April's Fool: That Would Be Me

Setting: I'm driving down the road on a Monday evening, trying desperately not to fly off the most pot-hole ridden street in Houston. I'm listening to NPR and decided that I am going to blow my head off if I heard just ONE more story about civil unrest or natural disasters. (I get it, it's a bad situation over there. Can we just have one other story type or must my entire 2 hours of commute each day be this: tsunami, earthquake, Libya, nuclear meltdown, Egypt, Gaddafi, nuclear power, Libya, Libya, Ivory Coast, Rick Perry dicking over education and making a lot of racist comments, Libya, Libya.)

*Suddenly my phone rings*
(So weird, my phone just rang as I finished typing that)

It's my lovely husband. He has come into a possible barter situation with some high end baking tins for muffins. He said that our buddy Patterson was in possession of said tins and was willing to barter for Rock-o-liscious Peanut Butter Cups.




A far better picture of Patterson than my earlier portrait.


Jon asked me what a fair barter was for the tins. He started at 6 dozen PB cups.

That doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that would be the equivalent of 36 packages of the store bought Reese's. That's a package a week for most of a year.

I get a little dizzy. That is a lot of work. I waver. Do I really want these tins THAT bad? In a shaky voice, I tell Jon that I feel that number might be a little high. Would Patterson settle for a smaller number? We proceed to seriously barter for the next 5 minutes until we agree on 4 dozen. I still feel a little shafted, but I detour to the poor-people grocery store for chocolate.

At the store, I found a few bricks of bulk melting chocolate for a reasonable price for the very first time. I carefully read the package to see if it was the dreaded milk chocolate that would cause problems noted in previous posts. Although it had some different ingredients than the baker's chocolate, I got it anyway to save time and money. A one pound brick of  bulk chocolate was the same price as a half pound brick of the Baker's chocolate.

Yes, I like my chocolate with Jack...

I drag ass out of the store, get home, cook dinner, then set to work cranking out candy. I started melting the bulk chocolate, which, by the way, melted horribly like the milk chocolate did for some reason. After about a dozen are complete, Jon stepped in to start helping. He sweetly started me a second pb ball, and started chopping the second brick to melt. After awhile, he steps out to go watch the NCAA Championship Game. I put two completed muffin tins of candy in the fridge to harden.

Jon stepped back in a few minutes later to help me finish of the 3rd and 4th dozen. I sigh with exhaustion. Then, Jon asked if I could make him a special one (read extra fat with 2 layers of peanut butter and chocolate.) I told him I would, except there was a slight problem: we were coming up a little short on chocolate for the 4th dozen. We were about 5 cups shy. He told me that was OK and not to worry about making the full dozen, that we would just stop when we ran out of chocolate.

I got upset because that meant I would have to, at some point, pay Patterson the additional 5 or so cups I owed him. This meant another trip to the store, and another evening making a mess of the kitchen. Jon seems oblivious to why I am upset despite my whining clearly thought out communication. Then he  begins to realize why I'm so upset when I say, "I am almost to the 4 dozen, I just want to finish them out with whatever chocolate we have in the cabinet."

Jon: *blank stare* Four dozen?
Me: Yea, you said Patterson wanted 4 dozen for the tins.
Jon: Yea, but you only have half a dozen here and 1 dozen in the fridge. You're not even close to 4 dozen.
Me: Umm... open the fridge

The only food in our fridge

Jon: Oh my...
Me: What?
Jon: I was only joking about the 4 dozen. You couldn't tell?
Me: EXCUSE ME?
Jon: I was only joking about that number, you just had to make a few for Patterson. I didn't honestly mean for you to make a whole 4 dozen.
Me: *facepalm*

*On a side note, I am now the proud owner of 2 restaurant quality muffin tins. Jon took some of the cups to Patterson at work today. Here is Patterson's response: "These are better than Reese’s!  They’re hearty like they’re full of sustenance.  You should sell give me some of them around Christmas."

