Random Fact of the Day #5

Deciding to try new things, we recently bought a jar of sunflower seed butter. What do you know, sunflower seed butter tastes frighteningly similar to sunflower seeds. What's even more frightening is the fact that this somewhat took me by surprise.

I hear "______ butter" and expect to taste peanut butter. I don't know. Don't ask.

Almond butter? Tastes surprisingly like almonds. It's my favorite.

Chocolate licorice, however, tastes nothing like chocolate or licorice. What kind of world do we live in anyway?

That is all.

Cranbery Baked Oatmeal

With the fall season here, don't you get the hankerin' for some cranberries? All red and juicy and plump, these gorgeous little gems are a staple in the American diet, especially in the colder months. It's easy to see (and taste!) why.

I don't cook breakfast very often these days. I'm not much of a breakfast person at all myself, and Dustin usually drinks a high impact breakfast smoothie each morning. I say high impact because it has everything but the kitchen sink. Organic yogurt, milk, at least one kind of protein powder, raw oats, a mixture of fruit (usually banana, peaches, strawberries, or blueberries) and a couple handfuls of baby spinach (nope, you can't taste it). It gets him through til lunch and is packed with nutrients.

This weekend though, I wanted to do something different, so I decided to make some baked oatmeal. I've made this before with mixed results. See, Dustin doesn't like mushy oatmeal. He'll eat raw quaker-type oats or cooked steel cut oats, but that's it. He does not like regular cooked oatmeal. The first baked oatmeal recipe I tried, he liked. The next one or two were too mushy and he was not a fan.

This one is non-mushy and tastes great. I made it with cranberries this time, but next time I might go for blueberries. Yum.




Cranberry Baked Oatmeal

2 cups quick or old fashioned oats
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
A few dashes of cinnamon if desired
1 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup sucanat (sucanat is unrefined evaporated cane juice... you can use regular brown sugar if you don't do natural stuff.)
Dried cranberries or other fruit of choice, optional (I just dump some in until it "looks right")

In a large bowl, mix together oats, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and sucanat. Stir in milk, eggs, applesauce and fruit and pour mixture into a greased casserole dish. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes or until well set.

I refrigerate the leftovers. It's good both hot or cold.

Enjoy!

The curse has been lifted

The curse of the kitchen disasters, you know. It left as suddenly as it came, leaving behind a veritable feast of yummiliciousness (oooh, Crystal made up a word!).

I'm not sure why it decided to visit my home, nor do I know why it chose to go, but let me tell you I am sure glad that it did. Perhaps it left with my cold, or perhaps my little emo dog chased it away with her sad, sad eyes. Or maybe... just maybe... it was banished into the night with the arrival of the newest member of our household.




Meet my new favorite family member, Miss KitchenAid Mixer.




Aint she a beaut? Her baby sister, Li'l Immersion Blender is sitting next to her. I've been wanting to welcome Miss Mixer into my home for quite some time now and after months and months of agonizing over the decision I went for it. I bought the souped up model with the all metal gears and the huge bowl and the powerful motor. This baby has some power, people. I was originally not going to spring for that one, but I found it for a crazy low price and with a rebate to boot and I carefully measured the tiny spot on my counter to make sure it would fit... and, well, obviously it does. Barely. *grin*

When I ordered her, I had visions of bread loaves and cookies and brownies dancing in my head. I'm hopefully going to be a mom someday, and moms bake, you know. They do not, however, kill off half of their state by making nu-cu-ler pastries. But I have these grand dreams of me and Miss Mixer creating all sorts of yummilicious items full of genetically-modified-wheat and white sugar and pounds and pounds of luscious butter. Someone's gotta fatten me up (seriously... lost toooo much weight this winter!). Do you think she's up to the task?

I'm thinking of buying her a few friends to play with. Mr. Grain Mill and Mrs. Pasta Maker. Maaaaaybe if my husband is nice enough to me, I'll consider having his buddy, Mr. Ice Cream Maker Dude, over for a few meals. But for now, it's just me and Miss Mixer. But oh, what a wonderful pair we are.

We have already made pizza (with a chickpea crust):



And peanut butter cookies.... MMmmmmm!




That was Saturday. Sunday she really got a workout by mixing up some yummy doughy, yeasty goodness.



Oh yes. Bread. FRESH bread. Like, two loaves of BREAD. Made with yeast and white flour and white sugar. Kneaded and risen to perfection. *happy sigh* Can you even believe it?!



