Steam Cleaner

It's been a pretty mundane weekend so far and I truly doubt that it is going to get more exciting. That's ok, though. I've gotten a lot of those little things done that I seem to put off. Not every weekend can be a fun filled, action packed, driving Celtic music weekend.

One of the things I got done this weekend besides general housekeeping (when will that maid show up anyway?) was to clean the red wine spots out of the carpet. We had a little incident with an opened bottle of red wine in the wine fridge popping it's cork, then dribbling out onto the carpet. Why is the wine fridge on the carpet you may well ask? It is a long story. Small kitchen size would be the best answer. Be that as it may the accident happened and I had to deal with it. The bummer was that I lost about a glass worth of good wine to the carpet. I'm fairly sure the carpet didn't appreciate it as much as I would have.

We got out our trusty Bissell steamcleaner. I say we because JR is great for those fetch and carry types of things. Over the last 25 years I've sort of tried to perpetrate the myth that I'm a weakling. That way I don't have to go out to the messy, hot, and nasty garage for anything I need. This also saves me from having to take out the garbage. Neat trick huh!

This baby cleaned up that stain right quick. It is another one of those small appliances that I really like. I can't stand having to go to the store, rent a cleaner, lug it home, clean the carpet, then lug it back to the store. It's exhausting just to write it out in a sentance much less actually do it. (it would violate the lazy principle again. That would just be wrong in too many ways to count)

You'll be happy to know that the stain came up and the fridge is back up and running. And, to top it off we devised a plastic cover for the carpet under the fridge this time. Maybe we can ward off upcoming spills or at least make clean up less of a hassle. I'm all about less hassle.

Well it's off to the electronics store for us (added excitment and I thought it was going to be a mundane weekend). The youngest homeboy's laptop hard drive just had a major failure. This ought to be fun. Last time I took apart a laptop I couldn't get it back together again. There was that 1 extra screw. What's up with that?

Here's hoping you have a nice weekend.

Love,
M

Peanut Buttercup Ice Cream

I've talked about my ice cream maker (see earlier post) before but I just want to say 1 more time... I love this thing!

Today's ice cream offering is Peanut Buttercup. It has the look of chocolate and the tasty goodness of peanut butter.

Dare I say that it's good for you?

I doubt that but don't let that stop you from pulling out the ice cream maker and dishing some up. You don't eat ice cream because it is good for you anyway.

Nice thing is it couldn't be easier. If it was hard I wouldn't be making it because it would violate my lazy principle.

Peanut Buttercup Ice Cream

3 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cup chocolate milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup chocolate syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons peanut butter (we like chunky but any will do

Mix first 5 ingredients together until the sugar dissolves. Taste to make sure that it is chocolately enough. Adjust by adding more chocolate syrup. There is no such thing as too much chocolate is there?

Pour into ice cream maker. Let the ice cream maker run for about 25 minutes.

Add peanut butter by dropping small dollops into the ice cream maker while it is running. Be sure to stick the spoon down in there to assure that the peanut butter gets well mixed. Lick spoon. This is an important step. Trust me it is! Really! It's not just so you get to enjoy the marvelousness before the homeboys get a whack at it. Let the mixer go for another 5 minutes.

Transfer to a container with a lid. Store in the freezer for about 2 hours before eating. It's OK to nibble small spoonfuls during the 2 hour wait period. You'll be doing your family a favor. You wouldn't want them to eat sub-par ice cream would you?

Serve in fancy bowls. Less calories that way. I read that somewhere. And if I didn't I should have!

Enjoy!
Love,
M

P.S. Please ignore the blurry pictures. I was having to fight off JR.

Celtic Festival - Flagstaff, Arizona

Last weekend JR and I went to the Celtic Festival in Flagstaff, Arizona. Yet, another road trip for us. I'm not sure what we would do if we couldn't take these little road trips. It has been such a fun part of our life together. With gas prices as high as they are we have had to curtailed them but can't seem to stop. To prove we have some restraint we are putting off going to the Wilcox Peach Festival until next weekend. We don't go out to the movies, or dinner, or much of anything else so these little jaunts are built into our minuscule entertainment budget.
Enough about that, lets get back to the Celtic Festival.

