Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Today's count

Today I counted 312 stairs from the bottom (downtown Troy) to the top of the RPI Approach. I may have miscounted with all my labored breathing, but I'll try counting again when I walk up on Friday. Emmy and I also just went on a nice mile and a half walk. I think I can check my cardio work out off of my list.

Salmon with Ricotta and Salsa topping

This week I decided that it is going to be a freezer week. When our deep freezer starts to pile up to capacity, I know it's time that I need to eat all of the stuff that I've stocked up on like a little chipmunk. On Monday we had what was left of our frozen salmon with some angel hair pasta. This was all stuff that I had on hand since I didn't do my normal Price Chopper run on Sunday. I think this week may be full of Allison's original concoctions.


Allison's ricotta and salsa salmon

3 salmon fillets
2 cups ricotta cheese
1 cup salsa
2 tbsp fresh ground pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp marjoram, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ricotta, salsa, 1 tbsp pepper and salt. Place salmon on a greased baking sheet (I used my Silpat so that it wouldn't stick). Sprinkle the rest of the pepper directly on the fish. Scoop cheese mixture on top of the fish. Cover fish with foil and bake for 45 min. Take foil off of fish and bake for another 10 min or until edges are flaky.

Serve over pasta or rice. (I used angel hair pasta with EVOO and dried parsley.)


Edward and I gave this an A+.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Weekend update

I did it! I got my hair cut and colored! I'm so happy about it. I love the highlights and color (yes, that's purple!) and I'm coping with the bangs. I mulled over bangs for so long that I figured I may as well do it. As soon as I got home I pinned them back. At least I have a lot of experience with clipping them back.

When I walked into work this afternoon Neil said "Wow, your hair looks so long." I stopped and looked at him and was like "That's funny since I just got it cut." As an office, we decided that it's the because the bangs make the rest of my hair look longer. Neil and Dave also said that I look more professional, which I thought was funny since there is bright purple in it now. "I look like a whole new woman" they said and "the bangs open us your face". I had a good chuckle about that. My boss and coworker obviously have no problem with voicing slightly feminine observations.

Before



After





The woman at the hair place curled my hair, where as I straighten it. It does look a little different, but I'm sure I'll post pictures of my normal straight hair at some point.

This weekend I also went to a sushi party at my friend Megan's house. It was a lot of fun even though I don't really enjoy sushi much. It was fun watching them make all of the rolls. Half way through I began to wash the giant pile of dishes in the sink because they were running out of pots to use. I ate some pot stickers and haw gow that they made. Those were quite tasty.


Megan, her bf Kevin, Saralise, Tony, and Amanda

Edward and I also went on a short bike ride on Sunday. We were supposed to go all the way to Albany, but it was pretty rainy yesterday so we decided to stay close to home. It's a good thing too because I was struggling. It was only about four miles but man, my butt is feeling it. At least this time I didn't feel like I was going to pass out afterwards. Last year was brutal. These exercise videos are helping. I think I would do well with one of those cruiser bikes. I enjoy rolling along at 5mph or less to enjoy the scenery. Afterward we were quite hungry so I whipped up a new recipe for spaghetti.


Allison's Spaghetti sauce 3

6 hot Italian sausage links, crumbled
1 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 28 oz crushed tomato
salt and pepper to taste


Cook sausage with garlic and onion powder. Add tomatoes and oregano. Salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer for 15 min. Sauce will be thin.

This was pretty tasty if you ask me and the best part is that it is easy. Our friend Rolando has told me that he has a hard time eating Prego now because I make my own sauces so much and he likes homemade better. I think I'm spoiling all of these guys! The sauces I make are much healthier (in my mind) because I know exactly what goes into them.




I was also feeling quite experimental with some chocolate chip cookies. We had a thunder and lightning storm last night. It was the perfect weather to make cookies. This time instead of following the cookie recipe faithfully, I tried adding a package of vanilla pudding. It worked beautifully. The cookies came out a little cakey and chewy, which is great in my opinion. Dave, my coworker, devoured a whole baggie full of them. So if you are making a chocolate chip cookies just follow the directions (I used the back of the Price Chopper brand package) and add the dry pudding mix with the butter, sugar, and eggs. I used my little cookie scoop so the batch yielded 64 cookies.

