New Year, new tools, new techniques?

Wow, this month and this year are almost over! I was very fortunate to work many hours in my role as product specialist for KitchenAid this month. I love the products and love to answer customer questions and help them to make new purchases. 

Busy week this week again. I say that every week and it's true, but I am always doing different things. I enjoy the variety.

I happened to hear the weather forecast when menu planning last week, so decided to forget about the grill for Labor Day.  I planned so if it wasn't raining I could use the grill, but if rain, I could still have a good meal. 

Some catching up to do although not much exciting has been happening.  I had a good cook day on Friday with new customers and came home to a house empty of humans.  My husband was on a retreat until Sunday!  I love to be by myself and had no classes scheduled for Saturday.

I took a short nap on Friday afternoon, did some knitting and some reading.  I was asleep early and awake at 5:30.  The cats tried to wake me at 3 by running over my head in some kind of race across the bed but I went back to sleep.

I decided on no Jazzercise for Saturday and to have a day in the house.  I did my devotion reading, my journaling, had some tea, got some laundry in and cleaned and washed the refrigerator.  I'm not very exciting on my days in!

I have been knitting and I have a baby hat finished, sewed the sweater together on Saturday and have one bootie done.  I'll take a picture of the ensemble when all are complete.

I tried to blog on Saturday but got an error when I tried to get to the page to enter info.  Since my tech support is my husband and he was on a retreat and would not be using a phone, I decided I needed a computer free weekend too.  I did talk with a couple friends on the phone but didn't do much in the way of email or facebook.

Saturday night I had a great dinner of seared tuna.  Sunday I got up early, went to church, the grocery store, made a meal for a family at church who had a new baby, delivered the meal and got ready to go to a meeting.  I knew when my husband did get home that as soon as he sat down he would be asleep so I didn't feel bad about leaving him Sunday night.

I attended a staff meeting at Cook's Warehouse where we learned about new products from vendors and found something that I love! I've mentioned before that I like to organize and found spice containers that I love.  The website is www.tablefare.com and you can buy them at The Cook's Warehouse. 

The vendor gave out starter sets so now I'm hooked on the containers. 

Today is looking kind of grey.  I need to take a friend to a follow up doctor visit this morning, break up some chocolate to be used at a chocolate tasting tonight and maybe make the other baby bootie.

My tech support fixed the blog issue last night.  Something about the blog looking for a date of 2009 and the browser giving a date of 2010 and the blog refused to accept that.  I don't know, but it's fixed and I can get back to the computer.

Happy New Year!  We are not party people and did not see the new year in.  We had a delicious dinner of leftover smoked mojo chicken that we made into tortillas with sour cream, cheese and I whipped up a little guacamole.  I had some lime flavored Perrier with dinner. 

We watched Rear Window on tv, it was over at 8:00!  Nothing else really on the tv, so I continued working through my library books.  I'm not sure exactly when I fell asleep but it was before 11.

This morning we woke at 5, the cats now expect a morning treat so there is a swarming when the lights go on.  I throw out treats and then read the paper and have tea.  I was in the habit of reading a daily devotion and writing in my journal, but I got away from that.  I miss starting the day that way, so I started this morning.  After the treats. 

I was starting to fall asleep again about 6:30 and would have gone back to sleep for a morning nap, but we had dinner to start.  This is the second use of the Big Green Egg!  Today's meal is pulled pork and since we worked out a timeline on Thursday, I knew we had to start dinner at 7:00 am.  Remember, I was a project manager in a former worklife. 

So into the shower instead of under the covers.  Got the pork out of the refrigerator to sit for a while, started the charcoal and got dinner on at 8:00 am.  It was too early for breakfast so I planned my menu for next week.

I'm not one to make resolutions but I really need to use up pantry, fridge and freezer items.  My grocery list is short.  Currently I have 4 items on it - cat food, poblano pepper, tomatoes for salad, salad.  That's it.  That will take us to Saturday when we're meeting family for dinner out.  And I have to be careful if we go to Costco.  No food!

So far the Big Green Egg is wonderful. The sun is shining, hopefully no frozen anything from the sky or even wet anything, so we should be on track for dinner.  We're having pulled pork sandwiches, sauteed spinach and applesauce from the freezer.



Yes, it was dark outside when we started dinner. 



Now might be the time for that nap. 

It's the final day of the year and looking back, the year had high points and low points.  I know many people are saying this, but I can't believe we're looking at 2010 after just imagining what 2000 would be like!

I have lots to be thankful for - health, my business, family, church, friends, cats.  Looking back at last December, it was a pretty scary time and I was very unsure how my business would survive and how things would go.  I tried to relax and have faith that all would work out as it should, I'm just human though and sometimes it was easier than other times to believe.

Overall though life is good.  I even got a t-shirt for Christmas with that sentiment!  I made it through the year and am looking forward to 2010 to see what happens there. 

