Nuts to You!

Tags

baking, disasters, humour

Nuts! There weren’t even any in my chocolate fudge cupcakes, but that didn’t stop someone from sampling them. I suspect this guy in particular:

Don’t let his “cuteness” distract you. He is a brilliant and conniving international super-villain in the underbelly of the sciurine world…

Photo courtesy of http://statici.behindthevoiceactors.com

…and apparently, a lover of chocolate fudge cupcakes!

As noted earlier this week, I am in the process of baking my brains out (or what’s left) for our church community yard sale on Saturday. We are raising money to help the homeless in the city, and I am in charge of a bake table. It would have been a great idea if…

• I wasn’t “baking-challenged”;
• My kitchen counter workspace was bigger than a sheet of paper; and
• We weren’t experiencing a heat wave.

Temperatures were in the 30s (Celsius) yesterday. On the way home from work, I passed a snow plough truck. Only in Canada…but I digress.

I received some distressing news yesterday and started a migraine, so I left work a few minutes early to clear my head…by grocery shopping. Then I went to the chiropractor, the bank, the post office, and home to bake a dozen strawberry cupcakes, 2 dozen chocolate fudge cupcakes, a dozen tea biscuits, and 2 dozen “fiddle diddle” cookies, plus supper. I had to wash bowls and beaters in-between projects.

Needless to say, I was a hot, sweaty mess when Hubby got home (not a sexy kind of hot & sweaty)! But I completed all the cooking and baking in 2 hours, an incredible feat unto itself, and even more incredibly, with NO TEARS! I had worked like a well-oiled machine in my tiny, ugly vintage kitchen, balancing my recipe book on the kitchen sink ledge, stacking plastic containers of cooling cupcakes on the microwave, and laying out ingredients on the cluttered dining table (right over the Game of Life). I even used the back porch to cool chocolate fudge cupcakes while I tossed in home-made biscuits, sautéed vegetables, boiled pasta and stirred cookie dough.

I left the cupcakes outside for less than 10 minutes.

***

I never saw the actual culprit, but his razor-sharp claws and fangs made fast work of those cupcakes – at least 3…in each tray. A little path of crumbs petering out down the steps. I shouted “oh balls”, expecting Hubby to say something pithy like “not balls…cupcakes”.  I think he noted my sagging shoulders and clenched fists, and decided to bite his tongue and retreat from the kitchen, no sudden movements.

I scanned the horizon looking for the perpetrator, feeling his beady little black eyes scan me with a twitch of his whiskers.

***

The rich, moist, dark chocolate fudge cupcakes were binned, along with my motivation and sense of purpose.  I ate my dinner and crawled into bed in the fetal position for a few hours, to console my wounded pride.

***

Tonight, I have to melt chocolate and decorate 48 cake pops (I forgot some in my parents’ freezer – 3 hours away). I still have a migraine, I can’t guarantee there won’t be tears…but I can guarantee this:

Nuts to you, Red Squirrel! I’ve got my eye on you.

You will rue the day you ate my chocolate fudge cupcakes!

Photo courtesy of http://madagascar.wikia.com/

“What’s for Dinner?”

Tags

cooking, disasters, food, humour

It seems many of my  “cooking projects” end up just like my home reno projects – they end up creating more work and by the time it’s over, I’m too tired to enjoy the final product.

This weekend, Hubby fixed the clogged bathroom sink, but he also discovered a disintegrating pipe and a cracked sink, which has been leaking underneath. Small project just grew…

Today I bought groceries to make lasagna sauce from scratch to make a meal for a friend and her family. I also bought the ingredients to try a new chicken recipe. Do you smell disaster?

1. I searched the store for a can of cannellini beans. I don’t know what they are, and after scanning the aisles and identifying over 2 dozen different types of beans, I never found cannellini beans. So I bought a can of white kidney beans. It wasn’t until I got home and read the recipe again that I realized the beans were to be added to the side salad, so eaten raw. I don’t think cold, raw kidney beans taste very good, so now I have beans to make chili (new project #1).

2. I had thawed chicken breasts, not cutlets. The breasts were skinless but bone in, but I thought I could cut the meat off the bones to make my own cutlets. The knife was not the sharpest in the drawer – and I’m talking about me! This old bird had a hard time separating the flesh from the bone of the old birds! There was plenty of meat still on the bones, so I decided to boil them and use the broth to make soup (new project #2).

