Healed

Ran 8 miles yesterday. 7 1/2 on Wednesday. The knee cooperated. It must mean that I'm healed! And I'm so convinced of it, I'm going to do a 1/2 marathon. It's not whole enchilada that I hoped to do, but it's a whole lot of progress over limping around like I was a year ago starting at this time.

Here I go! Watch my speed!
(Thus spoke Uncle Joe from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

BOOF

Or boeuf. Whatever.

On Monday, I took at class at Central Market's cooking school on Julia Child. We watched the making of and sampled her Cream of Mushroom soup (surprisingly "quick and easy" but not that amazing in the end), Boeuf Bourguinion, and Chocolate Mousse with Creme Anglaise.

I could write sonnets about this Boeuf Bourguinion. I was more than licking the bowl. And the mousse! With this amazing vanilla creme sauce...and toasted almonds...and amaretto whipped cream. It was a blissful, captivating, world-shaking experience. I've always liked to cook and experiment, but if a recipe called for too many ingredients or had too many steps or took too long...fugetaboutit.

And Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguinon takes 4 hours, at least 16 ingredients, 12 steps (plus the two sub-recipes for the garnish)! So I tried Friday afternoon. If you'd like to spend an afternoon "mastering the art of French cooking," the recipe and pictures are nicely detailed at this blog: Boeuf la bourguignonne. Except don't go back and forth from pan-to-pan like she does. That's madness. And unnecessary dishes. Julia dirties enough dishes without that, and you lose the flavor of the "fond" that develops on the bottom of the pan. Julia doesn't waste flavor like that.This is what I made, served over egg noodles. It wasn't as good as the one made by Central Market's chefs. But it's a very good beef stew, and I shared it with some friends, and they really liked it. "Gourmet"--Amy said. Julia Child, definitely.

I will keep trying. I vow to no longer steer away from a challenging recipe, because it might just be the best thing I ever ate.

Record snowfall in Dallas!

Yesterday, 12 inches of the most beautiful, soft powdery snow fell on Dallas. No school, of course. Woo woo! These are the trees next to my house. So pretty.
The first thing I did, after pulling some downed branches from our tree out of the road, was to go walking in the pristine snow. In some places, it was deep up to my shins. It's surreal to see Dallas covered in snow.

I had to photograph all the snowmen. Only twice in my life has there been enough snow to make snowmen, and one was a halfsie--built on a wooden table with a mop for hair. She was beautiful.
Today, we have the pro-team fan snowman,
The headless snowman of doom,
"You Shall Not Pass" snowman,
Abstract snowmen, or perhaps a snowfort?
A snow-nose lion,
Sad, armless, baby carrot-nosed snowman,
And my own mini-mailbox snowman, that I made on a whim on my neighbor's mailbox. A little present, if you will.
So much snow! You could just pick up a mound of it. So Casey did.
The puppies were really cute in the snow. Charlotte, who's fat and stubby-legged, had to bound around to get through it. Charlie was oblivious, as usual.
And I had to taste of course! It tasted like numb tongue.

The snow is already melting and rolling off our roof like an avalanche, but we had snow! Wowie!

Friends

I've been blessed lately with some good friend-time. Since graduating college, moving cities, and getting married, I've not been as successful at cultivating and maintaining friendships as I would like. But last week, I went for a walk with a new friend Monday, then had coffee with another Tuesday, and have plans with week to have coffee and dinner with a few more. All really neat women. Also, at church, working with the Women's ministry has given me more opportunities to build relationships, and a lot of our Women's ministry is planning opportunities to do just that. So I'm thankful. This is something that I've definitely wanted for several years, prayed about, sobbed to Casey about....but now things are seeming to happen naturally. Yay.

Also this weekend, Casey and I cooked up a storm, preparing a week's worth a food before church this morning. Since we'd planned to go to the late service, it made sense. Yesterday, we went grocery shopping at three different grocery stores...odd, but for good reason. We went to the Asian market for fresh seafood and cheap produce, the Middle Eastern market to re-stock on olive oil and spices, and the regular supermarket for the rest. Casey and I like grocery shopping WAY more than regular shopping, and we almost always grocery shop together, sometimes touring Central Market too. It's fun to look at fancy or odd ingredients...like whole Halal goat and exotic flatbreads hot from the oven, or White Rabbit candy and Jack fruit essence (because the fruit itself is absolutely VILE. Why anyone would want to concentrate something that smells like rot is fascinating to me...as long as the bottle stays closed.) Somehow clothes or shoes or home furnishings don't hold the same interest for either of us. Plus you can't eat shoes. :-)

16 Bean Ham Soup

Most of the Christmas presents I received were cooking tools. Doesn't my family know me well? Mom gave Casey and I a set of Emeril's cookware, my mother-in-law gave me a pressure cooker, my brothers and sisters in-law gave me spices and other kitchen tools. Excellent. I've used them all already. Casey especially liked the new spices in the Walnut Spiced Granola I made, based on this recipe, but with good cinnamon, cloves, allspice and vanilla added.

