Other Saturday stuff

* In finishing the last of the summer's soil samples. These took me longer than I should have taken; there were too many days that I felt "meh, don't want to work on them." But once I get them done, next week I can get back to writing, because I already wrote the exam I give this coming week, all of my grading is up to date, and the decks are kind of cleared.

* I'm going to go to Sherman after this is done. I want to go to the natural-foods store and I feel like I just want to go and wander around the big JoAnn's for a while. Maybe see if the new Simply Knitting is in.

* I want to get back to cooking for myself more. I made a batch of Cauliflower Cheese (it's like macaroni and cheese, only with cauliflower instead of macaroni). It was pretty good but I finished it up last night. I have to figure out more main-dish type vegetable dishes rather than just scrambling to fix three or four "side dish" type things. Maybe if we get the promised "cooler" weather the end of this coming week I'll make pumpkin soup again. (Super simple:  saute a very finely chopped onion, add low-salt chicken stock and a can of pumpkin (NOT pie filling!). Simmer together a while. Spice as you like: I often put a little cinnamon and a little ginger in it, sometimes even a bit of chili powder to make it spicier. Towards the end I like to add either applesauce or cider (I have used the hard cider in the past, when making a big batch, with good results. If you heat the soup well most of the alcohol cooks out). At the very end, you add one of the small cans of evaporated milk or you can add cream (or, I suppose, Greek yogurt). I prefer smooth soups over chunky ones...)

* I might also make a batch of the (British style) flapjacks again. I was looking through my tea books ("Vintage Tea Party" and also "Tea at the Ritz" which are books I find a nice escape) and got to thinking about those kinds of sweets....the sort of British style "biscuits" which are less sweet and often have dried fruit in them, or things with lemon curd, that sort of thing.

I might get some of the tiny chocolate chips to put in the flapjack this time; that seems like it would be a nice addition. (The fun thing with flapjack is that you can add so many different things: dried fruit, or nuts, or spices, or even stuff like orange peel, and you get a slightly different flavor depending on the addition.)

* Speaking of substituting in recipes, the absurd extreme of this can be found at All the comments on every recipe blog it should become obvious this is a parody site, and yet, some of the comments are not too far off from actual comments I've seen, between the Insane Lifestyle Mentioning ("What? You don't make your own salt from scratch? But it's SO MUCH BETTER and really only takes a few hours per week...") to the people with extreme dislikes or sensitivities. (Not to make light of food allergies, intolerances, or sensitivities: I know what it's like now. But....there comes a point where you just have to make peace with it and find a new path rather than trying to force the existing path to work for you) to the people who "don't like" a certain ingredient and therefore declare the recipe "terrible." And the concern trolls who misunderstand science or who heard something from a friend of a friend and didn't check it out on Snopes before telling everyone they would get cancer....