Resolution

Last year was pretty eventful, with the most important being our new baby. She's amazing and I can't get enough of looking at her and being fascinated by her. Over the last year we've gotten settled into our new home and my new job. Life has been very good, and for that we're grateful. Over the next year, my main goal is to get even more at home, explore more of our new hometown, and to be the best mama that I can be to my little girl. In order to gain more appreciation for the things that we have, I'm going on a buying moratorium.

Over the past few years I’ve gotten very bad about buying books and not reading them. I have a shelf full of cookbooks in my kitchen that I have never really even looked through, much less cooked out of. I have books on my shelf that I bought but never read. I have countless recipes from magazines that I have torn out and set aside, but never done anything with. It’s like I’m obsessive/compulsive about wanting to buy these things, but when I get them the itch is scratched and I never do anything with them. So I decided that this year, I’m going to reform my ways. My resolution this year is that I won’t buy any new books or cookbooks until I have actually read those that I have now. I’m going to caveat this, in that the one subject that I will buy books on is childcare/rearing. I even plan on restraining from getting books from the library until I have gone through those that I have already. We’ll see how far I can get with this.

The other part to my resolution is to try to buy only essential items, and only buy things to replace those that get worn out. Again, we'll see how far I can get with this. The main thing that I foresee buying is clothes and other necessities for our baby. We'll see how creative I can get. :)

Apple Cranberry Hermits

There's something about the holiday season that makes me feel in the mood, nay, compelled to bake cookies. In this case I've had a couple of accidents while baking lately that made me feel like maybe I was cursed (or too absent-minded from being 9 months pregnant) to bake. They had a baby shower for me at work, and I had decided that I would bake some cookies and take them in to the people who contributed gifts. So my first effort was making Maple Oatmeal Cookies, during which I broke my bottle of vanilla and was unable to bake enough for all. So a week or so later I decided that I would make some Cranberry Orange Sugar Cookies, and things were going along swimmingly until I noticed that the clean spoon I had taken out of the dishwasher had some food residue on the concave part of it. So I'd just about decided that the rest of the people just weren't going to get their cookies.

Tonight I got bitten by the bug again, and had an apple that was getting in a bad way. So I went online and looked up apple cookie recipes. I found a recipe for Apple Hermits on allrecipes.com and decided I'd give them a try. I made a couple of changes to the recipe, notably substituting craisins for raisins, reducing the amount of cloves, omitting the nuts and shredding the apple instead of chopping it. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla, because really, who likes cookies with no vanilla in them? These turned out really tasty, and had an almost butterscotch flavor to them. The recipe called for them to be glazed but I'm happy with them without it.

Apple Hermits

2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. softened butter
1 1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 c. shredded apple
1 c. dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (175 C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl,, sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy. Mix in sugar and egg. Stir in flour mixture, and mix thoroughly. Fold in apples and cranberries.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto prepared cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Hermits/Detail.aspx

Janet Lembke

I personally think that one of the most important innovations on the internet was when online bookstores started acting as marketplaces for used book stores, i.e. Amazon Marketplace. It seems that almost no book is too obscure to be able to find online now. It used to be so frustrating to find an author whose work you just loved, and then be unable to read their previous works because they are out of print.

Janet Lembke is one of my very favorite authors. I first came across her work in the book "Shake Them 'Simmons Down" about ten years ago. She is from the same area of Eastern North Carolina where we used to live, so I identify with her work. The book was a collection of her essays about trees, and I loved it. So the other day when I was on Amazon, I happened to look her up, and saw many of her works available through the marketplace. So now I have some new reading material. The first is "Touching Earth", which is a collection of essays on kitchen/vegetable gardening. The second is "Despicable Species: On Cowbirds, Kudzu, Hornworms, and Other Scourges", which (as you can tell from the title) is a collection of essays on undesirable species.

Over the years I have gotten much fonder of reading essay collections. I don't seem to have the attention span necessary to read a whole book at a time, unless it's something that really catches my attention. Essays are usually the perfect length to fill in the time that I have available to read now, and I don't have to worry about trying to figure out what I read last time.

Bookstore Lovin'

We stopped and ate after work today, and then headed over to one of our favorite bookstores to hang out for a while. He read some manga and I read some gardening books and we just enjoyed sitting for a while. We're not going to have a whole lot of quiet downtime soon, so I figured it was a good thing to enjoy it while it lasted. It was quiet until the two teenage boys showed up hanging around the Dungeons & Dragons books and going on and on about their gaming. It kind of ruined the mood. ;) So we left and got some coffee and headed home. I think it's about time to snuggle up in front of the fire with a book and relax. :)

Cooking with Mojo

I haven't been up for cooking the last couple of months, so we've been eating out quite a bit. Every now and then I will get an inspiration to make something. For the last week or so, I've been getting really tired, most likely since I have a space alien in my stomach that is sucking the energy out of me. I also get out of breath easy, and have almost no room in my stomach for food because there is a space alien growing in my stomach that is taking up a whole lot of room now. So I tend to lay on the couch and nap a lot. I was doing just that this morning, and watching the Food Network in between snoozes. One of the times I briefly surfaced Guy's Big Bite was on, and he was making Cuban Pork Chops with Mojo and Sofrito Mashed Potatoes. Now I'm a girl that loves the Latin flavors and I also think mashed potatoes go just super with anything tomato-ey. So when we went to the grocery today I got what I needed to make them. You can see the results above, and it was REALLY good. Very flavorful and didn't take a long time to make. The sauce for the pork chops was a bit acidic when I tried it so I cut in a tablespoon or two of brown sugar to round it out. Definately something I'd make again. :)

The recipes can be found here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_gi/episode/0,2857,FOOD_26717_49895,00.html

Update

Fall finally hit the Tennessee Valley, and it's been beautiful. We've finally gotten quite a bit of rain lately, and the trees have changed color. The weather has been chilly a few times, but mostly still gets to the 50's and 60's during the day. We spent our Thanksgiving at home, and I made dinner. We got our Christmas tree up, and a wreath on the door, so we're ahead of where we usually are. :) I've also started packing up the hospital bag and trying to get everything ready. They had a baby shower for me at work where I got a ton of stuff. I am still trying to get it all processed, because we don't really have a dresser or clothes storage area for her yet.

I've been getting pretty tired lately, and most of the time all I want to do is sleep when I get home from work. Somebody's feet reach my ribcage now, and I spend a lot of time trying to explain to her what personal space and sharing is all about. She lets me know pretty quick when she is feeling crowded. Other than that things are going well, 4 weeks until the due date and I'm ready. Now she just needs to cooperate and be out by her due date!

Four Point Oh No!

So I've been doing good and keeping a 4.0 grade average in my college classes. I used to be super competetive and was intent on keeping it. And then life happens. :) Working a full time job, going to class and having a baby coming kind of took the wind out of my sails. Right now I'm at the point where I just want to finish my degree, and a C is great in the class because then I don't have to pay back any money. ;) I mean, a 4.0 is great and all, but it won't really make a difference. The thing that put the nail in my 4.0 coffin was my Algebra II class that I'm taking this semester. I wandered through Algebra I and still somehow managed to get an A. This time it isn't working so smooth, and I'm hoping that I will achieve my C goal. :) It's a bit of a letdown seeing the lower average, but I can deal with it. I guess I had to descend down and be with the mere mortals at some point in time.

