{"id":284,"date":"2019-02-23T11:11:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-23T16:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/?p=284"},"modified":"2019-02-23T11:15:14","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T16:15:14","slug":"a-tiny-light-in-the-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/?p=284","title":{"rendered":"a tiny light in the darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t want to jinx anything, but I may be ascending from the depression.  At least slightly.  At least, I made a craft project and have cooked a couple of good meals.  I am putting in some effort!  <\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s do this in chronological order, shall we?  <\/p>\n<p>Valentine&#8217;s Day marked mine and Sparks&#8217; 13th dating anniversary.  I know we have a wedding anniversary, and we celebrate that too, but we still celebrate the first anniversary.  I decided that I wanted to make scallops for dinner.  Fresh Market complied by having some gorgeous sea scallops.  I seared those and made a beurre blanc.  I sort of lazied out on the beurre blanc though and didn&#8217;t strain it.  We both like shallots though, so I didn&#8217;t see it being a big deal.  And it wasn&#8217;t.  I also roasted some asparagus and made a quick couscous.  At least this time I didn&#8217;t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/?p=273\">brown the butter<\/a> while making the sauce.  While I was making dinner, Sparks cleaned off the end of the table so that we could eat at the table &#8220;like fucking adults&#8221; (my words, not his).  The beurre blanc was so good that I just ladled it over the whole plate.  It&#8217;s good with seafood, it&#8217;s good with asparagus, and couscous always benefits from a sauce.  Scrumptious!  Followed it up with tiramisu from the bakery counter of Fresh Market.  I love Fresh Market!<\/p>\n<p>Then, while the table was still mostly cleaned off, I decided to finally start on the quilt I&#8217;d been wanting to work on for a while.  My cousin was about to become a grandma!  If she wasn&#8217;t already older than me, this would seal the deal.  It&#8217;s been a while since I was excited about a craft project, but cousin&#8217;s daughter is a barrel racing cowgirl and was about to have a little cowgirl of her own.  I wanted to do a cowgirl themed quilt.  I found some fabric on Etsy that fit the bill.  So, this past weekend, I threw together a Trip Around The World quilt.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BuJwdhqAwPY\/?hl=en\">Here&#8217;s the photos over on instagram!<\/a>  I&#8217;m quite pleased with how it turned out.  I dropped it at the post office on Tuesday and it arrived right after baby girl did!  <\/p>\n<p>I moved the sewing machine and stuff so that we could eat at the table like adults again.  Last night, I was feeling steaks.  That always means another trip to Fresh Market, their butcher counter is lovely!  I got a couple of chateaubriand cut filet mignons.  Filet is my steak of choice, I won&#8217;t eat fat and get grossed out if any of it touches my tongue, so I just avoid it as much as possible by doing filet.  I cook them simply, just sear both sides and slide them in the oven with a meat thermometer.  It seems that if I cook them to 135, they carry over just enough to be a good medium.  That would gross out my mom (she likes hers well done) but it&#8217;s perfect for Sparks and me.  While the steaks were in the oven, I made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.culinaryhill.com\/balsamic-mushrooms-and-onions\/\">balsamic mushrooms<\/a>.  I&#8217;ll copy the recipe below, I definitely don&#8217;t want to lose this one like I have some others on the intarwebs.  And kismet!  TFM had organic baby bellas for $1 a package!  While the steaks were resting, I made a <a href=\"https:\/\/theinspiredhome.com\/articles\/steak-au-poivre-with-cognac-cream-sauce\">cognac cream sauce<\/a> to go over them.  It was good, but made way too much.  I think next time I&#8217;ll just add enough cream to the pan to make sauce, not the whole carton.  It also wouldn&#8217;t take as long to cook down that way.  Add to all this a couple of bakers with butter and sour cream.  The steaks were so good that Sparks threatened to weep.  *laughs*  No fancy dessert this time, but we had some Entemann&#8217;s chocolate doughnuts in the kitchen.  <\/p>\n<p>I woke up this morning excited to come update my blog.  Maybe I&#8217;m not dead, after all.<\/p>\n<p><big><strong>Balsamic Mushrooms and Onions<\/strong><\/big><\/p>\n<p> <strong>Ingredients<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>    2 tablespoons olive oil<br \/>\n    1 pound white button mushrooms halved<br \/>\n    1 onion sliced<br \/>\n    \u00c2\u00bd teaspoon salt<br \/>\n    2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar<\/p>\n<p><strong>Instructions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>     &#8211; In a medium skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add mushrooms and onion; sprinkle with salt and stir to combine.<br \/>\n     &#8211; Reduce heat to medium. Cover and cook until liquid is released from mushrooms, about 5 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 7 minutes. Remove cover and continue to cook until liquid has evaporated and mushrooms and onions are                softened and browned, about 3 -5 minutes.<br \/>\n     &#8211; Add balsamic vinegar and stir until mushrooms and onions are coated evenly and the vinegar is heated through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t want to jinx anything, but I may be ascending from the depression. At least slightly. At least, I made a craft project and have cooked a couple of good meals. I am putting in some effort! Let&#8217;s do this in chronological order, shall we? Valentine&#8217;s Day marked mine and Sparks&#8217; 13th dating anniversary. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,9,3,6,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crafts","category-experimental-kitchenry","category-food","category-projects","category-quilts","category-sewn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287,"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dementedramblings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}