In the same vein, friendship style

A friend and I have been talking about her signing up for Facebook, which is (unfortunately) a huge part of my life. I spend far too much time on there, but I love that I actually talk to people that I went to high school with. They have kids, I have kids, we bond. I didn't find the same closeness with Myspace. I'm actually in the process of phasing out myspace if I can get a few stubborn friends to switch, but that's a whole other post.

Anyhow, so when said friend joined Myspace, a girl we knew friend-requested her, and she declined. I didn't think much of it, but when we discussed her signing up for Facebook I made the offhanded remark that I knew she was picky in accepting friend requests people from high school. To this she replied that she wasn't except for this one girl. I then realized she was continuing to harbor a grudge against this girl for something that happened in high school. Now, I'm sure that what happened to them was traumatic to a teenager, but would you hold a grudge against someone for something that happened 11 years ago?

The reason I bring up this story, it to say that I am terrible at holding grudges. I value friendships too much to let much get in the way. It also happens that I tend to get taken advantage of, but I've always been this way. My best friend and I had a falling out that happened around the time of my wedding, and we didn't talk for over a year and it was miserable for me. I still thought about her all the time, dreamed about her, and finally I crawled back to her (even though I can say with full conviction that I had nothing to do with what happened). I can't say we're anywhere near the friends that we used to be, but I also can't let her go. I'm truly glad that we've made some effort to reconcile.

What about you? Do you harbor old grudges? Do you get trampled as a friend?

Say cheese!

My cheesy child has learned how to "say cheese". Bring on the silly grins.

If you look above his left eye you'll see the road rash he got yesterday. My cousin graduated high school yesterday, and we drove 45 minutes to get there only to find out that the school moved graduation inside, so immediate family only was allowed in the auditorium. We sat outside for 2 1/2 hours waiting for all to come outside. The boy was surprisingly good, running back and forth the whole night, but about 20 minutes before everyone came out, he tripped and bounced his forehead on the concrete. I heard his head hit the ground; it was a terrible sound. He wailed a bit, but oddly there was very little swelling and all that's left today is an area about the size of a quarter that looks like road rash without the torn skin -- speckled red (I'm sure it will bruise in the next couple days). I was so proud that all his bumps had gone away, and he goes and gives himself a doozy. It could have been worse. He doesn't seem to mind it.

unplugged (sort of)

There was a time I was addicted to all social networking sites. I had my blog, MySpace, my MySpace blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube ... you name it, I was plugged in. I spent far too much time on all these sites. I have decided to pare down these obsessions, and last week I officially deleted my MS account. Hurrah! I don't miss it at all. I also turned off all my updates on Twitter. The only reason I didn't delete my account there all together is that the main use of it for me is to put pictures in my FB status updates through Twitpic. And I do.

So I'm down to Facebook and my blog. I'm not about to give either up. But I do feel freed by dropping all that excess networking weight. Now to update my FB status update to say that I'm going to bed.

Nite nite!

Summer bliss

I know that people are polarized about cilantro. To some, it is divine. To some I've heard it tastes like soap. Those poor, poor people. To me, cilantro is the freshest taste of summer - impossibly yummy.

Guacamole

• 5 soft Haas avacados


• 2 1/2 limes


• 1 tsp salt


• 3/4 cup onion, diced


• lots and lots of cilantro (maybe 1/4 cup or so)


• 3 roma tomatoes, diced


• 1 1/2 heaping tsp minced garlic


• a couple shakes of cayenne pepper

In a medium bowl, mash together the avocados, lime juice, and salt. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Refrigerate for at least an hour for best flavor.

*if serving with salted tortilla chips, watch the salt in the guacamole. you may want to put less in.

not much going on, but isn't this the cutest 15-month old ever?

