"Pasta, Spritzer" written by Kara on estrip.org

Category: food

06/19/06 06:26 - 75ºF - ID#24996

Pasta, Spritzer

I was going to post my awesome recipe for a simple pasta cassarole, but the pasta is too sticky and the flavor is good, but weird. I attempted the Rachael Ray Southwestern Pasta Bake but didn't feel like making the cheese sauce and instead tried to - well, it doesn't matter. It's edible, but as a choice between this and a nice bowl of cereal . . . I'd probably take the cereal. The chicken came out good though:
- 2-3 chicken breasts, diced into bite-sized pieces;
- season with cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, italian seasoning (this is where I lost the "southwest" part of it);
- put EVOO in the saute pan, twice around the pan;
- heat, toss in chicky;
- stir until cooked, splashing a bunch (a tablespoon?) of lemon juice halfway through;
- add to something that is not my horrific pasta disaster. Maybe a quesadilla? Or with some rice.

(e:matthew), did I tell you about Gluten Free Girl?

She's incredible.

So here's a recipe for a Saratoga Spritzer. I can't find a reference for it online, so I'll go with the recipe in my head (courtesy of my mama):
In a chilled glass (ALWAYS keep glasses chillin in the freezer), combine a tablespoon of lemon juice (more or less, to taste) and 2 sugar cubes.
Add Ginger Ale and some ice.
Add a few dashes of Angostura Bitters on top.
Swirl.
Enjoy.

You can use sprite or sierra mist or 7up too.

Permalink: Pasta_Spritzer.html
Words: 249
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: sailing

06/16/06 05:29 - 78ºF - ID#24995

Marina

Seeing as (e:leetee) and (e:paul) have both written about the Marina this week, I wanted to add my own pictures from last night.

my captain, showboating in the laser :)

my dear puppy, demonstrating how easy it is to walk around our deck.

my dog eats ropes. she also falls in lakes, but she has her own life preserver. Yes I love my dog, what of it?

on the dock.

an after sunset view, facing west.
See all the sailboats? If you go out in a motorchoker, and hear a dog barking at you, that's my puppy. We've already trained her to bark and growl when the words "george bush" or "dick cheney" are spoken; now she's starting to bark when hearing the roar of a speedboat engine too.

Permalink: Marina.html
Words: 145
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

06/16/06 12:07 - 78ºF - ID#24994

the ten commandments

Reason #14245 Why I Love Steven Colbert

Exposing political "leaders" for what they really are:

Permalink: the_ten_commandments.html
Words: 20
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: web

06/14/06 08:26 - 59ºF - ID#24993

New Site

Not that my identity has ever been too mysterious on here, but with my new married name has come a new, super web site

Thanks to Paul's API system, I can pull in content from my journal here directly to my site. For those of you who have other web domains and a willingness to muck around with some PHP, it's a great way to spruce up your site.

Permalink: New_Site.html
Words: 73
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: law

06/09/06 08:35 - 62ºF - ID#24992

How not to run a deposition

Found on BuffaloPundit

This clip from youtube is a lesson in how not to act in a legal deposition.

Permalink: How_not_to_run_a_deposition.html
Words: 29
Location: Buffalo, NY

06/06/06 08:11 - 61ºF - ID#24991

The Freshmaker

Ever wondered what happens when you combine Diet Coke and Mentos?

In other news, we have our sailboat set up in our slip. We had a very nice sail out past the breakwall on Sunday night with some good friends, and another last night, just taking it out for a spin with the jib sail.
Abby gets nervous walking on the docks, but seems very much at ease when on the boat. She has a tendancy to climb up in my lap while I'm at the tiller.

Permalink: The_Freshmaker.html
Words: 92
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

06/01/06 08:55 - 65ºF - ID#24990

Dog food

I attacked my dog with scissors last night. The temperature in our apartment crept past 91, and to see the poor girl panting in front of our lone fan (the other air conditioners are still in the basement) was just too much. So, I chopped her locks and she now looks like an oversized puppy. I might have gone too far with my trimming, but as I tell myself whenever I get a bad haircut, it will always grow back.

Anyway, my father-in-law has subscribed me to Mother Earth News

for a few years now, and this month's edition includes an article on organic pet foods. Considering that my dog has been known to eat sticks, grass, dead (?) creatures and her own vomit, worrying about the quality of her diet shouldn't be an issue. However, adding some "healthier" brands of food into her meals, along with all the exercise she gets, should insure that she'll be healthy and happy for a long time.

Here are links from the article to hippie dog foods.

