Vote for Moxie in the Bissell Most Valuable Pet contest!!!
I think I’ve mentioned before that when our home phone rings, the phone will announce who’s calling. It doesn’t sound at all natural, the way the phone stiltedly announces “Call. From. Fred’s. Cell.” or whatever. My favorite thing is when Fred’s sister calls. She’s listed as “R. Herlastname”, and the phone pronounces it as “Arrrr Herlastname.” It always cracks me up, and last month I was messing around with the phone, and changed her name in our phone book (if the person calling isn’t in the phone phonebook, the phone will announce the name as listed with the phone company. This is particularly fun when “Out of Area” calls.)
So I changed her name in the phone book, and then she didn’t call for a long time.
The other day, I was hanging out on my bed with the Bradys, and the phone rang. I didn’t figure it was for me, so I didn’t bother to get up to answer it (Fred was downstairs). After the second ring, the phone announced who was calling.
“What the fuck?” I said to Cindy Brady. “Who’s calling? R McGee, is that what she said?”
Cindy Brady had no opinions on the matter, and I puzzled over it for a few seconds before I remembered changing the name in the phonebook.
“R. Matey” is what I changed it to, because the “Arrrr” sounded pirate-like, and why not go the whole hog, am I right?
And once I realized what the phone was saying, OH how I laughed and laughed.
I amuse myself so.
This weekend, I made a batch of Cinnabon-clone cinnamon rolls, using this recipe. I made them right up to the point where they needed to go in the oven, then put them in the refrigerator Friday night. Saturday morning, before we went to get groceries, I took them out to bring them to room temperature, and then when we got back, I baked them.
They were very very very very VERY DAMN good. The only down side was that Fred doesn’t much care for cream cheese on top of a cinnamon roll – he prefers a glaze – and I think I feel the same. Though, of course, that cream cheese didn’t stop me from shoving plenty of these rolls in my mouth, you understand.
Next time, I’ll try them with just a simple butter-sugar-vanilla glaze.
I’ve been giving the bread maker a workout lately, actually. Other than the cinnamon rolls, I happened across a recipe for oatmeal bread and it’s really good. So good that I made it twice in the space of a week. (Recipe is here.) It’s good to make sandwiches with (I had an open-faced egg salad sandwich) and also good just toasted with jam on it.
(Fred toasted a piece of the bread and then got a jar of JAM FROM THE STORE out of the fridge. I was all “Are you fucking KIDDING ME? All the jam I’ve made, you want to eat JAM FROM THE STORE? I’ve got pineapple jam, I’ve got strawberry jam, I’ve got strawberry lemon marmalade and cherry jam. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.” I don’t even know where the hell that store jam came from (I mean, I KNOW. The STORE. DUH. But I don’t remember buying it, which means either it’s really old or SOMEONE ELSE bought it! The nerve! But that bastard ate that store jam on that piece of toast because he didn’t want to be WASTEFUL. Hmph.)
So my question to y’all – and I am SURE I asked this same damn question when we first got the bread maker – what’s your favorite bread maker recipe? I’m kind of enjoying using it lately!
Guess who’s going to the adoption center very very sooooon?
Back to front: Jan, Bobby, Peter.
Bobby, working on his “I’m a sweet, innocent baby, don’t you wanna adopt meeee?” look.
Another sweet look from Bobby.
Stretchin’ Jan.
Bobby’s all “There appears to be a Cindy FAR too close to me!”
Suggie, in the Sug cave.
Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Even though I never did look ratty, and she’s a whore.
2007: An entry in pictures.
2006: I’m not germ-phobic or anything, but GAG ME.
2005: Stuff I Bought.
2004: No entry.
2003: Frequently asked questions.
2002: I love me some messing around with the camera.
2001: I was being subjected to porn without realizing it!
2000: Ben and me, we had sex in the back of a van.
Hands down our favorite family bread machine recipe is pizza dough. You find some good recipes for both whole wheat and standard crusts – yum! I will have to try that cinnamon roll recipe.
The Brady’s can’t be going to the adoption center already – they just got here! I’m sure they will be scooped up quickly with those sweet faces.
Sugarbutt looks highly disapproving of your photo taking, lol.
