That's me - living on the edge. Brazenly disregarding all the rules, marching to the beat of my own drummer. I throw convention to the wind and laugh in the face of commonly accepted wisdom.
How, you may ask? Let me tell you so you can be amazed by my carefree ways.
They say you should never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink. Recently, I came across such a bottle of wine. And because I didn't want to waste it, I cooked with it.
See? Totally wild and crazy of me.
I used it to make Red Wine Reduction Steak Sauce last Friday. Then, in order to up the ante, I didn't even follow the recipe exactly. This is because the recipe calls for three different kinds of onions (red, yellow, and shallots). After two kinds of onions, I was in tears and I told Joe that if the recipe was a failure, I was pretty sure neither of us would say "know what this is missing? One more kind of onion!". I also refused to "discard the vegetables". Are they nuts? I spent forever chopping and crying while I prepared those veggies. Not to mention they aren't cheap. So I left them in and poured them over the steak and mashed potatoes.
And then, as if THAT weren't enough craziness, I totally used the rest of that Merlot in spaghetti sauce last night. I KNOW! I dared tempt fate TWICE by cooking with wine not fit to drink.
All that devil-may-care attitude of railing against conventional wisdom resulted in two very yummy dinners. So they can play by the rules if they like. But I will continue to boldly go where no (sane) man has gone before.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Cuteness
Do you think squirrels have those crazy fluffy tails just so they don't look like giant rats? I mean, they really aren't ALL that different. And yet somehow squirrels are kinda cool in the backyard while massive rats would not be quite-so-much.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Six Word Saturday
taking control and it feels amazing
Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing. I love seeing what everyone does with their entries.
Each week (probably on Sunday or Monday), I use random.org to select a bunch of entries to visit. Or I visit everyone. Depends on what's going on that week. In addition, please visit the person ahead of you on the list (or visit everyone if you like!). That way everyone receives at least one visit!
If you play along in your blog, please add a link to the Mr. Linky. I appreciate a link back (shiny code below if you like!). Otherwise, you're welcome to leave your six words in this post as a comment.Please be sure to link either to your main page or (preferably) directly to the 6WS post. Links to blogs that do not contain a 6WS entry will be removed (sorry, just the button in the sidebar doesn't count as participating).
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Unthinkable
It's been years since this last happened, but it happened again on Saturday night. In fact, this is only the third time in history it's EVER happened.
We opened a bottle of wine and hated it so much that we didn't drink it.
I KNOW!!!
Sure, we've opened a bottle with dinner and realized it didn't pair well with whatever we were eating. Usually in that case it's a white wine that's a little sweeter than we want with the meal so we just set it aside and drink it later. We call those "porch wines" and they are nice for sipping after dinner or in the afternoon.
But this time, undrinkable. We thought it was a poor pairing with the burgers we had made, even though the recipe book recommended Merlot. Or perhaps our palettes were a bit compromised by the pre-dinner gin and tonic. Either way, the wine tasted like grape cough syrup. We poured our glasses back into the bottle and put it aside to try again later.
Later came. It STILL tasted like grape cough syrup.
And now this bottle of Merlot is mocking me from its perch on the kitchen counter. What to do with it? We can't serve it to guests or give it away now that we've poured our tasted glasses back into the mix. I hate to just pour it down the sink (which is what we did with the LAST two bad bottles). I'm going to try to use it in a recipe of some sort. I know they say to only cook with a wine you'd drink but I tend to think that's rubbish. And at this point, I'm running out of other options.
Unless you'd like to come over and join me on my porch for a glass of slightly-used Merlot!
We opened a bottle of wine and hated it so much that we didn't drink it.
I KNOW!!!
Sure, we've opened a bottle with dinner and realized it didn't pair well with whatever we were eating. Usually in that case it's a white wine that's a little sweeter than we want with the meal so we just set it aside and drink it later. We call those "porch wines" and they are nice for sipping after dinner or in the afternoon.
But this time, undrinkable. We thought it was a poor pairing with the burgers we had made, even though the recipe book recommended Merlot. Or perhaps our palettes were a bit compromised by the pre-dinner gin and tonic. Either way, the wine tasted like grape cough syrup. We poured our glasses back into the bottle and put it aside to try again later.
Later came. It STILL tasted like grape cough syrup.
And now this bottle of Merlot is mocking me from its perch on the kitchen counter. What to do with it? We can't serve it to guests or give it away now that we've poured our tasted glasses back into the mix. I hate to just pour it down the sink (which is what we did with the LAST two bad bottles). I'm going to try to use it in a recipe of some sort. I know they say to only cook with a wine you'd drink but I tend to think that's rubbish. And at this point, I'm running out of other options.
Unless you'd like to come over and join me on my porch for a glass of slightly-used Merlot!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Six Word Saturday
so many beautiful flowers blooming, achoo!
Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing. I love seeing what everyone does with their entries.
Each week (probably on Sunday or Monday), I use random.org to select a bunch of entries to visit. Or I visit everyone. Depends on what's going on that week. In addition, please visit the person ahead of you on the list (or visit everyone if you like!). That way everyone receives at least one visit!
If you play along in your blog, please add a link to the Mr. Linky. I appreciate a link back (shiny code below if you like!). Otherwise, you're welcome to leave your six words in this post as a comment.Please be sure to link either to your main page or (preferably) directly to the 6WS post. Links to blogs that do not contain a 6WS entry will be removed (sorry, just the button in the sidebar doesn't count as participating).
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