.:: Fire The Housewife ::.

So, ya’ll, it’s been a while.  Rest assured, I probably am not coming back to blogging regularly, or even semi-regularly, or anything even remotely close to regular. What I am doing is sharing with you a story. A story of hilarity.

So, a  few weeks ago I finally gave up the ol’ Buick and bought myself a shiny new (kind of) Prius.  I loved the idea of getting awesome gas mileage. Also I loved the idea of having hatchback. Also I loved the idea of holding it over everyone else’s heads that my car is nice to the earth and theirs is busy flipping off Mother Earth.  Things happen. Whatever.

So, The Republi-Dad is taking care of getting me tags (don’t ask. Long story.) and I asked the dealership to kindly send the title to The Republi-Dad, promising that they wouldn’t have to talk to his crazy … self.  So here we are, 10 days til my temporary tag expires and The Republi-Dad has not recieved a title. I go in and check on it with the dealership, they were WONDERFULLY nice, saying  ”Oh, looks like it was sent out the 5th of the month!” I naturally assume The Republi-Dad lost it on his table-o-mail (trust me guys, this thing is amazing…YEARS of mail on this table.)

I text him and say “it should be there, they sent it the 5th. Check your table.”

OH MAN, INTERNET. That was a mistake. This is when the stuff hit the fan. THE STUFF. FAN. HARD. BLOWING EVERYWHERE.

The Republi-Dad calls me after work with fire in his eyes (ears? mouth? we were on the phone and all.) Then for 15 minutes, I swear to you, FIF-TEE-NUH MI-NU-TESSSSSSSS, he goes on and on about how this is a conspiracy. That the dealer is just messing with us. That the car doesn’t even have a title. That we will take it back and get our money back. That we will send the credit union after them. Seriously. 15 minutes of this.  It mostly included a lot of me saying “yeah.” “ok.” Sure, Republi-Dad.”

So drop in at the dealership again and they are again, absolutely wonderful, starting the process on the duplicate title while I was standing there, telling me that if for some reason I wasn’t able to get the tags in time they’d put me in a courtesy car, that they were personally going to send a runner to the house of the previous owners to get the papers signed. Seriously, this place could not have done any more for me.  I think I will bake them cookies (LOOK! IT IS ABOUT COOKING!).  Anyway. I mentioned to them the conspiracy. Then we all had a hearty laugh.

Republi-Dad actually lives in a house with Abbie Hoffman and that is where this all comes from.

Dear Republi-Dad,

It’s not a conspiracy.  No one would involve a Prius in a conspiracy. I promise.

Love,

Your FTHW.

I’m not posting. I’m only kind of posting because I want to rip all of the hair out of my head and make someone eat it. Anyone. Why? I don’t know.

My house is a freaking disaster.

DI

SAS

TER.

I want anyone who has ever had to make a move with my The Boyfriend to pat yourself on the back because if you survived it without shooting him you’re clearly a good person.  A patient person. Maybe a saint.  This is my 3rd move with him. This is my 15th move. Yes. I move a lot. I’m a nomad. Every single move I made pre Boyfriend was very little stress. All the boxes were packed in order of least necessity and were neatly stacked in the corner of some apartment ready to go for moving day. Everything neatly labeled and even marked for weight so anyone who helped me move would know before bending over to pick something up that it was going to kill their back or be something they could carry 4 of.  I am a good mover.  I’m skilled, well practiced. I also don’t hold on to random crap. I purge. I love getting rid of boatloads of stuff. Goodwill loves me. (or hates me).

Everything I just said is the exact opposite of The Boyfriend and the exact opposite of every move we have made as a couple.  Currently our living room is a giant stack of crap with no end.  I can’t cook or do dishes because every surface in the kitchen is taken up with MORE CRAP.

The best part is my d-bag of a landlord is going to end up charging us for the last 4 months of our lease no matter what so we get to rent two places during this whole mess too!

YAY! GOOD PLANNING! I’M NOT STRESSED AT ALL.

Christmas, ya’ll, sucked.  Yes, I’ll say it. IT SUCKED.  Not only was it like WWIII around the FTHW Family, I ended up mostly being sick most of the time and now The Boyfriend is starting to come down with something and I’m staying so far away from him because, well, homie don’t play that.  Here’s the thing, while I do LOVE to bake treats that are fatty and horrible for you, in general, I eat pretty well.  A lot of veggies, a fair amount of fruits, whole wheat everything.  I do my best.  Christmas was basically one meal after another that was full of more fat that I eat in a year.  Not that MOST of these meals weren’t delicious, but I’m just not equipped to handle such meals anymore.

