WHY ESPRESSO!!!

THIS ONE GOES OUT TO ALL YOU BUSY MOMMIES!


a) TIME SAVING: You can down it like a shot

b) SIMPLE: you don't need to add milk & coffee

c) INDULGENT: you can console yourself with a piece of chocolate to balance the bitter espresso & calm your borderline freak-out session when you see your 2 boys trying to empty daddy's wallet content into their sock drawer & your 3 year old girl trying to cut her own bangs.

d) PRACTICAL: no kids will dare ask you for a sip for fear you'll actually let them have one & photograph the horrific face they make when they do.

And the winner is.....

Hey Fantastic Followers! (Arg, that has an odd repressed childhood ring to it)

I'm terribly tickled by your "Giveaway" comments. I'm just having a blasty-blast reading through some of the more ghastly home remedies ever. (If I could give the prize for genuinely terrifying home remedies, Silver Princess wins, hands down!)

Seeing as I got so much feedback & enjoyed your great comments & great ideas (and not so great ideas) I've decided to pick 2 winners, so here you go.

I dragged this fresh looking young man out of bed & forced him to rummage around in a hat while he was eating breakfast, for some reason unknown to him.

"K-a-r-i" & "R-y-a-n"

There ya go! Congratulations! Kari & Ryan! Hope you like your humble little prize (100% homemade & free of alligator urine) Ryan, lemmie know how would be best to get you your prize. And Kari, I'll be seeing you soon hopefully.


Thanks everyone. I've got some spiffy foodie ideas for another giveaway soon so stay tuned!

Fragrant Giveaway!

So maybe you don't know this about me but I'm a bit trippy when it comes to natural beauty products. I suppose it's the fact that so many wonderful things in the kitchen can be put in your mouth & smeared all over your body. (Hurrah for messy eaters). I'm not a vigilante about natural health products but you have to be daft to not know that there's a load of crap in consumer beauty products.

I used to think my sister was out of her mind when she'd walk around with banana & oatmeal smeared on her face like a freakin' alien but reeeeally, you can't deny the joy in smashing stuff up, grinding it up & the walking around looking like Frankenstien much to the horror of your DH, who you then hold down & force to don the same concoction.

The more you look into it the more you realize that you can start a whole spa in your kitchen. (minus the L.O. pasta).

So in celebration of God's green earth I'm gonna give away 1 of my favorite winter body products. Lavender & TeaTree Salt & Sugar body scrub.

Anyone who gets dry skin in the winter months will love it. It's the easiest thing to make:

cup of sugar or salt (I used both cuz' salt is a bit too coarse for my liking)
enough carrier oil to turn it into a slushy paste, don't overdo it on the oil. (I used grapeseed but you can use whatever you like, probably not EV olive or cooking oil, ewwww)
10 drops or so of your favorite essential oil (or a blend of oils) I used 7 lavender 3 tea tree

Voila!!

SO! If you wanna take a swing at this giveaway, here's the dealio:

1) Leave a comment answering two questions. What homemade natural product do you use or make & what's the weirdest homemade/natural product you've used or know of someone using (no enema stories please, tx)

2) Significant other can comment for you (or for themselves) to up your chances.

3) Come back on Mon morning on the 28th to see one of my kids randomly picked your name.

4) Sorry but I can only ship within the country :( But we'd still love to hear your whacky ideas


That's it folkies! Comments are now open!

Things we must contemplate.......

- Why didn't I just resist the temptation to start watching "Top Chef"?

- How hard would it be to start a micro-green garden on my window sill?

- What kind of a person would actually enjoy cooking using "molecular gastronomy"? My personal guess is, MASA!!

- Why does composting seem like it's a two faced evil-doer, on one hand it has the ability to be extremely eco-friendly & simple yet also have the potential to be a huge steamy pile of stinkin' mess?

- If my kitchen mixer is named 'Bruce the Mighty Mixer', what shall my sleek blue & translucent glow in the dark blender be called?

- As a cook should I speak up when someone puts mayo on a meal I made that did not call for MAYO as a condiment? (let's just not go here)

- Why am I blogging when I'm supposed to be making bread for tomorrow?

- What would I need to do to get one of you to sneak off with me to Italy....har har! (seriously, if you have any super plausible getaway plans & elaborate cover ups lemmie know....you're my new best friend)


One last contemplation:

Giveaway coming soon..........as soon as I figure out who keeps stuffing marbles into my boots!

