Martha, Martha, Martha

I have a confession to make. So Martha Stewart stole a bunch of money and I'm not entirely sure that she actually has a soul, but the bitch has some good ideas. Earlier in my life I'm pretty sure I vehemently denied supporting anything Martha'esque or even house keeping/hosting in general, but I have to say that these days I absolutely love being a hostess. Bakerella is one of my heroes, and since 'Top Chef' has been one of my reality programs on record during the last few days of working from home, I've been in the mood to craft some stuff in the kitchen. We're having some friends over for a cookout the 4th of July (unless it rains, then it's more of a cook-in), and to me that means several things but right now I keep hearing "Theme Party!"

Though I'm not going completely crazy (discount plastic red white and blue star themed glasses from Target, and flag napkins does not equal crazy.. by some definitions), I did see these really cute pretzels on Martha's site and thought they'd be easy to do.

I thought wrong.

Actually, they're not that bad but I didn't think about several things.

1) Nobody makes those pretzel rods anymore, and ESPECIALLY not in Gluten-Free and Vegan (Hubby is vegan right now, and one of our guests is gluten-free)

2) Apparantly you need to order red white and blue sprinkles online or something, because I couldn't find any at Hobby Lobby or the grocery store (just had sanding sugar in the wrong colors or nothing at all, listen I'm all for fair trade organic but is there really something so harmful about a chemically died sprinkle?!).  I could have driven across town to Williams-Sonoma, but I couldn't justify traveling about an hour round trip in a bunch of thunderstorms to find.. sprinkles.

So, I improvised.

Instead of red white and blue pretzel rods, we ended up with white, light blue, pastel flower, and orange mini-pretzel rods.  For a while I had a nice little assembly of dip in chocolate, roll in sprinkles, place on tray - with the occasional broken pretzel dropped down on the floor for the dogs to scarf up.  This lasted for about as many pretzels as you see here, before I got bored and went for a more modern approach.

I have not yet developed the patience to accurately dip beautiful chocolate pretzels.  Maybe next year! 

On the horse front, I'm going to have to wait a few weeks before I can go try out the Hanoverian.  The weather has been really crappy, and he's apparently afraid of thunder. He sounds like a really nice horse, but I'm also going to look into some local barns in the meantime and try to develop a list of places to check out that are close to me.  On my last day of my discount at my old job, I bought a brand new IRH helmet - exciting!

Naner Bread & Bugs

I wish I had something more interesting to say, but hubby is in Chicago working and I've been left at home to my own devices.  Right now, that doesn't mean a whole lot unfortunately.  I have about three more weeks that I'm working for my job remotely, so my days are spent with a laptop on my lap watching re-runs of America's Next Top Model, applying for jobs, and doing some web design.

And at the moment, the job hunt isn't going very well.

That's pretty discouraging, because I've never had a problem finding any job in my life.  Everything from tutoring to career web design jobs, it just short of happened to me.  I suppose this is a good experience, letting me know that I'm not god or anything... but dammit I'd like a little bit of validation please.

Instead, I spent tonight alone with my dogs trying to validate myself through cooking and getting the bugs out of my house.  I don't know if it's this old house we're renting, or Texas and that whole southern heat thing, or the huge gaping hole in my porch door (well, I'm certain that has something to do with it) - but my house is infested with bugs.  We have beetles, flies, fruit flies, and the occasional spider - joy!  I googled fruit fly traps, and have had a cup with really nice organic balsamic vinagarette out for days... but the flies just laughed at my fancy vinegar and refused to die in it like they were supposed to.  I'm now resorting to moving all of hubby's fruit into the refrigerator, where it may never ripen but HOPEFULLY will not attract anymore fruit flies. 

On the cooking front, I rounded off the evening with home-made healthy banana nut bread.  I don't like bananas, but in bread form they're okay.  Plus the damn things were probably attracting more flies.  I would have taken a picture, but alas I already zipped the bread up in a bag and hid it in the refrigerator so it wouldn't get swarmed by insects.  Here's the recipe, sort of a mix of my own and something off of all recipes. 

Healthy Banana Nut Bread

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 cup Agave Nectar
2 eggs (can be left out or substituted for apple sauce for vegan bread)
1/3 cup butter / buttery spread
3 smushed bananas
1/2 cup pecans

Cook at 350 (like you cook everything in the world) until it's risen some and is just starting to brown on top.

Tacoss

I know, there's been a long absence.  I spent most of last week feeling like death, somewhere between the "oh my god I can't keep my eyes open" of mono and the "I'm so green i make kermit look like a joke" stomach flu.  I call this the "I've moved to Texas and discovered I'm allergic to tacos", because it all started with these.

Those are breakfast tacos.  They are actually yummy and delicious, but they started this whole thing so now they are to blame.  In case you weren't aware, everything in Texas comes in taco form.  You can get filet mignon tacos... out of a trailer.  You can get veggie and shrimp and breakfast and dinner and dessert.  Texas should really be re-named Tacoss.

And for the first few days I had no problem with this taco delight, but then one night we went out for Tex Mex (surprise) with some friends and I innocently consumed two strawberry margaritas.  In Massachusetts, strawberry maragaritas = sugar with a hint of tequila, but here they are no joke.  Suffice to say, it wasn't long before I was begging hubby to take me to the dessert bar at whole foods (because that would fix EVERYTHING) and acting a total fool.

The next morning I woke up and thought breakfast tacos would fix everything.  NOT.

But now I'm recovered, evidence being I'm drinking a glass of white wine without feeling like I need to go have a lay down (at least not after one).  I've got three weeks starting tomorrow of stretching out my job, which is exciting because I get paid.. but not exciting because I don't really have anything else in the hopper for future employment.  At least the hubby is willing to keep buying me tacos, it could be a lot worse!

Texas is ridiculous.

No really, it is.

Tonight we walked to a bar near our house that has just glowing yelp reviews for having good food (Why my fiance thought going out to dinner sounded better than tofu pop hot dogs, I don't know). So when we sit down at Gibson's I don't know anything about it besides "They have really good food," and as I look at the menu it's pretty clear why they have really good food - because it's pretty much all burgers, hot dogs, and fries. Who doesn't like burgers hot dogs and fries? Not only that, but they're trailer park themed burgers & fries, because everything is cooked in a 50's silver trailer next to the bar. No need to make junk food classy in Texas, yeehaw.

So I get a grilled chicken something and the fiance gets a veggie burger. There was a brief plea from him for me to order a - and this is true - baked potato hot dog. Because a plain hot dog isn't enough oh no, but we should wrap it in bacon before putting it in a bun with a wedge of potato, cheese, sour cream, and chives. Tasty? Oh yes, but my rationale of "I walked 1/4 a mile to get here so that means I can eat french fries" wasn't extending so far as a baked potato hot dog.

Then our food arrived.


Your eyes are not deceiving you. That is a veggie burger with a donut for a bun. Ohmygoddonutbun! Neither I nor dear hubby read the fine print on this one, so this came as a surprise. A sugary fattening wonderful surprise. OK, so I only had a bite but this officially confirmed the sneaking belief I had all along - that Texas is insane and I haven't even begun to see it all here.