Phew!!!

There's been so much going on I haven't even had time to pop in here!  A busy, full work week, a 16th birthday and a weekend away!!  There's more to come, but I thought I'd leave you with at least a little something new!!

Birthday Candles!!  Sweet 16 surrounded by friends!!

Kaylin, Tiana and Mom and Dad at Enchanted Forest in Oregon.

When we have a better internet connection, I'll upload more pictures from the birthday and our trip to Oregon!

Complaints against humanity

Ok, so maybe I'm in very desperate need of vacation and that's coming up very soon, but I have some complaints.  Dealing with people everyday can be so enriching, so rewarding, so uplifting, so annoying, so disappointing, so frustrating!  So here's just a short list - in no particular order!

1. Cell phones: plain and simple - DON'T USE THEM!  No, I don't mean never, I just mean when you are in the checkout line, the drive-thru line, the Starbucks order line.  You waste the employees time, you waste the time of your fellow customer who is ready to order/check-out and you're rude.  There, I said it.  YOU ARE RUDE!  And whatever you do DO NOT initiate the call JUST AS YOU GET TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE!  Thank you.
2. I've used the very common, possibly trite greeting of "how are you?" so the proper response is NOT, repeat NOT, "Give me a mocha!"  Actually, that brings us to 
3. "Give me..." is not proper at all!  "May I please have...?"  even "Can I please get...?" is okay!  Not grammatically correct, but at least polite!  With pleasant demeanor and a smile I'll even take, "Phew!  What a day!  I need a ...!"  I work for pennies, maybe even for far less than what you make, but that does not make me your servant or a dog!  As a matter of fact, I think dogs get treated better some days!  Speaking of dogs, let's get to
4. Dogs aren't allowed in food establishments.  Yes, of course the exceptions are SERVICE animals.  That technically does not include your "therapy" animal (by law they are defined as completely different!).  ANYBODY can say their animal is a "service" dog, but does that make it right?  Doesn't that dilute the reality for people who REALLY need that service?  If you don't want to be asked about your dog and if you don't want your ability to bring him in with you to be in question -PUT A VEST ON IT AND MAKE SURE YOUR DOCUMENTATION IS OBVIOUS!  And you know, I AM going to question the validity of your "service" animal when I've seen you 100 times WITHOUT your necessary animal!  Just because today you didn't want to leave him in the car!  
5. Last but not least (and there are more!), in the vein of the previous complaint, make your life clear or don't be upset with me if I'm confused.  The other day I posted that a little girl made a very funny remark.  She came in again today and I told her mom (who happens to be a "fellow" employee) that we got quite a bang out of the statement that she had made.  Mom says to me, "He".  I was confused as to what she was saying until she made it clear that the little girl is a BOY!!!  With LONG blond (masculine spelling!) hair in a girly ponytail with bangs!  How in the world was I supposed to think this child is a boy?!?!  NO ONE of the rest of the crew today had a clue that this might be a boy!  Mom seemed a bit offended and maybe she's being all "new age-y" and attempting to raise her child gender neutral, but if that's the case, why was I practically chastened for assuming he was a girl?!  Giving girls the opportunity to be mechanical and scientific and boys the opportunity to play with dolls is GREAT! Being offended that I'm confused isn't fair at all!

On a more positive note - I have a chocolate angel food cake in the oven, the sun is weakly attempting to shine, the tinnitus I've suffered from the last day or two seems to be gone and I have only 2 more days until some well-deserved, long-time coming days off!!!  Thank you for listening!

Nuggets from the day

As a "bartender" I get to hear all sorts of commentary throughout my day.  Some tales are of woe, some sappy love stories, lots of joyous occasions, sometimes the story is inspiring, humorous, amazing, and often it's from the lips of a child that the greatest words come!  Today a young girl of about 4 came in and I was able to share with her a trick about her juice box.  If you pull the corner tabs up and the child holds the tabs then the juice doesn't squirt out.  Anyway, she was pretty sure that it looked like a SUPERHERO box now and then she said, "Well, actually,...I just farted!"  Wow.  Talk about hilarious and hysterical!  She seemed quite proud of herself!  Oh, kids are too funny! 

New Recipe

We had company for dinner the other night and I tried this new recipe!!  It was super tasty!

Lemon Chicken with Green Beans and Mushrooms - from Relish 2011
1 c. reduced sodium chicken broth
3 Tbs. lemon juice
3 Tbs. white wine
1 Tbs. flour
½ tsp. herbes de Provence
½ tsp. coarse salt
1/8 tsp. fresh ground pepper
4 (4-to 5- oz.) boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 Tbs. dry bread crumbs
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1 lb. green beans, trimmed and cut in half
½ lb. mushrooms, cut into halves or quarters

Whisk broth, lemon juice, wine, flour, herbes de Provence, salt and pepper in a medium bowl; set aside.
Lightly coat chicken with breadcrumbs. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until golden brown on both sides, about 5 minutes. Remove to a plate. Add beans and mushrooms to pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Return chicken and any juices to pan. Pour broth mixture over top. Cover and simmer until chicken is thoroughly cooked and vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.
Per serving: 260 calories, 10g fat, 65mg cholesterol, 27g protein, 17g carbs, 6g sugar, 4g fiber, 430mg sodium.