Friday, March 27, 2009

I NEED A HAIRCUT

I haven't had a haircut since October when we went down to Georgia for Uncle Walter's funeral. I loved the hair stylist down there so much that I haven't wanted to try to find another one. But now it's been way too long and I don't see us going back down to Georgia any time soon. I've been complaining about my hair for months now and desperately need a trim. I'm also getting to the point where the long hair is becoming boring. I suggested to Edward that I might get a bob and he was not happy about that. Well first he asked what a bob was. When I told him, he wasn't to enthused. He likes my long hair. So I guess it's just a trim for me.

Now I'm seriously contemplating some highlights. Rolando had asked me a while back why I stopped getting highlights. (I used to get them when I was in Riverside.) It's basically because I'm lazy and don't want to put out $70 every time I get my hair done. Since I'm thinking of actually going to a real salon this time instead of Fantastic Sam's, I might put out the dough for some hair color. I've also been thinking of some bangs, but I know that six months from now I'm going to be sick of them. It happens everytime. I guess what I have to do now is to look for hair styles that are easy and look nice with long hair. I like the layers that I have now, but I am getting very bored with the lifelessness of my locks.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Shrug

I think that I will have to adopt the look of the shrug this summer. Since I don't have to wear my YMCA shirt everyday like I did last year, I actually get to pick my outfits for work. For now I dress in office attire, slacks and a top, but during the summer I like to wear tank tops. It is so hot and humid here (the humidity is what gets to me) that I don't really like to wear anything but tank tops. I've even been known to put antiperspirant under my chin because when I look down I don't like the feeling of the sweaty skin from my chin touching my neck. (Aka "My double chin is choking me.") I think for modesty's sake, I am going to have to wear something over the tank top. I plan to walk to work on most days so I guess I'll have to put the shrugs or shirts in my backpack. I will be starting work at noon, so it's not even like I will be walking in the coolness of the morning. I figure I'll be back to shorts, tank tops, and flipflops by midsummer, but I'm going to try to give summer professionalism a try. I better start stocking up on summer dresses and light cardigans.

Last night I spent a ridiculous amount of time on Forever 21's website. I found a lot of things that I thought were very cute and summery. I got all the way to the checkout page and entered half of my credit card number, but had the willpower to close the page. $75 for five items is expensive to me especially when I know I can get so much more at Old Navy's bargain section. I love to shop, but I think I like to get good deals more.

I haven't decided on what to do yet. Any suggestions? Perhaps I'll be like my friend Abby and start to make my own...that could be a disaster.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Hello, All!

This weekend we had a bbq, which we failed to take good pictures at. Edward took one picture on his cell phone, so hopefully I can snag that so that I can post it. I made my Mommy's ribs and BBQ chicken. We took our yearly trip down to Costco in West Springfield, MA on Saturday. Since Edward still has his Costco American Express card we get money back at the end of the year. We can only redeem the rebates at Costco, so we've made it a yearly little road trip for our little family. While we were there, we got a pack of short ribs for our BBQ. It looked like two long pieces, but it was really three. It was a nice surprise for us since I was searching for the cheapest pack. I really wish that we had a Costco closer to us. For $23 we got a ton of ribs. I'd much rather have ribs for every BBQ than frozen hamburgers. They are way tastier. The ribs were my Mom's yummy recipe that I tell people I will use at every rib BBQ we have. Hehe. If we have ribs, this is how we're making them! The chicken was good too, but it was a bottled sauce. I have to say, more people raved about the ribs than the chicken. They can apparently tell the difference between homemade and bottled! Edward said that he at nine ribs by himself! Granted, ribs are small, but nine! He seemed quite excited at how easy the ribs were to make. He cut the ribs up for me while I made the marinade. I think that's the best part of these ribs. They're so easy! Here is the recipe that she emailed me in April of last year. I believe that she came up with this recipe when she was having a bbq for the scout parents. In fact, I may have posted this recipe before.
Mommy's email/recipe for ribs:

"Here's the recipe for the bbq short ribs, which I just "eyeball".
1/4 - 1/2 cups of soy sauce (preferrable light)
1/2 - 1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 - 1 tsp. garlic powder
pinch or 2 of ginger
1/2 tsp. of celery salt (optional)
crush red pepper flakes to taste
Splash or 2 of white wine (optional)
pinch of sugar
Mix all above ingredients in bowl & marinate in all beef, pork or chicken for several hours or over night. Use less soy sauce if you want a dry rub & it'll be more like a paste.

Please let me know how it turns out for you. You can always experiment with other seasonings as well."
These ribs were a hit! Usually we have left overs, but there weren't any this time. I just hope that everyone had enough to eat. During the day we spent a good portion of our time cleaning the apartment for this party and the place looks awesome! A friend of mine wrote a poem that stated that living with boys is better than living with girls. She said that boys do clean up if you tell them exactly what to do. She is so right! I have noticed that if I make out a list of things that need to be done and put our initials by specific tasks, Edward always gets them done. Woo! We have a good system going here. We vaccummed everything and I pretty much dusted every surface we have. I like to clean, but vaccumming and dusting are not chores that I enjoy. I thought that Neil was going to come and he is allergic to Emmy. He ended up not coming, but that's okay because our place looks awesome! I'm a little sore from hardcore vaccumming (the Roomba can only do so much), but I want to mop soon. I didn't want to tell everyone who came to take off their shoes, so now I have to mop instead. Oh well. I'm just so happy that it is clean!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

10:34pm and I'm in bed

I just wanted to quickly say that I think that if I didn't have Edward, I'd become an old maid with 10 dogs. It's 10:34pm and my friend Megan texted me to see if I wanted to do High School Musical Dance for Wii, but I'm brushed up and in bed already. Totally lame. My two little ham and cheese sandwiches are made for tomorrow's lunch and the garbage is all done. I think I would lead a sad, sad little life if I lived alone. I'd be in CA, but I'd have to move out sometime and can totally picture myself exactly how I am now...in bed with retainers in, heating blanket on, and book in my lap.

Today I planned on waking up around 10. Hah! If you know me at all, you'll know that I didn't wake up at 10. My alarm went off no less than five times before I finally woke up from a text at 12 50pm. The text was from my friend Katy, who I always call Ms. Loomis because she is a teacher at the 21st Century program I used to work at. I'm so used to calling her Ms. Loomis because of the kids that I still call her that even when we go out to clubs and stuff. Anyway, so she texted to see if Emmy and I wanted to go walking at that giant park again. Of course Emmy was all for it and so was I. The weather was beautiful! We walked for about an hour and a half. There were so many bikes and kids. Emmy was so overwhelmed with the desire to chase them that she completely ignored all of the other dogs that would be passing with their parents. To be honest, I'd rather her be interested in sniffing dogs butts and not the passing bikers, but she is my angel and I love her anyway. Let us not be mistaken. When there is an absense of bikers she does practice the doggish way of smelling bottomes and faces, but when there are two-wheeled mechanical deer prancing about, it is very hard to entice her with a passing wag of a tail.

