Animal Business

First, a few housekeeping items. I want to apologize for the typos in yesterday's post. I was tired when I wrote it and I didn't check it as closely as I normally do. I'll blame it on the heat. It was the heat's fault. But, I'm sorry for the reader trouble caused by the writer malady.

Second, we have a new follower among us, people - welcome #17 - SEVENTEEN - I used to LOVE that magazine. When I was twelve. What's up with that? But I digress. I love having another reader and follower. Welcome one and all, and especially today, lucky seventeen.

Third, if you're reading this as a note on Facebook, please feel free to stop by the "real thing" at ateupamateur.com. And become a follower. And tell your friends. I love new followers as you can tell. And I love to have regular readers. It makes me feel less loony to know someone is reading all this drivel. Thank you. So, come on by sometime. We'd love to have you hang with us.

Now on to today's post.

Norman sitting on the desk, helping me blog.
Pay no attention to that huge pile of papers that need filing behind him.
No attention at all.

The animals are trying to stay cool this summer, just like the rest of us. Man, it got hot early this year in Texas, and it's killing me. Killing me! I hate the heat. Have I mentioned I hate the heat? Well, let me mention it now just in case - I - HATE - THE - HEAT!!!

Also pay no attention to the papers he's sitting ON. Ahem.

Norman has taken to a box. That's right, his new favorite place to be is inside a paper box. I brought the box home one night, full of stuff from a work trip to Greenville, TX (not the same one I took last week, but one earlier in the month). The next day, I emptied the box of its contents with the intention of taking it back to work. Norman had other plans. He jumped right in once it was empty and didn't leave except to eat, really.



So, a few days later I decided I was going to put the box out for the trash. I picked it up and put it on its side next to the back door. Norman was having nothing of that. He followed me around the house - no joke - right behind me - meowing the whole time - for a good long while. I finally realized it was the box he was after. So, I relocated it to the corner of the guest room, near a window where light would stream in on him, which he also likes, and he's been in THERE ever since.



Sometimes Lil Bit climbs in there with him. But she vacates when she sees me coming so I haven't gotten a photo of the cozy pair in there together.



The dogs and I have been spending more quality time together. That's because it's hot. Have I mentioned it's HOT? And I hate the heat? Well, I do. And it is. And, the dogs hate the heat too. So do any dogs really - if you have a dog, please don't leave it out in this kind of heat - please bring her indoors or at least in shade with a good fan and maybe a baby pool.

Echo, curled up with S on the bed.
I had to crop S out almost entirely or he would have killed me, you understand.

So, when it's hot, so that they don't completely go crazy on us, we leave them outside in the morning and bring them indoors for the afternoon. S used to do this - he worked near the house and had, well let's say, a flexible schedule because he used to be in sales.



But, last July he took a great new job where he works further from home and is out of the office less. I know you're thinking "great new job" and "further from home and in the office more" don't exactly go together, but in this case they do. When the new job happened, the dog runs became my job.

Proof of the much needed nail trim mentioned in Tuesday's post.

I don't mind it, really. Don't mind it at all. First, I save money by not going out to lunch every day. I do use more gas, I guess, but I don't live that far from the office. I think we end up ahead.

And - I know this is going to sound very sad, but, most of my work friends I used to lunch with have gone and quit to go work somewhere else or leave the city, or they've gone and retired. Or they bring their lunch. So, I have fewer people to lunch with anyway. Not that I don't LOVE lunching with those who are left, of course. When it's not 100 degrees in the very cool shade.



Last, it does give me some nice time with the pooches. At night, I get busy doing chores around the house, running errands, messing with photos, riding the bike, practicing the guitar, etc. At lunch, I make and eat lunch. And hang with the girls for a little bit. And that's it. So, it's nice.





So, that's what's been going on around here in the lives of the rich and famous furry creatures that live with S and me. You're all up to date. See you tomorrow.

