Food Friday--Slow Cooker Veggie Curry

My days have gotten away from me this week and Friday almost passed without me posting a recipe.

I like to use my slow cooker and all of us in this house like a good curry, so when I found this slow cooker veggie curry recipe, I was thrilled.


Slow Cooker Veggie Curry

1 can light coconut milk
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 Tbsp curry paste (or to taste)
1 large onion, chopped
4 small Yukon gold potatoes, halved
4 cups butternut squash, cut in 1 1/4 in chunks
4 cups cauliflower florets
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 red bell pepper cut in 1 in pieces
1 cup frozen peas, preferably no salt added
3 cups cooked rice
salt and/or pepper to taste (optional)

Whisk coconut milk, flour and curry paste in a 3.5 quart or larger slow cooker. Stir in veggies except peas. Mix well.
Cover and cook on low 6 to 7 hours until veggies are tender.  Stir in peas, cover and let sit 5 minutes.  Serve over the rice if desired.

WTF, WDF?

I am frequently visited by the Weird Dream Fairy (WDF) and have all manner of strange dreams, some mini horror movies, some funny, some just downright bizarre. Last nights visit falls into the bizarre category.

My husband, son and I had been invited to a restaurant for a gift presentation. We did not know why we had been invited, just that we were told to be there at a certain time and to wear nice clothes. Later we found out that we were one of the poor families that were being "adopted" for the evening. It turned out that There were about a hundred people there, most of whom had donated money or gifts (and a nice meal at this expensive restaurant) for a couple of poor families.

We got there, showed the hostess our invitation and she took us to a large, round table and seated us with a few other people. They all smiled warmly at us as we were seated, then suddenly there was a man with a microphone calling out names. He said that the first gift basket was donated by the mother of a friend of ours and about ten other people and then he said that it was to be given to us. The fact that our friends' mother was one of the people who had donated the basket was just a coincidence. It was a huge basket filled to overflowing with all manner of things.

The other huge basket was given out and then we were each given smaller gift bags containing mystery items. In the dream I never got the chance to look into the bag as everything sped up right after that. Suddenly, food appeared on our tables, just like at Hogwarts, and immediately after the food appeared, the entire event was over and we were up and hugging people and thanking everyone.

Then things started to get weird.

My husband disappeared. Poof and he was gone, it was like he had never existed in the dream. The gifts we had been given were gone, too, so maybe he took them out to the car. I don't know. I went to the restroom and my face was feeling odd, so as I was washing my hands, I glanced into the mirror and noticed that somehow I had been transformed into the Human Barbie from the neck up and was so heavily Botoxed my face would not move.

After leaving the restroom, I met up with my son again and we went out the side door. This door opened into an enormous garage with a car being custom built in the middle of the floor. We came out of the door on a catwalk suspended about 30 feet in the air and we could look down onto the car and as we were standing there, I realized that a part was in the wrong place and I reached down and removed it. Now, how exactly my arms grew that long, I don't know, but they did. There were two young men standing beside us and one of them told me that I had no business messing with that car and I said "Of course I do. It's my car." And of course it was. But now, I was stuck on a catwalk, 30 feet above the garage floor and holding a bit of my car that I didn't want to just drop. I decided we would have to brave the stairs get to the floor so that I could put the part safely down.

When I say "brave the stairs" I am not joking. The staircase was made of a bunch of plastic milk crates precariously stacked on top of each other. These milk crates were filled with jumbled books. In order to reach the floor, we had to navigate our way down the rocking tower of milk crates without knocking any of them over. Of course about halfway down, my son found a book that he wanted to read, so he took it with him and we continued to fight our way down the milk crate ladder.

Once we arrived safely on the floor, we were no longer in the garage, we were outside in an alley and were being shoved into the back of a large, black car that I did not recognize. It was at that point that I woke up and realized that I had been sleeping on my face and part of my cheek was numb, explaining the bit about the botox and my face feeling weird.



I have so many vivid weird dreams I could write a lengthy novel. And most of my dreams are in full color, which I have heard is a sign of mental illness. Hmm. How about you? Do you dream in full color or black and white or something in between? Care to share a weird dream in the comments? I would like to hear about them!

Nope

I haven't forgotten to post this week, I have just been really busy.  A new post of more substance than this is forthcoming.