Tucked In

Yesterday I finally accomplished something that's been lingering around for about 2 months. Back in August, we went to the nursery and got some plants for me for my birthday. That weekend I ended up passing kidney stones, so they didn't get planted. Then D's grandmother in the Philippines died and he went home for the funeral. While I was unsupervised a few more plants ended up at the house. Then my sister came and visited shortly thereafter, and would you believe that even more plants made it home. Then there was a clearance sale at Lowe's and I ended up with yet more plants. I make it sound like I had 50 plants, but it was really more like 10. Regardless, I had to go out and water them and move them around every few days, which got really old.

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day, and I resolved that if I got nothing else done I would get those plants in the ground. So late yesterday afternoon I set forth and got almost all of them put out. There are still one or two left, but they are more manageable than 10. I also evicted several other plants that had grown unruly and the whole place looks a little neater. Definately was happy to get that done.

Tonight when I got home from work I decided to make some soup. D is sick with a sinus infection again, and I felt like having some comfort food. So I decided to make the Irish Colcannon soup from this month's cooking light. I saw right away that the recipe needed to be modified some. For me the ideal potato soup has a light, creamy broth and is not congealed or floury. So since I had some reduced fat sour cream and some half-and-half in the refrigerator I used that. And since I had some ham that needed to be used, I put in some of that too. I was very pleased with the results, and I think I'm going to go have another bowl. ;)

Irish Colcannon Soup
Adapted from Cooking Light

1 Tbs. butter
2 ½ c. small potatoes, cut into quarters
1 medium onion, diced
1 c. ham, diced
Salt & pepper to taste
4 c. broth
8 c. thinly sliced savoy cabbage
1 c. reduced fat sour cream
¼-1/2 c. half-and-half

In a stock pot, heat the butter over medium heat. Add the onion, ham and potatoes and stir to combine. Cover and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the broth and cabbage, season to taste with the salt and pepper. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until potatoes and cabbage are tender. Remove from heat and add sour cream and half-and-half. Correct seasoning if necessary.

The Mum that Ate Alabama

Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration. Just slightly though. ;) I seem to have odd luck with mums. Last fall I picked up a couple of plants, all shaped like perfect little domes, and planted them out. This spring, one didn't show up at all, one stuck up a few leaves, and one started growing pretty fast. By July-August, it had eaten half of the flower bed. Now it's a huge behemoth mutant that I think has eaten some smaller neighborhood pets and possibly slow moving elderly people. Too bad you can't ever predict what they're going to do. :)

The weather has been beautiful, clear blue skies, bright sun and a chill in the air. Fall is always my favorite time of year, and this one has been beautiful. The trees haven't started changing color yet, but I can't wait to see it. We need to get a firepit for the back yard, so that we can have a fire out on chilly nights. I think it'll be a great weekend for making a pot of chili and snuggling up on the couch to read.

Childbirf Classes

From the time that I found out I was pregnant I have dreaded the childbirth class. I know that you can pick up some good information from them, but I'm not a touchy-feely-huggy sort, and don't usually bond that well with women. After being in the military for 10 years and working almost exclusively with males, I just don't have that much in common with women and don't like their moodiness. However, I know that you're much better off during childbirth if you actually have a clue what's going on, plus you can find out about the facility you're going to deliver at and get some info. Knowing already that I want whatever pain relief that they can give me, up to and including knocking me out, I didn't want anyone lecturing me on natural childbirth and judging me. So I signed us up for one, much to the dismay of D. Last night was the first class and I have to say that it wasn't too painful.

The instructor is an Australian lady which is cool because she could read the back of a cereal box and I'd think it sounded neat. She's pretty laid back and funny, which is the way to get me to listen to things. The other couples in the class are a similar age as D and I are, and they all have due dates within a day or two of mine. Three of the other four husbands are from Illinois, which made D fit right in since that's where he's from. We watched some videos on the stages of childbirth, ate snacks, watched some videos on diet and nutrition, ate snacks, and then did some relaxation techniques where my massage slave had to rub my lower back while I lay there and focused on relaxing. We went to eat out before we went to class, so it was a pretty nice evening out.

I also had my doctor’s appointment this morning where I had my blood glucose test done. I don’t have gestational diabetes and I am not anemic, so that’s two less things to worry about. I go in two weeks for my next visit, and I’m going to have a 4D ultrasound done. I can’t wait to see the baby and what she looks like. :)

It's a Sickness

I took an unsupervised visit to the nursery today, which is always a dangerous thing. Actually it got more dangerous because Bennett's didn't open until 11:30 or noon so I stopped by Lowe's to pass some time. I always like going by myself better, because then I can putter around and look at everything and don't get hurried. While it may be more enjoyable, it definately does more damage to the pocketbook.

Lowe's had several racks of plants on 75% clearance, so I had to go nose around there. I ended up with a Winged Euonymous bush with a couple of leaves left on it, a Penstemon 'Silverton' that wasn't too badly off, two Bronze Ajuga plants that looked very healthy and a mystery bush that had pretty purple flowers just right for attracting bees. I always have the desire to try to rehabilitate these walking wounded plants and see if I can bring them back. Let's not mention all of the otherwise healthy plants that I've killed off this year. In addition to the sick plants I also brought home a May Night salvia, an Arizona Sun Gallardia and a verbena plant. And then I went to the next nursery. :)

My main goal in going out this afternoon was to get some tulip bulbs. Or at least that was what I said I was going out for. My real objective was to get a mountain laurel bush for the back yard. When we lived in Virginia the mountain laurels were so beautiful and I've always wanted one. By the time I was finished at Lowe's I was already hot and sweaty and ready to go home, but I went ahead and pressed on. Instead of my usual rambling around and looking at everything, I homed in on my objective which took a few minutes to find because they'd moved since the last time I was there. I spent a few minutes agonizing over whether to get the light pink ones, pink ones with some white on the flower, or the one I ultimately got, Minuet, which had red rims with white centers. Carrying my prize, I went on to the front office to pick out my tulip bulbs and to pay. I got several different kinds of tulips, in red and yellow which are the colors that Maw asked for.

So now the plants are at home and in my garage, waiting patiently for me to get them put out. I'm giving it an hour or two more to cool off and then I'm going out to plant my new babies. I think this is the last purchase of the year, because I'm about planted out. So now it'll be time to get everything prepped for winter and start making big plans for next year.

Whodathunkit

I've had elephant ears at various points in my life, with varying degrees of success. They have neat foliage, but that was the extent of interesting features in the plant for me. This spring I found some elephant ears with black stems, which add further architectural interest. As the summer progressed, I noticed that there were yellowish leaves on the plant, and was thinking that it might not be doing so good. So I went over to take a look at them, and imagine my surprise when I figured out that they were flowers. Not pretty fragrant flowers, but flowers nontheless. In fact they reminded me somewhat of birds of paradise. So this has been the first surprise of the growing season for me.

Everything else is doing pretty good. I'm going to have to relocate some of the other plants that have gotten too big for their neighbors, but that's to the good since I still have some bare spots on the front of the house. I think we're going to do one last trip to the nursery tomorrow and get some tulip bulbs, get everything set out and transplanted and then call it a growing season.

Bamalama Red Beans

Since D. is out of the country I'm flying solo right now. I haven't been eating that well lately, for various reasons and am trying to get back on track with healthier eating. So tonight when I got home from work I was thinking about having some black beans and rice. Since I got kidney stones most likely from a calcium supplement, I am trying to get more calcium naturally. I was out of black beans so I made it with kidney beans (how appropriate)! It was time to clean out the refrigerator crisper and so I threw most of what I had into the pot. Since I made salsa a few days ago, I decided a more Caribbean themed dish would be good. Here's what I came up with:

Bamalama Red Beans

1 Tbs. olive oil
1 small onion, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 (14.5 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 (14.5 oz) can tomatoes with jalapenos (or you could use Rotel)
1 c. water
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. smoked spanish paprika
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 c. thinly sliced green onions
About 1 Tbs. or so of minced fresh cilantro
Juice of 1 lemon
Brown Sugar to taste (depends on the acidity level)

Heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and celery, saute until onion begins to brown. Add beans through salt and pepper and stir well to combine. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer around 10-15 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

This turned out pretty spicy, but really flavorful. Instead of mixing it with the usual rice I made some quinoa to go with it.

