Category: Family

Narragansett Beach

waves rolling into Narragansett beach
The day after some pretty heavy storms, the surf was high at Narragansett Beach. The black dots are people trying to surf.

Kung Pao Chicken

This is one of the first spicy things I’ve made that my teenagers actually liked.

Kung Pao Chicken

Print Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings: 5 people
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Asian
Calories: 400
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1 1/2 pounds chicken thighs boneless, skinless, cut into bite-sized chunks
  • 1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp shaoxing wine or dry sherry
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper white or black
  • 1 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 1 tbsp sugar granulated
  • 1 tbsp sambal oelek
  • vegetable oil
  • 2 bell peppers diced large
  • 2 celery stalks sliced thin
  • 1 tbsp ginger, minced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup peanuts, roasted
  • 2 scallions sliced thin (optional)
  • 1.5 tsp sesame oil

Equipment

  • 1 Flat-bottomed wok or large frying pan
  • 2 mixing bowls
  • measuring cups and spoons

Method
 

Marinate the Chicken
  1. Add tamari or soy sauce, wine or sherry, cornstarch, sesame oil, salt, and pepper in a small bowl and whisk until the cornstarch is dissolved. Drizzle 2 tablespoons over chicken and mix.
  2. Add the vinegar, sugar, and sambal to the remaining marinade and whisk until the sugar is dissolved.
    NOTE: if you're doubling the recipe because you have a lot of chicken, don't double the sambal or you may make it too spicy.
Stir Fry the Veggies and the Chicken
  1. Heat pan over medium-high heat. Add tablespoon of oil, followed by the bell peppers and celery. Season with salt and stir fry until crispy-tender and browned in spots (about 4 minutes).
    Add garlic and ginger and stir fry another 30 seconds.
  2. Transfer veggies to a plate.
  3. Add a couple of tablespoons of oil to the pan, followed by the chicken. Spread evenly across the pan and let cook until golden brown and a little seared on the bottom, 3-4 minutes.
    Stir fry for a couple of minutes, until cooked through.
Combine Everything
  1. Add vegetables back in, and add peanuts.
    Give the sauce a quick whisk and pour in. Stir fry until sauce thickens and coats everything, about a minute.
    Sprinkle in scallions and serve over rice.

Notes

Other veggies you can try: small mushrooms, zucchini, sliced carrots, and/or chopped onions.
We've also made it with tofu instead of chicken:
  • use extra-firm tofu;
  • squeeze the water out by wrapping in towels or a couple of paper towels, then putting on a plate and leaving something heavy on top for 20-30 minutes;
  • cube the tofu into bite-sized chunks
  • toss with a little cornstarch, then fry over medium heat until all sides are golden-brown.
  • Continue with rest of recipe.

Originally seen on The Kitchn.

Walking Through Goldsmith Woodland

Alpha child and I took our cameras on a walk through the Goldsmith Woodlands.

marsh and trees reflected on waterI have a new camera, an Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV.  (Their new naming scheme is kind of terrible, but the cameras are still good.)  The last camera I owned was an Olympus OM-4, so using a digital camera is taking some getting used to.

Over time, Alpha has adopted my old OM-4, a Canon EOS DSLR from 2005, and a small number of truly vintage cameras.  Today was a Canon kind of a day.

All of these photos were taken by me on my OM-D.

tree truck with insect and woodpecker holes
One of a number of dead tree trunks in the Goldsmith Woodlands. The grounds are carefully managed, and that includes leaving dead trees in place when possible.
sun through tree branches
Filtered winter sun through tree branches
lone cattail with pond in background
The remains of last year’s cattails, also known as typha
bald eagle in flight
We watched a bald eagle parent taking off; it’s juvenile offspring was still standing on the ice

SCIENCE!

I wanted to see what happened if I poured water off the deck in -7° weather. The result wasn’t an instant steaming cloud, but it was pretty fun!

Remember – this was boiling water. It would have done some damage if it splashed back at me, so I chose my location carefully, and didn’t dump the whole thing at once, but did a slow pour.

Still really cool!

Six

We all went to see Six the Musical on Broadway.

theater stage prior to start of show
Waiting for Six to start at the Lena Horne Theater

We’ve been listening to the album since the spring of 2020, which is when we originally had tickets to see it. (until COVID-19 cancelled everything across the world.)

We did a lightning trip into NYC, driving in mid-day Saturday for a 3 pm show, and leaving the next morning.

I also brought along my newly-purchased camera, my first digital camera that wasn’t part of a smart phone, so I had to take some artsy-fartsy pictures.

new york city street view

Sassy chipmunk

This sassy little chipmunk likes to sit on our fence and chirp at the world.  Here he is in the middle of one of his rants.

Make sure you turn up your volume to hear the barrage of chirps.

Clothesline

Inflation is high, making electricity expensive.

Our dryer died, I’m lazy, and the repairman is expensive.

But worst of all, humanity is polluting the world in crazy ways.  We collectively need to cut back on how much energy we use so we don’t make the planet uninhabitable for ourselves.  Climate change is expensive.

Enter the humble clothesline.  Two posts and a post-hole digger.  150 feet of cotton rope, three tensioners, and six pulleys.  Fifty clothespins.  About an hour of solid effort.

new clothesline

It’s a small thing, but it neatly solves three problems at once.  Plus, the clothes smell nice afterwards!

COVID Strikes the House!

covid-19 illustration

After two years, much of the world seems to have given up on keeping a pandemic posture.  I haven’t touched on COVID-19 in the blog in a while because I find it to be so frustrating. In the United States we’ve had strong anti-vax, anti-mask, and anti-science movements.  They’ve really hampered efforts to “flatten the curve” of hospitalizations and keep COVID-19 from overwhelming the healthcare system.

Infection and hospitalization rates have dropped recently, so even the most vigilant have relaxed.  Few people wear masks into stores; most employers are cajoling people back on-site.  If there is going to be another resurgence of the virus, now is the time.

So, of course, the entire family is now COVID-19 positive.

We fell in a fairly orderly fashion: Megh, Alpha, me, Beta, one per day.  The only family member not affected appears to be Butter-the-dog.  I don’t know how to even tell if she is infected, but there’s evidence that she can.  So far she seems fine.

We think we’ve traced it back to an outdoor event the past weekend in Concord to re-enact the “Battle Road” from the American Revolution.  There was a crowd, and not everyone was masking – sadly, including us.

There have been a number of COVID-19 variants, and we seem to have caught a fairly recent one, Omicron, based on both the speed of infection and nature of symptoms.  It’s been fairly mild for us overall.

We also visited Baba on Sunday, after infection but before contagiousness. Megh has been feeling guilt over the possibility of infecting her, but (so far) she has tested negative and seems fine.  After this much time it’s unlikely she’ll contract it from us.

As a side note: my boss Terry, and his mother, also both tested positive for COVID-19 this week.  I work from home so it’s just coincidental timing.