This! This is what is wrong!

I am just so hung up. There's a traffic jam of obscenities and righteous indignations clogging up the tirade that is trying to pour forth.

This is what's wrong in America today, folks. This is why over 30% of us are obese. Not just fat, obese.

Ok... it's not the one and only factor... estrogen-mimicking plastics in our water and food and register receipts are part of it. But for fuck's sake... "less than once a week?" And they're not meaning Julia Child-style cooking, they likely include warming a disposable plastic bowl of Easy Mac or pouring a bowl of pencil-shavings cereal as "preparing food."

Ugh.

I have to go make lunch. It may involve simply warming things, but only because I already cooked them for real the first time.

Our Inaugural Luncheon

January 2009, obviously... 

Not quite as fancy as what the Obamas will be eating today, but still tasty. I decided to use the President's Hawaiian roots as inspiration, since it seemed festive, I've been looking for an excuse to reprise the foods from Iron Chef Mom- Pineapple Battle, and we're having "grilling weather." Plus, the President will be enjoying seafood, so I wanted to have some, too.

It was very simple- I chopped up a fresh pineapple, thawed and peeled some shrimp, and marinated them each separately (see the Pineapple Battle link for recipes). Stuck 'em on skewers and told the Grill Geek to take it from there.

I had wanted to wrap the pineapple chunks in bacon, but we were shockingly out. Well, we have thick-cut, but that just wouldn't work for this. I'm also steaming some summer squash that I chopped and froze during it's abundance. Why? Well... because I needed to take something out of the freezer, to make room for chicken stock. This jumped out, almost literally. Zucchini, yellow squash, and some little white squash that I forget the name of. I plan to slather it with butter when it's all cooked.

Sweet and Sour Shrimp

From January 2009... a pic might have been nice. It might be one of the hundreds of forlorn photos cluttering up my hard drive. Envision something lovely and delicious-looking... I'm sure it was just as you imagine.

1 1/4 pound shrimp, not too big, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoons rice wine, divided
2 tablespoons lime juice (about 1 lime-worth), divided
4 or 5 cloves garlic (I used more, I really love garlic), sliced
1 onion, sliced
2-3 stalks celery, sliced thin
2 tomatoes, diced
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar (I used Rapadura, which is a whole sugar)
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce (I used tamari)
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon cornstarch
Salt, to taste
Cilantro leaves

Toss shrimp with 1 tablespoon rice wine and 1 tablespoon lime juice. Set aside.
Mix remaining rice wine and lime juice with the sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce, and ketchup in a small bowl. Set aside.
Heat oil in a wok or large pan over medium-high heat, and saute celery, onion, and garlic. When onion is getting soft, add shrimp and saute another minute or two.
Add the tomatoes and rice wine sauce and simmer for a few minutes. Mix cornstarch into 1/3 cup water (or chicken/fish stock), add to pan and bring to a boil. Salt to taste, and make sure shrimp are cooked through. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve!

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve, 2008... ah, the memories... I guess I nailed number 3 there, and wasn't able to hit "publish."

Once again, my desire for an excuse for good food outweighed my common sense. New Year's Eve is a day/evening when we do three things:
1) massively clean the house in preparation for all manner of superstitious good luck stuff
2) watch a lot of college football
3) drink an inordinate amount of alcohol

So why do I also plan for us to eat things that take a lot of time in the kitchen?!?! Not sure. Perhaps I'm masochistic.

Tonight's menu:

Roasted rack of lamb (just the cutest weetle wack of wamb you ever did saw!)
Potato Nests with Caviar (don't gasp, it was the cheap grocery store stuff)
Bacon-Wrapped Sausages (ok, gasp, I'm confident the saturated fats are good for me)
Cut Veggies with Onion-Garlic Dip
Aaaaaand, probably some mac & cheese for the kids (gluten-free of course, can't be contaminating my kitchen.)

The lamb was TASTY. Much too small, at less than a pound...

Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Roasted-Rack-of-Lamb/Detail.aspx

Bacon-wrapped sausage recipe: http://ezinearticles.com/?Bacon-Wrapped-Sausages&id=321589

Merrye Yule!

Another oldye but a goodye... do we know how to party, or what?

Honeyed Rolls

Mushrooms Tarts

Herb salat

Rosted Beets

Buttered Porray (collards)

Fried Turkey (Swan)

Some sort of sauce/gravy!!!

Gingerbread

Sugared almonds

Wine

Bacon-Wrapped Potato

This was from April 6, 2008. It has pictures. Beautiful, bacony pictures. Why on earth did I never finish it? 
Mayhaps I was in a post-dinner pork coma?