Ave Maria

We had some guests in visiting this weekend and had a really great time. It was the first weekend I've felt like doing much in a while. We went to see the Ave Maria Grotto at the St. Bernard's Abbey which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It was an absolutely amazing place, I could have spent a lot more time there than what we did, but it was starting to get pretty hot outside. The grotto is a collection of miniature buildings that were made by one of the brothers at the monastery. There are 155 of them total and he made them from found objects. The buildings are located in a scenic wooded park that is very relaxing to walk through. It'll definately be a new stop for visitors who come to see us.

We went to see the Space & Rocket center and enjoyed that also. I'm not that into crowded places, but they did have some very interesting things to see. They had the OCC's Liberty Bike on tour there and set up which was something to see. They have a pretty good assortment of different spacecraft there, and also artifacts from the space program. We rushed the outside tour part, because it was starting to storm and we didn't really want to be standing out beside a giant rocket when it got struck by lightening. Our guests went home on Sunday and we spent the rest of the day relaxing. D.'s grandmother died last Wednesday and he is going home for the funeral so we went out shopping on Monday for clothes for him to wear. It was a pretty eventful weekend so it's nice to be back to work so that I can rest. :)

New Toy

Over the weekend I looked out in the backyard and noticed that there was a hummingbird flying around the regular bird feeder. So today I stopped and picked up a hummingbird feeder on the way home from work. I've been meaning to get one for a while and hadn't gotten around to it. I took the shephard's hook out into the back and tried to put it into the ground and couldn't because it is hard as a rock. I even tried soaking it with a hose and wasn't able to get it to go all the way in. It's standing, but not too firm right now, I'll have to push it in more when we get a good rain in. So now we'll see if I get any takers. :)

It's hotter than a....

I've been running through a list of colorful Southern sayings to try and describe how hot it is, but nothing pays justice. It was 105 F here today and I can say I'm really glad that I work indoors. I could only be persuaded to go outside to get lunch and to go home. It's been a rough week, I came down with either a kidney stone or a bladder infection that felt like one. After they figured out that the antibiotic they had prescribed to me was one that the bacteria had resistance to it went much better. So today is the first day that I have felt normal in a long time. We did find out that the baby is a girl last Wednesday which is fun news.

Since it's been so hot and dry none of the flowers are showing off at their best right now. I was surprised when I went outside this evening to check things over that there were some lovely flowers on my latest clematis vine. This is the Betty Corning variety, and I love them because they are so understated. In fact I barely noticed that it was there. :) I gave almost everything a good watering down to help them along. There's a tropical depression moving towards Texas and I'm hoping it blows some rain our way. A girl can dream. :)

The Golden Compass

It was with some excitement and a little anxiety that I saw the following link on Yahoo News today. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808718640/info The Golden Compass is part of an excellent trilogy by Philip Pullman. After I got the first one I immediately went out and bought the others and had a reading marathon to finish them. It was one of the best series that I'd read in a long time. So on to the movie. There are parts of it that look incredible, but there's always that nagging "But it wasn't like that in the book!" that I will have to get over. I do have to say that Nicole Kidman as Ms. Coulter is a fabulous choice. Something else to look forward to in December. :) Hopefully I can see it before I go into labor. ;)

Crepe Myrtles

Last fall when we bought our house there were two trees that had been planted in the summer. One of them looked to be dead and the other had only one or two green leaves on it. As part of our agreeing to buy the house I asked for the trees to be replaced. I also asked if I could pick the replacement trees. Since there were crepe myrtles that my grandmother had planted growing in front of our house when I was younger I really wanted some. Those had been the bright magenta colored blooms that are a trifle overblown. For those who might not be familiar with them, most of the common crepe myrtles are magenta, lavendar and white. The trees that got put into the front yard actually looked to be almost in worse shape than the trees that were removed and I thought they might die over the winter.

Flash to April when the trees had just begun to leaf out, and the whole area was struck with a severe frost. It killed the top of the limbs of the tree and turned all of the leaves brown. For a month nothing grew on them and finally leaves started coming out. While D and I were out shopping I noticed that there were crepe myrtles in the parking lot of the store and they were RED. I had never seen a red crepe myrtle before and I was in love. Since we didn't have any idea what the color of those that were planted in our yard were I got a flash of hope that they might be red too, but what are the chances. A couple of weeks ago I noticed the flower buds on them, and finally yesterday they opened up and they were....RED! Actually only one has opened up so far I haven't seen the other yet. I'm hoping it's red too, since red and magenta together look like colors a cheap hooker might wear. But I guess we'll see. :)

Roses

Yesterday I got home from work and ran out to take pictures of the roses. My Elle rose was opening up the day before, and when I went to takea picture I realized that my camera battery was dead. :P So I went out and snapped some quick pictures. Since it had just rained earlier I got some perfect dewy shots. I especially admired the intricate bloom on the Neptune bush, up above. I have been really happy with how well the roses have done since they were just planted this year. My previous attempts at growing roses haven't always been successful so it's always a crapshoot with me. So far the most effort that I have had to go to so far this year is assassinating a couple of Japanese beetles that were snacking. I don't really like killing things but sometimes you have to.

The pregnancy is going along pretty well, I don't really have much to complain about....yet. ;) I reserve my right to complain in the future! I'm still waiting for this nesting instinct to kick in that will make me clean the house like a mad woman. Go figure, the one symptom that I REALLY need isn't happening. I try not to get too excited or nervous because I still have a long way to go. I'm getting to the point though that I'm going to have to start making some arrangements...find a pediatrician, take some childbirth classes, pick out a hospital etc. It was nice being comfortably numb and not having to worry about all of that, but I guess I must. :)

Nice Weather

We've had a very nice spell of weather over the last couple of weeks. We've gotten quite a bit of rain, and the temperatures have been a little cooler. We went to Lowe's this morning to get a work bench for the garage, and of course while we were there I had to look at the garden center. I've been keeping my eyes out for a replacement for my peppermint clematis. It has very neat looking blooms on it but unfortunately hasn't been doing so well since it got planted. Almost all of the leaves have fallen off and it just wasn't looking too good. So while we were at Lowe's I found a Butterscotch Jessamine that has yellow fragrant flowers. It was a very well established plant and looks like it'll do good. I also picked up a couple of plants for the bird/butterfly/bee garden that I'm going to be setting up by my bird feeder.

After I got home I went out and planted the jessamine. I also did some tidying up of our back porch area because it was looking a little junky. I had some failed planting experiments, old pots and stuff sitting around so I got it all cleaned up. I also got rid of the failed lotus plant and potted a water lily in its place. After that I was pretty much wiped out for the day and came in and rested.

It has been a pretty quiet and restful weekend. It has been raining some off and on which is much better than the drought that we were having. D.'s parents went home on Thursday after a very busy and productive visit.

