Right before we were about to leave for our San Francisco/Oakland trip Gar found a promo code for the first twenty people who used it to get free tickets to this one hour event with Chef Mario Batali and Chef Michael Chiarrello. The event was centered around Batali’s new cookbook “America: Farm to Table” and everyone who attended got free books (yay us). The event was fun. Chef Batali is very personable and surprisingly funny. His argument essentially is that you should buy foods from local farms as much as possible because a) you’re supporting local business b) you’re supporting local soil and c) you’re tasting the “geospecificity” of the ingredients. There was a secondary premise about buying $7 tomatoes where I was kind of lost but I think the very basic point he made was sound… not to mention I love free awesome cookbooks.
Chilled Out Goat
I mean… cute right? This guy was the coolest goat of all the goats there… and that bandana!!!
Tigger is one of my favorite Disney characters. I was walking by the line to see him and said “uh no I will not stand in a line with kids to hug Tigger.” About ten steps later I changed my mind. I love the way the pictures turned out. Tigger made kissing sounds at me. Instead of being creeped out, I found this to be extremely flattering.
Disney Pumpkins
There were pumpkins at a fall festivities area – these are my two favorites.
I recently took a trip to Disneyland with some friends and had a blast. We decided to go to this brief show “Conjur a Villain” set-up inside of a carnival tent where one of a handful of Disney villains will appear and interact with the crowd. We got Cruella de Ville. At first, I was like, “Oh damn I was hoping for Hook.” However, I laughed my ass off in that tent. Every child that approached her was asked if they have puppies or might get puppies and she very cleverly communicated her disgust in many of the adult’s clothing. She told one couple that was wearing matching clothing that they must’ve decided to match so that they could look doubly terrible. When my group approached her for pictures she just looked at my Star Wars leggings and said, “Those legs!” She insisted on covering my legs with her coat for the picture… loved her!
Rowan’s Birthday
It was Rowan’s birthday recently. Since we do not know Freya’s actual birthday, I decided to make it the same day as Rowan’s birthday for the purpose of convenience. I made a doggie carrot cake for the dogs and tried to put birthday hats on the little ones. That didn’t go too well. They wouldn’t keep a birthday hat on long enough for me to take a picture. Loki, however, will wear a birthday hat for a very long time it turns out… he doesn’t care. I think that while the hat was on we was just thinking… “Humans are happy! Humans give me food? Humans are happy! Humans give me food?” and so on.
I didn’t do a post about the cake because for a lot of pets something that unusual to their normal diet can be harmful in varying degrees. I know my dogs are good with all of the ingredients and none of them have any food allergies. The most common food allergies for dogs is chicken, corn, and wheat in that order. Some dogs can develop allergies or sensitivities later in life. With that said, the cake I make them consists of shredded carrots, peanut butter (no sugar or salt added), wheat flour, eggs, vegetable oil and agave syrup (or honey).
Fall Fashion Kitty
I love it!
Fresh and Spicy Coleslaw
I think I’ve said this before but I super love taco nights and I also really love cabbage on my tacos. Usually I just layer my taco with meat, salsa, onion and cilantro, and/or cabbage or lettuce but I wanted to do something different. So I decided to make this coleslaw type of thing.
Daddy Did It
This was the day when I had to throw out my brown eyeliner… thanks Gar.
Princess Freya
I played dress-up with Freya at work in our fall photo booth… what else are dogs for, right?
If you haven’t noticed, there hasn’t been a bacon post in a while. This is in part due to the fact that I have been dieting for the past two months. I’ve just been counting calories and exercising. I’ve lost 10lbs and I’m not too far off from my goal. I didn’t really say much to anyone at first because I felt like it would’ve been weird. If you wake up one morning and say “I’m going to start dieting today” and then tell everyone about it, there’s so much more room for disappointment. If someone asks you if you want to go get a burger and you reply “I can’t today, I’m watching what I’m eating” people’s expectations are much lower and they are surprised if not shocked when you actually lose weight.
So, my goal is to rock this R2D2 dress. Some people diet for a wedding or to fit into their old jeans. I just want to wear this dress! I want to be that chick at the nice restaurant/bar or whatever rocking the R2D2 dress with a classy black jacket and some high ass heels… yup.
Classic Deviled Eggs
I love deviled eggs! These are the classics: 10 eggs (I usually make a dozen and a couple don’t come out the way that I like them), 1/3 cup mayo, 1 tbsp mustard, 1tsp salt. I like to top my eggs with smoked paprika instead of just the standard paprika. The first thing you need to know about making deviled eggs is that you need to buy your eggs a couple days in advance and let them sit in your fridge. Fresh eggs do not peel well. Secondly, I’ve tried several ways of mixing the eggs with the yolks and I prefer a mixer or putting the yolks through a small ricer and then they just require a quick stir from there. Finally, I find that it is so much easier and cleaner to enclose your yolk mixture in a quart sized plastic bag, cut the corner, and pipe it into the whites.
