Day45 - Would you like some Crisp, Troy.

Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008: My Kichen: Good food.

Troy and I don't celebrate V-Day. I'm of the mindset that he should be overly generous and gift proffering everyday of the week. I would rather get flowers on a random August eve than a forced bouquet in February. And if you know me at all, I'm not sappy anyway. At least not outwardly.

So, don't construe this as a VD dinner. It is just like any other day I've cooked over the past few months.

I found some left over gorgonzola bread crumbs that Troy had used with steak a few weeks back. It was good. The chicken stayed moist and, although the gorgonzola melted, it sill had that crazy bite.


For desert I made this Apple Crisp. The recipe called for cherries, but all I had was dried cranberries. It follows:

4 apples (I used gala; they recommend Granny's)
10 oz cherries (I used 7 ounces of dried craisins)
1/4 c sugar
3 Tbls flour
1 1/2 cups Granola (I used Cascadian farms Oats and Honey)


Mix the first 4 ingredients together. Place into a baking dish. Cover. Cook for 40 minutes at 350. Remove from oven, add granola, and bake for another 10 - 20 minutes until apples are soft. Serves 9.

Because we used dried cranberries, I had to add 1/4 cup of apple juice to rehydrate them. Still, It comes to about 170 calories per serving. That is crazy low for a crisp, which usually run around 300. It tastes really really fucking good too. I'm going to eat it for breakfast for the rest of the week. That's how yummy it is.


Yummy chicken straight from the oven:




Served with some broccoli. You could also serve it with a marinara on the side if you like. Might help with the stank of the cheese.





Tasty, tasty crisp.




We ate it hot with Stoneyfield organic vanilla yogurt. Love it.




Just. Can't reach. Into the screen. To get. Some more! Aggggghhh!

So there it is. My non-VD, VD dinner. We watched Wallace and Gromit, Curse of the WereRabbit and giggle the rest of the night. It was good all around.

Day44 - I don't know what it was, but it made me sweat.

Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008: Kaarma: Sewian Vermicelli

When I have something in my head, sometimes I obsess about it. it's a real pain in the ass for Troy, but it's also a family trait passed down from my very ansty pop-pop Teddy.

When Tre came up on Saturday, our lack of timing switched our plans from Indian to Thai. That did not stop my from thinking/obsessing about Naan. Troy worked from home on Wednesday, and after his doctor's appt we went to Kaarma. Yay me!

There food is extraordinary. For desert I had the Sewian Vermicelli. It's basically pasta in a liquid that tastes like rice pudding. It's sweet and creamy and naturally I love it.

This isn't an actual picture of what I had - the owner and his wife were fluttering around and I didn't want to be rude and snap a picture in front of them. I don't put it past them to throw me out.




Yeah, it does look weird. And I can't say that I was entirely comfortable trusting that the little brown floating nuggets were raisins (I was relieved that they were).

I also tried some vegetable dish that I can't remember the name of. It was brown and the veggies were a mystery - the only veg that I could make out were mushrooms and potatoes. I can't begin to express how thankful I am, that if I have gotten nothing else from this newness experiment (and I have so many things to be thankful for) it is the ability to comfortably eat veg that are crunchy and hidden.

Day43 - Satan probably doesn't care for Banana Steamerz

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008: Sheetz: Steamerz.

We went to Erin and Ryan's today to paint and kick ass, and after we left as a little treat we went to Sheetz. I made Troy a dark chocolate and hazelnut hot chocolate and me a Banana skim Steamer. A steamer is basically just steamed milk with flavor and hot banana milk is probably the best thing I've had in a long time.





I was having a bitch of a time taking a picture of this, and Troy had to finally hold it for me while I snapped the pic. While I was being stubborn and proud (two traits which I have in abundance much to Troy's chagrin) I took this picture of what I will call a Satan Steamerz.

Day42 - Hot damn! Nice chicken.

Monday, Feb. 11, 2008: My Kitchen: Healthy Arizona Ranch Boneless Wings

I love Arizona Ranch Boneless Wings from Quaker Steak and Lube, but I get the distinct impression that the wing sauce probably comes out of a 50-gallon drum. I found a recipe on the net, and it is good, but uses 1/4 cup of butter. Not awesome. I switched it up a little bit and made these suckers.


2 Tbls margarine, melted
2 Tbls Ranch
1 Tbls Vinegar
1/4 - 1/2 Hot sauce (We use Franks Red Hot)
1 - 1/2 lbs chicken

For this, I almost always use chicken tenders, but I've used 1-inch chunks of chicken before. I'm sure that you could also toss it with actual wings, but sometimes eating meat off of a bone gives me the heebie jeebies - not always awesome when you get a vein.

