It’s not even birthday time.

We’ll celebrate anyway.

***

Use any white cake, divide it in six bowls. Add gel or paste food coloring to each. Meaghan baked hers in a smaller round pan, one layer at a time. Two pans would go even faster.

Edit: Meaghan blogged it.

It’s adapted slightly from Looney Spoons.

Take a couple chicken breast and slice ‘em up. While they are sauteing, start the fettuccine noodles. Don’t have those? Use spaghetti. Any long and thin noodle is great. I break mine in half so we’re not twirling all night.

And now for the sauce:

Sautee 1 or 2 cloves of garlic in 2 tblspoons butter. C’mon, it’s only two.

Mix 1 1/2 cups 2% milk with 1 1/2 tablespoons flour. Add to the above after one minute. Don’t let the garlic brown.

Whisk this on medium till it starts to thicken. Reduce heat to low, and stir in 1/3 c parmesan cheese. Good Parmesan, not the stuff in the cardboard shaker thingy. You can halve this if you’re not a huge parm fan.

Simmer that for a minute or two till your cheese is melted. You’ve been stirring noodles and flipping chicken, too right?

Back to the sauce – stir in 1/4 cup low fat sour cream. Heat for another minute or two, maybe drain them noodles.

Serve immediately. you can toss everything together in the pot, or add things to each person’s plate like we do.

Me: everything
Rom: chicken, noodles, light on the sauce
Meg: noodles & sauce
Emma: noodles with some grated cheese on top.

Can you see me now? Basically the blog was down because of spam. And I get hit hard with spam because my email address is on an old domain with the same address for quite a few years. It’s been a persistent issue, and you may have noticed any one of our sites blipping or glitching in the early morning hours. So it finally took a big hard nosedive yesterday morning.

The short version, was I had to “unhook” the atypicalife.net part from the rest of the site. It kept my blog down, but the rest of the sites could come back up. Considering the part I needed to get to kept going down while trying to get in there, it was an interesting two hours. I also had to figure out how to get my site back up while sending my mail elsewhere.

Seems to be working, although I will be phasing out my old email address and using a new one.

Mom and Carl are here and we’ve unloaded the truck, sorted through all the stuff (sent back what we don’t want…) taken Mom into town shopping, chopped all the veggies, made fabric pumpkins for the centerpiece, and… I dunno. I think they are playing on the Wii and watching Shrek 3.

The pots are bubbling away on the stove, and I just glazed the ham. I’m at the spot where I have a ten to fifteen minute lull and then I can drain, mash, and present. The menu? Well, I know you are on the edge of your seat waiting.

A boneless cooked ham
Apricot glaze

Take 1/2 cup apricot jam, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1.5 tablespoons vinegar (cider if you have it), 1 tsp mustard power and 1/2 tsp cloves. Mix and heat in saucepan. Pour over ham 15 minutes before it is done and finish baking uncovered

Carrots and turnips, cooked together and mashed
Mashed potatoes
fresh green beans
brown sugar baked squash

quarter and gut a buttercup squash, place in baking pan. bake for a half hour or so. add a small knob of butter and a couple spoons of brown sugar to hollowed out bits. Finish baking. when done, use a large spoon to scrape it all off into a bowl, squash included, leaving skins behind.

Mom also brought potato stuffing (which I have to get the recipe for AGAIN and put it in my blog this time) and pumpkin pie for dessert.

Edit: pics!

For now, here’s a meme I saw at both Meg’s and Carrie’s.

Bold those you have tried.
Strike through those you wouldn’t eat on a bet.
Italicize any item you’ll never eat again.
*Asterisk any items you’d be interested in trying but have not yet.
Underline anything you eat regularly (more than once a month-ish).
?Questionisk any items you’ve never heard of (there will be a lot of these!)

1. Venison
2. *Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. *Borscht
10. Baba ghanouj
11. Calamari – too rubbery
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. ?Aloo gobi
15. *Hot dog from a street cart
16. ?Epoisses
17. Black truffle  – can’t make up my mind
18. *Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese (my mom loves it though)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. ?Bagna cauda
31. *Wasabi peas – they are right next to the spicy ‘singapore mix” I’ve been addicted to lately
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. ?Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. *Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. *Oxtail
41. *Curried goat – wouldn’t be far off from lamb would it?
42. Whole insects
43. ?Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. ?Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49.*Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. ?Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. *Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. *Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8 ABV
59. Poutine – c’mon, it’s a CANADIAN STAPLE.
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. *Kaolin – last time I was pregnant it sounded really interesting
64. Currywurst
65. ?Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho – we all broke out in a rash
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. ?Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. ?Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong it was meh.
80. Bellini
81. ?Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky – this HAS been a regualr lately
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. *Soft shell crab
93. ?Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. *Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox – not a fan of lox
97. *Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Huh. I’m a foodie. Also it just occured to me they could have put dulse on the list.

