Andrew Siwko’s Blog #2

Bacon’s Spirits in Hudson, MA.

Always very helpful, especially around Dad’s birthday.

http://www.baconspirits.com/

They’ve had the Balvenie 12 year Doublewood at a very reasonable price every time I’ve needed a bottle.

Highly recommended.

stir in bowl #1

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup corn meal
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp
  salt
• 2Tbsp sugar

whisk in bowl #2,

• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg

2 Tbsp butter in cast iron skillet (melting in oven)

Stir bowl #1 and bowl #2 together, swirl in half the hot butter

put into cast iron and cook 15-20 minutes.

We spent Saturday afternoon and night camping behind Saint Joseph’s. Because we’re Cubs every boy was accompanied by his father for the night. We hiked in the woods; we cooked hot dogs; we built a tripod flag pole that had to be about 20 feet high! The moon was full and the birds sang all night.

Noah and I really enjoyed the trip.

I’ve got some machines with CD-ROM drives (no DVD). I couldn’t find the CD image for Fedora 8, but I had one around for Fedora 7. So, after FC7 was installed, I googled about and found these two links:

• ioncannon.net
• fedoraproject.org/wiki

I had a bit of trouble on one of them, but I deleted gnupg2 (see this) and it worked fine after that.

I was able to install and upgrade to Fedora 8. Now I’m looking forward to Fedora 9.

Yesterday Father Adrian gave a homily on temptation.  I found particularly memorable the idea that the devil may not tempt sinners nor wish them harm in the short term.  Instead he desires their continuing scandalous example and may actually promote their temporal well being to continue.  In contrast he tempts those who strive for the good in order to prevent their success.

I happened to be around when Father Fritz started the Gospel so I stayed for his homily also.   Temptation is an idea.  Sin is an act.  There’s an important distinction.  Temptation is an opportunity to avoid sin.  Father also commented that the devil’s so full of hate he would wish Our Blessed Mother to be in Hell.  Ponder the thought of your mother in Hell.

Kettle

Boil

.2 KW

Crock Pot

11h Cook Beans

2 KW

LCD Monitor

456 hours usage

5.71 kWH

We celebrated Scout Sunday at St. Joseph’s today. At the 11:00AM Mass (Missa Cantata) we had 10 scouts and 4 adult leaders in the procession. Most of the boys were torchbearers (we’ve got only 8 torches). The candles throughout the congregation were an impressive sight during the Gospel and during the consecration. It was lovely.

Lent is a few days away and I haven’t made ice cream in a while. Naomi picked up some extra cream yesterday.

1 1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar (Rapadura or Sucanat)
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks
2 Tbsp vanilla
2 cups heavy (whipping) cream

Put the cream in the freezer now and you’ll get a better chill.  Make sure you don’t freeze it too much or it won’t come out of the bottle.

Scald the milk. If you’ve got a candy thermometer or even a grill thermometer, take the milk up slowly to about 140 degrees F.  You may see small bubbles around the edge of the pot.

Add the sugar and salt and stir until dissovled.

Beat the egg yolks and pour the milk over them.  Do it slowly so as not to cook the egg yolks.

Beat all this together pretty well then  put it into a double boiler and cook until it thickens.  Stir frequently and watch the sides unless you like lumpy ice cream.

Stir in the vanilla.

For better results, chill this mixture in the fridge (or carefully in the freezer).

Get the ice cream churn ready to go.

Fold in the cream with a spatula.

Churn the ice cream.  This takes about 25 minutes in mine.  When things start to firm up, you can add chocolate chips, fruit, whatever you please.  I find it helps to freeze these ingredients first also.

This dessert may remind you of the traditional French Pots de creme. The mixture is very liquid when just made, but it becomes firm after chilling several hours or overnight in the refrigerator.

1/2 pint well-chilled heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 eggs
6 ounces semisweet chocolate bits (Nestle morsels work nicely)
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons Grand Mariner (or 1 teaspoon orange extract and 1 tablespoon brandy) (OR use rum, the orange gives it a Tootsie Roll taste)

With metal blade in place, pour chilled cream into bowl of food processor. Process until thickened, about 35 seconds. While holding blade down with spatula, empty cream into a bowl and set aside. Do not wash bowl.

Heat sugar and wlater in a saucepan until sugar dissolves and mixture comes to a boil. Using metal blade again, add eggs, chocolate bits, coffee and salt to work bowl. Process several seconds. With machine running, pour syrup carefully through feed tube and process until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add Grand Marnier and process 20 seconds more.

Place whipped cream on chocolate mixture. Pulse processor on and off until cream disappears. Transfer mixture to individual dessert cups or to a serving bowl. Decorate with additional whipped cream before serving, if desired.

Makes 6 servings.

It took about 20 minutes to identify the blog software (wordpress), to install it, install MySql and configure the database. This setup has been really easy.

in April, 2010, I copied (by hand) the posts out of Roller (Blog #1).  Posts older than this, “First Post” come from there.