Flashback Friday!

Today, lets go back to the 60's. Our subject is Dame Margaret Rutherford and her take on the famous Miss Marple.





This one is my favorite of the four films. I love when she is doing The Twist!






These four films are currently available as a box set at Amazon.com for $37.99 and are eligible for their free shipping promotion.


Have a good weekend!!

Hilarious products advertised on the Tee-Vee

Thanks to the Ridiculous Infomercial Review Blog for some of these!


Gee, we'll just spell out the name and that will fix everything. LOL




Boy, I'm sure glad I'm not golfing with these guys! That peeing in the golf club is way disturbing.





Why do I think some company had a warehouse full of metal lazy Susans they needed to unload?





If it rips, can you patch it with some duct tape?





I am so 12.




The people trying to work at their desks while using this is priceless!






Can I wear my Slim-Suit, sit on my Aerobic Body Shaper in my Hawaii Chair and use my Facial Flex all at once? I am gonna look sooo hawt!! Then I'm getting in my car with my bear, my golf club, and my fish deboner and have myself a par-tay! Whoot!

My eyes, my eyes...( Gagtastic Emails part II)

I've stripped out a bunch of stuff as it keeps screwing up. If you want to see this in all it's glory then check my profile for my email and put "please show me the gagtastic sparkly crap" as your subject line. Shoot, I'll even strip out the 500 email addresses it was addressed to and only send you one copy of this bad boy. What a deal! Rush to your phones people!!

So, I'm innocently checking my email and find the following craptastic email. I do like the picture of the flowers and would like to invite the picture to please leave the email ASAP.


FROM ME TO YOU

(There was a drawing of a snapdragon here.) I just wanted you to know that I have entered the snapdragon part of my life part of me has snapped and the rest is draggin' (There was a disturbing cartoon of a very tired looking turtle here.) Here is the plan: send this flower to four people you want to have a good day. I picked you. If you don't have four friends, then don't bother sending any. This is SO positive and there is nothing attached. Let's continue to send this along. Have a bright sunny day! (There was a sparkly picture of a duck wearing purple overalls and holding a flower here. The text said: A friend is someone who thinks you're a good egg even though you're slightly cracked!!) OR Sometimes Slightly Scrambled!! May you always have Love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends who Care. From one of your slightly cracked friends

Let's look at a certain section again:

Here is the plan: send this flower to four people you want to have a good day. I picked you. If you don't have four friends, then don't bother sending any.

So if I only have three friends should I just jump off a bridge or what? You know what? I'd rather have one true friend who loves and accepts me just as I am than a whole gaggle of empty-headed idiots who send each other sparkly gagtastic emails every five minutes.

This is SO positive and there is nothing attached. Let's continue to send this along. Have a bright sunny day!

Uh, you just got through telling me that if I didn't have four friends to forward this crap to not even bother, and now you want to blather on about rainbow farting unicorns and such? Go away!

Whoot! Hairball finds another fab-u-lous recipe to try!!

My dear readers, you simply must make this ASAP!


Go find some paper and a pen and I'll watch the crazy local weather dude do his thing while waiting for you to come back.



Are you ready for this?



Are you sure??



Hang ONto your undies because this will blow you away!



Okay round up the following ingredients:


2 lbs ground turkey or hamburger seasoned cooked and drained
3 2lb bags tater tots
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
2 cans cream of chicken soup
2 cans evaporated milk


Gotcha!!


You really thought I was gonna make the Duggar Family's Tater Tot Casserole!?!


You guys are hysterical!! ROTFL!!!! Whoot!!

Stop putting old songs I like on commercials!!

I saw a Tums commercial this past weekend featuring this song.



I like this song and it really bugs me to now think of antacids whenever I hear it. Thanks a lot GlaxoSmithKline!

* Goes off to find some antacid not made by these clowns.*

Whoot! Smorritos in da test kitchen!!

Marilyn, of Foodies Untie, has bravely attempted to make the smorritos recipe from the Log Cabin Camping episode of Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee.

Sandra Lee goes camping. Film at 11!

There's a new episode of Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee premiering this Sunday called Log Cabin Camping.

Sandra goes camping in Bear Mountain State Park with her friend Jeff. On the menu: Tart and Tangy Rib Eye Steaks; Barbeque Roasted Potatoes;Veggie Stuffed Onions; Smorritos & a Risky Whiskey cocktail.

