Yadda Yadda Calcium...LIQUIFY!

I hate milk. I don't like the taste or the aftertaste. I think the last time I sat down and drank a glass of milk, straight up, Reagan was president. Or maybe Carter. It's been awhile.

I'll put milk on my cereal, in my coffee, and I'll drink it with chocolate or Kahlua in it. Maybe on a cold day in winter, I'll heat up some with vanilla and honey. And...yeah, that's about it.

I hear all that hoopla about calcium, so I pop a couple of those chocolate chews and call my bones good. The boys drink soy milk, and that is supposed to be full of calcium. And soy, I hear tell, is good for women of my age--you know, those of us racing to menopause?

But I can't get past the color of soy milk.

My friend Malea used to work at this yoga/healthfood joint and she made almond milk there. After pestering her with," how do they milk an almond?" questions and, "if it has a nipple, I can milk it!" quotes she gave me the recipe. Really- it's way more work than I care to do. But I was at the store, picking up the boy's soy milk, and the same manufacturer had almond milk. When I got home I felt brave and took a sip.

It tasted like a vanilla milkshake.

Low in calories, high in all that other good stuff of milk...I set out on a blender bender one morning to make smoothies with it. If a milkshake is good, a milkshake with fruit is better!

Smoothies aren't hard to make...my normal recipe is one container of yogurt, one yogurt container of water, and frozen fruit. "Liquify"  is what the button I push on the blender says.

This day I used the almond milk instead of yogurt for two recipes, and both make two reasonable, or one giganto, servings.

In my humble opinion, the best of the two::

Berry Good Smoothie
1 cup of Almond Milk
1 packet of splenda
1 cup of frozen blueberries
1/2 cup of frozen blackberries

LIQUIFY!

It tasted like berry pie.

I like pie. I like pumpkin pie. Just yesterday I had a Pumpkin Pie shake from Sonic (for dinner...hush, like you never had ice cream for dinner? Or drank your dinner? No? Don't judge, it leaves wrinkles.)

I wondered if I could whip up a low cal substitute. It was pretty good, probably would have been better if I waited for another day. I was kinda sloshing around at this point.

Pump Up the Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
1 cup almond milk
8 ice cubes
1/2 package pumpkin pie pudding mix (This is seasonal, I had hoarded boxes last winter)
Shot of pumpkin pie spice.

LIQUIFY!

Pudding doesn't set with soy milk, and I suspect it doesn't set with almond milk either, but the texture was still pretty thick. Not Sonic Shake thick, but my middle won't be Sonic Shake Thick drinking these instead of those. Sorry Sonic. (But you will still get my Diet Cherry Limeade, extra cherries, order at happy hour.)

I'm going to play around with this stuff for a while, but if you come up with a delish combination, let me know!

W Is Still In The House

A few months back, Brian and I had a...disagreement. The details are not important. I won't play He Said/She Said And Had Her Own Blog So She Said It Louder. Let's just go with a universal generic aguement:  He was not completely supportive of a perfectly legal, moral and educational activity I wanted to do. I insisted on doing the activity anyway. He was pissed I went. I was pissed because he was stupid. Classic marital spat.

When I returned from said activity, it was the middle of the day. The kids were not home from school yet, the house was quiet.

By now you know the man leaves me notes. On the kitchen table was a note that said:

Came home for lunch. W is in the house.

W?

WTH?

The only W I could think of was water. We have a second story laundry room and have, on occassion, had water issues. I looked at the ceiling under the laundry room, and it was dry. 

It had been raining that day, maybe water had come in the basement. I ran downstairs and looked in all the usual places and found no water.

Maybe water had come in through the roof? By now I was a little nervous because if water had come in, and I wasn't home when it did, he would be really mad that he had to be the one to find it. Well, he would be a little mad about that, but morph it into a giganto ball of piss when combined with his anger over my outing. This would mean that he had one up on me, and I would have to find something that he did wrong to even the score.

Yes, "Love does not keep a record of wrongdoings"...I know. But marriage does. Sometimes. And this was going to be one of those times.

My heartbeat raced along with my legs as I darted up the stairs. Eyes up to the ceiling I checked each room-- Bekah's, the kids bathroom, the laundry room...nothing, the ceiling was dry...oh crap! What if it leaked into our closet?! I dashed toward our room and screamed when this caught my eye:

This is a LIFESIZE cardboard cutout of George W Bush. W.