After that I headed to the grocery store, making sure to park in complete shade for the Dooz. Then we headed home and I did a new cardio dance work out video I got from Netflix. I'm loving the ability to rent exercise videos because I know that I would never end up buying any...it also helps that I shamelessly copy the good videos so that I can have them for later viewing. I barely wanted to fork out the money for my weights and yoga mat. For $9 a month, Netflix is a great deal for my exercise vids and the Watch Instantly internet portion that I can enjoy with my laptop. So I can have an exercise video come in the mail and then watch movies via the internet at the same time. Anyway, I thought this dance video was going to be difficult to pick up, but it wasn't at all. I struggled a little with the "Club Dance" but did really well with "Latin Dance" and "Jive Dance" sections. It was a work out! I was going to do Shrink Your Female Fat Zones, but after taking a break to give Emmy a bath, I felt like my legs were going to turn to jello. Plus, my rear end is still sore from Thursday and Friday's walks. We went a total of 6.5 miles in two days and 10.5 for the whole week. The best part is that I can fit into pants that I couldn't wear for the last year and a half. I love when I can see a difference. It definetly keeps me motivated.

For dinner I made myself an omelet! I am notorious for making "omelets" and the having them turn into a bowl of scrambled eggs with lots of stuff in them. This time I remembered to have my heat on medium-low and grease my pan really well. I used two eggs instead of the three I usually use. This worked out much better because the egg didn't burn at the bottom and was easier to fold. Then I added the last of my left over pork and shrimp wonton mix, lots of spinach, jalapenos, and cheese. I will post a picture in the near future. It was yummy and pretty healthy. I had a large glass of milk before I got in bed to help with my munchy feelings. Big Apple Pizza down the street was trying to tempt me and the Dominos commercials on Food Network were not helping. I'm not hungry anymore but now my tummy is rumbling. I may have grown out of most of my lactose intolerance, but apparently not all of it. It's a good thing Edward doesn't come back until tomorrow. Hee hee.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Dinner tonight

Don't worry Edward, I'm eating more than just Top Ramen. I spruced up my normal Friendly's inspired chicken quesadilla with some jalapenos. I was only able to eat half of this quesadilla, but that's okay. More for later!


Happy girls

Emmy and I are happy girls. We power walked two miles around the RPI football field. When we got home she had her tongue hanging out and was rolling all over the sofa. According to Power Walkers World I burned 144 calories. That's it?! That probably doesn't even cover the ham and cheese sandwich that I had for lunch today! There has to be a better way to get healthy. At least now I can say that I can do two miles speed walking and not feel super tired afterwards. A month ago I would have been crawling home.

Since I left home in the middle January, I have lost ten lbs. I can fit my jeans again! Rolando had mentioned that he hadn't seen a particular pair of pants that I was wearing before. I was like "That's because I can fit them now." My goal is to be the same weight I was when I entered college. The only down side to that is that I was buff back then so if I can get down to that weight my fat content will still be higher. Oh well. It's a nice goal and I'm almost there. Just four pounds!

Monday, March 09, 2009

Emmy's laundry mess

While I was in the kitchen bagging my chicken broth I could hear Emmy walking around. After I was done I walked back into the living room and saw this mess. I had all of my little piles of folded laundry stacked neatly to be put away. Guess who made this mess? When I said "What happened?!" Emmy started walking in nervous circles and then stood in front of me and stretched, which she knows gets her good attention. Then she walked in, looked at the stuff on the floor and then looked back up at me with her little head hunched. It was so cute and it made it hard for me to scold her when she was looking so sorry. So I just said "Bad girl." and then cleaned up the stuff and made sure to cuddle her after so that she knows that I still love her.


What a mess!


You know she's guilty when there is an Emmy-sized nest right in the middle.

My first chicken stock

Tonight I made my first homemade chicken stock while watching Dancing With the Stars. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. It is a basic stock like the ones that I have seen on Alton Brown. I just so happened to have all of the ingredients too. After making that roasted chicken for Valentine's day, I saved the carcass to make this stock. It is very simple and doesn't look like much, but it is very tasty and I bet a lot healthier than all of those boxes that I buy. You know, I should start saving the broth from chicken when I boil it. Hmm...that's a thought. I haven't been boiling chicken lately, but when I do, I think I'll save it.

