Day One Hundred and Eighty Two: Not-So-Funny Outtakes

Yesterday, when I was being pursued by a Ninja Samurai and a Magic Princess Pony (my two oldest children) and I dramatically fell to the ground in faux surrender (I was the fire-breathing dragon, natch), I noticed something.  As I lie there staring up at the ceiling mimicking (what I believe to be a rather good impersonation of) a slow and tragic fire-breathing-dragon death, I noticed my a.c. outtake vents are rather dusty.  The outtake vents are the ones in the ceiling where the hot/cold air comes out and heats/cools your room, generally improving your comfort level.  Chances are there is at least one in the room where you are sitting now.  Take a good look at it.  Is is clean or do you see some dust hiding there?

One of my vents:

:shudder:

I tried to remember when I last cleaned my vents and I couldn't....how often do those need to be cleaned anyway?  According to Martha's weekly homekeeping guide, you should clean vents every week. I sort of forgot about those vents up in the ceiling.  Oops.

As part of my War On Dust, I not only cleaned all my outtake vents, but I also changed my air filters.  I managed not to injure/kill myself by falling off the ladder in the process.

:hearing applause in my head:

Thank you. I'll be here all week.

Day One Hundred Eighty One: Constitutional Burgers

It's Labor Day.

This is the day you are supposed to lay down your heavy workload and rest your weary bones.  Or as my son said, "the day to rest your weary load".  Indeed.

It's also the day you are Constitutionally Required* to grill hamburgers.  If you didn't grill burgers, someone in your neighborhood might report you to the hamburger-equavlent of the IRS.  Just be prepared.

* Not really.  I took a Constitutional Law class and there was nothing about burgers in it.

I made Martha's Cheddar-Stuffed Burgers.  These are surprising.  Just imagine finding a piece of melted cheese the size of your thumb inside your hamburger.  It's fabulous.  It's like a meat version of a Twinkie.  That might sound gross to you but your husband will appreciate the mental picture.

If you didn't make burgers today, I hope you at least ate one.  If not, just tell them you saw the above photo.  That should count for something.

My husband wants me to add that he made Martha's Sweet-and-Sticky Grilled Drumsticks.  

The sweet glaze was very good, although it took 45 minutes to simmer and that was before the drumsticks went on the grill.  I would like to claim some sort of victory, but I was the one inside tending the simmering sauce for 45 minutes while my husband played outside in the pool.  Who was the winner there?

Happy Labor Day!

Day One Hundred Eighty: French-Cut (Your Fingers Off) Green Beans

Last week I bought one of those little bags of haricot vert, otherwise known as French green beans.  They are great raw or cooked.  I brought the bag o' beans home, put it in my refrigerator and promptly forgot about it...Until today when I found those little beans looking past their prime.  So, I decided to make Martha's French-Cut Green Beans with Dill Butter.

The recipe starts by removing the tough tips of the green beans. That's easy enough.  Then each bean must be split in half lengthwise.  This is sort of like trying to cut a toothpick into two long splinters.   Now, I like green beans.  I like them a lot...but you've got to really like green beans to slice them lengthwise.  After I nearly became That Mom With Only Nine Fingers, I started to think that there is a secret to cutting these things....otherwise they never would have caught on.

I didn't learn the secret.

My suggestion is this:  Only try this recipe if you are feeling masochistic or if you have a bounty of band-aids.

p.s.  These were really good beans. :with band-aids on fingers:

Day One Seventy Nine: What's For Breakfast Tacos

Yesterday we did not have to get up early.  We did not have to get dressed and rush out the door.  We didn't have to do anything.  So I woke up and made Martha's Salsa Egg Tacos.  I haven't made egg tacos in ages and I'd forgotten how easy and good they are.  You probably have all the ingredients already.  I can't forget to add that they are crazy quick to make.  You'll have breakfast on the table before your coffee is finished brewing.

 

Day One Seventy Eight: Easy Does It Salmon

Salmon was on sale today at the grocery, so I snapped some up and made Martha's Salmon with Lime and Cilantro and Sesame Asparagus.  I chose this salmon recipe because it looks great, it's simple, only has a few ingredients and *was the first recipe my stupid phone with bad reception would upload at the grocery store.

*Real reason I chose this recipe.

I just happened to have all the ingredients for the Sesame Asparagus, so I threw that one in there as well.

What can I say about this Salmon recipe?  It's super simple.  It only has a few ingredients. It's healthy. Did I say it was easy already?  It's almost boring it's so easy, and then you taste it...and it's still pretty boring.  Good, but not spectacular.  Same goes the asparagus. :Snooze:

At least it was an easy recipe.  I might have mentioned that once or twice.

Day One Hundred Seventy Seven: There's A Mouse in My House

My daughter's class is talking about the creation story this week...not the Big Bang/ evolution of species one, but the one where an omnipresent being created the world and everything in it in seven days.

And you thought Martha was busy.

To go along with the story, I made Martha's Meringue Mice.  (It's a leap, I know. It was the best I could do.  You try finding a dessert you can relate to the creation of the entire universe.)  The recipe is a basic meringue recipe, but because of various distractions (holy hectic phone calls, Batman!) it took me three tries before I got the recipe right.

When I finally was happy with the meringue, I piped two blobs (technical culinary term) of meringue with my trusty pastry bag. I used a tweezer to apply black sesame seeds for the nose and eyes, and licorice for the tails.  Martha used slivered almonds for the ears, but because of the whole nut-allergy thing with kids, I used pink jelly beans.  They turned out like this:

I thought they were pretty dang cute, but my husband said they creeped him out.  They sort of look like little lab mice, which I guess is sort of creepy.  I didn't take a photo of all of them, but there were about fifty. I sort of felt like a cartoon villain, creating my own little mouse army for some nefarious purpose.

A really adorable, teeny-tiny mouse army.  That might cute you to death.

Day One Hundred Seventy Six: Don't Underestimate Your Muffins

Tomorrow I have a breakfast meeting for a school charity gala.  One of my sweet friends guilted asked me to be a chairperson for the gala, and now I'm one of the people responsible for the party.  She swears it won't be much work, but I'm pretty sure she's figured out how to clone herself and hasn't shared it with the rest of us.  :watching you, Miss A:

For the other suckers moms at the meeting, I decided to make Martha's Jam-Filled Coffee Cake Muffins.  Because the name sounds promising, the recipe only makes a dozen muffins, and I was highly confident of my success, I planned to make two batches.

Instead of regular 'ole muffin/cupcake cups, the recipe uses fancy baking cups. These cups are about 3 inches wide and 2 inches deep.  I was frustrated, but not surprised, that I couldn't find the fancy baking cups anywhere.  :exasperated:  Instead, I used extra deep cupcake cups.  I estimated that they are roughly the same size of the fancy baking cups, so I figured they should work.

Following the recipe, I divided the mix into twelve cups, spooned jam into each cup, and topped with brown-sugar crumble.  Easy.  After about fifteen minutes of baking time, however, I started to smell something burning.  It was the muffins.  Apparently, my estimating skills are not so great.  :shrug:  The extra deep cupcake cups are not at all a satisfactory substitute for the fancy baking cups.  The result was that much of the muffin batter ended up at the bottom of my oven:

Muffins after they had cooled:

Not exactly the success I had originally imagined.

Thankfully, I had already planned to make a second batch...so I tossed the first batch and began again....

The second time, I used divided the muffin dough into twice as many cups.  Resulting muffins:

These are really, really good.  And I can say that with some confidence because that statement doesn't involve any estimating.