Scrumptious Easy Salsa

So I'm on a roll this week with HW produce. I just bought fresh vine tomatoes, cilantro, green onions, jalapenos and really fresh limes 4 for $1.00.  With all this you gotta make some salsa. All my veggies cost under $9.

6 tomatoes

3 cloves garlic

1 lime

sea salt

handful of fresh cilantro

1 jalapeno pepper

6 green onions

3/4 cup frozen corn cooked

Chop everything up.  I chucked the seeds from the jalapeno. Squeeze juice from 1 lime and add salt to taste.  Add cooked corn or not.

Really good if everything is fresh.....and cheap.

Command Start

Well I had a heebee jeebie moment this afternoon.  I parked my car in front of a store and ran in for a couple of minutes.  When I came out , I thought I saw my car running with exhaust fumes.  This is one of those moments when you see something but you don’t think it is happening.  I mean I see the exhaust, but my car can’t be running.  Well it is.  Then I look at the vehicle...doubting...  perhaps  this is not my car.  I look inside...Yup..it’s my car.....What the hell?? 

So I unlock it, and the fan is running full blast inside.  In my bewilderment,  I sit behind the wheel and put my key in the ignition and can't shut the car off.  Now I  don’t know what to do. I never touched my keys or tried to Command Start it. Generally, if I do start my car with Command  Start, and I get in the car and try to put on my windshield wipers without putting the key in the ignition, the windshield wipers won’t work until I insert the key in the ignition.  So,  I take my key out, and turn the windshield wipers on and the car is still running  and the windshield wipers work just fine.   I can’t restart the car because it is still running. When I insert the key in the ignition again,  I can’t turn it off.  So of course now,  I have no cell phone to call anyone and have no idea how long my car has been running or how long it will run.   So I think , well maybe I can just drive it...after all it is running.  So I get in, put the key in and back up...works fine..... and then drive forward and put it in Park and turn the key off and the car finally shuts off.

 This was super freakin’ wierd.

  I am assuming that  somebody in the parking lot had the same Command Start  set up as me and started two cars at once.   A car thief or an accident?

Whatever happened...this sure isn’t very safe.  Especially if your doors were carelessly unlocked.

  So much for another great idea to have a downside.

Hayley Motivated Me

Well Hayley motivated me to draw my own eye...actually this kinda looks like Hayley's eye when she was little.

Spoookeeee!

A little photoshop when you don't have a black enough pencil

Yesterday I decided that I wasn't going to let Hayley outeyeball me.  So I was gonna get up this morning and draw. My Christmas garlands are finally put away and my vacuum cleaner has been on the floor for a week...but my goal was to draw.  So I got out my sketch pads and" no pencils".  Not a pencil to be found. An art pencil that is....I ripped apart my computer room as when it was renovated, I must have put all my pencils in a place I can't remember.  Why would I have put them with all the other art supplies??? This could definitely be a prelude to a migraine with really good visionary problems. Nope...my pencil case with all my pencils is no where to be found.  So much for the artistic moment.

. I had to get dressed and go to Michal's and buy a damn pencil set, with eraser and sharpener.   Why would this be easy? So now I'm set with my new Italian CD collection and am beginning my sketch.  It's great to draw with music until the CD player skips an hundred bloody times....just enough to wreck the mood I have rebuilt since morning. I had to get another CD player upstairs to get this show on the road.  Now I'm set. Once the art pad was opened I had a pretty good flow. I actually couldn't believe how easy this fell into place.  After all.....l I haven't painted an eyeball for many, many years.  I so much enjoyed this little challenge that I just might do another one.

 Who'da thougth that Hayley would be the one to get me out of a lazy, uncreative slump in one long sufferable, shitty winter?

Hayley is still creating.

See what happens when you don't do your homework and doodle instead.

Love it!

Artwork  by Hayley.

This shows  a desire to want to see things better. Wow!

Happy Birthday BJ

Can you imagine me at 31...oooops 32?

Hayley's Eye Drawing

Free Photo Editor

We may have a Van Gogh in the family

I can still fit into the earrings I wore in high shool.

 I am  only as strong as the coffee I drink, the  hairspray I use

and I can still fit into the earrings I wore in high shool.

Fake Key Lime and a Meringue that doesn't Weep.

Since we don't have Key Limes and regular limes here are absolutely juiceless, I was forced to use lime juice in the bottle. Also zesting our limes up here in the north isn't that great either. These two limes got the boot at 79 cents each.

Crust
1 1/2 cups graham wafer crumbs
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. grated lime zest
6 tbsp. melted butter

Filling
1/2 cup whipping cream
6 egg yolks
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup lime juice

Meringue
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1/3 cup water
6 egg whites
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir cracker crumbs, sugar, zest, and butter.  Press into a 9 inch pie plate.  Bake 10 minutes and cool.

