Pies in a Jar

Valentine's Day Goodies or mush?

I thought I'd give my friend's at work a different kind of Valentine's Day treat.  I ventured away from the traditional chocolate and candy treats and tried my hand at baking a pie in a jar.  I saw pictures and recipes online.  I thought they were a cute pint-sized treat to hand out at work.

The concept is easy enough, pie crust, pressed into the sides of a mason jar, filled with filling (I used peaches and blueberries), and baked at 375 degrees.  You can bake mason jars because they are intended for canning, so they withstand the heat (not direct heat like on a burner or flame).  You bake them in the oven without the lids on and they are supposed to bake up nicely, just like if it were in a pie tin.  Another option is to prepare them and then freeze them for later devouring.

Anyway, I prepared them and baked them.  Problems, I overfilled them and the fruit juices bubbled out overboard.  Also, I don't like my pies to be super sweet so I was careful about how much brown sugar and white sugar I added to the mix.  So, I had my husband taste the mix before baking, after some adjustments, he approved of the sweetness.  To my husband's dismay, they were not sweet enough post baking.  Where did all the sweetness go?!  Nuts.

But at 10:30 PM it was time to call the game.  I tasted one jar in the morning once I got up, and I liked them, but the test would be if others would.  I tried to find smaller jars, but all I could get my hands on were 8 ounce jars.  I personally thought these were too big. 

I'll have to try again another holiday and double up the sweetness and search high and low for shorter jars.  I love the idea of these treats too much to give up after one attempt.

Irresponsibility and Overconfidence!!!!!!

I can't believe what I got to come home to today!

I get a call from my dad that my parents are at our house, with their dogs.  Typically not an issue.  However, this time I didn't know they were coming and espeically not with their dogs.  They are in my house with our foster dog Abe and thier 3 dogs, without us there to help manage anything.  Tell me that doesn't sound like a bad idea.  Go on tell me.  No, you can't--that's cuz that's a terrible idea and any sane person should know better.  These dogs have not had a proper introduction and the brief contact they had with a fence between them resulted in thier intact lab male going out of his mind trying to get at Abe.  Meanwhile, Abe is not being aggressive at all.

SO my dad tells me the dogs are getting along, expect for that moment my Mom tried to get Abe and Behr (the lab) to go into the bathroom together.  Then they got into a fight and my dad had to separate them.  First of all, why on earth would you try to get two male dogs in a tiny space together who just met.  Second, why do you need to dogs to go into the bathroom with you? Stupid.

Then alls well and the dogs are getting along again.  My dad leaves to pick up yet another dog from the vet.  Leaving my Mom alone with the dogs.  First off, my mom is no dog whisperer, however she'll honk her own horn and say she is in total control of her dogs (not!).  She's the type to keep telling a dog to sit and when he doesn't comply (becuase you never formally taught the command in the first place, but, hey, training is overrated anyway right?) the obvious solution to keep saying the command only louder--and getting mad adds to the effectiveness of the command giving.

Anyways, apparently my dad gets home just before I do.  I walk in and my Dad is visibly mad, and my mom is all dramatic and freaked out.  Great.  I ask what happened.  My dad tells me that while he was gone there was a big 'ol fight and when he entered the house he notices all the furniture in the dinning room is knocked over.  My mom pipes in, she couldn't pull them apart and had a hard time stopping it (no shit).  Behr was going out the back door, Abe wanted to go out too and then you can imagine what happened--two stranger dogs trying to get out of a narrow doorway (bathroom incident all over again, tight quarters). 

I look around the room, there is blood on the carpet, blood on our couches.  Abe is in his crate somehow and he is dripping blood onto his bed.  Berh is on gracie's dog bed (my dad took her with him to the vet and she's still in the jeep) and there's blood on that too.  My mom is saying, "I was yelling at them and they didn't stop".  WTF? Really?  I say (sternly) "you can't yell at them when they are in a fight, they aren't listening to you, you have to pull them apart by the collar".  She got bit in the process becuase who knows HOW she tried to get them apart.  No need to amputate, she's fine.

My dad and I check out the dogs.  We're both clueless because we weren't there when this mess happened.

Berh first since my spot check on Abe doesn't look horrible.  Behr's got bite marks on his lip, swollen under his jaw.  Turn him over and he has a big 'ol cut in his chest, and he's got another on his side.  He's going to the vet.

Now Abe:



The damage?  Abe is limping off his right foot, had both ears torn up (one bite almost went clear through the ear to the other side), bloody lip.

Berh has maybe 20-30 lbs on Abe.  Chocolate lab.  Abe wins.  Its scary because we don't know what the consequences are going to be.  All the rules change when a pit bull is involved, regardless of what the situation is.  In defense or not, doesn't matter unfortunately.  Decades of misuse of the breed, they are essentailly damned.  Everyone hates pits (okay, a majority of people dislike pits).

