I thought you guys should know

I caught adam in the kitchen trying to eat grapes. again.

PS: Obviously “deekie the monkey” is code for ADAM.

cutta cabinet

So I went to grab a pan to make oatmeal one morning and this is what I found. Cut however unexpected as the cabinet is not a couch.

What’s on our Fridge: Where’s Paladin Kitchen Corner Edition

Can you find him? What is all this other crap? Click the picture for a close up view.

taste the flavors.

and the shirt is very stylish & flattering

A delicious gourmet stir fry featuring pickled yak’s bladder, eye of aardvark, alaskan chili peppers, a jar of catfood from the pantry, and some delicious vegetables from Land’s Sake farm.  Thanks Melinda!  That sure was tasty!

Babies Do It

A few weeks ago I was in the kitchen with Melinda, Allison, and Blake, and, you know… some stuff happened and we ended up shaking our asses to Beyonce’s video, Single Ladies (PUT A RING ON IT). Melinda and Allison and I gave it a good try; Blake watched.

Anyway, I got a little self conscious, with the grinding and thrusting and twitchy butt shakes. I mean, I liked it, but I worried that maybe Beyonce and Kanye West were invading my brain and commandeering it for some sort of soul-draining, sexy dance collective. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing. But still. I’m not some robo-tripping cheerleader with an MTV addiction.

That’s why I was oh so pleased to find this string of videos on the YouTube. It turns out that everyone wants to do the Single Ladies dance. It’s NATURAL, even babies do it. BABIES! (Side note: Arianna – woah girl!)

I Saw America in My Steak

Last night Liv and I ate these gigantic Sirloin steaks in order to combat our Iron deficiencies.  They were so thick that when I thought they were done and took them off the grill it turned out their middles were still basically raw.  Then we ran out of gas for the grill.  Meanwhile, Liv discovered a particular component of potato anatomy which retains the consistency of raw potato no matter how much you microwave and mash at it.  The answer for the steaks was to put them under the broiler on hi for a few minutes, which blackened them nicely on the surface while leaving the centers pink and juicy.  The broiler, kids.  The broiler is great.

Oh say can you see

Also, when my steak came out of the broiler it looked just like this great nation of ours.  I felt a deep spiritual connection with this great nation of ours as I consumed its likeness in beef form.  Also Liv’s looked like a decapitated sea turtle head.  I think.  She said it looked like an old man’s head.

Half man, half sea turtle, 100% beef

But I think she was stretching it a little bit.  Clearly there was some jealousy involved regarding how the great spirit of America had decided to bless me with its meaty image.  But you know, Liv wants to be blessed by the great spirit of decapitated sea turtle heads, who am I to stop her?

Grape Raspberry Jam

grape peeling

Allison has started a jam making project.  Our grape vine went crazy this year and produced a couple gallons of grapes.  In addition to that, Allison has been working on a farm which gave her a big basket of raspberries.

Allison says that you have to peel each grape before putting it into the pot, so people were peeling grapes in the kitchen all day yesterday.  That was basically the main thing that was happening in the kitchen:  grape peeling.  The raspberries did not have to be peeled, as they do not really have a tough outer surface like grapes do.  Apparently the idea is that you take the grape peels and put them through the food processor and then you add them back in with the peeled grapes.  Nobody could provide a good answer for why you couldn’t just put the whole un-peeled grapes in the food processor.

There were a lot of grapes to be peeled.

Getting Drunk in the Kitchen

Today in the gun-totin’ Montana backcountry we are making Guiness Beef Stew! I am very excited about this. We will find out:

1) Whether Guiness beef stew can make you drunk
2) Whether drinking while making Guiness beef stew can make you drunk

This is a delicate procedure. To facilitate the experiment, I have here:

1 pint of Guiness (partially drunken)
3 large yellow onions
4 russet gold potatoes
A bag of baby carrots (soon to be chopped)
1 large bottle of Vodka
2 lbs stewing beef
flour
salt
fresh thyme

Also, we have a very lovely 6qt Rival Red Slow Cooker. It’s programmable!

OK, I seared all the beef in a pan and chopped up everything else that I could possibly chop. They say to put the beef into a bag of flour and shake it up and THEN sear it, but I think that’s crazy. When I did that the first time I ended up with beef and flour all over the kitchen. Not this time! I just piled all the vegetables and seared beef into the slow cooker, and put some flour on top for good measure. I added a shot of vodka to myself. Then I poured what was left of the Guiness into the stew, stirred it all up and turned it on HIGH.

You’re supposed to cook it on LOW, but since it is already 1PM and the stew is supposed to cook for 8 hours, I am just going to cook it for a half hour on HIGH instead of LOW! Maybe it’ll be done early! Or maybe it’ll all burn up into a shriveled crisp. Stay tuned!!!

***Update: After 1 hour, neither the stew nor myself seem noticeably changed. I leave the stew on HIGH and make a vodka tonic.

***Update: After 2 hours, one of us is starting to smell pretty good!

What’s Cooking: Brambleberry Kitchen Corner

For some reason I sort of spit single malt scotch all over my screen just now.

This is the first post in the Kitchen Corner category. Today in the kitchen Liv made a great pasta dish with tomatoes and basil, and Allison made a lamb steak wrapped in bacon! Allison used the broiler.