First on 5?
Your pork pizza was posted yesterday Rigs. 
I’m trying to get the recipes posted as soon as I get them. 
**Smartie **-- you may want to check out this thread about Electric/hybrid cars!
[sub] oh. Um–thanks. [/sub]
<slinks away>
Who else is up for the ChiDopeFest? Come on folks! Off to make cookies now.
Let’s see, according to Mapquest I’m only 5 hours and 37 minutes away from Chicago. A bit far…
Soapy hope everythin’s ok.
I say we sic Spaz on Rosie’s judges.
MCUNE I’ll hunt down some recipes and post ‘em up in here. The cheese crisps are an appetizer or a snack. One can serve them to one’s guests as a pre-dinner treat or munch on ‘em whilst watchin’ tv and drinkin’ beer. They’re versatile like that. I’ll try to remember to post a recipe for for real cheese straws also. Cheese straws are a true southern thang. Matter of fact, legend has it that a weddin’ down south ain’t legal unless cheese straws are served at the reception.
Home for lunch. Gotta go forage. Later Y’all!
Cheese Straws??? We used to have those in college they were the yum. I have not heard of them before or since…I thought they were the creation of the company the college ordered food from. <ah nostalgia>
Easiest cake recipe (sort of butter cake?)
1 c butter
1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
Heat the oven to 350F, grease a round cake pan. Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs until everything looks frothy and well-combined. Fold in the flour and baking powder (try to be gentle). Add the vanilla, mix, spread in the pan. Bake for about half an hour (twenty minutes if your oven runs hot).
Very easy, very good. Takes about ten minutes or less to put together. You can top it with fruit before you stick it in the oven.
LiLi, do you happen to have a chocolate cake recipe? I’ve been wanting to make one from scratch and the couple recipes I’ve tried were very bitter and hubby did not like them at all.
I added the Easiest Cake recipe to the blog.
I think we all like desserts.
gotpassword’s German Penicillin, aka Chicken Soup
Cheap is where it’s at - I prefer dark meat, so I’ll stock up on leg quarters or thighs when they’re on sale. This is definitely not something you want to use skinless breast fillets for. They cost too much, and they have no bones. You need bones and skin for soup! You also need chicken fat. You can pull off those large ugly lumps of loose fat from around the edges, but leave the skin.
Take one chicken or a similar quantity of chicken parts. If using a whole chicken, you’ll want to cut it up. Remove the giblets. You can eat them elsewhere, give them to the dog or throw them away - just don’t put them in the soup.
Slice into the larger pieces to give them some more surface area - they’ll cook faster this way. You don’t need to fillet anything - just a single slice into the thick meat of the breasts and thighs is enough.
Toss them into an 8-quart stockpot. Cover the chicken with water - the pot should be about half to two-thirds full. Add a good slug of poultry seasoning, plus salt and pepper and a couple bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for a couple of hours. What’s a slug? Maybe a teaspoon or so? Precise measuring is for wimps and bakers.
After two hours of simmering, you should be well on the way - the soup will be a nice golden yellow and should taste like chicken.
Fish out the chicken parts and bay leaves. Let the chicken cool while you prep the vegetables - peel two or three carrots and two or three parsnips and cut into chunks. Dice an onion and two stalks of celery. Mince two or three cloves of garlic. Put the veggies into the pot and bring back to a simmer.
By now, the chicken is probably cool enough to touch. Pick it off the bones and toss the bones and skin. If you want, you can return the long bones (thighs and drumsticks) to the soup to extract a little more out of them. Don’t put the back or ribs back in - those little bones will break up and become hazards to eating. Break the chicken meat into chunks and set aside. After the soup has simmered another hour or two with the veggies, put the chicken back in, taste and add more salt if needed, add the juice of one lemon and enjoy.
…there’s no sugar in the recipe, but the instruction says to cream the butter and sugar…
We have turned into a written Food Channel.
It’s official: I have ordered my cap and gown and hood (I thought it was a stole–silly me). Am off to get hair all pretty and stuff soon.
**LiLi **is so sweet, her cakes don’t need no stinkin’ sugar. 
Judging from the recipe, I’d say about a cup of white sugar, but I could be wrong.
McUne, this one comes highly recommended! Otherwise, this one is also good and is just made with cocoa rather than chocolate.
Okay, I am off to beddy-byes! Nighty-night Mumpers!
I suddenly don’t want to go to the hair place. I dread the Conversation. You all know it–you are forced to make small talk with someone who is doing intimate things to your head and hair. I hate the Conversation. I think my stylist is nice. And she’s good. But I don’t want to hear about her life and I truly don’t want to tell about mine (that’s what you guys are for). Gah.
Off to have hair done.
I don’t need no stinkin’ cake… but I have a piece of Key Lime pie in the fridge that I keep meaning to eat, but keep forgetting to eat. It’s been in there like a week now.
Tonight. Yes. Tonight.
