Recently in J.P. Category

It's been so exciting to start feeding Finn solid foods.  Well, solid is a bit misleading.  Smushy foods would be a better description.  We started out with rice cereal which he was very indifferent to.  He likes squash.  He likes sweet potatoes.  He loves avocado.  He LOVES peas.

God.  I HATE Internet Explorer.  Apparently I will need to fiddle around with this video to get it to display in bloody IE.  Yeah, it worked fine on my Mac...  in Firefox.  Sigh.

We have been having a few great beers lately. Ang is pregnant (not dead) and can only have a sip... but that is ok. I will suffer through the beer myself.

We got this new butter when we were in Vermont and it is pretty good. It has some light seasalt in it and has a very creamy buttery taste. I'll see if I can get the name when I get home.

It's Vermont Cultured Butter, and it comes in a nice wooden container as well.

I made biscuits again and I think they came out pretty well. This batch was a confidence-builder for sure because the batter didn't look quite right. It was asking to be mixed much more. Luckily, I know better than to listen to it.

The recipe is not at hand now... but the improvements are a few.

• We used butter-flavored crisco on the bottom of the pan because the steam from the butter keeps the bottom from crisping up nicely. It was a good choice but taking the time to make some ghee for the bottom would really have been a nice touch.
• We have a convection oven and it is blazing fast when it comes to cooking roasts and crisping items. But you need to be thoughtful on what it really speeds up. The biscuits do not get the same sort of speed up as meats would. It made me succumb to a beginner's mistake of not baking it long enough. In fact, convection is a wonderful tool for this task... but I would suggest if the batter looks a bit wet and you did not use butter for the bottom that you go OVER in terms of time. Wait until the tops of the biscuits go to a slightly darker brown.
• Don't cut the butter into too small chunks.
• Blend all of the dry ingredients before adding the butter, once any moisture goes in (including the butter) your clock has partially started.
• I'd like to think about using the remaining solids from making the ghee to add to the butter brushed on top.
• Start off with smaller biscuits and work your way to larger ones.

The next batch will be better, that's my plan to get there.

Getting excited about the 4th, it is one of the best holidays. We have a ton of food and will be cooking all day. Ang mentioned that we can see a few fireworks from the deck. Well, here is what I'm hoping for:

• A dry start to the day
• Get up early and get the clod going.
• Look in the freezer at a full tub of ice and an extra bag or two (normally hate buying ice).
• Start cooking, break out the Music.
• A crazy hot afternoon with patchy clouds and a bright blue sky.
• Food
  
• A great Red Sox game
• Food!
  
• A light breeze in the low 80's as the Pops take the stage.
• Food!!
  
• Fireworks in 10-20 different cities and towns start going off all along the horizon.
• An A-10 flyover (probably not, they've converted over to CAP/Strike and will probably send five F15s).
• Food!!!
  
• A great 1812 Overture with a full artillery complement.
• Food!!!!
  
• Boston Fireworks and music
• Dessert!!!!!

We are going to the game tonight, should be exciting. Whoever wins will have sole possession of first place in the AL East. Joanne and Steven are coming with us and that is going to be awesome. I just hope the sun comes out!

We got a parking pass too.... but of course we are taking the T.

Will update later :)

We just got back from Portland and had a grand time!  Got my see Jen graduate and meet some of her friends, tasted some great wines and sake and beer and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate.  Just fabulous.  I started it off as a Word doc on the plane but am moving it all as I go now.  Pics will be appearing when I get them off the camera.

Have to admit we cheated.

There used to be this great place in Medford called Hungry Herbs (closed a few years ago). They served great sandwiches with your health and well-being of no concern to them. You had steak or chicken tips as the base of your sandwich and from there you would select options.

For example, you would order up a steak tip sub with blue cheese, buffalo sauce, bacon, and fried pepperoni, and then have them coat it with another cheese. You could even add the chili cheese fries with bacon and fried sausage and have gravy on top.

There was always an ambulance out front and have no idea why really.

This weekend I wanted one of those sandwiches and decided we just needed to make it at home.

-------- the cheating --------
We bought the steak tips at Danvers Butchery. We even bought the preseasoned ones (steakhouse seasoning).
------- done --------

They were great, it was total overkill. We had the steaktips; Ang made me up a blue cheese dressing from the rogue river blue, yes the special stuff; I fried up some hard italian sausage; toasted some local rolls; grilled some bacon for Ang; melted some cheese on the tips.

Just like Hungry Herbs, precautionary ambulance parked outside our place was pure coincidence.

Well, I'm going out to the Apple store today to get 10.5!  I'm so excited to be upgrading my beloved MacBook Pro.  I really never thought of myself as a laptop person until J.P. got it for me for my b-day and now, I don't know if I'll ever go back.  And J.P. just bought me a bigger hard drive so he's going to crack the box tonight and put it in (I, needless to say, will be hiding in the kitchen because I'll be too scared that something will go wrong).  So so exiciting.

Update:  New harddrive is in!  It's so snappy!!!  I love my new faster drive and drinking helped the terror of watching my machine cracked.

Ok, upcoming dinners we want to have:

• Sushi (it's time)
• Chili made by Roo with no thought at all to sensibilities of anyone/anything (weekend only).
• Potato plans (I have some ideas of broiled cut potatoes)
• Corn on the Cob (saw some at the store the other day)
• Toscanini's! We donated to help save them..... let's enjoy having them around.
• Dairy Maid, the season has to be starting soon.
• Spam Musabi