Does life get any better than this?



Marinated, grilled Gulf shrimp, a big, buttery, fresh-green-onion-covered grilled potato... did I mention that it's wrapped in bacon?!

Green Bean Thing

This was written October 6, 2008, but never posted. I was probably waiting to upload a picture? Who knows... 

I love it when the main course is leftovers, so I have time to make a more-complicated side dish. Tonight's dinner was leftover boneless roasted leg of lamb, which was rather underdone to begin with, so I simmered it in leftover saucy summer vegetable Thing (I just throw stuff together, and if it grows together, it tastes good together, and this did, but it was sort of a semi-solid ratatouille almost-sauce.)
So what'd that leave me time to make? Green beans with mushrooms and onions. And garlic. And bacon fat.

Om nom nom!

Start out by putting a big pot of salty water on to boil. While it's heating up, snap the ends off your fresh green beans. How many? I don't know. How many do you have? How many do you want to eat? If the two answers aren't the same, either buy more beans, steal some from your neighbor's garden, or if you're really lucky, stick the extra blanched beans in the freezer for later.

Blanching is easy. In the case of beans, just put 'em in that pot of boiling, salted water for a few minutes. When they turn bright green, they're ready, usually only takes 3-4 minutes. Your beans may vary. While boiling, fill a large-ish bowl halfway with ice water.

Scoop the blanched beans out of the pot and directly into the bowl of ice. Stir 'em around a bit, then drain.

Now... heat a tablespoon or so of bacon fat in a skillet, add half a large red onion, sliced, and cook that over medium-low heat. That lets it get kind of caramelized and soft, but not burnt. Chop some crimini mushrooms (or white button) into quarters, and toss in with the soft onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes. Add a teaspoon of minced garlic from a jar, or a few cloves of fresh garlic, pressed. Stir around and then add the beans. Cook just long enough to heat the beans, as they're basically cooked already. Salt generously, to taste, and enjoy.

Ancient post, unearthed!

Blog maintenance. It goes a long way. I'm sifting through un-posted posts, and came across this one from 3+ years ago... I thought it would retain some sort of date stamp, but no, it comes through as brand new.

Let's see what else I can discover...


Shrimp, how I love thee... let me count the ways!

Our recent little vacation began with lunch at Blackbeard's On The Beach, where I ordered a spicy grilled shrimp dish. It tasted exactly like the sort of thing we'd make at home, which got me wondering why we never had yet. I immediately made a note to try to recreate it at my earliest opportunity. I thought/hoped that would be today... but disorganization led me to not having the right ingredients. So, while tonight's dinner was definitely not the same thing I enjoyed so much... it was inspired by that dish. And it turned out really yummy. Hard to go wrong with shrimp!

About 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 of a normal yellow onion, chopped small (mine was a gigantic mutant onion, so I used less than 1/4)
1 stalk celery, chopped small
2-3 tablespoons coconut oil and/or bacon fat
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 tsp spicy Asian garlic chile sauce thing
1/4 cup chicken stock, or more as needed
1/2 tsp salt
10 or so grinds black pepper
1/4 tsp sweet smoked paprika (trying for some smoky grill flavor)
chopped fresh cilantro
cooked rice

Pardon My French

Happy 100th birthday, Julia Child!

In honor of the late culinarian, we had a Feast of Butter. Cod Meuniere (couldn't find any sole), mashed potatoes (which I actually peeled, bein' fancy), sauteed green beans with onions and white wine, and a grated carrot salad. And, of course, a lovely bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, because one can not toast Mrs. Child with ice water.

I generally make up for the lack of cream in my mashed potatoes by adding insane amounts of butter. And a little chicken stock. And did so tonight... but they were still the most-boring food on the plate. The carrot salad was surprising- once I finally added enough salt it was quite tasty. The bit of wine for a braise on the beans was phenomenal, especially as the onions absorbed so much of it. The fish was absolutely amazing. So very easy to make and so, so, so tasty. It went with the Kendall-Jackson Sauv Blanc beautifully. I am not sure how authentically-French any of it was, beyond the fish, but I do know that it was fantastic.

I worked from this recipe for the salad, substituting mandarin-infused olive oil for the peanut oil.

For the cod, I followed Julia's guidelines. Melt one tablespoon each of butter and olive oil in a large pan. Salt and pepper the fillets, dredge in flour (Better Batter flour worked for a gluten-free option) and saute 1 or 2 minutes on each side. Don't overcook. If it flakes, it's too done. Remove the fish to plates and sprinkle with freshly-chopped parsley. Wipe out the pan (she said... ha... I had fish sticking all over the place) and add two more tablespoons of butter, swishing it around and letting it brown lightly. Take off the heat, add the juice of half a lemon, and the pour over the cooked fish.

