A little bowl of heaven

As a result of the recipe organizing project, I became reacquainted with the fish stew creation posted on Chicagoist.

I also decided to make a loaf of the No Knead Mark Bittman bread.

Feel free to drool…

So, this was my second time making the stew. I ended up using about a pound of Tilapia and a half pound of shrimp. On the advice of a friend, I opted to use some cilantro in lieu of the celery and a little bit of lime. I think I may have overdone it with the lime, but it was really quite wonderful.

The bread is apparently impossible to mess up because I thought the water I added was too warm and I was afraid I’d killed the yeast. No problems.  My kind of recipe.

A Herculean task

Like a lot of people I have a couple of shelves full of cookbooks. I also had (note the past tense please) a huge stack of recipes that I had printed out from the net, torn out of magazines, and stacks of index cards. A couple of years ago I attempted to organize them. This past weekend I was determined to tackle the mess.

I bought a bunch of plastic sheet protectors. Some of these were full sheets. Others were meant for photographs and I was able to use those for the index cards. I brainstormed a list of potential categories and just did a huge sort.

Stuff I had duplicates of – gone
Recipes that I know I will never make – gone
Recipes that are in those cookbooks – gone

I then got some 3 ring binders and some dividers.

It took me most of a Saturday but I now have 5 binders that have been organized. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself.