How To Make Yogurt Pops

While passing the time by obsessing over Twitter, I found a website called Chobani Kitchen. It has all sorts of recipes and videos using Chobani yogurt as an ingredient. I really wanted some dessert-y ideas since I seem to be constantly craving something sweet. And although people say I'm eating for two I still want to be sure to not overdo it as that is so easy to do! So, instead of having a pint of ice cream, I've opted for the these pops.

I used two separate recipes: vanilla or chocolate pops and berry pops. For the vanilla pops, I used 1% milk and vanilla greek yogurt. I must say that these were kind of bland. I think I'll add some honey to them the next time. Since I really don't like chocolate syrup, I opted to whisk in creamy peanut butter and chocolate chips. This mixture really satisfies the sweet tooth! Finally, the berry pops suggested using plain greek yogurt, but I didn't have any so I used the vanilla. Alex was also kind enough to pick up some unsweetened, frozen raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries for my puree. I guestimated how much to puree and mixed in the berries with the yogurt and some honey. Now, I haven't tried this mixture yet, but I did take the remaining puree and mix it with some vanilla greek yogurt and honey. And wow! This was super tasty and will replace the pre-mixed yogurts I've been buying.

These pops take about 6 hours to freeze and are a tasty, healthy, late-night treat!

 peanut butter choc chip, vanilla, mixed berry

Happy Pops!
--Am

How To Celebrate 29 Years of Life

On August 10th, I turned 29. One year left before I'm 30! I really don't feel old and I don't have a problem getting old. I think because I've always looked so young, I am always excited to get older. That may sound a little weird and maybe it is, but that's me! Plus, birthdays are awesome. I mean, what other day is all about you. Did I mention that I'm a little selfish? I love celebrating me! :)

So here's what the day had in store for me. I arrive at work to dino puppets and my very own Ambersaurus cake! What makes this cake even more special was that it was the first box cake that Claire Norton has ever made. For those of you that don't know her, she is Heartland's resident baker, sewer, and all things homemade! Not that I wouldn't have loved a made-from-scratch-cake, but the fact that it was something that she doesn't normally do made it special. And on top of all of that, Regan (Claire's husband) helped make it. You guys are awesome!

ambersaurus

We proceeded to lunch at the Tamale Place where I had the best pork tamale I have ever tried. For those of you that have never been there, it's worth a venture to the westside of Indy. Absolutely delicious! Plus you get a ton of food for a decent price. I headed home around normal time and arrived to a beautiful bouquet of crazy daisies and a sweet card from my hubby. What a guy!!

 crazy daisies and card

 vibrant colors

 i just love daisies

I didn't have much time at home before it was time to head off to dinner at Oceanaire. I almost always choose this restaurant for my birthday dinner because I love seafood, how the menu has Happy Birthday Amber at the top, and baked Alaska. If you've never been, make sure you go on a special occasion and tell them when booking the reservation what you are celebrating. It made my day even more special! 

menu--look at how special I am :)

Happy Birthday Celebrating!

--Am

How To Vacation in Upstate New York

The last weekend in July, Al and I traveled to Cortland, NY to visit his mom and stepdad. Katherine took a job up there and has been living there since March. It's a cute, little town that is not very different from parts of Indiana. In fact, a lot of the countryside looks like southern Indiana with more hills. When most people hear NY, they don't think of countryside, but instead think of noise and busyness. Cortland is quite the opposite. It's quiet, old-school, a little run-down in parts, and adorable.

We arrived in Syracuse on Friday afternoon and stopped off to have lunch at a fine NY eatery: Burger King. We were really hungry and I really, really wanted a chicken sandwich! :) After lunch we headed to Cortland, where I proceeded to take a nap until dinner. Traveling is tiring! We had dinner at an Italian restaurant (of which there are many). I had scallops fra diavolo, which I would normally love, but the scallops didn't taste as I had hoped. The sauce was different than I expected, but it was a good different.

On Saturday, we headed towards Cooperstown, baseball capital of the world. It was a bit of a drive out there (a little over 2 hours) and we chose a bad weekend to go. It was induction weekend, so it was packed to the gills. We spent some time walking down, then back up main street, before stopping in at the farmer's market. Here, we were able to get a ton of veggies and desserts to be consumed that evening. Before leaving we stopped off and had some true to NY pizza. Later that evening we had steak, potatoes, fresh veggies, and tomatoes for dinner. We had strawberry rhubarb pie and blueberry crumb pie for dessert while we played Conga (a Cranium spin-off). Before that though, we had to make playdough, as all the clay in the house was crystallized! Al and his mom made it, while Brent and I watched. We ended with some fabulous light green playdough. 

On Sunday we attended church and met a lot of the folks we'd been hearing about all weekend. It's a very old-style church with nothing but friendly people. We spent the afternoon at Treman (pronounced Tremain) State Park in Ithaca hiking the gorgeous gorges. We were hoping to wade a little in Buttermilk Falls, but it was dry. However, we were very glad to have stumbled upon Treman. It was positively breathtaking at times. We stopped in at Wegmans for snacks and headed back home for dinner at The Hollywood. Some of the best stuffed shells ever!

Monday was a quick trip to the nature conservatory, a pop in at the Bling Store, and lunch at Pita Gourmet. Then it was off to the Syracuse airport to find out that our plane was severely delayed and we would miss our connecting flight. We had the choice to fly out that night and hope to get a hotel in Washington Dulles or to stay at the Best Western and take a 5:40 am flight to Philly then Indy. We chose the BW, which might not have been the best, but it worked. Instead of being home at midnight, we were home at 11am. Needless to say I fell asleep at 7 that night. Again traveling is tiring!!

All in all, it was a great trip! It was funny seeing the folks and playing with the pups. Milo sure does miss Alex. It's very cute to watch him follow him around the house. Lots of thanks to Katherine and Brent for opening their home to us. We really enjoyed our time spent in Cortland!!

Happy Visiting!
--Am

How to Make an Afternoon Snack

Today I had chunky peanut butter and graham crackers for breakfast. Whenever I have peanut butter, I tend to overeat. Something about it is just so tasty that I keep putting it in my mouth well after my stomach has told my brain to cut it out. Due to my 9:30 breakfast and massive consumption of peanut butter, I wasn't hungry again until 2 or so.

I checked the fridge for some leftovers, nothing. Checked the pantry for a quick dinner, nothing. What we did have was cherry tomatoes and two day old french bread that needed eating and an overabundance of basil from our basil plants. (Side note: Al isn't a fan of basil, so I don't cook with it much. I usually shred it and pair it with some parmesan covered popcorn.) Ah-ha! I could make caprese salad on toast. Here's what I did:

1. Sliced the french bread
2. Shredded basil leaves (we have green basil and amethyst basil)
3. Diced the cherry tomatoes
4. Mixed the basil leaves and tomatoes with some balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and garlic salt
5. Buttered the bread and put it in the oven for a couple minutes at 255 degrees
6. Removed bread from oven and sprinkled with garlic salt
7. Added basil/tomato mixture to tops of bread
8. Baked for two more minutes
9. Topped with swiss cheese (all out of mozzarella!)
10. Baked for two more minutes
11. Remove from oven and eat!

I think I will call these caprese toasts. I was surprised at how fast I could whip up such a tasty treat! If only Al would have helped me eat the eight caprese toasts I made :) Maybe I'll have these as my next appetizer. Would you like that?

Happy Toasting!
--Am

How To Pickle...Anything

My father is very difficult to buy for. Unless he needs a new shirt, I'm out of luck. Whenever he wants something, he buys it, making it difficult to get gifts for him. Somehow, I remembered the Pickle Sisters. They've since gone out of business, but you used to be able to purchase picked everything: asparagus, garlic, carrots, peppers, garlic stuffed olives. I mean everything. Since I've become crafty, I decided that I could make some. I discussed the possibilities with Al, and we settled on dill pickles, dill green beans, hot peppers, carrots, onions, and pickles with celery and onions. I've made pickles before...once. So, I was in for it.

