Getting fit

I've started to really get into Wii Fit and I started "Shrink Your Female Fat Zones". I'm sore today, but I can already see a difference. Yay!

The Chin luck

I have it! This weekend at the RPI vs. Brown hockey game I won the "Guess the attendance" contest. I won a two night stay and four lift tickets to Mount Snow (which I believe was or is where the Olympics will be, but I'm not sure) up in Lake Placid. It was pretty cool. The girl approached us and Ed said that I should do it since he had already won a Browns Brewing Co. gift certificate for the puck shoot (he was like three inches away from winning a car!). Nadeem didn't want to go so I did. My guess was 2757 and I think the turn out was around 2500, which is what I was thinking of saying in the beginning. Lucky for me the other two guys went much higher than my guess. Anyway, I don't know when we'll be going since they are midweek tickets. The hotel hasn't even contacted me yet. We still have the 2 night stay in Boston that Ed won last semester. We have little time for these excursions, but we should go before our Doozer gets back.


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Other than that, I've christen my new Emeril deep fryer that the Levie's got me for Christmas with mozzarella sticks. The sticks themselves were very salty, but the fryer did beautifully. I then ventured into the realm of Lumpia. I don't know what the difference between Lumpia and eggrolls are, but mine sure looked like egg rolls. They weren't cute and neatly made like my Auntie Marvel's. Auntie Marvel, I'm just going to have to keep requesting that you make them at Thanksgiving! I think I may have put too much stuffing in mine, as they were almost bursting at the seams. I also don't know if I had enough oil in the fryer. I had it to the mark that the saftey instructions indicated, but my rolls were too big and not completely submerged so I had to keep turning them. I also had the temperature on the highest setting, but they came out really greasy. They were very tastey, but too greasy for my liking. Ed, Nadeem, and Rolando thought that they were really good and polished them off, but man, I could only eat a couple. It could be my new "diet". My body has adjusted to eating less and lighter food. I guess that's a good thing. I also made wonton skin desserts with the extra wrappers. I cut them in smaller squares, fried them, and the dusted them with powdered sugar. They also finished those off.

After I was done with my Lumpia, I drained the oil into the little filtration system and container. It worked great! The oil is quiet dark now so I think I'll have to replace it. I was hoping to get one more use out of it, but I don't want to risk it. I was supposed to make fried chicken last night, but we went on a date instead (it was great by the way). I don't think that I have enough oil in there for a whole batch of chicken anyway. I think I'll make Edward sweet potato fries instead.

As always, we didn't do much for Valentine's day. There was a big hockey game, which we lost, and then I made a nice dinner for my guys (Ed, Rolando, and Nadeem). I roasted a chicken, made garlic and rosemary red potatoes and Guiness mushrooms. The mushrooms were awesome. They made my throat a little itchy and my face very hot, but they were so worth it. This will be a "signature" mushroom dish for me, as I made it up on the spot. I love when experiments turn out well. The chicken was also a made up dish that turned out well, but the mushrooms make me proud.

Valentine's Roaster chicken

1 roasting chicken
1tbls cayenne pepper
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
4 tbsp butter, cut into chunks
1 bottle beer
1/2 c water

Preheat oven or roaster to 350 degrees. Mix spices in a small bowl. Take out the bag of chicken innards and rinse chicken. Take chicken and place butter under the skin. Rub spice mixture outside of chicken and inside the cavity. Place chicken on a rack in the roaster. Pour in water and beer. If using an oven place chicken on a rack and then into the pan so that the bottom does not touch the liquid. Cover with aluminum foil. Roast/bake the chicken for 1.5 hours or until nearly falling apart.

Reserve drippings for gravy.

Guiness mushrooms

2 packs mushrooms, stemmed
1/4 c (1/2 bottle) Guiness beer
1 tbls cayenne pepper
1.5 tbls cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Saute mushrooms in beer, adding beer as needed so they don't burn. Add cayenne and cumin. Toss until mushrooms are dark brown but not shapless. Salt and pepper to taste.

Garlic Rosemary Potatoes
(Mommy' recipe)

5 red potatoes
1 head garlic, seperated
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
6 tbsp evoo

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dice potatoes and mix with whole garlic cloves, rosemary, and evoo. Spread on a baking sheet lined with foil. Bake for 20 minute intervals. After the first 20 minutes take the potatoes out and stir them, make sure the are all flat. Bake for another 20 minutes. Cool before serving.

Here are a couple of pictures from our ski trip where I jiggled my brain.



This is an egg that I made a few weeks ago that I thought looked nearly perfect and had to document.