Let’s discuss these in depth.  It all started December 23rd when I had to make an appearance at a show featuring a band The Boyfriend made a record with (shameless plug, www.rocketheartrecords.com) I hope too many people don’t click that because I have always been the leader in website hits between The Boyfriend and I and I would like to keep it that way.  Anyway, the show was great, the bands were great, I was exhausted.  Turns out I’m  not as hip and awesome as I was in high school when I sold merch for bands and would rock out until 3am.  I was tired. SO TIRED.

Plus, I woke up at 8am the next morning.  Yes. The girl who usually gets 8-10 hours of sleep per night got about…4 1/2.  NOT OKAY.  I was exhausted and had too many things I needed to get done.  Desserts to make for the multitude of family Christmases I would be attending for the 3 days following. NOT EXCITED.  So I get up, start moving, start baking, churn out some whoopie pies and a cheesecake from a recipe that I had never used before.  The cheesecake was, well, weird.  It poofed and smooshed and was weird.  In the future I will stick to my very own recipe for pumpkin cheesecake which is tried and true and awesome.  It was this day, the day when I was going crazy and baking so much on 4 1/2 hours of sleep that The Sister and The George decide, yes, this is the day to try to completely explode FTHW’s head.  That day I was yelled at for using the wrong wrapping paper, for not getting a present wrapped quickly enough, for wrapping something upstairs which was already in a box, for not allowing my niece to come downstairs while I wrap said present, for having a baking disaster, for baking things the sister doesn’t think she’ll like, for basically living.  I couldn’t take it anymore and had a complete meltdown.

Now, friends, you’ve read this blog, you may or may not know me in person, but FTHW+Stress+Tired = SO MANY OBSCENITIES.  At one point The Niece says “Uhhh…I’m going to go in the other room because Aunt FTHW is using too many bad words”

IT IS TRUE. I WAS SCREAMING THEM AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS BECAUSE REALLY, YA’LL, TODAY IS THE DAY TO YELL AT ME ABOUT WHAT A HORRIBLE BAKER I AM? REALLY?!

I FELT LIKE MY HERO RICHIE SEXSON.  I looked really hard for the video of Former Mariner Richie Sexson throwing his batting helmet at a Texas pitcher, but I couldn’t find it.  Basically, those Mariners like to fight, and I like to watch it.

Speaking of Seattle Teams:

I made these Seahawks vs Chiefs whoopie pies a few weeks ago or so when the Seahawks played the Chiefs, we will not discuss the outcome of that game.  Not that I care about football, but I refuse to believe that anything Kansas related would dominate anything Seattle related.

Anyway, back to my Christmas rant.  Because that’s what this post is about. ME HATING CHRISTMAS.  So, after all this work, I made this adorable stack of Red, Green, White, and plain whoopie pies wrapped them up and got them ready to go to The Aunt’s house for Christmas Dinner with the FTHW’s.  THEN! THEN! Something about a plate wrapped in plastic sat way away from all the other food for the evening looked like something that should be eaten, so they were picked at and messed with and eaten and just in general messed up before they even had a chance to go to Aunt FTHW’s.  So, here is an image of some different red and green whoopie pies I made once…In memory…

Unfortunately I did not make the non-pareil whoopie pies for Aunt FTHW’s house, just the out of focus red and green, and also some with white sugars and some with no sugars at all.  Trust me, they were adorable.   A little stale by the time the remainders got to Aunt FTHW’s, but all together, not awful.  I finally got the recipe down to exactly what we wanted the taste to be.  Which, I will share with you!

So, for the pies:

This is the recipe I used for the  Chocolate Gobs, The Other Side Aunt actually sent me this recipe a long time ago, I’ve decided this is the best recipe for the pies, tasty, just the right amount of chocolate flavor, and just in general, yummy.

Mix in order:

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup sour milk

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1/2 cup hot coffee

1 tsp vanilla

I like to pipe mine using a large circular Wilton tip in about 1 inch circles onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper,  you might need to smooth the tops a little, these are a little more solid and don’t flatten as easily.  If you slam the cookie sheet on the counter a few times it will also work, this is especially nice to do when your family has angered you over the holidays.  TRUST ME ON THIS ONE, INTERNET.  Bake it in a 350 degree oven about 8 minutes, if you lightly tap the top it will not indent when they are finished.  I like to leave mine just a tiny tiny bit under-done because they do tend to be a little dry.

AS FOR THE FILLING! I HAVE MADE UP A NEW FILLING RECIPE.  I have had a few disasters lately with my old tried and I thought true recipe, so here it goes:

2 c. powdered sugar

1 c. crisco

1/2 c. butter/margerine

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup marshmallow fluff

Beat together the first 4 ingredients on high.  Add the marshmallow fluff, beat on high until very fluffy.   I actually added the word “YUM!” to the end of my recipe, that’s how good it is.  It’s the only hand written recipe in my recipe box, scrawled across the back of my original filling recipe one day when I finally decided to conquer the whoopie pie for a second time.

In conclusion, I spent a few days hiding out at The Boyfriend’s parents house, where I got to prove to The Boyfriend yet again how awesome I am at Wheel of Fortune since The Boyfriend’s Mom got us the electronic Wheel game for Christmas! YESSSS.  I had previously stolen this version from my Grandpa when he wasn’t looking:

BUT NOW IT’S ALL ABOUT THIS VERSION, WHICH I PLAYED ALL THE WAY HOME AND DROVE THE BOYFRIEND INSANE!!

In conclusion, Internet, I need to go to the grocery store because I am going to bake cookies for the release of the Ultimate Fakebook Album Electric Kissing Parties which The Boyfriend helped to get pressed, so, in order to draw in some new cool friends, and NOT tweet creepy things about them like I did with Jim Suptic of The Get Up Kids, I am going to make some UFB cookies to woo them with.  Maybe, JUST MAYBE, I’ll remember to post them too. OH YES.

I want you guys to know YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVED THANKSGIVING BREAK.  That part where I baked and I hung out and I watched TV and I was lazy. OH BOY THAT RULED.  The parts where I drove a zillion miles, the parts where plans didn’t go as they were originally planned, the parts where I yelled at everyone…those parts weren’t that great. Basically, internet, I was supposed to spend Thanksgiving with my family and The Boyfriend got too busy with his family to remember my family and I almost missed it.  I had to get The Republi-Dad and The Sister to drive out and get me but all was well when I ate like 6 helpings of cranberry salad and wowed The George’s family with my baking skills.

Are you ready? ARE YOU READY TO BE WOWED?!

This was my Thanksgiving pie spread.  I made 2 apple pies and an apple custard tart.  I’ve showed you the tart on here before… HERE.  It turned out just as tasty as ever, even after it had to survive a couple of days in cars before it made its final destination.

That pie. OOH THAT PIE.  That apple pie has made The Boyfriend’s family stop hating me. They’ve finally accepted me into their hearts, but only if I bring along that apple pie.  I got fancy this year and made my very first pie crust (that has come out right) and my very first (EVER) lattice pie crust.  I thought I’d probably ruin things trying to get that thing laid out correctly, but it was surprisingly easy.  I did, however, use a recipe straight out of my gigantic collection of cookbooks and didn’t even begin to try to wing it. NOT EVEN A LITTLE.  Now, these pies were not nearly as tasty as my pies usually are because I did them as a double batch because I’m LAZY, but I’ll tell you what I do for a single pie so that you can be impressive.  I like to call this…

Caramel Apple Pie (with a crust straight from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens All-Time Favorite Pies)

Let’s start with the crust. This recipe is listed for a double crust pie, but I used it and made my lattice pie and didn’t really have any left over crust.

You will need:

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

4 Tbsp shortening (or lard…The Republi-Dad has offered up some lard from the pig he had slaughtered, so I’ll be using that next time, this time I used shortening)

6 Tbsp butter

6 – 7 Tbsp ice water

Here is my first very important bit of advice.

FREEZE

YOUR

FAT.

You hear me? FREEZE IT. Your pie crust will be tastier, flakier, and more awesome if you just freeze your fat. SO DON’T FORGET.  This is what my fat looks like:

That’s my fat. That’s my fat on top of the coffee that The Seattle Friend sent me away with when we moved.  Basically, she’s awesome and so is my fat. FAT FAT FAT. MY FAT! LET’S SEE HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN AMUSE YOU WITH TALK OF MY FAT.

