Beep, Beep!

Do you have the Mario Kart for the Wii system? My brother, Eddie, is staying with us and he brought the Mario Kart game that you play on the Wii. Last night, we played via the interwebs with my brother-in-law John. It was tons of fun, but I suggest that you don't play this game right before you go to bed. I was all wound up and as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, all I could hear was the beeps and sounds from the racing game.

We played 6 games last night, me and Eddie here in Texas and John in another state.

The first three games I played - I came in third each time. WAH! Then I got smart and handed my controls off to my 13-year old daughter who then played the second set of games disguised as me. Bailey actually won one of the next three games.

So, John, in case you were wondering, I didn't miraculously get better - I just got a smarter operator.

Sailing!

We took Bailey to camp again last Sunday. At this camp she will be taught the basics of sailing. Which means that she will be in the water a lot. Which is good, because it was only 104 outside - no big deal.

Bailey and Rominal set up her mosquito netting, and get her bed all set up. There's no air conditioning there. I feel for her!

Once her bed was all set up, we walked about 10 feet to the troop house, which was overlooking the lake.

It was beautiful.

Although it was hot, did I mention that already? And I mean really hot. It took me most of the drive home before I finally cooled off.

Here's Bailey in front of what was her home for the last several days. I hope she's been drinking tons of water!

And what were we doing this week while she was gone? Well, I wish I could say that we have had all kinds of fun, but I just got back from getting a root canal. I've been fighting the pain all week, and broke down today and finally got it done. I get so nervous and scared before any dentist appointment that my blood pressure shoots way up. It was 150 over 100 when I first got in the chair today. The doctor almost wouldn't do the surgery because of my blood pressure being so high. I talked her into letting me sit there for a bit and they kept taking it and it eventually went down enough that she performed the root canal. At least I should be able to sleep through the night tonight without pain.

I'm looking forward to getting Bailey tomorrow to hear all about her trip and her experiences. I plan on bringing her a big drink filled with lots of ice to cool her off.

Potato Salad and The Best Grilled Chicken - Ever

My friend Donna makes this amazing potato salad. But, she doesn't read my blog - so it's now going to be Wendy's potato salad. Ha! That will teach her!

This is a very basic potato salad, and I think it is best served immediately, when the potatoes are still warm. It's also good cold, but I like it warm.

First, I hard boiled 10 eggs. Why 10? Well, that finished off one carton of eggs. It would have been ok with 9 or 11. See how flexible I can be!

And you know how to hard boil eggs, right? Really? If so, please tell me. I'm never sure if I'm doing it right. I don't like hard boiled eggs, so I rarely do this.

This time I put them in cold water and put them on the stove. Once the water came to a boil, I took them off the heat and covered them for 15 minutes. It seemed to work out.



In the meantime, I quartered a bunch of yellow potatoes. I left the skins on. I boiled those on the stove - with a generous amount of kosher salt - say maybe 1-2 tbs.



When the eggs are done, separate the yolks from the egg whites and save both. Put the yolks into a bowl.



Here's the whites. We will chop those up in a bit.



Now, back to the yolks. I add a couple of spoonfuls of Hellmanns Mayonnaise (I believe it must be Hellmann's - trust me on this), and several squirts or spoon fulls of mustard.



Toss in some salt, pepper, and paprika and mix everything together until it looks like this. Be sure to taste it for seasoning. The potatoes need more than you think.

When it tastes just right, pour it over the warm potatoes and add in the chopped egg whites (although I don't add them all in, because I really don't like them that much, and I'm the on doing the cooking after all.) And if you are a bit rough on the potatoes and some break down a bit, that is just fine.

Toss some paprika on top and enjoy!

We served this with The Noble Pig's Best Grilled Chicken - Ever. Here's the original recipe. And I have to say - it was the best!

Here's Rominal - and yes he is holding a beer. When has that ever happened? Not to worry, he's going to pour that beer into the pan in the grill. We buy the cheapest beer to grill with - since he doesn't drink.

Here's the finished chicken - oh my!

And here's Rominal's plate, and his drink (Dublin Dr. Pepper), all ready to go.

Snickerdoodles by Wendy

The other day, Kathy from The Noble Pig posted a recipe for Snickerdoodle muffins, which I will be trying at some point. But seeing that post reminded me that I hadn't made snickerdoodles in a very long time. And, they happen to be Bailey's favorite cookie. So, I needed to get busy!


This is a recipe I've had forever, and unfortunately, it is in my handwriting, so I don't know who to credit. However, I made some changes from my handwritten version and I'm gonna call it my own now.


