Outside Temp: 20 F (it was up to 57 today! The snow is melting, but I don't think it's going anywhere fast... )
What I cooked today:
Pumpkin Pie: Patrick wanted pie crust dough... not the actual crust, not the pie, but the dough. I asked if that meant that I needed to make pie, and he said he would make it. Then he proceeded to ask me how to make it. "Use the cookbook." I said. "Which one?" Ugh. I ended up watching him make this pie dough, giving suggestions and pointers. Once he got it made up, he asked if he needed to roll it out. I decided that I would make a pie, just to use up the dough. So, I mixed up some pumpkin pie batter, and rolled out the dough and baked a pie. On a Friday. For no reason. Awesome.
Taco Pie (sort of): Since we were in a 'pie' mood, we wanted a taco pie for dinner. But, in my new found cooking world, I no longer have Bisquick in my pantry. I don't use it for pancakes, so why would I have it. Oh yea, so I can make taco pie. Instead, I thought I would try a pie crust from scratch. Bad idea. I thought to pre-bake the crust, so it wouldn't get soggy. Nope, it slid right down the sides of the pie dish. I thought it might turn out okay, but it didn't. We ate the yummy stuff on the top (taco meat, refried beans, cheese) and tossed the under cooked mushy crust at the bottom. No complaints, we still got dinner out of the deal.
Update:
You know those days where you really have something important and profound to say. Yea, this isn't one of them.
It's Friday, which is nice because the kids get out of school an hour early, and then I don't care when they go to bed, so it's currently 11:40pm, and all 4 of my kids are still awake. Perhaps I am a bad parent, but I figure they don't have to be up until about noon, to get to church at 1pm. So what do I care if they stay up. They love that.
Katie finally watched the last 2 Pirates of the Caribbean disks from NetFlix, so I can finally return them (they've been here about 2 weeks). And I finally finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo, which is very long but very good. I have ordered the latest version on NetFlix, which I have seen before but can't really remember. I do remember that they ended it much different from the book and some of the important people aren't in it. But, I still remember it being good.
And I finished the evening addressing and signing my Christmas cards. I didn't finish my list, but I got it started. I'm hoping to finish it up tomorrow and get them out into the mail by Monday... We'll see.
Showing posts with label Bad Cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bad Cooking. Show all posts
Friday, December 14, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
October 25, 2012
Outside Temp: 22 F (we had a high of 27 and a low of 19... the temp stayed about the same all day long. Little bit of snow, but not much.)
What I cooked today:
Pot Roast: I found a recipe that had the pot roast in a tin foil 'bag', with the potatoes and carrots mixed with some tomato juice and red wine vinegar. I'm sure the roast would have been much better, if my thermometer worked correctly. I checked it about 3 hours in (the recipe called for 3 1/2 hours at 250), and it claimed it was only 120 degrees. So, I left it in for another 30 minutes, and it still read 120. Hmmm. I left it in for another 15 minutes, then pulled it out. I found a second thermometer, and it read 183. Lovely. I totally overcooked it, and it was soooo dry. The potatoes and carrots helped, but it would have been so much nicer, had it been cooked correctly. Oh well, next time...
Update:
I was so spoiled today!
Ryan wasn't feeling well this morning, so we had him stay home from school. (he was probably a little dehydrated, so we pushed fluids on him all day, and he was back to normal by noon. I LOVE false alarms!). Which also meant that I didn't have to go to the school at 11 to pick him up.
Then, the school had district volleyball tournaments, and the entire school (junior high and high school) went to Denton. Those who are NOT in high school girls volleyball are in the pep band. The volleyball girls are also in pep band, but since they had to play the game, they couldn't play their instruments.
Which meant that I didn't have any students for my web design class. So, I didn't have to go to school in the afternoon. I had Katie take the bus home, and I just stayed home, working on projects, in my pajamas, until 6pm, when it was time to pick up the boys from the game.
Woo hoo! Only one trip in the car today! So spoiled!
What I cooked today:
Pot Roast: I found a recipe that had the pot roast in a tin foil 'bag', with the potatoes and carrots mixed with some tomato juice and red wine vinegar. I'm sure the roast would have been much better, if my thermometer worked correctly. I checked it about 3 hours in (the recipe called for 3 1/2 hours at 250), and it claimed it was only 120 degrees. So, I left it in for another 30 minutes, and it still read 120. Hmmm. I left it in for another 15 minutes, then pulled it out. I found a second thermometer, and it read 183. Lovely. I totally overcooked it, and it was soooo dry. The potatoes and carrots helped, but it would have been so much nicer, had it been cooked correctly. Oh well, next time...
Update:
I was so spoiled today!
Ryan wasn't feeling well this morning, so we had him stay home from school. (he was probably a little dehydrated, so we pushed fluids on him all day, and he was back to normal by noon. I LOVE false alarms!). Which also meant that I didn't have to go to the school at 11 to pick him up.
Then, the school had district volleyball tournaments, and the entire school (junior high and high school) went to Denton. Those who are NOT in high school girls volleyball are in the pep band. The volleyball girls are also in pep band, but since they had to play the game, they couldn't play their instruments.
Which meant that I didn't have any students for my web design class. So, I didn't have to go to school in the afternoon. I had Katie take the bus home, and I just stayed home, working on projects, in my pajamas, until 6pm, when it was time to pick up the boys from the game.
