YUCKY DAY!

Today is a very blah and yucky day. It snowed this morning and has now changed over to rain. So now we have about 3" of YUCKY SLUSH!!!

BUSY WEEK!!!

Boy this is getting tough. I've been taking pictures but being that PJ's been home, we're always on the run. I don't have time to post. So today will be quite a few days worth!

Mon Jan 26

PJ bought this new kitchen gadget that slices, dices etc. He wanted to try a recipe from the cookbook that came with it. He made the Health Salad.

It's green cabbage, red cabbage, zucchini, carrots, red onion if you want, I added some Dicon, and then after you julianne everything, add some F.F. Red Wine Vinegarette. Toss together and enjoy. It was delicious!

Sunday Jan 25

My friend Kris, recomended me for the Who's Cooking LI Life section of Newsday. It was in today's newspaper!!!

Sat Jan 24

What a great day. Pop's threw himself an 88th birthday party with his friends and family. His 2 closest friends, his golfing buddies, surprised him with a belly dancer! Pops had a BLAST and totally got into it!

Fri Jan 23

I decided to try my hand at posting on Craigslist. I've always done Ebay but their costs are too high and this just seems easier. So I decided to gather up my scrapbooking magazines that I saved to use in the workshop that I used to teach. Now that I don't do that anymore, what do i need them for! So on to Craigslist they went and today someone's coming over to buy them!

YUMMY LETTUCE WRAPS

Last night I made Aaron McCargo's recipe for Szechwan Lettuce Wraps. I had no clue that the szechwan sauce was spicy! The lettuce wraps looked pretty but were inedible! PJ and I each ate one and couldn't believe how spicy they were. Our noses were running, ears itchy and mouths were on fire! Oh well, in the garbage they went. In the recipe there's a Dicon as an ingredient. It looks like a fat white carrot but I think it's in the Radish family. It's my new favorite ingredient! I had some shredded carrots and Dicon, cubed chicken and bean sprouts left over that didn't have any sauce on them. I decided to mix them all together and I added some Asian Sesame Salad Dressing with it and made lunch. Boy were they good. Just a change in the sauce and there's a new winner!

Spicy Szechwan Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Prep Time:
15 min
Inactive Prep Time:
hr min
Cook Time:
16 min
Level:
Easy
Serves:
6 servings
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts 1/4 cup shredded daikon radish 2 carrots, shredded 1/4 cup bean sprouts 3 stalks (1/2 cup) scallions 1/4 cup Szechwan sauce 1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder 1/4 teaspoon cayenne 1/2 teaspoon sea salt 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil, for frying 2 tablespoons butter 1 lemon, juiced 1 head Bibb lettuce leaves
Split boneless chicken in half. If too thick, pound out to make thinner.
In a medium bowl, mix together radish, carrots, bean sprouts, and scallions. Add Szechwan sauce.
In a small bowl, mix together five-spice, cayenne, salt and pepper. Season chicken breasts lightly with rub. Cut the chicken into strips.
In a large skillet over high heat, add the grapeseed oil. Once hot, sear the chicken breasts for 4 minutes on each side. Add butter and lemon to pan and baste the chicken for another minute. Remove chicken to a platter to let cool. Once cooled, dice or shred the chicken.
Place a spoonful of the vegetable mixture and the shredded chicken onto each leaf of lettuce. Roll and serve.

BECOMING A VIGNERON

Today we have an expensive decision to make. We heard about a grape leasing program at the Cayuga Ridge Winery on Cayuga Lake, NY. The program sounds like so much fun and we've met people who have done it and still are!

This is from the web site:

Join other friends of the vine and become a

CAYUGA RIDGE ESTATE VIGNERON.

In the finest wine making tradition, have your very own vineyard to tend during 2009. It’s fun, easy and very rewarding! Lease a 10 vine minimum of either: CABERNET FRANC (red), RIESLING (white), CHARDONNAY (white) or CAYUGA WHITE.
During the Saturday morning coaching sessions you will learn viticultural practices in order to nurture your vines into a successful grape crop. You will learn to tie, “sucker”, and shoot position your vines at appropriate times during the growing season. You can have the fun of harvesting your own grapes or we can make them into wine for you at a reasonable cellaring fee. Your ten vines will produce five cases of wine.
Our staff will help care for your vines by fertilizing, weed controlling and spraying when necessary. For those of you who can’t tend your own vines personally, but, who want to take part in the 2009 Vigneron program, our staff will diligently care for your vines.

