thrawn21

This was something my dad used to do when I was a kid. Next year when the kids will remember the person in the scarecrow, it will actually be stuffed, and I'll be hiding somewhere else!

View from a little further away, my husband was hiding behind the screen door controlling a spider that dropped from above 😈

[Image description: nighttime view of the front door of a house decorated for Halloween. A scarecrow sits on the porch with a large spider hanging above. In the foreground is a dark hooded mannequin, with swirling fog.]

[Image description: a perfectly round peeled bulb of garlic on a cutting board, with unpeeled normal cloves behind it.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16622039

Week 24 - Seasonal ingredients: Many berry pie with rosemary lemon ice cream

My dad loves berry pies, so had to make him one for Father's Day. Fresh seasonal items used were blueberries and lemons (picked from my tree). The rosemary was from my yard too, but that thing grows year round 😋

Other berries used were the frozen Costco mix of blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries and pomegranate, on a homemade crust.

The ice cream was a custard base, with rosemary steeped in the milk & cream. I like experimenting with unique flavors of ice cream, and this one was a hit with my family.

[Image description: a close up of a slice of double crust berry pie with a dollop of melting ice cream on top.]

As is often the case with my meals, this was a "use it up before it turns" meal. Had some beef top round roast, jalapenos, carrots, and cabbage, plus a giant bag of oranges from my parent's tree that need to be eaten, and this is what came out.

General recipe:

• Slice beef into strips, marinate for a few hours in orange juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, pepper and garlic powder.
• Stir fry ginger, garlic, and onion, then add julienned carrot, jalapeno, cabbage and roughly chopped mushrooms. Don't over crowd the wok, cook in batches. I added a splash of soy and rice vinegar to the cabbage at the end to steam it at little.
• Pat the beef strips dry before searing in the wok, again working in batches.
• Cook down the marinade, add a corn starch slurry, and keep adding a little bit of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and brown sugar until it hits the right Magic Sauce™ blend of overly sweet, tangy, savory.
• Serve on rice with some green onions.

Still have more beef and more oranges, going to use the same marinade, but add lime and turn it into some carne asada for tomorrow.

[Image description: a blue bowl on a speckled white countertop. Inside the bowl is white rice and mixed sauteed vegetables, topped with small cubes of beef with a drizzle of glossy dark brown sauce, and a sprinkle of sliced green onion.]

Her first time seeing a balloon, was absolutely fascinated.

[Image description: a brown and white tabby cat sitting in front of a backlit curtain, staring upwards with rapt attention. The end of the balloon ribbon can be seen dangling to one side. The angle of her head emphasizes the roundness of her little cheeks.]

Here's the link to their recipe.

Now normally Serious Eats is pretty bang on with their recipes, but this one has a CRAZY amount of sugar in it. I made it as directed (but using store bought puff pastry) for Mother's Day, and it was tasty but so sweet it could have been served for dessert.

This is the second time I made it, but with half the sugar. However sweet is still the dominant note, even after adding Worcestershire sauce, tart goat cheese, and more herbs. If you want to make this, seriously try using just a quarter of the sugar they ask for, and you might get something more savory.

[Image description: a circular tart made of layers of deeply caramelized cabbage in a sticky glaze. A bit of golden crust can be seen on the edges, and the tart is sitting on a wooden cutting board on a stove top.]

Followed by the Paw of Rejection™

[Image description: first photo is of a brown and white tabby cat on a bed looking slightly irritated, with one paw poised over a hand which is spread on the bed towards the cat. The second photo is the cat looking away with that paw pressed down on the hand.]

I love my instant pot, it makes cooking meats and dried beans so easy.

Here I grabbed a hunk of frozen pork shoulder, threw it in the pot with a can of beer and some seasonings. Hour and a half later, pulled out the pork and dumped in some dry pinto beans to cook in the remaining liquid. Half hour after that, all that was left was to shred the pork and add it back to the beans with a jar of salsa verde I canned using produce I grew last year.

Stopping there would still have made for a good stew, but I reserved the pork fat cap prior to shredding, and roasted it, making crispy chef nibbles and a bunch of rendered fat. I coated slices of poblanos with the fat and charred them with my broiler and a blow torch.

The stew is topped with cotija cheese and the crumbs from the bottom of a bag of tortilla chips.

I've had a few people ask me about it, and I usually get as far as "So in Star Trek, there's this alien race called the Ferengi where the women aren't allowed..." before their eyes glaze over and I see them dismissing it as some nerd thing.

[Image description: a sticker depicting Ishka from DS9 rolling up her sleeve in the classic Rosie the Riveter pose, with a speech bubble saying "The Future is Fe-male."]

[Image description: a collage of seven photos, showing a view of the increasing eclipse, totality, and decreasing eclipse through the lens of a telescope.]

Bonus shot of the totality projected on a kid's hand through the sighting scope:

[Image description: a brown and white tabby cat sitting on the back of a recliner. The front half of her body is slumped forward, with one paw dangling and her face resting on a cheek, eyes staring into the distance.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3286611

I lost almost 50 pounds by calorie counting back in 2015, then stopped counting and spent the next six years slowly putting it all back on. I've used Libra to track my weight, and you can see the half-hearted attempts over the years to halt that upward progress.

I've been sick of being overweight, of feeling sluggish and unattractive, and of having a hard time doing things l love like hiking and rock climbing. I stress eat a lot, and not to jinx things, but I've finally reduced the stressors in my life where I'm feeling really good about this latest weight loss spree.

Fingers crossed I'll be posting here sometime in the new year about having hit my goal weight!

[Image description: a line graph with the x-axis from 2014 to 2023, and the y-axis from 108 to 160lbs, the charted line showing a steep drop, and a jagged climb, with the last couple years hovering over an "overweight" demarcation.]