Adventures and Stuff and Things

Hey all! Im doing SOOOOOO much better, thank you for the warm wishes :) This weekend was fun, busy and over all great- again. Im so lucky!! lol! This weekend was so busy here in the city. With Fleet week, when the navy is in town, the Blue Angels fighter jets doing their show, football with Gentleman Friend, Bacon Blue Cheese BBQ Wild Boar Burgers, and general awesomeness. I also got to see GF play not he company softball team last night, they had a double header, and won both (slaughtered the second team ;) ) Go Dr. Mookie!! lol!! Anywho, here are some pictures of general adventureness-

Trip to the corporate petshop for cat food, and IN LOVE with the little furrys!!!

City Decore

Palace of Fine Arts, Stealth Fighter, and sky writers! 

Wild Boar Burgers, on pretzel roll, bacon, blue cheese and BBQ sauce

Jeff getting ready for a hot date, and left over shot from Tahoe

Panda's, and REALLY??

Ahi Tuna tartar, and goat and arugala salad

Halloween store with the Aunties! I heart halloween

GF and Softball

I'll end today with some Taco's, because taco's rule. Especially street tacos!

Being Domestic

So its super late, I have to be up early for class and of course Im wired. Ugh.. So Im cooking up a delish lunch for tomorrow for myself and Gentleman Friend. :) Yes, Im a domestic Goddess as well. Its been a long time since I have posted a recipe here, so here we go:

Blue Cheese and Bacon Grilled Cheese

• 1/2 c. blue cheese, crumbled

• 4 oz. cream cheese, softened

• 8 Slices Tomato

• 4 Slices Sourdough Round

• 2 T. butter, softened

• 4 slices bacon, cooked crisp

In a small bowl, blend blue cheese and cream cheese. Butter one side of each slice of bread.

Spread the cheese mixture on the non-buttered side of 4 bread slices. Cut bacon slices in half and place 2 halves on top of each blue cheese- topped slice. Add tomatoes. Cover with remaining bread, buttered side out.

Place sandwiches on an electric griddle heated to 275 degrees or in a skillet heated on medium. Cook 4-5 minutes per side, or until bread is golden brown and cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

Thank you to Grilled Cheese Social for the insperation :)

Cio!

Never to Early for the Holiday Season...

Ugh... Its a few short weeks until everyone I know and love will turn into lunatics, and I will be broke, ha, broker. So I decided to be proactive. Since no one I know or love reads this, I can share it with my followers...err... myself. lol. So since I have many many MANY peppers from my lovely sister and her garden I am going to be making pickled peppercini's, with apples from my Aunts tree that is over flowing, I am attepting apple butter (with the help of my beloved crockpot, oh crockpot, love of my life) and back by popular demand, pickled carrots! So why all this pickling? isnt pickling hard? What about botulism? Let me answer all of this loves.

These are refridgerator pickles, so I dont have to worry so much about scary things growing in them. also, applebutter? Freezer fodder till holidays hit :) And for all my pickled things, Im using the same basic brine:

2C Vinager (they suggest apple cider but I used white last year and it was great)
2C water
1/4C White Sugar
1.5 tsp salt

bring it to a boil, and place the vegi's into the jars, along with herbs and spices. This is great so I can flavor each jar seperatly! Pour boiling brine over vegi's, let cool and store in the fridge until yummy.

Its really easy. I bought like 20 mason jars last year for like $10, the little ones (which are cuter for gifts!) and will again this year. Also, I have been saving cute salsa and fruit jars, and picked some masons up from my neighbor. Nice ;)

So school started on Thursday. Its going to be sooooo good for me. Im ready to get my ass kicked!

And yes, pictures are coming, its just hard when Im updating from Corporate coffee shop.

Ohh! I have started a little challenge! Im going to attept to DRAW every day for one year. In my little sketch book... So this isnt going to include the massive amounts of drawing I will be doing at school. I have tried to do this before and always fail.. I may fail now... But maybe I wont ;)

A dinner to remember

I dont have any pictures, but last night was a great night. Firstly, I am currently unemployed! Saturday was the last day at Passport and Yesterday was the last day at corporate pet shop. Sad, but also good. I came home, and threw a chicken in the crockpot. (The lemon pepper chicken posted below) Some beets the the oven for Everything Salad and took a nap. lol. After getting up, cleaning and putting on clothes (in that order) I prepared for guests!!