Food Friday--Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Now, I know what you are thinking.  Brussels sprouts?  Eewww!  Nasty!  And I used to agree with you.  Then I found the recipe that became this one with a couple of small tweaks and now I really like Brussels sprouts. Well, I like them done this way.  I hope you will, too.


1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts, remove any wonky leaves and cut the sprouts in half lengthwise
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 tablespoon maple syrup (preferably real maple syrup, but the imitation stuff works too)
1 teaspoon soy sauce

Heat the oven to 425 and cover a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper. In a large bowl, toss the sprouts with the oil and optional salt and arrange them cut-side down, on the baking sheet.

Bake for 25 minutes, then return them to the bowl, add the maple syrup and soy sauce, and spread them  back in the pan.  Pop them back in the oven and roast them for five more minutes.  Remove from the oven and enjoy.


Please note that the foil or parchment paper is for ease of cleaning the baking sheet.  If you don't have or don't want to use foil or parchment paper, please lube your baking sheet with additional olive oil or nonstick cooking spray.

Also also, in most of the recipes I will be posting, the salt is optional.  I have high blood pressure and have learned to cook without salt.  Sometimes food will punish you if you have no salt in it, other times it's not necessary.

Life as RPG?

I am fairly certain that we are not totally in control of ourselves and what happens to us.  I think we are characters in a giant game of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D), and the person playing me (my player) is actually a 15 year old boy who has no idea what women are really supposed to be like.

I have thought this for a while now, but here recently it has really been on my mind a lot.

I feel that we have players for several reasons.  How many times have we gotten up from what we were doing and before even stainding all the way up, we forget what we were going to do?  It's because our players changed their minds about what they were about to have us do.  "Okay, I want her to go brush her teeth."  "Are you sure?"  "Yeah, yeah I'm sure."  "Okay, she is getting up."  "NO!  Wait, I want her to go pay the electric bill instead!"  "The electric bill?  Really?"  "Um, no.  Hang on.  I need to check one of her stats."  So we stand there confused for a moment, then either sit back down or wander off to do whatever thing our player finally decided they wanted us to do.  

Have you ever done something, but not been able to explain why you did it?  It's not that you can't find the right words to describe it, it's that you just don't know why?  It's because your teenage player decided it would be totally hilarious for you to holler out "I smell bacon" when the officer arrives at your car window to ask for your license.  
 
I will be headed down the hall to do something of vital importance, and will forget what I was going to do.  A few nights ago, I went into the kitchen to rinse something sticky off my hands and get a drink, but after rinsing my hands, I accidentally flicked water on the cats face and she was mad about it, so I decided to give her a treat to apologize to her.  While getting her treat, the cat that we are cat-sitting came tearing in to get a treat too, so I had to dole out treats for him as well.  While giving the other cat his treats, my cat knocked one of her treats off the desk so I grabbed her treats and her and carried them to the other room, then I came back to my computer and sat down.  I had been working on my last blog post for several minutes before I realized I had never gotten the drink I went to the kitchen for in the first place.

I think that we have at least some degree of free will.  Sometimes we manage to do something that our players don't expect and it takes them by surprise, making them unable to control us again for a short time.  They are sitting there, mouths hanging open, chins on chests, unable to believe that we actually just did that.  At those times, chaos seems to reign in our lives more than at other times.

Sometimes, though, I think our players are actually trying to do something specific and they fumble their die roll and get a one instead of the 20 they were hoping for.  Rolling a one is a critical fumble.  Those are the times that we are trying to walk down the basement stairs and manage to trip and fall.  Or we are walking across the carpet in the library and we trip over the line where the carpet changes from plain to patterned.  Or we are stirring noodles in a pot full of boiling water and manage to accidentally splash enough boiling water onto us that we wind up with a second degree burn on our stomachs.  Yes, I did that last week. Yes, I was wearing a shirt.

A favorite author of mine, Terry Pratchett, describes in his book "Interesting Times" how Fate and Lady Luck play a game with the lives of the humans that live in his world.  The board they use for their game is the world.  At one time, I almost thought that Mr. Pratchett could be on to something with that.  It often seemed that Fate and Luck (and a god or two sometimes) were playing games with my life.  Then I realized that it made more sense to me that we might all be the characters in a giant game of AD&D.  

Or, perhaps we are the characters in a role playing game, but our players are not teenage boys, our players are actually the gods themselves, and the game masters are Fate and Luck, and they are just making up the story as the gods bumble along, trying to figure out what it really means to be human.  