Basically, you want everything to be so cold. So basically have the fat frozen and use a big ol’ bowl of ice and dump some water in there, you want that water to be super cold.

Because what’s cooler than bein’ cool?

ICE COLD!

I said!…nevermind…

Just trust me on this. It took me years and years of trying to get a pie crust to come out tasty and not nasty (also, The Repuli-Dad is an excellent critic and he even said the pie crust was good, this comes from the man who told me this weekend “uh, so I was looking at your senior pictures earlier and, man, you were pretty fat in high school!” to which I responded “uh, Republi-Dad, that’s after I lost 50 lbs. THANKS!”)

So, here’s how I do this, I put half my butter and half my flour/salt mixture into my cuisenart (but only because it’s too small to put all of it in) then pulse it until it looks chunky.  Don’t mix it too long, don’t let it look cornmeal-y like some recipes suggest, I have decided that is just TOO mixed, you want chunks of fat a little smaller than pea sized.

Once you have all that mixed, use a fork to mix in your water 1 Tbsp at a time.  you may not need all of that water, both crusts I made I did use 7Tbsp of the ice water, just check to see if your crust is sticking together, if it is, you don’t need any more water. TRUST ME. Then just split it into 2 balls of dough and roll them out to fit your pie pan, and later to make your lattice.

If you’re me you mixed your apple mixture up before so you did all of this quickly, if you’re not me, put your other crust mixture into the freezer until you’re ready for it.  You wouldn’t want to unfreeze that fat!

For your apples:

you need about 1 lb of apples, I used about a pound because I used a shallow pie shell, my family enjoyed that, you just look at your pie shell and decide how many will fill it up.  Peel, core, and slice those apples and throw them in a bowl.  That’s when the fun starts!!

on the stove melt a stick of butter with 1 cup of brown sugar. Let that do it’s work while you mess with the apples.

YUMMO.

So, I used a mixture of Jonagolds and Jonathans, I liked that mixture, not too bad. About the time I got ready to do all the work with the apples I discovered a mouse in our garage which put a little bit of a damper on my day.

HERE IS MY STORY WHICH GETS MY RECIPE ALL OFF TRACK BUT NEEDS TO BE TOLD:

So, when we moved into this place the Landlord’s son gave us the impression that WE MUST ACT QUICKLY OR WE WILL LOSE THIS HOUSE.  This was probably not the case because if I’ve learned one thing about this family, they are full of … bologna (that is the absolute nicest word I could come up with.  This is not at all close to the words I would like to use to describe the family we rent from.)  I call Landlord (who we now deal with instead of JR.) and tell him “Oh! HI! I am in your rental! The Boyfriend is out of town and I’m home alone and well, I discovered a mouse in our attached garage, could you come set some traps and get rid of him?”

his response? OH I WILL TELL YOU HIS RESPONSE.

“Uh, well, I lived in the other side of that duplex while we were building our house and we NEVER had any mice.”

“oh, well, we have one…”

his response?

“Well, you live so close ot the country that’s pretty typical”

TYPICAL!? TYPICAL?!#%@ YOU ALREADY SAID YOU LIVED IN THE OTHER HALF AND NEVER HAD A MOUSE, OBVIOUSLY THIS IS NOT TYPICAL OLD MAN MCGEE.

This is the same old man who seems to think it is okay for us to live in mold city and that we should just DEAL WITH THAT.  I think old man needs get ready for the meltdown that is FTHW when she’s stressed out. You hear me OLD MANLORD?! IT IS COMING.

I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL HE FINDS OUT THE THINGS I SAID TO OUR OLD LANDLORD, RON PAUL, THINGS LIKE

“IF YOU WANT TO BE A SLUMLORD THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM, DON’T DRAG US DOWN WITH YOU” and “SEE, THE THING IS, I DON’T TRUST YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE ALREADY STOLEN A $200 CLEANING DEPOSIT FROM US WHEN WE MOVED INTO UTTER FILTH.”

