Chicken stir-fry or sorts.

It was one of those night where I had a variety of stuff in the fridge, none of which was really enough to make a recipe I already had. Time to MacGyver it! I loosely followed a recipe from a Canadian Eat Right: Quick & Healthy Family Meals for Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry that I really like, mostly using the sauce and technique for making the dish, but I used chicken and a lot more vegetables.

Chicken Stir-Fry

Ingredients:
3 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 Tbsp Cornstarch
1 Boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 Tbsp Hoisin Sauce
2 Tbsp Vegetable oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp minced gingerroot
1/2 cup of frozen peas, thawed
1/2 cup - 2/3 cup of sliced mushrooms
large handful of spinach (can be omitted, wasn't great in the finished dish)
thinly sliced green onions
1/2 package of rice noodle.

-In a large bowl of boiling water, submerge the rice noodles. Add some more boiling water about half way through the cooking process for the stir-fry, and then ignore them.
-In a small bowl, whisk together 3/4 cup of water, oyster sauce and cornstarch. Set aside.
-Slice chicken into small 1 inch pieces and mix with hoisin sauce in bowl. Set aside.
-In frying pan, over medium high heat, heat half the vegetable oil. Cook the chicken until no longer pink inside. Remove from pan unto plate.
-Add remaining oil to pan and stir-fry mushrooms, garlic and ginger for 1 minute. Cover and then steam for 2 minutes.

-Add peas and spinach, if using, and stir. Return chicken and any juices, and add oyster sauce. Mix well and cook until slightly thickened, 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

-Drain rice noodles in a colander, and rinse in cool water so they can be handled. Ensure the noodles are soft to the touch and taste. Place in the frying pan and mix well.
-Garnish with green onions and serve!

Working away at the computer, as per usual these days.

Doesn't it look good though? The recipe in general worked out really well, but I found the spinach was a little too bitter, so I probably wouldn't use it again for this. It did make up for how much time I had to spend working on my literature survey and 3 presentations I have to give this upcoming week. All by Tuesday night. Weehee. I may be eating a fair bit of take-out and instant stuff due to lack of time for the next few days.

An Esty kitchen

I'm writing my thesis proposal while wandering through Etsy for accessories to my dream vintage, cabin-inspired kitchen. This site is dangerous.

A chicken Recipe box! I like chickens, although I'm trying to be quiet about it so everyone I know doesn't buy me chicken stuff. Choice pieces, not crazy chicken lady. My recipe collection wouldn't even remotely fit, so maybe a general "stuff" box.

Everyone needs a cookie tin or two. This just happens to be nautical as well. I'd probably line with parchment paper or something before I put any actual food in it, but a minor thing.

Yep. But they are cute!

I know it says that this is a decorative tile, so I could hang it on a wall. How about a trivet? Maybe? Either way, it's pretty awesome.

I love having canisters on the counter to hold the most frequently used baking and cooking ingredients. That being said, nine times out of ten, vintage ones are labeled. That can be nice, but most of them have a 'coffee' label. I hate coffee and don't have it in my kitchen. This set isn't labeled, and a has a lovely floral design on it. Win, win!

This is one of my favorite finds so far. Its got great colour and its still in great shape. A good centerpiece, or on an open shelf maybe?

This is a little different. I have a great appreciation for the subversive. Also, this piece has the added bonus of being a functioning clock. It's not cabin-y, and only so vintage, but it's funny. It would go perfectly in a kitchen, dining area that already has a sign that says "Free your inner psychopath."


Sigh.... back to thesis work.

A lazy afternoon

So instead of reading for my literature survey like a good little grad student, I'm going through fashion, vintage and food blogs. Procrastination level high. Maybe I'll go to the library this afternoon to redeem myself. Maybe not.

I think I've discovered one of my old classmates in the blogosphere, specifically in 'Round Raglan Road. It's a young lady named Alison Little, and by the looks of it she's the same one that I went to elementary and high school with. I wonder if she'd remember "conversational wookie" from the Italy trip. None the less, she's as fabulous as ever blogging about plus fashion and life in general.

