I made four batches of pumpkin bread yesterday, 2 at a time. In the end there are 6 small loaves and 2 bigger ones. And what nice loaves they are! Pretty brown on the outside, smell so tasty, crispy crust- (yesterday) and they taste good too. So don't disdain the recipes that come with your appliances. Our recipe came with the Sunbeam Mixmaster.

More melty cheese

Following the last post, Donald and Mike and I had more Mexican food. We went to Don Chilito's for the first time. It's a place that needs an introduction at the door, to tell you what to do. It's loud in there and a little mystifying for newcomers. You are first presented with a choice of doors to enter, one for take out and one for cafeteria line. Cafeteria line? After entering the cafeteria line door, we found that you are to look at the menu on the wall, then tell your order to the (white) person behind the cafeteria counter. Next you stand and wait to be handed a plate with food on it. While waiting we wondered about chips and salsa, and if they were complimentary. Then you scoot down to the cashier at the end to pay. As we headed to fill our cups at the self serve drink station, we saw what looked like a salad bar. Me being me, I went to check it out. Turns out that's where you get your chips and salsa, as well as sopapillas. The food was adequate, and pretty tasty. I'd eat there again if I was in the area.

Yesterday we made our own Mexican-style food. We made tostadas with beans, seasoned meat, cheese, sour cream, tomatoes, red onions and lettuce. Those turned out very tasty. We also tried making our own queso blanco, like the delicious melty white cheese you get in Mexican restaurants. That was less of a success. It was certainly melty, but not nearly as good at restaurant cheese. Probably due to the quality of melting cheese available at Price Chopper in KC, MO.

Chili more difficult than anticipated

The first time I made chili, I sent Donald to the store with instructions to buy (amongst other things) a can of Ro-tel, a can of red beans, a can of black beans, and a can of crushed tomatoes. He came back with a can of Ro-tel, a can of red beans, a can of seasoned black beans, and a can of crushed tomatoes in sauce. That chili turned out pretty tasty, so I've been buying the exact same products since.

This time I bought my stuff at a different store, so I didn't get the same things. I don't think most of it mattered, except the Ro-tel. I usually get a can of the regular kind, and all is tasty. This time, they were out. All they had was the hot Ro-tel. I thought, whatever, got a can of it and a can of the best choice ro-tel, and planned to do half each. I figured that would be fine. Well, it turns out that when they say hot, they meant HOT. I didn't even use half a can, and my chili is frikkin spicy. The hot Ro-tel includes jalapeños and a small percentage of habeneros. It's pretty damn hot, and I sure didn't need to add any cayenne pepper this time.

Donald doesn't really like the spicy, and it was hotter than I wanted, so I looked online for too spicy chili remedies. Number one was to peel a couple potatoes and toss 'em in to absorb some of the spicy. I did that, then went back to the computer, where I learned that the potato thing is BS and doesn't work. Other suggestions were to add honey, sugar, or brown sugar, applesauce, lemon, peanut butter, etc. The most sensible solution is of course to make a batch of chili with no spice, then mix the two to dilute the spicy. I didn't have enough ingredients to do that so I tried adding a few things. The results were tasted, then I resigned myself to putting a lot of sour cream on top, which I planned to do anyway.

Moral of the story: Just use the regular Ro-tel.

Candied Walnuts

I'm very pleased with the walnuts. I'll say this was actually cooking since it involved measuring things, breaking an egg, and using the oven. The recipe for 1 cup of walnuts uses 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1 egg white. Getting the walnuts onto the pan to bake is pretty sticky, but now that I've done it once I'll do it better next time. These are damn tasty.

Mmmm... meatballs

I mostly wasted yesterday's good weather. I had a meeting at noon, and as I drove to it with the windows down, I thoroughly enjoyed the weather. I wished I had some errands to do so I could further enjoy the weather. But I didn't, so after the meeting I helped my mom make sauce and meatballs. I was going to fry the meatballs while mom formed them, but the damn oil kept spattering me so I had to quit. I don't know how she does it. Maybe after years of meatball- making she's developed super heat resistant arms. We switched, I formed some meatballs then chopped onion and garlic for the sauce. My left hand still smells like onions. Does this happen to anyone else? It doesn't matter how much I wash my hand, it still take a couple days to go away.

After meatballs were finished I went back to my place and pretty much played Oblivion the rest of the day. And my hair smelled like delicious meatballs, which I didn't even get to eat. (I'll get to eat them today though, so it's okay.) But it was pretty rough, smelling tasty meatballs all afternoon, then thinking about meatballs at dinner time and settling for macaroni and cheese. What's worse is that I could have had the meatballs for dinner, if I'd only cooked some pasta. I didn't know that until it was too late and the the mac and cheese was done. :(

Easy to Please

For dinner last night I made hamburger gravy. This is very simple, and Donald loves it. You brown hamburger and onions together, drain, then add chopped celery. Next, dump in a can of cream of mushroom soup. Finally, let that simmer for awhile. You eat it over mashed potatoes or noodles. Cream of mushroom soup makes beefy goodness.

