Wednesday, January 12, 2011

A blurry winter (with ham!)

Well, goodness, I've sure been a negligent blogger, haven't I? The holidays have come and gone, and you'll have to trust that I had fine intentions of delicious posts about fabulous meals. As you, my faithful readers (I'm wistfully speculating that there's more than one of you) noticed...that didn't happen.

I made a couple of tasty things, including this ham for Christmas. My brother made it, too, and we will both attest to it being very yummy and full of piggy goodness. It has been noted that eternity is two people and a ham, and I will add to that that ONE person and a ham is a task of epic proportions. I had been craving ham in a big way, and also craving split pea soup, which, in my world, requires a ham bone. You cannot BUY a bone-in ham that is under 8 lbs (at least at my grocery store). For a number of reasons, including my urgent need for time alone and a stomach virus sweeping the house I was going to spend Christmas Day at, I stayed put at my house. Just me, the dogs and 8 lbs of ham. It was heaven. And I'm not going to put the recipe for split pea soup on here, because quite frankly, it's on the back of the bag of split peas. Use that. Add some Sriracha when you serve it. I will tell you that you do NOT need to add potatoes, as I did, mistakenly thinking that the soup looks a little thin. Split pea soup is never thin, and by the next day will have morphed into a solid you must whittle out of whatever container you've put it in. I'm pretty sure it could be used in a pinch as a structural adhesive. But a tasty one! And no, I did NOT take a picture of it to put on here, because nothing is less aesthetically pleasing than pea soup. If you've ever changed a diaper, you know what we're dealing with here.

I've tried hard to make myself healthy meals when time allows, but I won't lie...the past couple of months have seen some dubious culinary choices, including meals based entirely on, say, popcorn, or cheese and crackers. I did make a batch of my granola, which has been a lifesaver on work mornings.

On a non-food note...Cara had her eye surgery. The 36 or so hours immediately after are not hours I ever care to repeat (she was painful, confused and panicked), but after that, improvement was good. She has since recovered beautifully, and other than occasionally making a misjudgment in spatial relations, is none the worse for wear. Biopsy results are good, and by all accounts, she's a happy and healthy girl, with an excellent prognosis. Yay!!




Since the news is good, and she's doing swimmingly, and her Mommy is a sick and twisted person, Santa brought her a parrot for Christmas. Because when you've cried enough, it's sometimes time for laughter, and a one eyed dog is crying out for a parrot. That there is my beautiful, brave girl, who amazes me with her resilience and courage, and whose dear face I am delighted to look at every day. And shortly after I took that picture, she ripped that damn parrot to shreds. I'm guessing her sense of irony isn't quite the same as mine. Oh well...she's allowed.







And to be fair, here's the cutest picture of Pan this winter, in the aftermath of one of our recent blizzards.


It's kind of gross, how cute she is, isn't it?















To try and make up for the lack of a good recipe on here (this is, ostensibly, a food blog, although you wouldn't know it to read it, would you?), I offer you this photo of me, looking, well, like an overly tired lunatic hugging a plush penguin. In my defense, very little sleep had been had, I was approaching 14 hours of work, and those penguins are very, very huggable.










So, there's the last month or so...no particularly memorable food, fabulous dogs, and flightless birds. Nobody ever said this blog would be cogent, now, did they?