Hurricanes’ Locker Room
Had a chance to go into the Carolina Hurricanes locker room yesterday before they took off for game 7 in Boston. Terrance our photographer was heading over for the Canes press conference and asked if I wanted to go.
Well of course…..
I grabbed a digital camera and headed over. Things were very somber, but the players appeared focused and ready for the challenge. I got to see a few of the players and even got a picture of Eric Staal and the team’s bags ready to go to the airport for their flight.
I just hope there is a need for the team to come back to the RBC center and work out again.
Watermelons Are Back
The plants in the store looked small enough. I tried it once and it really didn’t work out. I bought some watermelon plants a few years back to plant in a container. They were the small round melons and the plant grew great. It was the fruit that didn’t. I think we got one ripe melon to eat all year. The rest seem to rot on the vine. So I looked again this year, but I passed thinking it would be better just to buy them when needed.
I found some nice seedless (does anyone sell seeded anymore?) watermelons on sale and bought one last week. It does seem early for a good watermelon, but the one I bought didn’t disappoint. It was ripe, sweet, and of course juicy or should I say watery.
I think that the best bite is the first one, right in the middle of the melon. Hungry yet?
Moist Lemon Cake, from Martha
How does the old saying start? ‘When life gives you lemons, make…’
In this case make…Lemon Cake. While watching the Today Show last week, I saw Martha Stewart make a cake that Matt Lauer said was really really good. Now I know Matt has to try a lot of food on the Today Show, I could tell he really liked this cake.
So, I got some lemons and tried the cake at home over the weekend. The cake is moist and is very lemony. I liked poking holes in it to let the lemon syrup moisten the cake. The one thing I didn’t do was make the candied lemons for decoration.
The big thing to me about the cake is that it has an egg white and sugar frosting. This is something I never did before. The frosting turned out fine, but after it sat awhile it started to shrink! The recipe said to use immediately and now I know why. It reminded me of melting snow. So, when I served it to my family after dinner, the frosting had shrunk, but the taste hadn’t. Here is all we had left after desert.
(Sorry about how yellow the picture looks, it must be the kitchen fluorescent lights.)
Carolina Hurricane’s Game
“My eardrums were vibrating,” that’s what Carolina Hurricane defensemen Tim Gleason said after Friday night’s home game. I agree, after the game I got home and felt like I had been to a rock concert. My eardrums appeared to be ringing after the game.
The atmosphere in the RBC Center for the Hurricanes game was great. You would have to be comatose not to have felt the excitement. You couldn’t have been asleep, it was just to loud!
Even though the 3 tickets cost $180, the popcorn and soda was $8, and the Eric Staal shirt for my daughter was $23, the evening and memory was priceless.
Tailgate Food
“Tailgating, who tailgates at a hockey game, they must think they are at a NASCAR race, isn’t that all they know about.?” That is one of the more interesting comments I read from Boston people commenting on the fans at the RBC center.
We’ve got the nice weather during parts of the hockey season so why not have fun before the games. We do it for football games. It’s fun.
So as I head to tonight’s game three at the RBC center, we plan to arrive a few hours before game time (rush hour traffic permitting), and have our dinner outside. Now I don’t have an actual tailgate (my station wagon broke down a few months ago), but I’ll bring some chairs and a cooler. As far as food, I think I will take the easy way out and pick something up. I am thinking some sub sandwiches and sides. But for tonight’s game against Boston, the sides won’t include Boston Baked Beans!
Bill The Plumber
Ssssss, that is the sound of water running. Not a bad sound when you are having a shower or filling a glass of water, but a miserable sound when it is coming from your commode. That is what happened to me yesterday. I shut the water off and took the lid off the commode.
Our toilet has one of those big black balls, and the tank fill valve was allowing the water to run. I did some fidgeting with the ball and the fill valve, and it seemed that the water stopped running. Then I fidgeted some more, and that’s what did the fill valve in. It has an adjustable plastic screw that I screwed too hard until, well you guessed it, it broke. Now the water started running fast. They don’t call me Mister Force-it for nothing!
