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Since I was home all day yesterday and Gary went to a Christmas party in the afternoon and got back for dinner late, I made a satisfying dish that can wait until a convenient time to be served.

Cholent is a slow cooked stew that was created by Jewish cooks in order to be able to serve a hot meal on the sabbath without actually cooking or lighting a fire. The ingredients were put into a heavy ceramic pot, and the lid sealed on with dough. This could then be placed in a hot brick oven before sunset on Friday and left to cook overnight. The pot was retrieved and opened at midday on Saturday, with a complete meal ready to eat inside. In fact, a smaller tin with a tight-fitting lid could be placed inside the cholent pot in order to cook a kugel (pudding dish) to be served for dessert.

I took an interest in Jewish traditional food for a while, and this was one of the recipes that we really enjoyed. My version is evolved a bit, since some of the traditional ingredients are not only hard to get but unappealing to us (beef tongue, goose neck.) The main differences are my use of smoked turkey sausage in place of the traditional beef brisket or chicken, and the addition of some brown rice for additional texture.

( Recipe and photo under cut )

Two nights in a row that dropped solidly below freezing, so the pumpkin leaves finally folded up. The tomato trellis had already blown over in strong winds earlier this week, and I didn't try to pick it back up because I knew there was little hope all those green tomatoes would ripen.

Today the sun came out, though it remained very brisk. I dug through the ruins of the volunteer pumpkin patch and retrieved no less than ten slightly immature pumpkins. The two largest ones were the size of cantelopes and still slightly greenish. The rest ranged from croquet ball to tennis ball size and were yellow or orange. All were pretty hefty, so there's hope of getting some usable pumpkin from them for soup or curry if not enough for pies.

Then I picked through the tomato vines and recovered almost five pounds of green or pinkish tomatoes. These are a large cherry tomato that matures at about golf ball size and has pretty good flavor. There were also a couple of volunteer vines from last year that had the small yellow pear tomatoes, and I got a a good double handful of those, all still green. Gary likes green tomato pie, an experiment I tried years ago. It didn't really impress me, but he thinks it's wonderful and these will make two or three pies after washing them and slicing them up. I'll freeze a couple of packages and make him a pie from the rest.

We also went to the farmers' market in Woodstock, which moves indoors to the Farm Bureau for winter. Right now it still opens once a week, but after November it goes to just twice a month I think. We brought back winter squash, honey, and a pound of Brussels sprouts. We just found a newspaper article this week with ten ways to cook sprouts, none of which I've ever tried.

Tonight's version was oven roasted. Split in half, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted for 25 min. at 425F. Halfway through I added apple cubes and sprinkled them with sesame seed. To serve I turned them into a serving dish and sprinkled them with some Balsamic vinegar. They turned out delicious. Gary made the first course, a curried carrot and apple soup suggested by a friend. We also had mashed potatoes from the garden, and Gary's favorite slow cooked chicken with gravy. Apple pie or rice pudding for dessert, both already made up.

I can't wait to try the sprout pizza, and the fried sprouts and onions with eggs.

Clocks fall back tonight. My wind-up clocks are already set back, which I do by stopping them for an hour. Various digital and battery clocks will need to be adjusted yet.

A productive weekend, more or less, but not nearly enough done.

We went up to Williams Bay, Wisconsin with friend Carol to hear the opening performance of the season by the Lake Geneva Symphony. There were only two pieces on the program.

The first was Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major, new to all three of us and (I gather) not often performed. The piece clearly reflects the result of an American visit by the French composer, who used jazz styling and motifs throughout. The timing and nuance are almost Gershwin-like, and reminded all of us of American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue though there were no obvious quotes from either of Gershwin's masterpieces. Pianist Krassimira Jordan was remarkable, virtuoso even beyond what I expected, and that is certainly needed for this concerto. The style is intricate rather than bombastic, and requires passages where each hand plays in a different key or time signature, as well as a lot of cross-hand work. The overall result was very fine and we enjoyed it greatly.

The second selection was Tchaikovksy Symphony No. 4 in F minor, which was all the better for Conductor and Musical Director David Anderson's advance explanation of major themes and elements of the work. The LGSO has improved a great deal (not that it was bad to begin with) under Anderson's direction, and the performance came across very well. The French horns play a major role in this symphony, and they sounded like the noted horn section of the Chicago Symphony this time.

A predicted heavy frost skipped over our small garden, so we still have green tomatoes that "might" ripen before the vines are killed, but hope is diminishing. The plants are heavily laden, but almost nothing has turned ripe yet. The pumpkins I did NOT plant have produced six usable pumpkins so far after sprouting from seeds that apparently made it through last winter in the compost bin. There are many more immature fruits on the ground, but I'm pretty sure the frost is going to cut them off soon. These are the small and heavy pumpkins that can be used for pies and soup, not the large thin-shelled jack-o-lantern variety. We will put them to good use.