One of the main things that got finished was the gravel pathway in the picture above. Before it was part of the flower bed and to get over to the faucet you had to walk around grass clumps and got ant bites all over your feet. Now it is much cleaner and tidier looking. The stepping stones have a neat Celtic knot on them. We also got mulch laid down so maybe the plants won't dry out quite so fast. The mulch helps give it a more finished look also. Note that my pink whirling butterfly plant in the bottom right corner has been corraled. I had the same plant in North Carolina and it was very well behaved. This one has been sprawling all over the flower bed and looking pretty shabby. We got a little hoop to hold it up so that the stems on it cascade a bit and look so much nicer.

What's on the agenda for tomorrow? Laundry, grocery shopping, more laundry and then ending up with doing laundry. We've been behind for the last month or so and getting caught up really sucks.

4th of July

So I haven't felt like posting for a while now. I was feeling extremely fatigued for most of the month of May and the early part of June. I haven't had any problems with morning sickness, but the heat does wear me out really quickly now. I have been busy with work and finishing up my classes. So I've started the next round now and I'm really not at my best with it. I'm used to a few weeks between classes so there was a bit of a break. This set started the day after the other classes ended so I'm still trying to get my bearings with it.

D's parents have been here visiting since Friday. It's been like having a couple of industrious helpful little elves around the place because they have gotten so much done while I was at work. They stained the fence, did some yard work and reorganized the garage. We went to see Transformers this afternoon, and I really enjoyed the movie. Back to work tomorrow, but at least it's only for two days before the weekend.

Welcome Cookies Back Again!

The cookie drought at our house has finally been broken, behold it is Snack Day at work tomorrow! Of course I forgot that I had told them I would bake some cookies until 9:10 p.m. I have had this recipe for a while that I wanted to try, because my grandma used to bake some pineapple coconut cookies and my mom loved them. Since grandma is dead and her estranged sister has the recipe box she doesn't have a recipe. So I found this one out on the internet and am going to bake them for her next time she comes to visit. It's not that healthy for you but the taste is a real winner.

Pineapple Coconut Cookies
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 c. white sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 package of baking coconut

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl cream together the shortening and sugars. Add in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour mixture, pineapple and coconut alternately and stir well. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets and bake for approximately 10-15 minutes or until they just start to brown around the edges. Be careful not to overbake them.

Neptune

My first roses in the new house bloomed today. They have had buds on them for the last week or so that just barely open a little bit each day. This rosebush is Neptune, that I bought from the Edmund's Roses catalog this spring. It's been kind of dry lately and there have been some little bugs on the buds so the flowers weren't perfect. But I figure that it's an accomplishment enough to get even a raggedy bloom out of them so I'm posting the pictures like a proud mama.

Speaking of proud mamas, I am going to be one. In December plus or minus a few weeks. So there's a lot of excitement around the homestead now. I have been doing well and I had my first doctor visit. My next one will be the second week in June to keep an eye on everything and make sure it is all going well. I'm such a logistician that I must already start planning every detail that I can think of so that very little gets left to chance. It's actually obsessive/compulsive I think. :)

It's been a pretty busy week, work has really picked up for me lately. I've also gotten over the aversion to food and actually cooked for the first time this last weekend. It seems like I'm making up for the meals lost with a vengeance now, so hopefully I'm not as big as a whale for my next doctor's visit.

P.S. The roses smell divine, very strong traditional rose smell. :)

Fenced In

The new fence is in. We came home from work one day to find all of the posts in place. The next day they had the cross-sections in place. Then a couple of days later the fence panels were in and it was done. Some of our other neighbors were getting a fence from the same place and they did them all together. I actually can't get a shot of the whole backyard in one picture.

It is really nice and defines our property. Before it was hard to tell whose was what. So there it is. Now we are working on getting it paid for. ;)

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Work finally started on our privacy fence today. We commissioned it a couple of weeks ago but it was raining last week and they didn't get started on it. I am so excited because we have never owned an honest to God real all around privacy fence. We have a lot of projects that we are planning for the back yard, but we didn't really want to start on any of them until we had the fence.

One of our challenge spots that we are going to be doing something with is the drainage ditch in the back yard that cuts off the back 1/3 of our back yard. I'm not sure why they chose that drainage option because it makes the back part of the yard mostly unusable. Don't worry though friends, I have a plan. The main problem that I have with the current drainage ditch is the fact that the soil is eroding as the rainwater flows over it. What we plan on doing is to dig it out a bit more and make a dry gravel streambed and incorporate features that will help keep the soil in place and out of the local streams. We will plant some rain garden type plants that can deal with water or drought on the edges and then put a wooden bridge over it, like one of these:

http://www.aquaart.com/lwbridges.html

And then all along the back fenceline I plan on planting the whole thing in blackberry brambles. So in this way we will be able to utilize our whole backyard instead of just writing off the part with the ditch in it. The other advantage is that by fencing it we won't have to worry about the kids riding their dirt bikes and four wheelers through it. Now if only it will all work out as smoothly as that. ;)

Technology Curse

So overall the weekend hasn't been very promising. I've broken two major household appliances, it has rained for the last two days, it has been cold and not exactly condusive to getting things done. It's not necessarily that I broke the appliances as much as I was the one who found that they weren't working. The dishwasher isn't turning on and it appears to have some disconnect between the electronic panel on the front and what actually turns it on. The timer on the dryer is not moving and clothes just dry and dry and dry. So I really probably shouldn't even be on the computer because lord knows what will happen to it.

Not a really good way to start off the new week, hopefully it isn't a sign. ;)

Gardening in my Garage

We had the freezing spell Saturday through Monday so I couldn't put out any plants. I got in a shipment yesterday evening, but I worked late so I couldn't put it out. Today it rained a ton, so no planting for a few days while I wait for it to dry out. In the meantime I was concerned for my new Angel Face rose bush. I had planted one of these up in North Carolina, pictured above. I fell madly in love with it and it tore my heart out to leave it when we left. So I found one in a gardening catalog and ordered it. It came in with yesterday's shipment and was a bare-root plant wrapped in plastic. Since I won't be able to plant it outside for a few days I went ahead and put it in a pot with some dirt in it to keep it from drying out. Hopefully I'll be able to get them out before they all die.

Too good to be true

Most people that I know figured that we'd get another cold snap after the warm weather we've been having. We just didn't think it would be this much of a cold snap. After a couple of nights at 27 degrees the leaves on my crepe myrtle tree died. Most everything else still seems to be doing okay and that has been the only casualty I have seen. I'm definately ready for a bit warmer weather.

My last round of mail-order plants is coming in and after that I don't plan on planting much. Our main priority is to get the privacy fence in the back yard put up and then maintain the things that we have planted so far. Looking forward to warming up soon. :)

Botanical Garden

It is day #2 of my mom's visit, and we decided to go visit the botanical garden. It was a beautiful sunny day and perfect to go walking around. It was however not the perfect day to go there because they had a charity fundraising walk-a-thon type event going on and it was a madhouse there. We walked around and looked at all the tulips, lilacs, cherry trees, dogwoods, azaleas and it was beautiful.

We got back to a vegetable garden demonstration area where people were working outside. One of the ladies asked me if I would like to have some of the flower plants, because they were getting ready to till up an old neglected bed to plant some vegetables. May as well ask me if I still want to keep breathing! So they dug us up some day lilies, poppies, oxalis and sweet william and put them in plastic grocery bags to carry out.

In case you didn't know, the soil in Alabama is clay. Heavy, dense clay that turns hard as a rock when it is dry like it has been. When they dug up the plants there was a substantial amount of dirt on them. We picked up the bags and started walking back to take them to the car. Before too long it felt like my arms were getting pulled off. The handles on the bags started stretching. We made it to a park bench and sat down to rest. We started off again and made it a little farther and the handles on the bags started breaking. We stopped at another more secluded park bench and decided that something had to be done. So we pulled out the clumps and started knocking off big clods of dirt to lighten up the loads.