What do you think?  Are we pawns in a game being played by the gods, are we characters in a role playing game, being controlled by a bunch of hormonal teenage boys, or by a bunch of gods who have no idea what it's really like to be human?  Leave me a comment and let me know.

Food Friday--Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

So, it seems that I am feeling the need to post recipes on Fridays.  I will be posting recipes that we think are good, and I hope you like them as much as we do.  Of course everyone has different tastes, budgets and dietary requirements, so your mileage may vary.

Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

What you need:

1 1/2 pounds small red potatoes, quartered
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp crushed rosemary leaves
1 tsp salt (optional, but the potatoes do taste better with a little salt)
1 tsp minced garlic (or to taste.  We like garlic, so I use a lot more.)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper


What you do:
Preheat the oven to 425 and line a baking sheet with foil.

In a large bowl, mix together the olive oil, paprika, rosemary,
garlic, black pepper, and salt, stirring well.

Add the quartered potatoes, tossing to coat well, then let sit in the spice mixture for about 10 minutes.

Arrange the potatoes in a single layer on the foil lined baking sheet and place in the oven.  Roast approximately 30 minutes or until tender, then remove from the oven and enjoy.


Please Note:  The foil on the baking sheet is for ease of clean-up.  If you don't have foil, or don't want to use it for roasting potatoes, that's cool, just make sure that you spray your baking sheet with non-stick spray, or wipe it with a small amount of vegetable oil to keep the potatoes from sticking.

The Door Was Locked, and I Couldn't Find the Key

I was looking through some journal prompts and found one that said "The door was locked and I couldn't find the key."  This is supposed to prompt either a fictional creation, or deep soul searching introspection.  Either for good or for ill however, this prompt reminded me of the time, not quite four years ago, that I was locked out of my house.

My son had gone to public school for Grade 5, and his father had joined the Watch D.O.G.S. program at his school.  The dads in that program signed up to spend one four hour shift per month at the school, helping teachers and office staff, and making sure trouble didn't rear its ugly head in the hallways and classrooms.  

One chilly late November morning was my husband's first shift at the school, and since they were both going to the same place, he decided to just take our son to school instead of making him ride the bus.  When they left, I went out to see them off, and closed the front door behind me so that the cats didn't sneak outside.

After doling out hugs and kisses to the boys, and messing around in the front yard for a few moments after they drove away, I went up on the porch to go back inside and realized that the door was locked.  No big deal.  I stuck my hand in my pocket to get my keys and discovered much to my shock and dismay, that my keys were safely locked inside the house.

It was a little after 8:00 am and my husband would not be home until after noon, and I was outside in a T-shirt and knit pants, in late November, in the Mid-West, with no jacket and no socks.  While it wasn't below freezing that morning, the temperature was only in the upper 30's, and I was getting cold fast.

My first thought was, "Okay, no biggie.  I will just go next door, use their phone to call the school and leave a message for my husband.  He will come home, laugh at me, let me in, and make it back to the school just in time for his shift."

I crossed the small space between the houses and knocked on my neighbors' door.  And knocked again.  And again.  And after waiting and knocking for close to 5 minutes, I assumed that they were still in bed and I crossed back over to my yard, thinking.  The people on the other side of me were both at work already so they were out.  The guy across the street was a total jerk and would not help anyone for any reason, and he was gone anyway.  His neighbor is an alcoholic woman and her husband.  He worked nights and was already in bed and I knew that she was not yet conscious, so I couldn't go there, either. The house on his other side was empty at the time, so that would be no help.  

I decided to wander around the house and check the back door.  The storm door was almost impossible to get closed all the way, but once it closed, you had to practically have an act of congress to get it open again.  I thought that if the storm door was actually open, I could just shoulder the kitchen door open and we could deal with the damage later.

I closed the gate behind me and was greeted by our 75 pound dog, who was ecstatic to have company so early in the morning.  He bounded along beside me, barking, as I made my way to the back door, which was unfortunately latched.  Of course!  That door was never latched, but that particular morning, the gods were out to mess with me.  Or to teach me a lesson about just how easy it is to break into a house.  Not quite sure which.

It was at that moment that I began to despair.  My neighbors were either all gone or sleeping.  I was locked out of my house, wearing very little on a morning that was kind of chilly, and my one almost-sure-fire way of getting back into my home just vanished.  I sat down in one of the wrought-iron patio chairs and absently patted the dogs head while I tried not to panic.