On Sunday I also baked a peach pie, bought groceries, tried to photograph the fall colors though it wasn't really sunny enough, and made a pot of cholent. We haven't had cholent for a couple of years and the cooler weather inspired me to put it together. It's a traditional Jewish stew, created to cook slowly overnight from Friday to Saturday so it would provide a hot meal on the sabbath without requiring anyone to cook or light a fire. The principal ingredients of my Hungarian version include small lima beans, tomatoes, onion, garlic, carrots, turnips or rutabaga, smoked sausage (I use a turkey sausage,) and both hot and sweet Hungarian paprika. I usually bake this in a closed cast iron pot at 250°F for about 8 hours, but this time I opted for a slow cooker set to high temperature. A little red wine added near the end of cooking enriches the blend and enhances the aromas. The smell becomes enticing after about four hours and makes you drool after the sixth. As usual, it turned out well, since it is almost foolproof and requires little attention once assembled.

But in separate rooms, honest. Notably, a Raspberry Pi, even running fully loaded, doesn't generate enough heat to cook with. This is definitely in contrast to some Intel processors I've used.

Made ratatouille in the slow cooker today. Smelled great for six hours while it cooked. Here's a photo of how it looked at the beginning:


Eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, sweet pepper, onion, seasoned with garlic and hot paprika, a little olive oil and wine added.

Meanwhile, I finally got the Raspberry Pi (now running Raspbian, the Linux OS customized for its specific hardware features, including hardware floating point processor) going with the HDMI to VGA conversion box that arrived on Saturday. That converts the HDMI video and sound output from the Pi to separate VGA (analog) video and audio signals. Hooked up an old VGA CRT monitor and was surprised to find that it was capable of 1280 x 740 resolution without straining. That aspect ratio was wrong though and everything was distorted to tall and skinny proportions. Some quick changes to config.txt and the screen opened at 1024 x 768, which is more appropriate and also needs less memory to process for Xwindows.

Here is the screen, with keyboard and cheap (freebie) speaker at left:


The speaker is in the top of the Pringles can to the left of the keyboard. These are given away as a promotional prize and seemed appropriately cheap for use with a $35 computer.

Actually there's more than $35 invested in the project now. The HDMI to VGA converter box was $33. Assorted cables, about $10 total. 8 MB SDHC was about $8, and serves as the system disk. Surge protector with two USB charging ports to power the Pi was about $9. The keyboard, mouse, and monitor were supplied by spares that I had lying around. Total cost, a bit over $100. The resulting system performs as well as any small home computer in the $300 or so price range today. However, it is infinitely smaller than one of those "minitower" desktop units. The Raspberry Pi fits in a plastic enclosure of about 2 x 3 x 4 inches. The processor is a 700 MHz ARMv6, with two USB ports, ethernet, HDMI and composite video outputs. There is a serial port and other interfacing available through an expansion header, but you have to provide a ribbon cable and connector, and break those out for yourself.

Oh, and it looks like we have a recipient for our sheep. Friend of a friend came by to see them, asked questions, went home to talk to his wife, and called to say they will take them. They have horses and cows, so are used to dealing with hay buying. He has a border collie that he wants to train for sheep herding, and I think it sounds like a suitable home for our little flock.

Well, except for dessert.

Spinners' newsletter edited and released. Heatwave subsided Saturday afternoon and today was a normal weather day for July. Tess got to go out into the drought-stricken pasture for a few hours and hunt for anything green that might have survived. Screech owls still visiting at dawn and dusk. Still no rain.

From scratch buttermilk waffles this morning. Created homemade pizza for dinner tonight, and baked a pie from a new recipe. "Old Fashioned Sour Cream Raisin Pie" is actually a custard pie made with eggs, sour cream, sugar, and raisins. (Can you guess I'm trying to use up eggs? Three ducks laying daily is too productive.)

Both Dreamwidth and I are running very slowly.

Spent much of the day finishing Carriger's book Soulless. It does resolve eventually, of course, and without losing the thread of silly that runs through the entire thing. We shall have to see whether I can resist reading the others.

And, since DW is being intractible, I shall to bed. Vegetarian dinner was quite a success. We had an Italian-inspired meal of spinach-lentil soup followed by baked polenta with cheese and marinara sauce. Both turned out very well.