Alix came first, then Greg and John from Mantra. We ate, drank (Porter, YUMMO!!) and made fun of the pets. Castor was a ham, and showed off the whole time. I let Cooper out in his ball and him and Castor played chase and generaly were adorable. Everything went so well. We listened to Justin Farren and laughed and laughed for hours. Such a good night.

Im finally packing up for the move. Everything is going down to Toledo to get shipped, and only the bare essentials are going in the car. Im meloncholy about the whole thing. I want to be back in California so bad, but Im going to miss this place like hell. Detroit is like no other place on Earth.

I dont want to work this hard.

Why does everything have to been so hard? I know, Im just whinney. But I have one day off this week from both jobs, have no money and am working a few doubles. I hardly even have time to see Haily, which I need to do.

The pets are going well. Castor has been bad lately. REALLY bad. He bolted into the hall a few days ago, and ran up and down yowling and not letting me catch him. Jen tried to help but he ran from her to. Then he started jumping at random doors and yowling louder. I finally caught him and he was super panicy.

I havnt been cooking. Its been so hot I just cant do it. I lied, I did make some AMAZING grilled cheese sandwiches. I used some grinder bread (wide flat bread thats soft and doughy) slathered it with dijon and covered with colby jack mix. I then added some tomato slices and toasted to perfection. Actually I sorta burned it, but they were delish and lasted two days of lunches :)

Pizza Soup

So, still eating like a poor girl :) To mix it up with my yummo 16 Bean soup, Im also making Pizza Soup. I had some Breakfast Sausage in the fridge from when it was on sale for 99 cents a lbs (woot!) And yesterday when I went to pick up my check from Vinny at the Pizza Shop, I picked up the other ingredients. The Recipe is from 365Crockpot :)

--1 jar (14 oz) of pizza sauce
--3 empty jars full of water
--1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
--1/2 red onion, chopped
--1 cup sliced mushrooms
--1 cup baby tomatoes, cut in quarters (or 1 can diced tomatoes, drained)
--2 already-cooked Italian sausage (I used chicken Italian sausage)
--1 cup sliced pepperoni, sliced in quarters (Hormel turkey pepperoni is labeled gluten free)
--8 fresh basil leaves, chopped (or 1/2 T dried)
--1 T dried oregano
--1/2 to 1/3 cup of dried pasta (if your pasta is tiny, use 1/3 cup. if it's big, do 1/2. I used 1/2 cup Trader Joe's brown rice penne)
--shredded mozzarella cheese (to add later)

The Directions.

Use a 5 or 6 quart crockpot for this recipe. Serves 4 hungry adults, or 2 hungry adults and 2 kids with enough leftovers to feed them all again.

Wash and prepare veggies. Dump them into the crockpot. Cut up the sausage into small pieces--I sliced, then cut the pieces in fourths. Add to crockpot. Cut up the pepperoni, add it, too. Add basil and oregano. Pour in the pizza sauce, and follow with three empty jars of water.

Cover and cook on low for 7-9 hours. Everything in this is already cooked, so you are really only heating through and allowing the flavors to meld.

Thirty minutes before serving, add the dry pasta, and turn to high. My pasta only took 20 minutes to soften quite nicely.

Garnish/top with shredded mozzarella cheese


This soup came out amazing!! I was eh the first day, but the second day and on the flavors were deep and delicios!! And I ate off it for a week! 

Broke, but happy

So after returning home from California, I realized a few things. 1. I havnt shopped for food in 2 weeks. B. I have worked in a week and a half. and 3. I have no monies. Time to empty the fridge and cupboards!!! Enter the crock pot. I heart my crock pot. So I currently have a concotion in there that is this, lol:

1 package 16 bean soup (bought a few months ago during a stock up session)
1 seasoning packet that came with said soup
water
3 cloves garlic
ground black pepper to taste
lemon pepper to taste
1 TBLS curry powder
1 TBLS Red Pepper flakes
Salt

I soaked the beans over night, rinsed and added to the crock pot. I then added enough water to cover the beans with an additional 1-2" water covering. I chopped the garlic and threw it in, and mixed in the seasoning packet. about 3 hours in I got bored and dumped the other seasonings in. May add more curry later. But yay! and came out pretty good, hurrah for beans :) **It came out fantastic! Yumm-o!