--- Ciao

Blessed Bread ALONE: Focaccia

Recently someone asked me how to make Focaccia & I directed them to my blog saying that I had posted the recipe. But after searching I realized that I had NO such recipe posted yet. I mean.....REALLY? I've been making this recipe nearly as long as I've been making pancakes! Great balls of steaming ooger! The time to post is now. (though technically this draft has been sitting on my dashboard for months)

Now, If I may let you in on a little secret:

You have permission to be a mediocre cook but if you can bake a loaf of bread you'll pass as a kitchen genius.

Try it, next big meal take a little time to try out some bread and you'll have guests grabbing hold of your ankles refusing to leave. How do I know this? I am yet trying to shake off ankle holders now. (they are roughly between the ages of 5-1)

Honestly, people. This bread was one of the first breads I tried making & believe me, there's nothing like being hailed a genius when the only things you can actually make in the kitchen is scrambled eggs & focaccia. Observe:
Here I am posing as an impostor cook, looking smug, & mismatched. It's pretty obvious the only thing I've actually accomplished in the kitchen is drink several beers, make bread & successfully convince people I can cook. I admit I even pulled this on my boyfriend and he is yet still my boyfriend.

So please, pretend that you're not paranoid of yeast & get cracking: (Hint, the secret to a good focaccia is in the triple raising)

5 c of bread flour or all purpose flour (use 1/2 extra tsp of salt if using all purpose flour)
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 tbsp sugar
2/3 c olive oil (You only need 3-4 tbsp for the actual dough, rest is for topping)
2 c warm water (40 c) (Set aside 1/4 of the water for yeast)

Dissolve sugar in warm water in a bowl sprinkle yeast on top & leave undisturbed for 10 min. Sift flour, salt together in large bowl. Make a well in the center pour yeast/water in & mix till blended (there will be lumps & crumbliness) then make another well & add olive oil & remaining 1 3/4 c warm water. Mix with wooden spoon till it comes together then turn out onto floured surface & knead for 10 min. (If you have a stand mixer you can knead for 6-8 min)

The dough should be soft but not too soft to handle. Add more flour as needed. Turn the dough into a oiled large bowl & set in the oven or warm place (covered with towel) for 1 1/2 hrs till it's doubled in size.

Lightly oil two baking trays, or of you like use two 9" cake pans (this will give you a much fluffier, thicker focaccia), punch dough down shape into two balls roll or press into the pans, cover the pans with towels & let it rise again for 30 min. Preheat oven for 200c (400f)

Using your fingertips press dimples all over the dough's surface. Drizzle the remaining oil over the bread. Sprinkle generously with seasalt.

The most traditional topping is rosemary sprigs. But there are heaps of toppings that you can choose from & or improvise with some ideas are:

sliced red onion
coarsely ground walnuts or pecans
black olives halved
sun-dried tomatoes
cherry tomato halves
sprinkling dried basil
fresh basil leaves
brown sugar (about 1 tsp per loaf)
bits of anchovies
parmesan cheese

Let the dough sit again for another 30 min then bake for 20-25 min till golden brown. And that's about it. Cut & serve warm.

I try not to let my foccacia get too "busy" with toppings. Usually pick 2 or 3, max, besides the olive oil. Of course if you add a pizza sauce & cheese before the toppings then "BAM" the evolution of pizza.

Also if you have a bread maker you can set it to "dough" and put the ingr. in according to the maker's instructions till the first rising

Well, that's it & as you can see I have no actual picture of the finished product & that is because no matter how much I make there is almost no left overs at all. EVER! Sneaky guests have been observed sneaking back into the kitchen at midnight with their head in the fridge eating left over focaccia straight out of a ziplock bag. (yeah, you didn't think I knew it was you, didja?)

Afterthought about bread sticks:

PS. If you wanna make bread sticks divide the dough after the first rising into walnut sized balls & roll out to about 10 in sticks. Leave to rise for 30 min, then brush with olive oil & sprinkle with whatever topping you like. (caraway, dried basil, oregano, sesame seeds, poppy seeds etc..) & bake for 15-20 min till golden.

PPS. A simpler option to toppings on bread sticks is to add seasoning to the dough before kneading.

FAIL.........

