CHRONOLOGY BE DAMNED ONCE AGAIN

Ugh. I just got done eating dinner. It's about 11:10, and I just got done with that. Not for the fun reasons like last night either (wherein I dined with Susan II and her group of students from Franklin College at a wonderful little French place. I had some wonderful rabbit in goat cheese with potatoes. In fact, let's spice up the parenthetical with some pictures. PICTURES! WITH CAPTIONS! SO AS TO NOT GO ON TOO LONG IN THE PARENTHETICAL!

Wabbit Season! The wabbit was in a chèvre (goat cheese) sauce with fresh mint, a side of potatoes, a bit of endive, and some watercrest. It was quite delicious and thoroughly nommed.

So, to help my dear second cousin who was struggling to join the happy plate club, I offered to take a small bit of beef. This was not a small bit of beef. It was also thoroughly nommed and enjoyed. With Bearnaise sauce!

BUT FOR ME, IT WAS TUESDAY! Oh, wait. No. I had a point here. Yes. Yes I did. And it was that it was a delicious dinner that went on long enough to ensure me getting to be around 1 AM last night, just in time to get up at 6:15 to get ready for work, ensuring that I very nearly did a blog post while hopped up on caffeine, but was sidetracked by the dinner issues about which I shall presently rant back in the regularly scheduled blog.), but rather because when I got home, Bev was using the frying pan that I needed to make sauce for my rice and beans and delicious. Then she started to cry because Bev Jr. won't get up for school and is always hostile towards Bev. (Note to self:  Remember that awesome name for Bev Jr. the daughter, and come up with an awesome name for Bev Jr. the son, who has yet to make an appearance in this part of the Interwebs.) Basically, she ended up taking until about 9 before she was finished with the stove area so I could start my sauce and rice. Should I put up pictures of it?

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. You're about to get sick of food pictures though. Or I'll just put the banana thing in a subsequent post. Let's do that, because this is ridiculous shit son. Eep. Just cussed another swear. And I mean, the bananas deserve their own post, because it's baking, bro.

So given Bev's presence, qui me gêne toujours dans la cuisine, I didn't get as many pictures snapped off of this as I might have. And of course, they're all on the Picasa and will hopefully make it to the Facebook, if I can spread the Wifi sufficiently thin. Of course, this depends on me getting all my other stuff up quickly enough to get them up before my cognitive capacities fall to the onslaught of fatigue, because damn have I not done a good job with this whole sleep thing this week. But enough about my pictures. Let's look at my pictures!

This was basically me having run out of leftover spaghetti (which will be posted on later. See the subject line? Wasn't lying.) and wanting something cheap and easy to make tonight. Cheap, yes, easy... well, also yes, but more time consuming than I might have thought. First step was sautéing (sautéeing? sautaying? Whatever, French words with those sorts of accents shouldn't be put into English participles/gerunds/present continual/that ing thing) a bunch (about 8 oz) sliced/chopped mushrooms in butter with 2 cloves of diced garlic and half a chopped onion. Lot of chopping going on in these parts. Also a lot of Bev moving around and her presence just gêning the bajeepers out of me. (See what I mean about those French words?)

Then, while they were sauté-- while they were COOKING, I started chopping the rest of the onion, boiling water for rice, chopping another clove of garlic, chopping a pepper, and chopping carrots. Around this time, I through in 300 g lardons (think a mix between diced ham and bacon- not sure on an exact translation), just to get them cooking and take up space left by the shrunken mushrooms. I threw in the rest of the veggies as soon as I could. Of course, by that time, I think I went ahead and through in the rice. Eff. I THREW in the rice. Good Lord, that was bad. I would like to formally apologize for that mistake- that was unacceptable, and I am sorry and apparently had my hand on something on the mousepad that damn near deleted this whole post. Thank heavens for CTRL+Z.

So yeah, threw in the carrots and peppers and remaining clove of garlic and half an onion. Then I sliced 2 tomatoes and threw them on in. Around this point, I was feeling a bit pressed for time, so I kinda rushed cooking the tomatoes and just threw in some red wine (cab sav from Chile, if you're wondering. It also got used in the spaghetti that will get mentioned soon enough. I tried to corkscrew it open, and found it was a twist off. Didn't bode well, and the portents went unignored. Also, as for why cab sav, reservatrol, baby.) and the can of red beans (slightly drained but not by much. Throughout all of this, I'm adding decent portions of basil, oregano, cayenne, cumin, and italian seasoning. In fact, I started that around the mushroom sauté-- COOKING bit. That's right, kids- read the instructions carefully first.

And then I served it all over the rice and had a bit of bread with it. It was pretty good, and I have leftovers, which is the important part, right?

So I suppose I should throw on some spaghetti pictures. But you know, I'm feeling fickle tonight and want to get to the banana business, because that's much more fun. The main notable thing about the spaghetti was that I actually picked up ground beef from a boucherie for it. It was some fine looking beef, but I also paid about 6.50 euros for about a pound of it (assuming they didn't go way overboard on the amounts). Other than that, usual bolognese sauce recipe: Take tomato sauce, veggies, beef. Brown beef, sauté veggies, add sauce, simmer and spice. And meanwhile cook some noodles.

Aw heck, I'll throw on at least one picture of the meat, because you've been good boys and girls this Christmas, right? Yeah, that's right- Rob's feeling patronizing now. Run and hide.

Look at that meat. There appeared to be like no fat on it. And yeah, I just used like in that way, but I like my conversational stylings. Give me a fireplace and polio and I'll cure the Great Depression.

Too soon?

And here the sauce is in its intermediate stages. I probably just added the tomatoes and tomato sauce. But not tomatoe sauce, because I'm not Dan Quayle.

And here we have pretty much the completed sauce and now Mrs. Robinson is on my iPod, so let me put it in the pantry with my cupcakes and listen to the candidates' debate.

And here we have the scenic finished product with a glass of the Chilean cab sav that was really not that great.

And then I ate it and it was bitter, bitter, but I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart. awesome.

On to nanners?

On to nanners.