We don't have food. So I went with the slow cooker approach this morning: you put shit in, and food comes out.
I tossed in a can of garbanzos, a can of kidney beans, and a can of canned tomatoes. I added a bunch of garlic powder and a bunch of chili powder. We didn't even have onions.
I think I'm gonna make potatoes to go with it, as we have about 8 lbs of potatoes left from the holidays.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Christmas Gifting
Christmas was pleasant this year, with my mother purchasing several items off my Amazon wishlist, including a Le Creuset Stoneware Casserole Dish which is a good size for 2-person mac&cheese, or for making a half batch of cresent roll wrapped brie - we'll see how the stoneware compares to pyrex, and maybe eventually look into the cast iron stuff. I also got one of each size of these and once I find my pyrex lids, I'll be in perfect make&take shape! I cannot wait for somebody to have a potluck.
I really didn't expect my mother to get me any of the pots and pans that are on my list, because I was sure my Dad would find something wrong with them or something, but Mr. Barefoot opened up this pot, and we both got super excited. It's wider than the Always Pot (3 qt) that we use, and a little shallower, and hopefully will allow us to cook two things at once. Or maybe do fewer dishes. It's anodized alumnium, which is so much better than the nonstick, and maybe once we use it, we'll find out why it was so cheap.
I would say, hands down, the most unexpected thing we received was a coffemaker from Mr. Barefoot's parents. Unexpected because we don't drink coffee, like coffee, serve coffee to others, etc. However, they do like coffee, and as part of hospitality, I suppose it would not be out of line to serve them coffee after they have driven down for 3 hours to see us. Then I came accross this article about other uses for coffee. I suppose now at least I can try the bread recipes I've always wanted to try that involve using coffee. Plus, Espresso Brownies sounds like exactly the kind of thing I could take over to Mama Awesome's for a girly movie session. And now I can serve coffee to my running buddies in the morning before races.
I really didn't expect my mother to get me any of the pots and pans that are on my list, because I was sure my Dad would find something wrong with them or something, but Mr. Barefoot opened up this pot, and we both got super excited. It's wider than the Always Pot (3 qt) that we use, and a little shallower, and hopefully will allow us to cook two things at once. Or maybe do fewer dishes. It's anodized alumnium, which is so much better than the nonstick, and maybe once we use it, we'll find out why it was so cheap.
I would say, hands down, the most unexpected thing we received was a coffemaker from Mr. Barefoot's parents. Unexpected because we don't drink coffee, like coffee, serve coffee to others, etc. However, they do like coffee, and as part of hospitality, I suppose it would not be out of line to serve them coffee after they have driven down for 3 hours to see us. Then I came accross this article about other uses for coffee. I suppose now at least I can try the bread recipes I've always wanted to try that involve using coffee. Plus, Espresso Brownies sounds like exactly the kind of thing I could take over to Mama Awesome's for a girly movie session. And now I can serve coffee to my running buddies in the morning before races.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
give life
This holiday season, if you want to make a charitable donation, save some money but give somebody another chance at life. Give somebody more time with a person they love. Save a life. The holidays are tough times for most people, especially if somebody they love is sick. The holidays are also a good time to sit around and remember those moments with lost loved ones.
In the years preceding their deaths, both of my grandfathers became sick at different times and required blood transfusions.
My father's father, who suffered from a chronic bleeding condition, required several transfusions because of it. Specifically, I remember he became fairly sick about two years before he died and required at least 4 blood transfusions (over a two day period). He made a full recovery and lived another two years at full strength. (Requiring at least one more transfusion during that time, I think specifically of platelets.) I cherish every extra moment I got with him because of those transfusions. I cherish every extra lunch, every extra phone call asking me how to use the computer, phone, tivo, every family holiday. Eventually, after living a full life to the age of 87, he passed away one morning during his nap. His 10am nap. That he was taking before he was going to go give a lecture. After he sorted his slides.
My mother's father had heart issues and metastatic prostate cancer. Around the same time my father's father got sick, my mother's father had a heart valve replacement. I am sure that the procedure required a transfusion or two, and the pig's heart valve they put in him gave me an extra two years with him, although he was never quite the same, because his mental accuity and other issues were just troublesome. He got really sick about six months before he died, and he was in between the hospital and the nursing home. About every two weeks, he would go back to the hospital for another blood transfusion. The transfusions always made him feel better, and they gave us just a little more time. I am so grateful to everybody who gave blood to give my grandfather even a few more weeks, and while to some, keeping the elderly sustained is a waste of time and resources, it gave us time to spend time with him, and it gave us time to get his affairs in order. At the end of somebody's life, time is everything.