And it.is.gooood.y'all.



See? The first loaf is already half gone.

I can definitely say that Miss Mixer was broken into quite nicely this weekend. And my mind is going nuts trying to decide what to bake next! You know you like your new mixer when you look at the huge batch of cookies on the table and find yourself wanting to binge on them just so that you will have a good excuse to make brownies.

Who has issues? Not me. I just have a yummiliciousness-inducing new toy. Oh, and the absence of the kitchen curse, of course.

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

People, I hereby declare myself dangerous in the kitchen. Remember the nu-cu-ler bread I made on Wednesday? Oh yeah. It gets worse.

Friday afternoon, I decided I REALLY wanted cookies. These cookies, to be specific, though I do not know why the person who posted them said to use instant oats. I've been eating these my entire life, and I'm pretty sure I've always had them with quick oats. At least that is what mama tells me to buy when I frantically call her from the grocery store to ask which kind I need. QUICK oats. Not old fashioned. Not instant. Instant oats are, like, ewwwe, but I digress.

At first I thought I did not have enough sugar, but it turns out that I had just enough. Whew. All was well. I carefully measured out my ingredients, paying extra attention this time (even though I did not use the confusing measuring cups - I desperately wanted these cookies and did not want to mess them up!). I used the special dark cocoa... mmmmmm... and threw in a dash of salt, just like mama taught me. Chocolate desserts need a dash of salt. Sometimes we make these with peanut butter and sometimes we leave it out. This time, however, the peanut butter was a-callin' my name. It has calories, you know, and I need calories. Plus, I haven't yet tasted them with special dark cocoa and peanut butter.

I set out my pot with the ingredients and got it going. Maybe 45 seconds later, I looked over and saw a measuring glass... with 1/2 cup milk. *sigh* I forgot to pour in the milk. Things seemed ok, so I poured it in. It immediately started to simmer. Hmm. I stirred vigorously and 30 seconds later, the bottom felt as though it had sticky stuff on it. By the time the mixture came up to a boil, it stunk to high heaven. Don't you love the smell of burnt sugar AND burnt chocolate? Oh yes, it is a lovely combo for sure.

I ruined the stinking (literally) cookies! I could not believe it. I've made these for years and years and have never made such a mistake.

Of course, I used up the last of the sugar so I could not make another batch. *grumble, grumble* And do you know how nicely burnt sugar and cocoa sticks to the bottom of a stainless steel pan? I think the three became one. It took several boiling soaks to get it off (ever boiled water with baking soda? That's kind of fun.). Here's how it looked after a few soaks and scrapes:


It did finally come clean. That's why I love stainless so... it can take a lot of abuse! Of course, the story does not end here. Nope, not quite. During my attempt to cause the pan and the burnt sugar/cocoa to get a divorce, something else happened.


Yep. To add insult to injury, I melted the end of my measuring cup.

I'm a GOOD COOK. I promise, I really am. Ask my husband and my daddy. Sure I set a pan on fire when cooking our second wedding anniversary dinner, forcing us to eat at Burger King for the memorable event instead... but that doesn't count. Nor does the fact that I coated the entire kitchen with a fine layer of fire extinguisher shmudge to put it out (it was only the pan that was on fire, people. Just.The.Pan). And let's not count the time I somehow made oatmeal so salty that my husband nearly gagged. No, no. These do not matter. They were a loooong time ago. I make good food these days, and I promise I have not experimented with the pyrotechnics in 5.5 years. But last week, the kitchen did not treat me well. Blame it on the tax man. Or the migraine and fever I've been fighting for the past two days. Yes, one of them has to be to blame... not me.

But just to be safe, I think I might hire a cook from now on.

Things I Love Part 1, Or: Excellent Edibles

I've been thinking a lot lately about things I've recently found and have fallen in love with. I'm tired of my old, boring ways where I stuck with things that were familiar to me. So I've branched out and found some new loves. I thought I might share a few of them with you!

Today, I'll write about a few edible items that really rock my world.

The first is chocolate. In my house, the first is ALWAYS chocolate. *grin* More specifically, the Lindt Intense Orange Dark Chocolate candy bar. Dustin put one of these in my Christmas stocking and I was pleasantly surprised when I first tasted it. LOVE!

