Not Inadequate

I was reading Tracy at Just Another Mommy Blog this morning, and she was talking about keeping her house clean. And then she said something about bathrooms and man-pee.

That’s when my head began to pound and the room went black. Then red. Because OH MY GOSH WITH THE PEE!

Seriously – what is the deal? We are talking about a hole a foot in diameter, and it’s only a couple feet from the business end of the . . . ah . . . business. Maybe if they actually PAID ATTENTION to what they are doing, it wouldn’t go everywhere. I walked past the bathroom once and my husband was LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW.

DUDE!

One mystery solved.

Forget separate sinks in a bathroom. I can share a sink. I want separate toilets. NO! Separate bathrooms entirely! Separate houses! I could live in a tiny guest house in the backyard where no other humans are allowed. Imagine – no muffin crumbs, no dirt, no football, no man-pee . . .

It’s probably what heaven is like.

At the very least I should get one of those wall-mounted toilets like they have in WalMart. No pressing your face against the side of the toilet to scrape the pee out from behind it, just mop underneath. And instead of a rug, throw down one of those disposable paper drop clothy thingys like they put in your car when you go to the mechanic. Toss it in the trash at the end of the day!

Or how about a bathroom that is completely tiled and waterproof, with a big sprayer in the ceiling and a drain in the floor? I can just spray scalding hot water everywhere to clean it. Like a car wash. Or a dishwasher. Or something. Just as long as it doesn’t involve me being in close proximity to dried pee.

I don’t know why I’m not rich. Look at all these terrific ideas.

*Did I say “toilet” too many times? No? TOILET.

A while back I bought some Mediterranean Beef Skewers. They were seriously on sale and it seemed like they would be handy to have in the freezer. However, they taste very strongly of rosemary -  which it turns out, I don’t really like. 

Naturally, I don’t want to waste the meat, so I decided to use it in my knock-off version of Beef Burgundy. I don’t make that very often because the recipe calls for cooking a bunch of bacon and then browning the meat in the bacon grease. I don’t care for browning large batches of meat – it’s messy and gets grease everywhere. It can also be very time consuming when cooking large quantities. 

Note: I do not have a problem with bacon. Bacon Makes It Better. Remember that.

But the other day when I decided to use the Mediterranean beef, I figured we might as well grill it since it’s already on skewers. I could avoid the messy browning of the meat, assemble the stew as usual and continue cooking it in the oven. Plus, the smoky grill flavor might be a yummy added dimension. 

It was TO DIE. Seriously. I might even order more of the skewers I don’t even like, just to make this stew. 

Awesome Knock-Off Beef Burgundy 

• 3 boxes Mediterranean Beef Skewers, grilled (about 6.5 pounds of meat)
• 2 lbs bacon, diced and fried
• 1 lb mushrooms
• 2 white onions, diced*
• ½ cup flour
• 30 ounces tomato paste
• 3 32-ounce boxes beef broth
• 1 bottle Tisdale Shiraz (cheapie red wine recommended by Emeril himself)
• 4 bay leaves

Get two really deep disposable tin foil roasters – mine were 9 x 11 x 4 inches deep. Put half the bacon and half the meat into the bottom of each roaster. In a pan on top of the stove, sauté the mushrooms and onions together in a little bit of oil (or bacon grease). Pour half the mushroom/onion mixture over the meat in each roasting pan. Add 2 bay leaves to each pan. 

Wisk the remaining ingredients together thoroughly, except one box of beef broth. It might be very thick. Feel free to add in the reserved broth, some V-8, or even some water. Pour half of the mixture into each casserole dish. Stir to combine, cover with foil and bake at 350° for 1.5 hours. (I put my roaster pans on cookie sheets to help me get them in and out of the oven) Uncover, stir, and bake uncovered an additional 1.5-ish hours or until meat is super tender. Stir occasionally. Depending on how thick you want the gravy, pour in the reserved beef broth until you get the desired consistency. Serve over egg noodles or mashed potatoes. 

Obviously not everyone is going to have 7 pounds of skewers in their freezer, waiting to be turned into a delicious stew. But you could easily chunk some stew meat, and either marinate it in a rosemary salad dressing before putting it on skewers and grilling it, or do what my original recipe calls for and fry the meat in batches in the bacon grease. 