3. The panko crust didn’t want to stick to the chicken, which was cut too thick. I cut the second batch thinner, then covered them and used the can of kidney beans to pound them too (hey – a new use for project #1?)

I was so focused on the chicken though, that my pot of bones boiled dry, setting off the smoke detector. I opened the doors and dragged a chair to deactivate the smoke detector. Just as I was climbing down from the chair, I heard a voice asking, “What’s for dinner?” My neighbour was out front raking leaves in the dark. I replied, “Burnt offerings”.

By the time,  the cutlets were black rather than golden brown (3), the broth could not be salvaged (2), and I was ready to throw the beans (1).

And I still have to make the lasagna sauce…

Happy Monday (or what is left of it)!

Happy Endings

Tags

disasters, driving, family, humour, parenting

Yesterday I did what Moms are born to do when their offspring call…

After I hung up the phone early yesterday morning, I told Hubby “I just want to get in the car and go!”

Hubby: “So…go!”

Me: “But I’ve never driven there [to Big Guy’s place] on my own.”

Hubby: “Then it’s time to put on your ‘big girl panties’ and go!”

So I did. I went. I got verbal instructions from Big Guy, while Hubby programmed the GPS (I don’t like it but I could use all the help I could get). I grabbed a shower, my flat iron and a 4-pack of KD, and with Little Guy in tow (he wasn’t missing an impromptu visit to his big brother’s), we hit the highway!

Someone had smashed Big Guy’s passenger car window in the night and stole his wallet and some spare change. His wallet contained all his I.D. – driver’s license, credit card, bank card, health card, company insurance card, an a small assortment of (mostly empty) restaurant gift cards. No cash, unless you count Canadian Tire money!

No money meant no money to replace cards. No money to ride a bus to places to replace cards. Super Mom to the rescue!

I haven’t always been able to just “go” when he’s called. I didn’t go when his car was totalled – icy roads and poor visibility were the reasons he was in that mess! I didn’t go when a small kitchen accident warranted stitches at the hospital (Super Aunt did a stop-in between her kids’ activities). And I didn’t go when he needed a ride home after he had his wisdom teeth removed (Super Papa ran that gauntlet and brought him to my house for “nursing”). So it felt good to “just go”!

Everything is closed on a Sunday! However, while I was there, I cleaned up some science experiments washed dishes, Big Guy did laundry, and Little Guy helped “tidy up”. We took out some trash. We cleaned up the broken glass and secured a plastic bag over the gaping hole. We picked up some groceries and a new wallet, and we went out to eat…twice!

It was after the first meal and groceries that we returned home to find a gift on Big Guy’s front stoop – his wallet. It was battered and soggy…and nothing was missing. A good Samaritan (who had to live in the building because the door is always locked – I know this because I showed up with no way in. I don’t have a key but I did have cell phone…whose battery was completely dead) must have found out it in the bushes nearby! I love happy endings!

Super Mom got home safely last night and is rather tired today! Big Guy replaced his bank card, filed his claim with the insurance company, and likely has a new window by posting time!

You may ask why it was such a big deal for me to drive to his place alone…why I needed my “big girl panties”? It’s simple. I’m used to driving east toward my parents’ home, not west toward Big Guy’s home…and if I get in trouble driving east, I need only call and Super Mom or Super Dad would “just go” for me (that is of course, assuming my cell phone battery wasn’t dead)! It’s what were born to do!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Change

Tags

cooking, disasters, Photo Challenge, photography, Weekly Photo Challenge

My friend kindly gave me a pile of tomatoes from her garden. Yum! The green ones were baked into a pie and frozen for Thanksgiving. This is our first year without my Grandmother.

The rest were lovingly washed and placed on my windowsill to ripen. Two weeks later, they were still changing.

This afternoon, with fear and trembling, and despite my terrible cooking record, I took matters into my own hands. And since I’m learning Italian, I decided to make a rich pomodoro sauce with my mutant tomaoes. My friend’s hard work would not go in vain (or to the guinea pigs)!

