Now then, where was I?

I hereby confess that I have already begun the Winter Wimp-out regarding biking to work. (Usually I wait until the end of daylight savings.)

This weekend is totally unscheduled for a change. So I expect that I'll plan to do all sorts of useful things like housecleaning, taking unwanted books to Moe's for trade-in, and compleing the excavation of the diningroom table. But what I'll actually do is start on the loom refurbishment, move the computer desk upstairs to make room for the loom -- thereby starting a reshuffling cascade that will take months to resolve. At that point I'll get distracted with troubleshooting the kernal panic. (I actually have high hopes of resolving it easily, given the likelihood that it involves RAM problems -- because I still have the unused spare RAM chip from back when the machine was new and had kernal panic issues.)

After getting the desktop back in working order, I will then get distracted by doing some document scanning, because the objects being displaced by the desk move are mostly filing cabinets, and I'm supposed to be reducing the number of filing cabinets by scanning all my article offprints. Thus project will then be abandoned to start a nes sewing project (something to wear for the upcoming 1910s tea party).

The weekend will finish with 5 new half-completed projects and no significant housecleaning or any of the other planned accomplishments.

Further messing around with Sent Sovi

One of the reasons I've been meaning to start playing with this source (in addition to scouting out recipes for next weekend's 14th c. cooks play-date) is that it has a startlingly high proportion of vegetable-centered dishes (for a medieval cookbook). Today I tried out the stuffed eggplant recipe and accompanied it with the stuffed octopus/squid dish, for reasons that shall become apparent.

Aubergines

If you want to make aubergines, boil them with salt and water. First, however, one cuts them into three or four parts lengthwise. When it has boiled a lot, take them out; choose those that you find are not as well boiled and press them firmly between two wooden plates. And then take those that are more cooked, and onion, parsley, mint, and marjoram, and chop it all together on a plate. Put eggs and grated cheese on a plate; then take raisins and cooked garlic. Grind it all together and mix in good spices. Then stuff each one [of the aubergine slices] with this [mixture]. Take an onion, and put it on the bottom of a casserole dish. The head of the aubergine goes at the bottom and the tail at the top. Take almond milk made with good broth, a litte oil, and a little grease, and pour it over top. And it goes in the oven.

To Stuff Octopus

If you want to stuff octopus or squid, take the octopus and wash it well, boil it, cut off the arms, and take out what is inside. Chop [the arms] all together with parsley, mint, marjoram and other good herbs. You can chop another kind of fish if the tentacles are not enough. Put in the best spices that you can find. Make sure that the octopus is cleaned well. Put in the stuffing, and put in raisins and scalded garlic and fried onion. Then make almond milk with the broth that has boiled the fish, and put it in a bowl or a casserole together with the octopus, in the milk you can put a little verjuice and good spices, the best you might have, and oil. You can cook it in the oven or on an iron trivet with live coals beneath.

The parallels between the two dishes struck me as working well for a dual experiment: both involve a pre-cooked object stuffed with a mixture that is based on onions, garlic, parsley, mint, marjoram (and other good herbs), and raisins -- plus other non-shared ingredients -- baked in a casserole with broth-based almond milk, oil, and (based on the footnotes) verjuice.

( Cut because there are photos. )

Summary

The squid was a definite winner -- hampered by having a smaller potential audience. The eggplant was tasty but ... needs work.