Totally Addicting Pretzels

This weekend I am using the Superbowl as my reason to whip up a batch of these completely addicting pretzels. The only reason I need an excuse to make them is because I've made them practically every weekend this year. I had them on New Year's Eve and was instantly hooked. They are simple to make and so much better than just plain pretzels.

Start with sourdough pretzels. This time I used the big tub from UTZ.


(We knew someone once who wasn't from this area and he didn't say Utz as a word, he said You-Tee-Zee. So of course now that's what we usually refer to them as also.)

Break the pretzels up into smaller pieces and put them into a big baking dish.



Combine: 1 cup canola oil, 1 package ranch dressing mix, 1 teaspoon each of garlic powder, dill weed, and lemon pepper. Mix well and pour over the pretzels. Stir the pretzels to coat them all with the oil and spice mix.



Put them into the oven at 350 and stir them every 5 minutes until the oil is almost all absorbed. I think it usually takes 20-25 minutes for this quantity. They are good warm, but I think they are best the next day. I think other spices might be interesting to try. Maybe a touch of cayenne? Or perhaps the bacon salt that I can't seem to find a good use for beyond home fries.

The nice thing about using the tub of pretzels is that you can store them right back in it. I imagine they would keep for longer than 2 days, but I can't actually confirm that....

The Pig

Tonight my Mom and I went to a little bar and restaurant that I've always known as the Pig. I think I saw a different name on the menu, but I'm pretty sure everyone calls it the Pig, because of the neon pig shaped sign that hangs out front.

After the pathetic excuse for a fish sandwich that I had last week at Red Robin, I knew when I came home to Pittsburgh for a visit this week I had to try to find time to have a real fish sandwich. "Real" being defined as about 5 times as big as the bun, with nothing more than the fish and some tartar sauce. The Pig didn't disappoint. I was also very happy with one of the daily specials that we tried, some homemade halaski (noodles and cabbage fried in lots of butter) which was delicious. It was also a bargain at a mere $2.45.

I try to include some sort of picture or image in pretty much every post, and for this reason the iPad is not the ideal tool for daily blogging. I did take a picture of the fish before we ate it, so when I get back to a computer I'll update with the addition of the picture.

Update: Here is the photo. I missed posting yesterday, so I only made it 3 consecutive days. I am counting this update as a post for today, because I don't know if I'll get the longer post I'm working on done.

Best Twitpic of 2009

I have been trying to find the time to post at least one more time in 2009 (to add to the measly quantity of posts I've had all year), and since I don't have the energy to do a full-length "Best of 2009..." post, I was looking through some pictures from 2009, specifically ones I've shared on Twitter via Twitpic.



I thought I'd used Twitpic more than I did, so this was the best I could come up with. It's from our trip to Martha's Vineyard in July. This place serves the best fried clams. One order is enough to fill you up all day. We did read that it is allegedly one of Bill Clinton's favorite places to eat on the island, so we had to check it out.

Snow = Food

Looking outside, it doesn't seem like yesterday's blizzard delivered quite the amount of snowfall that was originally forecasted for us. It would have only taken a couple of inches for me to happily declare myself snowed in, though.

That makes this a great weekend to follow my first order from the Lehigh Valley Food Coop. This was from my Thursday order, which turned out to be more than I thought.



Potatoes, sweet potatoes, lemons, pears...



Spinach, carrots, apple butter...



Yes, that is a carrot next to the apple butter. Short, fat, funky looking carrots. Word is that they are super sweet. I can't wait to try them.



Brown eggs, which Ali can't wait to try simply because she's always wanted to try a brown egg. I hope she's not disappointed when she can't tell the difference.



There's raw cheddar cheese, and really nice looking broccoli.



Pasta sauce from Butter Valley Harvest, made in Bally, PA.



And some Sumatra coffee beans. Locally roasted and very fresh.


(These were delivered to us on December 17th.)

I am currently planning today's menu, which somehow needs to include most of the fresh things from Thursday's order. Maybe some eggs florentine with home fries for breakfast, broccoli cheddar soup for lunch, and sweet potato pancakes with roasted carrots for dinner.

Let it snow.

