It Gets Pretty Dirty

What on earth do you do when you realize that you aren't living up to your husband's wildest dreams?

It gets pretty dirty in the winter. Well....the car does, but I guess that I don't. Kevin wrote this message to me and we decided it was funny enough to leave it on the window so that others could enjoy it.

When Amanda left Mom's house, her kids read the message on the window and asked her what THAT meant. She called to say that I was in trouble because she had to tell her kids that it meant "nothing."

Pomegranate, Grapefruit, and Avocado Salad

Mom makes a great fruit salad. She wouldn't let me take a picture of HER with her salad, but she did let me take a picture of the salad in her gorgeous bowl. It doesn't sound like it would taste very good, but the flavors play together and it is surprisingly yummy. It is a bit of work because getting the seeds out of pomegranates and cutting the grapefruit sections is a time consuming task. If everyone pitches in and helps it goes a lot quicker, but it isn't something I would personally conquer on my own.

Pomegranate, Grapefruit, and Avocado Salad
3 grapefruit
2 small avocados
1 pomegranate
Cut the skin off the grapefruit and then cut out the sections. All the tartness is in the skin, so be sure to get all the skin off. Cube up the avocado, trying not to mash it too much. Bribe someone else into peeling the pomegranate. It seems to take forever and Dad is way faster than I thought humanly possible at peeling pomegranates.

Enchilada Sauce with Aunt Linnie

Not only is Aunt Linnie beautiful, she also makes a mean enchilada sauce. Kristin had gotten her hands on a jar of it a couple of years ago and I got to try it, and ever since I have been craving another taste of her magic sauce.

Last week, Hali and I had to drop a few things off at her house, and while we were visiting, it suddenly dawned on me that if I asked her for the recipe she might give it to me. It was a startling revelation, and the question blurted out of my mouth before I could second guess the impropriety of asking about a secret family recipe.

Aunt Linnie offered to make it with us the first time. This was very generous of her because she is getting ready to leave for a trip to California. We were so excited by her offer that we jumped at the chance and she came over yesterday to make it.

It was a bit of unfortunate timing because about 1 1/2 hours before she arrived I got a migraine. Arrrgghh!! It has been a long, long time since I have had one, and I had been looking forward to this enchilada sauce. Instead of calling her and telling her not to come, like a normal person may have done, I decided to ignore it.

We had only made it through mixing up the ingredients when I was forced into hibernation, and I went to bed. When I woke up feeling better at 1:30 AM, I got up for a snack and the enchilada sauce was already in the jars. It was the easiest batch of enchilada sauce EVER!

Aunt Linnie says that El Pato tomato sauce is the only brand that works in this sauce. She knows pretty much everything, so I am going to take her at her word.

Enchilada Sauce

2 big spoonfuls of shortening

2 3/4 C flour

4 quarts tomato juice

4 quarts water

2 cans El Pato Tomato Sauce (7 3/4 ounce)

3 T salt

1 1/2 C + 1 t sugar

4 t cumin

3 t ground oregano

1 1/4 T vinegar

Melt shortening and add flour until it makes a smooth paste. Add the water and tomato juice. Add El Pato tomato sauce. Keep stirring to get out all lumps. Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add to sauce. Add vinegar. Bring to a boil and reduce slightly.

Add sauce to jars and let them steam in the pressure cooker for 45 minutes before putting on the lids.

Enchilada Soup

1 quart enchilada sauce

2 cans corn with liquid

2 cans kidney beans, rinsed

3 chicken breasts or 1 large can of Kirkland chicken from Costco

Poppyseed Cookies

These tiny sandwich cookies are my absolute favorite. They take forever but are so completely charming that one look (or bite) melts all the frustration you had while you were rolling out and cutting a billion little 1 1/2 in cookies.

I brought these to work on my birthday this year, and everyone still talks about them. They are sprinkled with sugar and salt. Nobody expected the salt, so they were thrown off and they didn't like the distinct taste. Of course, I reached out and tenderly told them that the cookies do require a sophisticated taste and some people just aren't refined enough to enjoy such an adult pleasure. Needless to say, "Megan's Cookies" carries mixed connotations.

If you are looking for flaky salt, Trader Joe's is a great source. Or, you can just use fine grained sea salt.


It is easier to sprinkle the sugar if you use a mini strainer.

When you are rolling them out, it is easiest to do it between two pieces of saran wrap. The dough stuck to the counter, and it also stuck to the silicone baking sheet. And I hollered in frustration. Keep it simple and just stick to the plastic wrap.


This time, I made half of the cookies with sugar and salt on top, and half with just sugar. The ones that have flaky salt on them are the ones I sandwiched with chocolate. Yum-O-Licious. Here the fabulous, golden brown cookies. Oh, dear. I think I may have died and gone to heaven. I really didn't expect to get here.....now I don't know what to do with myself.

