Posts
I don't normally post that many recipes on here because, let's face it, me telling people how to cook would be like the Pope trying to tell people how to be a porn star. It's just wrong on so so so many levels. BUT. I, (unlike the Pope) am going to make an exception here today because OH MY GOODNESS, I have come across the best (read:easiest) recipe for tomato pie, and because I am a wonderful, selfless person, I am going to share it with you (no Vatican hijinks required).
It all started with my lovely little tomato garden, which has been working away, producing the prettiest tomatoes that you've ever seen. (I get a huge kick out of meandering through the garden each day, picking cucumbers and tomatoes and blackberries straight off the vines like it's my own personal farmer's market). The only problem is that we're now officially at the point in the summer where I'm picking more tomatoes than I can eat in any one sitting. I needed some way to be able to use them in a dish...preferably one that used lots and lots of them.
Enter, the tomato pie.
Now, to be completely fair, this is not my recipe. I totally stole it off of Let's Eat. But since I needed to unload some tomatoes fast, and she just happened to have a recipe calling for six of them, I figured I'd give it a go. And oh my goodness, the deliciousness that ensued!
Below is the recipe straight from Let's Eat, with my own little helpful hints in italics:
Tomato Pie (which I'm not really sure does justice to this dish. I mean, when I think pie, I think sweet, and the idea of sweet plus tomatoes is kinda eh. So don't let the name throw you. Call it Super-delicious-tomato-dish if it helps).
6 tomatoes (me again. Let's Eat doesn't comment on the size of the tomatoes that she used, so six may be a bit confusing. Personally, I used 1 beefsteak, 2 good-sized better boys, and a handful of cherry tomatoes. I say just slice 'em up until you have enough to fill the pie crust.)
Kosher salt
Pepper (optional) (I dashed some in, in case you were curious)
1 (9-inch) pie crust (By the way, she means the frozen kind here, like you'd use with an apple pie or something. Don't make the mistake I did and think that she means graham cracker. Fair warning).
8 bacon slices, chopped and cooked (I used turkey bacon because I'm trying to get my arteries to see my next birthday)
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (I didn't have any fresh, but my little container of dried basil worked just fine...and if you use the dried stuff, better knock it down to 1/8 cup- unless you really really like basil)
1/2 to 3/4 cup mayonnaise (again, I used fat free because, hello, the arteries?)
1 1/2 cups fancy shredded Italian cheese blend (I didn't have any fancy Italian blend on hand, so I did fancy shredded fat-free Cheddar and mozzarella blend...1 cup mozzarella and 1/2 cup cheddar, because that's what was in the fridge. It worked just fine).
1. Preheat oven to 400°. Cut tomatoes into slices, and place slices on paper towels. Sprinkle tomatoes with kosher salt and, if desired, pepper. Let stand for 15 minutes; then flip the tomatoes, and sprinkle with a little more salt. Let stand 15 more minutes. (Best to do this while surfing the 'net or something, because 30 minutes of watching the tomatoes dry out gets boring really fast)
2. Meanwhile, place pie crust in pie plate; crimp edge of crust. Prick holes in crust with a fork; bake for 8 to 10 minutes. (Cook your bacon now too. Eat half the bacon while waiting for the crust to finish. Cook more bacon. Swat Tony's hand when he comes downstairs and goes, "Oooooh! Bacon!)
3. Layer half of tomato slices in prepared crust. Sprinkle with half of bacon and basil. Layer remaining half of tomatoes; sprinkle with remaining bacon. (Easy enough).
4. Combine mayonnaise, shredded cheese, and remaining basil in a small bowl. Spread mixture over top of tomatoes. (Next time, I'm going to go a little easier on the mayo so that it doesn't overpower the cheese/tomato combo. A little dab'll do ya' here).
5. Bake for 25 minutes. (It kinda resembles a deep-dish pizza when it comes out, only with whole tomatoes instead of sauce. But the taste! The taste is just fabulous! Soooo good!)
So that's it. It reminds me a lot of a BLT only without the L. Or like tomato and mozzarella appetizers, only with bacon. (And as we all know, bacon can make anything better!) It's a little hard to get the pieces out of the pie plate (note to self: might want to use smaller tomato slices next time), but it doesn't really matter because you'll end up licking the pie plate clean anyway. Combine it with a salad starter and you have a yummy dinner that makes eating your veggies oh so good.
You're welcome.
7/13/09
The Deliciousness that is Tomato Pie
7/10/09
Night
It sounds strange to say it, but night is my favorite time of day.
