Death of a cactus and other Thursday stuff

  Fred and I went out this morning to do a couple errands and bring the kid to school. Cold as a witches tit out there, I tell ya. I get home and we are talking and I see dirt in the corner. Fucking animals!!
   It looks like it was a tag team effort. One of the cats was trying to jump up on shelf, didn't make it and in the process of coming down, knocked over my favorite cactus. Then there were chew marks on the end of each spire. I am thinking Ruby was enjoying it. The pot was broken in half and dirt was everywhere. We just threw it away. Now, it started off as one of those $1.99 teeny tiny Walmart cacti but it grew really nice and big over the years. My favorite out of the bunch. Pisses me right the fuck off actually but there isn't anything I can do. I will try to find another one at Walmart in the Spring and start all over.

 I was lucky to find the chocolate bark that I use to make the bon bons. I have to search through my stash to find the pink salt and I have to freeze the strawberries this morning. I have to make bon bons my friends. My list is getting longer. Bon Bons, Orange/Ginger marmalade, Strawberry jam, sugar scrubs, and two kinds of gourmet popcorn. All this and it is the 13 of December. I want to mail out a small jar of strawberry jalapeno and some bon bons to a friend in Maine. It wont get there by Christmas but he will still appreciate it.  Today I am going to clean house, make sauce for pasta and meatball, and decide which fucking thing I am going to make today. I think it will be bon bons. The kid has a friend that LURVS them and she is going to India over the Christmas holiday to visit family. I think she wants to give them to her before she leaves.  I found out that blood oranges do not come into the stores until January or February so I will have to wait to give that a try then. I may make a bunch and store it for next Christmas.
 Plus I am dealing with going through the two store circular`s for grocery shopping. I think I have added too much extras. I just remembered that I have to go to my ENT tomorrow at 3:15pm. Not looking forward to the going home part. I-95 out of New Haven on a Friday around 5pm is a fucking nightmare of epic proportions. I think I will make Fred drive it home so I do not have a conniption.

 This is my Thursday. Boring old Heidi doing boring old things and talking about it. Hope you all have a more pleasant today!

20 days and counting

I love Mary Engelbreit!

   Xmas is coming fast and furious! I have not been able to find empty tins that are suitable to putting popcorn in. I may have to take a trip to the Christmas Tree shop to see if they have anything. I also have to get working on the jam for my groomer. Ugh!
  The chocolate bark that I buy at Walmart to make my bon bons..is all gone! There was an empty space where the bark should be. I am stressing. I am going to try another Walmart 20 minutes away to see if they have any. This is what I get for being lazy and having surgery. I got lazy because I just did not give a fuck. Usually I would have already had the bark in the cabinet a while ago and I would be all set. Now I am fucked if I cannot find it. I could use another kind of chocolate but that is not the point! That is the kind I have been using for over 10 years.

  I did luck out on one thing though. I found this jar at the $1 store. I bought 4 at the time but I want to go back and buy a couple more. I am going to put the sugar scrubs in them. It is heavy too. Not some cheap ass glass jar and it has a rubber gasket. Perfect! There is one for Fred, each girl, and Rainbow. I just need to make some labels for them. I will get all that stuff and hopefully some larger sized tins for the popcorn soon. I am hoping the Christmas Tree Shop to the rescue. WooHoo!! I just looked at the flyer and they do have all shapes of Holiday tins! Yes! I will go there today and get the tags I need also.

This is the recipe that I am going to use for the sugar scrub:

What you'll need for the sugar scrub:

- mixing bowl and spoon

- 3 cups white sugar

- 1 cup + 2 Tbsp. good quality oil (I used olive oil, but you can use any nice, non-smelly oil)

- 10 drops of yummy-scented essential oil per jar

Combine your sugar and oil, mix it up well, and divide into separate bowls (if you're planning to flavor them separately). Add your essential oil, stir, and divide among your jars.

I may need more than 3 cups of sugar. I think each jar will take about 2 cups total but I will have to measure that out. I am glad I found the jars. I will pick up a couple more and I want to make a scrub for a friend of mine for Christmas and for another friend that does not have alot but does not like to take. She is modest so if I give her a home made gift, she will accept it.

 On a side note...I have NOT opened the giant box of chocolate. I hope you are proud. :)

Homemade gift ideas for 2012

We have one of those typewriters but it is powder blue. It still works but alas it  needs a new ribbon. I must remember to order it online sometime soon. Chelsea has her new/vintage manual typewriter from the 1940s. She is satisfied for now.