I just posted this over in the Potluck thread, so I thought I’d share:
Mango-Black Bean salad
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1-2 ripe mangos, diced
half purple onion, diced
1-2 ripe avocado, chunked
cilantro, chopped
1-2 plum tomatos, chopped
juice of 1-2 limes
drizzle of olive oil
salt, pepper
Mix all ingrediants gently to avoid mushing and let sit for an hour or so.
Swampy: thanks for the good thoughts, I will know more when the doc reads the films…
That and stylists’ occasional judgmentalness about one’s hair style (or lack thereof) are why I started cutting my own hair a few years ago. I want my hair parted in the middle and cut all the same length. No, it’s not fashionable, but it’s how I like it. So leave me alone! I may not get it perfect, but no one aside from my husband sees me with it down and when it’s pulled up, no one can tell that the ends are a bit uneven. My hair brings out my stubborn streak, can you tell?
How about a ChiDopeFest in May? We’re going to be down there for Memorial Day weekend. I’ll have to see if I can talk KeithT into it though. As a lurker, I’m not sure he’s as into the in-person socialization. But he did have fun when we went to the Twin Cities Dope Fest. And when we met a few of the Montreal Dopers. So we’ll see.
I went to the doc (well, actually nurse practitioner) this morning and I’m anemic. Guess that’s why I’ve been so tired, huh? But adding iron supplements isn’t going to help with the GI problems I’ve been having. So it could be a while before I feel back to normal. 
The below recipe gets a big thumbs up from me, my hubby, and all of my coworkers who aren’t allergic to or just opposed to nuts. They’re really really yummy! (The cookies, not the nut-allergic coworkers!)
Pecan Chews
From Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke
Can cut this recipe in 1/2 although I found that they aren’t as chewy for some reason. Go ahead… make the whole recipe and put some in the freezer. Or treat your coworkers. I find that our IT staff is a lot more responsive to my requests than to other people’s since I started bribing them with food!
1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)
3 cups brown sugar*
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp vanilla
2 cups finely chopped pecans
4 cups flour
Preheat oven to 350.
Cream together butter and sugar. Add beaten eggs and mix. Add salt, soda, vanilla and nuts. Mix well. Add flour and mix until flour is thoroughly distributed.
Form dough into balls about the size of a walnut with fingers. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Press down slightly with a fork.
Bake at 350 for 10-12 min.
*Brown sugar can be made with 3 cups white sugar and 1/8 cup molasses.
Nooner, I got annoyed with the whole electric car thing many years ago when the car manufacturers flatly refused to go with Delphi’s 42V battery system. This is a battery which is the same size and weight as a standard 12V but which stores three times the energy–practically speaking, JUST going to these batteries would mean that in stop-go driving it would be possible for the car to turn OFF the gas engine while idling at a light, then use a small electric motor to get the car going when you press on the gas, all while restarting your gas engine. They figured a 5L, V8 engined SUV could go up to 30mpg city just by implementing this system. They decided it was too much hassle to convert to a higher voltage system, though, because the lighting manufacturers would have to put step downs into their existing bulbs and relays and because mechanics might hurt themselves and have to change out their tools. :rolleyes:
There’s nothing much that irritates me more than when car companies ignore good cheap interim solutions for incremental improvement because they’d rather spend billions to find some perfect unicorn of a car that will be all things to all people–and cost 60K. Turdbrains.
Rigs, I have one word for you–laryngitis! Perfect excuse not to talk to the Hair Repairer.
Profit!
I’ll figure out some recipes to bung in here after my brain gets back from wherever it’s been…
WOOOO! I found a new place to live that I can afford! It’s not fancy, but it’s cute; a little studio-size cabin (as in logs) with a loft. The kitchen and bathroom are teeny but really I’m living in the same amount of space now.
I have to go sign the lease tomorrow, and I will probably move in Saturday. Thank the powers that be that I don’t have to work that day!
And I’m not going to move again anytime soon barring an emergency. I’m so sick of moving I can’t begin to tell you. But my own itty bitty cabin, I think I’m going to enjoy this!
I’m not cuaght up, but I wanted to post a recipe for the blog. Thanks, McUne! It looks great!
Crockpot Chicken or Pork
½ bag baby peeled carrots
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can cannelini beans (white kidney beans)
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs, or boneless pork chops
Salt and pepper
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1 can cream of potato soup (or cream of anything) (you can also add in diced potatoes with the veggies)
2 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs tomato paste, or a splash of tomato sauce, or ketchup
3 tbs dry sherry, or any white wine (optional)
Combine carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes and beans in the bottom of a slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper.
Season meat with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. Place in pot on top of veggies.
In a small bowl, mix together cream soup, Dijon mustard, tomato paste, and sherry.
Cover and cook on low 6-10 hours. Serve over rice. If sauce is too thin, thicken with a mixture of 2 tbs corn starch and ¼ cup of water.
I’ll be back. (I hope - I’m so Og-damned busy. <sigh>)