June 16, 2008
Blowing the Budget
Sigh. It's not my FAULT! There were just too many good opportunities presenting themselves.
Victorinox Forschner chef knife: $30
These knives won America's Test Kitchen's approval, being both really sharp, ergonomic and inexpensive. It's a stamped knife, rather than forged - but it compares identically to my Henckles knife in terms of sharpness, and that cost around $90. Renato found it (new) on eBay and bought it for me - I haven't really seen them up here, and the Canadian webstores are a bit expensive.
Nintendo DS: $114
I played with Sean's and it was a lot of fun. Dell had them once for $99 and I waited for the Days of Deals, but they didn't go on sale. But THEN! I was in Superstore buying supplies for Father's Day dinner and they had a "Don't Pay the Tax" event. So... not $99, but $129 with all taxes included.
Dell 1320c Color Laser Printer: $150
Ok, those aforementioned Days of Deals? They had a color laser printer for sale for less than the cost of the toners inside it. The toner is a bit pricey, but I don't print a lot, it's cheaper than an ink just and toner doesn't dry out. Photo print quality is really good for a laser.
Oy. Individually, nothing too expensive... all together though, it adds up.
June 15, 2008
Father's Day Dinner
Mom and Dad came here for Father's Day. I cooked up some steaks on the neighbours' barbecue and made a herb pesto to dress some pasta with some herbs from the garden. I made a side salad with raspberry dressing that tasted remarkably like Swiss Chalet's raspberry vinaigrette.
Aside to Dom: A couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, a tablepoon of sugar, a small squirt of mustard (1/2 tsp), pinch of salt, black pepper, and seedless raspberry jam until it's the desired thickness/sweetness.
Dessert was bourbon caramel custards. Because I was using cream plus milk, I reduced the recipe by about 1/3 to make smaller custards... it's really rich when using a higher ratio of cream!
June 14, 2008
Dinner w. Jen and Naomi
Jen and Naomi came over for dinner today. Naomi was a bit shy at first - she probably needs to see me more often. I think I'm fixed in her mind as having long hair. Anyway, after she loosened up we had fun playing in my neighbour's jungle gym, on the piano and on the beanbag.
For dinner I bbq'ed a tiny 6 bone rack of ribs and made some simple pasta with garlic and shrimp and parmesan. Naomi, who kind of shares her father's vegetarian tendencies, surprised us by not only eating a fair portion of pasta but REALLY enjoying a couple of ribs and even trying a shrimp! She refused to actually handle the ribs, but actually started crying when Jen stopped holding it up for her to chomp on. Heh, it must help that Dan's not around oozing revulsion.
PS. Jen, here's the recipe.
June 08, 2008
Ottawa - Upgrades and Drunkards
Went to Ottawa again for a meeting. To chair a meeting, actually, even though my manager was there in the room and knows waaay more than I do about the process. Anyway... to the non-work details!
Sean and I flew in on Thursday evening and went out for dinner with Sylvie, Sandy and Lise. Um, I don't remember where we went exactly, other than the portions were huge. I tried a mojito (rum, lime, club soda and mint) and was a bit disappointed that I didn't like it, since the neighbor has an abundance of mint in the backyard. We also tried a variety of shooters, including Sean's favorite, the Florida Tracksuit (Red Bull, Red Sourpuss, orange vodka) and a Jager Bomb.
May 31, 2008
Recipe: Berry Cupcakes
This berry cupcake recipe was adapted from one on recipezaar. It's really full of berries and not too sweet (for a cupcake). Very, very yummy.
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tbs lemon zest (optional)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups flour (I use 1/2 cake flour)
1/2 cup milk
2 to 2 1/2 cup berries, rinsed and drained
(I used blueberries and raspberries)
Preheat oven to 375F, prepare 12 muffin tins with large foil cupcake cups.
Beat the first group of ingredients (butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder) together with the paddle attachment, adding one at a time and beating well after each addition.
Alternately fold in the flour and milk with a spatula, starting and ending with flour, about a third at a time.
Sprinkle about 1 tbs of flour over the well-drained, but slightly damp berries and toss to coat. Fold them into the batter.
Divide among muffin cups and bake for 25 min.
Gardening
Spent a bunch of time (and money!) in the garden today.
