Idle time

What does one do with copious amounts of idle time?  Well, make up some good snacks silly.  Or at least that is what I have been doing.  Prior to coming to this place, we envisioned using the internet to watch television, it would be the ultimate solution to boredom.  About that...  The internet is very slow here and even watching a thirty second video can be quite daunting.  What about talking on the phone?  That's the other obstacle.  We do have the mandatory landline service that accompanied the DSL net service, but no phone--yet.  That we opted to order from blessed amazon as the options here caused both Nate and I to make a throat sound aloud, in public.  Those prices, yuckum.  We do have a cell phone on the way, so that will definitely connect us a little more.  In the mean time, I have been home cooking up a storm.  Granted, this will slow down once school starts, but it is keeping me busy for now. 
What have we been eating?  Again, I need to emphasize the lack of some modern food conveniences here.  Yes, there is a burger joint, a Chinese place, and a cafe.  Those places however, we do not frequent.  Nate has been to the first two and was impressed, but being that our feet are our transportation and the lack of a current paycheck, home cookin' is where it is at.  Along the way we have been very lucky to have received some king crab and salmon from folks here and have been incorporating that into the cuisine as well.  As a means to ease the hum-drum days, we have created many delicious from-scratch nummers-for a lack of a better term.  For breakfast, I was getting dang tired of cereal, so I kicked it up a notch.  We've had quiche, cornmeal and regular pancakes, omelets, homemade bagels, and other odds and ends.  For dinner, of course we have been having fish at least once a week, but have also enjoyed, homemade pizza, calzones, tacos, and spaghetti to name a few.  Many ingredients or meal pieces that are easier to come by in the lower 48, either don't find their way here, end up having an extremely high price, or the flavor is off as shipping can be brutal to the items.  So cooking feels like a victory here.  Like you have won something.  One of the hardest things to get use to is the humidity's wrath on food.  Baking is very different from Montana, there as soon as something was done you covered it or it would dry out.  Here everything seems to absorb moisture.  Bagels that turned out pretty on the first try in MT shrink and defluff here, I blame the torrential rain.  It will take some getting accustomed to- then it is on.  Again, we go from one extreme to another, is there any other way?  We think not.

Tex-Mex style tortillas (chalupa-like)
pretty decent for the first time eh?

Bagels.  prettied by the rain-still good though
50% wheat 50% white flour.

 

give a man a fish...  our freezer continues to grin from the goodness that it contains

That is about it for now.  I figured that it was about time for another post.