Weekend Highlights July 23, 2009

Spent a long weekend (okay, five days, but in my head it’s still a weekend) at The Hippy’s family’s cabin.  It was The Hippy’s birthday Tuesday, so we Hippy-ed it up.  The best of:

• Shooting stars while I could still look at the sky (also known as: “Oh!  Falling bits of space debris hitting our atmosphere and burning up!  Make a wish, honey!”)
• The Hippy getting a good amount of playtime in with his nephew.  Exhibit A:

The boys watching Clifford

• Geocaching–finding two of four caches we set out to find.  There were a few others we wanted to find but weather, batteries, and an inability to find the right trail kept us from doing so.  We’re convinced the ones we couldn’t find had been removed, damaged, or muggled.
• Four-wheeling, which is eternally awesome.  Flying that a million miles an hour (okay, 25-30) going over bumps and getting great air.  Was going to learn how to drive it, but I ended up getting injured and lost my four-wheeling nerve.  I still rode it, mind you, because it’s freaking FUN, but I didn’t want to do anything more to risk killing myself.
• So, that’s the second time I’ve alluded to injuring myself…  While going over a set of bumps that were way too close together for the speed we were going (oops) my chin became very close friends with The Hippy’s shoulder blade.  For a split second I was certain I’d just dislocated my jaw–I felt it push backward when I hit.  Then I realized all the pain was in my neck and my head.  The Hippy didn’t realize how much I’d been hurt (also used to ATV-ing with his brainless friend), so he kept going, which amplified the pain in my neck and skull.  I finally got him to pull over so I could rest a little.  Thankfully we were almost at the end of the train and would very quickly be on pavement, but the remaining bumps were absolutely killer, even though he was crawling at a snail’s pace.
• Playing cribbage while under the influence of a rather strong painkiller.  Thankfully, The Hippy’s dad was feeling equally as foggy, so I didn’t feel so stupid when I couldn’t remember how to count.  Or use my fingers.  I did feel kind of embarrassed when I would start giggling and not be able to stop, though.  And I still managed to win the second game.
• No amount of painkillers–not even the strong ones–would touch the pain in my neck, so I stopped taking them.  For the most part, I’m able to move my neck without much pain now.  Only when I put my head back does it hurt.  Hence not being able to look at the stars.
• Seeing what we think is the International Space Station (or maybe the latest shuttle) fly overhead on The Hippy’s birthday.  I was able to see it before it went too far behind me.  The times check out, and it definitely wasn’t an airplane or your average satellite.

Finally…  This has nothing to do with my long weekend other than I found this video when I came home…  I remember hearing this song on KDWB when I was a kid; I even called in once to request it.  Because I botched the call so badly (mixed up the name of the song for the artist and had to be corrected by the person who took my call), this song has haunted me long past even remembering how the song went.  Until now, thanks to CrowBiz, even though she is staunchly against any English version.  Enjoy.

As promised July 6, 2009

Last week I was feeling extra domestic. It sucks when this happens because I need to squeeze it into one or two days. Last week I was lucky enough to get two days, but the reality is, I would love to play this game every day. The other blog will (eventually) feature the crafty project I did, but here I’ll share my culinary project.

I started by saving the heels from every loaf of bread we’ve eaten since, oh… March?  The Hippy won’t eat wheat bread (and I feel the need to be healthier) so we always have two loaves of bread in the fridge at once.  That made for a lot of heels.  I pulled them out Monday morning and began toasting, two by two.  Probably would have been faster in the oven…

That is, incidentally, how I like my toast toasted.

I toasted up that entire stack, broke them into pieces, and threw them in my blender.  It was touch and go for awhile–I really wish I had a food processor, but in a kitchen the size of mine, the blender was more practical–but I ended up with lovely, lovely bread crumbs.

Lotsa crumbs!

Because they were still a little moist, I turned my oven to 150ºF and spread the crumbs out on a cookie sheet to bake.  After a half hour or so I had dry, clump-free crumbs.  I took out a cup of crumbs, added a half a teaspoon each of garlic salt, onion powder, basil and oregano.  But what to do with those crumbs?

Shake, Bake...

Uh… duh!  Oven “Fried” Chicken!  I more or less followed that recipe, but since I thought I was short on time, I cranked the oven to 425ºF and cooked about 15 mins on each side.  The chicken came out PERFECT.  I don’t even *like* chicken all that much, but I could probably eat this every day.  I also read the comments and followed the advice of the person who put the flour and crumbs into a bag instead of dishes.  No dishwasher=strong desire not to dirty a ton of dishes.  Also prevented “THE CLUB!” (Hand crusted in layers upon layers of flour+egg+crumbs)

NOMNOMNOMNOM

I apologize for the bad photography on that one… The Hippy had just gotten home, was outside watering the flowers, and I didn’t want him to see me taking pictures of food.  So it had to be fast and secretive and done while the chicken was still in the oven.

To add to the meal, I made crock pot polenta and glazed carrots.  It was such a decadent meal.  The carrots and the parmesan on the polenta were almost a little too rich, but oh my god was everything good!

I will have a real post soon… July 4, 2009

I promise!

In the meantime…