Thanksgiving Dinner '09

This is my first year actually cooking for just my family for Thanksgiving. I opted out of the super turkey that I bought in favor of a smaller bird. I used Alton Brown's Butterflied and Broiled Chicken recipe. It turned out ok, but I had a small issue with my broiler, it being the first time I have ever used it. So the skin of the chicken chard a bit more than I had expected.

Chicken Butterflied and ready to be put in oven.

Into the old ass oven.

My son taking the picture for the lovely Tamara's Blog give away. (see sidebar for link to Drabby to Fabby)

Bird done and resting. a little more chard than I had planned.

Wine for de-glazing the pan to make the sauce. I had to have it once I saw the name. Plus it was only $10.

Sauce reducing. I didnt have time to reduce it as much as I would have liked.

Bird quartered and plated with baked potato and the kids have some whole cranberries.

Even though the skin was slightly singed the bird was flavorful and moist. Even the breast. We had a simple chocolate pudding for dessert.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pink Elephants

My New blog is up and running. All dedicated to making alcohol and Tintures. All of the recipies from this blog are being copied over to Pink Elephants.

Bottled Blueberry Cordial

I finally got around to bottling the Blueberry Cordial. It tastes great and I have not even diluted it yet. I think I will, but not with water. I am going to get a hold of some 100% blueberry juice bottled or from concentrate. Why add just water when blueberry juice will also add a bit of flavor. I bottled in a recycled Brandy bottle I recovered from the hotel I work at. 

I also am going to poor off about 1/4 of this bottle for medicinal use. Yes I said medicinal use. Blueberry Tincture can be used to treat UTIs and kidney stones and diarrhea . Being a woman I am always at a high risk for UTIs and having something around to help with kidney stones sounds like a good idea to me.

Trick or Treat '09 Pictures

I know. Halloween was 2 weeks ago and I am running very late getting these up. But, like I have mentioned the last 2 weeks or so have been more than a little busy for me. Better late than never though. Here are our pictures.

First the costumes:

We went to Roseau for trick or treating on main street and then headed to DQ for dinner. Talon was not feeling well so he almost didn't get to do anything more. But he begged and I gave in. I told him only 1 hour and then home for an early bedtime. He said "deal".

Out we went after dinner to trick or treat around the town. Notice how amused this first lady is by me being dressed up.

This next pictures are funny because of the story behind them. First the spider. Talon went walking through the yard after getting candy and my husband yelled at him to watch were he was going. He looked down and screamed at the site of this huge spider at his feet. He almost dropped his candy. We were laughing about it for the rest of the night.

This next picture is of a cat. This cat was doing tricks in honor of the holiday. I went walking past the tree and the cat scared me. almost as bad as the spider scared Talon. I did not scream, or drop the candy but I jumped back about 3 steps as my husband laughed his butt off. 

Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain to everybody from all of us. (Even Hubby who is hiding behind the camera)

Drabby Day Post w/ a Side of Guilt Trip

Ok. I have been so excited about starting to do this Drabby to Fabby thing on my favorite blog site. But as soon as i get excited about something, all hell breaks loose. 2 weeks ago I promised to do her Drabby to Fabby Hair day and then everyone in the family got sick. No coloring my hair, no getting a hair cut. Only bundled up on the couch with a death grip on by tissue box. So I missed the hair fabby competition.

The next one, due today, is the just plain drabby day. Cool, this should be easy enough. Oh crap. what a bad week for it. I am in my last 2 weeks of classes. not just for the term but for my associates degree. As of last week I was flunking Intro to Psych due to a few missed assignments. My own fault for falling behind, but am in the progress of fixing it. In fact, I turned in 2 assignments yesterday that should pop me up to a C.

Now the drabby to fabby hostess with the most is sad because no one is wanting to post pictures and enter. Well hun, here you go. It is not me at my most fabby but it will do:

And to make you smile a bit, I included Wyatt's drabby pic. This is the last day of his cold.

So there. Pictures in a drabby way. PLEASE no more guilt trips!!!

Stress and Samhain plans

3 more weeks of classes. I finally caught up with my Associates Capstone class and are still 2 assignments behind in Intro to Psych. I will hopefully catch that up tomorrow. If I am lucky, work ahead also.

This has been an emotional week for me. I am trying not to tell my boss exactly what I think and get fired. I have reconnected with an old friend I forgot that I had. I have been working my butt off catching up with my homework. And on top of it all, my house is trashed  because I haven't had time to clean up after my boys. I feel like I want to smile and cry all at the same time.

Samhain is Saturday and I have not nailed down plans besides trick or treating with the kids and some Halloween party at a church in town. Depending on the weather I would like to have an outside ritual with the bonfire. Maybe set up a labyrinth using string or flour.  That would be nice. If it is snowing like crazy, and I heard that the first real snow happens around this time, I will set out a plate for my grandmother and great grandparents and be content with that.

Autumn Yard Work - Day 3

Day 3 (Friday Oct 23) I took a bit of a break and started in again today. Alas, I only really got through a 3 foot wide row before I had to stop. I didn't manage to get past the Pine tree so I didn't even bother taking a picture. My hubby did get manage to get my progress area mowed down so that it looks a bit more manicured.