The sauce was VERY thick and rich, so next time I’ll probably use less tomato paste. Maybe I’ll even cut it down by half and use V-8 juice along with the beef broth for the liquid. I had originally intended to quarter some red potatoes and cook them in the stew, but the roasting pans were so full, there wasn’t any room. 

The method was not dissimilar to the Irish Beef and Stout stew I made the other day. The flavor was totally different though. I am more of a method cook than a recipe cook. The idea of a beef stew cooked in the oven for several hours could have all sorts of ingredients – use beer instead of wine, use V-8 instead of tomato paste, leave out the mushrooms and add carrots… the possibilities are endless. And it turned out to be a great way to use some meat I had in the freezer. 

I was thrilled to put 9 quarts of this delicious stew in the freezer. Let me know if you try this!

* Actually they were puréed in my Magic Bullet to accomodate my husband and his Onion Issues. I wrote diced, because I assume that’s how normal people would do it.

Here are some things I have noticed about my son (5) and my daughter (3).
 
My son does not use toys for their intended purpose. Blocks are not blocks, they are concrete to be stirred up in a bucket and poured out in the middle of the floor, or birdseed to be scattered (also all over the floor). A pretend shopping cart is the foundation of a big tower to be climbed, once a chair and the aforementioned bucket are stacked on it. The vacuum is the coolest thing ever, and when he was ONE, he casually dismantled it as we were walking past.  

He cannot find anything he is looking for, even if he is standing right on it. (If you have a husband, you may be familiar with this phenomenon. My husband once was looking for something and couldn’t find it even after I told him it was on the kitchen counter. I walked into the kitchen, found it exactly where I said it was, and handed it to him. He actually said that it was my fault, since I said it was by the stove, not the microwave….which was an entire distance of three feet. He also has accused me of hiding things, so I can later swoop in like a hero and “find” them. Seriously.) I am continually amazed at my son’s ability to understand how to take things apart, put them together, and his endless imagination for construction stories (which are themselves, also endless). 

He will not rest until he squeezes every drop of information out of us on any given subject. He regularly gets into bed with me early in the morning, questions pouring out of his mouth almost faster than he can articulate them. A few months ago, he stayed up an hour past his bedtime, badgering me about how babies come out, until I finally broke down and drew pictures of ovaries and a uterus; a placenta and umbilical cord.
 
My girl, on the other hand, can occupy herself quietly for entire minutes in a row with her books, her crayons, or her dollhouse. When she was two, she could draw a better circle than her four year old brother. Not only does she know where all her toys are and her sippy is; she also somehow remembers where all her brother’s things are, and often will toddle off to retrieve them while he and I are still in the middle of the “I don’t know, where did you leave it?” conversation. She also learned how to use a spoon and fork before she turned two, whereas he was three. 

She amazes me with how caring she is, asking “you ok?” every time someone sneezes or says ouch. She likes to climb up in my lap and whisper secrets in my ear, and stare intently into my eyes. When she turned three, and we were encouraging her to do new things, we would always say, “you can do it – you’re Big Three now!” Once, when I offered her ketchup with her dinner, she waved her hand dismissively at me and said, “Big Three don’t LIKE it” and I almost peed my pants laughing. She went on to refer to herself in the third person as Big Three for about six months. “Big Three wants some JUICE!”
 
I was so nervous about having a boy. I only had a sister, never babysat, and had zero experiences with males other then my husband and father, who were grown when I met them (mostly). But when Big got here….he is the light of my life. All that stuff about mothers and sons is true. He totally digs me, and it fills my heart. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I fretted inside about whether I could ever love anyone as much as I loved my son; my true love. 

I did, of course. One day when she was only a few weeks old and I was bathing her, I suddenly had an image of us doing girly things together – playing with our hair, giggling over nail polish colors. Turns out, she is also my true love. Her first word was “hair.” Her second word was “shoes.”

We have been ordering steak from Big Name Mail Order Meat Company for several years. Jim and I will grill some little filets on weekends for our We Have Kids Now at-home date nights. They have a sale a couple times a year and I stock up. 

However. 