Keep dreaming Patterson, you should have enough to last you until about Christmas if you only eat 2 a week, for the rest of the year.

My new pans

Why Does a Good Recipe Never Work Twice?

 Jon has been in such a rage about the Rock-tastic Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups that he has spreading the word about them around the office like a bad case of the flu. We got invited to a party on Sunday from one of his co-workers, Patterson, and Jon practically held the man at gunpoint to get him to say that we needed to bring some of the candies to the party.

...as Patterson would say. (but not in Comic Sans, he has more discerning taste than that.)

I love my husband. I really do. However, candy making is one of those things that you have to stick with constantly. It's not like a cake you can pop in the oven and walk away from for like 30 minutes while it bakes. If you do happen to walk away from candy for even a split second, this happens:

Or this:

OH GOD!

or EVEN THIS

So let me just say this was not how I planned to spend my Saturday evening. I was hoping to have at least 100 more comments to moderate concerning the "What Recipe to Cook Giveaway" post. (Okay, maybe just like one. A blogger can dream can't they?) Or to clean up the ghetto hovel I live in like a @#$&$ adult. I mean, like most of my generation, I am like this most of the time. (that's by Allie, a waaaay better blogger than me.) I have to start doing better. Y'all know my dirty secrets...

At 8:30, I get started while Jon is supposed to be doing his share to clean up this dump. However, he totally disregards my demands to throw shit away and decides he wants to help. Apparently, he forgot what happened last week. Despite all this, we manage to get a little rhythm going. Then, I start to notice that something is really not working quite right.

FYI: I'm following the same recipe I gave you folks earlier for PB cups, but using the chocolate chip method instead of the Baker's Chocolate Method. This is because I didn't want to make one more trip to the poor-people grocery store today. 

I noticed that the chocolate chips are not melting down as well as the Baker's Chocolate. The chips do melt, but they form this nasty, thick film that looks like a toddler smeared his feces all over my double boiler.

"I'm here to F-up your recipe BIG time!"

The chocolate chip goo stuck to the spoon, the muffin cups, and made molten napalm burns on my hands no less than 50 times. It also didn't go near as far as the box of Baker's Chocolate. About half way through the candy making process, I start to notice we are painfully short of chocolate.

Me: Babe, we are almost out chocolate.

Jon: Here let me help scrape the bowl to get that last bit. *sizzling sound* Shit! That burns!

Me: Yea. So...I think there is going to have to be an emergency, mid-recipe chocolate run.

Jon: *fists on hips in superhero fashion* Allow me! *dashes out the door, down the stairs, and across town to Wal-mart.*

God bless that man for braving Wal-mart on a Saturday night in Texas.....moving on.

Jon: *bursting back through the door* Here!

Me: Perfect timing! We need a new bowl on the boiler STAT!

...and with the precision of a surgical/acrobatic team we trade bowls, unwrap Baker's Chocolate, and stir the mix with nary a missed beat.

I start to notice the Baker's chocolate forms this smooth, creamy texture that oh so easy pours off the spoon into the muffin cups. It is like magic again. It almost goes double the distance the bag of chips went, and because there is no scraping or stirring, the candies get cranked out quick. We now have like 50 of them hardening in the fridge. Unfortunately, I ate one and now I am still up blogging to you at 4 a.m. 

So here is the take away message: If you are going to make my Rock-o-licious Chocolate Peanut Butter cups, use Baker's Chocolate and you can spoon it in in no time. If you INSIST on using chocolate chips, my advice is to pipe that shit into the molds with a Ziploc bag.  

Oh, and beat your husband while he sleeps, using a sock filled with oranges because he volunteered you to bring 9 million PB cups to a party.

If you like what you see, please Follow Me for more recipes and cooking related antics.