I made these this morning for my co-workers in honor of National Veterinary Technician week. I had grand plans of making deviled eggs four ways but that didn’t quite fit into my schedule this morning. It was a nice thought though. You can make loaded deviled eggs of course but you could also add some fresh herbs like dill or thyme or whatever you have to change up the dish. Sometimes I like using a garlic rice vinegar to partly replace some of the mustard. Lastly, my grand deviled egg plan is to one day develop a recipe with heavy whipping cream to really get a light fluffy deviled egg. I’ll let you know if that one ever pans out.
Decorating for Halloween
Look out Christmas wreaths, it’s Halloween!
Grilled Pork Tenderloin
A nice 1 lb pork tenderloin is great on the grill. Even if you’re not a huge fan of pork, I would urge you to try pork tenderloin. When it is cooked properly it is beautifully tender and juicy. If you’re cooking it on the grill (which is really all I ever do) it develops that great charred chewy crust. This recipe is a modification of an Alton Brown recipe. I wasn’t too sure how I was going to like it but I ended up absolutely adoring this marinade.
I have been wanting to jar pickles for a while and I finally got to do it. Whenever I haven’t done something before I just look up a whole bunch of recipes and then make my own modification, taking the things I like best from each recipe. For the pickles I used yellow mustard seed, dill seed, black peppercorn, a dash of red chili flake, a bay leaf, and garlic cloves. It will be ready in a week and my fingers are crossed, I hope it turns out good. If it does, I’ll post the exact recipe.
My Talking Pet
I’m officially obsessed with an app I just discovered called my talking pet. Just take a picture of your pet, indicate where the eyes and mouth are with dots, and make a voice recording and oh mah gosh your pet is now talking. I’ve been using this lately at work. I try to make our clients experience as amazing as possible and, for the ones I know that will appreciate it, I send them a video of their pet talking. This is one of my favorite ones so far. This is a Ragdoll (the picture doesn’t quite do him justice) kitty named James who came in with a lot of back pain. We sedated him, took x-rays, and got him on some pain medication… luckily nothing was seriously injured. His family really enjoyed his video.
Spaghetti Squash
Spaghetti squash is in season…YAY! Spaghetti squash is great, I usually eat it with butter, salt, and pepper but there are a lot of other great things you can do with it. Its called spaghetti squash because it’s flesh (once cooked) is stringy and resembles…. wait for it… SPAGHETTI… kind of.
1 sm. to med. spaghetti squash
3 hot italian turkey sausage links
Pasta sauce to taste (check out Julie’s Pasta Sauce)
(serves 2-3)
Firstly, I prefer to crack open the squash (remove the seeds) and bake it face down with some olive oil in a 325 degree oven for about 20-30 min depending on its size. The squash can be difficult to cut in half… I insert a sharp knife perpendicular to my cutting surface and roll it downward. You can plastic wrap the the halves and microwave them or you can boil the squash but I really prefer the baking method. In the meantime, take your sausage links and remove the casings. Cook the sausage in a skillet on a medium/high heat and move it around so you get nice crumbles. Finally, add your cooked spaghetti squash and pasta sauce to taste. I topped the dish with some low fat feta cheese.
Close your eyes and eat this dish and you’ll swear you’re eating an amazing pasta dish. When Gar first tried this he looked at me and said, “This is now one of my favorite dinners.” It’s really, really good… and low calorie… YAY!
There’s really not too much to say about this girl. Her name is Puglet and that is the best dog tag I have ever seen.
My Life Goes To The Dogs
This is my life every morning. I get up, get ready, and sit down to do a little bit of work before going in to actual work and the dogs do this. The little dogs play constantly either with each other or Stitch Murphy and Loki tries to be a lap dog.
Football Time!
Well, it is still early enough for me in the football season to be really excited about it all. Unfortunately, I have had children’s birthday parties the past two Sundays preventing me from watching a lot of games. Fortunately, my team’s games were not at the same time as the parties. I’m not sure what that says about me if I care more about a football game than my friend’s kid’s birthdays. That last sentence sounds bad when I read it back…
Anywho, I’ve been crazy happy with the Dallas Cowboy’s running back DeMarco Murray in fantasy football. If you have a chance to add him, DO IT. Whenever I draft I never go for the very top rated running backs, I feel like they always disappoint and I’d rather go for a QB. My first fantasy pick of this year was Peyton Manning… I couldn’t help it. Finally, I suck ass at picking who is going to win games this year on Pigskin Pick’em on ESPN. My success rate is something like 58%. BOO! I hope you guys have had some fun rooting for your team!