The last couple of batches we have gotten have not been up to their usual standards. Our favorite little 4 ounce bacon-wrapped filets have been truly awful. Like, I would send this back in a restaurant awful. The beef is livery tasting and the bacon seems almost rancid. I’m sorry Big Name Meat – we have enjoyed a long and delicious relationship, but I am afraid we need to move on. 

It’s not us, it’s you. 

I am not the kind of girl who can just pitch a bunch of filet mignon because it doesn’t taste great when it’s grilled. No. So I checked my cookbooks and cruised the internets until I decided that Irish Beef Stew sounded like just the ticket. A nice long braise in the oven with some strong Guinness ought to take care of it. 

I read enough recipes to get the basic idea, and headed to the liquor store, where I was rudely awakened to the fact that beer is kind of expensive. I bought some cheap-ass inexpensive red wine for my fancy pants Beef Burgundy (more on that later) and the beer was twice as much. 

I chickened out on the Guinness. I don’t like beer and I thought it might be too strong – maybe even bitter. So I got Heineken instead. 

I defrosted the steaks, removed and discarded the bacon*, and cut the meat into 1 ½ inch cubes. I ended up with about 5 pounds of meat. 

I roughly followed this recipe from Martha Stewart. Except I used Heineken, changed the amounts of the liquids, and puréed the onions**. 

Irish Beef and Stout Stew – Sort of 

• 5 pounds beef, cut into cubes
• 1/3 cup flour
• 18 ounces tomato paste
• 2 medium white onions, diced
• 2-ish tablespoons garlic paste
• 3 32-ounce boxes beef broth (use two, reserve one)
• 2 bottles Heineken
• Salt and pepper
• Red potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
• Handful baby carrots 

Get two really deep disposable tin foil roasters – I think mine were 9 x 11 x 4 inches deep. Put half the meat into each roaster. Wisk the remaining ingredients together thoroughly, except the potatoes, carrots, and one box of beef broth. Pour half of the mixture into each casserole dish. Stir to combine, cover with foil and bake at 350° for 1.5 hours. (I placed my roasting pans on cookie sheets to help me lift them in and out of the oven) Uncover, stir, and add the carrots and potatoes. Bake uncovered an additional 1.5-ish hours or until potatoes are done. Stir occasionally. Depending on how thick you want the gravy, pour in the reserved beef broth until you get the desired consistency. 

You could easily cut the ingredients in half and make a smaller batch, but I am all about leftovers. We ate dinner and put 8 quarts in the freezer. My picky eater reviewer said “I LOVE this and I want you to make it like this EVERY TIME!” I am taking that as two thumbs up. 

I think next time I will be brave and put a stronger beer in it, and maybe a smidge more flour to make it thicker. Other than that it turned out great. Plus it was EASY, since it did not call for browning the meat first. Just chuck everything in the oven for 3 hours and walk away. That’s my kind of cooking. 

*I really want to describe this bacon as flaccid. flaccid…flaccid…FLACCID! It’s just funny. 

** I have to purée onions because my husband will file for divorce if he sees an actual piece of onion in anything. He has Issues. It’s my mother-in-laws fault.

Last night, my daughter was trying to take her barrettes out of her hair for a bath. She was having trouble and completely matter-of-factly, she said, “I need some help with my freaking hair.”  

*sigh*

I added a new page to the sidebar. I decided to convert my recipes to .pdf files and keep them all in one place. They are now on the Printable Recipes page, along with my Freezer Cooking Manifesto Tutorial.

Also, today is the final installment of my series on Freezer Cooking over at Modern Alternative Mama. It finishes detailing how I put over 70 dinners in my freezer in the month of July. Check it out.

That is all. See you tomorrow. I have to take care of some of the stuff on my To Do list. Blech. Cleaning out the schoolroom is my big goal for today. Oh, yeah – AND QUIT SWEARING.

Damn it.

Ok, so I am still working of stocking my freezer. Jim’s stupid business trip messed up my rhythm and I am trying to get my mojo back so I can finish cooking and start watching more teevee. 

This morning I spent some time cruising the internets, figuring out what I want to cook, and making a grocery list. I have an idea for a sort of Beef Burgundy knock-off I want to play around with, and I am planning on making an Irish Beef and Stout Stew. I saw this amazing looking recipe at Alli-n-Son for Beer Batter Pizza Dough that sounds pretty delish too. 