In the end, my parents are paying $278 dollars to patch up Behr and they are banned from bringing thier entire pack over to our house, I told them (well, mostly directed toward my mom) "you can't bring all your dogs here, you cannot control them.  You can bring 1 or 2, but you can't bring them all.  You don't know how to control your dogs".  Don't care if she's pissed or offended.

After Mike and I clean up the blood, and put was needs to be into the washer, I have to call the agency and let them know what happened, Abe isn't ours afterall.

Thankfully, Becky is understanding and actually isn't surprised because apparently intact male dogs are responsible for most dog fights and attacks.  The magic age of these reported findings? 2 years old.  Testosterone levels are out of control.  Behr is 2 1/2.  Becky's ending comment to me is, "get him  (Behr) fixed!".  Yay, we know.  We've told my parents several times they need to get Behr fixed.  They aren't breeders, there is no reason at all why they shouldn't get him spayed.  Again, irresponsible.  Don't buy the whole 2 y.o. intact male dog thing?  Look it up.

Antsy searching...

    I have been randomly searching for a new job on various websites (nwjobs, craigslist, monster) and have turned up nothing.  Not even the faithful snohomish county web-site gave me any results!  Honestly, what are people to do?

With such slim pickings, it just really makes me wish I had a personal business that represented more than just a hobby.  But with my limited time, that's just not in the cards right now (shoot...).  It really sucks wanting to do everything and being able to do nothing, talk about frustration.

It makes me feel guilty, thinking about leaving...first of all, I'd miss all my awesome friends at the office.  About 90% of the time that's what keeps me coming back.  It would be tough finding the same bunch of great people in another setting.  Second, I do enjoy some of my clients.  I would feel guilty dumping them on the other clinicians.  Unfortunately, I can't pick and choose (per se) who my clients are going to be, and I know you have to take the good with the frustrating--but I have been feeling like I am in a, yikes, dead end.

Clients are the same, presenting issues are the same, interventions are relatively the same-I don't feel like I am growing any more...what's worse is I can't find anything to get me out of this funk.

Baby Burrito Challenge





Team David



Team Christie and Amanda



So we are mean friends and make each other do "food challenges" at a whim. The previous month, Jason and Eric had the Intimidator Challenge that consisted of a huge burger, a ton of fries, mac'n cheese, and red hot chili.
So Jason's revenge? The girls have to do a food challenge at Gordito's in Everett. Our opponent? An enchilada style burrito that is literally the size of a baby. The teams are setup so that each team gets either myself or my friend Amanda as "nibblers" to help either Beth or Christie finish the burrito in under 30 minutes.



Team Beth and Jennifer

And I am happy to say that Team Beth wins, each taking on half of the burrito, yum! Wonder what the next challenge is gonna be...?

 





AAHHHH, Baking disaster!!!

So I am trying to make French macaroons for a cookie exchange at work.  The French macaroons are the "burger" style cookies not the ones covered in coconut.  However, I substitued almond paste with poppyseed paste to make it more "Beth Friendly".  I wanted to make something that would be edible for my friend who is deathly allergic to any and all nuts.

But ahhhhh! apparently almond paste is NOT the same as poppyseed paste.  Yikes, my macaroons ended up being flattened crispy cookie-like things that were also chewy somehow, ugh!  I am going to try again tomorrow night with almond paste and we'll see if it was the ingredient change or if it was due to baker error....if disaster strikes again, we may have to change the menu to something a little less French  :-)

Here's to round two....

Cranberry Bliss Bars!

Cranberry Bliss Bars a la Starbucks

We had a bake-off at work where we compared Starbucks seasonal delight, Cranberry Bliss Bars, to our homemade versions.  I gotta tell ya, I think I prefer the homemade versions becuase they were less sweet than the Starbucks version.

Also, I made mine in a dish smaller than suggested so I got more of a cake-like density versus Starbucks' bar-like texture.  Now, that I've made my own, I can have them any time of year instead of having to wait until Christmas!

Now I want to play with the recipie more and add a little more ginger and try a cranberry drizzle instead of a frosting drizzle ontop of the cream cheese frosting.  Yum Yum.

 

T-9 hrs....

Okay, so we went to the Expo today to pick up our race packets with bib-numbers and timing chips.  YIKES!!! Maybe had I actually prepared for the half marathon tomorrow I'd feel a little more confident.  I hardly think running MAYBE 1 time a week counts as preparation.  All I know is, I ate my spaghettii dinner and I have a yummy breakfast planned for tomorrow am plus some GU right before go time.  My goal is to #1-Finish, #2-Finish in under 3 hours (I have accepted that I might ralph at the finish line, but I'm cool with that).  Figure that's a pretty generous time limit for my first half-marathon.  If I actually enjoy myself, I'll have to take my training stage to the next level and actually train.  :)

So, Mike and I are due at the starting line at 7:30 am.  I'll let you know what the damage is when we finish.  Damn Andrew for talking us into this!!