Cookin'

Today I broke in my shiny new (got it in May for the wedding but hadn't used it yet) Crock Pot. Here's what I made:

Wild Rice Hot Dish

2 cups wild rice, uncooked
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped celery (that's about 1 stalk)
8-12 oz can mushrooms, drained
1 pounds cut up chicken tenders (they were on a great sale)
6 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp parsley

1. Wash and drain rice.
2. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker, mix well.
3. Cover. Cook on Low 4-6 hours, or until rice is finished.

It turned out pretty decent, if rather bland. I cooked it on high for the last 45 min. or so because we were hungry and the rice wasn't quite done yet. The celery, almonds, onions and mushrooms don't seem to have added a lot of flavor. Next time I'll probably use more onions. I'll also probably add some cayenne pepper; not enough to really taste but enough to feel more warm. We had garlic bread with it. A salad would have been a nice complement.

Any suggestions on making this yummier? It was fine, and plenty edible, but not something that I'm going to crave. All told, it wasn't hard to prepare, is full of healthy whole grains, and is quite filling.

Merry X-mas and whatnot

This weekend had been brought to you by the letter C. For cooking.

I'm giving food presents to family, so I already made 8 batches of Chex mix, and put it in seasonally-colored containers. I also made some of my marbled pretzels. Saturday I made pumpkin bread to finish it off. Mike helped. Then we started on the food for X-mas eve. We made the rice mixture for the ronginis and refrigerated it. By this time I neded dinner, so we took a break. Then we made the canolli filling and refrigerated that. Then my mom formed all the ronginis and put them back in the fridge.

Sunday I made that crunchy cabbage salad that everyone likes, and put the ham and sweet potatoes in the oven while they were at church. Once they got back it got hectic. But it all came down to cooking ronginis in not one but TWO cast iron skillets. I was probably cooking 18 little tasty rice balls all at the same time at one point. It was a bit harder than just doing one, but faster. I think we ate about 6:30, and all was well. A while after dinner, I filled the canollis for dessert.

Now we're up because we're going to Donald's grandma's house at 10. (But when we get bac, I'm eating more ronginis, yes yes.)

Ha ha!

Zach Braff and Jason Bateman... looks pretty funny to me!

http://movies.aol.com/movie/fast-track/28104/trailer

Use your noodle

Update #2

Okay, we figured out the trick to hitting the ball. It's timing. I was hitting it too soon, most of the time. I played for a little while yesterday, and my shoulder is now full of aches. Sadly, I have a light plot to work on and that means a lot of mousing. Sigh.

Update:

Wii Sports is both fun, and a major pain in the ass. It's friggin' impossible to hit the tennis ball with any kind of accuracy or consistency. Donald and I both tried for about half an hour before quitting in annoyance. Yarghhh!!

The tale of waiting in line

12:20- Donald and I arrived at the Target. There were 5 guys there already who had set up their chairs, and were staying warm inside a car. We added our names to the sign-up list, (#s 6 and 7) set up our chairs, got our blankets and stuff and settled in. Donald played some Mario Kart on his DS. Soon more people joined the line. The girl right after us didn't have a blanket or chair or anything, but was only holding the spot in line until her aunt got there to take over. People would drive by every now and then to see how many people were in line, and ask how many Wiis were supposed to be available. Donald read online that Targets were supposed to have between 10 and 50, so we figured we were safe. We passed the time chatting with folks. After awhile Donald and I moved our chairs back behind around a corner to stay out of the wind. At this point, it was probably aroung 45º.

1:30AM- I had to pee, so I went off to find a nice all night gas station. I figured I'd go home if I didn't find one, but I found one that wasn't far, and warmed up a bit while driving around. When I got back I played some Meteos. The line slowly grew. There were folding camp chairs, many blankets, hats, coats, coveralls, etc. One of the guys in the front pulled a shopping cart up and curled up with his blankets inside that. Two of the other guys in front pulled their camp chairs close together to overlap their legs and save heat. They had a pretty cozy looking nest. Several people had several blankets, and covered themselves entirely. Donald and I were pretty snug in our corner. We parked our camp chairs right next to each other and wore our warm coats. Then we covered our legs with our light jackets, and shared a blanket across both of us. The hardest part to keep warm was our legs, since the air circulated freely under the chairs. The whole line hibernated quietly for a couple hours.

3AM- Donald left to go to the gas station. I decided to get up and stretch, and hop around to warm up some. There was a general rousing of energy around this time, and several people got up to move around and talk more. Then it died down again.

