Happy Valentine's Day wiith Octopus Vomit

Finished the Octopus Vomit blanket, which kind of doubles as a shawl.. depending on if you're reading on the bed and want to cover your knees or your shoulders.  It is warm.  The colors worked together as best as possible .. but the grey yarn (flea market find, two HUGE balls of it).. was really atrocious by itself.  So I went with the all out bright red (inspired by Esme's octopus toy, seen here) and threw in some other stash white and yellow bits to give it a logical pattern.

Happy Valentine's Day.  I gave Esme a little beanie baby red raccoon.. which she liked.  I have to go for my eye appointment soon - really need new glasses.  And I was going to make some carrot coconut ginger soup later today.  It's my only day off this week and I seem to have filled it UP... little goals sketched out on paper that I'd like to work on today.

And just a bit of a complaint / rant... about Pinterest.  I like Pinterest.  I love scanning through the pictures of things that are similar to each other in topics I am interested in.  And, I don't mind ads scattered in there if they have to.  BUT.. I hate moving ads.. and a lot of them want to move.  And I'm not on Pinterest to watch videos - I'm there for static pictures, so it is HIGHLY distracting.  It makes me want to scroll past anything that LOOKS like it might move - and definitely NOT pay attention to what is in the ad.  Just wanted to get that off my chest.  Pinterest advertisers - stop putting moving ads in our photo streams.  They are distracting in an AVOID LOOKING at that square way... which I believe, is the opposite of the advertisers intention.


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Got my glasses appointment done, ordered the most impact-resistant frames and lens that would work for me.  They feel a lot like my current glasses - but with a titanium frame and a polycarbonate lens they ended up costing three times as much as the last pair...   Why do I need impact-resistant?  I downstock large boxes on lifts at the store and sometimes those boxes are not well-centered and come tipping towards me.  I've bent my glasses numerous times on smaller boxes like faucets and bath fans - but also one major time bracing for impact against a vanity cabinet.  The side of my frames got really bent up that day.  And then it didn't help that one time I sat on the glasses on the bed either - but that was after I had them rebent into shape the first time.  So it was nice to have 'bendy' glasses that could survive that.. but I was looking for a frame that maybe wouldn't be hurt by such things in the first place.

Picked up the canisters we ordered so we can make a 'dry goods center' for Esme to get pasta noodles without having to climb onto the cabinets, and to store a few things I've been using lately, like lentils and bulgur wheat.  They are washed and drying out on the countertop - probably should dry them overnight at least...or at least up until we go to bed tonight.  And I have the ingredients for the carrot soup and some yarn to try to make something I saw in the Welsh home decorating show.  We've run around town, did co-op, and grocery and more... glad to be home and done for the day :)

Soup.. maybe cornbread, and make a dishtowel maybe that I've had the fabric laying out for a week and haven't cut or sewn it yet... finish drying and folding the laundry and then organize so that the canisters are easy to use.  It's been a very full Thursday.

I ate octopus - recipe review

I gave cans of fancy octopus to Mark and Esme for Christmas as a gag gift.  It was Mark's idea... but he didn't think I was going to do it after I told him I couldn't find a way to use it and didn't want to waste it.

But I found some recipes.  And I thought, I'd try one.  I chose a Greek one that we had most of the materials for  - and had to substitute a few things and pare down the quantities because I was only making for myself and using one can of octopus.  The recipe called for tapenade - and I know my substitution for that was not very close.  I'm not sure yet if I like tapenade...anchovy paste and all that.

Octopus and Potatoes with Olives and Chile at Epicurious

First off - it wasn't that bad.  It was edible - even without the sauce or anything else on it.  I think I fell into the large percentage of people who cook the octopus too long.  The recipe actually says just until heated through.  And the canned octopus is already cooked.  But there is that fear factor that the fire will help make it 'safe'.  In this case, I've read the longer you heat it after it is out of the can the more rubbery it becomes - until it is like chewing a rubber band.  I described the octopus in my dish as 'like cubes of fish pepperoni'.. chewy, cured-feeling... but maybe it would have been better if I had swept it in the pan and out of it as soon as the beans had warmed a little, just like the recipe said.

So, my recipe was this - I'd say it makes two servings.

1 large potato, peeled and cut into small cubes. 
A bit of onion and two small cloves of garlic, minced up.
Good olive oil.
Red cayenne pepper
White wine vinegar, because we had no red.
About 9 green olives and a handful of walnut pieces, ground up together with a tablespoon of olive oil , dashed with salt and allowed to sit about eight minutes
Canned black eyed peas, rinsed and drained.
The recipe called for navy beans, but black eyed peas were mentioned in another recipe as being a good match, and they were the other half of the gag gift.

I followed the recipe for the potato, boiling it in a water bath with a lid partially on for twelve minutes.  Then I drained it and reserved the cooking water, 1 cup, as required.  While the potatoes boiled I minced the onion and garlic, and prepared the food grinder with the olive and walnut mixture.  I opened and drained the octopus (which did not smell bad...that was encouraging), and the black eyed peas.  Everything was ready for the next step by the time the potatoes came off the stove.

Next came the onion and garlic and olive oil for eight minutes, stir-fry type with a little water in it to keep the pan from burning.  Once the onion began to become transparent - I added the cayenne pepper, then a splash of vinegar and waited for the liquid to begin to burn off.  (I might have put too much vinegar - it is hard to pare down a recipe on the fly...next time, less)

I removed the whole thing from the heat to bring the other ingredients.  The olive mixture, the potatoes, a half cup of the black eyed peas, the octopus, and half a cup of the potato cooking water...  The olive mixture coated everything and smelled very good.  I let it heat a little longer than I should.  Then it was out onto a plate and drizzled over with a little extra olive oil.  I paired it with some apple pastry we had left in the fridge from Christmas.