I'm doing this for all the fish I cook forever. SO fucking good. Pardon my French. I am so full.

Coupon Rant 2.0.1

How do Cheerios make you feel? General Mills wants to know. Their ad, beside their coupon in this Sunday's paper, is the word "Smile" with the "i" dotted with a Cheerio. How cute. Then they ask you to "share what Cheerios means to you" on Facebook.

Yes, really.

Do you need to grab a tissue while you recount the many happy childhood moments you spent with an O-shaped cereal? Perhaps you spent some cute minutes with a toddler who was happily gumming them, while learning to get the contents of his fists to his mouth. Maybe you shared a bowl with a child before they went to school. Maybe it was what you poured yourself every Saturday morning before you sat down to watch cartoons, letting your parents sleep in. But I can assure you that the contents of the bowl were not the source of the warm fuzzies.

If you've read my blog before, you might recall that I think food and feelings ought to be separate. Don't get me wrong, I love food. I love tastes, textures, combinations, and trying new things. But I know that food does not equal love. It is not a refuge, a security blanket, a big bowlful of happiness, a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day... and it's very important that it stay that way. We, as a nation, are getting fatter every year BECAUSE food = love for so many of us.

So, f*ck you, General Mills. Do you want to know what Cheerios mean to me? Nothing. A box full of extruded, damaged, phytate-laden, allergenic, inflammation with sprayed-on artificial vitamins and minerals. It is less nutritious than the box it comes in. There are no feelings in a box of Cheerios. There is no meaning beyond the implication that whoever eats the product cares more for convenience than they do for their health.

Then I flipped the page and saw an ad for a new Ensure product. Proudly proclaiming it's greatness due to the fact that it has:
zero fat.
3 times more protein than juice (er... that's not a feat, really, since juice generally has NO protein.)
21 vitamins and minerals.
That your body will completely ignore.
Because not only are they artificial, but that zero fat content makes them even more rejected by your body.
Gah.

Also in this batch of coupons was a high-powered cleaner bragging about it's ability to remove grease. Because we all have that problem, don't we? Grease spatters on our stovetops (or walls and floors, if you're really having fun in the kitchen.) The stuff dries into gluey, sticky, hard-as-resin spots. I've been there. I've scrubbed with a wire brush after soaking in hot soapy water, to no avail. And then I learned something very, very important. To quote John Edwards, it doesn't have to be that way. Do you know WHY something that was once slippery and fluid transforms into super glue? Because it's damaged. Vegetable oils are not heat stable. And yet we cook with them. Cooking = heat, right? We are cooking with, and then ingesting, damaged, chemically-altered, rancid oil-turned-glue. That's not good, folks.
I've noticed an amazing thing, since switching to saturated, healthy fats (coconut oil, lard, butter, tallow)... everything is really easy to clean. I don't need nonstick cookware. I don't need wire brushes or bottles full of grease-eating chemicals. My fat spatters don't transform into glue. It's just that easy.

And finally, today's WTF Award goes to a product in the ad for our local grocery store. The focus of the ad this week was "back to college," just like it always is this time of year. All the "essential" items for young adults, off on their own for the first time. Apparently our young adults are in no way ready to be off on their own, if the ad is any example. Right there on page two, at the top of page two was an egg scrambler. Next to a happy little display plate, to show us the sort of incredible feats of kitchen magic that we could produce if only we had our very own egg scrambler- a plate with eggs and bacon and some other goodness. Ta-da! Problem solved! Have you ever woken up hungry, but didn't want to drive to McKing for breakfast? What a conundrum! How will you eat? You have eggs... you have a pan to cook them in (or, probably, know how to nuke them)... but how to get the eggs... scrambled?  It's like some sort of Julia Child witchcraft. Damn you, Rachel Ray, for not having a show on this topic!!! But wait, here we have our very own egg scrambler. It looks like a mini chopper, of the kind that survive about 4 onions or 3 ice cubes. Eggs, being so much softer, will probably extend it's lifespan. Thank the gods. We can now launch our young people into the world, knowing they are fully prepared to feed themselves at least once a day.

Or else they could stir the eggs with a fucking fork.


This rant's for you, Chris. Cheers and happy birthday!

Can a mama get a beer?