I also made no-knead bread to go with it.
(from Steamy Kitchen)

3 cups bread flour (I like Harvest King bread flour)
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon fine table salt (or 3/4 tablespoon of kosher salt)
1 1/2 cups warm water

Covered pot (five-quart or larger cast iron, Pyrex, ceramic, enamel...something that can go into a 450F oven.)

directions:

1. Mix dough: The night before, combine all ingredients in a big bowl with a wooden spoon until the dough just comes together. It will be a shaggy, doughy mess. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit 12-20 hours on countertop.

2. Shape & preheat: The dough will now be wet, sticky and bubbly. With a wet spatula, dump the dough on a floured surface. Fold ends of dough over a few times with the spatula and nudge it into a ball shape. You can use your hands if you like, just keep your hands wet so that the dough does not stick. Generously dust a cotton towel (not terrycloth) with flour. Set dough seam side down on top of towel. Fold towel over the dough. Let it nap for 2 hours. When you've got about a half hour left, slip your covered pot into the oven and preheat to 450F.

3. Bake: Your dough should have doubled in size. Remove pot from oven. Holding towel, turn over and dump wobbly dough into pot, using your hands to get the dough off the towel. Doesn't matter which way it lands. Shake to even dough out. Cover. Bake 30 minutes. Uncover, bake another 15-20 minutes or until the crust is beautifully golden and middle of loaf is 210F. Remove and let cool on wired rack. If not eating right away, you can re-crisp crust in 350F oven for 10 minutes. Best way to eat it? Smear a warm slice with some good butter (Kerrygold and Lurpac are both found in your grocery stores, usually on top shelf)

It came out REALLY good! Im very happy. Its a plain white bread, with a crispy crust, so next time I would like to add something like olives, sundreid tomatoes, garlic, rosemary, etc. Also, I dont own a Dutch oven so i used my big stock pot, and all was well. my biggest worry was my own self doubt and keeping the kitten away from the oven. LOL!

Neglect

So, an update since I have been neglecting this thing. I raised my starter, made some very bad bread then recently killed it. I also aquired a job as a waitress, was threatened, stolen from and not paid, so I quit. I now work for a pizza shop and while I make no money at least its fun! :)

The gerbil sidekick has a hamster ball and mastered it quickly. I will post a video soon of the amazing antics. There is nothing more entertaining then a gerbil in a ball a 2am!! Cooper rocks.

So Saturday I got to go hiking at Sterling Park in Monroe, Mi. We hiked for 6-7 miles in the warm sun (yay! Sun!!!) and ended the hike with a stroll along the sandy shores of lake Erie. My first Great Lake!! It was really beautiful, and I hope to see more of the great lakes and Michigan while I'm here.

Sunday was Easter. I cooked some left over corned beef in the crock pot, made an "Everything Salad" (thank you Rachel for the recipe!) and made Folar, Portuguese Easter Bread. Oh, and a no bake cheese cake (Thats not cooking, its stirring). I invited some of the girls from the building over and we ate, traded cosmetics, shoes and jewelery, and had a ball :) So things are looking up.

Yay for heritage!!

Signs of life?

So yesterday wasn't a total waste, a friend of mine made me dinner and my lovely neighbor brought me a cable so I can watch PBS on my new/used TV! Excellent. So this morning I may have signs of life? Trying to not be too optimistic, as failure is very likely. I also sort of cleaned and unpacked a few more things. The building guys were SUPPOSED to come by and fix my shower head and blinds, but nothing :( Oh well. So anyway, day 3:

Orangey ate the same as yesterday

as did Traditional, look at the bubbles!

The gerbil and the hermit crab happlily enjoyed some pear today, as did I. I have to eat more fruit...

Feed the Bitch

Sorry, I am channeling Anthony Bourdaine. Fed the new projects, ate some pizza and watched many many episodes of The Justice League. I am a HUGE Wonder Woman fan. :) So today was total slothness. Oh well.

Amazing Feta Pizza from Nikki's. OMG Nom nom.

No pictures of the kids today, but fed Orangey 2 TBLS orange juice and 2 TBLS Flour and Traditional 1/4 cup flour and 1/8 cup water.

Also, Hibalita keeps getting her rear kicked and its making me mad. That is not very queen of the amazons like AT ALL.