Banana Nut Bread Cookies.

...I'm making BANANA nut bread COOKIES...

So I made some cookies yesterday. Banana nut bread cookies. They were very good, but a little too cake like.I plan to make these slightly differently, later today maybe.  I want to reduce the bananas down so there's not so much liquid.

These are the steps I'm going to try for this:

• Place 5 bananas in a microwave safe bowl; cover with plastic wrap and make several slits in the wrap to act as steam vents.

• Microwave on high until the bananas are soft and have released liquid, about 5 minutes.
• Transfer the bananas to a fine mesh strainer set over a medium bowl and let drain, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes (you should have ½-¾ cup liquid).

Massage of Doom

...it saidit would cut off after 15 minutes...

So Christmas was great. I got some pretty good stuff... Animal Crossing City Folk (Wii), My Japanese Coach (DS), a Wind chime with dolphins on it (love the windchime, not so much the dolphin part of it), Civ 4, and a massage chair thing.

My favorites were the japanese coach, Civ 4, and the massage chair thing. I would like it duly noted that I saw the statement on the box about the 15 minute shutoff timer on the massager, it said it would cut off after 15 minutes "for my safety". Hmm... what does that mean you suppose? I sat for about two ours playing the japanese game and getting a shiatsu massage. Every time it cut off, I hit the button again. I didn't notice anything weird about it at all!

Well, I'll tell ya. I hurt for 36 hours after that wonderfully long massage. Note to self: when the thing cuts itself off, pay attention, get up and don't come back for at least an hour!

So yeah, no body could touch my back for at least 24 hours and it still hurt some last night when I went to bed.

The rest of the holiday was great too. Mark, Matt, Joy and the baby (Alex) were here from Wednesday night to about 2:30 Christmas day. We all opened presents, then lounged around the house till they had to leave. We all ate junk food - I made some awesome cinnamon rolls on Xmas eve too. Not to mention, I made 4 quiche pies too. And they brought pumpkin pie with them, along with fudge and cookies.

On Xmas day, Rob made a roast in the slow cooker. So that's what we had for dinner. It was very good. I made cornbread stuffing to go with it. That was good too. Very very good. mmmm.

So that's it. My holiday. It was fun. I only wish that the kids (Mark, Matt, Joy and the baby) could have stayed longer. It was fun having them around.

Cinnamon Rolls!

Me and Cierra made some cinnamon rolls! Mmmm YUMMY mmmM
We made the dough together, putting in the ingredients and then we mixed it in the stand mixer. We took turns kneading it, and then let it sit for a bit.
Cierra made the inside stuff, but she was having trouble stirring it, so I had her nuke it for 30 seconds. That made it easier to stir, but also turned it to liquid.
We put it in the fridge for a bit, which thickened it some but...
When we got done rolling out the dough and went to put in the cinnamon mix, it was still pretty liquidy and ooozed out the sides! lol

We then cut it and put it into a round deep dish pie pan. That was just funny, cause it was oozing all over the place! They weren't really rolled by the time we got done. The pan looked like brains with cinnamon! lol



After letting it rise for about 45 minutes, during which time it doubled in size, I cooked 'em. And wow... they grew like crazy!



Anyway, they ended up being really tasty, even though they look more like Monkey bread than cinnamon rolls. If I'm not too tired when I get home from the doctor's tonight, maybe I'll make some more. With walnuts this time!!

Pain

...had a headache off and on for the lastmonth...

Oh... my.... gosh.... my head hurts today. I've had a headache off and on (more on than off...) for the last month or more. I'm making a doctors appointment for next week to find out if there's anything that can be done about it other than giving me more pills. Yikes.

So, I made cookies yesterday. Yay! What kind? Well, cherry cordial chip, of course! lol They're like chocolate chip, except that instead of just having chocolate chips they also have cherry chips in them too. So they taste like a cherry cordial in a cookie!! mmmmmmmmmmm.

I even brought some to work with me today to share. There's this old dude that always has cookies and offers them to me. Sometimes they are even tasty (usually they taste like the plastic bag he brings them in, and cigarettes...). So I figured I'd give back today with my abundance of cookies I didn't need to eat all by myself.

Today is PAYDAY!! The day I've been waiting two weeks for!! hee hee.
Today is also donut day. Yummy donuts. I had a bear claw with the yummy cinnamon almond sugar filling. mmmmmmmm. I believe the center is actually my favorite part. I could probably eat that alone. Well, maybe I'd have to have a little of the donut part, or it would probably make me sick. lol

Brandy and the Cookie

...I looked around stupidly for a sec and then saw a short womanin a pretty... blue blouse smiling at me.

I hung out with Brandy yesterday!
I was a little early because I had to take care of my car payment before I could meet up with her, so I left my house early.
When I got to the mall, where we'd planned to hang out, I called her to let her know I was there. She'd had stuff to do too before coming to hang out, and she wasn't quite done, so she said she'd be there in a half hour. She also mentioned that she wanted to get something to eat when she got there. I was ok with that and told her so. I wouldn't eat with her, because I was supposed to go eat with the fam when I got home, but I would chat with her while she ate.
I waited, and waited and waited... or at least it felt that way! :) So about a half hour later, well, maybe 33 minutes, I was figuring I'd get a little snack and I was thirsty too. I stopped at subway and ordered a 21 oz coke and a sugar cookie. Just as the guy was ringing up my order I heard, "Hi Angi!".

I looked around stupidly for a sec and then saw a short woman in a pretty blue blouse smiling at me. It was Brandy! It took a second for my brain to catch up, I said hi back and then looked confusedly at the guy who was taking my money. We had never decided where we were going to eat and I didn't know if I should complete my transaction or not, because, what if she wanted to eat at not-the-mall? The guy had already poured my coke though, and I didn't want to make a big fuss over $2 bucks.

