Ah.... 10 minutes to myself. I've taken my final and now can relax. So It's been a while since I did a recipe. How about an off the cuff coconut cream pie - the easy way. First you'll need a baked or "prepared" pie crust. I'll let you decide if it's a traditional pie crust or a graham cracker crust or a cookie crust (sugar cookie dough) Then you'll need some sort of custard or pudding. Vanilla is good. You will also need some shreadded coconut- not flake but shreadded. Last ingredient is stabilized whipped cream. That's whipped cream with a little sweetener and some gelatin - not Jello but cullinary gelatin comes in sheets or powdered form. Ok first you need to take about one cup coconut and spread it out on a cookie sheet and toast it in the oven until nice and golden but not really brown. From that take about half a cup and mix it with a quarter cup untoased coconut. Mix this with the vanilla pie filling. Place the mixture in the prepared pie crust. Top as you want with the whipped cream.... lattice looks nice rosettes are fine or just smear it on top. Take some of the remaining toasted coconut and sprinkle on top.

OK back to class... I don't understand. If I've taken the final why are they still teaching at me???

Ok I'm a little behind on my blogging, but I have a good excuse. I've been working on the house and training at work for a new project. If you count sleep and eating time I have a total of three hours a night to read mail and email, pay bills, do laundry and all that life stuff. Ok I'm behind on my laundry too. The house is finished though. We passed final inspection and are awaiting electricity and propane and air-conditioning. Especially air-conditioning. It arrives next month. Then we can move in.

I've been thinking about my survival villiage. I'm thinking of people with skills to rebuild after the big event whatever it is. Of course now there's a television show starting this fall that seems to be doing something similar. We'll see whose better equipted to survive. On a similar note they've started replaying episodes of Dark Angel. I don't think we need genetically enhanced super people in my villiage.

Oh well back to class to learn stuff. I don't think any of these skills in the new world.... unless I need to hook up a surround sound system.

Excelsior!!!! Beware! The end of the world is Nye!

You laugh now, but just you wait. You'll be knocking on my door for that steak with potatoes and a cold beer. They say the world is going to hell in a hand basket and I'm packing my own lunch! If some wannabe super power drops a dirty bomb or some techno geek hits civilization with an electro-magnetic pulse I will be prepared. I won't care if the economy crashes - I will have food on my table. I've got the plot of land. I am getting ready to start planting my garden of Eden. Fruit and nut trees, berry vines vegetables and herbs and spices to keep it tasty. And don't forget the hops, barley, and wheat for beer and bread. What? You think I'm kidding? My crop of (volunteer) hops is already to pick this year. I'm going to use them in my first batch of homebrew for the new house. If things start going south I can see getting some chickens and maybe a couple of goats and some sheep. A matching pair of cows would be good. We have an endless supply of rabbit and squirrel. Don't turn up your nose yet. Several years ago I got a recipe from a good old boy from Pennsylvania who swore by his shake and bake squirrel recipe. I can do it up with some international flair with a rabbit and squirrel tagine over couscous

Now I'm not just the chief cook and bottle washer for noting but that's not my only skill. I'm a talented, complicated woman. I'm a pretty good shot. I can hunt my dinner. I can brew beer. I can make yarn from cotton, wool fleece or silk cocoon. I can make cloth and sew clothes. I can knit warm things and socks. I can make soap. I'm going to learn how to make glass objects from other glass objects. I own a steam distiller so I can in theory make ethanol and alcohol as well as essential oils and hydorsols. I'm an armchair student of herbal medicine. If I put my mind to it I can do anything.

Now I can't run the world on my own. For one it's not my style. I need to populate my mountain village with other useful talented people. My first pick is of course my lovely and talented husband. He can cook, clean, and sew,and garden. He's also a blacksmith and can build a few things with his hands. He's pretty good stacker of rocks. Being an archaeologist he is in tune with the local native culture and understands ancient technologies which could come in handy if we need to know the best way to fire our handmade clay cooking vessels or how to leach out the bitter flavor out of your acorn mush. He's a better shot than I and can keep the household mechanics going. He has lots of other skills I will elaborate on later.

Well for now I have to get ready to go to sleep. We have the last two big inspections this week before the house is done and I want it to be perfect. So early to bed early to rise you can clean up stairs before it fries. Maybe I'll climb in the hottub or sleep in the most comfortable chair in the world.