Now here is something you should know about me and oranges. I love oranges and love tangerines even more. Orange juice is cool by me, and orange Jell-o is my absolute favorite flavor. Other than those things though, I'm not a huge fan of orange stuff. I am especially not really fond of orange flavored candy. It all tastes so fake (which makes my love of orange Jell-o that much more strange...). This stuff, however, is something to write home about. Or at least blog about. It has real bits of orange in it! They're candied or something. It also has slivered almonds, and almonds always belong with chocolate. I'm sorry, they just DO. When it comes to plain dark chocolate, my favorite will always be Ghirardelli Twilight Delight (SO not a huge fan of Hershey anymore. Sorry, Hershey. I eat you because you're cheap and I can't always buy a Ghirardelli when I need a chocolate fix... but you just ain't all that.) but when I want a little kick in my chocolate pants, the Lindt Intense Orange is definitely my favorite new buy. I just polished off a bar yesterday. *happy sigh*

Next, I'd like to mention another snack, only this one is savory rather than sweet. Move over Triscuit, there's a new kid in town. Blue Diamond Nut Thins are my new favorite cracker!

Now, you might be wondering why on earth I would try a cracker made from nuts and rice. Well, I'm a little nutty for one. *Insert corny joke drum roll here* Also, I suspect that I have some food allergies going on. My mom has several, and I inherited her seasonal allergies for sure, so it really would not surprise me to learn that I also inherited some of her food allergies. I do think that my husband and I both suffer from some food sensitivities, but neither one of us relishes the idea of an elimination diet. I know I feel a little cruddy when I eat a lot of wheat, plus I believe that the standard wheat and corn heavy American diet is unhealthy. It's not good, in my opinion, to rely so heavily on TWO grains when God made a huge variety of wonderful grains from which to choose! (I mean, most people ignore millet even though it is high in iron, and I'm willing to bet you've probably not heard of quinoa which is considered an "ancient grain" even though it's really a seed. It cooks up like a grain though, and has an incredible health profile. Check it out!) Throw in the fact that almost all the corn in our food supply is genetically modified and more people than ever are intolerant to wheat these days (which, I believe, is probably OUR fault but I'll spare you the rest of my rant on that for now *giggle*), though a vast number of them aren't even aware of it and I think I have a good case for wanting to explore other options.

Enter Nut Thins. I've been a fan of Blue Diamond's Almond Milk for a while, so when I saw their crackers on the shelf of my health food store, I had to try them. They are hands down the best crackers ever. They are light and crunchy and have a very unique flavor. My two favorites are the Pecan and the Almond Cheddar. They're not cheap and each box only has four servings (though I could easily eat a box in two days, no problem!) so I don't get to buy them often. But when they go on sale, we stock up, baby.

Lasty, there is bison. Yes, bison. Or buffalo. Call it either one, but it's my new favorite meat to cook. Yes, yes, I am still a vegetarian, but my husband unfortunately is not nor will he ever be. Being the wonderful, loving wife that I am (Dustin, *STOP. LAUGHING.*), I do still buy meat and cook it for him very often. I have heard of some vegetarian or vegan wives that do not do this for the meat eaters in their family, preferring the meat eaters stop at the likes of Wendy's or Burger King on the way home "if they want meat". There is just no way I could do that. I care so much more about the health of my man than I do about anything vegetarian or any animal out there (and btw, I'm not vegetarian because of "animal rights" though I do wish our country was much more humane than it is and I do find some common slaughtering practices absolutely abhorrent). So as such, it would be hypocritical of me to take such an action and I choose to instead buy the healthiest meat I can find and afford. Grass fed bison (preferably from an organic farm in northern Texas) fits that bill, and the man likes it too, so that is a definite plus. *grin* My freezer is full of the stuff right now (as well as a variety of organic, grass-fed beef). In case you were wondering why I go for the organic, grass-fed stuff... well, grass is the normal diet of these animals so it only stands to reason that the animals would be healthier eating what they were made to eat. The organic is a no-brainer (no hormones, no routine antibiotics, etc) but truly grass fed beef contains omega-3 fatty acid which we all know is heart (and brain) healthy. Bison is leaner than beef (leaner, even, than chicken some say) and cooks up more quickly too.

So those are my new favorite food finds at the moment. Also worth mentioning are:

*Y.S. Organic Raw Honey If you've never tried creamy, raw, unfiltered honey you are surely missing out. This stuff is so good, it should be a sin.

*Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Ok, so I said that I'm not a huge fan of Hershey, but their special dark baking cocoa is the exception. On Valentine's, my mom and I made our favorite Oatmeal Fudge Drop Cookies and used the dark cocoa instead of regular, and they were.so.good. I also used it to make my mom's birthday cake this year. (If you love a good homemade chocolate cake, you must try that recipe, by the way. Mom's been baking it for years and it is our favorite.) So rich. So chocolately. So DARK. Seriously, the cookies and cake were black. Goooood stuff.


What are your recent edible favorites? I'm always looking for something new, so please do tell!

Ultimate Blog Party '08! Get Yer ParTAY on!

Oooh, it's time for another Ultimate Blog Party!! Hosted by none other than the lovely ladies at 5 Minutes for Mom.

I participated last year and had a lot of fun and met some cool people as well. So I figured I might as well join in this year's fun! Are you coming? Check it out! There are a ton of prizes to be given away. Some of my favorites are:

37 — Moby Wrap
117 — $25 Gift Certificate
137 — Go BPA Free Sippy Sampler Kit
84 — Baby Sling
60 — $25 Gift Certificate
140 — $20 Gift Certificate
114 — $20 gift certificate to Lush
91 — Burt’s Bees Naturally Ageless skin care line
59 — $25 Cash
79 — Skin Care Kit
100 — 3 books
101 — Devotional Bible for women
36 — Marketing for Entrepreneurs

As you can see I like gift certificates. *giggle* But if I win anything, I'd be thrilled!

If you're new to my blog, welcome! Maybe I should tell you a little bit about me. I'm just a weird little redheaded Texan girl that likes to laugh. I have a strange sense of humor, thanks to my wonderful husband of 7 years. He can be an odd one, my hubby, but he's a good, strong, intelligent man that I would just be totally lost without. We do not yet have children, but we just started the adoption process and will hopefully be parents sometime this century! We do have two little furbabies that bring us constant laughter...

Trixie, our silly and crazy Shih-tzu mix:


And Molly, our shy but totally lovable Mini Schnauzer mix:


I am a housewife who works plays at home. My wonderful momma and I own a business, called 2 Belles & a Bead. We are jewelry designers/amateur metalsmiths. We absolutely LOVE what we do. I mean, we get to pound, cut, saw, and melt metal and even play with gemstones. What could BE more fun than that?! If you love jewelry or know someone who does, I urge you to check us out. Our prices are good and our pieces are quality. We even have a newsletter! We send it out via email about once a month and being on that list makes you eligible for secret sales and also contests. Sometimes I blog about new pieces and give my readers sneak peaks. Sometimes these pieces are snatched up before I even get to put them on the site! What can I say? My readers have been good to me. LOL :o) I might put together a little prize for this par-tay. What do you say? (Ok, nooo more rhyming for me!)

Other interests of mine are reading and music and food. I write songs and play a little guitar. I've shared some of my lyrics on here in the past. I love talking about food and photographing it, but I don't like cooking it and a lot of times, I don't like eating it! I wish I could get all necessary calories in pill form. That would make my life so much easier. :o)

I love God and He sure has been taking me on an interesting journey the past few years. It's been a tough one, but I think He's dragging leading me through.

I get myself into some kooky situations and you, my dear readers, get the pleasure of reading about it! I have no shame. I blog about embarrassing things, *and* I'm known to make people lose control of bodily functions because apparently I make them laugh a lot. So, read at your own risk things such as when I locked myself in the bathroom... naked and how I called a grooming device a sick freak.

So anyway, that's me! All 5 ft, 80 lbs of me. Welcome to my insanity, errrr, blog. *grin* Pull up a chair, grab a chocolate chip muffin (I JUST made them yesterday - and they.are.GOOOOOD. Maybe I'll be nice and share the recipe this week!) and have yourself a good old time!

Stuff on my fridge

Heidi tagged the entire planet to show the world what's on their fridges. Mine is boring, but why not?

First of all, I don't like things on my fridge. That bothers me. I will not be a kid artwork fridge mom. Sorry, I just won't! I'll put up a bulletin board or something for that somewhere.

Here is the front:

Seeee? Nice and bare.

The side:


It's not much, but I don't even like THAT stuff on my fridge. There is a shopping list and pen:


(I need rice, water, and coke. Yes, I buy my water. Yes, I drink coke. I need the extra calories right now. Yes, my handwriting is REALLY that bad.)

