Lazy Girl Steak Birds

My mom is a good cook. One of my favorite dishes of hers is one we call Steak Birds. She pounds pieces of steak until they're flat, fills them with stuffing & rolls them up. Then they get browned on all sides and simmered in a gravy until tender. She often makes the stuffing from scratch, so it can be a time consuming dish.

I am a decent cook, but lazy. I was craving Mom's dish the other night, so I sort of faked a version. I used minute steaks, dredged in seasoned flour & browned in olive oil. Removed those from the pan and threw in some butter & onions and stirred that around until they were tender. Added a little more seasoned flour and a splash of milk, before stirring in a can of cream of mushroom soup, 1/2 a soup can of water, and a package of mushroom gravy mix. Put the steaks back in, covered the pan and reduced the heat to simmer while I went off to take a shower. (it had been one of THOSE days at work)

When I came back I cooked a box of cornbread stuffing mix, using a bit less water & butter than the package called for. I tend to like a dry stuffing anyway as it absorbs the gravy better.

Mounded a pile of stuffing on the plate, topped it with gravy and a minute steak. If I was a good girl, I'd have made green beans or a salad to go with this.

Anyway, it was good. And I made enough to get a couple of meals out of it, so I don't have to cook for a day or two!

Where has my brain gone?

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted much again lately. There have been some things going on worth posting to me, I just haven't had the time/energy to do anything about them. I'll try to work on that over the next few weeks.

Mostly as a reminder for myself, but also as a sort of teaser for anyone interested, upcoming posts will feature:

1. Going to a Neil Gaiman signing. (He's lovely)

2. Going to a house concert featuring Evie Laden & Keith Terry

3. My job has tried to kill me again, aka the moldy money story

4. British DVD's and how I'm too broke to buy them but do it anyway

5. My jackass brother is coming to visit...yay

6. Why I hate storms & wish my neighbor would just cut that damned tree down already

7. Contests, past & present

8. Games and how I get utterly addicted to them

9. Swedish murder mysteries (Camilla Lackberg)

10. S.T.A.R.E. & S.A.B.L.E. (STITCHY STUFF)

Life's Little Indulgences

Despite my battles with insomnia, my bed is one of my favorite places to be. One of my favorite pleasures is to make a bed with fresh sheets, and then crawl into it after a long shower. There is nothing like the feeling of utter bliss you get when you slide a freshly scrubbed self in between crisp clean sheets. (other bed-related forms of bliss will not be discussed in case my mother finds this blog again)

I'm something of a bed-linen junkie. I love colorful sheets. I like plain sheets. I have sheets that have been worn to pieces. I discovered jersey knit sheets and thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Then, on a trip to T J Maxx last year, I scored a set of 300 count cotton sheets on the discount rack. Bliss! Not a color I care for that much (deep dark red- looks wonderful with my purple & green bedroom, NOT), but they were $22 marked down from $79. Score!

Well, I've managed to top that. I didn't do it intentionally. I'm trying to get better about my spending. But I had some extra cash burning a hole in my pocket thanks to OT at work and a winning scratch ticket, and when I saw these, I couldn't resist. 450 count Egyptian cotton sheets in dusty lavender for under $40. They were made for me- and there was only one package, in the size my bed is, in the store. Who needs groceries anyway?

I have a quirk that doesn't allow me to wear new clothes or use new linens of any sort without washing them first. you just never know where things have been. Those sheets went straight into the wash when I got home and were ready to go on my bed by the end of the night. The result? Pure, unadulterated bliss. It's like sleeping on a cloud. I may never sleep on anything else ever again.

There is a downside to these wonderful, wonderful sheets. The purrbeasts are obsessed with trying to get to them. I don't want them on my lovely new bedding. Nightshade managed to get the comforter pulled back off the foot of the bed so she could loll on my sheets at her leisure. Malkin managed to unearth the pillows and lie on them. I've threatened to shave the next cat whose fur appears on my bed.

Actually, there's another downside. These glorious sheets make my ratty old comforters look even worse. I really need a new duvet...but I've got a birthday coming up, so maybe that will be taken care of then...


**updated** I caved in when I saw this set on Amazon. Perfect colors and good price, so I'm happy now.

A further dose of randomness...or... Still Life With Slugs

Having trouble of thinking of something worth writing about. Having trouble with a lot of things these days. My body is waiting for my brain to get the message that it just doesn't want to work anymore. The road trip was 2 weeks ago and I'm still worn out. Damn CFS.

