Rachael Ray

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How could you not enjoy watching a woman who smiles like that? I hadn’t heard of Rachael Ray till the commericals started for her coming show. My Mom really enjoyed watching her on TV in Florida. So she turned it on today, the first day of her new show which is appearing here (in Canada- Toronto) as well. It was fun even though I’m not into Oprah or shoes. Half the show was recipes and cooking ideas. I’d watch it again . It sure beats Dr. Phil.

Sending Happy Mail to Kids

Happy Mail for Kids

Such a cute idea for a business! It’s even Canadian. Makes me think of all my years writing penpals all over the world and sending postcards, stickers, local currency, friendship books, newspaper clippings and recipes – not so different from this.

Caramel Pie Recipe

Caramel Pie Recipe – Caramel Pie

INGREDIENTS:

* 1 cup brown sugar
* 3 eggs, separated
* 5 tablespoons flour
* 1 1/2 cups milk
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 pie shell, 9-inch, baked
* 1/3 cup sugar, for meringue
* 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

PREPARATION:
Beat egg yolks; add milk. Mix flour with sugar. Add butter and vanilla. Combine all ingredients and cook in double boiler until thick, stirring constantly. Pour filling into baked pie shell, top with meringue, and bake at brown.

Prepare meringue.
Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until frothy. Slowly add 1/3 cup sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Spread meringue over the hot filling, spreading to crust. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes, or until browned.

Sounds good to me. Would it be going too far to drizzle chocolate over it?

Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups crushed vanilla wafers (about 50)
6 Tablespoons melted butter
1 14-oz. pkg. vanilla caramels (about 48)
1 5-oz. can evaporated milk
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
2 8 oz. pkg. softened cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips…melted and slightly cooled

Directions:
Crust: Combine crushed vanilla wafers and melted butter. Press mixture onto bottom and about 2 inches up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Bake at 350 degrees about 10 minutes. Cool.

In medium saucepan, combine caramels and evaporated milk. Cook and stir until melted (double boiler works best for this) Pour over baked crust. Sprinkle with toasted pecans. Chill

Filling: Beat softened cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs, beating on low speed just until combined (do not overbeat);
stir in melted chocolate and blend well. Pour over Caramel-nut layer.

Bake at 350 degrees about 40 minutes or until center appears nearly set when shaken. Cool about 15 minutes. Loosen from side of pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Cover and chill at least 4 hours before serving. Remove from refrigerator about 20 minutes before serving.

I didn’t have a lot of luck last time I tried those caramels in a cheesecake.

Have you seen that new cream cheese which comes already flavoured with chocolate and caramel? I tried it but it’s super-icky sweet. Too sweet for a cheesecake really. I like to add vanilla yogurt to my cheesecake, then just the cream cheese, some sugar, an egg or two. The rest depends on what flavour I’m going for. I made a nice ginger cheesecake over the summer for a party my Mom went to.

CopyKat Recipes – Lots more goodies were found here. But, now I’m going to bed. Even the lure of looking at more chocolate is fading fast. :)

Grandma Betty's Banana Bread

Cooks.com

I’m making banana bread today. It’s one of the best things about bananas. Anyway, I searched for recipes, just to see if there was something new to try. I came across one called Grandma Betty’s Banana Bread and I thought it would be old fashioned, with buttermilk and all those good things. Instead it consisted of a yellow cake mix with bananas added to it. That’s all. Pretty sad case for Grandma Betty. Why did they even put that recipe on the site?

I’m going to make the cake now. I’m adding sour milk (milk with a little vinegar – it’s how you make buttermilk for a recipe when you didn’t get to the store) and chunks of candied ginger and raisins.

Have a great day. See you at the wine tasting tonight if you’re in town.

The Outcast Smurf

If you think about it, there is always an outcast in every story, even the Smurfs had that grumpy guy that never fit in and was kind of tolerated rather than really accepted and etc. Gilligan’s Island had Gilligan. Sure, he was the namesake of the show but he was tolerated, the group simpleton, but he was not someone who really fit in. I seem to be the Outcast Smurf often. I never quite figure out why this is and I’m not being melodramatic or whining. Just writing my own monologue as usual.

I am no longer writing for SK. Do I miss it? No. I wasn’t sure what I would be thinking or feeling at first. I put it on the back burner and dealt with all the other feelings awhile. That’s where the Outcast Smurf deal comes from. I’ve always been that odd one out. From a kid in school to the present. I’m ok with it, I don’t mind being alone. In a lot of ways it is much simpler than dealing with people and all their politics. Anyway, do you really want to keep people around who abandon you when you have tough times? No, there isn’t anything anyone can do to help but at least you would think they could not toss you overboard. Well, so what? Onwards, I have my own life raft tucked away in my handy backpack. I’ve rescued myself countless times already. I didn’t even cry more than a minute this time.

