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.

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.

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!

The Remains of the Day

Salt Lick on 1826

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.

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!!!

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.

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!

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!

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

Everything's big in Texas!

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

Lunch stop in Uvalde

Chicken enchiladas for the girls and chalupas for me.

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.