I had some errands to run today, and since tonight is Tony's regular poker night with the boys, I figured that 10:00 pm was a good a time as any to be out running around. Now I know that some people, women especially, don't like to be out after dark. The shadows make them nervous. But I love the night.
I like to put the top down on the convertible, and I take the dark winding back roads as much as possible to avoid the streetlights. I love the way the air smells...sweeter, and somehow cleaner than it does in the day. You can pick out the faint scent of night-blooming flowers that are all but overpowered during the day. I love the way the wind feels cooler and heavier against my skin as it rushes by the open car. I love the sounds of the crickets and cicadas singing their night songs, and the way the fireflies flash randomly in the tall grasses as I pass. I love the emptiness of the streets, when all the busy people who spend their days running from one place to the next are tucked away inside their homes, drifting off to sleep by the ambient light of the TV. I love the moon, pale and ghostly in the sky, making all things subtly glow silver in its light. (Sometimes I think that I would like to be the moon, content to just observe without intruding, lazily watching the silent stories of all things below). I love the way the stars wink at me as if they know some amusing antidote that they cannot wait to share. I love the way the darkness is a tangible thing and I can become submerged in it, like wrapping myself in a cloak or slipping into the water of a dark pool. I love the shadows, and the way they stretch on infinitely into the blackness. I love the stillness, the calmness, when I can release this breath that it feels like I've been holding all day and then just...be.
The night is a living, breathing thing for me, and I welcome its companionship. There is a kind of quiet energy here, and being out in it makes me feel soothed and alive at the same time. Why do we lock ourselves in our stuffy, artificially-lit homes where we hide and wait for the dawn to come? This is the best time. This, right now, is when the magic happens. This is nightfall, the eventide, the witching hour. And I, in truth, am a creature of the night.
"It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly colored than the day,"
- van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo in 1888
7/7/09
Daylight, or The Use of Music In Advertising
One of the latest advertising trends that I actually appreciate is the use of emerging artists in commercials. It's win-win, both for new artists (or some not so new in the cast of BEP and Target) and for me, because I get exposed to new songs that I wouldn't normally find by myself.
Case in point: I found Shiny Toy Guns from a Lincoln car commercial, Sleepy Rebels from the JC Penny spots, and most recently, Daylight by Matt and Kim on that Bacardi commercial.
(If anybody else regularly reads Slate, you'll know that Seth Stevenson totally disagrees with me. He thinks that well-known artists, such as the Black Eyed Peas, are selling out artistic integrity for corporate advertising greed by allowing their songs to be associated with products in commercials. I say well-known or not, TV advertising works for every artist who wants to get a song out there. I don't club-hop, and my radio listening is almost non-existent, so if you want me and my i-tune downloading ability, you better get me either on the TV or the Internet. Besides, as Rob Levine said at this year's Clio Awards, selling out is pretty much a dead concept).
(Plus, I really get a kick out of how well they blend in to the background on those Target commercials.)
But back to my point. Because of an evil money-grubbing ad exec for Bacardi, I am totally hooked on Daylight now. Totally. and completely. Hooked. I know it actually came out last September and I'm late to the party, but I luvvvvv it anyway. (My favorite part is the very first two lines- "We cut the legs off of our pants, Threw our shoes into the oceans". I'm seriously considering that phrase as my new outlook on life. All I need now is an ocean.) And I suppose that it's possible that I would have eventually found them without the Bacardi commercial, but if I'm going to sit through commercials at all, it might as well be to a song that catches my attention.
By the way, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the song and tell me if you don't automatically feel like dancing around the room. Even better, Matt and Kim are sponsored by Mountain Dew's Green Label (more selling out, or just taking advantage of an opportunity?), and they are giving the song (plus two remix versions) away for free download on their website.
Who says you can't get anything good from commercials?
7/6/09
Disposal Diaries
Oh ya'll, this is going to sound totally vain and egotistical, but I need to share it with someone anyway, so just bear with me.
I am, as the kids are saying now, "da man". *
Either that or I'm a total doofus for not seeing something really obvious and simple about a month ago.
But I'm choosing to go with "da man".
See, a few weeks ago, Tony went to put something down the garbage disposal, and it didn't work. Not like, "Oh help, the blades are stuck" kind of not working, but the "Not even making a peep" kind of not working. It was, in professional plumber-speak, dead.
