Amazing Chicken Madras Recipe
Category: Food and Restaurants

I've used this recipe three times and, after a little tweaking, it's damned good!

Chicken Madras

make one day ahead:
1 rounded tsp corriander
3/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt (we usually add a bit more than this)
5 or 6 dried chilis (depending on how hot you like it- I may use 7 next time)
6 bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick
3 or 4 Tbsp diced garlic (the more the merrier, I say)
1 stick butter


2 large or three medium chicken breasts, cut into large bite-sized pieces
splash of olive oil (veg oil will work)
2 or 3 onions
1 can coconut milk (NOT lowfat- coconut fat is good for you!)
1/2 of one very small can of tomato paste
1 cup water (more or less if you need it)
6 cardomom pods
2 tsp tumeric
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp sugar

Basmati rice
Nan Bread

One day ahead, saute the first group of ingredients together until the butter is all melted and the garlic has cooked a bit. Set aside in a bowl in the fridge until the next day. This allows the spices and chili peppers to soak into the butter and get really tasty. Start the chicken defrosting for the next day.

The next day, chop the onions and cook in a splash of oil (use a large pot to avoid a splashy mess). Cut up the chicken. Then add the mixed bowl of stuff from the day before and allow to melt and then add the chicken. Now add the remaining spices: cardomom pods, tumeric, garam masala, and the tsp of sugar. Cook until the chicken is mostly done, stirring frequently. Then add the coconut milk and the tomato paste (go easy on the tomato paste- you can add more later), and some water (depending on how thick it is). Now let this add simmer (uncovered, so if can reduce) for at least an hour, preferably two. When you are almost ready to eat, prepare some rice. We like basmati rice. You can add a few cardomom pods to the rice as it cooks if you want, but we don't.

Serve hot, preferably with nan bread, if you can find them. If you have nan, sprinkle water and garlic butter on top and heat them in the oven until hot. Yummo!

4:22 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Alanis' Lovely Lady Lumps

Too funny! I think I like this version better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZw-8RSyvh8

(The embed button isn't working, so you just have to click the link.)

11:21 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

First Knit Sweater

I finished my first knit sweater. It's a raglan-sleeved cropped cardigan with seed stitch edging. It was knit in one piece, top-down, using a bunch of old wool from my grandmother's stash... I think she'd be proud. :)

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1:06 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

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Knit with Lite Lopi Wool, with attached wallet. Woo-hoo!

5:23 AM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Booga Bag

I completed the knit Booga Bag for Robin. It was easy and lots of fun. I'm already started on another felted bag for myself.

I made this bag with this pattern from Black Sheep Bags: http://www.blacksheepbags.com/booga_bag.html

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Handknit Booga Bag

7:57 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Newest (Completed) Knitting Project

Fingerless Wool Mittens with mock cable ribbing and simple texture stitch:

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I also have a Booga Bag in the works, for Robin.

http://www.blacksheepbags.com/booga_bag.html

8:10 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I.Q. Testarooni

You scored 135 on Tickle's IQ test. This means that based on your answers, your IQ score is 135. Most people's IQs are between 70 and 130.

In fact, 95% of all people have IQs within that range. 68% of people score between 80 and 120. The following chart to your right, shows these percentages and where your IQ score is on that scale.

Print your Certificate of Intellectual Achievement.

There's more to intelligence than a single number, a single score or a single label. Tickle uses four distinguishable Intelligence Scales in the Ultimate IQ Test. By analyzing your individual scores on those four scales, we are able to look beyond the raw IQ score into how you process information and thereby determine your Intellectual Type.

Your Intellectual Type Is:

You are gifted with the natural fluency of a writer and the visual and spatial strengths of an artist. Those skills contribute to your creative and expressive mind...

Insightful linguists can take complex concepts and articulate them to just about anyone. You have a gift with words and insight into processes and the way people think. These talents enable you to explain things clearly to people.

Helen Keller is a great example of an Insightful Linguist. Blind, deaf and mute, she was still able to put things together in her mind and to understand complex ideas. She could do that because she was able to conceptualize ideas internally. Though she could not literally see, she had the visual and spatial skills necessary to understand patterns on an abstract level. She learned to read, write and ultimately became a writer on issues of social justice.

You have an uncanny ability to work your way out of sticky situations using your talent with words. Crossword puzzles, debates — you're particularly well equipped to come out on top since you can read people well.

Like Charles Dickens, your verbal skills go far beyond having a good vocabulary. Dickens' genius was in the artful and descriptive way he crafted sentences. Also Dickensian, is your keen eye for detail and your adeptness for identifying the best way to express an idea based on your given surroundings and circumstances.

Your ability to communicate your vision clearly will take you far. So enjoy being perceptive, and make the most of your abilities as an insightful linguist.

Your 4 Intelligence Scales

Now let's look at the factors that contribute to you being an Insightful Linguist with a 135 IQ score.

Based on the results of your test, Tickle divided your scores into four distinguishable dimensions — mathematical intelligence, visual-spatial intelligence, linguistic intelligence and logic intelligence.

Here's how each of your intelligence scores break down:

You scored in the 90th percentile on the mathematical intelligence scale.This means that you scored higher than 80% - 90% of people who took the test and that 10% - 20% scored higher than you did. The scale above illustrates this visually.