I’m re-posting the questions because I commented too late on Friday:
1) Have you made an official transition to Coke Zero?
2) How is Coltrane handling being inside all the time with the other cats because of the snow? (there is just something that pulls my heart strings about that orange boy).
Anna, I’m saving your questions for this Friday. 🙂
Okay – Thanks Robyn! I’ll look forward to Friday then.
Please, for the love of GOD, some bread machine recipes that actually work. I can make bread the old-fashioned way and it comes out perfectly every time. But I don’t have that kind of time, so I’ve started using the bread machine. And every goddam loaf comes out tiny, really dense, and awful.
It’s beginning to give me a complex.
Kathleen, the recipe I used is here. Both times I made the bread, I had to add about a tsp of flour during the kneading process, because it was a bit sticky. Both times, the bread has come out really really good!
Yay! Thank you! I’ll be trying that recipe out tomorrow.
I’m emailing you our tried & true recipe for Cheese and Onion bread. Oh my Lord, it is so fricken good and makes the best toast EVER. I’m on my 3rd bread machine (wore out one, hated the other and gave it away) and it takes practice and good measuring to get the bread to come out right. My experience, and like Robyn said, is learning to add a little flour when it seems like the thing to do, and making adjustments after a lot of practice successes and flops. We also use glutein when making wheat breads, it needs a little extra oomph and helps the bread to rise.
@Brenda, Please share with all of us!
KK, hopefully it will format:
Cheese and Onion Bread
1.5 lb. loaf 2 lb. loaf
8.5 oz. (1 C. + 1 T.) warm water 10 oz. (1 ¼ C. warm water)
1 egg, large 1 egg, large
2 Tbs. butter or margarine 2 Tbs. butter
3 1/3 C. bread flour 4 C. bread flour
1 ½ Tbs. sugar 2 Tbs. sugar
1 ¼ tsp. salt 1.5 tsp. salt
2 tsp. active dry yeast or 1 ½ tsp. fast rise yeast 2 ¼ tsp. active dry year or 2 tsp. fast rise yeast
2/3 C. cheddar cheese, cubed & frozen 1 C. cheddar cheese, cubed & frozen
2/3 C. green onion, large chop 1 C. green onion, large chop
Process: (use Sweet bread setting and we use Dark color setting)
– Add liquid ingredients and butter to pan.
Add all dry ingredients, except yeast, to pan. Tap pan to settle dry ingredients, then level them, pushing some of the mixture into the corners.
– Make a well in center of dry ingredients; add yeast. Lock pan into bread machine.
– Program for Sweet bread, then desired color (dark) and size (1.5 lb. or 2 lb. loaf). Turn machine on; add frozen bread and onions when alert sounds during the knead cycle. When done, turn off, cool bread on rack.
Notes:
Use cubed cheese vs. grated because the bread machine will pulverize it and we like to have whole cubes or gobs of cheese in the finished loaf. Freezing the cheese (not rock hard, we usually cube it and put it into the freezer before measuring the other ingredients, just until the knead cycle beeps) helps it also keep its shape to form the yummy globs.
Don’t be afraid that the bread rises hugely (looks like its overflowing) and appears pale on top in the window of the machine (if you have a window.) Just trust it, it will be OK. Better than OK.
OK, that didn’t format the way the preview did…let’s try it again:
Cheese and Onion Bread
1.5 lb. loaf
8.5 oz. (1 C. + 1 T.) warm water
1 egg, large
2 Tbs. butter or margarine
3 1/3 C. bread flour
1 ½ Tbs. sugar
1 ¼ tsp. salt
2 tsp. active dry yeast or 1 ½ tsp. fast rise yeast
2/3 C. cheddar cheese, cubed & frozen
2/3 C. green onion, large chop
Process: (use Sweet bread setting and we use Dark color setting)
– Add liquid ingredients and butter to pan.
Add all dry ingredients, except yeast, to pan. Tap pan to settle dry ingredients, then level them, pushing some of the mixture into the corners.
– Make a well in center of dry ingredients; add yeast. Lock pan into bread machine.
