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Category Archives: Home Life
Lentil and chocolate chip cookies
For Thanksgiving I usually make something with lentils since we grow them on the farm and few people do much cooking with lentils. Yesterday, about an hour before we planned to leave for the farm I still hadn’t started making anything (yes, I’m who Xenia inherited he procrastination from). I pulled the The Pea & Lentil Cookbook from the cupboard and started looking through it. “Oh, that looks interesting”, I thought when I saw the lentil cookies. “Interesting” was to be a word used in conjunction with my cookies many times during the day. I thought we had all the ingredients and started work. It turns out we didn’t have enough of everything and I improvised along the way.
Word traveled fast through the house and James came in to look and express his scorn, “Lentil cookies? Have you tried this before?” “No”, I replied. As he walked off he said, “I’ll be impressed if you pull it off.” At the end of the day he came up with my QOTD for today.
Lentil and Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 7 dozen, approximately 3 cookies per serving
Lentils lend a rich, nutty flavor and cakelike softness to this classic cookie1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
1 cup sugar
4 teaspoons vanilla
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups lentil purée (purée instructions below)
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
- Preheat oven to 375o F.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Add vanilla and eggs; beat until smooth. Cream lentil purée into butter mixture
- In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture and blend lightly. Gently blend in oatmeal, chocolate chips, and nuts, just until evenly mixed.
- Chill dough until ready for handling. Drop dough in rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 5 minutes; turn pan and bake another 5 minutes, or until cookies are lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.
Lentil Purée
Add 2 cups water per cup of lentils. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer. Simmer 10 to 20 minutes for decorticated (skinned) lentils, 35 to 40 minutes for whole lentils. Add more water if cooking time is extended due to high altitude, hard water, or prolonged storage prior to cooking. Stir a few times. Cook lentils until they are very soft but just short of falling apart. Which cooking is complete remove from heat and let cool slightly but do not drain. In small batches purée the lentils with a sieve, food mill, blender, food processor, or potato masher. Purée should be the consistency of canned pumpkin. Add water to thin if necessary.
It turns out I only had 1 cups of brown sugar. I topped it off with white sugar and poured some molasses over it until I figured it was “brown enough”. I didn’t see the walnuts in the cupboard and crushed some pecans with the potato masher. We only had four cups of oatmeal and I topped it off with Raisin Bran. We only had about 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips and I figured the raisins in the Raisin Bran would be a good enough substitute.
I put the mixture in the freezer while I took a shower and we headed off to the farm.
As I was putting them on the cookies for baking people came in and asked what I was making. The response was universal, “Interesting”:
Putting the cookies on baking sheets as Aunt Alice expresses her “interest”. Photo by Xenia Joy.
I baked the cookies for the suggested ten minutes and wasn’t happy with them. Even 12 minutes didn’t seem like quite enough time but they tasted very good. Everyone, even our food snob son James, liked them.
Thanksgiving pictures from the farm
Yesterday we went to my parents place to gorge ourselves. Xenia and I took some pictures. She posted some of hers here. Mine are below (except as noted). And yes, I’ll tell you about the lentil cookies eventually.
Everyone says Barb and I are “cute” in this picture. Cute? Photo by Xenia Joy.
Son James who is featured in my QOTD today.
Daughter Xenia.
Xenia framed in frosted tree branches.
My brother’s shooting bench.
A neighbors Black Angus cow and Xenia.
Barb and Xenia reflected in the eye of a cow. Photo by Xenia Joy.
Xenia and I. Photo by Xenia Joy.
Quote of the day–James Huffman-Scott
So, it’s not just impressive you pulled it off. It was a f****ing miracle.
James Huffman-Scott
November 22, 2007
[Our son James after learning that not only did I try out a new recipe for cookies on Thanksgiving for our extended family I improvised with numerous ingredients and they still turned out quite good. Everyone, when I told them what I was making said, “Interesting” which of course actually means “I can’t imagine anyone eating something like that unless stomach cancer has already eliminated any concern about their stomach rotting.” I’ll share both the original and modified recipe soon.–Joe]
The making of Dorothy
Remember when Xenia dressed up as Dorothy for Halloween? Here is the making of my Dorothy:
L.A. Times gets snarky
I sometimes wish I could output snark like this:
The report follows recent news that screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed 75% of the fake bombs that investigators tried to smuggle onto planes during tests two years ago. The excuse from TSA officials: The tests were difficult and designed to trip up screeners. Whereas Al Qaeda will doubtless hide its bombs in brightly marked packages.
