August 29, 2010

We're going to try something here today: Instead of me complaining about how stupid consumers are (which I planned yesterday; eventually I'll get bored and write out detailed instructions on "How To Make Your Cheerful Cashier Your Worst Enemy"), I am going to detail a dinner that I made. Out of my head.

Be forewarned, I have an odd sense of taste and liking.

I originally planned to use a Sloppy Joe Mix, until such time that the recipe that I was going to use had mustard in it. (Mustard??? Weird). Then I was all like, yeah, I think I remember the taste of a sloppy joe from when I lived in dorm, I think I'll base it on my memory of my taste.

Then I added stuff that I thought would steer the simple ground beef towards being seasoned to taste in that particularly odd flavour of Sloppy Joes that we all love and savour. This one's kind of a sweet/spicy combination. That's what I remember them being. Sweet, so much so that you wonder what the heck that sweet flavour came out of in your pasta sauce and beef mixture, and spicy because my family (and the boyfriend) like's Frank's Red Hot Sauce.

In everything.

Always. Yuck. (On a meat pizza? On a steak sub? On meatloaf? In pasta sauce? Really? Is it necessary? They seem to think so.)

So here goes, and I do not take any kind of blame if your stomach explodes when you eat it. I'm sorry that your system isn't quite as used to this kind of abuse as mine is; I blame the boyfriend's bacon habit on my intestines of steel.

Also, feel free to use buns, but after I started cooking the mix, I couldn't find the ones that I swore were in the freezer when I started. So I used a tasty and cheap, cut-it-yourself-to-your-own-specifications-loaf-of-bread. And I broiler-toasted it, to avoid getting it stuck in the toaster.

And then also: the measurements are really very guessed. If you think it smells wrong, chances are it won't taste good.

(After it was consumed and sat through dinner)

Awesome Sloppy Joe Stuff that I Made

Served 2 plus some leftover but we eat huge servings; took about 30 minutes to make, not including the defrosting of the meat.

Toasted thick-cut bread

1/2 cup ketchup (or more, but I only had this much)

1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (change depending on how sweet you want it to be, also if it's missing something at the end and you aren't sure what it is, add some more Worcestershire, it's usually the missing ingredient)

1 tbsp Frank's Red Hot Sauce (again, if you like spicy, +1/2, if not, -1/2, but SOME should be there)

1 can blandest tomato pasta sauce that you never used and shoved to the back of the pantry because of how bland it was the first time you tried it on pasta

3, slices of a large cooking onion, chopped... like, 1/3-1/2 cup??

1/2 tsp brown sugar (more if it's not sweet enough or doesn't smell right yet, less if you spilled the Worcestershire in the mix)

1/4 tsp cinnamon (unless your Grama gave you a container like she did me that I had sitting around, including a mix of the two that I think was originally for a sweet marie-type baking project a bit less than a year ago, in which case, substitute that instead of the br. sugar and cinnamon)

Sprinkle over of powdered garlic

Ground pepper to taste (Feel free to use fresh, I am just really cheap and the dollar store grinder I have is too much of a pain to use)(also, a tablespoon was pretty hot for me. That's about how much I ended up with, accidentally. I guess I didn't think about it.)

Few pinches of Sage (optional, I found it kind of threw off the taste but I think it's because it started to remind me of Italian and pasta sauce, which I didn't want)

**Also, next time, I will think about adding some honey in place of the brown sugar, until it smelled right. I didn't do it this time though. If you did, let me know how it turned out so I can (or know not to) try making it.

1. Brown the beef in a medium sized saucepan over semi-high heat. Once browned or nearly so, add onions and continue to sizzle together until it smells good.

2. Add all liquid sauces and mix into beef. Turn down the heat to about medium and stir quite often, but not constantly. Smack back of glass ketchup bottle until you are satisfied that the ketchup is all out that is coming out today. Repeat this step until the whole 1/2 cup is in the sauce, and you are frustrated.

3. Add br. sugar and cinnamon and mix in. Add all other dry ingredients including sage if desired. Also add anything else that you have on hand that I didn't that you think would make it taste better.

4. Stir occasionally until sauce thickens, doesn't take too long so don't go read a book or anything. Scoop over toasted bread (don't be skimpy with the scoops unless you made this recipe exactly for a big family) or bun or english muffin... maybe put into a bowl and dip those awesome thick pocketbreads that you've heated up in the oven into it. Or cornbread. Mmmm... that would be nice, too.

If you tried it, let me know what you think, and thanks for trusting in my questionable cuisine skills. Again, I have a weird sense of flavourizing things. I don't think I'm all that normal.

Because who puts mustard, plain old yellow mustard, in their sloppy joes?

