Archive for March, 2011

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March 31, 2011

I Bet My Lunch is Better than Yours

by Katie

I have a confession to make.

It’s not like this confession or this confession, where my mistakes were embarrassing but innocent, yet they were just that – mistakes.

No, this is something different entirely.

This is something that could be considered a flaw of character.

I know.

I didn’t think I had any of those, either.

Well maybe this isn’t so much a character flaw, as it is a taste flaw.

I can’t believe I’m about to admit this on this blog.  My foodie friends read this blog.

But those of you who know me – like know me, know me – are already aware of this fun little fact.

One of my absolute, all-time, mouth-is-watering-right-now-just-thinking-about it foods is…

A hot dog.

Correction – a good hot dog.

But I’ll eat the bad ones, too.

Justin and I decided to go out to dinner last night because our heater is broken, it’s unseasonably cold, and refusing to conform to what most people would do in our situation, which is call someone to fix it and eat Ramen noodles in an attempt to save as much money as possible for something that could potentially do catastrophic damage to our already-dwindling savings account (more on that later), we decided to pretend that the problem didn’t exist and go try a restaurant we’ve been wanting to try for quite some time.

*This problem is much more difficult to ignore today, while I’m sitting here typing with the very real fear that the tip of my nose is going to freeze off, which, if you’ve seen my schnoz, wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to my face aesthetically speaking, but I’m pretty positive it wouldn’t feel all too pleasant.

The restaurant is called The Steele Pig, and is located a mere 25 minutes from our house, which is remarkably close for an actual chef-owned restaurant ’round these parts.  We didn’t even know it existed until a couple of months ago.  It’s incredibly understated, hard to see from the street, minimally decorated, doesn’t have an overabundance of tables, and none of that matters because holy crap, it’s a real restaurant less than an hour away from our house!

Now, I’m not a “foodie blogger.”  Unlike my friends Steven and Matty, I can’t wax poetic about chef credentials and food names I can’t properly announce and why certain reds are better served in a tulip glass because the liquid will hit my not-so-refined palette in just the right place and are you still talking because I’m seriously trying to eat over here.

So I’m not even going to try.

All I can tell you is that while there are some things on the menu that sounded absolutely delicious (crawfish cakes or a fried green tomato BLT, anyone?), I knew my choice had been made for me when our server told us about their $12 hot dog they had on special that night.

That’s right – $12 for a hot dog.

I knew it had to be good.

I waited anxiously with my tasty $5 mojito, and we downed some fried pork wontons that were gone before I could snap a photo.

*All of these photos were taken with my crappy camera phone, by the way.  My apologies.  I tried to be discrete because I know Justin loves being seen with the girl taking pictures of her food.  I only wished I had my giant DSLR to take better photos…

But then – then – came this:

A giant, delicious, 100% beef (I think) dog on an egg bun topped with incredibly tender pulled pork and homemade coleslaw with my choice of either a traditional red barbecue sauce or a North Carolina vinegar-based sauce.

Oh. My. God.

I had to eat this with a fork.

It was also served with homemade applesauce and incredible herb and garlic fries.

Heaven.

In fact, I think I’m going to go devour the other half right now before I go in search of a warm place (maybe a bookstore?) to spend the afternoon.

Let’s hope the heater fixer guy has good – and not expensive – news, shall we?

Posted in Down the Hatch, Living and Learning | 10 Comments »

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March 30, 2011

Indulge.

by Katie

Back in what I like to call the “Golden Days,” when I could eat and eat and eat and never gain an ounce of body fat, back before I discovered wine and beer and the accompanying traces of cellulite that inevitably appear if I don’t pay a visit to Jillian within 24 hours of consumption, back when my butt stayed firm of its own accord, and back before the elves started forgetting to oil my joints at night - particularly in my left knee – which makes me feel like the oldest 28-year-old I know, I liked to bake.

A lot.

