Medical Technology

Today, I used an awesome piece of medical technology.

First, I'll tell you about how I was introduced to this powerful healer.

When I was little, I'm guessing 5 or 6 years old although I have no idea really, I got a shot.

Shocking I know. I'm sure I was the only little girl to get shots.

Anyway, the nurse at the clinic gave me a little mermaid band aid after it was all said and done. She told me it would make it stop hurting.

It did.

I remember the shots only vaguely, but I remember the band aid very well. It was teal, with Ariel in the middle. The moment she stuck it to my arm, I was no longer upset about the shots. I thought it was so cool.

But there was a problem.

It was on my arm, and I couldn't see it unless I bent my arm a certain way. This bending of course lessened the effectiveness of the adhesive in the band aid. Try as I might to get it to stay on as long as I could, it came off at last.

It's upside down so I can see it right side up. Just FYI.

I knew my mom would make me throw it away because there was really no need for it in the first place. But I thought it was the coolest single thing medical technology had to offer. Still, to the best of my knowledge, I threw it away without a fuss.

Today, I still love cartoon character band aids. I used one just today, iron man, on my impossibly knobby knee.

The moral of the story is, cartoon band aids have healing powers that regular band aids do not. Also, they still need more durable adhesive.

What My Marriage Looks Like

I ran across a sketch on Pinterest today that I wanted to share. Not only do I find it cute and heartwarming, I feel like it represents my relationship with J. You have my permission to gag. :)

Ahh, it's so nice when two nerds fall in love. 

Here's a really old, not-so-great picture of us to show you just how representative this sketch is. 

Okay, I'm done reminiscing. Have a great week!

The Strawberry Shortcake(s) Experiment

I know I'm several days later than I said I would be with this post. But hopefully you weren't waiting on pins and needles or anything.

I'm finally going to tell you how J's birthday cake came out.

He requested strawberry shortcake. I've never made strawberry shortcake, so I went to Pinterest to see what I could dig up as far as recipes were concerned. I found this recipe, which isn't a traditional shortcake recipe, but it sounded good and relatively simple.

I had to make a few major adaptations to the recipe.

First, I decided to make cupcakes instead of one large cake. This is mostly because I only have big, rectangular cake pans. But it's also because my grandma recently gave me a set of silicon baking cups. I was dying to try them, and J's birthday was a great excuse.

So I made the cake batter according to the recipe. ...I thought. As it turns out I'm not a whiz at figuring out metric to English conversion and I don't have a scale. I'm relatively sure I put in too much sugar.

No harm done, the cake is a little sticky, but other than that, no problem.

I've never beaten eggs as long as I had to beat this batter. (That may be because of the sugar.) I'm so glad I used my stand mixer, because I thought briefly about doing it by hand. I don't know how long I beat them but it felt like at least 10 minutes.

Finally the batter was mixed and ready to go.

I wanted to make 23 cupcakes and place a candle on each one and I had 24 cups, perfect! However, I wanted to make each cake in 2 layers, and I didn't know if I would be able to split them nicely after they baked.

So I put about half the batter into 23 cups and baked them.

The bad part of all this was that I had to let the batter just sit there while I baked them, they cooled and I emptied and washed the cups.

You can see how the sticky cake stuck to the sides. 

 So the moral of the story is that the first set of cakes is much, much fluffier than the second.

While the second set was baking, I made the filling. I can never find Mascarpone cheese in a grocery store, so I subbed in cream cheese. I also left out the alcohol.

By the time the filling was made, it was down to the wire of J's arrival. So I pulled the other batch out of the oven and started assembling the first batch.

I placed one layer of cake upside down on the platter, then a dollop of filling, a couple of strawberry slices, and then they other cake. I put some filling on top and a decoratively placed a couple more slices of strawberry.

I made 11 cakes out of the first batch, stuck two candles in each and one candle in the odd cake out. (Why I didn't make 24 cups the first time around I have no idea.)

Happy birthday, J!

As you can see, it was a mess. The cake stuck to everything, and I was so rushed that I didn't even think about setting up a nice, clutter-free picture. 

But they tasted great! We've been enjoying them ever since. 

Maybe next year, I'll finally manage the perfect birthday cake.

An Experimental Birthday Dinner (Part 2: Sigh)

Whoa!

I just spent the past three hours running around like a crazy chicken.

"It's all over now but the crying," as my mom would say. She loves old redneck sayings. But I'm not going to cry. Well maybe about using that saying, but not about dinner. Am I getting off track?

Okay. So I executed the plan, but I underestimated how long it would take me to do a few things.

One such thing was the potato salad. I forget about the straining, peeling, mashing, chopping and mixing all takes a while. But I got it done by 5:20 and had it chilling in the fridge (we like to eat it cold). I intended to have it done by 5 or so, but time just got away from me.

Some of that time that got away was put into the cake, or cakes should I say. But that's its own saga for tomorrow.

