Weekend in

I spent most of this weekend at home. I mean, I did go out--I saw The Reader with a friend; I went for a run; I grocery shopped; I went to church--but mostly I've been indulging my inner homebody and hanging out with the cat. (Don't worry: Glenna visited last weekend to make me get out. Proof here and here!) Let's just say there's something to be said for the joys of a little at-home time, as follows:



This is not a cooking blog. I'm an avid consumer of other people's writing about food (Orangette and Smitten Kitchen keep me in recipes), but...trust me. From a girl who eats either sausage/onion/apple stir-fry or boiled kale as weekly standbys, you don't really need to know what I'm eating all the time.

But then there's this recipe, one I've been using forever, one which never lets me down. This is the kind of recipe you could make when, say, the entire population of a small country is coming to your home, or when you simply own more Tupperware than any normal human should. It's a little time-consuming--brown rice! From scratch!--but it's worth it, especially if you want to have lunch taken care of for the next two weeks, at least.

Curried Brown Rice with Chicken and Apples

1 TBS oil
2 lb. chicken, chopped
3 medium granny smith apples, chopped
2 onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBS curry powder
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 c raisins
5 c chicken broth
2 c brown rice
salt and pepper

In a large (no, really, LARGE) pan, heat oil. Salt and pepper chicken, and brown in oil. Remove from pan. Add apples, onions, garlic, curry, and cumin; saute five minutes. Add broth and raisins. Bring to a boil; add rice and chicken. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer until rice is tender, about 60 minutes.

Eat. FOREVER.




I started a new sweater, the February Lady Sweater, a couple of weeks ago, but I've been cruising through it this weekend with the help of Friday Night Lights, Dollhouse, season four of Doctor Who, and (and now for something completely different) Harvey. It turns out that this kind of bulky lace is really fun to knit, and zooms past--all those holes! I despair of the time when it will actually be warm enough to wear this, but others have assured me that the day will, in fact, come.

The victory here is that the in-progress version actually fits; this whole "trying things on" concept is the joy of the top-down sweater. I am not sure that my spatial brain really gets how top-down raglan sweaters work (starting with a single row and ending up with the three-dimensional shoulders of a sweater is clearly magic and has no basis in rational geometry), but I am all for it.

So...there's that. Health food and handknits.

And, in conclusion, a gratuitous shot of the cat:



He has no shame. Ah, well.