Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Home Made Vanilla Extract... Want some?

I never really understood what the big deal was with home made vanilla extract was, yea, I know that anything labeled Imatation is pure crap, and real vanilla extract was the good stuff that cost like $7 for what.. 2 ounces? Well.. I went all out and decided to try this myself and yea, it's ready. I used it for all my Christmas cookies and a few weeks ago I gave a jar to one of my attorneys who was amazed at not only how easy it was, but what a true difference it makes in whatever you bake.

Well.. Now 2 lucky readers will each be getting one 4 ounce mason jar of Home Made Vanilla Extract straight from my kitchen to yours.

You don't have to do anything special to enter, just stop bye and say hi, share a recipe.. whatever you want.. just post it as a comment on this post and that's it, you're entered.

Contest starts now and ends on Tuesday, February 9th.

I'll pick 2 winners using the Random number generator, so enter often.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Oh yea, this totally sucks

So Wednesday morning I woke up with a stomach bug. You know it's bad when you're up at 5:30 am feeling like someone is stepping on your stomach. I ran through my head what I ate tuesday, coffee, dry cheerios for lunch because I wasn't feeling like eating anything else, then I made macaroni with meat sauce for dinner.. nothing out of the ordinary, but oh dear lord.. not this. Just for the record, I don't throw up. I don't. Unless.. I've got it bad.. and I had it BAD, real bad. Lets not discuss the migraine on top of it all either.

I managed to drive the kid to school, despite his protests that he should really stay home with me because I shouldn't be driving when I kept tossing my cookies, I assured him I took a 'Pepto' pill, it was a 2 minute drive and I'd be fine (I was) I threw some sweats on (because no, I will not go anywhere in my pajamas), Grabbed my darkest sunglasses (because, I do have to keep my dignity and I didn't have a speck of makeup on, lol) dropped him off at school, stopped at the supermarket and got a big bottle of ginger ale and then I drove back home. I grabbed his warm blanket in my way back to my room because I was freezing despite the sweats and thermal lined sweatshirt I had on and I climbed back into bed, where I stayed all.day.long.

I didn't eat a thing all day, but I downed almost a whole bottle of ginger ale. I had a piece of dry toast around 8pm and went back to bed. Yesterday I managed to get myself back to work and I still had the throbbing headache, but I couldn't bring myself to drink any coffee or eat anything, I just kept a bottle of ginger ale at my side all day. When I got home I hesitantly ate 2 slices of dry toast, a small cup of tea and I was fine. but I have no appetite at all and it sucks. I haven't been this sick in more than 5 years, and now, 3 days later, I'm still not quite over it. Today I had a handful of dry cheerios and a half a small bottle of ginger ale I've got a bowl of plain white rice sitting here in front of me on my desk, but I just don't want it. I've got no appetite, no tummy growls.. nada.

What I want is a chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting.. but I know that's not right.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Well, maybe I do have Roaster Phobia

It’s not a big deal. I just really don’t like to cook a whole chicken. Sure, I’ll do it once in a while, but it’s not something I enjoy cooking. I’ll rinse the chicken and separate the skin from the flesh and mush in some seasoned butter, salt and pepper the inside and toss in some orange quarters and it always comes out good.. But once it’s all been said and done the leftovers usually wind up in the trash after a few days because nobody wants to be picking at the bits. Sure I could make Chicken salad or soup, sometimes I do, most often I don’t. My Grandma roasted a chicken for Sunday dinner every other Sunday, it was her thing and she did it great.. But then again there were quite a few mouths to feed and at my house, more often than not it’s just the two of us at home.

Honestly, I’m more of a Thigh person.. I like to season them really good and roast them, make these or I’ll cook them in the crock pot, which is what I did just this past Saturday in a way that I’ve never done before.. I took a packet of McCormick marinade (Mojo Lime) and mixed it according to the directions on the packet.. And tossed the marinate mix over the raw chicken (Skin removed of course) in the crock pot and cooked it overnight.. OMG, it was so good! With some egg noodles and a salad it was a great Sunday lunch. I also like to take a can of diced tomatoes, a can of black olives and toss that all in the crock pot & cook it overnight and at the very end stir in some capers.. That is absolutely phenominal!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

WHOA!!

First I’d like to apologize for being MIA for so long, wow, sorry I didn’t realize it’s been this long. Shame on me! Christmas came and went and kicked my in the butt hard this year, I was unprepared in the worst way.

The office, the witch and...

My office was so nice last week, the office witch was out (if you didn’t know, the office witch is a 72 year old lady with the mouth that would make a sailor blush and as nasty as they come in every other aspect) Yesterday she was back cussng and complaining that there were piles of work on her desk and she didn’t want to do any of it, so 99% of the day she complained to everyone within earshot (except the attorneys, of course) hemmed and hawed and made us all miserable (if you’re out sick for a whole week it’s inevitable that work is going to pile up) .

I don’t care that she’s been here for 25 years, she makes over $25/hour for doing nothing but complaining or shopping online. She has been known to throw files, telephones, books, you name it, clear across her office. She’s been known to cuss at clients, defense attorneys and she says some really horrible stuff about the new guy here who gives her work to do. SHE is the reason that I’ve walked out of this office crying, threatening to quit more than once. She doesn’t put things away in the folders in files and makes 20 copies of everything she does (I’m guessing as an illusion that she does a lot of work) all of her files are a mess and nobody likes to work on the same stuff that she’s worked on before.

I won’t say that I hate my job.. Because most of the time I really do like it here, I have some really great attorneys that I work for, the ladies are great, with the exception of The Witch, I have great clients and have learned a LOT working here. Last week was a great week though, we all got a lot of work done and the environment here was actually calm, no screaming loudmouthed cussing woman was walking around in her too big sneakers (Imagine a toddler in his dad’s shoes shuffling around the house ALL DAY LONG) No screaming “where’s Scott” her butt buddy attorney who runs hot & cold all day long (and don’t even get me started on his neurotic wife who works here part time).

Word around here with the secretaries is that she’s planning to retire before the year is out, which I’m sorry if it sounds mean but I really can’t wait for her to go, maybe then we’ll all get some raises around here since it’s been almost 3 years since that’s happened. Maybe this will go back to being the great place we had last week.