Insult Haikus

For class we had to write insult haikus that I found to be quite amusing. They haven't been workshopped yet, that's tonight, but I still got a kick out of them when I was reading them to Edward last night. They are just so ridiculous. I don't think I could ever say any of these to anyone. Just as a refresher, the haiku is 5-7-5 syllabic form. The last one does break form with only four syllables in the last line.

Hidden articles
under your dresser about
self help won’t help us.

Bull testicles are
smoother than the skin on your
hairy red jowls.

I wish I could flush
your head in the toilet bowl
to wipe that smirk off.

You remind me of
a jackal with your slanted
eyes and pointed ears.

Jackal, jackal, jack
all you do is scrounge for food
like a beggar man.

When the sun shines your
lips look like forgotten French
fries left in the sand.

Kiss me goodbye for
your heart is so ugly that
I cannot stand it.

You are a baby,
an infant molested by
naïveté.

This is me!

This poem is by Sappho. It is an insult poem, but oh well.

Yes, it is pretty

But come, dear, need
you pride yourself
that much on a ring?

I have yet to get that ring, but I thought this was funny since it seems like I am so focused on it as are my family and friends.

Warm weather

Man, today is so warm! A whopping 50 degrees! It's so sad that I say that 50 is warm now, but it's the truth. I wish we could have gotten Emmy home today, but by the time we get her vet appointment for her authorization to fly and back to Davis it'll be cold again. Boo. I can't wait for Spring. By Friday the evenings will be back down to 18 degrees, which is the no pet flying zone for the airlines. I had a dream last night that my family drove her back to see me and boy was she happy to see me. I must have been in Davis or something because it was sunny and warm...definitely not Troy.

Today while I was driving down a tiny little street on my way to work with my window down, I heard reverberations from the car bouncing off of the houses and it startled me. I haven't had my window down in so long I forgot what it sounded like in a car. When I mentioned it to the guys at Celery Neil said "Only you, Allison," and shook his head. Hah! I guess things like that really do only happen to me.

Poetry Submission

Last night I sent in my first poetry submission (ever) to Poetry Magazine. Apparently the Poetry.com thing I did before was a scam...according to one of my professors. Anyway, this time I submitted to a magazine that the professors and students at my school subscribe to. In class my prof said that I should submit my poem as the shortest haiku written. She also said that we should make a list and start with the hardest place and then work our way down. Since I don't think I'm ready for the New Yorker, I submitted to the next one down. I'm supposed to hear in about eight weeks. Unfortunately, they pay $10 a line, but only pay a minimum of $300. Since my poem is only three lines I won't be seeing any moo-la if it gets selected. Bragging rights will suffice. I don't want to get my hopes up though because I know I'm an amateur writer. I'm not expecting much. If anyone is interested in my tiny haiku, please let me know and I can email it out. The submission guidelines specifically said that an entry cannot be published anywhere prior to submission.

My neck hurts and I want kisses from my doggy.

I need a helmet!

Yesterday I took a day off to go snow boarding with Ed and our friend Nadeem. I was doing really well and doing jumps again. (I haven't gone since I've been here, which was like 3 years ago.) I'm not sure what happened, but I totally bailed and smacked the back of my head on the snow, which was quite icy. I was a little dazed and my jaw hurt from my teeth smashing together. Luckily I didn't have a concussion and knew better than to lay down to rest. After a few minutes I got back up to do the next jump, but man, my brain was rattled. When I got home, however, I could feel the whiplash setting in. I laid down on the bed later on and I couldn't lift my head with my neck muscles. I had to roll onto my side and then push myself up. Today it is pretty painful, especially when I sneeze. So now, I'm on the market for a snowboarding helmet. I need all of the brains I have. Hopefully my neck feels better by Monday since we're planning to go night skiing then. Tickets are only $20 and the place is only an hour away. There is plenty of time for me to get off of work and up there for $20 worth of snow time.

This weekend I also helped host a big Superbowl party. Edward and our friend Cara funded the party and I cooked all of the food. There was A LOT of food for a lot of people (30-40). I made 14.5 pounds of pulled pork, two big bags of kielbasa sausage with homemade sauce (if I can find the recipe online again I'll post the link), BBQ chicken, pierogies, pasta salad, baked beans and nachos. I was unable to get any pictures because people piled onto the food before I could get it all laid out. Hopefully I can find someone who took pictures. It was a ton of fun and everyone liked the menu. Surprisingly, we had left over food, but it's mine, all mine! I only got a little bit of food because I was running around trying to be a hostess even though we hosted it at the RPI pub. It was a good time and I'm glad that the Steeler won. Cara is a big Pittsburg fan so we were rooting for them. I, on the other hand, had no preference and watched very little of the game.