The ones with just sugar are just going to stay as they are. Mostly because when I was rolling out the cookies I looked at the clock and cried to see it was taking so long for so few cookies. Then I cried again when I was finished sandwiching the salty ones because then there were only half as many cookies. It was too much to bear, and this way they look more plentiful

This is my favorite one. Where is my heart? Oh yeah - Kevin has it.

Grapefruit Extravaganza

Every year Grandma Neves has sent us a box of 9 grapefruit and 12 oranges. They are wonderful, but it is a lot of fruit for 2 people to enjoy. This year she pre-ordered the fruit so that all her kids and grand kids had them this one last Christmas. At her funeral, Aunt Louise mentioned that she had made sure that she got them ordered, so this year, more than any other, I want to be sure to savor every piece of fruit.

The oranges are easy to eat but it can be hard to enjoy a grapefruit every day for almost 2 weeks straight. There aren't a plethora of recipes for grapefruit, but I am doing my best to scrounge up at least a couple. If you have been lurking around this blog and have a recipe that you use, be sure to post it in a comment!

The one I tried today is served warm with honey and cinnamon. It is amazingly easy - hardly any extra work from just eating it with a spoon. The honey mellows out the tartness and broiling it makes it extra juicy.

Broiled Grapefruit
1 grapefruit
1 t honey (or more)
sprinkle cinnamon

Cut the grapefruit in half. If you are feeling especially energetic, cut the sections so it will be easier to eat later. Drizzle the honey onto each half, and sprinkle each half with cinnamon. Broil for 4-5 minutes until top is bubbly. Watch out for grapefruit juice shooting into your eye!

Pumpkin Dip

This pumpkin dip was the hit of the company holiday potluck. At least that's what I tell myself. Three women and two guys asked me about it. They talked about how much they like pumpkin (of course) and how wonderful this dip is. I smiled and reveled in my glory, sprinkling my tidbits of pumpkin lovin' comments through the conversation.

Thie dip bowl absolutely must be labeled during a potluck. Otherwise some people will think it is bean dip and that would be a disaster. Just imagine a salty chip dipped in sweet pumpkin.

You know that handy little trick where you dip apple slices in lemon water and they don't turn brown? Yuck-O-Rama. Don't bother doing that. If you wanted to eat something that tasted like a lemon, you'd just go get a lemon. Apples should never be defiled by the vile taste of lemon. Brown apple slices are far superior to white lemon-apples. And if you're really concerned about it, just serve it with ginger snaps instead of cut up apples.

Pumpkin Dip
8 ounces softened cream cheese
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 can pumpkin
1 T pumpkin pie spice
1/4 t ginger
dash nutmeg
Blend everything with a hand blender until it is smooth and creamy. Refrain from eating the whole bowl immediately with a spoon. It will be hard to show that much restraint.

Enjoy with apple slices, ginger snaps, nilla wafers, or graham crackers.

Fast, Friendly Service. You'll Find None of that Here.

Last February my computer started making weird noises. The fan would put out a high pitched whine for a few hours and then shut off. I was told that it was out of warranty, so I would just get a new computer.

Today I got a new laptop at work. My admin is about to ring my neck because I have asked her when my new computer will be here every week for the past 9 months. It is outrageous that it took so long.

But now it is finally here so I can jump for joy. Now I can't send encrypted email because my certificates weren't imported to my new computer. I called the help desk to ask them how to install the certificates. The "help desk" is a phone number anyone at work can call and they will fix any computer related issue.


I originally had an email that explained the steps to install the certificates, but our email is automatically deleted after 1 1/2 months, so I no longer had the instructions. The guy at the help desk was willing to restore all my old emails. I told him that, no, I didn't want to hunt through all my old emails. I wanted instructions on how to install the certificates. He told me to call the company who sells certificates and have them guide me through how to install them.

Outraged, I told him that I knew there was a company contact who was in charge of certificates, and I would not call a third party for instructions that I should be able to get from him. Miraculously, he suddenly remembered how to install certificates and they were installed in 5 minutes.

Uggg....those help desk guys. No wonder they get a bad reputation.

Black Bean and Steak Chili

The snow calls for something warm and hearty. A big pot of chili and some mini cornbread muffins are just the ticket to satisfaction through the storm.

At our house we have a strange problem. Two years ago we started buying our beef from a rancher in Iowa, who will sell us 1/4 a beef at a time. He butchers and then splits all the cuts into 4 sections so everyone gets the same amount of each cut. It takes us a solid year to eat it. This year we got it in May and the hamburger is almost gone - but the freezer is overflowing with steak and roasts. What to do, what to do? We had better start eating more steak.