Here's the recipe:

• 3 3/4 cups flour


• 1/2 tsp baking soda


• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar


• 1 tsp kosher salt


• 1 cup butter


• 2 cups sugar


• 2 eggs


• 1/4 cup half and half (because that's what I had on hand)


• 2 tbs cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Basically mix everything up. I decided to be different I would put the cinnamon in the mix, and not roll the cookies in the typical cinnamon/sugar mixture. Once you have all ingredients mixed together, I used my cookie scoop to make cookie balls, which I then rolled into Sugar in the Raw. Why did I do this instead of normal sugar? Well, I had already put my sugar back into my pantry and it was under something else, whereas the Sugar in the Raw was easily accessible. Also, because apparently my stupid grocery store doesn't carry course sugar, unless it is the same thing as Sugar in the Raw and I take back calling my store stupid. Anyway, it turned out to be great! We loved the crunchiness of the big sugar on the outside of the cookie.

Bake the cookies for 8-9 minutes, until they are golden.

You must give these a try!

Dusty Kitty

So, last Saturday we had a house cleaning day. Of course, Twister just couldn't be bothered to help us out any.


Honestly, does this look comfortable?




Something has got to be wrong with that kitty.


As I was vacuuming the family room, he came and jumped up on a chair so that I could vacuum him too.





So, yes, I obliged.


Seriously, he loved this. I eventually had to tell him he was done and move on to my next task.





And if it helped pick up any extra cat hair that he might shed any moment now, then it was worth it.

Strawberry, er, I mean Blueberry Muffins

Remember the wonderful Strawberry muffins Mom and I made? We got the recipe from Kathy at The Noble Pig's website and here is her original recipe. Here's my original post about it.



Anyway, I've been wanting to try the muffins with blueberries and I finally got around to it the other day. They turned out great!


So, go make you some muffins!

Do you have a Clock?

My husband and I play this funny game. We have a clock. And by a clock I mean a special clock. This clock displays icons depending on what the weather will be. Some of them are confusing, for example the picture from today. Sunny with a flashing up arrow. What could that possibly mean? I'm sure it means it will get even hotter - GAD!




The flash makes it difficult to see, but the outdoor temperature is 92.5, not 32.5. That would be weird - but really nice.


It also helps to have a very old horse cross-stitch on the clock. I'm not sure what role it plays, but I'm sure it helps.


Anyway, the game we like to play is that we will watch the weather forecast and then look at the clock to see who is right, the weather forecaster or the clock. Yesterday the clock said rain, as indicated by clouds dropping "down" arrows again and again. However, the weather forecasters said sun and heat, all week long - not a single drop of rain. Well, yesterday when I got home this is what the sky looked like.








A rainstorm passed west of us and it even ended up hailing in downtown Dallas, which is about an hour away from our house. We did not see one drop of rain though. Rominal views the rain in the area as proof that the clock was once again all-knowing. I however contend (and I admit I do this just to egg him on a bit) that the rain must actually be at our house, since that's where the clock is. After all, what good is a clock that tells you what the weather is in the next city? Do the people in the city next to ours have a clock showing what the weather in my city is doing? I want to know what happens in our city. We go round and round on this issue.



Have I mentioned how much Rominal likes to argue? Yeah, well, he will argue with a door knob.


So, this morning again the clock said rain and there even was a line of showers heading our way. They were actually close to our house this time, but they would fizzle out before they got to us. I went home for lunch and it was sprinkling ever so slightly as I was driving home. It sprinkled on the street next to our street, but once I turned down our street it dried up. I was feeling very triumphant until Bailey confirmed that it had sprinkled at our house that morning. I reluctantly told Rominal the news.


So, our question is, why don't the weather forecasters just get a clock? The weather forecast would be so much more accurate if they had one.

Crisp Rosemary Flatbread

Hello. How is everyone doing?

I thought I should continue with the posts of recipes of things my mother and I made during a marathon weekend of baking. This is a recipe we found that was made by the incredibly talented Smitten Kitchen. The original recipe is here.

I found this bread/cracker to be very easy to make, and the guys loved it. We didn't have any leftovers.

Here's the bread before it is baked.



And here's the final product.




Try this at your next dinner - you'll love it!

Some pictures from camp

By popular request, well mostly just from my mom, here's two pictures from the other day when we dropped Bailey off at camp. This is me and her in her cabin. It was a super nice cabin, nicer than what she stayed in last year. This one even had an air conditioning unit, although it was really struggling against the Texas heat.




And here is Bailey's "Mom, you can leave now. I'm fine. Really. Please leave." look.



And here is her, "please not another picture Mom!" look.

I think it was shortly after this picture that she escorted my mother and me to the door.



Oh - and if you haven't already seen the movie The Hangover, please go do so this weekend. Super Funny!

Happy 4Th everyone!