Ingredients:

1 – soup pack (I buy the soup starter packs, really all you need is: 1 – carrot, 1-stalk of celery, 1-parsnip, 1-turnip, 1-onion)
1 package of pre-sliced baby bella mushrooms
1lb hamburger (use whatever you like, I usually get the 80/20)
1lb veal
1lb ground chicken
2 bay leaves
Taco seasoning (to taste)
1 #10 can crushed tomatoes (or use can use the whole tomatoes and crush them yourself, I like these, but use whatever is in the house)
1 can red kidney beans (if I can remember to buy them)

Optionally, you can add hot spices, jalapeño peppers, etc. spice it up the way you like it!

Directions:

Start off by cutting all the veggies into small cubes, put them into a heavy-bottomed pan with some oil… put some salt on them and begin to sweat them down a bit.  Once they start getting a bit translucent, push them all to one side in the pan.  Cut the baby bella mushrooms very fine (I use my slap chop) put a chunk of butter in the pan and then all the baby bella mushrooms.  Cook the mushrooms down – we’re looking to get them cooked, but we’re really not looking for anything to brown, just start the cooking process.

I pushed the veggies to one side, then put the mushrooms in and cook.

Once all the veggies have a nice start, I first add the ground veal.  Again, I’m not really looking to “brown” the meat, rather I’m just looking to get it cooked mostly thru and then incorporate the cooked meat into the veggies and move it aside for the next meat.

Push veggies aside, add the veal and cook thru...

Once the veal is 90% cooked, I mix it together with the veggies, then push the whole lot to one side and add the ground beef.

Again, looking to cook the meat thru before incorporating the rest of the veggie/veal mixture.

Here’s the interesting part – I started using ground chicken a while back, and when I do, I let all the juices cook the chicken meat… so, this part, don’t stir up the chicken too much otherwise, the chicken meat kinda dissolves and you don’t get the nice chunks of chicken (trust me, it tastes GOOD).

As you can see, starting to get some nice juices! Let the juices cook the chicken, resist mashing it up!

Now that you have all your ingredients cooked, it’s time to mix it all together and add the taco seasoning.  How much you use is entirely up to you and is based on your taste.  If you like, you can use the packets of chili seasoning, you can put in your own mixture, whatever you like.  I tend to make mine on the “non-spicy” side, because folks aren’t really into spicy in my house (I add the spice to my own bowl).

I use taco seasoning, you can use whatever you like

Last step, I add the two bay leaves (make sure to take them out, don’t eat ‘em).  And the crushed tomatoes (or the whole tomatoes you crushed yourself).

Use crushed or whole that you crush yourself.

That’s it – let it cook for a little bit to make sure all the meat is thoroughly cooked – and YOUR READY FOR SOME GOOD EATS!

Let me know if you try it, and if you like it!  I think adding the parsnips and the turnip give it a very unique flavor, almost like a hint of cinnamon.

Enjoy!

The spot marked with the “A” is where our cottage is in Old Lyme… as you can see, it’ll be a little while before we get back into those waters! Just crazy!

Gnocchi are very easy to make and if you have a bunch of people involved, everybody can get in on the action.

Here’s the basic (very basic) recipe:
Potato:
2 medium Yukon gold potatoess – can substitute with russet potatoes
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
2 tsp Water

Preheat your oven to 400º degrees Fahrenheit. Put the potatoes onto some foil, add the salt and water, and wrap. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until cooked through. I’m pretty sure it took closer to an hour, but at that point we had already started drinking wine!
Peel the potatoes while they are still hot. Cut and rice the potatoes, don’t pile them in one spot. Let the potatoes cool completely! If you don’t, you’ll wind up cooking the egg and have mashed potatoes with scrambled eggs…

Sprinkle the potatoes with a good amount of flour. Aerate the potatoes with a bench scraper, and then add the salt, nutmeg and white pepper. Mix up the egg yolks and pour them over the potatoes. Cover the surface again with more flour. Continue to cut and gently lift the dough.

Test the dough by squeezing it gently in your hand. It shouldn’t stick. Add a bit more flour, if needed.

Once done, shape the dough into a rectangle and fold it a few times, using your fingertips to bring it together. Flatten the dough out until it is about the thickness of your finger. Sprinkle with flour and let rest about 5 to 10 minutes.