It still surprises me how many of the people I suggest go gluten-free come back with the question "does that mean I can't drink beer?" It's probably second only to "but what will eat instead of BREAD?"
Luckily, it's a good time to be gluten-free. It is, after all, what all the cool kids are doing, so more and more replacement foods are being made available. And more and more breweries are doing their damnedest to make gluten-free beer.
Today we celebrated a Day of Debauchery and Gluttony, in response to our governor's ill-advised mixing of politics with religion, aka The Response, a day of fasting and prayer. We had a lovely, extravagant dinner, and then I indulged in a tasting of THREE gluten-free beers. Tee hee. I hope to get this all typed before I get too silly.

I realize now that perhaps a few photos would have really jazzed this up. Darn.

Anyway, thanks to my husband, it was a blind tasting (he wrote down which beer glass was on which coaster) so I could feel all scientific and such. My tasting terms leave a lot to be desired, but... I am who I am. And who I am is a laid-back beer lover who uses fancy words like "yum" and "tastes like beer." The latter is high praise for a gluten-free offering.

The line-up: New Grist, New Planet Tread Lightly Ale, and Bard's.

New Grist is growing in popularity, but not yet available here in Texas. I have to have family and friends bootleg it to me from Kansas whenever they pass through. It was the palest of the three, a lovely straw yellow, but had surprising caramel notes on the first few tastes. Very fizzy, after it warmed up just a bit I noticed a slight tartness, and then a very noticeable wine-like flavor. Not really high praise for a beer, but drinkable, and so much better than the widely-available Redbridge swill, that it was my 2nd favorite of the evening.

New Planet's Tread Lightly Ale was next, a shade darker than the New Grist. Let me just mention that New Planet has several gluten-free offerings, one of which has given me a new reason to live- Off Grid Pale Ale. But, that was not in the tasting tonight because, despite it's name, it is not "pale." I wanted to taste beers that were somewhat similar. The Tread Lightly had slight citrus, was sweet, and grew even sweeter with successive tastes. It had a lingering aftertaste that I can't say I really enjoyed. I wrote down that it tasted a touch like beery sweet tea. It got my lowest ranking. If I could have given it something lower than 3rd place, I probably would have. Still better than Redbridge. Then again, water is better than Redbridge.

I saved the darkest beer for last, assuming it might have a stronger flavor. And it kind of did. The Bard's had a slight flavor of char, which is a good thing in my book. I love grilled food, love the smell of woodsmoke and food grilling, and would burn cigars as incense if the stupid things would stay lit. Char goes a long way with me. It seemed to have a bit less complex flavor than the New Grist, but I still chose it as my favorite. The slightly darker taste makes it suit a wider variety of occasions. Since my favorite regular beer of all time is Guinness Extra Stout, and I particularly crave such in the depths of winter, I like a beer that might be able to stand in it's place. Bard's is nowhere near Guinness, but... of the three I tasted tonight, it's the closest.
Lucky for me, it's also the only one of the three that I can actually get my paws on here in Texas. Knowing that- that I blindly picked the one I can actually get- is priceless. Oh, and my gluten-vore husband declared the Bard's to be "the beeriest" of the three. High praise, indeed.

I love beer. I miss real beer. Every now and then I go crazy and have one and pay for it with aching joints for the next three days. I'm learning to love my gluten-free options and yearning for the day when I have the free time to tinker with some recipes on my own.

I see stupid people.

I hope to blog more in 2011. I'll begin with a rant. (Please don't hurt yourselves as you climb back into your chairs after falling over in shock. You can't sue me for any damages caused by spitting coffee on your laptop, either.)

I hate ads.

Y'all might have noticed this.

Well, I don't hate all ads. I just... hate being manipulated. I hate being told what to feel and when to feel it. I hate the entire sheeple/herd mentality thang. Each month of the year seems to have it's own official, Buy-N-Large-sanctioned attitudes and goals. In case we don't catch on from TV ads, the coupon section of the paper lets us know what we ought to be eating, washing ourselves with, and longing for.

And I hate that. I'm a rebel at heart. I live with my low-level irritation toward advertising, only occasionally bursting forth with growls and epithets when I'm unable to ignore a TV commercial or coupon ad. The Sunday paper coupons are an especially-rich fodder for my rants. So, here goes....

See what's new from Kibbles 'n Bits. "The Bits make it better." This is just so stupid. First of all, the dog is just hungry. And possibly colorblind (I may need to check on that....) The dog would happily eat cat poop. I don't think the dog cares if his kibble has bits! I especially don't think the dog cares if his bits are colorful. And why on earth would the dog want them to be vegetable flavored?! Are we really so crazed with this our-dogs-are-our-babies psychosis that we think they need vegetables? Do wild dingoes feast on peas and carrots? I don't think so. It's just stupid.