So we need to figure out if we should wait or try it this year. We'll miss the May workshop because we'll be at Scott's graduation but we can hopefully attend the others. Instead of me taking pictures (I don't want to drive 5 hours to do that!) I've borrowed theirs!

Today is dedicated to DAR

I'm spending a good part of today getting all of my paperwork, documents and pictures in order so that my application to DAR will sail through without any problems.

My cousins and I have done extensive research with the Somerset Historical Society and have documented 13 generations! We can go all the way back to Wilhem ANGEN_EICK born about 1590 coming to New Amsterdam in 1650. The one piece of the puzzle that we can't seem to find out is where is my Grandfather buried! We have pictures of headstone going back to the early 1700's in the Ten Eyck cemetary but can't figure out where he is. Go figure!

While looking through my photos, I found this picture of my Grandparents wedding.

Front: My Grandmother Veronica (Her real name was Gretchen!) and my Aunt Dot (Dorothy Reith), they were sisters.

Back from the left: Best man was a vetenarian but don't know his name, my Grandfather Abraham, Uncle George (Bauer, brother of Vera and Dot) and Uncle Charlie (Reith, Aunt Dot's husband)

We woke up to snow this morning...

I didn't know it was going to snow again. It's so pretty when it rests on the branches of the trees.

I'm cheating a little. The picture below is from our little dinner party last night. Being that it went into the wee hours of the morning TODAY, I'm counting thispicture as today's picture!

BRRRRRRRRRRR....

Right now it's 9 degrees out! When PJ left for work today at 4 AM, it was 4 degrees! I took this picture of PJ's favorite thermometer that's on our shed. It was showing 28 degrees but it's in the sun so I guess that's why there's a big difference.

STILL COOKING...

JANUARY 16

I had to make another Sauerbraten today. Kris recomended me for the Newsday Who's Cooking article. The lady that interviewed me thought the Sauerbraten would be a good idea. All went well until I sliced the meat. It was so tender but I let it cool to make slicing easier. About 15 minutes before the photographer was to arrive, I put the meat on a plate, nice and neat and put the gravy on top but not covering the whole slices of meat. I didn't want it to look like a plate of gravy! The meat started to dry out so I had to keep spritzing it with water to keep it hydrated! Why me??? I think the funny part is still to come when Kris, John, Judy and Lew come tonight to share the sauerbraten with us. They may break their teeth trying to chew it!!

This pic is before cooking the meat but after I browned the sides.

A Gift From Walter

One of our favorite people in the world is Walter. PJ went to college with him and his brother Mike. Walter spent a semester in Spain (approx. 1973) and made many friends. He continues to visit them yearly and they also come to the US to visit him. On one of his trips, he brought a gift for us... a grape shaped dish. I'm assuming that it's supposed to hold grapes but maybe olives also. Whichever it is, I love it. We will always cherish it.

Favorite Poster

JAN 14th
Years ago, while shopping at Caldor, YES CALDOR!, I came across this poster. I took a liking to it because we love the Finger Lakes but also because we had contimplated opening a B&B upstate. The store was closing for good so I decided at that point to buy it. Years later, we decorated our kitchen in the grapes theme and this poster just goes with it beautifully. It's one of my favorite things and yup, it's from Caldor!

WHO'S COOKING...

JAN 13th

I received an email today from a woman at Newsday. My friend Kris, recomended me for the Who's Cooking article in Sunday's LI Life section! I couldn't believe it! The woman and I spoke together 4 times during the day and she decided that out of my list of favorite recipes, the recipe that will be featured will be my Sauerbraten! I had to run to the store to get a roast and some red wine. It took about 2 1/2 hours to find a roast that you can make pot roast with. I had to start marinating it right away. They are coming on Friday to take pictures of the finished dish!

MOVING IN DAY...

Jan. 12th

We moved Alyssa in to her apartment in the Bronx. She will be student teaching this semester at PS 108 in NYC. LOVE the bars on the windows!!

