Gimmick or good thing? Stone wave Cooker

I worked 10 hours today. I come home and made a wise crack to my teenagers about the fact that no one made dinner. Then I asked what they ate today.

"Nothing". 

Really? 

 Not for lack of skill or food. My pantry is well stocked and my son is a culinary arts student in his third year. Just typical teenage boys awaiting mom to make something. They know I hate dishes in the sink when I come home so they just don't make any dishes. I know, I was a teenager, last century, literally. 

I ran out for Stromboli and stopped at cvs and they had this "as seen on tv" stonewave microwave cooker. I know what your thinking. Microwaved food sucks. I agree. I mainly use mine to reheat coffee or melt butter  But if my lazy boys will eat something homemade but conveniently easy,  (even in the evil "nuker") I'll give it a shot. 

The thing that caught my eye was the fact that it poaches eggs. I love poached eggs on spinach. 

There is a recipe book with it, and the foods are all whole foods. I don't need a lecture about the fact that the microwave is evil, I'm aware but our  food is organic and fresh, better than them making ramen, yuck! I can't stand the smell of it. 

Okay here is my review:

This banana dessert is delicious. I was able to also make it in a glass microwave dish with a glass lid with similar results. 

This too was very delicious and also could be made in just a glass microwavable dish with a glass lid. 

This seemed to do a little bit better than the glass microwave dish with the glass lid probably because the steam vent. 

One last thing.

 I cubed a sweet potato added  2 tablespoons of butter, some pecans, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon. I nuked it for 3 minutes let it rest a minute and it was a delicious dessert like side dish. Would be great with a  steak.   

All in all I'd say this is a useful  little contraption and I plan to buy a second one to have 2 around.  

 You can use the recipes from 250 BEST MEALS IN A MUG cookbook.  It holds the same amount and has a great outcome. 

 

Steel cut oats frozen in cupcake tins

Today I saw an idea for still cut oats. You can freeze them in muffin tins or cupcake tins pop them out put them into baggies to keep in the freezer and grab them to take to work.

They take about three minutes to heat up some frozen.  Or as I do, you can put them into a glassmicrowave dish the night before for reheating at work and they will be thawed and cook faster.  

I made them in the rice cooker, as I normally do. I added dried cranberries and a stream of honey used 19 ounces of water and one cup of Steel cut oats. 

This recipe filled 8 cupcake tin cups. I figure that's about for breakfasts. I put the 10 into the freezer and left it set up about three hours. Then I pop them out of the 10 and put them into a plastic baggie. Now when I am packing my breakfast I can grab one or two and throw it into a dish. 

I like to have a hot meal for breakfast at work occasionally. Especially in the winter time.  

I'll post some of my other brown bag fast food later this week.  

Jalapeño popper grilled cheese w bacon

While making bacon for BLT sandwiches I was browsing Pinterest and I came up with another lame excuse to blog. Lol. Hey, no one listens to meat home, so my blog and twitter are my vents. Just kidding.  They listen.

It's pretty basic, but simplicity is still delicious. 

I mixed 2 small chopped jalapeños with a half package of cream cheese.  (just stem removed, keep the seeds or you might as well use a non-spicy pepper)

Butter bread outsides, spread inside generously with cream cheese jalapeño mixture, using about half. Place bacon on top, then top slice of bread. 

Brown both sides in buttered cast iron skillet. 

Slice and eat. Simply delicious. 

You can sub goat cheese or any soft cheese for this. 

Here's my BLT wrap for my work lunch tomorrow. I love bacon. I smeared jalapeño cream cheese on my wrap too. 

Mascara review: Honeybee Gardens

A friend of mine did a review of a her new mascara and I wanted to boast about my favorite mascara. 

Honeybee Gardens. 

I'm not affiliated, I don't make any money from them, nor do I sell their products.  I just love this natural safe mascara. It stays on all day, comes off without harsh chemicals and doesn't get clumpy. It's just enough to bring out my eyelashes without looking dark, heavy and overly made up, as many guys, including mine, don't like heavy makeup. 

In the pics above,  I didn't even use an eyeliner to show you that you really only need one coat. 

I'm no photographer, I just used my iPhone cam to get a quick shot of my eyes as I get ready for work. 

It doesn't cost an arm and a leg like some high end products but it performs flawlessly, and you don't need 3-layers of different mascaras to achieve this look, like some of the new products I'm seeing out there. At the time I'm writing this article is only 11.99, which is the going rate for mascara a sold at places like target and a fraction of department store cosmetic, the majority of which are toxic. 

EWG.org gives this a good rating. 

If you want to purchase this, they have a website that lists where it's available and of course you can buy it online. 

Re-inventing kitchen gadgets

I have a few of these but one thing I dislike about them is, that handle. It needlessly takes up room in the cabinets. 

It's also not dishwasher safe. 

I've re-invented it. 

And even the dust cover still works in it.

And just for fun, let's multi-task a tool, shall we? 

Repurposed cassette cabinet

I got this baby at a yard sake for 4 dollars about 15 years ago. CDs cornered the market and the owner had no use for it. I did. For years I kept my extracts and food coloring bottles in it.

I decided to move then up to a basket in my baking cabinet and am now using it to organize my essential oils. 

I love this thing and who knows what I'll use it for next decade. This thing is solid wood and it's one of my awesome yard sale finds from the early 90s. 

PS. Extracts never go bad. I still have some old ones with metal lids. 

I've even re-used a few to hold extracts that came in plastic. I love the nostalgia. 

What example are you setting about bullying?

With Justin Beiber in the news, it floors me that so many adults are hating on him. What message are you sendin to kids?  We wonder why there's hate and violence in schools. 

First off. He's a performer. The fact that the paparazzi follows his every move, waiting  for him to fuck up is despicable. He's a kid and people hated in him before he did anything wrong, so it's not about what he did. We all know someone who has done far worse.  That's called jealousy and the fact that everyone is spending so much energy on him leads me to believe they are fans. Why else do you waste energy on a person unless you are obsessed with them. 

How would you like it if the paparazzi followed around your child airing his every fuck up.  Grow the fuck up. You only prove what type of person you are by posting hate. 

A fellow coworker said he hopes someone shoots him. How can you hate someone so much, that you don't even know, that you want him dead?

Another coworker sent me a text because she too likes Justin Beiber and is appalled by the hate on Facebook. 

I'm not some super-fan. I hardly know what he sings, but I'm a mom and I have real issues with bullying and if people were hating in my child like that, it would hurt. 

Some complain what kind of role model is he?  My question is,  What kind of role model are we, as adults, posting hate all over the internet? You are promoting  bullying by participating in the hate.