Dining, Recipes

Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce

Being trapped indoors for nearly a week after one of Texas’ fiercest ice storms of the last decade, I had a craving for something sweet and spicy. With the larder about half empty, I was minded to whip up my own batch of spicy Thai peanut sauce–and hoped it would turn out as good as Banana Leaf’s rendition.

1 14oz can of coconut cream
1-2 tablespoons of grapeseed oil
1-2 tablespoons of curry powder
several cloves of chopped garlic
1 cup of creamy peanut butter
1-2 teaspoons of sriracha hot sauce to taste

The key to cooking this peanut sauce is low and slow. Start by frying up the garlic in oil over low-medium heat until a light golden brown. Add the curry powder and cook for 1 minute. Then add peanut butter and coconut cream, making sure to constantly stir so mixture doesn’t burn. Once the mixture reaches a creamy consistency, drizzle in hot sauce according to taste.

Serve over steamed broccoli and grilled/stir fry chicken. Makes a great dipping sauce and salad dressing too!

Technical

Killing stopped jobs

Sometimes I’ve had to CTRL-Z my way out of a Linux (Centos) command line that won’t work, accumulating a list of stopped jobs. This makes exiting impossible because the server will report that there are stopped jobs.

Use the following command line to get a list of stopped jobs:

jobs

Then by applying the following, the job can be killed and terminated right away without resorting to a process id number. Just enter the corresponding jobs number after the percent sign:

kill -9 %1

Once all the stopped jobs are killed, you can exit gracefully.

Technical

Fail2ban usage pains

What a pain it’s been trying to figure out how to get Fail2ban working again. I discovered that I no longer was receiving Fail2ban notifications some time mid January, and it’s been annoying as hell trying to get it to restart. The magic command line that got me back on track was to restart the server instance by deleting the socket file:

fail2ban-server -x

This command kick-started the service into daemon mode. So now it was a matter of reloading the configuration:

fail2ban-client reload

Thus when running fail2ban-client status, the system responded with the number of jails and a jail list.

Retrieving the status of the jail, I could already see that Fail2ban had gone straight to work:

fail2ban-client status ssh-iptables

Therefore, when I checked iptables -L, the newest banned IP showed up at the top of the list for the fail2ban-SSH chain. And, I was getting my ban notification emails again.

Ye Olde Garden

Seed starting 2011 part 3

1/29/2011 Seedling Tray currently hosting basil, pepper and pansy seedlingsMy Swallowtail Garden seeds arrived this week. With so many choices of seeds to start, I was hard-pressed to find space under the grow lights. I procured the scrap piece of plywood sitting in the laundry room and used it as a base for the Burpee growing system, which I then rotated 180 degrees to free up some real estate.

The phlox have been bursting out of their seed cases this weekend, and I detected some whiskering roots from the Blue Knoll Chrysanthemums. Because I doubled up on the seeds, I decided to separate the mums into 2 rows of 6, for a total of 12 starts. The dianthus, as I expected, grew surprisingly fast since I sowed them last Tuesday. They appear to be the most vigorous growers in the 2nd half of the grow system.

Since I received the columbine seeds, I decided to test the coir pellets for growing perennials. I placed 8 pellets this morning in a spare takeout dinner tray and expanded them with water. With any luck, I will have 4 each of the Origami Blue and Origami Red columbines.

I also discovered today that the first Purple pastel salvia that I sowed had reared its head out of the 3″ pot I planted it in. I half-expected it to start later, but it’s been exactly 7 days since I first planted it. It’s parent plant is now occupying the sink next to the grow lights, and is slowly regaining its foliage. I now have high hopes for the white salvia greggii seeds I planted in 2 more pots. I spent the entire day Sunday collecting seeds from the white specimen against the neighboring wall. It flowered so vigorously up until January–I am looking forward to fostering more. One thing I noticed about the white salvia seeds I collected: some are nearly black while others are tan in color. I am unsure what the difference may be, but I am hoping I didn’t plant chaff.

For the last row in the grow system, I chose to plant 6 seeds of the delosperma I purchased from Swallowtail Gardens. I’m looking forward to growing my first succulent groundcover.

Activity in the other takeout trays is brisk: the alyssum are popping like crazy, the impatiens are finally making a showing. The only seeds which haven’t emerged are the garlic chives in 2 pots. I don’t remember them being so slow, but I’m hoping they will make up for it later.

Lastly, the ornamental peppers are beginning to show some evidence of color. All of the pepper varieties are displaying remarkable growth, while the basil seedlings appear to have slowed down somewhat. But the first set of seedlings are displaying 2nd and 3rd sets of leaves, so it’s been exciting to watch them prosper.

The weather was unseasonably warm this past weekend, reaching 70-75 degrees during the afternoons. However, we have an icy week forecasted as early as Tuesday morning, so we’ll be back down to frigid temperatures. I’m hoping this will be the last freeze of the year.