Dried Cranberry Bulgar Salad
Posted on 7 July 2008 under Yummies | 2 Comments
Nicky over at Delicious Days blogged about a delicious dried cranberry bulgar salad she developed after she ate a similar salad at a dinner party a short time ago.
(You know I’m gunning to get you all eating bulgar, right??) You have to try this one if you try any at all… you know, just to see if you might like bulgar at all. This recipe will sell you on bulgar. Seriously, it’s that good.
Look at the photo of her salad and tell me that doesn’t look tasty. Go ahead. I dare you!!
Inquiring minds need to know, dammit!
Posted on 7 July 2008 under Links | 2 Comments
Lugosi may be interested in knowing that over at the Dexter Facebook page, the admins have a thread up where you can post questions pertaining to the show and season three for the Dexter panel appearing at the upcoming Comics Con (made up of cast and producers).
Watching and Waiting
Posted on 6 July 2008 under Forehead Smacks | 2 Comments
I posted my hand rash pictures yesterday at 10:38 am and wondered how long it would take before someone came to my site through Google. At 1:16 pm today, someone hit my site off of search.live.com looking for “pictures of hand rashes.”
*snort*
Can’t wait to see how many hits this new search term drives my stats up by.
Calypso Colour Combination
Posted on 5 July 2008 under Nonsensical | 2 Comments
Been working out colour combinations this afternoon. I’m fair certain I only half like this one. I think I have something here but not sure what it is or what to do with it.
Hand Rash
Posted on 5 July 2008 under Uncategorized | 10 Comments
Did I ever mention that about 99% of my site traffic comes from Google searches for my foot rash photo? It does. Sad, but true. So, in a bid to drive search hits away from the foot rash photo and to screw with my stats a bit, I’m posting the following: my hand rash!
This lovely rash showed up on the back of both hands a half hour after I ate a Shopsey’s hot dog. I don’t eat red meat anymore, but this one day I couldn’t resist the temptation. After it showed up, I checked the ingredients list and sure enough there were sulphites and other nasty things in the meat my body can’t tolerate. This is a classic sulphite reaction.
It took five days before it started to go away, and two weeks later it was gone. A month later, I had another Shopsey’s hot dog to verify whether or not it was the offending food and nothing happened. So I had another hot dog the next day and it also produced nothing. Weird, no?
Okay, so let’s see how long it takes before the hand rash photo hits start rolling in!
Breakfast Bulgar
Posted on 3 July 2008 under Yummies | No Comments
1 C course bulgar
1/4 C dried fruit such as raisins, cranberries, apricots, etc.
1 1/2 C boiling water
Place all three in a heat proof bowl and let rest till steam dissapates. Cover tightly and store in the fridge for up to four days.
Place 1/3 of mixture into microwave bowl, add 1/4 C hot water and heat for 2 minutes, letting stand for another minute. Top with honey, fresh fruit and low-fat milk before serving.
Personally, I threw a few dollops of banana flavoured yogut on top in place of anything else and it rocked!
It’s all about the bulgar, dummy
Posted on 30 June 2008 under Yummies | 6 Comments
Lately I have been eating a fair amount of bulgar, and in the process, losing weight or shedding bloat - can’t tell which. I suppose I should step on the scale to verify my weight loss theory, but I never remember when I’m in the bathroom. I get in, do my business, and get out as fast as possible. 
Anyway, not sure all of you know what a great benefit to your health eating bulgar is, but I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m on Lipator for my cholesterol and take blood pressure medication because of a medical condition I’m being treated for, but DNA be damned! My goal is to reduce my stress and to sop of as much bad cholesterol by eating whole grains like bulgar as I can stomach weekly to reduce my levels and med usage by the end of the year. *crossing fingers*
Anyway, one of my favourite recipes to employ bulgar is tabouleh. Here is a batch I made recently. It comes from Chef Sami. His mother taught it to him when he was a little boy living in Lebanon.
It contains bulgar, flash cooked white onions*, diced grape tomatoes and finely chopped curly parsley, extra virgin olive oil and salt. I mix it all together and let it rest in the fridge for at least 12 hours before I dig in with some torn up whole wheat pita chunks or torn up whole wheat flat breads from President’s Choice. I dig those two types of breads with tabouleh the most. That’s it. Simple, no?
I have quite a few bulgar recipes in my stash at home collecting dust because tabouleh is my favourite bulgar standard. I aim to expand my recipe rotation to include the others as the months go on. I will post them as I make them so you can try them as well.
Oh, and I should also mention just how yummy this tabouleh is when it’s heated enough to take off the chill but not so hot that you burn your mouth and served eaten with room temperature pita or flat bread chunks. I have also eaten this tabouleh at room temperature with warmed up pita or flat bread chunks. Both work beautifully.