Autumn Yard Work - Day 2

Day 2 (Monday Oct 19)I worked another hour clearing grass, but did not have any help with watching Wyatt. I did not get as much done in this hour, but Wyatt got to run around an play outside with the dog and went down well for his nap. After my husband got home from work we went outside again to do what little work we could get done before dinner. 30 more min got him burning a couple bags of garbage and I cleared the debris that I uncovered when working earlier in the morning. I found a wooden pallet, some bricks, some small boards and a few peaces of medal. I also raked the entire area 3 or 4 times to completely clear the fresh cut grass, as well as last years dead grass and leaves. It is starting to actually look like part of the yard now.

Picture of progress from day 1 in the light of day


Day 2 end of the day. Talon is there to show how far back the grass is cut. I cut the bush out from around the tree on the left.

Autumn Yard Work - Day 1

I have been working on getting some of the tall grasses cleared now that it is not hot and buggy out.

Day 1 (Sunday Oct 18)I worked about an hour outside with my husband home to help watch the kids and had him running around with the tree trimmers cutting down any trees that were smaller than his forearm. I was cutting grass, by hand, with a kukri. (a kukri is kind of like a large knife or a short machete) I was able to clear about 20 square feet of grasses in that hour. I found some nice large boulder and a few stumps that are either rotted almost to compost or have been set on fire and are mostly charcoal.

Here is a picture I took shortly after we moved in. It was pretty much the same height of grass all the way over to the red shed.

And this is after I got done this night.

The line on the left is the phone pole and I cleared from what is pictured to just past the large tree on the right.

Scrambled Eggs with Cauliflower Puree

I got this recipe out of the book Deceptively Delicious By Jessica Seinfeld.

Jessica's recipe is:

• 2 large eggs
• 4 large egg whites
• 1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
• 1/2 cup cauliflower puree
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
• Pinch of salt
• Nonstick cooking spray
• 1 teaspoon olive oil

In large bowl, whisk together the eggs, whites, sour cream, puree, Parmesan and salt. Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set the pan over medium-high heat. when your pan is hot, add the olive oil followed by the mixture. Reduce to low heat and cook stirring occasionally until the eggs are scrambled.

I changed it up a bit because I did not feel like separating 12 eggs because I made the recipe x3. I used a total of 12 whole large eggs and used regular sour cream. I also used the "ish" form of measuring the ingredients.

It was a huge hit with the kids. They both wanted seconds and got them. My husband took one bite and said, "What kind of green shit did you hide in the food this time?" When I told him that there was nothing green in the food he said, "Well than what did you put in the eggs that make them take like green shit?" and he did not have seconds. lol. Oh well, it is a winner for the kids and I will cook it for lunch so he doesn't have to eat it.

Halloween Party at Doug's Supermarket

We went to "Doug's Supermarket Annual Free Halloween Extravaganza" on Friday October 16th. They had many more activities that I thought they would, and many more children showed up that I expected. Think Walmart on a Sunday afternoon.

Here are the activities that we participate in:

First we stopped by the Police department Safety booth for a sticker an a coloring book.
Second we stopped by the coloring contest. Both kids sat down and colored a picture for the contest.








Next up was Guess the weight of the pumpkin. Talon Guessed 40lbs.
Sitting next to the Pumpkin was a booth with bug juice for the kids, no literally bug juice.

Green kool-aid with a gummy worm in it. I chose to pass on this but the kids enjoyed it. expecially Wyatt.


On to the bakery department where there was a cooking decorating station.



I made wyatt one but he never chose to eat it.

In the produce section there was someone making caramel apples so we got one for each kid (still sitting in the refrigerator by the way.

In the meat department they were serving Octopus hot dogs





One little 4 year old girl made the point that they were not real octopus because they didnt have enough legs. smart little girl.

In the Back of the store they had a Oreo Stacking contest. Talon stacked up 18 cookies in 30 seconds. The darn clown kept getting in the way so I didn't get good pictures

Both the kids got an Oreo and we moved on.


In the freezer section they were doing temporary tattoos




Next door in the dairy section they had a milk mustache contest. they used whipped cream for the effect.




Time for Ice Scream! er Ice cream! They had all the fixings for Banana splits so the kids got ice cream with chocolate on it.




Finally they were doing hay rides every 15 min. Talon was very excited but confused as to why they called it a hay ride when we were sitting on straw bails.


wyatt... not so much. he was not happy that we were on this trailer until we started to move. then every thing changed and the whole idea was very interesting.




We ended the morning (yes, we took the hay ride at exactly 12pm) and had lunch at the DQ and got Wyatt home just in time for his 1pm nap. He went almost right to sleep too.

a big day, only the one minor meltdown waiting for the hay ride to start. I even picked myself up a banana split blizzard at DQ as a prize for being an awesome mom and getting through an outing with everyone still in one piece.

By the way Suprise! Wyatt won the coloring contest for his age group. He won a fee movie rental from the store. Talon is bummed that he didn't win anything. But I explained that I think Wyatt was the only 2 year old to enter a picture so he won by default