Woo hoo! Only one trip in the car today! So spoiled!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
December 8, 2011
Outside Temp: 19 F (it was 1 degree this morning, when I sent the kids to school!)
What I cooked today:
Beef Stew: We had some tri-tip in the freezer from about 2 months ago, and Connor had been asking for beef stew. So easy!
Biscuits: So, I'm really feeling like a bad cook lately. The recipe called for 3 oz of butter or shortening. I looked at the number on the stick of butter, and put in 3. Of course, as anyone would know, the number refers to the number of tablespoons. There are 4 oz in 8 tablespoons in a stick of butter. Which means my biscuits had 1/2 the correct amount of butter. Needless to say, they were awful. Patrick said they were kind of like a scone. No amount of honey would make them edible. Oh well.
Chocolate Chip Cookies: Connor has a bake sale tomorrow at school. They are donating all the money raised for the local women's shelter. So, he asked me to make my chocolate chip cookies. Of course, with the first batch, I managed to burn half of them. I should just stop trying to cook now. The second half was fine. But I'm not looking forward to whatever I have to make next Tuesday for Katie's class's bake sale...
Update:
We had a nice, relaxing day at home. We went to church for the feast day of Immaculate Conception, which was kind of cool. The homily was about the 'Prevenient Grace' or the grace of God to keep you from doing something bad. We all know about the grace of forgiveness or the grace of peace, but we never really talk about Prevenient Grace. I tend to believe that this is the best and most important blessing that God gives us... the thing that stops us before doing something we will regret later.
Which made me think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You remember whenever one of the kids would do something bad, Mr. Wonka would stand back and say 'stop. please. don't do that'. He wouldn't yell or shout. And he wouldn't forcibly stop them from doing bad things. He would just tell them they shouldn't do it, and allow them to make their own decisions. I remember Charlie turning to Grandpa Joe and asking "Why don't they listen to Mr. Wonka?". I love it when Mass makes me think. :)
Ryan went with us to Mass (it was in the middle of the day, so the other kids were at school). Most of the time, Ryan just yammers through church, which involves a whole lot of 'shushing' from us. Today, was no exception, up until we started the 'Our Father'. That was when he started to say it with us, in his loud voice. Which would have been just cute and endearing, except that he was a half a line behind the rest of us, like he was repeating us. I struggled between laughing, and trying to stay with the rest of the church, and trying not to be on the same line as he was. Fortunately, there was only about 15 people in the church and they are also so sweet, they just turned to us and smiled.
The kids have all had a little bit of a cough lately, so we decided to skip sledding. But, tomorrow is Friday, so I'm assuming that snow play will occur. And the slopes open tomorrow, so Saturday will probably have more snow involved. I'm still debating getting up on skis. Right now, I'm leaning towards the 'no', but you never know how things will turn out.
What I cooked today:
Beef Stew: We had some tri-tip in the freezer from about 2 months ago, and Connor had been asking for beef stew. So easy!
Biscuits: So, I'm really feeling like a bad cook lately. The recipe called for 3 oz of butter or shortening. I looked at the number on the stick of butter, and put in 3. Of course, as anyone would know, the number refers to the number of tablespoons. There are 4 oz in 8 tablespoons in a stick of butter. Which means my biscuits had 1/2 the correct amount of butter. Needless to say, they were awful. Patrick said they were kind of like a scone. No amount of honey would make them edible. Oh well.
Chocolate Chip Cookies: Connor has a bake sale tomorrow at school. They are donating all the money raised for the local women's shelter. So, he asked me to make my chocolate chip cookies. Of course, with the first batch, I managed to burn half of them. I should just stop trying to cook now. The second half was fine. But I'm not looking forward to whatever I have to make next Tuesday for Katie's class's bake sale...
Update:
We had a nice, relaxing day at home. We went to church for the feast day of Immaculate Conception, which was kind of cool. The homily was about the 'Prevenient Grace' or the grace of God to keep you from doing something bad. We all know about the grace of forgiveness or the grace of peace, but we never really talk about Prevenient Grace. I tend to believe that this is the best and most important blessing that God gives us... the thing that stops us before doing something we will regret later.
Which made me think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You remember whenever one of the kids would do something bad, Mr. Wonka would stand back and say 'stop. please. don't do that'. He wouldn't yell or shout. And he wouldn't forcibly stop them from doing bad things. He would just tell them they shouldn't do it, and allow them to make their own decisions. I remember Charlie turning to Grandpa Joe and asking "Why don't they listen to Mr. Wonka?". I love it when Mass makes me think. :)
Ryan went with us to Mass (it was in the middle of the day, so the other kids were at school). Most of the time, Ryan just yammers through church, which involves a whole lot of 'shushing' from us. Today, was no exception, up until we started the 'Our Father'. That was when he started to say it with us, in his loud voice. Which would have been just cute and endearing, except that he was a half a line behind the rest of us, like he was repeating us. I struggled between laughing, and trying to stay with the rest of the church, and trying not to be on the same line as he was. Fortunately, there was only about 15 people in the church and they are also so sweet, they just turned to us and smiled.
The kids have all had a little bit of a cough lately, so we decided to skip sledding. But, tomorrow is Friday, so I'm assuming that snow play will occur. And the slopes open tomorrow, so Saturday will probably have more snow involved. I'm still debating getting up on skis. Right now, I'm leaning towards the 'no', but you never know how things will turn out.
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