Today is the first day in over a week that it's not raining. Last night the sun came out long enough for us to play out front of the house while the hubby mowed the lawn (yay, no more jungle!). Hopefully there will a bit of sun today -- I wouldn't mind the rain every night from 9pm to 4am. Can we work with that?
Anyhow, I haven't done much cooking this week -- Chicken chili on Friday, hubby made peanut chicken on Wednesday (anyone know of a really good Thai peanut sauce? I'm obsessed with this peanut sauce at a Thai restaurant I went to with Autumn while in NYC, but I haven't found anything to compare in the store) ... I digress; and I don't even remember what we ate earlier in the week. It obviously wasn't memorable. Anyhow, here are pictures from playing yesterday -- I know I'm biased, but my child is so freaking adorable =)

Suzy Homemaker

I sometimes remind myself of that semi-homemade person on Food Network, minus the obnoxiousness and the stupid tablescapes. Is she still on tv? Okay, so I don't remind myself of her in the least, except that I take a lot of shortcuts in my food where I don't think it matters too much. Like I use frozen bags of shrimp (I apologize in advance to anyone who takes offense at frozen bagged shrimp, but I'm highly allergic to raw shrimp proteins and I can't handle them without gloves. It's bad. If someone wants to come over and fix up my shrimp for me, I'd lessen my carbon imprint and all that for you) ... anyhow, frozen bagged shrimp, giant jars of minced garlic (I only use fresh when I'm roasting whole bulbs) ... you get the picture. I use fresher ingredients when I think it really matters for my food, but I'm comfortable using my shortcuts when I can make a tasty dish faster and easier and get back to living my life and spending time with my family. Awww, right?

I go on this crazy silly diatribe to give you this:

I have never tried the Bertolli's pastas in the refrigerated section of my grocery store, but this week we decided it was time. I give you tomato cheese tortelloni with shrimp and bacon in a garlic cream sauce. It uses 3 pans -- if you can find a way not to use three pans and for everything still to be hot, I bow down to you :)

In a pan, saute 4 slices of raw bacon, roughly chopped. When bacon is almost cooked, add raw shrimp and saute until cooked to your taste (a couple minutes is sufficient).

In a small sauce pan, combine 1/4 heavy cream, 2 oz cream cheese, 1 tbs minced garlic, salt and pepper and a pinch of basil over medium heat until bubbly.

Boil water and cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and combine with sauce, and then add shrimp and bacon.

de-freaking-licious. Yum!

food pictures for which I didn't write recipes

I sometimes take pictures of my food because it's so tasty I don't want to forget how to make it. But then I forget to write down the recipe, and then I don't remember what exactly made it taste so good.



Take this orzo. I remember that I boiled it in chicken broth. There's chicken (I think leftover from a rotisserie), and cilantro, and red pepper flakes. There might be some sort of soft cheese -- goat, feta ... but I don't remember. It was damn tasty.


And this beautiful pork roast was rotisseried all day on the grill, and I know there was a lot of seasonings, but I haven't the slightest what was on it. But that was a magnificent roast.



And this soup. I know that I started with Squash soup, and added cooked orzo and sausage, maybe some onion. I imagine there's fresh parsley in there, given the greenery. That's as far as I know ...

Someday I'll attempt to recreate these dishes. For now I'll just drool at the pictures.

Lost: one bunch of Swiss chard

I bought a bunch of Swiss chard a couple Sundays ago. I had been on the hunt for some for the past couple months, as they don't seem to stock it at my regular grocery stores. I finally found some at the Sweetbay, the weekend before last and snatched it up. I was making creamed chard this week! (Sounds dirty, don't it?)

Then something happened: I couldn't find the darn stuff. I searched the fridge, through the veggie bins, on all the shelves ... I don't really have the biggest refrigerator. I just couldn't figure out what happened to it.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I was cooking dinner, and I went into the freezer for the shrimp. Lo and behold:

Hard as a freaking rock. And then it thawed, and was super soggy. My poor Swiss chard. I guess I'll be taking another pilgrimage to Sweetbay sometime soon ...

My country boy

You can't really see it, but the bottoms of those feet are F-I-L-T-H-Y. Capital "F". My little country boy (that's what my daycare lady calls him) hates shoes. Always has. Do they grow out of it?

Happy Mother's Day!!

a tune up

I think he's getting a ball that had wedged itself under the motorcycle, but doesn't it look like he's checking the oil or something?

never enough strawberries...

I am not a true baker. Baking requires chemestry -- there's a reason I majored in Creative Writing. This is why I cook instead, and use recipes for baking (I fiddle with them a little, but not the main ingredients). However, Sunday morning I could not find a strawberry muffin recipe that I was satisfied with, so I decided to make my up my own. Decidedly tasty!

