Living With a Roomba?

Since my poodle's increase hunger began with the taking of Prednisone I've started to get the feeling people must have that own a Roomba. "The Roomba is an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner sold by iRobot. Under normal operating conditions, it is able to navigate a living space and its obstacles while vacuuming the floor."

The last few nights I sat down in the living room to enjoy a few programs on my DVR and in walked my shadow (the poodle). She begins systematically sniffing every inch of the living room floor. She walks around in no particular pattern.  Bumping into things and going in new directions.  Hoping I'm sure that a tortilla chip or the like has fallen to the floor. After sniffing every square inch of the living room floor she jumps up and lays down beside me.

She does this for every room. If I'm cooking she comes into the kitchen and again runs her nose over every inch of the kitchen floor. My original thought was she was looking more like a blood hound, but last night I realized that she is vacuuming. She's my Roomba!

So, now I'm getting a little feeling of "I hope she doesn't find any food on the floor I'll feel like such a slob." Like I'm not doing my job or my family isn't doing their job of picking up after themselves. I know my poodle isn't judging me. In fact if she found food on the floor it would be a good thing in her eyes. I can't help, but feel like I'm being given the white glove treatment about ten times a day.

YOUR DOG IS GOING TO EAT MORE THAN NORMAL

In the continuing saga of "How the Poodle Turns" last week my poodle had a liver biopsy.  I thought they'd just stick a needle in her and take a plug out.  The Vet explained oh no we'll need to cut her open and take a sterile sliver of her liver.  We've tried everything since January when this all began to figure out why her liver isn't functioning properly.  I consented to this final test.

When the results came back it was about the same as every test.  No real reason why it's not functioning properly.  They said there are signs of a "toxic event" (Vet words.)  The Vet goes on to tell me her liver seems to be struggling to recover from this.  To help the healing along we'll need to put her on Prednisone.  On Prednisone she may notice her become more hungry and thirsty.  I asked the Vet, "Do I need to feed her more?"  He said, "No, you may just have to watch out for her nipping things off the counter and getting into the trash."  I said, "Oh she already does that.  We have a whole plan to keep her out of the trash and off of the counters."  He laughed and we concluded our conversation.

Flash forward about a week that my poodle has been on Prednisone suddenly she's drinking 2 bowls of water a day and she's asking me for food all day long.  When I don't give her food she goes outside and grazes.  We now have to go out with her, because she's eating things that we have no idea what it is and she's eating her own poop.  No more leisurely going out and picking it up.  We have to pick it up immediately.  I'll be walking along with her and suddenly she's crunching on something.  I've watched her like a hawk and don't know what she's eating.  She knows to swallow quickly or I'll drag it out of her.  I'm hoping they are acorns or some other nonlethal plant substance.

She asks to go out about every hour.  I don't know if it's to eat or to pee the 2 bowls of water.  This afternoon she asked to go out and I told her no.  Next thing we find out she's peed on the carpet.  I felt SO badly.  I told the family every time she asks we just need to walk her out.  The Prednisone is supposed to be a 3 month treatment.  In fact after about a month we start backing down the dose and I'm hoping her hunger will back down to a normal poodle level.

Today I was cleaning off my dresser and came across this cartoon one of my favorites and it just seem so apropos for our life right now.

Beware of Guacammus!

My daughter and I made this recipe a few weeks ago.  After we made it my daughter said, "Mom you need to blog about this.... to warn everyone!"  I had to laugh.  She was absolutely right.  When I came across this recipe I thought it sounded delicious.  We love guacamole.  We love hummus.  What a great idea!  NOT!

I bought the ingredients and thought we'll make it and take it to a friend get together of my daughter's that I was also invited to.  As we started to make this I told my daughter that really one should never try a new recipe when going to someone else's house.  I said it tongue in cheek as I had full confidence this would be good.

