Hello cyberaudience who probably consists of my mother and three other people. This is my newest iteration of an attempt at a blog.
What is my latest impetus to restart this blog? I'M POOR AGAIN! I've been poor before, I've never really been rich. But this time, it's pretty bad. And for some reason, I think people will sympathize.
Basically, I just started back up at school at Semi-Craptastic Community College Numbers One and Two (they have some weird... you take one class here, one class there deal. Count one craptastic.) and they informed me that I did not fill out the correct paperwork to get ANY money this term. This glitch may propagate until, at the outermost date, the seventh week of school. Beauracary is the most beautiful aspect of America, turning first world problems into third world problems.
This leaves me with what's left of last year's money (I attended Big American University for a quick minute) and ingenuity to last me until I get some of that sweet juicy Pell Grant.
So far this semester, I have had actually no money to buy textbooks. Community Colleges tend to have books on reserve, which is actually really nice. It's a 2 hour period where you can sleep on your book and call it studying. I found that SCCC#2 has a copy of my text from SCCC#1 so I can sleep on it in the morning before class starts. My book for SCCC#2 is online. Note: I do not have internet at home. This is problem number one. Problem number two: there is no way of avoiding buying this textbook without failing the class. For the time being, the producers of the book have a 17 day grace period which they count down for you, by the minute.
(You may wonder how I am posting this. I do too.)
So for the time being, I am ok. I will don my grease-wrestling suit and get into a pit with the IRS, shortly followed by SCCC#2's Fin Aid department within the week, but in the meanwhile, I'm ok.
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One aspect of this blog is cooking. I don't want it to be the only aspect, but I love food and food is equal only to sleep in how important is is to function. I should now note that I have an awesome PartnerPenguin who is assuring that I don't starve so even though I'm poorer than dirt (Seirra Nevada gold veins excepted) I might fancy things for dinner sometimes. This is what's called teamwork and a mutual love for one another as well as for food. Food can be more important, but you have to remember that eating your sigoth is bad for morale among friends.
Tonight, I just want to share what I had for dinner because it was so good and I need to get the good out before the depression sets in. So, there's this cool site called www.ZeBeDo.com where I will make a board of whatever ingrediants from the dish I can find on Amazon so you, the three readers, can try to make the dish at home. We'll see how this goes. (I'll edit in a link when I make this happen.)
Tonight, let's call my childhood dream dinner. Growing up, we would very seldomly go to a kosher butcher somewhere in the nearby city. This butcher is to this day, the best butcher I have ever met. Her husband would kill the animals and she would make the cold cuts and sausages. I dream about this meat. One of the most special treats we would get is a Moraccan sausage called Merguez. PartnerPenguin, being the Most Excellent, somehow found Merguez at the store. Delicious ensued.
Merguez with Couscous (serves 2, leftovers for 1):
Couscous-bit (also called Pikaim if you get the large-grain Israeli kind)
about 1/4 medium red onion, chopped. More if you like onion
maybe 1 TBSP Avocado oil (any oil really, we just have an aversion to Olive because of cost. Also, Avo and Grapeseed have a higher smoke-point which means less burning. Butter has a disappointingly low smoke-point. I like fire.)
1/2 c. pikaim/couscous
1 c. ish boiling water (you can find tea heaters on side of street sometimes, otherwise just use a pot to boil it, that's how you make tea in the morning anyway, isn't it?)
1/2 tsp Better Than Bullion
1/3 c. (ish) Trader Joe's "Quinoa Duo with Vegetable Melange." I don't really like quinoa on its own but it's really high protein and packs a nice little punch.
Put oil in rather large fry-pan on medium heat. While it heats up, chop up the onion if you haven't already. Add onion. Carmalize the onions (swish them around until they're pretty much transparent), about 10 minutes. Add Pikaim, dry. You can toast the pikaim by just rolling them around in the oil. If anything sticks to your pan, add more oil immediately.
Dump the boiling water (you may want to stand back in case oil flies) over the pikaim. Add in the tiny teaspoon of Better Than Bullion, make sure it's dissolved. Let it simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes or until the pikaim taste yummy and soft.
I also peeled some carrots (usually $0.79/lb) and put them in the steamer basket on our crappy rice cooker for like, 20 minutes. I eated them all before I took the picture, they were so yummy.
Merguez!!
4-6 Merguez Sausages (I got Trois Petits Cochons brand, it was pretty great. Lamb and beef, no pork, ironically.)
Grapeseed oil to coat pan
Oil pan and heat. Apply sausages directly to pan surface. I got pre-cooked ones which cook for about 10 min. Be sure to always use a meat thermometor if you cook stuff from scratch, food poisoning is gross.
Add sausages and carrots to pikaim/couscous and enjoy!!
Look forward to this being a regular engagement, here is a link to my previous attempt at this blog on a less useful forum: http://sarabe-licious.tumblr.com/.
Bon Appetit!
