Better Late Than Never

I guess it's about time I posted an update!

Last week I added each of the kids as users on the 'puter. I figured it would cut down on the junk piling up on my side. However, I was a bit concerned about the less than appropriate junk they might run into when surfing online, so I added what looked to be a good solution , offered for free by Firefox. We decided to try it out on Lindsay's side first, figuring we could always add it on to Nathan's side later on if we liked it. It was called "Glubble". Really a cute thing, and provided plenty of child friendly gaming sites. Although some of the sites were a bit below Lindsay's level, there were plenty to keep her happy, and it wasn't too difficult to add others on for her. Only problem was, we couldn't find a way for her to utilize other aspects of her computer experience that we deemed necessary. In the end I decided this would probably be a fine program for younger children, maybe through 6 or 7 years of age, but my children need a bit more freedom of accessibility than this program offered, if for no other reason than research for school, so I set out to delete the program.

I searched and searched. I searched on Lindsay side, and I searched on my side. Nowhere could I find the Glubble program, other than when we went online on Lindsay's side, where it was being quite persistent, and nowhere within it could I find an option to remove it. It seems Glubble was quite content in it's present position and had no intentions of leaving, no matter how uncomfortable I tried to make it feel. Finally, out of desperation, I chose to delete it's Mother, Mozilla Firefox.

Actually, I had become quite fond of Firefox, and was sorry to see it go, but it seems Firefox was downright angry to be discharged from it's duties, and was bound and determined to let me know all about it! Fortunately, the majority of the things she chose to grab, and take with her on her way out are things I will be able to find, and replace, although it might take some time. One thing that has me totally baffled though, is why and how she managed to remove our previous access points to our Gmail inboxes! It took awhile for me to finally figure out how to access them in another way. She also somehow managed to remove my membership in several sites, some of which I had belonged for quite some time before I even met her! Ah well. I'm getting it all figured it out. It could be worse...

Sunday, Father's day was a fun day. The sun was kind enough to shine on our resident Father, and the kids and I had a grand time preparing his special meal. Since we had just finished studying Sweden in school,we thought it would be fun to prepare a Swedish meal. It all turned out so good! No leftovers! A sure sign of success. For our main course we had a dish called, "Mr. Janssen's Temptation", which, evidently is a very popular dish in Sweden. After sampling it ourselves, we can certainly understand why! We did make a couple revisions, due to issues with the kids taste buds, as well as the size of the dish. The original recipe called for 20 Anchovies, for which we substituted 12 oz.of salmon, which we "smoked" ourselves on the BBQ. We're planning to make this dish again, using the traditional anchovies next time, as, after trying it, we feel they would add more to the overall quality of the dish. Also, we did end up adding quite a bit of salt at the table. Since the recipe yielded 10 servings, and there's only 4 of us, we also cut all other ingredients in half, except for the cream, which I used a bit more than half, baking it in an 8" square pan, rather than the 9"x13" pan it called for. The results were just amazing! I can imagine this is considered comfort food in Sweden, much as Mac n cheese is here:

Mr. Janssen's Temptation

10 large potatoes - peeled and sliced thin 2 onion, peeled and sliced 20 anchovy fillets, drained and brine reserved 1 1/4 cups cream 2 tablespoons bread crumbs 2 tablespoons butter
DIRECTIONS: 1. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees (225 degrees C). 2. Place a layer of sliced potatoes over bottom of a large baking dish. Top potatoes with a layer of sliced onions, then a layer of anchovy fillets. Repeat layers up to the top of the dish, ending with a layer of potatoes on top. Drizzle about 2/3 of the cream, and the reserved anchovie liquid over all. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top, then dot with pieces of butter. 3. Bake for 30 minutes on the center rack. Add remaining cream, and continue baking for another 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.
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This was a very filling dish, and the spinach we served on the side made for a perfect meal. For dessert Lindsay and I made Swedish cream, which we topped with strawberries. It was just incredible! A creamy delight! Opus Too, a wonderful restaurant and Jazz club in Portland made this recipe public several years ago:

Swedish Cream

1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup plain yogurt (not vanilla)
1 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp Grand Marnier or Harlequin liquor
2 cups whipping cream
2 cups fresh or frozen berries
In a large bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients, mixing well.
In a small saucepan, heat the whipping cream to just below the boiling point; slowly combine with sour cream mixture. Pour into Irish coffee glasses, leaving 3/4 to 1 inch in top. Chill thoroughly. To serve, top with berries
6-8 servings
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Alrighty then! There is no way this is going to serve that many people! At least not any people I know! It's just too dang good! We ended up splitting it between 4 short glasses. I did make one other revision, since we were lacking the liquor it called for. I substituted 1 tsp of almond extract. This was just to die for!

I'm guessing no one's even going to bother asking about my diet at this point....LOL Yeah, Monday morning was another of those don't even glance at the scale days. But, it was so worth it!

Saturday night at the Movies!

I didn't post any movie reviews on Sunday, because I wanted to dedicate that day to Father's day, so here ya are, a wee bit late. The kiddie flick for last Saturday was Two Brothers. A great family film, about two tiger cubs who are separated as youngsters, and the events that follow them both. This film was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, the same fellow who brought us "The Bear", another great movie that we plan to rent in the future, for the kids. There is a bit of violence in this film, a tiger attack on a human, and it shows mistreatment of tigers, which yielded a PG rating. I guess I can see it, as a young, and very sensitive child may have problems with it, but, for the most part, I think so long as a parent is there to discuss it there should be no problems. Our family all agreed this one deserved a high 4, if not 5 rating.

Ma and Pa didn't manage to watch any movies this weekend, but we did pop one in both Monday and Tuesday evenings. The first one, Intolerable Cruelty was a comedy, that really didn't manage to tickle our funny bones. To be fair, we were only able to watch the first half (the DVD was mucked up), and it did look like it might have some redeeming qualities in the second half, so we gave it a 3, which is neither thumbs up or thumbs down. Tuesday nights feature was much better. HenryV, a Shakespearean film, was difficult to follow at first, perhaps because I was so tired, but once my ears got used to the speech I was able to appreciate both the story, and the acting. I didn't realize when I rented it, that Judi Dench was in it, so that was a nice surprise. Her acting abilities just amaze me! No danger of type casting for her!

Knitting

I'm nearing the neckline on the back of Nathan's top. This is my first attempt at creating my own pattern, and I'm pleased to note it's going quite well. Of course this is just the back.The front could be a whole other story! I'm not going to stress over that too much right now though. Just enjoy how well things are going now, and hope the front follows suit. Of course I'm planning ahead, in order to increase the possibilities of that happy ending...

Gardening

This morning as I strolled around the yard, I noticed my potatoes are ready for a new blanket of soil. I'm finding they need covering twice a week now. Also need to get my peas trained up. They're looking healthy and green, but a bit lazy, preferring to hang out on the cool garden floor, rather than putting out the effort to climb the ladder provided. Today is our weekly library and shopping day though, so the gardens will just have to wait til tomorrow.
And the clock is ticking, so I must get ready to go...