"Catch a taste of the big game" says Cheez-It. Hmmm... assuming a game actually has a flavor, I think it would possibly be leather, dirt, grass, even blood. But not cheez. That's just stupid.

"Got a cold? Confused what to get" Robitussin actually paid people to develop a phone app to help people figure out which bottle of medicine to buy. Because, apparently, even after they paid the art department to develop helpful box graphics which clearly state in large, bright letters the symptoms treated by each particular bottle... it wasn't enough. People are slowly loosing their ability to read static print material. If it doesn't come in an app, it's too hard. And, yes, I realize the ad is telling about the app in static print. But fear not, there's a little picture widget thingy that you can take a picture of with your phone, which apparently will magically direct you to the app or website. What the hell? That's just stupid!

And finally... I've saved what I think is the most-idiotic, most-pandering, most-intelligence-insulting piece of marketing drivel for last. "His winning lineup (because it's almost the Super Bowl, so all advertising must be done in game language... how clever and original....) Strength for him, value for you."
Pardon my Valley Girl, but... gag me with a spoon.
I am insulted on so many levels. My feminist side is sputtering. My intelligent side is speechless. My hope-for-humanity side is in the corner, crying.
I took a Women's Studies class way back in college. My term paper was a comparison of the advertising in three different decades of Ladies Home Journal. I recall being jaw-droppingly aghast at the glaring "buy this so you can get married" theme behind all the stuff from the 40s. It got a little better in the 60s. Better still by the 80s. And now we seem to be headed right back in time. I *know* that the average coupon-peruser will skim right past all the sexism and stupidity in this ad line. But somewhere in their subconscious, it will lurk. And the constant barrage of similarly stupid, sexist ads really does add up. It becomes accepted. It becomes the norm. It shapes opinions, just like they want it to. They work really, really hard to direct our behavior, so I would prefer they at least be politically-correct with the brainwashing.

What's so bad about it? First of all, just the absurd notion that a man's choice in shaving razor does ANYthing beyond determining the amount of hair left on his face. Razors cut hair. That's it. They do not give you a better job. They do not give you skinny, busty women who caress your face. They certainly do NOT give you strength. That's just stupid. Secondly, I resent the assumption that only women are looking at the coupons. I hate the entire June Cleaver universe it implies. My life does not revolve around my man or his facial hair or his strength.

Ah, well. I do at least glean a little pleasure from knowing they do NOT have me pegged. That whole rebel thang. I am not skimming through the coupons, in search of value. No. I am looking for something to piss me off, so I can share it with you.

Coupon RANT!

Blshvrddtygrrrddle.

I know it's not a word, but at least it's not profanity.

I actually got goosebumps and dizziness from my outrage this morning. That's a first for me. Wish I had gotten a picture of my arms, to prove it.
Anyway, there I was, on the last page of the last coupon insert from the Sunday paper. I had slogged through, as usual, no longer expecting more than irritation from the usual crappy coupons for phood.

And there it was.


I have never been a fan of Easy Bake Ovens. I was a big ol' meany and didn't let my son have one during his excitement for all things cooking. Their mixes were crap and I didn't want him to think that adding water = cooking. But, now I see, at least it was an oven.

2010 is here, baby, and that means advancements, progress, moving forward. How shall we teach our younglings? Easy Bake Microwave & Style Kit. Because, microwaves are where it's at, and the focus really should be on the brightly-colored sugar on top, not the spongy cake-like transport.

Ugh.

Microwaves suck. They damage the proteins of food so much that the body can barely recognize them as sustenance. I don't use ours. My husband does, occasionally. Microwaves are fast, I'll grant them that, but I don't think we need to be that ADD about our food. PLAN AHEAD. Know that you will likely be hungry 5 times a day, at predictable times. Have stuff on hand. Start cooking BEFORE you're dizzy and weak.

If you want a brightly-colored pancreas-bomb, bake one. It really, swear-to-god, doesn't take that long. Especially if you make tiny ones. There are plenty of silicone bake sets for teeny little cakes. Mixing, from scratch, takes 15 minutes, tops. The oven can preheat while you're at it. Baking bite-size cakelets would take about 15-20 more minutes. Clean up the kitchen and make frosting (it's seriously just butter + sugar... it's a no-brainer.)

They won't be health food, but they will fall into the category of food with an "f." Which is a vast improvement these days. Unfortunately.

I. Can't. Eat. Butter.

My long-time readers may need to sit down for this. You all situated? Comfy? Ok...

I have been butter-free for two weeks.

Jack (9 months old) is feeling better.