Just thought I should share......yeah! So that's curry! What am I saying....that WAS curry a LONG LONG time ago. Just when you think you have all your bases covered & you've slapped together the best "cheat" meal ever (Japanese curry) so you can take the kids out to play. Just for the record "Curry" (that comes in blocks) is made in this house about as frequently as we go to McDonalds ---- only when absolutely necessary.

Let's just say someone did not turn the burner off.

Well just thought I should share. In case your wondering......sadly, it was edible enough for us to have to consume. It was like eating horrible-burnt-curry-humble-pie. -- And yeah, I was about as thrilled as I looked in the picture that I had one of my girls take. Just for you! Cuz' it's important that you know that I can burn it like a pro. :)

Well, gotta run, meals to burn, kids to chase.

Opening Birthday Season.....

This handsome firstborn son turned 8 and we are happy to ring in "birthday season" as it's become known. Unfortunately we weren't as prepared as we should've been. (eg. only 1 candle for the cake) other minor hickups in our otherwise "spotless" birthday record. (eye rolls)but it wasn't a bad cake. Simple cheesecake using no recipe in particular & adding little extras & my own midnight spins (after all no one really likes baking at midnight when they should be asleep) This is a good old fashioned "Cheese Monkey" picture from us two Cheese Monkeys...with our cheese cake, no less. I'm not sure why Ryan wanted cheesecake but he sure was happy with the outcome, glory be!As you can see we're really "big" on birthday hats here. (Don't ask me why) Someone felt compassion for the poor little guy who couldn't make his own & (literally) slapped one together for him before the final crucial "cake-bringing-out-song-singing" moment when all who are not wearing birthday hats will be banished forever from the party. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but this man is REALLY big on food.

Maybe you can tell now. This is after we tried to hide the left over cake. Someone needs to learn how to take rejection.


That's it for now.

Oh...afterthought. I tiny little speckle in my brain is contemplating the idea of putting up some cooking videos. Not as glorious as SBJ but....it's a thought, -- we'll let it simmer for a bit.

Playdough Dinner with LOVE!

Don'tcha just miss playdough? The smell the feel & the way it would linger under your fingernails for weeks esp if you came from a large family & didn't get your nails cut that often.

I was deeply impressed by the imagination of my not terribly artistic 5 year old man. This is no ordinary pile of play dough. This is a full course dinner he made for me choosing what he thought was my favorite foods. And he took time explaining each thing to me in GREAT detail. And I will in turn explain to you in great detail because apparently that's what mothers do at times. So that is what I shall do. READY?

(Snail looking thingie) Cinnamon Bread roll, (flat thingies, riddled with holes) sourdough flatbread, (pile of business) mashed potatoes with butter, (long skinny thingies) lady finger biscuits, (little marble thinga-ma-bobs) cucumber/tomato salad, (balls in crumpled up tissue) apple cinnamon raisin muffins.

Ain't that just the sweetest thing? If I coulda eaten it I woulda!

Lemon Mint Green Tea

Listen up all you men-folkie. If you wanna score great big brownie points with your lady-fair give this simple drink the once over.

I already talked about my mint mojito kick a bit but I also wanted to try something a little more "AM-ish" with the mojito mix. I tried this out first on my whiny little sister who wouldn't let go of my green tea cookbook but paced back & forth in front of the me in the kitchen waving, pointing & smiling like a doofus till I promised to try it out. I didn't get the lemon/green tea ratio right the first time but the 2nd time around I think I got it pretty good. Here's how:

1 tbsp sugar
15-20 mint leaves (a few good sprigs)
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 tbsp dried green tea leaves steeped in 1/3 c of boiling water (cool)
ICE

use a muddler/ wooden pestle or the end of a wooden rolling pin (what I used cuz' my mug was pretty deep) to crush the mint into the sugar. At this point you must restrain yourself from just licking up all the minted sugar from the bottom of your mug like a total sugar addict. Add the lemon mix well to dissolve the sugar. Add ice.Strain the cooled green tea into the glass & garnish with lemon/lime wedge & mint sprig & loose your mind completely while you relax sipping on this total refreshing summer treat.

The girly-ness of this drink is too wonderful to describe......if you are of the female variety I promise to make one of these for you when you come & visit. :)

Enjoy your last days of August.

Vanilla Poppy Seed Cake

Good Morning Everyone. Sorry it's been ages since I last posted. Nothing like a summer school break with lots of action to keep me exhausted.