The Saturday before Father's Day was the big day. I spent most of the rainy morning trying to find the recipes for the brine I wanted to use. Here's what I found: refrigerator pickles, carrots, dill green beans, and hot peppers. When the sun came out, Al headed outside to put up fence posts, and I got to pickling. 

I worked with one veggie at a time. It would have been too chaotic for me to do more than that. I started with the recipe for the refrigerator pickles. I followed it to a T, except I subbed celery for the green peppers. My first batch turned out awesome, so I immediately got started on the next batch. Yeah, well, I shouldn't toot my own horn because the next batch turned into a syrup. Suck! I threw it out, washed the pot and started over. The next batch was for dill pickles. I used the same brine for refrigerator pickles, added dill, and left out onions and green peppers. Perfect! I think by then, I was through my first movie.

Onto the second movie, I made a jar of carrots and dills green beans using the recipes above. I only adjusted the measurements so I didn't have gallons of brine. On the third movie, I moved onto the hot peppers. The adjustments here are the measurements, not pre-cooking or broiling of the peppers, and the peppers I used: one red pepper, two jalapenos, one anaheim, one hungarian, and one cubano. After those were finished, I ended with the onions. I used the refrigerator pickles recipe and used one red onion and one white onion. Ah! Third movie done and veggies pickled!

 

the refrigerator pickle brine

               

 

the pre-pickled green beans

the final products (from left): onions, dill beans, hot peppers,

pickles with onions and celery, carrots, pickles, more onions

Happy Pickling!
--Am

How To Make "Perfect Pound Cake"

Today has been a day of new things for me. It was my first time at a real garden shop where I actually bought stuff. It was also the first time I baked something that turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. Before I left for the garden shop, I sat outside with Al while he smoked a cigar and drank sweet tea (which he had to re-sweetened by adding equal). The dogs were roaming, while I leafed through the May 2011 edition of Everyday Food. I usually find that I like 90% of the recipes in there, while Alex will only like 40% of what I like. It's not that he's picky, but he's not very food adventurous or necessarily healthy.  In this edition, I found a recipe for perfect pound cake. Here's what you do:

• One cup unsalted butter, room temp
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 large eggs, room temp
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly butter and flour a 4 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch pan. Beat butter and sugar in an electric mixer on medium high until light and fluffy, approx. 7 minutes.  Scrape down the sides and beat an additional minute. Add vanilla and gradually beat in eggs. Set mixer to low, add salt, and gradually add flour. I subbed 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour. Once combined, transfer to loaf pan and bake for 65 minutes. Poke the center with a toothpick and remove from oven if it contains a few moist crumbs. Let it cool on a wire rack for an hour. Once cooled, the loaf can be removed from pan and sliced as preferred. Any unused portion can be wrapped in plastic and stored for 3 days. Here are some pics of the process: 

sugar and butter being beaten

loaf cooling

sliced…yum!

I must admit that whenever I bake just about anything, it is complete crap. However, this turned out to be pretty tasty! It's an easy recipe that anyone will be able to follow. It will be a fabulous breakfast treat over the next couple of days. Or, maybe I'll melt some chocolate and spread it on a slice for a scrumptious dessert. Who knows? All I can say is that it will definitely be eaten up! 

Happy baking!

--Am

How To Eat Spaghetti and Morph into a Baby

My nephew turned three weeks last Wednesday (5/11). Al and I offered to take them dinner to help make things a little easier (although they are doing fabulously)! I knew I wanted to make a spaghetti dish with grape tomatoes that I had used before in Everyday Food. So, I headed to the website and this was what I found. I followed the recipe to a T with the exception of using half whole wheat spaghetti and layering sliced, fresh mozzarella on top. It ended up being a light, summery spaghetti that made me smell like garlic for the next two days (I think the smell has finally left the body). At least it tasted good!

