Kevin's Compendium of Useless Fantasia

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Let's take a look at what I did in April:

• I made plum jam. Plums, juice from two limes and half of a lemon, and a generous amount of ginger powder. I filled 6 half-pint jars, and it's pleasantly tart. I'm anxious to try some when it's had a chance to sit for a while.

• I made mashed potatoes, but I made them a bit differently than I've made them before. Margarine, paprika, salt, garlic powder, and onion powder. Yum.

• I made some bread pudding. Two rolls from a friend, four eggs, some soy milk, ground cinnamon, and clove powder. Honey drizzled on top. Baked at 350 for around an hour. A little crispier on top than I like, but pretty good.

  I tried the same recipe again, and this time I put it in the oven for less time. Perfect. Very good.

• I solved a Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle with a Perl program:

  Think of a five-letter verb in one syllable that means to do a certain activity. Insert "S" between the 2nd and 3rd letters, and you'll get a six-letter verb in two syllables that means to stop doing this activity. What words are these?

  The solution is reign/resign.

• I cooked four things in one day!
  • Strawberry-rhubarb jam. Nice consistency and flavor, although next time I'm going to increase the rhubarb-to-strawberry ratio.
  • The second, more successful attempt at the bread pudding above.
  • Black bean soup, mostly following a recipe in a monastery soup cookbook I have, except with a hot pepper instead of a bell pepper. Black beans, onions, stuff like that. A bit watery, I think, but it tasted really good.
  • Steelhead trout fillets. Salt, paprika, coriander, Franks's Red Hot Sauce, and lemon juice on the fillets. Minced hot pepper son part of it, in case it was too hot for some people. It was all good, but the part with the peppers was the best. I let it sit in the fridge for a while with the stuff on it before cooking, and I think that helped. Yum.

• I made a program to compare some different sets of letter dice to help someone who is working on inventing a letter-for-letter word game. I made my first Perl objects for this, and I got it working nicely. There's still more work to do on the project, but I'm satisfied with what's been done so far.

• I made fish cakes. Mashed potatoes, tilapia, onion, eggs, salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, chili powder. My dinner companion made the spicy mayonnaise to go with it: mayonnaise, Frank's Red Hot Sauce, paprika, and garlic powder. They turned out pretty well, especially with the mayonnaise. I learned, though, that they don't make such good cakes when you leave the batter in the fridge overnight (I had extras, so I was going to make it up the next day). However, it does make a nice fish cake hash thing, so I had that the next day. That was good, too.