Bugger it all. You can’t say bugger it around too many people. They give you sort of shocked and funny/ odd looks. I doubt they know what ‘bugger it’ means, for me, personally. It would loosely translate as ‘be damned’ maybe. Likely you have your own phrase of choice for those times when you throw in the towel, pick up your toys and move along. Or when you know you are about a hundred dollars short on paying the rent this month and you say ‘bugger it’ and treat yourself to breakfast out for an extra $5. What huge difference will another 5 make when you’re already short 100. Just think bugger it and get on with the slow crawl to where ever you’re eventually winding up.

What else can I babble on about uselessly now….?

There is a guy at work, I don’t know if he is married or single. But, at first, I was watching him and then playing up when I knew he was listening (or able to hear). But, when he never made any approach or showed that he knew I was on the planet especially I just started not bothering. Yes, I watched him, but more as a writer than a woman looking for possibilities. Turns out that he knows my name. Sure we wear our names on our chests at work, nametags. But, he knew my name enough to use it twice now. I don’t think he could have seen my tag at the time either. For one thing he was too far away the other day. The time before I was serving a customer (I’m a cashier at a store) and the tag wasn’t very visible as I was reaching into the register for change. But, does it matter when (point A) I don’t know if he is married or single and (point B) he has not asked me out for coffee or anything else. Such is my dating history, pretty much flat lining.

I didn’t do much for St. Patrick’s Day. It was kind of nice working that day even though I was hoping I would have the day off. I always consider it a family holiday for my Grandmother and her sisters, County Cork, Ireland. I think it was Cork, she won’t be too impressed with me if I’ve remembered wrong now. She isn’t around to remind me. Anyway, it’s her day and I miss her. I wore green pants to work and Lillian brought in shamrock stickers which she passed out to everyone. She stuck one on my face which was kind of funny, a shamrock beauty mark.

I may quit the job on Sunday when I have my review. Odd timing that the review came up now. I picked up an application for Zehrs today, same job but no credit card selling. Same lifting of endless mountains of stuff. Oh how I hate stuff, cartloads of it. People just can’t know how I cringe inside as they wheel it all up. Worse only are the people who ignore me or are out right grumps. What is it like to live like that and why would they choose to be that way? Can’t they see how being pleasant is so much better in so many ways? Also, I give discounts to people who are chatty and pleasant. The others can bugger it, I don’t go out of my way for them. “You thought it was on sale, oh? Ho-hum, I guess it’s not. Do you still want it?” If only they knew that a little eye contact, a smile, a few words of social pleasantness could have gotten them somewhere. Instead they are no where, just living in the land of grumpiness where they can remain and likely will. Likely they think everyone is just like they are. You tend to find what you expect to find. I expect better and usually find it, even if I do coax it out of people. It does make the day pass by a lot faster. I will never understand those grumpers, what kind of a life is that?

Not writing for SK is kind of liberating. I had a couple of other things on the go but I let them get crowded out to be there for SK and such. Now, I can re-sort the priorities and I am even going to work on getting out an article for one of the writing magazines. There’s a worthy goal. :)

Also, I was in Dmoz tonight and found a site by a woman chef with kids, husband and her own business. It was a nice site, pretty graphics and recipes and a forum and other stuff I didn’t really get into looking at. But, I was thinking that here is a site and a woman I would like to interview and she might not have wanted to be interviewed as part of SK. But, now I could do something on my own. But, do I want to run a site for women? One, there are quite a lot of them out there. Two, do I want more stuff I HAVE to do? Three, what for? I think three is winning out. Yes, it would be nice but what for? Web content should have a purpose and a focus, I don’t have a tight enough grip on either of those to start taking leaping lizards all over the place. It isn’t something I will just forget about, but… I get endless ideas, ambitions and passions that I have to narrow it down to things that are actually important and workable enough. Practical too.

I found a couple of quotes tonight. The first was in a magazine I browsed while I was out. The second came from the chef’s website GirlyRose.com and I found the third myself when I went looking for more Agatha Christie quotes.

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainty that just to be alive is a grand thing.” – Agatha Christie

“Most successes are unhappy. That’s why they are successes – they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.” -Agatha Christie