I no longer feel that familiar brain-fog/exhaustion after breakfast. (Seems *I* only react to breakfast butter... other-times-of-day butter don't make me feel like someone slipped me cheese.) But Baby Jack seems gets Green Acid Poo Of Doom from any-time-of-day butter.

In Food Allergy World, these items of note combine to create a diagnosis of You Can't Eat Butter Anymore.

I have very strong feelings about this. I worship at the altar of Mother Butter and Father Bacon. Now my goddess is dead (blasphemy!) I worry because now I'm using more coconut oil than I was before... still have to get my fats, you know... and I'm allergic to coconut protein. Perchance the coconut oil is more pure than the butter? Still no idea whether ghee is ok... haven't acquired a taste for it, so I haven't used it enough to know. I'll get on that eventually.

Eggs were back on my menu and then gone again. I find myself needing to google "vegan" recipes. I swear to add meat to every single one of them!

In other news, I swear I'll be revamping this poor redheaded step-child of a blog. Soon. My version of "soon" means, well, hopefully before the end of 2010, but don't put money on it. I see that I have a whopping 9 faithful followers, so I'm excited to make this thing pretty and easier to use. I envision a fancy bloggiful launch, complete with merchandise.



I miss you, Butter. But I know you shall not remain dead to me forever. I still swear undying loyalty, and my lips shall touch not the cursed margarine! (Because, really, what could they possibly make it out of that I'm not allergic to?!)

First (Annual?) Superbowl Wing-Off!

I realize that it's cliche to eat Buffalo wings for the Superbowl, but... well... we can't always be original. Besides, the Fairy Child recently discovered that chicken is edible when smothered in spicy sauce. She hadn't eaten chicken for 10 years until that lucky discovery, so Buffalo wings have been on the menu every few weeks this football season. Getting protein into the Fairy Child is important.In a moment of sheer... er... genius (yeah, we'll call it that) I decided to challenge the Fairy Child to a wing-off. I'm not generally prone to such measures, but it struck me as a fun idea, and before I had the chance to ponder the implications of a pile of spicy wings on breastmilk for a newborn... the plan was made. So, here we go.

What: 1st ever family wing-eating challenge, a.k.a. "wing-off."
Who: Fairy Child, "The Bottomless Pit" vs. "Butter My Bacon" Bekki
Where: our kitchen table, South Texas
Why: I tend to run off at the mouth sometimes...

Now, to make the wings... I no longer have a deep fryer. I received one, from my mother-in-law, about 6 or 7 years ago. It moved with us, to three states, in many Army moves, never yet used. I had planned to use it a few times, and was always daunted by the idea of all that hot oil and the responsibility therein. So it was left untouched. And apparently, insulted. When I finally tried to use it a year or so ago, it was mysteriously dead with no signs of foul play.


So... baked wings it is. 375 degrees, for about 50-60 minutes. I like to season my wings with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika. Paprika makes pretty much everything taste better. I tried shaking the wings with seasoned cornstarch once, hoping it'd make a crispier skin. It did not. So now I'm quite lazy about it, and simply season them on the cooking pan. When done, I toss them with wing sauce. Since I love to cook, do I make my own special top-secret-recipe wing sauce? No. No, I do not. I tried that twice and they were awful. I love Buffalo Wild Wings' sauces- the Spicy Garlic and the Medium are both quite tasty. Neither can be called healthy foods, but I'm not eating them all that often. I also don't seem to react allergically to the yucky soybean oil in them, which is nice.


So, all coated up in spicy soy... the wing-off begins. 6 wings apiece, the rest stay in a low oven to stay warm. Bang a gong, it is ON! Oh... in case anyone wants to know who my challenger is...

... a hungry, growing 11-year-old girl. Could there be anything more frightening?

The first batch of wings were tossed with Spicy Garlic... and went down very quickly. Although we set it up not as a sprint, but as a marathon. It was to be decided wing-for-wing, not timed. We still ate quickly. They were tasty, and we were excited.

Round 2 was tossed with Medium, which is supposed to be less-spicy than the Spicy Garlic. My competitor and I vehemently disagree. The blisters on my tongue stand as proof.

By the third round our mouths were on fire. I tossed the wings with as little sauce as I could get by with, but it was still too much. Here I show my margin of victory:

Two half-wings. Final count was 18 to 17. I credit my victory simply to the fact that I've had a lot of painful things happen in my life, so I have experience. LOL


Ah, the carnage. So many wings went down in so little time. Now we just have to relax, watch the game, and try to digest. Well... and try not to think about what that spicy sauce will do to us on it's way out....

