Lovin From The Oven

Remember making pumpkin bread in empty one pound coffee cans when you were younger?  Well if you’re still doing it - stop.  Apparently there’s something sprayed on the inside of the can that comes off when you’re baking and isn’t good for you.  If you absolutely have to have round bread then go to your local gourmet chef supply store and buy the tubes made specially for round breads.  I just use the silacone bread pans.  I love that I can throw rubber in the oven and not have it melt.

Well, that’s enough of the scaring you away from baking in coffee cans.  I do like bread baked in clay pots though.  Here’s some lovin from the oven… Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Bread

3 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 cups pumpkin
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup oil
3 cups flour
3tsps nutmeg
1tsp ginger
2 tsp cloves
5 tsp cinnamon

Add oil to sugar and blend, whip in eggs. Add sifted dry ingredients. Stir in pumpkin. Put in greased and floured pan (bundt pan works nicely). Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool ten minutes in pan and remove. Can be made as muffins, just reduce the baking time.

Bon Apetit!  *:D

Island Style Corned Beef

I’m fortunate enough to live in a place where you could try new foods everyday if you chose to, bit being quite the picky water I am very selective about trying new things. sometimes when I do try something new I find something really tasty. Take the following recipe for instance. at work we have pot luck lunches for various evenys and there’s stuff like poke (raw fish), sushi, kalua pork, bar-b-q chicken, and other Hawaiian-Asian foods.

Fortunately once I was brave enough to try what looked like Lau Lau (pork with butterfish wrapped in to leaves and cooked all day till tender). To my surprise it wasn’t what I expected but I liked it just as much. Turns out that it was corned need cooked island style and I loved it! (and I don’t like corned beef). Here’s the recipe I got from the lady who brought two pans of it because it’s such a favorite.

Island Style Corned Beef

luau leaves
corned beef
cocoanut milk

Simmer corned beef 4 hours.

In a baking pan and on enough foil to wrap the whole package pf meat and leaves, spread leaves then place need in the center. Pour cocoanut mill over beef. fold leaves over need covering completely as if wrapping a package. Close foil tight around package of beef. Cook at 300 degrees F for 3 more hours. Serve hot.

i hope you enjoy this as much as i did. P.S. Some people ok the island eat the corned beef without eating any leaves and some people eat the leaves like cooked spinach. it’s just a matter of wether you like them.

This Rice Is Great With Scrambled Eggs…

Sometimes I’m having breakfast for dinner is perfect. I actually love scrambled eggs for dinner but I don’t want toast so I have red rice instead. it’s spicy enough to be interredting and pretty on the plate with the eggs, especially if you add a sprig of cilantro.

Slow Cooked Red Rice

Tasty red rice recipe with bacon, ham, rice, and tomatoes. This rice recipe is cooked in the crockpot.

4 to 6 slices bacon, fried & crumbled
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cans chopped tomatoes, (15 oz each)
1 cup converted rice
1/2 to 1 cup cooked chopped ham
salt and pepper, to taste
1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce, or to taste

Fry bacon; drain and crumble. Cook onion in bacon grease just until softened. Combine all ingredients in the slow cooker/Crock Pot. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 7 hours, or until rice is tender but not mushy.
Serves 6 to 8

MR. TG’s still in the hospital and I’m exhausted.  Going to work then doing the hospital thing is taking its toll.  My dog is even getting miffed at me because I’m gone so long.  Oh we..  Better days ahead.

Me?  Have a boring day? HA! NO CAN!!!  Today when I arrived at the hospital Mr. Tough Guy wasn’t throwing up blood anymore (seems the laser procedure worked) but he now had blood coming out his bum.  Good grief!  Will the drama never end?!  So they booked him for a colonoscopy and another day at Straub Hospital began.

The colonoscopy found more areas bleeding in his intestine and some polyps which they biopsied and lasered.  Poor Mr. TG is knocked out.  My stress level is so high I think I’m imploding.  This has not been a good night.  Sorry peeps.  Gotta carry on with this tomorrow.

Mr. Tough Guy Isn’t So Tough

Here’s some history about how my boyfriend ended up in the hospital and now is in ICU…

A few weeks ago his belly started swelling and I mentioned to him that he should go have it checked because his belly button was stretching and it was starting to look wrong.  Nah, you know how men are, he was too tough to go to the doc so the belly continued to swell and was by then getting hard.  Hmm not a good sign.

So Saturday morning we went to breakfastand not 5 minutes after ordering he starts to shake and shiver and had a look of anguish on his face.  The food came and he didn’t touch it, I ate then we went back to the apartment.  Poor boy went to bed and groaned with pain all day and night.