Clarinda, Kevin's friend who introduced him to the church, made steak chili for him once, and he decided to make it for us so. Just so you don't get the wrong idea, Clarinda is my friend, too. And why wouldn't she be? She is wonderful. And if she hadn't been Kevin's friend, Kevin and I may have never left. Yes, we owe a lot to the lovely Clarinda. But she was Kevin's friend before I even knew her, so she is listed as "Kevin's Friend."



Here is the whole pot before it simmers down. It thickens and darkens as it simmers.

Isn't this little cornbread muffin the cutest thing you've ever seen? I will refrain from giving you the recipe because, quite frankly, it was a new recipe and not a big hit. We wanted to try a recipe that had pieces of whole corn in it, and this one turned out to be mostly corn and only a little bit of cornbread. Bluuck.

Grill the steak and cut it into very, very small pieces. You don't want to get a bite of nothing but steak. Kevin calls it 'nibble size.'

Black Bean and Steak Chili
2 - 6 ounce steaks, grilled and diced

2 sandwich bags of frozen roasted tomato puree - or 2 cans of tomatoes, 1 chopped red or green pepper, and 1 chopped onion

2 cans black beans, or 3 cups cooked black beans

2 T chili powder

1 T paprika

1 t salt

dash cayenne

Add tomatoes, pepper and onions to large pot and simmer until tender. Then add everything except the beans. If you are using the roasted tomato puree, add everything except beans to the pot. Let it simmer for 30 minutes on medium heat. Add beans and continue to simmer long enough to heat them thoroughly. Add water to desired thickness.

Turkey Noodle Soup

What do you do with the leftover turkey? Make soup, of course!

Sometimes noodle recipes call for salt, but I don't like to knead noodle dough with salt because it cuts into my hands. Salt the water instead. Also, the standard is to use 1 egg for each person, but I think that is too much. 1/2 egg is more like it. It really isn't an exact science - you can have wildly different ratios of eggs to flour and they will still be perfect.

The noodle sheet should be smooth and elastic - but it doesn't have to be perfectly square.

When the noodles come out, just put them on a dowel and let 'em hang while you finish the rest of the noodles.

Here they are - hanging around and waiting for you to use them. The best thing about fresh noodles is how tender and fluffy they are.

Turkey Noodle Soup

2 carrots, diced

3 stalks celery, diced

3 T food storage onions

1-2 C turkey

2 T chicken broth

sea salt

noodles made from 2 eggs

Cover the turkey carcass in water and boil a couple of hours. Strain and put everything except the noodles into the turkey water and cook on low. Make the noodles while the veges cook. Turn up the heat and let it come to a boil right before you finish the noodles. Add the noodles and boil 3-5 minutes until they are tender.

Noodles

2 eggs

2 T water

2-3 C whole wheat pastry flour, whole wheat flour, or all purpose flour

Beat the eggs lightly with the water and mix with 1-2 cups of flour. Knead lightly, adding more flour until it creates a firm ball. Press it into a flat disk and run it through the noodle maker. Keep folding the noodle sheet and running it through, creating thinner sheets until it is smooth and elastic and fairly thin. I usually stop at setting #4. Then run it through the fat noodle cutter. If you don't have a noodle maker, come to my house and make them, or roll out the dough and cut it into 1/4 inch strips with a butter knife.

Plenty to Go Around

There is plenty of blame to share. Everyone messes up now and then, and when it happens at work you can be sure someone will have noticed and will make it his personal mission to remind that person of his folly.

A couple of weeks ago Kevin and I went to Sabastian Joe's, which is an ice cream shop in Uptown. They make their own ice cream and it is a very trendy place. Right next to Sabastian Joe's is a little gift shop called Patina's.

Patina's is a historic place for me. It was where I went Christmas shopping several years ago, when I had no idea what to get either of my Grandmas. I wandered aimlessly until Catherine, my wonderful roommate, picked up a few mini voodoo dolls. Huh? Why would she get those? She thought they were funny.

I ended up walking out with a voodoo doll and a pack of red devil rubber ducks for Grandma Neves. It started a feud between Grandma Neves and me, where we would both try to get each other the weirdest present we could find. Ahhh...the good old days. She always found a much better present than I could even imagine. In fact, her presents were downright gross. Among them were bacon mints that actually tasted like bacon, a chicken egg separator where the white came out of the mouth (she ended up getting the chicken instead of her first choice - the egg separator shaped like a nose with the egg white coming out as a big blob of snot,) and a nose shaped pencil sharpener.

So.....Kevin and I walked around Patina's laughing at their goofy products until he announced, "Who buys this stuff?" Ummm...I do. I ended up getting the blame note pad [pictured above] to bring to work.

Now when things go wrong, we can just get another sheet and tape it up next to the other ones that are already announcing the shortcomings of everyone on the team.

