bunny?

...gonna kick the darkness 'till it bleeds daylight... musings of a hungarian in texas

©2003 by Annamaria Kovacs. All contents of this blog are the property of the author. Use with written permission only.

Monday, November 29, 2004

Thanksgiving...

It was good. Although planned to spend it sans husband, he stayed in town as flights he wanted to utilize for standby travel to DC to visit his grandma were all sold out. Watching the travel craziness that ruled over this weekend, I am glad he stayed. He'd probably be stuck in Miami or somewhere worse. I hope all of my Dear Readers who traveled during this holiday are home safe.
Dinner was spent with friends. My turkey recipe I originally planned to make went out the window as the grocery store did not have any quality oranges at all, and thus my orange glazed turkey had to be scrapped. It was a rosemary-garlic crusted creation instead, rubbed with 1 cup butter in which the aforementioned spices were gently sauteed ahead of time. The stuffing was a honey-sunflower cornbread dressing wirth prunes, pears, rainines and assorted vegetables; i made the cranberry sauce from scratch. Maple glazed vegetables completed the menu--those went first...mmm...
The pumpkin pie did not set, unfortunately...I tried a new recipe and next time I'll have to leave in the oven longer, no matter what the recipe says. It was good, nevertheless, we just called it 'pumpkin dessert'. :-)

In other news, go and see 'National Treasure', please. Geeks as heroes. Yay.

Friday, November 19, 2004

I really did not want to do this, but...

I just got some of my Christmas shopping out of the way--I love the Internet! It's for people like me, who don't like to drive, don't care for crowded malls and have some friends/family members with VERY weird needs/habits/hobbies... Nothing fancy--we are on a budget this year. But I like making a list, then crossing out items as I got them. Actually, I prefer small, thoughtful presents. I actually placed an order today that will be used to make handmade gifts...I used to do those a lot, and they were usually a hit.
I like the thrill of the hunt: "Will this or this would be better for X, Y or Z?..." and then seeing something completely different and realizing "Ooo! Ooo...THIS is what X, Y or Z really needs!"

::sigh::

I just wish the radio stations haven't started to play the Christmas songs yet, or the stores would have held off decorating/putting out Christmas merchandise at least until after Thanksgiving...I mean, come on: I've seen TWO houses in Irving already in Christmas finery the first weekend after Halloween!

Thursday, November 18, 2004

One of my favorites of this year is out on DVD

In a previous post on this blog here I already established the The Chronicles of Riddick is a really good movie, not only a flick. Well, the Director's cut just came out on DVD this Tuesday and last night between baking two pecan pies we run out and bought it for the night's entertainment.

Folks, David Twohy's version is better than the movie version, pretty much the same way as my husband's all-time favorite movie Blade Runner is better in the Ridley Scott-version. I am not going into plot points here yet, on the off-chance that some of my Dear Readers have not seen it yet (by the way, if anyone in the DFW area would like to view it with us, give us a holler)--but you know, that ending just packs such a punch... It was really heavy in the movie version too, but the subtle changes (like giving the final line of the movie dialog to another person) made it even more obvious the moment when the 'hero' of the movie, Riddick realizes that his days of ‘going around killing people’ are over. That yes, from now on, he ‘keeps what he kills’. He acquired conscience. And he’ll live with it from now on. And it sucks.


Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Chocolate Chip Muffins with Walnuts

So: here they are! Yes, I could not stand it and baked these last night--the recipe was modified as the original featured 1.5 CUPS of white sugar and I am just NOT willing to have it that way. These are the best while either fresh from the oven or microwaved back to warmness( i.e. gooey chocolate chips) for about 11 seconds.


Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tablespoons brown sugar (I actually used 2 tablespoons, but there might be some Gentle Readers who like it more sweet than I do)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
12 whole almonds


DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners. (I used safflower oil, it was perfect.)
In medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In large bowl stir together milk, egg, oil(again, safflower oil was rreally nice) and vanilla. Mix dry ingredients to large bowl; mix well. Add chocolate chips and walnuts, stir until incorporated.
Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Poke almonds into tops of unbaked muffins.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. My oven runs a tad hot, so it took me exactly 20 minutes.



Enjoy. If you try it, let me know how it turned out!

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Monday, November 08, 2004

A Word of Caution

Dear Readers--by all means, stay away from vending machine blueberry muffins! I had the misfortune of pulling a twin pack out of ours and microwaving it, as I always do with these things to get some flavor out of them...
Oh. My. Lord.
The blueberries in these abominations are clearly made out of plastic. By heating them (and before you ask, yes I DID remove the plastic wrappers and I heated them in paper towels as I always do with bread products)they released this truly awful sour plastic flavor that permeated the whole product...My stomach is in total revolt after eating about two mouthfuls before I threw the whole stuff away. I did not keep the wrapper so I don't know what brand it was...might go back to the machine and see if there is any left so I can be more specific. Update: It is Uncle Wally's brand.
Gakk...I am working on not puking right now.
Clearly I have to counter this by baking those homemade chocolate chip muffins I wanted to make all weekend...

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Novel Blog

Shameless plug for The Husband's Novel Blog, in honor of NaNoWriMoBlo...see the "Blogs I Read" sidebar, or check it out here.
It's fun.