The last bit was to cut them into about 1″ pieces then roll them down the back of a fork… it’s tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, you get the fork mark on one side and an indent on the other side, great for catching all that great sauce!

Unpaid help makes the best gnocchi

We made two sauces: one quick marinara type sauce, whatever your favorite will do and another was a sage-butter sauce:
4 tbsp Unsalted butter
8 fresh sage leaves
1 large pinch Kosher salt
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

I heated the mixture in a steel bowl over the boiling water – THEN to make it really interesting, I put it all into a “magic bullet” device, with some olive oil and puree’d it all… it sort of emulsified and thickened a bit – Oh Soo good!

The gnocchi cook FAST so have your boiling water ready and do them in small batches so as not to make the water cool and take a long time to bring back to a boil. We did about 1 to 1.5 dozen at a time. We scooped them right from the water right into a pan of either sauce or the sage-butter mixture… and then served.

** We actually thought about taking this show on the road, it was that much fun!  Keep your eyes peeled, we might be pitching it to TLC, Discovery, Food Network, MTV, Oprah TV, A&E, CMT and/or BET in the very near future ***

In the meantime, please enjoy all the pictures from that night!

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It came with 10.5 (Leopard) installed, but had the 10.6 (Snow Leopard) upgrade disk in the box – so I upgraded, of course!

Overall, I like the UI improvements.  There are a few really neat items like being able to scroll thru the contents of a “quick preview” of say the Downloads folder or the Documents folder (from the Dock).  One thing I’d like to see is once you have the folder (Downloads or whatever) open, to have the ability to hit the space bar AGAIN to see the contents of the file selected without having to open it (10.6.1 ??).

Here’s a great article on Gizmoto on the 15 Snow Leopard Tricks You Have To Try.  There are some really slick things, the one I especially like is the ability to sync my contacts to BOTH my MobileMe account AND my Gmail account.

The problem I’m running into right now is that Aperture is crashing every time I try to run it… so far, upgrading it to 2.4.1 hasn’t worked.

I like using Aperture, it has a few features that Lightroom doesn’t have – I transitioned my library over to Lightroom earlier this year, but continued using Aperture for the small tasks it does well.

I just tried AppZapper to wipe out Aperture – we’ll see if completely cleaning it out and reinstalling it then upgrading it to 2.1.4 does the trick.

I’ve unsubscribed so many times now that it’s a joke.  This last time, I got a message that “an error occurred” – you think I can find anything on their website to direct me to a contact of ANY sort?  It makes me nuts that I can’t unsubscribe by just replying “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

ugh!

Perhaps if I cancel my service? Hmmm… that might do the trick

Back in May, Eileen and I bought a new sectional sofa (leather) from Macy’s. It’s the first time we bought a new couch in 15 years, so we felt good about making the purchase. They were closing out this particular one and it was comfy and we got a good deal – so we thought.

Soon after getting the piece, I noticed that the back of the chaise part of the sofa moved a bit – like it was loose… so, I called Macy’s and had them come out to take a look at it and repair it if necessary. Keep in mind, that I received the piece on May 18, didn’t really notice the piece moving until weeks later – when I moved the couch to clean behind it (or open a window, pick up a toy, whatever I was doing). So, I called Macy’s around 7/1/09 and they just came today – mostly due to scheduling conflicts and such.

So here’s the rub. The guy came to inspect, a great kid from Brockton named Christopher. Come to find out, the piece was not only broken, but it had been repaired THREE times!!

I was pretty surprised, and told him they need to replace the piece. He was just a third party in this fiasco, so he called customer service and spoke with Tamika (notice how I’m dropping names here?) and discussed the problem. After a few, uh ha’s and um yeahs, he handed the phone over to me and said “you need to speak to her”.

Here comes the payoff – Tamika tells me “well sir, you bought a floor model and floor models are sold “as-is”, so if anything will be done you’ll have to take it up with the store you bought it from”. THE STORE I BOUGHT IT FROM? I BOUGHT IT FROM MACY’S! I could feel my blood start to boil… you mean to tell me that Macy’s “corporate” can’t help me?? She said “No, since it’s “as-is” you’ll have to sort it out with the store you bought it from”.

Grrrr. I can feel the veins in my head about to pop out. She was good enough to give me the phone number of the store where I bought it (Westfarms) and told me “good luck”.