Homemade Dog Food

For the last few weeks my dogs have been enjoying my version of homemade dog food. My inspiration to start making it for them was my friend Shari and her gorgeous dog Ben:



Ben is HUGE, yet buff. His fur is shiny and soft, his eyes are bright. He is sexy. So after watching him devour the homemade food that Shari makes for him, I decided to give it a try for my freak dogs. (Speaking of freak dogs, interesting to see the comments on my post about my Gypsy's crazy fear of hiccups.)

I considered taking pictures of each step of the process, but it's actually kind of gross. And the smell is pretty nasty too. I suppose that's why the dogs like it so much.

So based off of Shari's recipe and some that I found online, my basic recipe is:

• 5 lbs of ground beef (80/20, browned and drained.)
• 3 lbs of chicken livers (Cooked in a pot with just enough water to cover them, then mashed well with a potato masher. Definitely the most disgusting part.)
• 4 or 5 eggs (Shells included, blended in a blender then cooked in with half of the ground beef when it's nearly done.)
• Big bag of frozen mixed veggies (Cooked with a little water, then mashed well.)
• Brown rice

Once it's all cooked and mixed together well it looks pretty much like any other wet dog food:


To serve it we mix in a bit of bone meal, some water to moisten it, and then a few squirts of salmon oil over the top. I do intend to check with my vet soon to make sure she approves, but I think she will. They get 2 meals a day, breakfast and dinner. As fast as they devour it, it's amazing that they haven't choked yet. As soon as one of them empties their bowl, they immediately go to the other's to make sure nothing was left behind.

One of the goals of this is to get a few pounds off of 13 year old Gypsy. She's developed a fairly significant limp on her left front leg and besides possibly her arthritis, the vet has no idea why. Other than that, she's pretty healthy for an old lady. But she definitely could stand to drop some weight. I haven't weighed her since we started, but I think she might have lost a pound or two. This despite the fact that she is so fat and happy after she eats that the next few hours are spent passed out cold.


I should also mention that this has been made MUCH easier thanks to my Mom, who does the actual feeding of the girls every day. And the multiple walks she takes them on each day also are contributing to the bounce they both seem to have in their step lately.

Food, Inc

Wow.

A Midsummers Recap

July 25th is probably technically right smack in the middle of summer, yet somehow it feels like we are in the home stretch. It's been a fairly busy couple of months. I don't have any brilliant ideas for a post, so I think I'll borrow the bulleted list idea--from a blog I really like.


--Heading to our 2nd Phillies game of the season this afternoon. The seats for our last game were directly up from 1st base. WAY up. As in the next to the top row. At least I got a nice shot of the Philly skyline that we were right next to:


philly from 415

--Just got back from a long weekend in Portland, Maine. Highlight of the trip was spending time with my best friends, but a close second was the Wilco show on Friday night. I took a ton of pictures all weekend, with a few shots that I really really like. I was hoping for better shots from the concert, but between my lack of experience with my camera, the crowd, the dark, and the Magic Hat, I didn't get many good shots.


Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band







Better shots from the next couple of days after the concert:


Display at the place we bought much lobster, one of my favorite pics. (I think it would make a great puzzle.)






Lake Harmony


--We're leaving on Monday for Martha's Vineyard for a week. The first thing anyone who has been there says when I say I'm going is "It's beautiful" followed immediately with something like "Bring a sweater!" So I have no high expectations for hot, sunny beach weather. But hopefully I will be able to continue to improve my photography skills and bring back some decent shots.

There's One Main Reason I Don't Think I Could Be a Vegetarian

Lobster.


(Sick quantity of lobster in this shot prepared by Chef Mote, October 2003.)

What do you call a vegetarian who eats seafood? I could do that, I really think I could. I don't think I'd need chicken or pork or beef if I could still have fish.

Seafood just somehow seems morally OK. I mean we're talking about eating things that live in shells that we dig up from the ocean. And big bugs. Plus they are ridiculously delicious.

I could give up things with faces though. Except fish. But is that technically a face? If you cannot see 2 eyes at once maybe it's not a face.

Dylan Moran's take on vegetarianism is one I think I could handle. Except for the part about the faces. (The whole thing is funny, but this is at 2:10.)