But then I would probably want to use it for occasions that would jeopardize my job and marriage.
Kids and Santa
We were probably a little more honest with our kids about Santa than most parents. We had to explicitly tell them to “keep the secret” from some of their cousins. Thus we avoided little unplanned revelations like this (thanks to Rob for forwarding it to me).
But our girls did somehow manage to find the contents of the top shelf in the work room with both volumes of The Kinsey Report and other books that had more photos that words. Which reminds me. I think there is still room on that shelf for this book.
First snowfall
We had the first snow of fall in Moscow, Idaho yesterday. I left about 13:20 to try getting over the pass to my hardened, underground bunker near Seattle before dark. It snowed or rained on me the whole way. The road had a little slush on the pass but I never had any problems although I saw a couple accidents where people made unplanned excursions from I-90.
Xenia took some pictures near our Moscow home but only posted one so I stole this one from her computer because I like it better:
Quote of the day–Samantha Carter
You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.
Samantha Carter
A character in Stargate SG-1
Played by Amanda Tapping
[James and I just finished watching this series on DVD. It was good. Very good. We’re sorry it’s over. The ending could have been a little bit better. James was probably a little more disappointed than I. I thought it left things such that you could imagine how all the unresolved things would probably be figured out and that was okay. But James was a bit annoyed saying that it wasn’t that much different than the ending of any other episode. I figure it gives them possibilities for the movies.–Joe]
Not Missouri
In August of 2006 Barb and I spent a week in Missouri and Kansas. I’d spent a little time in that area of the country on business 20 years ago but Barb hadn’t been there before. In addition to taking in the local claims to fame we expected to do some of the usual things we do in the northwest–hike in the wood. We were disappointed in that regard.
The part of Kansas we were in, essentially, didn’t have any woods and we didn’t even look for a place to hike. Missouri was a little better but from our perspective it was very odd. There just weren’t any trails to speak of. And the ones we found were just “blah”. We did do a little bit of hiking and thought we understood part of the reason people didn’t do much hiking.
- The humidity made it uncomfortable.
- It just wasn’t that interesting compared to what we were used to.
- It’s flat. The highest altitude in Missiouri is 1772 ft and the lowest is 230 ft for a difference of only 1542 ft over the entire state.
On October 28th of this year we, after spending most of the day in bed, went for a hike toward Wallace Falls near Gold Bar Washington. We got off much too late and had to turn around before we reached the falls so we could get back to the car before dark. We were pleased with what we saw and decided to try it again and get an earlier start. On November 11th we started our hike a little after 10:00 AM and made it all the way to the upper falls.
We were leaning against the rail taking in the beauty of the upper falls and I said, “You know we aren’t in Missouri don’t you?” Barb laughed and knew exactly what I was talking about even though it had been over a year since we had been in Missouri.
A few days later I told our son James about it, including the background about our time in Kansas and Missouri. He responded with something his friend Tucker had said numerous times, “Kansas is flatter than a pancake–they’ve done tests.”
Here are a few pictures to show you what I’m talking about. It’s definitely not Missouri.
Yay me and Caleb
Son-in-law Caleb and I went to an IPSC match on Sunday. It was his first. He came in 13th out of 19 participants. This is very good for a first time IPSC shooter. I came in third. I had way too many misses to be very happy about my performance though.
I even won one of the stages but I suspect that was mostly because I successfully pulled off a creative way of shooting the stage rather than because my shooting was that much better than everyone else. I know at least one other person messed it up when he tried to do it the same way. I learned from his mistake and was successful.
Update: I’m adding pictures from the match and a little bit about the stage “Which Way“.
Caleb and I both did really well on this stage. I won the stage and Caleb came in 4th. Caleb actually shot it in less time that I did, 12.41 seconds versus 12.71. I had much better hits on it than he did which gave me the win. Master Class shooter Adam shot it in 10.77 seconds but with one miss and poor hits. It was a 15 round (minimum) stage so including the draw, moving into position and from shooting position to shooting position we still averaged more than one aimed shot per second.