There are three magnets. The two flower ones I bought from someone on Etsy. She's nice and I wanted to buy something from her. I have no where else to put magnets. There are also two toy things that belong to my husband. They were Christmas gifts to him. They're magnet things. I don't know... they're magnets, you play with them, and build statues, solve world hunger... something. They're his though and are supposed to be in his office at work, but he keeps forgetting to take them there. So they're on my fridge.



Oh look! Fingerprints on my fridge. (They are now gone, thank you very much.)


On top of my fridge, you will find six boxes of cereal, two containers of rice protein (chocolate and vanilla), a crockpot, a package of paper towels, and BBQ tools. Don't get me started on the stuff on top of my fridge! I do not like that there either, but I don't have enough storage in my kitchen.




If you're wondering what's inside my fridge, well, there are leftovers from tonight's meal... spaghetti squash with marinara sauce and green beans.


No coke, though, because I'M OUT.

I won't bother tagging anyone because last time I tagged, no one did it. So if you want to play, go ahead and have fun!

Poblano Boats

Last night for dinner, I decided I'd make a completely vegetarian dish and attempted to make stuffed poblano peppers. Everything went fine, until I tried to de-seed them. They sort of fell apart, and I was left with flat poblano pancakes. So, I improvised. I pulled the sides up around the filling and made poblano boats!

I substituted pintos for black beans because I did not realize I was out of black beans. It was either pintos or lentils, and my husband loves pintos, so pintos it was. I also left out the corn and served it on the side (corn is a rare treat for us!) because my husband has a strange thing about not liking corn in things, though he likes it alone. I used brown rice and topped the boats with 2% milk colby cheese.

They got a thumbs up! My carnivorous man liked them. Though he did add sour cream and ketchup, and gave me a funny look while I was photographing his plate. *giggle*

I will definitely make these again. Maybe next time I'll be nice and add some meat. ;o)

The most perfect shade of purple

That's what I would think every time I made a trip to the big grocery store and saw the irises when I passed by the floral section. I always thought to myself, "I should buy some of those", but never did. It's kinda weird buying flowers for yourself, you see. Despite our recent big ticket spending, I really am quite frugal most of the time and, well, spending money on flowers for myself just seems like a waste.

However, I did enjoy looking at them and never failed to notice them when I passed by. Either my husband did not fail to notice me not failing to notice them, or he is psychic, because Thursday evening he came home with a bouquet of, you guessed, it, those most perfect purple irises.




Now you're probably thinking that purple irises are a strange Valentine's Day gift. Roses, Dustin, ROSES! But my man knows me. He knows I'm not a huge fan of the roses. He also knows that tulips are one of my most favorite flowers ever and those are the flowers I usually receive. But for some reason he decided to be different this week and he was so right on. He also brought along some more little buddies of his. Hello, bloggy friends, meet Mr. Lindt chocolate and Ms. Ferrero Rondnoir.




Flowers? Chocolate? Wait, that sounds like Valentine's Day and we don't really do Valentine's Day! So I was quite unprepared. He really took me by surprise. Thursday was actually the 8th anniversary of when we got engaged. If you don't know the story of how we met and how we became "an item", you can read it here on his blog, where he wrote a sappy sweet entry on Valentine's Day just for me. *swoon*

So he bought me the most perfect shade of purple, delicious dark chocolates, and a cute sweet little card with a nice hand written love note in it. And what did I give him?




Peanut butter cookies, his favorites, and fudge oatmeal cookies, MY favorites. And I keep eating them all. *giggle* I'm such a bad wife.

Breakfast of Champions?

I love cereal. I could eat cereal for any meal. I love it dry as a snack and with almond or rice milk for lunch or dinner. One of my favorite cereals is honey nut cheerios. I don't get the regular brand though, I go for one of the organic ones. I figure if I'm going to eat something unhealthy, I might as well get it as healthy as I can, right? I usually buy Cascadian Farms, but last time I decided to try something new. It was on sale. It seemed like a good deal.

See the box? It says, "Excellent Source of Iron & Zinc... Fortified with 9 Essential Vitamins & Minerals". But they left something out. I opened up my new box of cereal to find all 9 essential vitamins and minerals... and bugs! More specifically the larvae stage of some grain-loving bug, which, by the way, is the grossest stage ever because they all look like maggots. Now, when I say I prefer to eat organic, I don't mean THAT organic.