Sunday he found some motrin and said he was feeling better.  By Sunday night he was agreeing to go to the doctor Monday morning.  He goes to the doctor who sends him to the VA for tests but Mr. Tough Guy gets frustrated because it takes so long and he thinks he’s being jerked around by a doctor that doesn’t communicate well and finally walks out of the hospital.  Not such a great move but I can understand the frustration.  Before I get home from work whatever was building up pressure in his tummy decided to explode out his belly button.  OMG!!!  He was literally leaking yellow fluid out his belly button in gushes.  I swear about a gallon had leaked out by the time the towels were all soaked.  But Mr. Tough Guy says it’s ok and that he can stick it out and it will heal itself.  I’M NOT BUYING IT!

Tuesday morning he has agreed to have a friend take him back to the hospital so he can gets the tests.  This sounds reasonable and I go to work.  Not more than an hour after I get to work and I get a phonecall from him telling me not to panic but things got really bad and he’s called an ambulance to come get him.  OMG!  Oh sure!  DON’T PANIC! 

I got to the hospital and now not only is yellow fluid leaking out his belly button but he’s now throwing up blood!  Even the nurses were getting worried.  Transport is called and they hurry him down to ICU “where they can watch him better.”  They said it so gently buit I knew it meant we were in for a long night.  In ICU they cave him transfusions like crazy and when he stabilized a doctor came in and did an endoscopy.  (I left the room because I’m a little squeemish.)  Later the ICU nurse explained that using a laser that’s attached along with the camera on the endoscopy scope and the doctor cauterized ulsers that were bleeding. 

After a few hours he had semi gotten back to at least a comfortable state and after I was sure he wasn’t going to die over night I went home.  This brings us to today and they have transferred him back out of ICU so the stress is a little less but not gone by far.  I’ll catch up up more tomorrow.

Holy Freaking Hannah!

Man, if it’s not one thing it’s another lately. First the apartment conundrum, then the bf”a dad in the hospital, then the cae clutch went out, and now my bf is in the hospital with something horrendous enough to make his tummy actually pop and leak fluid. This chain of un-fun events needs to end and new GOOD things nwwd to begin happening.

Looking at the bright side… we’ve got insurance, a place to live and have food to eat. This means life is still good. well, could be better though.

Justice in Hawaii (Texas Style)

This story may or may not be true.

Sometimes there’s something to be said for social justice.  Before I tell you about something that happened yesterday I want to stress to you that I an basically a passive person… that is until there is something like spousal, elder or child abuse happening.  Then all bets are OFF!!!  So generally I wouldn’t condone the following chain of events but because of what prompted it I’m pretty O.K. with how things played out.  Here’s what happened… (names have been changed to protect the innocent)…

The following takes place at boat harbor where local tourist activity boats are kept and the businesses themselves are near by.

Midmorning Hoss was on his way to work when his cousin, Clint, calls him and asks him to stop by the cousin’s business to give a hand with some heavy lifting.  Being a good chap Hoss heads on over.  About 2 blocks before Hoss gets to the store he gets another call from Clint saying to get there as fast as possible because there’s some kind of evergency and big rucus going on there.

Not knowing quite what to expect Hoss gets to the stoer to find some stinking out-of-towner (freaking tourist we’ll call Vinnie) beating on his wife (Sylvia) at the pier where Clint keeps his boat.  Let’s just say Vinnie wasn’t kidding around when he was hitting Sylvia, he was swinging his arm way back before beating her about the face (and Sylvia was a lot smaller than Vinnie).  Well, about 60 seconds after Hoss arrives on the scene so does Clint and the rest was a lesson for Vinnie.

When Hoss saw Vinnie beating his wife Sylvia he confronted Vinnie and made it known that hitting women is not an acceptable form of behavior.  Vinnie arrogantly shouted back “Watcha gunna do about it?” to which Hoss responded by smacking Vinnie up the side of his head with a divers weight belt Clint had just handed him.  Needless to say, after getting smacked in the head by a 40 pound weight belt Vinnie was a bit dazed and didn’t have much fight in him for what was coming next.

By now a crowd of locals from the other businesses and boats was gathering.  The Hawaiians and Samoans were cheering Hoss & Clint on for sticking up for the woman.  the Philapinos where dancing around waving their arms in the air and laughing, and tha houle (leather tanned caucasian) business man from next door was nodding and offering his support.  Before he could even figure out what was going on Clint and Hoss wrapped the 40 pound weight belt around Vinnie and put him on a boat and floated out into the middle of the basin.  By now Vinnie had figured out what it looked like was going to happen and started swearing and yelling “you can’t do th….” at which point 6 foot tall Clint raised his leg to a 45 degree angle and pushed ol’ Vinnie into the water.  Kerplunk.  Splash…

You see, Clint and Vinnie are good ol Southern boys from Texas and where they come from t’aint no fool going to mess around and wallop ANY woman.  It darn gets their dander up.  In Texas they’d have just shot Vinnei but in Hawaii they just planned on “teachin” him how to “swim.”  I don’t know about you but I’m a pretty good swimmer but if you added 40 pounds more weight I would have a very hard time swimming with that nad street clothes.  From what I hear Vinnie wasn’t doing so well keeping his head above water.   Glug, glug, glug, …. About evey minute Clint would haul Vinnie up with a big hook that’s used for deep sea fishing so he could gasp some air before he let him slip back into the water again.