Putting kids in a box

Today's rant isn't about food. Sorry. I flipped casually through the coupons this morning and didn't manage to get mad about anything. Perhaps I was distracted. Perhaps the coupons were more boring than normal. I do have a couple of weeks of backlogged rantiness hanging around here, cluttering up the table, but I honestly might never get to it.

Today's rant is about Toys R Us, and their rampant sexism. I had to go shopping today... my first non-doctor-related outing since the baby was born. My older son's birthday is coming up, and I didn't feel like clicking around Amazon. I wanted to see things in person. So there I was, with my list of ideas I'd come up with, plus ideas he'd come up with. And I noticed for the first time that they (the store) had made official something I'd jokingly referred to for years... the "pink aisle" was now truly pink. I had reserved that term for the Barbie aisles, usually, but it could be used to describe any of the very typically-girly zones of the toy department. I have a daughter, but she was rarely interested in the items in the pink aisle. I suppose she played outside the box. When she was three her favorite take-wherever-we're-going items were plastic snakes, Buzz Lightyear, and fuzzy stuffed snakes. No dolls. She eventually went nuts for Polly Pocket and then My Little Ponies, but that was the extent of it.

I said I was shopping today for my son, though. So why was I in a pink aisle? Why did I notice that the end caps of the aisles literally spell it out in painful sexist detail now? ("boys" and "girls" as if the blue and pink weren't enough.)

Because my son wanted a toy coffeemaker for his restaurant. Last year I bought him the un-pinkest play kitchen I could find, because he loves to cook. He prefers real cooking, and would almost certainly prefer a real coffeemaker, but sometimes a mom has to insist on harder-to-break plastic. So I had to shop a pink aisle for him, and hope he doesn't mind a glittery purple coffeemaker. He probably won't. He luckily has no idea whatsoever that he's supposed to like certain things and not others. He has all the "right" boy toys- sturdy metal Tonka truck, balls, Indiana Jones play set, Star Wars blasters, football helmet, and Duplos. But he also has a little shopping bag, play food, his own apron (another thing that was hard to find in not-pink), and this Christmas he asked for and got a Littlest Pet Shop adoption center. It's pink. With frilly bits and flowers. He loves it, no matter what Toys R Us thinks.

How dare they compartmentalize our children? There's already enough societal bias and strong messages about what's "right" to play with, without them being so damn blatant about it. Ads with girls playing with dolls and boys playing with trucks make it very clear what Everyone thinks about things. We don't need to smack our kids in the face with it. My son can read already, and if I took him to Toys R Us, I'm not sure what he'd think about those labels. On the one hand, he's a strongly-opinionated boy, secure in his rightness... so he may just think they're wrong and move on. On the other hand, he very much likes to learn how the world works, what the rules are... so I can easily see him boxing away his own interests just to match what some stupid corporation thinks he should or shouldn't enjoy.

I find it very ironic that cooking is a pink aisle thing, anyway, considering the rampant sexism that still exists in the male-dominated world of professional chefs. Gah!

I'm not sure what to DO about this. If I were a more organized woman, I might try to organize a boycott or some such thing. But I honestly have no idea how long they've had those infuriating labels up. Possibly years. I don't go to Toys R Us much.

I just know that they really pissed me off. How dare they tell my children what to play with? How to correctly have fun? My kids get to be whoever the hell they want to be.

Oh, my daughter was with me today, and nicely asked for a little play set with a horse, some accessories, and a little girl. I was surprised with her choice and tried to talk her out of it... she never picks toys with people in them. She agreed that she usually doesn't, and said her room currently has a "shortage of humans." I laughed at the funny way she'd said it... and then really laughed when my darling daughter further explained why she wanted the little girl in the play set. Food. For the wild creatures the inhabit my daughter's playtime. A feeder human!! So, my girl has finally found a use for little dolls... ha ha ha!

Pot Roast

I know I didn't post a coupon rant yesterday... believe me, there's a good one in the works, whenever I get the chance to sit, type, and think all at the same time. See... I had a baby on Wednesday, so I'm a bit busy. :-)

I did, however, stubbornly cook dinner tonight. Just couldn't help myself. It wasn't exactly strenuous. I made pot roast, and it smells divine. Stuck some potatoes alongside for a nice slow bake and I'll probably end up delegating the grilling of a couple of cheese sandwiches for the kids, since they tend to think pot roast is TOO tender and therefore poisonous.

And sorry, no pic... the camera is full of baby pictures.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

That's military-speak for WTF, which I'm sure you all are familiar with.

I think it should be the new name for my "coupon rant." Because it is more inclusive. And while I'm ranting off and throwing tantrums about stupid things, I definitely want to be inclusive.

