Small Appliance Death

Well, it took me 4 years to do it but I succeeded in killing another blender!  Yea me!  I bought the Krups blender back in June of 2008 and this morning it gave up.  Fortunately I have enough Green Juice made to last for 2 more days, albeit a little chunkier than I usually make it, so I've got some time to shop and ship.  Wish me luck.

"Bushfire" by Bindi Irwin - a book review by Paul

This book review is by my about-to-be 3rd-grade son who had to read this book for school in August of 2012.  Yes, I'm a mean homeschool teacher who assigns books and book reports all summer long.

Bushfire by Bindi Irwin

The book Bushfire by Bindi Irwin is about a group of people who have to help animals from a fire. The people in the story are Richard, he is a vet who is Rosie's dad. Bindi is the daughter of Steve Irwin and she owns the Australia Zoo. Rosie is Bindi's best friend.

At the start of the book, Bindi, her friend Rosie, and Rosie's dad Richard were hiking in the Australian mountains. They saw smoke in the distance so the rushed back home to help out at the animal hospital that Richard works at. Then they went to help out at the fire line. While at the fireline someone brought in a burn echidna and a burnt pregnant koala. The girls brought those two and other animals back to the hospital where they helped take care of them.

In the end, the fire got put out by rain. The momma koala died from her injuries but the baby survived and so did the echidna. Bindi and Rosie worked as hard as the grown-ups to save the animals. The animals were important to them so they were willing to work hard. Bushfire was a good book and I would like to read more of Bindi's Wildlife Adventures.

Farmers Market

We're home from the market and now to once again deal with trying to find a place for all of this:
2 dozen eggs
5 lbs cucumbers
5 lbs pipian squash
10 lbs heirloom Kellogg's Breakfast tomatoes
1 - 10 lb watermelon
10 lbs orange California Wonder peppers
5 lbs pears
5 lbs Juliette tomatoes
10 large onions
1 gallon of milk
and half a case of 2nds of heirloom tomatoes

I'll be saucing and canning the 2nds tomatoes just like last week.  I'll probably roast and can the peppers like I did back in 2008 - they go great with the jalapeno cream cheese from Full Quiver Farms.  And I'm going to cut and freeze the cucumbers to use in my green juice over the winter. So none of that needs to go in the fridge.

A dog and his 'dillo

Upside down dog of the day!

Green bean and onion fritata for dinner

Dinner with the family

Minifigs at Cheddar's

Dinner at the Texas Chili Parlor

Mini figs not included.

Birthday Doughnuts!

If you touch it, it's yours!

Way to go HEB!

HEB's house brand now has Texas Style Borracho Beans made with Shiner Bock!

Upside Down Dog

This time with a different friend.

Up-sidepdown Dog

And friend!

The Remains of the Day

Salt Lick on 1826

Up-side-down Dog

As soon as he realized that I had taken this picture he rolled over and went to bed. Goofy dog!

Now THAT'S a raspberry iced latte!!!

I hope it's still 4 shots of espresso not just 4 shots of raspberry syrup, which isn't really what I asked for!!

A proper Southern breakfast

By request - jalapeno & cheese grits, venison & pork link sausage, and a buttery yeast roll, and a fried egg too for one of them.

Upside-Down dog of the day

With his octopus! Seriously he does this himself, no posing of him by us.

Upsidedown Dog Picture of the Day

Stop doing school and pet me, please.

or at least let me outside!

Top 10 Pregnancy Procedures to Reject - Consumer Reports

Some awesome advice from Consumer Reports and since it's not a grading of actual products the whole article is available for free online!!

Top 10 Pregnancy Procedures to Reject - Consumer Reports

Upsidedown Dog again

Please let me go outside and play in the mud!!

Two Sides To Every Story

Tonight's full rainbow seen from the upper deck.

Upside down dog

The kitchen floor is not a usual spot for this.

3 Bottles in 3 Days

Georges Dubeuf 1998 Milenage - too old, yuck, poured down the drain.
Santa Alicia 1998 Maipo Valley Chardonnay - too old, WAY too oaky, even made a gross wine cooler, poured down the drain.
Merwin Vinyard 2011 Rose of Pinot Noir 'The Crusher' - good and made an excellent wine cooler when mixed with Sierra Mist!

Hey, I'm a girl, I'm allowed to like wine coolers!!!

Upsidedown Dog

This time joined by Giselle's pug Webkin. 5/4/12

Charizard I choose you!

Everyone has a favorite Pokemon, Waylon's happens to be Charizard. He also likes Raichu but Paul owns that one and he's not sharing!

Follow-up on purchase of RSVP Endurance® 1-Egg Poacher Set

This is the follow-up to my post on  http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2012/03/poached-eggs.html


When I was a kid we had an aluminum single-egg poacher which I used several times a week. Flash forward 30 years and I'm looking for an egg poacher for my kids to safely use. I first got some of those silicone poachers at Christmas but I had the same problems as everyone else - poor heat transference resulting in unsatisfactory eggs - and my kids almost got steam burns using them. I went searching on Amazon, saw that this poacher was liked the most and I bought it. Wow, this is one of the highest quality items I've ever received that was made in China. The pan and lid are heavy and stay where you put them and the poaching insert has a good Teflon coating. The handle is firmly riveted to the side of the pan and it's long enough that you don't burn your hand over the stove while using it. The handle on the poaching insert is small but since it's aluminum it says pretty cool to the touch - with my Kevlar hands I don't need a pot holder - but the handle on the lid can get pretty hot so use a pot holder for that one. The poacher insert has vents around the edge so it doesn't rattle while the steam escapes and the lid is heavy enough to keep the poacher down in case someone fills the pan too full and floats the insert. My kids are loving using it almost daily, so much so that I just leave it on the stove all the time. If you're only making two eggs, this is so much easier to use than buying and storing a 4-egg insert. It works best if you keep the heat on high until the water is boiling and then turn it down to 4 before you put the egg in. On my stove, 3.5 min makes a loose egg; 4 min makes a cooked but runny egg; and 4.5 min makes a soft but non-runny egg.