As I sat there, I remembered that one of the windows on the back of the house didn't lock.  I got up and walked to the kitchen window that I knew would not be locked.  It was blocked on the inside by the dog kennel, a chair and our kitchen table, and it would be difficult to get in that way, but I was desperate and had to try.

I dragged the chair back over to the window, and climbed on.  Examining the screen, I found a bit where it was loose, so I grabbed it and was able to bend the screens flimsy frame just enough that I could remove it from the window.  Then I held my breath and placed my palms flat on the cold glass and pushed upward.  After some slight hesitation, the window slid up.  Then I had to shove the dog kennel against the back of the chair so that it would move the table far enough that I could get into the house.  After several minutes of struggling with the kennel and fending off nosy cats, I got it moved far enough that I could enter the house.

Now, it wasn't that easy.  I say 'enter the house' like it was no big deal.  I would like for you to imagine with me for a moment.  I am not a small person.  I am just shy of 6 feet tall, and I have broad, muscular shoulders, huge breasts and a bit of a gut.  So, imagine a rather tall, fat woman trying to squeeze through a window that was not as wide as my shoulders.  Laughing yet?  You should be.

I managed to get one leg over the sill and into the house, then contorted myself sideways and got my head and shoulders through, scooched a bit sideways until my foot touched the floor, then straightened out and somehow managed to get my other leg in.  After making it all the way into the house, I turned to face the window and saw the dog, head cocked sideways, one eyebrow raised, looking at me with the most confused expression I have ever seen on a dog.  Laughing, I grabbed the bent screen and straightned it the best I could and put it back where it belonged and closed the window.  Then I rearranged the kitchen and put everything back where it had been before I moved it around, and went to cover up and try to get warm.  And hope no one called the police on me for breaking into my own house.  :)  

The meaning of life (a work in progress)

The meaning of life is something that many people ponder, especially as we grow older and start to take stock of our lives and the things we have accomplished and those things that we have left undone, the things that we never wanted to do that we have had no choice but to do, and things that we desperately wanted to do that have eluded us.

So what exactly is the meaning of life?  I think that the meaning of our lives is as individual as we are.  We are responsible for giving our lives meaning.  

A friend of mine recently posed this question to her Facebook friends and of the 16 that answered, she got 16 different thoughts.  One person responded that life has no inherent meaning.  Meaning is something that we humans have assigned to things, that it is a byproduct of our brains architecture.  To an extent I do agree with that thought.  Things have no meaning except what we give them.  They are just things.  For example, there is a candle on my desk.  It is just a candle to anyone else, but it has sentimental value for me. 

We assign things meanings to help ourselves make sense of the things that happen to us.  To help us identify other people who might be willing to join us in our struggles, and to give us a reason to keep struggling.  Because life is a struggle and ultimately we are alone.  No one else has the exact same experiences that we do, and no one else perceives things the way we do.  All of our experiences and perceptions have made us who we are and as such we are the ones who shape our world and we are the only ones who perceive the world the way we do.     

So, if the meaning of our lives is to give life meaning I guess the question should not be "What is the meaning of life", but rather "What do I want my life to be?" 

First!

 This is the first post on my new blog.  Someone should reply with some snarky comment.

With this blog, I hope to post at least once a week, sometimes more, about different things that have caught my attention.  Some of these things will be controversial and some of them may make various people upset and angry.  I do not apologize for this, but will warn you that if you are easily offended, you may want to go elsewhere.

I am calling this my Jar because the idea is to have a jar full of random things written on slips of paper, one of which I will pull from the jar once a week and write about.  I will sometimes have photographs that I write about, too, or that will highlight my posts, and will be posting recipes, stray thoughts and various other things.

Now, a bit about me.  I am a biologically female, pan-sexual person, who recently celebrated an anniversary of my 30th birthday.  I have one living child and eight that died before they were old enough to be born.  My favorite TV show is X-files, followed closely by Grimm.  Other than that I don't really watch TV.  I love to cook, hate to clean up afterward, love cats (tigers are my totem animal) and will tolerate certain dogs, but after some very bad experiences with large dogs, being around them is difficult for me.  I believe that birds should not be kept in cages, but should be free and in the wild.

Anything else you want to know about me, feel free to ask.  I will answer almost any question.

I am looking forward to writing this blog and hope that it can live up to my expectations.