Friday Leftovers (March 19)

Word Association

Play along here.

1. Children :: Kids
2. Saddlebags :: Horse
3. Restraint :: Constraint
4. Awake :: Early
5. Blood :: Oil
6. Shutter :: Fly
7. Posted :: Up
8. Corn cob :: Elote
9. Flagrant :: Foul
10. Fart :: in the Wind

Explanations: Yeah, I awake early every day. It's funny how your body gets adjusted to it. Usually I beat our alarm by about 10-15 minutes. Our alarm is set for 4:44 a.m., and sometimes I roll over and it's 4:38, other times 4:41 or 4:35. Those ones I remember from recently. The worst one recently was the 4:41. I rolled over, grabbed the blanket and was just about to settle back into a warm cocoon when I though 'Let me look at the clock first.' I saw 4:41 and instantly wanted to scream. A great moment, spoiled. Now, I don't have to get up that early necessarily but Mrs. LB does in order to get on the freeway before morning rush hour. So I get up with her every morning. Sometimes I'd rather just sleep through the alarm but I like spending time with her so I get up with her.

What's This?

When I went to Seattle in November, I picked up some things at the Pike Place Market. Not a whole lot, since I didn't have a whole lot of time. But still got a few things.

One of the things I got was this... well, it's actually two things but you get the point.

liquid stuff

I'm not sure what it is.

It's one of those things where your eyes are bigger than your stomach. I thought that it would be cool to get this stuff and experiment with it, but so far it's just sat in my cupboard for all these months.

I figure I may as well try and use this, if I can figure out what it is.

I thought it was some sort of extract type stuff, since it's a liquid and it kind of has a potent smell. But I'm not sure. I suppose I should just get adventurous and test it out - what have I got to lose? But before I do, just wanted to see if anyone had an inkling of what this is and how I should go about using it.

Thursday's Missive

My post yesterday was an instant reaction. I usually try to leave the house in order to be at school 30 minutes before the bell. The earlier the better, because there is less traffic and thus fewer morons breaking the rules. But every day this week, Yvie's gotten up late because of the time change so we've been leaving later than usual. And of course that means long lines, dozens of drivers doing the wrong thing and one very frustrated LB. So I was enthused when I saw some CHP officers out there. I had nothing to worry about since I'm among the responsible drivers, but obviously there has been a bit of an issue if the CHP is out there.

I hadn't had a rough morning necessarily but I wasn't feeling great. I woke up, needing about another hour of sleep to recover from a hectic Wednesday, and was pretty busy in the wee hours of Thursday morning. But those CHPs out there got my heart going! I got home and fired that "letter" off. Tickets for the masses! I hope that will keep people from breaking the rules at will. It probably won't but we can all hope.

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

I was looking for a song to put up as a song of the week and came across another song that would so not fit that category.

The song I was looking for is called Dragon Puncher, by James Kochalka Superstar. I searched on you tube and came across another song by James Kochalka Superstar and, uh, well, it's not a children's song. At all.

I have to say that I thought the song was funny and catchy and I actually have come to like it, but I can't really sing it in front of the girls. I'll swap out a word and sing "You've got to wash your hands" instead.

What's the song? Here's a link to it. Just be forewarned, it'd kinda crude... or it could be a bit of a PSA. No nudity or bad language or anything, it's not that bad. Just nothing the girls should listen to for a decade or two.

Incidentally, that Dragon Puncher song is not anything like this. That one we actually bought on iTunes and the girls like it. Well, we all like it, except for Mrs. LB.

Last Hurrah

This is the last and final week I'll give a shout out to children's music. I just feel like dedicating this space to something else... what that something else is, I'm not sure. There are some obscure (well, maybe obscure is too strong of a word) movies that I really like so I might share them here. Or maybe I'll just put songs in here that I'm into or listening to at the moment, or maybe none of that. Who knows? I just wanted to mix things up a bit.

And before the song, if you ever have a question about children's music, feel free to let me know.

This last song isn't really a children's song specifically but it's played all the time on Sirius 116, the children's music channel.

It's called The Saga Begins by Weird Al Yankovic, and it's about Star Wars. I think it's a cool song but it seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it song. Either you like it or you hate it, there's no in between.

Friday Leftovers (March 5)

Weekly post of thwarted weekly posts and leftover ramblings.

Word Association

As always, play here.

1. Harm :: Hurt
2. If :: Ands
3. On My Own :: Alone
4. She Said :: He Said
5. Illegal :: Immoral
6. Broke :: Money
7. It's A :: Girl
8. Chatting :: Talking
9. Cottage :: Cheese
10. Podcast: iPod

Explanations: This one was kinda lame. No strange answers or anything. Oh well.