While we were sitting down to dinner, I looked over at the new little guy and noticed that he had started to look like a human. I know that sounds bad, but please don't take it that way. I said (out loud), "He's starting to look more like a human." My sister agreed. Relief on my end for just saying that my nephew looked a little alien-esque. And it's not just him, it's all newborns. They are wet, shiny, and haven't developed many features. Chance is really starting to grow into his features and the handsome little man he will be. I'm so glad and fortunate to be able to see him so often and experience his morphism from alien-baby to human-baby! I can't wait until we reach dinosaur-twos, mutant-teenager, and eventually, man-man. 

To all you aunts and uncles out there, live it up and visit often. These little guys and girls are often-changing and it's easy to miss something so big! I sure do love mine and wouldn't want to miss a thing! 

Happy Aunting and Uncling!

--Am

PS - Sorry there are no pictures…I'm terrible about taking my camera with me!  

How To Take Your Lunch To Work

As usual, I was running late this morning. I was going to workout, but decided to postpone it and sleep in. I can always workout tomorrow, right? I eventually got up an hour and fifteen minutes after the original alarm went off. Went through my usual getting ready routine and made it downstairs by 8:22. I need to leave by 8:35 to get to work on time. Sounds like plenty of time. Well, I still had to take the dogs out and pack my lunch. I started with the dogs. Daisie and Dodgy were good, but Diego was poop-hunting (courtesy of the neighborhood rabbit). It was hard to keep him focused on the task of taking a poo. I was outside with him until 8:33. Pain in my neck! So, I have two minutes to grab breakfast, brew some coffee, and make my lunch.

I recently attended a class that gave guidelines on how to eat better and prepare your body for the "future." In preparation for this, we had stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies. With that, I knew I wanted to have a fancy salad! Oh the wonderful, colorful ingredients that are to be included. We have green peppers, tomatoes, mini cucumbers, avocados, spring lettuce mix, chick peas, and sunflower seeds. As you can see, many of those items need chopped and diced. That would take forever! With time on my mind, I grabbed one pepper, six tomatoes (the size of cherry tomatoes, but not cherry tomatoes), one cucumber, an avocado, the boxed lettuce, a can of chick peas, and the full can of dry roasted sunflower seeds. I throw in a knife, baggie, cutting board, empty tuperware, and bowl. Let's not forget some dressing! I make my own using olive oil, red wine vinegar, and greek seasoning, then throw it in the bag. Since I had prepared to make my lunch at the office, I thought I could spare a few minutes to cut up some fruit (which I didn't even eat). Honey dew was sliced and combined with raspberries and blueberries. It will make for a good snack. And so will the flax seed crackers, nutella (for my almonds already at the office), greek yogurt, which made their way into the bag o' food. Yep, I took the whole pantry and fridge to work today!

With my decaf and banana in hand, I put the dogs in their cages and headed towards work. By now it's 8:49 and I'm definitely going to be late. Oh, it was worth a try. After I snacked most of the morning, I was finally ready to eat at 12:27. I trekked downstairs and started dicing. Mind you, I didn't want to bring a fancy knife with me, so I grabbed a steak knife. Not the best idea I've ever had, but it did the trick. :) All the extras went into the tuperware (pepper, tomatoes, cucumber) and baggie (half the avocado). The remaining chick peas will be mixed up tomorrow with the leftovers (sans the lettuce), and it will be tasty! Everything was thrown in the bowl and sprinkled with chick peas and sunflower seeds. Once back upstairs, I'm ready to eat my fabulous salad. Doesn't it look delish?

thank you to Allison Ackmann for the picture!

I poured on the dressing and devoured it! There's nothing like fresh produce, and I'm a true believer that avocado makes anything taste better. Delicious! Good thing I did all the chopping today, so tomorrow it will be easy.

Happy Salad Making!

--Am

How To Fit Into Your Wedding Dress

Most women have a goal to lose weight before their wedding. Some will even go the length to buy a dress that's a size or two smaller for motivation to slim down. I am not most women. Of course I didn't want to look like a boat on my wedding day, but I wasn't so unhappy with how I looked that it would motivate me enough to change my ways. Besides that, I picked a dress that was slimming and that made me look and feel amazing!