We finally made it out, although there was a brief period of time where I was afraid we were going to get tackled as we left since it looked like we were carrying ill-gotten gains. We went out to eat afterwards and then went home. We stopped by the quilt shop and both left with more fabric than we needed to. Tomorrow: On to the nursery and pond store!

More Springtime Goodness

Yet another beautiful spring day today. It was actually 86 degrees yesterday and felt about like summer. Today it was a bit overcast and looked almost like it would rain. Almost. It's actually a bit on the dry side right now and we really could use some rain. I had to water today and I don't like to do that with water straight from the faucet. The water here really smells like chlorine, and when I take a bath it smells almost like a swimming pool. I ran some in a watering can today so it can sit overnight and some of it can evaporate out.

The grass got cut today for the second time and is starting to green up. There are weeds growing all in the sod and we're probably going to have to get it treated. Our previous lawn was a collection of weeds with a few sprigs of grass in it, so it'd be nice to have something that was mostly grass.

Tulip Hageri

Spring is definately here and we've been doing a lot of gardening this weekend. Got things planted and beds moved around. I am definately worn out and ready to go back to work so that I can rest.

My baby, you've found him!

I am extremely happy today and all is right with the world. My computer dieded and it had to go into the repair center. It's been gone over a MONTH. I have been lost and wandering without it and hubby and I have been unhappily sharing his. I basically got back a new computer because they replaced the hard drive, motherboard, video card, both DVD drives and part of the chassis.

But now here it is, back in my house and squeaky clean, woohoo! I don't want to put anything on it now because it's so empty. ;)

Hopeless

Since I've been spending a ton more money on books than I'd like to lately, I decided to get started going back to the library more often. That way I can read to my heart's content and not have to pay anything (unless I'm late taking them back!). You know that sounds really good in theory, but there are two evils at work here: previewing books that I like and the Amazon Marketplace where I can have access to thousands and thousands of used bookstores across the country. Case in point:

I've always been a sucker for regional cookbooks, and have always tried to find one for each area that I have lived in. I've been stumped on a regional cookbook for Minnesota. When I was at the library on Sunday I came across this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Savoring-Seasons-Northern-Heartland-Dooley/dp/0816645744/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-7914975-6964722?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174358824&sr=8-1
The book is great, it has a lot of commentary and history on the region in it, and some downright tasty (though not healthy!) recipes. So of course I had to buy it. I've found myself prowling around the AM several times in the past few days and I think I'm going to have to start blocking the site now.

My problem is that even though I am telling myself that I really don't NEED anymore books I can complete the transaction in less than two minutes so there isn't time for the buyer's remorse to kick in. Normally when I go to a real book store I will pick up an interesting book, decide to buy it, carry it around for about 5 minutes and then put it back. Just the act of making the decision to buy it makes me feel better, and the hassle of having to actually go check out makes it not worth it. I hope that I don't have to make the library off limits like the bookstores are now. :)

Score 1 for the hometeam!

Or Me 1 - Feral Yeast 0

Second attempt for a rematch and it was much more successful than the last. The main reason is that I decided to use sourdough, which I've had better luck with in the past than straight yeast breads. I had some leftover pumpkin from making some pumpkin oatmeal cookies and wanted to find a recipe to use it. So I found a pumpkin dinner roll recipe online and used a sourdough recipe conversion spreadsheet to remake the recipe. I attempted it starting last night and these were the results today. Here's the recipe that I used:

Sourdough Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

1 c. sourdough starter

3/4 c. milk (or soy milk)

4-5 c. flour

1 tsp. salt

6 Tbs. canola oil

1 c. canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/3 c. brown sugar, packed

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ginger

1/8 tsp. allspice

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. baking soda

Combine starter, milk, 2 c. flour, canola oil, pumpkin, brown sugar and spices in a large bowl and mix well. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and leave to sit for about 24 hours. Remove plastic wrap and stir spond. Combine remaining flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add flour mixture to sponge and stir until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl. Turn dough out and knead 3-4 minutes, adding flour only to keep from sticking.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Divide dough into 24 equal portions and roll them into balls. Place several inches apart on a baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit for 15 minutes. Brush tops with milk and bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

For some reason I was thinking that the rolls would come out pretty sweet and I wasn't thinking they would be a good dinner roll. They aren't though, they are just right. Really rich tasting with a subtle spicy taste. I plan on trying them again for holiday rolls this fall. :) They turned out slightly heavy and I'm thinking it's because I didn't use bread flour or maybe needed to knead it longer. I'll have to do some tweaking to make it better.

Crepe Murder

I'm so happy today because I can finally start talking about gardening again. Since moving into our new house last fall there wasn't much to talk about. There didn't seem much use in getting started on anything with winter right around the corner, and there was so many other things to do. But today is another matter all together.

The sun is shining very brightly outside, but the air is still really chilly. The birds are singing and the wind is blowing in the trees. One of the projects that has been on my radar lately is pruning our crepe myrtle trees. For those who don't know what a crepe myrtle is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepe_myrtle Part of the deal with the new housing development were two trees in the front yard. The ones that were there had been planted in the middle of the drought and looked dead, so I asked for them to be replaced. I asked for crepe myrtles if possible. When I was growing up, we had two of them that my grandmother had planted growing in front of the house and I thought it would be nice if I had some again. I was reading an article in Southern Living that was trying to prevent people from committing Crepe Murder by beheading their trees in the mistaken belief that it would give the tree a beautiful form.

So with my newly acquired pruning tools I set forth to do battle with my own. For the most part it was pretty straightforward, but one of my trees has a split in the main trunk. I'm going to have to figure out what I need to do with it so I can get started with retraining it if necessary.

I've also been poring through gardening magazines and trying to figure out what I want to plant where. I have made enormous lists of what I want to plant and have to keep pruning it back. Cost is a constraint in this because we need to get a fence put up in the back yard first before we do anything else.

Jezebel Bites

Tonight I tinkered around with a couple of recipes that I have been holding on to. This is an adaptation of a couple of Cooking Light recipes. It's something that I wanted to use as an appetizer. I liked the way that it turned out and plan on making it again. I would post pictures but they didn't turn out very photogenic so I'll have to make them again sometime.

Jezebel Bites

1 Tbs. butter or margarine
1 shallot, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1/2 c. boiling water
1/4 c. dried apricots, chopped
2/3 c. pineapple preserves
1/3 c. red pepper jelly
1 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. prepared horseradish
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. hot sauce of your choice (I like Texas Pete)
1/2 tsp. crushed chile pepper

Phyllo Dough, thawed
Olive Oil Cooking Spray

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Bring water to a boil and pour over apricots, set aside for 10 minutes. Heat a small saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic, and saute for 5 minutes or so, until garlic begins to brown but is not burned. Drain apricots and put in a medium sized bowl. Add shallot mixture and remaining ingredients except for Phyllo and cooking spray. Stir well until combined.

At this point it would be fine to serve with cooked meat if you indulge in it, especially ham.

If you want to try the Jezebel Bites, taked thawed phyllo sheets and cut them in half. Lay out a sheet, spray it with olive oil for three layers. Place a spoonful of the sauce in it and roll it up like a flag. Sorry, that's the best instructions that I can come up with, I'm not that creative tonight. ;)

Place on a cookie sheet and spray tops with cooking spray. Bake in a 400 degree oven for around 11 minutes or until browned and crunchy.