Caleb contemplating how to shoot a stage.
Caleb shooting the stage “Which Way”.
And no, Caleb wasn’t standing on one foot to shoot, he was slowing down as he approached the barrels and shooting at the same time.
Master class shooter Adam shooting a worse score than beginner Caleb while K.W. RO’s.
No, it wasn’t my daughter
From looking that this picture you might think it was my daughter Xenia that Tam was talking about. But that would be wrong.
Friday at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous
I managed to drag Barbara to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous this year. It was on the condition that I didn’t totally ignore her and I found time to do things with her.
We arrived at Circus Circus very late on Thursday evening and went to bed (to sleep). We had breakfast with the others the next morning then went on a walk while most of the other people went to play poker or various other games. We picked up Sebastian and Rob on our way out the door and went looking for the “River Walk” which Barb assured us would be more interesting than downtown Reno.
Barb, Sebastian, Rob
She was absolutely correct. It was much more “interesting” along the river than it was downtown or in the casino.
After walking for an hour or so we wandered back to Circus Circus in time to clean up and attend the Friday afternoon conference with the Apex of The Triangle of Death (the NRA).
Most everyone was there but I didn’t take pictures of everyone and not all of the pictures turned out well.
Uncle made my ears smile with his Tennessee accent.
DirtCrashr and JimmyB
Sebastian
US Citizen (foreground), Uncle (background), and Glen Caroline from the Apex of the Triangle of Death
Rob (his back anyway), Mel and Chris, and Ashley Varner from the Apex of the Triangle of Death
I loved the part where Ashley told of going to television studios to debate some bigot from the Brady Bunch or the VPC and seeing their response when they first lay eyes on her and thinking, “I have to debate you?” For some reason Ashley doesn’t fit the stereotypical image the bigots want to paint of the NRA.
Uncle saw me taking pictures and motioned me over. He wanted an ATF picture:
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
After getting our wheelbarrows full of cash and marching orders from the Apex of The Triangle of Death we had a little show and tell.
Uncle talking about the Ko-Tonics 6.8SPC upper
DirtCrashr and his toys
Mr. Completely with Sebastian in the background
After dinner Sebastian borrowed one of my knives and attacked the package of 6.8 SPC ammo. For a while we thought the package was going to win:
But Sebastian finally figured out the secret weapon being used against him–the package had staples which were nearly immune to my knife. He then engaged his superior intellect and defeated the wily package.
There were multiple simultaneous conversations all evening long and I constantly felt like I was missing out on something because I couldn’t listen to all of them at once. The conversation continued until after midnight when, as we were headed for our rooms, Sebastian, Mr. Completely, and I witnessed hotel security go irrational on Chris. Another security guard came along and “suggested” the wacko go find something else to do. Thus Chris escaped without having to fill out a bunch of paperwork for leaving someone else’s body parts littering the elevator lobby on the third floor.
Except for the last few minutes of the day it was very, very enjoyable.
Someday soon I’ll post on the exterior ballistics of Saturday at GBR 2007.
Portal
Last week James just had to show me a new XBox 360 game he had been playing. He insisted I play it. It was probably painful for him to watch me. Things that he took for granted, like being able to move in a coordinated manner, were difficult for me. But he did have a point. This is a very cool game. It was more like solving puzzles than what you usually think of as video games. It was rather mind bending in a lot of ways. Imagine you have a tool, sort of like a gun, that can create a portal between any two surfaces you can see no matter how far apart or their orientation to each other. Now what can you do with it? It’s a great game.
Spoofing that game concept we have this video:
Could someone explain this to me?
This (see the comments here) isn’t the first time someone has said something like this about me (see also this and this post in which I believe I contributed some to his conclusion). I could name off a half dozen people that said something similar. I’m not saying I disagree with them. I just don’t get what it is I say or do that causes people to arrive at these conclusions after a brief encounter.
About the only thing I can think of that might have given them this idea was that I explained how easy it was to get a knife through airport security (Sebastian said, “I’m glad you are on our side” after I did this). But then Uncle explained how to get a gun through which is a little more difficult but uses the same principles as I used in my knife example–so I’m not sure why I was singled out as an example.