ALYSSA'S THRIFT SHOP MIRROR...

Alyssa is getting packed and ready to move tomorrow. She finished painting the ugly white wicker mirror that she got from the thrift shop the other day. Now it's nice!

PARTY AROUND THE WORLD...

This is actually yesterday's post but I ran out of time.

One of Scott's friends was having a party and wanted to change things up a bit. He decided to break up the people that were invited, into groups, and have each group represent a different country. Scott and his friends were China. They all got their clothes from the local Goodwill store. Scott even wore a lampshade as a hat. They had such a great time with this whole thing!

MY THRIFT SHOP FIND..

Alyssa and I went to our local thrift shop to see if we could pick up some things for her to use in her new apartment. She got a wicker twin headboard that has the middle as a mirror. It will be spray painted and turned into a regular mirror tomorrow. Alyssa picked out a pretty peachy/salmony color spray paint.

I've been enjoying reading the blog http://nestingplacenc.blogspot.com/

She is very creative in ways that she uses items and changes things around. I really need to do that in my house because we tend to never change things! We don't have much decorating sense.

I love the way she uses fabrics on the blog. With that in mind, I bought 2 tablecloths, one for the dining room table in the fall and the other is a turquoise and white paisley print that will go really well with the putside table in the summer. Alyssa thought if I wasn't going to use it as a tablecloth, it would be nice fabric to use in my next rag quilt.

May favorite thing that I bought today is actually ugly and not my style at all but who cares! It's a large glass lamp where the base can open up and you can put things in it. I had a great (or so I thought) thought in my head to put our long collected collection of wine bottle corks in it. It may end up ugly and then I'll just donate the lamp back to the thrift shop but for now, I'm willing to try. Now I just need a shade for the top!

SO THIS IS WHY THERE WAS ALWAYS A PUDDLE...

Scott has a terrible habit of drinking water with his head under the faucet. When he'd done, he turns off the water and walks away, sometimes leaving a trail of water on the floor. The other day I questioned him twice about leaving the water on the floor and not cleaning it up. He denied that it was him.

This cabinet under the sink is dark and a very weird shape because my sink is in the corner. You can't see what's in there and definately can't see the pipe. It turns out that a flower pot that I had in there was in the right spot to collect the water... until it overflowed! When I had to get 'in there' ( only a head and an arm and possibly a small part of your shoulder fit in there), I found lots of things I thought were long gone! I never realized how many sponges I had!

THIS POOR GUY......

I feel so bad for this man. His chair lift broke and he fell part of the way out. The chair snagged his pants and there he hung...literally... for 7 minutes in the freezing cold NAKED! I was looking for a recipe from the Today show and the story came on. There's even a shot of it on YOUTUBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBPP4Xh5iJo

I took the picture as I was watching it on my computer!

WHAT THE HECK IS PROJECT 365?

Creating Keepsakes magazine threw out a challenge to it's readers to take a photo a day for a year ...aka..Project 365.. to document a year of your life in photos.



I'm starting this blog on Jan 6 but I actually have pics starting with Jan 1. I plan to put together a photo album with journaling for each picture but have to find a way to cut costs for doing that. For now, they'll just be on the blog!

Jan. 6th
Chris is so proud of himself. He packed almost completely (except tooth brush, tothpaste etc) for his 6 week trip to South Africa... all in this backpack!

Jan. 5th
I finally finished the Rag Quilt that I made for Anya. I wrapped it up and took it to the post office today. I hope she likes it.



Jan 4th

Beef Roasts were on sale this week so before the winter is over, I had to make my mother's recipe for Sauerbraten. It takes 5 days to marinate, turning twice a day. This is day one of the marinating.






Jan. 3rd

It took 4 hours but it was well worth it... PASTA BOLOGNESE
The entire family LOVED it! (all except Alyssa because she wasn't allowed to eat any)

Jan 2nd

Alyssa did a lot of sleeping today. She got her tonsils out on Dec 30th and is in a lot of pain.

Jan 1st

Happy New Year!!!

My front window is adorned with the poinsettia's that PJ grows in the greenhouses at work. They will stay red for about 8 months! When the weather is nice, I put them in the garden for some bright color.