August 25th, 2010

Treat your mother right, kids:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3007417704059163679#

I pity the fool.

He must have been promised a tonne of money.

August 24, 2010

School time is coming soon.

So much to think about, so much to get ready for.

In university, I am swamped with confusion. For my whole life, I wanted to be a doctor of medicine, somewhere between a general practitioner and a surgeon. Then I turned eighteen and reality hit me like some big, heavy, red bricks.

I suck, to put it bluntly, at chemistry. I suck twice as much at math.

So then I went to university for Ancient History and Classics, emphasis on the Latin.

And I suck at Greek. So then it was anthropology with a joint major of business, so at least some of the anth classes I took would be useful, and I enjoyed accounting.

But not Economics or most of the silly little "management" classes (where if you've taken one, you've taken them all).

Now, I really don't know where to go or what to do. I'm not really good at any one thing, I'm good at most subjects. I don't really like just one thing or have a passion for anything in particular. (Doesn't my blog attest to that? It's all over the place--like me).

So I'm taking psychology courses and continuing with my anthropology major, which gets me...

No where, really.

Has anyone out there done Anthropology and psych and have a job that doesn't pay less than oh, say, 60,000 a year? I saw a speech therapist as a possibility, but that's about it. And to be honest, while it would be awesome to re-learn sign language that I at least sort of knew in elementary school, I also think that I'm going to be at a loss for a real, keen interest in that area. Audiology just doesn't interest me.

And to be a teacher, which is the only other way I can think of doing this, would be ridiculous since they're SHUTTING schools DOWN left right and center, although there does seem to be some sort of obsession with pregnancy right now... maybe in 5 years there will be jobs for me...

Hmmm...

August 12, 2010

Well, what a bright new month this is turning out to be.

I have decided (as a very very last resort) that I will be giving up my insurance, and thereby my car's usefulness, as of August 29. This is because I can't seem to afford to go to school and rent an apartment and pay all my bills and do all these other things, especially since OSAP takes all my money away because my parents are my parents, and can't afford to put me through school but are still expected to, and also because I'm working like a good little rabbit all year through. You see, I'd get quite a lot more if I went on Welfare, but then I'd be on welfare.

It saddens me to lose the use of my car, and will likely re-inter me in several modes of depression because honestly, I'll be trapped in Peterborough, and that's just not worth it.

So, then, the other day an olive jar fell off my fridge and broke. The bf said "I'll clean that later", to which I said "forget it, I'll do it now".

So as I'm crawling around the floor of the kitchen, I put my knee down on a paper thin shard of glass that was nigh on impossible to see, even while it was sticking in my knee. I'm pretty sure there's some still in my knee.

Then, I went to work the next day, and when we get donations, we put them on big carts that are seven feet tall, nine feet wide, and 235lbs on average. We have to pull those into the back when they are full. So my boss smashed his hand between one of the store's support posts and the full 40-cart (which weighs usually between 900 and 1300 lbs if it is stacked correctly and is full, this one in particular was about 1100+235lbs), and I took over while he wrote up the accident reports and tried to decide if his hand was broken. Whilst driving the empty cart back to the donation room, it hit the swinging door edge and stopped abruptly.

I did not.

So I bruised a knee and my forehead and had a nice red line on my face for the remainder of that night.

Then, yesterday I was baking in the oven, and while avoiding burning my knees on the stove door and pulling my "casserole" out, I burned, rather nicely, my forearm. It even went gray to prove it was burned pretty well.

And today, I picked up a rotary cutter at the dollar store. When I touched it with my thumb it seemed really dull right out of the package. I even pushed on it. Then, in my infinite wisdom ( I actually do not know what possessed me to do this) I tried it on my thigh.

ON MY THIGH!

Why did I do it? I don't know, it didn't seem sharp.

Well it was.

*sigh*. I need a bubble, and to not be given sharp objects. I swear.

Least. Intelligent. Person. Ever.

On the other side, I've started some crafts and come up with some other crafts for Xmas presents. Also decided to clean today and have only scalded my hands once. I'm doing well.

Also, I seem to be addicted to those little marshmallow bananas.

They're awesome.

And I saw some recipes in a friend's cookbook that I liked, and he let me borrow it. I'll be trying them soon, I think. I might just do that while my leg stops bleeding because it's a remarkably deep cut. It already bled through one bandaid.

Jeeze whiz. I think I might just go make my bed or something with only soft items. Even doing laundry seems like a bad idea. I might get my head stuck in the dryer or something. Really.

It seems like the next best stupid idea.

Can you tell I feel really stupid for cutting my own leg? Or equally as stupid for walking into the stopped 40-cart at work? Really?