Adventures In Unhealthy Eating

The Mrs. is out of town with the Knitting Mafia this weekend, so it's me and the kids.  We (I) have decided to celebrate by eating Things That Are Exceptionally Bad For Us.

Dinner last night was hot dogs and oven fries, breakfast today was donuts.  Lunch will be at Muster Day, an open house at Camp Mabry, the National Guard base here in Austin.  Probably something grilled and/or on a stick.

Dinner tonight is chopped BBQ pork sandwiches.

Tomorrow night we're back to healthier eating choices.

Life is good.

Fear Not...

As most of you are aware, I start a new job today.  Almost 4 years after being laid off, I have a job that I think I'll really like at a homebrew supply store, a job with real career potential.

Here what I will do:

• Keep blogging
• Come up with more interesting/entertaining things to do with cooking
• Tell some more stories
• Maybe do a couple of contests/giveaways

What I won't do:

• Write about work

Looking forward to the new gig, and the new possibilities it's opening for me.  Thank you to everyone for reading so far, and welcome to any new readers out there.

As a by-the-way, I racked my Reisling yesterday, and set a block of proto-cheddar out to dry preparatory to banding it in cheesecloth.  The Reisling gets bottled in 2 weeks, and the cheddar will need to age 3-6 months.  

Good times.

And, hey, good eating.

Everybody's Workin' For The Weekend

Got a busy weekend planned - I'm racking my second batch of wine (Reisling) and making some cheese (Caerphilly). In progress is a gallon of mead, made using this recipe. I got my hands on several 1-gallon glass jugs from some good local friends, and since 1 gallon is cheaper to make in terms of ingredients than 5 gallons, I'm starting small. Next up is mango-habanero mead, I think. It'll be several months before I know if it's drinkable, so look for a Vikings! Quaffing! Mead! post sometime in late spring or early summer.

According to my calendar, the wine I started around Thanksgiving is ready to drink now, though it will taste better the more it ages. If I gave you a bottle in a fit of misplaced generosity, you can drink it today.

Last weekend, I made a batch of mozzarella, which I then put on a pizza, and there was much nommage. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the process. Someone out there, remind me to get pics of cheesemaking this weekend.

That's what I got going on right now.  Lots of busy-work, lots of little projects to keep my mind busy.  You guys got any big projects coming up?

Rejected Blog Post Ideas

Not so much cooking stuff here as a list of ideas I have rejected (some summarily, some after a little thought) for posts on this blog in the last week:

1. (video post) Cooking In Our Winter Underwear
2. Horrible Meals People I Love Have Cooked For Me
3. Dog Food - Is It Really That Bad For Humans?
4. Foie Gras - Those $#@*!?&%$# Geese Deserve It
5. A Week Of Toast
6. How Intoxicated Can You Be And Still Use A Dull Knife To Slice A Hard Bagel?

I'm working on either a video post or a series of photos of me cooking something - likely pizza, or a soup.  

Coming soon, I'll be making cheese.  There will be pictures of that mess in action.

Baking The Blues Away

It's been a while since I blathered here, and I offer my apologies.  I've been busy, trying to get everything sorted out for Christmas here - gifts to buy and packages to mail, and various and sundry other errands to take care of.

Had some bad news tonight - not surprising bad news, but confirmation of something I'd been expecting, so I'm feeling down.  Tomorrow, I'm going to do something about it.

I'm going to bake bread.  No mixer, I'm going to burn out my frustration by kneading the dough by hand.  It's too cold and rainy to exercise, and I don't go for that anyway, so it'll be a day of clearing my head of anything except the dough and the very next step I have to take.

That'll do the trick, I think.  If not, well, I have wine.

It's A Crazy Idea, But It Just Might Work...

Planning for our New Year's Day get-together, and I'm thinking I'll make a lucky soup, because everyone could use more of it.  I set up a poll on Facebook to get some ideas for tasty ingredients that might touch on the  "luck" theme.  I'm starting with duck broth, so pop on over and voice your thoughts.