I would say that the dress fit just right. However, some of the pictures and my poses give the impression of back fat. Oh well! I still got married, and it was still the most rockin' wedding I've been to. And I must say that I was happy with everything (even the back fat)! Here's what I looked like then (October 16, 2009).

getting ready--easy to see the fit of the dress

check out that back fat!

After a year of being married and switching jobs, I decided it was time to get my body in shape. If Alex I were to even start thinking about kids, I wanted to be in good shape. How was I going to do this? I've never been very good at that kind of stuff. I usually only get motivated when I have someone pushing me to do it. I signed up for Weight Watchers Online, hoping that paying the $17 monthly charge would be enough of a motivation. It was a start! It taught me to change my eating habits. The plan is very structured, which, being an accountant, was what made it easy and fun for me. It was like a game to see if I could come in at the right points value. And being a saver, I saved all my extra points for the weekend just in case we went out or wanted some wine with dinner. There were some weeks when I didn't even use them. 

After a couple months, I had lost 10 pounds all by changing my diet. Awesome! However, I had hit a plateau. Oh crap, that meant it was time I started working out. How could I ever motivate myself for that? Well, I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, the tv series from the late 90's). It has fabulous fight scenes and made me want to kick butt. It was a treat for me to watch Buffy if I worked out. (I've since completed Buffy and have moved to Angel). After a couple months of that, I hit my goal weight of 120. I've been in maintaining mode since December and have managed to stay slim. I don't strictly follow WW (and have stopped paying for it), but I use the general idea and run at least three times a week. I couldn't be happier with my image! 

Here's me trying on my wedding dress being 20 plus pounds lighter (March 4, 2011).

look at all that excess dress!

yes, that's two wine bottles in there to keep my dress held up

the weight loss has taken its toll on the girls

Happy weight loss!

--Am

How To Lounge and Gamble Away a Saturday

As I sit down to watch Nanny McPhee Returns, I think that I should probably complete the financial statements for my,upcoming audit. However, I'd much rather write about my day yesterday, when I also should have been doing some work. Instead, I spent my day doing anything but something productive. That's not entirely true.

I woke up pretty early for a Saturday, say 7:30, to take the dogs out. Since Alex has to get up so early during the week, it's only right that I be the first one up to let them out on the weekends. But once I'm up, I'm up and can't go back to bed. So, I coddled Diego for a little while as he was in pain from his surgery on Friday, then I ran on the treadmill to an episode of Angel. Yeah, I'm like ten years behind, but I love it!

Once I was showered and Al was up and going, we made our way to run our few errands for the day. Stopped by the vet for meds, perused the Indy Winter Farmers Market, and made a spur of the moment decision to head to Sam's Club for lunch and chicken treats for the dogs...geez, are they spoiled! On a side note, I had the location of the IWFM wrong, which put Alex in a mood. Or maybe he was already in a mood because I wouldn't let him buy the iPhone then. Who knows? When we finally made it to IWFM, I picked up my yummy marshmallows from 240sweet.com and we basically ran through the rest of the stops because Al wasn't interested in anything there. Anyone ever want to go, just let me know because Al is no fun at those kinds of things!

me with my marshmallows--one of them

(I came home with 7 bags)

Upon returning home, I did absolutely nothing. Watched tv and played stupid computer games. But it was oh, so nice! After lounging for approx four hours, we decided it was time to get ready for dinner. We had dinner plans at Maker's Mark at Indiana Live! Casino with my parents and Em & Tony to celebrate Em and Al's birthdays. Dinner was pretty good! I consumed the lobster tail (and was ridiculed by Al for eating the meat from the fins--see How To Eat a Lobster Blog), while everyone else had steak. It was slightly on the pricey side and in the middle of a casino, but it was still tasty.

