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SammyD's Rants food Archives


June 27, 2009

Short week (80-35 on Friday, 4th on Saturday), plus making some french toast with some apple cinnamon bread from Uncle Wendell's.

Posted by SammyD at 9:57 PM | Comments (0)



As a bonus this week I started with a Gateway Market cheese pizza, added some of the meat left from the sun-dried tomato burgers, some Eden Farms Berkshire Pork bacon, some onions, sautéed in bacon fat (mmm...bacon fat...). crumbled up, dried up, and put on top and blammo...fatty Bacon Cheese Burger pizza.

Tuscan Tuna-and-Bean Sandwiches

I don't know if it was because I didn't use the tuna that it called for (gotta go with the low sodium, for me), or what, but it just wasn't my style of tuna salad...maybe I missed the Mayo. After I added that (eating it for lunch), it was fine, but nothing to write home about

Sun-Dried-Tomato Burgers with Balsamic-Glazed Onions

This was actually quite good. Leftovers went well on the pizza.

Mahi-Mahi in Tomato-Olive Sauce (p 46 Bon Appétit May 2009)

This is pretty good, though the Mahi-Mahi that I used wasn't the top of the line...probably would've been better with better tuna. The sauce on it's own could easily go over pasta.

Moroccan Chicken with Green Olives and Lemon (p 44 Bon Appétit May 2009)

I thought I added to much lemon juice, Shannon didn't like the amount of olives, but even so, it was still pretty good.

Posted by SammyD at 9:53 PM | Comments (0)



June 21, 2009

What a struggle...I don't know if I'm just being lazy, worrying about cost, but for the May 2009 Bon Appétit looked good, but just didn't seem remotely practical for the most part. I don't know if I'm just feeling blah, or what, but getting enough recipes to make anything remotely looking like a menu was a struggle. Plus for some reason I am just have tuna on the brain (I was looking for a tuna casserole without condensed soup, but decided it wasn't season appropriate).

Posted by SammyD at 9:05 AM | Comments (0)



Best Quick Tomato Sauce (p 13 Cook's Illustrated May/June 2009)

This was really good. Simple. Easy to do. Makes you wonder why people would buy out of a jar? I do it this way, and I know exactly what goes in. Though I do like my sauce to have a bit more of a kick, but it's a good base for a future riffing on the sauce.

Chicken Adobo (Splendid Table Cheap Eats)

I grew impatient, and didn't finish this properly, but even without doing it, it has a nice taste to it. I don't know if I dissected whole chicken right, but it turned out well. Shannon and I ended up with the thighs, and the breasts and wings are still leftover. Took a while, but was good.

Pasta with Instant Fresh Pesto and Balsamic Vinegar (Splendid Table email)

This was very easy and very simple. Tasty. I'm really growing to like the Balsamic Vinegar taste.

Pork Steaks with Chile Orange Sauce (Splendid Table Cheap Eats)

After marinading overnight, I cooked these up. It does make for a longer night before hand, but the actual cooking time is pretty quick. Anyways, this was pretty good, I don't know if the sauce turned out right, but it was tasty.

Posted by SammyD at 7:59 AM | Comments (0)



June 14, 2009

Running a bit late this weekend due to the time we spent in Cedar Rapids this weekend to go see a Dance Recital (Taylor (not really our niece, but might as well be) and Shaeliegh).

  • Pasta with Instant Fresh Pesto and Balsamic Vinegar (Splendid Table email)
  • Best Quick Tomato Sauce (p 13 Cook's Illustrated May/June 2009)
  • Pork Steaks with Chile Orange Sauce (Splendid Table Cheap Eats)
  • Chicken Adobo (Splendid Table Cheap Eats)

Posted by SammyD at 3:37 PM | Comments (0)



White Bean Salad with Mint and Red Onion (p47 Fine Cooking April/May 2009)

Fairly good, we had it with some brats.

Toasted Israeli Couscous Salad with mint, cucumber and feta (p44 Fine Cooking April/May 2009)

Maybe I didn't cut the cucumbers small enough or make it quite right...but neither of us particularly liked this...

Rigatoni with Sun-Dried Tomato and Fennel Sauce (p21 Fine Cooking April/May 2009)

Served this for movie night with a nice greens salad (with Chive Feta) and some good La Mie Bread. It went over well

Mozzarella and Spinach BLTs (p64 Fine Cooking April/May 2009)

I uh...didn't so much follow recipe or instructions really...just made a sandwich with mozzarella, spinach and bacon on wheat. They were very good though.

Posted by SammyD at 3:33 PM | Comments (0)



June 7, 2009

Posted by SammyD at 7:12 AM | Comments (0)



Dijon Cilantro Tuna Salad on Whole Grain Bread (p55 Bon Appétit April 2009)

I have to say, that this was probably the best tuna salad I've ever had. After having some lousy tuna salad the week before, it makes up for that and then some.

Tuscan Garlic Chicken Pasta (RC Cooks Illustrated April/May 2009)

This was very garlicky...Though it did give me an idea on how to make some flavored oil... I liked it, and so did Shannon.

Mashed Potato Casserole with Smoked Gouda and Bacon (p73 Bon Appétit March 2009)

This was quite good, as I already stated. Though not really a main course, even if I treated it as one...

Posted by SammyD at 7:06 AM | Comments (0)



June 4, 2009

We both really enjoyed this:

Mashed Potato Casserole with Smoked Gouda and Bacon with a spicy greens mix with red onions, tomatoes, chive flower feta and a Dijon mustard dressing

Mashed Potato Casserole with Smoked Gouda and Bacon with a spicy greens mix with red onions, tomatoes, chive flower feta and a Dijon mustard dressing.

The Gouda was from Frisian Farms. The Greens were grown locally and the Chive Flower Feta was from Reichert's Dairy Air (which was quite delicious). And I made the dressing (equal parts Dijon mustard, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar).

Posted by SammyD at 9:09 PM | Comments (0)



May 31, 2009

More brats from Lewright this week, plus probably a left overs night...since well..10-12 servings of leftovers from the meals from last week..

Posted by SammyD at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)



This week we ate some brats from Lewright Meats and they were very good. There are more to go... I also went to the Iowa Cubs Club for two meals. One before a team building exercises and one while watching the Iowa Cubs from a sky box as a team activity later that same day. I had a tuna salad sandwich on a croissant and a bowl of fresh fruit. Most of the fruit was under ripe and tasteless. The tuna was bland, the salad around it was unimpressive and the croissant. Maybe I've been spoiled...but there are a number of other places in town that have decent croissants, and some excellent (la mie), but the sandwich was awful. For dinner, the brats they served were ok...nothing special...but nothing bad either.

Oven-Roasted Chicken Thighs with Carrots and Yukon Gold Potatoes (p53 Bon Appétit March 2009)

This took a while to make, other then peeling the carrots, most of the time was actually waiting for things to roast in the oven. First the chicken, then the vegetables, then together...It was good though...the Chicken was very tender and tasty and the veggies ended up to be the same as well.

Chicken and Cheese Quesadilla Pie (p13 Cooks Country April/May 2009)

This was very easy and quick to make...especially since you started with a roasted chicken. I bought a chipotle spiced rotisserie chicken from Gateway. Combined with the other ingredients it ended up being pretty good, although I think more spices could have gone into it...Though it did say to serve it with salsa and sour creme, which probably would've added the spice I needed.

Baked Penne with Farmhouse Cheddar and Leeks (p68 Bon Appétit March 2009)

Leeks...I could have done this with onions and saved myself a good chunk of change. But this was still very good. It may make me rethink the way I generally make mac and cheese. Since I normally use the roux and go from there, but this made more of a custard as the sauce...a nice difference in the texture.

Posted by SammyD at 9:44 AM | Comments (0)



May 24, 2009

This week, being short with the Memorial Day weekend and a evening event with my co-workers (going to my first baseball game since I was...well..before I was a teenager). So the list this week is pretty short. There were a few things in the March 2009 issue of Bon Appétit that made me wish I had known before I went to the farmers market yesterday, so I could have picked up some smoked Gouda up yesterday...but I think it'll make a good movie night meal...so I guess we'll have to go that route.

Posted by SammyD at 8:22 AM | Comments (0)



Drunken Beans (Splendid Table's Cheap Eats)

This was good, but I could see why people might not like it. Considering it had beer in it, I suspected that Shannon might not like it, but I use a fairly light pale ale and it just kind of blended it very well. Or it could have been that Shannon has had a cold, and hasn't been able to taste much at all. We had these on tortillas with some cheese and sour cream.

Siracusa Market Pasta (Splendid Table's Cheap Eats)

Simple, good, quick (and cheap too).

Quiche Lorraine (p13 Cooks Country April/May 2009)

My first attempt at a quiche. This was quite good...though I think I kinda messed up the crust, because I really didn't get it spread evenly. The texture was a not quite what I was used to. Not as dense, but certainly creamy and fluffy...but not as good as the quiche that I can easily get from La Mie...though it was still good...I'd make it again.

Southwest Enchilada Casserole (p19 Cooks Country April/May 2009)

Took a while to make (though it is for an army, and not really for two people), but I believe my quote was, "I can't wait to eat these leftovers". I did add some an extra Serrano pepper that I had leftover from the Drunken Beans I made earlier in the week. Anyways, this was really truly fantastic and worth the time investment it took.

Posted by SammyD at 8:19 AM | Comments (0)



May 17, 2009

Tonight I'll be making baked shells and cheese, to try to put a sizable dent in the 4.5 pounds of cheese in the fridge.

Posted by SammyD at 9:43 AM | Comments (0)



Reichert's Dairy's new cheese called Robiola di mia Nonna is very good. Shannon and I actually bought more yesterday at the farmers market. I would call it something like cream cheese, except tarter...but it's good. I would pick Robiola over cream cheese any day.

Eden Farms Berkshire Pork hot dogs, were very very good. I'm a big big fan. Normally I avoid hot dogs like the plague, since most of them just taste like...well...that their taste testers don't actually care about their jobs or their product, but these were fantastic.

So far the farmers market for me, has been meat, cheeses...and well more cheese. For the most part the fresh things at the market include asparagus (neither of us really like), rhubarb (Shannon doesn't like) and other things I don't generally use in my cooking. I have really enjoyed my mornings there...

After game night last night I discovered I had 12 kinds of cheese in my fridge (Dave had brought over some parmesan) and between all of them, including their packaging, it weighed 4.5 pounds. About half of the cheese, both by weight and number are Iowan made.

In picking up some things for game night, there were a few more items from Lewright Meats at the Dahls, plus some duroc pork sausage from Vande Rose Farms. More Iowa pork...num num num

This week I also made Chipotle and tomato paste Turkey burger with feta, red onions and wickles spicy relish, which was very good and also included some leftover beef from the Moroccan Meatballs.

Moroccan Meatballs in Tomato Sauce (Splendid Table's Cheap Eats)

A little spice, a nice sauce and some meat. Easy to make and quite good, what can be better?

Baked Ziti (Cook's Illustrated March/April 2009)

This was down right delicious...though I guess I have to call it Baked Penne, since well apparently nobody carries ziti noodles

Brown Rice with Black Beans and Cilantro (Cook's Illustrated March/April 2009)

When I made this I realized that a lot of the things this week were vegetarian. The Ziti and the Soffritto were also veggie... This was decent. It was more of a side dish, then a main, but well, I made it as a main and it was filling.

Soffritto of Tomatoes and Fresh Herbs with Penne (Splendid Table's Cheap Eats)

Veggies veggies and more veggies! But it was still quite tasty. Tomatoes do add quite a bit to taste.

Posted by SammyD at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)



May 10, 2009

Continuing with the magazine theme, using the recent Cook's Illustrated, and some other sources around the internet...I'll also be using ground turkey bought last week (Hy-Vee didn't have ground chicken, but Shannon got it later when she made a Target run), to make burgers and hot dogs...yes hot dogs. Though they are Eden Farms Berkshire Pork hot dogs...so...uh.. (Curiosity got me)

Posted by SammyD at 7:14 AM | Comments (0)



May 9, 2009

A good week for cooking...I took a little break in the middle of the week and we had some smoked brats from Lewright Meats. Very good. In other food notes, I'm glad the farmers market is back...there are vendors and favorites that I've missed over the long winter. I've also found a few new good things. The smoked Gouda from Frisian Farms was fantastic. It went over very well at my Dad's 60th birthday party last weekend. I also found out that my dad is a huge fan of Gouda from the days when he went on a mission to Norway, but now a days his thriftiness gets in the way of his desire to buy it. Not exactly the cheapest thing in the world, but it's very good.

Reichert's Dairy has made a new cheese called Robiola di mia Nonna. I'm looking forward to trying it.

Beef Picadillo (Fine Cooking Feb/Mar 2009)

While I couldn't find the kind of lettuce that it called for, it went in very well with what we had. Though it would've gone well in a tortilla or a taco shell too. I would've liked it to be a bit spicier...but that's just me. I had it with tortilla chips yesterday, and it was quite good that way as well. I did add some Juan O'Sullivans Salsa de Mesa. I wish it was a bit hotter though...but that's just me.

Chicken-And-Corn Fried Rice With Lemon Spinach (Chef Ming Tsai on NPR's How Low can you go)

This was good...and cheap as all get up to prepare. Though I did have to make rice the day before to do this, but even so, it wasn't that time consuming to prepare. I had the last of it for lunch today and it was still good.

Fresh Pasta with Sausage and Mushrooms (Fine Cooking Feb/Mar 2009)

Relatively simple, and in this context one of the ways where mushrooms seems to be ok in this house. Though I didn't use any sort of mushroom that was that flavorful, it still seems to be a way to introduce the flavors into the house, for both of us.

Chicken Sauté with Lemon, Cumin, and Parsley (Fine Cooking Feb/Mar 2009)

Hy-Vee (in Windsor Heights) finally started stocking decent chicken thighs (ie not sodium solution injected)...and in this case they were already de-boned and skinless. This turned out good. So simple. I have so noticed how often zest of both lemons and limes to just bring out the flavor for the lemons. I've never really been a big user of it in the past, but I'm seeing it more and more how it can be very useful in bringing out that flavor in a dish. I made a salad using some greens, bought at the farmers market, and a recipe (garlic mustard balsamic vinaigrette) also gotten at the farmers market.

Spicy Jerk Pork Chops (Fine Cooking Feb/Mar 2009)

This was good...broiled..I don't think I got the crust intended because I used the sauce meant for 4 pork chops, but I only used it on two...but even so quite good. Served with a small mix of greens and some peas, it was a good meal.

I'm going to try harder to bring more vegetables to our table. Neither of us a huge veggie fans, so it's kind of easy to please without even having to worry about it, but I should be...so...even simple sides will be better then nothing.

Posted by SammyD at 8:13 PM | Comments (0)



May 3, 2009

Cooking from the magazines continues...I'm almost caught up to magazines that are at least dated in a recent month...

Posted by SammyD at 7:14 AM | Comments (0)



Spicy Pork Empanadas (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)

These are really good I was so glad I made the Carne Adovada the previous week. It was pretty easy to do after all the labor had gone into the chili before. Good stuff. We actually ended up having this twice (Sunday and Friday).

Lowcountry Red Rice (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)

I liked this...but when it comes down to it, I've made this many times before, just had no idea what to call it....

Roast Pork Loin (p 219 The Best Light Recipe) with Cognac and Mustard Sauce (p 213 The Best Light Recipe)

The Cognac and mustard sauce was meant to go on beef, but it tasted great on the leftover pork loin from the accidental buying of to much in the previous week. This ended up tasting pretty good.

Cheesy Broccoli and Rice Casserole (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)

I was getting pressed for time, and so I left the rice be a bit too firm. If I would've used quick rice, it would've taken shorter, I guess...but my desire to use the Basmati that I have in my kitchen made this a little crunchier then it should have been. Beyond that It wasn't my favorite thing. I'm not a huge fan of broccoli, but it was still good.

Greek-Style Chickpea Salad (p 57 The Best Light Recipe)

I served this on movie night with bread and it turned out pretty good. Relatively light and fresh and good. I just hoped it was filling enough for people, which It held for me...so...I guess it was.

Posted by SammyD at 7:02 AM | Comments (0)



April 26, 2009

  • Spicy Pork Empanadas (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)
  • Lowcountry Red Rice (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)
  • Cheesy Broccoli and Rice Casserole (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)
  • Greek-Style Chickpea Salad (p 57 The Best Light Recipe)
  • Roast Pork Loin (p 219 The Best Light Recipe) with Cognac and Mustard Sauce (p 213 The Best Light Recipe)

Posted by SammyD at 9:26 AM | Comments (0)



Bison Burgers with Cabernet Onion and Wisconsin Cheddar (Bon Appetit 02/2009)

Ok So I didn't use wisconsin cheddar...or bison (Hy-vee usually has some, they didn't, it was on order, ended up using ground beef). But I think this turned out pretty well. Shannon didn't like the onions...she said they were too much like the cabernet that they were cooked with. I thought it tasted really good though...made for a wonderful sandwich. The ciabatta rolls that they were on didn't hurt the flavor in the slightest.

Caribbean Pork Tenderloin (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)

I uh, accidently, bought an extra few pounds of pork tenderloin...and have lots of leftovers...I thought it was the meat for the Carne Adovada...but instead I have about 3 pounds of it left over. Anyways, this was also very good. Sweet, tart, a bit spicy.

Skillet BBQ Steak Tips (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)

This was a nice rich dinner after a long day. I didn't really agree with their assumption that all BBQ sauces are too sickly sweet. I almost exclusively use Russ and Frank's BBQ sauces and they are head and shoulders above most BBQ sauces.

Baked Pork Chops with Parmesan-Sage Crust (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)

It was this recipe that finally broke my back. I have been putting off buying new baking pans for a while, and this would've been extra outstanding if I was able to bake it on a rack on top of a baking pan, so the air would've circulated under it. I went out on Friday and bought these (along with tongs and an electric tea kettle). These turned out very well. The parmesan, fresh sage, and melba toast made for a great crust.

Carne Adovada (New Mexico Pork Chili) (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)

I'm glad that movie night was cancelled this week...I don't think I could've made this in time. Even if I left work way early. Preparing the meat, and all the ingredients took quite a while and since I used my Chantal pot it took even longer... It's not that the pot was really the issue, its that it's fairly narrow and tall, so when I cooked the pork, instead of in the two batches liked the recipe said, it took five. So at 10 minutes per, it took an extra 30 minutes just to start, before the rest of the recipe went down. It was so worth it though. Getting to around 8:PM it was finally done, we dished it out mixed in a bit of sour cream and called it good. I'm curious about adding a bit more of the chipotle pepper and adobo...

As suggested, I'll be making the Spicy Pork Empanadas with the leftovers....tonight probably.

Posted by SammyD at 8:47 AM | Comments (0)



April 19, 2009

Cooking out of magazines again this week..so Here we go:

  • Bison Burgers with Cabernet Onion and Wisconsin Cheddar (Bon Appetit 02/2009)
  • Carne Adovada (New Mexico Pork Chili) (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009) (movie night)
  • Caribbean Pork Tenderloin (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)
  • Baked Pork Chops with Parmesan-Sage Crust (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)
  • Skillet BBQ Steak Tips (Cooks Country Feb/March 2009)

Posted by SammyD at 9:15 AM | Comments (0)



Curried Carrot Salad with Nonfat Yogurt (May 2009 Bon Appetit)

I've had carrot raisan salad before...in fact its one of my favorite things...however...this was not that good. I think the curry spices were just too strong...and not really balanced out by anything...so I dunno. I don't think I'd make this again.

Skillet Goulash (December / January 2008-9 Cooks Country)

I liked this. and it made for good leftovers. Creamy, beefy and some steak to eat. Filling.

Southern Style Green Beans (December / January 2008-9 Cooks Country)

These were ok...but I wasn't too thrilled by it

Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw (February 2009 Bon Appetit)

I really liked these. These were so quick and easy to make that I could see making them on any night of the week, even after a crappy day.

Posted by SammyD at 8:56 AM | Comments (0)



April 12, 2009

So in continuing the cooking out of the magazines I'm currently reading, I have picked the following items. Some of them are just sides, but then intention for me is to use them with some Gateway Market made brats that I want to try...so I'll make the side with them.

Posted by SammyD at 8:46 AM | Comments (0)



French Toast

It has been a while since I made some french toast, but it all came back...mmm...french toast...so good. Add a little vanilla, add a little cinnamon...and mmm...good stuffs.

Fish Cakes with Coleslaw and Horseradish-Dill Sauce

This was actually quite good...and easy to make. Though the tuna probably wasn't the best of quality...though it was individually portioned and then frozen...but it still worked out. I didn't go with the coleslaw because neither of us are big fans of coleslaw. So we had pasta salad instead. The Horseradish Dill sauce was good too.

Vegetarian Black Bean Chili with Orange and Cumin

I had an extra 3/4 pound of ground beef...so to beef it up a bit, I added that tot the chili...though I don't think it really needed it. It was bright flavored where you could certainly smell and taste the cumin and oranges. So it was very chili like up front, but the finishing taste was very orange. Certainly and interesting way to make a chili.

New England Clam and Corn Chowder with Herbs

Mmmm....chowder. This was pretty easy to make and delicious. I've never used can clam before, but it turned out good...though the saltiness makes it something that I cannot have on a regular basis.

Beef and Bacon Meatloaf

I wish this recipe would've said 4 slice of white bread or a bout X cups of bread crumbs. We ran out of bread, but I had some leftover breadcrumbs from various things...so I used them instead. It ended up a bit more loafy then I intended...thought still good. Usually, though, when I make meat loaf, I don't use bread when I make meat loaf.... It still tasted good, but it was more like eating a meatloaf sandwich, then just meatloaf.

Beer and Onion-Braised Chicken Carbonnade

So I used Goose Island Oatmeal Stout...this is fairly strong flavored. And while I liked the way it turned out, it had too much, though only slightly, of the beer flavor for Shannon. It wasn't like the Irish beer I made a while back that had so much beer that Shannon just couldn't take it. It made for a good dinner.

Posted by SammyD at 8:39 AM | Comments (0)



April 5, 2009

So out of the same issue (January 2009) of Bon Appétit that I made the Pâté de Campagne (Country Pâté) for the March 2009 Game Night, in their fast easy and fresh, they have a Value issue in the Fast Easy and Fresh section. Shannon also requested French toast...so I bought a loaf of challah yesterday to make that. I won't be making all the recipes out of the list and probably not in the order they suggest, but it'll be a few things at least.

Posted by SammyD at 7:30 AM | Comments (0)



So it was a weird week of cooking...With the stated goal of getting rid of things.

I made a garbage pasta...It had the last jar of pasta sauce in the house, some leftover tomato products (puree, paste, etc) from various recent recipes. Plus leftover sour cream, a bunch of ricotta and some "hot" Italian sausage, from Dahls. I also used two types of pasta...because they've been in the cupboard for a while. I turned out pretty well, sort of a creamy tomato sauce.

I had every intention of making tuna salad, but when I looked there was no tuna, so I made egg salad instead. I used some roasted red peppers that I had bought for something else, to get them out of the fridge.

I tried the Vande Rose Farms Artisan Dry Cured Bacon when we had scrambled eggs and bacon. The bacon was very good.

But now the fridge is mostly empty, I was able to clean it yesterday morning, and all of the meat that was frozen in the freezer, is now used and gone.

So now, I can build back up again.

Posted by SammyD at 7:10 AM | Comments (0)



March 29, 2009

I did not get through all the items in the freezer that I wanted to.

So I picked up a few things yesterday (milk, juice, etc) and I'm not even doing a full shopping trip this week. This week will probably include getting rid of that last of the jarred pasta sauces that I will probably buy.

I guess we'll see how it turns out.

Posted by SammyD at 9:37 AM | Comments (0)



So during leftover week here, we went through a number of things in the freezer and emptied out a good chunk of the fridge as well.

I used some of the leftover meat that I couldn't put into the loaf pan, mad them into patties and we had Pork Burgers with Pineapple. It turned out very well...though Shannon didn't have any of the pineapple on hers. They had just put some pineapple out at Hy-Vee so I bought a whole one. The price difference between cut pineapple and whole pineapple is amazing. I was left with a large amount of pineapple leftover that I ate throughout the week. This would've been the first time I've chopped up a whole pineapple as well...

I also used the pork again and the leftover hummus put it on the pitas I bought for game night. It was simple to make and delicious. And then the pork was gone!

The country pate that was leftover, I then sliced, pan seared it, and made sandwiches out of it...Yes...this is the week of a whole lotta pork...

For movie night, I made Roasted rack of lamb with parsleyed breadcrumbs (p 319) out of The Bon Appetit Cookbook. I had told Shannon the night before, that I had planned on leaving work as early as possible so I would have plenty of time to make dinner. I didn't get home until 5:30 (obviously not leaving early)...so I was rushed to say the least. What was interesting about the rack of lamb is that there was only 2 bones coming out of the main section of the meat...which was weird. I think maybe I'm not really ready to clean up lamb like that...though it really wasn't that I hard I guess, it was just not something I've done before. It wasn't near as pretty as the Frenched racks I've bought before. I cooked them on the same pan with a bunch of quartered red potatoes (Shannon washed, cut them up, and coated them in olive oil).

Oh baked potatoes...so easy to make...

Last night I used some leftover beef from a while ago (frozen then rethawed). Cut it off the big hunk, sauteed them, and then cut them into small pieces. Used some purchased horseraddish sauce, some of the baby greens and the pitas again. It turned out very well.

Posted by SammyD at 8:47 AM | Comments (0)



March 22, 2009

My fridge is mostly full, already, and there are many leftovers to go through. I also want to get the meat that has been in the freezer used, before it spends too long in there.

For movie night, I'll be making Roasted rack of lamb with parsleyed breadcrumbs (p 319) out of The Bon Appetit Cookbook.

We'll see how the week goes.

Posted by SammyD at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)



It went pretty well out of The New Best Recipe: All-New Edition. Simple, clear, and concise directions that make the whole thing pretty easy to do..

Curried Egg Salad (p 122)

This was really good, simple and easy to make, we had them on the South Union ciabatta buns for quite a bit of combined flavors. I bought a new curry powder, that is quite fragrant and spicier then the curry powder/paste that I made last week.

Quick Turkey Burgers (p 381)

These didn't turn out as well as I thought it would. The problem was that It wanted me to use 1.25 pounds of ground turkey, and I didn't reduce the rest of the recipe to match the only a pound of ground turkey that I used...so it was fairly crumbly. The taste was good though.

Creamy Sweet Pea Soup (p 47)

This was very simple and bright in flavors and a very bright green in color. It really accentuated the peas with slight back flavor of cream.

Orecchiette with Broccoli, Sausage and Roasted Peppers (p 266)

I used less broccoli and more sausage and cheese then this asked for. I liked it. The one thing about it, that I had never really seen before, since I really hadn't paid much attention to the cooking of broccoli before is how it magically changes color. I watched it, through the lid, steam. And it just hit this magically point where it went from the dull green color to this magical bright color...that signifies it's done. It was interesting to watch.

Broiled Chicken Thighs with Spicy Jamaican Jerk Dipping Sauce (p 327)

This was good, and simple. cover pan, put chicken thighs on pan, cook, turn over, cook more, move up closer to the broiler, get a nice crust on the skin side (left it a bit to long, some got a bit of a char). Done! I did modify the sauce and added tomato paste and pureed it as well. It came out as a sort of spicy ketchup.

Hummus (p 13) (For game night)

Again...going to the point that this is easy as hell to make. Rinse, rinse, add, add, processor to a creamy goodness. Spice it up...taste...spice it up...taste. The thing I learned here is that with the cayenne pepper...and probably the other spices, when it sits together it kind of grows in spice. So instead of the forward taste of chickpeas, followed by the bright taste of the lemon juice and then a bit of a kick with the cayenne pepper, it was more of a smack in the face with the cayenne pepper and the more that you ate, the more the cayenne pepper took over and just dominated the whole flavor profile.

So...less cayenne pepper.

Pâté de Campagne (Country Pâté)

I'm running a bit behind in my magazines (Just started with February issues), so I read this article about pâté and the description buy the author, Molly Wizenberg, in the January issue of Bon Appetit, made me really want to try it. The way that she described is kind of like the way that I heard wine described. Once you find one that you like, you can expand your tastes from there. Getting over that sort of wtf is this, to the holy bajesus this was good. I was worried though. It's not something I've ever made, it seems extra snooty, a the thought of it was just kind of wierd. But the list of ingredients, pork, bacon, ham, how could it be bad? So I put out feelers to see if people would at least try it....Proctor sounded very enthusiastic others said they would try it...so I moved forward.

I understand that this is the country version, so it's not like smooth paste type of pâté that I had read about in the December issue of Bon Appetit, but this was really good.

When I got home from work on Friday I made the hummus, and started on the pâté. I sealed it up, put away, quickly made dinner and came back to it later. And because I did this I messed a few things up...so I had it all layered and packed together in the loaf pan and thought, "Crap...I forgot the eggs" So I unpacked everything, added the eggs to the meat and then repacked and layered everything.

It cooked a long time (2.25 hours) and I pulled it out of the oven around midnight, and put it in the fridge....A bit before the party started, I took it out...warmed it up a bit in hot water, and then got it out of the pan. It came out with this load of congealed combined pork and bacon fat. Which I proceeded to wipe off and I ended up with this beautiful loaf lined with bacon. Presentation alone it was very appealing.. With the bacon alternated colors...just a thing to behold.

I cut off a few slices and stuck them with my other GF stash for Courtney and tried a slice for myself. It was quite good, no weird odd flavors, just a wonderful combination...and on bread with the Dijon mustard...freaking fantastic.

It went over really well at game night too...I was very happy.

Posted by SammyD at 7:55 AM | Comments (0)



March 15, 2009

I'll be cooking out of The New Best Recipe: All-New Edition this week. In no particular order:

  • Creamy Sweet Pea Soup (p 47)
  • Curried Egg Salad (p 122)
  • Orecchiette with Broccoli, Sausage and Roasted Peppers (p 266)
  • Broiled Chicken Thighs with Spicy Jamaican Jerk Dipping Sauce (p 327)
  • Quick Turkey Burgers (p 381)

For game night, I will make some Hummus (p 13) from this cookbook as well...I may also make something else...but at least this.

Posted by SammyD at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)



Another week of cooking out of The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show turned out pretty well...I'm still fairly impressed with this cookbook. It's quite the collection.

Chicken Curry with Gentle Spices (p 205)

This was light, delicate and flavorful. I wasn't so strong that it left the lingering curry smell in the house. I did make my own paste, which was interesting...I may experiment with this further in the future. It talked about breaking the paste, which is to have the oils separate out. I think I accomplished this but seeing a picture of it would be kind of handy. I also could make my own mix of curry powered...hmmm...The only problems with thinking about this experiments is that you often have to test things one after another after another, so when it comes down to it, you may be eating the same thing over and over...it would be kind of obnoxious. I also am starting to enjoy the chicken thigh. Cheaper and more flavorful then the breasts. However my problem with it is that at Hy-Vee they don't have chicken thighs in the lower sodium, organic chicken.

Scilian Corkscrews with White Beans (p 159)

This is like many of the white beans + pasta that I've made this year. Who knew something so simple could be good? I do tend to add things on top of this, but it's good buy itself.

Filipino-Style Chicken Adobo (Chicken in tart Garlic sauce) (p 208)

I marinated the chicken for about 24 hours. This again used the marinade to reduce down and make a sauce. It was quite good, tasty and definitely tart. Holy smokes. The only issue that I had with this is when I reduced the sauce (by half or so) I had a lot of that smell just sort of permeate the kitchen... The kitchen still vaguely smells of this.

Black Pepper-Honey Steak (p 252)

This was good, simple and quick. I did cook steak at a medium, rather then the medium rare that I was going for, but even with that it created a nice crust and a flavorful taste to it. I served it with fries.

Tamarind-Glazed Pork Chops (p 239)

On this, I couldn't find the Tamarind paste...I found nectar (juice) and bought it, but beyond that I was unable to find this at Dahls, Hy-Vee, or Gateway Market. I know there is an asian market around here somewhere, but I'm not sure where. So I ended up not making this.

Posted by SammyD at 8:00 AM | Comments (0)



March 8, 2009

For Shannon's birthday week, I will once again, be cooking out of The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show.

In no particular order:

  • Scilian Corkscrews with White Beans (p 159)
  • Chicken Curry with Gentle Spices (p 205)
  • Filipino-Style Chicken Adobo (Chicken in tart Garlic sauce) (p 208)
  • Tamarind-Glazed Pork Chops (p 239)
  • Black Pepper-Honey Steak (p 252)

Posted by SammyD at 8:57 AM | Comments (0)



March 7, 2009

After a relatively short list from The No-Salt, Lowest-Sodium Cookbook, it turned out to be not to bad. Though most things needed a little more salt. It was a good use lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. The recipes were simple, and easy, but mostly spiced pretty tamely. Though I suppose it's a general cookbook for older folks with bland tastes.

Hummus (p 142) with Whole Wheat or Pita Bread (p 275)

The hummus was easy to make and pretty good. Though I added a bit more stuff then the recipe asked for, including some Franks Red Hot and Chipotle Tabasco. It was so easy that I was shocked that I actually have paid for this before. I guess you live and you learn. But it made a nice pita wrap and I actually used it a couple of days this week as a sandwich filling (with pepper jack and yellow mustard, pretty good) for my lunch.

Scrambled Eggs with Peppers and Mushrooms (p 127)

No milk, but lots of veggies...funny enough I think it was actually more veggies then eggs and I added an extra egg. But this actually still worked. And there was actual garlic in there too...I remember when I had a garlic egg combo catastrophe (what I did, no recipe, was gross). But it was ok...especially after I added a dash of salt on the top.

Leon's Pita Salad (p 192)

This was pretty good too. Adding a small amount of oil and lemon to it created a good dressing and made a good salad...though it doesn't stick with you very long. Both Thursday night and for me after eating it for lunch on Friday it was followed by some pita chips and the hummus.

Cajun Season Chicken with Mustard and Lemon (p 96)

I uh...didn't buy enough lemon at the beginning of the week. So I vaguely followed this recipe. The Cajun seasoning and then adding mustard after the first pass, actually enhanced the flavor. I served it with corn.

Posted by SammyD at 7:34 AM | Comments (0)



March 1, 2009

I bought The No-Salt, Lowest-Sodium Cookbook right after I was diagnosed with hypertension.

I never actually used the cookbook, but instead opted to make more things from scratch, read more labels and select things based on their sodium content.

So in no particular order:

  • Cajun Season Chicken with Mustard and Lemon (p 96)
  • Scrambled Eggs with Peppers and Mushrooms (p 127)
  • Leon's Pita Salad (p 192)
  • Hummus (p 142) with Whole Wheat or Pita Bread (p 275)

Posted by SammyD at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)



Alba Restaurant
524 E 6th St
Des Moines, IA 50309
(515) 244-0261
Dinner: 5:00 PM - Close (Tuesday - Saturday)
Lunch: 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM (Wednesday - Friday)

We were a bit confused as to where to enter, though I am glad we went into the bar, because we were able to see how neat it was, along with the open kitchen. It was pretty impressive to see the cooks at work in the kitchen. Certainly a nice touch. Holly's dad suggested that we should sit at the table right in front of the kitchen, but we didn't. We ended up in the main dining room. I have to say that I like the decor. Holly told us that they guy that was redoing parts of her dad's house also did this restaurant. I liked the doors on the ceiling, the walls, the tile...The concrete trough for the sink in the restroom (though I like the faucets) was a bit...well...underwhelming. I know concrete can look a lot better.

After being seated at a table, we had a good view of the the entire restaurant or a great view out the window. The menu was a little odd. Broken up into appetizers and salads on one side and mains on the other, except the gnocchi, which, according to our waiter Greg, should've been on both.

