domestic dilettante, humorless feminist shrew

1. See that? That’s maybe my new favorite picture. Maura and Basil are both totally convinced that he’s a lapdog, and apparently they’re just going to keep doing that until I believe them. Hilarious. You should also know that this picture was taken in a brief pause in their desperate wiggling, Basil attempting to lick Maura’s face, Maura attempting to hug him while she giggles and tries to avoid the licking.

2. The new thing around here is green smoothies. I tried to take a picture, but frankly, one picture of badly lit food (see number seven) is probably enough for one blog post. My mornings have been fuelled, of late, by tea and green smoothies. The tea is self-explanatory; the green smoothie maybe less so. Basically, you throw spinach into the blender with milk, water, or juice, then puree the hell out of it, making spinach juice. Which sounds disgusting, but somehow, adding two bananas, two apples, and some other random fruit (which has ranged from peach slices to blueberries, all frozen or canned) makes it taste not like weird spinach juice, but like normal smoothie that happens to be bright green. Bright green, guys. Really, really green. Anyhow, that makes a blenderful–about forty ounces, enough for breakfast every day for a week. By the end of the week it’s less bright, but still tastes fine. Plus you feel totally virtuous, since you’re basically eating healthy-healthy-health food for breakfast. I even added wheat germ and flaxseed to my smoothie!

3. I’m almost done with my second chunky hat, this time taking notes on the pattern. I’m hoping to post it sometime next week. If anyone’s interested in reading the pattern for technical correctness before I post it, I’d be incredibly grateful–drop me an email (meghanmconrad at gmail) or comment, and I’ll send you the pattern when it’s done.

4. Monday was not a holiday for me, but it may as well have been, since I got nothing done. Got to work only to discover that something–a mysterious, inexplicable something–had happened to my computer over the weekend, and it was locking me out of everything. No email, no printers, no internet. Three hours later, we’d managed to get into my email. Four hours later, I was given a new tower, and I spent the rest of the day transferring files over and setting up email and the like. Hopefully this is not a bad omen for the rest of the week.

5. My new year’s resolution was to be more interactive–to comment more on blogs, to be more conversational on Twitter, that kind of thing. So far, so good! Of course, I usually comment on a blog and then immediately have to shut down the computer because for some reason, the stress of commenting elsewhere is overwhelming, but that’s neither here nor there.

6. Related to five, I keep finding that I’ve managed to miss the blogs of people I like. If you guys wanted to leave links to your blogs (or other blogs that you think are swell) in the comments, I would be grateful. I’m thinking about maybe reccing blogs once a month, or occasionally posting link roundups of stuff I found interesting.

7. I made delicious lentil soup.

I have tried and tried to make that picture more attractive–or to take a better picture–and no luck. It’s the middle of winter, the light is crappy, and, really, you can only make lentils and beans so attractive, you know? So pretend that’s a better picture than it is, because the soup is delicious.

Delicious lentil soup:

2 medium onions, chopped
5 cloves minced garlic (I added maybe eight, because I love garlic. You could add less.)
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups split red lentils, rinsed and picked over
7 cups water or stock, or some combination thereof
4 medium potatoes, diced
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 block (about ten ounces) frozen spinach, or one pound fresh spinach
cumin
lime juice
chili powder or delicious pepper blend of your choosing

Heat the oil, then sautee the onions in it until they’re almost translucent. Add the garlic and cook another minute or two, then add the lentils, water, and potatoes. (All of them, white and sweet.) Cook for about thirty minutes, stirring occasionally, then add the spinach, the juice of a lime (a quarter cup of juice would be best, probably–I only had one sad, old lime, though, and that was okay, too), maybe two teaspoons of chili powder, and a teaspoon of cumin. The spice measurements are approximate–I pretty much just added stuff until it tasted right. Simmer another fifteen minutes, or until the lentils have broken down and the potatoes are cooked through. Blob with sour cream, if you’re into that, and eat.

8. Next weekend, I think we’re making marmalade. Maybe also candied citrus peels. Maybe also some other things involving citrus. Last week, oranges were on sale at the supermarket, so I have about seven pounds of those. Then my in-laws sent us over thirty pounds of oranges and grapefruits–mostly grapefruits–as a gift. In case you have ever wondered how many oranges and grapefruits thirty pounds of them is, the answer is a lot. I like both oranges and grapefruit quite a bit, but I’m not sure that I can use nearly forty pounds of citrus fruit before it goes off. I guess we’ll find out!