The only thing I would do differently, is somehow season the chicken first.  Maybe crush some extra of the herbes de Provence and rub into the chicken or add to the bread crumbs before cooking.  Maybe rub the chicken and let it sit for up to 30 minutes before cooking.  I would suggest AGAINST using any garlic in this dish!  Watch your chicken, if you pound it flat first, it shouldn’t take the full 15 minutes to cook!

Yumminess!

We were chatting at work today and I mentioned to my co-worker that I LOVED this cheesy lasagna.  I could have almost had time to make it today, but I was just too tired and too cranky to go shopping for the ingredients! I'll have to make it soon, or leave the recipe out for Tiana to do it sometime next week!  Or we could work on it together!  Slow-Cooker Lasagna With it I will have to make these homemade garlic Parmesan breadsticks!

Soft Parmesan Breadsticks

2½ c bread flour

3 tsp. 50% faster active dry yeast

½ tsp. garlic salt

¾ tsp. Italian seasoning or dried oregano

1 Tbs. sugar

¼ c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 Tbs. unsalted butter

¼ c. hot tap water

½ c. milk

1 large egg, room temperature

¼ c. butter, melted, for brushing on top

½ c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for sprinkling on top

(This is done in a food processor!)  Combine and pulse to mix the flour, yeast, garlic salt, Italian seasoning or oregano, sugar, ¼ c. Parmesan, and 1 Tbs. butter.  In a 2-cup microwavable glass measure, combine the hot water, milk and egg.  With the motor running, add all but 1 Tbs. of the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients.  The dough should leave the side of the bowl and form a ball.  If it doesn't, add the remaining 1 Tbs. of liquid.  Knead with the machine running for 30 seconds.  Discard any unused liquid ingredients.  Remove the dough and the steel blade from the bowl.  Knead the dough by hand a few seconds, adding flour if the dough seems too sticky.  For the dough into a doughnut and replace it in the processor bowl.  Cover the bowl loosely with a damp tea towel or microwavable plastic wrap.  Place the processor bowl in the middle of the microwave and and 8 oz. glass of water next to it.  To micro-rise, set the microwave power at the 20% and heat for 3 minutes.  Let rest for 3 minutes.  Heat for 3 minutes at 20%.  Rest for 21 minutes or until about doubled in bulk.  Remove the dough from the microwave and processor bowl.  Punch down and knead the dough for a few seconds on a floured surface.  Lightly grease a 13x9 microwavable pan.  Roll the dough into a 13x9 rectangle; place in pan.  Cut the dough into 10 13' strips, then cut the strips in half forming 20 strips.  Brush the sticks with 2 Tbs. of the melted butter and sprinkle with ¼ c. of Parmesan cheese.  Place the breadsticks back in the microwave beside the glass of water.  Repeat the micro-rise steps, except rest for 6 minutes at the end instead of 21.  Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375º.  Bake the breadsticks on the middle rack in the oven for 18-22 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove the breadsticks from the oven.  Set the oven control to broil.  Brush the hot breadsticks with the remaining butter and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.  Place under the broiler and broil for 2-3 minutes or just until the cheese starts to sizzle and turn light brown.  Watch carefully!!

From Bread in Half the Time by Linda West Eckhardt and Diana Collingwood Butts

 

Happy Independence Day!

We've enjoyed a beautiful day today!  Well, "enjoyed" might be a bit strong!  I started the day working at 4:30 am where it was SUPER SLOW and then SLAMMED!  I ended up being 12 minutes late in getting off and I'd started the day thinking I'd go home early!  During part of that time Kent was busy working on the side of the house.  The south end has needed new siding for a long time and he's finally getting around to it.  Of course, he's finding oh so much more that's going to be needing done.  The dining room window's hanging on by, well, I'm not really sure what in the one corner!  The screw isn't into the stud at all!!  I made some incredibly yummy cream puffs and for dinner we had BBQ salmon with an AWESOME lemon dill sauce and ribeye, grilled corn, Russian Vinegret salad, fruit and Chinese steamed buns!  Interesting but quite good if I say so myself!  Anyway, now starts the fun part of the day -- fireworks.  Coda is NOT impressed!  Poor guy is about ready for a benadryl and I'm going to need to go to bed soon, too, as I open at 4:30 tomorrow again!  So, I hope YOU have enjoyed your day and Happy Freedoms!  Most of all - THANK YOU to every person, past and present who has done their part to ensure our freedom today!

Siding project

DELISH!!

As I'm wont to do, I went on a wild and wacky Google Search and found a recipe for a Blueberry Cream Cheese Braid.  In the comments of the recipe, someone mentioned using Costco's Triple Berry Blend, and since I had plenty of those, I used that instead of blueberries!  I must say!  A KEEPER of a recipe!  I'm thinking maybe next time I need a bit of apple pie filling with a caramel drizzle when it gets out of the oven, or maybe leave out the majority of the sugar and make a southwest chicken sandwich, or ham and Swiss...The possibilities are seemingly endless!  There's a 16th Birthday coming up and I'm thinking that would be an easy way to feed a number of kids!