Is this what it feels like to have a child?

Today was my first day of classes, but that's beside the point. Sort of.

One of the perks (ha!) of being a vet student is that they give you free stuff, such as Advantage and Advantix II (that's pet pest control in case you didn't know). I decided that free was probably good, and picked some up for my dog.

I was a few days late this month with  Tess' flea and tick prevention as per usual. Had I been paying attention, I would have applied it on Saturday. Not really a big deal. I read the directions on the new stuff this morning and dumped it between her shoulder blades, then went off to my first day of lecture.

I came home at lunch to find Tess horking (all terrier owners know what I mean) and scratching herself madly. I wasn't really that concerned until she vomited or regurgitated up some white foamy liquid. I thought, "Huh, that's funny," in a less calm manner than that reads. Since the only change in her normal routine was the flea and tick junk, I went online to see if anyone elses dog had had any adverse reaction to Advantix.

THAT was a mistake.

There are many websites that blame Advantix for ataxia and other neurological symptoms in their dogs, even death. There are some that claim that Bayer is pooh-poohing reports of this from veterinarians and haven't thoroughly tested their product. A few mentioned that some of the ingredients in the product had been shown to have adverse affects when used in other similar products that had been taken off the shelves.

Had I been a bit more with it, I might have reasoned that itching/rolling has been reported with a multitude of topical flea and tick prevention. I also might have noted that my application might not have been the best, and Tess may have gotten the application site with her tongue, hence the spit-up. BUT I had spent the last twoish hours having everything I ever learned in biochem in undergrad crammed back into my head and was not really reasonable at that point (can you blame me?), so I panicked a bit and gave my dog a bath. Twice.

Incidentally, I bought this today:

And THIS is what I did with it:

OM NOM NOM.

My soup pot is getting a workout.

Since fall is here, I decided that I was going to take my aforementioned vegetable swag and make some tasty soups.

First up was my vegetable cassoulet. The making was pretty uneventful, so here are some pretty pictures for you guys to look at.

Tastes fantastic, but I will warn you that you will most likely have some pretty gnarly gas a few hours after consuming. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Add in some decent bread, a beer, and some Badger football, and you've got it made.

Tonight I was going to go to Zumba but decided to make butternut squash soup instead. It made sense at the time.

Things I've learned throughout the course of the night:

1. In a fight between a peeler and a butternut squash skin (rind?), the squash will piledrive the shit out of the peeler.
2. One should really not try to make soup that involves pureeing when one does not own a) a blender, b) an immersion blender, or c) a normal sized food processor. While it is possible to make soup in a two-cup mini-processor, I would not recommend it.
3. Mushing up cooked squash with your hands is supremely satisfying.

I found this recipe on Food and Wine. I really need to stop spending my free time on there because of two reasons. First, I spend way too much time pinning recipes (Pinterest is the new Facebook), and second, I get excited about these really involved recipes and spend way too much on ridiculous ingredients. I am a budding foodie on a budget. Le sigh.

Anywho, this piqued my interest because of the number of spices used and the fact that it involved goat cheese. Love goat cheese.

There was also an ingredient listed called "harissa" which is an African chile paste. Supposedly it's pretty easy to make yourself, but I lacked the motivation to find the correct types of chiles and then mush them up. I think you can also find it in the imported food aisle, but inertia had set in and I didn't want to go to the store. I used this instead; I may make a new label that says "Layman's Harissa."
 

So after cooking the squash with the onion and tomato paste and putting the first batch through the little food processor that could, I found huge chunks of squash still sitting in my puree. Which I could not get rid of no matter how long I held down the "fast" button. Smug bastards.

I got annoyed with trying to chase down and squish the chunks with the back of my spoon, so I got proactive and mushed up the cooked squash in the pot BEFORE I put it in the food processor. If you ever get the opportunity to be elbow deep in a squash pot squishing squash, do it. It's therapeutic. Also hot. Wait for the squash to cool sufficiently so that you don't burn the ever-lovin' bejeezus out of your fingers.

No pictures of that; the iPhone is not butternut squash-proof.

 Add the cream and goat cheese...

 And stir it in...

 Soup!

Was that part of the Elder Swear?

$21.50

That's how much I made playing at the farmer's market this morning.

For those of you who haven't read the last few posts, I decided to apply to be a performer at the Saturday farmer's market here in Urbana. This was my first weekend playing, and I can say with confidence that the experience was cold.

It is October, after all.

In all seriousness, it was really fun. I probably spent more time talking to people about the harp than I actually did playing (which would explain my poor-ish take). Not many people have seen a harp up close before, and most people think of a concert pedal when they think of harp, so I got a LOT of questions. I also ran into a biology grad student who is also a harp player, and exchanged phone numbers. The local retirement community may be getting some harp duets in the future.

After packing up and stowing my harp and paraphernalia in my car, I promptly spent my mass of one dollar bills on produce. And cheese.

MORE VEGETABLE SWAG.

The purple thingy is a Japanese eggplant; I bought one out of curiosity. Butternut squash soup and vegetable cassoulet... NOM. Love fall.

I also went apple picking a week or so ago. I stuffed the 1/2 peck bag they gave me as full as I could without splitting it, and scurried home with my goodies. The next day, I made pie.

I got out my sacred pastry text (a.k.a. the America's Test Kitchen Baking book) and looked up the apple pie recipe therein. Apparently, the trick to keeping your apples from shrinking away from the top of the pie is to pre-cook them.

The honorable grapefruit bird presides.

Why does my crust never look as good as the picture? And they make it look so EASY.

Viola! Pie!

I still have a ton of apples left, so I'm going to try making an apple braid. We'll see how this turns out; yeast and I have a Sharks-Jets kind of relationship, and I don't mean the Tony and Maria sort.