Turkey - It Ain't Like Momma Made It

Kevin made everything except the pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving this year. He's really great like that. About 3 hours before dinner I was sitting around, pouring through the ads when I started thinking that we should eat Thanksgiving dinner so we would have to start to preparing the food. I asked Kevin what he wanted me to do.

He answered, "I am making the turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, and cranberry sauce. You can make anything else that you want to have." WOW! Just one more reminder of why I married him. Why did he marry me? I have no idea, but now he is trapped and I am the luckiest girl ever.

He found a recipe for turkey online and wanted to see if it was better than how he usually makes it. It turned out very moist and delicious - even the white meat leftovers. After we ate he mentioned that he always just cooked it like his mom - but now he knows that he can branch out and find what he likes best.

Honestly, I was a little leery of the recipe. I come from the strict religion of "Don't Cook Oil Above its' Smoking Point." But it turned out really, really, incredibly really good.

Even Harper got to chew on a bone for awhile.


And then he scoured the ads to find all the good deals and took a nap in front of the heater.

Turkey the "Too Good to Believe" Kevin Way

Thaw turkey completely and remove all gross little pouches and innards from the cavity. Rinse it off and completely towel dry the inside. Put it on a rack inside your roaster. Lightly coat the outside of the bird with olive oil and then sprinkle sea salt over the outside and rub in lightly. Use about twice as much sea salt in the cavity and rub that in. (Don't oil the cavity.)

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Cook bird for 15 minutes (it will smoke because it is above the smoking point for olive oil) then reduce heat to 350 and cook for 1 hour. Reduce heat to 325 and cook for 1 more hour. Check the temperature of the bird. It must be 165 degrees or greater; check in the thigh close to the body. If it isn't done reduce heat to 300 and check every 15 minutes until it is done. If the bird gets too dark at any time during the cooking process, cover it with tin foil and continue cooking.

Sweet Potato Fries (or Steak Fries) and Pumpkin Parfaits

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I was worried that I missed the chance to try some pumpkin recipes. So I asked Kevin if it pumpkin season was over. He told me it was OK to eat pumpkin any time of the year. Even on Valentine's day. And I listened to him for a couple of reasons.

1) He is extra smart and I like to listen to everything he says.

2) He gave me the answer I wanted to hear.

So we are going to keep eating "fall" foods until either Kevin demands that we give them up until next year, or else I get tired of them.

If you don't like sweet potatoes go ahead and use regular potatoes. Nobody will think any less of you for it. It is fun to leave the skin on and cut them into wedges. Kevin tried these fries two times, just to see if he would like them better the second time. Both times he gagged and made a face similar to if he just found a giant cockroach in his sandwich. I like them with shredded cheese melted on top or else dipped in ranch.

Sweet Potato Fries or Steak Fries

4 large potatoes

2 T oil

1 t paprika

1/2 t cumin

1 t salt

1/2 t pepper

Mix the oil and seasonings in a large bowl. Cut the potatoes in quarters and then lengthwise again. If you are using sweet potatoes, I like to cut them a little bit smaller.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Broil for another minute or two to make the fries a little crispier.

Pumpkin Pie or Parfait

1 can pumpkin

1 1/2 C milk (any kind - I used skim)

2 eggs

1/2 C maple syrup (or granulated sugar)

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t salt

1/2 t ginger

1/4 t cloves

Mix everything together and either pour into a pie shell or into a baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until somewhat firm. This is not as thick as most pumpkin pies since it uses milk instead of evaporated milk.

If you are making a parfait, let the pumpkin mixture cool, blend it with a hand blender, then layer whipped cream with the pumpkin in an ice cream glass.

New Height in Crazy Holiday Shopping

The best thing about Thanksgiving is shopping the next day. This year it has reached a completely outrageous level. There were many, many more shoppers out this morning than the past couple of years.

It started late for me this year. Kohls opened at 4 AM and I didn't get there until 4:05. People were already checking out when I pulled up, and I tried not to panic. The line went clear across the store by the time I was ready to leave, but it went quickly and I was at Walmart by 4:45.

When I pulled onto the street before Walmart, I was accosted with a line winding through the parking lot, through the spare parking lot, and around back to the building. It was outrageous!

It took until 5:07 to even get in the store and once inside you couldn't even move.

The fun thing about shopping today is that you jump out of bed, throw your hair in a ponytail, and head to the stores. There is no time to shower, and I am pretty sure that everyone else had this same philosophy. You could tell. Minnesota has a lot of immigrants from all over the world who eat a lot of fragrant spices. When the melting pot melts down in a hot store, it isn't pretty.