Canidae

Natura Pet

Halo Pets

Nature's Variety

Newman's Own

Petguard

Pet Promise

Solid Gold

OMH Pet

And here's a recipe for a regular meal, also from the magazine:
3 cups cooked oatmeal or cream of wheat
2 cups cooked ground beef
2 tbsp plain yogurt
1 small apple, chopped or sliced into small pieces. Mix and serve at room temp.
(I would cut this in half for my dog to see how she handles it; the vet recommended for her size, she should eat about 3-3/12 cups a day.)

And a link to my recipe for treats

And so my dog isn't the only thing I write about tonight, go Sabres.

Permalink: Dog_food.html
Words: 322
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: me

05/30/06 09:45 - 73ºF - ID#24989

Perfect week

In the past week, I traveled to Europe for the first of hopefully several times. We spent a week in Ireland, scurrying to Northern Ireland for a few days in the middle. We saw coasts and hills, ate huge breakfasts, met interesting people, and had a blast shopping in their grocery stores. After 1500 km., dozens of hair-raising, stomach-churning and nail-biting blind curves, 5 B&Bs, and thousands of pictures, my new husband and I have made it back to the States safe and sound.
I'll be posting the best of our Ireland pictures to my flickr account as soon as we unpack our bags, send off the thank you notes, and reunite with the puppy.

Permalink: Perfect_week.html
Words: 115
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: lost

05/18/06 08:40 - 55ºF - ID#24988

Let your compass guide you

Any other Lost fans out there?
I love the "easter eggs" the producers keep releasing into the wild. Let your compss guide you

and previously Bad Twin

, Oceanic Air

and the Hanso Foundation

Permalink: Let_your_compass_guide_you.html
Words: 56
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: gadgets

05/16/06 07:10 - 57ºF - ID#24987

Digital Cameras

I need to buy a digital camera. Like, right now. There is a really important event coming up that I need one for, and our HP 635

has decided to crap out on us at a most unfortunate time. We've had nothing but problems with it, mostly with the lack-of-battery life, and now it's just dead.
Has anyone seen any local deals on one? We need to get an SD card too - I'm thinking a 256 MB or 512 MB, whatever has a better rebate. I don't have a ton of cash to throw at this, and I've resigned myself to spending about $200, including the SD card.
I will not buy another HP camera.
Last year we had to buy a digital camcorder as a gift (long story), and that worked out really well. I'm hoping the same thing happens this time. If I had more time I would have researched, and compared, and I do feel silly. But as Jack Bauer (WIKIPEDIA - Jack Bauer) would say, "we're running out of time." Any thoughts on where I should go to blindly hand over my credit card are appreciated.

jenks writes at 11:16:08 05/16/06 - Comment #7825: I'm on my second canon, and I've been very happy with it... (I now have the SD400 which I love b/c it's super tiny. The cons are: no optical viewfinder and no optical zoom (digital only). I haven't priced them out in a while though. J&R is a good name, but it never hurts to just shop around best buy etc... Like dragonlady I would stick to camera companies (canon/olympus/nikon) but that might just be snobbishness...

dragonlady7 writes at 09:29:05 05/16/06 - Comment #7818: I am something of a digital photography nut, although I'm nothing like an expert. (SD: What's SD? Is it like Compact Flash? The memory card? Otherwise I'm totally lost.)

I have a Canon EOS Digital Rebel, one of the giant clunky single lens reflex cameras with all the bells and whistles and it's bigger than my head and weighs ten pounds and has a resolution like five times the size of my monitor. I don't know a lot about the digital camera market but people see my camera and assume I'm a pro or something, so I do get asked a lot.

I made a page about it when I bought this camera: :::link:::
comparing all the cameras I've done significant work with. (The first camera is a clunky film SLR, but it's a good comparison in terms of the quality I was used to getting when shooting film. I loved that antique piece of junk.)

What I've learned is that Kodak digitals have fallen sadly behind-- they're easy to use and have a good dock system and what-have-you, but I'm just not as impressed with their quality. (The first one I had was awesome;
since then, they're not so great.) I want to cheer for the home team and all but you know, I expect a $400 camera to last more than two years, and not take shitty pictures in the meantime.

Canons are good. Every Canon I've used has been great. They've got some very nice little ones now that I half-covet, when I'm not submerged in the Awesomeness That Is My Huge Camera (that I can't take anywhere).

I know a couple people with Nikons that they like. I guess they're OK. They're on the small-and-easy-to-use side. The Canons I've used, even the point-and-shoot ones, have given better control and provided more reliable results. My sister's Digital Elph didn't have much of a learning curve, either.

I sort of don't know anything else except that I loathe HP as a company (why is everything they make disposable?) and am a pretentious enough git that I turn my nose up at cameras not made by camera companies.

But. Your mileage may vary. I am very eccentric in my likes and dislikes. And I know nothing about shopping. I got my camera from J&R Computer World because, well, I used to live down there and loved going there, and their prices were good.