THIS AND THAT

I spent $9 for a lb of bacon the other day.  When did bacon get so expensive?  I am lucky I am at a place in my life that I can buy bacon if I want it, no matter the cost! (well okay, it does matter, but you know what I mean).
I just think it's horrible---and worry about my kids trying to raise their families.  (I'm sounding like my mother here and that's kind of scary)

We had our Nevada summer rainstorm this afternoon.  It lasted 10 minutes and I was inside.  I hate when that happens.  I hated to miss it.
I say 'our' because it's like we have one rainstorm all summer---we own it.

I didn't do a post for  First Intro-First Paragraph today.  I wanted to, I just didn't plan well.  I don't plan well often.
Which is really weird, because I write everything down!!
Just today, I told the Handyman that I was going to plan something spontaneous for Thursday.  

I got new books yesterday.  I'm very excited:
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
To America by Stephen Ambrose
Brewster by Mark Slouka
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Have you read any?   Are they good?   

I got a new cookbook yesterday.  I'm very excited about this too:
The Recipe Girl Cookbook by Lori Lange (the recipe girl).

I had a library board meeting right after work tonight. (this is when we had our rain storm).   We have a small rural farming town in our county with a branch library--it's a small room in their community hall.
We really need a building of our own for the library.  
An elderly gentlemen in that community deeded us (the library) his home and property when he dies.  He did that 5 years ago.  He has not died  yet.  Which is good---for him.  
But, it's really, REALLY  weird to be planning stuff with his home and property while he is still alive---it feels a bit morbid.  "Hey Earl, we need to measure this living room for shelves!  You know--for when you pass away-- by the way, how ya feeling?"
Like I said---its weird.

I am going to have popcorn for dinner, because the Handyman is working late and I like popcorn.  Real popcorn, not microwave.  With real butter and salt.
And then.... I am going to....
grab my book and read?  write a letter to a friend?  watch Orange is the New Black?

That's all.

Weekend Cooking and Cookbook Countdown

I had a great weekend.  I did nothing.  Nothing except read and cook.

It was perfect.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend.

This is what I bought at the market yesterday:

Lots of them.

Yes, we are among all those people who get overly excited when 

Hatch Chilies are ready to roast!

This post isn't so much about what I made with the chilies tho.... it's about what I did with the bacon.

I swizzled it.

As you know, every weekend Bethfish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking, and I like to participate.  Yesterday morning she posted about the same cookbook I was going to.  That's so weird!

Really weird, because it's happened before here.

It takes so little to amuse me----and this does. 

This is the cookbook she reviewed and this the one I made something from. Bacon Nation by  Peter Kaminsky and Marie Rama.  

I made bacon swizzle sticks. To go in the Sunday morning Bloody Mary's, of course.

I thought they would be fun.  And they were.  Fun to eat.  And lay beside your Bloody Mary, but if you actually swizzled with it, it became a wet piece of bacon...and that's never good.

They were easy to do and I would do it again.  It's kind of a fun thing.

(this cookbook has lots of good recipes in it. And like Bethfish says, it's not loaded with too much bacon.  Bacon is sometimes just a small ingredient.)

This is how you make a bacon swizzle stick:

take a piece of bacon and twist the ends until and then roll that up in a paper towel. Microwave on high for 1-3 minutes, depending on your microwave.

And there you have it.  Crispy bacon swizzle sticks.

Bacon Nation makes cookbook #60 in my own personal Cookbook Countdown!

AND THEN.... I used some Hatch Chilies!

I stuffed them with bacon and cheese and an egg.

I found this recipe for  Hatch chili Pepper Jack, Bacon and Eggs  on 

Cooking the Weekends Blog

Her's look so much prettier than mine. 

I also used cheddar cheese and not pepper jack.  Just because i felt like it.

Mine, although not as nice looking tasted GREAT!

I will have to cook them longer than 15 minutes next time, tho as my eggs were a bit runny.  I guess you just have to play around with it some. 

It was really good!

Recipe

8 Hatch chile peppers, roasted and peeled -- here's how

6 strips applewood smoked bacon

1/2 cup thinly sliced brown onion

1-1/4 cup grated pepper jack cheese

8 eggs

Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

1. Roast and peel the peppers -- here's how to roast Hatch chiles. Set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and place a paper towel on a large plate and set it aside.
3. In a large oven proof skillet (one that will ultimately fit 8 opened Hatch chiles quite snugly), cook the bacon over medium heat until it's crisp, about 3 minutes per side. Remove the bacon from the pan and place it on the paper towel-covered plate to let the grease drain.
4. Pour off about half of the bacon grease (I pour it into a foil lined, small bowl), and keep the rest in the pan.
5. Add the onions to the pan, and over medium-high heat, cook until they are nicely browned, about 4 minutes. Put the browned onions in a small bowl, keeping any remaining bacon grease in the pan. Set aside.
6. Carefully, using a small paring knife or your fingers, make a slit in each of the peppers to open them, keeping the stem intact and the pepper whole, gently remove all of the seeds. Place the peppers, open side up in the pan.
7. Sprinkle each pepper with a thin layer of the cheese (you'll need about half of it remaining for the tops).
8. Break the bacon into smaller pieces and add a layer to each pepper, on top of the cheese.
9. Evenly distribute the onion on the bacon.
10. Crack an egg into each pepper, directly on top of the onion and bacon. You might need to gently hold the edges of the peppers up, to capture the whites as they run out of the shell -- it's fine if some runs out into the pan. (This is why the peppers should be a rather tight fit int he pan.)
11. Sprinkle each one with salt and pepper and evenly distribute the remaining cheese on top, on the sides of the yolks.
12. Place the pan in the 375 degree F preheated oven just until the eggs are cooked, about 15 minutes.
13. Let them cool in the pan for about 5 minutes and serve!