These mornings have been cool but still sunny. This morning I even had a hot coffee on the patio taking a moment to stand under the trumpet blossoms & hang out with the latest tenant turtle dove whose built his nest in our trumpet vine about how things are going in his part of town. Somehow his red eye with that little beady black dot in the center makes me think he's got insomnia. And he never seems to leave the nest or I'd climb up there & sneak a peek.

I haven't baked in ages n' ages. I'm not sure why. I just don't feel like firing up the oven if I at all possible but birthday season is upon us next week starting with the #3's 8th Birthday on the 4th of Sept. So I'm trying to scratch my brain for ideas.

And...as promised a recipe. I made this one awhile ago & would certainly make it again. Reducing the sugar from 1 1/3 c to 1 made it passable as breakfast fare esp when served with fresh berries or fruit. Course if you start with adding cream then I feel you're venturing into the "coffee break num-nums" territory.

In anycase....hope you enjoy it the way a hoard of hungry children did when they scarfed it down. :)
Vanilla Poppy Seed Cake (from my beloved "Joy of Coffee" book)

1/2 c poppy seeds
3/4 c milk
1/2 c plain yogurt
2 1/3 c all purpose flour
1 tbsp b. powder
1/2 tsp b. soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c butter, softened
1 c sugar
3 large eggs seperated
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F (165 c) Grease & flour 10" tube pan

In small bowl stir poppy seeds, milk & yogurt set aside.

Stir together flour/b. powder/b. soda/salt in medium bowl.

In large bowl with electric mixer cream together butter & sugar till well blended, @ 2 min. (stand mixer works fine too)

Add egg yolks & vanilla blend thoroughly about a minute.

Add flour mixture alternating with poppy seed mixture, starting & ending w/ flour.

In separate bowl whisk egg whites till stiff, stir spoonful of whites into batter to lighten it gently stir in the rest

Pour batter into pan. Bake 50 min till cake is golden & toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on wire rack completely before removing from pan. Serve sliced at room temp. Refrigerate covered for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 4 mo.


Voila!

Lazy I AM!

Heya heya! Howz business on this fine roasty toasty day? As promised foodie pics, and now I shall deliver. Beware if you were expecting details & recipes for each picture below because I just don't think I can pull it off. I'm clean & cool sittin' here in my airconed dining room smelling my bread bake & my tummy rumble because I believe I contracted some kind of a bug-thingie that has been causing my stomach to speak to me in dark menacing tones & cause my 3 year old to give me a equally sad, detailed description of her toilet happenings. (and she can get VERY descriptive)

But I do feel a little bad that recently I have thrown out so much food pics & not much in the way of links/recipes etc... I'm gonna try to just post more tidbits esp in the way of recipes I've stumbled upon & quit trying to only post recipes here.

But for now here are the pics, some from the visit some of food:
Erika feasting on her very own temaki-zushi. I will give this restaurant two thumbs up. BEST IDEA for a kids meal. All of her own tiny utensils had her sitting there making her lunch till well after we adults were done.
I rustled up this basic recipe for Mint Mojitos. I think it speaks of summer perfectly & will be caught drinking one at happy hour (aka: roughly starting 1/2 hr before the kids get home from their afternoon fiesta of energy burning w/ DH) If you don't have this GODLY weed growing somewhere in your garden YOU OUGHT TO!
Proof of a successful visit!
Salad idea that made my day today: Ordinary salad of lettuce, tomatoes & cucumber sauted kuri-kabocha (those tiny, extra sweet & nutty tasting goodies) then mushrooms in butter, cooled & tossed in salad with olive oil & lots of freshly ground pepper & sea salt. If I had pumpkin seeds I belive it would have been too wonderful & I would've just cried. Unfortunately my poor DH nearly cried when he saw it on the lunch table.