Had discussions with 2 different friends and then on Pioneer Woman's blog about music of the 70's-80's. While I still listen to a lot of different things, including quite a bit of current stuff  (Halestorm rocks, BTW), I still like the music from those years. And because I spent a LOT of time listening to the radio & watching MTV, I can identify a shitload of songs by title and/or artist within the first few seconds. Even worse- I often know the words and often have to stop myself from caterwauling singing along in public. My former bookstore coworker, Scott, and I had quite the discussion about how kids today (now I feel old) don't know the thrill of browsing through record stores after waiting impatiently for an artist's new album to come out.

Switching gears for a minute- I seriously dislike insects, arachnids, and slithery reptiles. One of the things I hate about summer, besides the heat, is the amount of bugs that find their way into my house. I've been inundated with ants; the fleas that I made such effort to get rid of are popping up here & there (and being assasinated with extreme predjudice); and grossest of all are the kaza-flatching slugs. Every night I come home, walk into my bathroom, and there are slugs on my shower wall and in my bathtub. UGH. On the other hand, my tub hasn't been this clean in years, because I bleach the hell out of it daily now that those things are in it. Last night was the worst- I was pleased to only see one small slug clinging to the wall....until I looked down at the tub drain and saw a gordian knot of the digusting things around the trap.  ICK ICK ICK.

So I sounded the critter call (AIEEEEEEEEEEE! for those of you who were wondering), which was the cue for my cats to flee to my bed. After a few more shrieks, I remembered that I live alone and nobody was going to come get the icky things for me. Also, my neighbors might call the cops if I don't knock off the screaming and I don't think the code red responders would appreciate me asking them to get slugs out of my drain once they arrived. I debated the following options:

1. lay a trail of salt across the doorway, close the bathroom door and hope the disgusting things were gone in the morning (I was strongly leaning toward this one)

2. hermetically seal my arm/hand in cling film & tissue, pluck the nasty things out of the drain, and flush them down the toilet (nixed that one- hate the feel of squirming bags of snot in my hand)

3. pour an entire box of salt down the drain followed by boiling water, baking soda, & vinegar.

DING DING DING DING...WE HAVE A WINNER! Normally I wouldn't pour salt on them (time honored slug killing method that it is) because the resulting gooey mess grosses me out more than the live slugs, but this would go down the drain! I wouldn't have to touch anything! Yay! So I ran to the kitchen, put the kettle on, grabbed the salt and headed back to the bathroom. There may have been some evil chortling involved- don't judge me. Poured the salt into the drain and did the heebie-jeebie dance of grossed-outedness, and went back to wait 5 or so minutes for the kettle.

Took the boiling water into the bath, poured that down the now-mercifully-slug-free drain. Went back for the vinegar & baking soda, poured them in and let the foam settle, and then ran the hot tap for a few minutes. Yeah, it's overkill, but those things REALLY squick me out.

Huh. Guess I had more to say than I thought. Feel free to laugh at me now, if you haven't already done so. :-)

Did that just happen?!?

So I'm at work and my boys BB & DH wandered in with their evidence. (Initials being used to protect the guilty/save my hide)  While I was entering their first case, D asked if we had any of the small baggies we use for narcotics. I passed some out to him and started on the second case.

While that was going on, BB was asking about what our schedules were like in this office. I explained how that worked, and he joked that he might have to put in an application for one of the vacant spots to help pay his child support. This boy is cute as a button, but still hasn't learned where babies come from, cuz he has a lot of them. So D & I started teasing him about that, and then he spotted the baggies I'd given D.

"Hey!" he squawked. "I need some of those too!" I told him I'd get him some when I was done with their case.

"But I want some now...c'mon, you know you want to give me some babies. I'll give you anything you want if you give me some babies!"

*crickets*

Then he realized what he'd just said.

And when we saw the the look on his face, D & I exploded into hysterical laughter.

I suspect it may be a few days before he wanders in again...

Vader's Little Princess- Jeffrey Brown

Darth Vader is back and this time he's coping with the challenges of his little girl as she goes from adoring 5 year old to rebellious teen. Unless you are some kind of ridiculous Star Wars purist, you can't leaf through this book without smiling!

Star Trek Cross Stitch- Explore Strange New Worlds of Crafting by John Lohman

Some danged enabler on the 123Stitch message board mentioned this book and I had to get a copy. I bought a physical copy, not the Kindle edition which is what I seem to have gotten a picture of. At any rate, it's full of Trek patterns that will keep me busy for some time to come. Now if only someone would come up with a new book of Doctor Who patterns...