Like Paula Dean. I love her, Sarah can’t stand her, and we count the number of times she mentions a loved one. Can y’all tell me if southerners really do put that much butter on every single thing? Seriously, if we watch later today and she deep-fries a butter-mayo mixture wrapped in bacon I would not be in the least bit surprised.

But we pick on Canadians too. Like Chef at Home. Yesterday, he said flavour THIRTY-SIX times in one episode. Love his food, LOVE his kitchen in P.E.I., especially the pantry. But dude, back off on the “flavour” and the hand gestures. We DO love his cooking though.

We keep threatening to play non-alcoholic drinking games. Loser is the first one who has to run to the bathroom.

One of the most jaw-droppingly bad shows we ever saw was This Food, That Wine. I know people use phrases like “food porn” or “wine porn” to describe really vivid and excruciatingly detailed events, but in this show’s case, it really is like watching porn. The close-ups of mouths, the moans, the bow-chicka-wow-wah soundtrack. Complete with cheesy lines.

We also used to watch a lot of Ricardo and friends because he is hysterical. Probably unintentionally. Then they moved his time slot. Later at night we watch Restaurant Makeover, and we all love Igor the handyman. Maybe this is a sign of Canadian television, because I know if it were an American show, it wouldn’t be Igor with an eastern-European accent and he’d have huge muscles, a tan, white smiley teeth and tight tshirts.

Nah. Igor gets mad at the designer, yells at them, rolls his eyes and stomps off with a few BEEPS in heavily accented English. Usually wearing long sleeves, gloves, huge overalls and maybe a toque. After that, if we’re still up we might watch Iron Chef America. At the very least, Emma and I hang on long enough to find out the “secret” ingredient before we head up to bed.

Last night while we watched, the big girls had Iron Chef Lakeville, and they both made carrot soup in two variations. I think we have to judge later. One was creamy, one was more potato-ey.

My life is so hard. (Why yes, it IS nice to have two teenage daughters cooking in the kitchen without one bit of help or supervision from me.)

One cracker (I think you ‘mericans call ‘em saltines)
A hunk of cheese – I used a really good mozarella
a half slice of pepperoni
one or two slices of bread n butter pickle

You can top that with another cracker or not. Mmm.. mmmphh.. oh … yeah. That’s good. Lemme have another or six.

Edit: Oh I really should make another. For the Flick pics. Yeah, that’s it.

No pics, we ate ‘em too fast.

Now some people like to know where they’re clicking, so put down any food or beverage and I’ll tell you. Ready? Okay.

They are mac-n-cheese nuggets. That’s right, macaroni and cheese. In nugget form.

My kids will eat a lot of strange things, and for Emma, mac & cheese and chicken nuggets are two fo the handfull of foods she *will* eat, but this?  The pictures of this item in our local flyer was met with “THAT IS SO WRONG!” and “Ewwww, grooosssss…”

- any sized package of meat bits. Ribs, boneless ribs, riblets, stewing cubes, heck – even chicken pieces. I usually have a “club pack” package. Maybe 1,5 kgs? (3-5 pounds) although this works with smaller quantities.
- a pan big enough to hold it and some extra (like a roaster or a dutch oven or a huge casserole dish)

Toss the meat in the pan. That’s pretty much it because I am too lazy for pre-browning and all the fat will be rendered off later anyway. I don’t even defrost the meat.

Mix together:
1 cup ketchup
1 cup water
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar

Pour all over the meat. I then add about a cup of water to the measuring cup and swirl it around to clean it out, then I dump that water in too. Chop up an onion if you like and add that. You can quarter it if you still want to see pieces of onion. If you chop up the onion, the pieces will pretty much disappear. Cover the dish. Foil works real well and you don’t need to wash it later. Toss it in the oven at 275-300 degrees for 3 hours.

Check on it, give it a stir and add a bit more water if it needs it. If it’s still watery, take heart – we’re tossing it back in there for another hour. The meat is definitely cooked, but we want it to fall apart. This is a good time to drain off the fat. I just tip the pan a bit and pour it out the corner into a used can or the measuring cup. (Not like I save it, but I cool off the fat then scrape it into the garbage.)

After a half-hour check on it again. Things should look pretty sticky. Add a bit of water if you want it saucy. If you don’t care, leave it. At the 4 hour mark, check again. Looks good? Dinner is served. I usually leave it till it gets a little crispy round the edges.

I serve this with boiled and mashed potatoes with nothing else added to them, as they will soak up the sauce. I normally don’t pay too much attention to the time, I just put it in the oven when we’re done with lunch and check on it before I do the potatoes for supper.

You could probably toss this in the crock pot on high all day. I dunno, I have no luck with crock pots.