The one change that didn’t work: I started baking sourdough – and discovered my obsessive side | Baking | The Guardian

I did manage some decent sourdough

Unlike the author of this article, I did eventually produce decent looking sourdough, with best results using Foodgeek’s easy oat sourdough loaf and very little discard or wasted starter. But getting the timing right is hard, and I also bought a lot of “magic gear” that didn’t make it easier, but did make the process more pleasing.

“I was getting up at 6am to meet the demands of a yeast culture I could never bend to my will. It was a relief to finally give up trying”
— Read on www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jan/25/the-one-change-that-didnt-work-sourdough-baking-left-me-frustrated-obsessive-and-covered-in-flour

FINALLY! Fixed CNN.com videos problem on iPhone iOS

I had whitelisted CNN.com on the Adblock Plus app, but the videos and their unskippable, long pre roll ads refused to play. Had to watch on the CNN app all year, but sometimes it was damned inconvenient.

Tonight, I disabled Adblock Plus, played a video (with ad) on CNN.com, re-enabled ABP, made sure CNN.com was on the whitelist, and now the videos and damn ads play like they should. It just needed an app restart, I guess.

Add a website to the whitelist | Adblock Plus

Add websites that you trust and want to support to your Adblock Plus whitelist. Ads will be shown on these websites.
— Read on help.eyeo.com/adblockplus/add-a-website-to-the-whitelist

Stroganoff 2021: No Leftovers

Back in 2009, I blogged this recipe:

Stonyfield Yogurt – Beef Stroganoff
Ingredients:
1 lb beef loin, sliced into 1 inch strips
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 yellow onion, thin sliced
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup beef broth
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
1 cup plain lowfat yogurt
(I always throw in 2 or 3 tablespoons of Worcesterchire sauce with the mustard and yogurt)

Directions:
Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced beef loin, onion and mushrooms, sauté until meat begins to brown. Add flour to the mixture, and continue to cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Add tarragon, paprika, wine and beef broth, reduce the heat to medium, and allow to simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in dijon mustard and yogurt. Serve over egg noodles.

Yields: 4 servings

Nutrition Facts Per Serving:
Calories 340; Calories from Fat 150; Total Fat 17g; Cholesterol 70mg; Total Carbohydrates 13g; Protein 29g, Fiber 2g

Since then, it’s been a standby that we make about every 2 weeks or so during the colder weather. I’ve had mixed results – it’s pretty good, but over the years I’ve been scribbling notes about adjusting some of the proportions and adding things.

Tonight, I threw caution to the wind, REALLY changed some proportions, and it’s the best batch we’ve ever made. The only improvement would be if the meat were both tender and nicely seared; I think there was too much oil to get a good sear and it ended up braising rather than browning. Here’s how I currently want to make it from now on:

1 lb sirloin or thin sandwich steak, sliced into 1 inch strips
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon coarse cracked black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil, divided into 2 1/2 tablespoon portions
1 sweet onion, thin sliced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
2 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup beef broth
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
3 or 4 tablespoons tomato paste
3 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1-2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/3 cup plain lowfat Greek yogurt (Kroger brand, Chobani, similar

Egg noodles – follow package directions to cook 2 to 4 portions (we prefer the No Yolk Whole Wheat kind).

Directions:
Season sliced beef well with kosher salt and cracked black pepper, set aside. Heat 1/2 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, to about 400F. Add sliced beef and sear until brown crust forms on some sides. Don’t move beef around too much. Once seared, remove to clean bowl, add the other 1/2 tablespoon of oil and saute’ the onion and mushrooms until the onions are translucent and mushrooms begin to release juices. Add flour to the mixture, and continue to cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Meanwhile combine tarragon, smoked paprika, wine, tomato paste, and beef broth in a 2 cup liquid measuring cup, and pour mixture over the onions and mushrooms, stirring well to combine the flour coating. Reduce the heat to medium, and allow to simmer 10 minutes. Start the egg noodles cooking. When they’re almost done, drain and add to the strogonoff pan – using a Dutch oven makes this less messy. Remove from heat and stir in Dijon mustard and yogurt to taste.

The goal is to get that good brown “fond” from searing the beef in a relatively dry, hot skillet, and then the onions act as their own deglazing and pick up a nice color. If that doesn’t happen, it still tastes great, and the extra Worcestershire and tomato paste still give a good, rich color to the sauce.

Serves 4. or if you’re us, 2. There were no leftovers tonight.

Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By

A horrible thing happened Friday night. My iPhone went for an unexpected swim. There was a scream of horror, right after the most awful kerplunk sound ever.

I fished it out and turned it off as quickly as I could, but I wasn’t quick enough. David had pounded upstairs to see what was the matter, and quickly found a container of rice we still had – we stopped cooking rice for dinner quite a while ago. Into the rice it went and I waited, phoneless, for 2 days.

I blame a phone commercial that shows someone dropping their phone in a lake, I’m sure it suggested something to me.

Meanwhile, 2 days later, David brought the phone to me, we powered it up and charged the battery. It seemed to be working, until I tried to use if for the thing you’re supposed to use a cell phone for: making a phone call. I couldn’t seem to connect, or hear if the call was connecting. Turns out, it was.

It took some attempts and texts to discover that my earpiece speaker was fried, and also the speaker for playing music.

Well, shit.

However, all is not lost; David just bought an iPhone 8, and his previous phone could be wiped and reassigned to me. So I’ve bee somewhat frustrated today – using a familiar interface, but a bigger form factor. I’ve been mostly using it as I normally do, but keep running up against missing passwords (most made it over, not all) and signing back in to apps and tools.

