Fav's of the week

Apparently sitting in the never-ending I15 traffic has afforded me some time to think of not one but THREE fav's of the week. See how lucky I am to have a commute every day?

First off are these:


Surprisingly delicious little fudge covered Ritz crackers. Delightful. Randy and I are already laying ownership and rules to the one box we picked up. He has declared I am not allowed to take them to work and/or to share them with friends. My only rule is that he cannot cry when I eat them all--fair and square--at home. While sitting on the couch. Watching Glee.

My second fav or the week is the show Tosh.0 on Comedy Central. If you have never seen Tosh.0, the premise is simple: Comedian Daniel Tosh basically hashes out viral videos and other funny clips from the internet. Think of it as Talk Soup for the next generation. The humor is a little blue and I find the whole thing hysterical. Perhaps this is because I grew up with a mother who thinks farts are the funniest thing on the planet. Whatever the case, it's slightly crude, a little dark and fits my sense of humor. Perhaps that is why I seem to get along smashingly with teenage boys. Either that or I smell like beef jerky. Its a mystery.

Tosh.0	Weds 10:30pm / 9:30c
Video Breakdown - Karate Kid vs. Gangsta
www.comedycentral.com
Tosh.0 Videos Daniel Tosh Web Redemption

And lastly... finally being able to post pictures of this adorable little girl. Her name is Paige. Seriously, this baby is a web site traffic GOLD. I should have taken pictures of her in a pile of puppies and my numbers would have been off the charts!!! Her mom is a good friend of mine. I'm considering telling her she could make a lot of money by renting out her baby as traffic bait. Its seriously that amazing. If you want to see the rest... pop on over to www.shamelessphotography.net. And while you are there... you too can ponder the power of Paige--because obviously, it works.

Maybe its better if you're smoking a joint?

You know what I miss? Black Angus. We used to make a 15 minute freeway drive because there wasn't a decent steakhouse in our area. Great steaks, the most amazing baked potato soup, a smashing Caesar. You know, good stuff. Then sadly a couple years ago they all closed up shop and POOF were gone.

Let us speak a bit about Texas Roadhouse if you will.

About a year ago Texas Roadhouse opened a location five minutes from our home. We have been on several occasions. I'm not a complete hater, as a matter of fact we went there for dinner last night, but I do have a couple beefs (please excuse the pun) with this joint.

I have a problem with the peanuts shells strewn casually all over THE ENTIRE RESTAURANT. I get that lil treats keep the hungry masses from turning on you and attacking your staff. That, however, seems to be in ample supply (every time I'm there I swear they have one staff member for every two patrons which is all fine and dandy but when they run out of stuff to do they walk the aisles prowling and flirting with each other, commenting on the adorableness of the others' studded jeans. No wonder the back of their T shirts desperately proclaim "I love my job!!" Why wouldn't they?). The peanuts kind of gross me out. Specially when I have to wade through them in my flip flops possibly catapulting shells in my wake all the way to my table.

Once at my table I have to yell over the cacophony of Boot Scootin Boogie and the wailing of Hootie minus The Blowfish to fellow diners. Then I stare blankly at our server while attempting to read his lips because I can't understand more then five words at a time. I get,"Cherry." "Cheese," and "Sooooo gooood." After that I just nod and smile. That place is LOUD. So if you were hoping on having a conversation, forget it. Two painfully shy people would find this the perfect place for first date dinner after a Bruckheimer movie.

After ordering I get to sit and stare at the likes of jackalope, burro blankets and Willie Nelson. Yeah I know its your restaurant Willie (which explains the twangy country and the fact that the staff will do a line dance to Jessica Simpson's These Boots Were Made For Walkin ) but why do I have to look at your ugly mug while eating? The food is decent. The steak is usually cooked how you ask for it. And if you wanna pay 2 dollars to have six mushrooms on it, well they can help you out there too. Lastly we have the Roadhouse birthday song that the staff screams at the top of their lungs and usually wraps up with an ear shattering "Yeeeeee Haaaaaaa!!!". Don't even get me started on how much I detest dining establishments that sing to customers.

