seanan_mcguire: (marilyn)
You will need:

1/2 pound of good, fatty bacon
2 pints of heavy whipping cream/1 pint heavy whipping cream, 2 cups of whole milk
2 1-lb. bags of frozen corn
4 tbs. of sugar
2 tsp. of salt
1/4 cup of quick polenta

A deep skillet
A spoon

Take your corn out to thaw (you want it as non-frozen as possible). Cut your bacon into 1/4" to 1/2" squares (I find that using meat scissors works really well for this). Put the bacon into your skillet, and cook until you want to just eat it.

Add your thawed corn to the skillet, pouring it on top of the bacon, and mix thoroughly before adding your first pint of cream. Mix again. If the cream does not cover the bulk of your corn-and-bacon mixture, add more cream (or milk, if that's how you're rolling). Reserve half the remaining cream/milk for later.

Bring your heat up to medium-high. Stir your mixture until the cream begins to warm. Taste it. You should find that you need sugar to balance the richness of the cream. Add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until the sweetness is to your liking (you can leave some of the sugar out). Sprinkle your polenta evenly over the mixture, stirring thoroughly after each pass.

Turn the heat down to medium-low, and give the mixture about four minutes to cook, stirring occasionally. As the polenta cooks, it will thicken more and more, creating a paste. You may wish to add more cream/milk at this stage, to render the cream more, well, creamy. I like my creamed corn to be thick but still a little bit runny.

Taste the mix. You should find that you need salt. Add salt to taste. Stir thoroughly. Bring back up to medium-high and stir for another three to five minutes, while your polenta finishes cooking. Be careful not to burn your cream (burnt cream is unpleasant).

Serves eight, reheats beautifully.

I will be modifying this recipe to begin with an onion cooked alongside the bacon, and will report back.
seanan_mcguire: (wicked)
When last we left our intrepid heroine (me), I was on a plane to Scotland, to visit Amal and Stuart for a week. Basically exactly a week, which was simultaneously a long, long time to go stay with someone I had never stayed with before, and nowhere near long enough to stay with a dear friend in a city I had never visited.

My flight was smooth and uneventful, and landed in Glasgow a little early, which was good, since it had been marred by navigation issues which caused the cabin crew to say "all electronics must be off, yes, even your Pokemon machine, yes, even your iPod." It was a sad, sad situation for a Seanan. When I landed, it became even sadder, as my phone had run out of minutes while I was in Ireland, and I thus could not call Amal to let her know I was there. I mooched back and forth in the airport for a while, sadly, until she materialized, all smiles and hugs and help with my luggage, and got me out of there.

When we arrived at the apartment, everything smelled like home. There was a chicken roasting in the oven and a pot of stock simmering on the stove, and I promptly decided that this was the best of all possible worlds. I was set up in the guest room, added to the wireless, and introduced to the two fabulous resident magpie cats. Amal quickly discovered that she could thrust things at me, and that I would then read them. This became a popular party game over the next few days.

Oh, the places we went! Oh, the things that we did! We visited the two biggest cheese shops in Glasgow, and assembled two glorious cheeseboards, including Bonnet (goat), Isle of Mull Cheddar (yellow), VJ Cabrales (DEATH BLUE), Old Lochnagar (cheddar-ish), and Dunsyre Blue, all from I. J. Mellis, and Isle of Mull Cheddar (white), Killeen (goat-gouda), Basajo (white-wine blue with grapes!), and Coulommiers (Brie), all from George Mewes. There was not a bad bit of cheese in the bunch.

I must, however, take a moment to focus on the Cabrales. This cheese was given in response to my request for an aggressive blue. "Aggressive" does not begin to cover it. This cheese was the Ghost Rider of cheeses, judging your sins and refusing to forgive them. It was so strong it was physically painful to eat more than a sliver at a time. I am in love. I want twenty pounds of it.

Amal and I walked Glasgow, enjoyed cake at Once Upon A Tart, and bought heather gems. She saw me have my first Victoria tart and my first rose lemonade, both of which engendered bliss face. We watched Doctor Who and made plans for the future and chatted about anything and everything, and it was lovely. I cooked her and Stuart goat. I snuggled their cats.

On Friday, we drove two and a half hours to Amal and I could hike off into the fields of Carterha and touch Tam Lin's well. This will be a post all of its own, and soon.

On Saturday, we went to the Scottish Owl Centre, which was perfect and sublime and like nothing I had ever done before. I want to go back.

Sunday we shopped, rested, ate, and made our farewells, and Monday morning, I got on a train bound for Swindon. It was nowhere near long enough. It was the perfect length of time. Scotland was beautiful, and its people even more so.

