Monday, December 10, 2007

Big Things!

Per this post, the Big Things are finally happening.

That's right.... I'm moving!!

(Not in real life, don't worry. One cross-country move a year is enough!)

But the blog is moving. To here. Re-set your bookmarks, blog-readers and RSS feeds, folks, because this is my last post here.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

One out of two isn't that bad...

When I wasn't feeling well some weekend a little while ago, I decided that part of taking care of myself is cooking yummy, healthy stuff to eat. So I set out to the store to buy all the ingredients for homemade chicken noodle soup and these ginger-pumpkin muffins. I do really enjoy foodie blogs and thought that it would be fun to take pictures of my food to post up here. (Assuming the pictures -- and the food -- turned out yummy, that is!) I chopped and chopped all the veggies for the chicken noodle soup and once that was simmering on my teeny-tiny, pint-sized stove-top, I started to make the muffins. I even took a cool "before" picture of the muffins before I put them in the oven.

The only problem was.... they looked the exact same when I took them out of the oven.

That's right. I forgot the baking soda. Both my roommate and I still ate a muffin each, but they were kind of like hockey pucks: small, round-ish, and hard. Definitely not fluffy. And because the cans of pumpkin had been on the very tip-top shelf at the grocery store, I did not have an extra can. That one can had been very difficult to get; I had to stand on the bottom shelf and then slightly jump up while lunging my arm as far to the back of the shelf to grab the one can of pumpkin that was relatively closest to the front of the shelf. Going back for another can of pumpkin would've been a sure-fire way to end up with a sprained ankle.

Luckily, the chicken noodle soup turned out delicious! The picture is below. It's definitely not nearly as nice as the incredible ones on all the foodie blogs, but I was pretty happy with it.

*Thanks, Mom, for teaching me how to make soups!! You were right; it's a good thing to know.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Thanksgiving, Part Three

Just in case you're thinking that all we did over Thanksgiving weekend was eat, here's the last of my pictures from that weekend.

We went to a hockey game on Thanksgiving night, and our Team won!! They definitely weren't supposed to, and it was a very fun, exciting game with lots of bad calls by the refs that forced our Team to be playing three-on-five a few times. Crazy. Here we are during one of the breaks between the periods:

T and I also went into downtown to see the city's landmark building that is huge. Here he is, very excited to see the building that you can only see in my hometown's downtown:

And here I am, in front of a column. The building was closed, so we didn't get to see the inside, but the outside was fun enough!

Monday, December 3, 2007

Thanksgiving, Part Two

Since we already had the huge pot of hot oil.... we decided to go ahead and fry up a few other things. We went to the store and got everything we thought would do well when battered and fried. The receipt speaks for itself:

After freezing everything overnight, we prepared the batter...

... and then set everything up by the deep-fryer...

... battered them, fried them... and they started to come out golden crispy and yummy...

... to be cut into bite-sized pieces and then quickly devoured by the entire family!

Yes, they look potentially disgusting, but the fried Twinkies were possibly the most delicious things ever. You really should try them once in your life. Once. Probably not more than that or else you might increase your chance of a heart attack by 587%.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Thanksgiving, Part One

The turkey.

In case you haven't known me for that long, you might not know that I beg my dad every year to fry a turkey for me. If you've never had a fried turkey, you're missing out. It's possibly the most succulent, moist, delicious turkey that you could ever imagine. A regular-sized turkey cooks in about 45 minutes, sealing in all the yummy juices.

All you have to do is take a turkey, inject it with some tasty juices, and spear it like this:

Once the oil is piping hot, carefully drop the turkey into the oil, hoping that you didn't fill the container too full with oil. Ours was a teeny bit too full, but thankfully not too much oil bubbled out over the edges. (Note: please, please do this outside and not in a garage... burning down your house is not a fun thing to do on Thanksgiving day... or any day, really)

Let the turkey cook in the boiling and bubbling oil. In case you're curious what that would look/sound like, here's a video (courtesy of T).



And.... voila! Your turkey should come out golden brown like ours:

Carve, eat, eat seconds, and enjoy the fried turkey.

More to come later on other things we fried after the turkey was done...

Advent

ad·vent (dvnt)n.

1. The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important: the advent of the computer.
2. The liturgical period preceding Christmas, beginning in Western churches on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and in Eastern churches in mid-November, and observed by many Christians as a season of prayer, fasting, and penitence.

Advent was always one of my favorite things at church when I was growing up. It meant shorter sermons to sit through, watching someone light a candle, singing Christmas carols.... oh, and yeah -- it meant that Christmas was close!

Now that I'm a little bit older (and hopefully a little bit wiser), I've been thinking more about the actual meaning of the Advent season. The desire to prayerfully await the coming of Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Christ. Just recently I stumbled upon a list of daily readings for Advent season on the website of a former church on the other side of the country, and I'm going to try to follow it. In case you're interested and would like to follow along, you can find the list here. Should be some good "grounding" amidst the craziness that is holiday parties and cookies and gift buying, etc.