Daring Bakers May 2009 Challenge - Strudel!

Hey cute people :) This is going to be short and sweet.. Unfortunately I had another lil hiccup with my health and spent a few days in the hospital this month. I hadn't made my strudel before I went in and now that I'm home again, strudel just isn't in the cards for me.. I'm now on a fat free, low-carb, no salt diet.. so I am really enjoying sugar-free pudding and tomatoes. :P I suppose after abusing my body for 40 some years, it had to catch up with me, eh? I'm going to get better though.. and will conquer another DB challenge in the future, but ya'll have to forgive me this month. 'kay? :) Please make sure to check out the blogroll at The Daring Kitchen and go give Linda of make life sweeter and Courtney of Coco Cooks a lil extra loving for picking such a kick-ass challenge! They were both wonderful hostesses this month and we are forever grateful!! Bake on Gorgeous Daring Baker Type People! :) xoxo

Decongestants! Echinacea! Antihistamines! Oh My!

Vitamin C, Expectorants, Ibuprofen! Oh My! Acetaminophen, Suppressants, Zicam nasal swabs! Oh My! So picture me chanting this mantra down my own weed infested yellow brick road - only I'm not wearing a cute powder blue gingham dress and my best pair of Maryjane's. No, I'm sporting more of a casual look.. visualize olive green sweat pants, a ratty t-shirt under a sweat stained around the collar purple hoodie with TWO pairs of Hubbs' tube socks adorning my 8 month old pedicure. My hair isn't braided and shiny, it's got that attractive greasy yet gnarled rats nest effect where one side of my head is flat and stuck to my skull and the other side is "pillow" teased giving it effect that SOMETHING really IS living in there. My "skip" is more like a saunter and that's not a picnic basket in my hand. No, that's a heating pad and a bottle of Airborne. There's no Toto.. fakk, Nigel won't come near me in fear he'll catch my funk. Chloe just stares at me from across the room and if I walk too close to her she starts whining. Chicken shit that she is. My best friends, the Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion and that old bastard The Scarecrow walk 15 steps behind me and they've got surgical masks over their faces and latex gloves on their hands. Whatev. I don't need them anyway. As long as I've got a pocketful of Kleenex, my bottle of Afrin and a fist full of Comtrex I'll be just fine. :P Wait Were ya'll expecting my latest Daring Baker challenge post??? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! You so funny! Okay well.. I have to be honest with ya'll.. uhmm.. it's not quite finished yet. It's sittin' in my freezer just waiting for me to unmold and glaze.. so if ya'll can be patient with me, I promise to have it posted here within the next 48 hours. :P Okay I'll shoot for 24. But that's only if my fakkin nose will stop running long enough for me to apply the delicious glaze and snap a few photos. Alright, I leave you now as I'm trying to figure out a way to use Hubbs' cordless drill, a corkscrew and a bandaid to relieve some pressure from within my skull. Where the FUCK is MacGyver when you REALLY need him???? Gah. xoxo

Cooking to Combat Cancer 2

April and May bring two very important events that mean a lot to me. Two events that will bring awareness to many people. These two events are part of the effort to kick cancer's ass. Because seriously? Cancer's ass deserves to be kicked. Thoroughly. This first post is for Cooking to Combat Cancer 2 - an annual event held by one of the most beautiful souls I've ever met.. Chris. She's the author of Mele Cotte, a wonderful friend, and a cancer survivor. Thank you for doing this every year, sweetie.. your contribution to helping us to never forget is so very important. Love you!! In November of 2005 I was diagnosed with cervical cancer.. one radical hysterectomy later, and I was cancer free without much physical fuss. Meaning, I did not get sick. Mentally, there was fuss.. lots of it. When you've always taken for granted that you'd have kids one day.. and then are told it ain't gonna happen.. yeah, that kind of messes you up some. But, as I've said a million times over, I'm alive. I'm (relatively) healthy. I'm lucky. And I'm grateful for the chance I've been given. Six years before my own brush with cancer, I was introduced to it's devastation when my great uncle was diagnosed with lung cancer. Coming from a large Italian family, I had many, many aunts and uncles. My father was 1 of 14. Yes, you read that right.. my dad had 13 brothers and sisters. And although I did love my paternal aunts and uncles very, very much.. it was my mom's great aunt and great uncle, who I was closest to. My Auntie Ann and Uncle Sol. My Auntie was and still is my mom's best friend. They are only 10 years apart, and they grew up together more like sisters than an aunt and her niece. So we spent a lot of time with them. I consider my Auntie as my second mom.. for it was easier for me to talk to her than my own mother sometimes. And my uncle.. well.. he tortured me. har! My uncle never passed up the chance to pick on me, to annoy me, or to embarrass me. But this predicament I was in wasn't such a bad thing. No, for all of his fun had at my expense, the only thing that I took from all of it was how much attention he lavished on me. As I'm told often, I was the first girl in a family of boys. My uncle adored me. And I adored him. When such an amazing man was taken away from us so abruptly, it felt like a betrayal. How could this be?? This was a man who loved his family so much, he was loved by everyone he met and he was such a wonderful uncle to my sisters and I. Actually, he was known to my youngest sister as her grandpa.. as both sets of grandparents had passed years before she was born, he and my auntie took on the role. I rarely ever told my uncle how much I loved him. I assumed he always knew. As a matter of fact, the only time I can remember actually saying to him how much I loved him was right after he had the surgery to remove part of his lung.. he cried. I'd never seen him cry before. And he told me he loved me back. This was our first and only spoken exchange of our feelings for each other. He passed a couple days later. To say I was devastated is an understatement. I was wrecked. I still am.. several years have passed and the pain isn't as constant as it was before, but I still can't control the tears and the hurt inside when I think about him. Oh how I wish that I would have told him how much I loved him until he was sick of hearing it! How I hate that I just assumed he knew. Although he didn't say the words to me either, and even though I knew from earliest memory that he loved me very much.. I still wish that I would have said the words out loud to him more than once. Just as I always knew his unspoken feelings for me, I can only pray that he knew my unspoken feelings for him. The recipe I am about to share doesn't really remind me much of my Uncle Sol.. no, we were more of the pizza, soft pretzel, Twix bars kinda eaters. hee! But this recipe contains a few ingredients known to help cancer stay away, so I find it very fitting. I also find it very delicious and I'm glad we finally tried it. It's a simple recipe for Salad Niçoise, which comes to us from Nice, France. This is a salad made up of seared tuna, blanched green beans, tomatoes, steamed red potatoes, boiled eggs and of course, Niçoise olives. Everything but the tuna is tossed with a simple vinaigrette which adds just the perfect tang. And the tuna is usually seared quickly on each side, then placed on the salad in thin slices. Never being one to follow a recipe to the T (Other than Daring Baker challenges!!!), I decided to coat my tuna in toasted sesame seeds first. We fell in love with this salad immediately and it will become a common quick dinner in my repertoire. The tuna is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, which are good for a healthy heart. The green beans have been shown to prevent or slow genetic damage to cells. The garlic and scallions in the vinaigrette contain a number of compounds believed to slow or stop the growth of tumors. And the tomatoes contain lycopene, which has been shown to be especially potent in combating prostate cancer. So all in all, this salad is not only delicious and quick, but very good for your body. Salad Niçoise Makes 2 generous servings, or 4 small servings 8 oz. fresh Ahi Tuna or Albacore - (try to find sushi grade - you won't be sorry) 1 TBS olive oil or cooking spray (recipe for sesame seared tuna below) 1/4 pound green beans, trimmed and blanched - (I suggest salting the boiling water) 3/4 pound of new red potatoes, quartered and steamed until fork tender - (My trick here is to put 2 crushed garlic cloves on the bottom of the steamer basket.. it gives the potatoes a light garlicy flavor that's delicious) 1/4 c. red onion, either thinly sliced or minced 1/4 c. pitted Niçoise olives 1/2 c. cherry tomatoes, halved 1-2 eggs, hard boiled, peeled and quartered Vinaigrette 2 TBS. Champagne vinegar - (I used Trader Joe's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar) 1 TBS. fresh tarragon, chopped 1 tsp. Dijon mustard 1 small shallot, minced 3/4 c. olive oil sea salt, to taste ground black pepper, to taste Arrange salad ingredients in separate piles on a large serving platter. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad and then lay thinly sliced tuna on top. OR you can go non-traditional and put all ingredients in a large bowl with the vinaigrette and lightly toss (which is what we did). Serve alone, or with garlic toast. If you want to use the same tuna that we did the recipe is as follows (I cut the recipe in half for one 8 oz. tuna steak): Sesame Seared Tuna Courtesy of Allrecipes.com 1/8 c. soy sauce - (I used reduced sodium) 1.5 tsp. mirin (Japanese sweet wine) - (We omitted this because we didn't have any) 1.5 tsp. honey 1 TBS. sesame oil - (Sesame oil is VERY strong.. I cut this down to 1 tsp.) 1.5 tsp. rice wine vinegar 4 (6 oz.) tuna steaks 1/4 c. sesame seeds 1 TBS. olive oil In a small bowl, whisk together the soy, mirin, honey, sesame oil & the rice wine vinegar. Spread the seeds out on a plate or shallow bowl. Dip the tuna into the soy mixture, making sure the whole steak is coated and then press the tuna steak into the sesame seeds - coating both sides well. Heat the olive oil in a cast iron or other heavy skillet over high heat until it's VERY hot. Place tuna steaks in pan and sear for 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side. You can go longer, but you chance the possibility of burning the seeds and over cooking the fish. Slice thinly and place warm tuna over Salad Niçoise. And hey.. if the opportunity to share a Twix bar with someone you love arises afterwards.. why not take it? :) xoxo

