14 October 2008

Pausing for Politics, Pasta, and, perhaps, Procrastination...

I spent a month and a half averaging less than four hours of sleep a night. It would have been nice to say that it was for a good cause; I guess it was, but it ended on a rather my-proposal-wasn't-submitted-so-I-threw-a-fit-at-Colby note. In the end, I learned that I always need to verify that what people tell me isn't full of lies and my boss learned that being an advisor is probably more difficult than she had imagined. The silver lining will come when we submit an amazing proposal next trimester and find a whopping amount of lead in our lithium-enhanced giant. Not that that means anything to most people who read this... or does it? (*AHEM* Chris,Kyle)

Needless to say, I've spent the past week attempting to regain my sanity. It's mostly worked, I think. Surprisingly enough, I haven't really had the urge to cook. In order to just get through the week, we made pasta sauce. The recipe is mostly taken from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (for which I have mixed opinions), with adaptations for our dietary preferences (omnivorous addiction to basil).

1/2+1/4 small yellow onion, diced
6+2 cloves garlic, minced
1+1 tbs olive oil
1 lb ground beef
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 28 oz can petite diced tomatoes
herbs/spices, s+p

in a large pot, heat olive oil and sautee 1/2 onion for ~5 minutes stirring occasionally, until it's translucent and no longer has the icky texture of an onion. add in the 6 cloves of minced garlic and let it cook for about 30s. Add in the 2 cans of tomato-y goodness and let simmer. Add in whatever herbs/spices you desire. The last time I used (all dried) about 2 tbs basil, 1 tbs parsley, 1 tsp sage, 1 tsp thyme, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp red pepper flakes. These are all very approximate... it turns out that I like stirring in herbs so I sort of just go for it... In a separate pan, heat 1 tbs olive oil and add in the rest of the onion+garlic+ground beef and brown. drain and add the beef to the other pot and let it simmer for awhile so that the flavors meld. Season with s+p. It ends up making about 2 normal-sized mason jars.

So this is actually buried in my lasagna recipe, but I felt like reposting because I think I changed what I did a bit.

And I had a whole manifesto written in my head about who I'm voting for and why... but it's late and I should be madly attempting to not fail my grad classes. Instead I will leave you with this (courtesy of Chris):

http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/vidplayer.pl?IDLink=3940291

5 comments:

Johnny Banana said...

Yeah, it means absolutely nothing to me. Aren't Pb and Li made from about the most different processes ever?

TJ said...

cool, its another food blog i can follow. ever get into korean cooking? http://www.maangchi.com/ thats my favorite website. i like to follow her on youtube also...

anyways, good luck with your continued grad studies. WoW, astronomy, sounds like you really have an interest in the subject. it will be interesting to see what type of job you may land after you graduate... there arent too many ppl i've come across that actually studies astronomy. actually, your the first...

julie k h aka jkru said...

I haven't really tried cooking Korean myself, but I'm very interested in it. Thanks for the link, I'm definitely going to check it out!

Anonymous said...

The only use for lead is to block radiation.

julie k h aka jkru said...

Okay, since you guys obviously aren't enlightened, the reason why lead is important is that it's an incredibly reliable marker of the s-process. The s-process goes on in AGB stars, which is one of the sites that they think that Li can be produced (via the Cameron-Fowler Be transport mechanism, which basically uses convection to bring newly synthesized Be from the PP chain to cooler areas in the star where it can only gain an e-, but not a p, making it Li not B). I need to inundate you with more of my research. :)