$150 for transportation?… Are you alright???

Some news in the family. Hubby got a transfer and is starting in a new store next week. Thing is, it’s in Woburn, so getting there by public transportation from Wakefield is out of the question. What are our alternatives? The car. Alright, let’s do this.

His schedule is noon to 8 pm. Hhmm… Things are not starting off well. How do I get to my work in Cambridge? Let’s see, the commuter rail station is right down the street. I could use that while hubby takes the car. Hey, that wasn’t hard, was it?

Now let me see, mbta.com… Fares and Passes… Commuter Rail… Zone 1, Zone 2, 3… Wait. What zone am I? Let’s check that Commuter Zone Map. There I am. Zone 2! Back to my passes page. I scroll and scroll a bit more and… WAIT! WHAT? Am I reading this thing right? $151? Nah, that can’t be right.

Well, apparently it is.

One hundred and fifty one dollars for one month of transportation. I have to keep saying it to believe it. I’ll get back to you when I get over it…

VoIP telephone? Try Lingo

I have been using Lingo for over 3 years now. And guess what? I’m very happy with it.

I make a lot of phone calls to France and for $21.95 (almost $25 after taxes), I get to call my family and friends as much as I want for as long as I want.

The voice quality is very good. It is a little crackly at times, but not very often. I don’t have any problems with dropped calls.

One of the only issue I encountered was when I used to work from home. I would be on the phone and on the internet at the same time, and I would notice a dramatic slowing down of my internet connection. I spent some time on the phone with tech support and got that fixed going in the adapter box’s properties. That required a little bit of “I-kinda-sorta-know-what-I’m-doing-here”. So I wouldn’t recommend it if you all you know how to do is turn your computer on to open Outlook.

Lingo has a referral program. If I refer you, I get $25. They have a nice 3-month free offer.
(NB: 1st, 12th, & 18th months are free, other months only $21.95/mo).

Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll gladly refer you.

Recipe: Quenelles a la Semoule / Semolina Quenelles

Quenelles? What are quenelles? You ask.

Quenelles are delicious little fluffy poached balls (actually more like roll-shaped) of a flour or semolina based dough. Makes sense yet?

Anyway, back home in France, we buy flour quenelles at the grocery store. Here. I cannot find them at my local Shaw’s. So I asked my mother how to make them, and she gave me a recipe my great uncle Henry had written in one of his decades old recipe notebook.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 oz. butter
• 1/3 cup semolina
• 1/8 cup of shredded swiss cheese
• 1 egg
• salt, pepper

Directions:

Boil the milk and put the butter then the semolina. Cook for 10 minute, stirring constantly. Take off of the heat and add the swiss cheese, salt, pepper and the egg. Let it cool.

Boil salted water in a saucepan.

Form the quenelles by rolling the dough in your hand. Giving it a rolled shape. Drop them in the boiling water. The quenelles are ready when they pop at the surface.

Put in a loaf dish or a rectangular oven dish. Spread bechamel sauce. If you do not know what is or how to make bechamel sauce, let me know. I will post directions anyway later on. But if I get requests, I might do it a little faster.

Spread some more cheese on the top and pop the dish in the oven at 375 degres for about 20 minutes.

This is a recipe for plain quenelles. You may want to experiment a little once you’ve mastered those. You can add little cut up mushroom, some meat or fish. And have as much fun with the sauce.

For a photo , please check SUIKSUIK Cuisine’s Quenelles “express” à la semoule’s post. Suiksuik used made a salad with ricotta cheese. Nice variation.

And be sure to let me know how it turned out.