One of These Things...

...is not like the other.  One of these things just doesn't belong.

Which is Edgar Allen Poe and which is Bill Murray?  Uncanny, right?

Dance your butt off. Literally.

I really want to try Zumba.  Anybody else interested?

Easy Vegetarian Spaghetti Sauce

I made up this easy and tasty vegetarian spaghetti sauce because I had some soy beef crumbles in my freezer and I needed the space.  I used Bucatini noodles because I had them and they looked fun (they're like hollow spaghetti, or as I prefer to think of them -- the Twizzlers of pasta).

This dish was $0.50 at a swap meet.  It makes me feel like a Jetson.

Ingredients

• 3 14.5 oz cans no salt added diced tomatoes
• 1 12 oz bag Morning Star crumbled soy meat
• 1 c red wine
• 1 diced red onion
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• fresh fennel, to taste (I had this off of a fennel bulb I bought for roasted veggies -- nothing went to waste!)
• dried basil, to taste
• fresh black pepper, to taste
• 2T olive oil
  
  In soup pot heat 2T olive oil. Add onion and garlic until caramelized. Add 1/4 c red wine to de-glaze. Cook until most of the liquid has cooked off. Add tomatoes, soy meat, remaining wine, herbs (reserve some of the fennel for garnish), and pepper. Add water if needed to thin sauce. Simmer until thickened, about half an hour. Serve with your favorite noodle and fresh fennel garnish. Leftovers can be frozen for even quicker meals at a later date.
  
  Calories 130.0 Total Fat 5.4 g Saturated Fat 0.8 g Polyunsaturated Fat 1.9 g Monounsaturated Fat 2.7 g Cholesterol 0.0 mg Sodium 177.8 mg Potassium 121.2 mg Total Carbohydrate 10.0 g Dietary Fiber 3.3 g Sugars 4.2 g Protein 8.7 g
  
  P.S. If you want a hilarious read about noodles you check this out.  My favorite part is, "i'm typing this with a noodle!!!!  I needed two noodles to get the exclamation points."  Clearly Brenton was taking this assignment very seriously.

Sometimes the internet scares me.

Making Copies...er...Baking Cookies...

Kristen and I have a Christmas cookie bake every year.  Well, usually she bakes cookies and I decorate them in ways that make her temporarily disown me:

I fixed his arm, but he's uncertain of my handiwork.

Asian guy in a sweater vest.

Pirate.  He's saying, "Whaaarrrr's me leg?"

Xena, Warrior Cookie

Wilford Brimley

This year I made spritz cookies in many many flavors -- regular, spice, orange, mint, chocolate, and maple.  My camera battery died in the middle of the day so I didn't get very many pictures of cookie making.

Again, my lack of planning...I failed to have a spritzer when making spritz cookies.  I did have a cake decorator, but it didn't work so I used a fork.

Oh no!  Naked cookies!  Children, avert your gaze.

Carnage.  Tasty, tasty carnage.

Photojournal: Chistmas parade -- an exercise in surrealism

Prepare to have your mind blown.

Before seeing them, "That's not a Christmas song.  Why are they playing the Army's theme song?  Oh..."

Don't they know the horses are supposed to go last, not second?  Shortly hereafter followed the roller derby girls...

Old police car!

Old police car!

Old police car!  You know what really makes this photo for me?

This guy!  This disembodied head!

So many clarinets.  So little mattering.

Marching bari!  Respect.  And pity.

Elvis driving a cement mixer covered in records!

Clowns!!

More clowns!!

Some guy winking at me?

 

I don't even know what this is about.  Did they just give up?  Where did they go?  Are they coming back?  This is why puppets are freaky.

If only this hat came in adult sizes...

Does Cow Santa also drink milk and eat cookies?  Does that cross a line?

 

There are no words...

But there is this face.

 It's like someone said, "Hey, this has nothing to do with Christmas.  How do we fix that?  Oh, I know.  Let's add a Christmas tree on the end.  Dude! Genius!"

It's not a parade in the midwest without a tractor.

Remember children, it's not okay to be a grinch, but it is totally acceptable to be freaked the hell out.

At this point my camera battery died, so there are not photos of the dancing porta-potties or anything else surreal that happened later in the parade, but at this point do you really need to see photographic evidence to believe it happened?

Merry Christmas!

Cooking Without Boarders, or Recipes

Tonight's dinner recipe developed as it cooked.  The beginning idea was that I had a pork loin roast in the fridge that needed to be used.

The original recipe is here.  The only part that remains is the pork and the mustard.  I didn't even cook it the same way...I've always had trouble with authority, even if it was a just a recipe.

When you're making meat dishes you're usually supposed to merinade them at least overnight.  This was last minute for me so there was minimal preparation.

Take your pork loin and put it on a greased baking sheet.  I took mustard (I had lavender-infused mustard...couldn't pass it up) and added some fat free pear-ginger salad dressing I had in the fridge.  Then I added 5-6 sprigs of fresh thyme (leaves only) and some fresh ground black pepper.  Spread it on your roast and bake for 40ish minutes -- longer if your roast is still cold (mine was).  If you're concerned about microscopic critters and meat temperature (I'm not) you should cook it until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees fahrenheit.  Allow the meat to rest before cutting.

I also roasted brussle sprouts.  Roasted them for about 20 minutes with the roast.  Took them out, added some sliced almonds ("hey, I have almonds in the freezer...what happens if I add them?") and roasted them for another 10-15 minutes, or until they look caramelized.

I didn't take pictures, but trust me, you'll want to try both of these recipes out.

Not sure why...

...but there's something about this that I really like.

Wouldn't be caught dead wearing it, but I love it.

Super Flippin' Excited

As the name of this post suggests, I'm super flippin' excited about this discovery.  For some of you (Emmy) this is old hat so you can go about your business.

Have you ever made something and wondered, "Hm...I wonder...Exactly what is the nutritional value of this recipe I just made up?"  Wonder no more.  The people at SparkRecipes (also the people of SparkPeople) have a handy dandy calculator just for you!  Czech it out!

Just pick your ingredient:

The nutritional value for Jesus was not listed, but I bet it's right up there with oranges.

Add it to your recipe, enter the number of servings, and hit "Calculate Info":

And it gives you the nutritional values like a pro!

Obviously the resulting information is only going to be as accurate as the information you enter, but I still find it exciting to be able to know the nutritional values of my concoctions. 

So be excited with me, or get off my lawn you rascally kids...with your skateboards and low-rise pants.  Always with the texting and the tweeting, and the faxing...  What's next?  A machine that adds and subtracts for you?  Why when I was a kid...