Posts Tagged cooking
Gmail is Down
I was looking for a blog topic today, and then bam! Gmail went down.
I’m not very computer-savvy, but it seemed like a big deal, so I checked Twitter. If you’re interested, visit Twitterfall for an endless stream of tweets on the outage. It’s actually pretty incredible. When I first loaded the page, I had about 20 queued tweets, and after about 5 minutes, I had nearly 1000!
Some quick searches produced two bulletins about the outage, one from Google, which says it could be up to 3.5 more hours until they announce when they “expect to resolve the problem.” I hope it sooner than 3.5 hours from now! The other bulletin I happened upon was from a UK site, Pocket-lint, which promises to update readers when there’s more information.
*Update 12:15 PM CET* That didn’t take long. Thanks, Google! Gmail is up and running again.
*Update 12:25 PM CET* Well, perhaps I spoke too soon. It loaded, and I was able to send an email, but now it’s acting buggy. I guess it will be patchy for awhile until the problem gets resolved.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
John has become very aware of how accident prone I am, especially in the kitchen. If something is hot, chances are I’m going to burn myself on it. I took it to a new level last night while making goulash.
I was boiling the noodles, but I was also feeling a bit under the weather, so I didn’t stir them as much as I should have. When I came back to the pot, some noodles were stuck to the bottom. As I attempted to get them unstuck, I used a bit too much force and ended up splashing boiling water on a good portion of my left hand.
I didn’t think it was too bad, but it hurt for a couple hours and is still pink today. Oh, bother.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I actually have a relevant video for today’s totally irrelevant video series, but that would defeat the purpose of the series, wouldn’t it? Besides, I have to get “permission” to use it since I didn’t make it (John did). So for now enjoy sitting on the steps in front of Sacre Coeur in Paris and listening to a musician entertain the crowd (taken January 2008).
- Sarah
1 comment February 24, 2009
A Little Jumpy
Last night I made my mom’s delicious chicken-to-go biscuits. They’re one of our dinner favorites. They involve a biscuit coated in cornflakes that is filled with a chicken & cheese mixture. Yum!
I use the Pillsbury biscuits that come in that tube (ya know, the one that pops open). The “popping open” part is amusing to John because of my reaction. It scares me, and I jump every time. Of course I know it’s coming, but it’s like a jack-in-the-box – you never know when it’s going to go off. Speaking of, I was really scared of jack-in-the-boxes when I was little, so I suppose this is fitting. The Pillsbury biscuit packaging is an adult jack-in-the-box.
This food talk reminds me that I have to hurry off to the commissary, because we don’t have anything for lunch. Oh, how I miss HEB.
- Sarah
3 comments February 11, 2009
Soup Disappointment
Cucumber soup is healthy disgusting. As I mentioned yesterday, we made it for lunch, and about halfway through my bowl, I started gagging. Yes, it really was that bad. I’m still holding onto hope that the avocado cucumber soup recipe will be decent.
Our dinner was much better last night, and the best part (in my opinion) is that there’s enough for leftovers tonight. So yay! No cooking for me tonight. I also won’t have to cook tomorrow since that’s the night of our Bible study/dinner. This week’s menu: fajitas. They aren’t having chips for the salsa/guac or queso…it makes me want to bring all that stuff!
Speaking of mexican food Tex-Mex, I have been craving a margarita. Unfortunately, that’s a no go here. The restaurant on post will make them, but the last time I tried to order one, I ended up sending it back twice. The final result was ghastly. I am 99% sure they made it with tequila, Mountain Dew and olive juice. Yes, it was carbonated. John ended up having to toss it out in the men’s restroom. I was too embarrassed to just leave it on the table since I’d sent it back twice already.
The table set and ready for dinner
Dinner is served, yum! (We also split a beer, as you can see in the photo. We only had 1 left, and neither of us wanted to go to the store again.)
Dessert!
Enough about food. I have a job interview — yes, a JOB INTERVIEW! — on Friday. It’s not a full time job, but hey, it’s a job. That’s really exciting, especially considering I’ve been looking for a job for 8 months, and I’m actually interested in this position. So please, wish me luck!