And of course, Tony immediately turns around, puts his hand on his hips and bellows, "Goose! What did you do to the garbage disposal?!?" And before you get all morally outraged on my behalf that he immediately blamed me for killing the disposal when in truth it could have been anyone, just let me say that statistically, I'm probably a safe bet. (See, I belong to the view that kitchen appliances will do what they're supposed to do. We do not need to coddle them. If they're going to stay in my house, they're going to have to pull their weight.** So I do not pre-rinse before stuff goes into the dishwasher, and I figure that the garbage disposal will dispose of anything that I throw at it. Egg shells? Cucumbers? Entire rack of lamb? Stuff that baby down, I say! Tony, however, is totally suckered by these appliances. He not only pre-rinses, he just flat out washes the dishes completely before they go into the dishwasher, and he pre-chops everything to paper-thin consistency before he even considers easing it gently down the drain. So chances are good that if the disposal quit, it did it out of offence at my abuse). Still, that didn't stop me from being all morally outraged anyway and yelling back, "What makes you think that I did it?" And he answered by sticking his hand down the disposal (ew! Ew! EWWWW!), pulling out some watermelon rinds that I had tossed in there earlier, and then giving me that one raised eyebrow look that says, "And you were saying?"
Don't you hate it when men are right?
And yes, okay, I'll cop to the watermelon rinds, because I still maintain that they should have been no problem for something called an Insinkerator, (which just sounds like it can handle anything, doesn't it?) but I'm not conceding that they were what actually broke the disposal.
(Alas, even after the watermelon rinds were removed, the disposal still sat there, giving us the silent treatment. And it looked like this was going to be the end of our disposaling days).
Fast forward a few weeks, with Tony occasionally mentioning that we need to get a new disposal and me not doing anything about it. Until today, when I finally got around to comparing disposal prices and installation plans and blah, blah, blah. And by the way, if you haven't looked at installation prices for replacing a garbage disposal? It's more than the actual disposal itself! For what the Lowes guys told me would be about half an hour's worth of work, tops! And that's about the time that my miser-meter kicked in and I said something like, "I have no idea how the plumbing and electrical go for installing a garbage disposal, but I refuse to pay ransom rates for some bald guy with a plumber's crack to climb under my kitchen sink for 20 minutes when I can very well figure out how to do that myself"***
So under the sink I went, and started examining the current disposal so I could remember what hose went where when I brought the new one home. And you know what I noticed? (Ya'll are going to think I'm really stupid here for not doing this earlier). I noticed that there was a little button on the bottom of my garbage disposal that looked a whole lot like the little button that I had seen while studying these installation instructions online. The one on the online instructions was called a "reset button". And apparently, you're supposed to push this reset button after removing, say, watermelon rinds. And I thought, "what the hey, it couldn't break it any more than it is now", so I pushed it. (Have you guessed what happened yet?) It worked! Who knew that following instructions on how to use your garbage disposal would actually allow you to use your garbage disposal? I know, I'm amazed too. Not to mention happy that I don't have to spend over $200 for a new disposal and Bubba to come out and install it.
Now, don't tell Tony that all I did was hit the reset button, because when he gets home, I plan on making a huge production about how I spent hours working to fix the current disposal. I'm scattering my biggest wrenches around the kitchen floor so it looks like I did a major overhaul on the whole thing. It's the only way to redeem myself for breaking it in the first place. Plus it gives him a reason to keep me around, because after all this tinkering with the disposal, I'm suddenly in the mood for some watermelon.
Three guesses where the rinds are going.
* Are kids still saying that these days? I'm not really sure, seeing how I am so far removed from what the cool kids are saying that we're in different solar systems. In my day, we said "da bomb" or "bomb-diggity" or something like that. So if "da man" is out, please substitute "da bomb" or whatever wording will not make me seem like a complete and total loser.
** Ironic coming from me, huh?
*** Well, minus the baldness and plumber's crack, anyway.
7/3/09
American as the Plants in My Backyard
It's been a really nice day today. The kind of nice where the sun is shining and the sky is blue, and the air is just the perfect temperature for summer, but without all the humidity. So nice in fact that I spent a lot of the day lounging around in the hammock and enjoying the flowers that are blooming around the back yard.
7/1/09
Smooth Criminals
So I had an interesting thing happen to me today.
In my never-ending quest to procure employment that actually, you know, pays me, I was filling out an application online. (I'm not telling you where, just in case you're better qualified than I am. Finders keepers and early birds and all that. Nothing personal).
Anyway, the extremely thorough and/or possibly wee bit distrustful company has a little note in the education section that says, "Oh by the way, we're very thorough and a bit distrustful of all you people claiming to have degrees and everything, so please send us your transcripts". And since I kind of miss having a company-matched 401k, I was all like, "Absolutely, you delightfully paranoid company, you!"