Returning from the Dark Side- Wal-marts Can Go to Hell

Houston is all in an up-roar about the potential of ANOTHER Wal-mart being built in a quant little area of town known simply as "The Heights". This is a small, historical area of town that has a very diverse population. It is an up and coming community that is somewhat costly to live in, but it has that "un-spoiled" feel about it. It still has trees, neighbors know each other, and your kids can play outside without fear of being snatched up. It is so unique and full of all these small mom-and-pop shops that you can lazily walk about on Saturday mornings. Wal-mart has threatened to come in and destroy the very essence of this neighborhood.

Spokespeople from Wally-Hell talk about how they are going to build a Wal-mart that fits in with the vision of The Heights. Well that is just crap. There is no such thing. That is like saying you're going to make Lebron James fit in at a KKK meeting.

Most of you already know my feelings about Walmart. Most people think I'm a little *ahem* crass, but I noticed lately that others have joined the f-Walmart bandwagon. I read this awesome blogpost in the city newspaper this morning about another woman's disallusionment with this store. She has lived long enough to know what Wal-mart was before it became the Anti-Christ. Also, I don't want to hear any back talk about how it's not affordable to shop anywhere else. This woman has NINE kids and still finds better bargins elsewhere. Bravo lady.

It is kind of ironic that my own Mother used to work for Sam Walton (read: NOT WAL-MART). She grew up near Bentonville, Arkansas (birthplace to this pit of doom.) She used to pick peaches for him when his stores were wholesome places, not blood-sucking, community killers. She told me that stories of him driving her to the little soda shop in town at the end of the week as long as she worked hard and didn't talk to "those no good boys". She remembers those summers fondly.

Wal-Mart before it became the Anti-Christ.

I'm sure Mr. Walton didn't envision his store ruining small town America. I mean, his shop was ma-and-pa at one time. Too bad his successors only cared about money. There have been acutal studies, like one by Kenneth Stone, a Professor of Economics at Iowa State University, that found that some small towns can lose almost half of their retail trade within ten years of a Wal-Mart store opening. Great. All this cheap, plastic crap, but nobody has a job to buy it. It's like a virus...a 197,000 square foot (on average) virus.

Shopping at Rich Grocery Store #3 & other things I have to STOP doing!

So in Texas, HEB is the store to shop if you want great food at a low price. Now if you just want a low price you can go to Wal-mart. I am giving them the virtual finger right now.

 (This picture was kindly stolen from another website )

                                                            

Wal-mart, aka poor people grocery store, has the worst produce in the UNIVERSE. If I am going to do this vegetarian thing for Lent, Wal-mart should definitely be something that I give up. So, I head on over to HEB for the good deals and the awesome produce. Well, I thought I was...

The HEB that is closest to me is in that rich neighborhood, a few blocks from the "remarkable" store with the $30/ lb cheap meat cuts. It was like I was walking through the Whole Foods Market with it's wide selection of over priced organic produce, herbal supplement section, and vegan pet foods (for all those dogs and cats who feel guilty about consuming meat/eggs/milk *rolling eyes*). The store was preparing for dreaded Valentine's day by hand dipping strawberries for the rich house-wives who can't melt chocolate (maybe a little too judgmental with that last statement) and dip in clean strawberries. Even I can do this and not screw it up. Jon just doesn't like strawberries, so there.

Still, everything was ridiculously overpriced. I was naturally attracted the wall-long display of cheeses. (naturally I spent the bulk of my time there pining for cranberry-drunken goat cheese and a beautifully crafted English Roquefort.) But I digress as usual. I spent $53 dollars for little more than milk, tomato sauce, a loaf of artisan bread, cheese, bananas, and frozen ravioli...yes also cheese. Oh and some red pepper hummus ($6.99/ lb!!!! ).  So, even shopping like a poor person I spent way too much. When will I ever learn?

Rich Neighborhood Grocery Stores are Awesome, Yet Suck!

 I love going to the houtie-toutie neighborhoods around the area just to see what they have. I mean, I just get shocked at the items I have been scrounging at my poor-people store that are here in the rich-people store in a dozen different varieties. Take for instance, the spice area. They actually have spices other than salt, pepper, chili powder, and Tony's and Mrs. Dash. Note the only slight amount shock and awe on my face in the photo.Yes, you can be shocked, too. Everything you see to my side are spices. Spices I would have no idea how to use...but would eventually like to try to figure out in some marvelously disastrous way.