Needless to say, I called them as soon as I hung up with her. Spoke with Carol, the floor manager of the department, who, of course, has NO recollection of the piece in question. Big surprise, right? Tells me that she’ll have the sales person call me back tomorrow because it’s her (Barbara) day off. I told her – why don’t we cut to the chase and have a manager call me… she said, “I’m the manager”, then proceeded to tell me she has to do research and call me back tomorrow.

My B.S.-o-meter was flying right off the charts with that one. I can feel the ‘ol – “all sales are final” schpeal coming. I’m not going to listen to it though.

Rewind back to a week before the purchase, Eileen and I were in Waterford, CT and spotted the same piece down there – a floor model, but they wouldn’t ship it to our house because we were too far. The nice girl there put me in touch with Westfarms (Barbara) who informed us that they have one and would give me the same price. I specifically asked her: Is there any issues with this piece? Damage, broken, etc? She said “NO”, just a few scuffs… which I don’t mind, since I have three kids, it’s going to get scuffed!

We went up the following Sunday and visually inspected it, sat in it, etc. Again I asked if there were any issues, she said “NO”, so I said, “let’s do it”.

I just know that she’s going to call me tomorrow and claim there was no damage or that they didn’t know or that their dog ate their home work or it was her brother’s fault, but I’m not going to listen to it…

The sales check clearly states:
Final Sale/As Is Merchandise: There are no returns on “As Is” or “Final Sale” merchandise due to the damage noted by the sales associate on the front of the sales check… blah, blah, blah.

The funny thing is, there IS NO DAMAGE NOTED ON THE SALES CHECK.

We’ll just see what happens, I’m pretty upset by this right now, and still haven’t paid the bill (6 months interest free).  But the point remains that they sold me something that was represented as “not damaged” which was 1) clearly repaired several times and 2) DAMAGED.

I mean if the woman had told me that it was damaged I WOULDN’T HAVE MADE THE PURCHASE!!!

Stay tuned…

UPDATE:  As expected, I did not receive a call – big surprise… I’m going to have to call today and get the “Barbara isn’t here today” schpeel and then I’m really going to be upset.

I got a call today, you know the ones, that have a caller ID that says “New Brunswick” or something to that effect. Since I already know what to expect, I can kind of feel my blood boiling, but I took a deep breath and answered it anyways.

Click “This is our final attempt to reach you regarding lowering your monthly bills” – oh, boy here we go… ya, final time like twenty times ago.

So, I press one to speak to a counselor. Now, here’s the tricky part… you can’t be too cute or they’ll hang up immediately. So, you got to play a bit dumb at first, then play along with their dialogue. It took me a few times to get the script down as far as: how much do you owe, how many cards do you have, what’s your APR, etc.

Now for the best part – they ALWAYS ask you for the phone number for the credit card company so they can verify your account and blah, blah, blah…

Tell them you have to go get the card and mute the phone. Put the phone down and leave them on hold as long as humanly possible. I actually forgot I had the guy on hold and clicked “talk” on the phone and he was still there! I told him I was still looking and he said “don’t worry, I’ll wait, I’m getting paid by the hour anyways”.

Then the light went on: EVERYBODY should make them “hold” while they look for their credit card number… the longer they are on hold, the less calls they make, the less money they make, and eventually THEY WILL GO AWAY.

Does that make sense? It can’t hurt, especially if you are doing work around the house anyways and it doesn’t keep you from anything (other than pissing off unsolicited telemarketers).

Have fun!

We went up to this fun site called http://www.bandnamemaker.com/ and came up with a bunch of wild names… most of them were too off the wall, but one stuck out: Liquid Agenda.

It seemed to make the most sense, even though none of us necessarily are big drinkers any more, but it gives folks the idea of what to do when they come out to see us and have some fun.

Here are the links, add us as a friend and join us!!

Facebook:
Liquid Agenda on Facebook

MySpace:
Liquid Agenda on MySpace

Wouldn’t you know it that liquidagenda.com is taken??  Oh well, for now I think we’ll just leverage FB and MS for getting the word out.

Does anyone know of any good bars/clubs?  We will likely get in touch with the Hungry Tiger again and a friend told us about a local eatery that has bands (Rita’s)… Our goal is to be out before the end of March – early April at the latest.

Rock on!

P.S. does anyone use MySpace anymore??