I finally finished my first antenna tonight! I made a twinlead slim jim and tried getting on the air. Unfortunately, there aren’t many people on this late on a holiday evening. I was able to make one contact with a gentleman up in Placerville. He reported me 5×5, so I must have been hitting the repeater fairly strong. I’ll try again tomorrow, during the noon net at least.
The only difficulty I found with this design is the feedpoint. Stripping the insulation mid-cable is a little fiddly, but a sharp knife does wonders. When I soldered the coax (RG-58), I should have done the shield first–it was a bear to solder the (stranded) shield once the center conductor was already attached. A pair of “third hands” may have helped.
This is a recipe we got from Carol Hopfe.
- 2 cans (~14 oz ea) non-marinated artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed, and chopped
- 1.5 c mayonnaise
- 1 can (~5 oz) diced green chiles, drained
- 1.5 c parmesan cheese
- (optional) 4 jalapeños, seeded and chopped
Mix all the ingredients and add to a buttered casserole dish. Bake in a 325˚ oven for ~30 minutes.
Thanksgiving Eve! 
Things to do today:
- Make stuffing
- Get mac-n-cheese ready for the oven
- Make pie crust(s) dough
- Hard-boil the eggs for deviled eggs
- Make another pumpkin roll (Barb thought the first one would disappear too quickly)
And finish cleaning up the house!
Two days until Thanksgiving, time to start preparing our feast! Today (Tuesday) is when we:
- De-bone the turkey (which has been defrosting in the frig since Saturday)
- Make turkey stock with the bones
- Make the cranberry sauce
- Mix up the spinach dip
- Try the pumpkin roll recipe (in case it doesn’t work out, we have time to do something else tomorrow)
- Cornbread (for our stuffing tomorrow)
We also be making mashed potatoes with our dinner tonight, since we need some leftovers to make poppy seed rolls.
It’s just about time for my favorite holiday of the year, Thanksgiving! My daughter thought I was going extreme geek last year when I wrote up our notes from Thanksgiving 2008, but a few weeks ago when we started planning for this year’s feast she admitted how useful those geeky notes are.
We’re holding steady at around 30 people, although some of them are only showing up for appetizers or dessert since they have other commitments for dinner itself. Some folks from last year aren’t coming this year, but we have some new people joining us! My cousin, Kevin, whom we haven’t seen for many years (decades?!?), will be bringing Robin to join us this year. The Benjamins, our friends from Caitlin’s gymnastics team, will be joining us for the first time, along with Emily (a friend of Caira’s).
Based on our experience last year, we’ve tweaked the menu a bit:
Appetizers
Dinner
- Roast turkey
- Cornbread stuffing
- Mashed potatoes
- Gravy
- Cider baked ham
- Macaroni and cheese
- Cranberry sauce
- “Awesome strawberry stuff” (Nora)
- Cranberry relish (the Benjamins)
- Sweet potato casserole (the Benjamins)
- unspecified veggie dish (the Benjamins)
- Jellied cranberries (Nana)
Desserts
- Pumpkin pie
- Pumpkin roll
- Apple-cranberry pie (Emily)
- Mincemeat pie (Nana)
- Apple pie (maybe)
- Whipped cream and ice cream
Here’s a recipe for spinach dip from one of Barb’s co-workers.
- 1 c sour cream
- 1 pkg (1/2 lb) cream cheese, softened
- 1 pkg ranch dressing mix
- 1 pkg (10 oz) frozen spinach
- green onions
- parsley
- dill
- salt
- pepper
- garlic, minced
- 1 can (8 oz) water chestnuts
- 1 red bell pepper, minced
Combine all ingredients and refrigerate overnight.
A few nights ago we watched “Jet Lag“, starring Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno. With those two in the leading roles my expectations were pretty high for this movie, perhaps too high. It was decent, worth watching, and the score (by Eric Serra, who also did “Subway“) was pretty good. But the real reason for this blog post is the recipe that was tucked into the credits, Veal Mignonettes. This is the dish that Félix (Jean Reno) prepares for Rose (Juliette Binoche) near the end of the movie.
Veal Mignonettes (serves 2)
- 3/4 lb veal
- 1/2 lb carrots
- 4 small zucchini
- 6 tomatoes
- 2 leeks (white part only)
- flat-leaf parsley
- pepper
- coarse salt
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- armagnac (cognac?)
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 pinch sesame seed
Cut the veal into 1-inch slices. Julienne the vegetables.
Heat olive oil in a skillet and saute the vegetables over low heat until al-dente, about 5 minutes.
Add a pinch of coarse salt, the parsley, and pepper.
Remove the vegetables from the pan, add the veal and armagnac (~1 Tbsp?) and flambé for about 1 minute.
Return to the burner and add a pinch of sesame seeds and the balsamic vinegar. Serve with the al-dente vegetables.
There were some errors in the recipe which I’ve done my best to correct. For instance, the veal and carrots were given in “ld”, which I presume was supposed to be “lb”. Also, the armagnac is never referred to in the instructions. A 1-inch thick slice of veal seems a bit much — in the movie, it looks more like 1/2 or 3/4 inch.
I’ve never been successful with flambé. For some reason the pan never lights for me. Anybody have a suggestion as to what I might be doing wrong?
