12/4/09 – Friday

Vote for Suzanne!!! Good Mood Gig from SAM-e   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   I was reading a site the other day that led me to another site, that ultimately led me to … Continue reading “12/4/09 – Friday”

Vote for Suzanne!!!

Vote for Me
Good Mood Gig from SAM-e

 

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I was reading a site the other day that led me to another site, that ultimately led me to a site for some special kind of sea salt. The person who’d linked to the sea salt had raved about how excellent and amazing it was, and honestly when it comes to food or food preparation tools, it’s not that hard to get me thinking “I NEED THAT!” So I was reading about this amazing sea salt, and I was seriously thinking about ordering some (I am such a freakin’ lemming), and then I came across a sentence that included the words for the discriminating palate.

I closed the web page.

My palate does not discriminate. I do not have a discerning palate. I have a low-down and dirty pedestrian palate that is attracted to the lowest of the low. Diet Coke. Egg McMuffins. Laffy Taffy.

A few weeks ago, to thank someone for the help they’d given him, Fred ordered a small box of chocolates from his store. They were special, hand-made chocolates that were filled with things like honey from bees exposed only to the Xtabentum Orchid in Central America (I did not make that up). He had nothing that included milk chocolate, because guess who likes milk chocolate and cannot abide the bitterness of dark chocolate?

Me and my pedestrian taste buds.

Of the twelve chocolates he sent, there was only one (Opium: The flavor & aroma without the narcotic) that I liked. Most of them, I just didn’t care for. (The Opium was really good, though – after I ate it, I felt like I’d eaten honeysuckle)

I do believe I’ll stick with Dove chocolates, with the occasional foray into Godiva, thanks.

 

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Okay, recipe-havin’ people. Give me recipes for things to do with cooked, shredded chicken, would you? I made some fabulous Chicken Enchiladas with Creamy Green Chile Sauce last week (a recipe left in my comments – I used flour tortillas, warmed them in the microwave instead of frying them, used cheese only on top of the enchiladas, not inside them, and half as much butter as the recipe calls for), and am planning to make Baked Chimichangas next week. I can always use more suggestions, though – we don’t want to get bored, and we’ve got a LOT of canned chicken.

 

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If you love your dutch oven, please explain to me why it’s better than just a big pot. I always see recipes calling for a dutch oven but I don’t have one and have never used one.

I loved my 6-quart Lodge dutch oven so much that I went and bought a 3-quart dutch oven to use when I don’t need such a big pot!

I love my dutch oven because it heats much quicker and more evenly than my other pots. It’s the perfect size for just about anything I want to use it for. I always use it to make jams and jellies, I boil chickens in it, and at this moment I’ve got black beans soaking in it (I’ll be canning those later). Since I got my dutch oven, I almost never use the big pot I already had.

Everyone else, chime in here – let’s convince Shelly that she needs a dutch oven! 🙂

 

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I watched Four Christmases and Funny People over the weekend…Funny People was the worst movie I have seen in a long time, did not bother to finish it. I have not seen anything I really liked in a while, what are your recent LIKES, REALLY likes, and loves…from this year or years past?

You know, in recent memory the only movie I recall liking (aside from Food, Inc) was Star Trek, which we saw at the theater over the summer. We liked Taken, The Wrestler, Yes Man, Slumdog Millionaire, and Milk. Other than that, I’m truly drawing a blank.

Perennial favorites: Forrest Gump, The Stand (the miniseries), The Shawshank Redemption, When Harry Met Sally, The Bridges of Madison County (it took a couple of viewings before I actually appreciated that one), annnnd… that’s all that comes to mind.

What about you guys? What are YOUR recent and all-time favorite movies?

 

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I swear, you could just about braid that ear floof.

 

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Orange (left) and Blue.


I! HAZ! A! COMPLAINT!


