Sunday, February 28, 2010

some eggs



Alas, I ran out of time and daylight this week, but these are the first three pysanky I completed.

One, unfortunately, jumped out of my fingers after about an hour of work and broke into two pieces on the floor. The lesson learned? Don't even think about --literally, don't think about it-- rushing pysanky. You must relax, and let everything else go.

My camera is out of battery power and this is all it will do. Non-flash just made everything blurry; flash is clearer, but makes a glare on the eggs and washes out some of the details. I'll try to post some better photos next week!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

All set up




I am gearing up to make a nice big basketful of pysanky, Ukrainian Easter Eggs. I'll make them gradually as Lent goes by, so that when Easter/Easter Monday roll around, I can give them out in a timely fashion.

I had some leftover blown-out (empty) eggs last year, so I saved them for this year, and I hope nothing in the composition of the shell has altered. It would be too bad if they didn't hold color well anymore. Well, I'll find out soon enough. I prepared five more eggs yesterday, so I have a decent amount to work with for this week, I think.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Right around the corner



This may look like the most uninspiring bowl of soup you've ever seen.

I beg to differ. It's the most fantastically amazing soup I've ever eaten! And it was a long time in the making.

My aunt and uncle gave me a great cookbook for Christmas. On first flip-through, I thought things like 'where could I ever find that in Japan' and 'pressure cooker?!?!?' and 'if only I had access to a Tex-Mex wonderland I could make that.' Nevertheless, they have never let me down before, so I lugged the book back with me to Inaka-cho. It wasn't quite so difficult to find ingredients-- some of them I already had in the house, like pearled barley, of all things-- and I've tried several of the recipes, only to be delighted every time. The cookbook is called Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen: Where Good Flavors and Good Health Meet.

This particular soup is a simple Zesty Black Bean Soup. The soup itself is a snap to make if you can chop onions, garlic, carrots, and celery quickly, and if you have canned black beans on hand. The spices involved are cayenne pepper, cumin, oregano, and a couple of bay leaves. I added a few dashes of ginger.

However, I made it harder on myself because, when I was at the grocery store the other day, I thought, 'I needed bell peppers for something, I just know it!' Before I knew it, I was bringing home the bell peppers. What they were for was an optional 'garnish' to this soup, a roasted red pepper sauce. I had never roasted a pepper before, but I wasn't going to let those bright-colored gems go to waste, either, so I figured it out. The roasted peppers (two of them) were blended up with about half a bulb of roasted garlic, two tablespoons of toasted pine nuts, three tablespoons of olive oil, one of apple cider vinegar, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and a dash of cinnamon. I think that's all. Anyway, they blended up beautifully into an orange-colored puree, and instead of putting a mincing little dollop in my single bowl, I just tipped all the contents of the blender into the pot of finished soup and stirred it together. Magnifique!


As we approach Lent, I've been reading around trying to find some good ideas for things to give up and take on. Sister Mary Martha had some good advice about food in Lent: we eat less, and more simply, in order that we may use the money we didn't spend on food to give to the poor and hungry, and so that we may use the extra time we didn't spend preparing the food to pray, do good works, etc.

This soup got me thinking: it's not very expensive to make, but it took me a whole two hours or so from start to finish. (I am very slow at chopping vegetables, for one thing.) To be honest, there's nothing I hate more than 'wasting time in the kitchen' when I could be reading a book, turbo-kicking, playing piano, or catching up on lost sleep. My idea of a perfect recipe is one that requires no more than 30 minutes to complete. So it might be even more of a penance (and exercise in patience) in my case to keep the grocery bill down, but to spend more time preparing food.

It also made me reflect that the good Lord does marvelous things with pretty unpromising materials. The celery was practically wan with a faint tinge of seasick-green; the carrots looked ashamed to be orange, and yet the soup is still delicious.

Happy Day... *heart*

Hey, hey! I hope y'all had a spiffy Valentine's Day. I did... this month Masses are switched to the evening (while Masses in a city hours south of here get switched to the morning), so I slept in until 9! Then I kicked myself and started cleaning the apartment. It's amazing how dusty floors get, how much dishes can pile up, and how much laundry there is to do at the end of a week. And that's only with one person. I think it's a good thing families grow slowly, at a natural pace. Otherwise I don't think the poor parents, or at least parents who are neat-freaks, could handle it.


Well, I made something chocolate, in a way for Valentine's Day, but more for myself and the fact that I haven't had some good chocolate cake with lip-smackingly good frosting in a long time. I just happened to also share some of the goodness with people around me.

Fairy cakes.

Mmmm.

Sounds so much more magical than "cupcakes," which is already quite a lovely word.


Thursday, February 11, 2010

Oita


I went on a little excursion to Oita City, Oita Prefecture last weekend.
The seas were rough on the way there, but we made the best of it!