Duh.

Now, this was several months ago. I have not figured out a way to get W out of our bedroom without Brian throwing a mantrum. This belonged to his parents, and he got it in a move. Plus, no surprise here,  he is a card carrying member of the Republican party. While he sees some errors in the W Presidency, he still stands by the former POTUS. If I tossed it, he would hunt that thing down, and drag it covered in coffee grounds and banana peels back upstairs. Ok, he would probably stop to Lysol it off first.

I know what you are thinking, and trust me, I have not let W see any action.

So there W stands, smiling, all day, all night. We really don't even see him anymore.

The four kids, watching TV

And, not that I am looking to even the score or anything, but if anyone sees a lifesized cardboard cutout of Madeleine Albright, let me know, K?

Advice?

Giving advice is a tricky business. Too much and you are a know-it-all pain in the neck; too little and well, maybe there isn't anything bad with giving too little advice. Unless someone is in harms way, then too little could be bad. But most advice isn't of the life or death variety. There are other ways to show people you care about them than offering suggestions on how they can make their lives better.

Lots and lots of ways.

I know what side I fall on, the too much. Learning to tell the difference between someone asking for advice, and someone venting didn't come naturally to me. And I still err on over advising. I'm working on it.

A week ago, when I decided to attempt this one a day blog thing, I took this picture. Like a hiker at the basecamp, eager and optimistic about the challenges ahead.

It was the first cup of coffee after the kids left for school. I was still without makeup (brave of me, I know) but so excited to get started! (That cup is really full, I should have been worried about my keyboard!)

So one week down, do I have any advice for that eager blogger? I mean, besides checking her shine levels and taking off her glasses before she takes a picture of herself.

I would tell her than she needs to be ready for the second week which is going to be really, really challenging. Her plate is going to be too full  and people are going to keep heaping more- then wonder why THEIR stuff wasn't done at the end of the day. I would tell her to resist the urge to shout,"bite me" at them. It's not ladylike and will accomplish nothing.

I would tell her to write down that great idea for a story that she got at 3 AM on Saturday.

I would tell her  to really give a thought to a bit more organization. Just because the kids are going back to school doesn't mean life is going to get less complicated. It's going to get MORE complicated.

I would also tell her to get one more loaf of bread when she goes shopping because she is going to run out a day before she is planning to hit the grocery store again.

I would tell her to ASK some people for advice.

You see at the end of this post, where it says, "post comment" or "comment" proceeded by a number? Click that. A window should pop up, a blank box, a word you have to type to verify you are human, and you can pick an identity or just remain anonymous. Just answer this question:

What advice would you give that eager woman in the picture?

Brave again. But I'm open to whatever-- general life advice, if I should do something different with my hair, writing advice, career advice...gimme whatcha got.

Buffalo Chicken OS Burgers- RECIPE!

This is NOT a foodie blog. BUT I like to cook. Mostly I like to cook because I like to eat. Mom taught us all pretty early on and we were making whole dinners by age nine. We each had a night to cook, had to make sure the ingredients were on the shopping list the week before, and we made dinner before Mom and Dad came home.

At nine.

Very true.

I'm teaching my kids to cook, but the one who is taking to it the best is Luke. Probably because he likes to eat. Yeah, DNA rocks.

The other night, while the rest of the fam had turkey burgers, I experimented with these for me and Luke. I have to say, they were FANTASTIC!

The sauce I am using, Party Fowl Wing Sauce, is new to the market. Beckett, my podcasting partner, is blessed with a chef for a husband. Chris, Beckett's husband, created this sauce and gave me a couple bottles to try.

The first thing Luke and I did was host a taste test with three different sauces: the one we usually use, a home-made version, and Party Fowl. My folks were in town and we had a mess o' wings one night. All of us (save one hold out who doesn't like his favorite sauce messed with) preferred the Party Fowl sauce. It has an extra kick of spices, but not heat.Since then, I have made Buffalo Wing Dip with it, and Luke and I prefer it over our old favorite sauce.

My dear friend, Other Susan (OS), shared her burger recipe and forming technique. It works with all kinds of meat and it's how I always start to make burgers. You get juicy, tasty burgers with minimal shrinkage even when you use cheap meat. (For Beef or Turkey Burgers, use milk instead of wing sauce, and add a splash of liquid smoke and your fav spices. Yes,  I said milk.)