Gnat

I have developed the attention span of a gnat. I keep so busy with work that I drift from one thing to another when I get home because I'm mentally worn out. I'm hoping that when spring comes and I can start working on my garden that it'll get me settled in again, but I'm not so sure it will work. One of my main pleasures in life before was reading. I could sit and read a book for long periods of time over the course of weeks. Now I start the first few chapters and then don't pick it up for a month or two. So I've discovered something that I previously was not so fond of - short stories and essays. I'm currently reading two collections - "Cornbread Nation I" and "A Naturalist Buys An Old Farm". Cornbread Nation is a collection of essays on southern cooking written by various people. A Naturalist Buys An Old Farm is a collection of the writings of Edwin Way Teale about a farm that he bought with his wife in Connecticut. I like it because I can just dip into them now and then depending on my mood and I don't feel like I've missed anything or forgotten anything. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to settle down into a good book, but for now I have something to keep my attention.

Havoc

Hockey has always been my favorite sport to watch (probably because I hate most other sports). Having lived in the frozen north for quite a few years, I developed an appreciation for the game. Hockey fans living in the South were out of luck until the spread that's happened lately. And now I'm living in a town that has its own team, yay! :) My company helped sponser Military Appreciation Night, and tonight was the game. I got free tickets so we went. It was a great time, I really enjoyed it. Even the husband enjoyed the game. I definately plan on attending some more of them. We are going to get a hotel downtown next time so that we don't have to drive home afterwords. Should be an enjoyable evening. :)

Hedgehog Principle

I don't know if any of you have read the book "Good to Great", but it's a business book that discusses how being good makes some companies not strive to be great. What the author believes seperates the good from the great is that the great ones have a Hedgehog Principle, or a core business that they stick to and do well at. Okay, that's really paraphrasing it down but that's what stuck with me and I forgot everything else. The reason for this rambling is to illustrate that cookies are my Hedgehog Principle. I used to suck at making them, but since I got my new oven and baking sheets I can't get enough of baking them. So after my recent yeast defeat I decided to go back to my strong ability to redeem myself.

Cookies had fallen out of my favor because all of my co-workers seem to have gone on diets. I usually pawn off...er.. share cookies with co-workers because with just two of us at home we don't need to eat whole batches. But now I have a new victim..er.. friend to share with. So I decided to do some baking tonight. One of my recent sources for inspiration is the Baking Sheet blog - http://www.bakingsheet.blogspot.com/. There was a cookie recipe that interested me there, but seemed to need tweaking - http://bakingsheet.blogspot.com/2005/12/maple-pecan-oatmeal-cookies.html. So here is my tweaked version. They came out really good. They weren't overly sweet or spiced and I liked them. We'll see how they go over tomorrow. :)

Here are the changes I made: added 1/4 tsp. cloves because to me oatmeal cookies HAVE to have cloves in them, 1 tsp. maple extract (the more mapley the better), 1/2 tsp. vanilla, I used half maple syrup and half brown rice syrup for the 1/3 c. maple syrup because I ran out of maple (brown rice syrup has a neat caramely flavor), and used pecan meal because I don't like nuts in cookies.

Maple Pecan Oatmeal Cookies
1 c. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
½ c. butter, softened
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. maple syrup
1 egg or egg replacer
1 tsp. maple extract
½ tsp. vanilla
1 c. rolled oats
½ c. pecan meal

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Cream butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl. Beat in maple syrup, egg replacer, maple extract and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture and oats, adding pecan meal at the last minute. Stir only until just combined. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 9-12 minutes, until set and golden brown around the edges.

Yeast Bread 1, Home Team 0

I have gotten to the point where almost everything that I cook turns out good. I can't remember the last time that I made something that was totally inedible. One of the challenges that I have always had is that I have never been able to make any yeast-raised baked goods. I've decided that I'm going to change this tradition, and this weekend was to be the beginning of it.

The first recipe that I aimed to try was this: http://www.gumbopages.com/food/dessert/king-cake.html. I have read about King Cakes before and really wanted to try one. So I found the recipe and bought the things I needed. With a confident air after my baking successes with cookies at Christmas, I set forth to do battle with yeast breads. Needless to say that it turned out to be a complete and utter failure. :( I think I may have lost track counting cups of flour, because the dough turned out REALLY dry. I mean really dry. I made a valiant effort to save it, but it came out dense and heavy and ended up in the garbage can. I still had a bowl of cream cheese filling, and decided that I'd try to salvage it by making it into frosting for a carrot cake.

I've never actually made a carrot cake before, but I have recipes and some old carrots that needed to be used. I got it mixed up and put in the oven to bake. I shouldn't have been very surprised to see that the carrot cake was also a flop. Didn't rise and was really oily. At this point I gave up and left the kitchen. Sometimes it's better to quit while you're ahead and try again another day.

You may have won this battle Yeast Bread, but I'll win the campaign.

Sn0000000w!

We finally got our first snow of the winter yesterday. It's a scary proposition driving in winter conditions in the South. Not because I don't know how to drive in it (I lived in Minnesota), but because the rest of the people around here don't. Thankfully I made it safely back and forth to work for yesterday and today though it got hairy a few times. I'm definately ready for spring, and thanks to the groundhog it'll be coming soon. :)

Aloo Gobi

I finally got around to making this, I've been meaning to for a while. The recipe can be found here: http://www.pakupaku.info/indian/aloo_gobi.shtml. It turned out really good, though I had a ginger root that was woodier than what it should have been. I used a whole jalapeno rather than 1/4 of one and it came out just right for my spiciness level. I also used chopped up onion and garlic in it instead of the hing powder (forgot to get it while I was at the Indian store), and I can't feature making anything savory without garlic and onions.

It was a very quiet weekend, after my shopping yesterday I was happy to stay home today. We did go out and get groceries, but other than that we didn't go anywhere. I'm not especially looking forward to work this week, but it always seems to go by really fast so at least that's a good thing. :)

Swan Dive Into The Fabric Stash

I haven't worked on quilting since I moved down here. It's been so hectic and I've just existed. But I have been feeling some stirrings of normalcy, and today I ventured into the fabric store for the first time since we got here. I am still working on quilting the kaleidoscope quilt in the picture above but I am starting on a game plan for a new one. It is a major commitment to me to pick out the fabric and pattern for a new one, almost on par with getting married. ;) Because I do everything by hand, it takes me years to finish one once I get it started. And that's just small ones I've made. I intend to do a queen sized one for our bedroom. So I've had out my stacks of quilting magazines and books, trying to find my prince charming of a pattern. I picked out some nice fabrics while I was there. I also ventured downtown to find the Indian store to pick up some spices. I'm planning on making aloo gobi tomorrow, we'll see how it turns out.

Geek in the Kitchen

I would say that I have quite a few cookbooks. Okay, I have LOTS of cookbooks. The problem is that when I want to try to figure out stuff to make, I get daunted by the selection and end up making the same old stuff. So in a flash of brilliance (and computer nerdiness), I decided to make a recipe index. Basically I am taking one cookbook at a time and going through the whole thing, noting which recipes I want to try. I'm then entering them into a spreadsheet with categories divided by tab, the recipe name, the cookbook title and the page that it appears on. That way if I decide I want to bake cookies, I can go to the cookies tab. If I want to find main courses to make for dinner, I can go to that tab. Let's just say that I have quite a way to go on this, but the challenge is fun. And hopefully it will help me tame my cookbook library. :)

Mungo Guisado

We bought a new cookbook for Filipino recipes. We had one already, but it didn't have all of the recipes that we wanted to make. So we picked out this one - Memories of Philippine Kitchens. I made the first recipe out of it tonight, Mungo Guisado. It is a stew made out of mung beans, with tomatoes and onions. It is traditionally seasoned with pork or shrimp, but I didn't use any meat in it. It's a pretty healthy dish, and very filling.

