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Kara's Journal

kara
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07/31/2006 20:14 #25005

The Magic that is Weggies
Category: food
I have long been a fan of Wegmans' magazine, Menu, and today when I visited their web site I was again impressed.
Not only do they have a way to create your own set of personal shopping lists, you can customize them by store, which gives you a neatly ordered listing of which aisles have each item.
I generally group my grocery lists by produce, dairy, and types of food, but Weggies makes it that much more precise.

07/25/2006 20:41 #25004

For jenks
Category: potpourri
image
jenks - 07/25/06 20:54
aww. Thanks. hopefully I'll be able to change my pic back one of these days. I had to draw that one (obviously) since all the pix I have of myself are so damn smily!

07/19/2006 21:52 #25003

The S.S. Muffin
Category: food
As I try to come up with clever names for recipes, like the Ro-Ro-Rollup, here's one that pays homage to my love of boats: the S.S. Muffin. Sounds like a good name for a ship, doesn't it?
Baking when it's 90 degrees in our apartment isn't the worst idea I've ever had, but in the history of bad ideas, it's among the top 20.
The S.S. stands for sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. The recipe is adapted from one on allrecipes.com for five spice muffins.
Tools
One big bowl
One small bowl
Spoons
Muffin tins (I used one tin w/ 6 muffin molds - supermuffins. This recipe would make 12 regular size muffins.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (I had some frozen - in the summer, when it's local and fresh, I always shred a few and freeze them in bags of 1-2 cups.)
4 tbsp boiling water
1 3/4 cup of AP flour
1 cup sugar, any kind but powdered
2 handfuls sunflower seeds
1 handful sesame seeds
3/4 tsp each of: baking powder, salt, cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, cloves. I used several liberal dashes of cinnamon, and a giant tablespoon of my four spice mix (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and something else that escapes me).
2 eggs, beaten
3 tsbp veggie oil
a splash of vanilla extract
Steps
Preheat oven to 350 F and grease your muffin tins.
Add boiling water to shredded zucchini, mix.
In another bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
Add the eggs, vanilla and oil to the zucchini mix. Combine the wet and dry ingredients.
Add milk by 1/4 cups until it's a muffin consistency. I can't be more specific than that.
Spoon into your muffin pans.
Bake in the oven for 25+ minutes - mine took 28, but I constantly peek in to see its progress. I need an oven with a window.
Gosh they were yummy.
ladycroft - 07/20/06 09:54
ooh, i love allrecipes.com!
chicoschica - 07/19/06 22:43
kara -
I totally feel your pain. We don't have a window in our oven either and it's horrible. I know a watched pot never boils (or bakes), but it's really hard to keep from peeking.

The SS Muffin sounds pretty damn good to me. That's a cruise I'd take some morning during a coffee break. =d

07/18/2006 19:51 #25002

Buy our Boat
Category: buy
We're simplifying our lives a bit here at Casa Kane, and part of that involves divesting ourselves of some boat property.
(e:ladycroft)'s entry made me ask myself: does anyone else on (e:strip) have a boat? Like, a real boat, that you can sail - not a noisy motorboat that wastes gas and hurts eardrums.
We have a Potter 15 and it's the cutest thing. If we didn't already have the Catalina 22 in the marina, this would be our main boat. It's trailerable with a decent sized van or SUV, and comes with an engine and all necessary rigging and sails. I have more pictures and other details available; it's perfect for someone who wants to get into sailing, but who wants to start small. What better way to enjoy a western New York summer than out on the water - this is easily launched into Lake Erie, Chautauqua, or any of the Finger Lakes.

image
If you're interested, or if you know someone who should be, send them my way. Depending on how committed they are to a sale, we could be tempted to take the Potter out for a cruise.
kara - 07/18/06 22:23
Before you get into sailing, here's a little advice that J told me to remember as one makes the decision to buy a sailboat:
Go into the bathroom with several handfuls of $20 bills.
Stand in the shower, fully clothed.
Turn the shower on, and as your clothes are becoming totally soaked, start flushing those $20s down the toilet. That is the closest you can come to sailing without actually getting on a boat.

On the smaller boats, it's no big deal. If you have to spend $13 on some special little bolt, fine. But when you have a gigantic boat, or are big into racing, and all of the sudden those little bolts are $83 and you need 12 of them - well, see my anecdote.
paul - 07/18/06 22:00
I want to buy your boat so bad. Unfortunately, the mansion is eating all of my money. How much are you selling it for?

07/17/2006 20:30 #25001

Ruined
Category: clothes
I just ruined a load of laundry - an entire load of whites, including one of my favorite shirts of J's, white sheets, and some of my new white dinner napkins. I've read that it's possible to rescue some types of fabric from the inky mess I've made, but generally not if it's cotton (yep) or if it's been set in the dryer (yep, again).
A question for the (e:peeps) - what's the worst laundry experience you've ever had? Mine just happened tonight . . .
And what made it even worse was having my dear J show me, again, the wife school clip
chico - 07/18/06 20:45
ladycroft, thanks for reminding me -- I washed a load of clothes with a Chapstick in the pocket of a jacket and ruined a bunch of things, too -- damn, had forgot about that. Nasty stuff, Chapstick.

ladycroft - 07/18/06 10:30
i washed a tube of hemp chapstick (and dried) which left oil stains on all my clothes. couldn't get it out. boo.
kara - 07/18/06 08:25
Thanks to overstock.com, a new set of sheets is on the way. I made a valiant attempt to use nail polish remover on a rather large spot on a shirt, but it ended with me having made an even bigger mess of the shirt, ink on the sink, and blue fingers.
Maybe the moral of the story is that I shouldn't ever spend more than $5 on a piece of clothing; that way, if I stain and/or rip it, I don't feel so darn bad.
carolinian - 07/18/06 05:18
My worst laundry experience was when I went to the beach with my father and he put a load of dishes into the dishwasher. The reason this qualifies as a "laundry experience" is because he mistook a jar of white powder the timeshare's owner had placed under the sink for dishwasher detergent, when in fact it was powdered laundry detergent.

We were up until 3AM cleaning up the remnants of the unintentional "foam party" in the condo's kitchen that resulted from my dad's attempt to launder dishes.
jenks - 07/17/06 23:07
if it's really just solid white, and already ruined (i.e. you can't make it worse)- it's worth a try to just bleach the hell out of it... like qtip straight bleach onto a spot and see if it does anything... That sucks though. :( sorry to hear it.
mrdt - 07/17/06 22:43
My worst laundry expirience - well, this is kind of gross.

One Saturday morning, after working the night before, I was washing my chef pants, work unders and t-shirts when I noticed a pair of my girlfriends black panties from the same night on the floor. Trying to figure out why they were down there, I gave them a good look and saw a very nasty white stain in the crotch.

I don't know what the fuck it was but I always had the feeling that this insecure girl was cheating on me.

Needless to say a few months later the girl left me for someone else. But thanks for reminding me of that. There's nothing like the feeling of being told I love you by someone who's been around the entire neighborhood.
chico - 07/17/06 20:49
Oh Kara, so sorry to hear about the laundry disaster. Did you pick up some of that dye remover stuff, just to give it a try? "Ritt" or something like that...

For the record, I once left a very nice wristwatch in my pants pocket and not only washed it but threw it in the dryer as well. To say that it was pulverized would be putting it lightly.

Also, I once shrank one of (e:chicoschica)'s favorite wool sweaters down to Cabbage Patch Kid size.