We also moved into filth in this place.  Apparently no one thinks that vacuuming is important, ever. Plus Old Manlord was all “THIS PLACE IS SO CLEAN!” and the fact is, the carpet is stained all over, the walls were NASTY and we discovered all sorts of fun things under the burners of the stove.  And among the things I don’t expect to be cleaned, we found like 25 cat toys under the fridge when we vacuumed the inches of cat hair off the fridge coils.  Old Manlord and JR are pretty much idiots anyway considering we asked if they would hook up the ice machine in the fridge and JR told us “uh, there is no water hookup for that!!” and a day later we pulled the fridge away from the wall and hooked up the ice machine with the CONVENIENTLY LOCATED WATER HOOKUPS RIGHT BEHIND THE FRIDGE WITH THE CONVENIENTLY LABELED WATER SHUT OFF VALVE IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM WHICH SAID “ICE MACHINE/FRIDGE.”  So really, we rent from morons.  MIDWESTERN MORONS no less.  The Republi-Dad is pretty convinced they’ve ignored the mold/water damage in the bathrooms so long that the wood behind the tub surround is probably rotten clear through.  I hope he’s right, because I think anyone who won’t help a sweet little 25 year old girl get rid of a mouse deserves the worst levels of hell, the levels in which you find that your house is full of rotten wood and mold!

Anyway! APPLES!

Use your favorite spices to spice up your apples, I happen to use

1 Tbsp of each of these:

cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg and SOMETIMES ginger.  Also throw about 2 Tbsp of sugar on top of those.  let it mix up all nice and throw it in your pie crust.  THEN you get to pour your butter/brown sugar mixture on top of those apples.

Weave your lattice top on there and flute the edges:

A while back The Boyfriend purchased me one of these great pie covers:

This thing makes me so much happier than all those times I tried to wrap foil over the crust, it was such a pain.  You can feel free to cover this thing in foil your you can feel free to purchase one of THESE BABIES from Amazon. And if you’re a prime member it even is available for free shipping.

Toss this thing in the preheated to 375 degree oven for 25 minutes.  You’ll notice I put mine on a foil covered cookie sheet to catch any dripping and there will be plenty, trust me. After 25 minutes take off your shield (or foil) and bake for an additional 25-30 minutes.  Just watch for it to become golden brown.  Mine took some extra time, about 35 minutes I think.

In closing, Old Manlord will not be getting an homemade pies in his mailbox any time soon, lattice pie crusts are not as hard as expected, and Thanksgiving was delightful.

Stay tuned for some new fangled whoopie pies. Totally worth it!

So, yesterday The Boyfriend mentions to me that it’s a month since I have posted anything.  That genuinely made me very sad.

Stop laughing, internet, I’m being serious here.

I MISS YOU, INTERNET. I KNOW YOU THINK I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE, IT’S JUST, JUST, I HAVE SO MANY LESSON PLANS TO WRITE AND I’M CURRENTLY TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD SINGLE-HANDEDLY AND I’M TRYING TO EARN BONUS POINTS ON SCHOLASTIC SO I CAN BUY AN IMAC.

So, if you want to like, pretend you’re in my classroom and order books from me, you just let me know. Har, Har, Har.

Anyway. So, while The Boyfriend is slaving away in the kitchen making dinner (Dude is making grilled cheese and canned soup, don’t get too excited.) I’m going to blog. About…well..nothing really. BLOGGING ABOUT NOTHING.  This is not the premise I started this blog on.  Pastries, food, deliciousness, I do miss you, so much. I make and eat mostly rice now-a-days. I’m just busy, okay? I WILL MAKE REAL BLOG POSTS THIS SUMMER. You know, just after I start my masters degree program and quit melting down completely from my first entire school year. You know, that’s when I’ll really blog, when I’m trying to go on lavish vacations on a teacher’s budget.

Biggest complaint about my new job? THE TRAIL OF TEARS COMMUTE TO SCHOOL EACH MORNING.  Who knew I’d hate driving 14 miles each way every morning and afternoon.  I guess that’s not even the half of it, the real problem is not the tractors that drive 3mph from house to school, or the people who seem to think the speed limit is 45, not 65.  No, no.

The real problem is the fact that it is a boring drive in which I often go into a daze for most of.  Let’s talk about today, today I found myself leaving the school, driving through the first small town … at 70mph. Oops!

Look, cops,  I’d probably feel worse about speeding ridiculously though your towns if you weren’t blazing through stop signs and tailgating the cars behind me that are actually going the speed limit. I DON’T KNOW, WHATEVER, COPS.

Plus. The cops around here don’t even wear uniforms or carry guns. No guns? WHO’S GOING TO LISTEN TO THEM?

HA!