Man, I hope the bears went camping over at Human Mountain State Park because crazy blonde lady is in the house! Whoot!

In looking over the arussipes, three of them caught my eye.

Veggie Stuffed Onions

Sandy frequently tells us to buy "pre-chopped" frozen onions,
(Yes, Dr. Julie-Ann I'm dead serious!) because chopping onions is monkey business. So it makes perfect sense that Sandy has arussipe this week which instructs us to:

Slice off the top third of each onion and set aside; save tops. Slice an "X" in the inner 2/3 off each onion. Using a spoon remove the inside of the onion forming a bowl. Dice the removed inner section of the onions and set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the vegetable medley, diced onion, herb garden seasoning and cheese. Evenly divide the mixture into each onion bowl. Top each filled onion with a tablespoon of butter.

Cover the onion with its original top. Wrap with 2 layers of foil and place on the grill or in a preheated 400 degree F oven. Grill or bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until onions are tender.

*wipes tears from face from laughing* Whoot!

Uh, Sandy? Do you think that after you've been knocking back the double vanella vodkas with a splash of vanella vodka and a twist of vanella vodka that you can do this? Seriously?? Uh, I've seen your mad knife skillz. Girl, if you don't let MV do this, you are gonna cut your hand off!

Risky Whiskey

Well, in looking over the ingredients, I know why it's called "Risky". It's because just reading it may make you tipsy enough to fall off the mountain. Hang on a bit. *Hairball moves computer chair and sits on floor* Can't be too careful now can we?

3 parts whisky
1/4 part maple syrup
Splash sweet vermouth
Splash lime juice
Dash bitters
Ice cubes

I think I'll use a gallon as my unit of measurement for this to keep things simple. So three gallons of whiskey, 1/4 gallon (or 4 cups) of maple syrup, splash of vermouth, splash of lime juice, dash of bitters, and ice. Whoot! Yeah, it's kinda strong but we got enough for a whole crowd of folks! Huh? What's this?

2 servings

The Hell? I don't think I can drink a gallon and half of whiskey in my lifetime. I guess Sandy gets the whole thing. Again.


Smorritos

We have been having entirely too much fun over at TWoP theorizing what exactly these will contain. The prevailing thought is that it is a dessert that will be like a sweet version of a burrito possibly incorporating the flavors of S'mores. There might even be tortilla chips involved just to pump this arussipe up to eleven on the crazy dial. Now some of you are asking yourselves " Why don't they just read the arussipe instead of theorizing"? Well, because when I wrote this post, the arussipe had still not been posted. You see, the trained monkeys talented folks at the Food Network are goofing off so busy with their other duties, that they sometimes don't have all the arussipes up till late Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Here's a programming note:
In case you didn't know, Sandra Lee has a new show premiering on May 10th at 12pm ET/PT. The new show is called Money Saving Meals. I have a small issue with the title. I say it should be Money Sucking Meals but, I guess that's not going to attract the right audience. Another show is also scheduled to premiere on the same date at 12:30PM ET/PT and will tie in with Money Saving Meals. This show is called Dead People Vs. Sandra Lee. The show will be hosted by a medium who will channel a random person every week, and then proceed to cook a three course meal. A panel of shrikes with an ax to grind culinary experts will then eat the dishes from both shows and select a winner. The commercials will feature the tagline: "It's like Iron Chef, only with dead people and that drunk lady!"

Donna's Tasty Treasures Giveaway

Those of you who cook, love giveaways, and have a rather naughty sense of humor, should hop on over to Donna's blog My Tasty Treasures to have a chance to win yourself some cooking related goodies.

Tell 'em Hairball sent ya! Whoot!

Flashback Friday!

Some of my favorite mystery shows from the past.

















I'm bummed that AOL video has stopped uploading episodes of the Edge of Night. I keep hoping that Hulu will decide to pick it up.

Have a good weekend everyone!

My super snooty, oh so upper crust cheese dip, for top drawer folks like myself

I was watching Sandy again, and wondering just how does one get a job making cake mixes on TV when I thought, cheese dip. I should do a blog about cheese dip. Obviously, folks need help making cake mixes, so my claim to fame could be cheese dip! Whoot!


Gather the following:



You'll also need a microwave and a microwave safe container for this *snorting laughter* "recipe".