Recipe for Guacamole Hummus

(my life saving additions in parenthesis)

1 can chickpeas

3 cups fresh cilantro (3 more cups of cilantro)

1 garlic clove (1 more clove of garlic)

1 ripe avocado (1 more avocado)

3 T extra virgin olive oil (2 more T of olive oil

1 tsp fresh lemon juice (juice of one whole lemon and one whole lime)

water

salt and pepper to taste (lots of salt, pepper and some cumin)

I made the recipe just as it said to do with the ingredients asked for.  My daughter took the first taste.  She said, "Mom, you need to taste this some thing's wrong."  I told her sometimes recipes need a little tweaking to account for personal tastes.  I took a taste and was alarmed by how terrible it was.  LOL  Oh my we're on "emergency fix it" mode now.  We can't take this bowl of ... of.... gluck to a party!  Yet, I didn't want to waste all these ingredients and throw them away.

First thought was it desperately need a perk up.  It was very bland.  The recipe called for 1 tsp of lemon juice I added the rest of the lemon I had juiced.  Adding about 2 T of lemon juice.  Tasted dip and it was still bland.  No more lemons.  I had a lime juiced it and added the whole thing.  This improved the taste quite a bit.  I threw the rest of the bundle of cilantro in.  I added quite a bit more salt and pepper and even some cumin.  We both tasted the dip and thought it tastes pretty good now, but the texture is kind of unpleasant.  Not the texture of guacamole and not the texture of hummus something in the middle that wasn't good.  I suggested we add another avocado to lighten up the texture.  The addition of another avocado did improve the texture.  We were now at the stage I wouldn't be embarrassed to take it to a party.

Since this was a party of mostly teenagers it didn't go over well.  The 3 adults found it OK.  Would I make it again?  No.  I had to add so much to make it acceptable I'd rather try something else next time.  We started referring to it as Guacammus.  We thought it was as appetizing as it's name.

Cupcakes!!

My son is a great cook.  Sometimes I find a recipe that seems right up his alley and he'll make it.  That was the case for these cupcakes.  I found this recipe called Cookie Dough Stuffed Cupcakes.  He loves cookie dough ice cream.  He's made Cookie Dough Cheesecake.  I thought he might want to try and make these and he did.

These almost don't qualify as cupcakes.  They are so delicious they could easily fall into the addictive substance catagory.  Definitely, when you make these 24 cupcakes make sure there are 24 people around (including yourself of course) to eat them.  Otherwise you will eat more than one.  No doubt about it.

The recipe can be found here at "Young Married Chick's" blog. 

I found Young Married Chick's blog through a site called Food Gawker.  I was turned on to that site by a friend who was helping me find a foodie blog I'd enjoy.  I really like Food Gawker, because you get to see recipes from many different blogs.  It changes every day.

Packing Peanuts A Thing Of The Past

I bought some bowls off of eBay and when I opened the box I was greeted with a surprise.  A box full of Swiss cheese triangles.  OK they are made out of recycled cardboard not cheese.  What a clever idea.  I wondered if this seller had to put together all these triangles?  I suppose one could just sit and watch a good movie and mindless fold these together.  I liked that they are recyclable it I don't want to keep them.

Only one drawback.... you can't really dig around in the box or these triangles will cut up your knuckles.  So, I slowly scooped and slid my hands around in the box.  Honestly, there could be more in the box and I wouldn't know as one can't swirl their hands around to find out.  With soft non-recyclable environment destroying packing peanuts one could dive in head first and be just fine.  I'll have to empty them out into another box to double check the contents of the box.  Why would I need to go to this trouble?  Shouldn't the box contain what I ordered?  Well, the seller sent me something I didn't buy, so who knows what else is in the box.  That's whole nother story.

The Dutch Baby

My mom introduced me to the Dutch Baby when I was a teen. It's a German pancake. It is usually served sweet like American pancakes. It can be season with vanilla and cinnamon. It can be sprinkled with powdered sugar or a fruit topping. We would just drizzled with maple syrup.  One impressive characteristic of the Dutch Baby is how it looks when it's baked.  One bakes it in a metal pan in the oven.  When it comes out of the oven the batter has grown up the sides of the pan to probably 5 times the size it originated.  Like a Soufflé though it quickly shrinks down to less than half it's former state.  That is why mom always made sure we were seated around the table before the Dutch Baby came out of the oven.