4:30- I went back to the gas station, and brought Donald back a coffee. It was warm, at least. After I got back, Donald went up to the front to chat, so I tried to find a way to get comfortable on 2 camp chairs. I put my backpack on the other chair to lean on, and tried to form a pillow out of my second scarf. Mostly, I think I was leaning on a box of Cheez-its, which do not make a good pillow. I did manage to fall asleep for awhile, and was relatively warm. (hooray new boots!) More people arrived.

6- 6:30- More people showed up. The list eventually had more than 50 people on it. I couldn't really sleep anymore, since a loud parking lot sweeping truck had arrived along with a guy using a leaf blower to blow trash out from between the cars. At this point I was starting to get actually cold, so I got up to move around more. People were starting to mill around near the door, so Donald and I put our stuff in the car and headed to the door area. About 6:50 the first guy in the line got everyone to line up in order of the list, to make sure that the manager wasn't mobbed by people when he finally came out. This got all the people who had just showed up out of the damn way.

6:55- Manager gave out 15 vouchers. Person number 15 had been there with us since 2:30AM, so everybody after that was disappointed. Donald and I drove home for a bit, to eat and such.

7:45- We grouped up with our fellow stubborn people.
8AM- They let us in to go buy our Wiis, and go home to bed. I was pretty incoherent by this point, so it was good that Donald drove. It was a looong night, but worth it.

Wii is big fun! It comes with a sports game, which is way more fun than I thought it would be. I especially like bowling and tennis, but I suck at baseball. The controllers make the whole game playing experience totally different that before. It's easiest to do most of the motions while standing up, to begin with. My arm hurts. :(

Wii are so very tired

Quick summary of today(Sunday, really):

12:30AM- 7AM: Waited in line for Wii at Ward Parkway Target
7- 7:30: Got vouchers, went home to eat a bit
7:30-8:30: Back to Target, purchased Wiis, back home
8:30-12:30PM: Slept
12:30-3: Ate, showered, unpacked Wii, etc.
3-9: Played Wii with Mike, Rocco picked up his Wii, short break in there somewhere to go get a sammich. I made 4 more batches of chex mix
9PM- 2AM: Mike left, Donald and I fell asleep on the couch
2AM: Got up, put away the chex mix, turned off all the lights, got ready for bed
3AM (ish) Blessed sleep again!

My feet WERE warm

We got a Wii! We waited outside Target for 6 1/2 hours, but we did it. :)
More later.

Now my feet will be warm

Saturday morning I won an auction on ebay for a pair of boots. I was thinking they'd be here by next week sometime, but the Fedex guy ditched the box on my doorstep today. I got them for $102 shipped, which made me pretty happy since they retail for $125. I got a size 7 even though my other Merrell's are 6 1/2 because I want to be able to wear thicker sox. They are all fuzzy inside to keep my toes toasty. I'm very happy now to have a pair of shoes that encloses my whole foot to keep me dry and warm... now that it's 64º out. You should all thank me for the warm weather I've ensured by getting a warm pair of boots.

Wiki- wiki, where'd the time go?

The other night Donald and I were watching a thing about the Blue Man Group on PBS. (Let it be said that you should attend a performance if you have the chance, because it was very entertaining.) They do all kinds of percussion with weird instruments like these big plastic tubes, and the creator guys were talking about sonic influences and they mentioned the Moog synthesizer, which Donald hadn't heard of. I read an article about Moog and his weird noises a couple of years ago, so I went to Wikipedia to recap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moog_synthesizer. Then I read (not necessarily in this order) about Robert Moog, and Abbey Road, and the "Paul is Dead" phenomenon- which was particularly interesting, and I was able to listen to a clip of Revolution 9 backwards, which is creepy. Then I read about Pink Floyd, and listened to a bunch of clips, then The Dark Side of The Moon, where I read about the way they recorded and cut together a lot of non-music sounds to create this fantastic album; and Super Audio CDs and Wish You Were Here. Also, David Bowie, and Baba O'Riley, which is performed in the Blue Man rock show. Then it was about 2 hours later. The moral of the story is Wikipedia will suck up your life, in an entertaining manner filled with odd trivia.

Edit: Moral # 2 is that awesome music has been made using a Moog Synthesizer. I didn't want to forget that.

Take that, ice

In an effort to increase the numbers of days we can get up the driveway in winter, we added a drainpipe down the driveway to the street on the gutter next to the steps. The gutter drained directly onto the driveway, right at the point where it freezes and makes it impossible to get over. It's a real pain in the ass to clear the whole driveway then not be able to get up it again a day later because the melting snow refroze.