Now, I started mumbling about having to call a plumber and spending probably $100 for a service call. Then I thought, I can do this. So, I went to the store. The fill valve piece I needed was only $7. All I needed was a wrench and a scissors to cut a tube; and after carefully following the directions, bingo, it was done. This new kind of fill valve doesn’t use the big black ball; so I not only fixed the toilet, I modernized it!
It is very satisify being able to be Mr. Handyman, after I had been Mr. Force-it and Break-it man.
Pulled Pork Rub
I feel sorry for pork farmers who have seen demand drop because of the so called Swine Flu outbreak. So that inspired me to go out and buy some butt. I wanted some pulled pork on the grill and got a 5 pound Boston Butt. Why they call it butt, I don’t know, since the cut of meat is actually the shoulder area of a pig. But, I like telling people that I am going to eat pork butt.
I slow cook it on my charcoal grill that has hickory chips soaked in water to add smoke.
What we coat the pork with gives it added flavor and tenderizes the meat. So here is the rub recipe that I use. The best way to do it is put the rub on the night before and wrap it up tightly to refrigerate until the next day.
Rub for a 5 to 6 pound butt.
Mix together: 2 TBLS of Paprika, 2 TBLS of Brown Sugar, 1 TBL of Ground Pepper, and I TBL of salt. (I have cut back to 2 tsp of salt.)
I found a sauce for the butt, but I don’t have it on me, so I will give that later. Porky would be proud!
I Can Make It Rain, Kind Of.
I waited and waited for some rain yesterday; as I did, my newly planted deck garden needed some water, so did my yard. I have waited patiently since the weekend to get some rain at my house. As I have done this, I watched my grass stress. If it could talk it would have begged for some water. Rain continued in the forecast, but by last evening I had to water my newly planted tomato and pepper plants.
Last evening after watering my plants, the grass would have to wait, I headed inside and within an hour I heard it. Rain had started falling. It worked! It seems that when I finally give in and water my grass or water plants, it almost always seems to rain. This has happened so many times in the past that it doesn’t surprise me anymore. Now a new concern for my tomato and pepper plants….too much water!
Planting Time For Home Garden
The garden centers are buzzing with folks buying plants for home gardens. We do container plantings on our deck because we are kind of lazy. No breaking of the soil, or having to haul the garden hose down the yard to water.
Once again this year, I am going with 4 tomato plants and once again I am trying a couple peppers plants. Last year, our pepper plant had issues, it never produced peppers!
This year I am trying a sweet yellow pepper and a pimento pepper. Now I love pimento cheese sandwiches, but until I had this plant in my hand I never thought of where the pimentos came from! They were always in a jar. So hopefully this year, I will get some peppers. Now bring on some rain.
Strawberry Pie
The swelling was swift and scary. Several years back I got an allergic reaction that caused me to swell with hives. My doctor asked what I had eaten. I told him I just had a bunch of fresh strawberries and then shortly after the swelling began. The Benadryl worked fine, but I was not ready to give up strawberries. I had eaten them all my life. So with Benadryl close by, I tried fresh strawberries again; that was over ten years ago and I haven’t had a reaction since.
Well, its strawberry season and I am going to go picking soon. Our engineer at work gave me a pie recipe and it is good and easy. So get picking and here is “Tony’s Strawberry Pie” recipe. The only thing that might swell is your sweettooth or waistline. Enjoy….
Mix: 1 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar, 3 Tbls of Cornstarch, and 2 Tbls of White Corn Syrup; bring to a boil and stir mixture until it becomes clear and thick. Remove from heat and stir in 1 box of Strawberry Jello. Cut up fresh strawberries and fill a graham cracker crust. Pour the jello mixture over the strawberries until it is even with the top of the pan. Refrigerate overnight and add whip creme just before serving.
Tony brought in 3 pies today, it was sweet and good. Here was my slice, before and after. Mmmm.
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