So. I decided I would make some Stage One Meatloaf with the rest of the ground beef I had. I found the photo I posted of the last ones! I think I will change the name now to Porcupine Meatloaf.
The right side is before baking. I covered both sides with onions after sticking in all the garlic cloves.
By the way, I made the meatloaf without adding egg to it, and it turned out fine. It was a bit crumbly while warm, but after it was refrigerated it behaved like any other cold meatloaf. I will put the egg as optional in the recipes.
Since I didn't want to just have the oven going for one pan of something (Ha! Remember the old days, when you would just cook ONE dish at a time in the oven?), I also put in a pan of chicken in with garlic and onion.
Then Jeffrey and I watched a bunch of TV, the timer went off, and I forgot to go get the food until it had been in there probably 30 minutes or so longer than it should have been. Fortunately, just the onions on top were burned. Whew! I also took out chicken parts to make soup the next day.
Saturday, we headed out early. We stopped at Whole Foods for almond butter and shortening (I wanted to grab some of the spectrum stuff in case I wanted to experiment with it), but they were out of the 365 brand almond butter. We picked up a similar jar, which we thought was $9 but it was actually $14. That took about 10 minutes to straighten out, but straighten it out we did.
Next, we hit Costco. I picked up a bag of Tyson chicken breasts, a package of ground sirloin patties, a container of fresh cut pineapple, a large bag of onions, and five dozen eggs, so it was a light trip for us. But! I found one of those digital thermometers with a probe, which I will now be using since my yogurt thermometer has proven to be inaccurate. I tested it in boiling water and it registered boiling at 195 degrees. Augh!
We went back home, and I was trying to decide what to do, since we were going to run a few more errands but we had to have lunch first, and I didn't want to disrupt my planned cooking too much. So as soon as we got home, I put a large dish of pineapple into the oven for two hours. I shooed Jeffrey out the door to go to In-n-Out, and when he came back there was still an hour to go, so my planning wasn't really perfect. I dozed on the couch while my kitty Zack crawled into my lap, because that's really all you can do when you're pinned down by 14 pounds of feline.
It was somewhere in this time, when Jeffrey was putting receipts into the checkbook, when we realized we finally had enough money to buy a Wii.
This was a little bit unprecedented. We had planned to get a package deal at some point, but the package deal had unfortunately sold out. However, we knew our local comic shop had them, and they were only slightly exorbitantly priced there.
We pondered, considering the money we'd saved and the bills we had. We promised that we would send the tax refund directly to the credit card. And then we went out to see if they had any left.
They did not, but they said more were coming within an hour. So we went over to Target and got a couple of games and the extra controllers we needed, and then we went back to pick up the Wii. Whee!
Obviously this kind of shot half the afternoon. We knew we wouldn't even be able to open the thing until Clark went to bed anyway. As soon as I got home I started chicken soup, realizing I was out of celery when I was ready to cook. Oh well, no celery then.
We played with the Wii a little bit at night, and I made the unfortunate discovery that playing the games will aggravate my wrist. Well, considering how much writing and crap I have to do, it's probably a good thing. Also, the Resident Evil game is kind of disappointing. I've been a fan of them since the beginning, since nothing relaxes me like blowing the heads off of zombies, but interspersed in the games is a lot of suspense and a fair number of puzzles that you have to figure out and work through. I always appreciated that. And this game has no puzzles at all, and very little suspense. You even have unlimited handgun ammo, which also robs some of the tension. As fans of the other games will attest, there's nothing as nerve-wracking as exploring a new area while knowing you're down to your last 14 bullets.
Not that great.
Anyway! Next, I made a pan of almond butter brownies. I made them with the egg replacer recipe on Pecanbread due to a desire for more egg free recipes expressed by my readers! Don't say I never did nothin' for ya!
For the egg replacer, I omitted the vinegar and I should have omitted the baking soda that's already in the recipe, due to the fact that each egg replaced has a teaspoon of baking soda, but otherwise they were pretty decent. They were very cake-like but they held together pretty well once refrigerated. Plus, I got to lick the bowl, and that's almost worth the price of admission right there!
And that was Saturday. See how I'm not really getting that much done? Sigh. During Saturday night, I made an interesting discovery. You know how I was talking about peeling all that garlic? Well, the garlicky acids or whatever ended up physically burning my left index finger. Someone had warned me this could happen, but I was having a heck of a time wondering why cutting up a lemon was burning the crap out of my finger. It's not visible or anything, but anything acidy or tomato-ey is all WHOA OW.