Vote!

I've posted a little poll on here. I just wanted to see what the opinions were as far as who the favorite in the 5K race is, myself or Danny.

I'm going to be focusing some of next week's post on the race within the race, so if you want to save your vote until then, that's fine. However, you can always change your vote.

Dinner: Success!

I made the Slow Cooker Italian Beef for Sandwiches on Thursday and it turned out very well. It was delicious, actually. How good was it? Yvie actually ate some!

I altered it a little. A five-pound roast was way too much meat so I used a two-pounder instead but left all the seasonings as is. I also used chicken broth instead of water. I served them on a hoagie roll with some provolone cheese and toasted it in the oven for about five minutes. For the side I made Sweet Potato Wedges, a recipe from Paula Deen. Those turned out well. We're not big potato eaters at all but I like sweet potatoes. These were quite tasty.

I think my only complaint was that the sandwich was a bit dry but that wasn't the meat's fault, rather mine.

Disneyland

I mentioned on Thursday how I'd gone to Disneyland with Kennedy the day before. Well, we had a great time. A really great time. This week was the last week Disneyland opens at 10 a.m. in the middle of the week, which leads me to believe the crowds will come back starting next week, when the park opens at 9 a.m. Yvie was going to be picked up afterschool so Kennedy and I had a lot of free time on Wednesday, so we set out for Disneyland.

We got there at about 9:20, and were on Main Street USA at about 9:40. Once it was 10, we strolled directly towards Pixie Hollow and got some pictures with Silvermist and Tinkerbell.

Here's what the rest of our day looked like:

Autopia (Kennedy had fun)
Space Mountain, twice (no line the first time, waited about 5 minutes the second time)
Captain EO (awesome!)
Buzz Lightyear (how do some people get a million points? I can't crack 200,000)
Finding Nemo (fun, hadn't done that in a while)
Lunch at Pizza Port (Kennedy and I split a piece of pizza)
Snow White's Scary Adventures (Kennedy enjoyed it)
Casey Jr. Circus Train (fun)
Thunder Mountain, twice (tiny line, couldn't resist doing it twice)
Pirates of the Caribbean (one of my favorites)
Tarzan's Treehouse (Kennedy had fun)
Ice Cream Sundae (yum, split with Kennedy)

Just to give you an idea of how little the lines were, here is our first trip to Space Mountain.

run, Kenna!

That also happened to be Kennedy's first two trips on Space Mountain! She was scared at first but enjoyed it, enough to ask to go a second time in a row.

All in all, we waited very little in any of the lines. We left the park at about 3 or so, and we could have easily done the rest of the rides in the park - well, the rest worth doing for us anyway - had we planned on staying until closing time, which was 8 p.m.

I want to go soon with Yvie and Mrs. LB, but not sure if that will happen. If it does, it's likely the crowds will return. Oh well. At least Kennedy and I had a crowd-free day.

LB's Song of the Week

My weekly nod to children's music...

The girls are really into this song. It's a song by Los Lobos, a Disney song. Heigh Ho from Snow White, except done in Spanish with a Latin beat. I like the song quite a bit. It's got a pretty catchy beat.

Cooking The Plan

This week, I finally had the chance to try out my new cooking routines. I'd wanted to do nights of different dishes, as I blogged about here.

The last couple of weeks Mrs. LB has been working strange hours and traveled so I couldn't really get to it but this week has been sort of normal. And I know the week is not over yet but I have my dinners planned for today and tomorrow.

I was thinking about dedicating one post a week for the dinner stuff, to try and hold myself accountable. I may still do that but for now this might be more sporadic than anything - in many ways much like my weekly meal plans.

On Monday, I made tacos, like the kind you'd get at some Mexican fast food place. I bought the taco shells. For the meat, I cooked up about 3/4 pounds of ground beef and about 1/4 pound chorizo. After the meat browned, I threw in some chopped onions and chopped red bells and let it all cook down. I made my go-to rice recipe, Mexican Rice from All Recipes. The dinner was a success, very tasty and not difficult to make. This served as my Mexican night, and really that will be a lay-up for me every time. That's what I know best, Mexican food, so we that shouldn't be too hard.

