The Belly

Liberty Bella Gonloco

Libby Lu is at a severe disadvantage. The low riding Belly rests on the ground during those private moments: “When No One Is To Watch”. Make that cold (-25C), snow packed ground and you can picture the poor ickle dachie-kins. But we had this all planned out for the summer of 2011, honest. She would come into heat in near the end of June (summer, warm, holidays) and whelp dutifully during our next set of holidays; also summer…warm…holidays… The idea of a miniature dachshund with an eleven month heat cycle was all Ms Libby-Lu’s; I reluctantly conclude we are still hung up on the summer…warm…holidays— (ach, stop whining, girl!)

Poor Libby, how could we do this to her. **The Belly** won’t even permit playing with squeakies. **The Belly** won’t allow restful repose. **The Belly** only allows two teeny orts of food at a time. **The Belly** demands puddle runs every 20 minutes. We won’t get into the regular invasive procedure with the thermometer: “We Hates, nasty Humans!” (temperature after the initial drop for her milk to come in remains around 100F) Today I must get things gathered up for sudden trip south vet wise, when The Belly declares it “Time”.

I always knew it:

Computers behold me with contempt. All my hours of experience with DOS, those cranky years with Windows and my recent journey into the realm of Linux…. it all boils down to this ….

mayday mayday ubuntu goin' in

Computers never lie

Dummy

Dummy

Dummy

So there it is white on black; click to enlarge the image if you just can’t believe it. I must say playing with computers never has been dull. Brain exploding, frustratingly time wasteful, but never dull! Thus my Ubuntu 10.4 load didn’t survive our annual New Year “Let’s see if we can do this” marathon.  I have been set down, back in my place, firmly, beaten, but uncowed.  (Unbeknown to my arch enemy I have stealthily nudged a partition over and begun to install pure Debian with Xfce.  We shall see who wins the next round.)

Edited to add: The terrific guys at the Ubuntu forums let me know this, as usual, can be caused by many things.

  1. a missing of problematic ata drive
  2. a broken MBR
  3. a dropped or damaged HD
  1. funny how we missed the ata notification. I guess we never made it past the DUMMY!
  2. hmmm could be, since the boot hangs and DUMMY! you did things you shouldn’t have even contemplated!
  3. Oh no please not door number #3 I can’t handle the thought of door #3. hHey, DUMMY are your backups up to date?

Peach Parfait Pie Recipe

I truly admire those who can create a recipe, blog about it and post awesome photographs. It seems to take me six months, from finalizing this Peach Parfait Pie to finally getting my version of the recipe posted. When a commenter complains when original recipes aren’t magically appearing each day they visit (or week as on one post!), I think they should move into the kitchen and see how long they can keep up with the recipe posting from initial conception to final layout!

Peach Parfait Pie

Yield: 1 10-inch pie
Category: Pies: frozen
Cuisine: Summer

Source: Rediscovered by NorthernZuza with much help from:
The Day After An Inconvenient Truth has the ChocoCrisp Crust.
AND
Jamie Cooks It Up! for the peach topping inspirations.

Ingredients:

  • ChocoCrisp Crust:
    • butter
    • 1/2 cup syrup, chocolate
    • 1 square chocolate, bittersweet
    • 1 1/2 squares chocolate, unsweeted
    • 2 cups cereal, crispy rice
  • Peach Topping:
    • 2 398mL cans peaches, sliced; packed in water
    • 1/4 teaspoon ascorbic acid
    • 1/4 cup sugar, brown
    • 1/8-1/4 teaspoon almond extract
    • 1 tablespoon butter
    • 1/4 cup water, cold
    • 1 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 4 cups ice-cream, vanilla

Instructions:

CocoCrisp Crust:

1. Butter a 10 inch pie pan. Mix together in a pan over medium heat, stirring until smooth:

  • butter
  • 1/2 cup syrup, chocolate
  • 1 square chocolate, unsweetened
  • 1 1/2 squares chocolate, bittersweet

2. Add cereal to chocolate mixture, mixing gently until well coated.

  • 2 cups cereal, crispy rice

Let cool slightly. Then using the back of spoon, press mixture evenly on bottom and up sides of prepared pie plate to form crust. Place the pan in freezer 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is firm.

Peach Topping:

3. Place in a medium sized sauce pan on medium high:

  • 2 298mL cans peaches, sliced; water packed
  • 1/4 cup sugar, brown
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1/4 teaspoon ascorbic acid
  • 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Let it come to a boil, stirring occasionally until syrup boils down some (about half?).

4. Stir together cornstarch mixture. Add to peaches, cooking until clear and thick.

  • 1/4 cup water, cold
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

Set it aside to cool.

5. Spread over frozen ChocoCrisp Crust and return to freezer until peach mixture has cooled:

  • 4 cups ice-cream, vanilla (best quality possible)

6. Top ice-cream layer with cooled peach mixture. Return to freezer allowing at least 30 minutes for peaches to freeze before serving.

COOK’S NOTES: please, please, please,  let this match my memory….
SOURCE: NorthernZuza with help from Jamie Cooks It Up! for the peach topping and The Day After An Inconvenient Truth for the ChocoCrisp Crust.

Notes
Peach Parfait Pie… not present in my binders… lost from my card file… missing from the recipe program Steve wrote for me… not to be found on any hard drive stacked around me… I still can’t believe I lost a recipe and have an even harder time accepting I couldn’t find a recipe in the World Wide Web!

A couple of notes on ingredients:
You will notice I used canned peaches.  Even in the summer real (?) peaches are hard to come by in northern supermarkets. When you factor in living outside of town, I miss the arrival of the fruit trucks, too! Thus I used canned peaches to insure the topping actually tasted peachy.

Chocolate syrup: our wonderful healthfood store has a chocolate syrup to die for.  “healthy addictions Chocolate Sauce” with raw cacao. It really is evil of our store to stock it… healthy addictions indeed! Fantastic stuff.

You might want to check the sweetness for you and your family/guests.  When I prepare a recipe I automatically cut the sugar in half: with the ice-cream this recipe is almost too sweet for my Sweetie and me.