Afterward, we walked around the casino and probably gambled about $150 between the six us of (Al only lost $10 and I only played with my dad's winnings). I have a hard time understanding how people can sit, press a button, lose money, and call it fun. Not what I call fun. And it's crazy the kind of people there. Lots of old people, white trash and (with fear of sounding racist), blacks. I figured there'd be lots of hillbilly types there, but not the rest. I also couldn't believe the older people that were walking around with masks on. Seriously?! You enjoy this so much that you'd risk your health to sit in a stinky, smokey casino? What is wrong with people? I guess that's why they call it an addiction. Doesn't seem worth it to me. When it was time to go, we snapped some pictures and piled in a five seater car to take me and Al back to our car. It was a tight squeeze, but we made it work.

 al & am at casino

tight squeeze

On the drive home, we decided to hit up redbox and partake in some movie watching. Don't know what I was thinking because I was knocked out tired. I didn't even make it through half of The Town. All in all, it was a nice, relaxing day that was topped off with some good food and company!

Lounge away another day!
--Am

How To Be an Artist

I really wanted to call this blog "How To Be an Artiste," but then I looked up the difference between the two. An artiste is someone that is trained and skilled in the arts, while an artist is someone engaged in the arts. I don't even want to claim being skilled in any way, shape, or form in the area of arts. I don't use that side of the brain…I'm an accountant, remember!

On Monday night, I, along with my mom and sister, partook in a Wine and Canvas event at Stone Creek in Greenwood. We used the Living Social deals I had purchased that got us in for only half price (only $17). I arrived first and was able to get us a seat near the front, which I discovered later was helpful. Mom and I ordered a glass of wine, while the pregnant one (Em) had water. We each got an appetizer that I thought we would share, but nope. Well not entirely no, as Emily shared her calamari, but mom did not share her delicious-looking beef crostinis.

I had consumed more wine before the food arrived, so I started off a little tipsy. We began painting by following the easy instructions given by the artist. The instructions were perfect for people who don't have an imagination…like me! I need direction and don't do well when I'm told to be creative or to draw/paint freehand pictures. So, the step by step, hard and straight instructions worked wonders for me.

We painted the background first, which was a sunset. I must say that mom had a beautiful sun and Em had a fabulous reddish sunset. Mine on the other hand was just so-so. After that dried, we were ready for the tree. I must say that my tree was phenomenal! I had thin branches that curved beautifully. This is not to say that mom and Emily didn't have nice trees (because they did), I was just partial to mine. :) Oh, and I cheated a little bit on the tree by moving it closer to the center of the painting instead of keeping it to the left. I can be creative!

After the tree, we basically put swirls all over, as many or as little as we wanted.  Em went for a lot, and I went for a little. I mainly had little because I don't do well with random and get a little OCD making sure that there aren't two of the same colored swirls within a so-many-inch area. I'm a freak like that. Also, my swirls ended up looking more like e's, but oh well. I must say that the end result is pretty awesome. Even Alex (an artiste) said it was pretty good, and I was worried he would have criticized it.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and have signed up for two more trips (at full price)! I can't wait to get my drink and paint on again.

Color me proud!
--Am

painting by Amber

closer-up of painting by Amber

How To Buy a Coffee Maker

On Monday morning, our coffee maker went out. It sounded like it was brewing, but there wasn't any coffee in the pot and all the water was still in the water basin. Alex's goal when he arrived home was to clean it out and see if he could unclog the pump (because I was sure that was the source of the problem). Well, the pump was just plain broken. I guess that's what happens when you purchase a Mr. Coffee coffee maker from Wal-Mart for $29.99. When I bought  this maker in July 2008, I remember thinking it was a great price for a quality coffeemaker. (Side note: Coffee maker can be written as two separate words or as one word; I will use both). Who knows, maybe it was a quality coffeemaker since we used it almost everyday.

