Saturday, September 24, 2011

BBQ Pork Chinese style (Char Siu)

Hello my lovelies! Come over to my other blog and check out BBQ pork Chinese style. Last weekend we went for pulled pork, this weekend is all about the chinese food! Mmm, I've made the sauce and it smells delicious. I can't wait to cook it tomorrow afternoon!! I might not even invite others so I can have it all myself!!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Spicy Chicken with Peanut Sauce

So I just posted this on the other blog I was talking about last week. I am so excited to eat it!

http://somanyspices.blogspot.com/2011/09/spicy-chicken-in-peanut-sauce.html

Get over there and read all the delicious recipes, and cook them! I hope you enjoy them all!

Monday, September 12, 2011

"Back to school...

back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool..." Between Adam Sandler's song and the Staples commercial, back to school time is a wonderful time of the year. Even if I'm not actually going back to school, I still enjoy it!



We have made so many great things for our classroom (with so much being purchased at back to school bargain prices!) and it's only been a week!

Here is our awesome class tree. We had a paper one that a certain student loved to rip off the wall daily so we messed him up and painted it. He ran over the day it was painted and said "Oh! No rip!" (he's almost 4, but has the verbal skills of a younger child.) Now he sits at the bottom and looks at the acorns we have decorated our tree...almost like he's plotting how to get them down.


We've not got an owl I drew sitting on the branch. He was in the knot on the tree, but that was too low. Now he's watching class from the tree. And we move him around so the kids come in from school and have to go find the owl. It's adorable.

We are doing a lot of coloring activities now too so tonight while I waited for the laundry to finish I sat here and sharpened every colored pencil. Thank heavens for electric sharpeners! Now the kids can actually use the pencils. Novel idea, I know :)


Ian's started school today too. He really liked it which is awesome. I got him a desk this semester too so he's even more excited about that! Sad but true haha. He loves having a place he can put his computer and printer and papers that doesn't have to get cleaned up when company comes or when we want to have dinner at the table! I love it too. Between the desk, the gazelle, and the tv set up for a wii back in the second bedroom, it's a good thing we don't have a kid yet! I'm not sure where one would go! (Obviously we'd rearrange/get rid of stuff but it's funny to think of just putting a bassinet on top of the desk haha)

I hope you are all enjoying back to school time! Good luck to you!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Last night I decided it was time for a party up in here. So I got myself a pork shoulder and a bottle of coca-cola, and some rolls.

I called all my friends because it was short notice and put it up on facebook.

This morning at 5 am I placed an onion I had chopped the night before, a pork shoulder roast (fat side up) that I had liberally salted and peppered, and a cup of soda in the crock pot and put it on high.

Around nine I added another 1/2 cup or so of soda. At about 12:30 (after church and inviting some more friends!) I pulled the biggest fat chunks off and started shredding the meat. It came apart with tongs and I left the bone in. I hear it has more flavor that way.

At 4 I pulled the bone out and added a bottle of honey bbq sauce. I've kept it on high this whole time, but turned it down to low when I added the sauce. It was amazing tasting before the sauce, but I love sloppy pulled pork.

I had another bottle of sauce for when it was served which was nice because it gave everyone the opportunity to make it even messier!! Ian had brought home some macaroni salad and potato salad, so it was a full meal! I also made my chewy lemon cookies again. I figured it was a nice flavor balance with that!

Recipe


1 pork shoulder roast
1-2 cups of coca-cola (any soda will work, it just has to be regular, no diet)
1 yellow onion, diced
salt and pepper
1 bottle of favorite bbq sauce


Lay the onions on the bottom of the crock pot and then put in the meat fat side up. Pour one cup of soda over the meat and put the crock pot on high. Let cook 4 hours and add more soda. Cook another 3 hours and shred meat. 4 hours later add the bbq sauce and put on low or warm until you are ready to serve.

Total 11+ hours



It was so much fun having people over today. And now that I'm going to start posting to this blog (go check it out!!) I'm going to be having even more recipes. A friend started it and it's going to be awesome! I can't wait to get cooking, though most of mine will probably be on the weekends, that's the easiest for me to have time to try new things!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

End of Time

How wonderful does this video make you feel?!

It's only September but I'm planning for November...

I'm cast iron pan shopping today. They're some trouble, but I do love them. Macy's is having a Labor Day sale and it's only $25! Regular $55! I like that a lot. So now I have to decide if I'm healthy enough to go down there/convince Ian of the importance of the pan so he'll go get it. I want to go down on Monday for the museum or the state fair (also if I'm healthy enough) but they'll only hold it until tomorrow night. Unless I call tomorrow and have them hold it. I don't know what to do!

