Flocculation: April 2005 Archives

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April 18, 2005

The Great Dane in its natural environment

Posted by Katrina at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)

Thus is it with apples...

Posted by Katrina at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2005

Guchul Pan

This is one of my favorite recipes to cook for guests. It's really not difficult and it always impresses. Personally, I replace the daikon with shredded water chestnuts (preferably fresh), the kim chee with preserved vegetable or pickled mustard greens, and I add shredded red chilis to the choices. Feel free to add anything that sounds good and leave out anything that doesn't. The beef can be easily and tastily replaced with chicken or pork. This is a good recipe for mixed carnivore-vegeterian crowds, too, as each person chooses what to put in their pancakes. Unlike the instructions, I also tend to make the pancakes first an dthen serve the cooked ingrediants hot.

Hit "continue reading" for the recipe.

Guchul Pan (Pancakes with Nine Fillings) Korea

Batter:
1 ½ C All-purpose flour
1 Lrg. Egg, beaten well
1 C Cold water
1 ¼ C Milk
1/3 t. Salt
Pinch White pepper
Pinch Chili powder
Oil, butter, or lard

Nine fillings:
8 Lrg. dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked until soft
1 Lrg. Carrot
10 cm Daikon radish
8 Green onions
3 Egg whites
1 C Kim Chee
10 oz. Beef, lean and tender
Sesame oil
Vegetable oil
Light soy sauce
3 T White sesame seeds
Salt, Pepper, Sugar

Dipping Sauce Ingredients:
¾ C Light Soy Sauce
2 ½ T Chinese brown vinegar
2 T Finely minced Green onions
1 T White sesame seeds, toasted and ground
1 Large pinch sugar
1 Large pinch chili powder

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Add the beaten egg, water, milk and seasonings and beat until smooth, then set aside for 20 minutes.

Drain the Chinese mushrooms. Discard the stems, then squeeze out as much water as possible from the caps and shred them very finely. Place in a small pan and simmer for 6 minutes with 2 T soy sauce, 2 ts sugar and enough reserved water to just cover. Drain well.

Peel the carrot; grate it or cut it lengthwise into thin strips, then into fine shreds. Cut the shreds into 1-inch lengths. Heat a small pan, add a very little vegetable oil and a few drops of sesame oil and stir-fry the carrot until softened but still uncolored. Add a little salt, pepper and soy sauce and remove from the heat. Rinse out the pan.

Peel and grate the radish and cook in the same way as the carrot, omitting the soy sauce.

Trim the green onions, cut into short lengths and shred finely. Stir-fry briefly in vegetable oil until just softened.

Beat the egg whites until slightly frothy, adding a very small pinch of salt and pepper. Rub a small omelet pan or a well-seasoned wok with oil and pour in the egg. Tilt the pan so that the egg runs thinly over as wide an area as possible. Cook until firm but not colored on the underside, then flip over and cook the other side
briefly.

Repeat this with the egg yolks, taking care to cook them gently so they do not burn. Cut into narrow shreds, then cut crosswise into short lengths.

Very thinly shred the kim chee, squeezing to remove as much liquid as possible.

Cut the beef into paper-thin slices (having partially frozen it makes this easier), then cut crosswise into very thin shreds.

Heat a little vegetable oil and sesame oil together in a pan or wok and stir-fry the beef until it changes color, then splash in 1 T soy sauce, a sprinkle of salt, pepper and sugar and a little extra sesame oil.

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan over moderate heat until they turn golden and begin to pop. Remove, cool slightly and grind to a fairly fine powder.

Mix the sauce ingredients together and divide among several dishes. Rub the omelet pan or wok again with oil. Pour in a large spoonful of the batter and cook until the underside is golden and small bubbles appear on the surface. Flip over and cook the other side.

Continue to cook pancakes over medium heat until batter is used up, stacking the pancakes under a cloth. Serve the pancakes and fillings at room temperature on a tray with the dipping sauce.

Posted by Katrina at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

Snack cloth!

And here is our silly boy savaging his face-wiping cloth.

Posted by Katrina at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

Snack cloth!

As you can see, he'd also been chewing on my arm.

Posted by Katrina at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

Happy in the high chair!

He's still too small for the high chair, so I made that filler-seat for him out of an old blanket and his extra changing mat.

Posted by Katrina at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

Mr. Tambourine man

Once home, he absolutely refused to let Danny have a look at the tambourine, so that had to wait until the next nap-time. By the next day, yesterday, the fervor had eased somewhat, but he still adores it and wants to play with it all day.