The octopus was very chewy.  It might have been better if it hadn't been cooked quite as long.  Other than the chew-chew-chew it was all quite pleasant.

So, I've eaten octopus.  I might do it again.  But, I'll make sure I plan out a few more ingredients and be sparing on the heat and vinegar.  I also read it is not a good idea to eat any leftovers the next day.  I went and looked that up because I could only eat half of what the above recipe produced. We have another can left in the cupboard.  It will probably be at least a month before I try another recipe :)

Next idea to try - based on what I learned with this - tandoori spice mix.  I cleaned our entire spice shelf today and am writing down the things I will need.

Monday Tuesday and blue octopus

 I'm at work this week.  Esme got up very early this morning and showed great attitude getting her things ready to go to town.  We are reading Charlotte's Web, and will do another chapter or two tonight after a bit.  Last night after I got home I got into my sewing and reduced the octopus pattern to see how long a smaller one.

 6 inch diameter head and 9 inch original

The blue one is for sale at at the KnitOwl Workshop

Esme and I also tried to make enchiladas tonight.  I know it will take work to 'get it right', but it was very edible.  She ate some - it is like ravioli, but with chicken in it.  I put jalapeno sauce and sour cream on mine and even just one (and a half, because of the edges of Esme's - I made four tortillas worth) was too much food!  I put the other two away for lunch at work.

2015-1-6

7.30a    - Town, shopping price comparisons, observing trains
8a    - break
9.30a    - PE (30x 10lb squats, 30x 5lb leg lifts, 20x 5lb R&L curls,
      30x sit ups, 50x jumping jacks)

10a    - vocabulary words
10.30a    - Liberty's Kids (ep 23, 24, 25)
11.30a    - break

1.20p    - vocabulary words discussion
1.45p    - english grammar test app
2p    - Tynker app
2.30p    - break

Charlotte's Web: 'Summer Days' chapter 6 and on..   Listening, recounting story, discussion

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2015-1-5

9.30a    - Paper Doll construction
10a    - PE (50x 10lb bench, 50x jumping jacks, 30x 10lb squats,
      40x sit ups, 60x 10lb bicurls)
10.30a    - Tynker app
11a    - break

11.15a    - pbskids.org

12.30p    - Liberty's Kids (ep 21 &22)
1.15p    - pbskids.org
1.45p    - Toca Pet Doctor
2.15p    - done

Octy octopus

Octy the octopus
available to order at the shop

This was the first try from a pattern I sketched earlier this year and never did anything with... some hangups trying to get the tentacle undersides to match up in the middle.. but, pretty good for a 'shoot for the moon' sort of try.  I almost gave up twice - but I'm glad I didn't.l. because he is cute.

Esme wants to bring him with to the Japanese restaurant today.  We're going to do some math on Khan Academy - and then head out after that.  She bought a little toy bird with some of her Christmas money and she is eating some fruit salad.  We talked about how kiwis and strawberries are different but same.. and she had this odd question this morning if chopped onion and rice were the same thing - and why is one raw and one is cooked...sometimes what she springs on me sounds like an alien traversing our culture... it would never have occurred to me to think chopped onion and rice were similar, they look similar - but they are entirely different.. and she wants to see how.

On to math.. update later.

9.15a    - drawing animals

 I liked her rhino - thought we might make a toy like it later.  She said she scribbled and it 

looked like a rhino, so she drew the rest of it in.

9.30a    - break

10a    - store and bank, handling money
10.30a    - break

11.50a    - kahn academey math - did the bar graphs and finished the word problems, did some review
12.50p    - break

1.30    - sushi place
2.30    - library - building Atlantis and towers with two other children, reading some of her book, playing a music program with different instruments and patterns.
4    - break

5p    - Reading aloud ("Some Pig", EB White)
5.15p    - spelling - writing - homonyms etc...
5.35p    - break

6p    - Monopoly (we introduced the idea of being shortchanged, and traded properties so she could build houses)
7.30p    - done

Now she's making a villainry flag - because she will only help a little, so they don't know she is a superhero.  It is a pirate flag with a razor saw and a shark on it.

Stencilling an octopus onto a t shirt

my drawing of an octopus

I took a drawing I made last night and cut it out into two different layers on cardstock.  I used the camera to take a picture of the drawing, as our copy machine was down.  Then, after using the regular printer to print the drawing onto cardstock, I used an x-acto knife blade to cut out the defining areas on one copy and the entire outline on another.  Using acrylic paint and fabric medium, I brushed the colors on in two steps, allowing the shirt and the stencils to dry a bit in between to make sure there was no bleedover behind the stencil.

The dark blue is a school shirt for Esme.  The light blue shirt is one I bought on clearance and have been wearing to work.  I think they are both going to turn out great :)

I have to heat set them later.
And yes, the tea towels we painted last week turned out pretty good through the wash!

 

Playing Indian with a hat, loincloth and bow she made herself, and the octopus shirt.  

She took it off after that and wants it to be for school.

On to knitting and maybe some patchwork... there is some cleaning to do yet, and the laundry (hanging up behind her) to sort and fold.

Note:  She woke us up at seven this morning, wearing an eyepatch from her Halloween trick or treat bag and asking to go to the zoo in Memphis for the day.  We knew we were 'in for it' with the energy bouncing right then and there.  It is nice to get a little project done here and there :)