drama – Peaceful Reader

Weekend Cooking; The weather outside is too cold

I know it’s November and Thanksgiving is just next week BUT I was not expecting this freezing weather yet! I’m not a big fan of the arctic temps the Midwest ushers in and yet, lucky for me, I love, love, love soup.

In preparation for this very busy weekend of our church Christmas bazaar, the opening night of Junie B., Jingle Bells, Batman smells that features the amazing Groovy Girl as none other than the main character, which is the same weekend that family and friends would descend upon us to experience this starring role I decided to make soup during the week so we could enjoy it for lunch and/or dinner. And we did.

Of course it was made in a crock pot from a recipe book that my mother-in-law gave me quite awhile ago and it is delicious.

Adapted from Better and Homes and Gardens’ The Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes:

Indian-Style Curry Soup

1 medium eggplant, cut into 1-in cubes (5-6 cups)
1 pound red potatoes, cut into -1-in. pieces (3 cups)
2 cups chopped tomatoes or one 14 1/2-oz can low sodium tomatoes, cut up
1 15-oz can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 T grated fresh ginger
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 1/2 tsp coriander
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
4 cups vegetable broth or chicken broth
2 T snipped fresh cilantro

In a 4- or 6-quart slow cooker combine eggplant, undrained tomatoes, and garbanzo beans.
Sprinkle the ginger, mustard seeds, coriander, curry powder, and pepper over vegetables. Pour vegetable broth over all.
Cover and cook over low setting for 8-10 hours. 0r on high for 4-5 hours. Ladle into bowls and sprinkle with chopped cilantro.

My modifications: I only used part of an eggplant and I diced it into tiny cubes as I didn’t want the children to see the eggplant. I already had yellow organic potatoes so I used those an cubed them into bite-sized chunks. I had dry garbanzo beans in my dry storage so I prepared those with an easy recipe so they were soft before I toppled them into the crock pot.

The soup hit the spot as the temperature continued to drop here yesterday.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Click to there to find many other food-related posts. Stay warm out there.

Weekend warrior.

Woe is me! I have to spend half my day sitting around Barnes and Noble today, browsing through books. My daughter is in the local production of Junie B., Jingle bells, Batman smells! and they are performing from 1-3 to happy book shoppers. I’m sure I won’t leave empty handed and I wish I could take a handful of book bloggers with me! I can think of much worse places to wile away my afternoon.

A concentration camp would be top on that list after spending several hours in the middle of the night reading the end of Elizabeth Wein’s finely crafted historical fiction Rose under fire. Brutal, well-written, but brutal, brutal, brutal. The bonds she made in the women’s concentration camp carry you through the most horrible descriptions. I loved Code Name Verity and this is a companion novel, making use of the same war, different setting with kick-ass female characters/heroines and a few carry over characters. Both Wein’s novels and Junie B. have nothing in common except they all feature powerful young women.

A sample:

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Rose explains to her boyfriend Nick her aspirations and frustrations:

Finally Nick said sympathetically, “What’s made you so
bloodthirsty?”

“I’m not bloodthirsty.
There’s no blood in a pilotless plane, is there? I’m a good pilot. I’ve probably been flying five years longer
than half the boys in 150 Wing. I flew with
Daddy from coast to coast across America when I was fifteen and I did all the
navigation. You’ve never flown a
Tempest, or a Mustang, or a Mark Fourteen Spitfire-I’ve flown them all, dozens
of times. They’re wasting me just
because I’m a girl! They won’t even let
us fly to France-they’re prepping men for supply and taxi to the front lines,
guys with hundreds’ fewer hours than me, but they’re just passing over the
women pilots. It isn’t fair.” (14)

Have a happy Saturday. Here in Iowa it is a gorgeous day outside and I have to finish cleaning up my garden.

Weekend Cooking; Guests!

If you’re having guests you need to plan a menu and that is one of my favorite chores. My in-laws arrived on Thursday and are staying through Tuesday. My husband directed a play in town, The Good Doctor by Neil Simon, and they’ve come to see it.

