So I'm My Own Guinea Pig...

I bought coconut oil!

Not for my hair.
Not for my skin.
Not for oil-pulling. (I may have born at night, but it wasn't last night.)

I bought it for an experiment in Fine Coffee Drinking® because no one else will try out this recipe FOR me: Pioneer Woman's Crazy Coffee.  

I  will just have to try it for myself.  Rats.

Crazy Coffee contains coffee (of course), coconut oil and unsalted butter. Yes, coconut oil and butter. Everyone I asked to test this for me in order to tell me if it was awful or not declined. Some said things like "Ick, are you crazy?" Others (I'm looking at you daughters and son-in-law) didn't even respond. Rude, right?

So, it's up to me. I am now a guinea pig scientist and I'll let you know how it goes.  

So that YOU don't have to try it.

You are welcome.

Publix Thanks Pioneer Woman

Or at least they should.

Yesterday, in a fit of rainy day boredom, I downloaded PW's list of things she keeps on hand in order to be able to make a meal without going to the grocery store. I hate going to the grocery store, and as a result, I go there more often than I'd like. I'm not organized, can't figure out in advance what to cook and go to the store almost daily when inspiration hits...if it hits. If it doesn't hit, I still end up at the store wandering the aisles, looking for inspiration. Or I go to Fresh Market and buy something that just needs the minimum of preparation.

Today I went through the list and bought the things that apply to my cooking. My pantry is nearly full. Maybe this system will work.

In preparation for this shopping extravaganza, I dug all my reusable grocery bags out of the trunk. I have lots of bags, not because I'm such a good environmentalist, but because I generally forget to take them into the store and then buy more. So I have a lot, and from a lot of different stores, including my local UPS store. And a couple from Mexico. I've decided that if I keep them on the passenger seat of my car I am less likely to forget them.

We'll see......

Let's Have Mexican!!!

I have a friend – let’s call her Kathy (that’s her name) - and she loves, loves, loves to cook. Me? Not so much. I see making dinner night after night after night as supremely b.o.r.i.n.g. She sees it as an opportunity to try something new and different. Every night! I think that is a good attitude to take towards something you have to do anyway, but I can only very occasionally manage it. Like once or twice a year. Cooking for guests is an entirely different thing. It can either be intimidating or fun depending on what I choose to try to make. But the day after day stuff? Bleaahhhhh.

Yesterday, however, was one of the days I decided to emulate my friend. I picked out recipes from the Pioneer Woman's cooking blog: tequila lime chicken, Mexican rice, pico de gallo, and homemade tortillas.

[Oh, let’s just kill the impulse to cook in one meal, let’s do. ]

Step one: the grocery store. No problem. I found everything I needed.

Step two: mix the ingredients for the tequila lime marinade. Uh, no tequila. Good thing I decided to marinate the chicken overnight. Liquor stores aren’t open in Georgia on Sundays. Why? I have no idea. Probably the legislature protecting us from ourselves: getting blotto drunk six days a week is enough, perhaps.

Step three: dH volunteers to go to the liquor store and get tequila. What kind? he asks. I have no idea. When I was in Mexico with my friends the first year, they sent me into the store to buy some -I asked what kind? Just not rotgut! they shouted. So that was my answer to dH.

Step four: Since dH bought better tequila than I probably would have, I decided that it must be good enough to drink a shot of. I see people on The Good Wife do that, so I tried it.

Whooooo---eee!….probably won’t do that again…

Step five: Mix the ingredients for the marinade, put the chicken in it, and put it all in the refrigerator. Done.

Now today:

Step one: make the pico de gallo. EASY! So easy and so good that I don’t think I will ever get store-bought again. (But the fumes from the cut-open jalapeno? Yikes!)

Step two: make the dough for the tortillas. Easy! Except for the stick form of Crisco which expired in:


Oooops!

Fortunately I had a recently-purchased can of Crisco (I hate measuring that - dry method? submerged in water method?) so I used that and the dough sat covered by a towel for an hour; then the dough was broken up into ping pong sized balls and sat another hour in a towel-covered bowl. There is no yeast in the dough, so I have no idea what it’s doing in the bowl. Siesta time? Conspiring against the cook?

Is there a collective noun for tortillas? If there is, whatever it is, I have it. FUN! The trick is to roll out the dough so thin that you can see the counter top through the tortilla (black counter tops rock!) and then to cook them for just 20-30 seconds on each side with the heat just right. And that’s pretty easy to figure out after you end up with the first one either burnt or pale but cooked through. In the time that it took to cook one, I could roll out the next one. Honestly, I don’t think they taste any different from store-bought wheat tortillas, and there’s not a round one in the bunch (maybe that’s the collective noun?), but it was still FUN to make them.

Dinner:



Results: delicious.
Prep. time: two days
Cleanup time: don't ask

Tomorrow night: takeout.

How to Quit Smoking

In today's post, Pioneer Woman discusses her earlier smoking escapades and so, in the interest of public health, I have decided to share my successful method of quitting smoking. It has a 100% success record---me! Minimal (well, none, really) research on my part has not revealed any other uses of this method, so there may well be ZILLIONS of unreported success stories out there.

I smoked for one year, my senior year of college. When I decided that I didn't want to smoke any longer, I came up with my plan:

1. I would not "bum" cigarettes from anyone else; i.e., I would give up smoking all cigarettes, not just my own cigarettes.

2. Each and every time that I wanted a cigarette, I went down to the dorm basement where the cigarette machines were. I would buy one pack, take out one cigarette, and throw the rest of the pack in the chute to the trash. These chutes led directly to a bin in the bowels of the building and there was no way I knew of to retrieve anything from the bin. I would smoke that one cigarette, and that was that. When I wanted another, I would have to buy another pack. Even at cigarette prices in the 60s, this was a very expensive way to smoke and I was a poor college student. My smoking soon came to a screeching halt.

Now, before my daughters tell on me, when we lived in Florida, another neighbor and I helped each other wallpaper rooms. We drank coffee and ate coffee cake in the mornings; we had sandwiches and soda for lunch; and if we were still papering at dinner time, we had one cigarette apiece and switched to drinking beer. A good time was had by all and the wallpaper generally looked pretty good.

To this day, I sometimes really, really crave a cigarette. I am one of those few people who enjoy second-hand smoke. But I have convinced myself that one cigarette will cause me to have a heart attack or some other dire medical emergency, and I have resisted bumming one from any smokers I might be around. On my first trip to Paris, as I was standing in line to get in the Louvre, a very nervous young woman was asking if anyone had a cigarette she could have. I told her there was plenty of smoke in the air (the French do love to smoke) but she said that was not enough.

It is for me!