Happy Hump Day

First of all, I am turning over a new leaf today. I was lazy the last two days, but I am buckling down today and getting a lot of work done. It's Lent, I need to not be a lazy piece of crap, and that should probably be the case year-round anyway.

I forgot to blog about Monday's Parish Council meeting -- my very first. It was ... not bad! Not bad at all, actually. We had an agenda, the meeting was organized, and we went through it item by item. No debates, minimal discussion, nobody raised his voice. It was over in an hour and a half. I am very happy about that. I went home and made some sort of shrimp-avocado-salsa-tortilla thing, and it wasn't bad.

Last night, I made very simple and very yummy stir fry, from another Fresh Direct recipe.

Stir-Fried Shrimp with Scallions From "New York Cookbook" by Molly O'Neill

Elaine Louie recommends cooking this dish in two batches in an ordinary-size wok. Overloading the wok will cause the food to steam rather than fry. Serve this with boiled rice and cucumber salad. This recipe was adapted from Chinese Home Cooking, a pamphlet written by Elaine Louie and Julia Chang Bloch and published by The Organization of Chinese American Women.

Serves 4 to 6
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Scotch whiskey or dry sherry
2 teaspoons sugar4 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 slices fresh ginger (1/4 inch thick), lightly smashed
2 bunches scallions, or 1 bunch Chinese or Western Chives, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths
2 pounds medium shrimp, rinsed and patted dry
Cooked rice, for serving

1.In a small bowl, mix together the soy, whisky, and sugar. Set aside.

2.In a wok, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil until very hot. Add 3 of the ginger slices and stir-fry for 1minute. Add half of the scallions, half of the shrimp, and half of the soy mixture and stir-fry rapidly until the shrimp turn pink, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove to a warm platter, discarding the ginger.

3.Return the wok to the heat and warm the remaining 2 tablespoons oil until very hot. Add the remaining ginger, shrimp, scallions, and soy mixture and stir-fry as before. Add to the previously cooked shrimp and mix. Serve over cooked rice.

I halved everything except the sauce, and I added the cooked rice right into the wok at the end. I probably should have stir-fried the stuff in half the amount of sauce and then should have added the rest of the sauce when I added the rice. It was a little too liquidy while I was cooking. But, the results were delicious. It was very light but not bland, and tasted very authentic. I used Sherry because the only Whisky I had was Canadian. I don't know how I can claim to be my father's daughter or the granddaughter of either of my grandfathers and not have Dewars in the house, but it is what it is. Anyway it was good with the Sherry.


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So here I am, back at work on Wednesday, and I actually have some energy. I am going to be a real go-getter today, I swear!

In blog-related news, I am happy to report that according to SiteTracker, more people than my real-life friends are reading this blog. People searching the following terms ended up here: Coned (I assume it was ConEd), Katrina Kaif (I now have a reader in India, or at least I did, for a moment), and Orthodoxchristiandating.com brought someone from Oklahoma here. Very exciting.

73 days to go ...