Foccacia my faithful friend....I can't believe I don't have a recipe for this on here, gotta do that soon. Simplest bread with great power to impress at a pasta meal.
Apple sauce in it's embryonic stage, spiced with cinnamon/clove & cardamom. My attempt at a non-sugar applesauce cake was mediocre. I would actually have to classify it a bread rather than a cake. I followed this simple allrecipe.com recipe but didn't use any sugar substitute so naturally even though the applesauce by itself was like candy -- mixed into the double sifted whole wheat & other ingr. seemed to loose it's sweetness. Also beat the egg whites to keep it's body but I probably should have done an extra 2 egg whites. My kind sister approved but I'm still miffed about how anyone can survive on a "sugar/refined flour/dairy product-less" diet. I salute you!
My (quite frankly) pitiful attempt to record the fact that we ever had a barbecue at all. I was (not surprisingly) the only one who seemed amused by my "placenta" jokes about the raspberry & fruit jello. (Come on', at least Mr & Mrs Marrington would be laughing, right?) Maybe ya'll already knew this but if you soak corn (in the husks) for 2 hrs in salty water you can throwm' right on the coal & wait till the husks are near blackened & the inside will be pristine & perfect.

More hasty foodie business soon. Till then, be genki!

Alive & kicking one leg

Hey stranger! In case you thought that I've taken the long walk off the short blogging pier, sadly you're mistaken. This certain actor came to my house to stay.

Along with most of my siblings & parents. (actually all of my parents --that I know of came) And with a whirlwind of positive energy & lots of silly games we managed to have a ballistic time of fun & foolishness. I've learned some handy new skills such as essential lavender oil sniffing & h0w to make whole wheat & rye bread a weapon of mass destruction.

Once I get some time I shall bombard you with unwanted & irrelevant pics of our time together because that is what I must do.

As always a majority of my time was spent in the kitchen doing deeds of kindness like sorting through the trash because I never bothered labeling them & everyone kept mixing them up or keeping the coffee bar open so various persons could get their fix of disserono laced cappuccinos.

Ooooh, I did a lot of firsts actually. Because who better to experament on than members of your immediate family:
- I finally got to pull off my big lebanese dinner (you'd be so proud Ves) falafels, tabuleh, kebabs, hummus, labne & flat bread. I was genuinely loving it.
- crushed mint/lemon/green tea
- non sugar & whole wheat applesauce cake
- Fattoush with my own pita

Being the sheer genius that I am I of course did not take any actual photographic evidence of any of these events but hopefully something will turn up soon from some of the other cameras. And I will also try to post some links to some of my new found & favorite recipes.

But for now I shall bask in the glow of my newly developed beer belly & try to appease my greedy sleep debt which seems to be taking over my last marble of sanity.

-- Ciao!

At Home with Nature & other nonsence.

Chocolate Mousse Pie: a belated act of love for my DH. Dark bitter chocolate bomb of happiness & indulgence.
The Muncher concurs! (note the glisten of a tear after he begged for just one more bite, I gave in, hence the smile)
This not so little buggie made it's way into our home so we fed him melon & he became Hunter's new pet & he walked around all evening with the container. (though he wouldn't dare touch it).

I was actually not expecting him to burst into tears the way he did when we had to let the poor thing go. Here he's explaining the torture of letting his "buggy" go.

Mr 4#. AKA: The Travster has gotten on a writing kick. He took the liberty of labeling our "Curious George" video cassette. (Yes, some people still use those)

And in case there's any question on who should be the one to record Curious George on Saturday mornings, just a little clarification.

Another puzzling sample of his handywork. Apparently this is a menu of dinner. It (supposedly) reads, "Lettuce/Salad/buscuits/ketchup". Gotta work on that spelling. But anyone who knows Trav will testify that this is a massive step of litterary progress.

We've been spying on a birds nest outside our window. The wary parents seem to fly away no matter how stealthily we try to peek out the window. Of course to get a good shot I get to hang out the window like a lunatic mother doing a flying arabesque to her doom with a camera in one hand & pulling back branches with the other.

I try to warn the kids about peeking in on them too often but the mother in me can't seem to help checking on how things are going. Are birds psychic? Everytime I even get close to the window even if it's closed & the curtains drawn I see the mom's eye looking at me & she flies a second later. Then just this morning....

They hatched! Trav spotted an open mouth. Must be brand spankin' new cuz' they don't even cry aloud yet. I had to hold a broom out the window to pull the branches back & put each kid in positon one at a time to take a look. I'm hating the cornyness but I must admit I'm terribly happy & proud of our little babies.

The other two sibs hatched somewhere between lunch & naptime & don't they just look like a perfect little pile of blind bald & nekid birdies?
Sweet Lil' Baby Jesus! That has to be one of the cutest things EVER!!! And I'm sure my sista Elaina will concur. :) Unfortunately my 3 yr old doesn't think so. She just walked in here, "Eww, that's just so yuck. They're just hugging their naked little bodies till they're stuck together, isn't that just so gross?"