Posted by Katrina at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)

Mr. Tambourine man

After a while, he fell asleep, but still clutched the tambourine. For a full ten minutes after he dropped off, his little fist remained firmly closed on it, and it went "jingle, jingle, jingle" as we walked.

Posted by Katrina at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)

Mr. Tambourine man

I call this one "Shy Nudist Tambourine Man".

When we went to the checkout I had to read the price to the cashier, because neither of us could get Walter to surrender the tambourine peacefuly. Once out of the store, riding in his sling, he banged it up and down and cackled as we walked down the street. After a while I decided to attach it to the cord that I attached to his hat to keep him from losing it. He thought I was trying to take his tambourine away again, and carried on something fierce.

Posted by Katrina at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

Mr. Tambourine man

Once he had a grip on that tambourine, Walter would NOT let go. The one he'd grabbed had a rather terrible picture of a little dog on it, though, so I got it away from him and started looking at the rest. He shrieked! He caried on! He was having NONE of that! He has never acted like that about anything before. As quickly as I could I picked out the fish one and gave it to him. He immediately started banging it up and down and squealing happily.

Posted by Katrina at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)

Mr. Tambourine man

I just went into the baby store for spoons, but as always when we find a new shop, I wandered around, picking stuff up and showing it to Walter. Normally, he grabs stuff, and I gently persuade him to give it back, and he looks at the ceiling or chews his fist or something. This time, I picked up the tambourine, and two little hands shot out like lightning and attached themselves firmly to it.

Posted by Katrina at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)

Mr. Tambourine man

How was I to know that the plastic tambourine was the greatest thing ever invented in the entire history of mankind??

Posted by Katrina at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2005

The check-up

Walter had a check-up yesterday. He is glowingly healthy.

Walter is growing exactly according to the chart, and grinned and did push-ups for the nurse, generally charming everyone. We were told it is well time to start him on solids--which, as you can see, we have. He has a new birthmark (which we knew about but still had to ask to be 100% certain that's what it is), a light tan blotch behind one knee. It will nicely complement the birthmark we noticed when he was a few weeks old, a little tan line which we never would have known about if we'd had him circumcised.

We'll be building the solids up slowly, of course, and will be making all the baby food ourselves--at the moment that means mashing a banana, and will mean boiling some apples for Sunday. An apple, really, but I have some that should be used soon so we'll be freezing some. Whenever possible--which should be most of the time--we'll get his fruits and vegetables at the organic store.

Everyone keeps commenting not only on his big eyes and his adorable doll-like appearance (the eyes, the little curls on his forhead, the finely-molded chin...), but also on how active he is. This boy's going to be a handful!!

Walter has started sleeping better. There was a phase recently, during a growth spurt, when he would wake up every hour, on the hour pretty much, and eat and eat, then when I would try to put him down asleep he would change position very suddenly, rolling onto his back or belly, and wake himself up and cry. The moment I'd pick him back up, he would be asleep again. I put him down and picked him up for 1 1/2 hours once. Usually it was at least half an hour of it. This phase lasted several days. Now all of a sudden, for about a week now, he is sleeping between 3 and 6 hours in a row at least once a night and tending not to get up more often than every two hours the rest of the time, and he's napping well, in his hammock.

When we walk with the sling he has discovered that there's a world behind us, and spends his time leaning out and back, looking up and behind.

That's about it--we have a healthy, happy, very wiggly boy!

Posted by Katrina at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)

Eating!

And the last bite we tried yesterday. His breakfast this morning was much the same. Sunday--apples!!

Posted by Katrina at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

Eating!

Still not sure...

Posted by Katrina at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)

Eating!

Maybe Daddy will put down the camera and save him from the bananas!

Posted by Katrina at 08:14 AM | Comments (0)

Eating!

He's really not sure about the whole banana idea.

Posted by Katrina at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)

Eating!

Walter tries his first bite of solid food. It is mashed bananas.

Posted by Katrina at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2005

Being cute again!

Posted by Katrina at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)

Another expensive baby toy...

Walter really likes our plastic pasta spoon.

Posted by Katrina at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)

Saskia loves Walter!

This is from a series of shots taken while Walter was lying on the floor. Saskia came up, lay down very carefully near him, and inched her way over until she'd stuffed her nose under his legs. When she couldn't stand being kicked in the face anymore, she moved her head so that her nose was touching him, eventually laid her head alongside him, and eventually got tired of having her lip pulled on and so moved a little bit away.