Friday Fragments

Another week has passed and time for Mrs. 4444 to let us put together the small bits of our minds into a cohesive blog post. Let the world know our randomness.

It rained yesterday. Some of you may think so what. Well for us it is major news. The drought continues and with it not being cold this winter I'm afraid it will be another record setting heat wave. We need rain as much as possible to replenish our water supply. Otherwise I can see water rationing to start the summer.

With the rain we had a cold front. It was cold and windy. We've been having warm and windy. I couldn't believe how cold I got in one day. Lucky for us after this weekend it will be back in the 70's again.

Spring break is in one more week. You know what Whitney is looking forward to? Doing laundry at home. Every time she does laundry stuff doesn't get soap out, or the clothes don't spin dry enough or the dryer won't dry it all the way.

I unfortunately have to be gone for four days during spring break for a work trip. As much as I want to get out of it, I can't. :( I'm in charge of part of the meeting and I did get out of going last year. But since I'm having to give up my Sunday to fly to the meeting, I'm taking Friday off so I can spend it with Whitney when she is home.

I'm happy that my favorite has made it to the finals of Project Runway. Mondo deserved to win in his season so hopefully he'll win this season.

Have you noticed that some tv shows were made for the DVR? The Voice is definitely in that category right now. I don't care about all the background and made for tv drama. I just want singing. So I fast forward through everything except the singing. I don't know what these judges are hearing either because they aren't doing a good job picking. If it continues I may lose interest.

Remember to set your clocks ahead on Saturday night. I really hate this part of daylight savings time. I was enjoying it being light when I got up for work. Now it will be back into the darkness. Much harder to get up.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce - Crazy Cooking Challenge

I've wanted to do a cooking challenge blog for so long. Unfortunately I don't have enough recipes to qualify for Secret Recipe Club. And then I found the holy grail of cooking challenge blogs: CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE. Basically once a month people cook the same kind of recipe that they found on someone else's blog and then post about it. You don't have to have a lot of recipes on your own blog. This is something I could do. So I signed up for it this month and was so lucky that it was a topic that I like: Spaghetti with Red Sauce. I have so many good recipes for red sauces but the whole purpose of this was to find something new. I spent a week going over other people's blogs to find a bunch of recipes. I'm still learning how to find food blogs so it took awhile. And then I needed to get Dan to agree to one of them.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

The recipe I chose was Mom's Spaghetti Sauce by Isabelle at Crumb. I liked it because it had bacon and ground beef. All of the red sauce recipes that I have don't have any meat so I thought this would be a good change.

Mom’s Spaghetti Sauce

6 slices bacon, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 lbs lean ground beef
2 medium carrots, diced
1 small fennel bulb or 2 stalks celery, diced
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups dry red wine
2 cans (796 ml each) pureed tomatoes
3 tbsp tomato paste
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp hot pepper flakes (optional)

In a large heavy-bottomed pot, fry the bacon in olive oil over medium-high heat until crisp. Add ground beef and cook for 10 minutes, breaking up into small chunks with a wooden spoon as it cooks, until browned. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the ground beef to a bowl and set aside.
Add carrots, celery, onion and garlic to the pot, and saute for 10 minutes or until onion is soft and translucent. Return ground beef to the pot.
Stir in the remaining ingredients, and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes.
Ladle sauce onto cooked spaghetti and serve with a scattering of grated Parmesan cheese.

Ingredients (Pinot Noir was the wine)

I halved the recipe because I knew this would make a lot. I was surprised it didn't have any salt in it and the amount of seasoning seemed small but I follow recipes to the letter the first time I try them. We cooked it just like it said (I used celery and not fennel) and then tasted it after it simmered for 45 minutes. BLAND just like we were afraid of. I think we added another teaspoon of basil, oregano, salt and some garlic powder to get it to taste like anything. It had a good consistency, nice and thick. But since we had to add more seasoning we needed to cook it longer so we had to add some water. We like our spaghetti to have the sauce mixed in so we added some to our cooked spaghetti. After putting it on the plates, I added a little more sauce to the top.

The leftovers tasted better than the original, maybe because the flavors melded together in the fridge.