More later. Ciao, my roasty toasty friends!

HOW TO VIDEO w/ SBJ: Cup Lamen

May I introduce the very first video clip on my bloggie, EVER!!

This was just too good to pass up. Brought to you by the very talented very cheese loving SBJ crew, more than ever I would love to see them do another. Steve's sincerity is most appealing & Mas' "easy" method of water pouring is pure genius. So get on your aprons & get cooking with SBJ.

The Christening of the Crock Pot: Lebanese Lamb Stew with labne & za'atar

Behold my new gadget. The crock pot. This is a 6qt size crock pot & personally I feel like if you happen to be feeding a family of 8 and spend much of your day hyperventilating & cleaning up after your kids unsuccessful attempts to water-paint with milk on the floor you will most likely squeal for joy much like I did upon it's arrival.

One nice thing about it is you can take out the inside crockery & put it directly on the table to serve. It also came with it's handy dandy little feature that I like to call "the probe factor"

Observe the probe. It's a little thermometer thingie to check the temperature of what's cooking. And of course in case you didn't know how to "probe"-- on the lid there's this little clarification.....

Japlish is fun but there's nothing like good ol' straightforward english.

In my eagerness to try it out I made a Lebanese lamb stew on probably one of the hottest days of the year so far. Started it out around 11 in the morning & set the timer & temperature. And yes I did insert the probe.

I was happy with the recipe. The ingrediants were simple & though I was a little suspicious about the amount of cinnamon it called for in the long run it seemed to blend in quite well. It was a full flavored stew, served it with plain rice (1/2 brown) but I have to admit in our as yet, non-airconed dining room it was a rather foolish idea & we ended up sweating it out in a self-inflicted sauna, yet somehow no one could stop themselves & we nearly finished the whole thing.

I also threw together a little batch of labne (Lebanese cheese) I didn't have time to make it overnight but let it set for about 6 hours, hense a rather thinner than normal result.

A few spoonfuls of olive oil & a few spoonfuls of za'atar. Which is a stunning lovely mixture of spices and I'm quite serious when I say I could eat it by the spoonful.

Finished product.
The DH sure seemed to love this stuff though he couldn't ever manage to say it right --- so cute!

All in all, I'm really happy about the crockpot but probably won't be using it often (besides perhaps sphagetti sauce) till autumn.

Summer Snippet: Frozen Bananananana

Call me immature but I always in the back of my tiny brain I couldn't quite conceive of eating bananas frozen --- as is! Somehow it seemed like some kind of pre-schooler project with a name like "frozen-banana-monkey-doo-surprise-of-science"!

But upon the death of my Bauer blender (God rest his tired motor) I had a slew of frozen zip-locked bananas. So my in a moment of genius (and you know I'm saying that with a massive tablespoon of sarcasm because I'm sure that everyone who has freezers and bananas has probably already discovered this when they were preschoolers) -- I found that the kids would devour twice as many bananas when I'd just cutm' up & throw them in a bowl. But then again they'd have to break out singing an U.Ken/Masa song "I like banana's cuz' they have no bones" (song starts at 1:28)

Of course when DH took the kids out to play & I was alone (nya ha ha) I decided it was time to break out the Sundae Syrup (yes, that chemical laden stuff that's sure to give us brain cancer)

.......And by golly it was fantastic. I AM A BELIVER! And if you can feeeeel the spirit I think you'll be a believer tooooo!

PS. Though I vouch wholy for this snack, I equally vouch for the horrificness of having your kid drop a few of these frozen banana bombs under their chair & then getting to step on one later when it's desinagrated to a pile of mush under a puddle of juicey business. (just thought I should leave you with that visual to keep you on your toes!!)

Random Stuffies!

I have realized something & I hope you'll lend me your inner ear. This blog has become quite the skeletal blog of cooking and not even hopping with many new recipes. Furthermore it contains close to zero snippets of pointless personal information. Is this an area worth cultivating? Probably not, but since I'm feeling beat -- in no particular order & for no particular reason, here are a few things that you probably didn't need to know:

- I watched some of Jamie Oliver for the first time yesterday (Gasp!! Shock). And in a moment of honesty I must say that I don't really care what a man looks like, when I watch a guy do a controlled dance of slicing, mixing, kneading, & flipping & "talking shop" at a kitchen counter....my heart has been stolen out from underneath my apron. I fear if a man could cook like that for me I might just keel over & elope presently.