There were a couple of caterpillar nests in the field behind my house. I hopped the fence and cut them down with some shears. I put them in a plastic bag that's currently in my recycling bin.
Bo says she's seen rabbits around, so I took a quick trip to the local dollar store to get some cheap plastic fencing to go around the garden. It's not very high, though... we'll see if it works.
I also bought some cages for my tomato plants. The tomato and lettuce plants seem to be growing really well. Sage, thyme and tarragon came back from last year. I've re-planted parsley and rosemary. I'm not sure if I'll bother with basil this year - it didn't do well last year.
Wii Fit
Tried Sean's Wii Fit. It's pretty neat! After setting up your user with your age and height, it measures your weight and does a quick set of balance tests. Then, it calculates your BMI and your "Wii Fit Age".
Me: 26 (woo! real age 30)
Sean: 46 (ha! real age 35)
Anyway, the balance board seems really responsive, and the games that come with the Wii fit are pretty challenging and fun. The ski jump and soccer ball games are a lot of fun, while the yoga poses and the strength training is darned hard!
Hilariously, your Mii (the avatar that represents you) gets fat or skinny depending on your BMI. Then they run around with various speeds depending on how fat they are. My Mii was a bit pudgy - Sean's even more so!
May 25, 2008
Riley's Birthday
Today was Riley's 1st birthday party! Rucell really went all-out on the arrangements. There was a TON of food, 2 clowns (good thing, cuz one was really late), a Cars (Disney movie) themed cake and 3 pavillions. I got there early with 60 cupcakes to ice (recipe later for the chocolate ones). Almost all of them were eaten, too. I also fried about 200 spring rolls and cooked about 3 packs of spaghetti.
Riley seemed to really enjoy himself. I got to play with him a lot. He really, really liked the cupcakes - though his dad only let him eat about 1/2 of one. He stayed up really late - I wonder what time he'll be waking up tomorrow! Heh, we never did get around to opening the presents. Among the guests were Nervada, Karen (pregnant and due in September!), Stephanie and Nathan. Also Neil, Bambi and Glenchie. Erich, Katherine, Gaby and Matt showed up really late. Trev's mom, dad, grandmother, brother and Aunt Tish were there as well. Their old neighbor Nermal...And lots of others... I'm missing tons.
We stayed late and watched Ultimate Fighting on Pay Per View. By the time that ended it was really, really late.
May 17, 2008
The Tenderest Steak
If you've got a really really thick cut steak, this is an awesome way of preparing it. It's slightly more trouble, but the results are worth it - a more tender steak that's perfectly done from edge to edge (with no bands of overcooked meat on the outside). I saw the method on America's Test Kitchen.
Preheat your oven to 275F.
Rub a thick (1.5" +) rib steak or strip loin with a generous sprinkling of salt and ground black pepper. The steak doesn't have to be at room temperature, it can be straight from the fridge.
Roast the steak in the oven until the internal temperature of the steak is at 95F. By this time (about 20 minutes, depending on thickness), the steak will still look pretty raw, but the fat and connective tissues will have relaxed.
Sear the steak for a few minutes per side on a really hot grill or cast iron pan, until the desired doneness is reached (120F for rare, 125 for medium rare, 130 for for medium).
Let the steak rest loosely covered with foil for about 5 minutes. Slice and serve.
May 11, 2008
Visiting Scott
Just got back from Scott's house.
Sounds like he's in for some exciting times, though it's not public knowledge yet so I can't post it here.
Anyway, we caught up on old times, grilled asparagus, mushrooms and sausages. We also made our way through three quarters of a bottle of tequila and three quarters of a mickey of rum (mixed with slushy - even Heather, his wife, liked that!). Heh, Scott was pretty wasted when I left (ugh... Heather might be miffed with me tomorrow!). But here I am, fine as usual after drinking... I think something in me resists drinking past a certain point.
As far as tequila goes, it just tastes like slightly adulterated rum to me. It's surprisingly palatable with the salt and lemon, but... well, not that interesting.
Scott had picked me up earlier at my place, so I took a cab back home. Haha, Scott was so toasted that he gave the wrong address to the cab company - when I checked it outside, I had to go back in and call them with the corrected address. Hopefully he's ok by tomorrow!