Oh lazy Sunday

Sundays are my favorite day of the week. Especially in the
winter months when it is so cold outside I don't feel one
bit guilty if I stay in my pajamas all day long. It is also the only
day of the week I may never leave the house which is just fine by me.

Bitching Biscuits
I consider myself a decent cook, but a cursed baker. Cooking is easy.
I read the recipe and omit certain ingredients I don't have, (saffron
threads, does anyone know where I can buy these?) for ingredients
I have on hand. Baking is an exact science. No dash of this allowed. I
have to mind, crossing all my t's and dotting all my i's. I have never
been very good at "minding" so I have always left all the baking up
to the experts and created my baked goods from a box. All I have to do
is add milk, eggs, and stir, but even this doesn't always turn out
great. I may be a bit rough beating those eggs.

On the other hand, my Mom cooks pizza crust from scratch.
Can you imagine? And to add insult to injury, she makes the hours
of working the dough and letting the yeast do its thing, look fun
and easy. She is very sneaky. Every time she visits we spend a lot
time in the kitchen and when she leaves I have some "easy" recipe that
I am 99% confident I can make again on my own.

While she was here last October she cringed when I pulled out a can
of Pillsbury Biscuits for breakfast. Mom: "J homemade biscuits are
so easy to make. You don't need to buy canned biscuits just make your
own". Me: Blank stare.

So in no time my counter top is covered with flour, my hands have
wet biscuit mixture stuck to them like cement, and we are rolling
out dough. Mom always has great tips on common items to use in the
kitchen instead of having to buy another tool. A small lipped wine
glass (white wine) is perfect to cut out biscuits, if ya don't have
a round cookie cutter. You know what? She was right homemade biscuits
aren't that hard to make and they are mighty tasty.

Almost every weekend since, I attempt to make biscuits. When I stick
to Mom's exact recipe (using olive oil instead of shortening, it is
much healthier this way) they turn out almost as good as Mom makes.
Problem is J thinks the olive oil makes the biscuits too dense, he wants
light and airy biscuits. So I have started cutting pieces of butter
into the flour instead of olive oil and for some reason everything goes
to shit. I cannot get the mixture into a solid ball to save my life.
I get testy thinking I will beat the dry dough into moist submission,
but I end up with a tiny ball, lots of unused flour on the cutting board,
and I am cursing before noon. All the frustration aside, the biscuits do
end up tasting good. So when I talk to Mom later today I will ask her how
to solve this problem and I am sure she will have a very easy answer that
may or may not work for me.

The weekend
As I stated in my last post, my Dad had surgery this past Thursday. So
far, so good. The doctor said everything went smoothly and he has been
resting at home. We had planned on driving down to Alabama if he felt
like having company over the weekend. But when I spoke with him on Friday
he was drunk on pain meds and said he planned on resting the whole
weekend so for us to wait and come for a later visit.

The problem is the month of February is already filled up. I mean they
are all fun events, except for a business trip where I have to fly out at
6:00am on a Sunday morning. Fuck. Still each weekend is already penned-in
which means we aren't messing around. If something is penciled-in, we could
still squirrel our way out of it. This calendar full of fun totally
stresses me out. I start to fret that I am planning my life away and
that is why each and every year is going by in a blink and a blur. That
is why this weekend, where we had no plans ended up feeling like a
mini-vacation.

So far the play-by-play looks something like this:

Friday night: Cooked dinner, listened to music, in bed by 11:00.
Saturday: Walked at Radnor Lake (this is our weekly church visit
and I cannot tell you how much good it does me), grocery shopped, took a
long hot bath and read (Big Treat), cooked a great dinner, in bed by 11:30.
Sunday: Currently still in my pajamas,hopefully will have a marathon
conversation with my Mom, warm up leftovers for dinner, early to bed.

Total Bliss.

You are going to love White Trash
Want a tasty snack that will be eaten up in a flash? Well thanks to A I
have the recipe to post.

White Trash
18 oz (2.25 cups) peanut butter
18 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
11 Tbsp light butter (may want to start with a stick and add pats from there depending on consistency)
1 (15 oz) box Crispix
7.5 oz Cheerios
7.5 oz pretzel twists
1 box powdered sugar

Mix cereals and peanut butter together in a large bowl. Melt
peanut butter, chocolate and butter in a double boiler until
smooth and pourable. Pour over cereal mixture and toss gently until
coated. Place mixture in a brown paper bag THEN inside a plastic
trash bag. Add powdered sugar in cup to 2 cup increments and shake
well to coat. (Brown bag works great, but has cracks so the sugar
puffs out into the air. Plastic bag on the outside will help with the mess.)

This recipe freezes great. Simply make in advance and put in the freezer.
Eat straight from the freezer or bring to room temp and chow.

Well Antiques Roadshow is on so time to go for now.