What-What?! Week of December 29th

Our Christmas was pretty nice.  Unfortunately, the baby was sick and fussy for that part of the week, so that the husband and I got little sleep.  Other than that, we had a pretty good holiday; the big kids enjoyed seeing my extended family, as well as opening presents and leaving out cookies and milk for Santa (a first for this year).

Cooking:  Colcannon via Simply Recipes

This year, my husband made a simple, classic Christmas dinner of roast turkey, Colcannon, and cranberry sauce.  The unusual element in this meal was the Colcannon, an Irish variation of mashed potatoes involving kale, cabbage or other vegetables.  I like this side in particular because it's a non-offensive way to get dark green veggies into the children (and the adults, for that matter).

Cooking:  Butterscotch Pie via Food.com

A Southern pantry pie (that is, made from things you have in your pantry), butterscotch pie is a simple brown sugar pudding pie.  This recipe makes a thick, mildly sweet filling, perfect with a dollop of whipping cream atop it.  I was really surprised and pleased at the level of sweetness; rather than being almost sickly sweet like many other Southern pies, it was sweet enough to be dessert, but not so sweet as to leave your teeth aching.  This pie was easy to put together, though the 30-45 minutes spent stirring it is pretty mind numbing.  I passed the time by bugging my husband every two minutes or so ("Whatcha doin'?  Whatcha doin' now?").  I do think that I overcooked this recipe a bit --- I stirred it for about 35 minutes, and next time I'm only going to try 30 minutes.  It's difficult to tell what the final consistency will be when it's hot, so keep that in mind while you're cooking it.

News:  Do We Want an Erasable Internet? via WSJ.com

And now, something not about food. ;)
I understand what's attractive about an ephemeral internet -- that picture you took (post you wrote, flame wars participated in, etc.) while a foolish teenager won't come back to haunt you when you're an adult trying to get a job.  But would it really give you more privacy?  Rarely is anything ever truly deleted.  It's not like a paper journal, which you can throw away, set alight, or drop in a puddle, and have it be well and truly gone.  On the internet, and frequently on your computer, this is not so.  I think an ephemeral, erasable internet would give the impression of privacy, without actually being more private.  I'm not sure that's what we really need.

(imgs via simplyrecipes.com, food.com)