gmonkey42

Today was my first BEET HARVEST!



Of one beet. The rest aren't ready yet. You can see there's actually a puny one that grew right next to the big one, I put that one back in the ground, hoping it'll grow more. But I harvested this one and I'm going to cook it for dinner along with some vegetarian sausage.

BEETS
(roasted beetroot and sautéd beet greens)
1. Wash that beet because you just pulled it out of the dirt.
(Yeah, I wash them when I get them from the market too)

2. Chop up the beet roots and roast them in oil & herbs as seen here.

3. Take the greens, tear them up, and throw them in a pan with oil and diced garlic & onion (conveniently left over from yesterday's bean recipe!) Plus throw in some of that lemon herb seasoning because that stuff is good.

4. EAT THE BEETS.


That was too much onion. It made the greens taste good but I picked out a lot of the onion pieces when I ate the dish. Less than half that much onion next time. But the greens tasted really good.

My family came up yesterday, forcing me to get off my ass and move in. I was amazed at how quickly we got it done. I was in my room, cleaning out my enormous desk, and by the time I was done they'd already hauled off my bed, couch and coffee table. I slept OK in the new place. I watched Bubba Ho-Tep this weekend (I had no idea until recently that it was Bruce Campbell! I love him!). So I kept thinking about scary mummies while I was trying to go to sleep. Because I'm a dork like that. I was going to let Snape sleep in my room so she wouldn't be scared but she just wanted to explore. She was much more freaked out by my dad, because he doesn't come over so often and she isn't used to him. She was just hiding until my family left and then she was going all over the place, looking around.

I still have to do the change of address thing with the DMV. I'll do that today. And get phone and cable set up. I set up the electricity as soon as the place was mine. I did set up my VCR and DVD player, so I could watch QAF while I unpacked. Episode 101.

Also, I saw PoA again on Saturday. Cool. Something I noticed upon the second viewing: Newt Scamander was in the castle. When Fred & George first gave Harry the map and he was looking at it, it clearly showed Newt Scamander. What's he doing there? I couldn't make out any of the other names. I expect it's just an inside joke.
And, not that I didn't notice this the first time but I didn't mention it: that crane that Draco sent Harry in DADA, with the cartoon on it? That was cool. I did something very similar to that when I was roleplaying Draco. This movie!Draco is much closer to the way I roleplayed him than previous movie!ones, or the book one.
ETA: Oh, and another thing I did notice the first time but didn't mention it: I think a lot of people who haven't read the books will think Lupin was in love with Lily. I thought he could just as easily have been talking about Snape as himself when he said that about her being able to see the beauty in other people when they couldn't see it in themselves. But realistically, in canon, Lupin probably really didn't have much to do with Snape in school. So I'm sure he was really talking about himself, not Snape. But I can see Lily having been nice to Snape, though he thought he shouldn't be nice to her. And because of that, she eventually gave up being nice to him and just ignored him.
E (again) TA: babycakesin mentioned the thing in the egg that Hagrid covered up - I think it could have been a Blast-Ended Screwt. That would be cool. ...unless Hagrid specifically says in GoF that he only just got them. But he'd been experimenting with different things to produce them right? And I forgot, what were the Skrewts? A cross between... two things. Have to look it up in the Lexicon... manticores and fire crabs. I knew one of them was a manticore. So maybe that thing in the egg was an early prototype.
Ok, last thing: I was a little dissatisfied with the part where Harry runs off after Sirius right after he fights with wolf!Lupin. And Snape tells Harry to come back but then doesn't go after him or anything. Though only a moment before, Snape demonstrated that he's willing to risk himself to protect the kids. It's like "whoops, Harry's gone. I can't just say to the other two 'stay here' and go after him and make sure he doesn't get eaten or anything." I guess they had to do it like that because if Snape'd been there then he'd have gotten rid of the Dementors instead of Harry and if they'd had him be unconscious at that point, like in the book, then it might not have made sense to the audience that Snape found Harry and Sirius unconscious and took them back to the castle.