Beat whipping cream till stiff...set aside. Whish egg yolks till smooth and add condensed milk( even use 3/4 can)until blended and add lime jiuce slowly.  Fold in whipped cream. Pour into cooled pie crust and bake for 15-20 minutes.

While filling is baking, dissolve cornstarch in water in a saucepan and on medium heat bring to a boil or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar till quite stiff and add sugar and warm cornstarch.  Beat till stiff peaks form.  Spread spoonfuls on warm pie and pop back in the oven  for 15 minutes or until meringue is as brown as you like. Best billowy meringue I ever made.

(The cornstarch stabilizes the egg whites and reduces shrinking of the meringue.
 Nothing worse than a cook weeping over her weepy meringue dripping off a lovely pie.)

Need a little Gas for the Day

I had such a craving for good ol' pork n' beans and there's nothing better than egg salad to have with them and a nice cup of coffee.

/

Budget Beef Soup

Monday is my "Make the soup of the Week Day".

 I was remembering a dinner I had in Ukraine at Zosi's.  There was a bowl of wedged boiled potatoes and just a sparse amount of beef scattered on top of the potatoes and  drizzled with a a little thin gravy.  Everybody helped themselves from this bowl.  We had perogies, sausages,bread and pickles....and of course vodka. But what amazed me the most was the small amount of meat compared to what we are used to eating here with potatoes. Money was extremely tight and this was their way of putting a meal together with a little of everything that they had. Everybody had maybe a tablespoon of beef on their potatoes.  I remembered the dish as I shopped for groceries today. I like beef soup, but I don't like a ton of stewing beef in it and I'm trying to make it cheap and different.   Old beef bones are $2 a package with not a shred of meat on them.  So I improvised a bit and  bought 3 Prime Rib Beef Back Ribs for $4.97. I didn't want cabbage and bought Bok Choy.

Glampingbaba's Budget Beef Soup

3 big Prime Rib Beef Back Ribs

10 cups water

1 tsp. salt

pepper

1 bay leaf

1/4 tsp. Thyme

3 big carrots cut in chunks

4 stalks celery in big chunks

1/2 onion chunked

1 garlic clove

4 potatoes chunked

1 Bok Choy cut up in big shreds.

veggie or beef broth

Put ribs in cold water with salt, bring to a boil, skim, turn down and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, covered. Take ribs out of the pot and slice off all the meat. Put meat and bones  back in the pot.  Add all veggies and spices except for the Bok Choy. Simmer for 30 minutes till veggies are soft. I usually add a bit of beef broth mix but didn't have any so added a spoonful of veggie broth to the soup. When the veggies are done to your taste, add the Bok Choy and simmer for 10 minutes. Discard the beef bones and you have a wonderful soup without a lot of meat in it.....and money left over for dessert.



Cammie Turns 3

I'm three now!

And I'm cute!

I don't care!

I'm goin' home with my monkey and my doughnut holes!

Well maybe just  Pooh and my doughnut holes!

I'm 7 months and and I still don't care!

Day 40 - Frickin' Seven

Finally a grader came....47 days after we were promised one.

I'm so used to backing up and hitting the ice mountain that I'm still not used to an open unblocked crescent.

It's a Bug's World

I must have had a screw loose this week when I decided that the kids should go bug hunting. I hate bugs. I think the winter has been too long. I usually can't even touch a plastic, creepy, crawly, slimy bug, never mind roaches and spiders and centipedes and whatever else you have with a hundred legs.  But for a crazy moment this week I thought this might be fun for two little boys to hunt for bugs in the house.  And it was!  They threw them across the room, and slid them down the stairs and watched them fly everywhere. Roaches, spiders and centipedes.   I`d pick them up and put them away and they would scatter them all over again. I can even handle the coloured ones now.....but those awful brown two inch roaches just creep the bejesus out of me. It wasn't enough to buy bugs, we got a bag of gold coins....like a hundred.  So money was thrown in amongst the bugs everywhere.  Another insane moment! Throwing them and hiding them is one thing...picking them up and digging them out of the couch is not fun.  Lesson learned....really think your ideas through before you act on them.  And never buy brown roaches. If by chance, one gets misplaced and you forget about it and one day it reappears......it will scare the crap out of you.

Bug Hunting Binoculars
And One Scary Eyed Bug Hunter

Gogee and his Bug

Here's Lots of Them on the Stairs

Who threw the bug?  Gogee or Lukee?

Gogee!

Watch this roach slide...

Hey let's go to the top of the stairs, O.K.???

Creepy crawlers....couldn't snap a Roach

Too Ugly!!

I'm the King of Money Land and Bug World

Rings for a King!

Does the kompooter say that  bugs like apples?