Sometimes I grill the chicken. This time I pan fried in a little olive oil just until most of the chicken was cooked, but was still pink in the middle. Then I toss with the sauce and into a 350 oven for about 20 minutes.

We usually serve with 2 Tbls of Ranch and some pitas. We used these mini whole wheat pita that were actually kind of perfect. They were sweet and were a good balance with the heat of the chicken. In the past we used white bread pitas, and they are perfect if you don't care for wheat.


The yummy chicken floating in it's hot sauce bath. The sauce separates less if you use margarine.





Here are the little pitas. They have more calories that the chicken if your keeping track.






Yum. All wrapped up.





Troy says yeah!

Day41 - More movies, more love.

Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008: Movies, movies, movies.

Last week I wrote about watching TCM and their "31 days of Oscar," and this Sunday I was at it again. I don't want to give a whole long, boring synopsis, so I'll try to make it short and sweet with 6 word or less reviews.


First was the lovely Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Bogart is what I would call "Old Fashioned Hot." I love watching any movie with him in it and I don't think there has been another actor like him. Who the fuck would hire someone with a lisp today? And his alcoholism would probably make him uninsurable.

And Peter Lorre can do no wrong in my eyes.

The Maltese Falcon - Honest gumshoe battles law & love.



Next was Murder on the Orient Express (1974). I loved this movie so much that I immediately began reading the book by Agatha Christie. The cast is all-star: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman… the list goes on. Ingrid Bergman is my favorite actress of the early 20th century, next to Myrna Loy. I would pay to watch them read the telephone book. Bergman picked up and Oscar for this movie, and if you see the scene you will know why. She acts the shit out of it.

This movie I recommend completely. Netflix that shit tonight.

Murder on the Orient Express: A train of lies and murder.



The last movie of the night was Sleuth (1972). It stars Sir Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine entirely. The whole movie is their dialogue and rather surprising plot twists. It's the only movie that I really enjoyed Olivier in, and for that matter, Caine as well. Great directing and fantastic acting. Really, just crazy great acting.

Sleuth: Love/pride lead to murderous game.

Day40 - He said they were out of mango, but I think he was full of shit.

Saturday, Feb 9, 2008: SC: Out and about.

I almost always cook for company atleast once. This weekend I made Strawberry Banana pancakes. Not as healthy as the whole wheat pancakes that I made Gayle last weekend, but much better tasting.

I also made the batter from scratch, which I never do. I'm a bisquick girl, like my mother before me.

After mixing the batter, I was worried that they wouldn't cook all the way through because of all the fruit. They did thankfully, and no one got a dough ball in the middle.





On our little griddle:




The final pancakes. One round burned a little because electric ranges suck ass:





For lunch, we wanted to go to Tre's favorite, Khaarma. Unfortunately, we spent lunch shopping and the restaurant closed just as we were arrived. Instead we went to VietThai on Atherton. It was really, really good, although I like Khaarma and the Thai place in Williamsport better.


Here is a piece of Chicken Satay in peanut sauce.





This is my Chicken Pad Thai, that NIck ordered as well. Troy ordered the pork Pad Thai, although he said that it might as well have been chicken for all that he could tell. Tre ordered curry chicken that had coconut milk in it. Her's was the best.





After lunch, we went to the Creamery. I don't believe Nick had ever been. Tre ordered the peanut butter swirl, which I tried for the first time. She got the biggest cone of ice cream I have ever seen. It was obscene.




This is Tre and Nick. Her lips were frozen during this picture, hence the lack of smile.




Troy and me. His cone was almost as big as Tre's, but he did not finish. I ordered Strawberry and it was really very good.




So, that was the day. Troy and Tre took a nap when we got home and Tre spent the rest of the night shivering from ice cream induced hypothermia.

Day39 - Cookies. Rolls and rolls of cookies.

Friday, Feb. 8, 2008: My house: cookies.

My sister and her boyfriend, Nick, came up for a visit this weekend. I was finally able to give her the cookies I bought for her last month. They are Lemon Singoalla cookies from IKEA. They were all snapped up before I could take a pic, but these are the raspberry cookies.




Troy bought me a box of the Raspberry cookies for my birthday, and there isn't a trip to IKEA where we don't eat half a roll on the way home. The lemon cookies are good, although I think they have a hint of Lemon pledge in them. Troy and Tre disagreed as evident by the swift obliteration.