I ordered the Chorizo Fries and the Pork Burger. Shannon ordered the Warm Goat Cheese and Seafood Linguine. Chris and holly ordered the gnocchi and the Salmon or some fish, poached in red wine.

While I like the chorizo fries, it reminded me a lot of the cheesy fries that you can get any number of places, except better, though no cheese. The fries were good and had a nice spice added to them. Though the fries were covered in chorizo, I thought it might be something more...I liked it, but was it really fine dining fare?

Shannon's warm goat cheese was some goat cheese wrapped in, I believe, prosciutto. It was pretty good. Certainly a good presentation.

The Chris and Holly's gnocchi was probably the highlight, at least in my mind, of the appetizers that we had. I think I've had better, but it was still pretty good.

For the mains they came out together, except for Chris's which came out a little afterward. Then then brought out a small plate with 4 slices out of what appeared to be a ciabatta loaf.

My pork burger was topped with pineapple, jalapeno peppers...it was good...though the pork didn't really stand up to the pineapple and peppers. It should have been spiced with something more. Though I did like the sandwich over all, the drawback on the pork was something that would've made it into a great sandwich. More fries, these were not spiced like the others, but were still good...

Shannon's Seafood Linguine tasted more like spinach then seafood. If you would've said Spinich Linguine then it would've been right on, but for me, it tasted too much like spinach and not enough like seafood. Shannon liked it though.

For dessert I got an apple crisp, Shannon got the chocolate molten cake, and Chris and Holly split the banana foster. All were pretty good, but nothing was really outstanding.

Over the course of the dinner I had two glasses of the Los Vascos Cabernet Sauvignon, which I liked, and it was fairly inexpensive. I may have to see if I can find it.

Our service was attentive with a few flubs. Greg accidentally split water on to Holly's purse. I was missing silverware (Holly went and stole me some from a vacant table), but he was very quick on returning our checks after we put our credit cards in the folder. Overall service was pretty good.

With two glasses of wine, appetizers, mains and desserts our bill came to a total of $78.44 with tax. With tip, under $100. I believe Chris and Holly's was fairly similar.

Overall I wasn't astounded, but it was good, I'd go back to try more things.

Posted by SammyD at 8:36 AM | Comments (0)



February 26, 2009

So after probably the worst day that I've had in 6 months, I went with Brandon down to get a little mini cake at Let Them Eat Cake.

Suddenly it's a good day.

It doesn't hurt that I'm taking tomorrow off.

Posted by SammyD at 3:48 PM | Comments (0)



February 22, 2009

In continuing with the short easy meal, I'll be cooking out of How to Cook Everything : Quick Cooking...which is basically a subset of How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, but with all the quick stuff put together. I'm finding this is not uncommon, though it does make for some easy reference. For movie night, however, I'll be using a recipe from La Quercia for movie night. In no particular order:

  • Pasta with Sausage (p 26)
  • Crunchy Curried Chicken Breasts (p 55)
  • Chicken Satay (p 57)
  • Sauteed Pork Chops (p 72)
  • Lamburgers with Smoked Mozzarella (p 80)
  • La Quercia Prosciutto Americano Lasagne (movie night)

Posted by SammyD at 9:51 AM | Comments (0)



February 21, 2009

Over all, I wasn't generally impressed with the recipes in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. They were all generally fairly bland. It seemed very disjointed, some placed calling for dried spices (like garlic) and others calling for fresh. They often didn't specify at what level things should cook at on the stove top, which can change the recipe a lot. Other then that, it was fairly simple to cook out of, though I guess I did go out of my way for the easy cooking route.

Huevos Rancheros (p 227)

This was actually pretty easy, though I could have made it a lot fresher. I don't mind canned tomatoes, but if I can use fresh spicy peppers, I would prefer to. You basically soft boil the eggs in tomato mixture. I think it could have done better w/ a fresh jalapeno pepper, and some more spices. Though I did basically learn how to make a fairly simple chip...

Garlic Chicken (p 395)

This would've been a lot better if I had pounded out the chicken and then rolled it. The two piece that I had were of differing sizes, so while the thickest part of the breast was still needing cooking the smallest part was done...or getting over done. It did taste good though. That was a lot of garlic...and I mean a lot. Though it didn't taste bad.

Scalloped Mac and Ham (p 355)

This was pretty good, I added some cheese too it at the end.

Spicy Black Beans and Rice (p 61)

Spicy, my left foot. Even after adding more spices then it called for it was still on a fairly mild part of the spicy scale

Chili Mac Skillet (p 331)

This was easy to make...and if I would've thought about it, I could have made it in one pan. It was no where near as good as the chili that I made last year. It was basically a very simple chili with noodles added and cheese on top.

In conclusion for a end all be all cookbook, I prefer How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food over the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book,

Posted by SammyD at 5:06 PM | Comments (0)



February 16, 2009

Shannon wanted to go to Proof for Valentines, and since they had a dinner on the 13th. The Menu consisted of:

  1. vegetable and goat cheese terrine/herb coulis
  2. seafood cocktail/cornet
  3. prime rib wellington/beet zabaglione
  4. chocolate pot de creme/<3

We both had the entire menu and everything was very good. I also had the wine pairings with dinner (Shannon sampled out of mine). I think the wine pairings were pretty good, though It hink the best was probably with the beef wellington, which I think was my favorite part of the meal. Not that the other courses were anything to be upset by, but I don't fix myself beets too often (one of those ingredients I'm not terribly comfortable with, because of a lack of experience), and I have such fond memories of them. I also found out that Shannon isn't a huge fan of beets, but beet enhanced sour cream is ok. I may try to sneak them into things though...though that I'm saying it here, pretty much means that she'll know...but I'll try again.

When I was a child I remember eating my mom's pickled beets...lots of them...so much so that when they came back out, I thought I was bleeding. Oh the red dyes of beets.

We both loved the chocolate pot de creme with the almond heart shaped cookie (the <3). And it wasn't such a big serving, like they have at Django, where it's just too much.

Anyways, another great meal at Proof. For actual valentines day, I cooked, but nothing too special (Chicken Paprikas). The next day we headed up to Ames to go to the Legends for Bob's surprise 30th birthday party. It was all right (food, meh, they had Guinness on tap though). He was truly surprised. Over the entire night, though, I think we knew 5 out of the 30 or so guests...so...

Posted by SammyD at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)



February 15, 2009

This week I'll be cooking out of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. Though, it is not the 2006 version that I have linked to, but the 2000 edition. right off the bat, looking through this cookbook and the soup recipes just struck me as not as good as I've been growing used to. Bullion? yeah I don't think so. Anyways, this is one of Shannon's cookbooks, not one I picked out. I really tried to go out of the Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, but between not being sure I could get the ingredients and some of them I know not being in season or even available, I went with this one. I think this will be a good break though, most of these recipes are fairly simple...and after spending 2+ hours on some of the recipes in the past...It'll be nice to be a bit more simple

  • Spicy Black Beans and Rice (p 61)
  • Huevos Rancheros (p 227)
  • Garlic Chicken (p 395)
  • Scalloped Mac and Ham (p 355)
  • Chili Mac Skillet (p 331)

Posted by SammyD at 5:30 PM | Comments (0)



Rigatoni with Tomatoes and Vodka (p 193)

This was so good...and just shockingly better then a vodka sauce that comes in a jar. Considering how easy it was to make, I doubt very much I'll ever buy a jarred vodka sauce again. Of course I'm finding that about most sauces. They sound complicated, but when it comes down to it, they really aren't. In checking my cupboard, there really is only one jarred sauce left. I was thinking about using it (along with a few of the tomato based leftovers from this week) just to clear out the fridge and open a bit of space in the cupboard.

Polenta with Sausage and Asiago (p 240)

This tasted very good. I'm still uncomfortable with polenta, because I don't know if I am getting the texture right. I almost thought it might be better just to make it like a cornbread with all the stuff in there in it. Any time you have big chunks of Asiago in something, it can't be too bad.

Jamaican Jerk Burgers with Orange-Chipotle Mayonnaise (p 182)

Josh and Lindsay came over to have this. It said to make it on the grill, but since my grill is basically falling apart that didn't happen. Probably would've been better though. With the marinade that went on the burgers (it had brown sugar in it) it quickly gave off a quite a bit of smoke (window had to be opened) and quickly blackened the outer layer of beef on the burgers. It tasted pretty good. though. The may was really simple to make, just a bit of chipotle a small bit of orange juice and some mayo...how simple is that? And it tasted really good.

Falafel with Cilantro Yogurt in Pita Bread (p 259-260)

Movie night ended up not happening, however, I still made the falafel. I don't know if I made these right. It said I was supposed to be able to form patties of sorts out of the mixture...it was far too liquidy to do that. Though I was able to get a flour side down, brown, warm solidify the falafel a bit more. It turned out really good though. Spicy, tasty and I'm guessing good for you (no bad fats, not a lot of salt).

Chicken Paprikas (p 333-4)

I made this last night. It used a lot of paprika (5 teaspoons of sweet and 1/2 teaspoon of hot), which is how, I understand, paprika is used. It turned out very well, good tender flavorful chicken with a thick spicy sauce of onions, peppers, and garlic. The only draw back here, is that it said to slice the red peppers, which I know Shannon doesn't like large pieces of bell peppers. So I cut them down a bit. It worked well.

Posted by SammyD at 8:17 AM | Comments (0)



February 8, 2009

This week I'll be cooking out of The Bon Appetit Cookbook. I read their magazine (along with a few others), and cook out of it from time to time.

This week it'll be, in no particular order:

  • Jamaican Jerk Burgers with Orange-Chipotle Mayonnaise (p 182)
  • Rigatoni with Tomatoes and Vodka (p 193)
  • Polenta with Sausage and Asiago (p 240)
  • Falafel with Cilantro Yogurt in Pita Bread (p 259-260) (Movie Night)
  • Chicken Paprikas (p 333-4)

Posted by SammyD at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)



February 7, 2009

So this week, I was cooking out of The Irish Spirit: Recipes Inspired by the Legendary Drinks of Ireland. I gotta say that I've never cooked with so much alcohol i my life. Sometimes I use it here or there, but never to this extent. The week started off very good, but then went down hill...as far as Shannon was concerned. The last two she didn't like so much.

Oh I did like the Irish Mist...It was like a decent whiskey combined with honey and some spices, dangerously easy to drink.

Gaelic Steak (p 17)

The sauce that went over the steak had a bit of whiskey in it...it called for Irish...but I used some Scotch whiskey instead (since I have many bottles). I actually purposely used mushrooms...which, is, shall we say, quite uncommon for me. Since neither Shannon nor I are big fans. But this turned out quite well.

Chicken Cashel Blue (p 24)

I made bread crumbs (basically took an entire La Mie ciabatta, food processored it, toasted them and put the leftovers in the freezer), and it had a wonderful crust on it when I was done. I didn't use Cashel Blue, but Maytag blue (not near as expensive). I do think I could have made it better, but it turned out well.

Beef in Ale with Cheese Cobbler (p 54)

I liked this quite a bit. Though when it was cold and I warned up some leftovers for lunch, the ale undertones were overbearing...but when warmed up again. It was quite good again. I quite understand whey Shannon didn't like it. if it was less ale and more beef broth, I think it would've gone over better. I used Boulevard Irish Red Ale. We both, however, really loved the cheese cobbler. These were fairly similar to the muffin things that Holly makes from time to time. I think the cobbler with the stew was quite good.

Tulach Mhor Lamb Casserole (p 112)

This one I didn't get at all. It said slice, I did, it said combine chicken broth and Irish Mist, I did. It said cover, I covered, it said bake for a long time. It said uncover and bake some more, I did.

I think if I made cubes of potates, diced the unions and mixed it all together...added less liquid (like lamb isn't gonna give off a lot of juices anyways) and then pretty much do it the same way...but maybe some cheese and bread crumbs on top to finish with, it'd be a lot better.

Posted by SammyD at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)



February 1, 2009

This week I'll be cooking out of The Irish Spirit: Recipes Inspired by the Legendary Drinks of Ireland. One of the things I really wanted to make, Medieval Stew with Stout (p 51), was very time consuming...so I'll have to do it some other time when I have lots of time to cook...or for a movie night. There are quite a number of desserts that I'd like to make out of there too.

So in no particular order:

  • Gaelic Steak (p 17)
  • Chicken Cashel Blue (p 24)
  • Beef in Ale with Cheese Cobbler (p 54)
  • Tulach Mhor Lamb Casserole (p 112)

Posted by SammyD at 6:48 PM | Comments (0)



So in cooking this week using The Best Light Recipe cookbook...there was quite a bit of prep, but it generally went pretty well.

Corn Chowder (p 84)

Since I didn't have fresh corn (being that it's the middle of winter), I used frozen, thawed corn. Then food processored about half of it (like the recipe called for). But it went well...tasted good.

Quinoa Pilaf with Corn and Jalapenos (p 149)

The cooking class I went to last week, they told me they used it in their cooking and being that it is a pseudocereal and high nutritive value, I figured I'd make this. Since it is a side, I made simple pork chops with them. This took longer then I expected. But it turned out well, and quite tasty. I do believe I'll be doing more this type of thing later.

Barley Risotto (p 138)

This was quite good. Creamy, a bit of a chew and some fresh herbal flavors. I combined it with a a cut up sauted chicken breast. It was nice...I even had it on it's own as a lunch. It took a lot longer then I expected however, so much so that I actually served the last of our good cheeses and some crackers to myself and Shannon before I was done.

Pasta with Beans and Greens (p 170)

Now this was a struggle. Just over an hour of prep. The fresh kale was annoying as all get out (I've never used it before). Cut out the rib of the leaf, over and over and over, cut it into small segments. Ugh. Anyways after I was finally done with prep, I started cooking and had about another hour under my belt before I was finally done. I think it was good. The kale, which had entirely filled my big Chantal pot to over flowing, reduced down fairly well.

I think maybe it would have been better with fresh tender leaves of spinach combined at the end.

Over all this week was a week of new things. I've never really worked with barley, quinoa or kale before....so it was interesting to say the least.

In the future I may have to change when I plan dinners. I know I want to include going to the farmers market in my shopping for foods (it's on Saturday mornings). Plus there are times, like this weekend, where I cannot keep the schedule. so maybe I'll have to plan during the week, get ready and then do the shopping broken up between the farmers market and regular shopping. This week, I've still not planned what we're eating for the week and plan on going shopping tomorrow after work.

Posted by SammyD at 4:33 PM | Comments (0)



January 25, 2009

This week I'll be cooking from The Best Light Recipe. I was going to use Cover & Bake (Best Recipe), but...well...I don't think of week of those recipes would work out too well.

So this week, in no particular order:

  • Corn Chowder (p 84)
  • Barley Risotto (p 138)
  • Quinoa Pilaf with Corn and Jalapenos (p 149)
  • Pasta with Beans and Greens (p 170)

Posted by SammyD at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)



Last night, after saying my farewells to Shannon, I headed down to Proof to go to their first cooking class. I left a bit early, so I ended up driving around the block before parking. I didn't want to show up too early.

I don't know what it was, but my anti-social anxiety had popped up pretty bad in the hours building up to the class. I don't often go to places on my own. There is something about going to a new place with someone, that makes it more comforting, then being alone. This is where the idea of something over takes why I'm normally used to doing.

I went in was greeted and quickly given a Sparkling Rosé (Cava Rosé, Gran Sarao Brut, Cava NV). Carly Groben (owner) was there and I was put a bit at ease...I've met her on a few occasions and Proctor is her friend...so I think It helped to settle me down a bit. The Rosé couldn't have hurt either. More of the group came in the door, and the chef came out and we were fed el Majoun. This was a combination of dried fruits, nuts and a whole lot of spices covered in sesame seeds. It was like a delicious spice bomb in the mouth. Chewy, spicy and a little bit of crunch. I so want to make these things.

After the last of the group arrived, we headed back into the kitchen. While the dining room of the restaurant is warm and inviting, The kitchen is far more practical and utilitarian. We sat in seats to watch the chef make a few things.

Chef Chris Place went through how to make flatbread, ras-el-hanout (spice blend, kind of like curry, in that there are thousands of variations), harissa (a spicy paste), cous cous, a tangent on preserved lemons (which are much easier to make then I would've thought), lamb roulade, spiced eggplant (the vegetarian main course option), and two types of tagine (veggie and seafood). I took many notes in my packet on things I didn't know about, how to do some other things... But here was the point of a few drawbacks. First, while the ingredients are listed, processes, amounts and etc were not. And while he didn't look like the Chef was measuring things, exactly, I wouldn't be comfortable doing that right off the bat. Second, the kitchen was loud. Even without the exhaust fan above the stove on (it was on and off and points during the demonstration), it was still tough to hear. And Third, it was often tough to see what was being done. Not that cooking lends well to see what I'm doing in this bowl well. Even with all that, it was still quite a bit of fun. Just kind of to demystify the whole area. It's not that complicated...its just a bunch of ingredients that you may not use every day.

Afterward, we headed back into the dining room to do a wine tasting. The wines were pretty god, though nothing really stood out as a huge favorite in my mine. I think it was huge the example of how wine changes with food, and without. I think my favorite of the batch was the Monastrel/Cabernet Sauvignon, Castano "Solanera" Yecla 2005. Which was really good with the seafood tagine.

The dinner was great. It consisted of the things the Chef demonstrated plus some almond pastry and a fortune cookie. Mine said, "I'm not a glutton, I'm an explorer of food". Which is pretty good. I still like the "I don't have a big waistline, I have a large happiness curve." better.

I spent a while chatting with Carly about food, desire to cook, and showed her some pictures of things I've made. I think it came to a point of what the kitchen reminded you of. I have many fond memories of smells and sights of both my mothers and grandmothers (dad's side) kitchen, and it kind of makes me want to share that with others. Food has always been a way for me to show my love for other people.

When I got home, I settled down a bit and was told that Shannon got some rear claws to the face...Apparently George scared Gracie, and Gracie kind of used Shannon's face as a launching point to get away. She didn't bleed, so it sounds like it should heal up well.

Posted by SammyD at 9:27 AM | Comments (0)



How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food (Original 1998 edition) proved to be as good as I thought it would be. In the past, I have often used it as a starting point for recipes, and this week was no change to that...though with half of the recipes from the book that I used with this week just modified them flat out.

Black Beans with Niman Ranch Chorizo & Rice (card)

This card turned out to be very good. It was a nice combination of meat rice, and vegtable matter. Maybe it could have been a bit spicier...if that's what you are looking for I suppose

Chicken Soup with Rice (p. 73)

This one wasn't really meant to be a main course. So I added peas, corn, carrots and more chicken to make it more of a stew, then a soup. I suppose the soup would turn out to be pretty good, though, if you were sickly and just wanted something nice, simple and warming.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara (p. 141)

Anything that uses bacon fat in the recipe can't be that bad. I really enjoyed how simple this was to make and how good it tasted. though I doubt very much I'd ever order this in a restaurant again...cause it was seriously super easy.

Bean and Tomato Casserole (p 512)

I started out with the idea to remain true to this recipe, but when I was in the store, I thought more about making into a sort of Mexican type lasagna. So I layered it not only with the tomatoes, but also with tortillas. I added diced tomatoes and left over turkey that I cooked up to the beans, and lessened the amount of beans that I used to get around the total of 6 cups of filling that it called for. I also added two jalapeno peppers.

Spicy Tofu with Ground Pork (p 526)

I've used tofu before, but not very often...so something with so much tofu was a bit daunting at first. But it turned out OK. I think that if I was able to flavor the tofu before hand, it might have been better. Also, I was a bit surprised by what it called for right of the bat. The recipe said that it'd take about half an hour, but the first instruction was to firm up the firm tofu by letting it get dryer for about an hour. I think an hour is a bit hard to fit into 30 minutes, though this is not the first recipe to do this...and I guess that's what I get for not reading the whole thing before making it.

Posted by SammyD at 8:59 AM | Comments (0)



January 18, 2009

I don't think I can express enough how much I liked the recipes out of How to Eat Supper for the past week. Everything was really really good. From the stew to the pasta (I wasn't sure about the cinnamon and pasta, but it was fantastic), it was fantastic. The eggs...oh my...even though I may have messed them up a little (cut the recipe in half, though I didn't do it for everything I think which lead to a bit runny stuffing for the eggs). So good. In that I made my first dressing from scratch, which wasn't hard at all. I'm pretty much making everything from the past week again, sometime. Also, last week I went through almost two bulbs of garlic...

This past week, I added a 12" lid and spatter shield to my collection. Which is a necessity...though with both of them, it makes it tough, since the 12" items don't fit well into my dishwasher... I used my Chantal Copper Fusion Stock pot for the soup...oh yes I love that pot...other then that I have to wash it by hand...(doesn't fit in dishwasher).

This week I'll be cooking out of both How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food (Original 1998 edition) and a recipe card that I got when I bought some Niman Ranch Chorizo. in no particular order:

  • Black Beans with Niman Ranch Chorizo & Rice (card)
  • Chicken Soup with Rice (p. 73)
  • Spaghetti alla Carbonara (p. 141)
  • Bean and Tomato Casserole (p 512)
  • Spicy Tofu with Ground Pork (p 526)

Posted by SammyD at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)



January 11, 2009

So over the last week of cooking, I've reminded myself why I need to get my mise en place, found out that I needed a lid for my 12 inch skillet. It is kind of hard to cover and simmer when you do not have a lid that comes close to the size of the pan (boo). I plan to rectify that this week. Though I had, at the beginning of the week, close to 3 pounds of rice, two of those pounds not instant rice (Arborio and Basmati made up the majority of it). And when you aren't cooking for an hour, then the use of instant rice is a must (I ran out). Everything turned out pretty well. I was hoping for a more Worcestershire sauce taste to the Shepherd's Pie. I also need to at least prep before Shannon gets home. Sometimes it would take longer then I would expect, and we're eating dinner at 8. The worst was with the Curried Chicken and Rice, which was, my fault, because I ran out of instant rice, so in adding basmati, I had to cook it a whole lot longer then what the recipe called for. Which also led to overcooked chicken (still good tasting, but a little tougher then my normal chicken.

So...frustrating.

We also had too many leftovers. Most of the recipes are for 4 people. So lots of leftovers left. Now for me, this provides quite the variety in my lunches. But even so, we had a leftover night and still have left overs. Now that I think about it, it may be more to the point that the lasagna is servings for 8, instead of 4...so that kind of moved everything back...

This week I'll be doing 4 dinners. (the rest being leftovers or quick meals (easily made standards)). I'll be cooking from How to Eat Supper in no particular order:

  • Cuban Black Bean Stew (p 79)
  • Pan Crisped Deviled Eggs on French Lettuces (p 93)
  • Hollow Pasta with Greek Cinnamon-Tomato Sauce (p 166) (for movie night if we're hosting)
  • Tomato Cheddar Packed Turkey Burgers (p 210)

Posted by SammyD at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)



January 4, 2009

This year we have a shared goal of not using the credit card for anything other then replacing the furnace and air conditioner (this will depend on if I use the tax refund(s) for this or to pay off my car, which will be paid off by September).

My goal for this year, is to use my cookbooks more and plan and make dinners according to the plan. Too often I'll depend on the old standbys because I feel tired or just can't think of what I want to make.

So for the week of Sunday January 4th through Saturday January 10th, I'll be cooking from The Best 30-Minute Recipe mostly.

Tonight it'll be Lasagna (not from the book, or any book for that matter) and then in no particular order:

  • Skillet Tamale Pie (pages 119-120)
  • Skillet Shepherd's Pie (pages 118-119)
  • Curried Chicken and Rice (page 110)
  • 30 Minute Pork Vindaloo (Page 83)

Posted by SammyD at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)



January 1, 2009

For new years, we took our third trip in two weeks to Cedar Rapids.

The drive there was a bit silly. Roads were clear and clean, but covered in state troopers. I slowed down a bit, because I didn't want to push my luck.

At the Matta's we showed up, settled in, had a nice simple dinner, before the girls were packed up to spend the New years with Grandma and Grandpa Matta. We waited till around 8:00 PM before we started to dig into the prepared snacks. From Nathan's roasted nuts (many jokes ensued) to goat cheese pizza drizzled in a herb infused olive oil, they put on quite a selection of delicious things to eat.

The theme drink of the night was cocktails made with sparkling white wine. The base being a wonderfully fruity Asti (very similar to what was served at Josh and Lindsay's Wedding). So we had everything form your standard mimosas, Poinsettias to the odder Black Velvet (surprisingly good), Nelson's Blood (not really good or bad), and others. I brought quite a good bottle of port (Trevor Jones Tawny Port Jonesy), which I really enjoyed...and I'll be replacing.

Along with Shannon and I, Jenny and Nathan, Clif, Scott, Jane and her husband (and even though I've met him a couple of times now, I can't bring up his name), and then another couple Scott and someone...that I had not met before. Enough to like you aren't forced to do things together, but not so much that it's hard to do anything.

So as the night wore on and several of us got into the spirit. We played games on the Wii (Boom Blox is awesome). And then ended up watching CNN's coverage of the New Years.

CNN's coverage was awful...and I mean bad. Crappy bands and I love the 3 second before midnight cut over for those of us in the central time zone.

Anyways...people started to clear off, and some chatting continued well into the night. Eventually around 2:30 or 3:AM we called it a night and slept.

In the morning, I was up first (I never sleep long). Read a bit, played with my iPod Touch, drank all Shannon's water...and then got up to search for more water.

Colby (the dog) followed me downstairs, wanted to go out, so I let him...remembered that Diego (the dog) was in the crate, so I let him out and into the backyard too. I drank water, read some more and eventually others joined me. Waffles for breakfast, got cleaned up and headed over to Shannon's sister's.

Sean seems like he's becoming a bit more anti-social...but it could just be the day. Shannon's parents joined us and Mike's friend.

We had some cake and ice cream chatted with the family, watched Sean get a bunch more from Dr Who.

We eventually left and headed over to Culver's to eat before we drove home. However, it was closed. So we ended up at Ruby Tuesday's. I don't know why we keep going there. The food is never that good, and apparently nobody there wanted to be there and the service was lousy too.

Being that I was still a bit tired, we headed over to Starbucks (I'm not sure where the non-starbucks places are in CR), went through the drive through, ordered (Peppermint Mocha Twist for me, water for Shannon) and drove up to the window. We were behind two cars, waited for the first. and the a Caddy CTS and finally got to the window.

The barista said that the people ahead of us had paid for our drinks and wished us a Happy New Year. By this time they were already gone so no way for us to give our thanks, so we thanked them, and headed back to Des Moines.

Certainly was an unexpected surprise.

I've been told that I need to pay it forward...so I guess I'll see what I can do.

Posted by SammyD at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)



December 22, 2008

Shannon, being on her week of vacation, wanted to go out and try Proof for lunch. We headed down a little bit after noon.

We went up, I ordered the Duck Lasagna, Shannon had the Chicken and Cous Cous. Both were fantastic. The lasagna had duck, crispy pancetta, a rich sauce and noodles. It was so good.

I'm pretty certain that Proof now has taken the places as my favorite restaurant in Des Moines, and I don't state that lightly.

Posted by SammyD at 6:23 PM | Comments (0)



December 21, 2008

Jenny made some cookies. Rosemary cookies...they were fragrant and quite good.

Posted by SammyD at 8:55 PM | Comments (0)



On Friday, we had our team holiday dinner. We headed down to Centro to have a lunch, and quite the lunch it was. Keith, instead of joining us, headed home to lay down, since it was feeling a bit sickly.

We started off with a small Margherita pizza. I had pesto steak sandwich and many others had their own. It was quite good. After lunch we walked down the street a bit, after the drivers plugged the parking meters, and headed to Django for dessert. Between the six that we present, we had an Baked Apple Galette, Lemon curd, and this other dessert that Proctor had been there three times that week to eat. All three were quite delicious.

Saturday, we headed over to Cedar Rapids to the Matta's. We waited for the storm to pass, and then got on the road. The interstate wasn't too bad, though it seemed that whenever there was a car, truck or trailer in the ditch, traffic seemed to slow dramatically. Or around the snow plows and what not. So it took us quite a bit longer to get from Des Moines to Cedar Rapids then it normally does. We did catch up to the storm and got hit by it again as we headed north to Cedar Rapids.

We came in from the wind and the cold.

We settled for a bit (and played some hide and go seek) and packed up in the minivan and dropped off the girls with Jenny's mom and headed over to Winifred's.

We were there early, and seated down and started chatting. Eventually we were joined by Scott (living in CR), Cameron (in from Japan), and Dave (in from Michigan). It was nice to see and chat with everyone. We finally got around to ordering and we split a full order of their onion rings, which were pretty good. Shannon had Chicken Angelo, and I had the beef tips with cognac sauce. I started with a lobster bisque, which was...well...just ok. And they brought out the beef tips. Presentation wise, they were very lacking. It honestly looked like dog food...I was kind of turned off. However, once I tasted they were quite good. The beef was tender, the sauce was round and robust. I tasted Shannon's chicken, with what they called prosciutto....it was way to thick...It tasted good, though...but the texture seemed wrong.

The detractions, from Winifred's were small, but annoying. I admit that we started off slow, however, the service was, generally attentive, but slow. Water was refilled a lot, but the speed that the food came was just a bit too slow. The bathroom was more or less hidden, and the vinyl walls, made to look like the tile, just looked cheezy in comparison with the rest of the restaurant. The wine list was large, but not that I'm a huge wine aficionado, but between Scott and I and the Mattas, other then one brand which could range quite a bit in quality, most everything else we didn't recognize. And with no wine steward to help...it's kind of hard to get through.

The conversation for the night ranged all over the place, from the economic crisis, to just silly inane things.

We skipped dessert, since most of us were full and the Matta's were a bit late in picking up their children.

After we got them, we head back to their home and met up with the whole crew and drank mulled wine, some beers that I had brought. We were later joined up by Richard, who had drove in earlier that day with his wife and child from New Jersey.

Conversation went into the night...very late, where eventually quite a few of us were having trouble staying awake. So the party broke up and people went on their way home.

Sunday morning, we were slow in getting up...though once the light started hitting my face, I had trouble keeping my eyes closed. The Matta's eventually headed over to their first Christmas with Nathan's parents. We got cleaned up, and headed over to the American Skillet. Found online that day, and not too out of our way out of town.

I don't really have much nice to say about the place. I didn't like the orange juice (not even remotely tasting fresh), I didn't like the bacon (to dry?...it was just wrong). The Dallas skillet was ok. Shannon said that she and been spoiled by omelets at La Mie.

However, not all is wrong with the American Skillet. The Fruit & Fiber Cakes, which I had read were good, were actually quite good. It's basically a pancake, set up on one side, adding granola, cinnamon to the other, and then finishing the cooking with the granola. A bit of crunch, some pancake, some blueberries and some butter and syrup. It's like a dream imagined in pot smoker's haze.

The drive back to Des Moines was much much easier, though with the head wind drove down the miles per gallon. It took about 1/3rd of a tank to get to Cedar Rapids, and a little less then half on the way back.

It's nice to catch up with long time friends.

Posted by SammyD at 7:30 PM | Comments (0)



November 30, 2008

Nuclear Brownie Ingredients:

  • 1/2 lb butter
  • 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
  • 18 oz 60% cacao chocolate chips
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 Tablespoon vanilla
  • 1 1/4 cup sugar (8.8 oz)
  • 1/2 cup flour (2.5 oz)
  • 1/2 Tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Nuclear Brownie Directions:
  • Pre-heat oven to 350F
  • Liberally butter a 9x13 banking pan
  • Melt butter, 9 oz (1/2) of the chips, and the unsweetened chocolate over a double boiler, when melted, let it cool.
  • Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla together.
  • Slowly add the chocolate mixture to the eggs, while whisking the egg mixture (tempering)
  • Mix in flour and baking powder and salt.
  • Stir in remaining chocolate chips
  • Pour into pan and bake for 30 minutes
  • Let cool and refrigerate overnight.

Cookie Ingredients:
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour (10 oz)
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 tablespoon Cinnamon (less if you feel so inclined)

  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 cup packed dark brown sugar (~8 oz)
  • 1/2 cup white sugar (3.5 oz)
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • ~2 Cups of refrigerated Nuclear Brownies (8.5 oz) cut into 1/4" square, keeping the full height of the brownie. Cut off the edges and use the center for the bits.

Cookie Directions:
  • Preheat oven to 325 F, Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  • Sift or whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, set aside
  • In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, dark brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.
  • Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy.
  • Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.
  • Stir in the brownie bits by hand using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula
  • Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
  • Bake for 18 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a 4 minutes on the stove before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Reviews were good, I got an email from Taylor (Nathan and Jenny's daughter):

your cookies were good daddy and i liked them

Posted by SammyD at 3:22 PM | Comments (0)



November 28, 2008

Thursday morning I headed out, tried to see if I put a Netflix at the central post office, if it would go any faster (it didn't), topped of the tank, headed back home, filled up the car with nuclear brownie cookies and leftover nuclear brownies, and then we headed over to La Mie to pick up some bread.

I had Joe (owner and proprietor of La Mie) try out one of the nuclear brownies (he liked them, said they were very fudgy) and we bought some coffee, hot chocolate, and a cranberry and walnut challah, some rolls (kind of in the form of muffins), and this wonderful bread with gouda in the middle that I can't remember the name of. It really was fantastic. Afterwards we headed to my parents.

Now I will admit that traffic on I-80 was lighter then other Thanksgivings, but like I told Nathan later, it seemed like all the pleasant people stayed home and just left the rest of the jerks on the road. Seriously, why do you call it a passing lane, when..well...the majority of cars are in that lane? It was tried by a BMW x3 and some gigantic of an locally grown SUV to basically kill me...the running up in the regular lane, thinking they can cut in front of me as I'm right behind someone else...I hate that.

Anyways, we were the first guests to arrive. Joseph got home from a hour something run (he had a bit of a unibomber type look to him (Beard + crazy hair)). I saw the senior pictures that we went back to CR to take with my brother. And saw the preparations of the massive feast that was about to take place.

People started to arrive. As with most of the recent events, it usually ends up being the parents, the boys in the family and their families, and a few other random people. In attendance were: Hyrum and Diane and their kids (5), myself and Shannon (2), Jed and Stephanie (2), Joseph (1), Isaac (1), Parents (2) and then Rod & Shanna (2) and a couple of their brood (2), a couple of missionaries (2), and to top it off, the family that Stephanie nannies for (lets just say 4); for a grand total of 23 people at my parents.

Before dinner there was a bit of foosball palying, some Stratego (played my nephew), lots of goofing off, catching up and etc.

Lots of food...and I mean lots. A couple of homemade pies, cookies (mine included), tons of side dishes, including several sweet potato dishes, cranberry sauces, breads (banana, Jed made, La Mie, etc), 4 or 5 jello dishes, and turkey. This is probably the juiciest turkey I've had of my mothers. So kudos to her for that.

There were 4 tables. One tiny table (for the little kids), a card table (for bigger kids, but ones that may still be messy) and the two bigger tables.

The hits of most of the night wast the gouda filled bread that I got at La Mie, my cookies, and Shanna's homemade Lefse. The La Mie bread didn't make it much past the prayer (people started eating it before hand). I also really liked Shanna's low fat, low cal stuffing, which was nicely spiced...I was actually surprised it was low cal and low fat...

After the dinner settled and desserts started making the rounds, we hung out for a bit longer before we headed over to the Mattas.

At the Mattas were Jenny & Nathan, Taylor and Cali, Nathan's parents Pat and Terry, CJ and Emily (I think that's what her name was). Eventually we were joined by Nathan's older sister Cherokee and her family (Cherokee used to babysit both Nathan and I).

Jenny and Nathan were mostly busy in the kitchen putting the final touches on their meal. We chatted, played with Taylor and Cali (which for the most part involved playing catch with Taylor and her Horton stuffed animal).