I'm a vegetarian, you know. Can't be having bugs in my cereal. After sticking the box in the freezer (which first immobilizes any adult bugs, then kills all stages) to preserve the evidence so I could take them with me to yell at the store that sold them to me, I washed my hands about a billion times and found something else to eat. I think I'm scarred for life though. I will never look at a newly opened cereal box in the same way again.

I think I'll be sticking with Cascadian Farms. They cost a little more, but usually come without the bugs.

The Pumpkin Bread Recipe & a New Look!

This is the first year I have made this recipe, but my old one is on my other hard drive and I was in a big hurry on T-day!

So, I hopped onto my favorite recipe site, www.recipezaar.com, and printed out this one. I used a whole can of pumpkin (didn't measure it, so I don't know if it was the "right" amount or not) and substituted unsweetened granny smith apple sauce for 1/2 the oil, mostly for flavor. I also left out the nuts because I did not have any. I'm not sure I could taste a difference between this recipe (even with my modifications which are ones that I don't normally do) and the recipe I usually make, but the bread is really most and it got compliments from everyone that tried it.

http://www.recipezaar.com/13391

Enjoy! :o)

Whatcha think of my blog's new face lift? Be honest!

Apple Bread

Apple Bread

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups oil
2 apples, chopped
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 tsp baking soda

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients until well blended. Pour batter into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake for about 1 hour.

It's reeeeally yummy!

'Tis the Season

The baking season, that is! One reason I adore fall is because that's when I start pulling out the pumpkins and apples and cocoa and start making all sorts of baked yummies. Pumpkin bread and apple bread are two huge favorites in my house (well, favorites of *mine*, anyway. Dustin doesn't seem to care for bread unless it has some sort of cheese melted on it. *grin* And have you ever tried to melt cheese on pumpkin bread? I haven't, but it doesn't sound all that great.). Then of course, there are cookies and brownies.

It's time to start baking (even though it really has NOT cooled off here yet. Sickening, I know.) and I need your help. I'm fresh out of ideas and recipes to try. Tonight I made brownies (from a box...) and they were pretty good. They were organic and whole grain made with evaporated cane juice instead of high-fructose-corn-nasties. They were good, but not the best. I have a container of super dark cocoa powder that is begging to be made into the perfect brownie recipe, and I know you must have it.

I am also in need of some cookie recipes. We will be baking cookies for our upcoming party.

If anyone is interested, I'll share my two bread recipes. I'd just do it now, but they're on the desktop's drive (which has now been converted into an external drive since the desktop went kaput and has not yet been replaced...) and I'm not currently hooked up to it.

So hit me with your best recipe!

What is white?

Can I just say that I hate food? Ok, I don't really hate food, I just hate having to stuff myself with it until I'm miserable. HATE.IT. I've now upped my consumption of "nutritional drinks" to two a day, earning me 700 liquid calories. I'm used to the taste now and can almost chug them, which is weird considering I never chug anything. I am not a chugger. Chug not I do.

I decided I should eat more pasta since it's, well, yummy and also high in calories. I had a weird craving hit me at the store one day and bought a container of Easy Mac. Yes, folks, I bought Easy Mac. Can you believe that? I don't eat stuff like that, ever. I usually only eat one of three kinds of pasta... whole wheat penne or couscous, plain medium egg noodles, or Annie's whole wheat organic mac & cheese (which is rare). So what possessed me to buy Easy Mac, you ask? Well, the blue box mac & cheese just sounded good, and I've been home alone for about three weeks now and there's no way I can eat a box of mac & cheese all by my lonesome... stuffing myself or not. And let's face it, left over blue box mac & cheese just isn't good. "It's the Cheesiest!" turns into "It's the Clumpiest and Nastiest!" So I see the little container of lone serving Easy Mac and think to myself, "Self, don't do it!" but I did not listen. I brought it home and it sat on my kitchen table for a couple of weeks. Two days ago I decided that it sounded like it might be a decent lunch so I cooked it.

If you've ever made Easy Mac, you know that the directions say 1.) to ignore the white powder because it's necessary for the pasta to cook correctly, and 2.) don't drain the water after cooking; it's needed for the "cheese" sauce. Now, I'm not usually in the habit of ignoring random unknown white powders in things, but I figured that Kraft wants my repeat business so they're not going to poison me. At least not too badly anyway. So I ignored the white powder. As for the water issue... I was obedient and fully intended on leaving it in the container. However, the directions made no mention of the fact that the pasta drains itself. I'm not kidding. Apparently the pasta got nasty with the water, and the water jumped ship and decided to decorate my microwave. My pasta was dry. I poured in the "cheese" stuff packet, and it did not make sauce. It made "cheese" stuff clumps. I sighed and micro-boiled a mug of water and poured some in. It made a somewhat saucy somewhat clumpy "cheese" stuff mess.