I held my breath, grabbed my stuff and headed for the check out lines. Where I stood until 6:23. It was at least 45 minutes. Kohls did a good job at controlling the checkout flow, where the line was long but it moved quickly. Walmart did not do a good job at all. In fact, they did a terrible job. Lines wound around the store, and it was the luck of the draw which line you went to. I switched lines three times before I realized that the middle lanes were the only ones moving.

Menards was about as crowded as Walmart, except all their stuff was junky. They must have used REALLY good photographers, because it all looked way better in the ad than it did in the store. What I really wanted was a Build-a-Bear for Katie, but the line was long and hadn't moved at all during the 5 minutes I stood there, so I put down my stuff and went home.

But then stopped at Walgreens on the way because they had little Web Kinz for $4. They were so cute that I ended up getting 6 of them.

I am keeping the hippo for myself.

You may wonder why I need to buy so many presents. Most of the presents are for secret Santa's. I signed up for a few for the Hmong immigrant family at church. They aren't actually at church, but the young women usually help one recent immigrant family with Christmas presents.

They leave with literally nothing just so they can get away. Also, Ed and I are getting the bulk of the gifts for our group's "Armful of Love" family, which is a family in Dakota county who needs help this year. They ask for things like winter coats and diapers. Steve and Todd call it the "Armpit of Stench" because they aren't interested in buying anything for anyone. So you can pick whichever name you like the best.

On my way back to the house I passed the Eden Prairie Community Center, which is where we usually work out. The parking lot was completely full. Uuugggh.... I'm going back to bed.

And NOW I am done with my Christmas shopping. Except the stuff I am getting from Amazon....which I was hoping would be on sale today but isn't. And I even did some of Kevin's Christmas shopping. You know how the girl traditionally shops for gifts for both sides of the family? Not in our family.

The Salad that Pleased an Engineer

Engineers hate salad. About once a month the company will have a lunch meeting and order 35 pizzas and a single tray of salad. The pizza is wolfed down in a matter of minutes but the salad lingers all afternoon until someone grabs the tray and throws it into the trash. It may begin to explain why "engineer" and "sexy" aren't generally used in the same sentence.

Today we threw ourselves a party to celebrate delivering our product on schedule. I signed up to bring the salad, Susie conquered the dessert and everyone else chipped in for pizza and soda. Did I mention that this isn't a good place to work if you are trying to eat healthy food?

Everyone eyed the salad suspiciously, but to my astonished amazement, everyone also went back for a second helping. Huh? Yep, you heard that right. Of course, everyone had taken only their obligatory 3 lettuce leaves the first time through the line, but then they thought it was so good that they got up specifically to get more. Not every salad has those kinds of bragging rights.

The dressing recipe makes a LOT. I used a 18 ounce bag of lettuce and about 3/4 of the dressing is still left. Hopefully someone will hear that I have a bunch to spare and show up on my doorstep, offering to take it off my hands before it goes bad. 1/3 - 1/2 of the dressing recipe would have been plenty. It is straight from the latest church cookbook.

On a final note, I don't really like mandarin oranges, onions, mustard, or vinegar. But when they all come together they balance out nicely and turn into something yummy.

Orange, Cranberry and Poppy seed Salad

Salad:

Lettuce

Grated Cheese

Mandarin Oranges, drained

Dried Cranberries

Slivered Almonds

Dressing:

2 T poppy seeds

3/4 C apple cider vinegar

2 C oil

1 small onion (or a small handful of food storage onions - they are milder)

2 T mustard

2 t salt

1 C sugar

Combine all dressing ingredients in a blender until smooth. Drizzle over the combined salad ingredients.

Thanksgiving Trivia

(This card is designed by the fabulous Kara. Gobble, gobble)

Q: Which native population first developed half of the world's current food crops?

A: You guessed it! The Native Americans! We have two days off of work to celebrate the enormous contribution that Native Americans have made to our lives. Horray!

Q: Which single disease killed the largest percentage of people in any region?

A: British fishermen in Massachusetts spread a plague in 1617 that killed between 90 and 96 percent (HOLY MACKEREL!) of the Indians in southern New England.

For more interesting facts about Thanksgiving, check out this article. The added bonus to this article is that the facts are based on journal entries of early settlers. (Do I hear the ears of all you genealogy buffs pricking up?) James Loewen has dedicated his life to researching history using old artifacts, and he has written lots of books so that you don't have to reproduce his research! Rethinking Our Past is my favorite book of his. He is very witty.

Here are a few excerpts from the above article:

"Indians are marginalized in this civic ritual. Our archetypal image of the first Thanksgiving portrays the groaning boards in the woods, with the Pilgrims in their starched Sunday best and the almost naked Indian guests. Thanksgiving silliness reaches some sort of zenith in the handouts that school children have carried home for decades, with captions like, "They served pumpkins and turkeys and corn and squash. The Indians had never seen such a feast!" When his son brought home this "information" from his New Hampshire elementary school, Native American novelist Michael Dorris pointed out "the Pilgrims had literally never seen `such a feast,' since all foods mentioned are exclusively indigenous to the Americas and had been provided by [or with the aid of] the local tribe."