To make a long story short, I chopped, stewed, peeled, cried, begged and cajoled these tomatoes into the yummiest…tomato soup!

To see more Change photos, click here.

Soak Up The Sun…

Tags

disasters, first day of school, humour, school

I made a terrible mistake Monday morning after I dropped Little Guy at camp. It has haunted me all week. Every time I think about it, I break into a cold sweat and start to feel a little panicky. I’m not even sure now what I was thinking when it happened. I drove by the school!

This coming Tuesday is the first day of school. It’s a big deal! You can never redo the first day of Grade ____. It’s the first day to make friends (or enemies), to make a good impression (or bad), and to start good habits (or develop rotten ones).

The lump in my stomach usually begins to form right around the end of July – right about the same time the racks of school supplies appear. The formidable walls of higher learning with their rows of unsharpened pencils, brightly coloured erasures, nifty highlighter pens, and stacks of glossy binders. Instruments of torture to mold the minds of hapless babes.

Within a week those pencils will be broken, the erasers deeply buried at the bottom of backpacks, and those glossy binders will be scrawled over with pink hearts and the names of girls.

Then the inevitable onslaught of “back to school” ads begin – whiny kids who want their incredibly stupid parents to sell a kidney on the black market so they can have the latest & best pair of sneakers on the catwalk. The obnoxious jingles that stick in your head like gum in a little girl’s ponytail, and visions of enraptured parents riding metal carts down the aisle of the office supply aisle. “No!” I want to scream. “No, it’s not the ‘most wonderful time of the year’”! Summer isn’t over yet…

“I’m gonna soak up the sun, gonna tell everyone to lighten up….”

Let me break this down for you mathematically.

I have spent 20 years of my life in school, from kindergarten to the end of 2 college degrees and my law clerk certification.
Big Guy has spent 16 years of my life in school, from kindergarten to the end of college.
Little Guy has spent 7 years of my life in school, from kindergarten to Grade 5 (starting next week).

Assuming those years were consecutive and not sometimes concurrent, when you add that up, that’s 43 years. I’m only 42! I’ve been living a life time sentence in formal education!!

“For every time I feel lame, I’m looking up -I’m gonna soak up the sun…”

I am dreading that one unreasonable teacher who pushes all my buttons, the bullies who never get what’s coming to them, the fights over homework, or worse, the notes from the unreasonable teacher about homework not handed in after we fought about it!! Last year I got a note asking me to let Little Guy do his homework before I spent time teaching him Minecraft! As if I had my priorities in the wrong place!

It’s the research projects, the book reports, the French verb conjugations, the math questions that are over my head. It’s the tears and wailing and gnashing of teeth – I try to keep it down but sometimes I’ve just got to let it out or I’ll explode! And let’s not forget the peer pressure, the sex education, the girlfriends with tattoos and piercings! It’s all too much! I’m on the edge of a panic attack and there may be no way back!

School hasn’t even started yet and I’m already desperately in need of summer vacation!

It’s…Crunchy

Tags

disasters, fashion, gray hair, humour

I hate my hair! It’s no secret! Hubby has heard me declare that I was going to shave it all off more times that the number of hairs on his head (and his beard, and his chest – he’s a very hairy guy)! And no one would blame me if I did! I have been wrestling it into place for many years, a testament to the precarious grip I have on sanity!

Every school photo, I had the same look: dishevelled and neglected waif!

My mother tried. She really did. Some years she carefully rolled my hair into rags the night before Picture Day to make pretty curls. Other years she yanked it back into pigtails. But by the time I sat in front of the photographer, her hard work was undone. Curls with a life of their own; pigtails all askew. Stray wisps mocking her from the glossy pages.

It hasn’t improved with age.

When I started this blog, I wrote in my Raison D’Etre that I was going to get a funky new haircut, maybe a new colour too. But in the midst of trying to have a midlife crisis, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Or rather, I couldn’t quite decide what to do. If I hadn’t figured it out in the previous decades, what were my chances now that I was writing about it?

And then last Summer, I bit the bullet. I booked the appointment. I searched the internet for a rockin’ look. That morning, I showered my long locks for the last time and headed out the door:

Note the reluctant grimace on my face and the fear in my eyes…

I knew it would take awhile to adjust to the new “do”. I had, afterall, removed a significant hank of hair during that appointment – 12 inches in fact. I was away from home at the time, so even Hubby had to wait a few days for the great unveiling.

