I’ve cooked a lot of broccoli over the years. Personally I think its best served bright green, still firm in texture with a bit of crunch left in it. I prefer steaming over water rather than blanching in water for two reasons. You get the most nutrition out of your veggies when they're raw or steamed AND it takes less time, energy, & water to cook them in.
At home I use a steamer pan. Put 2 inches of water in the pan, put the lid on, and heat over high heat. While the water comes to a full boil, wash the broccoli, cut it into florets then place it directly in the steamer insert. Place the pan over the boiling water and put the lid on the steamer insert. At an average altitude it takes from 6 to 7 minutes. Once cooked, run it under cold water to stop the cooking, or even better, use ice water to shock it. This process prevents carry over cooking. If I want to serve it hot, I place it in a dish, sprinkle with salt or a squeeze of lemon,then serve it immediately. Carry over cooking is what happens after you take food off or out of the heating source. The internal heat in hot food continues cooking the meat or vegetables. What this means is that carry over cooking can cause your food to overcook even after you’ve removed it from the heat source. When you account for this and stop the cooking by shocking vegetables in cold water you’ll notice a big differene. How? You’ll know when to pull your vegetables from the heat, cued by both color and texture. That's the precise time to cool them down quickly. So give it a try and...EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!
This is a true story about hunting for my eight year old son's hamster, AWOL.
AWOL broke out of her cage and has been on her mission for 24 hours now...
Throwing the clothes in the dryer is an every day affair, hamster on the loose or not. I did shake all the clothes out before tossing them in the washer. My first thought when I went to turn on the dryer was...hit the button, my second thought was...no, abort, don't hit the button…my third thought was "what is that thumping noise? OMG, I've done her in." I emptied the dryer pushed the button again. Not sounding good at all. It was making the same sound as the hamster wheel with food in it, only with a little thump and rattle with every round. "OH! So that's how it ends!!" I thought. Good job Mom!!! I think I gave up hope there, proceeding to take the dryer apart just to see what I could to see.
My car was parked outside at that time and the garage had been sealed off. (Almost used the yellow crime tape) Diego and I got home late, quietly entered the garage, and looked around while listening for no less than an hour. Frustrated and gloomy, we trudged upstairs to push on through four pages of homework, front and back. Once that was out of the way Diego got ready for bed. I said, I'll go check again to see if I can surprise her. (With no internal hope at all)
WHO-HA! There she was, cute nose and whiskers a twitching as we both froze and locked eyes for less than a split second. Then like lightening, she shot across the floor darting under the dryer. I used a stick to scare her out from underneath, blocked her in the corner and called for Diego. He ran down the stairs and coeced her in my direction. On my second attempt, muttering under my breath, I scooped her up, tossed her into her cage, and snapped the door shut with a rush of satisfaction and a high five. OH YEAH! LOCK DOWN BABY!
Report on AWOL'S 4th secret mission: Project Spider Web. Intent: to cause a complete upheaval in the garage---Mission accomplished. To put things in order will no doubt take me countless hours. That will take place only after I have rousted out all the eight legged tenants, big and little. Then I’ll I be able to put my dryer back together, which, BTW, includes reassembling the lint vent that leads outside. The only casualties on this mission were spiders. I'm sure Miss Houdini is comfortably spinning on her wheel as I write this. (Or is she?) Her new code name while on missions is Bratty Rat. A Robo hamster...What the *!#> was I thinking!
As I started to put laundry away Diego lay back waiting to be tucked in. He commented on cruelty while reading about an animal that wears a shock collar. This sparked my comment... "Hey, maybe we can get one of those for AWOL". His immediate response was "Hell no!" I said "DID YOU just say Hell no?" He said "Yeah!" We laughed so hard, after which I said..."Honey, the thing about swearing is you have to know where, when and around who you can use words like that. I'm okay with that one since I deserved it, and we have had one heck of a day. But none of that in school, around your class mates, and older people, except Grandma of course. Why? Cuz she wrote the book on cursing!"
So there you have it, AWOL'S fourth adventure. Oh! And if you ever want to deep clean your house room by room, I have the perfect little companion to help you with your mission. She likes working nights and hardly eats a thing.
I offered a gentleman a cookie today at work and he said, "Oh no, if I have one, it will be down hill for me every time you serve cookies. There should be a group called Cookie addicts Anonymous!" That made me laugh, but I totally understand his philosophy. I could attend a C.A.A. group occasionally myself. Hmmm, but what would we have with our coffee at group? That is a cookie conundrum! Here is the recipe for the cookies I baked off today.
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup quick oats
12 ounces chocolate chips (or more in place of nuts, if you SO desire)
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (OPTIONAL as I would rather add more chocolate and skip d nuts)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream butter and sugars together in or with a mixer. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture. Stir in oatmeal, chips, nuts and mix well.
Form into uniform pieces with a cookie scoop, place evenly on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Press down for uniformity onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes, or until golden. Makes about 4 dozen, 3-inch in size cookies.