– Program for Sweet bread, then desired color (dark) and size (1.5 lb. or 2 lb. loaf). Turn machine on; add frozen bread and onions when alert sounds during the knead cycle. When done, turn off, cool bread on rack.
Notes:
Use cubed cheese vs. grated because the bread machine will pulverize it and we like to have whole cubes or gobs of cheese in the finished loaf. Freezing the cheese (not rock hard, we usually cube it and put it into the freezer before measuring the other ingredients, just until the knead cycle beeps) helps it also keep its shape to form the yummy globs.
Don’t be afraid that the bread rises hugely (looks like its overflowing) and appears pale on top in the window of the machine (if you have a window.) Just trust it, it will be OK. Better than OK.
thank you thank you!
No bread maker here. Warm bread with butter is the crack for me and with my type 2 diabetes I’m scared of what I might do to myself if I had one. If I had a family like my sister I would have one. I think my husband would eat it but not like I would. I need a couple of teenage boys to help wolf the stuff down so I can have just a little. My brother-in-law makes them bread a lot. I should tell him about the cinnabon clone recipie. My husband is whinning that I’ve never made prime rib in thirty years. I am extremly intimidated by the idea. No one in my family has ever made it to advise me. His friend’s wife makes it but she is a heavy smoker and I am an asthmatic and I can’t handle the second hand smoke to go ask her. Can anyone point me to a good recipie online? I know it’s expensive. I don’t even know how to buy it. I can google it I guess. The sad part? I don’t even much care for Prime Rib. It’s bland and fatty and I only like it with fattening horseradish sour cream sauce on it. Give me a filet mignon or even a hamburger instead any day. Sigh 🙁 .
Both these recipes work very well, but the first one works only with a gas oven (and you need to have a good exhaust fan, too).
http://www.melindalee.com/index.php?option=com_garyscookbook&Itemid=6&func=detail&id=788
Thanks Maxi! My husband’s birthday is in March and I think I’ll wait until then so I can surprise him and so I can open the windows if I need to. It should be less frigid outside by then. I forgot about the smoke factor. My sister-in-law made it at hime once and gave up due to the smoke problem. We have a natural gas range and an exhaust fan and a big kitchen window. I have a good butcher nearby too so I may be able to pull this off… Thanks so much for taking the time to post this :)!
You’re welcome!
We hardly ever use our bread machine anymore. When I eat a lot of bread, my clothes shrink. It’s weird.
Actually, I would use it if I could find some recipes that worked (I hear ya, Kathleen). I’ve only gotten the mixes from the supermarket to work – from scratch recipes suck every time. I’ll follow the link you provided, Robyn. Thanks!
If I wanted my husband to move out (ahem!), I’d drive to Alabama and adopt all six of those Brady kitties.
steakhouse wheat bread for the bread machine = YUM. You kinda have to watch the dough early on and add a little bit more flour if it seems outrageously sticky, but it seems to need to be a bit sticky to come out right. This stuff is AMAZING. I don’t drink instant coffee (eew) but it’s worth keeping around just to make this.
Oh, how I love fresh-made bread. I’m looking for a bread machine. I had one years ago and it didn’t work so well so I’m hesitant to get another. But when we visit my MIL and she makes bread/cinnamon rolls, etc. with her breadmaker, I always promise to myself that I’d look for a good bread machine. Any recommendations, especially one that won’t make me broke? Thanks!
Brady kittehs are too adorable for words. They will be adopted very quickly. I’m going to miss their cute little faces and antics.
Forgot to say the talking pirate phone is cracking me up. My husband has a friend who fancies himself a pirate. He wears a pirate sword earring. He would really like that phone I bet.
I don’t have any bread recipes but I just wanted to tell you that OH MY GOSH – I laughed and laughed about the whole pirate calling you!! Even now thinking about it cracks me up! Thanks for that, really needed that today!
Reading about your “talking phone” reminded me to tell you that I have a GPS which, of course, “talks”… I have it set to the British Female voice.
One day, I decided to have a little fun… I programmed some places that I go but gave them more interesting names…
So, now I go to “World Market Dammit” and “Walmart For Fuck’s Sake” and it NEVER FAILS that I crack up when the GPS says either of those things.
Yeahhhhh… I’m 14 (mentally, anyways)