The good thing about this is I found a great cooking challenge and I can't wait for next month's version. Hopefully I'll get better at finding food blogs and I'll find so many recipes I can't wait to try them all! Check out all the great recipes other people cooked by visiting the sites listed below. I know I'll be looking at them!

Sonic Sweet Potato Tots

Sonic just came out with sweet potato tots. I'm really starting to want to eat anything sweet potato. I keep buying all the different chips at the store (hint, the cinammon apple mixture ones are good). So when I saw the ad I just got my craving going for these tots.

Don't these look yummy?

On the drive home last night from work I heard the ad. Then I became obsessed about getting some. I kept telling myself I didn't need them but then I thought oh yes I really do need them. Limited time only. No time to wait. So I stopped at the Sonic near my house (there seems to be a Sonic on every block here in town) and ordered the medium size. Prices were not listed but I saw the price for the regular ones so I had an idea. Boy was I wrong. $2.99 for medium. It was $1.50 more for sweet potatoes. That seems a little high. But I didn't care at that point...I wanted my sweet potato tots.

I waited and waited and waited. I was about a minute away from buzzing asking where my order was (they weren't that busy and really how long does it take to fry up tots). Then they showed up. I started driving home and couldn't resist opening the bag and tasting one. YUMMY! Not the shredded potato texture of a regular tot. No this was creamy with a crunchy outside. Just the right amount of salt on them. I ate half the container in the three minutes it took to drive home.

When I got home our neighbor was outside so I talked to him for an hour. I kept thinking my tots are getting cold. (Not to mention the half gallon of milk was sitting in my car). I was more worried about the tots. I finally got inside and scarfed down the rest of the container. Not as good cold but still tasty.

If the price was lower I would have to buy these more often. But I can't justify $3 for my sweet potato fix.

If Sonic would like to send me some coupons for free tots, I'd be happy to take them. Otherwise I didn't get any compensation for this review. Although I will fill out my survey from the receipt to get a free Route 44 drink next time I go.

Weekend Cooking

I knew we were going to cook this weekend because the freezer had been emptied of much of our leftovers (great way to save money). I was really looking forward to it. I posted about our Saturday dinner. We have enough leftovers for one more night of that dinner. Last night we made up a recipe. If you know us, we never do that. We always follow a recipe. We may change it seasoning-wise but we always follow it the original way first.

We had some pulled pork we had made in November with a new recipe that had Mexican flavors. It was so delicious we were going to make enchiladas with it eventually. This weekend was that time. Dan had saved the juices so we could put the tortillas in it for extra flavoring. The pork was just as tasty this time. But we didn't have an enchilada recipe. So we made it up. It turned out ok but definitely not an enchilada. It had the right flavors but didn't have the right sauce. We really need to find something with a sauce. There are only a couple left so only leftovers for one of us.

But now we have a quandry. What do we cook the rest of the week? I bought stuff to make a quiche and I do have one more package of baked ziti in the freezer. Perhaps we'll make the box of dirty rice Dan bought. That would feed us twice. I also printed out a crockpot recipe for country ribs with maple syrup that looked good. I have a batch of those frozen so we could make that later in the week.

Cinnamon Bacon Carbonara

We love bacon. So of course anytime we can cook with it we jump at the chance. We've made this recipe for many years so we love it. It was on Giada De Laurenitis show on food network. We got so many trAditional Italian dishes from her show that are truly delicious. We of course had to make changes since we really don't have pancetta here in Oklahoma. So this is our revised version. We cut it in half so feel free to double it.

Cinnamon Bacon Carbonara

4 slices bacon, chopped
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 cup whipping cream
3/4 cup grated parmesan
3 large egg yolks
8 ounces fettuccine

Sauté bacon in frying pan over medium heat until almost crisp. Sprinkle cinnamon over bacon and cook until crisp.

Cool bacon. Whisk cream, cheese and egg yolks with the bacon.

Cook you pasta until tender but not done. Add pasta to sauce and cok over medium high heAtuntil sauce becomes thick and sticks to pasta. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This tastes a lot like Alfredo sauce but richer with the egg yolks. The cinnamon adds a really nice flavor sort of like when we add a little bit of nutmeg to our Alfredo sauce. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

You can't go wrong with this recipe. It doesn't take a lot of time to make so it would work on a week night.