Saturday Snapshot

It's Saturday.  Time for a snapshot!

To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken.   Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.   How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
Then you link up at  West Metro Mommy's blog and check out all the other Saturday Snapshots.


This is a picture of my granddaughter Emerson...

... a sad little picture of Emerson.  

Why was she sad? 

 Because, as her mom put it: Emmy was a little sad that our scripture today talked about Eli without any mention of Emerson.

She has a twin brother, Eli.  Sadie, my daughter-in-law,  had to remind her that there was a street in their town named Emerson and not one that was named Eli.

But we are more impressed that she was actually listening to scripture. ~grins~  

I mean, she's 4.

My daughter-in-law is a Pastor at a Methodist church, so the kids do spend a lot of time there, listening to their mom... but paying attention?  I guess so.

Chilled Aspargus

Last night we were invited to have dinner with some friends ---she provided the main dish and we were all supposed to bring something.  OF COURSE by the time I looked at the emails, all the  good dishes to bring (meaning easiest) were taken  (dessert, appetizer, potato).   I needed a salad type of thing.  It was Friday and I worked. I needed something easy.
I grabbed my recipe notebook and was glancing thru it and came upon this easy side dish---not sure if it's a salad or not, but it was served cold, or cool at least.

It tasted great and was the easiest thing ever.

You blanch asparagus and then you slice up some red pepper,  sprinkle it with some fresh basil and add a vinaigrette to it.   The recipe (which was really an email from my good friend Theda) said to try to find a  'sweet' Italian type of dressing.  I couldn't find that of course, so I just used a regular zesty Italian and it worked fine.
It was really good.
It was chilled,  so I'm not sure if this is a salad or an appetizer.

What do you think?

Whatever it was, everyone really liked it.

Booking Through Thursday

Today's question asks:
I've asked before how you feel about lending your books. I’ve asked how you feel about libraries. But—how do you feel about borrowing books from friends? Is this something you like to do? Does it make you feel uncomfortable or rushed while reading? Does it affect how you feel about the book you’re reading, pressured into liking it?


and my answer is:
I don't borrow books from friends (unless I HAVE to read it right away for a book-club),  and I HATE IT when someone just gives me a book and says 'read it', because they are so many in my own TBR pile, I feel imposed upon to read the one they gave me.
Let me clarify that...a gift of a book is WONDERFUL, but shoving a book at me and  saying "you've got to read this"  is not.

I need to learn to graciously say,  "oh, sorry, but I won't be able to get to that for a month or so, so you might want to hang on to it for now."
If they make me take it anyway, then I feel very pressured to get to it, even if I didn't want to.  And I might even not like it, even if it were good because I would be feeling passive-aggressive.  ~sigh~

I am weird.

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly bookish meme that I participate in sometimes.   I wish I did it more often as it is fun just to think about these questions sometimes.

Outdoor Wednesday

I did not grow up in Nevada, so when we go 'up north' to Washington state to visit our parents, I get so excited about seeing water, rivers, lakes, etc.
I grew up where the Snake River flows into the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.   The Columbia River is a great river.  It was supposed to be the Northwest Passage, if you remember any history. Lewis and Clark?  Sacajawea?  The Louisiana Purchase?

Anyway.... when we were up to see our parents this past week, we had dinner on a little island off of the town I grew up in.

This was our view from the restaurant.  The Columbia River.  
First one bridge...

and then the other....

We watched the sun go down as we drank some famous "Rum Bowls" from Cedar's Pier One on Clover Island.

and then I tried to get a good shot of the bridge at night...which was hard from me after a couple of Rum Bowls.  

I love the river.  I love having grown up on the river.
I'll be sharing a blog post about a book I read about the Columbia  River soon.

For now, tho, I am linking to  A Southern Daydreamers  Outdoor Wednesday.
She's been doing this a long, long time.  I think today's post is the 240th Outdoor Wednesday.   There are some  very pretty 'outdoor' posts that people share.  I love to look at all of them.  You just post outdoor photos and link up.

Teaser Tuesdays

Once upon a time I did  Teaser Tuesday, and now, I'm back.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

This is what you do:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

but when I opened my book--there was a naughty word!  It caught my eye (but I couldn't bring myself to put that word on my blog)...and let me tell you, it was a teaser!  I  turned to another random page (but I'm still chuckling about my first teaser sentence)  and this is what is said:

"Apparently he had a porn business. At least that's what they neighbors told me.  He was a deacon in one of the local churches here, too."

pg 193 

Julia's Chocolates by Cathy Lamb.

Hmmmm....does it entice you or tease you into  putting it on your TBR pile?