Happy New Year!
No, I am not confused about the calendar again. It's the Chinese New Year. I'm going to make soba noodle. Soba noodles are an Asian noodle made from buckwheat flour and are traditional new year's food. The long noodles correspond to a long life. I've spent a good bit of this morning looking up and modifying recipes. The following recipe is the one I've put together, though I may add a bit of spinach and diced carrot too for a bit of color and perhaps some tofu:
New Year's Soba Noodles
I sat down to clean out my living room last night. Lately it's been full of yarn bins. I thought I had yarn left to catalog. I was mistaken. I just needed to put the bins back. I took this opportunity to arrange my fleece/spinning fiber bins and label them. Here is the final count:
1 white coopworth fleece
1 dark gray coopworth fleece
1 medium gray coopworth fleece (most of which I have teased apart and am ready to wash)
2 crossbred-white fleeces (Border Leicester crosses)
1 white shetland fleece
1 black shetland fleece
1 dark gray shetland fleece
1 light gray cotswold fleece
1 white cotswold fleece
plus 2 romney fleeces (together in the same bag and with some veggie matter)
I haven't catalogued the commercially prepared fiber. I might do that later today. Or I might just ignore it completely. I know I have seven pounds of merino roving, 20 pounds of cotton and probably 10 pounds of other prepared rovings, plus odds/ends of other fibers (silk, alpaca, mohair, ingeo, hemp)
On the docket for today:
Housecleaning. I've been avoiding it. The detritus is building up. There is a pile of books on the office floor, papers on most horizontal surfaces, random water bottles all over the house. I also need to finish up the laundry, including the folding and putting away, vacuum the carpet, mop the floors and clean out the fridge. Later this afternoon, I'm going to see Ghost Rider at the theater. I'd like to wash my car if it gets warm enough. We have a predicted high temperature of 40 degrees today and 50+ tomorrow. Of course, it's supposed to rain on Tuesday.
For less fun this weekend, I have a new hard drive to put into my desktop machine. I cut a backup of the existing drive last weekend in anticipation of installing the new drive. I will, of course, have to cut an incremental before burning the existing drive to the ground. So today or tomorrow, I should install the new drive. I also plan to backup the laptop, then reformat the drive. The laptop is being a bit flaky. It really shouldn't take 10 minutes for the machine to shut down.
On the computer front, I also need to decide if I'm going to buy a new video card for the desktop box or wait and upgrade the motherboard, then get a video card. Right now the MB is old enough that I can't use the fastest video cards or SATA drives. The box is probably 5 years old anyway, so a re-build isn't out of the question. I'll have to save my pennies. Perhaps this summer I can do a re-build with advice from Dan, Wayne and Mitch.
New Year's Soba Noodles
2 tablespoons wasabi powder
2 cups dashi (a seaweed-based broth)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 tablespoons miso
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1/4 cup minced scallion
8 ounces soba or somen noodles, cooked
Whisk together the wasabi powder and 1-1/2 tablespoons water in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes to let the flavor develop.
Heat dashi at low temperature until hot. Stir in soy sauce and miso until dissolved. Divide noodles among four bowls and top with ginger and scallions. Divide broth between bowls. Serve wasabi on the side for dipping.
I sat down to clean out my living room last night. Lately it's been full of yarn bins. I thought I had yarn left to catalog. I was mistaken. I just needed to put the bins back. I took this opportunity to arrange my fleece/spinning fiber bins and label them. Here is the final count:
1 white coopworth fleece
1 dark gray coopworth fleece
1 medium gray coopworth fleece (most of which I have teased apart and am ready to wash)
2 crossbred-white fleeces (Border Leicester crosses)
1 white shetland fleece
1 black shetland fleece
1 dark gray shetland fleece
1 light gray cotswold fleece
1 white cotswold fleece
plus 2 romney fleeces (together in the same bag and with some veggie matter)
I haven't catalogued the commercially prepared fiber. I might do that later today. Or I might just ignore it completely. I know I have seven pounds of merino roving, 20 pounds of cotton and probably 10 pounds of other prepared rovings, plus odds/ends of other fibers (silk, alpaca, mohair, ingeo, hemp)
On the docket for today:
Housecleaning. I've been avoiding it. The detritus is building up. There is a pile of books on the office floor, papers on most horizontal surfaces, random water bottles all over the house. I also need to finish up the laundry, including the folding and putting away, vacuum the carpet, mop the floors and clean out the fridge. Later this afternoon, I'm going to see Ghost Rider at the theater. I'd like to wash my car if it gets warm enough. We have a predicted high temperature of 40 degrees today and 50+ tomorrow. Of course, it's supposed to rain on Tuesday.
For less fun this weekend, I have a new hard drive to put into my desktop machine. I cut a backup of the existing drive last weekend in anticipation of installing the new drive. I will, of course, have to cut an incremental before burning the existing drive to the ground. So today or tomorrow, I should install the new drive. I also plan to backup the laptop, then reformat the drive. The laptop is being a bit flaky. It really shouldn't take 10 minutes for the machine to shut down.
On the computer front, I also need to decide if I'm going to buy a new video card for the desktop box or wait and upgrade the motherboard, then get a video card. Right now the MB is old enough that I can't use the fastest video cards or SATA drives. The box is probably 5 years old anyway, so a re-build isn't out of the question. I'll have to save my pennies. Perhaps this summer I can do a re-build with advice from Dan, Wayne and Mitch.
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