Pasta

As I mentioned, S made pasta last weekend. And he and I made some ravioli out of his pasta. And, I'm going to show you a bit of that here today. I'm not calling this post a "cooking basic" because the way we do it, you need special equipment you might not just have lying around your house. Of course, the way your grandma did it - you could do that...to make pasta that way, you need eggs, flour, a rolling pin and a knife. That's it. Pretty basic. And, a whole lot more work. Even the ravioli - the "old fashioned" way, you would just need some filling and your fingers to pinch together the edges...maybe a stamp, but that's it.



The modern way, we use flour, egg, and a KitchenAid pasta attachment for our mixer. And for the ravioli, we use ravioli trays that make several at a time. They are not very high tech, but faster.

I will cover pizza dough another time - I didn't get enough photos of that to properly describe it.




OK, so to start the pasta, you make a well in about 2.5 cups of flour - with 1/2 cup standing by - and you add three eggs. Then you slowly turn the flour into the eggs until the dough is formed. This is done the "old fashioned" way on the counter top in the flour well, and the real skill is to totally incorporate the egg before one of the sides of the flour well breaks and the egg escapes. This caused a great deal of anxiety for S - would the well break - could he get it incorporated fast enough - will it be consistent? So, he's devised a way to put the whole well into a bowl and incorporate from there. Anxiety gone, incorporation still in tact.







Once it's incorporated, you would then put it out on the counter top and work the dough - sort of knead it - until it's smooth. I didn't get any photos of this.

It will look like this when it's worked enough. Smooth, as opposed to rough.

Then you cut it into four pieces.

Flatten out those pieces.

And start them through the pasta maker. This is automated. The dial on the right turns up by number, which in turn makes the opening smaller, thus changing the glob of dough into thin (or think, if you prefer) sheets of pasta.



Then, if you want spaghetti or fettuccine, you switch out the attachment to the cutting attachment and run it through one more time for the cut. Didn't get a photo of that either. Ahem.



Then you put the pasta on a broom handle over your indoors shutters and let it dry. Or on something so it can hang and dry. There all sorts of "pasta dryers" out there - some which cost lots of money - a broom handle will work. Oh, and pay no attention to the dirty window behind the wet pasta. No attention at all. Thank you.

Once it's dry...

...you can take it down and stack it up or eat it or save it for a few days. If you've made this pasta with all purpose flour, it'll stay good for 4-5 days. If you want it to stay good for longer than that, the pasta must be made with semolina flour. That is what all the dried pasta in boxes at the store are made from.



To cook this pasta - fresh pasta - it only takes about 4 minutes max in boiling water...almost like blanching...but it'll be done. Serve with your favorite tomato sauce and some Parmesan cheese. And maybe a meatball or two or some Italian sausage. And a salad to make you feel better about eating that plate of carbs.

_________________________________________


To make ravioli, you need a filler. Here's another reason this isn't a "cooking basics" post. I don't have a recipe that I use for my ravioli filler. I just make it up. Every time. And it's always a little bit different. Most recipes I've read use egg. I don't use egg - I do use egg if I'm putting the filling in something that will bake. Otherwise, I think the ricotta can stand on its own merits. I'll try to pay attention to amounts and write it down sometime.



This filler - Italian parsley, ricotta and rotisserie chicken. Salt and pepper to taste. Amounts of each ingredient - enough so it "looked right". I've also put a tiny bit of nutmeg in chicken ravioli - just a smidge - and that's tasty. (Spell checker says the proper term is "smidgen" - one letter more doesn't make it a smidge!) In that photo up there - the Italian parsley is hiding on the bottom. I chopped it up into tiny bits before I put in the chicken and cheese.

That reminds me of the time I ordered the "chicken special" at a five star restaurant in Montreal. Talk about the corn-fed Hoosier showing her true blue. But, that's for another day.




That's right, I "cheat" and use rotisserie chicken. You can boil, bake, broil some chicken yourself. But, I like the rotisserie flavor and it always gets raves, so I always cheat in this way. Incidentally, I also do this in my chicken enchiladas. I also made up that recipe, but I did try to write that one down once. Maybe I'll try to find that and share it with you. People see to like that one too. Anway, back to the filling - I really break up the chicken into small pieces.

To blend it, I used the food processor. Just for grins.

To make sure it got blended. I was too tired to stir. And it breaks up the chicken even more.