So that is why I give blood. I give to give back, I give to give others the same chances I had, I give to give children, grandchildren, spouses another chance with somebody they love. I don't care whether the recipient is a good person, a bad person, liberal, conservative, whatever. I firmly believe that everybody deserves a second chance. I started giving blood long before I even realized what it meant, but now that I have firsthand experience with how important it is, I believe in giving even more strongly.
So this winter, give somebody else the gift of life. It is painless, and if you are afraid of the needles, just look away. It takes maybe two hours. And the juice and cookies are excellent.
In the years preceding their deaths, both of my grandfathers became sick at different times and required blood transfusions.
My father's father, who suffered from a chronic bleeding condition, required several transfusions because of it. Specifically, I remember he became fairly sick about two years before he died and required at least 4 blood transfusions (over a two day period). He made a full recovery and lived another two years at full strength. (Requiring at least one more transfusion during that time, I think specifically of platelets.) I cherish every extra moment I got with him because of those transfusions. I cherish every extra lunch, every extra phone call asking me how to use the computer, phone, tivo, every family holiday. Eventually, after living a full life to the age of 87, he passed away one morning during his nap. His 10am nap. That he was taking before he was going to go give a lecture. After he sorted his slides.
My mother's father had heart issues and metastatic prostate cancer. Around the same time my father's father got sick, my mother's father had a heart valve replacement. I am sure that the procedure required a transfusion or two, and the pig's heart valve they put in him gave me an extra two years with him, although he was never quite the same, because his mental accuity and other issues were just troublesome. He got really sick about six months before he died, and he was in between the hospital and the nursing home. About every two weeks, he would go back to the hospital for another blood transfusion. The transfusions always made him feel better, and they gave us just a little more time. I am so grateful to everybody who gave blood to give my grandfather even a few more weeks, and while to some, keeping the elderly sustained is a waste of time and resources, it gave us time to spend time with him, and it gave us time to get his affairs in order. At the end of somebody's life, time is everything.
So that is why I give blood. I give to give back, I give to give others the same chances I had, I give to give children, grandchildren, spouses another chance with somebody they love. I don't care whether the recipient is a good person, a bad person, liberal, conservative, whatever. I firmly believe that everybody deserves a second chance. I started giving blood long before I even realized what it meant, but now that I have firsthand experience with how important it is, I believe in giving even more strongly.
So this winter, give somebody else the gift of life. It is painless, and if you are afraid of the needles, just look away. It takes maybe two hours. And the juice and cookies are excellent.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Christmas Cookies
So the cookie bake ended up being a little sad - most people couldn't make it out, what with traffic and holiday stress, which is totally understandable, so it was me, my hockey buddy, and her boyfriend. My sister and brother-in-law stopped by too, later, to enjoy eating the cookies.
I wound up using the dough from the Best Recipe Cookbook. I went with that recipe because normally when I have trouble with a recipe, I use the BRC and it fixes whatever problem I'm having. My french toast is always too soggy. BRC adds flour to the french toast mix, and tells you how long exactly to soak each side of the bread for, and then how long to cook it for. French toast comes out crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Same with waffles.
However, the sugar cookies were only mostly okay, but the cream cheese glaze was weird. My sister actually spit it out when she tried it. I'm going to have to get my cousin's girlfriend's recipe, because that was pretty good. Or I could continue to make drop cookies because my cutters are rusty and rolling dough out is a pain in the ass. Plus my drop cookies are good.
I also did spritz cookies, and I still can't figure out how to get the dough off the cookie press.
I wound up using the dough from the Best Recipe Cookbook. I went with that recipe because normally when I have trouble with a recipe, I use the BRC and it fixes whatever problem I'm having. My french toast is always too soggy. BRC adds flour to the french toast mix, and tells you how long exactly to soak each side of the bread for, and then how long to cook it for. French toast comes out crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Same with waffles.
However, the sugar cookies were only mostly okay, but the cream cheese glaze was weird. My sister actually spit it out when she tried it. I'm going to have to get my cousin's girlfriend's recipe, because that was pretty good. Or I could continue to make drop cookies because my cutters are rusty and rolling dough out is a pain in the ass. Plus my drop cookies are good.
I also did spritz cookies, and I still can't figure out how to get the dough off the cookie press.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Vegetarian Sandwiches
So last night, Mama Awesome and myself went to Solstice services. The food they served afterwards was totally fantastic, and the best part was the "caramelized onion and feta" sandwiches. It was just caramelized onion on flatbread that had been spread with feta (I did not know that you could spread feta, and it was creamier than feta, so my guess is that it was something more like laughing cow cheese.)