Tuesday I went for... well, I don't really know. It wasn't Pasta Night, although it could have counted. I made a recipe out of a cookbook Yvie got for Christmas, a Paula Deen cookbook. It was called Cheeseburger Casserole. I wasn't quite sure about it. First, I browned some ground beef (I again used a ground beef-chorizo mixture), threw in some onions, red bells, garlic, then some canned tomatoes and oregano. I boiled some egg noodles, then threw everything together in a 9-by-13 baking dish, topped it with shredded colby Jack cheese and baked it for about 15 minutes. I wasn't expecting much but this was a very tasty and excellent dish. Score one for Paula Deen's cookbook!

Kennedy and I spent the day at Disneyland on Wednesday, so no cooking. We went out for dinner, so that's okay because I give myself an out once a week. Well, at least I will give myself one out so I don't feel like I have to cook every single night.

Today I have this planned: Slow Cooker Italian Beef for Sandwiches, another All Recipes recipe. I have all the ingredients and just have to get it together before I take Kennedy to school.

This looks delicious, and really not a whole lot of prep work for me. It's a slow cooker so that will do all the work. I've only recently been using the slow cooker so I still am getting used to it. I think this counts as my Slow Cooker Night.

I'd wanted Fridays to be Pasta Night, just beacuse the carbs will help with my running. But Tuesday's dinner might fit that bill. I might go for some chicken. Actually, now that I think about it, Mrs. LB has a late night at work so I'm not sure if I will get to anything substantial. Might have leftovers as I anticipate the Italian beef sandwiches will yield some leftovers.

I think I strained my brain enough just to have planned this stuff out, so as of yet I have no plans for the weekend's dinners. Usually we have something going on during the weekends so it's just a matter of fitting it all in. We'll see how I fit in dinners on the weekend.

Meal Plans

I've got a bit of a question for you trusty blog readers, those of you who cook anyway.

First, let me give you a bit of background and my quandary.

I'm solely responsible for meals around the LB house. I got into cooking about three years ago and I'm fairly comfortable in the kitchen. Well, not entirely totally 100 percent comfortable because there are still foods and ingredients that confuse me (yeast, for instance) and a lot of times I still need recipes to make something. I can "wing it" sometimes but usually only when making Mexican food, since that's what I'm familiar and comfortable with.

But for the longest time now, I've felt a bit uneasy. I don't necessarily think I'm in a rut but it sure feels that way. So to help combat this feeling, I've decided to try something different. Although I'm not 100 percent sold on this idea.

Now that I don't have to referee soccer games, I have my afternoons free once more. I'm at home pretty much every day in the mornings although some of those days I do a bit of running around (literally and figuratively). Still, I have time both to do the shopping and cooking, and I'm actually looking forward to settling into a rhythm.

Which brings up my predicament. I've thought for the longest time to designate nights with certain dishes. For instance, have a pasta night, Mexican night, chicken night, etc. That would help me not only get more organized but also force me to try new things. If I have a chicken night, I can't keep making the same chicken dishes I normally make over and over again.

So, my question: is this an effective system?

I'm thinking right now of something like this...

Monday: Chicken
Tuesday: Mexican
Wednesday: ______
Thursday: _____
Friday: Pasta

Obviously there are some _____s there. Still trying to fill out the holes. I do have some thoughts:

Pork and/or Beef night
Ethnic night (Asian or some other type of ethnic dish)
Veggie night (not sure this would go over well, but I wouldn't mind doing it)

You won't see Seafood night on there because we don't care much for seafood. And we do breakfast for dinner every now and then, but not often enough to designate it as a weekly thing.

Anyway, help a blogger out! If you'd be so kind...

Carbo-Locked And Loaded

Late Friday night post for you here. Just had to share.

Carbo-loading has been great. I mentioned in today's earlier post that I made some Pasta, Pesto and Peas on Thursday. Tonight I made some meat sauce and tossed it over spaghetti. But not just any spaghetti:

Prince thin spaghetti

Blog buddy Christine of Marvelously Mundane sent me this along with a lot of other really awesome stuff. She drew my name in a gift exchange we had through another web site and I was blown away with the stuff she sent me (and the girls and Mrs. LB). Part of what she got me was this box of spaghetti, local to Boston (she lives in the Boston area). I'd wanted to save it for a special occasion and tonight fit the bill.

I make a simple meat sauce, with Italian sausage, red bell pepper, Anaheim pepper, mushrooms, garlic, red onion, black pepper and some seasonings:

yumness

... and then after it's all heated through, I add some marinara sauce...

more yumness

... and heat that up for a bit. Then, place it over some cooked spaghetti and...

mega yumness

... we have the meal that is going to help fuel me for the race.

One more thing that Christine sent me was a picture of the starting line of the Boston Marathon. It is really, really cool and I'm honored to have that picture.

