Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse, Juno, Blizzard of 2015

Well, we certainly can’t complain about the hype up here in Maine, it legit snowed y’all.

It snowed into my house, the winds were so strong they blew snow into any crack in the house it could find, of which there are many.This explains why it is so f’ing cold in our house, especially the bathroom, where I could probably keep dairy products if it wasn’t a disgusting thing to do or if I actually had a plethora of dairy products, which I don’t, in fact I ran out of milk during the snow storm, and my little Farrah was crying for milk as she does every so often and I had no milk for her.

It was very Dickensian there for a moment, there I was wrapped in a shawl, wearing finger-less gloves in the house whilst my tiniest most fragile charge  wailed from hunger, from a lack of sustenance, I stood wringing my knitwear festooned hands, powerless to end her suffering.

In reality, the cat had dry food, wet food, and fresh clean water so she was really just being a jerk.

Speaking of Farrah she has over 1100 likes on her Facebook page, which is insane. OK yes it is even more insane that she  has a Facebook, given the fact that she is a cat and neither reads nor writes, nor is she capable of uploading a photo.

However it is keeping my social media/ marketing muscles working, I have a place to experiment and see how things work. I guest blogged for a European cat blog and that got her about 400 likes, then a week or two ago she just started getting all these likes, so I worked it, “we” liked other cat pages, I developed a voice for her and she reposts cat-centric articles and is very interested in cat rescues and adoptions.

Oh also I tried on a selection of Warby Parker frames, though did not go look through the box where we think my prescription is, so I did half of what I need to do to get my glasses so I can see things that are more than 6′ away.

So what did I cook during my snow day? Really nothing, and  why? Well I really didn’t feel much like baking, or having sweets in the house (still have a freezer full of Xmas Cookies), I ran out of parchment so bread wasn’t going to happen. Also I really didn’t feel like washing any dishes after breakfast.

For breakfast I made open faced English muffin, egg, bacon, avocado sandwiches, and let me tell you the next time you are making a leisurely English Muffin…butter it with soft butter when raw then toast in a hot oven, its a whole different animal really crispy crunchy and buttery, everything they promise to be but often aren’t.

Then I did nothing, pretty much nothing at all didn’t even watch something significant on TV, just sort of sat around watching Special Victims Unit and eating random things like spice gum drops and everything bagel chips. I did take a shower and blew out my hair which saved some time today. Oh and I took a nap, we all took naps.

 I made dinner according to the planned menu.

 

I pan seared the pork chops in bacon fat & butter, then brushed them with Dijon mustard, grainy mustard and mustard oil and set on a sheet pan covered in mustard greens to roast off.

 

I made grits without milk (this was hours before discovering the evap). I added some way past due half and half that, lets just pretend I intentionally turned to creme fraiche, couple of tablespoons of nutritional yeast, a nice hit of siracha, some brown butter and sharp cheddar… they were awesome, though I wish I had the scallions that I wasted on the terrible fake Chinese food I tried to make on Saturday, I made a cider vinegar/mustard vinaigrette to finish the whole dish, but forgot then all about it.

 

 All in all it was pretty good, though needed needed acid, that hit of forgotten vinaigrette would’ve made it perfect. And then we had peanut butter sundaes!

We never have dessert like that, but we’d been talking about Reese’s Pieces  for two days and my lovely husband went out after shoveling and got vanilla ice cream and Reeses Pieces, you may wonder why he did not get milk and you know what, so do I.

 

I made a warm peanut butter sauce, and that, not the crying cat, not the grits for dinner, is what sent me on my search for a can of evaporated or condensed milk , which I found in the cat food/treat cabinet on the top shelf behind the red solo cups along with 4 cans of pumpkin. (yes I gave some to Farrah, and she loved it)  I didn’t take a picture because my phone battery died from playing Angry Birds.

 

Snowmageddon Peanut Butter Sundaes

Enough vanilla Ice cream for 2 (I don’t judge this could be two scoops or two pints)

Handful Reeses Pieces- roughly chopped

Chocolate syrup, chocolate ganache or 2 year old Magic Shell (whatever you happen to have)

1 Recipe Peanut Butter Sauce

 

Peanut Butter Sauce for 2

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky whatever you have)
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk
• dash of vanilla
• flaky sea salt

 

1. Melt butter and sugar together
2. Whisk in peanut butter & milk
3. Whisk all together until smooth
4. Remove from heat, whisk in vanilla
5. Serve warm with light dusting flaky sea salt

This would be good over pancakes, or pound cake or banana cake and if you wanted to make a Elvis Sundae you could use banana ice cream and finish with bit of chopped candied bacon, also nice over dark chocolate ice cream if that’s your thing.

 

If peanut butter is not your thing…this is easy and amazing , dark chocolate melted over toasted baguette, drizzled in very good olive oil with a bit of salt and a bit of hot pepper flakes (could also use orange zest)–better than Nutella, especially if the chocolate isn’t too sweet.

 

If you do such things please take a moment and follow @dinnereverynite on twitter, also if you’ve read and like my ebook PLEASE PLEASE leave a review, and mention this blog in the comments. If you haven’t read it, please do, it will give you some great ideas on what to cook for dinner!

 

Ciao for now bitches…XOXO

It’s been a long long time.

Hi, how were your holidays?

It’s been along time since we chatted, I know, I’ve been remiss. I got a little temp job and it keeps me occupied for 8.5 hours a day, which is no real excuse but it is what it is.