Anyway, goodbye old coffeemaker! Off to Bed, Bath & Beyond to get another one. Oh, but which one to get? We must have stared at the different kinds for 45 minutes. Did we want a Keurig (single-brew) or a traditional coffee maker? I played Devil's Advocate a little bit with Alex. He has wanted a Keurig for some time now, and it always seemed a little uneconomical to me. However, during this trip he was hot on the traditional coffeemaker. While we were talking over the pros and cons, one of the sales associates stopped by and gave us a little tutorial on the different brands of the single serve makers.  There's the Keurig, Tassimo, Breville, etc. And most of these come in a "mini" size.  We were interested, but not enough to buy one. 

We settled on the Mr. Coffee Thermal Coffeemaker. It was $90 and had a gold filter (yeah, no more paper filters). We had a 20% off coupon and a $50 giftcard, so we only paid around $25. We thought that was a pretty good deal! At home, Al cleaned it and got it ready to brew the next day. One thing that sucked right off the bat was that there was no warmer (with it being a thermal), so Al would have to pour the coffee back in, set the delay and re-brew it for me (he gets up about 3 hours before me). Oh well, if that's the only thing that's wrong, it's not so bad. As we got in bed, Al began looking at various reviews online and could not really find a good one. Now we have it in our head and are looking for proof for it to be a terrible coffeemaker. Well, it was. The coffee was watery, which we assume is from it brewing quickly (something to do with the gold filter maybe?), and it was only lukewarm. We decide to give it another try and use a paper filter the next day. Nope, still watery! And still not very warm for me...way to go thermal! 

On Wednesday night, we pop in BBB after dinner with my fam. This trip was a little different because we had done our research prior to arriving.  I know, research for a coffeemaker seems a little ridiculous, but Al put it best when he said it was like buying a car. Too many different gadgets and whatnot. We decided that the Cuisinart DC1200 would be the one. We look it over and ponder about the KitchenAid model, but decide to go with the Cuisinart ($80). As we're walking toward the check out, we see a sign that says $50 mail-in rebate on Tassimos. We ask someone to explain the differences between the various models, but decide it might be a little bit too much and maybe we should ask for one next Christmas. 

Bright idea! We can get a cheap-o coffee maker and get this one for fun. We'll spend a little bit more, but not too much (giftcard and rebate). Wow, we're an easy sell. We run back, get a cheap-o coffee maker, grab a Tassimo, select some T-disc flavors, and nab a quick gift for my sister. The grand total (including rebate and giftcard) came to about $100! We got one coffeemaker, one Tassimo, three bags of T-discs, and a birthday gift for one hundred bucks...FANTASTIC! To give you an idea, the Tassimo was $169 to start with. 

We are so stoked from our fab deal when we get home. Oh but we're about to be taken down a notch. Al starts to take out the coffeemaker and notices that it's taped up with scotch tape.  That's not right.  Then, water poured out of it when he took it out of the box, and there were grounds caked on the filter basket. Of course, we picked up a return that wasn't properly checked! We call BBB, and they have one waiting for me when I get there. This one is in it's original packaging and doesn't have scotch tape on the bottom of the box. It's good to go! Take it home, set it up, clean it, and delay brew it. 

The next morning, the coffee tasted great and reached our expectations. We also tried out the Tassimo, which was good, but not the best thing in the world. For Al, it tended to make the drink too strong, and for me it was too milky.  Both of those things can be adjusted, so we're going to keep it! It will be good for single brews, lattes, and entertaining our fancy friends. :)

All in all, I say go for the cheap-o coffeemaker. Happy brewing!

--Am

Mr. Coffee 12-Cup Coffee Maker ($40)

Tassimo - front view

Tassimo - side view

 

 T-discs - these are only 35 calories!

chai tea latte T-discs

   

There's More Than One Way to Eat a Lobster

You know the saying, "there's more than one way to skin a cat"?  Well, the same can be said about eating a lobster.  Every year around Christmastime, my parents host the Annual Chance Lobsterfest.  We determined that this has been going on since about 2005.  It all started after a trip to Bar (pronounced Bah) Harbor (pronounced Hah-Bah), Maine.  We stopped at this restaurant that was, literally, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere (at least that's how I remember it).  There were these big wooden pots out front with steam rising from them.  We were about to find out that those containers were the lobster cookers.

the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound -- the best lobster in Maine (in my opinion)

I don't remember what exactly we ordered, but I do remember that it was lobster of some sort.  The lobsters were put in a netted bag and boiled in those big wooden pots.  And it was delicious!!  At some point, we met George (one of the owners) and found out that they could ship lobsters to us whenever we would want.  Live lobsters? Shipped straight to our house?  How cool is that?  