JR is Irish. Three of his four grandparent were Irish. That just makes him a whole bunch of Irish.
Me, I'm a mutt! A little of this and that. I've got a bit of German, Irish, French and Scottish and according to family lore Cherokee Indian (but I haven't been able to prove that yet). JR keeps telling me that mutts are the best, then he pats me on the head and tells me to get off the furniture.

With this kind of ancestry JR & I are drawn to anything Celtic. We love the pipers, (this would mean bagpipes), drummers, dancers, and tartan. We can't get enough of tartan! The homeboys finally sat their dad down for a plaid intervention. It was painful!

At the March of the Clans all the attendees line up to watch. Very exciting!
What is it about a man in a kilt? It just makes my heart go pitter pat!
Maybe I'll get one for JR.

The Pipers were in fine form. The sunglasses were a nice touch on this one. It is a little hard to make piping cool. Nice try though!

This Scot went for the whole get-up. Check out the shield and sporam (that's the bag hanging from his belt. I probably didn't spell this right. Sorry it's early).

This is serious business!

It is very important to start your kids off early. JR and I messed up. We didn't indoctrinate our children early enough. One of our homeboys could have been this boy. I'm so ashamed!


JR and I were not blessed with girl children (much to my mother-in-laws consternation. Right, after our last homeboy was born she turned to JR and said; "Don't you boys have any female sperm?" One has to remember that she was in her mid-seventies and it was 3:45 am). But if we had we would have signed them up immediately for this.


Can you buy these dresses? I can sew fairly well but DANG!


Then there were these guys. The Wicked Tinkers. They were terrific! Goofy, funny, wild music. Just the way Celtic music should be.
Here's my little video of them:

They also have a website. We didn't know it but the Wicked Tinkers are pretty popular. They have even been on network TV. We had no clue. But, that's just like us, Clueless.

All and All it was a fine way to spend a Sunday. JR got to drink some Irish beer (he skipped the whiskey), heard some great music, watch cute dancers, and I got some new earrings. Someday I'll have to tell everyone about my earring fetish.

Love,
M

Old Adobe House

I love fallen completely in love with this old house!
Granted, I love all old houses.
OK, I love most old things.

Old house, old books, old people, old just about everything.
Don't ask me why.

But this old house really gets to me.

My favorite thing is watching the changes in light
and color as the sun comes up.

It goes from dark and broody to glowing in a matter of minutes.

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to paint or
draw this old house.
I just can't do it.

The City of Tempe is going to restore it.
I sincerely hope they do a good job.

They will probably mess it up for me though. Part of the reason why I like this house so much may be because it sits there all by itself. Almost as if it were part of the rocks and plants of the desert. The landscape hasn't been ruthlessly bludgeoned into what some designer has decided is natural desert.
It is natural desert!

I'll climb off my high horse now.

Then there is these two goof balls.

Love,
M

Zucchini Pizza Dough Recipe - Updated

FYI - I topped this pizza crust (this mornings post) tonight with a garlic herb sauce, fresh tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, and the leftover grated cheese. It was fantastic. Even the homeboys (who, lets face it, think that if it doesn't have meat on it can't be any good) really liked it.

P.S. I'm trying to convince them that eating more meatless meals will reduce their carbon footprint. They're not buying that! They think I'm just being cheap. I am but least they could humor me.

It's zucchini season out there and any gardener worth his or her salt has planted way too much of it. Of course anything more than 2 plants is way too much! But what do you do with all that zucchini.
It would be a shame to let it go to waste.
You can't give it to the neighbors because they have their own stock pile.
When you put anything remotely green on the table the kids run screaming from the room rending their clothes off. There is nothing worse that running, screaming naked children. That can give you a headache and you are still left with a mountain of zucchini.

So my idea is to hide it in something they are sure to like.
Pizza!
Or more correctly the pizza dough.

Here's what you start out with:

(Don't mind all those wine corks. We are starting a collection. You know a craft project. Right, a craft project. OK, OK we drank all this wine but it was over a course of six months and there are three of us drinking it. Honestly it wasn't all me! OK mostly me but it was over a long period of time.)