Dog driving a car.

It’s really been a while, since right before Thanksgiving, that’s almost 2 months, I suck.

Farrah thinks I suck too…she won’t even look at me.

Here’s what’s been going on…

Thanksgiving was a whirlwind of family and snow and food and thank god we finally got the light fixture up in the dining room and a few more things taken care of so the house looked good and that was pretty much all there is to say, so here are lots of pictures:

This was delicious… it was cauliflower, salami, olives, cheese, artichokes, caperberries all quick pickled in sherry vinegar and olive oil. The recipe in is the Buvette cookbook, which is a great cookbook by the way.

 

The best turkey I EVER MADE, in my whole life…dry rub and spatchcock…18# turkey cooked in 2.5 hours and it was perfect.

So these were some pretty out of this world potatoes, first the potato, Russian fingerling bought from an organic farm and they cost more than the damn turkey, peeled steamed, riced, then tons and tons of butter, heavy cream, truffle butter, truffle salt & topped with brown butter, butter solids and chives.

 

My little cheese course Bailey Hazen blue & pecorino with little pears and truffle honey

Burnt cinnamon pumpkin pie in a 5 Spice lard crust it was so fucking good that 2 days later Xtian  and I basically just shoved big chunks of it right out of the pie tin and into our mouths.

I know I write a lot about my father, and how can I not, I miss him every single day. Thanksgiving was our day, our Big Day, every year, and it was right after Thanksgiving that he got sick, so for the past few years Thanksgiving has begun my Days of Horrors, terrible memories, hateful memories, tons of I wish I dids, and I could’ves and we should’ves and  I was in therapy for a year to try to reconcile my feelings and I did for the most part, but maybe not as much as I thought. It culminates January 9 and 10 which were the worst days of my entire life. Last weekend was the anniversary of those days, 3 years …fuck.

Here’s my recount of those 24 hours. and here’s a link to the transcript of my eulogy .  They are both serious downers so don’t feel you have to read them, like if you are feeling light and happy, just don’t do it.

 

My Daddy at my 40th birthday party.

 

I made a sandwich “for him” on the anniversary of his death and I think my Dad would’ve loved it. They have these sausages up here that are Chinese roast pork as a sausage. I basted them with hoisin, grilled them with scallions and we had them on garlic bread with pickled radishes and duck sauce. There are some definite tweaks I have to make to the recipe, I think a miso/jalapeno garlic butter  +  vinegary cucumbers, raw scallions and watercress for some freshness (it was really rich). I have no picture of it, alas.

So that was the cheerful part of my blog post.

Channukah, Christmas,  New Years, our first in Maine would have been fabulous except for the HIDEOUS colds that we had, I am not kidding you at one point my eyes were congested….mucus  was clogging my tear ducts, my head felt like a one of those gym balls sadistic trainers throw at you to build up your arm muscles. It was exhausting, I don’t think I slept a full night for 2 weeks. Xtian was making these hideous buffalo sounds because his chest was so congested, it was pretty bad, and also gross.

My brother and his Kate came for a weekend at the pinnacle of my illness, we had as lovely a time as we could, though it hurt my chest to laugh. We had a nice winter beach walk, and Kate and Christian found sand dollars for me. I made them a blueberry pie, despite my illness. We had lobster and latkes.

I love this picture.

On Christmas day, Megan, Xtian and I volunteered at the soup kitchen. I was serving and I looked out at the dining room and saw my husband chatting earnestly with an older woman, who arrived alone. That in itself was heart breaking, but I imagined she was telling him how she missed her long gone loved ones but it turned out she was telling him filthy dirty jokes, like he wouldn’t even tell me they were so dirty. And there you have it.

Afterwards we went out to Bailey Island, had Cat Christmas (a very big deal in hour house), had a drink with Randi & John and ate lots of pork and cookies. It was a nice day, a really nice day.

We cut down our own tree this year… it was an amazing tree.

The cats happily enjoyed many many many boxes, bags full of tissues, old socks with catnip and many cat treats.

The following week, we had a few house guests, Theo the Dog and Pudgie the Budgie.There were 3 cats, 1 dog, 1 bird  and 2 people in the house.

Theo went home but Pudgie is still with us, I love him and just this morning he started puffing up for me, which (I read) is a sign of affection from a Budgie. He is a foster from my temp job, I offered to care for him over the holidays and now want to keep him, hopefully I will, like I said I love him. Here’s an awful video of him singing along to his favorite music , he likes Pink Floyd, The Greatful Dead, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel and any song with long guitar riffs.

 

 

 

Winter walk in the woods.

 

Fat cat, small box…never gets old.

New Year’s Eve was quiet…Xtian made cheeseburgers (they were kinda bad, but he tried), we watched The Twilight Zone and lit a fire in the fire pit, it was like 16 degrees outside, so that part was short. New Year’s Day we watched the Mummers on the computer and missed Philly, a lot.

 

I did some work on my ebook … with a lot of help from my friends.

Here’s the link…

 

My favorite thing.

 

Here we are 2015 and it’s time to set some goals.

In 2015 I will…

• Find a job that I love.
• Finish decorating the house
• Be kinder and more loving (esp to Xtian)
• Sell my e-book
• Find a way to be more active even if its just dancing around the house for an hour
• Make more friends, meet more people
• Get a great haircut
• Write more, write better
• Spend more time outside once it thaws
• Try mediation
• Eat more fish

What are your goals???