I've seen on cooking shows that the chicken broth that you buy in a box or can is very high in sodium. This recipe has only 1.5 tbsp of kosher salt for about 1.2 gallons of broth. Not bad if you ask me. I love the chicken stock I buy in a box because it's easy, but since I've been trying to thin up my waistline, I've been trying to watch my sodium intake. I don't really have a sweet tooth, but if you put a bag of beef jerky in front of me it will be gone in half an hour. I plan on freezing about 1.5 to two cups of broth per ziplock bag and then freeze it. Just a tip that I learned from Julie, if you freeze your liquids laying down, you save a ton of room in your freezer and it's easy to stack and store. Note: Make sure to use a good brand of baggie. I was unable to take advantage of this trick because my baggies started to leak.


I'm waiting for the broth to cool so that I can skim the fat off and then bag it up.

It doesn't look like much, but these carrots, onions, celery, and chicken carcass is mighty tasty.

I didn't do the final filtration step in the recipe. This is because:
  1. I don't have cheese cloth
  2. I'm lazy
  3. For what I use chicken stock for, I don't have to worry about little bits of chicken floating around.
  4. No one in our house would know the difference anyway, nor would they care.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Step 4

Oh my gosh! These wontons were sooooooooooo good. I usually just have them in soup, but pan frying has to be my favorite now. I was very, very tempted to pull some out of the freezer to make some more.



Emmy was giving me a high four for all of the wontons I made.


Wontons

With Edward home and the guys with him, I'm feeling a little homesick. To battle this homesickness I made some wontons, which I remember helping my mommy with one New Years Eve when I was young. But first, I have to tell you about our walk. It was so warm today! We just had to get out. Emmy and I went for a nice long walk to the Field House (the hockey arena) and then around the track four times. We were in the biggest lane, I think it was lane 8, but I'm not sure. I'd like to think that four laps in that lane is more than a mile, but according to my friend, the internet, it all depends on the size of the track. So we'll say that going up and back as well as the lane 8 walk was about 2 miles. My rearend sure was feeling it. I was actually sore from the walk I went on yesterday with my friend, but it was just too nice to not take Emmy on another long walk. We usually just go around the football feild track six times (1.5 miles), but I figured the incline on the way up to the Field House would be a nice change. I wonder if Emmy ever gets sore? I hope so. Then I wouldn't feel so bad about my butt hurting after long walks.

With no further ado, here are my wontons. I eliminated taking picture of my food on the stove because the steam covers it all and seems pointless.

Step ...1 This is the finished pork and shrimp filling. I have about half of this mixture left over. I thought about freezing it, but I think I will make myself a nice pork and shrimp fried rice later on in the week.




Step 1.5 This is the finished vegetable filling that I concocted out of the stuff that I had in my fridge. It seems that all of my orginal recipes come from what I have hanging around.


Step 2 Fill only a little bit of mixture in the wonton skin. If you put too much then they won't close properly, break the skin, or the filling will come out when you cook it.



Step 3 If you are going to freeze these for future use like I am, put them on a cookie sheet. Make sure that they aren't touching. My Mommy's recipe doesn't call for precooked pork or shrimp, but I am doing it this way because my shrimp and pork had been previously frozen and I didn't want to refreeze raw stuff. Usually I use all raw stuff and eat my wontons the day I make them. The little twisty wontons are the pork and shrimp and the pot sticker looking ones are the vegetable. I wanted to make sure that I made them easy to differentiate because I plan to use these in the future and don't want to get them mixed up. Our friend Nadeem doesn't eat pork and he comes here to eat often so I defintely didn't want to get them mixed up. Plus, our other friend, Rolando, doesn't really like veggies and I wanted to make these to prove that vegetables can taste really good...especially mushrooms. Rolando, if you're reading this, this is me saying "Yes, I will convert you to a veggie lover." Hahah I'm practicing my future mom skills, although I have feeling that my kids won't have a problem with vegetables since I like to eat them.


Step 4 This is still coming. I wasn't hungry after I finished making them because I had some leftovers after my yoga work out so I am waiting until a little later tonight to pan fry. You can put these in wontons in soup, pan fry them, or deep fry. You can probably do other things with them, but I'm not sure how to do that. You could probably bake them too, but I've never done it.

