The music to play in my kitchen while I feed people yummy food and we drink wine

I'm getting a bit addicted to You tube! A friend introduced me to La Rue Ketanou yesterday. Here they are.

A Neglected favorite

I haven't listened to BNL in so long...I did some late-night YouTube surfing though and discovered two things: 1) They have released at least 2 albums since the most recent one I have! and 2) They've put out a series of recordings done in Ed's bathroom - called "The Bathroom Sessions." Here's one of them.They really do rock the party ;-).

What to do when your All Bran bar crumbles.

Sprinkle it over yogurt. It's kind of like cookies and cream.

I often take an all bran bar or two in my bag when working etc., for a snack. I frequently forget them there till they are all broken and crumbled in the package (and thus difficult to eat on the go).

So today I dumped one out onto fat free no sugar added strawberry yogurt, and it was SO good!!

Okay, I'm weird. I know.

The Best Burgers in the world.

Now - I eat red meat on only VERY rare occasions. I very very rarely cook it. I saw this recipe on City Line over a year ago, and thought it was something worth remembering, partly because I knew D. would LOVE it. Sounded amazingly good to me as well.

Well. I made it. It is unlike any burger I've ever tasted. So stinking good, and I didn't even use the sirloin steak I was supposed to (just extra lean ground beef- I couldn't find the sirloin).

Here's the recipe:


Gourmet Sirloin Steak Burger with Brie
by Rose Reisman

You'll want to haul out the barbeque for these gourmet burgers.

3 cups sliced sweet onions1 tsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp brown sugar, packed
1 lb ground sirloin steak
3 tbsp minced green onions, whole onion
¼ cup seasoned bread crumbs
3 tbsp barbecue sauce1
½ tsp crushed garlic
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg
1 tsp dried basil
1 ½ oz brie, diced

In a large nonstick skillet sprayed with vegetable spray, heat the oil then add the onions. Sauté for five minutes just until soft. Reduce the heat to low, add the brown sugar and continue cooking for 10 minutes until browned and caramelized. Set aside.

To make the Burgers: combine the steak, green onion, bread crumbs, barbecue sauce, garlic, salt, pepper, egg and basil, then shape into five burgers.

Form a pocket in each burger and stuff evenly with diced brie. Make sure that the beef encloses the cheese completely.

Grill or sauté the burgers for about four minutes per side, until cooked. Serve with onions scattered overtop.

Serves five.

Here's the link to the online recipe so you can see the picture ;-) They are good on buns as well.

A good day

Today was a good day.

We slept in (for us) till about 9am, and lounged in PJ's till about 12:00 noon. This day was great for a few reasons:

1) I bought new pajamas yesterday. New pajamas are definately up there on my list of things that make me happy. I LOVE a sleep in morning, when I have new comfy pajamas to wear to bed.

2) We had oatmeal raisin cookies from Thrifty's for breakfast. These are the absolute best cookies ever (in my opinion). They are wonderful, chewy, vanillay cookies. You can end up with crunchy ones though, so "testing" is necessary. I treat them like you might a mango or an avacado. I go from cookie package to cookie package lightly sqeezing the cookies to see if they "give" the way a good chewy cookie should, till I find the perfect ones. These ones were perfect. Yes. I had 4 oatmeal raisin cookies for breakfast. But you faithful blog readers will remember my multiple apple pie for breakfast posts, and will not be surprised by my excessive cookie consumption.

3) We had san pelegrino sparkling orange juice. I always wake up dehydrated, and rarely have juice, though it is what I crave madly, becuase of the high calorie content, and cost. But we had just bought some san pelegrio on sale. It is like heaven to me first thing in the morning!

3) We had good coffee -Kicking horse coffee. The "Kick ass" variety. No, I'm not using profanity, that's what it's actually called- check the link! Very good coffee :-)

4) After eventually showering, we went for a long walk on the trails around here which was very refreshing, and it felt so good to get some exercise, and to get outside.