Back to the ingredients

3 ½ cup zucchini, grated
1/3 cup flour
3 eggs, beaten
½ cup mozzarella cheese, grated
½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
2 Tablespoons basil, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt & pepper to taste

Please don't throw these little gems away. The rinds of Parmesan cheese is absolutely wonderful in soups. (Oh, don't forget to pick them out when you are ready to serve. Not like I've forgot or anything. I'm just looking out for you that's all)

Now, toss everyone into the pool.
(ignore the chipped metal mixing bowl. Like the recipe it was my mother-in-laws. Like I did her; I love it.)


It looks something like this when mixed up.

Spread out onto a greased and floured pizza pan or cookie sheet if you prefer.

The recipe calls for you to brush with oil.
Me, I'm lazy, I drizzle.
(and like garlic I can never get enough olive oil. Is that an addiction?)


Out of the oven it looks like this.

Dress it up with toppings and the kids/husband will never know.
Or maybe they will but who cares.
Enjoy

Love,
M

Zucchini Pizza

3 ½ cup zucchini, grated
1/3 cup flour
3 eggs, beaten
½ cup mozzarella cheese, grated
½ cup parmesan cheese, grated
2 Tablespoons basil, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt & pepper to taste

Combined all ingredients.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes

Brush with oil & put under the broiler for 5 minutes or until browned.

Build pizza and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until all the toppings are hot. Shouldn’t be more than 25 minutes.

Librarians

I'm a librarian.
I like to think of myself like this one.

Not the kind that wraps her hair up in a bun, wears sensible shoes, and shushes everyone. I like to think of myself and my fellow librarians as people with attitude. With this thought in mind I gathered some quotes about librarians.


[Librarians] are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them.
-Michael Moore
(this is so true)



Lose the image of the hair up in a bun. Old Maid is just another card game to them, and some actually have tattoos and wear more than two earrings.
--The article: A look at the secret lives of librarians
(I know several librarians with tattoos, myself included)


"Librarians are at the heart of opposition to foolish, dangerous, misguided attempts at censoring human expression in our free country. I thank God for their efforts."
-- Author Clyde Edgerton

"I think that librarians get a bum rap. They're constantly represented as these staid do-gooders, hair in a bun, glasses on the nose. In fact, librarians have better eyesight than most professionals."
--Alan Kurzweil
("Fresh Air" interview (NPR), 20 October 2001)

"Libraries are brothels for the mind. Which means that librarians are the madams, greeting punters, understanding their strange tastes and needs, and pimping their books."
--Guy Browning
(The Guardian column, 18 October 2003. Submitted by Lynette in Queensland)

"Show me a computer expert that gives a damn, and I'll show you a librarian."
--Patricia Wilson Berger
(Quoted in Chicago Tribune article, 29 June 1990, Tempo section, p. 1)

"I must say that I find television very educational.
The minute somebody turns it on,
I go to the library and read a book."
- Groucho Marx

Richard Needham:
For a well-rounded education, you could try curling up with good books and bad librarians.
(Jr is getting a t-shirt with this saying on it)

Louis Stanley Jast:
Perhaps the two most valuable and satisfactory products of American civilization are the librarian on the one hand and the cocktail in the other.
(or maybe this one)

Spider Robinson:
Librarians are the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don’t ever piss one off.

Hope you found these enlightening. If you find more out there let me know.

Love,
M

Shrimp Etouffee

Here is another recipe from the "Favorite Time-Saving Recipes" book that JR brought home. It is one that the family particularly likes and hardly takes any time at all.

Shrimp Etouffee

1 1/2 cups frozen chopped onion
1 cup frozen chopped green papper
1 tsp bottled minced garlic or 1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups quick-cooking rice
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
2 8-ounce packages frozen cooked shrimp

In a large skillet cook frozen onion, green pepper, garlic, and celery seed in butter over medium-high heat about 5 minutes or till the vegetables are tender but not brown, stirring occasionally.