So when they were about to eat, we exited stage right, but before we did so, we tried little piece of the turkey they made (holy bajesus it was good. butter and bacon fat under the skin, so you had turkey + spices with a nice bacon finish), and got a thermos full of mulled cider (alcohol free) and headed home.

Traffic on the way home was much lighter.

My older sister Emily had a child on Thanksgiving morning...I am waiting for more details.

Shannon worked a bit today, and I left shortly after her to brave the mall crowds.

Now normally I avoid black friday like the plague. I mean I plan on staying in the house, my car not leaving the driveway, not participating in any sort of commerce on that day.

I don't like malls, I don't like crowds, and the combination of both makes it extra annoying. However Apple was having a sale, and my iPod recently lost it's life, and being that the iPod Touch was on sale, I figure if I can get the 10% iPod recycling discount, then I'd get it...it's not like i'll be able to get it much cheaper. I was able to, and did so. I got an iPod touch, so that way when the drive strikes me, I can listen to almost anything out of my music collection rather then a mere 10% of the total music collection...

So since I was already there, I figured I'd check out Williams Sonoma and Barnes and Noble. I ended up getting a good (comparatively) deal on some non-stick cookware, so that I can have a pan to do omelets and etc in. 2 pans for ~$60, when one of them costs $125 normally...which makes me think that they just have a great big profit margin...but...anyways...

By the time I got out of the mall, I was about ready to die... People wearing too much perfume, strong smells that hurt my nose. and just the mass of people.

I got out and after avoiding people who don't know how to drive, I got home...and proceeded to disconnect from people and play with my new toy.

Shannon got home, and we spent the rest of the day safe from crowds.

Posted by SammyD at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)



November 26, 2008

Nuclear Brownie Cookie

Posted by SammyD at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)



November 24, 2008

In thinking about the nuclear brownie cookies, I think what I forgot was to add more brownie bits for the doubled recipe... So instead of having the bursting cookies, they were just a few (2 cups for 3 dozen cookies vs the 4 cups as it should be).

I'll be making brownies again tonight, and then draw back the cinnamon just a little bit to get the balance that I was looking for (hopefully).

I'll be baking the cookies Wednesday night and taking them to my parents (and the Matta's) for Thanksgiving.

Posted by SammyD at 1:28 PM | Comments (0)



November 20, 2008

Genoa salami, spicy salmi, horseraddish cheddar, provolone, dijon mustard, mayo on onion cheddar bread

num num num num!

belly full.

Posted by SammyD at 7:16 PM | Comments (0)



November 10, 2008

So the idea was to take Nuclear Brownies and put them into the chocoalte chip cookie base...

While the reviews were pretty much exclusively positive, it wasn't really what I intended to do. I used far too much cinnamon for the flavor profile that I was looking for. Though it was stated that the heavy chocolate taste from the brownies and the heavy cinnamon from the cookies kind of acted as a sort of dual palate cleanser. So it was a burst of chocolate, followed by a burst of cinnamon, or the other way around. And while this is a good thing, I suppose, I think it would've been better if I would've added more semi-frozen brownies bits, since 2 cups per batter recipe wasn't quite enough. Or if I would've just highlighted the brownies, by moving back the cinnamon. I'll have to try again with smaller batches this time.

Also, I need to get the timing right...the first 6 cookies out of the oven ended up being a bit raw in the middle, thought I did adjust the time up to around 19 minutes per batch, which seemed to get it to about the right consistency from my oven. though I suspect if I add more brownies, it'll change that time too.

I also think I mixed the cookie batter for too long, since they didn't rise as much as they have in the past with other of the multi-chocoalte chip cookies.

Also as an adjustment to speed up the time to make the Nuclear Brownies, by tempering the egg and sugar mixture, I was able to add the warm chocolate and butter in much sooner, which allowed me to finished the brownies in one segment, rather then start, wait for chocolate and butter mixture to cool, then finish.

Anyways, this may end up being two separate recipes...one with the cinnamon drawn back just a little with the brownies cranked up just a bit. And then another where the brownies are the stars, and the cookies are a backdrop.

Posted by SammyD at 3:48 PM | Comments (0)



I was listening to the Splendid Table today and heard about this book:

BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking with Over 200 Magnificent Recipes by Shirley O. Corriher

And decided to amend my christmas wish list.

Posted by SammyD at 3:20 PM | Comments (0)



November 7, 2008

proof restaurant
1301 Locust St
Des Moines, IA 50309
Open Monday - Friday for lunch and Fridays for Dinner.

So pretty much our whole work group headed over to proof restaurant for lunch. It was busy when we went.

We ordered our meals, put some tables together and chatted about work things.

The owner/chef stopped by and actually thanked me for my post before. It was both nice to hear that someone related to one of the places I've written about actually had read it, and yet a little weird for me too...often times I have to think for a while to come up with the right things to say...so I'm not so necessarily so eloquent in person. Plus I guess I was a bit embarrassed, too...I suppose. I was also interested to find out that she comes from the family that is responsible for Jasper Winery...which produces the Chancellor which I think I've said before was one of my favorites...probably my favorite in the state, excluding the Port from Cedar Ridge Winery.

Anyways on to it.

I had Moroccan Chicken Flatbread and Curried Carrot Soup with a soda. It was kind of funny because Andrea and I ordered the exact same thing and Michelle ordered the same main with a salad side... Brandon had the Roast Pork flatbread, Keith had the braised lamb flatbread and Proctor had vegetable falafel.

The the chicken was tasty, spicy and and fragrant. I was nicely cooked, tender and just yummy. The soup was quite tasty...maybe made a bit extra so being so warming on such a cold day (first snow + me with no coat). What is it about soup that is so good? I also tried a bit of the braised lamb (delious) and the falafel, which was really quite good...yes...me...and vegges...I know, I know.

Anyways for $9 + drink and tip...how can you not go?

Also, I did promise Shannon that when she wanted to go to lunch, we could go...so I guess I won't get in too much trouble...

Posted by SammyD at 8:55 PM | Comments (0)



October 31, 2008

proof restaurant
1301 Locust St
Des Moines, IA 50309
Open Monday - Friday for lunch and Fridays for Dinner.

Wow...just wow.

From the simple menu listing of:

first/5
nacho chips/dip
second/10
duck pizza
third/15
hot dogs/apple fries
fourth/7
snickers/ice cream

Comes one of the best dinners of my life.

Nacho Chips and Dip was really these fried wheat chips and a goat cheese sauce. With these thinly sliced slightly salted tiny red potatoes (I think). The sauce was spicy, but not so much so that it turned away...but still spicy enough to keep me happy. It was smooth, slightly salty and wonderful.

The duck pizza had a small, slightly oiled salad that was good, and the pizza itself was fantastic. Duck, lots of cheese on and a white sauce that just topped everything off. How could it get anything better?

And then it does.

The hot dogs/apple fries...how could something that I normally avoid like the plague (hot dogs, most are awful) be good? You take a freshly baked roll, make your own catchup, mustard, and put those around a pureed scallop formed into a hot dog. It was astoundingly good. I don't say that lightly either. That was the only course I was really worried. That combined with the granny smith apple fries (which were just small perfectly cut apples) just came out as probably one of the favorite food items. I was thinking of food shows that I've seen and how this would be something they would do on a show like that, and then Shannon mentioned the same thing.

The snickers/ice cream was a peanut butter ice cream, beside nougat enrobed in chocolate. Combined together it tasted like a snickers bar. It was a great finish to a fantastic dinner.

Service was quick and attentive but not over bearing.

I'm quite impressed. My boss knows the owner/chef in a round about sense (I think he said her mother and his mother were friends), but they're both from the same hometown.

Anyways... I'm looking forward to eating lunch there (hopefully soon) and I'm gonna have to keep an eye on their site to find out what their themed Friday night dinner is.

So dinner for both of us, with a glass of wine and some port with dessert for me came out to be just over $90, excluding tip.

The only drawback I had, was the music...but that just me...boring and bland smooth jazz never seems to be ok for me...

Posted by SammyD at 7:35 PM | Comments (0)



October 7, 2008

After putting it off for a long long long time (trying to spend only cash we actually have and fit it into the budget and actually avoiding doing it when it's hot out), we have finally double coat primer painted the dining room. So now, instead of having to look at a mostly red wall, where the wall paper border used to be, and then the dingy white, it is now all a bright super clean white.

Now all we have to do is paint it red again.

We decided that we'd have someone else paint the ceilings, front hall, staircase and landing, because...well...painting ceilings sucks.

Monday I went to Cedar Rapids, on the invite of my youngest brother Isaac, to recreate, to some extent, the senior picture that I had taken. In that picture I was laying to my side and baby Isaac was sitting in front with lederhosen. While we weren't able to find lederhosen (well we didn't try too hard), we did take pictures. Shannon came along too, since she had the afternoon off. We were fed white chili, cornbread, melon and apple crisp and played some hearts before dinner.

On the way there, a magic bug went splat against my windshield and even though I used wiper fluid several times (4 or 5), it had little affect against the smear of it. However on the way back, it rained...quite a bit. While driving, we semi-hydroplaned a few times and had the wipers on high, to no noticeable results. After slowing down to well under the limit, it finally got viewable again.

Tomorrow we're going to go see Religulous. I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by SammyD at 5:51 PM | Comments (0)



September 28, 2008

Woody's Smoke Shack
2511 Cottage Grove Ave
Des Moines, IA 50311

At the former location of Sammie Jack's, a new BBQ place has grown in it's place. Driving up to it you get a wonderful woody smoke smell. Being that it is in the corner of a bunch of homes, I don't know how their neighbors can live there without constantly thinking about BBQ. The building is tiny, the walls are covered in wood and the staff is happy and helpful. Ordering is easy, prices are reasonable (around 16$ for both Shannon and I, with no drinks).

I've tried the pulled pork before, so I went after the smoked ham. Shannon tried for the pulled chicken, but they were just out (they were in the process of smoking some more) and went for the brisket instead. We got sides of cheesy potatoes, mac & cheese and I had before gotten their potato salad. I wrapped up some of their free cornbread (sweet) to take home.

The cornbread is sweet and covered with a light sugar dusting. It's good, but I've had better (Uncle Wendell's is better). The mac & cheese was generally dry and not very cheesy. The cheesy potatoes were actually really quite good. They obviously use a lot of butter and cheese in it to create this wonderful side dish. The potato salad is nothing special...a little too runny and bland for my taste.

The meats are generally good. The pork is pretty good. Generally smokey yet still retains moisture. The brisket and ham are well...not that special. I'm still looking forward to trying the chicken and ribs.

Sometimes I wonder if the process is the same for cooking for the restaurant as it is for cooking at a competition.

I would go again, but it doesn't really stand itself out from the other good BBQ places in Des Moines.

Posted by SammyD at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)



September 22, 2008

Friday, after going to lunch with most of my work crew at Woody's Smoke Shack (meat was good, potato salad was meh, corn bread not as good as Wendell's, I heard good things about the cheesy potatoes), we headed down to Gong Fu Tea. Proctor suggested this tea, which I can't remember what it was called, but it honestly tasted like a peat smoked scotch. It was bizarre to have that taste without having the same warmth of alcohol...but only the warmth of the tea. Weird.

Friday night, Shannon and I headed down to Django to have the first of our two nights out celebrating our two year anniversary (second is on Tuesday, on our actual anniversary). We had lots of great food, and I had quite a bit of wine and I gotta say that I love cassoulet and must make it.

Saturday morning, we woke up...eventually... and watched the Beaverdale Fall Festival parade go by our house. I think it was longer this year, then it has been in the past. I wish they would've spaced out the marching bands more...since they are always fun to watch. Lots of political candidates...Obama was well represented, but there was not a McCain entry in the parade....which both Shannon and I found odd.

Then after the parade cleared our house we quickly finished getting ready and headed over to Adventureland for my work's day at the park. With the discounted tickets (free for us), we also had it so that the cheaper tickets were available for Shannon's Sister's family for our niece's birthday celebration. We had a lot of fun...but by the end of the day, I was worn out...Since the only thing that was new was the water park that I wasn't about to go to, it's just not something that you can spend all day at...Anyways we eventually left, and gave Sheilagh her present and headed back to the heart of Des Moines.

We were going to try to go to Woody's Smoke Shack, but it was closed, so we headed over to Uncle Wendell's. They were, technically, closed...but their open sign was still on, so they served us. I'm glad I did, we left there with a half pound of pulled pork, a few sides and cookies, and some Smoked Prime Rib. Now they told me that normally that they would grill it a bit, but I told them not to, since I did catch them as they were closing, I'd just heat it up at home.

I took it home, seared it a bit on both sides in a pan, and holy cow was it good. Smokey, beefy and deliciously tender.

Sunday, I mowed the lawn, for what I hope is the last time of the year (though if the weather holds out, I somehow doubt it) and then we were fairly lazy for the rest of the day.

Centro has a La Quercia acorn raised pork special for a week, starting last Friday....so I am very much looking forward to going to get to try these tomorrow night.

Posted by SammyD at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)



September 5, 2008

So apparently in March, I mentioned that I loved the pot and would make Chili soon. I think my definition of soon is out of whack.

Had a lemon pastry from La Mie around lunchtime. My boss had been raving about it...it was like a Danish (only a fluffier, flakier crust) with a lemon and creme cheese mixture...very good.

I'm not so much looking forward to going back to work on Monday, or going back on call on tomorrow. But I guess it is a necessary thing...

I went to the Franklin Avenue Branch of the Des Moines Public Library and got myself a library card. I spent so much time in the library as a child, I think it was time again to get a library...I didn't actually check anything out...cause I had a couple of ideas on what to get...but I had forgotten. Anyways, it was nice to walk around a library again.

Posted by SammyD at 7:16 PM | Comments (0)



So yesterday, during the day, I made chili for the first time...

After making it, my first thought was, why in the holy hell have I not done this before?

Bacon then some onions and veggies, spices, 2 pounds of grass fed ground beef, lots of tomatoes and what not.

Relatively easy. I think it went off really well...good comments from Chris, Holly and Shannon seemed pleased.

I think it was a good start, and I'll go from there on to future versions. And then work on a white chili (chicken) and a soupier chili or using seared chunks of meat...rather then ground beef.

Oh and I love my Chantal Copper Fusion Pot...

I also made a Jalapeno Smoked Cheddar cornbread...this also turned out fairly well and cornbread is fairly easy to make too. I think maybe next time a little bit more cheese (recipe called for 4 oz) and maybe another quarter to half of a pepper. (and Joseph, if you are reading, I used a nice pairing knife to de-seed and de-rib the peppers and cut them into 2 or 3mm square pieces. You can see the flecks, but they're not so huge they stand out).

Posted by SammyD at 6:52 PM | Comments (0)



August 31, 2008

So I chopped up some onions that I picked up at the Des Moines farmers market on Saturday, put them on some new potatoes. Ground on some salt and pepper, and drizzled over some olive oil as a base.

Then I scored the fat of the Berkshire Pork Loin (from Eden Farms), covered both sides with salt and pepper and then rubbed in a mixture of Maille Dijon Mustard, some Iowa Honey, and some Olive Oil. The Pork loin had a lovely layer of pork fat on it.

So after 15 minutes at 450F and another ~60 minutes at 350F the meat looks like this:

Berkshire Pork Loin with Honey Dijon Sauce

On the plate with the potatoes, onions and some wonderful Smoked Garlic and Chives bread from Uncle Wendell's.

Berkshire Pork Loin with Honey Dijon Sauce with New Potatoes, Onions and Smoked Garlic Bread

I think it turned out very well...and the pork...oh the delicious pork. It was so good.

Posted by SammyD at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)



August 14, 2008

Mexico Viejo
1760 Beaver Ave
Des Moines, IA 50310

I've been here twice in less then a week. Last Friday, Shannon and I walked down there and I went again on Tuesday with Brandon and Keith from work.

Both meals were good and inexpensive. Shannon and I shared a Quesadilla with Chorizo, and then I had a Chimichanga (chicken) while Shannon had a Burrito Sonora (chicken). Both where quite good. the chorizo was red, a bit spicy and quite good. Service was quick and polite. The salsa was nice, and it seems to me like they fry their own chips (which I like). The cost was just over $30, including tip. My only complaint is that our food did not come out at the same time...If I was spending a few more dollars, I would complain more about that...but

On Tuesday, I had the Burrito Deluxe, which was pretty good. Brandon ended up buying, which is extra good.

Simple, quick, and delicious. I believe my inexpensive Mexican place has been replaced. It seems a bit fresher, cleaner, and tastier then El Aguila Real...and it's within walking distance.

Posted by SammyD at 8:23 PM | Comments (0)



July 17, 2008

So after one of the worst days of my working life (I'd like to say...but work policies prevent me from doing so...but I'll just say that the SAN admin that setup my drives deserves a swift kick in the butt....but he doesn't work here anymore), I headed over to the Gateway Market to find something for dinner...and in walking around I started thinking about what to make for Adam's Birthday Party (for us, not to share). So lamb burgers it is! Found a wonderfully smelling cheese that I think will fit with the lamb well...I'll do the prep before we go there and then cook 'em up on the grill.

I think I'll make some cookies to share..or something...haven't decided yet

Anyways, knowing that I don't have to go back to work until Monday (took Friday off)...has helped relax me quite a bit.

Posted by SammyD at 7:15 PM | Comments (0)



July 10, 2008

Le Jardin
841 42nd St.
Des Moines, IA 50312

So for my late birthday celebration, last night we went to Le Jardin. We would've gone Monday night, but they are only open Wednesday through Saturday. So when we went it, the biggest change since the last time that I had been at La Mie was that they were building a bigger kitchen on the other side of the restaurant. The restaurant is now sharing the space. La Mie gets breakfast and lunch and Le Jardin gets dinner. Probably a good business decision.

We were immediately seated in a booth, and went over the menu. We decided to split a cheese plate, get an appertizer, entree and dessert. We both shared a small plate of apples, a french cheddar cheese, and walnuts. I had a potato gnocchi in a spicy duck broth, seared duck breast and pound cake with strawberry rhubarb sauce and whipped cream, and Shannon had polenta fries, seared sea scallops, and a coffee infused pot du creme. I also had a nice bottle of gewurztraminer wine from the Alsace region of France (it was imported by a place in Wes Des Moines, which I found odd, since I've never heard of an importer from Iowa).

The cheese combined with the apples and walnuts made for a wonderful combination of flavors in the mouth. Even without the walnuts (since Shannon is not a fan of nuts in general), the two flavors together really complement each other. The cheddar wasn't the best I've had...but it was certainly up there...

The funny thing about the polenta fries is that I tried to make them just the week before...but I didn't think the polenta wasn't getting thick enough to actually cut into pieces to fry... I'll have to try it again. But it was very good. The duck broth in the gnocchi was fantastic. Along with the rest of it it made for wonderful dish. My boss did tell me that it's probably some of the best gnocchi that he's had (which means a lot).

Shannon's sea scallops were wonderfully done. tasting good. My duck was quite something. Seared with a nice edge to it, while remaining tender on the inside. It had this honey based glaze on it which was very nice. I've never really had duck with something that sweet before, but it was a really wonderful combination.

For dessert, Shannon had the coffee infused pot du creme. This was very good...the coffee flavor wasn't overpowering, which is good, since Shannon is not a fan of coffee (bitter). My pound cake...I gotta say that the strawberry rhubarb sauce was...as good...maybe even better then my grandmother's. I don't say this lightly..but my grandmother is the best non-professional cook that I've ever had the pleasure of eating their food, and in all honesty, she is better then a lot of professionally cooked food that I've had. So of the best memories of my childhood involve eating things that she had prepared. This stawberry rhubarb was thicker and certainly tart, but it was wonderful. With the whipped cream and pound cake...wonderful. It was so good that I actually tried to call my dad to tell him about it (he wasn't actually home).

I made a point to complement Tag Grandgeorge on the way out.

I left there, felling full (but not stuffed), pleasantly intoxicated and very happy.

Posted by SammyD at 8:40 AM | Comments (0)



July 7, 2008

Django
210 10th Street
Des Moines, IA 50309

I think I'm in a food coma...

So we went there for my birthday for lunch (today) and I got to say that it's been one of the better food experiences that I've had in a long time. I had Steak Roquefort with fries. First their fries. They're very narrow straight cut fries and turn out very well, crispy and sometimes crunchy which is a different feeling, but good none the less. Great by themselves, since they are lightly salted. The steak was a medium rare goodness covered in a Roquefort sauce and crispy onions. Eating it was pure pleasure. The sharpness of the blue Roquefort the onions and the steak combined together to make a whole body relaxing experience.

So let me tell you about the dessert. I had the Pot du Creme, which Keith also had, and Brandon had a Hazelnut cake (which I forget the name of). So the first taste I had of the Pot du Creme was...well...it sent shivers down my spine. It was just divine. Deb, asked me if I was about to go have children (orgasmic would be a good description of it). It was just so delicious. But it is just so rich as well...even though the serving wasn't that big (compared to the cake), I was unable to finish it. At the end, I just could not continue.

The hazelnut cake that Brandon got was also very good. One of the layers of the cake, I swear to god, had to have been ground hazelnuts whipped into butter. So you get hazelnuts first and then just butter on the finish. How good is that?

I gotta say that I am looking forward to going there again and trying more. Everyone else seemed to really enjoy their meal as well.

I swear if I wasn't at work, I'd be taking a nap right now...even as it stands, I may still take a nap...

Posted by SammyD at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)



June 29, 2008

Triple Chocolate Chunk Ice cream.

Use a milk, dark and unsweetened chocolate...Melted most, made chunks out of part of it to make the 2nd ice cream. It is finishing off in the freezer right now.

Posted by SammyD at 7:53 PM | Comments (0)



June 27, 2008

Of my co-workers who tried it, yesterday, 7 "Odd, but I like it" and 1 "I don't like it".

So that speaks well. I found another recipe for it, which calls for basically soaking the bacon in the cream mixture to infuse the flavor in there, without having bacon bits in it. I will try that sometime.

I think I will make a chocolate ice cream this weekend (got the cream, chocolate and eggs).

Posted by SammyD at 9:42 AM | Comments (0)



June 22, 2008

So it's officially summer...even though it's not that hot. Since it is that time of year, welcome to ice cream making season. So after seeing bacon ice cream on Top Chef and seeing a comic on one of the many web comics I read, I decided that yes...it was time to make Bacon Ice Cream.

That's right... Bacon Ice Cream. I started with the Pecan-Brown Sugar And Bacon Ice Cream recipe and just took out the pecans (Shannon doesn't like nuts).

So it just finished, and I would say that it's very good. It has a creamy brown sugar start to the taste and then a salty bacon finish. I say it's wonderful. Shannon's not so sure. I'm looking forward to other people's opinions.

Posted by SammyD at 7:54 PM | Comments (0)



June 6, 2008

Jimmy's 30th Birthday Party

Last Saturday, we headed up to Boone, to help celebrate Jimmy's 30th. On the drive up we passed through lakes...well...they looked like lakes, but really it was flooded out farm fields and what not. One of the gas stations near the I35 - Highway 30 exchange almost had the floodwaters up to their back door. It was quite crazy. We got to Boone, I handed Jimmy the dozen and a half or so oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, which he proceeded to go hide. It was a nice meet up with many salt of the earth people, kids, parents, grand parents, friends, neighbors. Quite the gathering.

A few things I noticed, quite a few smokers...but I rarely saw any name brands...or at least not that I recognize. Lotta love (even though there was a lot of jokes thrown around). Worry and tension about the economy and jobs.

A few interesting things. Both Bob and Jackie (who were dating when I was in college) got married on the same day (to different people). Their receptions...were well...right across the parking lot from each other. It sounds as if Bob had checked on where Jackie's was, but it was already booked. It was a strange to hear the stories. Jackie's got a beautiful child.

As night grew on, many got quite a bit on the drunker side of life. Eventually we headed home.

Just a s a side note, we did drive Shannon's car to save a few bucks...though driving with no cruise control...kinda sucks....my car is more comfortable anyways...at least for me.

Ahnaka's 2nd Birthday Party

Last Sunday we went to Backyard Adventures to celebrate 2 years of life in Jerry and Nay's oldest, Ahnaka's. It was actually quite fun, because the equipment is apparently built well enough that even my fat self can play. Shannon slid down a few slides, I did some swinging and even made a silly attempt to shoot some baskets (I suck).

It was fun, got lots of pictures of silliness. They put out some cupcakes, ice cream treats and we fun...

There was a like a old peoples swings and I gotta say i'd like that by it's self...put it in the back yard, and just sit out there and ready while swinging.

Ground Chicken?

So we used a coupon to buy some ground chicken on our last shopping trip. I combined it with some leftover ground pork and made mini burgers for movie night. Spiced it a little (I didn't think enough), used some of the Gateway market dinner rolls, some arugula, some Bubbies pickles, a sliced up tomato, several types of mustard, catsup and mayo. Quite good. That with some over baked fries...mmm...pretty good...and simple too.

Cleaning!

We both had the day off today, so I spent the day doing some outside work, while Shannon got some parts done on the inside. I mowed the lawn, and after a bit got to cleaning the garage. I threw a way a bunch of stuff (some left behind by the previous owner...yeah yeah I know I've lived here for over four years). And then decided to leave more for next week (since the garbage can was filling up quick). I also filled up the divot in the side yard with a bag of dirt that Brandon gave me. Then covered it in grass seed, fertilizer and some water. Shannon got quite a bit of the walls in the dining room cleaned off, from the remaining paste and what not left from peeling off the wall paper.

Medical

My foot is feeling better, walking is no longer a challenge. Though rotating it to the left and the right, still feels wierd and a little painful. I went for a blood draw today, to find out how my liver is doing after being on the Tricor for 3 months. I'm gonna try to restart exercising on Monday, and see how it goes.

Posted by SammyD at 8:04 PM | Comments (0)



May 26, 2008

I took Friday off, to make it into a four day weekend, and Friday was my lazy day, for the most part, I did make it out of the house to run an errand or three, but beyond that, I mostly stayed at home and goofed off.

Saturday we met the Mattas at Blank Park Zoo and wandered around the zoo with them and their girls and Jenny's mom. We got to see the elephant and it's baby and doing the tricks. Saw some more, including the jellyfish. It was pretty fun. We split up, they headed off to the mall (to wander and play for a bit and go to target) and we went and got dinner. We picked up quite a bit of food from Uncle Wendell's. Out of a Nathan, his pulled pork got a "pretty good" and the beef brisket got an "Excellent". I noticed a difference in the pulled pork, thought it might just be me. thought I think it was better then previous times I've been there. A little spicier...maybe.

Jenny and Nathan put the girls to bed, and we proceeded to chat and goof off in the basement (Nathan being impressed and now desireing a PS3). He did mention that he'd like a Wii, to get the girls to play (wife and kids) but he wasn't even sure that would work.

Sunday morning I made a big breakfast (Nathan cut fruit for me) of bacon, sausage, french toast, pineapple, strawberries and blueberries. Got everyone all full and sent the Mattas off on their day at Adventureland. I needed to make cookies, so it didn't make much sense for us to go. The weather got all warm, the oven made the kitchen hotter and after making about a dozen and a half oatmeal raisin cookies and the same of oatmeal chocolate chip (60% Ghirardelli). It wouldn't have been too bad, if the cookies weren't so big and had to bake for ~23 minutes per 6 cookie batch. The kitchen got into the 90s...warm weather and warm oven equals hot kitchen.

Monday we packed up the cookies, some water and headed up north to Pine Lakes State Park. After we got there we had trouble finding the supposed beach there, so we called Hyrum and ended up going to the boat ramp area. So Hyrum and his family showed up 10 or 15 minutes after we had been told to meet (11:30). Then Jed and Stephanie. Then nearly an hour and a half after or so, Mom and Dad showed up (they had gotten lost) and then since they were going back and forth too much, Lovina had refused to follow them until they knew where they were going. So after dropping of my mom, and Isaac, Dad went back to get Lovina, her two girls and Joseph.

After that, food started to get prepared, but people were already digging into the cookies, since it was a bit late. People started eating. Pea and Pasta salad and a strawberry jello salad from Diane, fresh baked buns from Jed, cheese and bacon stuffed burgers from Joseph, some chips, salsa, turkey hot dogs, condiments and a pumpkin cake from my mom.

After lunch, people wandered down by the boat ramp (not much of one) and watched the lake. It wasn't too much longer after that, that Shannon and I decided to head home. We headed back up to Steamboat Rock and stopped at their (I assume) only gas station, the Rock Stop....that's right the Rock Stop. We then headed out of town and tried to stop by the Eagle City Winery and Vineyard...but they are apparently closed on Mondays...so, we didn't go down the gravel road, to even see if it was open. Which is too bad I guess. I have been thinking about trying to visit as many producers in Iowa as I could and since we were already up there...but oh well.

The trip back home was farily unevently.

Posted by SammyD at 5:24 PM | Comments (0)



May 19, 2008

For as much crap as I've taken over the years from being from the backwaters of Iowa (even if the smallest place I've lived was Ames at around 50,000 people), all I can say is that at least I'm not from West Virgina...The interviews they had from people there are just shockingly misinformed. From what I've read, it didn't take much for the reporters to find those people.

Yesterday, my dad, youngest sister, Lovina, and her two girls drove through and I fed them dinner. It was nice, but the children were obviously a bit restless, considering they have driven from California (Lovina's staying with my parents while her hubby finishes up the last parts of his military training).

Saturday, I missed out on Django's preview (My boss used the tickets in my name, said the food was great), but I had the opportunity to go see Shannon's niece and nephew in the Cherie's Dance Studio Recital. It was...well...long. Obviously parts of it was cute (the parts with them in it) and parts were interesting (the elite dancers are pretty good), but over all, by the end of the night I was anxious to go home (2.5+ hours is a long time to sit). As a note to my siblings who wonder why I don't go to their children's activities. If we can drive to it, and you give us enough notice and we're not already doing something, then we'll consider it. But if you call me the week before and ask me to attend, don't be surprised if we can't make it.

Our upcoming camping trip with friends, got it's location changed from the Decorah area, to much closer to home, and with the price of gas, I'm quite happy about that.

My foot/ankle is betterish, though there is still some residual pain...I thinking about seeing the doctor again this week...

Posted by SammyD at 9:30 AM | Comments (0)



May 18, 2008

So in Shannon and my visit to Jethro's BBQ, we were almost completely dissatisfied with our experience. I find it odd the Des Moines Register's take on it.

It makes me wonder if we went to the same restaurant.

I guess it wasn't the full review...but who knows.

Posted by SammyD at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)



May 10, 2008

Jethro's BBQ, which is actually fairly close to where we live. We went there on Thursday. The sides, we had Jalapeno Cream Corn (not really cream corn, corn w/ milk and peppers in it), Mach and Cheese (meh), potato salad (meh, mustardy, needed to cut the green onions smaller) and corn bread muffins (which are not as good as Famous Dave's, which are in turn not as good as Uncle Wendell's). Shannon had Garlic Mashed potatoes...which...well didn't taste like garlic. They tasted like thyme. So...if they called them mashed potatoes with thyme, I would've thought hey, these aren't bad...but no.

Shannon had Chicken Fried steak ($12.95). She said this morning that she's had better at Applebee's...or even in a microwave dinner. The meat was dry, the crust was just awful.

I had a 2 meat BBQ dinner ($9.95). I had the brisket and pulled pork. Both were not that smokey and just too wet. One might want to say juicy, but the meat has obviously been soaked in a steam bath...and well...I just don't like that. It made it taste rather bland and washed out.

The only saving grace was the hot sauce, which was actually pretty good. Though being in a honey bear bottle it was hard to get out.

So...I wouldn't recommend going. I don't think we'll ever go back, even if it is just over a mile from where we live.

Posted by SammyD at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)



May 1, 2008

So since Cam was coming to visit from Japan and Dave (Middle School through College friend) drove down from Madison. So last Saturday (4/26/2008) we got together. So we chatted, topics ranging from food to politics to whatever. Jenny and Nathan were there, along with Shannon and I and Clif. Good time all around.

So the previous week, I dropped off lamb from Iowa for Joesph to smoke. and that was the main course of this snaky meal. Popular. Very good...the smoke, I think accentuates the lambyness of it, so if you don't like lamb...it might be a bit much for you. Jenny made a corn and soybean salad...I can't remember what she called it...but that was good too.

So I went all over the metro to find items from around the state of Iowa. So lets start with food. First we had Feta (which was award winning, but I can't remember where in Iowa it was from). We had some Chevre from Northern Prairie Chevre and Reichart's Dairy Air (seriously get a website people). We got two other cheeses called Prairie Breeze from Milton Creamery (I saw their pamphlet at Gateway Market, but no website). And last, but certainly not least, were the red pepper cheese curds from Picket Fence Creamery (This is where we generally get our milk and they have pretty good ice cream too). I was hoping to get some of the swiss and white cheddar from Maytag Dairy Farms, but apparently they don't sell anything but their blue in stores...which I find kind of annoying. I know I've bought some of the cheddar and swiss last year at the farmers market...

To go with the cheese or by itself, we got some of the extraordinary La Quercia Prosciutto Americano...though to save a few bucks we got the crumble...Which goes great on pizza, crackers, with cheese and just by it's divine self. Who couldn't love pork?

We had two kinds of salsa from Juan O'Sullivans. We could've gotten some from Mad Butcher's, while I'm thinking about it...but I had forgotten...the Juan's was more of a thought that I might not have enough salty food (outside of the cheeses)...

For the desert side of things, we brought a box of cheesecake bites from Flarah's and a box of truffles from Chocolate Storybook and to top that off, a bag of gourmet marshmallows from Beaverdale Confections. Now for the marshmallows, we've gotten them before, and we had trouble finishing them (too sweet was Shannon's comment), though I liked them. They were on a stick. And this back were just cubes of marshmallows...and they were a bit gritty, like the sugar hadn't been fully incorporated. I think I said something about it like chewing on sugar. Not to say they're bad...but the experience so far as been fairly varied. The cheesecake and chocolate were both big hits (especially with the ladies).

On the alcohol side, we had a wide selection of wines (reds and whites, though we never got into any of the whites), beers and a couple of bottles of the harder stuff. We had a varied selection pack from Millstream Brewing, which I had some varieties that were pretty good, though it was later in the evening, so by that time, my tastes were getting pretty liquid impaired. We started off on the Snus Hill Winery's Sven Red. Which was the one that fairly well balanced and a bit sweet. Next up, was the Jasper Winery 2005 Chancellor...which was...really good (so good that when Cam came through on Monday, he ended up buying the last two bottles from the Gateway Market, one for the wedding he's going to in Canada and another for taking back to Japan). Then we opened the Madison County Winery's Frontenac, which was a dry red wine....and being that, it wasn't as popular. For the hard stuff, we sampled the Cedar Ridge Vineyards Winery & DistilleryClearHeartâ„¢ Vodka (we had a couple of bottles of their wine, which I've had before, but they didn't get opened). The vodka was...well vodka. It was better then many I've had, but not the top of my list. Though when I brought it home, the bottle was so tall, I'm not sure where to put it... Also from them (late addition), we had their port which is fantastic. And for one of my favorite things to come out of Iowa, we opened up my 2nd bottle of the Templeton Rye. When I was at the liquor store, he said that they sell 3-4 bottles a day of it.

People starting clearing out and going to bed...good party...if I had come up with the idea earlier, I could've perhaps taken some trips to get some of the things I couldn't get in Des Moines. Though I think I may try to do a party like this again, since it was very good. The only drawback here is that all the crackers, chips and etc were from outside the state.

I had a lot of fun searching and finding and then eating all these things.

Posted by SammyD at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)



April 24, 2008

Woot! It's the weekend...(taking off tomorrow to slow down the growth of my PTO bank)

Tomorrow I go pick up some more Iowa things for the "Remind Cam of Iowa" party over in Cedar Rapids for a friend who's in to visit from Japan. An apparently another that's taking a break from his school (gotta be grad school by now) studies to come down from Madison.