- Sarah
2 comments January 28, 2009
Workout Day 2
Today, the only “news” I have to report is on our new workout routine. I’m also pretty excited about our lunch and dinner, so forgive me if I ramble on about that for a bit.
On Saturday, we finally made it to the gym. We both did 25 minutes on the elliptical, which used to amount to about 3 miles for me. Now, I am down to 2.25, but that just leaves me room for improvement!
We also did some stretching (of course) and hit up the weight machines. If I can recall correctly, we worked out our abs, pecs, upper back and did the leg press thing (so quads, maybe?). We did the same workout today, but I thought it was much harder. The cardio wasn’t so bad, but the weights were just nasty. I kept giving myself less weight, but it continued to feel like I was hurting myself rather than working out. Maybe it was my body’s continuation of my mental battle to NOT have to go to the gym today.
The only things I wish the gym had that they don’t are: 1) a lap pool and 2) a cardio hip hop class.
I think I’d enjoy the lap pool, but I have never tried it. I belonged to 24 Hour Fitness for 1-2 years before moving here, but never utilized that amenity there. However, I did go to their cardio hip hop class and loved it. Dance has never seemed like working out to me, and the hour in the class goes by so fast! Here, I have the option to go to aerobics, step, yoga and pilates classes. Maybe I’ll attempt yoga…
We’re trying a recipe for Cool Cucumber Soup today at lunch (thanks, Food Network). I’m excited to see how it tastes. They also have a recipe for a Chilled Avocado Cucumber Soup that I’m eager to try.
The menu tonight? I’m ready to go with a homemade mac ‘n cheese casserole (actually, it uses shell pasta); baked sour cream chicken (light sour cream, of course – thanks for the recipe, Chelsea!) and a spinach, avocado & strawberry salad with homemade honey Dijon dressing. I can’t wait! Oh, I also have to make the salsa that we’re bringing to our Bible study tomorrow night. It’s always better when it can sit and gather flavor over night. I hope they don’t think it’s too spicy!
So…what’s YOUR favorite thing to cook for dinner?
- Sarah
4 comments January 27, 2009
Pizza-Making: A 2-Day Process
On our mission to make healthier food at home, we decided a pizza was still permissible, as long as it didn’t contain pepperoni and we used low-fat cheese. Thus begins our (really, John’s) pizza-making journey.
We planned to have pizza Saturday night, so we went to the grocery store for the second time that day, got all the required ingredients and got to work. We knew the dough needed to sit for two hours to rise, so we had to start early. Attempt #1: Failed. We forgot to add the honey to the honey wheat dough, so it wasn’t really the right consistency, nor was it very tasty. We also found out that not only did the dough need to rise for 2 hours, but for optimum flavor, after rising for 2 hours, it should sit in the refrigerator over night. Bah! We couldn’t have pizza on Saturday night after all.
John went to the commissary for the THIRD time on Saturday, and picked up groceries to make ham, cheese and spinach omelets and wheat waffles with blueberries on top. The dinner was delicious!
Last night, I was lucky enough to have my husband cook a wonderful dinner for me again. After we finished dinner on Saturday, we gave the dough another shot and it seemed to work. So Sunday, John set out to finish making the pizzas. The first problem was the dough wouldn’t stretch out to 9 inches. We were hesitant to work the dough too much, because we had read that can make the dough tough. In the end, we settled for two 7-inch pizzas instead of two 9-inch pizzas. We also didn’t have a pizza peel, which is one of those long wooden paddles used to put the pizza in the oven. John decided to use our wooden cutting board as a substitute.
While rolling out the dough and putting the toppings on the pizza, the pizza stone was warming in a 500 degree oven. The instructions also said to cover the pizza stone liberally with corn meal. What it failed to mention was that we should not put the corn meal on until right before putting the pizza in. When we opened the oven to put the pizza in, John’s eyes got burned with a great deal of smoke, and he couldn’t see to put the pizza on the pizza stone. We had a bit of a disaster – the pizza flopped over and the tomato sauce and cheese started burning on the stone. Yikes.
We got it turned over and cooking. It turned out ok, but attempt number two turned out much better. I even documented the second attempt for you guys:
6 comments January 26, 2009
jfowens
osarah
obeni