Your mathematical intelligence score represents your combined ability to reason and calculate. You scored relatively high, which means you're probably the one your friends look to when splitting the lunch bill or calculating your waitresses' tip. You may or may not be known as a math whiz, but number crunching might come a little easier to you than it does others.

You scored in the 100th percentile on the visual-spatial intelligence scale.
This means that you scored higher than 90% - 100% of people who took the test and that 0% - 10% scored higher than you did. The scale above illustrates this visually.

The visual-spatial component of intelligence measures your ability to extract a visual pattern and from that envision what should come next in a sequence. Your score was relatively high, which could mean that you're the one navigating the map when you're on an outing with friends. You have, in some capacity, an ability to think in pictures. Maybe this strength comes out in subtle ways, like how you play chess or form metaphors.

You scored in the 100th percentile on the linguistic intelligence scale.
This means that you scored higher than 90% - 100% of people who took the test and that 0% - 10% scored higher than you did. The scale above illustrates this visually.

Linguistic abilities include reading, writing and communicating with words. Tickle's test measures knowledge of vocabulary, ease in completing word analogies and the ability to think critically about a statement based on its semantic structure. Your score was relatively high, which could mean you know your way around a bookstore and maybe like to bandy about the occasional 25-cent word to impress friends.

You scored in the 100th percentile on the logical intelligence scale.
This means that you scored higher than 90% - 100% of people who took the test and that 0% - 10% scored higher than you did. The scale above illustrates this visually.

Tickle's logical intelligence questions assess your ability to think things through. The questions determine the extent to which you use reasoning and logic to determine the best solution to a problem. Your logic score was relatively high, which could mean that when the car breaks down, your friends look to you to help figure out not only what's wrong, but how to fix it and how you're going to get to the next gas station.

For each scale, Tickle determined how many people received scores above and below yours. Your "percentile" represents what percentage of people scored lower than you. In other words, 90th percentile means you scored higher than 80 to 90% of people did.

How are the percentiles determined? These percentiles were determined based on the one million users who have already taken our test. We then adjusted these percentiles based on a nationally representative IQ distribution to make sure that no level of intelligence was over- or underrepresented in the analysis. Thus, the percentiles we present reflect your score compared with people in the United States in general.

1:39 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I've Been Creating...

Yesterday, I took Amelia to a playgroup at the park, and then had lunch with Thresa (thanks, T!). A few women at the park had nice wrap-style carriers. I have one for infants, but it's stretchy, so it doesn't work now that Baby A is so big. But I can't afford $80-$100 for a new one...

So, I went to the fabric store and searched high and low, and finally found a good 100% cotton weave that's sturdy, but not too heavy-weight or scratchy. I hemmed all the edges this morning, and now I have my very own wrap!

It's yellowy-green, with cream and reddish big stripes. It's rad, and I made it. :D

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PS Amelia has another tooth poppin' through. This time is her front top left tooth. She's growing up so darned fast!

1:24 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Philisophical Quandary

Hmmm. Where to start?

I watched "The Corporation" the other day. Eye-opening, to say the least. I agree with so much of what was presented, esp. in regards to the issues with the corporations having the legal statues of a person. This allows the decision-makers with the corporations to avoid any personal responsibility, since they cannot be held accountable. The corporations are only responsible to their stockholders; their *job* is to make money, at any expense. And when they do unethical things to that end, no one faces any repercussions, since 'the corporation,' a non-human person, legally made the decisions. You see what I'm saying?

Anyway, as a capitalist, this concerns me. I believe in capitalism, I do. I think it's the only truly 'fair,' ethial system of exchange. But I don't believe in what I saw in this documentary. That's not capitaism! But isn't it? It's corrupt capatalism... but what is the alternative? More laws and restrictions? That can't be the answer. Generally, that's the problem.

I'm just caught in a philisophical 'catch-22' at the moment. I believe in Capitalism and the free-market... but I also believe in personal responsibity. I believe that it is ethically repugnant to take advantage of others, and to *lie* and tell half-truths to the consumers, in the name of money. Case in point: the pharaceutical industries, who misrepresent the dangers of the chemicals they use in medicines and vaccines, because they care only about money, not the health and well-being of the mis-informed consumers. They should be held *personally* responsible... problem is, *they* are not a person. They are a group of people, protected by the status of 'corporation,' and motivated only by the financial interests of stockholders. And to top it off, they are protected by government agencies like the FDA, who are clearly being paid-off somehow, because even the FDA does nothing about the research that *proves* that many of these chemicals are carcinogenic or worse. They spread misinformation about the studies done, and downplay the links.

I dunno, I'm thinking aloud. I'm just becoming increasingly confused about how my ideals play out. I'm beginning to distrust the *outcome* of capitalism. If this is where capitalism leads... then it's no better than socialism, which leads to equally problematic situations.

Man, I wish I could pick Ayn Rand's brain about now. What do you think she would have to say about the state of capitaism today? What would she think of Wal-Mart and Monsanto, for example???

10:24 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Quotes from the Greats

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." -Mark Twain

"Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official..." -Theodore Roosevelt

"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." -Noam Chomsky

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." -Voltaire

"In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them." -Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk

"That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -Theodore Roosevelt

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." -Albert Einstein

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. -Thomas Jefferson

10:39 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment