Happy Hour at Chez Animal Hair Can I get you a drink?

Hi Everyone

You all should have gotten an email with this info, but in case you need the link again, here’s the party invite:

[here]

You will need a username and password, but you should have gotten that in the email. If you didn’t get one, email me or comment here and I’ll send it to you. It’s protected beacuse my address and phone is on there.

Posted under party

So the other day I realized Misha was sleeping on the floor in the bathroom (near the radiator) so I thought it was time for a bed for her. I went to the pet store yesterday on my way home from work and picked up a nice little bed for her.

I set it on the floor, she snubbed it, Lazlo was interested for a moment, but that’s it. I moved it out of the bathroom because it was taking up too much space if she wasn’t even going to use it.

I’m sitting here watching “Yelling at Suitcases” and I look down and see this:

Not sure if you can tell, but that DUDLEY. The 50 pound dog! I laughed so hard I started a coughing fit.

And here’s one I took of me and Misha just a couple of hours ago:

Bored? Kinda. I have a bunch of musician/house guests coming over tonight and I’m procrastinating the cleaning.

I just looked at this again, geez what a beezer! The lighting doesn’t help.

Posted under pets

So because Greg was in Korea and because I am too lazy to go to the store (which is two blocks away) and because I like to test my creativity (but mostly I am just lazy). I decided that I would try and create something with what I had in my kitchen.

A few weeks ago some friends came over and one of them looked around the kitchen and said. “Wow, you have a lot of food here. Like if for any reason you couldn’t get to the store, you could still eat. I have nothing at home.�? I looked around and to me, it looks like nothing. A pasta box here, a can of vegetables there, some hamburger in the freezer and a full shelf of spices….but she (who doesn’t cook) saw food. So I thought, I can do this.

Here’s what resulted.

Hamburger Rice Stroganoff

½ cup brown rice
1 cup water

½ pound ground beef
pinch of onion powder
pinch of garlic powder

3 tablespoons or so of slivered almonds

1 cup milk
1 package of Stroganoff mix powder.

Start the rice as it often takes a long time. Put rice and water in the saucepan together –do not use any salt– and bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer until done.

Meanwhile, brown the ground beef in a large skillet. Do not add salt. When almost done, add the onion and garlic powder. Stir together put a lid on it and set aside.

Toast the almonds: Using a dry (no oil or spray) small non-stick skillet toast the almonds until they are starting to brown. You must keep the skillet moving so don’t do this while doing anything else or they will burn. When they are toasty to your liking pour them out onto a paper towel.

In a small saucepan make the sauce: Bring the milk to a simmer and add the stroganoff mix. I didn’t use the whole package and it was still kind of salty, which is why I say not to add salt to any other portion of this. If it’s not salty enough for you, you can always add it later. Stir or whisk this until there are no more lumps. It will start to thicken soon. When it does, remove it from heat and pour it into the pan that had the hamburger in it.

Check the rice, when it is done add it to the pan with the rest of the ingredients. Stir well and serve with the toasted almonds.

Yes, this recipe uses a lot of pans, so if you’re not a fan of dish washing (oddly I am) I guess you could try to make the sauce right in with the hamburger and skip the almonds. But I really liked the taste of the almonds so I wouldn’t skip them.

Are you ready for the unveiling? It’s ugly, but was really tasty. And also tasted good reheated a few days later after a night of vodka tonics.

Posted under Beef, Cooking

Remember how I said we didn’t use much of the Mornay sauce with our Croque Monsieur ? I saved it and reused it this evening as a base for a delicious pasta sauce. Sitting in the refrigerator made it more like glue, but I just added some milk to it and it was perfect. Tasted very much like Alfredo sauce.

Here’s what I did. OK you know I’m obsessed with this grill right? So I thought I just had to try meat in it as well as sandwiches.

I took a piece of chicken out of the freezer and thawed it in water in the sink for about 20 minutes. Heck, probably not even that long. It was still frozen in the middle. But I patted it dry and sprinkled it with salt and basil (no pepper, pepper burns on a grill). I stuck it on the grill and it was probably done in about 7 minutes. Sweet. I’m totally in love with this thing!

I chopped the chicken, cooked some noodles, drained them and tossed them with the leftover Mornay sauce and chicken and added some frozen peas. Heated until it was all done. The sauce never got really thick, but I knew it would once it was removed from the heat, so I turned off the heat while I ate my salad and by the time I was ready for it, it was done perfectly.

Posted under Chicken, Cooking

I am a member of the Cooking Club of America and one of the perks is that from time to time I get to test products.

Usually they are silly things like spice packets, but sometimes I get some good stuff. This last time was one of those.

I’ve been wanting to purchase a Pannini grill for some time now. I just knew they were kind of expensive and also, I have little room in my tee-tiny kitchen to store things.

But I was delighted to see that I was going to receive the Villaware V2160 UNO ProPress Panini Grill .

It’s really great. I’ve only had it for about 6 days and I’ve already used it 4 times. It works really well, is easy to clean and is an all around quality thing. And no, I get nothing for telling you about this. By testing the product and filling out the form for the club, I’ve fulfilled my obligation to them. In fact they have no way of knowing about this.

I just wanted to tell you about it in case you’re thinking of buying one

[look at it here]

Posted under house

Because of the panini grill I was anxious to make grilled cheese and tomato soup. I’ve made some tomato soups in the past and they’ve always turned out really good. But I never remember what I did. This time I took notes.

No secret to the sandwich except I used that yummy roasted garlic bread from the bakery and shredded the cheese (Gruyere and gouda). Delicious.

Creamy Tomato Soup
2 t oil (I used Enova, which is a soy based oil)
¼ cup chipped onion
1 T chopped garlic
2 t dried rosemary
2 t dried marjoram
14 oz. canned tomatoes with juice
½ cup chicken broth
½ cup leftover jasmine rice

Heat oil in large saucepan over med-high heat. Sauté onions and garlic until beginning to soften. Add the spices. Sauté for a couple of minutes, stirring. Add tomatoes, chicken broth and rice.

Bring to a boil and simmer for any length of time you like, but at least 10 minutes. I think I went about 20. The longer the better I assume.

Just before ready to serve, blend the soup in a blender and return to the pan just to reheat before serving.

If you wanted it extra creamy you could add some milk or cream at this time and heat it up, but I found the rice made it really creamy already.

Posted under Cooking, Soups and Stews, Vegetarian

The first thing we made with the indoor grill is my favorite sandwich, Croque Monsieur. The grill came with Raichlen’s Indoor Grilling cookbook and I used the recipe in there. It had this Mornay Sauce in it. I’ve never had a sauce with my Croque Monsieur, but it sounded good so I tried it.

I won’t put the recipe for the sandwich because it was basically just butter two pieces of good bread (I used roasted garlic bread from the bakery) and make the sandwiches with deli ham and sliced Gruyere cheese. Set the grill to high (7) and when heated, you leave it on for 5 minutes. Done!

It’s a good idea to make the sauce first and let it sit until the sandwiches are ready since they only take a few minutes.

They were really yummy, though I really didn’t think the sauce was necessary. We only used a tiny bit of it. But keep it on hand, there’s a good use for it later…

Mornay Sauce
1 ½ T unsalted butter
1 ½ T flour
1 cup whole milk
¼ cup (about 1 ounce) coarsely grated Gruyere Cheese
½ cup (about 1 ounce) coarsely grated Parmesan Cheese
1 t Dijon mustard
coarse salt
freshly ground pepper
pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the flour. Return saucepan to the heat and cook until the flour and butter are sizzling but not brown, about 2 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and gradually whisk in milk. Return the saucepan to the heat and gradually bring mixture to a boil, whisking steadily.

Whisk Gruyere and Parmesan and cook until melted, 1 to 2 minutes, whisking steadily. Add the mustard and season with salt and pepper to taste and just a pinch of nutmeg, if using. Serve Mornay sauce at once or keep it warm on the back of the stove until ready to use.

Posted under Cooking, Pork

I am a member of the Cooking Club of America and one of the perks is that from time to time I get to test products.

Usually they are silly things like spice packets, but sometimes I get some good stuff. This last time was one of those.

I’ve been wanting to purchase a Pannini grill for some time now. I just knew they were kind of expensive and also, I have little room in my tee-tiny kitchen to store things.

But I was delighted to see that I was going to receive the Villaware V2160 UNO ProPress Panini Grill .

It’s really great. I’ve only had it for about 6 days and I’ve already used it 4 times. It works really well, is easy to clean and is an all around quality thing. And no, I get nothing for telling you about this. By testing the product and filling out the form for the club, I’ve fulfilled my obligation to them. In fact they have no way of knowing about this.

I just wanted to tell you about it in case you’re thinking of buying one

[look at it here]

Posted under Cooking, Random Thoughts

As you may know, I have a birthday coming up. If anyone wnats to get me anything I would like this: [click here]

…and no I am NOT kidding.

Posted under Random Thoughts

We went to see Vienna play at the Fine Line on Sunday night, which was really great.

Then last night she came over for a little visit. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew stayed at the hotel nursing the Brown Bottle Flu. But it was so nice to see her. Our animals love her. Dudley has a sweet crush on her. He acts like a bashful boy when she’s around. They all really like her actually. Misha had been sitting on my lap and as soon as I got up she jumped on Vienna and sat on her lap. [She’s like Snow White with our brood.]

Then Greg tried to take a photo but the camera was on “movie mode� (he blames me, but I don’t see how that’s possible since I just took a photo of her in regular mode and never put it in movie mode, but whatever). So here’s a little movie of Vienna and I posing for a still photo when Greg was actually taking a movie. It’s kind of humorous when you think about it. Especially because it was not “out of battery� it was out of memory. Doh!

[watch]

Posted under Friends