- My 1 year old son's only mathematical word is "9". So my kids have taken to bombarding him with ridiculous questions like: "How old will Erika be in 6 years?", "What's 3 squared?", "How many times does 9 go into 81?", and everyone predictably cheers when he magically comes up with the right answer. And he's pleased to be the perpetual genius. Except for when you ask him his age.

- I can't seem to remember the last time I bought Mascara. I know it's awful but I have a SIL who keeps me supplied with a healthy dose and she seems to always have more (I would too with lashes like hers). Unfortunately with the turning of a new leaf (aka "there's no reason to look like a tired ol' mom just cuz' you are one") I realized I was getting stys like crazy in the course of a month and finally ended up with a small chalazion on my eyelid. Ewww....Panic attack. Hoping it'll just go away & not leave me looking like the Elephant Lady. And YEEEEAH, you don't have to tell me what I am now VERY aware of --- Apparently someone wasn't exactly listening when they talked about not using other ppl's mascara or old mascara. This AM I just threw away all 6 of mine. My fav being the Lancome Hypnose & Estee Lauder MagnaScopic. It's time to do a little shopping.

- My Sistah is coming next month just to spice things up tells me she's not eating sugar, white flour or dairy products. Dang!! Do you hear that...................that is the sound of my very small brain trying to figure out what on earth I should cook for dinner when she comes.

- If you are still reading this post I feel I should also add that if there is anything I love about cooking, it's being shown something new in the kitchen, told I'm doing something wrong, given a new idea or recipe.
Basically, I love the feeling of being a "beginner". I love it when someone says, "What, you haven't ever made ____?" or "Is that how you do it?......Interesting (translation: bizarre)!" Call this coincidence but the most feedback I get seem to be from the lovely Aussie ladies (or residing in Aussie ladies) who dish out ideas suggestions & snickers at the wrong way I do thing. Nothing more attractive....keep it comin'.

Well that's it folksies. Crank that noisy fan up to full blast & kick back & hopefully I'll have some good foodie talk next time around.

Ciao!

Summer snippits: Pesto/Mayo

Hey Ya'll! Are you feelin' the heat like I'm feeling the heat? Seems like summer suddenly ran up behind us & dumped a bucket of warm jello on us.

If there's anything that surmises the way I feel about summer meals there are two words: COLD/FAST

If you can't get in & out of the kitchen in under an hour you may as well forget it. Words like, "gentle simmer", "deep fry" and God forbid, "stir for 1 hr on high heat" are phrases that shall be banished from this blog for the next 2 months.

And being the busy soul that I am I'm gonna have to settle for keeping this blog alive with short snippets & ideas for easy, fast, occasional "cheat", but most of all COLD summer food items. (Note I say "food ITEMS" because I'm feeling so lazy that I may not even get around to posting an actual complete recipe)

Today's quicky: Pesto & Mayo

What's in it you say?

Let's think--- ah yes.....Pesto & Mayo.

I would put about 2 tbsp pesto to 1/2 a c. of mayo but to each his own. And frankly, I never measure anyway, so I just made that up on the fly!

There's no sandwich that couldn't stand a little of this (except perhap PB & J) no, veggies that wouldn't be proud to have it as a dip. A cold pototo salad would definetly be dressed up, and what a riot you'd have serving a dollop on crackers with cheese. (Like, literal riot........in your living room, (esp if there was a McNair) scratch the cheese, just serve the crackers & pesto. Passable as a dip for grilled or bbq'd fish or chicken. And if you really want a good cheat throw in a little vinegar & water to thin it out & call it salad dressing. Voila! Pat yourself on the sweaty back, you're a culinary genius!

I've covered Pesto previously & extolled it's virtues in with a rather suspicious devotion that may not refect well on my (eh-hum) priorities in life. Aaanyway, I've descovered the perfection (out of necessity) of pesto made with a morter & pestle. I even made a whole jar full for the lovely Ken & Tacha. I do hope it was enjoyed. As the story goes, "Long time smashing basil leaves and splatting self with green oil --- Part of gift!"

Well, that's all folkies. Enjoy your cool summer night!