Even for posting on this blog, the app I use is causing me problems; I can log in to all my blogs on the iPad version of the app, but I can only log in to 3 blogs on the iPhone. Not a big deal, but it’s frustrating – the WordPress app and the WordPress.com ”jetpack” plugin have these weird behaviors where I have to remember NOT to use the temptingly easy Gmail login, because that leads to duplicate logins that I made inadvertently. And inconsistencies between iPad, iPhone, and desktop “saved passwords” were causing me grief.

Still, at this point I have a working iPhone that I can live with, but I’d rather have my previous one; for one thing, I really like my case, which may be a dumb reason but it matters to me. A repair may be possible, and it’s not paid off yet, which really irks me; how I wish I had not fumbled it into the deep.

Meanwhile, at least I’m still able to keep an eye on the news and on Twitter; and I even texted a friend in Alabama to urge her and her husband to vote tomorrow. Get out the vote, Alabama- vote for Doug Jones and the future. Not for the man who represents the shameful past.

Radio Silence Ending

Life! It happens! 

There’s been a lot of it going on. Also a lot of bike riding, getting together with family, working, and getting on with things.
Instead of a long post with words, here’s some pictures.

Going back in time, these are some things I was thinking or doing.

You’ll see lots of memes, bikes, people on bikes, and our cat, Pearl. She’s the cutest!

Moving On From Picasa? WTH, Google?

Goddamit, Google, not again. You’re retiring yet another essential productivity tool!!

Since the launch of Google Photos, we’ve had a lot of questions around what this means for the future of Picasa. After much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products.

Via Googleblog:
Moving On From Picasa”

I grumble at the way Picasa indexes things, but have based my entire blogging and online creative workflow around how Picasa organizes my images. I use plugins to make batch uploading to Flickr and Facebook easy.

Goddamit, goddamit. Whatever happened to “Don’t Be Evil?”

Moving On From Picasa? WTH, Google?

Goddamit, Google, not again. You’re retiring yet another essential productivity tool!!

Since the launch of Google Photos, we’ve had a lot of questions around what this means for the future of Picasa. After much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products.

Via Googleblog:
Moving On From Picasa”

I grumble at the way Picasa indexes things, but have based my entire blogging and online creative workflow around how Picasa organizes my images. I use plugins to make batch uploading to Flickr and Facebook easy.

Goddamit, goddamit. Whatever happened to “Don’t Be Evil?”

Murphyola’s and Veda’s Rum Balls

This is one of several recipe cards Mom wrote up to pass along the secret of her famous Rum Balls, which she developed with her best friend, Veda West. .The story of how this recipe was created involved a big church fundraiser, endless taste-testing, taking doors off hinges, and getting plastered. Also the way I heard it, Mom and Veda had to explain to the church pastor why they were so shickered making Christmas cookies in the church kitchen.

My niece Raeanne has the Christmas card they sent back and forth multiple times in later years, with a story about a cheerful bunny making a batch of liquored-up fruit cake, with disastrous (and hilarious) results. This made them laugh like stink each year; Christmas had well and truly begun when the card had been sent back and forth.

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Recipe: Rum Balls Serves : Many
Favorite recipe of: Murphyola and Veda

Use 1/2 recipe for less than a mob!

2-1 pound box Vanilla Wafers, crushed evenly
4 cups powdered sugar
5 cups chopped pecans
3 Tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup light Karo syrup
1 1/4 cup rum

Be sure wafers are crushed well, no lumps, and nuts are finely chopped.
Sift powdered sugar and cocoa together. Blend rum and Karo. Add sugar and cocoa to (vanilla wafer) crumbs, then add in the rum and Karo, thorough blending of all.

Can be packed into Tupperware airtight (containers) – to ‘mellow’ – til ready to make into balls 1″ (press and roll firmly). Rolls in powdered sugar – must be kept air tight or they dry out — make out only what is needed – makes a mess. Would use 1/2 recipe.

That’s pretty much the verbatim transcription. Mom seemed to use a dash or emdash for any kind of punctuation. The card is in a little plastic envelope and is a bit messy, with guck on it from being handled with gooey hands. The older versions of this recipe are with my sister Timmy – she says she has several cards, but still had to adjust the recipe a bit for a reasonably-sized batch. My niece Holly Martin, who’s one of the family foodies, commented on Facebook that this didn’t seem to have enough rum! Well, well see, but I seem to recall these things being pretty powerful, so don’t give them to anyone that should not have alcohol, as they are not cooked in any way.

I remember being delegated to crush vanilla wafers in a paper bag with a rolling pin or a meat tenderizer, as Mom never did get around to buying a full-size food processor, although she had a tiny one that was good for chopping maybe a half-cup of nuts at a time. I also remember chopping pecans and repeatedly being told “no, they’re not fine enough, keep chopping!”

David remembers helping Mom to roll out a batch on his first visit to Salt Lake to meet the family, which was in about 1996? Before we were married.

I’ll be attempting to make rum balls this year – I have a smallish food processor so I’ll be making either a quarter batch or a half batch. I bought Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa, I have Captain Morgans’s Spiced Rum, and a 12 oz. box of Vanilla wafers, so will probably add in some crushed butter cookies to make up the difference.

Will have to run out to the store for the additional cookies though, cause I ated the first box this week for teatime snacks.

You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station: Chris Hadfield: 9780316379649: Amazon.com: Books

This looks amazing:

Chris Hadfield's book of photography from space,

Divided by continent, YOU ARE HERE represents one (idealized) orbit of the ISS. This planetary photo tour — surprising, playful, thought-provoking, and visually delightful — is also punctuated with fun, fascinating commentary on life in zero gravity.

Via Amazon:You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station