If you don't have a microwave, then you will need a double boiler. Place water in the saucepan portion of your double boiler making sure that the water is not high enough to touch the bottom of the metal bowl that fits in your pan. Place your "cheese" in the metal bowl and open your can of tomato and green chilies and dump it on top. Heat water to a nice simmer while stirring the above ingredients until it is smooth and hot. Serve as desired.

For those with microwaves:
Cut your two pound hunk o' processed cheese in half, place half in your microwave safe container and wrap the other half and store in your refrigerator for later. Take a butter knife and cut up the "cheese" in your container while opening your can of tomato and green chilies and dump it on top. Okay, if you only have two arms then you can cut up the cheese and then open the can. This is the Famous Ro*tel Cheese Dip I just happen to have a can of Hatch brand 'maters and green chilies but you can use whatever brand you have available in your neck of the woods.

While we are in the neighborhood, who eats that extra mild salsa I see at the store? My brain just explodes every time I see that stuff as I just don't get it!! What exactly is the point of extra mild salsa???? Wouldn't it be easier to just eat a tomato? *totally confused*

Now, set your microwave to a minute and a half.



A little shrike humor there folks! Actually I want you to set your microwave to one minute ( my microwave is not super powerful, so you may need to adjust the time downwards) and place your bowl of cheesy goodness inside and if you have one of those plllastic pllllate covers, put that on top of your container to help keep your microwave clean. Remove the cheese mixture, and stir with that knife you have sitting on the lid of your plllastic container because you have to do your own dishes and are trying not to dirty up a bunch of dishes. Repeat the nuking and stirring procedure until your dip is silky smooth. Serve with the corn chips of your choice.




If you've got some corn tortillas in your refrigerator then you can make up your own chips but you should do that first since the chips take longer to make than the cheese dip. My tortillas today are store bought. Oh, the horror! *hangs head in shame*

Turn your oven to 400F. Get out a sheet pan and either coat it with a thin coat of canola oil or spray some non-stick cooking spray on it. ( I prefer the canola oil myself.) Take a tortilla and fold it in half so it tears. Fold it again so it tears. Place the quartered tortillas on your sheet pan and either drizzle a bit more of your canola oil on the tortillas or spray them with the non-stick cooking spray. This is a half sheet pan I'm using. I bought it at the local wholesale club though you can get them at restaurant supply stores too. They are a practical and inexpensive gift for anybody who cooks.



Now put whatever seasoning your little heart desires on your tortillas. Yep, if you want to bust open that meatloaf seasoning packet and put that bad boy on there okay fine, I'll just look the other way.

*Hairball starts humming the theme to I Dream of Jeanie and pretending that nodding her head while blinking and crossing her arms in front of her renders her invisible*

Are you done yet?

Okay, I personally just sprinkled a little salt on mine, but garlic powder, chili powder etc, would be great too. Place tortillas in your oven and check on them until they get to the color you like. Be sure and try one as sometimes they will look done, but will still be a bit chewy. Start checking on them at about ten minutes as they can go from chewy to burnt pretty quickly! I left mine a little too long. Oops!



Be sure and come back next week as I will be tackling pouring milk on cold cereal. Whoot!

Extracts and Flavorings

You know, an entire world of extracts and flavorings exist beyond the handful I have in my spice cabinet. I find myself strangely fascinated and wondering about the sorts of recipes that call for flavorings such as cotton candy, salt water taffy, peanut butter, or bubblegum.

If any of you just happen to find yourselves on a website or watching a TV program that advocates using flavors such as these, here's a link that you may find very helpful.
I was stunned to discover that some of the ones I thought were the product of someone's vivid imagination actually existed!!

B-I-N-G-O!

Those talented snarksters over at Food Network Humor have brought us Food Network Bingo! This deserves a whoot, so everybody stand up, hipcheck your oven door, and yell Whoot! while trying not to spill your drink.



Feel free to click the picture to enlarge it if necessary.

Pizza and breadsticks, part II

My regular readers know that I recently made some pizza with minced garlic in the crust to see if the garlic would retard the rising of the yeast. Here's part II of this fascinating series. Take a chug of vodka and yell Whoot!

Oh, sorry... wrong series there! Earlier this week, I did see that episode of SHCWSL where Sandra looks deep INto the camera and says "Baking is my absolute specialty"which had me giggling like a five year old at the absurdity of that woman. If baking is her specialty then I'm a ninja!