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.

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"Colonel Thomas Aspinwall, advises us not to settle for this whitewash of feel - good - history. "

"It is painful to advert to these things. But our forefathers, though wise, pious, and sincere, were nevertheless, in respect to Christian charity, under a cloud; and, in history, truth should be held sacred, at whatever cost."

As a fellow seeker of truth, I wish I had access to more unfiltered truth. And that truth wouldn't use such big words.....I had to break out the dictionary for 'advert'.

The Burger that Lasted Forever

Have you watched any of the interviews claiming that fast food burgers last forever? They just won't rot. Check it out on YouTube if you are interested. Well, I saw something with a 12 year old burger and had to find out if it was true.

I went to Burger King and got a Whopper Jr. on 11/21/2008, and the picture was taken on 11/22/2008. The lettuce was already getting old and gross, so I took it off and wrapped the burger back in its original wrapper.

Here is the burger at day 2. It still smells just like it did yesterday....

(more to come in the coming weeks)

Bi-Polar Pancakes

These pancakes are sometimes called German Pancakes, and sometimes called Pop-Up Pancakes. They do go up when they are in the oven, but as soon as they come out they go down. WAY down. You could say they get as flat as a pancake. Maybe they need some medication so their mood can be more stable.

I liked them in a muffin pan and in oven safe cups. Just remind me next time that even though the cups have a handle, it isn't the proper place to grab if it just came out of the oven....

Here they are, ready to go into the oven.

And here they are right after they came out. I had to open the oven door and snap the picture because they fell so fast that I would miss it if I took the time to take the pan out of the oven first. They have already gone down quite a bit.

Bi Polar Pancakes

1 cup milk
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose flour)
6 eggs
1/4 cup melted butter
dash salt

Blend everything with a stick blender and pour into cups, muffin tins, or a 9 X 13 pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Bloody Celebration

Have you watched Twilight yet? I haven't. But I did enjoy the books. Except I couldn't stand all the teenage drama. Oh, yeah...the whole series was nothing but teenage drama. Oh, well. It was fun.

Here is a recipe for some fun cookies to celebrate vampires everywhere. Actually, they look more like vampire VICTIM cookies than vampires....unless you comsider that all vampires are victims of other vampires. This is getting too confusing for me. Let's just talk about the cookies.

I would never lie to you, so here is my confession. I didn't use the real recipe. Instead, I went to the store and bought sugar cookie dough and raspberry jam. While I was there, I checked out the labels on the generic Cub brand and the name brand. The Cub brand had slightly fewer calories and no hydrogenated oil. The name brand (I can't even remember what it was) was still using hydrogenated oils! Granted, cookies aren't health food, but it is still shocking to see a trans fat in the ingredient list of a name brand product. They were under the threshold where they had to list trans fat on the top of the label. So I went with the generic dough.

If you are going to make these cookies the "cheater way", just slice up the dough (who can bother with rolling it out?) and put jam on top of one slice, cover it with another slice, then seal up the edges.

You may be wondering why some of my vampire victims are darker than others. Even though vampires are very pale, their victims don't necessarily have to be. Vampires don't discriminate. Plus, I forgot the cookies in the oven and thank goodness I finally remembered to get them out of there. As it turns out, the darker cookies were much tastier.

Walleye Appetizer

My coworker Al likes to tease, and he also likes to get teased. I don't remember how it started, but we both tease each other about keeping "Bankers Hours." He isn't in my direct group, but I often see him in the hall and we have worked together on previous projects.

If he first sees me one day at 11 AM he will stand there, slack-jawed, until I look at him. Then he will act shocked and ask if I just got in because he didn't think I would be at work already. I smile, raise an eyebrow, and reply, "Yep, and I am going to leave in about 15 minutes." When I see him first, the act is replayed with the roles reversed.

Al is also a fanatic fisherman. He has talked about how great fresh Walleye is when it is boiled. Yes, I just said boiled. This recipe is from Al. You may question the sanity of someone who wants to boil fish, but you absolutely must try it before you judge it.

I have not tried it with any other kinds of fish, and Al is adamant that you have to use fish that has never been frozen, and it only works on fish that is 0-2 days old or else it will be too fishy. Walleye has a very mild flavor, and other types of fish may taste too fishy for this recipe.

Here is one fishy fish screaming at you to stop eating fish. He is so angry his eyes are glowing! On second thought, he is also gutless, so his opinion shouldn't matter all that much. Kevin brought the fish home tonight. He left the house at 5 AM this morning to go fishing with John and Mark. Those guys are crazy....