To make ravioli dough, put the pasta dough through the pasta machine but you don't make it quite as thin as you would for spaghetti - maybe a "3" or "4".

Then, you flour your tray and lay down the pasta.

Then smoosh them through with the handy smoosher.
That's a technical term. Smoosher.

Then you dollop the filling in. These dollops were a bit on the large side.
Dollop - another technical term. Stay with me. Focus.

After that run more pasta through for the "top".

Put the pasta sheet over the filling.

Use the cute little rolling pin that came with the ravioli tray - first pass - just get the filling down in the pasta.

Second pass - push down hard to cut the pasta into sweet little raviolis.

Turn the tray over, tap. Tap. Tap.

Viola! If you used flour, they come right out. The first tray we did - we forgot the flour. They were pretty tightly wedded to that tray. Ahem. Flour the tray. Important step. Scroll back up - that turned over try is NOT floured...



Then, lay the ravioli out individually until they dry a bit before you bunch them up like they are in this photo - also a mistake last weekend - we "bunched" too soon. I had ravioli dumplings...and don't worry about the flour on the pasta - it will come off in the hot, boiling water.

I like to serve this ravioli with a pink sauce - take your favorite tomato sauce and add heavy cream. Pink sauce. And, I garnish with more Italian parsley and toasted walnuts. No "finished product" photo here, because I've not made it yet - the stuck together ravioli dumplings are sitting in the fridge for tonight's meal. Yum!

So, there you go. A little look into S and my pasta factory. Now go make your own factory. You can do it. See you tomorrow.

I'm Lovin' It

Dear Loyal, Sweet, Kind, Generous and All Around Wonderful Ateupamateur.com blog reader:

So, I am a little behind. In many ways. In getting through some photos to post for you here, for one. I have some of S making pasta, and making pizza dough, and helping me make ravioli. But they are all mixed together so I need to go through them. I also made some banana bread I want to share with you.

Kellie, please keep reading the blog - I promise there are no calories in my food photos. ;-) You can look all you want!

I also have some new photos of the animals I thought I'd share, and then there are lots of photos from Prague I still want to get to. And, surely I'll take more photos this week of something. So hopefully we'll get to some of that later this week. But, I'm behind in my process right now. I had some kitchen clean up to still do tonight. And a guitar lesson. Boy, do I love my guitar lessons. Have I mentioned that lately?

And, well, then there's the bike riding. My mother asked if we just rode the races or if we practiced. Yes, people we "practice" - we ride around our neighborhood all the time. But, it's all the same stuff, you see, so the rides make it more interesting. And, all the other reasons I've ruminated over in those bike posts. You've read them. And now you know we "practice."

Then, of course, I work full time. And work is crazy busy this time of year. Never enough time to get it all done. And I cook "regular" meals and do laundry and all that stuff. Of course. And errands. Random errands that suck some time. And I pay bills. And, from time to time, I like to sit and do nothing. Or read a book or a magazine. Or watch a movie. You know, down time.

Oh, and there's this little point about the fact that I'm LEAVING TOWN for two weeks next Monday with work. So, the pre-leave anxiety has settled in. And my dogs needs their toenails trimmed. And there are flowers to water. And the guest room sheets need cleaning. And, speaking of toenails - were we speaking of toenails? - mine really could use a new coat of paint.

But, we're all busy. We fill up our time and we're busy! Sort of like that saying that no matter how much money you make, you'll spend it - no matter how much time you've got, you'll fill it up! You can all relate to that, yes?

So, today, I thought I'd share this one photo from Prague. We stopped in a McDonald's to use the facilities when we were walking around town. While S was otherwise occupied, I took the photo below of the ad sign.




Sure does take a whole lot more letters to get out "I'm Lovin' It" in Czech, huh? Hard to get all that into the jingle, I bet. Tricky. I bet Czech jingle writers are millionaires if they can set a jingle to that kind of mess. Or they should be!

And, despite all my whining, to steal a phrase, I'm lovin' it too - all of it. Life is good, people. I'm riding high, skating by on the silver lining. And, no I'm not on any mind altering substance. It's all good.

Hope to see you tomorrow with a new post on an aforementioned topic. Wish me luck. Later for now.