The actual unveiling to Hubby did not go as planned! He never said he didn’t like it…but “what he did say built upon my rapidly diminishing ability to keep a stiff upper lip, and his words haunted me until bedtime…that hour when all reason slips away quietly, just like the setting sun. And faced with my reflection in the glare of the fluorescent bathroom lights, I could see the truth”.

This is how I responded:

“First, came the gentle weeping, the slow trickle of tears from the corners of my eyes. But like a summer storm, the heavens opened with a torrential outpouring of unreasonable sorrow. I breathlessly sobbed a cacophony of unintelligible words behind my hands. I knew Hubby was probably panicking, grasping for something to say while knowing fully that nothing was going to stem this flow. His wife had turned into a monstrous behemoth of volatile emotions, and he may or may not be partly responsible. (I’m pretty sure he was amused as well, so don’t feel too sorry for him). Like a banshee, I cried , “I just wanted to be pretty…this is where you’re supposed to say ‘you are pretty’…even if (repeating Hubby’s humiliating statement)”, which succeeded in making us both laugh, even as I was hiccupping into my damp pillow. I fell asleep hoping my pillow didn’t grow mould in the humid room as I slept.”

(To see the shameful after picture, click here. I’d just insert it here, but I’m hoping the 3 of you will be too lazy bored busy to actually go there!)

All this is leading up to yesterday… I actually rolled out of bed earlier than expected, so I decided to play with Little Guy’s blue hair gel…In theory, it looked great. In reality, it looked…crunchy! I could have toussled my hair with Elmer’s glue and it would have looked just as attractive. And having used up all my extra time, I had to head to work like that. And the chiropractor like that. And then home to bury my head under the pillows.

Thankfully it washed out and my hair isn’t crunchy anymore.

It’s also not blue. Or behaving in any sensible 40-year old way.

So much for my midlife crisis. Shaving it off is starting to sound good again!

Happy Weekend!

Mmmm…Marshmallows

Tags

cooking, disasters, food, humour, sweets

Berry Blush. Toasted Coconut. Vanilla Bean. Maple Bacon. Pineapply Rosemary.

Just a handful of flavours gourmet marshmallow makers have dreamed up. “Mallow artists” are revisiting and heightening this long overlooked fluffy delicacy and waving “good-bye” to the spongy, store-bought variety so many of us savoured around the campfire as kids.

Those mass-produced chemically-induced blobs of goo on the grocery store shelves were put there in the 1940’s. Marshmallows date back to ancient Egypt, where marsh mallow root juice was used as a thickening agent for early cough drops. Centuries later French confectioners added egg whites and sugar to create meringues.

For most of us, marshmallows conjure up nostalgic images of families perched on metal lawn chairs around a campfire. I have some of those nostalgic memories too. Golden-brown on the outside with a hot, sticky melted centre, at the end of a stick we pulled from the bush. Mom made us wash our faces and hands, sticky with gooey guts and consequently caked in sand and pine needles too, before we were slid into our sleeping bags.

I also have memories of marshmallows bursting in flames before it turned black and fell into the flames. On one occasion, in a desperate attempt to save my treat, I waved my stick so hard that my flaming marshmallow became a flaming projectile. In slow motion, it flew to my right and hit my brother in my knee. I ran to get the medical kit while he screamed in agony, as the melted blob burned his skin.

I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me.

Marshmallows are a combination of corn syrup, sugar, water, salt and gelatin. When heated, mixed and whipped, it becomes a delightful treat! No baking required. Marshmallow makers say that they’re finicky at first, but easy once you’ve perfected the knack. I don’t know… I don’t exactly have a knack for baking, even the easy things……like rice krispie squares with the store-bought variety of marshmallows.

What a Mess: “If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” – Will Rogers

I think I’d better leave this project for the “mallow artists”.