I will post pictures of the finished product when I am done.
Mommy's Wontons

3 tbsp EVOO
1 tbsp garlic, minced
1 lb ground pork
1 lb uncooked shrimp, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 package wonton skins

Heat EVOO and add garlic. Cook ground pork most of the way and then add the shrimp. Cook all the way through. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and let cool to fill wonton skins.

Fill wonton skins with small amounts of mixture. Fill a small rice bowl with water. Dip fingertips into the water and go around the edges of the wonton skins to close them up. The flour from the skin will form a glue so that you can keep the wontons closed. Close however you desire.
I don't know where my Mommy got this recipe, but it always reminds me of home whether I'm in Riverside, NY or Georgia. (These were a hit with the late Uncle Walter.)

Allison's Vegetable Wontons
4 tbsp EVOO
1 zucchini, finely chopped
3 small carrots, minced
1 small box of mushrooms, minced
3 cloves minced garlic
3 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp pepper
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 package wonton skins

Clean vegetables accordingly. Heat EVOO in wok or large, deep pan. Add zucchini, carrots, garlic and onion powder. Toss until semi soft. Add mushrooms and pepper. Once everything is all cooked add salt and toss a few times. Remove from heat and set aside until cool.

Fill each wonton skin with a small amount of mixture. Fill a small rice bowl with water. Dip fingertips into the water and go around the edges of the wonton skins to close them up. The flour from the skin will form a glue so that you can keep the wontons closed. Close however you desire.

This past week my coworker Dave has been raving about the salami deli-style sandwiches that he's been having for lunch. I told him about when Edward and I were in Sevilla, Spain and were trying to save money by buying ham, cheese, and rolls. We would eat them in our little hostel room and then take a siesta before roaming the city. Now whenever I think about deli sandwiches I automatically think of our trip and it brings back good memories. So at the grocery store I bought little sub rolls, ham, provolone, and lettuce. I plan to bring sandwiches with me to work all week. Though these will be way better than our pauper sandwiches in terms of quality, they will still make me think of Edward everyday.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Clean little Wolf

Today Emmy and I went out with my friend Katy to this huge park about 20 minutes from Troy. There were a ton of other doggies, kids, and bikes since it was actually a really warm day (50 degrees). It was a lot of stimulation for my little woof, but she did really well. It was really cool because there are all these walking paths that have little signs up to tell you how far you've walked. I think we walked 3-4 miles if not more. I'm not exactly sure because we were cutting up and around different paths when ever we came to a fork. We power walked for over an hour. Afterward I vacuumed the car with my Dust Buster and wiped down all of the plastic parts of the car with Lysol wipes. That was hard work! It is raining now, so I put the rubber foot mats out on the deck so that they will hopefully get a clean. We don't have a hose so I can't spray them off. I shook them out, but there was still dirt in the little grooves. After that I did some yoga, cleaned the house, gave Emmy a bath and gave myself one too. Here are some pictures of her after her bath. She is so glowing white!



This is only one side of her. When I brushed the other side of her this pile doubled.





This video is kind of long and has some slow parts, but she is just to cute!

Friday, March 06, 2009

Lauren Luke

I came across Lauren Luke (this is her website) on Youtube while I was wasting endless hours of brain-numbing loneliness the other night. Edward is now back in CA for spring break and I just took our friends to the airport so that they could see our home too. Anyway, she is a makeup artist who shows you how to do your makeup like the stars. She gets requests from people to copy the way that women look in music videos and on the red carpet. She's pretty good too! She shows you step-by-step how to apply it and tells you the exact brands and size brushes that she uses. So last night I was inspired to try some on myself. It reminded me of the good old days when Juni and I used to stay home and play with makeup just for the fun of it.

To me it looks weird because I don't usually wear so much makeup. It looks nice, but not me. I'd probably wear this stuff if I was going out at night or something. Definitely not during the day or everyday for that matter. My one minute routine in the morning is good enough for me.

