Cockeyed Optimist

I added chapters to both these masterpieces over the weekend — so if you’ve been dying to find out what comes next, here’s your chance!

And, by the way, I have just downloaded yet another alternative to Microsoft Word, for Mac OS X, called OpenOSX Office; here is their company site.

When I have had a chance to check it out, I’ll post my impressions here.

Since I posted ‘Quick meals, not fast foods,’ a week or so ago, I have discovered another meal to add a little variety.

Like the other meals I listed, this is not a gee-whiz gourmet proposition, it just makes a change!

Chicken Stir-Fry

Ingredients

1. Diced or sliced chicken breast
2. A packet of soft noodles (Singapore style or similar)
3. A bit of ginger root, sliced finely and chopped up
4. Garlic, if you like
5. Leafy Chinese vegetables - baby bok choy or similar, chopped coarsely
6. Snow peas, capsicum, bean shoots, whatever, if you like, not essential
7. Oil (I prefer virgin olive oil)
8. Soy sauce

Method

1. Heat some oil in a wok or heavy shallow pan
2. Separate the noodles (I run water over them in a colander, then dry them a bit)
3. Add the chicken to the wok and stir often to stop it sticking
4. When the chicken looks mainly cooked, throw in the noodles and the other stuff
5. Add liberal amount of soy sauce and keep stirring until you think it’s ready.
6. Enjoy!

I must confess; this might take as long as 40 minutes all up!

You may have noticed another new feature on my sidebar, BlogRush.

To explain what it is all about, I couldn’t do better than to quote the explanation given on the BlogRush site:

BlogRush is a free service that was created to help bloggers solve their #1 need:
More Readers For Their Blog.

By adding the BlogRush Widget to a blog, a blogger can get instant distribution for their latest blog post titles across a network of related blogs.

BlogRush users earn “syndication credits” (the right to have their blog post titles shown inside a widget on another related blog) based on their own traffic (loads of the widget) as well as the traffic of other users they refer to BlogRush. Users can automatically refer others to BlogRush via special links on the widget, as well as through the promotion of a special referral URL they are given.

BlogRush is a “Cooperative Syndication Network” that rewards its users for their contributions to the network — from the impressions they provide of the BlogRush Widget to the referral of other users through 10 ‘generations’ of activity and the impressions of the widget that they provide. BlogRush was designed to be incredibly viral and to provide its users with tremendous distribution leverage to receive exposure for their blog content (onto related content blogs) that they could never achieve on their own; at least without a massive advertising budget.

BlogRush is the brainchild of Internet entrepreneur, John Reese. Mr. Reese is the founder and CEO of Income.com, a soon to be launched social network and media company for entrepreneurs. BlogRush is the first Web property of the Income.com Network, a network of sites and services to help entrepreneurs and business owners succeed. Income.com is based in Orlando, Florida.

Here is the link if you want to sign up for BlogRush.

Go and have a look — it’s free!

In this morning’s copy of The Weekend Australian Magazine, Ruth Ostrow’s column is about the dangers of using the Web instead of seeing the doctor. She quotes her GP:

The internet is the bane of my life. Everyone is now self-diagnosing.
… Then people order medication without prescriptions over the net and this is really dangerous.

This practice is not confined to the internet, and is not even very recent. Here is a passage from Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat”, first published in 1889:

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch — hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into — some fearful, devastating scourge, I know — and before I had glanced half down the list of ‘premonitory symptoms’, it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

He goes on to find that he also had typhoid fever and St. Vitus’s Dance. He then worked alphabetically through the book, starting with ague, Bright’s disease, Cholera and diphtheria. To cut a long story short, he discovers that

… the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.

At first he feels rather hurt about this, why not housemaid’s knee, since he had everything else?

I had walked into that reading-room a happy healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

He eventually goes to see his doctor, who, fortunately, is a sensible man, and gives him the following prescription:

1 lb. beefsteak, with
1 pint bitter beer, every 6 hours.
1 ten-mile walk every morning.
1 bed at 11 sharp every night.

Maybe we’d all do well to follow this advice!

I have added a couple more pictures to my wife Katherine’s holiday snaps.

You can view them by going to that post.

There is also another chapter to ‘Kit and the Beeman, Chapter Fourteen.

Enjoy both!

Over the last few years, since I retired from academia, it has fallen to me to do the family’s evening cooking.

My spouse, Katherine, until recently, was working full time, so it made sense for me to be responsible for dinner, at least on week-nights (and sometimes at the weekends, too).

Now, I’m not one of those men who fancy themselves as chefs, and who spend hours fiddling about with elaborate dishes. When we have dinner guests it seems to me that we should take a little more trouble, but as for regular meals for a couple with a teenage son, simplicity and speed are of the essence. My aim is ten minutes max for preparation, and half an hour for cooking (since my kind of cooking doesn’t need much attention, it’s OK if it takes a bit longer sometimes).

I have two categories of meal: protein plus two veg, and curries or pastas.

Meat or fish and two veg

The following are all done under the grill (broiler). I make a tray out of two layers of aluminium foil, turned up a bit all round, so I can get away with only cleaning the grill pan occasionally.

• Pork loin chops
• Beef scotch fillet steak
• Lamb French cutlets
• Sausages (link-style — what we call ’snags’ here)
• Broewors (this is a South African style sausage, in a spiral — we have quite a few ex-South Africans in our area, so our butcher carries this)
• Rainbow trout fillets (or occasionally whole fish)
• Salmon cutlets
• Mackerel cutlets sometimes

As for vegetables, I cook them in a double saucepan, potatoes boiled in the bottom, veges steamed in the top. I try always to buy washed baby Coliban potatoes; I don’t peel them because the peel has the vitamin C — if there is any dirt still attached, well they’re going to be boiled, aren’t they? Depending on size, I might cut them in half.

Veges are mainly those that need little preparation, as follows:

• Green beans — I only cut off the stalk end
• Asparagus
• Broccolli (but this is not popular at home)
• Brussels sprouts (ditto)
• Cauliflower (but this is not popular with me)
• Leeks
• Sweet corn cobs
• Zucchini (courgettes)

Curries or pasta dishes

I’ve grouped these together because the cooking procedures are somewhat similar, that’s all.

• Spaghetti bolognaise or similar.
  In one big saucepan, add to boiling water however much pasta (spaghetti, fusilli, penne, spirali, etc) you need for three people. (250 to 300 gm, half a packet, seems enough for us).

  In another, middle-sized saucepan, heat up some oil and add beef or lamb mince and brown it; then add a jar of spaghetti sauce (I like Bolognaise style with red wine), cover and cook.

• Chicken or lamb curry.
  In a Corningware casserole, put a cup of Basmati rice and a cup-and-a-half of water. This will take 20 minutes in the microwave.

  In a middle-sized saucepan, do the same as for pasta dishes, but with a jar of curry sauce instead. This can be Korma, Jalfrezi, Tikka Masala or whatever. Tonight we’re having chicken with Mango Chicken sauce.

  Chicken takes about 20 minutes, lamb takes 35, so you have to time putting on the rice to suit.

• Ravioli or similar.

  This is basically similar to cooking pasta, except that there is no need to put mince in the sauce, just cook the sauce alone.

  I use 400 gm packets of various kinds of ravioli, or similar things, like tortellini, agnoletti and so on.

Keep half an eye on all this, so that nothing boils over or burns, and that’s it!

Dinner is served!