The landlord said he'd let us take the cost of supplies off next month's rent. Great! My dad and I went to the hardware store and bought the goodies. When we got back I called my neighbor Jon to see if he wanted to come out and help, which he certainly did, because he loves that kind of stuff. So we drilled and cut to the right length and got finished just as it was getting too dark to see. I hope it helps! Now if only they'd clean all the crap out of our gutters, that would help too.

Donald and I are enjoying the hell out of Lego Star Wars on Gamecube. Jim, you and Amy should get this game. I'ts nice to have something we can play together. You can play by yourself with a computer partner, or 2-player with a human partner. The game basically plays through the story of Episodes 1-3, an you collect Lego kit pieces to get bonuses. The little Lego characters are so cute. :)

Avenue Jew

Avenue Q + Fiddler on the roof = funny.

Futile

Mike and I went out in search of a Wii this morning. We failed, naturally. We left my place at 6:30. Wal-Mart #1 let us in their doors at 7, only to have the World's Most Unhelpful Clerk look somehow mystified and annoyed when we asked about Wiis. She said they only had 4, and they were going to the people who'd waited since last night. Fine. Wal-Mart #2 had 8, all claimed by the line of people sitting comfortably near the electronics counter in folding chairs. Wal-Mart #3 looked like the Wal-Mart the Time Forgot, but also had only 8, already gone. The clerk (who was sympathetic and quite helpful) thought more might arrive in the morning truck, between 7:30 and 10:30. We gave up and headed home. I went back to bed about 9. Nothing surprising in this trip, but I did feel just a little hopeful at times. Bah!

Crafty

I started making our holiday cards yesterday. See, I say "holiday" beacuse the holiday season isn't all about christmas, at the very least there's New Year's too, not to mention all the other religious and non-religious celebrations. And people who say "happy holidays" aren't trying to kill christmas, they're just coving all the bases. [/tangent]

So the cards- they're kind of a collage this year. I started by out cutting the paper. I make the cards from watercolor paper that comes in great big sheets so I use my x-acto and my cutting mat to make card sized pieces of paper. (Next year I must remember that I used up all the paper and buy more.) I also tore the red paper into smaller pieces, and cut the gold paper into smaller pieces. I printed pictures on photo paper, and cut them up too. So far I'm on my 3rd x-acto blade. I went to the paper store to buy envelopes, and the post office for stamps, and the library to pick up a CD. Then I started putting them together. When I quit for the night, I had about 15 cards all ready to go. I can probably have them out by the end of the week. This is fun, but after several hours I need one big stretch.

New games

Yesterday was Mike's birthday. Happy 28! Robyn stayed on the couch the night before, so when we got up I decided to make waffles. Mike came over to show us Lego Star Wars for gamecube, which looks pretty fun. You can even chop JarJar up with your lightsaber sometimes. Yay! Then we played one of the slowest scrabble games ever, while we did our best to leave ourselves nowhere to play and no decent letters to start from. Stupid scrabble.

After some early dinner/ late lunch, we went to Target in search of new games to play. Just outside the Target in the Ward Parkway mall, there was a game shop set up for the holidays. We decided to go with the board game Settlers of Catan and a card game, 5 Kings. The Settlers one seemed insanely complicated while were were trying to get started, but once we got into it was pretty fun. You try to build towns and roads, and get control of resources in order to win. We took 5 Kings to the coffeehouse to play, where the only table left was next to creepy guy. :( That was also fun. It's basically a rummy game, but the deck has a 5th suit, and each hand has a different number of cards and a different wild card. So the first hand, you each get 3 cards and the 3 is wild. The 5th hand, you get 5 cards and the 5 is wild, etc. I think it's going to be a good game to play with just about any number of people, and quick to teach to new ones.

First snow

Don't you hate when you go to bed with a headache, excpecting it to go away- but then it's still there when you wake up? Gnneeehhh..... I'm gonna take an advil and a hot shower.

I finished Paper Mario last night. The end boss wasn't too hard to beat, but that was because Donald and I looked online for tips. The worst part was sitting through all the cut scene bits.

Yesterday morning I covered 3 more windows with plastic. Then I went to make banana bread at my folk's house, only to find out halfway through that we needed more flour. Mom and I went to the store, and it started snowing just as we were heading back. By the time the banana bread came out of the oven around 4, there was 2" on the ground. By the time Donald got sent home early at 5 again, there was probably about 4. As much of a pain as it is to deal with snow, it sure is pretty to watch. My parents have a birdfeeder outside the window, and that's nice to watch too.

Right this moment, my next door neighbor is trying to clear the driveway. I just looked out the window and saw him borrow the snowblower from my dad. It's not all bad sharing a driveway. I know I'm not compelled to try to clear it, but if Jon wants to, great. If my head didn't feel so shitty I would probably go help him.