Gorgeousness and Gorgeosity Made Flesh

I'd like to thank my landscaper, for the lovely soil he brought me; the nursery, for the perfect (once) little tomato plants; mother nature, for her generous rain showers at critical junctures; my next door neighbor, for his meticulous watering while we were on vacation; my daughter, for her help and hope and for bursting into song with each of our first fruits; and last but not least, Luna, my diligent, fierce beaglador bunny patrol.


She deserves a rest, she's been busy.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

I was so proud of my little garden. My first one at this house, my chance for my own home grown tomatoes. I was proud when it just looked like this:

And I was ecstatic when a few weeks ago it looked like this:

Tomatoes apparently love hot, humid weather. So a few short weeks after the picture above, they have taken over the garden.

I've spent the last week trying to rein them in. For the ones that originally had cages, I've been feeding some of the longer vines back through the cages. I added a bunch of wooden stakes and tied vines to them. The tomatoes that are next to the peppers have completely overshadowed their neighbors, so I really tried to pull them back and give the peppers some room. I trimmed some of the non-producing vines (the technical term for them is "suckers" I believe) and removed the withering leaves. I've done everything I can think of to tame them. Everything, that is, except thinning them out. They are covered with green tomatoes, and I just can't bear to destroy any of them.

I'm not sure how I will actually be able to pick any of them from the center,though, since the plants on the outside edges are already as tall as me (I'm 5'8".)
The back half of the garden looks pretty good, despite the wall of tomatoes that borders it.

And I'm such a dork that I took some close-ups of some of the other veggies. Do you want to see those too? I thought so.
Oddly shaped, although I'm certain delicious, green pepper:

Crazy fast-growing cucumber, that I swear has doubled in size each night this week:

I don't want to speak too soon and jinx it, but it seems that the bunnies have stayed away so far. It could be from the lavender planted on the edges of the fence, or the Pro-Tec along the whole fence. Perhaps I should also credit my Bunny Patrol:


Got any good recipes for tomatoes?

The Power of Positive Thinking

In April I posted about my garden. Technically, I posted about my awesome garden. At that point it was just a mound of dirt with some chicken wire around it, but I was hoping to invoke the power of positive thinking by referring to it as awesome, so that I would be properly motivated to plant it and take care of it. I loves me some home grown tomatoes, so the payoff should be worth the effort.

I am leaving today for a vacation at the shore for a week (in Pittsburgh we always said "the beach", but now I've converted to the way everyone on the other half of the state says it, "the shore"), and I wanted to take some pictures to show the progress, and also so that I can see how much it grows while I'm gone. I thought I'd better post them now, since it looks so good.



I took some even better pictures, but Blogger is ornery this morning and will only let me post this one. But trust me, the tomato plants are looking perfect. Hopefully we'll get a bit of rain here while I'm gone, and when I return in a week they'll look even better!

My Awesome Garden

I'm not sure if there is a more perfect food than the fresh, home-grown tomato. (Well, maybe smoothies. But since they aren't a single food item, it's not the same thing.) I love it when people bring bags of fresh-picked tomatoes from their garden in to the office later in the summer. I like the other things from the gardens, too--zucchini, beans, peppers--but you can keep all of those if I get the tomatoes.

Every year since I've owned a house I've thought about planting my own garden. I think I may have even attempted it once in my last house. I have just a vague memory of a few tomato plants and some chicken wire, but since that's literally all I can picture I don't think it went well. I must have blocked it out.

So finally, this is the year. Really, it is. I got smart about the whole thing. I had a landscaper put in a small (12x6) raised bed, fill it with lovely soil, and surround it with chicken wire.



Now since the hardest part is done, I am excited about getting the real gardening started. While I truly know virtually nothing about gardening, I think with the head start I have this year I should be able to do OK. I mean, how hard can it be?

I have a rough idea of what I want to grow, and I'm looking forward to picking out the plants. A few pepper plants (jalapeno, habanero, pablano) zucchini, cucumber, some herbs, and a few tomato plants.