*Composes self and attempts to look very serious*

Okay, well I decided to try making pizza again and not delete the pictures with my itchy trigger finger. I'm using Rosie Hawthorne's pizza crust recipe for this experiment in case anybody wants to try this at home.

I'm using my bread machine to make the dough here. INto your bread pan, place the following in whatever order your machine specifies:
1 egg
1 packet yeast ( or 2 1/4 tsps if you buy yours in bulk)
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 cup bread flour
****1/2 Tablespoon garlic powder **** Hairball's addition

Set your bread machine to the dough setting, turn it on, and watch it knead for a few minutes.Then add in more bread flour a Tablespoon at a time till a nice dough forms that the three bears would love. (Not too wet, not too dry, just right.) Let your machine go through the dough cycle.


This is during the rise, about ten minutes before the cycle is over.




Once the dough cycle has finished, remove the dough and pour a little olive oil on your pan and plunk your dough on your pan. Do you like a thin crust or a thicker one? If you like thin then cut your dough in half and follow Rosie's directions for thin crust pizza with bread sticks and if you like thicker crust then omit the bread sticks while following her directions.



I browned some fresh Mexican chorizo. Okay, some of you are saying you've never seen chorizo that looks like the above picture. Homesick Texan has a great post about making your own fresh Mexican chorizo if you are interested. Dr.Bacon also sells it frozen and we got some of his to try once we eat up what I still have in the freezer from the grocery store.





I baked the pizza just until it got a little color, (especially on that left side! LOL) and then pulled it out to do my toppings. I made my pizza sauce from a can of tomato paste and mixed in some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Next, I nuked some pepperoni for 40 seconds like Rosie recommends.( It really does help reduce the grease on your pizza! )I used a semi-ho bag of grated mozzarella and some Parmesan that I buzzed up in the food processor earlier. Then I put the pepperoni and browned chorizo on top and slid the pizza into the oven as per Rosie's instructions. Watch it more carefully than I did though as mine got a bit toasty on the edges! It looks like the chorizo burned on the top but that was actually okay it just looks funny in this picture.



For the bread sticks, I followed Rosie's instructions except that my dough already had olive oil on it so I didn't use any butter on them before sprinkling on some of the Parmesan. Next time I'll do the butter. If you like your bread sticks on the salty side, you may want to put a little salt on top before baking them.

Once again, the garlic didn't seem to retard the yeast. Just how much garlic does it take?!?

Happy Birthday D !!! Whoot!!!

Celebration - Kool and the Gang










Last scene starts at 6:00.








I hope you don't receive any Sandra Lee creations for your birthday!! LOL

Lemon Curd

Okay, I'm still working on that backlog of egg yolks that I have stashed in my freezer. Since my cake turned out so well, I decided to be brave and try again with lemon curd. I've made lemon curd before but, it was several years ago. I made a sponge cake and spread the lemon curd on it and rolled it up. It was mighty tasty.


I'm using Alton Brown's recipe because you know, he's Alton and I have a thing for science loving guys who cook well and wear glasses. *sighs*

I am most definitely not a photographer so please bear with me! Well, first we need some nekkid lemons.


Here's their clothes.



Alton says we need to juice those nekkid lemons and if we have less than 1/3 of a cup, to add water until we have 1/3 of a cup of joos.



This is all joos so I poured off the excess and put it in the refrigerator for later use.

Partially frozen egg yolks, please meet your dance partner for this evening, sugar! Those egg yolks look like mighty sad don't they? I actually wasn't supposed to have them on the stove yet so I removed the bowl and whisked them till they were smooth, (well smoother, since they had been frozen and all that jazz) and added in the zest and joos.



Then I put the bowl back on top of my pan of boiling water and whisked until everything lightened up and was thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Then I stirred in the pats of butter, poured it into a container, topped it with some cling wrap, and let it hang out in the fridge for a bit.



A couple of hours later I went in there and peeked at it. The specks are the zest. Remember these yolks were frozen so they don't blend as nicely as fresh.