I especially wanted to make something like this, because my husband is sick. He has a sinus infection and isn't feeling well. Since this is flavorful without being strong and spicy it worked well. It also didn't take that long to make, hands on time was probably around 10 minutes.

Land of the Big Red Hog

I finally made a trip home to visit my family in Arkansas this weekend. I've been putting it off for a while because I've been working so much lately. So since this is the last long weekend that we're going to have for a while, I figured we'd just make it work. Needless to say, this has been one of the absolute worst weekends for traveling that there could be.

It started raining as soon as we hit the Alabama/Mississippi border and hasn't stopped yet. It was cold and the low-lying areas were filled with water. We had a decent hotel room with good amenities so we were pretty happy. I didn't stay at my mother's house, we stayed in a town a bit away. We got there at lunchtime on Saturday, and my mom and step-dad came to have dinner with us that night. The next day my mom and I went to visit my grandpa in the nursing home. It was pretty sad, because he isn't very mentally alert anymore, and it wasn't a good time to visit him.

We left out first thing this morning and it was still raining, though at least it didn't freeze. We were definately very glad to make it home, so much so that we didn't want to leave to go get groceries. So I decided to make a pot of soup that was inspired by watching Iron Chef this weekend, where the challenge ingredient was frozen green peas. So here is my recipe, that is a bit of a spicier take on their version. It is really easy to make, and cooked in about 15 minutes.

Green Pea Soup

1 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 c. onion, chopped
4 c. broth
1 (1 Lb) bag frozen peas
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1/2 tsp. smoked spanish paprika
Salt and black pepper to taste

Heat oil in a medium saucepan. Saute onion for about 5 minutes, or until tender and just starting to brown at the edges. Add the remaining ingredients, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer 10 minutes. Either puree the soup with an immersion blender, or in a regular blender.
***
My soup came out pretty brothy, it wasn't thick. If you like it thicker, you could either add some white sauce to make a cream of pea soup, or thicken it with more peas. I like it thinner myself, but it's personal taste. :)

G'Day Mate!

That's right, I've been filling up on more ANZAC Biscuits. ;) I had a craving for them today, and made some when I got home. I broke my pledge today, that I would try to take my lunch to work every day. In actuality, I did get up and pack up my lunch, but I ended up leaving it on the kitchen table. :( It was some quinoa salad, very tasty I might add, and I would have preferred it to the Chinese food that I ended up getting instead. Maybe one of these days I'll actually remember my lunch before I leave the house, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Hubby had a good supper made when I got home, curried fried rice and a cucumber/tomato salad.

Now that I have changed my hours to 7 am and don't have to be up so early, I start getting super-sleepy around 8 at night. Go figure :) I couldn't get to sleep when I was getting up at 5, but now that I'm getting up earlier I can't stay awake.

Bleh

So we get to spend the first weekend of the new year sick :) Both of us have sore throats and stuffy noses, so it's a good weekend to just stay put. In order to try to make us feel better, I wanted to make a pot of soup. I have been sorting through my recipes to put them into a new binder cookbook, and came across one that I hadn't made in a long time. I found the original recipe in the Dairy Hollowhouse Cookbook, but it was pretty time intensive to make it. So I filed it away and never made it again. This time I decided to adapt it to ingredients that made it faster and easier to make. I added a few tweaks of my own, and it came out really good. It was bright and perky without being too spicy for queasy tummies to handle. I think that this is going to be one that I make pretty often now. I also found the secret to getting my bean hating husband to eat them - he doesn't mind small ones. Bigger ones like kidney and pinto are a problem, but he doesn't mind black beans and great northern ones. I think I can accomodate that. :)

Ozark Style Tuscan Bean Soup
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
6 c. stock
2 small tomatoes, chopped (or 1 (14.5 oz) can)
1 (14.5 oz) can Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
2 c. cabbage, cut into fine ribbons
1 tsp. thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbs. honey, or to taste (to cut acidity from lemon)

Heat oil in a stockpot over medium low heat. Add onions, celery, carrots and garlic. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until onions are translucent, about 6 minutes. Add stock and stir in tomatoes, beans, jalapeno, cabbage, and thyme. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to low. Cook 30 minutes or until everything is tender. Turn off heat, stir in lemon, honey and parsley to combine.

On the Road Again

I'd just started to feel settled in and comfortable in my new job/office and now it's time to move again. In order to make sure that I won't be disturbed in preparing for my new position, my manager/friend had me moved out of the warehouse office that I've been working in. My new digs are an office space that was recently vacated when another department cleared out. I have an office all to myself now, with a window.....that looks out into the inside of the building. ;) It joins into two large empty rooms that had cubicles in them, and the remnants of moving...dust, clutter and emptiness. I walked in and felt so alone. It's kind of silly, my new office is not that far away from where I was, and I can see the people outside, but still. :) I'm going to miss the lady that I shared my office with, and having my people coming in to see me and..well...having people at all. ;)

I'm an unlikely sort of supervisor/manager, because I really don't like dealing with people that much, and think of it more as a necessary evil of earning a paycheck. I've been told that I'm better at it than I give myself credit for. But my employees have really grown on me in the last couple of months and I'm going to miss them. You know that most potent of curses - may you get what you deserve...or another - may you lead an interesting life. ;)

New Year's Eve

Yesterday both DH and I were not feeling well. One of the nephews that visited passed on a bug to us, and we have been down for the last couple of days. So for supper yesterday I wanted to make something that was comforting and not greasy takeout. We have been eating at a couple of places since we got here - Mama Fu's Noodle House and a chinese restaurant called Tai Pan. Mama Fu's has a pho soup dish that I am pretty fond of. Tai Pan has a good wonton soup that has bok choy and green onions in it that I am pretty fond of. So I decided to make my own Asian inspired soup to help us feel better. I've been reading through a Thai cookbook that I have also, which made me want to experiment with those flavors.

So here is the product of my experiment. The noodles from the dish are wonton wrappers that I cut into strips. Basically by taking a stack of 5 wonton wrappers and cutting them four times straight. I call it:

Rhonda Fu's Spicy Asian Noodle Soup
1 Tbs. canola oil
1/2 c. carrots, julienned or super thinly sliced
1 c. napa cabbage, coarsely chopped
4 c. broth - chicken or vegetable
5 wonton wrappers, cut into strips
1 Tbs. soy sauce (optional, taste before adding)
Black pepper to taste
1/4 c. thinly sliced green onions
1/4 c. fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
Juice of 1 lime
1 Tbs. brown sugar (more or less, to cut the acidity of the lime, use as desired)
Couple of shots of hot sauce, or 1/4 tsp. ground cayenne (don't use Tabasco or other strong flavored sauce)

Heat a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Add the canola oil and the carrots, stir to coat them with the oil. Saute for a few minutes and then add the napa cabbage. Saute a few minutes more and then add the broth. Drop the wonton strips one at a time into the broth to make sure that they are seperate. Add the black pepper. Continue cooking over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and turn off the heat. Let stand for a few minutes to let the flavors mesh.

Note: If it's cooked too long the vegetables will get mushy. It's better to have them slightly underdone than overdone. The quantities feed about 3 people or so, it's not a large amount.

