for red head dread:

Spinach Pies (Fatayer Sbinakh)

Before you go to bed, take two pounds of chopped spinach out of the freezer to defrost. Get some sleep.

Make the dough:
Dissolve one packet of yeast in a quarter cup of water. Ad a pinch of sugar to feed the yeast. Pour three good cups of white (whatever you do, don't use whole wheat) flour in a big bowl. Add the dissolved yeast. Stir. Add 1/2 cup olive oil and stir till well mixed. Add a cup of warm water. Stir/knead. Add more flour if you need to. The dough should be really pleasant: smooth, elastic, and not sticky. Knead it for about 15 minutes. Set it aside to rest and rise for an hour in a warm place.

While you wait, make the filling:
Put the spinach in a colander, cover with salt, and press out the excess liquid. Then get a clean cotton dishtowel, not the terrycloth kind, and put about half the spinach in the middle. Squeeze out all the liquid you can by wringing and pressing. When you think you've gotten all the liquid out, find another way to get some more out. Repeat with the rest of the spinach. Put in a bowl and pick out the unappetizing stems. Mix in a really big finely chopped onion, 1/2 cup of olive oil, and juice from four lemons (more if you like 'em really sour like we do.) throw in a tablespoon of sumac if you want for extra sour punch, though it's not necessary, and if you have a pomegranate laying around you can toss in some juice but that's not necessary either. Add a teaspoon of salt, then taste it. Add more salt if you need to. It should be salty.

Pinch off a 2-3 inch ball of dough. (The long way requires an extra rising. Here you would make balls of dough and let them rise again. Do it if you have time, it makes a difference.) Punch it down, and roll it out to about 1/8 inch thick. Put a table spoon more or less of spinach in the middle, and fold it up like a triangle. Close the edges smoothly so they don't get burnt crusts. Bake at 400-550 on oiled sheets, middle rack, for about ten minutes or so, maybe longer, until the bottoms get brown. If the tops aren't brown by then, turn the broiler on them for a bit.

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These findings from cornell (there's a link to the full report o the news site) are interesting.

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joke of the day: (hope vig gets a kick out of this one)
on the first day of class, after she went over the syllabus, the sarcastic professor says, "now if there are any idiots in the room, please stand up." after a long period of uncofortable silence, one student finally stands up. the teacher asks, "and why do you consider yourself an idiot?" the student replies, " actually, i don't, but i hate to see you standing up there all by yourself."