Addendum to my last post

Sometimes I run around too much.

What's wrong with this picture of chocolate zucchini bread that I baked from scratch?

Does it look a little...ummm...flat? ...because I forgot to add the vegetable oil to the batter...
Because:

1. Poor Red works her brains out all day and doesn't have enough brains left for when she gets home?
2. Red runs at super-sonic speed and she just sort of flew by the oil bottle?
3. This isn't the first time Red has screwed up a recipe!
4. Red was trying to be all gourmet and "fussy up" the recipe, and you know what happens when you try that...

Actually, the recipe called for a box of instant chocolate pudding, and I'm not a fan of instant mixes of any kind. So instead of using instant pudding for the chocolate flavor...I melted 2 oz. of unsweetened Baker's chocolate. Then I didn't have any chocolate chips, so I chopped up 3 squares of Baker's semi-sweet chocolate - by hand. So with all the extra melting and chopping... I somehow overlooked adding oil to the batter until the loaves of zucchini bread were already in the oven. I invented chocolate zucchini biscotti!

The bread wasn't really that bad, and good if you heat a slice in the microwave and then slather it with butter.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread
3 eggs
1 1/2 C. sugar
1 T. vanilla
1 C. vegetable oil
2 C. shredded zucchini
3 C. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 T. cinnamon
1 3 oz. box instant chocolate pudding
1/2 C. chopped nuts
1/2 C. chocolate chips

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, salt, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and dry pudding mix. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs. Add sugar, vanilla, and oil. Beat well. Fold in zucchini. Stir in flour mixture until combined. Fold in nuts and chocolate chips. Divide batter between 2 greased and floured 9x5-inch loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until bread tests done. Cool breads on a rack for 10 to 15 minutes before removing from pan.

Now I know why I'm not an alcoholic

courtesy of Striatic's Photostream

This study explains a lot. "In this study, we found that the more the hamsters ran, the less they consumed alcohol."..... "Hamsters that did not run as much had a greater craving for alcohol....."

Now I enjoy an alcoholic drink probably as much as anybody...but I have never felt a need for an alcoholic drink. Yea, I know sometimes I post or Tweet about how I need a drink, but that's usually more of a stress-releasing whine than an actual pouring of an adult beverage.

When Meester is done working, he pours himself a gin and tonic. After a hard day at my office...and that's pretty much every day now...I come home and get busy making dinner, or doing laundry, or tidying up the house, or some general busy work. And I whine vociferously the entire time about how much work I have to do.

I often don't sit down to catch up on tv shows or personal email until an hour before bedtime. (which explains the lack of consistent blog posting) Occasionally I will drink a glass of wine - while standing. You have to drag me out to a bar or restaurant to get me to sit and be social.

So I guess being a general pain-in-the-ass and an obsessive-compulsive housekeeper keeps me from being an alcoholic. .....and that's just how I run around here "In The Wheel".....

A no-longer-appropriately-named recipe for blueberry cake

It's blueberry time in the Midwest, and our stores are filled with lovely blueberries from Michigan. I made this recipe last year, but never got around to posting about it. So, this week I got ready to post my recipe...but first took a minute to peruse the local news stories online. My local news provider featured an article on tracking online child pornography. Which made me think that perhaps it would not be a good idea to use the charmingly old-fashioned title of the recipe "Blueberry Boy Bait" as the title of this blog post.

I inherited this cookbook from my mother - who inherited it from her mother.

It was published in 1967, but somehow the recipe title seems even quainter than the '60s.

BLUEBERRY BOY BAIT
2 Cups flour
1 1/2 Cups granulated sugar
2/3 Cup butter
2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs, separated
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Cup whole or 2% milk
1 Cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease & flour an 11x7 baking pan.

Sift together flour and sugar in large mixing bowl. Cut in butter
till mixture resembles fine crumbs. Remove 1/4th of mixture; reserve.

Add baking powder, egg yolks, salt, and milk to mixture in bowl. Beat
until smooth.

In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry; fold into batter.
Spread in pan. Sprinkle with the blueberries and top with the reserved crumbs.

Bake in preheated oven for 40 - 50 minutes. Serve warm or cold with whipped cream or ice cream.

A fantastic HalfAsstic contest

My good Texas friend Krissa is having a contest.....long story. She had problems with her blog and ended up with a new masthead.....which Krissa thinks is dopey and I think is charming. (see her blog for a better picture of her masthead) Anyhoo, Krissa's contest involves writing a story to explain the masthead picture. I don't see myself as a writer, so here is a dopey story to explain a charming picture.....and to explain HalfAsstic Krissa to you, too.

A dark and lonely man senses a strange new stirring within him. He feels a mysterious pull from far away. He knows not from where this enticement originates, but he is drawn to leave his familiar green fields to travel down the winding country lanes leading to…...

…..deep in eastern Texas, along the backwaters of the muddy Dickinson Bayou. There dwells the source of this powerful vibration luring lonely men to Texas. There dwells the fantastic HalfAsstic Krissa, the dark-haired high priestess of the mysterious religion of HalfAssticism.