I was having fun taking pictures too. I felt like I was at the optometrist's office because I was trying to avoid looking at the flash. Today I also did try to do something with daytime makeup. And of course, my friend Rolando noticed. I don't I know any other guys who would. It's subtle, but too much work. Five minutes is a long time when you're tired.




This one is called "Sweet and Innocent Bride"...zilla





Doozy says that she's pretty even without putting stuff on her face.
This one is supposed to be like Taylor Swift's "Tears on my Guitar"

This was fun, but way to much work to do all of the time. When I see the makeup on myself they do look different, but from the pictures they look the same. Luke uses the same techniques for both of these looks I think. I don't have the makeup nor will I get any to do the bright Bollywood or Kylie Minogue looks, which are much different from these.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Such a lazy blogger

I've been such a lazy blogger. I have things to say and pictures to share, but man, I've been so lazy. We went through H-E-double toothpicks to get Emmy back and now that we have her I don't want to do anything but cuddle. It was a major pain in the patootie to get her. The weather broke 20 degrees at night for three days so we were trying to get her out ASAP, however, the vets weren't cooperating. Many thanks for all of the work that my family and Julie did! If it wasn't for them my little pupster would still be stuck in CA...not that she would be complaining, but Edward and I would be.

Anyway, here are some recent pictures of food and my little snuggle-muffin.




This is a Bolivian chicken dish that was sooooo spicy and yummy. I got this recipe from The South American Table recipe book that I got from Auntie Mary who got it from her friend. Oh my gosh, it was so good. Only Edward and I really liked it though because it was so spicy. The recipe called for hot peppers so I bought two habanero peppers. You have to puree the peppers with some EVOO. I left the seeds in one and seeded the other. It was the perfect amount of heat for us. Make sure to wear gloves if you're handling these babies. I've learned my lesson. Over the summer I forgot to wear them and then touched my lip. It was burning for hours. Thank goodness I didn't rub my eye. I'd probably would have had to go to the hospital. These burn like fire. Anyway, the chicken was really good, but all of the onion that I put in made Edward's stomach upset. I love to cook with garlic and onions, but they make his tummy growl and rumble. Oh well. Thanks for the book Auntie Mary! This is a great recipe and I'm sure there are a ton more.


This is an Indian style pork loin that I made last night. A few months ago I did something similar but didn't write down the recipe so I was trying to do the same thing. This time though, I used lots of veggies, which made it so much better.

Indian Style Pork Loin

1 pork loin
3 tbsp Garam Masala
1 tbsp Turmeric
1 tbsp Cumin
1 tbsp Kosher salt
1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
3 tbsp EVOO
1 1/2 cup chicken stock
1 onion, sliced
3 carrots, cut in chunks
4 stalks celery, cut in chunks
5 mushrooms, sliced


Mix spices together in bowl. Rub over pork. Heat EVOO. Brown the pork in dutch over or heavy pot on medium high heat. Add chicken stock to get the browned bits off of the bottom. Add remaining ingredients and cover. Let cook for about an hour or until the pork is as firm as the flesh by your thumb of a closed fist....of just cut into it to see if it's done.

Emmy pictures:


So when Emmy was home we thought that she had gotten a cut in the backyard while running around. She had been biting at the area by her right hind leg because it was bothering her. When Julie took her to the vet the first time to get her health certificate to fly (we had to get three different certificates) the vet gave her some antibiotics. My parents were taught a way to trick Emmy into eating the pill without noticing (something I'll have to learn eventually). When Julie took her back to the vet for the third certificate the vet took another look at her little furless area. He thinks that her fur loss is an allergic reaction to rabies vaccine that she got at Banfield...which we're banning by the way. So the next time I take her to get vaccinated I will ask for a different brand. These are a couple of pics of the furless area. It has been very dry and flaky so I put a tiny bit of lotion on her. I don't want her to have another reaction so I only used a tiny, tiny bit.

Oh Mommy, I love being home with you!
Oooooh strechy girl!