale at my local grocery store, and b) I called my Mom to clarify some things about my copy of the recipe. I'm glad I did, since it worked beautifully this time and tasted just like I remember. It was a bit time consuming to make and required my attention most of the time, so picture taking was forgotten about most of the time. It also resulted in many oil burns on my hand since I was paying too much attention to the camera while taking pictures instead of the cooking pork sausages. Thanks to my years of working in a grocery store kitchen, I didn't feel those burns after about five minutes, and they haven't left any marks.

This was a dinner/lunch leftover recipe for my mid week slump. It's pretty much Kraft Dinner with hotdogs and green onions. I boiled the hotdogs while boiling the pasta and threw the green onions in after I mixed the cheese sauce in. I like to leave the kd covered for five minutes before serving since it thickens up the sauce a bit. All it needs is some ketchup and you have the most Canadian dish ever.

This is the more-or-less fully documented meal! I pulled out my Nova Scotia Cooking Recipe book and made two recipes; the herbed biscuits that I made last year and posted about here, and the Bubbly Bake. The biscuits were great as usual, and I was fairly pleased with the bake as it went along. The sauce tasted amazing as it was being made, but I'm not sure what happened during the baking. My roommate is more knowledgeable about seafood than I am, and said that wine will give scallops a very sharp taste, which explains the strong aftertaste the scallops had when finished. I used cooking wine since we had run out of real wine, but I'm wondering if I try this again with real wine it might be better, and with a nice wine... I hope so, because if I can get rid of the sharp taste this bake was awesome!

Bubbly Bake
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 lb scallops
1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 tbsp finely chopped green onions
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
2 tbsp flour
1/3 cup 18% cream
1/3 cup white wine
salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Rinse scallops and set aside.
In saucepan, melt butter, and saute green onions and mushrooms until onions become transparent.
Add flour and mix thoroughly; add cream and stir until sauce has thickened.
Add wine, salt and pepper, stirring until completely blended.
Add scallops and pour into a 1 1/2 quart (1.5 L) casserole dish. Top with bread crumbs.
Bake in preheated 350F oven for 25 minutes.

The biscuits were great for soaking up the sauce!

Canadian Cooking for the win!

I used to work at the front desk of a travel hostel in a past life. Every now and again I'd have people who would ask me what Canadian food was, and once you got beyond Timbits, Poutine and Maple syrup, most people couldn't name anything. In actual fact, Canada is a buffet of culinary amazingness that never ceases to surprise me. For one thing, we have amazing fusion foods since we're so multicultural. Second, each region and province has their own traditions and staple ingredients that make a Sunday night's dinner all the more unique.
I think it's in my blood that I love coastal food. I was born in Vancouver in British Columbia to a pair of food-loving parents that took advantage of the local fare as much as possible where ever we've lived. I was lucky enough to do some traveling in Canada while I was working at the hostel and did a week long tour of the Maritimes. I cheaped out on a lot the things involved in the trip, I got the flight, tour and accommodations on sale so I could treat myself to the wonderful cuisine of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. I also lucked out and did my trip just as lobster and crab season crossed over each other. It was amazing.

It's been a few years since that trip, and I do miss the food a lot. Fortunately, I was in a Value Village a few months back and may have found the answer to my problem: "Nova Scotia Cooking" by Heather Mackenzie and Charles Lief. I finally got around to trying one of the recipes today now that I have a break from school. Herbed Biscuits! I think, if there are any left, they'll be great with tomorrow's planned dinner. 

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp granulated sugar
1/8 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/4 cup softened butter
1 cup milk
Full recipe makes 18, half recipe makes about 10.

In mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Stir in herbs and spices.
Add butter and cut into flour mixture with a fork until it resembles a coarse crumb.
Add milk and stir gently, taking care to not overmix as biscuits will be tough,
Turn dough out onto a floured board and quickly knead 5 or 6 times. Roll out dough to 1/2 inch (1 cm) thick an use a floured biscuit cutter or glass to cut out biscuits.
Place on an ungreased baking pan and bake in preheated 400 f (200C) over for 15-17 minutes (My oven seems to be super strong, ten minutes was more than enough).