It sort of tasted like mac & cheese, but Annie's is so much better. Now tell me, how is this process any more convenient than opening a box and cooking on the stove? I had to micro-boil a mug of water anyway since my needed water obviously did not read the directions on the container. I feel like I had reached the epitome of laziness. "Oh hey, look at me, I'm too lazy to cook from A BOX!" (I realize that these things are pretty much marketed to kids to cook, safely, after school or something... so please don't shoot me! I'm not insinuating your Easy Mac eating children are lazy. I, however, am... Easy Mac or no.) ;o) I still can't believe I ate micro-cooked bleached white noodles covered in "cheese" stuff. With some kind of freaky white powder mixed in. I'm telling you... this eating a lot of calories thing? It's highly over-rated.

I'm a horrible painter. So horrible that when I painted my house, I got "oopses" all over the ceilings. My lines are not clean. Sue me! I figured I would get a can of paint and touch it up. The whole ceilings don't need to be painted, just my mess ups. No big deal, right? You can't mess up white paint, right? HAH! I went to Lowe's this week and bought a can of plain white paint. I decided before I start painting all over the ceiling, I better test it to make sure it's the right color. So I tested it in a small part of a wall in my office. Now, my office is supposed to be painted buttery-yellow and rich red, but I have not done it yet even though I bought the paint a year ago. It's still plain old white with one very big blood splatter paint test spot. My dog used to growl at it. It looks that dangerous. Anyway, a few hours later I realize that apparently white is not white. My test area does NOT match. Huh? Now tell me how I'm supposed to match the "white" on my ceiling. It's not like I can just cut a huge chunk out, lug it down to Lowe's and say, "Hey! Match this, will ya?" I'm NOT painting the whole ceilings. So I see two options. One, leave the "oopses" and declare it "modern art" and two, hire a painter to paint all the ceilings in the entire house (plus my office... because if I'm hiring a painter, I aint playin').

Anyone need a mostly unused can of paint that could quite possibly be the beginning of the next unsolvable, universe altering question... "What, really, is white?"

Product Review: Rotting Fruit, Anyone?

Since I'm trying to gain weight, I've been forced to mostly give up plain water. *cries* Since I cut out coke (that's all soda, for those of you who don't live in the south), I've come to love me some plain water or some lemon flavored non-sweetened sparkling water (La Croix is one brand). Unfortunately, God decided that water doesn't need calories. I think God and I need to have a little talk about that one. Anyway, I've been trying to down some other beverages (NOT coke) that have calories, or else it's wasted space in my teeny tiny belly.

There's sweet tea of course, and then sometimes I'll drink juice. I'm not a huge juice fan, but there are a couple I like. One I've come to like is V8's V-Fusion. It's a mix of 100% fruits and veggies. Now, I've always liked carrot juice. Momma Belle used to make it fresh and it's deeee-lish with an apple thrown in.

So last week Momma Belle and I ran to the grocery store while we were out doing some other stuff. I wanted some juice, and I happened to see that Juicy Juice now has some 100% fruit and veggie juice mixes. I thought to myself, "Self? Try it." No angelic choir was present this time... I should have known right then that it was a mistake. Why buy something new when the thing I know I already like is right there and only two cents more? Two cents, people. TWO CENTS. But yeah, I'm that cheap and I bought it. Orange Mango or something like that.

I stuck it in my fridge, unopened, and forgot about it until today when I walked into the kitchen about to drink another sugar-loaded "nutritional" drink ("nutritional" in whose eyes, exactly??) when I remembered this juice. I got all happy and opened it. I poured a glass full and sniffed it. "Hmm... that smells weird. Almost like rotting fruit." I figured, what the hey? It must be one of those bizarre freaks of nature that smells weird but tastes good. I sniff it again. "Ummm, yeah, this smells not that great." I shrug and give it a big gulp. Lemme tell you, it tastes just like it smells. Rotting fruit. Nasty as all yahoo! I promptly ran to the kitchen and poured the rest of the glass down the sink, and the remainder in the fridge? Yeah, I'm crossing my fingers at it like it's about to try and suck my blood.