Upsidedown Dog Picture of the Day

4/30/12

The bridge changes colors!

How cool is that? Austin needs one of these!

The USS Lexington

Our home for tonight!

Eating at Whataburger #2

Actually, it was Whataburger #3 but who's counting anyway?  Next time we'll go to the deluxe beach-side one!

a pinata for the over-21 crowd.

Seriously, what would you fill this with?

Lunch at Red's Porch

Too bad the free wifi isn't working here!

The fries were a little too salty - I think it was the Parmesan cheese.

16 yr old wine

I guess the closet in the master bedroom made a pretty good wine cellar after all!

Scene of the Oak Hill Wildfire

11 months later

Water balloon fight at the creek!

Another waste of money

If these companies what to relocate to here so badly because it's such a great place to live and work then we shouldn't need to offer them any incentives.  I'd maybe be OK with giving incentives that are ONLY paid out AFTER being located here for 10 years and only if they actually hire the amount of workers that they promise; but these ones that give them tax breaks straight off are ridiculous!


Council votes to entice Apple with $8.6 million - YNN - Your News Now

These new hires usually come from out of town and they cause the housing costs to increase when they over pay for houses.  And the property taxes for homeowners just goes up to offset the tax breaks given to the companies.

Crawfish - It's What's For Dinner Tonight

Aunt Nita's Crawfish Etoufee

Poached Eggs

So, for Christmas I got myself a pair of those silicone egg poachers because the kids like poached eggs and I've never gotten the hang of doing them in a pot of boiling water. We've been using them for 2 months now and I'm just not impressed with the end product and it's actually hard to use them, especially for the kids. Although they do make cute fake breasts for when the kids are playing dress-up!
Growing up we had a cute little aluminum single-egg poacher that I used every Sunday and I wanted one of my own for the kids to use too. With yet another failure of the silicone ones, I purchased one of these Amazon.com: RSVP Endurance� 1-Egg Poacher Set: Home & Kitchen  this evening. Based on the reviews on Food Network (same price there as on Amazon BTW but without the free Super Saver Shipping) I think I made the right choice. We'll let you know in a few weeks!



The follow-up blog post can be found here
follow-up-on-purchase-of-rsvp-endurance

The Truth About Bullying

A new documentary is being released at the end of this month that is all about school bullying, the consequences and the reluctance of many adults to see this as a problem. The following is an article about the movie. The movie will be rated R because of the language in it, language used by the kids themselves. The words could have been bleeped out, I wonder if the MPAA even offered that up as a solution. More should have been done to make sure that as many people as possible see this movie.

One R-rated movie you might want your child to see


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Everything's big in Texas!

A non-GMO, beyond-organically grown turnip as big as Paul's head.

Good Reads

Hey, I've got all my book reviews posted over on Swap.com and Goodreads.com if you have any interest in reading them.  It's all in the Dark Urban Fantasy and Paranormal and Paranormal Romance genres, both adult and Young Adult.

Two Hearts Beat Don't Beat Any More

Giselle's hog heart and Lucy's deer heart in a picture that will be used for next year's Valentine's Day card.

Today's Field Trip

Behind the scenes at CiCi's Pizza was our February Field Trip. After the tour they each got to make their own personal small pizzas and then we sat around and ate them. The pizzas not the kids.

This'll stick in your head for days!

I woke up this morning to Joe playing this on his iPad next to me in bed. I've now watched it 4 times and still can't get the song out of my head! The kids love it too! Oh, and the guys who sing the song are from Austin! Can't believe that this was really a full length movie back in the 70's.

Play it again, now!

Morning on the last day of the hunt

Sunrise from the blind on our final day of hunting.

The Wardens visiting with the kids

On Saturday afternoon before lunch the state game wardens came out and talked to the kids about the dangerous job of a warden and what they as youth hunters can do to be responsible hunters and citizens.

The girls getting the fence

Two girls TRYING to open the gate, three girls was the charm!  Through this gate was the the weekend of a lifetime!!

Lunch stop in Uvalde

Chicken enchiladas for the girls and chalupas for me.

Part of today's history lesson

Martin Luther King - I Have A Dream Speech - August 28, 1963

Top Chef Texas - Oak Hill

Tonight's Top Chef Texas Dinner Challenge: Make two awesome single-serving meals using frozen roasted chicken and frozen meatballs with enough leftovers for a second meal of both!

The result:

Angel hair pasta with 6 meatballs per serving in a sauce of butter, garlic powder, fresh-ground pepper, and fresh-ground seasoned salt.  The customer opted to give 4 of his six meatballs to a fellow diner and also added a mushroom tomato sauce.

Open-faced BBQ chicken salad sandwich served toasted with melted cheddar cheese on top.

 

Tonight's Dinner Guest

Waiter, there's an octopus in my soup!