Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Hurricane Matthew, Cooking, Thanksgiving and Oktoberfest, Wifi

Seems like Matthew is wreaking havoc in the Caribbean - heading for Cuba at the moment. The trouble with the islands, they don't really have anywhere to run to which makes them even more frightening. At least on the mainland you can head inland and hopefully avoid it altogether - OK your home might get damaged, but so long as everyone is alive, homes can be rebuilt. We were so lucky when we lived in North Carolina, a lot of hurricanes came our way and even though we weren't there, when we returned we still had a home to return to. A friend who had a house right on the Sound got flooded several times over the year not to mention the ruin of her carefully tended garden. She told me to come clean up my mess one time after Hurricane Josephine, now doubt she would want my husband to do the same LOL The picture shows the storm as of the morning, Tuesday.

Tuesday morning I decided to make the recipe I posted on Monday for Spiced Beef in Red Wine only problem was, it turned out to be a warm afternoon and really rather too hot for a beef stew. However, we ate it anyway and it was delicious. I also have 3 more meals in the freezer for when it is a bit cooler. It really is sweatsville this afternoon/evening. Talking to our new neighbours and they asked what the delicious smell was. Asked a friend if she would like to come over for Thanksgiving this weekend but her son should be returning from his Greek trip so she declined. Being Thanksgiving round here, also means Oktoberfest which will start on Friday with the tapping of the keg. We have never been involved in this although it is supposed to be one of the biggest outside Germany. OK for younger people, guess we are a tad past it these days. I'll stay home and drink my bubbly LOL.

I am expecting a call from our ISP technician this morning. I am having terrific trouble with my wifi. The PC works fine on cable, but the laptop is wifi and the connection drops and comes back all day long. It drives me bonkers. It may require swapping out my modem I gather.

This looks like a delicious soup and should appeal to my vegan friends too.

Cream of Cashew Pea Soup

Cashews lend body, creaminess, and richness to this pea soup and also make it vegan; sub almonds if
you prefer.

¼ cup olive oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
2 cups raw cashews
2 Tbs raw or light brown sugar
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 lbs frozen sugar snap or green peas, thawed
1 Tbs malt vinegar
Thinly sliced scallions and crushed potato chips (for serving

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-low. Add onions, celery, and garlic and cook, stirring often and adding a splash or so of water if the bottom of pan gets too brown, until golden brown, 30–40 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add cashews, sugar, red pepper flakes, and 3 cups water and bring mixture to a simmer. Cook until vegetables are very soft and losing their structure, 10–15 minutes.

2. Blend one-third of sugar snap peas with one-third of vegetable mixture in a blender, adding some cooking liquid from vegetable mixture as needed to thin, until very smooth, about 2 minutes. Press purée through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium saucepan; discard solids. Working in 2 batches, repeat with remaining peas and vegetable mixture, adding water as needed if you run out of cooking liquid. If soup is still very thick, thin with water until you get a velvety, pourable consistency. (You should have about 7 cups soup.)

3. Stir vinegar into soup; season with more salt and pepper and warm over medium-low until heated through.

4. Serve soup topped with scallions and potato chips.

5. Do Ahead: Soup can be made 2 days ahead. Let cool; cover and chill. Reheat over medium-low, thinning with water as needed until pourable.

Servings: 6

Author: Brooks Headley
Source: Bon Appétit


Have a great day
 

20 comments:

  1. Isn't technology wonderful? Two days in a row now my cable box went out at 5:15 while I was DVRing 'Murdoch Mysteries' on CBC. Blame the Canadians? LOL. Anyway, the company resent the signals and we'll see what happens today. Pain in the you-know-what.

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    1. Typical isn't it? Can you recapture the ones you missed Denise.

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    2. I missed 15 minutes of each episode. I was able to figure it out on my own.

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    3. Oh, I thought you had missed it totally Denise.

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  2. Lovely recipes, as usual, Jo. Thanks for sharing.

    Damyanti

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    1. Thanks Damy. I can certainly recommend the beef in red wine, the soup I haven't tried yet.

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  3. That is one big storm with Matthew. I have never been in a hurricane, but hubby had years ago and still remembers the destruction.

    Betty

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    1. Well we usually ran from them Betty. In our case though, we lost 19 trees to hurricanes and were very lucky that none fell on the house.

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  4. Creamy without cream. I like that.

    We are watching the storm. There's a big library event this weekend and I hope we don't have to cancel.

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    1. I thought you would find this recipe interesting Diane. I hope the storm misses you and you can go ahead with your event.

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  5. We've been through several hurricanes and all it takes is one to know you don't want to go through any others.

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    1. Are you near the coast Alex, thought you were more inland? We were close to the sound but not on the outer banks and still got problems with the hurricanes.

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  6. One of the hurricanes sent a mass of rain across the US and it stalled over our area and we had horrible flooding. I think it was Ivan? But as far a natural disasters go, a predictable flood is probably one of the easiest things to deal with.

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    1. Floyd did that some years ago Liz. There were pictures of houses with just their roofs showing above the water. Terrible. At least with a hurricane you know it's coming.

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  7. That storm does look fierce and I wonder where if it will end up in Nova Scotia eventually. I have been to Octoberfest more than once but, yes, I was in my 20's but I do recall this one place catered to people who were much older. we were the youngins for sure creating quite the fuss.

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    1. It has declined a bit Birgit from a 4 to a 3. Still a hefty storm though.

      Like I said, never been.

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  8. It seems like it's going to take a turn out to sea once it gets close to Virginia.

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  9. Well I hope so JoJo. I thought it would hit the Carolinas.

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  10. Replies
    1. Yes it is, that's what attracted me to it Ivy

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