So why do you ask? Why after all that negativity do I still go here?? Why do I complain about everything and still brave the crusted peanut shells between my toes at the table?

Because of these little darlings:

The honey butter rolls at Texas Roadhouse are my bitchy cryptonite. I LOVE them. I can honestly say I wanted to go there last night for these little piping hot carb balls and NO OTHER REASON. Thats it.

I so rock the crock

Please note: The title said CROCK. Not Crocs. I do NOT rock Crocs. My loathing for those is ANOTHER blog post entirely. And if you're a man wearing Crocs--right now perhaps, no words can express my disappointment in you. Good luck Sir.

Now. On to me rocking the crock--pot to be exact.

Recently I was on a diet. Cue the eye rolling. No one wants to hear about another woman bawling over the weight she needs to lose, her fat thighs, and how she just needs a piece of chocolate. Me neither. So I'm not going to speak of dieting, calorie counting or back fat (despite the fact that I find the last topic humorous in many ways). No this post is about how something GREAT came out of something crap. Yes that sounded very intelligent. I like it.

You will need:

1. A Crock Pot
2. 3-5 Chicken Breasts
3. One can Hunts Tomatoes with Garlic
4. One Habanero Chili
5. One good sized Serrano Chili
6. Cumin
7. Salt & Pepper, Garlic Salt
8. Salsa Verde or a Green Chili Sauce
9. Crushed or Minced Garlic
10. Chicken Broth
11. Mushrooms
12. Cheese of choice
13. Avocado




First empty a can of tomatoes in the crock pot.














You could use any canned tomato in all actuality but I just liked how these already were cooked with garlic.














Place chicken breasts in crock pot.












Season liberally with salt and pepper, and garlic salt.







Also sprinkle liberally with cumin. There is a lot of liquid going to be in the pot so don't be afraid to use it.













Throw in two Tablespoons of minced garlic.















Add about a half a cup of chicken broth to the crock pot.








Get one Habanero (the pretty orange one) and one Serrano chili. These have kick--especially the Habenero, but the flavor is amazing. Don't worry, they won't kill you. The cheese and avocado will cut the spice nicely. Don't skimp on a pepper or you'll regret it. If you are scared of the spice, use half of each. However, I have been told I am a "honkey" and this doesn't even make my lips burn. It is just a nice heat.






If you haven't used chilies like this, please wear rubber gloves while you chop them. They have natural oils that once on your fingers are easy to transfer to your eyes or... other places. All of which I'm sure would be unpleasant. I used the bag from the grocery store to cut the stems off and then a chopper to do the rest.






Another way to cut the heat is to get rid of some of the seeds if you like. Also, remember the smaller the chili the hotter it is so when you pick out your Serrano, you are much better off with a bigger one!!





Chop the chilies as fine as possible. You don't want to get a big bit of a Habanero. Okay, you might. You might also be a masochist. But to each their own I say. Throw chopped chilies in on your chicken.








Add about a cup of Salsa Verde or green chili sauce. This is a great flavor with cumin, garlic and chicken! Start your crock pot on a low setting. It can take anywhere between 1.5-2.5 hours depending on your crock pot and the number and thicknesses of your chicken breasts.







About half way through, stir up your chicken, turn over if needed and make sure it is all being coated. If you like, add some cut up mushrooms at this time.












When chicken is done, turn off crock pot or put it on its warming setting. Add cheese to top of chicken breasts. I used a mix of Provologne and Monterey Jack. It was wonderful. The cheese cuts the heat, so don't skimp unless you like it spicier. If you're on a diet you can skip this step... but oh, you're missing out. Replace lid until cheese is melted.





When cheese is melted and you are ready to plate, cut up avocado and add slices to the top of chicken breasts.