I heard there was a little bit of banging the idiot’s head against the bow of the boat when he would come up but I can’t quite figure out if that was just added to “embellish” the store a bit.  Either way by now Clint’s store employee Lindsay (houle, blond hair, blue eyes) was yelling over that someone had called the police.  Not minutes later a police cruiser pulled up and saw Sylvia whose face was bloody and eyes were swelling shut from being smashed with Vinnie’s fist.  The Cop (another houle) asked Clint and Hoss what was going on and they replied they were teaching a guy to swim.  “Are you going to bring him up” the cop asked and  the boys said “in a minute.”   It must have sounded reasonable to the policeman who replied he had a few minutes to smoke a cigarette and got in his car.

Before he had thoroughly run out of oxygen Vlint and Hoss hauled Vinnie up onto the boat and then turned him over to the police man who told Vinnie “Looks like you fell down and got scratched up a bit.”  Yup, that’s how Vinnie ended up getting hauled off to jail for beating his wife.  Clint and Hoss Put Sylvia in the truck, went to get her luggage and took her to the airport to catch a flight home back east.  She mentioned she’s going to get a restraining order and file for divorce.  I sure hope she has the support of friends and family back there.

So where was Clint’s male employee after Vinnie started beating his wife?  Well, turns out the dive master was a bit of a weenie and ran away without even helping the woman in distress.  Lindsay the female employee had more balls than David.  (Oops!  Did I just let his real name slip into this little story?  Shame on me.  NOT!  SHAME on David for being such a puss!)  Shure shows he doesn’t have and moral fibers worth admiring.

As for Vinnie, I imagine he might have a hard time verifying his story that a short fat guy and a tall lanky guy tryed to drown him in the ocean.  Especially when there’s no police report because after all he had just “fallen down” and got himself all scratched up near where the boats are mored.  Shoot, he’s lucky there weren’t any sharks in the basin that day although I’ve heard he was trold the water is mighty deep three miles out.  And heck, he’s definitely lucky he wasn’t in Texas.

I guess the moral to the story is: Don’t beat yer woman and especially don’t think you can get away with beating your woman while you’re on vacation 8000 miles away from home while on a tropical island.  The locals here don’t like it.

Use The Borax Facebook Page To Plant A Tree For FREE!

20 Mule Team Borax will give back to the Earth by planting one tree for each quiz taken. We will donate up to 10,000 trees or the equivalent of $10,000 to the American Forests organization.   Be a good neighbor and plant a free tree!

You’ve Got To Be Kidding (Homeless In Honolulu - part 8)

So, the good news is that we’ve got a place to live… the bad news is that it’s a temporary apartment and the company isn’t commiting to even getting us an apartment now.   :O

Actually things are up in the air with my db’s company… the day after db got home he returned to work (complete with jetlag) and went to a meeting that had been scheduled with everyone in the company at the local branch (Hawaii).  After the first part of the meeting my db and others were indirectly told to go find something like paperwork to do and the remaining people were called into the HR department one at a time and FIRED!  The company fired 11 people the day he went back to work.  Apparently the owners of the company are getting scared the economy is getting too bad to have liabilities in the rental property market so thier answer is to fire a bunch of the rental agents, some of the maintenance people, at least one landscape person and more.

Holy cow!   Just when you thought things might start getting straightened out they throw a monkey wrench into the mess.  I am thankful that my db sisn’t loose his job but now EVERYONE (except the 2 branch owners) are preparing for disaster.

So to get a place to live we scrambled around and called in some favors and have rented a temporary apartment that the company has to pay for because of the mess they put us in with our living arangements.  Thankfully my db got it in writing from the company that they were providing us an apartment and it was signed by all the right people before he went to the mainland to be with his family.  And thankfully it’s written in their company handbook that they have to compensate employees for problems they create in housing and other things.  (Hmm, does that mean they’ve done something like this before?)  So what we’re paying now to live in a temporary place until we get situated is suposedly going to be reimbursed.  We will see.  Not that I don’t have faith or anything but it’s looking a little bit hazy right now.  Anyway, we have a good place to live and it’s right on the bus route where I can take a bus straight to work.  Woohoo.  No bus transfers.  Life is good.  AND THERE’S A STARBUCKS ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE MORNING BUS STOP!!!  Can a morning get any better than coffee before catching the bus?