So first I had to hit the liquor store. We don’t drink, but I cook with wine occasionally. When I go to the liquor store I either feel like Posh Grown-Up or Party Animal College Student, depending on if I go to the fancy wine store or that place with the bars over the painted-out windows. But then I ruin it by asking for the cheapest wine they have, and I go back to my normal Frumpy Housewife self. Today, as I came out of the store, clutching my plain, brown paper bag, I slipped and fell off the curb. Right outside the liquor store. At 11 am. Because I am Graceful and Classy like that. 

People noticed. 

Maybe because after stumbling out of the liquor store, I got in my car?

Then I drove 20 miles to the only decent grocery store around here, bought supplies for my Big Soup Cooking Extravaganza and about $40 worth of grapes for the kids. 

Here’s the thing. When I unload my cart, I unload it in the order in which I want it bagged, because I am a completely normal, very relaxed person. I put all the heavy canned stuff on first, keep all the cold foods together, and put the produce on last. Sometimes I ask them to be careful with the produce, which gets me nothing but hostile looks and smushed bananas. Today, the checker tossed all 6 pounds of grapes into one bag, and then topped it off with some onions and mushrooms. I could feel myself wincing. When the bagger finally came over, I asked her if she would mind undoing that bag and bagging everything separately. She gave me a funny look, but did as I asked. Which worked out great, because that way she could spread all the grapes and the kiwis and the mushrooms in an even layer in the bottom of the cart before she piled all the potatoes and canned goods on top. 

And after I paid and went to collect my cart, I was so shocked that I blurted out, “DUDE. You can’t put a gallon of ice cream on top of twelve dollars worth of grapes!” And then I felt bad. Because she was like eleven years old and has probably never spent her own hard earned money on seasonal produce before. I was fuming so much on the drive home, that I missed the turn into the Starbucks drive-thru.

Oh well. At least we have ice cream in the house now. And by “we” I mean “me” because I snuck it into the freezer in the garage before the kids saw it.

This is not going to be a post about the evils of television.

Or how we don’t have one and consider ourselves to be Clearly Superior Non-TV Watching People, even though we get Netflix and watch stuff all day long on youTube (a distinction without a difference, but whatever).

No.

This is going to be a post about how much I love television.

I do.

I love it.

I limit it with the kids, and am really pretty strict about the quantity and content they are allowed to watch. But the minute they are in bed, my husband and I turn to each other and say Can We Watch TeeVee Now? We even eat our dinner on the couch like heathens. We were married for 11 years before our son came along, so some habits die hard. Eventually we will move to that Family Dinner paradigm and I will morph into June Cleaver. But not yet.

Let us begin:

I think cable has better programming than the networks. I actually enjoy the summertime cable shows more than the beginning of the fall season on the networks. Cable does not rely as heavily on innuendos and pushing the boundaries as much as network television does. There are actual storylines to be found. There is a lot of educational programming that is interesting and entertaining. The cable channels will give shows a fighting chance, and not cancel them after three episodes. Sometimes Certain People like those shows and don’t think they deserve to be cancelled just because they were on opposite American Idol (will that show just GO AWAY already).

• I love the Real Housewives. You might have previously thought I was joking, but I CANNOT get enough of that crap! It makes me feel so happy and superior. I shoo everyone outside, sink into the couch, and surrender to the lovely awfulness. Sometimes I yell, “OH MY GOSH YOU STUPID COW!” at the screen.
• I love The Closer. I have liked Kyra Sedgewick ever since she kicked that one guy in the crotch in that one movie. She is terrific. And Fritz is hot. The end.
• Also Burn Notice. Humorous, action-packed, and another hot guy. HOT.
• Not to mention – In Plain Sight, The Glades, White Collar, Covert Affair, Psych….all with storylines, humor, and hotties.
• Weekends are for getting my allowance of snark from The Soup and catching up on the latest Kardashian debacle. 

So there you have it. I love teevee. I understand if you don’t want to be seen with me anymore…

I love checking my spam filter. I don’t really understand why businesses use spam, or why they don’t have an actual person with a working knowledge of punctuation write their crap, but at least it’s entertaining. Here’s a great one -

 This is a good post, I stumbled across your story while looking for popular lyrics. Thanks for sharing, I’ll be sure to return regularly. 