So my brother's got some Iowa Lamb, he's gonna smoke it on Saturday. Gotta get some more goats cheese (I ate some like the over eater that I am). And some pretzels. I've got some jam I'm gonna take over and I'll get some bread on Saturday (so It's nice a fresh). I got a bottle from Snus Hill winery (Holly this was the blush I was talking about that Shannon liked, it was the Sven Red). And Maybe I'll get some more...pick up some millstream (Iowa beer). Get some more Iowa things...

So...uh woo! I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by SammyD at 8:21 PM | Comments (0)



April 19, 2008

Bratwurst, opened, filled with cheddar and pepperoni, wrapped in bacon, and smoked...

I'm not sure what he used for pepperoni, but I didn't think it stood out from the other flavors, though I don't know the type of pepperoni he used...

But it was pretty good...messy...but good. I think I felt it coagulating in my arteries...

Posted by SammyD at 7:30 AM | Comments (0)



So, from time to time, I make something mixed in with rice as an excuse to feed lots of vegetables to us...while this doesn't have the normal amount of vege that I put in, it turned out really well

1/2 package (2 sausages) of Niman Ranch Andouille Sausage, chopped into 1/4" rounds
1/2 package (2 sausages) of Niman Ranch Chorizo Sausage, chopped into 1/4" rounds
2 Tablespoons Olive oil.
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 or 3 stalks of celery chopped
1 cup of chopped carrots
1 14.5 oz can of Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes

Heat up the olive oil over medium heat. Add the sausages. Cook until browning on the side, turning from time to time. Add onion and saute for a few minutes and then add salt to the onions. After the onions are starting to brown a bit, add the garlic and celery and saute for another minute, until the garlic is fragrant. Add the carrots and dump the entire can of tomatoes into the pan and get up the little brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Mix them together and cook of the majority of the juice from the can. Salt an pepper to taste.

Now mix in, or serve over rice (I used basmati rice and mixed in). Depending on the rice, this will need to start cooking anywhere from before you start cooking the sausage all the way up to until you are almost done (based on how fast the rice will cook).

Posted by SammyD at 7:05 AM | Comments (0)



April 9, 2008

I made a sausage, bean and tomato soup on Monday for movie night. It turned out very well...good recipe from Cook's Country. It was interesting to take about half the beans with some stock and blend it up to make a general base for the soup...I've been having a lot of less recipe thoughts in my head and more formulas. So instead of spicy Italian sausage and white beans, switch it over to say some ground chuck or cut beef and kidney beans and you got a thickener for chili (which I still haven't made).

I bought a big leg of lamb (from Iowa), I'm going to have my brother smoke it and use it for a party to celebrate a friend visiting Iowa (from Japan). It has to be the most I've spent on a single piece of meat...I've had steaks in restaurants that cost more, but I didn't pay for them...

I got a new chair at work yesterday. It was nice, adjusted a bunch of things, but in sitting on it today, I'm not sure that I like it. I just don't think it has enough give or cushion on the seat or the back. I think...all the adjustable things were nice, but for long term sitting, I nead a bit more padding. As Shannon tells me, I have no butt, so more padding is nice.

George was making slight movements with his paws and mouth. I wonder if cats dream, and if they do dream if there has been any studies on what they might dream of. I know I heard a story...on NPR I think about mice dreaming...and they dreamed about running mazes (the brain patterns on the mice running the maze were the same when they were sleeping and then they also adjusted to apparently run made up mazes)...So it was just an interesting thought.

We've been collecting roof and gutter bids...they weren't as much as we thought...which is nice. So if you know any roofers or gutters...let me know.

Posted by SammyD at 6:23 PM | Comments (0)



March 25, 2008

So in my shopping to buy some easter gifts for Shannon's niece and nephew and a few food stuffs for my dad and brother, I saw the pickings of the leftover ham stuffs including a few Niman Ranch Ham Steak...so I made it for dinner tonight.

A little pepper on both sides, some olive oil in a hot pan, a few minutes on each side...tasting it reminded me of every good thought that I've ever had about ham, ever... It was just wonderful.

From their bacon, to the meats and hams that I've head, it's just been such a pleasurable experience.

We've also had their deli meats from Gateway Market. We had a selection of meats (smoked turkey, which actually tasted smoked, buffalo chicken, a bit spicy, and black forest ham) with various cheeses on dinner rolls (fantastic) and then this past weekend we had roast beef and cheddar on rye (well I had it on rye, Shannon had it on wheat). The roast beef was a beautiful pink in the center... oh it was good. So good, I took half of the pound I bought, along with a loaf of rye to my dad, cause I wanted him to try it.

Posted by SammyD at 8:05 PM | Comments (0)



March 24, 2008

So we headed over to Cedar Rapids for easter. The drive over wasn't too bad, though there seemed to be a plethora of drivers who were in such a hurry that they had to drive like extreme jackholes...

We stopped first and Shannon's parents and chatted while they ate dinner. Sean was feeling under the weather (ear infection) but Sheighliegh (sp?) seemed to be as chipper as normal.

It was pretty fun...good to catch up

We headed over to my parents around 3 to have a late lunch/early dinner. At my house the attendance was fairly light, comparatively, with only my parents, us, Jed and Stephanie, Joseph and Isaac for a total of 8. Josephy made a smoked a leg of lamb and we had quite the setting of sides. For dessert we had pie, pumpkin (mom still has lots and lots of pumpkin) and basically a chocolate nut fudge pie...both in my grandma's crust recipe (made with lard!). Dinner was great, the lamb was smokey, lamby, and juicey. Big fan. I also got to try Joesph's attempt at BBQ sauces. One he wanted to have a root beer undertone, but wasn't able to achieve it, although it was still a pretty good sweet sauce. The second was a mustard based sauce w/ bacon...it was very good. In fact at a recent church potluck, he was asked many times for the recipe....

After dinner, we chatted a while, and then we headed home. Traffic was much worse coming on, including an incident with a douche on the south side of CR, in a crappy looking red Hyundai Elantra, got on I380 on the Highway 30 on ramp, proceeded to cut me off, accelerate, and then exit at the VERY NEXT EXIT...

There were numerous people that were in such a hurry, that they had to drive like total jack holes, to gain a mere car length. When I think about the tickets that I have received over the years, which I've received many, I get a little miffed, that my speeding is ticketed, but these guys driving relatively recklessly is not. I don't generally drive in such a future fashion, and yet I'll get dinged for 12 over...oh well.

Posted by SammyD at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)



March 9, 2008

So we went shopping today, used a bunch of coupons (so many that they actually had to have a manager approve the amount that got deducted. We saved around 8% of the total bill.

I also made a nice chicken breast salad today. I'm getting very good at getting a nice sear on the outside of the chicken, while having the inside really moist. But making my own bacon bits, chopping up the greens (much cheaper then the bagged lettuce), celery, carrots and small amount of bleu cheese...nice simple salad. Came out really good. I'll see if I can get more greens into our eating habits.

Posted by SammyD at 9:17 PM | Comments (0)



March 6, 2008

Tomato Soup w/ mini grilled cheese

Tomato Soup with Goats Milk Cheddar (really good, but pricey), bleu, and cheddar. Making the soup was pretty easy, and it tasted so bright and vibrant. The only thing that I'd change would be to use less thyme...

But my new pot (Chantal 8 quart copper fusion stock pot) (yay for bonus from work) worked really well...I think I'm gonna make some chili soon.

Posted by SammyD at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)



February 23, 2008

Is in an effort to feed chocolate to Courtney, I have made Gluten Free Nuclear Brownies.

On the side of the bag of almond flour is suggests using quite a bit less of the almond flour then actual flour (like 1/3rd or 1/2). Since this recipe calls for just a minimal amount of flour, I traded it straight up. It came out to be about the same consistency. I was a bit worried at first, since the batter seemed to be a bit gritty. So take the Nuclear Brownies recipe and replace the 1/2 cup of flour with 1/2 cup of almond flour.

They come out to about the same consistency (since this is basically an excuse to eat chocolate, sugar and butter together).

Posted by SammyD at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)



February 20, 2008

So in our continuing interest in the restaurants in Des Moines, we went to Lucca over in the East Village.

Lucca is owned by Steve Logsdon, who is the brother of Joe Logsdon who owns La Mie (who needs a website), which is one of our favorites (bakery and restaurant). Steve also does Basil Prosperi breads, which are also fantastic.

So the had a 3 course menu, which consists of a appetizer, main and usually a cheese course, from the cheese cave. Since I am writing this way late, I'll provide just general details, rather then specific ones, since I didn't take notes, and I'm forgetting the terms.

Shannon had Gnocchi and a Duck Pasta, and I had a pork based appetizer and Beef and Mashed potatoes (which ended up being pasta, since they had run out of mashed potatoes). So everything we had was very good. The duck was probably the best I've had (in my limited, but growing experience). My beef was very tender and delicious.

For dessert, which was special, since they normally do the fromage (cheese), they had a vanilla bean custard type of a thing with hand made chocolate truffles. Both being very very good.

Service started off a bit slow, but being that we were at the tail end of the people going to the show at the Civic Center. After they cleared out, the speed picked up dramatically.

I had a couple of glasses of wine, and Shannon had none. With all that we were just a bit under 100$ for the two of us without tip. I'm looking forward to going again...and so is Shannon.

Posted by SammyD at 8:13 PM | Comments (0)



February 15, 2008

Lamb Chops on a bed of rice w/ pancetta, white onion, garlic and shallots with a salad of baby spinach with blue cheese crumbles with a pear and roasted red pepper vinaigrette (no pictures, forgot to take).

Went pretty well, cooked the lamb a little longer then I wanted to (they were still a little pink in the middle but not enough for my taste.

For dessert we had a piece of chocolate mouse cake and chocolate cake (from Gateway Market). I had plans of making some cookies on Wednesday night (then taking to my work and sending to Shannon's), but when I got home I didn't feel very good, so I didn't so much bake anything

Posted by SammyD at 6:29 AM | Comments (0)



February 7, 2008

Work continues, deadline nears, I'll probably be working this weekend. Whee...

The other day, it snowed...a lot. In the morning I was shoveling snow, cleaned off the walks and driveway. Got some of the snow out into the street. I started to work on the intersection, to get rid of some of the snow. While I was working on it, one of my neighbor's nurses (she's under 24 hour nursing care) tried to drive down 43rd...with not much luck at all. In fact she compacted the snow down that her tires were barely touching the snow...meaning she wasn't going anywhere. A man, who I suspect was from the church down the street, who had snow blown the sidewalks from at least 42nd all the way up to 44th, came back and he helped me push, remove snow around the car and finally to use the shovels to get the snow out from under the car. With a few more pushes she was able to get down the street. The phantom snow blower, continued down the street...

Early this morning, the snow plow finally made our street, so with a bit of clean up, we're setup for the next storm...if there is one.

I haven't felt much like cooking lately...so the meals have generally been repetitive for the most part, a few highlights here and there...I've been practicing some knife skills and cooking things and paying close attention...but I'm generally really tired.

I've been staying up a bit later, and getting up a lot earlier. I've been working around 8 until 6, and I've pushed the start time back to 7 to 7:30. I've been on a total caffeine binge...coffee, tea and soda...though still no mountain dew (I have a bad history).

My 401k is moving, generally, back up to where it was before...though it is still off 13%...at least I'm hoping it's it's going up.

I got our taxes done. We, once again, used TaxAct (my dad works there). Did it all on the web this time...since they don't have an OS X client. It worked pretty much the same, I was fairly impressed. Anyways, big fan, support my pops, get your taxes done.

Obama is holding his own. I still feel very connected to him being the next president. I've watched election results...even stayed up late to watch them...it's like I care. I must say that he's a powerful speaker. Even his words put to music are impressive. The victory speech in South Carolina was amazing.

A while ago, Shannon bought a kitchen cart with money she inherited. I got it put together...but here's the rub. I had to stop the first time, because we were missing a couple of back pieces. Got those sent to us, got back to work on it. Only to finish it but using extra pieces... The cabinet doors had a few problems. On one side it was missing the door hinge thing...which I used a metal piece to replace, so I could get the door on, and on the other it had mis-drilled holes. So the handle went on, but it is not totally connected. I could drill another hole so it could fit...but then I'd have an extra hole... The customer services has been ok...not to bad on the hold times to talk to a person... I got the door parts ordered...so we'll see if we can call it done.

Due to the new places ot put things, I've been able to reorder the kitchen...it's been nice...the spices all in one place, in alpha order (save for a few that didn't fit in the drawer). All the hard alcohol in the cupboards...places to put some storage containers... and able to put the cat food out of sight...except the stuff in the bowls...but it's better then nothing...I still have some space to figure out what to do with...but in doing this latest reorganization I was able to finally get the massive amount of cookie cutters (most from the wedding) put away.

I think I really need glasses...I was looking for the spelling of one of the managers name on his placard...and I had to move my chair to see...it wasn't that far away. I did put money into our flexable spending account for this...so all I really need to do is go out and do it...but...I don't have the time right now to do so. I'm curious if the headaches I've been having are related to the caffeine, the long work hours, or the need for new glasses. I guess it could be a combination of all of them.

My car went in for service the other day. After sitting out all weekend, I went out to warm up Shannon's car and my own, and get set to go to work. After a rough start with my car, the engine light came on, so I turned it off...read the manual, called in and they told me to drive in...which I did. After resetting the light, they said they couldn't reproduces, I ended up with a new battery (was reporting poorly, prorated), tires (really needed, driving on snow has been like driving a sled), wheel alignment and an oil change. It's been driving really nice (especially over the snow, at least by comparison).

Working more hours, and bringing in my iPod charger into work, have really drained my primary listening list (4 or 5 star that hasn't been played in 3 weeks). A bit over half has been played in the last 3 weeks...it's kinda crazy since there's about 7.5 days of music...

I've been wanting to journal, but haven't been feeling up to it lately...so apparently it all comes out at the same time. I think I should probably stop now...

Posted by SammyD at 8:56 PM | Comments (0)



January 27, 2008

So the installer came, saw, and kicked some ass...

Well he called and said his first job was running long and that he'd be a little late, and I said that was fine. When he got here, he looked around, I explained why the last installer had said that he didn't have the ladder to get up on the roof. The installer said that was silly and that it would be fine. He ended up deciding to put it on the deck. Am I one to question his installation, no, however, it does seem to me that when the leaves come in, it may be problematic...but...who knows. I guess we'll have to see. Getting the signal into the house proved to be the most difficult problem.

My house is brick. The base of the house is concrete block. Neither are very easy to get through. So he decided to follow the same path that the cable gets into the house (which is fine by me, since I really didn't want to have a hole drilled through my wall). He ended up having to fish the wire through the wall. I helped...this was not an easy thing to do, because of the corners and all that, but eventually it came through and he was able to finish up the job.

Joseph was also up and he helped as well. He cleaned snow off the deck for the installer.

I helped hook up the DVR and got it all wired and hooked up.

So, after using another DVR so long it just seems a bit odd how things are organized. So it has been an adjustment. Not that it is overly complicated, but not knowing what things do, or trying to figure out what channels are this and that.

Things for the most part are labeled well. Usually with the company logo. Some of the HD channels do not have logos yet, so they have their little code + HD and it doesn't always make sense as to what they all are. There are also new channels, that we didn't get with Mediacom, that have proved to be interesting.

All said and done, we have around 50 channels of HD content that we will actually watch (ESPN and etc are not included in this number). Some of which I was very excited, until I figured out that the HD content channel didn't match the regular channel (food network). I suppose this will change over time.

The drawbacks.

The Guide is still getting up to date, and where it goes out a ways for some channels (I think it actually does it programs at a time and it says X program with X description with show and A,B,C,D,E,F times). So it's still filling things in. You would think it could do this faster since it is hooked up to the internet.

Our local content is not in HD. It is a good thing the writers strike is on, because it would kinda tick me off if I had to watch the shows on ABC, CBS, NBC in standard definition. There are HD feeds, but apparently you have to get a waiver from the local channels to see them (which I applied for). I may end up getting an HD antenna, but the drawback on that is that it's not on the DVR so no recording them...

We do not have on Demand...yet. Brandon has the HR20 model of the HD DVR, I (and my co-worker Keith) have the HR21 (my exact model is HR21-200). While there is a menu for it, it does not let us access the content yet... Brandon read something that it would be coming in February...or at least I think i heard him say that.

The Qwest DSL is noticeably slower then Mediacom cable internet...only at certain times. When I update the podcasts and the downloads happen...sometimes it can take a while...it can be quite a bit of content though. Especially the HD video ones...Hopefully we'll be able get the 8 megabit DSL soon.

After the installer finished, Shannon, Joseph and I headed down to Uncle Wendell's to get dinner....mmm...bbq....

Posted by SammyD at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)



January 23, 2008

This past weekend we headed down to Cedar Rapids. Scott and Jessica hosted a wine tasting party for a "January is Boring" party. It was quite fun. They had quite the spread of both foods and wines. Some brought and some for tasting. They had bottles that we all tasted, and were given clues as to what type of grape it was and where it came from. It was certainly a way to think of it. They also had an extra bottle of each wine that was the prize for the best written statement. I was a bit tipsy, so I got a bit silly....but I did win 1 of the 2 wines that I was very enamored with (the Matta's got the other). It was kind of funny, that after a bit the crew from Go Daddy (Jessica's Co-workers) who were apparently part of the marketing team, wasn't even trying to win...I asked about it, and it seemed to be related more to the insane hours that they've been working preparing for the Super Bowl. When we left their house, it was dreadfully cold, even through the alcohol haze....but after we got back to the Matta's I slept well. I had a lot of fun, I didn't make to much of an ass out of myself and I hope to go again. Certainly a good idea and fun too.

Monday we had a movie night. It was a bit off because Holly was taking a class on Thursday nights. I made a new recipie of bake make and cheese. I did some early prep work (grated cheese and made bread crumbs) on Sunday, which made monday go a bit smoother. I also used some La Quercia pancetta in the baked mac. It was quite good. I also cut off the pork skin from it and fried that up in a pan to become a wonderful crispy goodness.

After a good recharging weekend, I went back to the drudgery of work. I've by making my new hours 8-6 (about 35% more then my normal day). Quite a bit longer then my normal work day, but I am getting a lot done. Progress is being made. Am I going to make the dead line? I have my doubts, but I'm ok with that. It's still affecting my sleep, but when I actually get down, I tend to sleep all night.

I went to my sleep and lung doctor yesterday. My pressure level on my CPAP has been upped to 10 (of some measure of pressure).

I finally broke down and brought my iPod charger to work. It had stopped making it through the day (even the shorter one). Being that it's on it's second battery, it's not that surprising, but it's still a bit annoying. But it has been nice to be able to get all the way through the day with my iPod...

Posted by SammyD at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)



January 13, 2008

Sometimes, I'm tired...and sometimes I come up with things randomly...

Pork Loin Chop on Red Pepper and Pea Risotto

Pork Loin Chop on Red Pepper and Pea Risotto

Posted by SammyD at 12:38 AM | Comments (0)



January 2, 2008

Today is the last day of my just shy of two weeks of vacation. While I'm glad to be on vacation, I'm happy to go back to work. The structure will do me some good. I've been staying up later and later and later. Even last night when I got in bed at around 10:30, I still ended up reading till 1 or so in the morning.

For New Years, we took a trip down to to Cedar Rapids for the second time over this break. We spent the evening with the Matta's, which has become kind of our tradition. We went to the Sushi House, which was...ok. It's good for Cedar Rapids, which doesn't have a lot of choices, especially in this area, but after such a short time since a trip for pretty good sushi, by comparison, Sushi House was...pretty lackluster.

We headed back to the Matta's, and them being childless for the evening (Taylor and Cali staying with Jenny's mom), Nathan and I dug right into the booze. We started off with some sweeter wines, I was hoping that Shannon would actually like, which I think she did. For both of us, though, our tastings were at a bare minimum, since we were both impaired by colds. I had trouble smelling (only strong odors came through), while Shannon had trouble with both taste and smell. But the highlight of the evening was the Cedar Ridge Vinyards Port. The port was reccomended by one of the find staffers at the Gateway Market. While both Nathan and I thought the Cedar Ridge Vinyards Port was a bit too sweet, and should be aged a bit longer in wood, it was better then the other bottle of port that we had, which name slips my head. This Port was something that you could sit down and have glass, just for fun...and at the price, it wouldn't be such an expense.

Nathan also broke out the last of his Absinthe, which he had gotten through a mistake made by someone close to them (they didn't know it was illegal to import at the time). Even though the cold, it had a strong odor...and tasted vile...and I mean vile. Even after I added a whole lot of sugar, it was still just nasty.

We eventually played Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit, to ring in the new year...and by the end of it was Was having trouble rolling dice, reading questions and giving answers... I often gave answers for other people...since...well...my internal filter was pretty much gone.

We headed to bed, and got up the next day had some lunch and headed over to Kim and Mike's (Shannon's sister and brother in law) for Sean's birthday. Luckily, it was not going to be at Chucky Cheese this year. For me, especially this year, this was a good thing, since the noise of the place, the kids, and the vile food would have not gone well with the way my body felt. It was nice and simple, Sean got a nice pile of loot and we had cake and chatted with people for a few hours. And headed home. Unlike most times we take a trip to CR, we actually had to fill up on the way home.

Good weekend! Second visit to the Matta's and good times.

Oh and I just noticed this...I know that not all of the time that I've taken off is on this pay stub, but I'm still at 90% full PTO bank...though I guess another 10% will get taken off...on the next one...I guess less..since I'll earn a bit less...more like another 8%...but still..silly.

Posted by SammyD at 8:18 AM | Comments (0)



December 29, 2007

So Shannon and I went out on a date, and on the recommendation of my boss, we headed down to Dos Rios. Afterwards, we saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which was really good.

Dos Rios
316 Court Avenue
Des Moines, IA 50309

We went in early, hoping to beat any sort of rush and to make the 7 something showing of Sweeney Todd. The restaurant is down on Court, which can make parking kind of annoying, but after a bit of a search we found a place to park. The first thing that I noticed was that the sign indicating the place, was covered up by the snow that was on over hang. Probably not the best of ideas, but snow can also be a pain in the bum.

Being early, we were seated right away. Quickly and efficiently by a pleasant woman. The decor of the place was fairy modern, with what appeared to be metal Aztecish ladies at the back of main area with star lights hanging from the ceiling. There was a mix of techno with general Mexican themes in the background...maybe a little louder then I liked, but it went well with the modern chic theme they were going for. One of the songs that we heard during the night was an odd take on a Rolling Stones song. After dinner, Shannon noticed the sinks in the restroom were narrow and rectangular. She said it was kind of odd, considering with the pressure of the water, it seemed to splatter at the end of the sink a bit...I think she also mentioned that they were touchless...

We were seated near the end of the restaurant, providing us a nice view of Court, so that we could both people watch, if we were so inclined. And we were handed menus (menu, drink menu, tequila menu) and were told about the basic theory behind the place (Authentic food using as many fresh and locally sourced food as they can). Niman ranch pork (based in California with some Iowan farms) and Sheeder Farms chicken were prominently displayed on the menu. We weren't given much time, but quickly ordered a few drinks. I had a 9$ Mojito...yeah...a bit much, but they were pretty good. I just noticed that there is a discrepancy on the bill. A minor one, but one none the less. Shannon was originally told that they had all the Mexican soda flavors available, but when she ordered the Limon one, she was brought Pineapple, and told that contrary to what our waitress was originally told, they were out of Limon. So she'd cover this one...which...well...she didn't. I can understand hey, come back and say we don't have X so you'll need to order something else, but if you say you are gonna cover the cost of something, you probably should...

Anyways...we ordered (from their menu):

Guacamole – Mashed Table side, Tomato, roasted poblanos, red onion, cilantro & lime served with Dos Rios spiced tortilla chips. (we had it medium spiced)
Empanadas de Pato y Hongos – Flaky Home Made Duck Chorizo Turnovers
Pollo Rostizado – Mojo Marinated All Natural Sheeder Farms Half Chicken (Shannon)
Niman Ranch Pork Burrito (Description not on website)
Tres Leche de Chocolate – Chocolate Tres Leche Cake - Three milk soaked chocolate sponge cake with dulce de leche icing
Tamal de Manzana – Roasted Apple Crepe Tamale - Cinnamon roasted apples & raisins folded into a Mexican vanilla crepe

When they say mashed table side on the Guacamole, they really mean it. When we ordered it, a young man came over to our table, picked up our molcajete (basically a big stone bowl like a mortar and pestle) and proceeded to split open a couple of avocados, scooping them out, using some fresh ingredients, including the juice from part of a lime, he mixed and mashed us up some spicy, but not too Guacamole. Certainly interesting to watch. After he was finished, he brought us over some of the spiced tortilla chips. They were also very good and went very well together. I actually kind like a few chips to try and figure out the spices that were on the chips (I have guesses, but nothing firm).

Near the end of our Guacamole, we were brought out the Empanadas de Pato y Hongos (Duck Empanadas). Now these...these I could've spent the rest of the night eating. They were really good. Flaky crust, nice spicing and duck...how can you go wrong? It makes me think that the next time we go there, we should stick to the first's menu and just have a wide range of sampling of things.

I ordered a second Mojito. Did I mention that it had fresh mint in it? Along with what I think was raw sugar cane in it...pretty good...though still not worth the 9$...well I guess it might be, considering I had two...

A little bit later, we were served our mains. Good and simple presentation (not overly fancy, but purposefully placed). Shannon's chicken was excellent. and I mean excellent. Tender, not too spicy and juicy. I wanted to steal more. The rice was good, and the black beans that she was served were also good. My burrito...well I think the only drawback for me was the spice that they used. I couldn't decide if I liked it or not. Even though all of the individual parts were done very well. Tender pork, good beans and rice, the spicing really distracted me. And it's not that it was overly spicy...I was just...I don't know...unfamiliar with it, so, I wasn't sure. Now I'm not one who really wants spicing to be made milder just because we're in Iowa (well...ok maybe a little less spicy on the Thai food...but that's not what we're talking about here). I've been seen with a red face and a sheen of sweat from the spicy food...and that's not what it was....it was just...well...odd to me. It makes me curious as to what it was.

Even though I had mixed feelings on the burrito, it was still finished. Shannon boxed up about half of her half a chicken, along with a good portion of the beans and rice.

Dessert was pretty good. The cinnamon ice cream on the Tamal de Manzana was quite good and Shannon's Tres Leche de Chocolate was also very tasty. They were also not out of a box, which a lot of restaurants end up doing (which I find annoying). Afterwards, we got our check and headed off to the movie.

So, Overall, other then the extra 3$ charge that was said wouldn't be on there (not that big of a deal, since Shannon did have a Mexican soda), and my mixed feelings over the spicing of the burrito (the ingredients were great), it was a very good experience, and I'm looking forward to going again. And maybe trying some of the tequila (they said there are a few where they're the only restaurant in Iowa serving them).

Posted by SammyD at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)



December 26, 2007

Crappy CR Roads...it's like they didn't even plow...We dropped off our things at the Matta's and headed up to my parents....or at least tried to. Going up the normal way, we kept losing momentum until I decided it was best to just park and walk the rest of the way. I dropped off the Double Chocolate Banana Bread and the gift for my parents, and then we headed over to Shannon's parents.

We chatted for a bit before Kim and her family arrived. We feasted on the many things that Shannon's mom prepared. From cookies to cheese. The highlight of the night was the chicken soup she made from scratch which was very good.

I think through my vague whining in this here blog, Shannon's family tried to be a bit more organized this year. The effort is very appreciated. It is easier to pay attention to what is going on, when it is only about one thing at a time....After the opening of the presents, we watched the DVD of the 8mm films that we had transferred. It was nice to see the positive reaction of Shannon's family. A lot of work went into those film clips...and even if it wasn't hard, it was time consuming...After quite a bit of chatting, Kim's family took off, and then we did too.

We headed back to the Matta's and chatted with them well into the night, while they put the final touches on breakfast and Christmas for Taylor and Cali. Eventually we headed up to bed. The next morning, I heard Cali wake up...and then thought I hear Taylor, but I was mistaken...Eventually we had Christmas morning with the Mattas. After a very good breakfast, we headed over to my parents...

It was quite the day. My older brother's family was there...so it made for a rambunctious time. We had a late lunch, which was very good. Joseph made smoked pork and turkey (the pork was better, the turkey was dry, but was still pretty good. I tried to get more pictures, but I forgot the change the battery in my camera, so I was stuck at a few pictures into the holiday...

We eventually headed back to the Mattas, for dinner, though we ended up not eating. And Jenny baked a cake for a Mom's Club even the next day. Dan Knoff came over and Scott and Jessica and we had a nice little Scotch tasting. It was pretty nice. a couple I've had before, most I had not.

We goofed off most of Wednesday, and said our good byes to meet Clif for lunch downtown (since he's working). I made an absolute mess of myself, spilled salsa on myself twice or so, a few times down the front of my shirt...quite silly...but afterwards, we said good bye, wished him good luck on his trip to Africa (heading that way in a few days) for a wedding.

The drive home was pretty easy, though at the end it got very foggy and started to snow a bit. We made it home safe and sound. It's nice to be home, it's nice to see the kitties. We did have some meaningful conversation about our future as parents over this trip...and though I don't think it is 100% for certain, yet...but I think we are leaning one way over the other...

Posted by SammyD at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)



December 24, 2007

So I headed out this morning, while Shannon is doing a half day at work, to run a couple of errands. I first started off going to the Beaverdale Post Office...went in...and saw a sign posted that it would be closed today. Then I headed over to the Forest Avenue Post Office, right next to Drake....and this one was also closed. I was thinking hey, they've got self service, maybe I can get the DVDs we made all priority mail enveloped and sent. So...I labeled, packaged...and...no priority mail stamps. So at this point I was pretty frustrated. So I head to the main Des Moines post office. This one was open! You know, like it says it will be on their damn website. I wouldn't be so miffed if I hadn't checked the website and found that they were open, only to go and find they were not. Anyways, a few other people in line were mumbling about the Beaverdale office being closed. But, with all that, I got it setup and mailed to Shannon's uncle.

I headed back to our neighborhood and dropped by La Mie to pick up these sugar cookies with a lemon frosting (or lemon sugar cookies, either way, very delicious) that I brought home yesterday...since they were so good. I asked for two dozen...but they only gave me one dozen...but that's ok...so I came home, wrapped up the banana breads and put them into gift sacks for the families we're visiting.

Anyways...less grumpy now...

Woo Christmas!

Posted by SammyD at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)



December 23, 2007

Double Chocolate Banana Bread

Posted by SammyD at 8:10 PM | Comments (0)



Last Saturday we headed up to Ames to visit the Tomson's. This has been the first time in a long long time that we've seen them. It makes me sad that we don't get to see them more often. Seth and Bri decided to have a Sake party and we decided to go. We joined Chris and Holly in the drive up north. We did have a bit of a spat over driving, since I wanted to drink, and Shannon didn't want to drive, but with Chris and Holly driving, the problem was solved.

We saw their house, which seemed very 70sish in the decor, though very pretty. I've always thought that Bri had a very good eye and did lots with very little. I missed out on a lot of the house, since they had it mostly closed off, but I think they did that for the party, and since they had guests over and what not.

We drank 6 or 7 kinds of Sake, between the 8 or 9 people drinking. There were a few that I didn't like too much...they just didn't taste that good, but over all it was a pretty good experience... Bri had also made sushi (pretty good) and this little pork rolls (a pork mixture inside a roll, they were fantastic). We ate many of the pork rolls.

After we were intoxicated to some extent, we drove back down to Des Moines.

Monday I started to feel sick. So I went home earlier then I have been, and kinda camped down in front of the TV. I then proceeded to go through chills, being so cold that even wrapped up in a blanket, I was shivering. It was quite the ride. Around midnight or so, I think my fever broke. I thought I could go to work the next day...but after being there for a couple of hours, I thought better of it and came home and was lazy for the rest of the day.

Thursday afternoon my younger brother Joseph, now free of his military obligations, came up to investigate possible job opportunities here in Des Moines. We ate at Uncle Wendell's BBQ and Joseph decided that he wanted to work there. So Friday morning, we headed out to catch Wendell at the store to pick up an application. We all headed there for lunch and Joseph got a quick little interview and it seemed to go well, but besides being overqualified (5 years of Fast Food experience including 4 of that being in a managerial role), he had apparently just hired someone and it appears to be working out.

That night we went to Appare Japanese Steakhouse. We tried to go to Miyabi 9 first, but they were so busy, that we decided to head elsewhere. Being Joseph's first experience with sushi we tried out a few different kinds of sushi. We had:

  • Seacoast roll
  • AJS roll
  • King Lobster roll
  • California Roll
  • Spider Roll
  • Dynamite Roll
  • Dragon Roll
  • Monster

I really liked the AJS and the Dynamite rolls, but all were very good. Joseph, after having a difficult time with chopsticks, began to get the hang of it and at the end showed quite the interest in having sushi again. He also wanted to do the teppanyaki part of the steakhouse and will probably come back to do so, eventually.

It was nice to hang out with him for a while. We headed back to the house and he headed back home.

Saturday, we finished up the setup of the DVDs of the home movies of Shannon's mom's family. And proceeded to burn the DVDs for the family. I also did a pork roast again (since I bought two for the previous movie night) I did it fairly similar to the previous time, though I didn't follow the recipe...since I lent the magazine to Holly...but it turned out great. The pork was much juicier (not that i was dry before...just not as juicy as I wanted). I was very happy. Since there were only two of us, there were lots of left overs...for sandwiches...mmm...pork...

Today we cleaned up the 4 or so inches of snow, and then I got to baking and made some double chocolate banana bread. In listening to the Sound Opinions Christmas Spectacular and baking the banana bread, I was really starting to catch the holiday spirit (for the first time this month) and I'm looking forward to seeing our families and the Mattas over Christmas and new years.

Mmm...time to make pork sandwiches....mmmm...pork... *drool*

Posted by SammyD at 6:25 PM | Comments (0)



December 15, 2007

Last Saturday we trucked out through the slickness to go to the Jordan Creek Animal Hospital Christmas Party. It was fun. They held it at Joseph's Steakhouse and Lounge this year. This is our first trip there and everything was pretty good. Staff was attentive (relative to the size of the party), the appetizers and food were pretty good. I really enjoyed my steak (it is not often that I have such large pieces of meat). They gave out iPod Nanos to the staff at the party, which is pretty cool. So now Shannon has her own, and I've been helping her learn how to rate things and get all her music setup... I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the JCAH people, and it's nothing against them, It's really me, I don't have a lot in common with them, other then...well...Shannon. But they are a friendly bunch and I'm glad Shannon works there....

So over the last week we've had quite a bit of ice and snow and though most of the main streets are clear (well until it snowed again this morning), 43rd, 44th and Thornton (basically two and from work for me) are still covered in ice and/or very bumpy with ice mounds. 44th being the bumpiest and 43rd being the slickest...On Tuesday, we had quite a bit of ice come down and I ended up working from home, but Shannon still had to go in. It was a tough drive, but I've been in worse. Since not to many people were on the road, it made it much easier. I stopped at Hy-Vee on my way home and while I was in there, the power flickered twice...

Thursday I made a nice spread for movie night. Roasted Pork Loin with Maple-Mustard Crust, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Corn and bread from La Mie. The garlic mashed potatoes I made in the normal fashion, but I sautéed the garlic first, then let the garlic integrate with the cream (who needs milk?) and the butter. So it integrated with then potatoes very well. I did use about 3 cloves of garlic for about 8 servings...and I think I could ratchet it up a bit...maybe add another clove or two. The pork loin went pretty well, even though I cooked it at a higher temp then I intended for much much longer then I should've. It did ruin the apple and fennel bed that the pork was on, though some of it turned out ok... I was pretty happy over all though.