Of course, I had to re-organize the kitchen and triage to make room, and I made the happy discovery of a Cuisinart food processor with attachments. I think it came from Casey's grandmother, but we had been using an older one that Casey got from a garage sale. Anyway, using the slicing attachment is amazing. It make me feel like Ina on TV, and I made beautiful potato-chip thin potatoes and roasted them with olive oil and Nature's seasoning. We like crispy potatoes around here. But I made be inspired to do a gratin or pommes anna. Anyone want to come over for dinner?

In the meantime, I used my pressure cooker to whip up a flavorful soup recipe in 30 minutes. Cheap too, considering the main ingredient is a $2 bag of beans.

16 Bean Ham Soup1 pkg of dried 16 bean soup mix, with seasoning pkt
2 cans stewed tomatoes (or one large can)
1 smoked ham hock
1 small lean ham, diced
2 cans seasoned collard greens

Soak dried beans overnight. Drain, and put in pressure cooker. Cover with water with 1 inch or 2 over the beans. Add seasoning packet that came with the soup, stewed tomatoes with their juice, ham hock and diced ham. Mix and lock pressure cooker cover. Heat on high until the safety lock comes up, reduce to medium and cook for 25 minutes, adjusting heat down so that the release valve rocks gently. Afterward, cool pan to open safely, remove ham hock and mix in collard greens with their juice. Serves 6-8. Cornbread would be a great accompaniment.

Post -Op

I had my post-op appointment yesterday, and the good news is that my knee is healed! I can slowly start back working out and in four weeks, I can run! Woo woo! Recovery has been good, too. I was on crutches for a few days which I hated, but since then I get around just fine. A little stiff and sore...but one week after surgery, I'm doing great.

Christmas was good. We had Christmas Eve with my parents, made memorable by the snow....and the fact that the only restaurant open was Long John Silvers. But it was my first White Christmas ever and that was special.

Then we went to Houston for the Meyers' Christmas celebration. We had a good time, hanging out, eating, playing games. It's a blessing that we all get along so well. We had a Cajun Christmas dinner with turducken, okra, green beans and pie...we were stuffed!
But, I have a bone to pick with my mother in law. We always talk about how well she raised her three boys, and she really did. They're all successful young men with good values. But something was left wanting in the education of mine. If you look closely at the top of the roof of my gingerbread house, you will see that a jelly bean is missing. As bare as a snail out of it's shell. What kind of person does that?!? It's just beyond my comprehension. And I made more bread...the long recipe this time, as in 20 hours of rising time. It's definitely a piece of wonderful, but I don't know if it's substantially better than the one that's done in five hours.

I also got a pressure cooker for Christmas, and I've already made two batches of beans, garbanzo beans and black eyed peas for New Years, of course. Casey's comment on it was to tell me that I'm a good cook. His mother did teach him well.

And I got two free Society Bakery cupcakes for donating a sweater...woo woo! If you like cupcakes, bring clothes to donate to there location on Greenville. Awesome.

Photos from Around Town

To break from the usual "Here's what I baked and Look! a picture of my dogs," as Casey described my blog, I have a variety of pictures from this weekend's events.

First, a beautiful sunset near the library:Then...well, what I made. English toffee with walnuts, Peanut brittle, Salty, sweet frito candy and Rolo pretzel bites. These have been bagged up, two or three kinds of candy per bag, and will be distributed to friends and family next week. Casey Gooden, who disapproves of mass-candy production, will be receiving coal in his baggy.
Also, I got to watch Casey run the White Rock Marathon today. I saw him at around the 7 mile point, the 12 mile point, the 15 mile point, and I was waiting for him at the 21 mile point. And waiting, then I get a call. He's freely bleeding from one of his toes and can't walk. Seeing as he's doing a 50k in two months, there was no point in dragging himself for six miles. So, we called it a really fast 20 mile run and went to lunch at the Porch. It was delicious.
And leaving our house later, we spotted the terrific baby-pink dog and couldn't miss the photo-op.
Even better was her owner. Red dyed hair, green-rimmed glasses, stripped top, cheetah print tights, pink socks and lime green Crocs. Being that's what I wear too when I walk my dogs after washing them in jello, it makes perfect sense. The dog smelled nice.
Then we attended a 1-year-old's birthday party. Little Luke took a while to warm up to the cake, but eventually he sufficiently shmeared himself with icing to be totally cute. Why is that so uncute later in life? It's a shame. I do love icing.
And his parents, Tim and Marcy (she's in the middle), threw him quite a party. If only he had teeth to enjoy all the food. We do, though, and it was great.
And not to be upstaged by all the other parents and children attending, Casey had his moment in the limelight too.