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Nov. 27th, 2008 @ 11:07 am Wegmans
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Those of you who have a nearby Wegmans that's a special, exciting grocery store don't appreciate that in Rochester, it's just a regular grocery store.

I went shopping yesterday. I wanted to drive to the "nice" Wegmans near my in-laws since they have a better selection. Last year when I did this at Christmas, I thought I knew where it was, but I didn't. I went the wrong way. Thing was, it was no big deal because I just ended up at another Wegmans and shopped there. This year I made sure I got directions.
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May. 24th, 2008 @ 09:11 pm Salsa del Muerte
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Some of you know I frequently enjoy spicy foods. Some have tasted my "Salsa Del Muerte" (and yes, I know it's grammatically incorrect, but that's where the funny comes from) which is basically salsa with as many habanero peppers as I can stand to put in it, along with the tomatoes, onions, cilantro, a bit of garlic, lime juice and salt.. This is especially fun when you whizz up the food processor and basically fill the house with noxious gases. And also when you get some on your cuticles, and you have a phantom burn at random times for several weeks afterwards. But man, is it good.
( I have finally met my match )
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Dec. 24th, 2007 @ 10:27 am Xmas
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: content
Current Music: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman (English Carol) - Mannheim Steamroller
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For the first time ever, Christmas is at our house. The in-laws are in. We're doing the big dinner today because the brother-in-law has to leave tomorrow afternoon.

I'm baking an apple pie. Recipe? Mostly this one, but with some modifications from an episode of America's Test Kitchen I watched, and some other tweaks. I can't leave anything alone. And it had to be vegan, so I used this instead of butter. It looked like it would work pretty well. We'll know in a few hours.

By the way, this is the first time I've ever baked an apple pie. This is a serious deficit in my culinary repertoire, and is being remedied today.

The rest of our hippie commie pinko dinner will be a roasted vegetable dish (carrots, celery, turnips, fennel, onion) with tofu, seitan, and sausage, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans, zucchini, and bread. I'm probably forgetting something. Oh, appetizers will be a relish tray, cheese and crackers, and nuts in the shell. Dessert is the aforementioned apple pie, pumpkin pie and ice cream (soy for the vegan).

Grooving in the family room to my Christmas mix. I bought a lot of CDs this year--Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Moody Blues, James Taylor, the "A Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrac, and thanks to [info]smbslt, John Denver and the Muppets--and added it to my other Christmas CDs (Mannheim Steamroller, Sarah McLachlan, Aimee Mann, Loreena McKennitt, the Cleveland Symphony, and some kids singing Christmas carols). Top it off with a few miscellaneous Christmas songs (TMBG, XTC, Tom Lehrer, The Pogues) and you get a perfectly eclectic mix of stuff. Play it on shuffle and it's even better.

Happy holidays!
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Sep. 17th, 2007 @ 09:39 pm How to use an oven
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We had a busy weekend--Saturday was the block party, and Sunday the kid's birthday party.

On Saturday we made a tray of mac and cheese for the block party. I mixed the ingredients, and threw it in the oven for 20 minutes. When I took it out, the top had started to burn, and I almost had ruined it. I figured it was just that I had left it in there too long and it wasn't as deep as it could have been. And it was still quite a hit, burned top and all. I saw at least one neighbor eating the crunchy top by itself.

Then Sunday we bought cake mix for cupcakes, which the kids were going to frost with colored frosting. I make the mix, painstakingly pour the batter into cupcake pans, and bake it. After 17 minutes, well they look strange. The tops are all misshapen, and several were burnt. I figured again, I had somehow left the food in too long, and also that our oven was drastically uneven in cooking. But it looked like most of the cupcakes would be salvageable and the kids would frost them and all would be well. As they cool however, it seems the bottoms are going to be soggy.

It was then I happened to look at the oven and notice it was set to "broil" instead of "bake". That would do it.

I quickly whipped up a bunch of vanilla cupcakes from scratch and baked them on "bake". They came out fine, once I actually baked them.

I realized the problem was on our old oven, to turn it on you had to select either "bake" or "broil" and then set the temperature. Our current one you just turn the temp dial, and there's another knob to select "bake" or "broil" so it's whatever you set it to last. I don't use the oven enough to remember to set it back or something. Lesson learned.
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Sep. 6th, 2007 @ 09:59 pm 2 quick points
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1) I sent off my passport to be renewed about 2 weeks ago. My new one showed up on Tuesday. Considering they're saying 8-12 weeks for passports, I was pleased. I guess renewals are faster, although there's nothing indicating that on the State Department website. It feels good knowing I can leave the country if I need to.

2) I haven't really watched an ad on TV in a while. What's up with this Oreo Dessert Pizza?
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Jul. 15th, 2007 @ 05:20 pm Kitchen dreams
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As many of you may know, I have dreams of redoing our kitchen. In fact, we had planned on it when we moved in, but life got in the way. We're contemplating doing it next year, but there's a lot of ifs before that happens.

But it doesn't stop me from looking and thinking. We have a few things in mind--we will keep our fridge and dishwasher for now, which we bought when we moved in, we want real wood cabinets (probably oak although I'll try and be flexible. Painted wood or anything described as "French" is right out.) Other than the real wood (and I guess I'd try for recycled wood) I'd like it to be as green as possible--recycled counter tops, linoleum, energy efficient lighting, etc. I want an undermount stainless steel sink. Farmer sinks are right out, I believe they'll look silly in 20 years. I want a kitchen that will not look silly in 20 years, because I don't intend on doing it again. So a classic look is in order as well. I also don't need travertine, marble, or expensive stones that are difficult to clean and maintain. Ideally if I could the whole kitchen could just be hosed down. I'd be happy with stainless steel industrial style stuff where useful.

The open question is the range. I used to lust after Thermador ranges, and they're nice, but I think now I'm shooting for a BlueStar or perhaps Capital. Basically, nothing pisses me off more than a nice range that never gets used. I want a killer stir fry, and these are two ranges for the home that can do it, and they actually cost less than other professional-style ranges. Of course I worry about the reliability, but I can think of that later.

But today, I was watching a PBS show about pizza, and I thought about how cool it would be to have a wood-fired pizza oven. Turns out you can build one yourself. That's what I want. My own wood-fired pizza oven. Outside, I figure. It proably wouldn't even cost that much. I'd probably use it more than my grill.
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May. 23rd, 2007 @ 07:36 pm Pizza for dinner
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We ordered pizza. We order from any one of about 4 or 5 places usually, based upon what valid coupons we have for where, and they're all pretty good.

Tonight we ordered from Italian Village. I like it a little more because their domain is ivpizza.com.

IV Pizza.

Mmmmm.
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Jan. 21st, 2007 @ 08:56 pm End of week
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As in, weekend.

Went to dinner with [info]quietchris, [info]yesthattom, [info]origamislayer, and [info]stitchinthyme at Danielle's in town, which we don't go to enough for how good it is. So that was fun. Also hung out and talked, which we hadn't done in a while. Hadn't seen them all in several months, which is unusual for Chris and Tom since they live nearby, but we've all been busy with life stuff.

The rest of my conference was good. I spent the rest of the weekend cleaning and doing errands and stuff like that. Mostly a low-key weekend for various reasons. Oh and let's hear it for it actually being winter now instead of that creepy, way too warm, climate change shit we had the rest of this month.

I upgraded SlimServer to 6.5.1 as well. So far it still works.
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