Making life easier for me my mom prepared lasagna at her house then brought it to my house and baked it so we could enjoy dinner before we all headed to the dress rehearsal of the show. We came back to the house after the play and had raspberry pie made by mother as well. I did make the fresh whipped cream for the top yet the truth is the women in my life really take care of me! Last night we ate at our new local Ginger Thai restaurant making Friday night’s meal easy on me again. Whew. And the taste sensation that is Ginger Thai doubled the food joy.

This morning, though, we shopped at our downtown Farmer’s Market-always beautiful, making preparations for a few meals we will cook together. We found two fat pumpkins, a bunch of kale, an eggplant, and a big head of broccoli to use. Our next stop was Cup of Joe’s, one of our favorite hangouts. We had a warm drink and played a quick game of Candyland.

Tonight we are having a roast chicken adapted from this Ree Drummond recipe. With the chicken I am serving this Israeli Couscous recipe I made this week. It is marinating into a perfect dish and I love that I will just have to toss it and serve it! My mother-in-law shared with me several new recipes that we are also going to try. She loves to cook as much as I do! One is a recipe for baked broccoli which looks simple yet delicious.

My mother-in-law makes amazing pies which prompted me to ask her if she would walk me through making a pie crust-I suck at making crusts but love pie. We turned that crust into a ground cherry apple pie using this recipe from a Minnesota blogger. Groovy Girl helped weave the lattice pie top. My grandmother had a patch of ground cherries and was an expert pie baker. I cannot wait to eat dinner tonight. The house smells like pie and soon the farm-fresh chicken will be roasting away stuffed with lemon, rosemary and butter. Hmmm.

{Wee baker with perfect pie!}

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Click to her link for more food-related posts.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf

A Choreopoem by Ntozake Shange

1975, 1976,1977, 2010 (big leap inbetween)

96 pages

I admit I’d never heard of this title before. I’m not an actor like my husband or my friend, V. They’ve heard it used many times for auditions and readings. I’m happy to say I did recognize the author’s name though as it is attached to a beautiful Coretta Scott King book and Ellington was not a street-both illustrated by my favorite, Kadir Nelson.

For Colored Girls is a little more in your face than those children’s books…here is a sample:

finally
i asked this silly ol boy
‘WELL WHO ARE YOU?’
he say
‘MY NAME IS TOUSSAINT JONES’
well
i looked right at him
those skidded out cordoroy pants
a striped teashirt wid holes in both elbows
a new scab over his left eye
& i said
‘what’s yr name again’
he say
‘i’m toussaint jones’
‘wow
i am on my way to see
TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE in HAITI
are ya any kin to him
he do’t take no stuff from no white folks
& they gotta country all they own
& there aint no slaves’
that silly ol boy squinted his face all up
‘looka heah girl
i am TOUSSAINT JONES
& i’m right heah lookin at ya (43-44)

It was a joy to read this choreopoem. It was encouraged in the prologue to read it outloud, so I did. The words and rhythm flowed sometimes smoothly and others rougher, jagged but still good. It helped to make a audiovision of friends who might talk this way on occasion. It worked. It has a powerful message for all people, especially women, but not just black women. And it isn’t anti-men although it surely doesn’t sugar coat in anyway possible.

While researching the author I found this excellent interview about her life, her new-ish work, Some Sing, Some Cry, a collaborative novel she wrote with her sister and the Tyler Perry movie about For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide. I plan to watch this movie, even though it didn’t get great reviews, because I like the cast and I would love to hear the language. I have to wait to watch the movie until I see the play and lucky for me, I will have the thrilling opportunity in mid-March, when my family heads to Little Rock to visit V and her family. She is directing and acting in a local production and I’m so EXCITED to see it. I was inspired to read the book because she was involved and I only found out later that I would be able to watch a rehearsal of the play. Yeah… [me, jumping up and down]!!!

This is an author worth checking out.

Have you read her books?