Just a lil fyi..

Firstly, I really want to try to express how wonderful you've all made me feel with your get well wishes and your concerned e-mails.. there really aren't words to show you how blessed I am to have met such wonderful friends by way of this blogging hobby of mine. Had I known I'd meet such beautiful people like yourselves, I would have started this blogging thing up YEARS ago. It will never cease to amaze me how you can feel so close to people that you, most likely, will never get to meet in person. You all are very special people and I thank my good fortune to have met you. You really do mean as much to me as the friends I get to see and talk to on a daily basis. Truly. Thank you for that =) Secondly, I just want to let you all know that I'm fine. The pain is completely gone and although I'm going to miss a few things in my diet, I can guarantee that unless a wayward kernal of corn or small seed of some sort gets past my inspection of what passes these lips from now on, I will NOT ever go through that again. hehee Diverticulitis is a nasty lil ailment that I do NOT wish to experience again. This past Wednesday I had an ultrasound of my ovaries and the cysts have gone away. I finally got up the courage to ask if they can lead to the C word and I was told they would not.. YAY!!! Unfortunately, I will continue to get the bleeding cysts - but it's not known if it will happen monthly.. semi-annually.. annually.. you get the picture. So if I'm lucky, they will not appear much and I won't have to go through that pain very often. If they do appear on a regular basis, I'll have to consider losing the ovaries - but that's something to think about only when I absolutely have to.. not going to worry about it now. And finally.. if anyone has wondered why the lack of posts since I've been feeling so much better.. I seemed to have lost my appetite somewhere these past few weeks and I can't find it for the life of me. Believe me, I've checked under the sofa cushions, the guest bedroom closet, out back near the pond.. EVERYWHERE. It's no where to be found.. YET. I'm confident it will show up again one day, as I've never lost it for very long in my close to 40 (ugh) years. And since this is the closest I'll probably ever get to a diet, I'm not complaining tooooooo much. ;) Today we are off to my niece's (one of many!) 4th birthday party. Before we go, I really want to make this peach cobbler that Stephen of Stephen Cooks - What's for Dinner made recently. I've got some beautiful peaches just begging to be worked with and if I can get the gumption to get my arse into my kitchen this morning, I'll post about it soon! Thank you again for being.. well.. you! Much love and hugs! xoxo PS to Kevin - Sending huge hugs your way. My thoughts and prayers that you, Ed and Janet are doing okay have been foremost in my heart.