Friday Fragments - Saving Money

Time for Friday Fragments hosted by Mrs. 4444. There are a lot of us out in blog world writing random stuff so you should check out the others.

**I've been patiently obsessively looking at cruise prices every day just waiting for a reduction so I can call the travel agent to get money back from our already booked cruise. Monday the price went down $35/person so I called to get that money back. It doesn't seem like a bunch but hey if they are lowering the price I need to take advantage of it. Wednesday the cruise line ran a big "Leap Day" promotion and the price went down a whole lot more. I called the travel agent and after 30 minutes of back and forth between them and then they called the cruise line I was the proud owner of $200 more and also $50 of on-board credit. I did have to pay more deposit money which was non-refundable but I figured that was fine since we are definitely going on this thing. So my diligence paid off and I saved money/made money. I'm still watching until our final payment is due at the end of the month because if it goes down again, I'm calling.

**Every morning on my way to work the radio station I listen to has their stupid criminal file. There are some real winners out there. Today was a 15 year old who got arrested for theft because a woman found him in the backyard stealing a tomato plant. Come to find out he thought he was stealing a marijuana plant. Can't ticket for stupidity but you can send a message to the youth.

**I hear that the cherry blossoms are probably going to bloom early in Washington DC. I'll be there in a couple of weeks so maybe I'll get to see them. In all my years of going there, I've only been there at the right time once. They were so beautiful I can see why people rave about it. Flying into the airport, you could look out the window and see all this pink around the water. Very impressive.

**When I grocery shopped last weekend they had some chocolate covered pretzels that had a rebate form so you could try them for free. Yummy. Especially for free.

**I guess its time to pack up all my snowmen for the year. That creates a problem because now I need to decorate.

**We ate out of the freezer this week so we get to cook this weekend! I'm looking forward to that. The freezer looks a little bare. Only a couple of leftover containers in there now.

Hope everyone enjoys their weekend. The weather won't be quite as warm here as it was during the week (it was 77 degrees and people were wearing shorts) but it still should be lovely. Maybe we'll get the windows washed outside.

Public Service Announcement - Spring Weather

As we are in an unusually warm winter I figured I would do my yearly public service announcement on what to do during tornado season.

1. BE PREPARED - This sounds logical doesn't it but you would be surprised at the number of people who have not thought about what they would do if there was a tornado nearby. People, the time to figure it out is not in the minute before it hits. Know where to go...basement/below ground is best. Interior room with no windows is next best. Do not go outside to watch the tornado. Do not go hide under a highway underpass. If outside get in a ditch.

2. HAVE A WEATHER RADIO - These are very inexpensive and will alert you based on how you program it. Mine I have to only go off during tornado warnings in my county. Working with weather people I sort of know when we have watches so I don't worry about that part. But if you are in a tornado watch area, be alert. If it is night, turn the radio on when you go to bed. It will wake you up if a tornado warning is issued and give you time to react.

3. TAKE PRECAUTIONS WHEN NEEDED - I know people get used to warnings and don't heed them. The National Weather Service has done research on why people don't listen to them and how to word them better. I would say that the local tv stations are very good at telling people where a tornado is on the ground. The maps show you roads so you can see how far it is. I have fallen into that category of not necessarily reacting when the sirens go off but I'm going to take my own advice and do just that. We don't have a tornado shelter but I know where to go if things get bad.

4. DON'T TAKE PETS TO PUBLIC TORNADO SHELTERS - Listen I love my dog just like anybody else but don't take a pet to a public shelter. That pet is taking up space that could be a human. Last year we had so many people crammed into the shelter at work (a perk working here) and so many brought pets that people couldn't get into the shelter. They were putting them in bathrooms and other places. Just think that saving your cat or dog could mean that you are sacrificing someone's elderly mother who is in a wheelchair.

And now for how you can help research on weather get better so you are better informed. There are two projects that you can participate in from your own home. The first is about hail. This project will help radars get better in predicting hail size. You can read about the HASDEX project here. The second is the W-PING project. This measures winter precipitation (of course we haven't had much of that around here). But I know there are people getting snowfall right now and you can let us know about it.

Both of these projects will help future weather prediction. They also employ researchers, graduate students and undergraduate students so its helping the economy too!