The Cookie Monster

I've been a cookie baking monster for the last few days. Having people in the house to bake for makes me happy, and I've been taking full advantage. In the last week I have baked:

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies with Cherry Filling

Cranberry Orange Cookies

Snickerdoodles

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

And finally today I baked:

ANZAC Biscuits (pictured above)

I haven't baked the ANZAC biscuits in a while, because hubby is not that fond of coconut. ANZAC biscuits are an Australian/New Zealand cookie, named in honor of the Australian/New Zealand Air Corps and I believe they are traditional on ANZAC Day there. I found some cane syrup at the store and figured I'd make some for our guests. They came out much better than the last time I made them - I love my new stove.

The houseguests are leaving early tomorrow morning, so we'll have a lot of cleaning to catch up on. :)

Wo0o0o0o0o0oT!!!!!!111one1

I thought it would never get here, but it's official :) 10 days off from work, woohoo! I worked my last second shift tonight. Before I went in to work, I made these Chocolate Thumbprint cookies to give to the people at work who have helped me so much. They were a really big hit, and I wish I'd made more because it wasn't nearly enough to give to everyone I wanted to. I only got to eat one of them. ;) My husband and I went to eat at our new Friday evening ritual, eating at a Chinese restaurant over by where I work. The waitress has our order memorized, and it's not busy even at 8:00 pm on a Friday night. Tonight was a bit annoying because they had a large party in the room in the back, and there were some really annoying loud teenage girls. But it didn't stop us from enjoying our food.

We will be very busy tomorrow, getting things ready for the family coming in. Our friends are going to stop by to take a look at the house, now that we have furniture in it. We have to get groceries, and finish fixing up the place.

Oh, and.......W0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0T!!!!!!!

Food Coma

Our second shift had a potluck luncheon tonight, and since I'm the firsunsecon supervisor I came back for it. In case you aren't familiar with that, that's a first shift supervisor who has to stay late and help take care of second shift issues until our new supervisor comes onboard. One of our guys is from Utah and had never had Southern food before. So we decided it would be a bring your favorite Southern dish potluck. I made a pot of black-eyed peas, some fried potatoes and a pan of cornbread. It turned out pretty good, and I thought I was doing good to stay awake for the drive home. But since my mind is always on either eating food, planning on what I'm going to eat for the next meal, plotting out what I'm going to cook the next day, and making menu plans for weeks in advance I decided to get a headstart on tomorrow.

I've seen some Ethopian recipes that intrigued me, but for most of them you need two particular ingredients: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbere and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niter_kibbeh. So tonight when I got home and my latest order from http://www.penzeys.com/ was here, I got on the ball to make some. Berbere is the spice mix, and you are supposed to toast the spices after you mix them. Let me tell you, that's a good way to clear out your sinuses. I didn't even make it as hot as they call for in the recipe I used. The niter kibbeh is heating on the stove right now. Tomorrow I'm going to be making my first Ethopian dish, a recipe called Yetakelt Wat which is a cabbage stew. I'm hoping that it turns out okay, because I bought black cardamom seeds instead of the green pods. Somehow it reminds me of smoke and cough syrup. :)

Homestretch

There is exactly one working week until the long holiday break, and I can't wait. I can barely fathom 11 days off without working. The closest I have come to that is 10 days between when we left NC and moved here. But that was hardly a vacation. Of course we'll be busy this time too, with the In-Laws coming with the 4 and 5 year old nephews. But I won't be having to worry about work :)

To finish the banana marathon, I made the Banana Pineapple Snack Cake I posted earlier. I froze the rest of the bananas because I'm not really in the mood for more banana goodness. I think people at work are starting to hide when they see me carrying in a plastic container now :)

Tonight I created a new recipe, surprise, it is for a soup :) It came out pretty good. A bit of a change up from the bean and lentil creations I've been making lately, which is a relief to the spouse.

Cream of Cauliflower Soup
1 medium head of cauliflower, broken into florets
1/4 c. butter or margarine
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 Tbs. flour
1 tsp. ground mustard
1/2 tsp. smoked Spanish paprika
1 tsp. dried thyme
2 c. stock
2 c. milk, soy or dairy
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 Tbs. nutritional yeast (or use 1/2 c. or so of shredded cheddar)
Heat stock in a soup pot and bring to a boil. Add the cauliflower and then cook until tender. Remove cauliflower from the pot and mash. Retain 2 c. of the cooking liquid and set aside. Melt the butter or margarine in the soup pot. Add the onion and celery and saute until onions begin to brown. Stir in the flour and spices and toss to coat the vegetables evenly. Add the stock and milk and whisk to combine. Add the cauliflower and nutritional yeast or cheese and stir well to combine. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook until soup thickens to desired consistency.

The Banana Marathon

My friend's wife picked up a case of bananas or two when she went shopping today. Normally I like bananas okay, but I usually don't get them used up before they get too mushy for me to want to use them. So when I became the custodian of three bunches of them today I wasn't sure what I would be able to use them for and if I could stomach that much banana-flavored goodness. You see, I already have four containers of frozen banana mush that I was waiting to use for baking, and I don't have any more containers for it. The problem is that not only am I going to be eating all of my banana baked goods, she's going to be trying to pawn off hers on me too. Which is what I plan to do to her. I don't know if I'll be able to look at a banana after this. I wasn't sure if I was up for the challenge, but I've started the marathon.

My first entry is a recipe for Monkey Bars. It's a recipe that I veganized out of Cooking Light, my favorite magazine ever. I substituted the rice milk for buttermilk, and 1/2 cup of extra banana for the egg whites that the recipe calls for. Because of the extra banana, it's more flavorful, but a little sweeter than the original recipe. If you don't like sweet that well, then cut down the brown sugar a bit to compensate for the extra banana.

Monkey Bars
1/2 c. raisins
1 1/2 Tbs. apple juice
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
1/4 c. margarine or butter, softened
1 c. mashed ripe banana
3 Tbs. rice milk, or buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine the raisins and apple juice in a microwave bowl. Microwave at high for 1 minute, and set aside. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl, stirring well. Set aside. Combine brown sugar and margarine in a large bowl, and beat until well blended. Add banana, milk and vanilla, mixing well. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in raisin mixture. Spread the batter into an 8-inch square baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden. Cool the bars completely on a wire rack.

P.S. I'm willing to start a betting pool on how long it's going to take the people at work to start hiding from me when I bring in a container of baked goods. :)

New Baby

We were out grocery shopping today when I saw this over in the florist section. I'm a sucker for orchids at any time, but since winter seems to have finally set in spring gardening season seems to be a long way off. It's been a pretty quiet day otherwise, I tried out a new recipe for a plum upside-down cake that turned out quite tasty but not very photogenic. It stuck when I was trying to take it out and the top got a little botched. ;)

We found out today that my in-laws and our nephews are coming to visit for Christmas, so we are going to be decorating and doing stuff for Christmas after all. We haven't had a tree or ornaments before, so I'm going to try to come up with some crafty things the kids can put together to decorate the tree with. And since we will have people to cook for it should be fun. :)

Holiday Party

Tonight is the company holiday party, which I'm not crazy about going to. But since I'm a supervisor it's one of those things that you have to do. I'd prefer to stay home and do other stuff, but oh well. We went out this morning to do a bit of shopping, and when I got home I felt like baking something. I saw a post earlier on the PPK forum for some Brown Sugar Shortbread and thought I'd try it out. I've had a shortbread pan for a long time and never really used it. So here's the outcome. :)

Recipe is found here:

http://www.postpunkkitchen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15863

Scroll down to the sixth post :)