Note: * Flash cook your onions in boiling water for a mintue before dropping them into a bowl of freezing cold water for one to two minutes to cool them before draining them and then tossing them into salads. It takes off the harsh taste of raw onions and saves you from a night of heartburn from hell. Trust me on this!
Brownie Cookies
Posted on 29 June 2008 under Uncategorized | 1 Comment
The blog over at King Arthur Flour, Baker’s Banter, recently posted about some yummy looking brownie cookies that, when made exactly according to the recipe, have that cracked look you get when you bake a pan of brownies from scratch or a mix. I recently made a batch for Ellen’s birthday and another batch for some nieces and one nephew because I like to send cookies to people in the mail. I’m strange like that. It’s one of my strange addictions, actually.
Before I sent out the good cookies, however, I took the recipe out for a test drive. I noticed my batch didn’t crack and couldn’t figure out why. I read the comments and it was mentioned that you have to sift the flour before you add it to the wet ingredients. I chalked my first round batch to that difference and the next night I made another batch of the same cookies.
The first night I had a 70% cocao chocolate sitting in the fridge which I smashed up before melting it with the butter. The second night I used my Nestle mini dark chocolate chips instead and sifted the flour. The difference was like night and day. The cracked tops appeared like magic. The looked wonderful.
In the meantime, Joe was busy eating the test drive cookies and loving them! When they were all gone, he asked me if the magic cookie fairy could make another batch appear in our cookie tin. I said, “Dunno, hun. Did you hope and pray to the cookie gawds long and hard? That’s the only way they will appear, you know.” He said he would get right on that.
So, since this is a long weekend of sorts of here in Canada, I decided I would make him another batch. It was hot and I didn’t feel like reaching up to the top reaches of my cupboards to get down the dark chocolate chips this time, and had another bar of the 70% cocao dark chocolate sitting in the fridge, so I smashed that up instead and sifted my flour the way it was suggested. I was a bit disappointed that the tops on this batch didn’t crack, but since Joe wouldn’t care, I baked up the whole batch and resolved to try again another time.
The cookie tops on today’s batch may have turned out like the test drive batch, but the cookies themselves were chewy and lovely and tasty, so I was happy about that. It was bugged about the cracked tops appearing on only one of the three batches I made, so I thought about what I did to get that result in the second batch that I didn’t do during the first and third tries, and it became clear to me. For success using this recipe, it simply comes down to the chocolate bar v. the mini chips. The next time I make these cookies, I will sift the flour and use mini chips. I’ll post the results to see it I’m right, but my gut instinct is that’s where I went wrong.
Addendum: PJ over at Baker’s Banter thinks the difference between the cracked and pillowy tops is the amount of cocao in the chips v. the chocolate bar. He may be right. I think the lack of sugar in the 70% cocao chocolate is working against me. As he points out, part of the cracking is due to the sugar itself. He may be onto something there. After all, baking is more about science than it is creativity. But only slightly. Hee. I think I will use the same chocolate bar and compensate with more sugar added to the recipe to achieve the desired result next time I make these cookies. Will report back on this theory.
I didn’t take any pix of the second batch, but Ellen can verify that they looked like they were supposed to.
My batch (top & middle pictures), and King Arthur’s (bottom picture). Yummy, no??
This just in…
Posted on 26 June 2008 under Forehead Smacks | 2 Comments
If you’re wondering why iTunes can’t/won’t display your iPOD’s play list, it might be because all along you’ve been attaching it to a PC using a spare purple USB - PS/2 connector on the end of the actual USB cable the device was sold with. Those purple converters are meant soley for attaching USB keyboards to PCs using the PS/2 port in the absence of any freed up USB ports. Nothing else will work despite the fact that the connector is a perfect physical fit. You will never get any other device to be seen by your operating system let alone iTunes! Understand?
That is all.
Happy Birthday, Mellen!
Posted on 25 June 2008 under Deep Thoughts | 1 Comment
Here is a lovely class photo from Grade 3, the year Ellen and I first met and became life-long best buds. Tomorrow is her 39th birthday (for the first time). Welcome to the club!
Note that this is probably the only time in my life I would have ever worn green… willingly. Green, much like yellow, is a difficult colour. And you will love the high waisted pants. Not as fugly as Jessica Simpson in high-waisted pants, but I am guilty of wearing high-waisted pants nonetheless. And our hair. Yikes!! Both photos are attached for your viewing pleasure.
The boy in the middle of the first row in the striped sweater was my very first boyfriend ever, in kindergarten. The boy right behind him in the plaid shirt is Guy Grosjean. He was my boyfriend in this grade, but he dumped me after five minutes because I wouldn’t neck with him in the woods. Maybe he’s the reason I can’t stand French Canadian men? Hmm… ;=) I kid. I will always have a soft spot for Guy “Don’t call me Gee.” He was my first french boyfriend. You’re always sentimental about your first, right?
Can you believe what a man eater I was back then?? Hee.