And off I went to get my college transcript.
The good thing about living in a college town where you also happened to go to college is that you can just pop right into the registrars office instead of having to wait for them to mail it to you. So I did. I skipped right up to the counter (God bless summer when all the students are gone and the registrar is actually feeling helpful) and proclaimed that I was here for my transcript. And the very nice woman at the counter went clickity-clickity-clickity on her keyboard, and everything was just going along fine.
And then she said, "Hmmmm".
(And if the registrar saying "Hmmmm" while trying to pull up your transcripts doesn't immediately set off warning bells, I don't know what does.)
And I was all very innocently like, "Problem?" Say no, say no, say no.
And she says, "Yes. You have some holds in your account".
And I say, "Holds? Why I declare, I'm sure I have no idea what you could possibly mean"*
And she, (apparently not a Gone with the Wind fan) says, "Well it says here that you have some unpaid parking tickets. One from 2007 and one from 2008. And I can't release your transcript until you pay them".
At which point I threw myself onto the front counter and wailed "It wasn't me, I tell ya! I'm being framed, see? I'm inno-wait. Did you say from 2007 and 2008? That really wasn't me then. I wasn't even here those years."
And I looked at her, and she looked at me, and apparently I've officially lost my ability to pass for the college-aged subset, because I think she actually believed me. So she dials parking authority and hands me the phone, and I start over with them about how I'm not the illegal parker that they think I am.
So now I'm on the phone with a fabulous guy from Parking Authority named Jim**, and he's doing his clickity-clickity-clickity thing on his keyboard while I vehemently deny ever even setting eyes on staff lot 25, much less parking in it, and he says, "Looks like the first ticket belongs to a 4 door Chrysler, and the second is a 2 door PT Cruiser convertible". And I say, "Ah-ha Jim! I do not own a car by either of those descriptions! Somebody's been unlawfully parking under my good name, the scoundrels!"
Jim offers to look up who the plate numbers are registered under. It's a sad day indeed when felonious delinquents can get away with ruining the good parking records of innocent citizens (not to mention put holds on their transcripts), and I for one am happy that Jim is hot on the trail of the nefarious parking ne'er-do-wells. I nod at the registrar as if to say, "Today, justice is being done. Truth is on my side".***
Jim comes back on the phone. "I see the problem", he says. "These cars aren't registered under your name, but they are registered to two people who happen to have the same last name as you. Sometimes that kind of thing gets mixed up in the system." I nod. Completely understandable. Unfortunate that I would share a surname with criminal masterminds, but understandable.
"Maybe you know them", Jim says. "Are you familiar with these names?" He reads a pair of names off to me. I am about to tell Jim that I do not associate with scofflaws and hooligans. I am about to tell him that fugitives quake at the very thought of my spotless ethics.
Instead, I tell him that why yes, those are my parents.
Seems to me that Mummy and Daddykins have a little explaining to do.
Jim tells me that because he is such a nice guy,**** he's going to forget the first ticket from 2007. He writes it off as some kind of visitor parking snafu and sweeps it all under the rug. The second one, however, I have to get the 'rents to cop to before he'll remove it from my record.
I call the house. I'm humming "Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha' gonna do?" while the phone rings. Finally, Dad picks up. Ah-ha! Mr. Big himself! I explain the situation (should I be wearing a wire?) about how both he and Mom have apparently been busted for parking willy-nilly all over campus, and how the fuzz is trying to get me to take the fall for it, and how I made a deal for immunity and my transcripts and possibly witness protection if I started naming names.
At first, Dad's playing innocent. "What parking ticket? I don't remember ever getting a parking ticket", he says. Then I tell him how they're willing to forget all about his parking ticket if he'll agree to take the stand against Mom. She's not there to defend herself, but Dad implicates her anyway. Apparently we're a family of snitches.
I call Jim back. "He sang like the Vienna Boys Choir!", I announce. Jim arranges to have the ticket changed over to Ma Barker's name instead of mine so that I can get my transcript out of hock. The registrar is laughing like crazy. "You know", she says, "I've seen a lot of parents' transcripts get held because their kids have parking tickets here, but you're the first one whose ever had a hold because of her parents!" Yes, ma'am. They're like the Bonnie and Clyde of expired parking meters, my parents.
In the end, they let me have my transcript. All I had to do was sell my very own flesh and blood up the river. If we're lucky, they'll let Mom out in a few years on good behavior, providing she keeps her car between the white lines and stays out of the staff lots. Meanwhile, the transcript that started all this trouble will probably end up being moot anyway. Even if they wanted to hire me, the company will never be able to find me under my new witness protection name.