Source: From Cupcake Craze to Puffy Phase

Good Intentions

Tags

disasters, failure, family, food, home, humour

I started the week filled with good intentions. I was going to break out of the February blahs that have infiltrated every area of my life once and for all. I would set goals for my mid-life crisis. I would start to exercise and eat better. I would start writing again…but there always seemed to be something to distract me or I was just plain too tired. We had a serious snowstorm on Sunday. I had to get dressed before 8 a.m. and help Hubby shovel the driveway. And instead of napping all afternoon as planned, I sat worrying about Big Guy who was driving to the city in it. He’s been transferred temporarily to a different crew and it’s slightly closer to drive there from our house.

On Monday, I was privileged to drive in the city muck with all the other morons, to take Little Guy for a hearing test. His hearing, as I suspected, is stellar! That evening I violated a chicken…and Big Guy videotaped it (and if the video ends up on the internet, I will violate his right to life). It was a large chicken and I had stuffed it into the roasting pan, not considering how I would get it out again…I tried to pry it out with forks. Then flippers. Then a knife. Then a big knife. I tried to cut it out but I couldn’t even pierce the skin. When I did finally convince it to evacuate the pan, it slid across the cutting board and nearly kissed the floor (the one with the permanent crusty spaghetti sauce blob). It dribbled juices everywhere, and ended up a despicably splayed hunk of undercooked meat. I had to clean the kitchen floor…again.

On Tuesday, I noticed a strange smell in the house. It started in the basement and slowly wafted up the staircase to the kitchen, rolling along stealthily and seeping into my consciousness. I had to investigate…The odour grew stronger as I crept down the basement stairs, struggling to resist the urge to gag. When I regained consciousness…I discovered that the maleficent stench was coming from Big Guy’s laundry basket. Come to think of it, there seem to be strange odours emanating from my couch cushions too…I’ll investigate when I’m feeling stronger.

On Wednesday, while Hubby and Little Guy were out for the evening, Big Guy and I attacked grunts, jackals, brutes, and engineers. Apparently, I can’t drive in a straight line in a Warthog, but stick a gun in my hand and I will defend my troops. After 2 hours of Halo, I was spent.

On Thursday, I woke up to find out that all the TV channels have switched to digital from analog except for one. An Aquarium channel…with a bubbling motor and ugly fish. I spent Thursday evening lying in bed watching them with Little Guy and naming them. Larry, Curly & Moe keep running into each other, while Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye avoid each other as much as possible. We’re still negotiating the names of the others.

And now it’s Friday morning. With the wind chill, the temperature is in the -30C range. I have to pack my car for a road trip and put gas in it. My car is so dirty that I’ve forgotten what colour it’s supposed to be, and I fear that if I wash it, something will freeze shut and I could be trapped in it until Spring. And another unproductive week has gone by. If the road to some place not very nice is paved with good intentions, can I at least take some pleasure in the hope that it’s warmer than here? – Happy Weekend

10 Reasons Why I Probably Shouldn’t Watch Reality TV Cooking Competitions

Tags

cooking, disasters, family, food, humour

I made a vegetarian pizza on a baguette for supper last night…with some added protein – the bacon I fried and the top layer of skin from two knuckles. While I was grating my knuckles carrots last night, I came up with a list of 10 reasons I probably shouldn’t watch reality TV cooking shows:

1. I feel the creative urge to try new recipes…which are rarely successful. Things explode. Things end up as crime scene photos. I’ve created dishes that probably still walk the earth in the midnight hour, like The Blob. I’m sorry…
2. It’s true – your work environment affects your productivity: “Studies show that comfortable, well-ventilated and well-lit, safe workplaces increase productivity as much as 16 percent and job satisfaction as much as 24 percent, while reducing absenteeism”. My kitchen is ugly… 1970’s tile with 1960’s cupboards, and a 1980’s countertop…
3. I lack the space to do it right. My kitchen counter is often covered with dirty dishes, scraps of paper with scribbled blog ideas, and homeless plastic bread ties. There are also enough crumbs to make a loaf of bread, and sticky spots that are most likely strawberry jam (but I am not tasting it to find out) even though I wipe the counter down several times day!
4. As for tools, when it comes to chopping vegetables, my choices are steak knives, a carving knife, a bread knife or a fileting knife. It’s amazing what I can do with a fileting knife.
5. I inevitably forget something on the grocery list and only realize it when I am in the middle of preparing the recipe and I can’t possible load Little Guy in the car and zip out to get it.
6. Having inevitably forgotten something important, I have to make a substitution. When the dish fails (which it almost always inevitable does), Hubby and I can’t definitively say whether the failure was a result of the recipe or the cook (usually it’s the cook)…
7. It seems the best looking recipes never use ordinary ingredients that I already have in the house, therefore wreaking havoc on my grocery budget. Do I ration toilet paper for a week so I can afford to buy one expensive ingredient (…I could probably substitute)?
8. I end up storing ingredients that I only use for a recipe that didn’t quite work out, like the bottle of Rice Wine vinegar for Kung Fu Dumplings. Waste not, want not!
9. Frequently, my family won’t eat what I’ve made, and I hate throwing out food…so I end up eating it. Things like potato soufflé…and I don’t want to eat it either..
10. I start to gain weight. I eat my way through the show and then I gravitate to dessert recipes first. If I’m going to waste spend time and money on a new recipe, it had better be something worth eating!