Mr. Hairball comes home a couple of hours later and I tell him I made lemon curd. He looks puzzled and asks if he likes that.(Yes, that really does happen. The first time he asked me that I thought I had wandered onto the set of some cheesy sitcom.) I pull it out of the refrigerator and spoon out a small bit for him to try. He says it is good and we have dinner. Later, I ask him if he wants some of the leftover butter cake and his eyes light up as he gets an idea. He asks me to cut him off a piece of cake and split it in the middle and put down a layer of lemon curd.



It broke a little during my machinations. Sorry about that.

My great-uncle

I had a great-uncle who was born on this day. He was quite the character. When I would go to visit him and my great-aunt, he would sing to me every morning at the breakfast table. Some of his songs were quite lovely and some of them, well..., um..., lets just say that they not very politically correct!

He believed that everyone in his house should be out of bed by 10am sharp. If not, then you were subjected to "The Right Guard Treatment". That meant he came into your bedroom and would spray your bare skin with the aerosol can version of Right Guard. Man, that stuff was cold! If that didn't work then he would come back with a tray of ice cubes and throw the ice cubes in the bed.

He also liked to go through the contents of the vacuum cleaner bag after my great-aunt had done the vacuuming. He said it was to make sure that nothing had accidentally been vacuumed up by mistake. He would then sort the dirt into piles and told me that each pile belonged to a person who was staying there at that time. For some reason he liked to make my pile bigger than all the other piles. *grins*

When Mama Hairball learning to cook, she had trouble making gravy and would always get it too thick. My great-uncle told her not to worry, they'd just slice it up and make sandwiches out of it for lunch!

Rest in peace, great-uncle. Thanks for all the laughter you brought to our lives over the years. Thanks for playing cards with us, letting us kids "build stuff" out in your workroom, and for keeping us calm and entertained when we had to get in the storm cellar during tornado season. We still miss you and talk about all the crazy stunts you pulled on us over the years.

Frugal Cleaning "Recipes"

This week may be a little crazy for me so I'm going to spend some time getting posts ready today and have them set them up so that Blogger publishes them at a later date.

I know that cleaning, much less frugal cleaning is not the most exciting of subjects. If you have been following 50sgal's blog, then you've read some of her posts about her efforts to use as many frugal and "green"cleaning products as possible that were available in 1955. She's encouraging her readers to follow her lead on this, so this is a short post about what I'm doing at home right now.

Top left bottle contains my window cleaner. I substituted some liquid dishwashing liquid for the castile soap as I didn't have any liquid castile soap on hand. The shaker jar contains my baking soda blend that I use in the kitchen and bath for scouring and sprinkling on my carpet before vacuuming to make it smell nice.

The tub with the blue top on the left contains my homemade cleaning wipes. ( Yes, using paper towels for cleaning is not the best option in terms of frugality. I only use these for cleaning up really greasy or gross stuff, so a tub of these lasts me quite a while!) The tub with the blue top on the right is for homemade furniture polish wipes. 50sgal told us about a "recipe" in one of her old books that suggested mixing lemon oil and water 50/50, dipping cheesecloth into this mixture, wringing them out until just damp and storing these in an tightly lidded container. Use as you would the disposable wipes but, you wash and reuse the cheesecloth as it gets dirty. Edited to add: I wouldn't make up more of the furniture wipes than you can use in a couple of weeks. The cleaning wipes are alcohol based so they have a much longer shelf-life.

I decided instead of cheesecloth, I would use some white microfiber cloths instead since I can take the best of today and blend it with the best of days past! I just used one of these cloths today and haven't tried washing any yet. I bet that there may be some lemon oil residue left after washing so I've dedicated specific cloths just for this purpose. My regular microfiber cleaning cloths are blue so it will be easy to tell which cloths are which.

The top right bottle contains my all purpose and floor cleaning mixture.
The back of the bottle of pine oil cleaner had the recipe. My bottle said to mix 1/4 cup with a gallon of water for an all purpose and floor cleaning mixture, so I cut this down to 1/2 Tablespoon and 2 cups water to fit my bottle.

There's also some tips on the back about other uses for this product as well such as for greasy laundry items. I paid $1.00 for this 28 ounce bottle and if I only used it for my all purpose cleaner, it should last me quite a while!

Do you have a favorite frugal or "green" (or hopefully both!) "recipe" you'd like to share with me??

Flashback Friday!

Sorry about the ads that play before the NBC clips.









I apologize for the length of these two clips. If you just want to see "the dress in the window" scene, go down to part II. The scene starts at about 3:20.