5) When we got home, we had turkey bacon and eggs and whole wheat pancakes for a late lunch. Very yummy :-). More kicking horse coffee here as well.

6) We then took an AFTERNOON NAP. We rarely do this anymore, but oh is it wonderful!! I love the afternoon nap. It's wonderful. Did I mention it's wonderful.

7) Then we had an excellent evening with Daryl's aunt.

We DID do some constructive things in between all this!! This wasn't the WHOLE day. But, it was a more luxuriously relaxing day than we've had in a long time, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Glory to God!

Mmmmm

At the "do" they threw for me in MA before I left, a friend made this super yummy cheese dish. All it was (so she told me) was 2 packages of cream cheese, and one jar of a specific hot pepper jelly. Mix them in a food processor, and put the mixture into a cassorole or other baking dish, and bake in the oven at 350/400 degrees F. for 20 minutes. It was SO yummy!

So, before I left MA, I picked up this hot pepper jelly at the "Cape cod craft shop." So I thought I would take her at her word, and try making it based on what she had told me. I made it tonight, and it was SO easy, and SO good. It is just as I described above - mix 2 packages of cream cheese and 1 jar of hot pepper jelly ( I think that jalapeno jelly or what not would do) in a food processor, bake for 20 minutes, and serve with crackers. It was very yummy - hot and a bit sweet from the jelly, but the cheese offset the spice. Very yummy.

We had a wonderful visit with Daryl's aunt, who I've blogged about before. I love her so much - we always have such a wonderful time visiting with her. I missed her so much when we were in MA! It was impromptu (we called at 8pm and said "want to come over for a glass of wine etc..?" and she came), and so great.

More comfort food.

My grandparents lived on the island, in Victoria when I was growing up. When my family would come to visit, we'd usually take an evening ferry, and get in between 7 and 9. When we arrived at my grandparents, my grandmother would always have what we referred to as "Hamburger soup" cooking on the stove. I think we looked forward to it almost as much as the ferry ride and visit with grandma and grandpa! I got the recipe from my mom over a year ago, and hadn't gotten around to making it until now. I finally made "Hamburger soup" yesterday and it is still as yummy and comforting as it always was. And, relatively healthy if you use extra lean ground beef, and very very inexpensive to make. I think the origional recipe is from a company's coming book. Here it is:

Hamburger Soup

Ingredients:

• 6 cups cold water
• 6 beef cubes
• 1 large tin (28 oz) tomatoes
• 1 tin condensed tomato soup
• 2 cups grated carrots
• 2 cups grated potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 T parsley flakes
• salt (scant)
• Pepper
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1 1/2 pounds extra lean ground beef
• 6 cups water

Directions:

Heat first amount of water and cubes. Stir until dissolved. Add remaining ingredients except beef. Bring to a boil. Cover an dsimmer slowly about 1 1/2 hours. Add remaining water to soup about halfway through cooking. Scramble fry ground beef, add to soup, and simmer for 1/2 hour more. (One of my grandma's recipes had sugar, one didn't - I didn't use it this time).

To do

Well, work is a bit scarce for me this week, which is good and bad. There are transitions happening all over the place, and my regular schedule just hasn't settled in yet. This is concerning financially, but is good I think in that I kind of needed the catch up time. But, it is easy, when feeling overwhelmed to do nothing constructive with almost a full day off. So here's my attempt at actually getting something done and not just flipping between HGTV and TLC all day ;-).

To do:

- Study.
- unpack all boxes left, and decide where it's all going to go
- put up pictures
- call about insurance claims on stuff that broke in the mail.
- Figure out who to call about the funny error message I keep getting when I turn on my computer.
- Go for a walk/jog

Later in the day I'll be doing some work out of the house.

I'll let you know what I get accomplished.

Christ is Risen!!

It was a wonderful Pascha!!