The other thing I did wrong on my timing was overestimate how long it would take to cook the main course. This turned out okay. The steak pieces had plenty of time to rest, yet were not cold. But they weren't as tender as they might have been if I had let them be a little more rare.

The veggies right after marinating.

The flavor was really good, though. I was also happy to discover that the potato salad was a great compliment to the meal. The tangy mustard and pickle in the potatoes complimented the sour, spicy marinade on the beef and veggies. Win!

Note my oh-so-original use of lime. ;)

The most important critic, and birthday boy set his seal of approval on the meal. So I feel like it was well-worth my effort. :)

An Experimental Birthday Dinner (Part 1: the Diabolical Plan)

I can't believe I spelled diabolical right on the first try.

...but I digress...

Today is J's real, live, actual birthday!

I look forward to this day all year for several reasons:

1. I get to start teasing him about being older than me. This is the first of 20 days where he and I are officially not the same age.

2. It means my birthday is coming! I know I'm selfish; I'm working on it.

3. I get to set aside everything in life and focus on his favorite thing, food. I will cook for hours today. First dinner had to be planned and prepped and in a second I will take on dessert. Just because I want to prolong sitting here under the fan, I'll give you a brief history of J's birthday meals.

Last year, I did ribs and potato salad. I also attempted a chocolate volcano cake, but that was a failure.

When he turned 21 we had a fajita party. I made everything down to the tortillas (...well most of the tortillas). It was great.

When he turned 20 I still thought he was a little odd, so we didn't hang out that day.

This year I'm making a spicy-lime beef stir fry. I'm totally inventing everything and here's what I have so far...

I thawed a pound of stew meat it's now marinading in a mesquite lime marinade that I bought pre-made. I'm also marinating a chopped jalapeno, three yellow squash, half a chopped bell pepper and some chopped onion.

I'll also be making a derivation of a strawberry shortcake recipe I found on Pinterest, I'll share that later (probably tomorrow).

Anyway, I plan on marinating the meat and veggies for about 3 hours, then I'm going to saute it all in a skillet.

In a little while, I'll throw together some potato salad (per J's request). I'm not sure how that's all going to go together, but I'm excited to see.

I also have a few fresh limes hanging around the house. I'm not sure how to incorporate them yet, but we'll see what brilliant plan I concoct! (MUAHAHAHAHAA!) ...okay calming down now.

A Golden Delicious Birthday.

Tomorrow is J's birthday, so yesterday we went to the local Apple Butter Festival to celebrate.

Having never visited an orchard or attended any kind of harvest festival, we had no idea what to expect.

It was a beautiful day. The weather was cool and a little overcast. This was a welcome break from the scorching summer days leading up to it.

We headed out around 10 and drove for about 30 minutes to the orchard. I love driving with J. We get to talk about all kinds of things we don't often think of at other times. Things we see, childhood stories, music we like lately, our hopes and dreams for the future.

On this trip, he told me he was inexplicably excited about being 23. I'm not as excited about turning 23 in a few weeks, but his excitement challenges me to find something to look forward to. That's what I love most about J, he challenges me to have a better attitude.

When we arrived at the orchard we payed to get in and received an apple stamp on our right hands. I felt like a kid, looking at my stamp. I love when people keep their theme in mind when they plan details.

We walked past a few craft booths, observed a bounce house, and greeted a couple of people we knew.

As I watched kids bounce around in an inflatable castle, I was more than a little jealous of them.

Remembering we were here  to celebrate another year into J's 20s, I looked away and headed into the neatly aligned rows of apple trees with his hand in mine.

A lot of apples had fallen on the ground. I wondered if the cold front from the night before contributed to their demise. But the apples still clinging to the trees were beautiful, and I say that never having liked to eat raw apples.

Despite my lifelong avoidance of eating apples I found myself sharing one particularly delicious-looking one with J as we walked.

Perhaps it's the feeling of kindred with the character, Snow White (a clear result of the fact that I've never been able to tan) that caused me to hate apples so much. I suppose I was channeling her when I was tempted to eat this particular apple right off the tree.

This one has a wormhole on the other side.
I forgot to take a picture of the other one before we ate it. :P

It was so delicious that I didn't even mind the fact that it was an apple, or that I hadn't washed it with running water. (Don't judge, everyone was doing it.)

J eating another one!
(Oh yeah I had another one too.)

We had a great time eating our way through the trees, but the orchard is only so big and all the trees are the same. So we decided to head back to the festivities.

When we walked back to the main area a men's singing group was singing old-timey love songs a capella. It was so fun to watch them. Most of them were older, carrying canes and had grey or no hair. But they sounded strong and sang with great animation. One particular man would point at the crowd and sway. I could just picture him at 23 singing to some girl he liked. 

Then we ate. 

We ate dessert first, because when apple turnovers and ice cream are offered these Dykowski's don't hesitate. 

Then we had some barbecue, because this is Texas. I feel no need to explain that any further. 

All in all it was a great morning. If we are still living in this area next September, we will certainly go back.

...And I will get a giant butterfly painted on my face like the little girl J pointed out as we were leaving. ;)