The other day I found ground chicken at the grocery store, and had a DING! moment. This is what I dinged:

Buffalo Chicken OS Burgers

1 lb ground chicken
1/2 bottle wing sauce (two uses, as needed)
2 pieces of white bread
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
Hamburger buns ( I used potato rolls)
Garnishes: blue cheese crumbles, shredded carrots, mayo/sauce spread,avacado slices-whatever.
Makes 4 whopper burgers, 8 sliders

Break up the bread and pour sauce over it, mushing it with a fork to look like this, or a little drier if you don't have panko crumbs, but they add a little something that bread never can:

 Add meat and breadcumbs and smoosh it all together. I use my hands.

I sprayed the pan with Pam, pretty much because it's a habit. Form burgers and cook over Medium LOW heat. There are some sugars in the sauce that will burn over higher heat, but will give a nice crust on the burger. Cover pan with a sheet of aluminum foil to help cook burgers, and fold back to release steam.

While those cooked- 10 minutes on first side, 5 on second- I made up patties for the freezer. The dent in the middle is what keeps the burgers from shrinking up (it's on the underside of the ones in the pan). Yet another use for Press'n seal wrap! 

For condiment sauce: 2 tablespoons each of mayo and wing sauce, and give it a shot of pepper. You can use Miracle Whip, I guess, but it will taste like crap.(Ok, clearly I am a Mayoist.)

Touch the thickest part of the burger, when it's firm, it's done. Err on the side of well done--it will still be tender. You can burn these, so keep an eye on them.

Top however you want, I went with a slice of creamy mexican cheese, avacodo and the saucy mayo- but blue cheese dressing and sliced carrots will be rocking my plate the next time!

And Luke and I agreed- there WILL be a next time!

What the Neighbors See

I cleaned the garage.

Now I am sitting on my laurels.

I didn't take a BEFORE picture, because, quite frankly- it was embarrassing. Here is the AFTER.

Yes, this is much cleaner, hush.

He did help. 

This is actually one something we do that I like--Kid art goes in the art gallery garage. And it never comes down. I think some of those are Bex from Kindergarten 9 years ago.

I spent the morning cleaning up all the debris from storms. Someone explain this to me--I have these trees in the yard that have some dead branches. We get 60-70 mph straight line winds that topple healthy trees, and yet my dead limbs remain attached? 

My dead branches

And the neighbors formerly living tree.

And just so I can leave you with a completely disgusting image. I mowed my mother-in-laws lawn yesterday. This is my feet afterward. Gross. And I was wearing gardening clogs. Even grosser. I know. But totally helps the Laurel resting argument.

Happy Sunday!

The 13 Year Old Boy Dinner

Inhaled snack ( it went so fast I had to recreate it.)

I pick the lad up at football practice at 5:15. Dinner at our house is at 6:00. He is a teenage boy and eats. A lot. Kids of this age are notorious eaters, boys especially. And Luke is no exception.

Obviously, football has whipped up an appetite, so he eats a snack package of Nutter Butters and two Swiss Rolls within minutes of getting home.

This is not enough to tide him over for the remaining half our until dinner is ready, so he makes himself a salad- with cheese, because he likes to add stuff to his salads. And drench them in dressing.

Salad number one

This is gone within 3 minutes, but he has to go take a shower, my larder is spared for the time being.

6:00: Dinner time. The first salad is a distant memory, what with it sliding down his gullet back in the good 'ol 25 minutes agos. This is what he sits down to. The first time.

That's about 2 cups of pasta, and a second salad. I would be puking at this point.

A bowl of Barilla Plus (it has added fiber and protein, not *just* pasta), meat sauce, and another salad. Before the rest of us are done with our (smaller) dinners, he is finished and is STILL hungry. The rule in this house states that if you are hungry for something other than what I fixed, get it yourself. So he makes this. And takes a bite out of it before I can grab the camera.

Bread, mayo, turkey, cheese, turkey cheese, mayo, bread.

He tells me that he has had enough, clears his plate and brings it to the sink. I walk into the kitchen mere moments later to this sight:

Ahh, man! That was going to be my lunch tomorrow!

He is finishing off the never-to-become-leftovers that were still in the pan. He was kind enough to wait until after I had cleaned the kitchen to head to the pantry for round two.

I found something more productive to do than follow him around with a camera.... Ok,truth: he got sick of it and I have a bunch of pic that look like this:

Nice.