I mean, sure – if you’re looking for the lyrics to all those Backyardigan songs that I can’t get out of my head, then come on back. 

Your web site is extremely fascinating,I desire to communicate with u,could i sent e mail to you?

um……NO

 This is the best one so far, though - 

I have not seen as far as others because giants were standing on my shoulders

Giants! On his shoulders! It could mean anything! It might even be brilliant! Or maybe a popular song lyric? I should get those two spammer-bots together. It could be a match made in cyber heaven.

July 1

Husband comes home from work and announces that he has to go on a business trip in 10 days. And he will be gone for 12 days. Try to remain calm. Fail.

July 2-11

Freak out trying to get laundry and grocery shopping done for the upcoming siege. Realize that since he works from home, hubby has the wardrobe of a down-on-his-luck surfer and we also need to go clothes shopping.

July 12

Hubby leaves 5am. Kids wake up at 7, already missing Daddy. Have brilliant idea to feed the kids all their meals at the picnic table, hopefully eliminating the need to clean the kitchen eleventy times a day. Best Friend, L, shows up for a couple of hours in the afternoon and hands out extra hugs and kisses to everyone, bless her.

Give kids reasonable healthy dinner and chuck them in bed. Warn of dire consequences if anyone gets up from bed to do anything other than pee. Celebrate one-twelfth of a job well done by sprinkling sugar on refrigerated pie crust dough, baking it, and calling it dinner.

Begin text message negotiations with Jim to determine if we can coordinate our teevee viewing.

11pm – 4am spend in bathroom, cursing whoever decided pie crust was a suitable dinner. Around 4:05 am, Little wakes up crying and comes into bed with me. At 6am, Big comes in and pitches huge, migraine inducing fit that Little is already ahead of him on cuddles for the day. Send hubby email full of lurid details and profanity. Wonder if there is a liquor store that delivers.

July 13 – 16

Rely heavily on Starbucks, Flintstones reruns, and macaroni & cheese. Picnic meals are effing BRILLIANT but I can’t figure out when to take a shower. Feel sorry for Jim, who is missing my incredibly witty commentary on The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Ponder philosophical questions – If someone snarks at teevee, but no one is there to appreciate it…?

Become exhausted at being the only person fielding all the questions a five year old boy can think of. Think very seriously about getting one of those people-counter-clicky-thingys to keep track. Probably it would lead to carpel-tunnel syndrome.

Have to take out the trash AND kill a spider all by myself. Hope for rain every day because I do not know how to water the grass.

July 17

Hubby emails and says that they have teamed up and badgered the managers to let them come home early. He is coming home tomorrow! Warn him of VERY SEVERE consequences if this turns out to be a trick.

July 18

Yay, hubby home at 1:30! Say hello and get him and the kids settled in front of Huckleberry Hound to cuddle. Flee to bedroom and sleep like the dead for three hours.

I don’t know how single parents or military wives do it. I really don’t. The whole time, I was so focused on keeping the machine of the family running; I barely had any time for cuddles or playing. I made every effort to not be grouchy, but I was so busy and overwhelmed at doing it all myself and trying to make my patience stretch all day long, that I wasn’t exactly Captain Fun either. I had all these plans to make popsicles and run through the sprinklers and read The Bobbsey Twins and have pancakes for dinner…but somehow it never happened.

• I refused to serve dinner last night until my kids picked up their toys. Does this make me a) a Monster, or b) a Genius? I think I finally found their price point.

• I think I do love Google Reader. So far I have added over 30 more blogs to it! I am, in fact, ridiculously excited about it.

• This website is HI-larious. It’s the diary of the people who live in that house pictured in all the catalogs – Catalog Living. I think they might be Kennedy’s. True Confession: I recognize EVERY SINGLE PICTURE and can NAME THE EXACT CATALOG they each come from. And I fantasize about living there. With people who know how to treat a white sofa.

• Don’t forget to check out Part 3 of my Freezer Cooking Series at Modern Alternative Mama. The aforementioned withheld meal was spaghetti, eventually served with meatballs I pulled out of the freezer and cooked for a few hours in the crock-pot with Ragu.

* Blog Post title brought to you by Dr. Obvious