The moral of the story is: When I feel creative, I should just eat out in a nice restaurant!

5 Short Exploding Food Stories

Tags

cooking, disasters, food, humour

And thus was born my list of 5 Short Exploding Food Stories: 

1. Yesterday was a productive day and I was feeling good about it. I had spent most of the morning shopping for boring useful things like milk, postage stamps, and winter boots for Little Guy. The only thing I bought for myself was a package of panty hose (now that I’m going back to work I need things like panty hose). I had spent the better part of the afternoon painting trim and the inside of one cupboard (Today – if all goes well – I’ll be starting the walls in earnest). I finished the freezer coleslaw (recipe here), supper was in the oven, and I was sitting with my feet up enjoying some other bloggers’ posts when I heard it – pop! And as my mind scrambled to figure out what might have just fallen down, making that sound, I heard it again – pop! I sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. That sound was none other than potatoes bursting open and spraying their mealy white innards all over the inside of my already “desperately in need of cleaning” oven”! I gave it to Hubby…

I sighed again because I had thought, for a fleeing second as I scrubbed them, perhaps I should stick a fork in them, but that’s if I’m cooking them in the microwave. So I didn’t – and I should have…Today, if all goes well, I will be cleaning my oven…

2. The best way to boil an egg without it exploding is to place the egg in a pot of cold water first, and then heat the water. The best way to reheat an already boiled egg is not in the microwave. This story really belongs to Hubby. It was one of those rare moments at the end of a long work day – Hubby was distracted and put a hardboiled egg, minus the shell, in the microwave. We were talking in the dining room when we heard a loud bang! Long story short – the microwave was coated with congealing fragments of yellow yolk and it took a long time to clean up!

3. We have all ruined more than one shirt when ketchup or mustard erupts. When it’s been used and then left sitting on the counter with the top closed, the air inside the bottle heats up and causes a minor explosion when you open it again. At least the ketchup has never been Blastin’ Green.

4. One Halloween, I received a can of cola in my trick-or-treat bag, but Mom only allowed me to try a couple of treats before bed. So I had a small chocolate bar and half my can of cola. I put the rest of the can in the freezer (I think I thought it would preserve the bubbles better – flawed logic, I know). The next day, I pulled my can from the freezer. The can was empty…and the freezer (and all the contents of the freezer) sparkled with a lovely sticky browness that lasted for months. My mother was …not happy…

5. And finally, the brown beans. The beans didn’t actually explode, but when I dropped the can with the spoon still stuck in it, the ensuing carnage was reminiscent of an early CSI episode. I can still see it falling in slow motion. The juice from the beans splashed and ran in bronze rivulets across the floor and down the walls; it dripped off the ceiling light fixture. Brown veins stretched across the ceiling. All 4 corners of the kitchen glistened with splattered amber droplets. I mopped up as much as I could, then called Hubby in tears to see if he could help me clean the rest when he got home. This happened more than 3 years ago…apparently we missed some on the kitchen light fixture. A grim reminder of a grim, explosive day.

Apparently, if a chocolate syrup bottle is open and you set it down on the table harder than you think, it will spray too. Found that out last night so I’d better get since I need to do laundry, clean my oven, and wash my kitchen light fixture before the next food grenade.

Happy Weekend!