The sweet Dutch Baby was never our favorite when we discovered the savory type. I found a recipe call a Meaty Dutch Baby back in the 1980's. I don't know where I got it and a search on the Internet provided no Meaty Dutch Baby recipes to my surprise.  It came from a magazine and I'm guessing it might have been Sunset.  As it was my favorite magazine at the time.

Like the original Dutch Baby it does puff up in the oven, but not nearly as high.  I have baked it in a glass pan and a metal pan and it does puff higher in a metal pan.  The puffing does really nothing to the flavor it's just very appealing to the eye.  I have made this more and transported it than eaten it at home.  It's a favorite wherever I take it.

Another characteristic of making a Dutch Baby is you can't... let me put this delicately... fart around once you get to the mixing of the batter.  Have your eggs, milk and flour already measured and ready to blend.  You mix up the batter in order stated, pull hot pan from oven, pour into hot pan, throw on cheese... don't take a lot of time here to sprinkle too neatly.... and return pan to oven.  The pan and filling being hot is what makes the pancake rise.  Too much dilly dallying or not mixing batter in proper order results in a flat pancake.  Now don't get all nervous and burn yourself trying to be fast.  Just remember to not take the time to pour batter in neat concentric circles or scrape every drop of batter from blender or try and sprinkle the cheese on evenly and consistently.  It doesn't matter.   Keeping it hot does.

Meaty Dutch Baby
Prepare filling (recipe below)

4T butter
1 cup cheddar cheese or 1/3 cup Parmesan
4 eggs
1 cup each milk and flour

In same frying pan, make sure there is at least 5T of fat, add butter to make up difference.  Place pan with filling in 425°F oven until butter melts and bubbles.  Quickly, in blender break eggs, whirl for a minute, with motor running add milk then add flour whirl 30 seconds.  Quickly pour into hot pan and sprinkle with cheese.
Bake about 20 minutes.

Sausage Filling - Crumble 1/2 pound jimmy Dean regular sausage into frying pan.  Stir over medium heat for about 2 to 3 minutes.  Add chopped green chiles (1 small can California green chiles), 1 small onion (chopped), 1 minced garlic clove, and 1/2 tsp each dry basil and thyme leave.  Brown slightly.

Return above for instructions.

My daughter likes it with Tapatio hot sauce.  Lots of Tapatio hot sauce.  Youch!

Return of the Giant Cookie

Thursday was yet another rainy day.  Probably the 14th one in a row and I'm not exaggerating.  I'm not going to complain as we need the snow in the mountains even if it means the valley gets water logged.  After school on Thursday as we fought the wind and the rain to get home my daughter says I really want some chocolate.  We were already home by then and I wasn't about to go back out in the storm.  I checked around in my pantry and I had all the makings for chocolate chip cookies.  My daughter asked if I could make a giant cookie.  I said yes.  Then I checked my pantry again and I had a bag of Special Dark Hershey Kisses.  I love making my giant cookies with chocolate chips that look to scale of a cookie that big.  Plus the chocolate would impress 3 teenagers with cabin fever.

I used 1 1/2 times my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, one bag of Special Dark Kisses unwrapped (instead of chocolate chips), one round piece of baking parchment (trimmed to round shape) and my round Pampered Chef baking stone.  Use baking parchment I think it's what keeps cookie dough from running off of stone as per my Pampered Chef consultant.  Smooth cookie dough out to within 1 inch of edge NO CLOSER.

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 stick Crisco® Baking Sticks Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening
1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans (optional)

PREPARATION DIRECTIONS:

1. HEAT oven to 375ºF.

2. COMBINE shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Beat in egg. Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Mix into shortening mixture until just blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

3. DROP by rounded measuring tablespoonfuls 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet.

4. BAKE 8 to 10 minutes for chewy cookies, or 11 to 13 minutes for crisp cookies. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet on a cooling rack. Remove cookies to rack to cool completely.

TIP* If nuts are omitted, add an additional 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.