This morning we went to an open house at the Lake County Model Railroad Club. They weren't charging admissions, but they were holding various raffles. One required a donation of canned goods to the local food pantry, so we took along some canned soups to trade for a raffle ticket. The trains themselves were pretty impressive. The club has been there for 40 years, in the cellar space below a barber and a coffee shop on Main Street in Wauconda. They say they have 350 feet of HO rail installed and operating, but I'd guess at somewhat more than that if you count the sidings and turnarounds. The tracks and tables wind around the space and through the middle, with narrow aisles between them. Much of the humor we enjoy in model railroad displays was present, such as "Dan's Fill Dirt and Croissants" (a scale earthworks with scrapers and trucks, and just a quonset hut for building. I enjoyed finding a sign on the side of a building reading "Play Furt Banjos" and then down the line and around a corner the actual factory building of the "Furt Banjo Makers." I was also amused by one of the club members who said they meet every Friday evening and guests are welcome but "Don't come on the first Friday because that's the business meeting and all you'll see is a bunch of old men arguing." Their membership is not all old, though. There were at least two members participating in operating the trains and explaining the layout who were certainly under 25 and one of them perhaps even under 20.

On the way back, stopped to pick up Gary's new glasses that he ordered last week, then for lunch, and finally to pick up various supplies and grocery items at three different stores along the way. Sounds inefficient, I know, but each of the places is best for some things and not so brilliant for others, and we were going to pass them all so I wanted to take advantage of that rather than making a special trip later.

Came home, put stuff away, took care of critters, and it was time to make dinner. Tonight I did stuffed sweet peppers, something we like but don't often do. (One of the stores had a good price on bell peppers, which is what this dish uses. It isn't authentic Mexican by any means, even though it does use some Mexican style ingredients.) It turned out well.

Next weekend there is a show and sale at Harper College in Palatine, both days, We may go to that as well if we can find time.

Well on Friday night I predicted a "slowdown" for the weekend and said I was looking forward to it. What we got was in fact a "snowdown" with additional snow each day. Nothing significant, but enough to cover up the ground and roofs each day with new clean white flakes. A total of perhaps an inch or more, not enough to be a big deal, but certainly pretty each morning.

Actually, it has been reasonably warm too for January, with temperatures just below freezing down to about 24F or so.

Gary had a workshop to attend in Chicago, was gone much of the day. I wasn't sure when he'd get back, so I made dinner in the crockpot. It was pretty successful: meatloaf made from ground turkey with onions, garlic, green pepper, etc. and roasted with tiny potatoes and carrots for about 8 hours. Smelled tasty and was ready when he did get home about 7 pm. Now we have three days' worth of leftovers in the fridge so he won't have to cook much this week. Salmon patties from last night, and pizza from Friday, together with the meatloaf will carry us through Thursday. That's my half day of work so I can cook again when we get that far.

All the t-trak module bases are glued and set. Now they need to be sanded and given a primer coat. One is to have a short steel span bridge with a river or lake under it, and furries fishing and canoeing. Another gets a bee yard with bears tending the hives and extracting honey. A third will have the train passing a schoolyard with furry children and teachers on the playground, and the fourth is probably going to have a honey processing plant with bulk honey being loaded into tank cars and packaged honey into box cars for shipment. Gary also gave me an N scale stable building and half a dozen horses in the same scale that I can use to occupy one of the square corners of the layout.

I'm also hoping to prepare passenger cars with furry passengers, conductor, and a post office clerk preparing to snag a mail bag in passing. I'm not so sure I can manage my original design to place a horse engineer at the controls of an N scale GP-7 locomotive, though. There just isn't enough space in the cab of the locomotives. Though they have windows that could be used, the interior space is almost entirely occupied by the internal mechanical parts. I need to do some experimenting with that.

Long Wednesday as usual. Got thank yous sent out finally. Tomorrow off work, but have to go to the dentist for a check up.

Airbrush kit I ordered arrived in today's mail, even though the USPS tracking still said only that "electronic notification of mailing has been received." Time from order to delivery was only 5 days, in spite of the holiday weekend, but the post awful still needs to fix its almost broken tracking system.

Must await the pressure regulator before I can actually experiment. Also need to get a guild newsletter posted.

Gary made turkey tetrazzini using my recipe, and it turned out really well. I had said I wanted to make it, but it's a fairly complex thing and didn't expect him to do it. Nice surprise to come home to.

Crystal clear skies tonight, and normally in January I'd expect that to mean sub-zero temperatures. We got down to single digits a couple of nights ago, but tonight it's much warmer and they predict mid-40s (F) tomorrow. Certainly peculiar weather so far this season.

Off to bed, must rise early tomorrow.

Fairly productive day in spite of the urge to drowse off all the time. Sleep deficit is catching up, will try to reform tonight by going to bed early.

Animal chores, check. Edit and post guild newsletter, check. Bake apple pie, check. Make pizza and spinach salad for supper, check. Wind all the 8-day clocks, check. ;p

Did not get as far as working on illustrations for Rollng Stock which had been on my list of intentions for the weekend. Taking a nap became a pressing priority today but I managed to stave it off too.

Sky was gray and threatening all day, with occasional gusty winds and falling temperatures. The rain from yesterday and overnight stopped though. Temperature when I got up at 5:30 am was 51F. By sunset it was 34F, after dropping slowly from dawn to dusk. .