Friday I spent an extra long time outside finishing chipping off the ice from the sidewalks (around 2 hours), and I come in to find my phone overflowing with text messages. So I spent a good chunk of Friday figuring out that the problems that people were experiencing were entirely related to a push for an upgrade for another product that some how corrupted internet explorer...so..it was frustrating morning followed by a long frustrating afternoon (apparently I have two versions of the same software, and one would not install at all on Windows 2003 and the other would...course I didn't figure that out until around 4:30).

Posted by SammyD at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)



December 14, 2007

Roasted Pork Loin with Maple-Mustard Crust

Roasted Pork Loin with Maple-Mustard Crust

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Table Settings

Posted by SammyD at 2:16 PM | Comments (0)



December 3, 2007

Saturday, we had a plumber out, since the laundry room floor seemed to be a bit damp...Apparently the pressure relief valve took a crap, and he replaced it.

In turning off the water, however, some of the sediment loosened and then proceeded to settle back in the aerators of 3 of our faucets. In figuring this out, I found that the way that the water works in this house is kind of silly. Anyways, I ended up taking off the aerator parts of the faucets, cleaned them out, and put them back on. It felt really good to do some work myself, and have it work right.

I made a another cheesecake on Friday night, with the intention of taking it over to the Boelman's. They didn't get any of the last one I made. So I made one just for them. Since Saturday turned out to be such a crappy day (weather wise), we went over on Sunday and had some cheesecake and watched Dexter. The cheesecake turned out much better then last time. I think water got in last time...making a bit wetter then it should be. I bought 18 inch wide aluminum foil to wrap my 9 inch springform pan in. It works a lot better. I was able to to cut out nice perfect slices, rather then the sloppy mess (yet very tasty) that happened at the Halloween party. I was out of bourbon, so I ended up using Single Barrel Jack Daniels...so I guess it was a Pumpkin Single Barrel Jack Daniels Cheesecake.

I've been working silly hours. many nights until 6, some even till 7...I'm tired...but am trying to get as much as I can, done, before I present on Friday. I've also decided that I hate the "API" that they have in there the software. On the one hand, it's made some things easy, on the other, their code is slower then ox snot, so even generating simple forms is a lot slower then it would be if I just did them myself. If I had time, I would rewrite the application generator...but I don't...so it'll have to wait until the next step release.

Posted by SammyD at 7:59 PM | Comments (0)



November 27, 2007

So after making cheese puffs, preparing carrots, celery, broccoli and cauliflower, setting out 8 cheeses, 4 kinds of crackers, two kinds of salsa, and two flavors of sun chips, Shannon's Parents and Sister's family showed up, followed shortly by her Uncle and Aunt.

We all chatted...ate some food...chatted some more...

After a bit, Shannon reminded me that we were planning on going to dinner. So we quick cleaned a few things up and put food away and got everyone gathered up to head out to Drake Diner.

The late lunch/early dinner was very nice. Though it was kind of funny, since both Shannon's Dad and Uncle spilled their malts, but nobody else did...Can't take the kids anywhere...

Afterwards, we came back here, Showed everyone the Wii and then people started taking off.

I think I prepared to much...or expected more people or something, I don't know...it was fun preparing for it...

Posted by SammyD at 9:02 PM | Comments (0)



November 24, 2007

Last year, we started, what I hopes turns into a tradition, with Shannon's Mom's Family (Shannon's uncle and his family). This year, we are hosting the group. I've spent a large chunk of the day prepping for the gathering before going out to eat.

I went out and bought some food, wine, and etc.

And then proceeded to to prepare it. I took a lot of things that I would normally get all cut up, and did it myself. Broccoli, cauliflower, celery, honeydew melon. After I chopped it all up. I was left with a sink full of the unusable parts.

I then proceeded to make some Gruyère cheese puffs. It ended up being around 6 or so before I actually made dinner. Making the puffs for later is really hard...cause I tend to eat them. I think I had at least one from each batch.

I like where I am when I am preparing food. Music or podcasts playing and I'm right there in the moment. Not thinking about our finances, or work or any of the stressors in my life.

Tomorrow I have a bit of cleanup and setup to do before I'm done, but it shouldn't take to long. I can warm up the puffs in the oven when people are around. And I'll setup the various plates and what not. Vegetable, fruit, cheeses and bread..all good appetizers...

I had originally planned to make reservations at Christopher's, but due to a recent fire, they are currently out of commission. The other choices we had were not the route I wanted to go, or too expensive. We'll take our chances going to the Drake Diner...

I guess we'll see how it goes. Shannon's uncle works for the DOT Railroad, and when I was working up in Ames, we put a bid to redo their website... I never actually did it, since...well...the company I worked for, closed.

Posted by SammyD at 8:28 PM | Comments (0)



November 16, 2007

It was once again movie night. Being our turn to host, I decided to make a Shepherd's Pie.

I followed a basic recipe from Cook's Illustrated, but modified it with a few ideas. Basically it came down to making mashed potatoes, cooking the meat, resting it, using the same pan to make the sauce (garlic, onions, then flour and tomato paste), juicing up the sauce (chicken stock, Worcestershire sauce). Reducing it a bit, adding the meat back, adding the veggies (carrots, peas and corn). Taking the mixture and put it in a baking pan, cover it with the mashed potatoes. Bake it for a while (350). Take it out, cover it with cheese and broil it for a few minutes.

It turned out pretty good, though I should've cooked the onions for less time and added less tomato paste (gave it too much of a tomato flavor). The Hettinger's seemed to enjoy it too.

We watched Sullivan's Travels. It was...pretty funny. There were times where I thought that it was a very stereotypical portrayal of people, and then others, it seemed very real. It ended up having a fairly cheesy ending, but it was good over all.

Posted by SammyD at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)



November 11, 2007

Last night we headed up to Boone to visit Jimmy and Gina at their house. They were having a little get together with their neighbors and some other friends. Jimmy made some of his chili and other people brought over several things. It was quite the setup. Jimmy made chili...a hotter one and a mild one. Both meaty and good. The hotter one and a building heat, where it didn't scortch at first, but the more you ate, the more residual heat you felt.

It was quite the crew. A few from the past, but mostly just neighbors and former neighbors. It was nice. We talked about lots of things over the course of the night and lots of good food. We talked about things ranging from marriage laws to immigration to computers. It was interesting.

We had a good time. Left around one in the morning.

I did make Nuclear Brownies and they were fairly popular.

Posted by SammyD at 8:26 AM | Comments (0)



November 5, 2007

So Friday, early in the day, Brandon got a call from Val and headed home. After hours of no news, I got a call from Brandon around 3 or so, that they were heading to the hospital. They didn't know what, for certain, was happening, but they'd let me know.

So time passed, we got ready to go to Chris and Holly's Halloween Shindig. We dressed up as relatively lame versions of Piglet and Pooh...

The party was very fun. I made a pumpkin bourbon cheesecake. It turned out very well, and people seemed to enjoy the cheesecake. Not bad for a first time. They really went all out with the party, lots of food, lots of fun and quite a bit of silly costumes.

A bit later, Brandon called to announce the birth of his son. Woo!

The party eventually died down, Shannon headed home, since she had to work in the morning. Then the Lan Party began.

Quite a few of us played Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. It started off being fun, and then kind of was not. Dusty and Ryan, who play it quite a bit, were one the same team, and it went from a balanced game, to a not at all balanced. Honestly it wasn't fun at all. It's not that I don't like loosing, I don't like being dominated...especially when the teams are 2 (Dusty and Ryan) vs the rest of us. Sounds fair...but it still wasn't, since 2 of us, for certain, hadn't played before that day. It's kind of hard to figure stuff out and be in competition with good people. Anyways, they broke apart the team, and it started to be fun again. Some of the controls of Quake Wars were kind of awkward, I thought, but maybe I just need to get used to it.

Around 3:30 AM or so, Dave drove me home, and I went to bed.

Around 7:AM, I got up, showered and got ready for Jimmy to show up to fix the roof. He showed up a little bit after 8 and got to work. I spent a good chunk of the day catching up on TV and occasionally napping. Eventually Shannon came home, and we got ready to head down to Lutheran Hospital to visit the Boelmans. Broderick slept in my arms for a good two hours, before it was time for his feeding and for us to go. It was nice to see them and they seemed to be very happy.

We headed home, and I pretty quickly fell asleep...3 hours of sleep will do that.

Sunday we headed out to the Des Moines Community Orchestra to see Holly play. They had a movie program. I did wonder why they didn't have any Danny Elfman, but it was still a really good program and fun to listen too. Afterwards we headed over to Macaroni Grill with the Hettingers and Holly's mom.

Busy busy weekend.

Today...good lord I didn't understand how much work that Brandon does...Not having him and not being able to tell people to wait for him to get back has been very stressful. I didn't get an ounce of project work done. I switched from answering questions, to supporting benefits, to answering more questions, to supporting the intranet, back to benefits. It is kind of silly. Anyways, I hope I don't need his help too much, the 3 weeks that he's taking off should be his own...

Posted by SammyD at 10:33 PM | Comments (0)



November 1, 2007

I am in the process of making my first cheesecake....It is time consuming, but it smells like it will turn out well. It has the flavor of pumpkin and burbon and I hope turns out well. Long cooktime, long cool time, even before I can stick it in the fridge.

Yesterday, Iowa Health Home Care called and told me that my CPAP was back in working order, and because I left work late last night, I headed out this morning to pick it up. I still think their new building is buried in the depths of a maze. It is kind of annoying. But I got a new water chamber that has a one way valve, to help prevent any water getting into the chamber...kinda neat.

This past Sunday, we stripped off the wallpaper divider in the dining room...our first try didn't lead to much in the way of results, but after consulting the intertubes, we made much better progress. We do have some clean up work to do with little bits of whatever the heck is left, but it should be easier.

This past Saturday we trimmed bushes and picked some weeds.

Shannon did have to nag me to do both...but I guess it was good to do. Painting is next. Starting off with ceilings, priming the dining room walls and then moving on to the colors that Shannon picked and I didn't veto.

This weekend is gonna be busy. Friday night, Chris and Holly are hosting the Halloween party, should be a good time. Afterwards, Chris is having a mini-LAN party, which, as I understand, goes through Saturday. Sunday, is the Des Moines Community Orchestra's Fall Concert, which Holly is in. Should be a good time.

Posted by SammyD at 8:00 PM | Comments (0)



October 21, 2007

So yesterday afternoon, we headed over to Cedar Rapids to go to the CR Symphony's presentation Masterworks II: Asia Minor. It featured the Crown of India Suite (Elgar), Flute Concerto (Chesky), and Scheherazade, Op. 35 (Rimsky-Korsakov).

We met up with the Mattas, and left Jenny's mom with Taylor and Cali, while we headed to downtown Cedar Rapids. Both Shannon and I noticed that there has quite a bit of revitalization going on to the downtown area. Many new (to us) shops stores and what not, including Blend.

So Blend is a fairly modern looking restaurant. including a waterfall wall...which, when I first entered the restaurant had the faint smell of chlorine, but I may have been imagining things, cause nobody else did. We arrived shortly before six, and even though the restaurant was mostly empty, we had to wait. Nathan did notice that they had a lot of reservations at 6 and beyond that, so I guess it did explain that, but I'm just a fan where people just reserve a table or two for walk up custom...sometimes you don't know where you'll be going (we sure didn't). We were seated in a relatively short amount of time.

The tables were very angular in their appearance. They were setup in a fashion where the corners of the tables were uncovered, but the rest were with a white table cloths, to create right angles. The napkins were also folded in right angled triangles too. It was very pleasing to my eye...since I'm a fan of things like that (it makes my brain feel comfortable). The only thing that distracted me, was that my place setting was a little off (the spoon placement didn't work for me). I think it only stood out, because the rest of the placement of things seemed relatively perfect.

Service was relatively quick and she seemed nice.

I ordered the only appetizer, which they describe as: Pork confit and ginger spiced carrots in crispy wonton with caramelized cabbage, and sweet Chinese mustard aioli. This was interesting, the pork wontons were spicy and to the left, there was a salad mix in middle that was sweet, and to the right it was vinegary. Separately, the pork wontons were good, but the rest was ok. but in concert, and concept I think it was pretty good.

For our main course, Shannon ordered the Seared Sea Scallops with celeriac and Yukon gold potato pave, brown butter roasted Acorn squash, watercress-pecan slaw, pickled red pepper, and a creamy apple-fennel puree. Jenny had the Pan seared Pork Medallions with red wine-Amerena cherry risotto, roasted garlic-lemon zest green beans, local field greens with hot mustard vinaigrette, and a porcini pan sauce. Nathan had Belgium ale brined Airline Chicken breast with bacon-cider sweet potato hash, tarragon creamed Brussels sprouts, caramelized parsnips, and a dark roasted sweet onion puree. I had White truffle and Panko crusted Veal Scalloppine with pancetta and Taleggio cheese smashed new potatoes, juniper and caraway roasted root vegetables, and roma tomato potage. The ladies ordered a mixed greens salad and the fellas ordered Roasted Pheasant soup.

The fennel in the soup made it. The broth was very good, a nice mixed of flavors. Nathan said the roast pheasant wasn't a very good example, and it could've been turkey or any other roasted bird. I don't have much experience with pheasant, so I couldn't state one way or the other.

So the tastes and the flavors ranged. I thought my veal and the potatoes beneath it was pretty good, though the Panko crust on the bottom of the veal was kinda soggy because of the potatoes. Shannon's Scallops were good and the potatoe pave was also very nice. Nathan thought his meal was pretty good, except for the chicken, which was pretty bland. Jenny's pork was...well..it had no taste at all. She said the rest of the meal around the pork was pretty good.

For dessert, Shannon and Jenny both had a warm chocolate thing (I forget), I had a carrot cake and Nathan had Creme Brulée. The chocolate thing was very good, along with the Creme Brulée. The carrot cake...was...not but not really carrot like. It had orange zest in it...and..well...that was pretty much the only thing you could taste in the cake. The frosting was nice though.

Overall it was pretty good. Though I think a little overpriced. We got out of there (including two glasses of wine) for just under 100$, excluding tip.

We walked over to the Paramount Theatre and up to our seats. The music was pretty good. The Flute Concerto was a bit odd, but apparently it was the second time it had been performed. I was interesting and often times went with threads of music that were very odd together and then joined and then got very odd again. I did bring up Christian Tiemeyer, and I am still curious what happened to him. Their site said he retired... My older sister was friends with his daughter and I went to many many concerts under his 20 year stint as the music director.

Afterwards, we headed back to the Mattas and started to watch the the Boston Red Sox whoop on the Cleveland Indians (Jenny's a big BoSox fan). Shannon went up to bed and the rest of us finished the game. I started to fall asleep around the 7th inning...but it finished up pretty quickly...

We woke up the next morning, had some freshly made biscuits. Nathan then got ready to take the girls to a Halloween thing at Usher's Ferry. Both had homemade costumes. Taylor was Snow White and Cali was Cinderella. Very cute.

We left for home as they left for Usher's Ferry.

We stopped at the Williamsburg Tanger Factory Outlet, ate lunch, and wandered around a bit...didn't buy anything. We looked at some cooking stuff...meh.

And then we finished our trip home. Fun weekend.

Posted by SammyD at 8:18 PM | Comments (0)



October 19, 2007

Movie night was last night. Holly made some wonderful things. Encrusted Chicken with a spicy sauce, some drop biscuits with cheese in them and some noodles. The chicken was tender and the sauce was good, though it may have been a little too spicy for Holly...though Shannon seemed to like it too. The biscuts..well..they were too salty, but I could tell that they would be very good, beyond the salt. We watched Psycho, I was reminded of how good a movie it is. We then watched a documentary on the movie, and I swear, it was as long, or longer then the actual movie. Needless to say, we didn't finish the documentary.

I actually wrote a letter the other day. And dropped it in the mail...I don't know how much good it'll be, but I hope it helps to lift my brother's spirits, though I don't know if he'll make it through.

I was very disgusted with myself the other day. Sitting at home, just kinda waiting and I was hungry. Instead of eating many of the healthy things that are around the house (apples, carrots, bananas, etc), I open up the bag of marshmallows. I'm such a binge eater...I have been since I can remember. From cheese and crackers to banana bread to whatever. I try to control it, but from time to time, I feel like I am watching myself do these things. It's dreadful. Yet, I wouldn't get on drugs for it. I ended up throwing them away...

Speaking of drugs, the Prevacid seems to be going well for the most part. I have had painful gas/bloating from time to time, but over all I'm tolerating it well (only that one time has it woke me up out of a sleep). Carrots go down well. The other two seem to be going well and my blood pressure is in line too. So, it's all settling out. I'm not looking forward to the bill for the esophageal dilation, but it should come sometime...I'm actually kinda surprised it hasn't....

So we're going to go see the Cedar Rapids Symphony tomorrow. I have many fond memories of going to this when I was a child. I think the company my dad worked for donated money or something and they always had tickets (that apparently nobody else wanted), so I went a lot. It'll be also be nice to see the Mattas too.

Tomorrow is a big day for Brandon. He turns the big 30. Shortly he'll be a father. The changes he's made in his life in the past year or so, makes me happy. I used to worry about him quite a bit, but now, it is much better.

Happy Birthday Brandon!

Posted by SammyD at 9:59 PM | Comments (0)



October 14, 2007

Well, Last weekend we went down to the Wells Fargo World Food Festival (associated with the World Food Prize)...not just one night, but two. It much much bigger then the year before and because of the warm weather, quite a few people made it down to it as well. We hit Africa, Ecuador, Russia, China and India. Everything was very good, and it was fun to go down and have such a variety of foods. The only problem, I think, was that I think the vendors weren't expecting so many people, so there were a few food shortages.

Good event, if it grows like it has been, it'll soon be quite huge.

I took this past Friday and coming Monday and Tuesday off and decided to use the time to do some work around the house that I've been slacking off with....however the weather has decided to not cooperate, so I haven't gotten most of the things outside that I planned on doing. I did start repatching the crack between the driveway and the house, but after dropping quite a chunk of change on concrete crack filler, I decided to go a cheaper, but because of the weather, I have not been able to finish. Hopefully I'll be able to get it in there soon enough. Friday night, I headed over to the Boelman's to get a few ladders, and then proceeded to spend a few hours shooting the breeze with Brandon. It reminded me as to how much I miss "outside work" Brandon.

Yesterday, we went up to the Hoffman's to celebrate their daughter's, Savannah, first birthday. It was a fun time, though, chilly, but good. We had fun going shopping for a baby girl (almost bought her Iowa State clothes too), and ended up spending a bit more then we planned on, but that's cool. I'm sure they'll get used, and passed on. We came home and caught up on our DVR recordings (almost).

This morning I got up quite early, and goofed off until Shannon got up. After she ate lunch, we started peeling the paint of the ceiling. We got most of the problematic places, and we'll sand down some areas, to make the transfer over. Then the fun began. I noticed that an area in the living room, was a bit damp, and in a bit of checking, found a china bowl, placed beneath the tub drain to catch leaks...

Yeah, I can't believe this crap either. I plan on calling our regular plumber to get an estimate...or at the very least finding out how much water actually collects in that (now empty) bowl...

Then while going downstairs to get something, I noticed that the floor drain in the basement was a bit backed up, so I quickly stopped the washing machine and then closed the door, just to wait for it to go down a bit. Wanting to use some drain cleaner, I decided to use a bucket to get the water up off the floor, and after making several trips up the stairs to dump excess water in the sink, and then figuring out that the water was staying exactly where it was at...and even form the drain upstairs was coming back form the upstairs. So we ended up dumping the water out into the yard, to get it down to the level where we could use the drain cleaner.

Not that there was any point to using the drain cleaner, since it ended up not working...even after using an entire bottle.

So after waiting quite a while, I called Roto-Rooter's local number...and...well...got nothing. It rang and rang and then hung up on me. I called the national number, ended up in the same place, but this time I left a message...after waiting a bit, I decided to call somewhere else, and in looking found Mr. Rooter and called them. Turned out they have a newly minted franchise over in Waukee. And because they picked up the phone and answered my call, the proceeded to get my business.

He came in the time frame that he stated, he wore little protective coverings on his shoes. He had a uniform, and a well placed badge with his picture and name on it, all stating a level of professionalism that I tend to like. He even had wheel coverings for his electric snake thing. He came with a list of flat prices for things. So if he's there for 5 minutes or 5 hours, doing X costs this much...so no overtime, which is nice. He was also very personable too.

So on further inspection, he decided what to do and went to work. After unsealing the main drain, he quick called me over to show how much build up was inside the pipe, which probably explains why it was clogged.... He went to work, and in about an hour or so, water was flowing freely from our basement sink into the floor drain and out into the sewer system. We paid for it and they left (I thought the price was quite reasonable for a Sunday night). I made sure he knew that his good customer service left a good impression on me.

Over the course of the day, we talked about our options with the house. It got especially bad today, with all the things breaking, we even discussed the possibility of moving into a much smaller/cheaper place, or even an apartment, until we can get rid of some of our larger debts (wedding, school, my car, and whatever would be left from selling the house). Anyways, I think, we, once again, decided to tough it out for another few years (3 probably) before we try to find a place that we both can live with.

Posted by SammyD at 9:40 PM | Comments (0)



October 4, 2007

Chicken Tikka Masala

Chicken Tikka Masala

Some of the herbs from Norway, Iowa. The cream from Woodward, Iowa. Locally grown and produced cilantro, onion, yogurt and Serrano chili.

From leaving work, to plating the food, just about 3.5 hours (including shopping)...Totally worth it.

Oh...and I've gotta say that the Muir Glen Fire Roasted Crushed Tomatoes and Tomato Paste were really good. I tasted them before I put them in the sauce, and I don't normally say this, but wow...it was good. I don't know what tomatoes they use, but I found something to use for the good times.

Posted by SammyD at 7:38 PM | Comments (0)



September 30, 2007

So inspired by the food at the gateway market, I came up with an idea for an appetizer (which ended up being our dinner, tonight).

So I started off with George Formaro's Soft Cheese and Herb Polenta:

2 c chicken stock
1 c heavy cream
2 T butter
1 T chopped fresh herbs of your choice (I used red pepper flakes)
salt to taste
1/8 t cracked black pepper
1 t chopped fresh garlic

Bring the above to a boil

1 c polenta or stone ground corn grits
1/2 c Parmesan cheese

Slowly add polenta with a whisk, stirring constantly.
Turn heat to very low and cook about 20 minutes
Add Parmesan.
(They suggest to serve as aside or main dish topped with a rich meat ragu.)

While this is slowly cooking on low, Slice up the prosciutto in about 1/4" strips and seperate into their thin layers, and toss into a pan with a little olive oil and pan fry on just below medium, until the prosciutto is starting to get crispy. this won't take very long, since they slices are so thin.

Slice up a fine bread, and toast it (in the oven or a toaster).

On the toasted bread, spread the chevre, cover that in a portion of the polenta and then top it with a few pieces of the prosciutto.

It'll look something like this:

Prosciutto Americano, Soft Cheese And Herb Polenta, chipotle chevre on la mie ciabatta toast

Crunchy, creamy, salty, meaty, spicy and cheesy....how good is that?

Posted by SammyD at 5:48 PM | Comments (0)



September 29, 2007

Gateway Market has pizza. I bought one. They are excellent. As a consumer of many many many pizzas you bake or eat at home, I have eaten a lot of them.

Forget Papa Johns, Forget Digiorno, Forget Freschetta, Forget Papa Murphy's.

Less ingredients then the fingers on my two hands. Fresh fairly thin crust (non sweet, non cracker), fresh, great tasting mozzarella, tasty sauce.

And for a mere $8, it's totally worth it.

Oh...and not that I know him or anything, but apparently today is George Formaro's 40th birthday...so...uh...Happy Birthday. I wish you continued success. I'm looking forward to 43's rebirth.

Posted by SammyD at 6:46 PM | Comments (0)



So I headed down to the Gateway Market to wander around and see what they had for displays and what not.

So I started from the parking lot to be greeted by Juan O'Sullivan's and a green chile paste type thing. It was warm, but not too spicy, but good. It'd be good with chips or...thin crackers...toast points...that sort of thing.

In the store wandering around they fine people from Niman Ranch. They were giving out free samples of their bacon...oh and it was wonderfully delicious bacon too. I'm glad I already have a package in the fridge.

La Quercia was there as well, giving out samples of their Prosciutto Americano and Prosciutto Piccante. I bought some of the Prosciutto Americano, though both are very good, but the Americano seemed like it would be the best in what I was planning for dinner tomorrow.

Reichert's Dairy Air (no real website) was there presenting their range of goat cheeses. I tried several and bought some roasted red pepper chevre and...I think chipotle chevre. I'll eventually try them all I guess. The small samples were very good. I'm actually going to use this on some La Mie bread, topped with some of the Prosciutto Americano.

George Formaro, did a food presentation, making some Soft Cheese and Herb Polenta and Chicken Saltimbocca with Porcini Mushrooms. It was interesting to watch him work. Certainly shows that he's spent long hours in the kitchen. The Polenta and Saltimbocca was very good, even the smalls smaple that we got. I made up the mind what I wanted to do for dinner...and picked up a Gateway Market pizza.

Posted by SammyD at 5:25 PM | Comments (0)



September 26, 2007

Much to my surprise, shortly before 4:PM, I got a call from Joseph stating that he had free time until 10:PM that night...and that he'd like to go eat dinner at La Mie. Who am I to argue.

According to Joseph, normally they would have 30 or 40 recruits to be processed, but they had much less then that (like 4), so it went very quickly. Thus the extra time. So I went to pick him up at a hotel near the airport, and took him to my house.

I had to get some laundry started, so while we were waiting for Shannon to get home from work, I did laundry, and we watched the first two episodes of Dexter on onDemand. Before we started that I found out that in recording some HD tv, the DVR over recorded (by hours and hours and hours), which then deleted a Celtic Women concert we had recorded on PBS, The Queen, most of the TV that we recorded on Sunday, and episodes of Heroes and Chuck from Monday. Kind of annoying, to say the least. We've got everything but Heroes and King of the Hill setup to rerecord on alternate channels (sci fi, youtube, or rebroadcast).

My dad called to ask me about how dropping of Joseph went...and so I told him it went fine, and ask him if he wanted to talk to him. I think that he may have thought for a short bit that I had actually convinced Joseph not to go...but I explained, shortly, what happened, then passed the phone over to Joseph.

We headed over to La Mie, and they've changed the look of it a bit. White tablecloths, larger vases with smaller budded flowers in them (instead of wheat). Also they had large vases with large bunches of wheat in them. It looks like they finished the new section of their restaurant, and put in a wine bar (which is too bad since I wouldn't be drinking that night). Joe (the owner) was cooking and I believe his brother was there as well.

The meal was a prefixed 3 course meal ($20 a person), with options for first and second, with a finish of a salad with cheese (this night a good goat's cheese...I am not sure what it was). I ordered farrow with spinach and a pork stew. Shannon had carrot soup and clam pasta. Joseph had blood sausage with beans and beef with mushrooms.

Everything was excellent. The carrot soup makes me desire to make soups. And the other things remind me that the fall is here, and it's good to start making hardy and warm soups and stews and I'm looking forward to it.

The hilarious thing, was that we could not stop making fun of the lady sitting across from our table...she was talking the entire time...on the cell phone. She didn't stop to eat, she barely stopped to chew. We actually commented on her conversation, since we could hear it so well (She had recently been to Sioux Falls, had a problem with a fabric merchant, etc). It was a bit silly.

After dinner, when we were headed out, I stopped Joe (the owner) and introduced him to Joseph (my brother) and Shannon. I told him that as his last meal before he headed off to basic (and the implied lousy food), he wanted to eat at his restaurant. Which Joe, rightfully so, took as a compliment. After a little bit of chit chat, we left.

We headed back to the house, and we were there for a short bit, before I took Joseph back to the the hotel and dropped him off again. I think I was more prepared this time...and I didn't have to wait with him either. So by now, he should be getting the final processing done, and shortly be headed to a base in Missouri.

Posted by SammyD at 5:49 AM | Comments (0)



September 25, 2007

So it was with much torn emotion that I waited with my brother Joseph, about an hour ago, to be picked up by the Army National Guard to go off to basic training. Where the structure may be good for him, I'm not dreadfully thrilled at the danger involved...but...well...it's his choice, so as long as I don't think think he's doing something extremely stupid, I'll support him.

Sigh... The guy that picked him up was a bit late. As Joseph told me, though, "You may wait for the Army, but the Army never waits for you."

Before that, we had breakfast at the Gateway Market. I had the Gateway Omelet (chicken, smoked bacon, tomato, onion & gorgonzola, served with toast) and Joseph had Eggs Benedict (Toasted ciabatta, Niman Ranch ham, two poached eggs & hollandaise). This was Joseph's first time with Eggs Benedict (??? seriously?), and he enjoyed it. I think that since his trip to La Mie his food curiosity has gone up and he's going more outside of his normal limitations. One thought I had was that I was sitting there, with my potatoes, and side of bacon, and Joseph was there with his fruit cup (not that eggs benedict is low in calories) and I was with in my layers of fat, and Joseph...being all fit and stuff. I guess it shows... Anyways, we wandered around the store, I showed the quality products (La Mie and South Union breads at the same store! woo!), and some of the more silly priced ones (over 100$ for a bottle of vinegar? I guess it's a nice bottle...but sheesh). Afterwards we headed over to Merle Hay Mall.

Last night, my mom and dad came over and had dinner at Chef's Kitchen and dropped Joseph off. They were going to bring Isaac, but apparently he had a fever of 102, so...he stayed home.

Sunday, Shannon and I went to Sleepy Hallow Sports Park to celebrate Jerry's birthday. It was fun...running the go carts with friends was a good time. We saw Ryan to proceed to out drive everyone (in his group) and lap everyone...almost twice...I think only one person he didn't get lapped twice... Mini golf was fun too (though their course is not near as cool as others I've seen). It was a great idea for a birthday party.... We ditched out a bit early to go home a clean for my parents coming over.

Posted by SammyD at 9:32 AM | Comments (0)



September 23, 2007

Today is one year, but since it wouldn't work out too well, we celebrated last night...

After a short day at Iowa Health System's Day at the park. Adventureland is...well..adventureland. To highlight, I saw Sam Wallace (out going President), hung out with Kaylene and Proctor for a bit, and won a $25 gift card at Hy-vee.

We came home, hung out a bit, and got ready to go to dinner.

We decided to go to Cafe Di Scala. I had been there once before, for lunch, and Shannon went there once for a vet tech thing.

We talked about lots of things, reviewed the year, talked about the future. Ate some good food. We started out with two appitizers: Bruschetta alla Scala (South Union baguette toasted with basil pesto, red onions & asiago. Topped with marinated roma tomatoes) and Cozze alla crema (blue mussels cooked with pinot grigio and served with a roasted shallot & Pecorino Romano cream sauce). For dinner Shannon had Pollo con Proscuitto e Formaggio (boneless chicken breast stuffed with a blend of Italian cheeses and wrapped in La Quercia prosciutto. Served with seasonal vegetables and tomato fontina risotto). I had Costoletto di Agnello all Rinascimento (New Zealand rack of lamb dusted with ground cloves & coriander. Browned in olive oil and oven roasted. With baby spinach leaves tossed in a basil citrus vinaigrette with raisins and pine nuts). All of our food was very good. I was pretty happy.

Shannon had a Flourless Chocolate Torte over a Caramel and Toasted Almond Brittle. I had a poached pear stuffed with, I think, Mascarpone. Both were very good.

Anyways, afterwards, we stopped by the Gateway Market, to pick up some bread (for French toast), and headed home.

So...I don't know what'll happen in the future, but we'll do it together...

Posted by SammyD at 9:34 AM | Comments (1)



September 20, 2007

(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/17/2007 at 11:00 PM)

One more thing about the camping trip. Shannon remembered something from her childhood and then found it and we also made bananas with M&Ms stuffed into them, wrapped in foil and put into the fire. However, I don't think we did it exactly right, but they still turned out...good idea...maybe we'll do better next time.

So after a busy morning of trying to get a whole lot of things done before I headed off. I had Keith follow me home and I put my car in the garage to check out a few things. Shannon got home, so I got to say good bye to her again, before she headed off to CR. Keith took me down to the airport and I started to work on things there.

After a while of me working (yes actual work), Proctor showed up and we headed on the plane towards Cincinnati. The flight was short and we were quickly in the airport for a 1.5 to 1.75 hour layover. We at dinner at this place called the Pub. The food was ok. The crisps were good, but I think the highlight of the meal was the Brown Sauce. It tastes like worcestershire sauce (which it has in it), but thicker. No free wifi in Cincinnati...

So we played around with Proctor's new iPhone for a while, I browsed some places, logged into my work email...and now he only can login to my work email...it is weird...but I guess there's probably some way to reset it...anyways. After a bit we got on the plane and headed, uneventfully, to Birmingham.

There is simple enough we headed out, got my luggage and then proceeded to wait for the shuttle. Apparently we just missed the previous shuttle, so we hung out and chatted for a while, before the shuttle showed up. As it arrived, Shannon called at the end of her day to tell me about it. It seems like it is going well.

So this hotel is classically beautiful, and I'm kinda surprised they're putting us up here. Though this being my first experience with The Wynfrey, I'm kinda miffed. No free wifi or internet for that matter. $10 a day...silly...just silly. I don't care if it is some sort of standard, it is way to much money to pay for internet access...especially considering the price of the room. The bathroom is nice, the bed is huge, and it seems like the hotel you'd see old rich white people staying at. Telling of that, there was an older woman that checked in shortly after we did, and she had many bags from Channel....so...that's we're at. I'm not sure what we are doing tomorrow. If there is an itinerary, I never got it...Proctor may have, but he is about a week behind in his email...so we are kind of flying blind with the morning. I'll get ready for an early day, eat my breakfast, and hope to know what in the holy hell we're doing by then.

(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/18/2007 at 5:40 PM)

So I got up early in the morning (before my alarm went off) and got ready for the day. I eventually headed down to their breakfast and had an ok meal...nothing about the meal was outstanding. It was better then a breakfast buffet at, say, a holiday inn, but nothing about the food was really outstanding. The sausage looked better then it actually tasted. Afterwards I camped out in my room until the 8:30 meeting time with the CEO to walk us over to their offices. Around 8, since I discovered that my CPAP mask was breaking, I called and ordered a new one (delivered at home).

So basically how this works, is that there is the hotel, a mall and then an office building...so without even going outside, I was able to get to their office. It has a glass face elevator that you ride up quite a few floors.

Their offices are under construction and we walked through the construction to get to the finished spaces. It looks pretty nice, looks as though they are making a chunk of change.

Anyways, we saw what they are working on for the future release of their product. While I will not describe what they said, since I respect their desire for privacy and their desire to "leap" ahead in the market, I will say, however, that I am a bit torn by it. While I agree with what they are doing and it does seem to be the right way to go, I don't necessarily like what they are using to get there. I know why they are, but it doesn't mean I like it. Proctor was in an out for most of the morning, dealing with the press release on the new IHS CEO and giving comments where necessary. After he was to a good stopping point we headed for lunch.

We headed over to Firebirds Rocky Mountain Grill. The smell of the restaurant was a light wood smoke. It was really a good thing to smell on the way in. Certainly they do it to probably intensify the wood smoked used to cook the food. I ordered a steak sandwich with fries. They served bread before the meal and it was a hard crust and spongy on the inside. Certainly ok, but not something to write home about... I did like the hard crust, though. The sandwich, unadorned by sauces, came on a simple bun with lettuce, tomato and onion. The beef was done to a wonderful medium rare and very tender for the most part. At one point in the middle of the sandwich I did run into a extra chewy portion, which was hard to bite off. The fries were done very well, thick fries that were very crispy on the outside and soft and tender on the inside. Good over all. Proctor got a call and missed a good chunk of the meal...it was just that kind of day...

