Sunday, August 26, 2007

Grilled Pizza

I was reading Foodie Farmgirl's entry about pizza and that reminded me that The Wife and I have been perfecting grilled pizza over the past several weeks. We have been buying frozen pizza dough from the local bakery or Italian deli. In the Winter we make our own dough but in the summer it is just easier to buy it. We roll it out, put it on an oiled pizza screen, and then put it on a pre-heated gas grill for 5 minutes. Then we pull it off (the screen makes everything easier), oil the top, flip the dough, spread fresh tomatoes (seeded, put through a food mill, lightly salted, and drained for 30 minutes), shredded mozzarella (not fresh, it releases too much whey in cooking), and prosciutto on it and return it to the grill for another 8 minutes. Very tasty and you don't heat up your kitchen when it is 95 out.

Of course if you are a giant dumbass like yours truly you do the following things wrong with each successive pizza - the first one you don't cook long enough on either side. The next one you oil the top after flipping it - which causes tomato juices and cheese whey to gather on the top of the pizza. The next one is a giant dome when you open the grill after cooking on the first side and you forget to oil the top and flip the pizza (I think I forgot to flip it over as I was rolling it out which was why we got the giant dome). So tonight I shall try to remember all of the steps in the right order. I remembered to drain the tomatoes ahead of time, I remembered to take the dough out to warm up before using it (it rolls out better that way) so at the moment I am on the right track.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Not as much of a freak as I thought.

You Are 48% Strange!

You are a bit strange, though still more normal than strange. You definitely have some quirks, don't get me wrong. But you aren't exactly freaking out old ladies on the street. It's okay though, you've got a healthy mixture of strangeness and normality.

How Strange Are You?
Quizzes for MySpace

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Waiting for rain

I am sitting her waiting (and hoping) for it to rain. Quite pathetic really. The grass is brown and crunchy, the apple trees are droopy (we did water them using our "Tree Gators"), and the leaves on the sycamore trees are already changing color and dropping off the trees. On the other hand, at the CSA (Community-supported agriculture) farm we belong to the warm, dry weather has given us a much better harvest than last year. They can deal with little to no rain through drip irrigation. Too much rain (like last year) results in crops rotting in the ground. Last week, among other things, I picked up 8 pounds of tomatoes (yellow, orange, and red). I am going to make sauce today. I highly recommend joining a CSA if you have one near you. You get high-quality local organic (generally) produce (often in varieties you won't get at the store), you help the farmers make a living, keep land in agricultural use, and learn about cooking with vegetables. The CSA we belong to also requires 8 hours of farm work per share per season. This year I have helped with the garlic and onion harvests and helped "renovate" the strawberry patch. I will complete our hours (I'm doing them all this year because of The Wife's recent health issues) this week. Because a share is really too much for 2 people to eat we are going to share a share with some friends next year.

Shocker: I'm a science/math geek

What Be Your Nerd Type?
Your Result: Science/Math Nerd
 

(Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!)

Well, maybe you aren't this extreme, but you're in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don't worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.

Literature Nerd
 
Social Nerd
 
Gamer/Computer Nerd
 
Musician
 
Drama Nerd
 
Anime Nerd
 
Artistic Nerd
 
What Be Your Nerd Type?
Quizzes for MySpace

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Highly educated clueless wonders

Those of you who know me (or who have read the archives of the booger blog) know that last year I had recurrent endometrial cancer and was treated with high-dose internal radiation. I'm fine now but I have frequent follow up with both the GYN-oncologist and the radiation oncologist. I had a biopsy in May and it was clear and last week I had what I thought would be my last follow up (that is another entry altogether) with the radiation oncologist. Because it is a teaching hospital the radiation oncologist came with an entourage of radiation oncology Fellow, intern, and nurse. After declaring that it looked "all nice and pink in there" I got to have not one but two internal exams. Ok fellas, I don't give a good god damn if it is a teaching hospital but next time I'll be damned if I let two of you do internal exams. I will tell you to get the fuck away from me. I am NOT here for you to use as a learning tool. I was also really irritated with the Fellow for making the statement when I said that I thought part of their training should be to be in my position (they were running an hour late and I'd been sitting in a room without my drawers for at least 15 minutes)it's different for us. Anyway we see the prostate cancers in the morning. I completely slammed him and told him no, you see patients with prostate cancer in the morning. Jackass. Just writing about it pisses me off.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

heh, DORK!

Recently I moved to an office with a window that looks out over our parking lot. Yesterday I was chatting with a co-worker when another co-worker stuck his head in the door. He said "the FedEx guy is lifting weights in his truck." Of course, this caused all of us to zoom over to my window to observe the dork in his natural habitat. The FedEx guy was sitting sideways in the driver's seat doing bicep curls with a 15 or 20 lb weight. We aren't sure if he saw us watching him but he was smiling broadly. He was parked directly across from the front door of the office so the receptionist had to be able to see him. I sincerely doubt he was trying to impress her, unless he has a thing for grandmas.