All My Love,

Ate Up

Dad's Day Recap

A week or so ago when it got down to planning Father's Day lunch, S decided he wanted to have his immediate family over to our house for the occasion and make fresh pasta and pizza/bread dough. Which he did. But he wasn't feeling so hot Sunday morning, so I picked up the slack and got us ready for the lunch. So, I did end up doing a little more than the salad and the dessert. I didn't mind at all, of course. S's parents, as well as his two brothers and their families joined us.

S worked on Saturday and wasn't feeling so hot, but he made lots of pasta and pizza dough, as well as his family's tomato sauce in preparation for lunch on Sunday. I did take some photos of this action, which I'll share at some point in time. Since cooking was a big part of what we did last weekend, you might see more about food than normal this week. I bet you can't wait!

On Sunday, S put the leaves around our dining room table...



...and I set the table, made some tea, warmed up the sauce...and I made a lemon bundt cake. BUUNDT cake. BUUUNNNDDDTT cake. I refrained from putting a flower in the hole, though. Name that movie. I also got the garlic bread ready, made a salad, got the serving dishes out, washed all dirty dishes I could find so we'd be ready for the onslaught afterward, and generally was a busy bee.



Then the guests began to arrive, and of course I have the most photos of the little ones because they are just generally more photogenic then us old farts. For a short time we had some "extra" guests - Brooke's aunt and uncle were coming through town on their way to DFW and wanted to see Andrew. So, they stopped by for a little time with the little guy before we sat down to eat.



Alexandra and her dad hung out before the meal by playing with some toys she brought with her and warming up to Norman the cat.

Then we sat down to eat. Things got very very quiet for a while.

Except for a moment Alexandra had a little meltdown. Nothing pizza and later cake wouldn't cure. I do think the "I was worth the wait" bib is oh so funny when the child is screaming. Like it's a reminder to the parents. Remember, I was worth the wait!!!!

During lunch, Andrew took turns in everyone's lap.

After lunch, we went out to the front yard for some photo ops. This has sort of become a family tradition at such gatherings. Our ancestors will one day wonder why we stood outside to take photos...don't you wonder that when you go back and look through old photos? You think, "Why are they standing out on the side of the house?" I do. Well, we're continuing this tradition just to continue to throw them off in years to come. Seriously, though, the background is generally prettier than inside shots, and there is usually better light. So, that's why.

Of course, there was the try at the cousin shot again. Outdoors first - complete no-go.


And then indoors - still not great.

After the photos, we visited for a while in the den, and Alexandra checked out some of the junk in our "toy" box. It is a container of odds and ends we've collected over the years - some of it is actual toys. A lot of it is not. Our old next door neighbors, Sophie and Sadie, used to love to dive right into it though. I think it is "cool" because it's not like the toys at home. Alexandra checked it out for a while and found it to also be entertaining, I think.

And Sam rested his eyes.

Where were the dogs during all of this? In the utility room - it's too hot in the afternoon for them to be outside these days, and since they are not used to "little people" we kept them at bay. Alexandra went by and waved at them, talked to them, watched them-several times. Echo was in there too - she just took to her bed and slept off the sorrow. Ellie is more intense about standing at the gate like a refugee and trying to talk you into letting her out.




Then, S insisted - insisted - that I get out the guitar and play a little for the crowd. People, I suddenly felt like I was back in 6th grade. You know, when you start playing your instrument, and the whole family is over for Thanksgiving, and you're called upon to share with them your version of Kookaburra? Yeah, nice. I am not equipped to actually play anything worth listening to at this point in my guitar career. Maybe never! But, I played my little exercises that I prepare for my lessons. And Alexandra, at least, was entertained. She even took her "wand" and directed me for a time.



When it was time to go, Alexandra was ready for a nap and a little bit cranky. We all were, really. ;-) But, she went and said "bye " to the dogs and to Norman as well as the humans still present. S and I took naps too yesterday afternoon. I guess we needed to catch up on some Zzzs just like the little one did.

It was a nice little Father's Day lunch, and pretty tasty. Thanks, S, for all the fresh pasta and dough. It was great.