I am so ready to cook up soups and stews and roasts. I am already thinking about Thanksgiving dinner. I want to have Thanksgiving here in my apartment and invite people over that can't go home. But I want to cook the turkey and make the fixings. It'll be our first thanksgiving on our own. I am SO excited.


The only thanksgiving dinner I have ever made by myself was a stuffed salmon fillet with linguine and a bottle of sparkling cider.  It was delighful but lonely.

Anyone have a good Thanksgiving cooking fail story? :)

Google Scribe...best friend...what? They're the same!

I was thinking today about how I loved T9 on my old phone because I could start writing a word and it would finish it for me.

Then today while trying to fix my other post I read about google scribe. It is a text prediction "app" for lack of a better word.  I will type out a word or two and it will start adding the (but giving me the chance to reject) other words following. Okay, let me give you an example. I'll start writing a sentence with "Today" and we'll see where it takes me...

Today I am going to... That's what it started. Like when you search in google for something and then it pops up suggestions. The tricky part is to accept a suggestion you hit space. But sometimes I just want a space, and not the word. But it's new, there will be kinks. And that is why proofreading is KEY! (Don't hassle me if I have something wrong haha)

I see this being my new favorite writing prompt. Kinda like this site... http://www.webook.com/911writersblock

Totally go there and try it out. I think between the two of these I might get back into writing. Remember back when I wanted nothing more than to be a writer? Yeah. I wonder why that never happened. I have written a lot, and people say it's good, it just doesn't seem good enough to me I guess. I submitted a poem to a publisher once. I'm pretty sure I still have my rejection slip.  But it was hand signed :)

When I was living in Iowa I listened to a radio show every Sunday night. The host described it as "a radio drama show with radio actors, sound effects, and music and and everything?" It was incredible. To have your story on the show you had to submit the script AND your rejection slip. The more slips the better. It was awesome. I swear, publishers don't know what's good! I still remember the stories. I'm sure my parents thought it was weird that I would slip off to bed at 8:45 pm to make sure I got everything done and ready by 9 and got my radio set, because seriously, it was non-stop awesome for the next hour.

See, I told you this writing prompt stuff made you write more. I haven't thought of this show for years. Many, many I have got to find it somewhere. I-tunes saved the day! 27 episodes. Thank heavens this medicine has wired me. I am going to go listen. EEK! Ah, even the intro music is making me giddy. Please, go listen to one. Maybe even Artie Azzetti one. He is this precocious child who gets into trouble. Kinda the Dennis the Menace of radio? Love it. Toodles folks! It's time to listen to magic.

It's feeling a lot like fall because...

1) I wore a sweater to work yesterday! It's green with a pink drangonfly on it. I love it!!


2) I've got my first bout of strep of the season. You could set a clock to my strep cycle...if you wanted a really slow, every 3-4 month clock. I woke up today and it was 46 degrees out, which felt nice for my fever when I went to the doctor. I told the nurse I had strep and she said, "Uh huh, you have a sore throat..." and then asked me all the other questions nurses ask. The doctor came in and in less than 30 seconds of examining me he said, "Wow, the nurse should have been able to tell this was strep, not just a sore throat!" He was amazed I could still sound normal while talking and that I hadn't come in earlier. It didn't feel like strep until this morning, but he said it must have been like this a few days (explaining the fever and other symptoms) for it to look how it did. And the last few days I've just kinda felt icky and haven't eaten much of anything that would have irritated my throat so I guess that didn't trigger anything either.


I looked for a picture online because I wanted to show you how yucky my throat was, but didn't want to take a picture of my own throat, but the ones online are WAY funky! Mine is gross, but not like those ones. It just looks/feels like someone took a knife and chopped little cuts at my ginormous tonsils. You're welcome for the mental image.


So I don't leave you on a gross note, now that it's feeling like fall, I am busting out my fall tunes.


3) This (and most of Ingrid Michaelson's songs) has been stuck in my head. Fall just reminds me of falling in love. I'm not sure why, since most of my relationships have been in the spring and summer, but I love the way this song makes me feel. You should also definitely check out "Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop" by Landon Pigg and "Love You in the Fall" by Paul Westerberg (not a real video, but just listen in the background haha).





Enjoy the end of summer folks, fall is coming and I am SO excited!