Part II


Have a good weekend everyone!

Tablescapin' 101

Blogger Lidian of Kitchen Retro, wrote the following comment about my last post:

"So how about a business making unfrosted cake layers? And maybe seasoning packets, too. But could you make a tablescape out of the layers and the packets?"

I could never keep a straight face selling the unfrosted cake layers to the Fandras! As for the tablescape, I've seen Sandra Lee make a tablescape with hubcaps so a tablescape with unfrosted cake layers and seasoning packets would be a cinch!

First, you take a big chug of vanella vodka (recommended: Stoli Vanilla) and yell Whoot! You then place an unhemmed piece of fabric from the craft store down the center of your table. Next, you empty out 18 guacamole seasoning packets ( recommended:McCormick) INto a bowl and set the empty packets aside. Then you empty out 100 more packets( recommended: Lawry's) of various flavors and sizes (also reserving the powder for later) and glue the empty packets together like a house of cards with your hot glue gun(recommended:HG-410AK). Gluing the various sizes together may be challenging, so I suggest getting out a second bottle of vanella vodka from your private stock to chug from as needed.

You need your house of seasoning packets to be at least six stories high. Once you have it to the desired height, place in the middle of your table (recommended: The Dining Room Space). Take a big chug of vodka and yell Whoot! Then you take 12 empty 4" decorative ceramic cachepots (recommended:Pottery Barn) and crumble up 13 devil's food cake layers and place some of the cake inside each pot to resemble dirt. (Save any extra "dirt" for another purpose.) Go in your kitchen and eat 12 frozen novelties (recommended: Popsicles) and return with the *unwashed* sticks. Take a big chug of vodka, yell Whoot! and attempt to hip check your dining table.

Take a flamethrower (recommended: M2) and thoughtfully burn the edges of the 12 empty guacamole seasoning packets so they look old. Place a good sized blob of glue from your hot glue gun inside of a seasoning packet, and insert one of the unwashed sticks about one inch, and hold the packet shut until the glue dries. Repeat eleven more times and insert the end of a Popsicle stick INto each cachepot filled with cake. Okay, turn the stick around and try to insert the end that doesn't have a seasoning packet glued to it if that is easier for you. Take a big chug of vodka and yell Whoot! as you work on picking the dried glue off your face from when you briefly passed out on your glue gun.

Place your guacamole seasoning packet "plants" on the left end of your table beside the house of seasoning packets. Place a kiddie pool (recommended: Just Kids Pools) on the other side of the house of seasoning packets, and fill it completely with vanella vodka. Locate a candle tall enough to be placed inside the pool filled with vodka, but not so tall that it touches the canopy of the pool. Light candle with flamethrower being thoughtful so that you don't catch the canopy of the pool on fire. Take a big chug of vodka and yell Whoot!while doing an interpretive dance about how you are the smartest thing on your block.

Take 12 unfrosted cake layers of various flavors and arrange them around the perimeter of the remaining table space. Squeeze them in if needed and don't be afraid to have your guests share chairs if necessary. Times are tough, so sometimes we must economize like this. Take an empty tuna can and punch out the center of each cake layer and crumble this INto a bowl and set aside for later use. INto the hole at each "place setting", I want you to place 1/4 cup of the seasoning powder you reserved from making the house of seasoning packets. Just eyeball it or use the lid from a mayonnaise jar (recommended: Hellman's) for measuring. These cake layers will act as your plates. For utensils, some cute disposables (recommended:Snap-a-Party ) will be super sweet! Pop out the plate and save for later use but, leave everything else attached so your guests can enjoy removing their own utensils. The extra plastic that remains is their favor. Take a big chug of vodka and yell Whoot!

Open up a twelve pack of paper towels (recommended: Bounty) and fold them decoratively so that you have twelve miniature Statues of Liberty. Place one in the center of each "plate" so that the hole containing seasoning packet powder is completely covered.Take a big chug of vodka and yell Whoot!

Now take the bowl of various flavors of cake you punched out with the tuna can, and crumble some INto 12 martini glasses (recommended: Crate and Barrel), top with a vanella pudding cup ( recommended: JELL-O), and some whipped topping (recommended: Cool Whip). Sprinkle some of the guacamole seasoning packet powder on top and store them in refrigerator for later. When it's time for dessert, pour in a shot of vanella vodka, chocolate liqueur (recommended:Godiva ), coconut rum ( recommended:Malibu ), and creme de menthe (recommended:DeKuyper). If any alcohol spills while doing this, don't be afraid to sop it up with leftover cake crumbs and eat them before you serve the dessert to your guests.