I rarely cooked, but boy did I bake.  Cookies and cakes and brownies and bars… I felt comfortable baking because everything was precise.  As long as I followed the directions, it was hard to mess up.  And even when I did mess up, I could eat the mess and it was still tasty, if not pretty.

But now that I’m old enough to consume the empty calories found in alcohol, I try to limit my baking to events and special occasions, because let’s face it – I don’t need the extra calories tempting me while I’m in the house all day long.

Then I stumbled upon this recipe.  This perfectly enticing, decadent, chocolaty recipe for double fudge Irish cream cookies that combines baking with alcohol – and not in a miniscule way – and I just had to make them on St. Patrick’s Day.

Because if a day when I’m allowed to pinch people if they aren’t wearing my favorite color isn’t a special occasion, I don’t know what is.

And I realized today that while I’ve been sitting on this recipe (and the extra layer of fat it’s undoubtedly formed on my derrière) for the past couple of weeks, I’m doing myself a disservice.

Because if I have to be fat from making and consuming ridiculously delicious desserts, so should you.

By the way, my photos of the finished product are horrible because I was too busy actually eating the cookies to worry about taking decent pictures.  Luckily, Jessica at How Sweet it Is took some amazing photos of her own recipe, and she might give you some healthy recipes and fitness tips to make up for her irresponsible posting of these muy rico delicacies.

The good news is, I bet you can eat just one – they are super rich.

To make them, you will need:

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 2/3 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon instant coffee powder
  • 8 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream
  • 1 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips

1.  Cream the softened butter, eggs and vanilla with a wooden spoon until fluffy.  I’m pretty adamant about the wooden spoon thing.  Sure, you could pull out your fancy, schmancy industrial mixer, but we’re making cookies, people.  Cookies should be made like our mothers and grandmothers made ‘em.

With love and good old-fashioned elbow grease.

Except not real elbow grease, because that would be gross.

And who has greasy elbows, anyway?  If anything, mine tend to get quite dry.  If I’m not careful, I’ll end up with “ashy elbows” ala Tyra Banks and I don’t know anyone who wants to look like her.

2.  Add the Bailey’s and mix it in, one tablespoon at a time.

Now.  If you’re a dough-eater like me, you might think this tastes a little… strong.  But stick with me, here.  The taste of Bailey’s gets much subtler after the cookies bake.

And yes, I know eating dough with raw egg is bad.  But it’s bad in such a good way, you know?

3.  Add the flour, cocoa powder, instant coffee (I crumbled mine up in the package a bit first), baking soda, and salt to the bowl.

Mix everything (again, with a wooden spoon – it’s imperative) until combined.

Be careful with the cocoa powder if you’re an enthusiastic mixer, like me.  It’s a bitch to get out of clothes.  Especially white shorts.  Seriously?  Who cooks in white shorts?

4.  Fold in the white and milk chocolate chips, then cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for 4-6 hours (I actually refrigerated overnight, and it was still fairly sticky to work with).

5.  When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350-degrees F.  Use your hands to roll the dough into balls.  I like my balls fairly big (tee-hee).  Bake the balls on an ungreased baking sheet for 8-10 minutes.  Since my balls were fairly big (tee-hee), my first batch came out slightly under-baked.

I thought that was perfectly fine.

These cookies are moist, with almost a creamy, buttery center, ultra rich and decadent.

Jessica recommends eating these with a glass of Bailey’s, but the richness for me almost requires a glass of cold milk.

Indulgence doesn’t get much better than this.

Posted in Down the Hatch, Living and Learning | 11 Comments »

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March 29, 2011

IKEA: Quite Possibly a Domestiphobe’s Worst Nightmare

by Katie

A couple of weeks ago I informed you that my friend Alaina and I were planning a day trip to Charlotte to hit up that wonder of all superstores, IKEA, for the latest in ready-to-assemble Swedish decor for her nursery and my office.

We were going to go later this week, but since her husband was planning to come over to my house to play with my husband last Saturday (wait – that doesn’t sound right, does it?), we decided to go then.