Our front room (one half of which is our living room, and the other half of which goes mostly unused and I’m trying to convince Fred we should turn into another foster kitten room, but I’ve been unsuccessful thus far) gets kind of cold when the weather turns cold, so I have an electric throw on the couch to keep warm. The kittens love to curl up on it whether it’s turned on or not.


Orange, Keebler, and Pink.


Hydrox, Orange, Keebler, and Pink. Blue must have been off doing something important.

 

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Happy Spanky.

 

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Previously
2008: (you’re welcome for that visual)
2007: She’s a force to be reckoned with, that one.
2006: They are NOT OUR CATS. They have owners, damnit, and they’re not us!
2005: No entry.
2004: It is FUCKING cold downstairs in our house.
2003: And then I got the Best Picture EVER Taken.
2002: Fluff? Perhaps. But very entertaining fluff.
2001: “Who’s Robyn?” said the realtor.
2000: “You little bastard!” I yelled, and then ran at him
1999: Through three moves and a name change,
they’ve managed to keep up with me, sending address labels all the way.

45 thoughts on “12/4/09 – Friday”

  1. The Dove chocolates with the peanut butter are REALLY good. They kick Reece’s ass.

    And on your fave movie list, don’t forget “O Brother Where Art Thou?”

    “And stay out of the Woolsworth!!”

    2. We love that one. OldMan went around saying
      “We… thought… you… were… a… toad” in his best twangy KY voice and rolling his eyes around like he was about to go into some kind of fit.
      *snort*
      I’m not much into Bluegrass but the soundtrack was pretty good.

      1. “Awaken my hunger without beddin’ it back down” is a line that gets used around our house a lot. Love that movie.

  2. Oh my god, YES, the Lodge 6 qt. dutch oven. It’s vital! As you said, Robyn, it heats quickly and evenly (no hot-spot in the middle with uncooked things around the edges). But the best part is, you can cook start-to-finish in it. Brown meat, saute onions, all your prep things can be done in that pot… and then you cover it and it can go right into the oven. It’s the BEST POT EVER!

    And I just realized that makes me sound like I’m pushing weed at the schoolyard.

    Call me out-of-date, but for movies, I tend to like the classics — Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, any of the Thin Man series, The Philadelphia Story — at least for comedies. Newer dramas (Milk, Good Night and Good Luck, Frost/Nixon come to mind) have been outstanding, but comedies? Pffft.

  3. Shredded chicken
    Great Northern or Navy Beans
    chicken broth
    canned diced green chilis
    garlic or garlic powder
    oregano
    cumin
    salt (we use sea salt, srsly)
    coarse ground black pepper

    Your preferred quantities of each, spice to taste, crock pot or simmer on low for an hour or five. White chicken chili, yum. Let me know when it’s done and we’ll be over. 😉

    1. Oh, I actually do use sea salt – I have a ton of it – but this sea salt was SPECIAL. I don’t remember why, but totally, it was special (and expensive!)

      Thanks for the recipe. 🙂

      1. I use a big old box of Kosher salt (that I also use for canning) for just about all my “special cooking needs.” I buy Morton, or sometimes Diamond. I still keep iodized salt on the table so nobody gets a goiter, but I prefer the flavor and texture of Kosher salt to sea salt. This is going to sound like a crazy person, but I find kosher salt to be “less salty.” I find sea salt to be “too salty” most of the time. Yup, crazy.

      2. Then you *must* have it! Was it a special color? Can’t recall where I saw an article on “Salts of The World” where there were different colors from different locations. Bet THOSE were expen$ive! 🙂

  4. There’s always chicken a la king, chicken salad, chicken fried rice, chicken tacos, chicken and dumplings (a huge fave around here)….I feel like Bubba Gump now, so I’m gonna STFU.

    I just baked a chicken and shredded it last night for the fridge, and I was making a list of things in my head that I’d use it for. Mainly, chicken and rolled dumplings, that’s happening tonight. Jean mentioned white chicken chili, which is also a huge favorite, and I also make chicken potato chowder, which my husband loooves. I put low-fat sour cream in both the chili and the chowder to make them SUPERDELICIOUS.

