Lunch time!

lunch salad with quinoa, roast chicken, fried egg, cornichons, nuts, craisins!

From Blogger Pictures

Apple Butter in Washington

Oh Washington State! Apples are one of Washington's most well-known produce (also up there with Washington cherries!). And tis the season for some applicious recipes.

I had a bunch of local heirloom apples (Pinova, Sweet Orin, and Liberty). One of my favorite easy apple recipes is slow cooker apple butter. I absolutely LOVE the way it makes my house smell while cooking! Plus, it's so fabulous to spread on some toast or some warm home made pan dulce (another recipe I've become quite fond of).

To make my apple butter, I started out with 7 apples. I'm a lazy kind of gal, so any time I deal with apples, I pull out my trusty apple peeler/corer/slicer (like this one). I first discovered this tool in middle school during a winter bake sale event. Racing to see who can spin their apple through the peeling/slicing/coring contraption is pretty fun - and it's a great task for kids!

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After getting all the sliced apples, I plop them in the slow cooker. Some people add sugar now (if you like your apple butter sweeter, you can add up to four cups! But take into account the sweetness of your apples).

But, I have a honey problem. I mean I can't stop buying honey. Especially when I travel, or go to farmer's markets, or um, grocery stores...

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So I put in about 3/4 to a cup of honey (eyeballing the amount) in with my apples.

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Then you put in your spices. This is really up to you... what are your favorite spices? I can't resist cardamom (it's my favorite spice!), but no apple dish is complete without cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. This mix of spices will definitely make your house smell like an apple pie... and who wouldn't love that smell? I used about 1 tsp cardamom, 3 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp cloves, and 1/2 tsp salt.

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Stir everything together, and cook on high in your covered slow cooker for an hour. Then, turn your cooker down to low and cook for another 9-11 hours or over night. To get that thick butter, you may want to take off the cover and cook for another hour or so after that.

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If you want a nice smooth butter, you can put the resulting mixture through a food mill. If you don't have a food mill, try using an immersion blender.

Don't forget to share with friends and coworkers!

worth it?

Inspired by some other DIYers revamping chairs like this, and this, and this, and especially this, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for cheap chairs to revamp as a fun project.

I ran by UW surplus today and found this guy for $15

From lorispeak

From lorispeak

From lorispeak

Great! I figure this will be a perfect place to start.

Problem... I couldn't get the darned thing in my car. My car door frame was just too frickin' small! I had 8 different people walk by and tell me what a great chair I had as I was trying to shove the piece at different angles into my vehicle. All I kept thinking was that I was going to have to leave this 'great chair' on the street if I couldn't figure out a way to get it home!

Finally, I decided to bungee it into my trunk. Of course, I never added more bungees to my car, so I only have one old bungee! Luckily, I have my dog's car hammock which has loops that go over my car's head rests. I connected three of these loops to each other and used these as another strap to hold the chair in my trunk. As I was re-jiggering everything, it started raining. of course. Sigh!

I spent the whole car ride home worrying that the old bungee I had was going to snap and I would cause a crazy traffic jam over a $15 chair. blargh. Hopefully, this will be a fun project. I hope it's worth it!

Exercise

I've repeatedly found that it takes three continuous days without
exercise for me to start losing control, freaking out & getting
restless.

I'm not a control freak, but I find it freaky when I have NO control
over my body. When the restlessness hits, wherever I am (often asleep
in bed, sometimes while I'm in meetings or whenever) I start
twitching. I suddenly have irrepressable urges to start cracking
joints and stretch muscles out. It never helps,and I end up doing
weird twitching or spastic movements for a few hours (it's esp bad if
I'm supposed to be sitting still - like in a meeting).

It normally ends with me trying to appease the restlessness with a
little bit of exercise. Last week, I left my group meeting and did
jumping jacks in the bathroom. I've gotten up in the middle of the
night to do push ups and sit ups. The worst was when we went to
Houston before evan's mom's surgery. I ended up running around the
bedroom (with intermittent jumping jacks) in the garage apartment that
night for three hours straight.

I can only imagine that this is akin to what it feels like to do drugs
and experience cravings. It's freaky.

Evan and free frozen custard

im so old schoolz

NYMag's The Cut cracks me up. I don't know why I forget about it all the time. A recent gem:

"God bless Justin Timberlake. Though every celebrity and their unborn child is tweeting, he still enjoys the vintage thrills of blogging. "

I'm feeling all old-school as I write this post.

When the Thrill of Blogging Is Gone ... - NYTimes.com

Omg  i think this might be me   oh wait  scratch that. LOL 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/fashion/07blogs.html?_r=1

Sent from TwitterFon

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Lori Wu Malahy

Doctoral Student

Department of Psychology

University of Washington

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The beautiful weather in Seattle right now

The weather forecast for Seattle looks amazing this next week! I'll be down in california for the APS conference. I think seattle's weather is supposed to top the weather in sf. Too bad I'll miss the weather. It's nice to see my house in the sun every once in a while.