Author Archives: Admin

Simple Breakfast

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Hashbrowns from Trader Joe’s – Baked in the little convection oven for about 20 minutes on 400 or so (YMMV). You wait until these are about 10 minutes in, and then start the…

Morning Star “breakfast strips”, which we like to call facon – we bake these in the regular oven, also on convection, 4 minutes, flip them over, and about 4 more minutes. Every oven is different, so you have to watch them carefully to get it right. They just start to stick to the baking sheet when we pull them out to flip them over, and they are done when the color starts to darken, when it’s not exactly white anymore. These can suddenly turn to burnt if you let it go too far, and then they are not edible and you have to start over. (As soon as these are done the hashbrowns can be turned down to warm, and the facon can go in with them until eggs are done. Start cooking the eggs.)

Not pictured here: Mike’s nearly perfect poached egg – Bring the water to a boil, turn the burner off, and carefully dropped the egg (from a bowl) into the water, and leave it in there for about 3 minutes, and then pull it out with a slotted spoon.

Snow’s Scrambled Egg – In a small bowl combine 1 egg, a tablespoon of squash puree, and a tablespoon of shredded cheddar cheese. Small frying pan on the stove, brown a half tablespoon of butter or on high heat, then turn the burner down to lowest setting and pour in the egg mix. Push it around a little with a spatula, then cover with lid and let it cook for a minute, check that the underside is as done as you like, and then flip it, and it should only take about one more minute to finish.

Serve it all up and enjoy!

 

Senora Muerta, aka Matilda Addams

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Lady Death

This is Matilda Addams, she loves Día de los Muertos, and was Senora Muerta for Halloween.

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This is how I inspire myself to dress up every year. I’m not so much for just doing the vampire or whatever. I’ve been enamored with the party scene from The Addams Family movie since I first saw it, and I love to invent members of the family. Those wonderfully morbid and quirky cousins. Anyhow, cousin Matilda came out to play this year, and she was a huge success.

Baked Egg Puffs

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yum

This starts with the recipe in the book: Deceptively Delicious, but goes a bit sideways from there. I’m a bit lazy, and Mike was a bit bored with the original.

Mine is on the left in the photo. Ingredients: 2 eggs, 1 TBL flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 heaping spoonfuls of squash puree, a handful of shredded cheddar cheese, and 1 TBL of shredded parmesan cheese.

Mike’s Ingredients: 2 eggs, 1 TBL flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 heaping spoonfuls of squash puree, 2 TBL shredded cheddar cheese, and 1 TBL of shredded parmesan cheese. AND chopped mushrooms (small chunks, they float), sun-dried tomatoes, capers, and italian spices, hungarian paprika (smokey).

Directions: Preheat oven to 400. Grease the baking dishes (10 oz ramikins pictured). Mix all ingredients in a different bowl, then pour into the baking dish. Bake for 25 mins (convection) – 30 mins (regular).

Delicious!

I highly recommend the book (Deceptively Delicious), it’s got a lot of great recipes.

Czarina

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New Drink Recipe, which is a bit involved.

Step 1: Cut up a watermelon, and juice all the fruit/flesh

Step 2: Mix 1 cup of watermelon juice, 1 cup of lemon juice (we just bought big bottle at Costco here), and 3/8th cup of powdered sugar. Use a whisk to help dissolve the sugar.

Step 3: Pour the mix into the ice cream maker and leave it for 15-20 minutes. The result here is kind of sorbet like. Yummy!

Step 4: Buy a big bottle of cheap vodka, dedicate a Brita pitcher to the filter of said vodka, then run that vodka thru the Brita 3 times. (4th time gains you nothing really, we tested it).

Step 5: Put at least a small bottle of the vodka in the freezer overnight.

Step 6: Making the drink. 1.5 or 2 oz of Vodka (from the freezer), an equal amount of soda water, and at least 4 ice cream scoops (2″ balls) of the sorbet, all into a glass.

Step 7: Enjoy!

Regretsy Visits Seattle

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April Winchell of Regretsy was at the Elliott Bay Book Company sharing her hate mail, and a slide show of outrageously overpriced items found on Etsy. Unfortunately we’re having a heatwave in Seattle just now, and it got really hot in the basement where this event happened, especially with 100+ people in the room. She was a trooper though. Funny and charming through the whole thing.

the hate mail

More photos here