Now some of you may be wondering where the rest of the food is for this soiree. Well, the rest of the menu will depend on what colors you wish to wear and use for the unhemmed piece of fabric from the craft store that will be acting as your tablecloth. It's very important when entertaining to have all of your decorating elements and food items coordinate with the ensemble of the host or hostess. Therefore, you must plan all of this before selecting the remainder of your menu.

Speaking of vodka...Take a big chug of vodka and yell Whoot!

Whoot! Even More Fun with Feedjit!!!

I was checking my Feedjit to see what search terms had brought visitors over to my little blog. I'm used to finding search terms like coconut cake, homemade cleaning wipes, Sandra Lee and her arussipes, various searches related to hairballs, etc..

Today I find this:

San Antonio, Texas arrived from google.com on "Hairballs on the carpet of life: SHCWSL- Homecoming Tailgate" by searching for unfrosted cooked cake layers for sale. 15:36:00 -- 1 hour 43 minutes ago

So I followed the link to the search results and yep, my blog was the third result:

I said in that post:

"Should I be on the lookout for a new chain of stores called "No Monkey Business Here!" featuring a entire line of unfrosted layer cakes, seasoning packets, booze, and items for creating tablescapes? *bangs head on desk muttering and crying about the future of food in the USA*"


Could it be that I have just found the very first customer for such a business? Or was it another shrike who was just curious if there actually are stores where one can easily find unfrosted layer cakes for sale?

The world will never know!

Whoot! It rained this morning!!

In honor of this most splendid occasion, we need a little happy music!




I own this movie and sing along with it.


Here's another good movie to watch on a rainy day.

Yellow butter cake with chocolate frosting

This post is also a victim of my itchy trigger finger as I detailed in my post about putting garlic in pizza dough, so I only have one photo to share with you.

Because I recently made coconut cake and chocolate angel food cake, I have a lot of egg yolks in my freezer to use up. Unfortunately I forgot to properly prepare my yolks for freezing so I was unsure how this recipe was going to turn out. I did make one change though and substituted Mr. Hairball's favorite chocolate frosting for the one recommended in the above recipe.

Now first up I must tell you that my egg yolks were not pretty at all after defrosting. I saw them and thought there's just no way this is going to work. I so wish I had a picture to share. The egg yolks had unfortunately separated into chunks ! I decided to push on and just see what happened. My sweet DH recently sniped me some replacement beaters for my hand mixer on Ebay, so that made this task much easier. I followed the directions as closely as possible for this recipe except I beat the batter on a higher setting for a slighter longer amount of time. After it appeared well mixed, I took a wooden spoon and scraped down to the bottom to check for any bits that had escaped the wrath of my mixer but, everything looked great.

I poured my batter into a prepared 9x13 baking pan and slipped it into the oven and hoped for the best. Yes, layer cakes are gorgeous but, I don't normally have room to store one in my refrigerator. Due to climate and my small household size, a cake left out on the counter can easily go bad before we can eat it all. Because of this, I don't normally make very many layer cakes.

The results were better than expected and I will keep this recipe to make again. Since the recipe calls for cake flour, the crumb is very tender and the chocolate frosting with a hint of coffee flavor goes very nicely with it if I do say so myself. My pretty picture got deleted so all I have for you is this one that I snapped last night after we've been picking at this poor cake for a couple of days!


Sometimes the best cakes are the ones you eat in your kitchen, wearing your jammies and enjoying a big glass of milk. LOL

Can you put garlic in your pizza dough??

I have no pictures for this post due to user error. I thought I had uploaded all the pictures from my camera to the computer so I erased them on the camera. Duh!

I've been meaning to get back in the habit of making homemade pizza again and have been collecting recipes from my fellow bloggers for pizza dough. Judy of Judy's Kitchen has one on her blog that looks good and Rosie of Kitchens are Monkey Business makes and blogs about her homemade pizza on a regular basis.