At least we're keeping it all in the (crime) family.
*Because I apparently channel Scarlett O'Hara from time to time.
**Who actually listened and tried to help, which is mind-blowing, because back when I was in school there, Parking Authority embraced the "tow first, ask questions later" philosophy.
***Imagine me standing in front of a waving American flag, with marching bands playing and wind blowing my hair. That, my friends, is the sweet look of justice.
****Seriously, where was Jim back when I did go to school there?
6/30/09
Weekend Update
Oh. My. Goodness. Where did the weekend go?
(I know, I know. It's not like I do anything different on weekdays than on weekends, but they still manage to fly by in some sort of super warp speed. Go figure).
Regardless. Totally rocking weekend, even if it did fly by really really fast. My bestest buddy since like, the sixth grade came to visit, and we had a total blast if I do say so myself. (See potential local friends? I am a fun fun person to be around!)
But back to the story. Nicole and Eli (who is blowing me away with his awesome two-year-old self) popped in for a little overnight, and I think it went well. I was a little worried at first when he refused to come in the front door (what am I, the wicked witch of the west?), but the good thing about two-year-olds is that they're still small enough to be physically manhandled into places they don't want to be, and easily distracted enough to forget why it was they didn't want to be there in the first place. (I definitely believe this was specially planned by God to keep mothers everywhere sane. Otherwise, I think Nicole and I would still be standing on the front porch going, "C'mon Eli!").
I've mentioned before in my Eli chronicles that he's my lone example of the "small child" genre. I take my cues from him, and just assume that all two-year-olds have similar likes and dislikes.
For example,
On the "like" list:
- Fish (in the aquarium...he was impressed enough that I think Nicole may be forced into fish ownership herself pretty soon)
- Chocolate Milk - (not that I had any. I was very proud of myself for unearthing a bottle of chocolate syrup, only to discover that it had expired back in 2007. And for some bizarre reason, Nicole wouldn't let me feed her kid expired food).
- playgrounds
- sticks
- yellow leaves
- carrots
- A lovely little cartoon called Handy Manny (I won't lie- I like Handy Manny too now).
Dislikes:
- Dirt
- mulch in his shoes (who wouldn't?)
- cats (uh-oh, big problem here, since we have them running around like here Grand Central Station. Mason was briefly moved into the like column long enough for Eli to pet him, but then was demoted back to dislike after seeing him again in the kitchen).
But the good news is that I got to catch up with a great friend, even if it was just for 24 hours. And it's always a laugh riot, with an after school special BFF vibe, and a dash of Hallmark's gooey friendship line.
And I can never seem to get enough.
6/25/09
Did I Say Friend? False Alarm
So ya'll remember me telling you about my super new friend that I totally went out on a limb and made even though talking to strangers falls somewhere between having a root canal and getting hit by a car on my fun things to do list?
Yeah, she just told me that oh by the way, she's moving to Boston in a month.
It seems that her husband is going to seminary school, and they decided, "Hey! Why not far far away?" So Boston it is.
In a month.
I'm very bummed.
And yes, it has not escaped me that just weeks after I tentatively got used to the idea of actually having a local friend, she suddenly announced that she's fleeing the state. Can I drive them away or what? It's like I'm the Russian Mafia...everyone I know keeps changing their names and moving away to undisclosed locations.
And rationally I know that her husband being led to go to seminary has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with me, but I am a vain and self-centered person and in fact the world does revolve around me, so I keep thinking things like, "Was I too needy? Did I not laugh at enough of her jokes? Am I a social leper? Do I smell bad and not realize it?"
And I know you're all out there going, "There's this great new invention called the Interweb, so you can still email her and be friends online and all", but she doesn't strike me as a long-distance kind of friend. She's not really much of a computer person at all. Plus I have the feeling this is going to be one of those times where you shake someone's hand and be all, "Nice meeting you- Have a nice life". And that's that.
Sooooo.
Back to just me again local-wise. Of course, I still have all of you (who rock, by the way), and several long-time friends that are not based in Knoxville (who also rock, even if they do it far away), so I'm not a total pathetic loser. But if any of you decide to relocate to K-town sometime in the future, just be aware that the position of local friend is open, and I'll be scheduling auditions soon.
6/23/09
The Bathroom
Just in case all one of you out there wanted to see the bathroom that I've been feverishly working on for the past 150 years, here it is:
6/16/09
Birthdays
Ohhhh, check out my delicious looking Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeeeeee cupcakes!