We headed back to the office and Proctor got a quick review and then we headed into information about the upcoming project that we're buying from them...and...well..since I am not dreadfully involved with it, I tuned my attention back and stopped paying as close of an attention.

We covered most of the bases for the day so we decided to go home early. They setup to get us to leave in the morning, rather then in the afternoon. Probably a good thing for the bossman. We headed back to the hotel (through the mall) and I dropped off my things at the room and then went to check out the mall. (Proctor was planning on working) I wandered around the mall for about an hour and a half (it is pretty big), stopped and looked at some Swarovski crystal (they had a store there) and though about a present for Shannon...but nothing really struck me as a must have...(it was usually a "cute by too expensive on our tight budget"). I eventually got tired and headed up here.

We're planning on going to Shula's (America's Steak House) for dinner.

(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/19/2007 at 2:54 AM)

So dinner was very good. The Shula's cut of beef, according to our waiter, is better then prime and hand selected...but well..I had beef for lunch...so I had lamb chops. We started off the meal with a set of appetizers. Barbequed bacon wrapped shrimp, crab cakes, and beef tips. The crab cakes were...well nothing special. Good but not great. The shrimp....were very nicely done, Crunchy bacon, followed by the shrimp...mmmmm. Now the beef tips....I don't know how they were spiced, but they were fantastic...the beef just melted in my mouth. It was truly something memorable.

Next up for me was a gigantic bowl of French onion soup. The soup was...too salty. It kind of tasted like beef bullion. The soup was covered in cheese and getting through it was just not worth it. Nothing like the wonderful and fantastic soup they had at the French Café in Omaha.

They then delivered our main courses and side dishes. The side dishes were two lobster mac and cheeses, caramelized onions, and mushrooms. The caramelized onions...well...were good, but unless you burn the onions, they'll always be good. I didn't try the mushrooms. The lobster mac and cheese was...a good concept, but poor in execution. The cheese sauce was not as good and creamy as some of the sauces that I've made myself, but the idea of putting lobster in there...well that'll probably be happening in the future at my house.

The lamb...oh the lamb. That was quite good. It was done to a perfect medium rare. It was probably the best lamb I've had. Tender and delicious. They also served it with a mint jelly. This tasted like biting down on a sugar covered mint leaf. It was very good...though I only occasionally dipped the lamb into it...it really didn't need it.

Over the meal I had a glass of scotch (Balinvine 20 year old) and a couple of glasses of wine.

After dinner, we headed to the bar and I had a couple more glasses of scotch (Macellan 12 and Cragmore). We talked a bit more and Shannon called, so I talked to her a while, and then headed back to the conversation. It was interesting.

Anyways, we called it a night, especially since we'll be leaving the hotel at 6:AM. For some reason I can't sleep. I did for a bit...but when it came down to it, my mask is broken and I just wasn't sleeping well...

(Written at the Peets Coffe and Tea at the Cincinatti Airport 9/19/2007 at 9:56 AM)
So I finally got back to sleep, I figured I might be cold so I wrapped myself in blankets and a short while later I was snoring away...at least for a couple of hours until the alarm went off. I must say that this is the first time that I've slept on ironed sheets...it's weird...the bed was fantastic.

The ride out to the airport was slow. Our driver, who looked barely old enough to drive, was driving slower then everyone around us...it was weird...though it was a polite young man.

We got in line, got our tickets and got in line to be searched... Apparently, now, using a CPAP makes me a likely candidate for being a terrorist. I fuckin hate flying. The flight to Cincinnati was fairly uneventful, though there seemed to be a strong cross wind on our landing...so it was a bit rough...anyways...not to shabby... We have a 3 hour lay over here...so...*shrug*

It was kinda funny, we're sitting here in the coffee shop, drinking the first real good cup of coffee, and Proctor's texting with his iPhone and two Blackberry sales reps are standing getting coffee next to us...they ask Proctor how he likes his iPhone...I think they are a bit worried about the future of their businesses, however, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, since the target audience for the iPhone is entirely different. Not directly working with the MS suite of applications kind of rules it out....at least at our job it has (they did look at it).

(Written at work 9/19/2007 at 3:10 PM)

In Cincinnati, we went to Moe's Grill and Bar. We sat by the window and watched a lot of people look up to the heavens at the face of god....or that's what it looked like...cause they were looking at the screens that had the flight information...looking up, many with their mouths open... It was funny.

Now at Moe's, it was well...it's easy to sum the place up. They were good ideas, that were tripped up in execution. So they call their pastrami, smoked meat...which is kinda odd to begin with. So they said they have a smoked meat sandwhich with deli mustard...

No Deli mustard...it's yello mustard.

They have smoked meat on pizza...

Good idea...interesting at least. But the crust was a frozen crust out of a package, so it just distracted from it...Anyways...not that good

We spent 3 hours or so in the airport...Total flight time on both flights on the way back 2 hours and 20 minutes. Ahh layovers...

It's good to be home. I call it a fake trip, because I only left the Hotel/mall/office building twice. Once for lunch and once to return to the airport...

Posted by SammyD at 2:29 PM | Comments (0)



September 16, 2007

So before we headed off to go camping at Ledges, Shannon got the bad news that her grandmother (paternal) was having some hospital troubles and it looked as though it was just a matter of time before she was gone from this world.

Shannon still wanted to go camping, since this would really be her only vacation during the year...

So we continued on. Shannon had her cell phone and I did as well.

We headed up to get there around 3 or so, getting a call from Chris and Dave, stating that they wouldn't be making the whole trip on their bikes, so they'll be waiting for Holly to come get them. We hiked into our campsite and setup our tent. We started to build a fire with the limited amount of wood we had around us. We made some flames.

The rest of the camping party arrived and we helped them bring their gear in.

So camping frivolaty ensused. For dinner, I preped the ingredients for silver dollars (meat (sausage, ground beef, Parmesan, red pepper flakes, basil and pepper), onions, potatoes (pepper, olive oil), carrots and corn). We wrapped them up in tin foil, put them in the fire, and let them cook. They turned out fantastic. That plus many more beers and scotch, we were feeling pretty happy. Shannon and Holly turned in as the night grew more and more cold.

After a while longer, the men finally went to bed (after taking their sleeping medicine (ask Dave)).

I got to sunggle right into my mummy sleeping bag. it was the first time that I've really gotten to use it, the last time it was out, it was not near cold enough to even think about using it. It was quite warm. I took my arms in and out of the bag all night to control my body temperature. In the near freezing, if not freezing temperature, we were fine.

I got up first in the morning and spent quite a bit of time to my self, watching the dawn and the shadows move.

After a while the rest of the camp started moving. And eventually we had scrambled eggs and potatoes for breakfast. Afterwards we drove a bit to go hiking to find the Lost Lake. It was about a half mile hike, up and down many of the steps that Ledges are know for. Pretty landscapes, lots of scenery and a found like. Unfortunately for me, somewhere in there my shoe decided to attack my big toe, and to my surprise later, my sock became bloody...

Anyways, we headed into Boone, and picked up a few things and headed back to the campsite to make lunch. Chris drove Dave back down most of the way to Des Moines and came back. On his way back I got a joyous text message from Brandon, stating that, much to the odds makers misfortune, the Cyclones had pulled out a victory over the Hawkeyes!

woooooooooooo!

Anyways, we played some games, and some rain came, so we headed into Chris and Holly's supersized UFO tent and protected from the elements, we played some Yahtzee and then the card game Golf. After the rain stopped, we built up the fire again, and I made some brats (boiled in onions and beer, then grilled). We chatted around the memorizing fire until we started to doze off (me first) and then headed to bed.

The next morning, I started a fire (grunt man start fire) and had a nice one going while we ate breakfast. We moved our things back to the cars and packed up. We walked past several disheartened Iowa fans (hee hee) and headed back home.

We got home and setup our camp gear to fully dry out. Shannon called her mom and got tentative details on the funeral arrangments for her grandmother. So our busy, coming week, turns into a very busy one. It makes me sad that I won't be able to support Shannon directly, while this is happening. So she'll be heading up there, and I'll be headed on a business trip.

Ahh well...We're all packed up and ready to go our various paths. Shannon's warned her work...I feel bad for the cats. 2.5 days gone...followed by another period of being gone.

Posted by SammyD at 6:11 PM | Comments (0)



September 12, 2007

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

Posted by SammyD at 9:20 PM | Comments (0)



September 9, 2007

So yesterday morning, Shannon saw that our neighbors across the street were having a garage sale, and saw these end tables that she wanted me to check out, since she had to go to work. I did, good condition for the price (50$ each) and so I bought them. They are made out of cherry wood. They only have a few dings and scratches, but it's not too bad.

I then ran a few errands and picked up a few things to make the cookies.

After Shannon got home, we packed up and headed over to Cedar Rapids. So attending the BBQ, was a large part of my Family (Parents (2), Hyrum & Diane & 3 kids (5), us (2), Jed and Stephanie (2), Lovina & Eric & 2 kids (4), Joseph (1), Isaac (1)) and various of Eric's Siblings and inlaws and their kids (6?). Anyways, quite the crowd. Setup across 3 tables (one in the kitchen, next to the kitchen and a card table in the living room), there was quite the spread.

But first, was playtime. Little boys apprently need a lot of attention and like to play rough. We had some fun playing with Spencer and Dallin (Dallin for the most part). It's hard work...and tiring. Lovina's oldest is very shy, and temperamental. So even talking about something that she is playing with (something like, oh that's neat), can send her into a possessive rant. It is kind of odd, but (shrug). Lovina was used a lot as a jungle gym and ranged from seeming to enjoy it, to just wanting to take a nap.

So Joseph cooked a large part of the dinner. He made pulled pork, corn on the cob and and grilled pineapple. My mom provided coleslaw, vegetables (carrots, tomatoes and jicama). Jed brought some of his homemade bread. And I had some bread I bought. I didn't have coleslaw (not a big fan). But everything was pretty good. The pork was juicy, smoky, and rich. You could taste smoke, vinegar (apple cider?), and black peppercorns. Putting it on a bun and adding a little mustard (not that it needed it), made for quite the sandwich. I had several. The corn, which was pre-buttered and had...I can't remember but some standard spice on it...was really good. I loved the pineapple, though in my discussions with Joesph, it could probably be better to add more to the carmelization effect, by adding sugar and what not to it. Shannon's not a huge fan of pineapple, though she does say that when it is fresh it's much better.

After letting the food sit for a bit, dessert was served, which included my oatmeal raisin cookies (which were generally liked, though there are many raisin haters out there), my mom's apple crisp with or without ice cream (she also made a non-lactose version, with lactose free ice cream for Diane), and one of the Roundy's brought lemon bars. The lemon bars were pretty good, but reminded me that I wanted to make my own lemon bars, so I'll have to add that to the list. My mom's apple crisp, made with fresh apples, I'm betting, was good like it always is.

Afterwards, I put most of the remaining cookies in my mom's pig cookie jar, and we headed over to Clif's new house. His house is actually pretty close to the Mormon church over there, so it was pretty easy for me to get into the right area (I can, and probably have several times, drive there in my sleep). After a bit of confusion with his directions (since he assumed we were coming one way, and we went another, we found it. It's in a nice neighborhood, and is quite the house. It'll be certainly a nice place for him to live (Wade will be renting out a room starting in about a month).

(George is upstairs running around like a crazy kitty, I can hear the tromp tromp of his feet running from one side of the floor to the other.)

We got the grand tour. This included a 3 season porch, hot tub, landscaped yard, several bedrooms, including what is really 2 master bedrooms. Quite the nice setup. Afterwards we hung out for a while and chatted. We thought about heading over to the Matta's, but when Clif called them, they were on their way back from Adventureland. Clif tried Joseph's pulled pork and liked it (Clif is also a raisin hater). After a bit more chatting, we headed over to the Mattas, and I gave them a couple of bottles of beer that I saw and thought he might like. They tried the pork and I got quite the surprised look as he said that's pretty good (so there you go, Joseph, independent tastings). Nathan also liked my oatmeal raisin cookies, Jenny didn't try them, since she generally only likes raisins when she's pregnant. And when we went up to look at their new bookshelves, Colby and Diego apparently liked the oatmeal raisin cookies too...After chatting with the Matta's, including their 10th wedding anniversary hiking trip in Colorado.

Around midnight, we headed out to the car to head back to Des Moines.

Good day!

Joseph did talk about maybe doing some BBQ catering and things like that, and maybe I can get him some face time with Uncle Wendel...though I guess I don't know him that well. Anyways he'll have to come up here when Wendel opens up his shop.

My parents should have BBQs more often.

Posted by SammyD at 7:49 AM | Comments (0)



September 8, 2007

So this morning I made cookies...and for the first time, I have made cookies (or any other baked good) that I was fairly certain that Shannon would not like. She's not a fan of raisins...where I, on the other hand, love them. So I used the recipie from Baking Illustrated: A Best Recipe Classic (The Best Recipe Series). The only change I made, was to sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on the top of the cookie dough ball before it went in the oven (it already has fresh ground nutmeg in it).

The only problem I really had was that I think I didn't make the balls of dough big enough. The last two cookies that I made (with what was left of the dough), were a bit bigger then the rest, and came out with a wonderfully crisp (but not overly so) and nice and puffed up. The others, which tended to be probably 1/3 to 1/4th smaller, had a much crisper bottom (not burnt, but too crispy). Of course the recipie said it would make 18 and I made around 26, so that does account for it a bit. I'll have to remember it for next time. Texture is good, and I'm looking for comments on them (I'll be taking them down to Cedar Rapids today, for my younger brother Joseph's meal of smoked meat (which he's gotten into)).

Anyways, fairly satisfied, good recipe...

Posted by SammyD at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)



September 7, 2007

So since Clif was up here to do some server work here in Des Moines, We headed over to Clive to go to Lemon Grass.

First we drove past it, since it is hiding a bit away from the road, but after a quick call to my boss, we turned around and found it.

Simple decor, and place settings. Quick, friendly service. We started off with two orders of crab rangoon and an order of curry puffs. The crab rangoon were fantastic, but I liked the curry puffs better. The crab rangoons were crispy on the outside and creaming and a bit spicy on the inside with little bits of crab. The curry puffs had a similar crust on the outside, with some meat and peas, carrots, onions and potatoes. Quite the combination.

For dinner, Clif had Adventurous (spice level) Larb (I think), I had Medium Panang Curry and Shannon had Mild Pud Kee Mao. Clif liked it, and so did I with my small little taste, however as he ate it more, he decided it had way to much cilantro. His palette is a bit odd... Anyways, our server noticed and actually didn't want him to go away unhappy, so they gave him a new order of the Lemon Grass...without an extra charge. Quite nice. The Lemon Grass was good too, quite good. My curry had a wonderful smell and texture, and Shannon's noodle dish was fantastic.

Anyways...good stuffs, going to have to go again, without a doubt.

Posted by SammyD at 8:08 PM | Comments (0)



Chris and Holly came over last night, and we watched Chinatown. It was ok...certainly twists that I wasn't expecting in it. But for some of the raves that it had...There were some neat camera angles and effects...

I made chicken parmesan, peas with onions and bacon, a loaf of garlic focaccia, and strawberry ice cream. The chicken was actually easier then I thought it would be. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, even though this was the first time I did it. I put garlic powder (in recipe) and cayenne powder in the flour. But in the bread crumbs, I put red pepper flakes too. So it added a bit of spice, and somewhere in there, something turned sweet... I also used fresh mozzarella (which was very nice and mild). Anyways, for a first try, not to shabby.

Posted by SammyD at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)



August 30, 2007

Even though I've been spending a lot of time reading about food, I've been feeling dreadfully uninspired in my cooking. The meals that I have been preparing have been rehashes of all the things that I've done before...not that it's bad...it's summer, burgers, brats all very good things and for the season, but I am just wanting to cook more for the winter and fall...even when what I'm reading now is about spring (since I'm a few months behind).

I've been more interested in the book on malt whiskey that Nathan got me for my birthday. Wouldn't it be interesting to to start a distiller that uses things grown in iowa like corn, corn cob based fire for taste? I know that Templeton Rye is here in the state, and of all the bottles in the house, that was drank pretty quickly. I should go out and buy another bottle, but in these tight budget times, and the wide range of other fine spirits, it does seem a bit silly.

I want to start a food site....I find most lacking, either in content, or in usability. I've been thinking about the structure in my mind, but most of the ideas depend on getting that good domain name. It is a little late in the game for that. I think a lot of the "web 2.0" things out there with the missing letters and what not are silly...If you have an idea, drop me an email. I do have snackfoodreview.com, but that would be limiting in the content...and as I grow older, the more snack food I dislike....or at least don't like as much as I used to...

Ideally it would be something that would look good prefaced with a type of food, like snacks.whatever.com or followed by...so like whatever.com/snacks/...anyways, it's just a thought. Who knows if I'll ever follow through. I've got Nathan on board as a reviewer (he's been calling me from time to time to tell me about food experiences he has had, and I've been enjoying the hell out of it). I think he has a more refined palette then I do and has better describing things too. Anyways, I'm sure the input of lots of people will help.

I am actually going to implement one of my ideas for the core of it, into the project I'm working on at work (to help in search-ability).

Anyways...

Posted by SammyD at 10:04 PM | Comments (0)



August 28, 2007

My co-worker pointed out the other day that I start a lot of my entries with So....funny 'eh? She just had a son this past Saturday, so congrats to Deb and Dominic and their new son Cohen!

Going back a bit further, On Thursday, Holly went all out, and made Chicken Cordon Bleu, croissant rolls, scalloped potatoes, and corn on the cob. Quite the spread. The Chicken was very tender and tasty. We watched the Searchers. It was OK, there were parts where I thought they drug it out for too long, but over all, it was pretty good.

Moving forward, we went down to Ingersoll Live and had some wonderful smoked meat, right in front of the soon to be open Uncle Wendell's. We ran into Dave, and he was helping Uncle Wendell. We wandered around a bit, and ended up back to get some beef brisket and pulled pork. I love his jalapeño corn bread. Spicy, but not too hot. That, along with some keg Millstream rootbeer...what a dinner...cheap too.

Afterwards, we started to jet, but I was pulled back to their bread, by the thought of the Lemon Blueberry bread. We bought a loaf and headed back to the car. On our way back, we stopped at Chocolaterie Stam and got some gelato (I got dark chocolate and bananas foster, Shannon had dark chocolate and orange stracciatella).

Sunday, we went up to Bob's and met with his wife, and Jim and Gina. Slater was nice and quiet. Bob made some grilled pork and some chicken. Gina made some mac and cheese with some corn in it...it was surprisingly good. I made some PB&C Cookies, and they went over well.

So narrow margins continue, but the roof leak is, finally, with much rain testing, done. Which does remove a lot of strain.

Posted by SammyD at 6:57 PM | Comments (0)



August 20, 2007

So we cleaned on Saturday, to prepare for Shannon's parents coming up on Sunday. I also decided to make some chicken salad.

I picked up some ingredients and combined the chicken from a rotisserie bird, green onions, half a small white onion, some fresh chives (from the side of my house), enough mayo to have it stick together, but not so much that it became more goopy and some capers. Normally I'd crumble up some blue cheese and stick it in there, but I didn't want to push them too much (blue cheese is not loved by all), so I left it out. I intended to serve it, also, with some butter lettuce, but forgot to set it out. But it was pretty good.

I also picked up some Cahel Blue Cheese (Irish)...It was pretty good...I'd be curious to taste them side by side with the Maytag...

After lunch, we wondered around Valley Junction, headed over to the capital, saw the renovations to the grounds stopped by the Gateway Market and headed back home to chat some more.

It was a good day.

Posted by SammyD at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)



August 13, 2007

Tomatoes, fresh from the Wolter's garden and James' mild salsa.

Fried Egg with tomatoes, mild salsa, and sharp white cheddar cheese on toast

Posted by SammyD at 7:33 PM | Comments (0)



August 5, 2007

On Food

The more wonderful things that we eat, the harder it is to go back...

Friday night, I didn't so much feel like cooking, so we ordered pizza (Papa Johns). The only thing that was really good was the breadsticks. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good. And expensive too. The joy of not leaving the house wasn't quite worth the price of ordering in.

Hopefully the next time I have the desire to order out, I'll remember this. Not that there is anything wrong with pizza, I love pizza. Its just that between the sauce (too...sweet?), the crust, and the toppings (just didn't seem done enough)...I really need a trip to Great Plains Sauce and Dough.

Yesterday, we went grocery shopping and after whittling down our stores, because of the recent strain, we're slowly putting things back to rights. The Freezer is full of meat again, the cupboard is no longer bare. Things are feeling much better.

On Money

It is hard to make a budget when the amount of money that comes in ranges so much. Mine is fairly consistent...the only time it really changes is when the pharmacy takes money out of my paycheck (usually about every 3 months or so), Shannon's varies quite a bit. Lets say that X is Shannon's take home pay. for a particular time period. This last paycheck, she got 1.2X..but there are times where she gets 0.7X. It's hard to budget around...ahh but so it goes. Things look like they are turning back around, for the long road out of where we both have dug ourselves into. Oh well... We do have each other. And it is nice to know, that my parents are there. Their advice and soothing words have been invaluable.

On Home

James came by the house yesterday morning and fixed the small leak in the roof. It was nice to see him again. Apparently the caulk he used, recommended by one of the fine folks at Home Depot, was less then decent, and was breaking apart. New caulk applied, rain this morning, an no leak. this certainly takes off a lot of the pressure that we were feeling.

Posted by SammyD at 9:48 AM | Comments (0)



July 27, 2007

So for movie night last night, I made a quick curried rice with chicken. I think it turned out pretty good, the only thing that I would have changed was to not let it cook as long so there would've been more of a sauce to it...

But it was good and not that hard to do either.

Posted by SammyD at 8:59 AM | Comments (0)



July 22, 2007

So after spending a good hunk of the day being lazy, reading my daily comics, watching the daily show and Colbert report, and then a large chunk of Super Paper Mario, we got all dressed up and headed down to Centro for dinner. We met up with Chris & Holly and Patrick &..uh...I should know her name, but it's not coming up (Patrick arrived shortly before we did and Chris and Holly were a little late).

We sat down, and it was a good thing we came around 5, rather then closer to 6 our meal took quite a while, though it was delicious. I had a prosciutto wrapped pork loin (delicious), Shannon had a wonderful Truffle Mac & Cheese (Penne pasta with Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked Ham and a truffle cheddar cheese sauce, topped with toasted bread crumbs). I don't remember what Patrick had, but he did say that it was the best version of it that he's had in Des Moines. We also started off with some fried calamari too. Patrick bought and shared two bottles of wine (Thanks Patrick!). It started off with a white, which I am pretty sure it was a bottle of 2005 Robert Mondavi Winery Fume Blanc Napa Valley (which was on the dry side, but still good) and then moved on to a red, 2005 Zinfandel The Monster (which was spicy and delicious). It was nice to go out with people and have a nice dinner.

Afterwards, we walked down to the Civic Center and saw Monty Phython's Spamalot. This was remarkably silly. There were parodies of other famous broadway shows, along with scenes from their movies and a few extra silly bits added in. I laughed a whole bunch. Shannon enjoyed it as well. Much silliness. We even bought some things as well. Interestingly enough, a seat away from Patrick was Kevin & Mollie Cooney (local TV news reporters).

So after the silliness was done (including a joke about Harry Potter and a comment about the butter cow), we headed outside.

The evening had lost the mild heat of the day and we grouped up outside the building and started to walk back to Centro. Chris and Holly were meeting up with some friends of theirs (since this was their first children free night in a while), and we decided not to join them (they headed to the royal mile). We enjoyed the night! The only detracting thing was that we weren't able to be joined by the Mattas, but it still turned out great.

Posted by SammyD at 7:54 AM | Comments (0)



July 15, 2007

So we went to see the new Harry Potter movie on Friday night (good, not great), and got ready to go to the Matta's. We headed down to Cedar Rapids and went to my parent's. Joseph wanted to to show off his growing grilling skills. So we had grilled pork chops, some watermelon, a nice salad (most of the ingredients from my mother's garden, including basil) and some potatoes with broccoli and cheese. So...The potatoes with broccoli and cheese were good and Joseph said they usually spice it with some cayenne pepper. And he was right, it did add a bit of a zing to it. The pork chops were pretty good...he is getting better and taking much more care of what he is doing while he is cooking. He also payed attention to the cooking time too (knowing that the potatoes need to be cooked for longer), which is a sign of really starting to think about what he is doing. The pork, however, was a over done. To start, I think he needs to get himself a meat thermometer and make sure that he starts paying attention to the doneness of the meat, because it's a thin line where pork (or other meat for that matter) is done and when it gets tough. This is an important thing...but he is much improved, much much improved. Finding a passion is an important part of finding your path in life. My older sister's kids were there (visiting before they move to Texas so their dad can do some post-grad work in physics).

Afterwards, we dropped of our things at the Matta's, put the Eiswien in the fridge, we headed over to Shannon's parents and visited with her mom for a while be fore her dad got home. We setup a relative time or idea of a time to pick up some films that we're going to try to convert to a more usable format. We got a call from Nathan saying he wouldn't make dinner, then we got one from Jenny, so we left Shannon's parents and met Jenny at Panera to pick up a meal for all of us and head back to their house. We all ate dinner...which was...well...one side the toasted bread on my sandwich was perfect, the other was a soggy mess. Maybe I am being to picky...but I feel picky. After dinner we helped the Matta's do the final prep for Jenny's birthday party.

The party went pretty well. I think Jenny, Nathan and I were the only ones to get really silly and by the end of the night it was Us, the Matta's and Jane and her husband. I had a good time...Happy Birthday!

This morning we headed to get some breakfast and afterwards we spent some time with Shannon's sister and family.

We stopped back at the Matta's said hello to their girls and after we were all fighting the nap monster. We headed back home.

Good weekend, It was very timely.

While I am saddened by the Matta's inability to attend Spamalot this coming weekend (Jenny's best friend's wedding, with short notice), I'm really looking forward to it.

Posted by SammyD at 8:53 PM | Comments (0)



July 9, 2007

It's always nice to see something that you put a lot of effort into be successful. There were a few drawbacks, but for the most part it was a good day. I was really sad that Ben wasn't able to make it...he didn't exactly sound pleased either.

I spent the morning cutting up the various things and putting them on plates. I think the presentation was nice, obviously meant for people to pick up their own...so they could be selective as to what they wanted to eat...

The table started out in the middle of the room, but had to be adjusted, to prevent possible tripping over the cord, to keep Holly's Fondue warm.

The White Chocolate Brownies with Dark Chocolate Chips and White Chocolate Ganache, followed by (or maybe trumped by) the Matta's Cocoa Rub and Chocolate Based BBQ Sauce were, I think, the hits of the night (wonderful pork and a great saucy BBQ sauce). I also really enjoyed Tiff's Brown Butter Blondies and Holly's Chocolate Orange Fondue. Though the orange taste of the fondue was very understated...perhaps too understated. For my own preference for simplicity (thought I broke 'em too) I would've had an individual nut piece on each blondie...though knowing how I could, I would've excluded them all together, just because Shannon's not a big fan. But I was still quite happy with everything.

This was also the first night, that people took me seriously and almost everyone brought something. I was thrilled. I had lots of leftovers...most of it being cheese! I love cheese...though I do feel like a worm. I should've let Chris take some of Uncle Wendell's Smoked Cheddar...which was fantastic and I mean fantastic. Just touching it leaves your hands smelling like a good wood smoke...delicious.

In fact, Chris, I am sorry, I will bring you a big chunk on movie night.

Ahhh...I'm still so greedy about food. There is something about being young and fighting over a limited quantity of food. Not that we went hungry, mind you, but it wasn't like we could be leisurely about it and at my core I think it is still there, even though I've fought hard to concentrate more on the goodness, not the quantity...but it's still hard. There is just something about that over full feeling that I can't...it's just hard...I think it's something I'll deal with my entire life. I think I do good most times, all of the left over chocolate things were consumed by our co-workers (all but 3 pieces and a chocolate covered cherry were consumed by lunch time at my office).

My favorite of the night though was the Chocolate Chip Apple Cake with White Chocolate Ganache...which is more an Apple Cinnamon, but even so, it was my favorite. Light chocolate taste, lots of apple and some cinnamon and moist...crumbly moist. So delicious...even today, 2.5 days or so after I made it, it was still moist.

Anyways, it was a good birthday. Scott came up for the first time and saw the house and gave us a nice bottle of wine. I met his girlfriend, and she was nice too. It was nice to see everyone, it's been far to long since we got together with the crew...Patrick also came, and I was able to feed him, which makes me happy...he seemed pleased to have made it, which makes me happy.

Lots of Wii playing, a little bit of game playing. Val has a baby bump now, which was nice to see...it makes it real (They also recently announced on their baby blog that it's a boy!). It was kind of funny cause around memorial day nobody could believe that she was pregnant.

It was probably my best birthday ever...and I had about 2 glasses of wine and a beer...so...

As far as the week building up to my birthday, it was great. No alarm, but excited to get up, to cook to create what I wanted. I was so pumped I actually couldn't sleep. I often woke up even before Shannon's alarm went off to face the day. Make something, take a break, make something else, take a break...start prep for something else. I think I decided that I don't really think that I have the attention to become a chef, but I think I may take a cooking vacation from time to time (sometime even to some other place with someone else to teach the class, rather then me just experimenting).

On Sunday, Joseph and Isaac came up and I fed them samples of all the things that were left...it was fun...afterwards, they played some Wii for a bit, then I sent them home.

Thanks everyone!

Posted by SammyD at 9:25 PM | Comments (0)



July 7, 2007

(frozen things to come later)

Chocolate Chip Apple Cake with White Chocolate Ganache
Chocolate Chip Apple Cake with White Chocolate Ganache

White Chocolate Brownies with Dark Chocolate Chips and White Chocolate Ganache
White Chocolate Brownies with Dark Chocolate Chips and White Chocolate Ganache

Nuclear Brownies
Nuclear Brownies

Penut Butter and Chocolate Cookies
Penut Butter and Chocolate Cookies

la bête noire
la bête noire

Posted by SammyD at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)



July 6, 2007

The white chocolate brownies are done and smell good, but I still have not tried them yet....so we'll see what happens.

I got the chocolate chip apple cake in the oven...

ahhh...feels good to be done...at least for the most part. I've got some cutting up and what not to get ready for the party left to do, and a final cleaning of the kitchen...but I'm pretty much done.

Posted by SammyD at 8:13 PM | Comments (0)



Dear Chocolates El Ray website,

I have really enjoyed the chocolate that I've recently bought form one of my local stores. I have recently used your chocolate in one of my favorite recipes, the smell and the taste of the chocolate certainly made me desire to use more of your chocolate.

I also purchased some of your ICOA White Chocolate, which I tried to use, making your white chocolate brownie recipe on your website. I consider myself a fairly competent cook, most of my creations, following recipes or not, go over well...and I am probably a tough critic on myself. I wanted to understand the directions, but they are just not very well written.

I had to make several guesses (Flour mixture?, does that mean the flour and salt?; What is the pan size?; How am I supposed to know if they have cooked, what do I test to see if it is done?;) as to how to actually prepare the brownies.

They are cooling right now, and even though the batter taste test before I put them in the oven seems like they should be good, one cannot be sure. You could take a fine example from the Scharffen Berger website and the way they have recipes there.

Thanks,

sam

Posted by SammyD at 2:16 PM | Comments (0)



July 5, 2007

Sorbet is done!

I'm tired!

That is all.

Posted by SammyD at 8:21 PM | Comments (0)



I made PB&C Cookies (Peanut Butter and Chocolate). I had one down at the book signing and mine turned out fantastic too. Very Rich...

I gotta finish up the sorbet, and then I'll be done for the day...so I've been working off and on for about 12 hours...

I spent a while talking with the Vossinator, and I'm pretty thrilled that he's coming down...

I still haven't decided for sure what I'm doing tomorrow, Josh has suggested white chocolate (though I've been in a dark chocolate mood)...so I'll think about it. I don't know how many people are going to be here, on Saturday...but it should be a good time.

Posted by SammyD at 7:19 PM | Comments (0)



Chocolate Sorbet is cooling in the fridge, it was pretty easy to make...pretty much cocoa, sugar and water...with a little bit of vanilla added at the end.

Dishes are being washed again (all the sauce pans are currently dirty, need one to make the ganache for the black beast).

I may make a 3rd thing today...just so I can make 2 tomorrow and prep for the party on Saturday...but we'll see how it goes.

Posted by SammyD at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)



La bête noire is in the water bath in the oven cooking.

So last night, in talking with Shannon, I figured I'd cook another thing today, two tomorrow, and one on Saturday, which makes for 7 things on this very special 7 day.

So far we have: dark chocolate ice cream, Nuclear Brownies, and la bête noire.

For la bête noire I used the Callebaut Bittersweet Chocolate for the cake and I'll be using the El Rey Mijao Dark Chocolate for the ganache. Both the callebaut and El Rey were pretty with nice clean cuts (when chopping them for melting).

Posted by SammyD at 9:11 AM | Comments (0)



July 4, 2007

Nuclear Brownies are in the oven, I halved the recipe (like it is on the recipe I posted). I used Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips (9oz) and Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (9oz) and Scharffen Berger unsweetened chocolate (3 oz).

I should know how these turn out tomorrow.

The dark chocolate ice cream turned out pretty good. I'm happy with it...I do think that there may be a slight burnt sugar after taste...not wholly unpleasant (it is very slight)...but takes away from the ice cream, I think. I'll try again another time.

There is nothing like that smell of when the Nuclear Brownies come out of the oven...mmmm....

Posted by SammyD at 6:52 PM | Comments (0)



1/2 lb buter
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
18 oz semisweet chocolate chips
3 large eggs
1/2 Tablespoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Melt butter, 1/2 of the chocolate chips and all of the unsweetened chocolate over a double boiler. Let cool. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add cooled chocolate mixture. Mix in flour and baking powder and salt. Stir in remaining chocolate chips and nuts. Put in a well buttered baking 9x13 baking pan and bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Refrigerate overnight.

(from my mom's friend)

Sam's notes: I usually mix up the chocolate with dark and extra dark bulk Stam chocolate, but I've used a mixture of semi-sweet and 60% Cacao chips (you don't have to use chips, but for the 2nd half of the slightly sweetened chocolate, you are going to want to chop it up). Any good, relatively dark chocolate would do. I don't think it'd be good to go above say 72% Cacao...since there is not a whole lot of sugar in the recipe (this is not a tested theory). I let the chocolate mixture cool for about 10 minutes, and that seems to work pretty well. Sometimes, you might get a nice butter crust on the bottom...and well...that tastes fantastic.

These brownies (more like bars) don't hold together well in heat, so keep them cool.

Posted by SammyD at 6:42 PM | Comments (0)



After cooling the ice cream mixture overnight, the it's been mixed in the ice cream maker and is now in the freezer. It's certainly a deeper darker chocolate then before... It did call for one thing that I've never made before. Caramel. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, however, I think I didn't do it exactly right and would like to try again...though it did leave a hard candy on the bottom of my suace pan...and maybe some of it might have burned...

So far so good...

We're gonna take a break and go see a movie...then pick up some cleaning supplies and then I think I'll make nuclear brownies...I will not, however, be using Stam Chocolate (considering I've already dropped a pretty penny on chocolate)....but I'll try to use what I've got here...I will, however, need to buy butter.

Posted by SammyD at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)



July 3, 2007

After spending a good chunk of the morning cleaning the fridge and then going through the book again and marking the final candidates, I've moved on to the first one to get made.

Dark Chocolate Ice Cream (p 71 Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate) is first up...have to go get the first ingredient I don't have from the store (whole milk or cream). I think I may double it since it only serves 4.