There is a problem though (besides sticking out at the fancy store because I'm not toting a designer purse or ordering around a nanny who is holding my screaming toddler) everything is GOD-AWFUL ridiculous expensive. I picked up a pack a package of low quality meat just as a teaser...it cost freakin' $26! However, with my "remarkable" card it netted down to $16. First of all, that's just ridiculous with at capital "R". Second of all, that is highway robbery. Lastly, there are idiot rich women out there that are probably not using that card and paying $26 for 2 lbs. of beef shank. Ridiculous. I get angry just thinking about it.

I was at the store for milk ($5 for 1/2 an organic gallon!) and a 6 pack of cokes ($7!) and some how managed to pay a total of $50 for like less than 10 items. Well, actually my semi-wealthier buddy paid for it since I would be cooking it all. But really, $8 for a bag of walnuts...ludicrous.

Our List:
12-pack of coke
Milk
1 carton whipped cream
1 graham cracker crust
1chocolate mousse mix
walnuts
1 green apple
1 bag of spinach
1 bottle of red wine vinegar
1 bag of cheetos
1/2 lb of bacon
1 2-liter of fresca.

There is no way that should eqaul $50. It's un-American.

So onto cooking.

The meal consisted of grilled pork chops (he took over the chops, I made the rest). I whipped up the chocolate mousse and poured it into the shell for a french silk pie (later to be covered with the whipped cream).

I tossed 1/2 the apple (finely diced), 4 slices of the cooked bacon (also finely chopped), with the baby spinach. Then, I tossed on some chopped walnuts. I used some "thank God purchased at the poor-people store" olive oil with my red wine vinegar to make a nice vinaigrette for the salad. Quite tasty.

(The cheetos and coke were for drunkenness gorging later on the evening, so they were put away.)

The meal with friends was quite pleasant. Since the four of us spent so much money on a ridiculously few amount of items, we took on the personas of  rich, white Republicans and under-jawed at each other for the rest of the meal. I took on the role of Catherine, fondly "Kitty". Jon was George-Henry, my husband - but would also have to step in as Winston the Butler when we needed things from the kitchen. Girlfriend Julie became Diana with her "husband"  Preston..who did the purchasing and grilling.

Winston was fired multiple times for various serving fiascoes. However, he was ultimately dismissed as he pied the back of the freezer. (Seriously, it slid off the ice cream container and down the back of the freezer).

*Facepalm*

Tonight's Menu: Pork

So, I have to say, I am not a big porker. A pork eater that is. My step dad LOVES pork. As a matter of fact we had fried pork chops weekly as a kid. My mom fried the hell out of them, until they were paper thin, sopping with grease, and chewy like taffy. All that was needed was to slather it in ketchup.

Jon, on the other hand, also loves pork. Ewww. He's a pork-a-holic. Double Eww. The only thing that thing that has me going down this path is the following:

1.) My baby loves pork, and shoots it for sport on a regular basis. Thus we have a huge supply.

2.) We were recently gifted some boneless pork loins from Omaha steaks for Christmas. They are higher quality and won't taste so gamie. (hopefully)

3.) I am sick, yet again, and my beloved is on this way to the store to buy my organic cranberry juice. (not cocktail, no sugar-added, glass container NOT plastic, in the near non-existent "organic" area in Wal-Mart). He can be so wonderful, and must occasionally be rewarded.

But I digress...

Behold today's recipe: Breaded Pork Tenderloin.

Straight to the point no muss no fuss. Well sorta. It calls for saltines. I figure any crackers will do, right? I have some houtie toutie crackers from one from one of those gift baskets at Christmas. I mean "smoked mozzarella crusted pork loin" sounds WAY better. Hopefully, they will make this meal tolerable.