If you know me, you know I hate to cook (used to?). I just can't do it (or couldn't?). I can make pasta, sandwiches and eggs. Mr Laney is the one who cooks.
In the past years however, his cooking has become more and more occasional because he gets home later than me, usually very tired and doesn't feel like cooking. So we ate crap or ordered take out. After maxing the credit cards, paying one of them and watching it fill up again because of our fud habits, I decided I needed to try and make a few meals.
At first, I wanted to take cooking classes, but those are expensive. I asked my mom for a few ideas, but it still didn't help. Recently, I got a genius idea. I was going to watch cooking shows to pick up ideas and how to do things.
Well, guess what? It worked! It's been a couple of weeks now, and I usually report my progress on CuteTalk, but I decided today that I was going to post them here too. There's a lot of cooking blogs out there, but none of them are from a novice cook and also include pictures of cute animals.
Alright, here's the first recipe I tried. One one of the cooking shows, there was one recipe that inspired me. It's this wun.
I decided to change it a bit and I made it a few weeks ago. Mr Laney was in Quebec city, so I had free rein over this, not having him telling me how to do things (so I had to trust myself), and not having to take this tastes into account. When I told him what I did, he was quite proud and wanted me to make it one the next day when he was due back. Um, no, how about next week?
Here's my ingredient list for my Fettuccine in a white wine sauce with spinach and prosciutto.
Salt and black pepper to taste
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 slices of prosciutto (I thought it was barely enough for one, so you might want to add some. If you think prosciutto is too salty, try smoked prosciutto, that's what I did)
2 dried whole bay leaves (that's all there was left)
1 bag of spinach
1/2 cup of white wine (that's all there was left, but you can substitute this with stock)
half of a 375 grams box of spinach fettuccine.
I used whatever I had at home, all I had to buy was the spinach. But I will try it over plain spaghetti next time.
INSTRUCTIONS
1.Set a large pot of water to boil and salt it. Put the oil, garlic, prosciutto, and bay leaves in a large, deep skillet or casserole and
turn the heat to medium. Cook just until the garlic colors, then add the spinach and raise the heat to high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the spinach starts to cook.
2. Add the stock and continue to cook until the spinach becomes tender. Meanwhile, cook the pasta.
3. When the pasta is tender but not mushy, drain it, reserving some of the cooking water. Toss the spinach and pasta together, adding some of the cooking liquid if necessary to moisten the mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve.
The bumblebee bat!! SQUEEEEE!!!!
Alright, those aren't kitten-cute, but still! Considering the amount of insects bats eat in one night, I'm thinking of making a bat house for my backyard. I hate mosquitoes!
I had aquatic turtles as a teenager, red-eared ones. The trouble with these is that you have to clean their water very very often, like twice a week often. The last time I had turtles, I was 18-19, and I remember that I had two filters in their aquarium and it wasn't enough. Saying that these things are like pigs wouldn't be right since pigs are supposed to be clean animals. But they were really cute.
I would like to have a turtle again in the future. I always check out the reptiles section. Sometimes, they have small land turtles like these.
By the way, I don't know what the distinction between "turtle" and "tortoise" is supposed to be. There's only one word in French : tortue. So I will use either freely here.
Now, I wouldn't get a sulcata. They're adorable as babies, but can get as big as 150 pounds as adults. DO NOT WANT!! I'm sure there's a breed out there that would remain small. But since I don't feel like looking for that now, I'll just post more sulcata pics since they're so adorabulz.
EDIT : While looking for pictures, I came across this!
http://littlegreen.typepad.com/romansock/2008/01/tortoise-power.html
I think I want to learn how to crochet!!
We don't see enough bird pictures on CO, so I decided to submit some that I shall post here in case Meg doesn't like them.
First, I saw a news story about a new species of bird that was discovered in Columbia. Look how cute it is!
Back in March, they found this cutie in Indonesia... Check out his size compared to the fingers!
This one is so cute I want to cuddle him. He looks like one of these affectionate little parrots they have in pet stores.
And finally, a classic, the Mad Bluebird, by photographer Micheal L. Smith.
Another bluebird, caught in a slightly better mood.
And even a mewtent wun!
Cell phone pics... Hence the lower quality in some of those.
Someone I won't name has been blubbering and whining that I don't update my Vox often enough, so I thought I'd delight the masses with a post, just to show I care. :D
I took the following pictures in downtown Montreal, this is McGill College street, at the corner of Ste.Catherine. Those are cell phone pics, so the quality might not be optimal.
A close-up of those flowers. I use it as my cell phone "desktop" background.
Those who know me know I'm a eco-nut. But they also know I have a twisted sense of humor. That's why I loved this video...
I decided to change my blog. I felt I was missing out by only posting animal pictures and couldn't use it to post other stuff. I do have other blogs, but Vox is where my friends are.
That said, I will not post any memes or tags. DO. NOT. WANT. If you tag me, I'll answer in your blog's comments. I've done the meme stuff way too much in the past.
ktkxbai!
Recent Comments
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oaklandcat said:
[this is good]Squeeeee is right! The bumblebee bat is very cute. read more
on The world's smallest mammal -
Laney said:
Why does it suck? You get to buy your own pets without asking permission! read more
on I heart toitoiz!! -
Bugmom said:
Awwww! The cuteness of them toitoiz! Je desire un tortue! But, yeah, a turtle that gets to 150 lbs? pass.... read more
on I heart toitoiz!!
You can do eet! read more
on Eeehn