Dan has been gone on his Iceland sampling trip - but he'll be back Wed afternoon! All has gone well for him - with great weather and successful field days...let's hope the return trip goes fine with all the samples! The last 10 days without Dan has given me some quality time with my thesis and presentation. It's less than a month away and I'm so excited for it to be over, but anxious about actually defending after all this time!! Regardless, it'll be all over after the hour presentation and Q&A with the public..then maybe another half hour to hour with just the committee alone to go over any corrections and edits...let it be known, 2pm PST on Oct 26th Chau will be walking on air. Until then however, a raving lunatic....Dan is also taking his written exams that same week which means the whole household will be out of sorts in October. Dan has a whole week of writing for 8 hours each day..sigh, I think we are both quite excited for November!
Pictures from the last month or so!
Recipes worth trying:
okra chili - made with deer meat and added about a cup of yellow corn meal to thicken it up and boost the flavor - I'm going to insist on doing this for all my future chilis!! This one was delicious!! I didn't have tomato paste - so I added some ketchup, and instead of a dark beer I added a can of frozen miller high life (don't judge me)...some frozen okra and tomatoes from the garden, and a cup of the pinto beans from below instead of kidney beans and bingo...dinner for days...
pinto bean masala - sounds odd but this is amazing with white rice, a few spoonfuls of jarred pasta sauce, and slices of mozzarella melted on top...best leftovers ever
pear cake/tart - the important thing is to underbake the thing, and dump as many pears as you can in it - don't mess with the pinwheel design...I think I used 6 pears for one of the tarts (I've made it twice in one week!)
xo