I remembered reading somewhere that too much garlic can retard the action of the yeast so caution should be used when making bread doughs that contain garlic. I figured since Rosie makes pizza on a regular basis, that she would be a good person to ask about where the line is about how much garlic can you put in your pizza dough and still get a good rise. Rosie emailed me back saying that she had never heard of this but, was aware of sources that report that raw garlic cloves have the ability to cure yeast infections. (That form of yeast is Candida albicans and the yeast normally used in baking is Saccharomyces cerevisiae.) Rosie suggested that I just try it and see what happens and to please share my results with her.

I should have split the dough up so I would have a control but, I was feeling lazy so I just dumped in four large cloves ( like maybe six normal sized cloves) of minced garlic to my dough as it was mixing in the bread machine and let it go through its paces. I peeked in at the dough and it appeared to rise just like any other yeast dough I've made. When the machine finished, I had a nice, smooth, silky dough that was ready to be made into pizza. I smooshed out the dough on a baking sheet, and baked it at 425F for a bit till it just started to get some color. Then I pulled it back out of the oven, and topped it with tomato paste mixed with salt, pepper, and olive oil, mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese. Next, I put on some pepperoni, and some leftover crumbled up hot pork breakfast sausage . It was most tasty!

In conclusion, if garlic does inhibit the action of baking yeast, then you have to add more than I did.

So you think you can dance?

I know most of you have already seen this but, it cracks me up! I've had to deal with the more insane branch of my family today so I need some laughter right now.

Checking in

I didn't want anybody to think I was dead or some evil rogues had kidnapped me or anything. Just been busy doing some crafts, cooking, baking, and playing catch-up on housework from the weekend.

The weather is more humid than usual this week and there's even a decent chance of some of the "R" word falling on the fair city of Hairballville! Whoot! Keep your fingers crossed for us, as we've only had about an inch of precipitation since November.

I hope all of you are doing well in your little corner of the world!

Hairball

PS: My current Feedjit location reflects what I hope happens this week in my town weather wise!

Flashback Friday!

Here's some of the products and TV shows I'll never forget from the 70's.

Slinky


Mary



Kool Aid


George and Wheezy

Jeffersons Opening TV Theme - Amazing videos are here


McDonalds


Bob and Emily

Bob Newhart Show Opening Theme - The most amazing videos are a click away

Enjoli


Evans family Sorry, I can't find a high quality video that I can embed!

Pringles



M*A*S*H


Coca-Cola


WKRP in Cincinnati






Have a good weekend everyone!

Frugal craft time. Whoot!

This post will probably be of very little interest to those who read my blog for recipes and food related humor. I completely understand if you want to go ahead and read the next blog on your list.

A few days ago, a discussion was going on in the comments section of 50sgal's blog about cleaning products. Some of the commenters mentioned that they used items like vinegar and baking soda for cleaning and were pleased the results of such products. Anyhoo, I was thinking that one of the nice things about using a commercial cleansing powder such as Comet, is that it comes in a container with a perforated top. I had heard of the suggestion before of buying a cheese shaker like you find at pizza restaurants and putting your baking soda in that so that you can sprinkle it out like the commercial products. Another thing you could do would be to save an old spice container that has the perforated top and refill it with baking soda. If it smells like the spice that was in it, try putting some vinegar in it, shaking it up so the entire inside is wet, and leaving it overnight. Then the next morning pour out the vinegar and rinse it out. Hopefully that will take care of the smell!

The problem with using one of those ideas is that I wouldn't get to play around with my cordless drill! So I started experimenting this week. First, I took an old peanut butter jar and drilled some 1/16th inch holes in the lid with my trusty drill.



That didn't work very well as you really had to shake it pretty hard to get out the baking soda. I started small as I was afraid the plastic would break on me. I kept going up in size until I got to 1/4 inch. Unfortunately I did have some cracking but, I was able to snap the pieces back together and it's kinda hard to tell where the cracks are. I'll pause here since there's a short video in case anybody wants to grab a snack or pop some popcorn.

Ready?

Lights please!




*snort*I didn't even know our digital camera had sound on the video setting until I made this video. Perhaps if I had read the manual I might know stuff like this! LOL

Edited to add: In the video, I talk about adding some essential oil to the baking soda so it will smell nice. I think I added about 20 drops or so of the citrus blend in the video. Some oils smell stronger than others so use your own good judgment here as to how much to add. Please make sure that your oil of choice is safe for your skin and whatever surfaces you choose to use this on.