The sun is coming in the south windows of the computer room right now, hitting Anna who is flopped on my lap purring. What could be better? Sun and lap, all in one. Kitty life so easy!

More tasty dinner, and not too funny

I cooked again! At the theater we decided to do an Italian- themed potluck on Sunday between shows. Yesterday, my mom and I made spaghetti sauce and meatballs. It was fun to cook together, and delicious too. Afterwards, my hair smelled like meatballs. My hair seems to absorb food smells very easily. I smelled delicious. So now I have delicious sauce and meatballs to take.

After the show last night I caught the end of UMKC's production of Noises Off. Verdict: I'm not sorry I didn't see the beginning. One major element that the movie does better than the stage production is focus your attention. I saw the last 10-15 minutes of Act 2, where there is a lot of chaotic running around. In the movie, they put the camera on what they want you to see. On stage, there's so much mess that you don't know where you should be looking until you realize you've missed something. This is more of a problem with the staging then the actual show. I'm sure that professionals can (and have) pulled it off nicely.

Next there was a ridiculous little, I dunno, intermission show or something while the set changed. They played Mission Impossible music and a guy dashed around playing commando or something while the turntable turned and the set revolved around to the front. It was the single most amateur thing I've seen on the Spencer Stage. I was kind of embarrassed, actually.

Then there was Act 3. Another issue I have with this production is the voices of some of the actors weren't strong enough to project the dialogue. Act 3 isn't funny if you don't know how much they're doing wrong from Act 1, and you can't tell how much they're doing wrong if you can't hear what they're saying. They also seemed to have cribbed a lot of blocking straight from the movie, which was even more obvious in Act 2.

Verdict: Watch the movie. It has Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter, Marilu Henner, Julie Hagerty, Mark Linn-Baker, Denholm Elliot and young Nicollette Sheridan running around in her underwear. It is hilarious.

P.S.- The lighting wasn't any good either.

Tasty dinner

I actually cooked today. From scratch! I bought the cookbook Macaela recommended, Cheap. Fast. Good! and today I tried my first recipe from it. First I made the Thai-Style Peanut Sauce, then I used it to make a pasta dish. The sauce was made in my blender, so it was easy and fast. The longest part was chopping up the fresh ginger. Oddly enough, this peanut sauce used only 1/2 cup peanut butter to make about 2 cups sauce.

For the Thai Spaghetti Toss, I cooked chicken pieces in my wok. Next I added onions and snap peas, then bean sprouts and half the peanut sauce, then mixed in the pasta and added crushed peanuts. I'm pretty damn pleased with it. Donald thought it was a little bit bland, which could be fixed by merely adding more sauce. (The other half of the batch of sauce went in the freezer for next time.) It made 4 good sized servings, and Donald even had seconds. Success! And now I have 2 dinners to take to the theater with me. If anybody's interested, I can post recipes.

Still here

After I posted on Friday, I FINALLY got ahold of the doctor's office and FINALLY got my hands on a new prescription and FINALLY put it in the mail on Saturday. Finally. It really really shouldn't have been that difficult. I'm certainly not planning to go back to St. Luke's Internal Medicine again. They were astonishingly unhelpful.

As for our rent, we decided to get a 9 month lease. We had an appointment to go over the new lease, but it got canceled and we don't have a new appointment yet. So we've gotten nowhere with that. Donald's going to go ahead and pay the rent for next month at the same rate we've been paying, since there's no way we'll get a new lease signed by Sept. 1. Plenty of time to argue about stupid crap details in the sample lease Donald picked up.

Donald and I decided we should eat out less. We're spending too damn much money on delicious but unnecessary meals. Or maybe I just decided it- at least it seems that way with all the crap Donald's been giving me about it. :P In the time left before I'm sucked into tech rehearsals, I've been trying to cook more. For dinner Wednesday I broiled us a steak. KC Strips were on sale, so I got a great price. It was mostly a steaky success, but ended up overdone because somebody thought it was too red in the middle. Next time I won't listen to somebody, and he'll eat the damn steak however I cook it. I also made instant mashed potatoes and frozen green beans. For dinner last night I reheated the sides, and baked breaded chicken tenderloins. While the food I prepared was certainly not cooking from scratch, it's at least a step above frozen pizza. (Which we had Monday.) Gotta start somewhere. :)

Last Saturday Donald completely and totally surprised me by making me breakfast in bed. He said he was worried that I'd hear him and wake up. I've gotten so used to sleeping through the noises he makes while getting ready for work every morning, that I had no idea what was happening until he walked in with a tray. He made me scrambled eggs and toast with jam. It was great. :) It was also a little weird to be eating right after I got up. I've gotten in the habit of getting up and puttering around on my computer for awhile before eating breakfast. Just like I'm doing now!