Strawberry Sour Cream Loaf with Strawberry Butter

• 1 egg


• 1/2 cup milk


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/4 brown sugar, packed


• 2 tbs canola oil


• 1/4 cup sour cream


• 1 3/4 flour, plus 2 tsp flour, separated


• 2 tsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1 1/2 cup strawberries, chopped


• 1tbp vanilla


• cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Chop strawberries and set aside. Beat egg, milk, sour cream, oil, and vanilla together. Add sugars and cream (although doesn't exactly cream, just my way of adding). In a separate bowl add the dry ingredients, minus the 2 tsp of flour. Add those to your chopped strawberries and coat. Add the dry ingredients to the wet a little at a time until fully incorporated. Add strawberries, mix and fill a 9/5 loaf pan or make muffins with it. My loaf took about 45 minutes, but was delicious! I have a cheap silicone loaf pan that works terrible, so watch yours; you may not need to cook as long as I did.

For the strawberry butter:

• 3 strawberries


• 1 stick room temperature butter


• 1 tbs brown sugar

puree all in a food processor, spread on strawberry loaf or a bagel or toast.

Enjoy!

you are not your furniture

The local Ikea opens today. My need for free does not compel me to camp out for two days (people started lining up early Monday morning) to get a chair and a chance for free Swedish meatballs. I am excited, as I love Ikea. I have a few minor things in my home that came from the Orlando Ikea -- a component cabinet, a piece of art, Spencer's rug ... but mostly I love the accessories. I could wander through the accessories floor for hours imagining different things in my home. And now there will be one 20 minutes from my house. Ahh, Ikea.

I'll check it out in a few weeks, once the hype dies down a little(unless my husband decides he wants to get lost there for a little while on Saturday ...I'm scared of the lines though).

Of course, if they had the Swedish chef out there, all bets would be off.

little foot under foot

This is Spencer's favorite hang out when I cook. He likes to cuddle up between my feet and the oven, or the cupboard, or where ever I plan on standing. He gets very mad when I move.

I usually do okay anyhow. Here's how those lovely brussel sprouts turned out. I saute them halved with a little olive oil, throw in about 4 slices of raw bacon, roughly chopped, and cook until the outsides start to carmelize and then I through the pan into the oven for about 20 minutes so the bacon cooks fully and the sprouts are tender. It's crack, man. Pure crack.

And then little foot has to be between me and the sink while I wash the pans too ...

The library card is lost, long live the library card

I have somehow misplaced my library card. I'm sure I did it at work on a break a few weeks ago; I was surfing the online catalog for books I wanted to put on hold. I have 6 books that are late now, and I wanted to renew them online except that I can't find my darn card. So I need to go into the library, get a new card, pay my fines, confirm that the books I put on hold will transfer to the new card, renew about half of my books, maybe get a couple more ... man, I hate that I lost my card!

Edit: It was super easy to replace my card, except the $14.40 I owed in fines! 8-) Plus, they had 5 of the books I put on hold!!! Woohoo for libraries!!!

Before and after

We shaved the dogs down for the summer, and now they're half of themselves. Hopefully they like it!

old fashioned

You'd think that since I've been cooking this long that I would start making real beef stroganoff, but no. My mother made beef stroganoff this way for my entire childhood, and even though I might make slight changes -- more mushrooms, a little Worcestershire-- I've never strayed far from the Campbell's cream of mushroom soup days of old. I love this stuff. I might make other recipes, but they'll never be beef stroganoff to me. This is my beef stroganoff:

• 3 cans cream of mushroom soup


• 1 pint of sour cream


• 1 pint of sliced mushrooms


• catsup


• Worcestershire sauce


• 1 1/2 lb ground beef


• egg noodles (I like dumpling size No Yolks egg noodles)

Brown ground beef, season as you usually would (my seasoning usually consists of garlic, salt, pepper and random other seasonings depending on how I feel). drain and set aside. Combine cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, 1 can of water and sliced mushrooms over medium heat. Add a little catsup (start with about 2 TBs) and mix. You have enough catsup when the sauce changes color from white to a taupe or so. Add the ground beef and a couple shakes of Worcestershire sauce. Cook until mushrooms are tender, serve over egg noodles.

I'm not sure if your stroganoff would taste like mine; I've been making it for 15 years and I just know how it's supposed to taste, and how it's supposed to look. But fiddle with it until you like it -- it's my comfort food.