I have a hard time finding good vegetarian sandwiches, so I was so pleased to try something that would be easy to make and fairly portable which did not involve sprouts. I think one could easily make caramelized onions in the slow cooker and then refrigerate them for an indefinite period of time to have a constant supply for sandwich making.
I have a hard time finding good vegetarian sandwiches, so I was so pleased to try something that would be easy to make and fairly portable which did not involve sprouts. I think one could easily make caramelized onions in the slow cooker and then refrigerate them for an indefinite period of time to have a constant supply for sandwich making.
Cookie baking tools & reviews
So last night I made my all time favorite christmas cookie, the peppermint meringue. I love these cookies. So does my sister. And my mom. So I figured I would bring them to both my family's christmases, and whatever was leftover to Mark's family. I figured that instead of making two separate batches, I would make one batch.
DO NOT EVER DO THIS! (I will qualify this -if you have a stand mixer and two ovens, it might be okay.)
The recipe says it makes 16. I could easily say that I get 32 out of each recipe. I had to use every baking sheet I own, and that includes the baking sheet for the toaster oven. However, they did come out totally perfect and awesome...so maybe I shouldn't complain. (Although we'll see about my salmonella cookies that I cooked halfway last night and need to do the rest of this morning...)
I also put together dough for christmas cookie cutter cookies from my trusty cookbook. This is a great cookbook because they give you the reasons why their recipe is best, like that regular granulated sugar makes holes that are too big in the butter, and that you shouldn't use the creaming method for cookie cutter cookies because then there is too much flour at the end. The only problem with starting with the flour is you are basically using the pie crust method, and that is just really something you need one of these babies for. (I keep telling myself that my thrice annual need to make pie crust does not justify my taking up cabinet space with a food processor. Then I tell myself that the deep fryer takes up way more and would get used even less.
I also had to make superfine sugar, which was done in my trusty mini-chopper (I told you, its a great gift idea!) and wound up looking like an episode of Will it Blend when I opened the lid, with a cloud of sugar dust coming out. (P.S. I totally need a blendtec to make meringues, because chopping up peppermint with a hammer is no longer cutting it.)
DO NOT EVER DO THIS! (I will qualify this -if you have a stand mixer and two ovens, it might be okay.)
The recipe says it makes 16. I could easily say that I get 32 out of each recipe. I had to use every baking sheet I own, and that includes the baking sheet for the toaster oven. However, they did come out totally perfect and awesome...so maybe I shouldn't complain. (Although we'll see about my salmonella cookies that I cooked halfway last night and need to do the rest of this morning...)
I also put together dough for christmas cookie cutter cookies from my trusty cookbook. This is a great cookbook because they give you the reasons why their recipe is best, like that regular granulated sugar makes holes that are too big in the butter, and that you shouldn't use the creaming method for cookie cutter cookies because then there is too much flour at the end. The only problem with starting with the flour is you are basically using the pie crust method, and that is just really something you need one of these babies for. (I keep telling myself that my thrice annual need to make pie crust does not justify my taking up cabinet space with a food processor. Then I tell myself that the deep fryer takes up way more and would get used even less.
I also had to make superfine sugar, which was done in my trusty mini-chopper (I told you, its a great gift idea!) and wound up looking like an episode of Will it Blend when I opened the lid, with a cloud of sugar dust coming out. (P.S. I totally need a blendtec to make meringues, because chopping up peppermint with a hammer is no longer cutting it.)
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Cookie Bake
We're not gonna talk about the high hopes of the slow cooker challenge that were quickly dashed by one too many holiday parties, birthday dinners, and meals-on-the-go.
We are gonna talk about the Holiday Cookie Bake. I have purchased 4lbs of butter and 3 dozen eggs to make christmas cookies. I'm not sure that I have enough flour, sugar, or anything else to really make this work, but I am optimistic. I also got two new cookie cutters - a gingerbread man and a candy cane.
So now I need recipes. I need cookie recipes and icing recipes! Lay 'em on me, readers!
We are gonna talk about the Holiday Cookie Bake. I have purchased 4lbs of butter and 3 dozen eggs to make christmas cookies. I'm not sure that I have enough flour, sugar, or anything else to really make this work, but I am optimistic. I also got two new cookie cutters - a gingerbread man and a candy cane.
So now I need recipes. I need cookie recipes and icing recipes! Lay 'em on me, readers!
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