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.