Walleye as an Appetizer

Cube up your walleye. Bring a pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Dump in the fish cubes all at once. Cook for a few minutes until the flesh flakes. Drain fish and then drizzle it with butter, lemon juice and salt. Eat with toothpicks or with a slice of toast.

Buried in Treasures

Here is a picture of my side of the closet. AFTER I haven't done laundry for 2 weeks. My laundry basket won't even hold any more clothes because it is so full. But my closet is still jam-packed full of clothing. With all these clothes hanging up and even more folded in the baskets, why, I wonder, do I feel like I have nothing to wear? But it doesn't stop there.....



I also have a shelf of pants.....

And three more drawers full of shirts. And sweaters. And camis. And long sleeved T-shirts.

I will save you from a picture of my underwear drawer. Actually, I have to do laundry today or else I will have no underwear to wear tomorrow. And absolutely, no matter what, I will not wear dirty underwear. So if I skip church tomorrow, you know why.

Although I whole heartedly disagree with the theory of retail therapy, I often find myself sorting through a clearance rack at Kohls, and traipsing home with a bag of clothes I don't need. Even though everything cost less than $4, I don't think I can afford to get anything else. Where will I put it? More importantly, what hole am I trying to fill with all this stuff?

There is no room for more amongst all my junk. Actually, the things I have aren't junk - I have a lot of very nice things. They could even be called treasures. The problem is that nothing I own gets truly appreciated simply because of the sheer volume of my possessions.

Sometimes I look at all my stuff and think of the pirate movies with a huge cave full of gold. No one person could ever realistically use all of it. Some greedy pirate stashed it all there just so that nobody else could get their greedy paws on it, and there it sits, doing nobody any good.

What I need is a friend who will come over and watch me try on everything I own. Then help me choose what to get rid of and what to keep. And I will go do the same for her. Seriously, I read a book about decluttering and it suggested that everyone have between 5-8 shirts and 2-3 pants, all of which coordinate. Ha! I can't even begin to imagine how to get to that point.

Bean and Ham and Bean Soup

A ham bone had been sitting in the fridge for a few days, and I had promised that I would use it, and demanded that I absolutely did not want it thrown out. So I finally decided that I would have to make good on my promise and make some soup. It was about 9 PM when I started.

Drat! We were out of white beans. Oh, wait! There was one bag hiding at the bottom of the bean pile in the freezer. It was 2 pounds, and the recipe I had called for just 1 pound, but I used the whole thing anyways. After all, soup is very tolerant to tweaking.

Then I brought the beans to a boil, rinsed them off, and threw everything into a crock pot. At noon the next day Kevin emailed, "This has got to be the best Bean and Ham soup I have ever had. Got to go get more... Bye!" I smiled when I read it. He's the best. And he was right - it was "bean and ham" and not "ham and bean." There were a whole lot more beans than ham. It's healthier that way.

If you have a bunch of friends, it would be great to invite them over for this. The soup is good and all, but ham and bean soup just isn't something you eat as leftovers for days on end. Or, if you ARE the kind of person to do that, nobody else probably wants to be around you much. And they probably call you "Stinky Stinker" behind your back.

Ham and Bean Soup in the Crock Pot
8 C water
1-2 pounds white beans, sorted and rinsed
1 T lemon juice
1 T honey - optional
1 bay leaf
1 handful of food storage onions (or 1 onion chopped)
1 ham bone with a bit of meat on it
1-2 C chopped cooked ham

Rinse and sort the beans, then throw them in a pot with a teaspoon of baking soda. Bring it to a boil, then rinse the beans. Then rinse them again. Get 'em good and extra rinsed. Then add everything to the crock pot and let it cook on low either overnight or all day, up to 12 hours. Remove the bay leaf before serving.

All for a Quarter

Today marks the conquering of one plaguing problem.

It started about a year ago. I was at the vending machine trying to feed it a dollar which it fastidiously rejected. I was 1 quarter short of being able to buy my treat, and this dollar was the key to my destiny as a vending machine patron.

In the middle of this struggle I saw a man out of the corner on my eye. He was waiting for the machine and he offered to give me a quarter. I could pay him back the next time I saw him. Horray.

But then, much to my horror, I forgot who had lent me the quarter. I knew it was an old man with grey hair. But there are many men in my office who fit that description and I had no idea which precise one had been at the vending machine that day.

I told Ed about my dilemma and in the past year we have laughed about my unpaid debt numerous times. One time I even thought I had found the guy, only to have him tell me that he had no idea what I was talking about.

But today I saw Don. He is temporarily back from retirement as a contractor, so he hasn't been around for a while. He HAS to be the guy. I asked Ed what his name was and where he sat. Ed pretended that he would go with me, but then as I started towards Don's cube, Ed sat back in his chair and said that he couldn't go because he was too shy.