That way I wouldn’t be here to witness them do this to my walls:

Now.  If you’ve never been to an IKEA before, there are a few things you should know:

1.  Preparation – especially if you don’t live close enough to run back to the store when you realize you forgot something – is key.  That means searching online ahead of time for things you might want, writing them down, taking measurements in your home, writing those down, and then checking the availability of those items at the store you plan on visiting.  I might have forgotten that last part.

2.  IKEA is BIG.  They have it set up so that you follow these arrows that direct you through the upper level of the store, meandering through a giant maze of show rooms and displays, oohing and ahhing at the cheap prices and simplistic designs and jotting down crazy names of things like “Ekby” and “Kivik” and “Klubbo” so that, when you get downstairs to where they actually have all the stuff for you to put in your cart, you’ve already seen what it looks like set up in a room.  The problem?  If you walk past something you wanted without realizing it, you might have to trek about 1.8 miles each way to go get it.  Wear sneakers, is all I’m sayin’.

3.  They have a kiddie play area where you basically sign your kids off to play while you shop and I’m pretty sure it’s genius and designed more for childless people like me than actual parents, but who cares because the kids are corralled in one place away from the rest of us real people and stop pretending to judge me because you know I have a point.

4.  Things aren’t always as cheap as you think.  Sure, that pretty print might look chic and affordable hanging in the showroom in its shiny silver frame, but looks can be deceiving.  You might not notice that there are two tags hanging from the picture – one for the print itself, and another for the frame.  And you like those library bookshelves with the glass doors whose price seems too good to be true?  That’s because you’re looking at the tag for just the top part of the shelf.  The bottom half and cabinet doors cost extra, just so you know.  In all fairness, you can usually find the price of an entire unit listed, but if you’re a newbie shopper there, just be careful to read the tag so you know what you’re pricing and what you’re buying.  You’d hate to get something home, put it together, and then realize you didn’t actually buy everything you wanted.

5.  With the exception of their kitchens, the majority of IKEA items tend to look a lot better online than they do in person, in my humble little opinion.  But hey – it’s ready-to-assemble furniture, people.  That means everything you buy – whether it’s a sectional sofa or a wall of bookshelves – comes in flat (albeit heavy) boxes just perfect for a brawny girl like me to drag into the back of the Tracker by herself because her friend is pregnant and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anything happen to the little kumquat.

And you don’t want to mess with these.

Side note:  Back in the day, Alaina and her husband (then boyfriend) Dirk bought all of his bedroom furniture from IKEA and enticed their friends over to help put it together under the guise of a party.  Approximately 6 hours and countless beers later, I was the last man standing.

And the furniture was assembled.

And it hasn’t fallen apart.

Yet.

In all seriousness though, a truly gifted shopper like Alaina can emerge from IKEA happy, alive, and with the makings of a simply beautiful room.  Even the dresser she bought for the nursery had far superior glides to much of IKEA’s other bedroom furniture, and Alaina had the uncanny ability to breeze through the labyrinth, stocking her cart with a piece of fabric here, a lamp there, and knowing her, everything will fit together perfectly in the end.

Just don’t expect it to be as inexpensive as you thought.

Truly ungifted shoppers like me, on the other hand, tend to have problems in a place like this.  For one, there’s too much pressure.  There were too many choices and I couldn’t make up my mind and half the time I’d end up running back across the entire store just to get a sieve I missed back in housewares and where did you get that plant, Alaina because I want one, and crap I have to run back to home organization again because I forgot the hook thingies for my hanging thingies and WHAT?!  They are out of my shelf brackets?  You have got to be f*cking kidding me and will someone please just take me out to the parking lot, dose me up with tranquilizers, and shoot me now?

In case you haven’t guessed, I don’t really like shopping.