Stay tuned for one more post coming Saturday! Surf City Eve is tomorrow!

Friday Leftovers (Feb. 5)

It's Friday! That means it's almost Saturday!

But before we move on to the weekend... the Leftovers. By LB.

Ahem.

Word Association

Play here.

1. Furniture :: Chair
2. Beauty :: Beast
3. Sip :: A-Dee-Doo-Dah
4. Block :: Party
5. Forehead :: Sweat
6. Championship :: Trophy
7. Hurl :: Throw
8. Whip :: Crack
9. Destruction :: Eve
10. Leather :: Chains

Explanations: Nos. 2 and 3 are Disney-related of course, although 3 is really Zip-a-dee-doo-dah with a Z- in front of it. Not sure what's up with the cracking whips and leather and chains. Hey now.

More 'Splainin

Okay, so you may have noticed some strange songs on my Lala playlist. Let me explain.

Song 1 (That's How You Know) is because the girls like it... yeah, I can explain femme stuff like that, the girls like it. No, I did enjoy the movie that's from, Enchanted, quite a bit more than I used to.

The girls like Song 22 as well... no, actually one summer we spent down in Mexico with family and one of the things they had was a Beta tape of all of Wham's videos, so we watched that a lot.

Beta!! That's old school.

And the Into the Night song is just some more 80s cheese. What's up with that song? Is the guy really singing about a 16-year-old?

Freeze Or Not?

I made this recipe for dinner on Thursday. It's a Pasta, Pesto and Peas, and it is really good. Basically, I made some pesto, put it in a food processor with defrosted frozen chopped spinach, mayo, Parmesan cheese, then tossed that in some rotini and penne pasta, added peas and pine nuts and more Parm and !voila! dinner. It's served cold so I made it in the afternoon, which was nice.

My question to you is: do you think I can freeze the leftovers? It made so much of it that I'll have Pasta, Pesto and Peas overload pretty soon otherwise.

I did have a bit of a laugh when making it. The recipe is from Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa, and she can be a bit of a food snob. Her recipe said "good olive oil" or "1 1/4 cups of good mayonaisse." Well, I kept saying "sorry Ina but LB's using the cheap sh*t he got at Costco."

Oscars

Have I mentioned before that I used to love going to the movies? That's the first thing that went out the window when we had Yvie, our ability to go to the movies whenever we wanted. Our movie-going experiences came to a screeching halt, but we knew that would be the case. Since Yvie's was a scheduled c-section delivery, we went out to the movies and dinner the night before, and I remember that night pretty well. The calm before the storm, for sure.

Anyway, since we used to go to the movies so often, the Academy Awards were actually awards I would get excited about. One year, we had seen all five Best Picture nominees and that was pretty rare since there's usually one movie from the bunch that is sort-of obscure. Usually though the nominees for the other major awards, we'd seen. Maybe not all of them, but many of them.

But after we stopped going to the movies so often, I stopped following the Academy Awards as closely as I used to. Most of the time now, I'm lucky if I've even heard of some of the movies that were nominated, let alone seen them.

This year, though, is a bit of an exception. Maybe because there are 10 movies up for Best Picture our odds increased but not only have I heard of some of the movies but we've actually seen some of them. This is amazing, really, since we go the movies so sparingly.

We saw Up, of course. That one we saw right when it came out, and we took the girls.

But we also have seen District 9 and Avatar. The latter I suppose is the highest-grossing movie in history now so us seeing it isn't really unique. But District 9 wasn't quite the big-budget blockbuster that Avatar was. District 9 was such a good movie, and one that I really didn't know a lot about before seeing it. I'd read a story in a magazine on it and read a few things online and from that I knew I wanted to see the movie because I figured it would be good, the way the movie was described. Mrs. LB and I had a chance to go to the movies so I picked District 9 since it was my turn to pick (to avoid arguments over movies, we take turns).

Pretty cool that two of the movies I picked to go see were up for Best Picture. I told you I'm picky. I remember one year it was my turn to pick and I went and seen Million Dollar Baby and that was nominated for Best Picture later on as well.

But some things, though, never change. I've never heard of An Education, The Hurt Locker or A Serious Man... or Precious, although Mrs. LB swears we had a conversation about Precious, but I don't remember.

You Can Say That Again

Actually, this is somewhat common:

Mrs. LB swears we had a conversation about ________, but I don't remember.

You can put pretty much most topics in the blank and that rings true.

LB's Song Of The Week

My weekly nod to children's music.