I want to go back.
seanan_mcguire: (princess)
Having been asked (about fifteen times) to post this, I now present you with the recipe for dark chocolate chip pomegranate cookies. You will need:

* Three cups of all-purpose flour
* One teaspoon of baking soda
* One-half teaspoon of salt
* One cup of granulated sugar
* Two-thirds of a cup of packed light brown sugar

* One cup of softened butter or margarine
* Two large eggs
* One tablespoon of vanilla extract
* One quarter-cup of pomegranate molasses

* One twelve-ounce bag of dark chocolate chips
* One-half cup of pomegranate seeds

Line several cookie trays with parchment paper, as the cookies will be sticky when they first come out of the oven, and it's best if they stick to something other than your actual cookie tray (you may need it for another batch, depending on how many trays you have). Mix your flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl that you aren't in danger of knocking over. Put it to one side. In another, bigger bowl, mix your butter, granulated sugar, white sugar, pomegranate molasses, eggs, and vanilla until they form a sugary pudding-like goo that you really just want to eat with a spoon (but won't, due to the presence of raw eggs in the mix).

Begin adding your flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing thoroughly as you go. First the contents of your bowl will look like some sort of horrible elementary school art project. Gradually, they will turn into cookie dough. When this happens, mix in the chocolate chips and pomegranate seeds. Stir to distribute as evenly as possible through the mixture. Put the dough in the fridge for an hour. Go do something else. Watch TV. Read a book. Read my book. I don't care. It's your hour.

Actually, I lied. After about forty-five minutes, come back and pre-heat your oven to 400 F/around 205 C.

Once you're ready to bake, put tablespoons of dough on your cookie trays, about two inches apart (to allow for spread). You may need to mash them a little with your spoon or hand to get them to stay in place. Bake at 400 F/around 205 C until light brown (usually eight to ten minutes; longer if you want crispy cookies). Allow to cool at least a little before eating. The pomegranate seeds will soften to the texture of baked walnuts, while the juice parts will be little exploding sweet-sour surprises.

Eat.
seanan_mcguire: (marilyn)
Back by popular demand, here is my family's turkey recipe. I share because a) I care, and b) apparently, some people have experienced dryness in their breast meat when cooking their turkeys in another fashion, whereas my mother once set a turkey on fire and still had moist breast meat. Despite the, y'know, flames. Any recipe that can survive flames is good by me.

You will need:

* A turkey. Duh. If you don't understand why you need a turkey, please go away.
* Ginger ale.*
* Olive oil.
* Fresh garlic. I use pre-crushed, because I am lazy. You're welcome to play Alton Brown and crush your own. I won't stop you, but I may laugh at you while I sit back and do my nails.
* Honey or molasses.
* Brown sugar.
* Dry spices according to your specific taste. I use a mixture of sage, thyme, and rosemary. One of my cousins uses curry powder. It's all you.
* Salt and pepper.
* Something vegetable to shove into the turkey. More on this in a second.

* A roasting pan of some sort. The cheap aluminum ones at the grocery store work fine; just make sure they fit your turkey before buying them.
* Foil.
* A way to get the turkey out of the roasting pan, because that sucker will be hot and heavy.

You may want:

* A turkey thermometer. Sexy, sexy little things that they are.
* A turkey baster.
* A meat brush.

(*As far as ginger ale goes, I recommend Canada Dry. If your bird is between zero and sixteen pounds, you will need two liters. If your bird is between sixteen and twenty-five pounds, you will need four liters. If your bird is over twenty-five pounds, I am coming to your place for dinner. Add two liters if you are using one of those fancy-ass roasting pans where your turkey is on a rack and getting sort of steamed by the liquid evaporating beneath it, because those suckers use up your basting liquid like nobody's business. Don't use diet soda unless everyone at your Thanksgiving likes the taste of aspartame.)

Let's begin with the bird. )
seanan_mcguire: (princess)
MONDAY: Monday, Monday, Monday. Monday was a day of Getting Things Done. On Monday, I submitted my latest short story—fetchingly titled "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On" (although I sadly suspect that even the most tolerant of editors may ask me to change to one of the possible alternate titles, because I am not James Tiptree)—to the anthology it was hopefully written for, chopped up lots of vegetables for stew, used an entire bottle of red wine in setting up my marinades (I felt quite decadent doing this), processed a truly epic number of edits, and actually went to bed on time (not a theme of the week). I also put my tax paperwork where I'd be able to find it again later. Behold! For now I wear the human pants!

TUESDAY: Tuesday was a "hit the ground running" sort of a day. I got up, only to start rabbit stew in the smaller crock pot, and goat stew in the larger crock pot. (I know in my heart that my crazy poacher ancestors are very, very proud of me right now. They would be more proud if I'd obtained my weird meats with either a gun or the front-grill of a moving car, but my family's ancestral spirits take what they can get.) After work, I hit the Farmer's Market for the rest of the fixings for a big dinner, and went home to wait for my house guests to arrive.

(For those who missed the memo, [livejournal.com profile] yuki_onna and [livejournal.com profile] s00j are currently on the West Coast leg of the Palimpsest [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies] tour, a mixture of music and readings from the book. Since they're traveling with their sweeties, as well as a large trailer, they needed a lot of house to crash in. I have a lot of house. Since I needed to do spring cleaning anyway, this seemed totally reasonable. Also, the last Bay Area stop is tonight, at the Other Change of Hobbit, and I will totally be attending.)