I grabbed my coke and my cookie and turned to Brandy to see what she wanted to do. We discussed it in a confused who-knows-what-to-say-when kinda way and finally settled on walking around the mall till it was decided.
We talked about how I went to Ross while I was waiting for her and she brightened up and said that she wanted to go to the Mexican restaurant over by the main movie theater. It was Tio somethings... I don't remember the full name, sorry.

We went to the Tio place, and she got a burrito, and I got a stuffed chile, only cause it looked sooo good, and it was! We talked about stuff, like how I met Rob. After we were done eating we walked over to Ross, cause she wanted to look around.

We talked about stuff while we browsed and she picked out some stuff she wanted to try on. She picked something and bought it then we left... well, I left and she went to Target. I had to go home to eat with the fam.

So, the reason for the long story is that it's actually a lead in to this morning. I never got around to eating that sugar cookie, and if you've ever had a cookie from subway you know they give them to you in those little paper bags. I was short on time this morning and looking for something to take with me to eat for breakfast, to basically tide me over till the donuts came (yay Friday!!), so I grabbed it from the table to take with me.

Just after I got to work I looked dubiously at the cookie debating on eating it or not eating it. After all, it'd been in that bag all night and was probably dry and crunchy. If you know me, you know I strongly dislike crunchy cookies. I was hungry though and decided to give it a try... I bit into it expecting a crunch and was very pleasantly surprised when ... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm soooooffffttt coooooookiiiiieeee.

Thoughts thoughts and more thoughts.

...No school till later- New IPod right Now!

Bad news and good news and some general stuff. Maybe. lol
Ok, so I decided that I'm putting off school.
I really want to do it, but realistically I can't imagine dealing with school, work, and my surgery in Spring. I don't want to start school only to have to quit again later this year. Bad for my learning, bad for my credit.... (i.e.; student loans! ick)
I have officially dropped all my classes, and I'm going to the school today to talk about the reprocussions of doing that. I want to make sure my loans have been suspended/cancelled till I'm ready to start. I may start summer of '08 or wait till Winter of '08. Maybe things can be a little less crazy at that point.
I'm totally dissappointed, but really, honestly. I need to wait. In the meantime I'll continue to study on my own and focus on work and getting to March (when I'm supposed to have my surgery - more on that later)

Ok, on to the good news. I won an IPOD at work!!! One of those new ones, that have video. It's an 8 GB black IPOD nano! These are soooo awesome.

Also, after much going back and forth on this. I've got my paperwork 90% finished for my lap-band surgery. I am anticipating a 6 month physician supervised diet, so I won't be able to do it till March at the earliest. Also, from what I've seen on other people's blogs, it's not uncommon for insurance approval to be very very slow. I need to get this ball rolling!!!

Ok, that's all for now. See ya!

Micro-Rice

...Warning: Mix may melt plastic spoons or bowls...

Ok, just because something says it's microwaveable doesn't mean its faster to make. Or easier.
Don't follow the microwave instructions to cook Rice-a-Roni. They LIE. The package says it takes 18-21 minutes in the final step to cook it to done-ness. Totally not true. It's 6-11 minutes.
Lemme go back and start from the beginning...

I made some rice-a-roni for breakfast today.
Step 1 was to put some butter in the bowl with the rice mix, cook for a minute, then stir.
I did that.
Step 2 was to put it back in the nuker for 1-2 minutes until the rice is golden brown.
I had it in there for about a minute +20 seconds. The noodle things were a dark brown, almost burnt and when I tried to stir it again it melted my plastic utensils.
Step 3 was to let it cool for a minute.
Which I did in the Fridge since my plastic bowl was starting to melt too.
Step 4 was to cook it in the nuker for 18-21 minutes ( side note: the stove instructions say 15-20 minutes... WTF? it's longer than the stove???)
So, because I'd already figured it would be wrong, I did 5 minutes, came back, stirred it, then did another 6 minutes. I probably would have been fine with just 5 minutes instead of 6 on that last part.


So, here are my revised instructions for Rice-a-Roni Cheesy Rice Flavor:
1. In microwave safe bowl cook Rice mix with butter for 30-40 seconds till butter is mostly melted.
2. Microwave on high for 1 more minute, rice should be golden'ish.
3. Let set for 3 minutes or refrigerate for 2, bowl will be extremely hot.
4. Slowly stir in water and sauce mix, Microwave on high for 5 minutes, stir. Then microwave it for another 5-6 minutes until tender.

**Warning: Mix may melt plastic spoons or bowls, use of ceramic bowl and metal fork recommended.**

New Video

So, I'll have a new video out soon on YouTube. Go to http://youtube.com/gwydas if you want to see it. It should be up by tomorrow (6/9/07)




When I get it done, I'm going to add it to the bottom of this post too. :)

MICROWAVE APPLESAUCE CAKE

Found this online. It sounds really good to try. The photo is just of cake, not this cake! *grins*





1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 c. shortening
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 c. raisins
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
1 1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce

Line a 1 1/2 quart glass baking dish or 8 x 8 inch cake pan (glass) with wax paper. Set aside. Sift flour, baking soda, salt and spices together.

Cream shortening and brown sugar. Add egg and beat thoroughly. Add raisins and walnuts to applesauce; mix. Alternately add dry ingredients and applesauce to creamed mixture, mixing well after each addition. Pour batter into paper lined dish. Bake in microwave for 11-13 minutes at bake. Great snack after school.