By the way, didn't I call it last week? I said that Ziggy Marley would win the Grammy for best Musical Album for Children, and he did. I don't know if he had the best album, the songs I've heard have been good, but I figured his name recognition would help him, and I'm guessing it did.

Anyway, this song here is pretty funny. It's about a backpack and how, for some kids, a lot of things go into the backpack but not a lot come out. Yvie's backpack isn't quite as bad but last night she had that thing stuffed to the gills with... crap - her jacket, three water bottles, her lunch box...

This is Bill Harely's Down in the Backpack. And like the description says on the YouTube page:

"With apologies to The Drifters:"

Stick It To LB

Over at All Recipes, I have a blog as well. I really don't use it that much. I kinda started to at the beginning of the year but I've written all of one thing there since early September. I guess since I started to write more about things like cooking and family here on Muddy Runner, there wasn't really a necessity to blog over there about things like that.

But I revived that blog, for at least one post anyway. And it has caused a little bit of a stir.

Here's the link to that post.

As much as I was tempted to do it over there, I'll explain here why I chose to blog about that and some of the fallout from that post.

Now, it's not exactly a hot-button topic. I wrote about cumin. Yeah, the spice. I like the spice although it doesn't smell that great (I believe Raoulysgirl described it as armpit stench once, and that's not stretching it in the least). Well, the post wasn't about the spice itself per se but rather the pronunciation of it.

It sorta bugs me when I hear it pronounced koo-min, as in it rhymes with Newman. It's just like a pet peeve I guess. It doesn't exactly boil my blood when I hear it pronounced koo-min, just bugs me. I pronounce it kyoo-min. I felt like I needed to express my reasons why I pronounce it kyoo-min instead of koo-min, convince others that I at least have a basis of why I feel this way and maybe try and make people laugh or at least think. So I blogged about it. It was meant to have a lighthearted tone, not really meant to have any malice. I wasn't exactly advocating anything really, just a pet peeve and a reason why I feel that way.

But some people were quick to try and tell me why I was wrong or to question my reasoning. None of the negative comments really bothered me - I've heard much, much worse said about me, believe me. It's just funny what will draw the ire and venom from some people, as if questioning a random blogger's intelligence will make them feel better or something.

Most of the comments, though, were positive so not everyone was riled up about it I suppose. My favorite comment was probably by the user AZ, who was quite intelligent in her response about the background of cumin.

I mean, it's just kyoo-min, for eff's sake.

Do as I say, not as I do

After writing about the ills of cheese and how much of a fiend I've become, I went against my better judgment and made a meal that isn't exactly healthy. I made wet burritos for dinner on Thursday. What exactly is a wet burrito? It's a burrito covered in melted cheese. This is far more of a gut bomb than a regular burrito since the regular burrito would only have a portion of the cheese a wet burrito has.

I decided to document this wayward dinner and share it with you. Normally I share tips on how to maintain your fitness levels and achieve your goals but, since it's the holidays and I'm in a spirit of giving, I figured I'd give you a way to enhance your meal plan by packing calories in it.

To start, you need the following: ground beef, rice and refried beans. Mmmm.... you can smell the calories already.


Then, take some Monterey Jack and cheddar cheese from the trusty two-pound blocks sold at Costco for 4.99 and grate it up. You could use just one kind of cheese but where's the fun in that?


Afterward, heat up a tortilla on the stovetop. Otherwise, it ain't gonna work.


Then take the properly heated-up tortilla, add beans, rice and beef of your choice. You can also add whatever else you'd like here; I chose cilantro but you could also add some onion, jalapenos or whatever else strikes your fancy. Just don't add cheese because, well, you'll see.


Now, what differentiates this from a regular burrito is this key ingredient and procedure. First the ingredient: tomato sauce. I like the Mexican-style tomato sauce because it is already infused with lots of good spicy stuff, namely peppers. Some are spicier than others but they're not going to burn a hole in your tongue. Here's my preferred brand:


Take a rolled-up burrito, place it on a cookie sheet and spread this yummy salsa fresca all over the burrito like so:


Then sprinkle cheese on top. Trying not to pile too much would be futile since this is the key step in all this after all.


Pop it into a preheated 350-degree oven for about 8 minutes or until the cheese has melted through and Voila!


Some yummy goodness. I served mine with Mexican Rice II from All Recipes garnished with cilantro and a lime on the side. Next time I might consider just putting the burrito on an oven-safe plate and melting it there since you get all the residue and stuff that stayed behind on the foil. Then again, aren't these enough calories to begin with?

And for the record, I had just one of these gut bombs although I really really REALLY wanted to make myself another. That counts for something, no?