The drive took longer than expected, so they arrived a bit after my bedtime. I hastily showed them where the towels were, introduced them to the cats, pointed them at the stew, and went to bed. "Going to bed" has been a theme of the week, really. I like my bed. It's where I keep the sleeping.

WEDNESDAY: Wednesday consisted mostly of swearing at Late Eclipses and showing Cat et all around San Francisco. We went to Borderlands Books so they could meet Jude and the freaky demon alien suede kittyfaces before the show (which was last night), and from there, proceeded on a tour of weird and wonderful San Francisco, culminating in a trip to Fisherman's Wharf, during which we saw sea lions and ate tasty foods. (Also, I shattered a tooth. Not so much fun, and seeking a dentist who suits my needs is proving to be exciting. My phobia of dentists is so severe the signs sometimes make me sick to my stomach. Maybe watching Little Shop of Horrors every day for a year when I was nine wasn't such a good plan.)

THURSDAY: Thursday brought back Supernatural, gave me an excuse to go to the art supply store for actual business reasons, and tasty, tasty Indian food, followed by tasty, tasty ice cream, and tasty, tasty sleep. Also, I swung through the comic book store, and found a Tulip action figure on the discount table for only fifty cents. It will take very little customizing to turn her into an awesome Alice Price-Healy (from the InCryptid books) action figure. She will inspire me with her plastic menace!

How's been by all of you?
seanan_mcguire: (pony)
Step one: Get off work. Go to Target. Buy microwave lunches for the next week, because Target is the only damn store in the damn Bay Area that reliably carries the kinds that I'll actually eat. Is it so hard for Safeway to keep Chicken Mirabella, Shrimp Marinara, and Tuna Casserole on their shelves? Apparently, yes. Yes, it is. (I'm only willing to eat like four kinds of microwave meal, and even I eventually get tired of spaghetti.)

Step two: Go to the comic book store. Engage an annoying patron in a vigorous discussion of why, perhaps, declaring "Fuck the Gemworld!" in a store containing, well, me, is not the world's very best idea. Amuse the counter monkeys immensely. The counter monkeys like me, as I am reliable, polite, and very, very addicted to comics. The counter monkeys have no such fondness for annoying patron, hereby referred to as 'the cat-toy.' The cat-toy survived our encounter, but did not linger.

Step three: Go home. Set the kitchen on fire making cranberry sauce.

Step four: Put out the fire.

Step five: Read Hack/Slash while eating dinner. After the dinner part of the program is done, ink and watch two episodes of Big Bang Theory (season one). Mr. Memory and The Human Labyrinth are now fully inked, as is the masthead. Most of the Ragnaroctopus still needs to be finished. But I found my zip-a-tone, so all will be well.

Step six: Process the final edits for my Grants Pass story, which is pleasant and nice and not at all disturbing.

Step seven: Muck around with my clicky Vampire Wars game on Facebook. Damn you, Jennifer, damn you.

Step eight: Make this entry.

Step nine: Retreat to the back room for Leverage and more comic books.
seanan_mcguire: (marilyn)
Well, I promised that if y'all didn't break anything, I would provide my recipe for cranberry sauce. I like keeping promises that are tied to things not being destroyed. It reinforces behaviors I wish to encourage, IE, things not being broken.

I originally swiped this recipe from Michael, who originally swiped it from his mother. Why? Because after lots and lots of Thanksgiving dinners including cranberry sauce, his was the first time I actually ate and enjoyed it. Seriously, this stuff is mind-blowingly good. Here are two versions of the Best Cranberry Sauce Ever, one original, and one modified to be Weight Watchers-friendly.

The original is this way! )

***

Weight Watchers version is this way! )
seanan_mcguire: (marilyn)
This is how we cook turkeys in my family. I share because a) I care, and b) apparently, some people have experienced dryness in their breast meat via cooking their turkeys in another fashion, whereas my mother once set a turkey on fire and still had moist breast meat. Despite the, y'know, flames.

You will need:

* A turkey. Duh. If you have no turkey, go away.
* Ginger ale.*
* Olive oil.
* Fresh garlic. I use pre-crushed, because I am lazy. You're welcome to play Alton Brown and crush your own. I won't stop you, but I may laugh at you while I sit back and do my nails.
* Honey.
* Brown sugar.
* Dry spices according to your specific taste. I use a mixture of sage, thyme, and rosemary. One of my cousins uses curry powder. It's all you.
* Salt and pepper.
* Something vegetable to shove into the turkey. More on this in a second.

* A roasting pan of some sort.
* A turkey baster.
* A meat brush.
* Foil.
* A way to get the turkey out of the roasting pan, because that sucker will be hot and heavy.

You will want:

* A turkey thermometer. Sexy, sexy little things that they are.

(*As far as ginger ale goes, I recommend Canada Dry. If your bird is between zero and sixteen pounds, you will need two liters. If your bird is between sixteen and twenty-five pounds, you will need four liters. If your bird is over twenty-five pounds, I am coming to your place for dinner. Add two liters if you are using one of those fancy-ass roasting pans where your turkey is on a rack and getting sort of steamed by the liquid evaporating beneath it, because those suckers use up your basting liquid like nobody's business.)

Let's begin with the bird. )

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