Little did we know that that stop would turn into the Annual Chance Lobsterfest.  So, here we are 2010, continuing the tradition.  Our attendees this year were: Dave & Carla, Tai & Tad (my mom's parent's), Grandma Chance, the Whitmores (Steve and Laverne), and me & Alex.  Emily and Tony were there for appetizers, but had to leave to see Christmas Vacation on the big screen.  At least we (Em & I) were invited this year.  :)  One year, we were written off and were not very happy.  You'd understand if it were you, right? 

After delightful appetizers of shrimp and beef wrapped in bacon, we all squeezed around the dining room table for the main course.  Bibs are tied, butter is melted, grace is spoken, we are ready to start.  We have two plates: one big and one little.  The little one is to hold the cole slaw, green beans, and baked potato.  The big one holds the lobster.  Now, if you're like most people, you crack open the lobster, dig out the tail, and get some meat out of the claws.  You wouldn't even bother with the tiny claws, fins, or tomalley (aka green stuff or lobster liver).  Ok, I wouldn't even bother with the tomalley…ICKY!  And yes, I've tried it, so I can say it's icky.  However, I do labor hard to get all the meat from the lobster I can.  Call me determined, call me greedy, but I just look at it as not being wasteful.  

But before I can get to that good meat, I work hard at getting Tai's lobster ready to go.  I steal the legs (because I know she's not going to want to work for the meat) and get started on the tail.  Now, I'm kind of slow, so Alex decides to help (of course this was after his lobster was out and halfway devoured).  He works on getting her lobster tail out and I start on mine.  I start in on the smallest leg, of which I now have 16 to open.  I break off the leg and use the little shrimp fork to break up the side of the leg.  Yes, it's a lot of work, but oh the meat is so sweet and delightful.  It's so good, you don't even need butter for it.  I do this for 16 legs.  By now, everyone else is finished with their meal (except for Steve, who is a hard-worker like myself).  I haven't even gotten to the tail or claws yet.  

Fortunately, Alex has pried my lobster tail from its shell, so I have little work to do there.  I tried to use the big red claw cracker, but it just wasn't working.  Thankfully, Al took over, which is also good because then all the juices could leak onto a plate other than my own.  He owed me this too for some snarky comment he made during dinner (which I can't remember what it was, but I'm sure it was something that would require him to make it up to me in some way).  I was able to sneak bites of green beans and cole slaw during all this, so I didn't waste away to nothing.  I didn't even touch the baked potato, as I was saving my carb intake for the bread pudding dessert.  Anyway, while Al does that, I work on the claws.  Those require the use of the cracker and the shrimp fork.  The claw part needs the cracker and the leg part needs the shrimp fork.  I wish I would have had a better shrimp fork as mine ended up bent.  Or maybe I should have been less forceful with it.  Either way, it was all bent to hell.  

In the end, it was just me and Steve left eating.  I had divided up the claw meat and the tail meat and was deciding which would be my last bite.  Some of the pieces soaked in butter as I pondered this.  I went with the claw meat as it was sweeter and less chewy.  I savor every buttery bite until there's no more.  It was fabulously delicious! And, I'm not that last one left eating…woohoo!  

I retreat to the kitchen to complete the amaretto sauce for the bread pudding dessert (one of two things I make well and now a lobsterfest staple).  It was a joyous evening full of great food and friends.  I look forward to the lobsterfests yet to come!

Happy New Year!

--Am  

PS - Sorry for not having many pictures.  I really should start carrying my camera with me!