What a strange morning

Twice now I've been bound and determined to go to work since all this nastiness has started and twice now I've ended up not going. Once I started moving around after posting yesterday morning, the pains started flairing up enough that I was bent over in agony again after my bath. Tears of frustration ensued and Hubbs called right in the middle of my breakdown. He screamed at me to get off my feet, take a pain pill and call off, for crissakes! Ugh. He was pretty shook up and felt miserable because he was so far away. I had to listen to him motherf*ck our boss for "making" him leave while I'm sick and how frustrated he was because he wasn't close by. Listening to him got my mind off my tantrum over the pain I've got no control over and I calmed down. It was my turn to console him and talk him down from his tantrum. We work well that way. We are good at getting each other's mind off what's ailing us (physically and mentally) by listening to the other bitch. hehe So this work thing.. if it weren't for being so damn dependent on a pay check I wouldn't give a damn about what my boss thought. Well, I take that back, kind of.. I would care about what my boss thinks of me because I like my boss, probably too much. For all of his prima donna temper tantrums and his constant paranoia about how everyone is out to screw him, he's a nice guy. Good looking too. =) There are many days I feel that I can talk to him about anything.. we joke about a lot of things and he usually always gives me a good giggle or two throughout the day. So it's not him, it's my actual job and the atmosphere I work in that I despise and couldn't give two shits about if, again, I didn't need that freakin' paycheck so badly. I've mentioned it before but I'll mention it again. My job is beyond boring. I'm sick of working with computers, I'm sick of working in an office all day doing repetitive, mind-numbing work. Why don't I leave? I'll tell ya why.. I'm partly scared to death because I know I've got it good and am afraid that anywhere else will be just as mind-numbingly boring without the perks I have now. I am also lazy and a downright creature of habit. My life would probably be much more rewarding to me if I'd just bite the bullet and find something (anything) that would help pay my bills while I went to cooking school.. but my lazy ass won't do it. Well that and cooking school is too expensive for us to budget in anytime soon. I tried again two months ago to see if I could get a student loan and swing both the job and school, but when it came down to payments.. gah.. we just can't do it right now. Anyhoo.. what's with this post? Okay.. so this morning, I woke up feeling REFRESHED people! I almost skipped to the bathroom when I got outta bed. If it weren't for the usual mad dash to the potty to relieve a night's worth of bladder fill up, I would have thought I was still dreaming! No pain.. no pain in the least! Joy! Joy! Annndddd I had slept for over 5 hours - FIVE! That's the most I've slept (in consecutive hours) since two Thursdays ago! Straight, restful, uninterrupted, beauteous sleep. *Squeee!* I was fully dressed and ready for work with a smile on my face 30 minutes early! I kissed the kids goodbye, got in my car and the 50 kajillion degrees of Africa hot didn't even bother me.. it's gonna be a good day, my friends, a good day. And then I got to work. Bossman came out into the parking lot to meet me at my car and his first words were an incredulous, "What the hell are you doing here?" I looked around to make sure there was no one else nearby that he could be talking to and realized it was just me. I replied with, "Uhh.. reporting for duty, sir?" while looking at him as if I had just discovered a nubbin peaking out of his shirt. What the hell did he think I was doing there? Donating blood? And he says to me, "You're pushing yourself.. just like you always do.. you come back from work from major surgery early because you think you have to, you come in when your sick because you think you have to.. you always do this!" 'kay.. never heard him complain before about coming back early from medical leave, so wtf? So I told him to explain himself because he wasn't making sense and that I was feeling F.I.N.E. Fine. Well, apparently, the last conversation he had with Hubbs alarmed him. Firstly, he knew how bad the pain was, just by hearing it in my voice - especially yesterday morning when I called in and secondly he got his ass chewed out by one of his supervisors because he was over 800 miles away from his sick wife! tee! Wayne never told me he actually said something to our boss. He left that lil gem out of our conversations both last night and this morning. In essence, he put the fear of God into bossman. I was kinda shocked to hear that Wayne had said anything to him.. it's not really his style. And it was kind of wrong for him to say anything to bossman, because bossman really didn't "make" Wayne do anything he didn't want to do. We discussed this last trip to Arkansas at length a few nights ago and we both agreed that I had my mom, along with many friends, close by should anything go wrong while he was gone. The job in Arkansas is his roof and he had to take responsbility for getting the repairs done. Granted, the roof system manufacturer should have inspected the roof before our guys came home and it's their fault that they didn't, forcing our company to send a couple guys back during our peak season. But that's just the way it panned out and really, what can ya do? Regardless, I explained to bossman that I really was feeling great.. the pain was gone - it left as unexpectedly as it had came. I felt good and was ready to get back to work, but he wouldn't hear any of it. He actually told me to get my ass back in my car and if I felt so damn good then take the day to go do something fun with my mother. Hello? Bossman, you're nice and I like working for you.. but whatcha been smoking this morning, dude? But he was serious. So guess what? I'm STILL at home! He would rather me take an extra day off than deal with the wrath of hubbs. hahahhaa! I'm so confuzzled. But isn't there some saying about looking at a gift horse in the mouth? I don't really know what that means or if it even pertains to my very long-winded story or not.. but here I am. At home, bored. It's Africa hot outside so there's no way I'm venturing into the swelter. Well, maybe I'll run up to Blockbuster and see if maybe there is a lone movie somewhere that I haven't seen yet.. but that's about all the action I'm up for. Now wait a minute? Don't I run this here cooking blog?? I've got A/C - it's a balmy 72º in my house.. I'll go cook! Party on! See yas.. ;)

