And then the fog cleared

Driving home tonight, the state was covered in a thick dark fog. I drove the 50 minutes from my parents to my own home with white knuckles and at the posted speed limit. It was a scary trip, but I'm home now, safe and sound.

Tonight I cooked dinner with my mom and ate with her and my dad. We had Basmati rice and Satay Peanut Sauce over chicken, onion, broccoli, green pepper, carrots and water chestnuts. It was very good. Alex is spending his day and evening with his friends watching football. I should go an check the score. It will give me a good idea of how much celebrating he'll be doing tonight!

One needy kitten

Today, I would like to write about one of my kittens, Racer. When we brought him home he hid behind the water heater anytime we walked toward him. In this tiny picture, you can see him in the space between the the white water heater, and the rusty-looking pipes.

Once he got used to his new home and his new family, he became more affectionate. He would play with us and sit with us. He's always been the best at bedtime and will cry to let you know that he needs fresh food or water.

Recently though, he has become more and more needy. He likes to be carried around like a baby. I have seriously considered investing in a baby sling so that I can hold him and still have my hands free for cooking, cleaning and crafting.

I'm not sure if he would stay in a sling, but I have a feeling he would, and that he would love it. When he's not being needy, he is an independent player. Here he is playing with one of his Christmas presents from his human cousins. It's his second toy just like this one, and he played with the first one until it was torn to pieces.

Besides mothering my kittens, I have been trying to develop some more cooking skills. This week I rolled my own egg noodles for a warm meal of chicken and noodles and mashed potatoes.

The noodles were okay. A little chewier than I had hoped, but I am still learning to work with dough. I think it takes some practice and some patience.

I started a meal planning calendar, which I think will help our grocery bill each month, and will help us to have healthier dinners.

I'm considering trying Weight Watchers again. I'm considering the core plan, which is a list of foods you can eat. You don't have to count points that way, but it would mean eating significantly less of some of my favorite things!

A well rounded dinner, kind of.

A few nights ago, Alex and I decided we wanted breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches for dinner. I headed off to the grocery in search of a week's worth of meal planned groceries and some yummy tenderloins. I looked in the meat case and when I could fine none there, I headed to the frozen food section.

Our grocery had one type of frozen pork tenderloin, Pete's Pride. And while those are yummy pork fritters made in my hometown (not where I live now), they are a little lacking in the porky wholesome goodness we were hoping for. So I called Alex, who was out and about, and asked if he could swing by the little butcher shop where our friends had recently purchased these perfect, giant breaded tenderloins.

When he got home and I opened the package to start dinner, I was shocked by the naked, almost ground looking piece of meat that stared back up at me. I guess, a tenderloin for sandwiches starts as a pork chop and is run through a cubing machine, which kind of grates the top and flattens the piece of meat.

I quickly grabbed my Better Homes and Garden basic cookbook, which is my go to for all basic cooking needs, and read how to make homemade tenderloins. I finally got to use my new meat tenderizer and mallet. I made a flat patty, cut one tenderloin into four sandwich-sized pieces, floured, egg-washed, and breaded each patty, and pan-fried them in a little vegetable oil. I served them with crinkle cut french fries, green beans. Alex ate two.

The lessons I learned from this pork tenderloin experience are:

• The flatter the better. I should have kept pounding the patties. They were a little thick for pork fritters and they shrunk up when I cooked them, so they were not bigger than bun sized, which is what I prefer.
• Sometimes it's better to double your breading, even if it leads to more waste. By the last tenderloin, the egg-wash was practically gone, and I had to add more breadcrumbs. I should have just doubled it to start.
• Ask your butcher questions. If you don't see something you want, ask about it. Maybe your cut of meat just needs to be put through another machine.

I still have a whole tenderloin food saved and in the freezer, so I'll definitely be trying this one again!

Ah Ha, The Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffin

As I mentioned in the previous blog, I would love to share the recipe for these yummy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins.

They turned out just rich enough to eat. They could make a fun breakfast or dessert. This picture is of a day old muffin.

I really liked theses muffin tops, which is no surprise, because I typically like the tops. I wonder if there is a pan for only making muffin tops? There must be. Some bakeries sell the muffin and tops, and I just can't imagine what they would do with left over muffin bottoms.

Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip Muffins
Yield 12
Ingredients
oil, butter, Pam for greasing the pan, or use muffin liners
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
Heaping 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
6 Tbsp. oil or melted, cooled butter
Heaping 1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12-cup muffin pan.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add the brown sugar.
3. Beat the eggs is a large bowl. Beat in milk, oil, and peanut butter. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour wet ingredients into well. Stir until combined, but do not over mix. Gently fold in chocolate chips.
4. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin pans. This should be the perfect amount of batter for 12 muffins, so the wells will seem very full. The muffins only rise a little. Bake in a preheated oven for about 20 minutes. Muffins should be well risen, golden brown, and firm to the touch.
5. Let the muffins cool for 5 minutes in the pan. then serve warm or transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

These microwave well for a fresh muffin flavor, but they are best right out of the pan. Enjoy!

Seriously, I should snap some pictures

Today, I had my final Christmas celebration for the holiday season. Alex's mother's family met to have brunch, visit and open presents. It was a lot of fun to visit with his grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

I baked some wonderful muffins. The recipe was adapted from a crunchy peanut butter muffin. Instead of crunchy peanut butter with extra peanuts as the recipe called for, I used creamy peanut butter and added semi-sweet chocolate chips. Yum!

Soon, I'll post a picture and the recipe.

A New Craft Room, A New Year

Today I put my craft room/office together. When Alex and I bought this house, we made the decision that the smaller of the two spare room would be mine, and the larger room could be his office, but he would have to move the day bed in there for guests.

Well, within weeks of our move in, we had a friend of Alex's move in and take over the bigger of the two rooms. That was fine. Alex and I settled on turning the smaller room into an office. We crammed our desks, computers, chairs and stuff into this little room.

Our roommate received a better office in a house full of boys, which was also more to his bachelor liking, and moved out at the end of December. Alex moved his things out of my room and into his in a flash. I've spend the last two days trying to reorganize, and decorate my room. It's going to be a great way to start the new year!

A Welcome Back

I know, it has been a while since I've blogged, and it's not because I've been so busy, or because I haven't been cooking and crafting. In November, I lost my job, and with it I seem to have lost my ability to write. Even e-mails to old friends have been difficult.

With 2010 just a few days away, I think it's time to start thinking about what resolutions I want to make. I've got a few running through my head, and one will be to write something daily. Whether it be on this blog, on a special project I'm developing, or just a private journal entry, it will be important to keep my brain focused and keep reaching toward the goals I set at age 13 or 14.

Here are few holiday pictures. This is Dicey celebrating Christmas. He didn't actually open the present himself, but he did thoroughly enjoy rolling around on the wrapping paper and diving into empty boxes.

These are the most perfect Candy Cane Cookies that I have ever made. Maybe others have perfected the Candy Cane cookie, but my family has always struggled. This year, I got nothing but amazed compliments on my Candy Cane Cookies.

I did a lot of baking this holiday season. Since I spent all of November and December unemployed, and baking is a relatively inexpensive hobby, I got pretty good at it.

This is one of our Christmas trees. This one, I kept pretty well decorated. The kittens enjoyed playing with the ornaments and and lights, but since this tree was on a table, it was a little harder to reach. Our larger tree only had lights and a star. It was sad to look at in the daytime, but much prettier at night. I think we lost 5 or 6 bulbs this year due to the kittens, but they did eventually grow tired of playing with the trees, so hopefully next year will lead to better decorations.

Our kittens also like to steal pen shaped objects. They carry them around in their mouths, like a dog carries a stick. After losing three seam rippers (an unfortunate necessity when I start quilting) and every pen I ever used, I started to go a little crazy.

A few nights ago Alex, saw a twinkle of something under the fridge, and when he pulled it out, this is what we found: 5 mechanical pencils, 10 pens, 3 seam rippers, 3 barrettes, 1 lemon Starburst, a missing piece from one of Alex's headphones, an Emory board, and a variety of broken Christmas bulbs.

They love to play in the kitchen because things slide around better on that floor, but I guess once it's under the fridge, it's gone for good.

I'll be posting more in 2010!