While vegetables are cooking, cook rice according to package directions. For sauce, combine cornstarch, red pepper, black pepper, 1/4 cup water, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Stir the cornstarch mixture and tomato sauce into the cooked vegetables. Then stir in the frozen shrimp. Bring to boiling, then reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 3 minutes or just till the shrimp are heated through.

To serve, spoon sauce and shrimp over the hot cooked rice. Makes 4 servings.

Now that I got the actual recipe out of the way let me tell you how I do it. First the veggies.

I keep a scary number of these little "lifesavers in a bag" in my freezer. They make quick cooking a dream. Every 6 weeks or so they go on sale and I go chopped frozen vegetables crazy. It's a sickness, I know. So, next time they go on sale I say Snap them up! You'll be a happier and healthier person for it. And I'm not just saying that in order to make you as chopped frozen vegetable crazy as I am.

When I cook this recipe I grab whatever bag is handiest in the freezer, adjust the quantities and away I go.

The only thing that I spend any time on is chopping my own garlic. I love garlic. I buy big bags of it at Costco. Besides a few baked goods and deserts I use garlic in everything (sometimes even these items aren't exempt).

The celery seed I sometimes substitute plain ole chopped celery and if I pick the right frozen veggie bag it is already in there. SCORE!

The cornstarch. This is an item that I don't use much. In fact, I don't have any in the house right now. I tend to make a rue by tossing flour into the pan that I've cooked the veggies in. Works right nice.

The quick-cooking rice is another thing that I don't keep in the house. Though I do keep a bag or two of regular long grain, brown, and short grain rice in the house. They all take about 25 minutes to cook and I figure this gives me time to do the rest of the cooking or sipping a glass of wine or thinking up new ways to use wine in cooking or sipping more wine.

The shrimp is another staple in our freezer but to tell you the truth (and I will always tell you the truth. Probably, more truth than you wanted to know) I have been know to substitute this with Tofu. Does that make it Tofu Etouffee? Whatever!

Give this recipe a try. It is really very good and meets my firm rule of putting something on the dinner table quickly and of course cheaply.

Love,
M

Grand Canyon - Winter and Summer

Winter at the Grand Canyon.

Summer at the Grand Canyon.

We moved to Arizona in the summer of 2006 and found that it is compulsory to take visitors to the Grand Canyon. In honor of this hard and fast rule. We have now taken 2 trips to the Canyon. The first trip was in the winter and the latest trip was in the summer. I have to say that it is spectacular in both seasons. I'd like to share a few of my photos from each visit.

Check out the difference in the color of the sky. One of the nice things about Arizona is the light. I have to agree with Linda McCartney when she said that Arizona taught her about light (paraphrase). The light and shadows and contrasts in Arizona are an artist's dream.


Am I the only one that thinks this dead tree is great?

Just to tell you what a big dolt I can be I forgot my digital camera for the summer trip (just last week). So pardon the pictures from the box camera then scanned into Photoshop. The resolution isn't that great and I had to do a bit of adjustment on the color.

If I was really clever (you'll be able to tell I'm not) I would have taken photos from the same viewpoints for comparison. That would have been cool, that would have been interesting, that would have been so artsy, that would have meant that I had some foresight; none of that happened. If there are 2 pictures taken from the same viewpoint it was totally unplanned.

Zoom in on this photo. See the National Park visitors standing on the edge of the canyon.
If this looks dangerous It Is! It's not like there are hand rails.

During the summer months it is not unusual to get a rain storm. We get lightening, thunder, rain, and wind. Makes for some really wonderful clouds!


Ok, unplanned event!
This picture was taken in the winter and the one above it was taken in the summer. They were taken from about the same viewpoint. The biggest difference is the magnification. Wow! What are the odds?


During the winter there are hardly any clouds in the sky.
Makes a stark contrast to the red rocks.

I really like the way that the snow settles on the ledges.


The Grand Canyon can not be beat for awe inspiring vistas. The vastness of the place is incredible. Makes you realize how little space we humans occupy.
As I wax poetic about the Grand Canyon get a load of my niece's face.

She's not that impressed.
When you are 13 it is hard to be overawed by what she called, "a big ditch!"
God love her!

Love,
M