   I figured out what Fred and I (really just me) are going to make for our gifts for Xmas. I was racking my brain cause I could not think of anything right off the bat except shit that took alot of time. I found a couple good websites that gave me some great ideas. I figured I would share them with you if you wanted to make a gift or two for friends and family. I looked at so many sites for ideas and the one site that gave me what I was looking for was Crunchy Betty. There are gift ideas for kids, the man in your life and all your girls. After looking and deciding, Fred and I decided that making a sugar scrub for the girls and a salt scrub for the guys was a good one. So I will make the scrubs. I have a few essential oils here already that we have collected over the past year or so. Lavender, Lemon, Lemon Verbena, Orange, Peppermint, and Vanilla. I am hoping to buy a Sandalwood when I go to the co-op this week. That is a nice guy smell. Fred wants Lemon. I turned him on to the smell from all the Lemon lotions I have.  There is also a recipe for making bath salts. I might do both for the girls. So the can soak and scrub in the same smell. I need to buy jars and supplies.
   Another place that I found some good gift ideas was at Martha Stewart. There are a bunch of ideas for men. You just fly thru the pictures and you can click on what you would like to do. We chose the popcorn tins. One is Macadamia butter crunch and the other is Chocolate Almond. We are making that for everybody. Everyone loves popcorn and nuts. Tins can be bought at the $1 store and I just need some thick card stock to separate the popcorns in the tin. Cool idea huh? The popcorn recipe is not hard at all.

 The last gift I found just recently. Someone posted this idea on Facebook, I followed the link and decided that was for me. Paper stars that you can hang. They are supposed to be just for Xmas but I think they will like them all year long in their rooms. The site is called annekata.com. All you need is some origami paper, glue, pencil, scissors, and some string for hanging. That is it!  I was thinking of sharing this with Natalie so she has a second gift to give everyone. I want yellow ones for the upstairs bathroom.

  The snow was minimal yesterday. It is too warm here on the shoreline right now so we got another dusting on the cars and on the grass. It is not as cold as it was yesterday, thank goodness. I hated it yesterday! Today I am hoping I win the Powerball ($500 million right now) or even a small portion would be nice. I am going to do laundry. And I am going to do one of these paper stars to show Natalie. See what she thinks.
Dinner will probably be the Tombstone pizzas I got on sale last week. I dont usually buy them that often but when they sell for only $2 a piece, you gotta get it. I will put them on my pizza stone. It will be like eating a real pizza!

Happy Hump Day!

Peanut Butter Buckeyes

I made peanut butter buckeyes to give away as gifts this year. I have to make another huge batch today but I wanted to share how easy they are to make. You could easily whip up a batch of these, put them in some tins, and save yourself a ton of money on gifts for the adults in your life.

Peanut Butter Buckeyes
Ingredients
    •   2 cups peanut butter
    •    6 cups confectioners' sugar
    •    1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
    •    1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
    •    1 sleeve of whole graham crackers, pulverized into crumbs
    •    4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Peanut butter, graham crackers, powder sugar, vanilla, butter

I use the cinnamon flavored graham crackers but you can use plain or any flavor really. I take one sleeve from box and pulverize them to look like breadcrumbs in the food processor. Then I add all the other ingredients (except the chocolate) into a big assed bowl. Mix until it is all incorporated.

This is what it should look like when you are done. It is going to be dry and crumbly looking. When you start grabbing it to form the balls, the dough should easily stick together. If it does not and is TOO crumbly, just add some more peanut butter. If it is way too wet, pulverize some more graham crackers or add some more sugar. It takes a bit of experimentation at first before you get the right mixology.

Mmm! Chocolate!

While you are mixing your dough and getting ready to form the balls, you should start melting your chocolate. I do not use chocolate chips but I will give you instructions for them and for what I use. For chocolate chips: Melt the chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl set atop a pot of simmering water over medium-high heat. Stir continuously until smooth. Remove the pan from the heat.
I use something called Plymouth Pantry Make your own Almond Bark chocolate covered coating. Seriously..that is what it is called..LOL I put it in bowl, microwave for 30 seconds, microwave for 30 seconds, and microwave for 30 seconds and it is all melted!  I find mine at the dreaded  Walmart in the baking aisle. I have never been able to find it anyplace else. It works so well with this recipe.

I do not have a set size on the peanut butter balls. You do not want them too big because they are a very rich chocolate. So probably as big as a Atomic fireball. hehehe. I have a two cookie sheet system. Line both of them with either waxed or parchment paper (I am partial to parchment). Form a batch of 20 or so and pop that sheet in the freezer. The other cookie sheet is going to be for the balls that have been covered in chocolate. Let them sit in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes.

I put the peanut butter balls in the chocolate, cover them, pick them up with the candy tool (go to your local AC Moore or Michael`s, these candy making spatulas are super cheap. Like $2 for a package). Then I put them on the other cookie sheet with parchment paper. After that batch is done, they go into the freezer for 10-15 minutes.

Voila!

 And there you have it. An handmade gift that you can give from the heart. They are excellent frozen, refrigerated, or room temperature. Because they have butter, margarine or even Earth balance..they should be kept in fridge so they do not spoil. A few days out is okay. They travel well through the mail system.
Enjoy!