Enjoy!! Sorry it doesn't look all that pretty, but by this time, I just wanted to eat it!! I hope somebody takes my word for it and tries it. You won't be disappointed! (and if you are, I'll just blame it on operator error and none of my own doing!!). Bon Apetit!!

Its your birthday, we gon' party like its your birthday

Happy Birthday Blog!!

 

My blog is turning 2.  Its a toddler now!!  Meaning I get even more reason to act out and say irresposible things.  Or at least dump whole boxes of cereal on the floor and cry when tired.  Terribly good start I think.

 

 

To celebrate we are going to go to the Melting Pot downtown tonight.  OK... thats not EXACTLY true.  We are going to the Melting Pot, but not in celebration of lovely blog's birthday (Travesty I tell you.  Travesty).  Instead we are going with money Kim gave us for Christmas, which also included hand written sentiment in which she threatened us against hooligan-like activities using said monies with severe bodily harm. 

Also we have wanted to go there forever!

 

Randy and I always talked that we wanted to go there but the Melting Pot encourages reservations and such.  If you know Randy at all you would know that making plans are not in his repetoire.  Thus we haven't been.  Kim gave us the push we needed to actually take destiny into our hands.  We invited my sister, Randy made reservations, and tonight we're gonna eat some fondue!!

 

Will keep you updated on eating of tasty things and having glorious time.

Favorite Thing of the Week

I have a love hate relationship with Costco.

I DO enjoy shopping there. I HATE the crowds and how I have to park mile away to avoid super sized carts and the super sized geniuses that push them. I LOVE finding new stuff there. I HATE that I leave with three items and a total of $423.67. I like that they have a great little photo center with good prices and its easy to upload to. I don't like how some of the items come in sizes that are just too big for Randy and I to justify buying. I LOVE the pizza and bakery. I HATE the pizza and bakery. You know what I mean. Its Costco.

Anyway, I'll get to the point... a while ago my sister and I after a long, super cold photoshoot decided to stop at Costco and pick up a few things. I needed contacts, she needed 22 loaves of bread. The usual. Unfortunately, we broke the number one rule of Costco shopping: Never Go Hungry.

We started throwing things in the cart we didn't need. Everything sounded good. Thats when we stumbled onto these little lovelies: Mareblu Naturals Blueberry Pomegranate Trail Mix Crunch

This stuff is delightful. I LOVE it. Its a mix of almonds, cashews, pistachios, dried blueberries, and pomegranite. Its all natural, kosher, gluten free and some other stuff that I don't pay attention to because it actually tastes sooooo good!! They are like little clusters of blueberry nut deliciousness.

In the words of my wise, yet bratty nephew Kyle: They make me so happy.

so.. like... yum.

Friday we visited Greg's at UVU. It is the student restaurant for the culinary department there. It was Japanese week and it was a great time. The food was pretty good, except it seems, for a certain soup that my sister, Randy and my mom got. It was called Egg Custard Soup. When the server brought it to the table it jiggled, not unlike jello or my thighs. As they started to eat it the conversation went like this:

Mom: What's in it?

Lore: I dunno. It scary.
Randy: It has... meat in it.
Mom: I can't figure out what it tastes like.
Lore: Ummmm...
Randy: It tastes like... Mushrooms
Mom: There's no mushrooms in there!
Randy: No, no.. like um.. bean.
Mom: Yeah.. Beef.(Ber and I begin to laugh as we eat our perfectly normal Miso soup)
Randy: Not Beef! No like... Pork and beans.. without the pork.
Lore: It yucky. I'm not eating that, I can't tell what's floating in it.
Mom: Yeah.. its smokey. I don't like it.
Randy: Yeah I know what it tastes like. Smoked ASS.

So there you go. The REST of the food was pretty good and the presentation was awesome. Its a very reasonable price for five courses and really fun for a change of pace.

Check it out!

stick it to the man

I love the Cheesecake Factory. I love, LOVE, LOOOOVE it.

