Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Bad Luck Continued

So things keep getting worse. I left my camera with my dad, because I noticed that half of the flash is darkened. I wasn't sure if the bulb in it burned out, or what. Apparently it's more serious than that. It has a problem with the wiring in it. Apparently something in the circuit is going screwy it and making it over-fire. So it'll cost 25 dollars for the to look at it, probably 70 to fix it, and it'll be gone for 3-4 weeks. Fan-fucking-tastic. The money isn't a huge issue, my parents will pay for it, but I can't have it gone for that long. (sighs) I love my camera, and I feel completely lost without it. Plus, it's one of the few things that makes me money, I don't want it gone! I think I'll wait until after the holidays to take it in. I can use my external flash instead, and cross my fingers it doesn't fuck that up. They aren't really sure if it will or not. (grumbles)

I don't care who I have to bribe/coerce/threaten/sleep with to get my luck to turn around, but damn it, I am sick of this shit!

Menu Four

It's been quite a while since I've done any of these, so here's hoping I remember how they turned out.

Apple and Horseradish Glazed Salmon with Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage: The salmon was amazing. It was so easy to make and incredibly yummy. The sweet and sour cabbage was not as fantastic. The idea is great, I've had it before. But apparently this wasn't the recipe for it. It wasn't zingy enough. Plus, I think we sliced the cabbage too thick. It never got wilted enough. So, I'll make the salmon again and find a new recipe for the cabbage.

Crustless Broccoli Cheddar Quiche: Unfortunately, this was very blah. It didn't taste bad, it just didn't have much flavor. For some reason the egg taste neutralized all of the cheddar and broccoli flavor, and all of the seasonings we put in. I might try working with this recipe, adding more herbs and salt and pepper but if I find a recipe that looks more interesting, I'll try it instead.

Cornbread and Bean Skillet: This was fantastic. It was kind of dreary out, and I was having a crummy day and this was such good comfort food. Amazingly enough, it was incredibly healthy too. Basically, I dumped a bunch of spicy beans into a pan and made Jiffy cornbread with cheddar cheese. The raw dough was put on top of the beans and then simmered over the stove until it cooked through. It was warm, and the mix of spice with the cornbread was delicious. I might put in one can of regular tomatoes in place of one of the two cans of tomatoes with green chilis. It was a little overwhelming. This also made great leftovers.

Warm Spinach-Pear Salad: So good, and so simple. We made it with a bowl of leftover squash soup. Mmm. The salad was fairly substantial and with the soup was plenty for a meal. I love hot dressing salads. For once, I found one that doesn't involve using bacon grease as part of the dressing, so that was exciting also. I will definitely make it again.

Chicken with Tomatoes and Mushrooms: This was very good too. It needed some time to cook, but the actual preparation was simple. It didn't call for very many ingredients either, which was nice. I was pretty much guaranteed to like this recipe though, anything that calls for two pounds of mushrooms is fine by me.

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili: This recipe didn't taste exactly how I thought it would, but it was amazing. It had a very mexican flavor, which I don't normally associate with sweet potato. It also had a garnish of a little bit of sour cream mixed with cilantro. I added lime juice, and it was even better. I'll certainly make this again.

Feta, Olive and Spicy Sausage Pizza: Using pre-made crust, we brushed olive oil on it and sprinkled garlic, salt, pepper, and rosemary on the crust. We baked that for a few minutes and topped it with feta, black olives, spicy sausage, tomatoes and mushrooms. We baked that for a little bit longer and it turned out AMAZING. Really quick and incredibly good.

Roasted Chicken Noodle Soup: I roasted a chicken, fairly early in the day. I stuffed it with fresh basil and rosemary and put carrots, onions, celery and garlic around it. After it was done roasting, I put the whole thing in a pot of water with all of the drippings and let it boil for about 5 hours. By the end of the night it had completely fallen apart and the whole apartment smelled good. We strained the liquid, and saved it, picked apart the chicken for the good meat and put it back with the broth. We added more herbs and vegetables and noodles and let it cook for another fifteen minutes or so. It was probably the best soup I've ever had. We made a ridiculously large amount of it, so we've been having leftovers all week, and we even froze some.

Curried Cider-Braised Pork Chops and Horseradish Smashed Potatoes: Both were delicious! The pork chops were simple to make and curry is so yummy with cider. It probably would have been even better with sliced apples. I invented the recipe for the potatoes and they were superb, if I do say so myself. I boiled potatoes and then smushed them up with milk, a little sour cream and butter, rosemary and horseradish. The horseradish added a really interesting flavor to it but it wasn't overwhelming at all. Katie tried them, and she really liked them, which is saying a lot, because she's the pickiest eater I know. Luckily, this time she ate something I made, it didn't make her throat close. Hooray for food allergies. No peach shakes for Katie I guess...

There were also plenty of meals of leftovers, and dinner at my parents' house, and I was gone for a while and even a night of sushi. Mmm, sushi. So there aren't as many recipes as there would have been otherwise. I might have forgotten something I made too...