We also have a giant cabbage plant that I was hoping to make room for, but after reading about it I think it's going to have to go in its own spot somewhere else. My daughter has named him "Tim" and thinks he is going to have a prime spot in the garden. But he needs 3 feet on each side and that would take up pretty much the whole garden, so he's going to need a separate home.

So wish me luck. I just hope that I have this same motivation when it's 90 degrees outside and humid and the garden needs to be weeded...

Ahh, Smoothies

I'm a big fan of Ellie Krieger. Ellie has a show on The Food Network, and her focus is on healthy eating with a very realistic approach. She apparently is a former model-turned nutritionist, so when you first tune in you might expect something different. But I find her very down-to-earth, and most of her recipes that I've tried are quite good. Her ideas are usually simple and just basic common sense, but for some reason when it comes to eating right many people have trouble applying common-sense.

So after reading her book Small Changes, Big Results: A 12-Week Action Plan to a Better Life one of the changes I made was to always eat breakfast. When I was younger, breakfast was totally optional. Even as a kid, the only times I can remember sitting down and eating breakfast at home were weekends. In college it was definitely only a weekend activity. I guess I just got into the bad habit of not eating breakfast and convinced myself I wasn't hungry that early.

Even though I now always eat breakfast, I'm not a big morning person. I'd rather sleep for 15 more minutes than have the time to prepare a meal before I leave for work. So that's why I am completely hooked on the breakfast smoothie. It has become a morning ritual for me that I am so addicted to it even carries over to weekends, when I actually would have the time to cook.

My basic recipe consists of: plain, non-fat yogurt; some juice (pomegranate is my current favorite, although OJ is fine too); 1/2 of a frozen banana; frozen blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries; some flax meal; and some honey (Weil Bee-ings is yummy). I just toss it all into the blender, no measuring, and puree for a couple of minutes. Just long enough to get my shoes and coat on. Pour it into an insulated mug, insert straw, and I'm out the door.

I've been drinking a smoothie every day for just over a month, and I swear it really has made a difference in how I feel. It might be partially in my head, but if it works who cares?

Bad Dog

I don't have just one unbelievably cute but sometimes very bad dog. I have 2.

Luna is just a year old, and essentially still very much a puppy. It's easy to justify her behavior. Besides the incident with the Christmas tree, Luna has also destroyed an arm of the couch, a windowsill, and the occasional shoe.

I blame part of her behavior on her role model: her older sister, Gypsy.



Yes, they look adorable. Innocent even. And on the average weekend they sleep for a good 18--20 hours a day. But let your guard down for just an instant, and that's when they strike. That's how Luna got up close and personal with the wooden windowsill in the living room. And that's how Gypsy got an unexpected extra meal yesterday.

I thought I had pushed the giant cinnamon muffin far enough back on the counter so that it was out of reach. When I returned a couple of hours later, it was gone. After determining that no human had eaten it, I realized that it was Gypsy. She left no evidence--not a crumb, not a scrap of the paper--but I took one look at her face and I knew she was guilty. She spent the rest of the afternoon snoring away on the couch, belly full and content. I just hope she is still happy when the muffin paper...well, let's just say when it reappears.

Another New Pizza?

I'm officially convinced that the big chain pizza purveyors will never run out of ideas for new kinds of pizzas. Every time I think they can't possibly come up with some new way to mangle the perfection of the basic dough-sauce-cheese pie, they prove me wrong. The latest is Pizza Hut's "Double Deep". Apparently, they've re-engineered the crust to accomodate twice as much stuff, with extra high edges to keep all of the greasy, gooey junk from spilling out. It looks to be about 4 inches high.

I wish I had been keeping track of all of the mutations Pizza Hut, Dominoes, and any other chains have put the poor pizza through over the years. Just off the top of my head, here are a few of the worst that stand out for me:

--the stuffed crust (how much cheese do you really need in a pizza?)
--the square pizza with each quandrant prepared with different toppings
--strips of pizza served with multiple dipping sauces
--"cheesy bites" pizza, where you break off the cheese filled crust and dip them into more goo
--Dominoes' current thing, appears to be 2 pizzas stacked on top of each other

I know there are tons more that have mortified me over the years, but these are all I can think of. I'll stick to any of my local pizza places any day. Even the lousy ones are better than any of the large chains.