We do not go out on New Year's Eve.  Every so often we might do dinner out, but we're in early if we do.  No plans for going anywhere today.  It's grey and wet outside and inside warm, dry, with books and couches. 

I made Quiche Lorraine for breakfast today and it was delicious.  My husband asked if I had planned it or if it was just from stuff laying around and truly it was from stuff laying around.  That should make it perfectly clear to me that I need to do no more shopping and eat from the pantry, fridge and freezer! 

A couple weeks ago we got our Big Green Egg and it's been living in the living room since then.  It took up a lot of space, but we were busy and had to plan when we could get it out to the deck.  Tuesday was "Get the Egg out of the living room day".

It was a nice, sunny day so we dragged the table up from the basement (my husband made the table) and then while I read the directions, my husband assembled the Egg.  All went perfectly!



I planned this week's menu with the Egg in mind, so yesterday was "First use of the Egg" and I planned chicken.  I made a paste from parsley, mint, cilantro, garlic, salt and olive oil and rubbed it over the chicken on Tuesday.  It marinated overnight and we were ready to cook. 

The Egg is pretty easy to use.  We of course weren't sure but followed directions, built the fire and had smoke and a steady temperature.  I chose chicken for the first try since it took fewer hours.

I got the chickens on the grill and set my timer for 2 hours when I would turn them.  Of course I went out often to see that the temp was holding and it was!



Things were going well, a while into the cooking we had some ice pellets coming down, sort of like mini hail, but that stopped and things were cooking.  We ran into a little problem with the freezing rain and the dark though.  I have no problem with cold, none with dark, even a little rain, no big deal.  This was coming down pretty hard and the chickens still had a little time to go.  I pulled them off and finished cooking in the warm, lighted kitchen. 

The chicken was delicious and I made black beans and rice to go with the dinner and there was a mojo sauce for the chicken.  Very good!  We're having leftovers tonight rolled in tortillas. 



This morning I made a rub and massaged a pork butt that is in the fridge getting ready for Egg time tomorrow.  I also made a vinegar barbecue sauce.  We need the pork to cook for about 10 hours, so we made the timeline and all is well.  Hopefully we will have no blizzards or sleet.  I must say though that the Egg maintained perfect temperature. 

I think it might be time to relax with a book and a cat.  They are all sleeping now.  One is on my side of the bed at my pillow, one in the spare room on the bed and one here in the office in the cat climber.  We didn't get any gifts for the cats, but everyone else in the family did.  They have lots of things to play with so they need to nap and be ready!

On Tuesday I was excited that I was going to have time to test the new KitchenAid Pasta Press attachment.  I have made pasta before with my KA pasta roller/cutter attachment and love it, but this makes rigatoni, macaroni in two sizes, fusilli, bucatini, and spaghetti.

I made some pasta dough using the recipe in the Use and Care Guide and started playing.  I mean working.  This is so much fun!  It is easy, it works, the storage for the pasta plates is perfect.  I made some of each type of pasta and had some rigatoni for dinner.  It's too bad my husband was at his normal weekly meeting, but I enjoyed the pasta. 

I remembered to take some pictures of the attachment, the process and the finished product. 

This is a very new attachment and I did not get to keep it for now.  I passed it on to a fellow personal chef and KitchenAid product specialist Wendy so she could play.  I mean so she could also work hard learning the new attachment and testing it to gain product knowledge.  If LuAnn wonderful KA boss in Pittsburgh reads my blog I want her to know how hard we all work. 

I highly recommend purchasing this now, or at least adding this to your gift wish lists.  I did not eat all of the pasta that I made, so I dried it a little, placed it in plastic bags and tossed them in the fridge.  I just looked at them and they are still perfect, not bits of mush. 

I cooked for my client yesterday and she invited us to the lake to sail on Saturday.  I thanked her and said that I had volunteered to help someone, hadn't heard yet, but if that didn't happen we would start to redo the office.  A big job requiring moving computers, maybe setting up office in the dining room

I heard yesterday from the person I'll be working for.  I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing yet.  I leave tomorrow, I will be working hard, on a shrimp boat, in the sun, getting dirty and smelly and will be making nothing for pay.  I will take pictures, may be able to post through Facebook, will write about the weekend when I get home on Monday. 

My husband and the cats will be here enjoying the holiday weekend doing something.  Probably not starting to redo the office.  

So I'm back from Pittsburgh.  I left last Thursday morning and came back last night.  I drove because I enjoy driving.  I stayed over Thursday night since there was a huge thunderstorm in West Virginia and I was tired.  I decided it was better to rest since I estimated I had 3 hours left to drive.  Good decision.

I got to my sister's about 10 Friday morning and yes I brought the laptop so I could blog and check email.  No, it did not work.  I used my sister's laptop to keep up with email but decided to vacation from blogging.  Since we were having technical difficulties we decided we needed food and went to Carl's for burgers, fish and zucchini.  I need to go there every time I visit.  Luckily my sister Connie likes it and my sister Cathy was there too and approved.  Once we finished lunch we knew we needed dessert for later in the evening so went to Moio's.  Another must. 

