131 - 92

We saw 'em last season, when they couldn't do anything right - come on, not even managing to have The Worst Record in basketball? *second* worst?! geez! - and now, they can't do anything wrong. Playing their hearts out and still losing Sunday in LA, to come back and Totally Kick Ass - sweet. The joy on Pierce's face: priceless.*

Um, okay, we now return to your regularly scheduled blog...

Got my textbooks, in the end *all* of them from used book vendors on Amazon - holy crap, the biochem book new at the school bookstore was $197.20! Found it online for $130 and felt damn lucky (it's a new edition that came out Feb. 2008, "used" copies are pretty thin on the ground). Classes start again next week! Whee! "Brain and Behavior," which I'm absurdly excited about - oh, how I've missed neuroscience - and biochemistry, which should be pretty great, too. I'm hoping I get the TF I had for molecular from this spring; it's the same professor, so maybe. Lab! Field trips! Did I mention neuroscience? Yay!!

Been getting into a rhythm again with the homeschooling, which is fun. This spring was so flat out for me that things were pretty haphazard; it feels good to be a bit more structured.

And I kinda sorta met a nice guy on the dating site. We met for coffee, got along fine, had a good conversation; he emailed me "eh, damn, no chemistry, oh well" and I wrote back, "oh well, I'm pretty clueless about that stuff" and then he asked if I wanted to go sailing in a couple weeks. I feel like a science monastic these days - not a bad thing, just my head is pretty totally into some demanding stuff, and I don't much care about Boys.

A. asked me at pilates Sunday night, so are you finding you have all kinds of time now that your semester is over? and I went oh! today I made chicken stock, and strawberry-rhubarb crumble, and chicken pot pie, and tofu pot pie, and got some meals together and into the freezer - she goes, so that's a yes?

Uh, yeah.

I'm finding I have all kinds of time now that my semester is over.

Ahem.

The tofu pot pie:

1 sheet of puff pastry
3 or 4 carrots
2 or 3 stalks of celery
2 potatoes
1 large onion
1 stick of butter (1/4 lb.)
about a tablespoon of sage
salt & pepper
1 vegetable boullion cube
1 pound extra firm tofu

Thaw the puff pastry at room temperature for about an hour ahead of time. Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the spices (including the soup cube) and saute over medium heat for a couple of minutes. Chop all the vegetables. Saute onions until clear, then add potatoes and carrots. As the butter gets absorbed, add water. Cover and let the root vegetables cook over medium heat for a few minutes; add celery, stir, cover and let cook again. While that's perking away, cube the tofu and let it drain. Get a casserole dish out and preheat the oven for whatever the puff pastry package specifies (probably 400 F). Spoon the vegetables into the baking dish, and then cook the tofu in the butter-spice-water that's left in the pot. Cover and let cook for a few minutes, stirring enough so that the tofu is spiced on all sides. Put it all into the baking dish and stir to mix the vegetables and tofu as evenly as you can. Top with puff pastry sheet; trim away extra pastry and cut a hole in the center to let the filling vent. Put the whole baking dish into the oven and cook until the pastry is browned, about an hour. I roll the extra pastry out and cut into strips and cook that at the same time, usually with some herbs or something. Surprisingly, Yum!

I doubled all the above except the butter to make enough for a chicken version, too.

Have a great day!

*The preceding is about the Celtics, y'all; they won the NBA championship last night. Back in the 80's when they were doing a lot of that, Celtics basketball was arguably the Weasel's religion.