I was already in a mood this morning, for reasons I won't get into here. Add to that my favorite NFL team deciding to not attend the game today (apparently), and I was primed for my rather-late glance through the paper.

I found a couple of things to rant about in the one, lonely coupon insert, but they were fairly ho-hum. I was spared from mediocrity, however, by the TV.

Have you seen the new Hershey's commercials? Where people pop out of a glob of waxy brown goo (oh, I'm sorry, it's called chocolate) and grab each other's hands in a soul-warming round-the-choco-globe display of We Are The World-style peace and joy? Yeah. And the voiceover says idiotic things, basically claiming that eating a Hershey bar will give you friends, happiness, togetherness, and possibly world peace.

Folks, I've yelled it before and I'll yell it again... in the broadest interpretation of the word, Hershey's is food. It is not a magic life-fixing elixir. It is not a foil-wrapped solution to any of your problems. It is not a logo-imprinted bar of good emotions. It is candy. (Not even good candy, at that!) Eating a Hershey's bar will not make you happy, even if you share it with your best friend. Any emotions you experience while doing so are a result of your own good will... the act of sharing, not the magic of the thing being shared. Eating a Hershey's bar will not give you a happy family, will not fill their hearts with happy memories of time spent together, and will not bring about world peace. Especially since most mass-market chocolate relies on slavery and bloodshed.

Food is very important, and nourishing food can certainly improve your overall moods, simply because you'll feel better physically. It's really hard to be chipper and helpful when you're nauseous and exhausted... which is exactly how I'd feel if I were to eat a damn Hershey's bar. But if you turn to food for emotional/mental support for the things that are wrong in your life... you won't find happiness. Been there, done that. Discovering multiple food allergies was the best thing that ever happened to me, in that regard... because it was no longer convenient (or even possible in some cases) to use food as a balm for every wound or the center of every celebration.

The longer I spend away from much TV, the easier it is to see just how blatantly it tries to brainwash people... grrrrr....

Shoulda Woulda

I should have checked my own blog to see what I did to the duck last year... if I had, I would have enjoyed said duck a lot more. Live and learn, I guess. And a wrongly-cooked duck is still a duck, and ducks are delicious. I did at least recall that last year one duck was devoured by two happy carnivores, so since my mother (The Queen) is here this year, I bought two ducks. Double ducky goodness, and double duck fat. I have no idea yet what I will be doing with all that lovely duck fat, but I'm looking forward to whatever it is.

This year I scrounged the internet for a recipe, completely ignoring all the lovely cookbooks I have on my shelves. *sigh* Found, and crazily decided to use, a very vague recipe on a message board. What can I say? Momentary insanity? The fault might not lie in the recipe, but the ducks themselves. They were half the price of last year's glorious bird... since I had to buy two, I went with the cheaper option. And boy could I tell. Tasty, but definitely not inspiring a choir of angels to sing. They sho' looked purty, though!


Our Christmas Menu:

Orange Roasted Duck
Roasted Sweet Potatoes (I didn't use the cinnamon, or the nasty cooking spray)
Garlicky green beans
Noah's Bread rolls (a great all-purpose gluten-free recipe)
Salad
Pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream

Our Christmas Eve Tradition

We really are ridiculously stubborn.

But... when you take a girl raised in Kansas and a boy raised in Kentucky and stick 'em in balmy South Carolina... they get Ideas. Like "wow it's shorts weather on Christmas Eve, let's GRILL!" And then they decide that was an awesome Idea the next year, too. And the year after that. And then they get moved back to arctic Kansas... and they rethink things (neither of us can remember what on earth we had for Christmas Eve Dinner that first, frozen year. We were in shock.) We may have grilled the year after that, as the house we were in had windbreaks on three sides of the grilling area...

Anyway. Point is... we've been in South Texas for three Christmas Eves now. December is often when we get really smug about living in South Texas. Because of days like yesterday, when it was sunny and 72. So, naturally, grilled steaks were back on the menu, we were back to our Christmas Eve Tradition (we've done it enough times now, it counts as a Tradition.)

But today was not sunny, nor was it 72.

Today was 40-something, with howling winds that threatened to teach our gazebo how to fly.

Not good grilling weather.

As I said... we're stubborn. The Little Guy shrieked into the wind and ran around the yard, playing football, while the Grill Geek... er... grilled. (That's why I call him that.) I was warm and cozy inside.

So the pic is the Grill Geek's plate... as my steak had already been commandeered by the now-very-hungry Little Guy, and wasn't photo-worthy.