Polish Cauliflower and Sausage Soup

Now that we have all that cauliflower, we need to do something with it! Fortunately Michael has several great recipes tucked away in his genius mind - here's one of our favorites.

Ingredients

One head cauliflower
Two carrots
2 1/2 cups chicken stock (homemade is best)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound kielbasa, roughly chopped
3 Tbs butter
1/3 cup flour
Salt & pepper to taste
Cheese - as much as you see fit (Tillamook medium cheddar is our choice)

The recipe, as dictated by Michael:

Head of cauliflower, cut into florets
Two carrots, thinly sliced

In a saucepan, with 2 1/2 cups of chicken stock (preferably homemade); cover and simmer until tender.

Lightly blend and set aside.

In same saucepan, brown one chopped onion, 3 cloves of minced garlic, and about a pound of kielbasa (roughly chopped)

When browned, add 3 Tbs butter, 1/3 cup flour, salt & pepper to taste - mix well and cook for about a minute, remove from heat and slowly stir in 2 1/2 cups of milk

Heat until it thickens and is bubbly, on medium high - stirring continuously - simmer for two minutes

Add as much cheese as you see fit (we use Tillamook medium cheddar)

Over medium heat, add cauliflower carrot mixture and heat for ~5 minutes

Serve with buttered and salted baguette slices for mopping up the soup!

ENJOY!

Google+, giant veggies, and an amazing kid...

So. Google+ is live and it seems that everyone is stampeding over there to give it a try. That includes me. The jury hasn't rested yet, but I am leaning in a pretty positive direction. With a few more improvements, I can see moving most of my social network operations in that direction. If only they'd allow html in posts and comments! PLEASE!!!!!!! I'm begging you, great Google gurus!

A couple of things I've noticed already:

• You can edit your posts! (hey now, there's a concept!)
• There doesn't seem to be a limit on how long your post is (hey now, there's a concept!)

That's a couple, right? What's missing - the ability to use html in posts and comments. That's the biggest thing missing from most of the social sites. What if I want to embed a video or photo as part of my comment? Oh sorry, you can only post a link... the visual impact is lost because people have to visit another page to see it. There is definitely potential...

And on to giant veggies... and giant teen boys. I look at this picture, and Nolan looks even more grown up than ever - is that possible?!!! Look at that face - he's not a little kid anymore! When did this happen? He'll be 17 in a couple of weeks, and a senior next year in school. It's been a damn fine ride with this kid - I couldn't have asked for a better parenting experience with him. I'm so proud of the young man he's become, despite the constant motherly worry when he's out there in the wilds (like tonight... camping at Mount Baker and split boarding tomorrow). It's good that he has healthy interests!

What a cute little guy he was!

Oh yeah - back to the veggies. They're growing like mad this year! I took a few risks and put starts out when the weather seemed a bit dodgy - cold and rainy. It seems to have really worked out! We're getting tonnes of broccoli, and the first head of cauliflower was perfect. PERFECT.

That's no keychain swiss army knife, nosiree! This first lovely head of cauliflower was turned into the most scrumptious cauli-cheese-sausage soup ever.

Time to go digest.

All that is lost...

Can eventually be found - or so they say.

Today, I lost 68GB of my music collection when my external hard drive died during transfer to a new drive. Only 11GB was saved. I could be depressed, heartbroken, or despondent! But no. I'm am just annoyed. Annoyed that it happened in the summer, and not the winter when I have more time to futz around with it. Annoyed that I have to go through everything and figure out what made it and what didn't. Annoyed that it will take time away from other things that are more important!

But really, it's not that bad. I'll be able to clear out the crap I don't really want, and add plenty more new music. It's one of those freeing moments...

It's a pain, but life will go on.

Any suggestions for music I should try?

Yay!

Yay! Yay! Yay!

I'm not sure why I'm shouting "yay" at the moment - it must have been for a good reason.

Perhaps I'm sugarly gleeful for summer reading at the library! YES!!!! That's it!

Okay. I'll be honest - it isn't all bad, but sometimes the crowds drive me a bit batty. Today wasn't too bad, and I had a pretty good experience. A large group of kids came down from the Navy Youth Center, and about 8 boys (age 9-11) decided they needed stamps for as many as possible optional activities as they could muster. They told me jokes.

"Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?" HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY GUTS! hahahahahahaaaa

They also said hello in a variety of foreign languages, told me what countries they'd like to visit, and what recipes they've tried - lots of SHUSHI. And they drew maps.

And then one boy said, "You're a REALLY NICE librarian! You're the nicest librarian I've ever known!"

Made my day. And I'm going to keep working on being that nice librarian every day of my life. It's not a competition, but damn. If a handful of kids can come to the library and feel like somebody is paying attention to them, then let me do this day after day, after day after day.

Today...

Nolan is in Yellowstone right now. Right NOW. I'm jealous.

That's him, standing next to the sign and sending me a text to let me know he's there, so I can catch him on the webcam. I'd been speaking to him on the phone just a minute before that, but was on my way home for dinner break and had to fire up the computer to get the webcam shots. I'm glad he's there, and enjoying a relaxed trip there with his dad. They're going to do some back country hiking

Did I mention I'm currently reading a book called "Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park" by Lee Whittlesley? It just happened to arrive on one-week interlibrary loan a couple of days ago. Seeing as the library system went to the expense of bringing it to me, I HAVE to read it, right?

RIGHT?

It's really interesting, actually, and I am enjoying it despite the paranoia it causes me to feel, knowing that Nolan is out there in the mad wilderness. He's pretty savvy, and not a fool when it comes to the reality of *being* in the wild. Unlike most of the idiots that visit the park. He was telling me about getting stuck for 2.5 hours due to bison along the roadway - some people thought it would be clever to "herd" the bison with their cars. They finally managed to squeeze through an opening and get out of the traffic jam - he reported the bison seemed angry, and were snorting a lot. If only they had rammed the offending cars!

Here's a lovely little vid from our last visit to Yellowstone, in 2008. YOU DO NOT MESS WITH THE BISON!

And on that note... it's time for bed!

This thing working?

Tap tap.

Knock.

Seems to be in one piece. Probably still able to take whatever I have to dish out. Seems it's been over a year since I've posted here.

Oh my, oh dear.

I haven't been much in a writing mood at all for a while, my other, long running blog has also suffered a drought of verbiage. My three followers have probably grown bored and gone elsewhere for entertainment. Oh well. I hope they've found something interesting. I know my mom is busy with their new Subaru, so she probably hasn't missed it much. And the knock-off shoe spammers are probably annoyed I haven't provided them any new posts to spam, but hey. Such is life.

Trying to decide what to focus on here - my garden? books I've read? witty social commentary? Stories about the library? Anthropormorphising traffic cones?

Suggestions welcome.

Fluff

Hello... if you've found your way here then you might want to head on over HERE instead.  It's much more likely that I've written something new on that blog - I've had it much longer that this one!  Not to mention, the amount of time I've spent tinkering with the details - I'm not about to give it up!

Cheers!