Paganocity

I have been far too busy for the past month, and have cooked almost nothing.  This is the first new dish I have done in quite a while, and it worked out loverly.  The final touches were made by Aedan.

This is a great dipping sauce for spring rolls, egg rolls, fresh veggies, etc.  Can also be used as a salad dressing, or noodle sauce by crazy people like me.

2 cups peanut butter

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup water

6 tablespoons lemon or lime juice

3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons hot sauce

1 tablespoon ginger (preferrably fresh diced, but I used powder)

1 tablespoon minced garlic (more or less)

1/4 cup fresh cilantro (but I used a heaping tablespoon of cilantro paste)

2 tablespoons of oil or butter

(1 tablespoon fish sauce, but I skipped this)

Place garlic and oil in pan and place on med high.  Brown the garlic and then add soysauce, coconut milk, water, lime/lemon juice, ginger and hot sauce.  Once that is warm, add peanut butter and stir until it is smooth.  Then add cilantro, and stir thoroughly, once more.  Serve it warm or cold.  I garnished by placing it in a bowl, and covering with a layer of crushed peanuts.

We all share an intimate relationship with Rain.  With all of Water's cycle, really, down through the Earth to the seas and into the air, then... Rain.  A most refreshing tactile experience, as summer heats up.  Rain quiets everything; the world remains dampened for a while afterward.  Rain brings new hope and life to the Garden.  The brittle dry stalks of Spring plants baked by drought are now soft pads of mulch, supporting new blooms of tiny mushrooms.  The old Mustard stems and pods are barely visible; in their place are huge drifts of cute little purple sprouts.  I got a little wild and crazy and ordered all my favorite Weird foods for summer, seeds for a perennial (hopefully) Lima bean are soaking on the porch, two types of Amaranth are already in the ground.  Oh yeah and cilantro.  Better get on those sunflowers soon, and okra too, save room for sweet potatos!  Ok gotta go.  (Wish me Luck!)

"And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but youre older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death"  -- from Pink Floyd's "Time"

I have given up trying to tame the thicket out back for the moment.  My my time is so filled with obligations to the world of Homo Sapiens and the season is so hot and dry, I have not the heart to give my plants more than the briefest evening visits recently.  A second flush of flowering Mustards is head high, while those golden pods I wrote of before stand dry and brown.  Their leaves wilt yellow and their brown seeds are spilling out over the cracked Earth faster than I can collect them.  I console myself by thinking how glad I will be to see the seedlings that must later spring from those lost seeds, and by popping open a few pods to chew the pungent, spicy seeds each time I go out.  I run my fingers through the feathery leaves of the Fennels that shelter under those dying stems, inhale their sweet spice, and remember how to breathe.  Even in neglect, my garden helps me to escape Time for a blissful, non-measured moment.  How much I need these moments, to keep me from being buried under the weight of Time which is measured, Time which has quantity.

I am proud to report that I managed to roast that Chicken for dinner tonight, the one that I meant to cook on Tuesday but had not the energy by the time I returned from work.  The fresh Rosemary inside the body cavity gave it the most wonderful flavor.  (Sorry, vegan and veggie friends, but I trend towards underweight and I need me some good protein and fat.  I don't feel that animals were put here to feed me, but I do not find evil in consuming another life form to feed myself, as per my nature.)  Fresh salads from the Farmer's Market, topped with my own Nasturtium flowers, and I dare say I feel a bit renewed.  I'll catch up with that Sun yet.

1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar (1 tbs. for regular waffles)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick of butter, melted
1 cup heavy cream (or dairy of choice)
some vanilla extract
1 egg, seperated (2 if you get egg-cited)
Love

Mix the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, butter, milk, vanilla, and yolk all together.

Take the egg white and beat it until stiff white peaks form, then fold into the batter.

Use waffle iron to prepare waffles in whatever manner the waffle iron requires of you, and prefferable eat warm.

Doesn't really need syrup or anything, but live it up, and enjoy the decadence.