These are the things I wanted to get at IKEA:

  • File cabinet
  • Shelf brackets
  • Storage boxes
  • Desk chair
  • Hanging organizers

These are the things I did get at IKEA:

  • Storage boxes
  • Hanging organizers
  • Fake plant
  • Kitchen sieve and funnels
  • Candle

These are the things I wish I’d bought at IKEA but I’d already purchased them somewhere else:

  • Blinds (IKEA has nice, inexpensive faux wood blinds, but I’d already bought wood-looking aluminum blinds at Target that the dogs have already messed up.)
  • Wooden hangars (I just bought what I thought were pretty inexpensive wooden hangars at Bed, Bath and Beyond for the closet makeover, but IKEA’s looked better and were even cheaper.)

In person, the file cabinet I thought I wanted just looked flimsy and unsubstantial, and they were out of my shelf brackets.  OUT.

I have to say, the best part of the day by far was the plate of Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, and lingonberry sauce served cafeteria style for like $4.  To a pregnant chick and a girl who still had to drive another 2 1/2 hours on pitch black, tree-lined, winding roads in the rain just to get us home, it was pure heaven.

I would’ve taken a picture, but they were literally gone in about 4.8 seconds.  My phone doesn’t work that fast.

At the end of the day, this meager pile is my total haul (before the storage boxes have been assembled):

My indecisiveness, lack of design skills, and just plain ol’ crappy luck were no match for IKEA’s wiley ways.

So.  After 2 1/2 hours driving to get there, and approximately 3 hours and 11.72 miles of walking through the store, and a stressful, stormy, 2 1/2 hour drive home, I felt deflated.  Alaina, who spent about 10 times more than me because she has a job and a design plan and the ability to make actual decisions, felt elated.

It was totally worth the trip.

But I have to say, before you make the trek to your not-so-local IKEA, you might want to figure out which one of us is you.

Posted in Around the House, Crafts and Decor | 11 Comments »

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March 29, 2011

If Karma’s a Bitch, then I’m a Bigger Bitch.

by Katie

You know what?

I am thoroughly confused right now, because I’ve always believed in karma or at least that karma-esque things can happen, meaning if you send good vibes out into the universe, the universe will send you good vibes in return.

So imagine my surprise when I could have turned all piss ‘n vinegar this morning when my neighbor woke me up by calling me on her drive to work because she was worried she’d left her hair straightener plugged in and she’d end up burning down her house while her husband’s deployed and he’d never trust her to use hot things again and would I please, please go check and instead of getting mad, I remembered that I had told myself I’d be getting up at 7:00 from now on anyway and it was already 7:15 and it wasn’t so bad putting on a sweater and shuffling across the street because I got to see this:

and I thought it was really pretty and I wanted to steal a cup of coffee from my neighbor because her kitchen smelled so good but I didn’t because I didn’t know how to work her Keurig and oh yeah that would’ve been wrong so I was feeling pretty good about myself when I got home and started thawing out in my kitchen (and I even found an old-ish but still good container of yummy-flavored coffee her Keurig had me craving instead of my usual plain stuff and it didn’t even matter that it was decaf – although why would I have ever bought decaf? – because I’ve been trying to wean off the stuff anyway) but I felt good because I’d made the choice to be happy this morning and it worked and then it was time to let the dogs in from the yard.

Then – then – I slammed my finger in the storm door.

I’m still not sure how it happened.

Or why it happened.

And now I know where they got the term burst my bubble because that’s exactly what happened.  My happy little morning bubble popped just like that and sent soapy splatters across the kitchen as I sent every curse word imaginable – in English, German and Spanish for good measure – out into the universe, because you know what, Universe?  If you’re going to send shit my way for absolutely no reason whatsoever, I’m going to send it right. back. atcha, sista.

So check yourself.

*I will have another post for you sometime today.  But I think it’s best for everyone that I wait a bit to build up the bubble again as I try to work things out with karma, sip my flavored coffee, remember once again why I stopped drinking that stuff to begin with, and wait for the throbbing in my finger to subside.

Thank you for your patience.

Posted in Just Sayin, This 'n That | 10 Comments »

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