Month: October 2013

Gluten-free and Corn-free Fried Green Tomatoes

by CWR

tomatoes!

Ingredients

Several green tomatoes, cut into 1/4-inch rings
Celtic sea salt
Ground pepper (I used green peppercorns)
2 cups gluten-free and corn-free flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Flour)
1 Tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
2 eggs
2 tablespoons coconut milk
Oil for frying

DSC_0001

After cutting up all of the tomatoes, lightly salt and pepper them on both sides. Mix the flour, garlic powder, cayenne pepper and paprika in a bowl. Add another pinch of salt and pepper to the flour. In a different bowl, whisk the eggs with the milk.

First, dredge the tomatoes in the flour (covering both sides), then the egg mixture, and lastly back in the flour. Set finished tomatoes on a cookie sheet until done with this process.

Heat up some oil. (I used safflower oil in a frying pan about an inch thick.) I fried around 9 slices at a time. If you are using a proper fryer, do a few at a time. Flip tomatoes over after a minute or so. Then, place the done fried tomatoes on a paper towel-covered plate to soak up the extra oil. Finish the rest of the batch doing the same. When done, put the tomatoes back on the cookie sheet and bake them at 350 degrees F for about 5 minutes. (This let me get the rest of my dinner on plates!)

Yum!

Serve and enjoy!

Love, Cori!

“Does not take constructive criticism well.”

by CWR

grumpy

The Rogue Princess Squadron has been taking on Geek Social Fallacies. (They have currently written their thoughts about 2 of the 5.)

My thoughts –

I don’t really have any experience one way or the other, and tend to agree overall with what Princess Ang said. (What the other princesses added gave me lots to think about!)

I can say with total personal authority that I do not take constructive criticism well.  In fact, in school I got excellent grades for the most part, but always had negative marks for constructive criticism.

My reactions today are much better than they were as a child. But, they are still not that great.  *wink*

Because of this, I have spent a large portion of time thinking about WHY. Here’s what I’ve come up with!

My parents always told me to try my best. When I try my best, and it is not good enough (or maybe simply not what the person had in mind), I feel like I failed. It has taken me a long time to figure out that sometimes a person’s reactions (mine included) sometimes have nothing at all to do with what actually happened.There are always going to be a myriad of reasons, some that you may never even know!

Sometimes it is sort of like auditioning to be a tall skinny girl character when you are a beef muscley dood.  You are not going to get the part because it’s not meant for you.

In this way, life is not fair. But, when you don’t “win,” other opportunities open up that you never anticipated in the first place. But you have to be open to them.

When I am criticized, I shut down. Therefore, I am not open to what might come next. It can be a real big problem for me, and it is something I work on every day.

 

 

True Grit – I haz it or no?

by CWR

I have a problem. My attention span is only so long.

Example – I play in a D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) group occasionally. After about five hours, I am done. Five hours is a long time, but depending on when we start playing, many players want to go longer! And I just can’t do it. I start to fidget, look at my phone, wiggle in my chair. I consider these things rude to do, but trying to control my behavior seems to make it worse, so I go with my flow.

I read this article on The Lefsetz Letter on Grit and took this quiz which Angela Lee Duckworth, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania has authored. Her research has concluded that it is Grit that makes people successful. They stick to their passion until the job is done.

bridgesJeff Bridges in “True Grit”

I immediately (after waffling for a few minutes) took the quiz, and arrived at a score of 3 (from 1 to 5), which does indeed sound like me – somewhere in the middle. And then I spent the rest of the day thinking about it.

I am what Barbara Sher has coined a Scanner. (Click here to hear her talk about this concept.) I am interested in many things. When I went to college, I was a voice and violin double major because I simply could not choose between one or the other. I have so many projects started – knitting, crochet, embroidery, jewelry, scrapbooking, photography, etc.!

So, I can’t say that I stick with a project until it is finished – but, then I realized that I AM sticking with the overall topic of crafting!

Other examples – I just spent 21 weeks completing a reputation grind in World of Warcraft. Ok, it’s a game – but still… You have to commit to doing it!

So anyway – my conclusion is that being a 3 in Grit is pretty fine with me – And there are things that I CAN do to stick with projects that really hold my interest, and let other projects fill the holes of my soul that need a little magic.

Love, Cori!