December 28, 2007 at 2:18 pm · Filed under MP3, Random
Linda has this questionnaire for the end of the year up on her Blog, you should do it too.
1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?    Make bundt cake?
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Not the resolution type
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? no, but many friends seem to have gotten knocked up 4. Did anyone close to you die? no, thankfully
5. What countries did you visit? does IKEA count?
6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? Camping
7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? I can’t think of specific dates, but what sticks out most from this year is Owen learning to swim without floaties, and the boys birthday party with the bounce house 8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? teaching Owen the beginnings of writing and reading
9. What was your biggest failure? Not getting in shape
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? not really
11. What was the best thing you bought? Our VW Syncro Vanagon
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? August has become quite the happy guy, so I guess his
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? on a global scale, Bush. On a personal scale I plead the 5th
14. Where did most of your money go? into our house
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Having a fence put in
16. What song will always remind you of 2007? I suppose any Andrew Bird
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
 a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer? a) Happier b) thinner seeing as this time last year I was just a couple months post partum c) richer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Camped and hiked
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? eat
20. How did you spend Christmas? With one of my dearest friends, my mother in-law, and husband and kids
21. Did you fall in love in 2007? yes, if you could call it that…my 2nd born son August
22. What was your favorite TV program? We don’t have TV, but we watched all of Alias and loved it, we also loved Weeds and Dexter (can’t wait for the next discs!)
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? not that I can think of
24. What was the best book you read? Shadow Child is up there, I also re-read Survivor and always love that book
25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Pinback or Dandy Warhols
26. What did you want and get? many things since we fixed up our exterior house
27. What did you want and not get? a remodeled kitchen
28. What was your favorite film of this year? No Country for Old Men
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 36, and have no idea what I did
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? If we had gone to the Ocean
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Whatever fits? jeans?
32. What kept you sane? Cooking, my husband, this blog
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Johnny Depp as usual, I also liked to see Jennifer Garner around because she seems so “normal”
34. What political issue stirred you the most? So many, but the Iraq mess really gets my goat
35. Who did you miss? my Gram
36. Who was the best new person you met? Did I meet you this year Linda? If so Linda hands down.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. that 3 year olds don’t necessarily want to potty train, shit!
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Any Blues Clues songs really
“Now it’s time for so-long
But we’ll sing just one more song
Thanks for doing your part!
You sure are smart!
You know, with me and you and my dog Blue…
We can do any THING… that we wanna do!”
With the encroaching holiday I seem to be making things I don’t normally try (probably not such a good thing for my girth, but whatever). I whipped up some peppermint bark to fulfill that peppermint-y craving I get that my husband doesn’t share with me, what the hell.
First smash the hell out of the candy canes stolen from your sons swim teachers office where you were only supposed to take one, or go buy some like a decent person. Try to leave a few big chunks for some pretty factor.
Grab your double boiler I know you all have, melt your very best chocolate (white, milk or dark which I used) in it. If you don’t have a double boiler, microwave it or breath on it heavily until all melty. Meanwhile, lay a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. When the chocolate is good and melted mix in about 3/4 of your smashed up candy cane and stir around to incorporate. Pour the chocolate out onto the parchment and get every.last.drop of chocolate out of the pan with a spatula then spread it around on the parchment until it is as thick as you want it. Sprinkle the top with the remainder candy cane. Put the whole thing in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes to harden. When it’s ready take it out, break into pieces, put in baggies and sell on the corner for the same price as crack seeing as it is equivalent. Keep in the fridge if your house is warm.
You can add peppermint extract to the chocolate for an even bigger punch if you want.
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For the MP3 today I want to introduce you to my neighbor Chris. It’s my understanding he made this mini-cd for his Mom so this is most definitely not his normal fare. This is a guy I regularly see rocking his guitar on the front porch when the weather permits (or not), blasts (literally) Van Halen while washing his car, and most days has some sort of rock emanating from his house. Our kind of neighbor for certain. Anyhow, he made this 3 song CD of Christmas songs for his family and gave us a copy too, score! He makes the whole thing by himself in his pseudo studio, which also functions as his living room. This track is The Little Drummer Boy.