Posted by SammyD at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)



June 29, 2007

So last night, in cooking for for Chris and Holly, Shannon and myself for movie night, I did all the prep first... I got the onion, jalapeño, and etc all chopped up and ready, took a little break (very little, it was much later then I thought it was) and then cooked.

It was quite enjoyable. I needed onions, right in the pan, no, "Oh crap I gotta chop this real quick", so was much more relaxing. I read a lot about it in Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking, and it made sense.

It was like a nice little calm, doing the prep. rinse rinse, chop chop, rinse rinse, chop chop...so pleasantly mind emptying...

The only issue with this was that I used 6 or 7 bowls, which...since there were bowls already dirty, made it kinda hard to serve dessert (we ended up using Shannon's soup cups).

I made a vegetarion pasta from the July issue of Fine Cooking. It was uh...orecchiette (a pasta type) with green beans, corn, onion and jalapeño (or something like that). Turned out fantastic! Combined with some garlic butter on some bread from La Mie, fantastic meal.

We finished it off, with the very last of the Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and combined it with the Green and Black's White Chocolate with Strawberries ice cream...which was also fantastic. I think I have a new favorite brand of ice cream...though it is a bit expensive.

Posted by SammyD at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)



June 21, 2007

So I used the recipe in the manual for the ice cream attachment...and followed it pretty closely...except...I didn't have 8 eggs, I only had 6...so it only has 6 egg yolks, and instead of using 2 kinds of chocolate and cocoa in it, I used Ghirardelli Chocolate Baking Chips (60% Cacao) for the two chocolates I melted into the cream and the chips mixed into the ice cream....oh...and I also used only cream.

It turned out GREAT! mmm...so dark chocolatety...much thicker. And I'm much happier with it.

Posted by SammyD at 9:10 AM | Comments (0)



June 18, 2007

So because of the chocolate, we tried Green & Black's Vanilla Ice Cream.

This was fantastic...and I mean the best vanilla ice cream that I've had. Ever...

Still has a high buy in price, but it's still wonderful.

Posted by SammyD at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)



June 15, 2007

1 0.45 oz Russell Stover Triple Chocolate Mousse (given by coworker)
2 0.45 oz Russell Stover Mocha Ganache (given by coworker)
2 0.17 oz Scharffen Berger Milk Chocolate (41% Cacao)
2 0.17 oz Scharffen Berger Semisweet Dark Chocolate (62% Cacao)
2 0.17 oz Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Dark Chocolate (70% Cacao)
1 3.00 oz Scharffen Berger Semisweet Dark Chocolate (62% Cacao)
2 3.00 oz Scharffen Berger Dark Chocolate with Roasted Cacao Nibs (62% Cacao)
3 3.00 oz Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Dark Chocolate (70% Cacao)
2 3.00 oz Scharffen Berger Extra Dark Chocolate (82% Cacao)
1 4.00 oz Ghirardelli Extra Bittersweet Chocolate (70% Cacao)
1 4.00 oz Ghirardelli Unsweetened Chocolate (100% Cacao)
1 6.00 oz Dagoba Cacao Nibs (roasted)
2 6.00 oz Scharffen Berger Natural Cocoa Powder Unsweetened
1 6.72 oz El Rey ICOA White Chocolate
1 7.36 oz El Rey Mijao Dark Chocolate (61% Cacao)
2 9.70 oz Scharffen Berger Unsweetened Dark Chocolate (99% Cacao)
1.5 10 oz Ghirardelli Natural Unsweetened Cocoa
1 11.50 oz Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Chips (60% Cacao)
1 11.50 oz Ghirardelli White Chocolate Baking Chips
1 11.50 oz Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Baking Chips
1 11.50 oz Ghirardelli Semi-sweet Chocolate Baking Chips
1 17.20 oz Callebaut Bittersweet Chocolate (70%? Cacao)
1 28.96 oz Ghirardelli Extra Bittersweet Chocolate (70% Cacao)

That...is a lot of chocolate

Chocolate Audit

Posted by SammyD at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)



June 14, 2007

I can't believe I just scheduled 2 days off to bake (for my birthday).

Posted by SammyD at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)



June 12, 2007

So we saw Green and Black Organic Chocolate Ice Cream at Gateway Market...we're fans of their chocolate...so it was a must.

It was very good...fantastic even...but at $5 something for a pint...ehhh...that's a little on the pricey side. But still...a good thing for the chocolate lovers.

Posted by SammyD at 8:41 PM | Comments (0)



June 1, 2007

Holly gave a nice simple review of memorial day. The only add I have to make is that we also played bocce with Brandon and Val, and Val doesn't so much look pregnant...even though she is.

Last night we watched From Here to Eternity with Chris and Holly. Holly made some lasagna it was pretty good (the movie and the food). I made some Ice cream...which was ok...they said it was good, but it wasn't really what I intended, so I wasn't dreadfully satisfied.

It was more like soft serve, but I think that is more because I didn't use the right amount of fat in my milk products. It called for 2 cups of heavy whipping cream (high fat) and 2 cups of half and half...but I used fat free half and half...so...uh...yeah.

Also I would add more cocoa powder and 1/4th less vanilla...at least...that is probably where I will start again. It wasn't to bad for a chocolate chocolate chip, but again, not totally satisfied.

Posted by SammyD at 9:33 AM | Comments (0)



May 28, 2007

So I left work early on Friday (one of the directors actually came around and said we closed at 3, I finished off what I was working on and left around 3:30). I ran some numbers did some calculation and some figuring.

When Shannon got home, I think I scared her when I told her I wanted to have a "State of the Union" talk...but really what I meant is that we need to figure out what we're gonna do, officially, with the downstairs room, how much we can spend, what it means, and set goals (financial and otherwise) for the future.

So we went over to the Gateway Market Cafe to have dinner and talk.

We agreed on a way to divide the chores around the house (The kitchen and all the things in it are my responsibility (cooking, cleaning, etc), the rest of the house is Shannon's...though this may sound unfair, the kitchen needs to be kept a lot cleaner then the rest of the house.). This also allows for me to have things place where I want them (which I can't really explain to Shannon cause there's lots of things in the kitchen).

We agreed that after we got the room downstairs the way we wanted it, to get to a certain point in our debt, before we can even think about buying anything large (this excludes the Wii and the trip to Ikea).

Afterwards we went shopping, and with all my internet research in hand made a very large purchase...what is it? Well that's a surprise.

After that, we drove it home, and put together some of the furniture that we had already bought for the basement. Shannon went to bed around 11, I went to bed around 2:30.

I was up again at 6, and headed out after my morning ritual, to get some screws and what not that I needed for the furniture. I came home, still tried to get it all together, and then read some more and went out and got the screws that would actually fit the mount and that was the trick.

So this is why we were a bit late to Ahnaka's first birthday party. Though it seems like we weren't that late at all. So there was some grilling, some food, some cake, watching Ahnaka eat and then play in her own chocolate cake (very cute, which I had brought my camera), and then presents (mostly opened by Jerry, since Ahnaka was distracted by a ball, a stuffed kitty (our gift), and then a stuffed bear bigger then her (Patrick's gift)...

After a bit, Shannon wanted to head out and go furniture shopping, and so we did.

After a lot of looking, we ended up at homemakers, and with the help of one of their sales people, (she's in the million dollar club and I can understand why), with the help of Chris, Shannon and her fashion sense, we got a better idea of what we wanted down there, and then she said we probably shouldn't buy it.

Why?

Well unlike the previous time we were there, where the lady said sure it would fit, she actually said it'd be tough to fit it into our basement (29 inch doors (garage to laundry room or hall to stairs to basement). She had us go home and remeasure. Since it would've been a custom order, we would've had to cover the down payment (25%) and the delivery charge. We needed to hit about 33 inches to get them in there...and if we got that it'd still be a maybe.

It was not meant to be. Shannon was actually getting pretty down.

We then went to another furniture store (we hadn't been to yet) and they broke out a measuring tape and found several pieces that could fit through the door.

With that, Shannon felt fairly invigorated and we headed back to Homemakers with that in mind. Furniture with legs (that are removable) and relatively short backs (with cushions or pillows that go up higher). After searching, we found one...comfortable, we both liked it and decided to sleep on it.

After spending Sunday morning cleaning (the house really needed it), we headed out to Homemakers again. Normally I wouldn't wait on a sales person, because generally I don't find them helpful at all, but I wanted to make sure she got our sale, because between her advice about colors and the getting it into the house, she's was very helpful. So we actually waited for her to get done with another sale, before she could help us.

Then we proceeded to buy a love seat (the room doesn't so much accommodate the couch, at least in the way we want to use it), two chairs and an ottoman.

Shannon felt good, the room is mostly finished.

We're going to wait to see how things look before we buy things like end tables or the like...That way we'll get a good idea on how things will shape up in the room.

So now our family room is almost done...this will leave some what of a hole in the living room, since we don't really have something to replace what we're moving down stairs and what we're getting rid off...but we'll see what happens.

So after that we ended up going to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3...which was...better then the second, but not as good as the first. While the movie was just starting, Chris called to ask about going to the movie...so...that was kinda funny.

I returned the call after the movie and we talked about doing something laterish...it was already 8 or so. We headed over to target to get a few more things (new pill case for me for the Metoprolol XL, since it's gonna be taken at night) and a bunch of other stuff. And we finally found one of Ben and Jerry's new flavors, Steven Colbert's Americone Dream...woooo! Anyways, after trying to go where their flavor locater said and not having any luck, we finally found some. So we'll have that sometime.

We talked to Chris about maybe making some ice cream...since we have an ice cream attachment to our kitchen aid mixer, that we've never used. So we got home, I figured out what we'd need to do...and found out that we needed to freeze the bowl first...so there would be no ice cream making last night. I missed the call back from Chris and by the time I checked the phone it was getting pretty late so we decided to call it a night anyways.

This morning I got up bright and early again (6ish) and went downstairs to make the food for our lunch today: a chicken salad with bleu cheese (chicken, bleu, celery, green onions, pepper and mayo), a fruit salad (apples, cherries, strawberries, and a nectarine, with a little bit of sugar and some lemon juice).

This being done, we're ready to head over to Jen and Madd's to have a picnic with the rest of the Cribzero crew.

Posted by SammyD at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)



May 21, 2007

So Friday, after offering my services to Josh all day, it was apparently unneeded, but I headed up to the White Oak Vineyards. Relatively short drive, easy and fun. I did feel a bit under dressed at the rehearsal, since I dressed up slightly. It was pretty simple, we ran though things a few times. Especially easy on the ushers...

The place was very pretty, though not all the way manicured yet, I think. sparse grass in places, and the vines next to the building are still a little immature, though it is still early in the season. Occasionally, because of the wind, I swore I got a faint hint of pig farm...but that may have just been me. After being explained exactly what we should do to some extent, and then hearing others (Lindsay's Mom and Sister) talk about what they may assign us to do the next day...

Anyways, after that was done, we were told to be there by 3 the next day and headed over to Trostel's Greenbriar in Johnston. I stopped at home and picked up Shannon first and headed over there (we took her car).

So the appetizers there were pretty good. Not astounding, but good. The crab legs (never really had them like that before, were tasty. Kinda makes me wonder what happens to the rest of the crab. The baked Brie was...well..I've had better Brie, but it was still pretty good. The bread was good, but not outstanding. While the appetizers were happening I got a chance to have a few glasses of the Johnny Walker Blue, which was fantastic. Very mellow on the heat and complex it the flavors.

They had a Salad, which was a combination of tasteless iceberg and other much better greens. The dressings were OK.

I switched over to a red wine after that. There was quite the selection of main courses for dinner, from prim rib to a New York strip, to Chicken to pasta. Shannon had the chicken, which was good and I had the New York strip. The strip was...it tasted very good, but the meat was a bit tougher then I thought it should be. Now I do give some credit, since it is hard to get out meals for 20 or 30 people with such a large group such as ours in a small amount of time, but, I'd have expected better.

Now don't get me wrong, The food was good, the company was good (sitting near Josh's Mormon friend (Brent, Brett?) and the pastor guy led to some interesting location, though I think the topic avoided religion when I went on a tirade about Mitt Romney's recent statements about Guantanamo Bay...I even almost lectured Drew about what I thought was wrong with his statement that was something like "I don't really pay attention to politics, but I'm a republican."). I had an interesting conversation with the Pastor's wife about how she wouldn't eat baby animal meat (no veal, no lamb, etc) and she stated that she likes to think that the meat that she eats dies of natural causes (which is ridiculous, cause it would be almost not worth eating if you let the animals live their entire lives). But it was interesting to say the least and I enjoyed it.

For dessert we had a choice of tiramisu, cheesecake, and a chocolate torte. Shannon had the torte and I had the cheesecake. The cheesecake was good, though again, not fantastic. The torte...well...personally I would've made it with a darker chocolate OR added a bit more sugar. It kind of left a mildly unpleasant aftertaste. Though the first taste was still pretty good.

Anyways, it was a place I've wanted to try for a while, but never have gotten to. Thanks Diane Zamzow...and...uh...Josh's dad!

I was a bit intoxicated (why we took Shannon's car), so Shannon drove home.

Saturday I got up bright and early and got all cleaned up....And then proceeded to play Supreme Commander most of the morning, while vaguely watching some stupid movie in the background. When time grew neigh (and Shannon was mostly done getting ready), I got dressed. The problem being that I had no idea where the hell my shoes were. I realized I hadn't seen them since we had gotten back from Texas for Dan's Wedding. So searching through the suitcases (put them back in such a fashion that they would take up a lot less room in Shannon's second closet), closets, and various places...and then I finally remembered the bag from the hotel we stayed at in Texas and there were my shoes.

After the mystery was solved, my dressing continued. I wasn't too thrilled about standing outside in the sun in an all black tux (though it did look nice). I was already sweating before I got out the door. Spending 20 minutes or so in the car was nice, with the A/C on and all that good stuff. I think it also got me adjusted to the suit, or maybe it was the wind, but it wasn't too bad after that (warm but not uncomfortable).

We chatted and took pictures (one of the groomsman was latish) and got ready as the things were still being setup. The wind blew the chairs outside over and even after resetting them, they would go over again. It was kind of silly. We got a reminder of what we were supposed to do as ushers.

The wedding was beautiful (though hard to hear, other then the pastor, who had a mic). Josh was handsome and Lindsay was beautiful in her dress. They looked happy up there. Shannon got some really good pictures.

Afterwards, we, the ushers, dismissed the rows of people and took some more pictures.

I headed in, got a couple of bottles of water and then proceeded to drink them. I felt much better. I sat down at a table with Chris and Holly, Shannon, Ryan, Tiff and Savannah, Jerry and Ahnaka and Will.

Dinner was interesting.

Now I will have to give them a bit of a break. Apparently they had a few of the waiters not show up for service. So instead of having 2 or 3 like they did they had scheduled 5 or 6...So it meant that services was...well...obnoxiously slow. Now I hope they learn a lesson and have backup plans in case this happens in the future, but they seem new, so I'll cut 'em a bit of slack here.

The appetizers were fun. They had a cheese fountain and meatballs, grapes and bread to cover in cheese. It worked pretty well and was actually kind of tasty (the meatballs especially). and it was a fun idea. I started sampling the wines and I started off with one of their whites (wasn't a big fan), switched to a red (better), and then a white again (it was sweeter, Shannon almost found it acceptable, but I wasn't a huge fan). After the gambit, I switched to drinking the red for the rest of the night.

They brought around baskets of bread, which was good, cause by about this time people were started to get hungry (see above). They brought out butter and an orange butter. The orange butter was...interesting. I could see putting it on something sweet, but just on bread it struck me as odd.

They served a salad and I had it with Ahnaka Ranch (she got her fingers into it earlier)...it was ok.

For the main course we had a plate of something like scalloped potatoes, vegetables, a chicken thing that was fried, kinda reminded me of a chicken keiv, and what I can only assume was pot roast. By the time we got served, the tables around us were all served and most done eating. The potatoes were the only thing on my plate that was actually warm, and they were pretty good. The chicken, I imagine, would've been good, had it been warm, but since it wasn't, I wasn't dreadfully impressed. The pot roast was...well..tough, stringy and tough to eat.

The cake was...very good. There were, to my understanding, three kinds from Glorious Desserts: Almond (the actual wedding cake), Strawberry, and lemon. Shannon got the cake and both of them were very good. The strawberry tasted like a strawberry champagne cake...though I can't be sure.

The started passing out bottles of champagne (d'asti....I don't remember for sure, but I took a picture). There were several toasts and the champagne was fantastic. Even in my state, I could tell that it was quite good.

Afterwards, me being a in an advanced state of inebriation, we said our good byes to the bride and groom and Shannon drove home.

Congrats Josh and Lindsay!

Posted by SammyD at 9:55 AM | Comments (0)



May 15, 2007

So before a team meeting today, Proctor took us down to a new place in Valley Junction called Let Them Eat Cake. It is filled with many delectable sweets. I tried a cream puff which is right up there with the best, if not the best, cream puff I've had. We also took away some brownies, chocolate mouse cake, vanilla cake and some angel food cake. I tried the brownie (damn good), chocolate mouse cake (holy crap that's good), and the vanilla cake (fantastic).

I was quite impressed.

Posted by SammyD at 10:33 PM | Comments (0)



May 14, 2007

So after Shannon got home on Saturday, we started to paint the basement's family room. The color is a bluish green that is more a light blue then green, depending on the light that shines on it. It's nice an soothing.

We had some edges and some touch ups to do on Sunday, so we did those too...

Uncle Wendell's Apple Cinnamon bread was really good as French toast....even just as toast. I don't know if it beats out the challah, but it's pretty good.

The raspberry wheat bread was really good too. I even used some of that as French toast too...

The good thing about the farmer's market is that it's inspired me to think about cooking more. I've been in kind of a stress induced funk where I don't really feel like cooking or baking...But between the Gateway Market and the Farmer's Market I feel a desire to cook, bake and experiment again...

So now, we wait for the paint to dry, clean up...and move all the stuff from the living room and then build the entertainment center.

I've been looking at TV's...and...it...it's tough. I don't want to get burned when dropping a grand or two on a flat panel TV. I don't want to spend to much, but I really don't want to put my heavy 25in CRT TV on that stand either...even if it can, in theory, support it.

Posted by SammyD at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)



May 12, 2007

Josh's party was fun, we (Ryan's credit for the name) sunk the Yamato at Appare (which was basically a gigantic cutting board full of sushi and sashimi) It was really good, though being on the edge it was hard to get my chopsticks on most of the sushi. So it was almost 300$ of Sushi...Other then that, it was a good time.

I stopped for gas last night on my way home, and between the last time I filled up and now. at $37.77 and 1/10th of a gallon more then I got the last time, it was almost 8$ more for a tank of gas.

This morning I went down to the opening day of the farmers market. I got some elk meat, some bread from Uncle Wendell's (apple cinnamon bread, and a raspberry wheat), Basil Prosperi (a kind of big roll), and New Bread Rising from Ames (a chocolate bread).

I also stopped to chat with Dave and chat with Uncle Wendell.... and had a pulled pork sandwich right out of the smoker...Mmmmm....goood...He has a mustard suace and it was quite good...very yellow mustard taste, but yummy...

Good time down at the farmers market...very crowded.

In theory we'll start painting this afternoon when Shannon gets home from work.

Posted by SammyD at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)



May 8, 2007

Last one for tonight, I swear. Also from the Gateway Market.

We picked up a bar of Divine Chocolate Mint 70% Dark Chocolate. While this is peppermint and not mint mint (I know I know, same type of plant, different species, maybe it's just me that cares.), it is still quite good. Little peppermint oil crisps (peppermint oil combined with sugar, as it reads on the label). A nice deep chocolate taste with little crunch and a release of peppermint.

Quite nice.

The other nice thing is the piles of bulk chocolate! Next to the cheese, I now have a choice. Stam (at Stam, they should put it in at the Market too) & Scharffen Berger & etc. I'm looking forward to it! Standing there smelling gigantic chunks of chocolate was fantastic.

Posted by SammyD at 9:36 PM | Comments (1)



So also from the Gateway Market, we got some ice cream and chocolate sauce.

We got a hand packed vanilla ice cream from Picket Fence Creamery (awful website). The ice cream by itself was quite good. Certainly good enough on it's own, and probably good with some fruits or a strawberry rhubarb sauce...

We had it with Robert Lambert Four Orange Chocolate Sauce. It reminded me of the cake I made for Shannon. It had a nice orange taste with a wonderful chocolateness. A few minutes in a water bath on the stove, warmed it up, and put it over the ice cream.

A winning combination. Shannon was quite happy.

Posted by SammyD at 8:59 PM | Comments (1)



So we went to Gateway Market last night and ended up picking up a few things. This was mostly a investigative run, but we still picked up a few things. We ran into Todd (yes, of Todd's Neat Futons), which was odd, but kinda cool.

First off, I got some Honest Tea: First Nation Peppermint. This is a Herbal tea which is water infused with agave and peppermint. I liked it.

It was just slightly sweat, but the joy is the peppermint which leaves the tongue just a bit cool.

I liked it. Shannon wasn't a huge fan. Though she did say that it's something she'd take a drink of....but that's about it...

Posted by SammyD at 8:32 PM | Comments (0)



May 7, 2007

I missed the window to send my Grandma a card for her 85th birthday...although I do have a decent excuse for the distraction. I still feel like a worm. Talking to my dad, she seems to be doing better, and doing more things by herself then she used to do. So maybe she is turning a corner....lets hope.

Spiderman 3 wasn't near as good as 1 or 2, but still ok. Seeing it in IMAX was...well..obnoxious. I'm not sure it would've been better on a flat IMAX screen, instead of the dome, but it did lead to some oddness as far as it goes with curved straight lines and having to look over to see some things. I also felt that in some of the fast action sequences it was hard to follow...What we saw of the ScIowa was pretty cool and we still need to get down there to play (read this as a chance for nieces/nephews/Matta kids to come down and go there).

We went to Ban Thai over in the East Village before the movie. Much goodness. Though their hot wasn't very hot for me...I'll try their very hot next time. I had green curry and Shannon had some fried rice. Very good. Crab Rangoon was very good to...seemed hand made and lightly fried. Beautiful presentation.

We also wandered over to Gray's Lake to see the flooding...It was fairly high, covering parts of the trail around Gray's Lake.

Sunday I was extra super lazy. I played several games of Supreme Commander, while half ass watching some movies. Some of them were testing devices (seeing if they were worth the time to build), others were testing speed of building up a force (one time taking down a supreme AI in just over an hour).

Posted by SammyD at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)



April 29, 2007

So after not really going out by ourselves in a long while, we decided to go out on a date last night. We decided to head over to the Bonefish Grill.

So we started off with the Saucy Shrimp ("Sautéed in a Lime Tomato Garlic sauce with Kalamata olives and Feta cheese.", which was quite good. The combination of the flavors of the feta, olives, lime and shrimp was really quite nice. The presentation was also very nice to. I had thought about bringing my camera to the restaurant, but I ended up not doing so. Our waitress also brought us over some fresh bread. The bread was...well...bread. It was warm and probably straight out of a heater or maybe even the oven, but it was just a fairly bland bread, certainly not of the quality I've grown used to. It did have a nice crust ans was good for dipping into the sauce of the shrimp (the oil they gave us for dipping was fairly bland).

Then we moved on to our salads. The house salad ("Crisp chopped greens, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, heart of palm and pine nuts. Tossed with citrus herb vinaigrette."), was ok, but nothing too special. The "greens" were basically iceberg lettuce that was dressed up with the other ingredients. This was, however, my first experience with a heart of palm (which was good).

Next up I had some of their Corn Chowder with Lump Crab. This was...missing something. Itself it had a nice taste to it, but it needed something, like to be simmered with pepper, to give it an extra taste and complexity.

Then we had our main courses. I had Ahi Tuna with Pan Asian sauce (A teriyaki glaze, with a bed of sautéed spinach, and a drizzle of wasabi cream.) and Shannon had a special Rockfish Thermador. Now I'm not a huge judge of fish, since I don't have it that often (since we are in the middle of the country and fresh fish is harder to come by). I liked my Tuna. I liked Shannon's Rockfish better (so did she). My tuna had a nice sort of done crust on the outside where they had cooked it on the grill, and then it turned flaky, and then more pink on the inside. Again, I don't know if this was on purpose or not, but I think tuna is good from raw to cooked (even canned), so I was pleased. Although the wasabi cream seemed to be have not much wasabi in it at all...it took me specifically gathering up some on my plate to get any sort of heat out of the cream. The Garlic mashed potatoes that we both had as sides were good, they were covered with a parsley butter sauce, which was a bit disturbing to me at first, since the potatoes looked shiny. The carrots they had were actually really good (Shannon's not a big fan of anything but raw carrots).

For dessert, we split a slice of Deep Dish Key Lime Pie ("Graham cracker and roasted pecan crust, topped with fresh whipped cream."). This was pretty good. It actually made me want to make key lime bars (like lemon bars, only with key lime). Since the chain is based out of Florida, it didn't surprise me to much that this was as good as it was. They said it was "homemade" though what that means, I don't know. Made in the store? Made at someone's house? Made by hand in bakery? Who knows. Anyways, it was good, and certainly a nice end to the meal.

During the meal I had two glasses of La Crema Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, which I liked. Makes me want to explore more of their wines, although, their online store, wasn't very helpful in providing me a price...(Since I wrote this morning, they have updated their site, much more helpful).

The meal and wine came out to be just under $100 without the tip. So it was fair...I would've been happier if it was $20 cheaper.

Afterwards, we wandered around the mall for a while, and then went and saw Hot Fuzz, which was quite funny and headed home (after picking up some milk and kitty litter, which cause me to joke that this whole evening was an excuse to pick up kitty litter).

Posted by SammyD at 7:56 AM | Comments (1)



April 4, 2007

Credit to Drew for the idea, but here's a pancake cake:

top of pancake cake

side of pancake cake

slice of pancake cake

I took my standard pancake recipe (how to cook everything) added a bit more sugar (extra tablespoon) and some vanilla (a tablespoon or two). Probably should have added some cinnamon...baked in the oven for 33 minutes at 350°F in a 16 oz Corningware round. I filled the round about 2/3rd to 3/4th full.

Also, should've added some sort of butter or cooking oil and maybe some parchment paper to the bottom so it didn't stick to it.

Posted by SammyD at 8:17 PM | Comments (0)



April 2, 2007

So the initial smells of the Adagio's cocomint Green Tea bring up ideas of chocolate and mint. Kind of like a really good cup of hot chocolate with mint.

After brewing, the tea still has that wonderful chocolate and mint smell. The taste, however, is a bit different. The green tea comes out first, then is followed by a light cocoa taste and finishing off with the mint. I am getting after tastes of the cocoa.

Pretty good.

Posted by SammyD at 2:38 PM | Comments (0)



My brother came up on Wednesday to join the Iowa National Guard on Thursday...and he didn't...cause they didn't have all the paperwork....

But My dad came up to be there, and we all went to lunch (Shannon, Joseph, Daddoo and me). So we went to La Mie. Everyone was happy with their food, but Joseph's comment was perfect. He said something to the effect of, "If we weren't in a restaurant, I'd lick the plate clean." and the beef was cooked "perfectly".

I loved that quote.

Posted by SammyD at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)



I bring in my lunch most days (about 95% of the time) and I'd usually bring a sandwich, fruit/vegetable and a 1/2 cup of my potassium mix (unsalted peanuts, raisins, and other dried fruit). But I'm starting to change that a bit. My new standard lunch is, carrots, potassium mix and a fruit (usually an apple).

I'm trying to be good...not that my sandwiches were particularly bad, it's just generally salty and fatty (lunch meat + cheese). And it's easy too.., just about getting the portions and washing off the apple.

Posted by SammyD at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)



March 28, 2007

So for Adagio's Ceylon Cherry Tea, Light cherry smells of the unbrewed tea, with a strong tea smell.

In the cup, after brewing, a light smell of cherries with strong smells of tea.

The cherries burst forth fade and are over taken by the tea and then come forward again at the end. Quite nice. I think I'd still want more cherry flavor, but it's still a pretty good blend.

Posted by SammyD at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)



March 27, 2007

So one of the trial teas I got was Adagio's Strawberry Black Tea.

This one smells wonderful in the tin with a strong natural strawberry smell (not the fake strawberry soda smell).

After brewing the tea, it smells good in the glass, but the black tea stands out more then it does in the tin. It's still good, but I personally would prefer more of the strawberry taste. But Good...probably not good for an iced tea (unless it was sweetened) but a good change of pace for the regular run of tea.

Posted by SammyD at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)



March 25, 2007

So a bit back I ordered some more tea, and I also got the Iced Tea Duo (Green) and we tried it out tonight.

So we used the citron green tea, and used quite a bit of it (they say use 2 teaspoons of tea per cup, for iced tea (half as much for just tea)). It brewed, it went over ice, poured it in a glass over ice again and iced tea.

The Citron Green tea brewed up nice and was good over ice. Shannon thought it was too bitter for her. I thought it was quite drinkable, even without adding sugar. It wasn't Shannon's cup of tea even with a bit of sugar added.

Oh well, We'll try some others (I'm looking forward to trying the Casablanca Twist in it.

Nice and refreshing, on a warm evening...

Posted by SammyD at 8:03 PM | Comments (0)



March 21, 2007

So for dinner we headed over to The Market at Jordan Creek. Lots of free samples. We had intended to maybe buy dinner there, but with the array of samples, we ended up just eating the samples. A good sample of wines, food, lots and lots of mustards. Some crafted soda, Bells Beer. A large variety of cheeses and other things. Interesting place. I want to go back when it is less busy. No cognac (they had an OK selection scotches), I didn't see any chocolate other then the stuff made into things...

A funny thing I saw is a sign that said "The freshest seafood in W Des Moines." Even fresher then the waterfront?

We saw, Adam and Tiff (and Savannah), Chris and Holly, and Pat and uh..what's her name...

Good night...Gonna have to go back when it settles down a bit.

Posted by SammyD at 9:01 PM | Comments (0)



From my recent trip to the Gong Fu Tea, the other green tea I got was called Cloud Nine.
So the Cloud Nine is very berry. The strawberry, rhubarb and raspberry combine together to give a general berry taste. The smell of the tea before and after infusing in hot water is quite nice.

One of my co-workers apparently knows some people there (her oldest son and the owners son or something like that) and she told me that they're over in China or somewhere right now getting some new teas. Between Gong Fu Tea and Adagio I'm pretty happy in my tea selections (I just ordered an Iced tea set from Adagio and some more of their teas). The thing I like about Adagio over Gong Fu is that they uses metal tins. Gong Fu uses these metallic bags, where I suppose they keep the same freshness, I just like the tins better. Adagio also has these nice cheap sampler tins (about 10 servings). I was able to order 7 samplers for $14, which is not bad at all. So maybe the Gong Fu should consider that. What if I bought something based on the smell and decided that I didn't like the taste? The genmai cha from Adagio, that I got with the sampler pack, smells ok, but I fund the nutty taste not ot my liking...

Oh well..anyways...Cloud Nine is quite good.

Posted by SammyD at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)



March 19, 2007

So a bit ago, I went to get some herbal tea for the house (in case we're sick) and a second tea infuser. Since I was already in the East Village I headed over to Gong Fu Tea.

I got a few items and one of them was the Cherry Blossom.

It's very good. Cherry taste in the front and back along with undertones of green tea. Quite nice.

Posted by SammyD at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)



March 15, 2007

Yay! Food!

Continue reading "Food Pictures" »

Posted by SammyD at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)



March 12, 2007

Being that it's kinda hard to cook a whole bunch on a week night, we celebrated Shannon's birthday yesterday. After running a few errands I started making the chocolate torte (la bête noire). It was actually surprisingly easy, with only a few ingredients. This was the first time I've ever cooked anything in a water bath.

After it was done and in the fridge, I started making the lobster alfredo. Going with the white and red theme, I also made white shopeg corn with red peppers and garlic. I also used white pepper in the alfredo, so it didn't have any black flecks in it.

Everything turned out great. The pasta sauce was good (a little bit of nutmeg helped out a bit) and the torte was just divine.

We kinda lounged around and just had a lazy Sunday.

I took a large part of the torte to work and it went over very well there.

For her actually birthday, we walked through the wonderful weather and had dinner at Chef's Kitchen. Mmmm...comfort food.

Happy Birthday, baby. I love you.

Posted by SammyD at 8:53 PM | Comments (0)



So Shannon and I headed down to Cumming to go to a retired church that was converted into a wedding Chapel. We left a bit later then we meant to and looked around the small streets for parking. I let Shannon out, so she didn't have to walk through the car and then parked and got out to myself. The church was old, and needs some repair to get back to a more pristine level. Still beautiful, just a few rough edges.

Most of the Cribbers were near the back we got pushed off near the middle and the side (away from the center). The chapel had wonderful old fixtures and some new ones (not so wonderful, more practical). It had some beautiful stained glass and an ornately carved alter. I can see why they picked it.

The ceremony was very heartfelt. You could tell that the pastor (a long time family friend of the Bidney's) had deep feelings for the entire family. The ceremony was very beautiful. Holly was gorgeous in her dress and Chris was very handsome and the bridesmaids and groomsman (including Dave and Tinker) were very nice looking. There was no receiving line, which made me wonder why the line took so long to get out of the church. I did see Dusty, and strangely enough, he was wearing a tie.

After a bit, we headed towards the reception at the Hyperion Field Club. Now I've been to a few country clubs in my life, but I've never really seen the point in belonging to one....and I really still done. I guess I've had experiences with three. Cedar Rapids country club (my sister worked there for a short while), one in Chicago (a friend of mine worked there) and this one. I guess if I golfed it would make more sense...but I don't know...*shrug*

Anyways, the building is nice and where we sat had a superb view of town. Initially over a golf course and at night, seeing most of the lights of downtown. Quite fantastic actually. The cake (done by The Bake Shop, where we had our cake done) looked very good (and ended up tasting fantastic...I only got to try the lemon cake though).

We ended up sitting way in the back (the close tables looked like they were taken) and couldn't really see much of anything over the people. The wedding party did, however, make their entrance near our table.

Shortly afterwards they started feeding us. The salad was pretty good, a nice mix of greens and I had it with the balsamic vinaigrette, which was good. The main course was a chicken breast stuffed with mushrooms, cream cheese, spinach and asiago cheese with a twice baked potato and green beans with bacon and onions. The twice baked potato was good and the green beans were also nice. The chicken was good, after you got through the tough top. It was like it was heated from the top for too long, or sat in a dish or under a heat lamp for just too long. After the upper layer, the quality greatly improved.

See, that wasn't so bad of a critique...

Seth and Brianna showed up (yay!) So we had lots of interesting conversations.

Chris and Holly both had video programs that showed them growing up, which were fun to watch and they also had special music for the dances with their parents. They put in there what they admired most about the parent. It was pretty cool.

We did the dollar dance (both said they were tired). We also took pictures of Pat dancing with Chris too...it was funny...I was curious as to what Chris's dad said to them.

After a bit, we called it a night and headed home, only to be joined up by Seth, Briana, Dusty, Drew, and Ryan. We chatted, caught up and what not and had a good time.

Beautiful Bride, Handsome Groom, Beautiful wedding.

Posted by SammyD at 5:36 PM | Comments (0)



March 10, 2007

Work has been challenging and interesting lately. Because I've been prodded a bit by Brandon, we've gone in to use Medseek's Sitemaker's language to produce the new modules we're working on. After some annoying inconsistencies between what they say to do and what they do in their actual modules based on this system, I've gotten down to where I've basically figured out what they do. The way they do things has barely changed (as far as presenting data, they just keep it standardized so it all looks at feels the same because it ends up using the same code. I've had a few late nights, but I think I'm moving forward pretty well.

Chris and Holly get married today. I hope the day goes well and everything goes off without a hitch.