I managed to get out of this house yesterday. It was probably a not so smart thing to do, but my back was starting to really kill me from all the laying and half-sitting with my feet up for close to 10 days straight. My friend Mindy and I were talking about taking a small shopping trip and we had scheduled it for yesterday. I had cancelled it the Friday before.. but ended up calling her Saturday night to see if she still had the day open. Thank gawd she did. Although I paid for it last night (I was miserable) I think I would have went insane had I spent one more day in this house. Today I am going to work, whether I feel like it or not (and no, I do not feel like it - at all), as we have not won the lottery (news flash!) and the bills are piling up due to my taking a week off, unpaid. Unfortunately (fortunately?) there was no way I was going to be able to do much walking without trying to ease the pain first, so since I wasn't driving, I took my pain meds before I went. Advice? Don't go shopping on a Sunday during the hours that local churches let out. If you must go at these times, DO NOT attempt this while higher than a kite. Mindy loves the Trader Joe's, which shocked me, as I had never heard of it before starting to read these food blogs. So hearing a close friend who I've known for many, many years say she loves it, well, I was kinda blown away. How did she know about it all these years and I didn't? hehe Some of you might remember, Hubbs and I took a trip there a few months ago and I wasn't really all that impressed at all. I kinda chalked it up to the possibility that our local Trader Joe's was pretty small with not that great of a selection of things not found in my regular grocery store. But after Mindy talked it up so much I thought maybe it was because we pretty much breezed in and out and I didn't look hard enough.. so I agreed to go. Eh? Same opinion for me. She's been going for a while, so she's tried more Trader Joe brand products and she knows what's good and what's not. I ended up only purchasing a few items (honey, a block of some cheese I'd never heard of, gelato and a locally grown organic sour cream). Thankfully she had a long list of items she needed because it took me close to an hour to decide on those 4 items while living the highly hazy life of a pseudo-crack addict. The only thing I tried last night was the gelato and lemme tell you this.. I am kicking myself in the ass for choosing Trader Joe brand for my first taste of gelato. What a fool I am. This stuff was not creamy in the least and tasted more like ice milk. I know right now my tasters are way off due to the drugs I'm on and I haven't ate much of anything in 10 days because nothing at all sounds good, but seriously.. I doubt using my illness as an excuse is the true reason why it tasted like crap. blechhh. We still had some time to kill so I asked her if she wanted to witness the glory of Miles Farm Market and she did. So off we went. Now get this. Miles wasn't even fun to me. I was too disoriented to make a list in my mind of what I'd like to purchase, let alone battle all the little old ladies and little old men. They were pushing me! I about put one lil old man in a head lock but I couldn't figure out how to get my arm back around his neck as the thought was so fleeting.. you see, before I could figure out how to do some serious damage to this 90 year old devil-man, I had spotted olives. Oh! Olives! So I went to the olive table and then stood there because I was bedazzled at the selection. Kids? Their selection is pretty damn good, but I've never had a problem figuring out how to spoon a few of each variety into a lil plastic tub before. The rest of the time spent there was pretty much the same thing. I did find out, however, that my most favorite Italian bread is only made seeded there and I can no longer have seeds. Again, if I could think straight I should have still bought a couple loaves (I don't get out there that often) and just pulled the seeded top off of the slices. I'm such a loon. I purchased a few fruits/vegetables and a bar of Sharffen Berger Mocha chocolate. That was it for me.. oh, and the olives that Mindy helped me find a lid for and placed in our cart. You'd think this would be enough of an adventure for this high lil dork, but noooo.. on the way home she asked me where it was that I got my good italian meats and I squealed "Alesci's"! and then I wouldn't shut up about their proscuitto - so she took me there as well. I kinda stood near the walls while she investigated the store. I got my ham and a loaf of their "so-so" italian and then said to her that I really thought it would be wise for me to get my ass home. hehe Hubbs was still packing up the truck for his trip to Arkansas and I did my best to act upset that he was leaving, but in all honesty? All I could focus on was a hot bath and napping. Poor guy. I'm so grateful he understood the state I was in and didn't take it personally. Because I am truly upset he's gone again. Did someone mention a hot bath? To not repeat yesterday's haze, I've decided to not take pain meds today so I can be semi-productive at work. A hot bath seems to be the only other temporary fix. So without further ado.. Calgon! Take me away!