On our way home
Gun Blogger Rendezvous 2007 is now over and Barb and I are sitting in the airport waiting to board. I probably averaged about five hours of sleep each night and I haven’t had any caffeine for several days now. I’m starting to crash from the prolonged excitement and fun as well as the less than normal amounts of sleep.
I have 299 pictures from the event. I shared most of them with The AnarchAngel, Sebastian, Uncle, The Conservative UAW Guy, and Kevin. Keewee, Mr. Completely and US Citizen took a bunch of pictures too so look around if I don’t post enough for you.
Update: Our flight has been delayed a few minutes. You can track our flight back to Seattle in near real time here.
All my bags are packed
I’m ready to go. Barb and I are leaving on a jet plane for Reno and the Gun Blogger Rendezvous this evening. That’s assuming the TSA will allow me, my guns, and ammo on the plane. Alaska Airlines will only allow me to take 50 pounds of ammo [heavy sigh]. That would have been enough for what I want to do except that with all the other stuff I’m taking (Boomershoot give aways, knives, spotting scope, tripod, range bag, magazines, holsters, guns, shot timer, eye and ear protection, laser range finder, binoculars, spare batteries, gun cleaning gear, walkie-talkie, altimeter, wind gauge, thermometer, exterior ballistics calculator, targets, and a clean pair of socks) I started running up against a different weight limit without bringing all the ammo I wanted.
I have enough match rifle ammo and if I decide I want some more pistol ammo I’ll buy it in Reno sometime tomorrow.
Update: We made it through security without incident. We are now sitting at our gate waiting to board. Pretty amazing considering all the electronics and cables I had in my computer bag. The holster in the computer bag apparently didn’t raise an eyebrow either. And the empty water bottle… I thought for sure they would want to open my backpack to make sure it was actually empty. They were cool with me wearing a shirt with the picture of a gun on it and the Boomershoot coat too. All nice to know. Maybe they are happy with just infringing on one constitutionally guaranteed right at a time.
So far the flight is on time. You can track it in near real time here.
Giving up on Andromeda
James and I loved the first two seasons of Andromeda. Great characters, stimulating story line, it was wonderful writing and execution.
We got the first DVD of season three and episode after episode we looked at each other in confusion. What the heck was that? The actors were doing their job but the story sucked. We watched five or six episodes and gave up on Monday. It’s on to something else.
James read a synopsis of the remaining episodes declared they were all crap and made up his own ending, “Tyr takes over the ship, then conquers and rules the entire universe.” Works for me. It’s also entirely within character for Tyr. Some quotes to illustrate:
Tyr Anasazi: What would you like, Jaguar?
Charlemagne Bolivar: The usual. Hundreds of grandchildren, utter domination of known space and the pleasure of hearing that all of my enemies have died in terrible, highly improbable accidents that cannot be connected to me. And you?
Tyr Anasazi: [Laughs] The usual.Tyr Anasazi: I have faith in nothing but this – when the universe collapses and dies. There will be three survivors – Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches, and Dylan Hunt trying to save the cockroaches.
Whatever
Apparently having been refuted on the concept that my children grew up in “an awful environment” they have now changed the subject to anonymously attack me on another front (By NephriteAU, 10-10-07).
Whatever.
Someone thinks they are a mind reader
Someone apparently believes they can read my mind from reading part of my blog. And she thinks I have problems:
By Sheryl, 10-07-07
I checked that guys site out, very disturbing. I found the home life thread especially very disturbing. Any grown man that likes to brag about intimate relations with his wife on a public blog has some real personal problems. Using sexual terms to generate more search engine hits in conjunction with posts about his children saddens me. What an awful environment they must have grown up in. It frankly disturbs me even more that such a person has access to assault weapons and explosives.Such a dark world we live in.
I left the following comment but was told “Akismet thinks your comment is spam, so it will be moderated first.”
Sheryl, I regret to inform you that you are unable to read my mind or my motives. The only thing truthful about your comment is that which you shared about yourself–you are disturbed.
Update: Interesting… someone else’s comment, again very negative, showed up but my comment and that of Miss C don’t. Does the moderator have an agenda?