Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Pancakes and chicken

Nothing terribly exciting going on.

Still construction going on across the way.  I'm getting pictures and I got a short video yesterday.  I will miss some of the action though when hubby leaves for his trip and I stay with the in-laws.  I expect by the time we come back to our apartment they will be done tearing it down.

Hubby thinks they will build a new building, which means, of course, a lot of noise.  And it seems, from what I have observed in many spots, that they do a lot of the building at night.  Maybe not on all buildings, but on a lot of them that I saw.

Right now they are using some kind of jackhammer or something but we can't tell what for, as they're using it on the ground and it's just behind the building right in front of us.  Perhaps breaking down the concrete or whatever that they've been sledgehammering off the building.  It's making huge dust piles.  I imagine when we get back to the apartment after being gone that there will be quite a layer.

:::

Hubby told me last night he was going to go into work a little later today, so I was thinking perhaps I would make pancakes in the morning.  When we woke I asked him if he wanted pancakes with maple syrup and I was surprised he said yes.  He doesn't generally eat breakfast. 

So, I looked up a recipe and got to work.  Didn't take too long and they were SO good.  A taste of home I suppose.  And there's nothing like real maple syrup.  :D
I brought a bottle of syrup with me when I moved here as I don't think it's generally sold here.  If it is in one of the larger markets I imagine it would be fairly expensive. 

The other day we found worcestershire sauce, which I had told hubby about (and which we had fun pronouncing), and so we picked some up and it wasn't too overpriced, but looking at the soy sauce I decided that I would check in a larger store and see if it was any cheaper because the cost was exorbitant.  I don't need it that badly.

:::

After the pancakes were done, I got to work on the chicken that we had thawed out from yesterday.  This chicken was frozen.  It came here from Brazil!  World traveler chicken.  Been more places than I have!  lol
Anyways, it was a whole chicken, and we were going to grill it, so I had to get it into two halves.

I wasn't sure that the knife we have could handle it, but I set to work.  And was almost immediately totally grossed out.  lol

I've never cut up a chicken before, and cutting through bone is honestly just kind of disgusting.  The bone marrow or whatever is all... you know... marrowish.  lol

Well, I got the darn thing cut in half but pretty much decided I wasn't eating any of it after what I did with it.  So, hubby had one half today with dinner and he'll have the other half tomorrow.

I'm not opposed to eating chicken, and if hubby had cut it up I probably would have been fine with eating it, but seeing the bones cut and stuff was just too much!

:::

I think I'm getting better at working the gas stove/oven.  I think the only thing that is a little difficult is that even the low setting on the stove just isn't that low.  Not like on an electric stove.  So I have to be more careful with everything.  But, I haven't had anything burning in the oven like I did the first couple times and I'm learning my oven's particular quirks etc. 

I do have a concern about when the gas tank runs out.  Because it's not like you just go down the street and get it filled. 

Guys drive around or rather bike around and they bang on the cans while riding through the neighborhoods so you know that they are there and basically you go out on your balcony and shout down at them that you want a tank, at which point they stop and bring one up to you. 

They take your old tank which is empty, and give you someone else's tank that was empty and refilled.  So you never have a nice new clean tank.  They are always dirty and grungy and I really hate it but there's no other way around it unless we live somewhere that has a direct gas line into the house, and I don't think that's too common.

So, all in all, not the easiest thing to get the tank replaced.  Gotta wait til someone comes by with tanks.
And if you're in the middle of baking a cake, or cooking dinner, or whatever.... well... that sucks.  lol

:::

I do still have pictures but too lazy to upload right now.  If I don't get to it in the next couple days, I'll have plenty of time while I'm doing nothing at the in-laws.  *sigh*  lol

5 comments:

Londi said...

You are the only person I know of that likes real maple syrup! Most of us like plain old Log Cabin, or Mrs. Butterworth lots better. Seems funny, cause I like real butter, real cream, stuff like that, but not real maple syrup. I;m kind of glad I don't like it because it's rather pricey, even at Costco and Sam's club. Gosh, what a hassle just to get gas to cook with. I thought it was just there, like our natural gas over here. Boy, kiddo, you have sure had some adjusting to do living there!! I would never make it, I'm afraid. Maybe when you come here for a visit, if Ahmed comes with, he will like it so much he will want to move here!!! ; )

Londi

Hoot Owl Hollow Nursery said...

You need two tanks for your gas. We always had two so that when one ran out I could just hook up the new one and had plenty of time to get the other one refilled.
I'm not sure I understand the problem with the gas stove. On every gas stove I have used (admittedly they were not in Egypt) the level of the flame was infinitely adjustable so that you should be able to have a very low heat.
Jane

Shari said...

Is there some kind of gauge on your gas tanks so you can tell when it's about to run out?

Melissa said...

Hi Londi! :D
Well, I'm sure we ate Log Cabin when I was growing up, though I do remember having the real stuff on occasion. I like either but there's just nothing like the real stuff!

As to living in the States, it's possible, and I'm sure there's stuff Ahmed would love about it, but I think we'd have to live in a fairly large city. Small and quiet wouldn't do. We'll see.


Hi Jane :D
We do plan to get another gas tank at some point, it's just not that high up on the priority list yet as they're kinda expensive and we have other stuff to buy first. I'm thinking maybe we can get a fairly inexpensive single burner to plug into a wall outlet, so if worse came to worse and I was cooking it could be managed for a day. Not so much with the oven but hopefully it won't be an issue until we can get another tank.

As to the stove - well, it does go very low but for some reason it seems like it just isn't quite as low as electric. Of course, it's been 10 months since I've used an electric stove lol.


Hi mom :D
I don't think there's a gauge on the tanks, though that would be handy. I'll take a picture of the tank and you can see how grody they are. lol

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