Small Update

Hi kids! I have missed this lil blog of mine :( Really quick.. just so's ya know I'm still alive. I have 3 bleeding cysts on my ovaries and an infection caused by diverticulitis. Talk about winning the pain lottery! Wooo. Hopped up on major pain pills and antibiotics. Still in a lot of pain and I can't sit straight up in a chair for long - nor can I walk, stand or play in my kitchen *sob* Anyhoo.. another couple days and the antibiotics should kick in to fight the infection and well.. there's nothing much I can do about the cysts right now other than have them monitored. I am getting a lil time visiting my favorite foodies and have been loving what you've all been up to! Hugs! xoxo

I never thought I'd say I was sick of my bed..

I've been stuck in bed with my feet up and a heating pad on my tummy for the past few days. Yes, I am NOT following doctor's orders and I am sitting at my PC right this minute. But lemme just tell you. A sentence of being imprisoned in bed for even 24 hours is way toooo hard to deal with. 72 hours and I'm going absolutely batshit crazy. I can not read another book, I can not talk on the phone for another minute. I will poke someone's eye out with my number 2 pencil if I am forced to do yet another puzzle. So I walk across the hallway to the office and sit with my feet up on the couch and play a lil online canasta, check my e-mail and do a lil surfing.. which brings me to this post. I found an incredibly funny and (for me) completely wonderous fairly new blog. It's not even a foodie blog.. it's a personal blog written by a gal who is originally from Texas but now lives in Naples, Italy. She did not deny her dream. She had visited Italy a few times and fell in love with it and knew she had to live there. So she upped and moved. Her journal describes what life in Italy is like compared to life in the states. She's fantastically funny and has a great gift in describing what she's feeling, seeing, tasting or doing. Oh.. and she takes pictures so you can see some of the beauty that she is seeing. Did I mention that a lot of those pictures include her boyfriend, Gennaro? Okay well, I don't speak Italian, but Gennaro must mean, "George Clooney clone" in Italian. *swoon* If you'd like some funny, make you feel all melty/gooey, good reading.. check out Tracie and her adventures in Naples at My Life Italian. My recommendation is starting from her first post back in January and reading through the whole blog. The last month or so is sparsely posted as she found a job and life took over her blogging time.. but up until then, it's a great read. =) Okay back to me now!! *cheesy grin* I haven't cooked, due to my prison sentence, but Hubbs made a "beer can chicken" yesterday. I'm happy to say it was a complete disaster. (Only because of the giggling and fun making we both got caught up in during the process of making this chicken he had to try and then in the less than fantastic results while eating said chicken.) I'll post about it another time when I can sit longer. Also, I don't mean to be mysterious about what ails me.. I, apparently, over exerted myself while helping Hubbs bend some metal at work on Thursday.. I guess there are some abdominal muscles, that are easily aggravated since the hysterectomy, that I shouldn't f*ck with. As if I knew I was using these muscles?? And I pulled something.. or rubbed something the wrong way.. I dunno.. doc wasn't toooo concerned, but because of severe cramping and a couple other icky factors, she's sentenced me to bed rest. Some of the icky factors are going away but the cramping is still excruciating, so even though I'm a horrible patient (always have been, always will be) and am being naughty by sitting at my PC, I shouldn't stay here long.. so I'm off! Back to bed. Gah.