No website for Carl's, it is really not very fancy but they are in the process of adding a deck.  They were working on it Friday.  There is a website for Moio's and is a complete contrast to Carl's.  Both very good though.  We spent the evening visiting with neighbors and my niece and her fiance who stopped by after work.  We had pizza, it was a pretty full day of eating.

Saturday my sisters and I decided to go to the Strip.  My nephew had a birthday party to go to so we were on our own.  We needed to get shrimp and steaks for dinner and whatever else we saw.  Even though it was pouring, we all had rain slickers and were fine.  We went to Penzey's and stocked up and we ate some more. 

We decided on brunch at DeLuca's.  There was still a short line at 12:30 but it's worth the wait.  Again, not fancy but delicious!  It's only open until 3 so keep that in mind. Again no website but I did get pictures.

We headed home to pick up bridesmaid's dresses and to get a quick nap.  My sister Connie, who was the chauffer, then got us over to my niece's house where I cooked dinner with my nephew Jake.  Cathy got good pictures and will send them.  We had Linguine with Scampi, Roasted Asparagus, Garlic Bread, Salad and steaks on the grill.  And cake - German Chocolate or Black Forest. 

Sunday was the shower and my niece's friends came over early to get things ready.  They left about 11 with my sister Connie, Connie told Cathy and me that we were responsible for getting Cristine to the shower.  Not a problem since it was not a surprise, Cristine was picking us up and Cristine loves presents.  The shower was beautiful.  No games were played, we had lunch, cake, watched the gift opening and had themed basket raffles.  The girls did a lot of work, my niece has great friends.

After the shower we headed back to Connie's to chat, relax, not eat, and plan the evening.  We took some family pictures while we were still dressed from the shower.  One with the 3 aunts and Cristine, one of Ryan and Cristine. 

We didn't stay dressed very long because while I like animals, my sister really loves animals.  Connie has 5 dogs, Cathy brought her dog and apparently I sat on the best chair in the house.  I was swarmed. 

We have 2 corgis, 1 big fluffy dog, 1 toy Pomeranian, 2 Corgi/Shih Tzu puppies.  Connie claims this is her reading chair and this is normal.  I didn't think we could all fit, but I was wrong.  I should have gotten a new picture Friday night when Cristine brought her Shih Tzu and Corgi/Shih Tzu mix.  I'm not sure 2 more would fit.

I left yesterday morning to make the drive back.  The weather was nice and sunny and cool and I made it home in about 11 1/2 hours.  I don't stop much while I drive.  Now back to normal with only 3 cats. 

It is a beautiful, sunny day here which is a great change from the rain.  We've had storms, rain, grey skies, this morning is sun with blue skies. 

I got a Mother's Day delivery on Friday when I got home from teaching.  A large box was on the porch so I opened it immediately.  A gorgeous bouquet of tulips from my step-daughter Beth, her husband Michael and grandson Matthew.  Yes, I did take a picture and so far the cats have not snacked on the flowers.

I got home from teaching earlier than I thought.  Big hugs to Cathy for letting me avoid the Friday traffic on 285.  The class went well I think.  We had 10 students and there was lots of hugging when they left Friday afternoon.  They are on their way to a new life of personal cheffing!  As usual we had an interesting group of students.  Henry was a certified executive chef from Trinidad, Ken cooks on boats in the merchant marines, Jill is a mom of 4 children and got some interesting phone calls from home,  we had a wide range of jobs and ages.  Lots of fun and learning.

 

In addition to missing the Friday traffic nightmare, getting home early gave me time to get a shower since I had a party to go to.  It was a kind of weird invitation.  Monday at the grocery store a woman said "you cook for Dina".  I said I had cooked for Dina but she was moving shortly to Maryland.  The woman said "I know, I'm in her neighborhood and I'm having a going away party for her Friday night, do you want to come?"  I thought that was so nice since we didn't know each other's names and had only met maybe twice at the grocery store. 

We exchanged email and off we went on our day.  I went to the party, it was a surprise, I took Polka Dot Bars, one of Dina's favorites and said goodbye to one of my favorite customers.  Tina (that was the nice woman's name) said bring something Dina likes. I cooked for Dina for about 7 years, so that was easy!

Polka Dot Bars from Taste of Home

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup white chocolate chips, divided

1. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Beat in extract. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, gradually add to creamed mixture.
2. Set aside 1/4 cup chips, stir remaining into batter. Spread in greased 15x10 baking pan. Sprinkle with remaining chips. 
3.  Bake at 375 degrees for 18 to 23 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool before cutting.

We didn't do much Saturday since I had been with so many people for several days.  We did a little shopping, I need to make a Southern themed basket for a bridal shower.  We may head to the mall again today. 

We've been to church, the grocery store, I used my ebelskiver pan for breakfast with raspberry filling and I've made sure my bird feeders and water dishes are ready to go.  Have a great day whatever you do!