I've been addicted to Solanah for a while now over at Vintage Vixen. I really admire her ability to go all out with Vintage wears and truly rock them all. Like myself she's got a figure that suit the (better) tailoring of yesteryear... I'm a few sizes to big for most of it but c'est la vie. Thanks to her many, many links I have been able to find some plus sized vintage to drool over as well. I also just discovered Diary of a Vintage Girl and the lovely and charming Fleur de Guerre through Vintage Vixen. Next time I'm in London or Washington, I'm stalking them both for vintage. That doesn't sound creepy does it?

I spend well too much time on Canadian Living and Apartment Therapy. Enough said.

Pft. Like I need a reason. 

I think my next cookie project should be this one. I've had Mexican Wedding Cakes a lot, and my Mom's recipe is pretty awesome. I found this one on the Kitchn website. Fall baking anyone?

Halloween and an archive update!

Yeah, it's a been a while since I have posted on here. So a bullet point update is in order.


-The PhotoHistory XV symposium was last weekend in Rochester, New York, and a bunch of us did some planning and managed to get down for it. We had a great time and caught some very interesting lectures. One of my favorites was about the cameras that were on the top of Mount Everest in 1954 when the summit was first, fully climbed. It was great to see Team Rochester as well, and a good, drunken time was had by all. 

-I've been working at the Archives of Ontario for a few weeks now as part of my Master's program, and I'm having a fabulous time. I've ding so much stuff and generally making some of my fellow students a bit jealous about it. Most importantly, I think I've sussed out my plan for my thesis, which had been a niggley thing for the past few weeks. Once I've got a solid body of work decided upon, I will further post my idea here!

-Halloween. This year was a D.I.Y.O.D.S. (Do it your own damn self) and thrift store special. My classmates hosted a party and my roommate and I went along for some house party and Wreckroom action. My roommate spent almost a year pulling together pieces from Craigslist and Value Village to create her own Shera costume. The best part was a hideous gold dress she butchered for parts to create the headdress, insignia, belt and armbands. I was inspired by one of Meg Allan Coles's old Decor it Yourself videos for Threadbanger, I had decided to go as Melanie Daniels from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and had managed to find a skirt and retro-ish jacket in tweed, in my size (that's the miracle part of this) from Value Village. I picked up some fake birds from Micheal's and Dollarama, and attached them to the jacket, skirt and my hair. I added a bandage to my head to show the last scene in the movie when she's been attacked and is being taken to the hospital. I also managed to put some peck and scratch marks on my legs, chest and face to complete the look. I only had one casualty over the course of the evening, about an hour into our time at Wreckroom I found a trampled foam bird on the ground. Other than that, I was really proud of the costume.

Back to work, back to school and hopefully some food along the way.

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!

Something evil this way grows....

I have a linear garden of purchased, inherited, gifted and grafted plants. Half of them are herbs and my forlorn tomato plant, the rest are a mix of decorative plants like my Mom's ficus and the giant fern. They all sit along my windowsill and my dining room table in the sunlight. However, recently I discovered that something had creeped into my indoor garden.

At first I had no idea what it was, it was just a random plant growing through my Rosemary. Both my roommate and I were baffled, and it decided to take advantage of us. As we were pulling the Rosemary aside to further inspect this invasive plant, it stung both of us. The sensation stayed in our fingers for a good half hour after the fact. This is what led me to believe that it was a stinging nettle. I found my heavy duty carpentry gloves to cut it out of the pot and dispose of it, once some pictures were taken to send to my Mom for confirmation of it's identity. She gardens and spent several years working part-time in a plant nursery.

The bit that really confuses me about the whole situation is that not only is my garden indoors and 14 stories up in the air, the soil I use is bagged and purchased from garden centres. Soil like that is usually sterilized before being put on sale, so random seeds shouldn't be an issue! My Mom more or less confirmed my suspicions about the evil plant being a stinging nettle, and also mentioned that seeds can lie dormant for large periods of time. They sit in soil, and when the conditions are right, they can then grow. I guess a warm, sunny window that get's a good watering regularly was absolutely perfect.

Evil!!