I do have a funny annecdote though. I put on a white skirt to wear to the Paschal service, and thought "hmm this is a bit loose" but continued on, as I was in a rush. When I got to Church I realized it was REALLY loose, and that what had happened was that half of the elastic in the waist had lost it's elastic, or broken or something. So, I found a safety pin and tightened it up and safety-pinned it.

I went out of the sanctuary part way through the service, and when I came back in, and was almost at the front of the Church (with NUMEROUS people behind me), D.'s sister (who was at Pascha with us, along with her husband) grabbed me by the arm and whispered "Pull up your skirt!!!" Yes, mhmm, so I reached behind me to pull it up, thinking "ok ok!! geeze, it's just a little baggy" only to realize that I could feel NO skirt on my bottom, just my slip. So I reached further down, and yes, my skirt was thankfully still there, it had just slid down almost completely off my bottom. Needless to say I hitched up the skirt, ran downstairs, and found some more safety pins to remedy the situation. Thank goodness for my SIL!!

That aside, it was a beautiful, wonderful Paschal service, despite a little rain for the procession.

Catch Up

Today was a catch up day. After being sick and out of commission for a few days, I had lots to catch up on. I'm feeling much better today - still sick, but just feeling SO much better than the last few days.

I ended up cancelling the presentation I was supposed to do on Tuesday, and did get the paper mailed off on the Wednesday (definately not my best work, but it's done), and attempted writing the test I had rescheduled for Wenesday at 3:30 PM. See, the tests I write are available for 3 days only, and on the third day the testing period ends at 5pm. Wednesday was the third day for this course. What I had forgotten is that it ends at 5pm Minnesota time, which is 3pm my time. So, I couldn't write the test. That was unfortunate.

I spent the first 3/4's of the day baking prosphora. I made a total of 10 loaves, 6 of which turned out well. Two had bubbles right under the seal, and on two of them the seal stretched out too much. It was a good long day of prosphora baking though.

I also cleaned the house, did a bit more unpacking, did laundry, caught up on some work that had been stacking up, had a phone meeting with my supervisor, and attacked my email inbox.

I was exhausted by the end of the day though, and my body was reminding me I'm still sick!! But it does feel really good to be a bit caught up.

My father in law came into town tonight and we picked him up, and tomorrow we're doing another whirlwind mainland trip. My nephew's birthday is tomorrow, and it's his first birthday, so we're going over just for that, going to good Friday service on the mainland, then wisking back here Saturday morning with my mother in law to get ready for Pascha.

Boring post, I know..nothing interesting to post about today though, just day-to-dayness.

I love licorice tea

A warm, sweet, comforting wonderfully yummy tea it is. It's my sick tea of choice today.

My favorite licorice tea is Stash licorice. Though to be honest I haven't tried many others.

Warning - Whining ahead!

1. Guest lecture to do tomorrow at UVIC that I haven't prepared for? _ CHECK
2. 20 Page paper due Wednesday, that I haven't barely started? _ CHECK
3. Nasty cold that everyone else has had finally gets me? _CHECK
4. Slice open my thumb with a bread knife? _CHECK (actually it's almost healed now, but adding it in added to the drama of this post ;-).

I had a test today, but rescheduled for tomorrow after my presentation because I just can't leave the house today (really, you don't want me to, I'm exhuding germs). That leaves me pretty much with today to write my entire paper. And prepare the presentation. Except that I'm litterally holding a tissue to my nose 99% of the time. arg. oi. I think (i know) that my normal grade range is going to be destroyed this semester. I actually sat and calculated my marks to see what I needed to do to squeek by and get the marks I need to be allowed to continue taking courses. I've never in my life done that. I would just like this semester to end, and the next one to start, so I can have a clean slate. Ch-choo bad grades.

WAIT - can I complain some more? No just kidding...What a whiner I am. I am such a complete BABY when I'm sick though. I am capable of nothing but whining and complaining and demanding things (like orange juice and tea) from those around me when I'm sick. Poor poor D.