Shannon's birthday is on Monday. She turns 29...again...at least that's what she is claiming. I'll be making lobster Alfredo and a nice chocolate torte...at least I assume it's nice, since I've not made it before. It has lots of chocolate in it, so I'm sure Shannon will be happy with it.

We went and saw 300 last night. I thought it was really good (even though our seats kind of sucked), but Shannon wasn't as thrilled about it. It really felt to me like reading a graphic novel, and a good one at that. She did say that the gore seemed more cgi/cartoony so it didn't offender as much as other gore in movies.

We've decided to go on a diet (excluding Shannon's birthday)...well more like change our lifestyle, The pasta that we had earlier in the week is just a start. More fresh fruits and vegetables is the long term goal here. Shannon wanted us to join up something like weight watchers, but to me it seems a bit silly. If we really take it seriously, then we will support each other (which is pretty much the goal of WW). We just both pick bad things sometimes, and it kind of rolls from there. But I think if we both push forward, then we'll end up better...although this does mean more work for me, since a lot of the "I don't feel like cooking" foods that we have are high fat and calories (hello pizza). I've also started using much less cheese too (sigh).

On Monday, the PC Support people came and told me I was getting a new laptop, since mine is going off lease at the end of the month. They wanted to take pictures and what not, but I said, no, I'll clean it off and have it ready by the end of the day, and they said they'd come back today or tomorrow (Monday or Tuesday). So I still don't have my new laptop. The laptop has been cleaned off, so it's basically worthless to me and I'm dreadfully annoyed now. Hopefully early next week, cause I may just have to start installing stuff back on it.

Posted by SammyD at 8:24 AM | Comments (0)



March 7, 2007

So while listening to the Splendid Table podcast, they described Carrot, Onion, and Celery Pasta. So I figured I'd give it a shot.

About half a bunch of celery, a good double handful of baby carrots, and onion and a bunch of green onions. A couple of cloves of garlic and a bunch of black pepper. Half cup or so of some extra virgin olive oil. In the skillet for a bit then toss it with some pasta and it comes out all healthy and good.

Posted by SammyD at 7:00 PM | Comments (0)



March 1, 2007

So two nights ago, we had turkey burgers (turkey, mustard, garlic, bread crumbs, and onions). I only used a little bit of the turkey. It turned out pretty good.

So tonight I used some Kashi 7 Whole Grain Pilaf, cooked it in some chicken broth to soften it up. Took the left over turkey mix and cooked it up and then combined the two, along with a bit more garlic and a lot more chopped onion.

It turned out a bit chewy...but that's to be expected. Quite tasty though. Next time I'll do as it suggested (to make it more tender) and add another 1/2 cup of liquid (after the 2 cups had been absorbed) to make it softer.

Posted by SammyD at 7:12 PM | Comments (0)



February 19, 2007

Written 8:35 PM on 2/14/2007 while driving

So the Matta's arrived around 9 or so last night (tuesday) and pretty much settled in to go to bed shortly after that. Cali was a bit grumpy cause she had slept most of the way and apparently didn't want to go back to sleep. So Jenny, Shannon and I chatted while Nathan tried to get Cali to sleep..it didn't work so well, but when he took her upstairs, after a bit, she settled down and the rest of us went to bed.

This morning, we headed out to breakfast, dropped all the girls off and then I led Nathan back a ways to get the mini-van's oil changed. We left it there and headed back to Perkins.

Breakfast went OK and was Perkinsish. I took Jenny to get the mini-van and then headed to the bank and then home myself, to get all our things ready to go. I did a quick backup of this computer (macbook) and brought our luggage and other things down.

Nathan quickly loaded things up and we were almost off, when Shannon reminded me to get Dan and Marissa's present. I rand back in, grabbed it and off we went.

Jenny was driving and shortly most everyone (except me) was sleeping, or at least resting their eyes. I read for a bit (catching up on cooking magazines still) and then decided it would be a good time to catch up on my watching of my video podcasts.

South of Kansas City, we stopped at a McDonalds to allow the kids to stretch their legs...which they did. Shannon and I had some Orange Juice and some water.

Our next real stop was in a city called El Dorado. It was about time to feed the girls so we looked for a place to eat...It didn't look like there was much of a selection so we ended up at this "Chinese" Buffet called China Star Buffet. It was...well...it wasn't good. When we walked into the humidity from the not so well covered water wells. It was so humid that my glasses fogged up and after I cleaned them off, they started to fog up again

It didn't look very good, but what can you do? Anyways wondering around the strange mix of food, from the very American to the very Americanized food I picked things out that looked the least likely to kill me. The food wasn't warm by the time it got back to my seat. The fruits tasted a bit off...kinda like they were fermented. The desserts were very dry...the hot tea was very bitter. The only redeeming thing about the place was a sort of sesame seed peanut brittle which was actually kind of good.

So I went up and paid, headed back to the table, got my coat, left a tip, got Nathan's keys and attempted ot go out and start up the min-van to warm it up a bit before the girls got out there. On Shannon and my way out, the lady that had just, not 3 minutes before, taken money from me to pay my bill, asked me if I had already paid. This made me a bit confused...and I told her that I had.

Headed out, started up the car, got situated limbo style in the back seat (I swear these seats are more intended for kids and not adults) of the car and waited for Nathan, Jenny, Taylor, and Cali to come out to the car.

They came out and buckled everyone in and then we headed toward Wichita. No I can't be much of a judge now, since it's dark, but the scenery in Kansas has been...well...obnoxiously the same...People say Iowa is boring, but sheesh...maybe I'm a little biased..

Written at 7:38 on 2/15/2007, while driving

So we stopped at the Super 8 in Perry, Oklahoma. Decent room rate, relatively clean and free wireless internet access. It was nice to get out of the car. We only have 3 or so hours left in our trip, since we covered the vast majority of it yesterday. I was thinking this morning that this toll road trip is a lot like the toll road trip to Chicago. Where most companies and towns avoid the road like the plague, where in Iowa on I80 there are lots of things next to the interstate. Does the road being free attract business? When we stopped for gas in Kansas, and this hotel here, we had to trek off the road to find anything. I find that kind of annoying, especially when you are trying to cover ground. If you are taking it easy, side trips can be fun...but we do have a sort of time frame that we're working with.

So Jenny had thought about not going to the wedding, because she would have to had taken care of the girls...and the wedding was late and then the reception was even later...so when it comes right down to it, she wouldn't have been able to really participate at all. I can understand that. Nathan asked some of his coworkers (since his company is actually based out of Dallas) to help out and they'll be watching the girls while we all go to the wedding. So that's pretty good..

Written at 7:05 AM on 2/16/2007 at the Courtyard at Marriott in Addison, TX.

So For breakfast yesterday morning we went and ate at the restaurant right next to our hotel. It was called Braum's. It was actually pretty good...but maybe that's just in comparison to the meal the night before. It was kind of like a fast food joint, but the sausage on their morning sandwich was very good. They advertised a lot of ice-cream and frozen yogurt based products, and I was curious to try them, but for breakfast? and in front of the girls? Probably not the best idea, so we skipped out.

We got back on the road and drove towards Texas. The ride started off a bit bumpy, since I think both of the girls were cold and so that upset them a bit which started a bit of crying. But after the car heated up, Cali calmed down and then Taylor calmed down.

After entering Texas (My first time, not Shannon's), we stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel. It was actually quite a bit better then the one in Des Moines. Not that it was great, but it was better. And certainly an easy place to feed the kids. It was kind of funny because everyone (except me) had chicken and dumplings. Afterwards, Taylor got a little playtime (she decided it was a bit too cold). We tried to buy some bottled water and a Mt Dew for Nathan, but they old sold Coke products so we loaded back up and started headed south again.

The last part of the drive was pretty short. We saw a huge cross (I think we saw them in a documentary on HBO, recently). Which reminds me, at the terrible Chinese place, there were scripture references on the walls, as graffiti...It was a bit weird. But it wasn't the actual words, just the references...so book, chapter: verse. Like that's gonna help people that don't know it very well.

We crossed a point where apparently the George Bush and the George W Bush turnpike come very close to each other...not the best naming scheme there...

We worked our way through traffic and to the hotel (Courtyard by Marriott) and Checked in. It was a bit weird, since the entrance was under construction (apparently to meet ADA requirements). We got settled in and then Shannon and I went out in the mini-van to find some inexpensive water (both to drink and for my CPAP machine). After going a few different ways and getting a bit confused, we finally found a Kroger Signature (oh so special). We had passed a Sam's Club (no Wal-mart next door) and then talked about not seeing any Targets in a long long time...(we made a trip later with the whole crew and apparently there was a target right next door to the Kroger that we just missed, but could see when it had it's lights on at night). Picked up some water and a few other things and headed back to the Hotel.

After chatting with Jenny for a bit, we found out that Dan probably wouldn't be available for the night to go out (I didn't even know there was a plan to do that, until we had gotten down here). So we made plans for dinner and ate at a BrewPub called BJ's Brewhouse. The food was actually pretty good. My burger that I ordered was a bit more rare then I ordered, but still pretty good. The beer there was pretty nice. Nathan and I sampled 6 of them (3 samplers, I had two pints, and Nathan had 1). The Jeremiah Red Ale, PM Porter, Tatonka Stout were the standouts. The IPA (Piranha Pale Ale), was good but not done in the style that Nathan likes (and that's the one he really likes). Nathan did comment that he no longer thought that Texas seemed like a beer wasteland (probably due to limited experience down here).

We headed back to the hotel, Nathan and Jenny put the kids to bed, brought the baby monitor over and proceeded to hang out. We were visited by Dan and we chatted with him for a bit and offered to do anything we could, to help get the wedding going...

After a bit, Dan ran off to get some stuff done with plans on coming back, but when it came down to it, it was pretty late by the time that he could get back, and the Matta's had already called it a night, so we told him to just get some sleep (which he thought was a good idea).

I think I'll be helping him out this morning by picking up a van (to drive the girls in the wedding from the dressing room in the hotel to the wedding). So we'll see what happens.

Our room here looks pretty much the same as my room in Pheonix. the only diffrences, really are that in this one they have a microwave and mini-fridge, but they don't have a book (with suggestions as to where to eat, how the hotel works and what not). This one also has a nice view of the courtyard and a gazebo, rather then the parking lot.

Written at 5:14 AM on 2/16/2007 at the Courtyard at Marriott in Addison, TX.

So we had breakfast at the simple but ok buffet. Afterwards we lounged around a bit and then Dan came and got us. We drove across town to pick up a great big (I think brand new) rented Ford van, which Dan then drove over to Marisa's Sister's House (I followed in Marisa's truck) and dropped off a few things from the truck and then headed over to a rental place, picked up a van load of things for the reception and then headed back to the sister's house to drop off the van. It was quite the adventure getting to the rental place, Dan got a bit confused and we made a few wrong turns. Lets just say it this way. It took us 30 or so minutes to get there and 15 to get back...so...

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel. We drove a bit and since it was lunch time we drove through Whataburger and Dan bought us lunch. I had a Bacon & Cheese Whataburger with jalpenos. The fries were ok. They seemed to be a bit under done, not very crisp...like they could've used another bit in the fryer. The burger was a bit different it seemed like it was more focused on the toppings, rather then the meat of the sandwich. So the bacon was crisp and good, and thin, but not paper thin, like you get at a place like Denny's or IHOP. The tomatoes and lettuce were fresh and tasty and the bun was thick and good. Maybe if it had a second patty, but it wasn't very messy, which is good when you are driving in the car.

Dan dropped us off at the hotel, and shortly afterwards, I headed down to Al's Formal Wear to get a final fitting for the tuxedos. Sort of a modern take on a throwback with low collared buttonless jacket and a deep read vest. The way that Dan had described it to Nathan, it seemed a bit weird, but it did look pretty good. The people there weren't very helpful. When I tried to leave the shoes there, they wouldn't let me. I told her that I could almost guarantee that the shoes wouldn't fit me...but apparently I couldn't NOT rent them...And with Ray asked about a pick up service, she not only didn't tell us what number to call, she didn't set it up for us either...She just told us that we would need to call.

So after waiting for Bret's coat to be redone, we headed back to the hotel and I came home to find the clothes I'm wearing to the rehearsal tonight all nice and ironed. Gotta love the wife :-) I must say they do look nice. Maybe there is something to this ironing thing.

Anyways, we head off to the rehearsal and then dinner here shortly.

Written in the Car (currently in a DFW area CVS) on 2/18/2007 at 12:12 PM.

So we headed to the rehearsal. We were running a bit late, but we got over there. But it didn't so much matter. Apparently almost everyone was running late.

So before I start describing the next few days here, I want to say I love Dan like a brother and I wish nothing but Marisa and Dan the very best for the rest of their lives. And I want to point out that I'm not being critical of them, just probably more the wedding planner.....

We showed up to a growing mass of people, since there were over 20 people in the wedding party (including the two ring bearers, two flower girls, 3 matrons of honor and Best Men (Nathan and Richard being in the best men group) and 7 bridesmaids and groomsman (Myself, Scott, Clif, Bret, etc) and some other people having to do with the wedding. So by far the largest bridal party that I've every seen, let alone been in. So eventually, people got organized enough for a run through...the only problem was we were missing about 30% of the wedding party and the bride and groom. Not a big deal though, I suppose, but it did make things hard for those of us who didn't have people to walk down the isle with. After the run through we tried to get another one started when the bride and groom arrived. Apparently the priest had left. The wedding planner was having trouble getting the run through started (she apparently couldn't get the attention of the crowd). Nathan helped her by projecting over the crowd. Afterwards, we quickly ran through another time and then headed off to the rehearsal dinner. We rode with Richard and Elana (since we then didn't have to climb through to the back seat of the mini-van all dressed up.

Richard...well...his driving scares me a bit. I was ok with it for the most part, but there were a few times where my heart picked up the pace a little bit. The dinner was at Cantina Loredo. This was, to quote their menus, "Gourmet Mexican" food. And I must say that the food was something else. I was quite impressed. even if the food was in a buffet it was still some of the best fajitas I have ever had in my life. The beef and chicken in the two mixtures were both a bit charred on the outside, but juicy and tender on the inside giving a wonderful mixture of the two. The sour cream, tortillas, salsa they had on the table (two kinds, both fantastic), refried beans...all just wonderful. Just a nice end to the day.

Somewhere in here, my camera was working and then...stopped... It was focusing fine, I went to take another picture and then it was blurry...I figured maybe it was the lighting or movement or something, so I tried something close, and not such luck. So I turned it off and the lens didn't retract all the way. It almost did, but it was just slightly open and then would give an error message after being off for a while. (Later I realized that it was the dreaded E18 error, which there are apparently whole websites dedicated to). So I was a bit miffed by it, but we did take almost 6000 pictures with that camera and it was out of warranty, so I guess that's what one can expect.

Afterwards there was some talk about going out to a bar and maybe getting Dan to come out, just for a drink or two, but Dan had quite a bit of stuff to do, and wasn't able to get out. And when it came right down to it, I didn't much feel like going out and Nathan thought that he should probably return to help Jenny with the girls.

So we ended up going back to our room and Jenny came in and finished off the girl's dresses. After a bit we all headed to bed, but planned on a fairly late breakfast, since we (Nathan and I) weren't too sure when we'd get to eat the next day after breakfast (Dinner for after the wedding wasn't until 9).

After getting ready, eating breakfast with the Mattas and Richard and Elana, We headed over to a park to allow the girls to play and then Shannon and I headed up north a bit to go to Fry's to buy a new digital camera. Nathan gave me directions how to get up there, and they were easy enough to follow. We got up there with little trouble and then went into the wonderfulness of a Fry's. This store is amazing. Huge but they have everything. Computer parts (fans, cases, motherboards), tvs, etc etc. Just something else. I was impressed. We headed in and found a few case fans for Nathan and then got myself the Canon SD800 IS (image stabilization) and a spare battery for it (since the style of battery for the SD550 that we have is similar but just enough different that it's pretty much impossible to use those batteries. So we headed up to checkout and did so. We headed back to the park...or at least thought we were. We stayed on the frontage road (to go slower and avoid tolls) but missed our turn. I don't think we even say the sign, but suddenly we were required to get on the road...so we immediately exited and called Nathan, who with the help of someone in the park, was able to (after a while) get us turned around and going towards the park. It was quite annoying. I turned the keys back over and told them, no more driving for me in Texas. We headed back to the hotel to drop the girls off.

The men (Richard, Bret, Nathan and I) headed into Richard's rented Dodge Charger and headed over to the reception area. We were not the first to arrive (we were a bit late because of my escapade in driving), but went right to work. We tired on black bows to gold chairs, put on table cloths, center pieces and what not. We helped put up candelabras and columns. Some point in there, Richard and Bret ran off to get us a Burger at BurgerHouse (I think that's what it was called). When they came back we took a bit of a break to eat our food. The burger was pretty good (the bacon was better then Whattaburger's) and this was the second time where I commented that I didn't understand why they had everything in styrofoam containers. Not like a great burger, but a good one none the less. We were found lounging around finishing up our dinner and were then put to work again by Marisa's aunt.

So we did a few final things and then headed over to the Renaissance hotel to get changed and take a few pictures. As we were leaving we saw them remove a few of the center pieces that we put in, apparently, as we found out later, to replace them with bigger ones. (Yay for unnecessary work). On our way over to the hotel, we stopped at a liquor store (where one of the items they had was a 50 ml bottle of Remy Louis the XIII Cognac for a surprising price that I could justify to myself (though Shannon couldn't so much justify it)). They had a wonderful set of scotches and cognacs and other fine liquors. I ended up buying Dan a half bottle of Patron Silver Tequila, since he had mentioned that he may want to do a shot for the day. Nathan got a big bottle of Jack Daniel's and Richard got a smaller one (almost coat pocket sized) and we headed over to the hotel.

We found out where people were in this very nice hotel (which according to Clif went up in a bout 3 months, during the time that he lived there, it was on his way to and from work). We went in the room at it was warm in there...and that was even before I put the monkey suit on. Finally someone found the thermostat and turned 'em on to cold. But it really wasn't in enough time to really cool down the rooms. the room had a great view of the city's skyline. And in the bathroom they had a few things which were interesting. They had mint and thyme shampoo and conditioner and a note on there that they had a complementary shoe shine service, so if you got them your shoes by 9:PM they'd have 'em shined by the next morning.

There was a bit of confusion as to when people were supposed to arrive. The schedule that we had gotten the night before said 2, Dan thought 3, and we were told 4 at the reception hall (while we were setting up).

So we eventually dressed up and I helped Dan with his cufflinks and Bret and Dan (one of Dan's best men). Who knew I had so much experience in getting all fancy dressed? Anyways, there was a wedding photographer in there with us taking candid photos and the planner came in to pin on boutonnières. Nathan commented that she didn't pin them on very well, and the photographer agreed. It was a bit silly and kind of hit or miss as to who got them on well and if they were at an angle or not.

We did do a few shots around the room between the Tequila and the Jack Daniel's. Certainly not enough to impair us, but just to relax us. We were told 15-20 minutes to pictures and that someone would come and get us. The wedding planner came back, after about 15 minutes, and told us another 15-20 minutes. Eventually we had a young lad come up and tell us 5 minutes and we headed down to the lobby. We took a few candid shots (but when you are arranging 20+ people it takes a while). And it was much cooler out here in the lobby then it was in the room (which was good for those of us who were sweating in the room. After the pictures we headed to the church (big beautiful Catholic church) to get ready for the wedding (photos before the wedding had been postponed to after, because of the timeframe given).

We were directed to go back behind the Sanctuary to a small prep place (where they had the cup that people drink wine out of along with some of the books and other things) and we just kind of hung out. There were a few jokes (Nathan was looking for a bathroom and I found one and told him to go pee for Jesus) and others that would happen when you get a bunch of guys around. We talked about a few things and then found out that Dan had forgotten the marriage license (which is one of those things you just can't forget) and had to trek back to his apartment to get it. His apartment was about 30 to 45 minutes away (depending on traffic) when you go the speed limit. In our boredom, a few of us put down $5 a person in a pool to call when the wedding starts. Yes, it was silly and stupid and a bit obnoxious, but we're guys... And by start, we decided that meant when the Priest came out. So when Dan got back (a surprisingly small amount of time later), we kept an eye on the door to find out when the Priest would come out. A little after 7:45 PM, He came out and Scott won the pool.

The question is where was the wedding planner in all of this?

The wedding was very beautiful (if a bit long) and Marisa was a vision of beauty and Dan as very handsome. I must say that Marisa's dress and the flower girls dresses (which seemed to be a slightly simpler and smaller version of Marisa's) are probably the most intricate dresses I've seen in person.

After the wedding many of us thought that we were free to go to the reception, but found out that we were mistaken and were left behind for a bit to get more pictures taken. We weren't there to long and Shannon and I hopped in Wade's car with Clif to head to the hotel (to pick up a bigger memory card, since I had forgotten to put it in our new camera, the memory card that it came with, pretty much allowed for 3 or 4 pictures taken at the top resolution and detail before the card would be full). From the hotel we took the short trip to the Addison Event Center to the reception. Wade had a pretty serious curb check on our way there.

So Shannon got to go sit down, but I had to hide in the back hallways to make the grand entrance. When we passed a mask to wear, it became abundantly clear that the theme was based on the Phantom of the Opera's Masquerade scene. Dan's dad Ray told me that he had picked them up masks from Venice (I think) where the style of party originated from (I think). Anyways, wearing the mask made it fairy difficult to see, for me, since I couldn't wear my glasses and the mask at the same time. I explained this to those around me and the bridesmaid I was paired with, told me she'd be my guide (which was very nice of her). So we would have waiters go by with the appetizer, which turned out to be the highlight of the evening. They were pieces of chicken and beef that were tossed with what might have been Chinese 5 spice, but probably not. They were quite good. fairly tender meet spiced well.

As for the rest of the food, I was fairly underwhelmed. The fruits were nice, the alfredo pasta was ok, the chicken marinara was...well..ok the crust was a bit less then I would've thought it should be. The beef brisket was a bit tougher then it should've been (according to Nathan) and the flank steak was pretty good, but could've been more tender. The sauce for the brisket was supposed to be horseradish but if there was any horseradish in there, it was a tiny amount. The cake was a bit dry (both the angel and chocolate) and had way to much frosting for my taste. The chocolate peelings on the cake were good though (I was able to grab a bit away before Shannon consumed them).

It still was a beautiful reception and after I got some food in me I felt quite a bit less grumpy and felt more social (especially after getting off my feet for a bit). They had a mariachi band for a while which was pretty cool and they were pretty good too. The DJ was fairly good at the organization (which was good, since, again, the wedding planner was at best incapable). The music was cheesey at times and a mix of Phantom, country, classics, and mexi-pop. Jenny and Nathan took the dance floor (Taylor and Cali were being taken care of by one of Nathan's co-workers) and they were quite good. On asking Shannon if maybe she wanted to do that and maybe take some lessons and she said she would...so maybe we'll be doing that...

During the Dollar dance, I danced with Marisa and Shannon danced with Dan.

Shortly after that, we said good bye to Marisa and Dan and our friends there and headed back to the hotel.

After changing out of the monkey suit and Shannon out of her dress, Nathan, Jenny, Shannon and I unwound a bit and then went to bed.

So there was a lot of missing direction and planning and coordination (again, where was the wedding planner, she was actually LATE for things at times). Things that had to be redone, because people weren't sure what needed to happen initially.

Oh well...After all the confusion, It turned out beautifully.

This morning, since Taylor enjoyed knocking on our door so much, we ate breakfast with the Mattas This morning. After packing up, we heisted some bread from the breakfast buffet and headed to the park.

Taylor and Cali got some playing time and feeding ducks time at park (as did Shannon and I). There were some odd looking ducks in there (I may just not recognize them).

Written in the car, Somewhere in Oklahoma on 2/18/2007 at 5:05 PM

So after the bread was gone, we played with the girls a while, swung on the swings and had some general silliness before we got on the road.

So we stopped for lunch at an On the Border. I was surprised to find that it was actually pretty good. It was a good change of pace. The salsa had some heat to it, the food was done right..our waiter kind of sucked...I asked for guacamole and cheese twice for my lunch fajitas, and didn't get them. For play time we wondered around the large store strip mall area and ended up in a Toys R Us...where Taylor had a bit of an accident. Jenny was not exactly pleased. I did check in a bed bath and beyond for the 8" omelet pan that I've been looking for. They had it, but only in a set of 13 other things, and I'm not dreadfully thrilled about that...anyways, Nathan suggested Ebay and Shannon suggested I try their website...so maybe I'll be able to find it...

Our Journey continues.

Written at the Wyatt Earp Inn, somewhere in Kansas 2/18/2007 at 10:15 PM.

Well after passing up the Universal Hotel, since it looked similar to the Bates Motel (and with nothing around it either), we went to the next exit. At this exit they had a few restaurants a truck stop and the Wyatt Earp Inn. It looked less scary and with the things around it, we thought it seemed to be less likely to be murdered in our sleep. We got something, checking in, that we haven't gotten on this trip so far...a key. Yes...a key for a room, not a card. It seems odd to me. But I guess that's when technology moves forward, some get left behind. The carpet has stains on it...I had to search for outlets to plug in all my devices (I had to unplug a lamp to get my laptop, cellphone, iPod and CPAP plugged in. We checked for bed bugs and Shannon checked for mouse droppings, so I guess we'll see what happens.

I was hoping to post this through the truck stop's wireless internet, but every time I try to connect, I get rejected. So...that kinda sucks...

Written at the Wyatt Earp Inn, somewhere in Kansas on 2/19/2007 at 4:51 AM.

So I did sleep some, but not very much. I think I'm up for the day. But I can't do much, since Shannon's sleeping. Pulling the covers back on my bed, I found crumbs on the bed. Shannon had suspicions and checked to see if it was flea droppings. She took a couple of crumbs in a tissue and washed them, because apparently flea droppings will leave a rust color (because of the iron in the blood they eat I suspect. No...they were just crumbs.

One of the things I noticed that was kind of odd was the clocks. They were set to be a similar time, but they were slow. By about 15 minutes. Most clocks in hotels are not particularly right, but they usually are fast (probably so you are not late for wherever you are going).

I am looking forward to being home later today.

Written on the road in Kansas on 2/19/2007 at 10:32 AM

So we skipped the truck stop, even though in the advertising paper in our room it said that it had won the the best restaurant in 1996 in Trucker magazine...We headed down the road to find somewhere else to eat and ended up at the Old 56 Family Restaurant.

The food was pretty good. Nathan said the pancakes felt done texturewise, but tasted underdone. He said it was weird and I agree that it was. The english muffin I had was fantastic. It tasted like it was grilled on the griddle, rather then in a toaster. Shannon and I also split a cinnamon roll which was pretty good. So a pretty good way to start the day.

The funny thing was that even though they had a table tent posted stating they use no trans-fat in their cooking, they do allow smoking in their restaurant...which is a bit funny.

To give the girls a bit of play time, we hung out in a Walmart (ewww). We spent some time looking around. We bought Shannon a cheap tetris game so she could play that in the car...which she is doing right now. After playtime was over, pottytime happened and we got back on the road.

Only a few more hours till home.

Written on the road in Kansas (less then 5 miles to the Iowa Border) on 2/19/2007 at 1:57 PM.

So we stopped at this truck stop Dinner Bell Restaurant ("Eat Well at the Dinner Bell"). The food was fairly lackluster. The fries were good, but there was too much thousand island dressing on my ruben. Mostly the food was pretty blah. I tried to convince Shannon to just split a piece of pie, but she wanted her own. The pie was actually pretty good. I had a slice (that I couldn't finish) of lemon cream cheese pie (a layer of whipped topping, lemon (like from a lemon bar), and then whipped cream cheese and sugar) and shannon had a slice (which she couldn't finish) of peanut butter chocolate pie. Both were worth the paltry under 3$ price we paid for them.

So we are in Iowa now and tearing up the distance to Des Moines. I've caught up on all of the video podcasts that I've been so far behind on and it actually freed up quite a bit of space on here. Of course now I have 11.2 hours of audio podcasts, but I listen to those at work, so I imagine after a day or 3 I'll be all caught up.

We never got a call from our cat sitter, so I imagine they are doing good, at least I hope so. I guess we'll find out in a few hours. We decided not to take 'em in for boarding since last time they freaked out so much and it took them (especially Gracie) quite a while to get back to normal.

Posted by SammyD at 6:42 PM | Comments (2)



February 12, 2007

I don't have a big waistline, I have a large happiness curve.

(can't take credit for that one)

Posted by SammyD at 1:42 PM | Comments (0)



February 10, 2007

So yesterday, I got up fairly early and lounged around a bit and then got dressed up a bit and rode along with the family to the Mount Timpanogos Temple (LDS). Since I wasn't allowed inside, I wondered around, took lots of pictures and what not...One of them, that I just found kind of funny, was a big Gold's Gym H2 vehicle in the parking lot. And I thought, the way Gold's Gym advertising usually targets your vanity and an H2 is just excessive and a sign of needless extravagance...It just struck me as funny in the parking lot...

Anyways, after wandering around for a while, I finally sat down and started to Text message Brandon (Shannon wasn't home from work for her lunch break yet). And through those text messages, I realized that for a religion that touts families so much, it seems really divisive...But on the other hand I do support their right to have sacred and holy places that us normal people can't go...I don't know...I just felt like I was missing out on something.

Afterwards we headed over to the Rose Room at Thanksgiving Point for a family luncheon. It was...interesting I guess. My brother-in-law Brent (Cara's) told me that it was one of the Wordperfect guy's thanks for being so successful...So that's interesting I guess. The Lunch was OK. The salad wasn't properly mixed (but still good) All the additional components were on the top and not throughout the salad, and so myself, being one of the last. The Potatoes were pretty good, but the the chicken was a bit overdone (not like burnt, but just a bit less tender and juicy then it could have been). But for a free lunch, it was pretty good. Alissa and uh...her...uh...I forget his name...husband I guess, introduced everyone in the room and then treated us all to a couple of musical numbers, which were both loving and sung and played very well... They had cheesecake for dessert...which was...well the crust was good and the blackberry and whipped cream was good...but the cheesecake part just seemed a bit off to me...like it had sat out too long or the cream cheese was about to turn or something...I don't know, but it didn't taste right.

Afterwards, we headed back to Cara and Brent's to get ready for the wedding reception that was hosted at their house. I went up to Camden's room (where I was sharing the room with Joseph) and just got some quiet time to myself and then after taking a little nap (I had a late night chatting with Joseph and Cara), headed downstairs to help setup. I helped make a nice cheese, cracker and tomato tray. It turned out pretty nice, I liked the way I did it. It wasn't want I originally wanted to do (which was kind of a flower theme in my head) because I realized that if I did that I wouldn't have much on the tray at all. I ended up with little rotating piles of cheese (7 per stack, just seemed like a good number). With the cheese around the platter on the outside, the crackers in a nice circle on the inside and the middle filled up with tomatoes. I helped out a bit more where I could here and there, and then we were ready...

It was a nice spread, from mints to nuts to sandwiches, hummus and cheese and crackers. People came in and out of the house for most of th night. By the end of then night something like 100 people had gone through the house. I took a break or three to just get some quiet time and to talk to Shannon and after the night was done, we all chilled out a bit and then most people started going to bed. I stayed up chatting with mom, Joseph and Hyrum. It was interesting.

The next morning (Saturday), I got up bright and early and started making breakfast. I wasn't able to get the bread I wanted (a French bread with too many ingredients), and forgot to buy butter (my sister had a surprising lack of it, but has plenty of vegetable oil based spreads) and the vanilla was kinda crappy (had corn syrup in it as a sweetener, none they had at Albertson's were acceptable as far as I'm concerned). But it all worked out. I made bacon, sausage and cinnamon encrusted French toast for about 2 hours or so. Fed 6 kids and 10 (including myself) adults, which is by far the largest group that I've cooked for. It turned out good...some of the toast in the middle didn't have the amount of cinnamon that I intended to have on them, but over all it was pretty good for small little toasts. I got good complements, the best, I think was Brent who said (even though he's fairly proud of his French toast), "I think this is even better then the French toast I make" (or something close to that).

So I didn't eat much for breakfast. I had some sausage and bacon and the ends of the French bread that were too small or hard to cut for the and a couple samples of the toast.

For lunch, Cara and Brent got a babysitter for the kids and we headed to Tucanos Brazilian Grill. While we were waiting for a table, I wondered around a bit and ended up buying Shannon some chocolates at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory...and now that I have the internet I have seen their stores before. I did buy myself and Joseph a chocolate soda which tasted something like bad chocolate syrup...so not very pleasant. So the grill is all you can eat... So they have a salad bar, but that's not what is important, although I did have a pickled egg of some sort (which was pretty good), but the meat was cooked on skewers and they would bring them around, ask if you wanted any and cut you off a slice or portion of the meat and then move on. They also had grilled pineapple (fantastic), vegetables (pretty good) and fish (this lunch it was mango cod) (pretty good). So the highlights for me were the Picalho (Garlic Parmesan Beef), Peru (Turkey Wrapped in Bacon) and these wonderful battered fried bananas. I don't think I've ever eaten so much meat in my life in one sitting...so many varieties of meat...so many things to try. Anyways it's night time, and pretty late and I've had no desire to eat yet...so it's still in there I guess.

Mom took me to the airport...She was going to meet up with a cousin of hers in SLC, so we headed up there. She dropped me off, and I checked in...

Easy enough. Called Shannon, told her I was on time, and the plane was on time...or so I thought. Oh no, it was a bit late getting to our gate. No big deal...we all loaded on the plane.

And waited.

and Waited...

AND WAITED.

It got a bit obnoxious. they claimed it had something to do with luggage, but that just sounded like a load of crap. So we took off. things were going fine and then when we landed they told us that people should pay attention to who needs to make connecting flights and let them off first. When we touched down, I had about 15 minutes between our landing time and when my connecting flight was supposed to be in the air. Now I wasn't sure I heard it, but I thought I heard them say that the Des Moines flight had already left the gate...and it had. I headed up to the counter, asked and then proceeded to get a ticket to stay in the Courtyard by Marriott. So I told the person at the counter that I didn't need my bag, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that yes, I would need it. So I ended up going to the luggage services place. In front of me was a couple of Canadians who apparently had a bag lost and tried to get a search started, but they had to go (they were in a tour group of some sort). So they were in a rush...but as soon as they left...one rep said to the other that if they're going to leave, don't do anything about it...like people don't have things to do...but they were nice enough to me. They said that they'd have my luggage found and put on the first luggage return...so I sat there. Called Shannon, call Chris (to tell him that I probably couldn't host movie night and make the dinner I planned), called my mom. I heard an announcement about luggage from my flight, so I figured I'd go check it out and in walking down there, I saw my suitcase...not where they said it be...but I found it. They check my request and gave me my bag, I headed out to get picked up by the shuttle and out here to the hotel.

Check in was easy and I've been chilling out up here for a while.

I'd rather be at home...but it's better then being in the airport waiting I guess...

I miss Shannon.

Posted by SammyD at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)



February 5, 2007

So we headed over to Chris and Holly's and I dropped Shannon off for Holly's Bridal Shower and picked up Chris. I felt extremely outnumbered (We were). We headed off to the Jordan Creek to see the movie Somkin' Aces. It was an interesting movie. The characters were very creative and interesting, the plot was fairly simple but combined together in a hurricane like fashion making it very fun. Chris seemed to really enjoy the shooting of the 50 caliber gun. Afterwards, we stopped by the Apple Store and Best Buy before heading over to On The Border for dinner.

Now I had been there before and wasn't exactly pleased with the service or the food (especially the desserts). So I guess this is our second visit. After drinking a couple of shots of tequila, I was shocked and appalled that by default they wanted to combine higher end tequilas with other things and make margaritas with them. This is sipping tequila, not mixing tequila...but whatever I guess. Both of