One of Krissa's prized devices is her magic foot massage machine; the siren whir of this machine draws men night and day, from near and far. Only one other person knows of Krissa’s secret powers – the ancient H who hides herself in a back bedroom of Krissa’s lair. The ancient H claims to have seen Krissa perform much magic and cast many spells on the multitudes of men who flock to Krissa’s abode.
By day Krissa cloaks her HalfAsstic powers under the guise of mountains of laundry. By night Krissa electrifies the sultry Bayou air as she performs her magic hot flash dance.

And so the poor lonely man begins his journey down the innocent country lane…to the crazy kingdom of HalfAsstic….and who knows what will happen next in HalfAssticdom?

Random pictures for a rainy week

Not much sun around here since last Saturday, and you know how I hate not seeing the sun. I've managed to accumulate a few random pictures with my iPhone, as I've scurried outside between the rains, waving my arms wildly to fend off mosquitoes, and staggering around trying to keep my feet from sinking in the muddy, squishy lawn. (Hopefully my neighbors are not in their windows with their own iPhones, taking videos of me to send to whomever is in charge of collecting the crazy people).

I garden with a reckless abandon, and always manage to beat myself up pretty good. In addition to everyone's pretty garden pictures, I'd like to see pictures of how damaged everyone else gets in their gardens.
Bruised right arm:

Bruised left arm:

I have a big mosquito bite on the inside of my right thigh, but you don't want to see a picture of that.

The wind and rain blew a pretty golden leaf against the dining room window.

Pretty flowers kissed with rain...and how the hell they bloom without sun I don't know...

The weatherman is promising SUN for Saturday. Squee!

Another week, another whine

Ugh, my 4th of July was kind of a bust. Worked my ass off in the yard on Saturday, which was the only decent day of the holiday weekend, weather-wise.

Sunday was off-and-on rainy, and Meester wasn't feeling well...so we didn't go to any of the local fireworks displays...and I love fireworks. Feh.

Damn DSL internet connection was down again most of Monday. I had the day off from work for the holiday, so of course the weather stunk with rain and 300% humidity. Feh.

So I baked a huge batch of "Monster Cookies" to take to work Tuesday.

Easy to whip up, but Good Gah, it makes a zillion cookies and you'll be on your feet all day baking them.

Here's the recipe I used, but really, there's a million variations of this...
Monster Cookies
4 eggs
1 1/2 C. brown sugar
1 1/2 C. white sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 tsp. light corn syrup
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
2/3 C. butter
2 C. peanut butter
6 C. old-fashioned oatmeal
chocolate chips and M&M candies as desired

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients in a big dishpan in order given. Drop by large tablespoonfuls or use ice cream scoop and flatten slightly. (I made mine smaller for easier snacking at work.) These cookies spread out while baking. Bake 12 minutes or till lightly browned. Do not overbake.

Does anyone else go to so much trouble separating the paper, & the cardboard, & the plastic from each other for recycling?

Along came a spider

photo courtesy of WikiGallery

I was sitting in my office cubicle the other day when I noticed a spider crawling up the partition. I DO NOT like spiders, so I found a paper towel and snatched it up and yes...excuse me if you are an arachnid lover...squished it. I work in an ancient building that's full of creepy-crawlies, so I'm just keeping the spider population under control. Believe me, there are still plenty of bugs left in here; I shudder to think what's crawling around after dark when the lights are off.

Years and years ago...I couldn't even go near a spider. Seeing one made for ear-splitting shrieks on my part and a mad dash to another room. My late, brave mother could squish a spider in her bare fingers. I will NEVER be able to do that. I still emit small squeaks when I have to catch a spider in our house. Meester says he can hear when I catch a spider in another room.

One of my greatest epiphanies was delivered to me by way of a spider. My first husband had walked out, and I was "alone" for the first time in more than a decade, and solely responsible for my two little children(yes, they were his kids too, but he decided he didn't want the responsibility anymore).

I was sitting on the floor playing with the kids, and looked over to see a fairly fat spider making its way across the carpet in our direction. I screamed and jumped up on the sofa, followed by the oldest child. Then we both realized that the baby was still on the floor, and we snatched her up, and then we all stood on the sofa shrieking. *It suddenly dawned on me that there was no one else to take care of that spider but ME*

Now I had already thought about how a divorce would mean that I would have to mow the lawn myself, and shovel the snow, and take the car for an oil change, and strip the wallpaper in the bedroom and repaint the room all by myself, but I hadn't realized that divorce would also mean being in charge of SPIDER EXTERMINATION. So I gritted my teeth, hopped off the sofa, got a paper towel, grabbed the spider, and dashed into the garage to squish it(so the kids wouldn't hear me still shrieking under my breath).

After the spider incident, I knew I could handle whatever came my way after the divorce.....maybe not handle it well, or willingly.....but I could do what I thought I couldn't do.

.....Here's hoping that all your revelations come in a prettier form than a spider.....