Randomness

This past week has not been going well. I wanted to start making and selling greeting cards with my photographs on the front. I bought the cards and envelopes, plastic sleeves to put them in, mounting tape and I picked out photos to use. When I went to order the photos I realized there was a huge problem. York Photo doesn't print 3 by 5 pictures. I assumed it was only that particular company, so I looked on Snapfish, and Shutterfly, and every other online photo processing place. No luck. I went to Meijer, hoping that they could at least print them if I brought in the negatives. I nearly cried when the woman there told me that 3 by 5's are getting discontinued everywhere. Apparently 4 by 6 is now standard. Also, apparently "no one uses 3 by 5's." At that point I was so frustrated I almost screamed "I use them you bitch." But, she was just some lowly photo processing peon. She had no say in it, so I bit my tongue and thanked her for her time. I can use the 4 by 6's on the cards I bought, but they don't look anywhere near as nice. The bigger border was so much better. But I suppose it's asking too much to have things go the way I planned.

I went to Delaware, Ohio this past weekend. My cousin Marthena was having a baptism for her twin babies. While I'm not a particular fan of either the church or babies, it wasn't a bad weekend. Well, sort of. My streak of bad luck did continue. I left half of my stuff at home that I needed, including shampoo and all my styling products. I also somehow managed to leave the gift I had for them in my apartment. I spent MONTHS knitting two baby blankets, and they're sitting here on the floor in their nice gift bag. (grumbles) I also managed to slam my head on the corner of a wall while sitting down. Oh, and I was convinced I'd lost a sock at the hotel, only to find it in one of my bags. Plus, on the way home, I apparently dumped my wallet out of my purse and left it in my parents' car. So I have no money until they either mail it to me, or I go meet them somewhere. Fantastic. Anyone else want to add to my lousy week??

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Naked Pillow Fights

Erin and Katie and I decided that we haven't been spending enough time together, just the three of us, so we had a girls' night at Erin's. She kicked Kyle out of their house and I stole Anthony's truck and went up to St. Louis. We spent lots of time talking, eating and drinking. The usual. We also watched "Dead Like Me", a show Erin's been yammering about lately. It's hilarious. Very weird and quirky. I need to hunt down the DVDs, and start it from the beginning. As Katie put it, "What kind of crack do you have to be on to come up with stuff like this??" Sounds like the perfect show for me... We also were incredibly girly and played with makeup. The guys were lucky they weren't around, there's no way they could have made it through the evening without a makeover. (cackles)

Katie slept in the guest bedroom, to avoid having 20 pounds of Boris kitty jumping on her head and licking her. Erin and I stayed in her room, and got tromped on by Boris most of the night. We stayed up talking until about 5 or 6 am, and got up at 9, we haven't done THAT in a while. We also managed to get semi-freaked out because the house was making strange noises. I swear Anthony and Kyle snuck up to the house to freak us out so Erin and I would end up cuddling. (laughs) apparently their secret plot worked, we did sort of end up smushed in the middle of the bed. But I'll let you decide if the three of us ever had the naked pillow fights everyone was so hoping would happen...

Friday, October 07, 2005

Stratford

My parents and I went to Stratford, Ontario last weekend. They picked me up at the apartment friday afternoon, and we drove straight there. We got in around 8pm and checked into our bed and breakfast. Technically it is a guest house, since they don't feed us breakfast. I had a room on the top floor. They aren't wildy exciting rooms, but they are clean and cute and the old lady who rents the house is really nice. We walked around town to find a place to eat. We went to a Chinese Canadian restaurant. That phrase is absolutely hilarious to me...there's something about Chinese Canadian that cracks me up. Maybe it's cause I am used to hearing Chinese American...but I swear there's just something inherently funny about Chinese Canadian food. First of all, what the hell is Canadian food??? Moose? Beer? Anyway, the Chinese part of the menu was fantastic. We had really good soup and egg rolls. None of us were starving, so it was a great dinner. We went for a walk and looked at all of the fantastic old architecture. There are tons of gorgeous brick houses.

On saturday morning we went to a cafe for breakfast. It's called the York Street Kitchen and it's very fun. It's a tiny hole in the wall place, with bright painted walls, and colanders as lamp shades. I had a sandwich called the H.M.S Pinafore, a bagel, goat cheese and smoked salmon. I get it every year when we go. We spent most of the morning and afternoon walking around town. There are a ton of cute little shops and gorgeous gardens. For dinner we went to an inn. They had amazing duck. (drools) Mmm, duck. We went to see the Shakespearean play "As You Like It". It was a different interpretation, it was set in the 60's, and The Barenaked Ladies composed and arranged the music. They did a fantastic job, and I am tempted to get a cd of the music they did.

We went for a picnic on sunday morning after stopping at the grocery store. We ate along the river and then headed out. It was kind of a long drive back because we stopped in Michigan to look at more bricks. They were making their final decision this week. They're either going with a brick that they can get now, so the bricking will be done this fall, or one that will put it off until the spring. I'm not sure which one they went with. Anyway, it was a good trip and I love going.

Serenity

I loved it! It's taken me a while to get around to posting (yeah, I am slacking again). I saw it last friday...the first showing available. We managed to see it before Anthony had to go to work, and I left for Stratford. (sighs happily) I was so happy with it. They managed to make it hilarious, suspenseful, and incredibly shocking. There are a lot of people complaining about a particular scene in it, but although I didn't like the scene, I thought it was well done and necessary. I'll avoid mentioning what it was in particular, for the people who haven't been able to see it yet. But it brought a different feel to the movie...it created doubt about the ending to the movie, and the possibility of any sequel. Say what you will, but I thought it was well done. I am just so happy it came out and I got to see it. My parents want to borrow the DVDs. My mom caught one or two of the episodes when it was actually on, and she liked it, but it was kicked off the air before she got to watch it more than that. I think it's sort of cute that my parents are getting into "Firefly".