  5. The FLOOF. MY GOD, the FLOOF.

    The Wonkas and the Cookies are your most adorable fosters EVAH.

  8. Just saw Sunshine Cleaning and really liked it. If you’re in the mood for weird, Donnie Darko is good & weird.

  9. Almost forgot – The Constant Gardener is great, and The Insider (1999, Russell Crowe) – the story sounds dull but it is not.

  11. Some of my favorite movies are:
    Funny Girl
    Sense & Sensibility
    Napolean Dynamite
    P.S. I love you
    Braveheart
    My Fair Lady
    Mean Girls
    Dumb & Dumber
    Clueless
    Borat

  12. I am not sure where I got this, but I always thought a Dutch Oven was when you are in bed with your partner and they fart and pull the blankets over your head (Or pull the blankets over your head then fart). Either way, farting was involved.

  15. One of the best movies I’ve seen on DVD is
    “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”
    Awesome movie, stays with you and makes you think.

    The best movie I’ve seen in YEARS is playing at the movie theatre right now:
    “The Blind Side”
    Fantastic acting, another movie that you think about for days. For me, that’s the sign of an unforgettable movie…one that you still talk about the next day and doesn’t make you regret spending the money to watch it!

  17. Pioneer Woman’s spaghetti chicken could be modified for the cooked chicken with the addition of broth in the water used to cook the pasta.

  18. Julie and Julia was a really good movie, the Julia part being the more entertaining. Definitely worth renting though.

    Some of my favorite movies:
    Philadelphia Story (which Deeje already mentioned)
    Up-Pixar’s latest, I wasn’t that interested to see it-but it was so good!
    All About Eve-Bette Davis at her best
    Dear Frankie
    Pride and Prejudice miniseries with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle
    Hairspray-the newest one, so enjoyable

    Even though I have never thought about purchasing a dutch oven, now all of the sudden I feel like I HAVE to have one. May I be one of your lemmings, Robyn?

  19. All time favorite flicks: Young Frankenstein, The Princess Bride, To Sir with Love. Agree with The Shawshank Redemption and The Stand – I always get sucked into watching them when they are on.

  20. All time favorite comidies: Mel Brook’s History Of The World Part I and Young Frankenstein.
    I Love Gone With The Wind, Camelot, The Lesly Ann Warren Cinderella, Sense and Sensability, Pride and Prejudice, The English Patient, The End Of The Affair, Doubt. Hairspray and Happy Feet always make me feel good. The Silence Of The Lambs, The Sixth Sense and 30 Days Of Night are great scary ones. The best movie we Pay-Per-Viewed recently was The TalKing Of Pelham 123 (I hope those numbers are right). John Travolta and Denzel Washington were very good.

    We have a wonderful Greek Diner here and they have a soup called Greek Lemon Chicken Soup. It is a creamy chicken soup with rice and shredded chicken and some veggies. I have googled it and found recipies for it but haven’t attempted it yet. I’ve been looking for a great chicken soup recipie. I’m not into the broth type my husband favors and he’s not into the chicken barley I grew up on. The Lemon Chicken is comfrot food but not boring. I would love to be able to duplicate it.

  21. OK, cook some stew or pot roast or beans in your big pot. Then cook same in a dutch oven, in the oven or on the stovetop. That should convince you that you need one.

    Everything seems to cook better in one. Use your big pot for cooking soup or pasta.

    P.S. we’re talking cast iron here, right?

  22. Thanks for the Baked Chimichangas idea. I have 4 chicken breasts thawed in the frig waiting for me to cook them, but I was having a hard time trying to figure out what to make. I love Chimichangas, but the deep frying is just not good for anyone. I’m off to start cooking the chicken so I can have them for dinner tonight.