Remember, I like carrot juice, so that's not it. I thought I liked mangoes too, so I don't think that's it either. I think Juicy Juice just decided to take their less than appealing left overs (bruises, mold, and all) and is throwing them into a blender, declaring it a healthy surprise for your kids. Don't buy it! It's tasty, people. Really nasty. It seriously tastes like you would imagine rotting fruit tastes. And if you've been unwittingly feeding it to your children? Please stop. They might get nightmares (I know I will)!

So, to recap:

V8 V-Fusion? Gooood. I'll be buying it again.
Juicy Juice Harvest Surprise? Nasty! Stay away!

That is, of course, unless you like the taste of rotting fruit. Then more power to you. Long live the moles.

The Belles on Weight Gain

Daughter Belle: "I wish they made a Calorie Pill so I could take a few of those and not have to stuff myself silly all the time, trying to gain weight."

Momma Belle: "I think they do. They're called M&Ms."

Product Rave: Sip for the Cure

Once upon a time a fellow blogger and I (you KNOW who you are... *giggle*) talked about starting a new blog where we'd choose products to review and then blog about them. Somehow that never happened (yet! Are you still with me??) but once in a while I come across something I love love love and feel the need to share that love love love with you you you. (Wow, that was annoying. Sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself.)

A few weeks ago, mom and I were at World Market and I picked up a tin of some tea made by The Republic of Tea. I have tried a few of their flavors already and liked them, but this one jumped out at me particularly because of what it supports.

The Republic of Tea donates a portion of profits to the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for every tin of their Pink Grapefruit Green Tea it sells. Sure, 75 cents may not sound like much, but every little bit helps and to date, The Republic of Tea has donated over $550,000 to the Foundation through their Sip for the Cure program. Wow, that gets me all teary eyed. Since we just lost my granny to breast cancer, and I adore tea, I couldn't say no. I paid about $9 for my tin, which sounds pretty steep. However, the tin has 50 unbleached bags, so it's not too bad a deal.

I must say that not only does this tea support a good cause, it supports good flavor as well! The first sip I took, I thought, "hmm... this is alright." But the more I drank it, the more I loved it. I found a healthy light flavor (it's not bitter, like some green teas can be) with just the perfect hint of grapefruit. I honestly never thought grapefruit flavored tea could be good, but this really is.

I was drinking it last weekend while the man and I were watching a movie. I couldn't stop drinking it, and we all know what that leads too. Poor hubby had to keep pausing the movie. *grin*

So if you like tea, and more specifically like green tea, go out and give this one a try! Maybe you you you will love love love it too.

Photo Hunters - Empty

Empty

I think the photo here speaks for itself. There's not much worse than an empty bag of what was your favorite chocolate! Have you tried these??? This was my first bag and seriously they're so good; they're my new addiction. I'm dreaming of some dark chocolate...

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Photo Hunters - Salty

Salty

I have two pictures today. I just could not resist! The first is obvious. A bowl of salty peanuts. Who can resist a bowl of salty goodness? I eat peanuts like they're going out of style.








The next one is one I took while visiting one of the many stretches of beautiful Texas coast land. I just so happened to see a bird and was able to take three consecutive shots of it, with the last one capturing it taking off in flight! Ahh, look at that lovely water. Can't you just taste the salt in the air?

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Thursday Thirteen #8

In honor of the soon arriving Valentine's Day, I thought I'd list...
Thirteen Fun Things to do with Chocolate!

1. Have an authentic chocolate spa treatment.

2. Make some chocolate fondue and serve it with fresh cut fruit and pound cake.

3. Try your hand at carving a chocolate sculpture.

4. Bake my mom's Fudge Goody Cake!

5. Model a chocolate dress.

6. Try something totally zany like chocolate covered bacon, or chocolate covered bugles or chocolate covered grasshoppers and blog about your experience, please.

7. Treat your spouse to some sensual chocolate body frosting fun... and don't blog about your experience, please!

8. Visit the chocolate museum.

9. Have fun with with your kids making chocolate finger paint.

10. Try a bowl of chocolate pasta (hold the marinara).

11. Give yourself a moisturizing chocolate facial.

12. Make some homemade hot chocolate and cuddle up with the ones you love.

13. Buy a bag of one of my favorite chocolate treats ever and send me some!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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