On to Sunday! First I made mayo, and I cooled the mixture before putting it in the blender, but I still ended up ruining the mayo. After being really mad about it, I made another batch with REALLY cooled off cooked mayo, and that worked like a charm. So make sure you really cool off the cooked part before you make it! It will save you time, sanity, and whichever oil you deem to use in the mayo!
We then went to the regular grocery store for goat milk, sparking water, spinach, gelatic, squash, and decaf coffee. Ever since starting this, I've become pretty sensitive to caffeine, which wounds me greatly. Being a picky sort when it comes to coffee, I am secretly insisting that I must get a decaf version of each coffee that matches the caffeinated ones I have so that I can do half and half without sacrificing taste. So, I have two bags of Dunkin Donuts coffee, so I went out and got a bag of Dunkin Donuts decaf. Oh DD, when will you come to SoCal and make my life here complete? This former Midwestern girl misses you so. I hear they are coming, which is why I can now buy DD coffee at the grocery store, so I cannot wait!
Oh, and at the grocery store I bought spinach in bags, because I bought spinach at Smart-n-Final and it came in this 3-pound brick from Mexico:
A more appetizing brick, I have not seen. May be used for construction in any climate zone with permafrost.
Since it took approximately 1,024 years to thaw, I decided I would get the kind in bags despite the fact that the bags are slightly more expensive.
I came back home and did a bunch of dishes while Clark had lunch and Jeffrey went to In-n-Out. I started a pot of green beans to boil, and when Jeffrey came back I started ketchup. In order to have enough for the week, I use two huge cans of tomato juice and 1 cup of vinegar and let it boil forever all alone by its lonesome. I don't stir and stir anymore.
I then prepared another pan of chicken breasts and another pan of hamburgers, and those are in the oven now, but I forgot to set a timer so now I will have to guess when they are done. LOL.
Now I gotta get my yogurt started, and after the beans are done, I will be able to make two pans of egg bread. I'll also probably hard boil some eggs for breakfast next week.
I'm going to post about my yogurt making, I swear. Probably next post. With more photos! And stuff! See ya!
3 comments:
Hey lady! I wanted to tell you about a great product that might help your garlic burn- I stopped using mine, b/c it didn't seem neccessary, but it would be great for you- it's called the E-Z Rol Garlic peeler- here's a link:
http://www.amazon.com/Zak-Designs-E-Z-Rol-Garlic-Peeler/dp/B00004RDDP
Thanks for the link! I checked it out and other people said that you can peel garlic easier by whacking it with the flat side of a knife. Huh. I didn't know that.
See, the things we don't know, those of us new to SCD.
I will of course experiment with this tactic and post about my findings. Thanks for the gadget idea, though, it looks pretty fun and useful when you're doing a lot of cloves. Once I get up the nerve to make my own garlic powder, I'm sure I'll be all over that!
Susan :)
Hiya Susan - Just wanted to copy over a message from the scdrecipe_creators yahoo group I was reading about mayo:
"I didn't find consistent results with homemade cooked mayo until I bought a small food processor (cheapy at target, holds 2 cups) that had a hopper to pour oil into and found a slightly different way to make it. I use Marilyn's recipe, but mine NEVER bubbles at all and long before it would it's TOO thick for the oil to mix into it. So, it is hit and miss on turn out. So, all this being said I thought I would post the way I found online to help me get consistent results with the cool tip at the bottom about freezing the yolks overnight. Hope this may help others who have the same problem as I do. It turns out nice and thick without any coconut oil or anything added for thickening. The instructions are below. Bonita
Preparation:
Heat the egg yolks, lemon juice, water, and honey in a small skillet over very low heat, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan constantly with a spatula. At the first sign of thickening, remove the pan from the heat but continue stirring.
Dip the pan bottom in a large pan of cold water to stop cooking. Scrape into a blender, blend for a second or so, then let stand uncovered at least 5 minutes to cool.
Add the dry mustard, salt, and cayenne if using. Cover and, with the blender running, drizzle the oil in very slowly at first, down the center hole into the egg mixture. Transfer mayonnaise to a clean container and chill immediately. This will keep for at least 7 days refrigerated.
Yield: 1-1/2 cups
TIP: whip together yolk and lemon juice the night before and freeze. When thawed the next morning the mayo will be thicker"
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