Healthy and Yummy Too

In the spirit of trying to make healthier meals, I came up with this mixed plate the other day. I scored some health points on the veggies, but I did use butter on the carrots and squash. 

Sauteed kale and garlic--sweat some sliced garlic in olive oil, throw in some chopped kale, a teeny bit of water and cover the pan.  Let it wilt for 6-7 minutes or so.

Orange Carrots--blanch carrots until almost done and drain. Return the carrots to the pan, add a bit of butter, some orange zest, a sprinkle of brown sugar, salt and pepper.  Saute until the carrots are cooked through.

Baked Acorn Squash--Bake squash halves cut side down at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or so. Turn them over, sprinkle with brown sugar, salt, pepper and dot with butter. Put them back in the oven for another 15 minutes, until the sugar is melted and caramelizing.

I had some of the gruyere pinwheels left, so I baked them up too.

Ticketmaster H8RS Unite!

I'm not the only one that thinks Ticketmaster's fees are out of line. This video comment was in today's LosAngeles Times . In Canada, a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Ticketmaster and it's subsidary TicketsNow. The two have been accused of conspiring to jack up the prices of tickets. Last week, New Jersey Springsteen fans complained that when they tried to purchase concert tickets they were immediately directed to the TicketsNow site. TicketsNow is a "legal" scalper and charges many times face value. I don't have a problem with scalpers per se, (how else would I be able to see a Packer game?!) I have a problem with entities being able to corner a whole ton of tickets. Let them have 5% of the venue and leave the rest to us little guys.

NOTE--I had to take down the video.....it annoyingly played every time the blog was viewed. If you are interested, you can see it here

Remember...you heard it on "the bubbler" first!

Good and Fast

I've been in a bit of a cooking funk lately. Sometimes I'm busy and don't have the time to make something nice but mostly I just don't feel like making the effort. So it's been frozen pizzas and Trader Joe's stuff. Even going out to eat sometimes seems a chore.
Tonight was one of those nights. I had to stop at the store to pick up some firewood. It's been really cold and stormy the last few days and we were out of wood. I wandered around the store wondering what to get for dinner. We had pizza last night, so that was out. I decided to give this frozen Bertolli pasta dinner a try. It was on sale for $6.99--a fair price for a meal for two people I thought.
All you have to do is open the package, pour it in a pan and heat it up. Ten minutes and dinner is on the table. And you know what? It was really good! Oh sure the sodium and fat content is really high, but this is definitely something to keep in the freezer for the times you just don't want to bother making dinner.

Field Trip: The Petersen Automotive Museum

We went to see a neat-o exhibit at The Petersen Automotive Museum. It was called From Autocamps to Airstreams and was all about the history of the travel trailer. 

Almost as soon as the automobile came on the scene, Americans wanted to DO something and GO someplace in their new-fangled machines. And a whole industry and lifestyle was born.

It was really interesting to see the evolution from this 1921 model
to this 1936 cute little trailer--
Some were built on bus chassis....
And others were one-of-a-kind masterpieces....
After touring the featured exhibit, we checked out the rest of the museum. Since the museum's founder was also the publisher of Hot Rod Magazine, there were some cool hot rods to see. Dale remembered this one from when he was a kid.

There was a Hot Wheels exhibit, a Hollywood vehicle display and a nice section of alternative fuel cars. The main permanent exhibit is titled The Streetscape: The Car and the City in Southern California. This exhibit took us from the first automobile built in Los Angeles all the way through to the suburban lifestyle  it made possible. We saw an old gas station, a early strip mall, a Googie drive-in, and even a restaurant that looked like a dog! Somehow tamale ice cream does not sound appealing!
This was our first time at this museum and it was really great. The exhibits were very well done and informative. I will definitely go again.

Of course all this exploring made us hungry, so we went "walking in LA"....a few blocks to the world-famous Farmers Market. We had some awesome Mexican food at La Loteria and some really awful (and expensive) ice cream somewhere else. It was just a really beautiful day to be out and about.

Party Food Trial #1

Next month I'm co-hosting a bridal shower for my niece and I've been busy collecting recipes and making lists in preparation. The party will take place in Wisconsin, so I have to be EXTRA prepared, I don't want anything left to chance.

I figured I should make a trial run of some of the new recipes before hand, so I don't have any surprises on party day.

These Proscuitto and Gruyere Pinwheels are awesome! I think this is going to be a new party food at Fartwood Manor too. They are extremely easy to make, but look and taste like you spent a lot of time doing them. All you do is layer frozen puff pastry dough with proscuitto and gruyere and roll it up, slice and bake. I forgot to add the chopped sage leaves and it was totally fine without. 

A glass of wine with a few of these=easy, instant cocktail party.

Octuplet Mom's Minivan

Oh, where to begin.....a woman with psychological issues decides to have eight children.....all at once. Even though she had six already.
The story gets weirder every day. I understand that some people have large families, and that's cool. But this isn't the way. A lot of people dropped the ball on this one and now there are 14 kids that are going to pay the price. That's sad.
A big thank you to Dale for the excellent graphics work!

All Raccoons Must Die!

Yesterday morning I repotted some plants and set them out on the patio to "rest up" a bit before I put them in the rock garden.
This is what I found this morning! Those damn raccoons aren't happy with stealing my oranges and avocadoes...oh no, they have to go mess up my plants too!
I know it is raccoons because they messed up the cat's dishes that were nearby.
To all raccoons: Say hello to my little friend.