December 16, 2007 at 4:14 pm · Filed under Cookies, MP3
How about a Christmas MP3 to accompany your reading
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These are my favorite ginger cookies. I have a couple other ginger cookie recipes, but these are by far the yummiest. They are soft and chewy on the inside and just a bit crisp on the outside. Definitely a great cookie to make for friends, co-workers, the mailman, whoever. They are a snap to make.
Sparkly Ginger Cookies
(makes about 2 dozen)
4 tbls turbinado sugar (the Sugar in the Raw type, what you are going for here is course sugar)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup milk of your choice (mine being soy)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350ËšF. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets, or line with parchment. Put the raw sugar in a shallow bowl and set aside.
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. In a separate large bowl, mix together the oil, molasses, milk, sugar, and vanilla. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and combine well. Roll into 1 inch balls, flatten into 1 1/2 inch disks, press one side into the raw sugar and place the sugared side, up. place about 1 inch apart and bake 10 to 12 minutes, let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to cooling racks.
Now then, just for you dear readers I wondered if I could make this recipe work with cookie cutters. The dough as is, is far too soft and would be very messy to work with.
I ended up rolling it flat between 2 pieces of parchment on a cutting board and throwing it in the freezer for about 15 minutes, just until it firmed up. That did the trick.
but after baking them you can see they spread quite a bit…
So it works, but personally I prefer the traditional round version.
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I want to give this product a plug…
It is the first of its kind I can’t smell or taste on my baked goods, I highly recommend it.
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One more plug. Linda and I caught a well needed break movie yesterday… No Country for Old Men
Seriously one of the best movies I have seen. I can’t stop thinking about it, I want to see it again. I figured I would love it to some degree seeing as the Coen Brothers directed it, they did not disappoint.
I’m in the market for a wok. I’m wondering if you dear readers could tell me how you like your woks (does that sound dirty?) I’m of course assuming you all have woks and have tried several types before settling on the one you love most. My only criteria is no non-stick, as in teflon, no way.
I really like this one…
But $220 is wee bit more than I want to spend…yeesh.
We went to get our tree last night, that part was quite lovely. It is a tree farm near us and they have u-cut or pre-cut, we weren’t able to cut the tree ourselves since it was dark, maybe next year. Not sure what we were thinking getting a tree, or me since I was the one wanting the damn thing. The boys had approximately 7 fights within an hours time over it this morning. One wants the ornaments off and in his mouth, the other wants them on the tree. Then there are the little white lights, I had no idea I gave birth to moths.
The farm had yummy warm cider and a nice kitty though. Here is one of the photo’s I took…
2 of the shots I got last night had that weird smoke looking stuff in the frame which I SWEAR was not visible with the naked eye. I have no idea what it is, but it adds to the eeriness of the photo I think. I went with my flash in hopes of getting some weird Weegee-esque shots, I came away somewhat pleased. Here is another I quite like….
I made some potato-carrot curry soup before we left, that was nice to come home to.
I make it by throwing some peeled russets in a soup pot with about 4 cups of broth on med heat (covered), meanwhile caramelize a diced yellow onion and then add some garlic at the end, stir in yellow curry to taste and about a 1/4tsp nutmeg, set aside. Back to your potatoes, once they are tender toss in your 2 sliced carrots and your onion mix, stir and simmer covered for however long (or like us take it off the heat and let it sit for 2 hours then re-heat it). Remember this is soup, the longer it sits the yummier it gets. Smash some of the potatoes with a fork to make the soup thicker, if you make it too thick add some broth, cream or even coconut milk. Taste for spices, add some more curry and some salt if desired. Serve with crunchy bread and fresh ground pepper.
I apologize if this post seems scattered, I have re-read it 3 times and it just seems like I haven’t slept much…could it be a teething baby? Yes it could.