  23. Some of my favorite movies: Die Hard, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Wizard of Oz, all Harry Potter movies, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, The Stand, Rear Window, Aliens (“Game over man!”), Twister, Some Like it Hot, Young Frankenstein, Home Alone, most Pixar movies…oh, the list just goes on! I guess I’m just a movie watchin’ fool. 😀

  24. I’m with you on O Brother and Shawshank Redemption. Some others I’ll watch over and again are: Blazing Saddles and Space Balls (or any Mel Brooks movie,)Better Off Dead (or any John Cusack movie,) “The Mummy” Series, Back to the Future, Bridget Jones’ Diary…. and I’m drawing a blank on the rest!

  25. I have been using the Drogheria & Alimentari All Natural Mediterranean Sea Salt Mill for a few years now, and I’m absolutely addicted to it. It comes in an adorable little jar with a grinder on top, and it makes everything taste amazing. A little goes a long way, but I buy two or three at a time in the “far away” supermarket, since they don’t carry it in my nearby Shop Rite. It’s worth making a special trip for!

    Movies I watch everytime they’re on:

    Pleasantville
    The Truman Show
    Overboard
    That Thing You Do
    Best in Show
    Waiting for Guffman
    A Mighty Wind
    This Is Spinal Tap (Can you tell I LOVE Christopher Guest??)
    Catch Me If You Can
    Any and all Pirates of The Carribbean movies
    Meet Me In St. Louis
    Mean Girls
    Oklahoma
    Godspell
    Hair
    Goodfellas
    Almost Famous

    Wow – that’s a lot! It’s a wonder I still have time to shop for sea salt – LOL!

    1. Based on this entry, I made this, but not in the crockpot. I just threw the peanut butter and fixings in a saucepot, and when it was warm and melted I added my 2-3 cups of leftover chicken, and a bit more water cause I like things saucy. I served it over white rice and OH MY GOSH! It was fabulous!

  28. Shawshank Redemption gets me every time. I bawl and bawl and then sniffle and snort. Love Actually is one of the sweetest movies EVER. The opening to the movie says it all- Love is all around you- On 9-11 people didn’t make calls of hate- they made calls of love.
    It appears I am sort of a cornball. Who knew??

  29. If you really are interested in some really good sea salt, may I recommend: http://www.piransalt.com/
    If it looks like something you’d like to try, let me know. I gots connections 🙂 It’s really quite good AND they make a dark chocolate bar with sea salt. A.Ma.Zing.

    Favorite movies: Singin’ in the Rain (and most anything with Gene Kelly), The Third Man, When Harry Met Sally, The Color Purple, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Casablanca, Holiday Inn, Star Wars (the original trilogy). There are more and something might pop into my head in an hour and I’ll think it was a travesty that I hadn’t thought of it sooner, but it’s late and frankly, I’m done thinking for the day! 🙂

  30. I Loved Dear Frankie, I hadn’t thought of it in awhile.

    I was told not to use sea salt extensively because it doesn’t have iodine in it. Styro mentioned that too.

  31. We’ve been into TV shows lately, and some that I’ve liked a lot have been:

    Arrested Development
    Wonderfalls
    Reaper (We just finished this and I liked it more than I want to admit)
    Dead Like Me
    Party Down (comes out on DVD in January?)

  32. I make an awesome buffalo chicken dip with shredded chicken.
    1 cup shredded chicken
    1 cup hot sauce
    1 cup ranch dressing
    1 8oz. pkg. cream cheese

    mix chicken and hot sauce and let it sit for about an hour, then add ranch dressing and cream cheese, mix well. bake at 350 for 15 minutes. serve hot or cold, with tortilla chips/crackers.

  33. I see a lot of movies (usually on DVD). The Wrestler blew me away…loved it.

    PS You and Fred made great Santa and Helper!

  34. Movies: How come no one listed Tootsie? followed by “the Fugitive” followed by ” a few good men”

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