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Wordless Wednesday
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Super Moist Cake
Today is my lovely Sister-in-Law Lura’s birthday. Happy Birthday Lura! I hope you’re having a wonderful day today. This last weekend was her birthday party. Almost all of our family get togethers are a group effort, so that no one has to do all of the cooking. I decided that I wanted to try to bake a cake. The thing is, I’m not much of a baker. Too precise, too worky. I prefer cooking, where there’s more room for mistake and enough grace to fix things if you can. Nonetheless, for some reason, I wanted to make a cake. Partly because Lura loves cake, and partly because I received a…
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Dreaded Day
The dreaded day came and went this week. Gen’s medical conditions got the better of her, and we decided that we didn’t want to keep fixing one thing to just have another pop up. So we put her to sleep on Monday afternoon. We miss her sweet face SO MUCH. She was such a good girl, and we love her so much, and we’re so sad. But we know that she’s not suffering now, and that making sure she didn’t suffer was our responsibility. Damn it. I keep thinking, I want my dog back. But when I think that, I don’t mean the dog that paced the house for hours…
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Black Cherry and Black Pepper Lamb Chops
I went looking for Valentine’s Day recipes last week, and I found a delicious looking recipe for lamb with some kind of jammy sauce on Food Network. I remembered a few months ago that Ted’s mom and I went to an event at Elizabeth Spencer Winery, they had an appetizer of lamb chops in a pomegranate jelly sauce that was absolutely delicious. So I decided to make it, but instead of buying a special black cherry jam, I used leftover blackberry/pomegranate jam from the amazing Christmas cookies I made a few months ago. Results? de-li-cious. If you like lamb, this is a wonderful dish. The risotto that went with it…
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Baked Spaghetti Squash
This is a recipe I found on Yahoo Shine, which they got from Better Homes and Gardens. It’s sort of like a lasagna in that it’s baked, and sort of like a spaghetti in the taste. Like lasagna, there is some layering involved. Unlike lasagna, there’s no ricotta type cheese involved. Maya’s not a fan of lasagna, never liked it much and then had it when sick with stomach flu, and has never recovered. She likes this dish, though, and Ted and I love it. It’s yummy, warm and gooey and still pretty full of nutrition. I found the recipe here. Baked Spaghetti Squash Ingredients 1 medium spaghetti squash (2-1/4…
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Speedy Black Bean Enchiladas
Years ago, we received a cookbook from the Sargento cheese company, and there are a few recipes that are fall backs for us. One is the Soft Shell Chicken Tacos, and another is the Speedy Black Bean ‘n’ Cheese Burritos. The only thing I mind about the burritos is that, because they’re baked, sometimes the tortillas get kind of dried out. So I decided to make a quick and easy version of my favorite Black Bean Enchilada recipe. First, I started with the Burrito recipe, for the filling. Speedy Black Bean ‘n’ Cheese Burritos Ingredients 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil 1/2 cup sliced green onions 1 clove garlic, minced 1 can…
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Friday Randomness
(Lovely painting of our local mountain, Mt. Diablo, by Mary Lou Correia, found here) The weather here in Sunny California has been, well, mostly Bright and Sunny, so I’ve been taking a lot of walks. Often I walk along the bike trail to the grocery store, pick up a few things, and walk home. It’s 3 or 4 miles round trip, I think. One thing I’ve noticed on the trail is little plastic bags full of dog poop. At least, I ASSUME that’s what they’re full of….I don’t open them and check. But they’re the little bags that are dispensed periodically along the trail, often next to a garbage can,…
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Omaha Steaks
For quite awhile now, we’ve been sending my Grandma and Great Aunt Omaha Steaks as a Christmas gift. They’re on a very limited income, and this is an easy way to make them feel spoiled. A few years ago, I found out that my Great Aunt doesn’t really LIKE steak much, so now we mostly pick the seafood items, with a few steaks thrown in for Grandma, who DOES like steak, though she likes it so well done it probably tastes like a hockey puck. No matter. This year when I was planning my gift giving, I decided to send some Omaha Steaks to my brother, Richard, and his wife,…
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e-Reading
Almost 2 years ago, Ted got a Nook for his birthday. He’s an early adopter, and is always looking out for the next new thing. So he wanted to try it, and it has suited him very well. He can load books, magazines, and newspapers to his Nook, and bring them all to work with him to read on his lunch hour, with no real effort. Me? I’m a slow adopter. I resist change. I didn’t want an ipod, because my walkman was fine, thank you very much. I didn’t want a blog, what’s the point? I didn’t want Facebook, how stupid can you be? On all of these things,…
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Loving Your Aging Dog
There’s no two ways about it…Genevieve is an old lady. She takes 8 pills a day to keep her from having diarrhea, which sometimes works. She take 1 pill a day to help keep her from peeing uncontrollably. She takes 1 pill a day to help her appetite and cognitive function. She’s blind. She doesn’t leave the house anymore, except to go in the back yard to do her business. We take her out front sometimes, but after 2 1/2 years of being blind, I think it’s scary for her. I can’t leave her in the back yard, because she might get stuck behind the air conditioner unit or tangled…
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The Leftovers
Laurie Garvey hadn’t been raised to believe in the Rapture. She hadn’t been raised to believe in much of anything, except the foolishness of belief itself. We’re agnostics
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Looking Good
My mom was a big believer in reading. She was addicted to it. She read more than anyone else I have ever known. She loved to read everything, almost any genre, almost any book. LOVED it. When she was trying to figure things out, she would read to find a solution. Recipes, career advice, whatever. Parenting style. She loved her parents dearly, and she firmly believed that they did their best. But she also thought that they could have done better. So when she found she was going to have kids, she wanted to find out how to do things better than her parents had done. For the most part,…
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A Day in the City
Ted and I are both fortunate enough to be able to take the week off between Christmas and New Years, and it may be my favorite week of the year. Don’t ask me about that when I take time off in the summer, because I may change my mind, but for now, let’s say this is the best. The lead up to Christmas is one of hustle and bustle, with hurrying here and there, buying gifts, going to parties, wrapping gifts, sending cards, decorating the house, making latkes (for Hanukkah, which we also celebrate, because we’re atheists and can do whatever we want), enjoying Stollen Bread on St. Nicholas Day…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Young Adult
When I first saw the previews for ‘Young Adult’, I thought it looked like crap. Like another ‘Hangover’ or ‘Bridesmaids’ type film, but without much actual humor, and with a mean spirited protagonist. Then I heard that the people who made it also made two other films that I really liked, ‘Up In the Air’, and ‘Juno’, and I decided that I’d wait and see if the reviews were good. And they were, very good. Charlize Theron is Mavis Gary, a semi-successful writer of young adult books who lives in Minneapolis. We are shown a glimpse of her life, which seems to consist mainly of writer’s-block, drinking, trolling for men,…