I pretty much want to marry it.

At some point, on any trip to Las Vegas in the past, you would be sure to find me sprawled in the licked-free-of-debris Chicken Madeira plate while doing the Homer Simpson gargle to the last swallow of mango marguerita and berating my server loudly to make my cheese-cake-to-go reeeeal snappy.

I was thrilled when I found out that we, in Utah, were finally deemed worthy to have our very own Cheesecake factory. Sometime back one of our local news stations had ran a report that they were looking for new areas to expand and had several states that they were looking into. Unfortunately they said that the owners of the Cheesecake Factory, in their infinite wisdom, only built their restaurants where the college education rate was above a certain percentage and Utah fell below that rate. Now I never finished college and I don't know how right I may be, but I came up with a few hypothesis as to why maybe they use that percentage as a location factor:

1. College educated people go to school a lot. That makes them hungry.

2. Smart people are fat. Fat people eat more.

3. College educated people generally make more and thus eat out more often.

I'm not sure if any of them are close to their reasoning but I am glad they rethought their decision cause I felt it was pretty weak. Its not that Utah is the Land of the Stupids or anything like that or we just quit going to the school house when Pa needed us back on the farm. Actually the rate of students continuing on to college is pretty high around these parts. The problem actually comes from the fact that many students, once wisened up, leave in a mass exodus like flocks of ducks seeking warmer climes. Our biggest export is good college educated people. They act like Utah is a big family. All the good smart kids go to school move out and get jobs and all the stupid kids stay home and live with Ma and Pa.

Maybe that's why although we finally got our own place its scandalously fun-sized. You can fit three of our Cheesecake Factories into the one in Vegas and probably still have room for Celine's farewell party for her dancers.

Every time I drive by around dinner dining hours there is a crowd spilling out onto the sidewalk with over an hour wait. I went at a quarter to ten recently and was told it would still be 45 minutes. I guess they underestimated us. Do they not know that we all dream of having a family with eight kids and we can only leave one at home locked in the closet before the neighbors become suspicious? That we might not buy the alcohol but we make up for that in sheer numbers? So the next time you stop by (I highly recommend you do if you haven't yet) and you're waiting outside huddled against a no parking sign for warmth for an hour and a half in order to give them money for their delicious moderately priced fare, and then hurried out again like cattle in a shute while still trying vainly to scrape the last crumb off the plate, just feel happy that you're showing those high paid exec types up. Guess we're not as dumb as they thought we were.

any place Kevin Bacon worked is A-OK with me

Today I baked.

I never bake. I cook. As a matter of fact I have said on numerous occasions how much I hate to bake. Cooking is more fun. You can experiment. You can toss a little of this in, toss in a little of that. Baking, if you toss in a little more of this or substitute a little of that instead you end up with something globular, bitter, and strangely deformed. I'm sure my friend Lucky remembers our very brief stint as makers of meringue and sugar cookies. Folks, the meringue ended up looking like overly tanned inverted nipples. They were strangely chewy and I won't even start on how it tasted. Bakers need to be precise. I'm not. Thats why I'm not left brained.

They probably enjoy math too. Yuck.

Today I diverged strangely out of my usual path and made some raspberry muffins. They were GOOD. They had these lovely little cinammon and suger crumbles on the top. I was very pleased with myself. They came out of a bag. Oh how I love Lehi Roller Mills. Way to help out a not-a-baker guys! I figure these are just as good if not better then any made by those baking snobs that think anything out of a box is trash. I have had muffins from a bakery that paled in comparison. The Roller Mills also make the best pumpkin bundt cake EVER.

So, the point is, I will continue to take the easy way out. I like what I get from it and it saves me a lot of work, mess and irritation. For all else... I have a Stubborn Foodie.

Is there anything out there that makes your life so much easier and yet tastes so good that its just not right?? What are your favorite time savers cooking, baking or otherwise? Don't hold out on the rest of us!