So off I went, facing my doom with Don. He said he didn't think I owed him a quarter. I explained what had happened, and he said that sounds like something he might do, but he didn't think he was the guy I was looking for.

Drat! Even if he forgot about such a small debt, I was still pretty sure that he was the guy I was looking for. I insisted that he take the quarter and declared with gusto that my conscience was clear.

After I got back to my cube, a guy who sits close to Don came by with a bewildered expression.

Apparently, I had walked past him without waving. Sheesh...I had more important things on my mind.....and I don't even know that guy's name....

Sweet Potato and Chocolate Pumpkin Pie With Marla

Marla is fabulous. She is easy going, and she doesn't care if we cook all evening only to have the food end up yucky. She would just feed me a Fiber One Pop Tart (with a reminder on why you should eat them in moderation) and call it a successful evening.

For this particular get together, she had found a recipe for Sweet Potato Pie. The same blog contained a recipe for Chocolate Pumpkin Pie. So off we went on our adventure, with the firm desire to produce something edible at the end of the night.

Here is Marla with her apron, looking particularly stunning. I have no idea how she kisses, but she is a fantastic cook, so ya better watch out if you are trying to take her on a date. She's a fire cracker. Really, I have no idea what that means, it just sounds wild and crazy.

The pies are finally in the oven.

Where they cooked and cooked and cooked, until Marla couldn't wait any longer. She left for her church meeting, and I stayed at her house until they were done. Then until I was finished taking pictures and eating my pieces. All alone in her house. With nobody to supervise me. And then.......well, nevermind. I won't talk about that here.

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 - 15-oz. can pumpkin puree (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice)

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2/3 cup milk (low fat is fine)

1 pie crust (graham cracker or pastry)
In a large bowl, beat eggs with a whisk until slightly foamy, about 1 minute. Whisk in all the remaining ingredients, except the milk, and beat until smooth. Then gently whisk in the milk. Pour the pumpkin pie filling into the crust and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, until pumpkin filling is set.Cool completely in the pan before slicing and serving.

Sweet Potato Pie

cup cooked, pureed sweet potato

1 cup buttermilk

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup brown sugar

3 large eggs

2 tbsp all purpose flour

1 graham cracker pie crust
Preheat oven to 350F. Press sweet potato puree through a wire strainer to make it as smooth as possible, adding a tablespoon or two of water if you are working with leftover potatoes to make them a bit more pliable.In the bowl of a food processor, combine all ingredients except the flour, and whiz until smooth. Add in flour and pulse the food processor a few times until it is fully incorporated.Pour filling into pie crust. Place the pie crust on a baking sheet and place baking sheet on the middle rack of a preheated oven. Bake for 50-55 minutes, until pie is set and jiggles only very slightly when the pan is bumped.

Banananana Muffins

The goal for today was to make something with pastry flour. Jeffrey was kind enough to give me a whole lotta' soft wheat (which becomes whole wheat pastry flour when ground) a couple of weeks ago, and I have been studiously putting off making anything with it.

BUT NO MORE.

Looking back at the original recipe, I made some pretty wild deviations. Here is the original. These muffins are incredibly moist, especially when you consider that there is no butter or oil. Feel free to cut back on the sugar a bit, and you don't need quite so much baking powder.

If you don't have any soft wheat or whole wheat pastry flour, go ahead and use regular whole wheat flour. Or, if Armageddon is upon us, use white flour. (Just don't tell me about it.)

Grandma Grabbert put a poem into the Burlington cookbook about following the recipe:

I didn't have potatoes, so I substituted rice.

I didn't have paprika, so I used another spice.

I didn't have tomato sauce, so I used tomato paste.

A whole can, not half; I don't believe in waste.

My friend gave me this recipe, she said you couldn't beat it.
There must have been SOMETHING wrong with it, I couldn't eat it.

So there ya have it. Not all substitutions turn out as good as these muffins. Usually (I swear it's true) I try the recipe exactly as it is the first time, so I don't end up writing off too many recipes because of my wild ideas on how to improve them before I even make it one time. But, seriously, the original recipe had an ingredient list 4 pages long. I wasn't going to embark on such a crazy adventure. So I shortened it by combining similar ingredients.

Banana Muffins

1 1/4 C whole wheat pastry flour

1 C rolled oats

1 T baking powder

1/2 t salt

3/4 C yogurt

1/4 C applesauce

1/2 C maple syrup

1 egg

1 t vanilla

2 large bananas, mashed

1/4 C chopped pecans

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Mix wet ingredients together in a small bowl. Make a well with the dry ingredients and pour the wet bowl into it. Fold until barely combined and spoon into muffin cups. Sprinkle with chopped pecans. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.