Author: almost_rosey

Finding the Silver Lining or at least a Silver Catfish

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About two weeks ago I had an allergic reaction to my migraine medicine. This was a sample med and I had never taken it before. Unfortunately, it had an ingredient in it that as an adult I have suddenly become allergic to when taken with a few other things. These items are: caffeine, the perfect timing between caffeine and said ingedient, and a mysterious third ingedient to be determined.

I took this medicine as I was supposed to go to work and I had a migraine. After about 20 minutes, my lips felt hot and tingly. This is the first sign of my allergic reactions. I went into the bathroom and they were starting to swell. I grabbed some anti-histamines, took them, and prayed. I prayed that they would do the trick so that my throat wouldn’t swell too much resulting in the use of my stab-me-pen (EpiPen). It worked well enough, but I spent the whole day on the couch with a puffy face and puffy lips constantly dosing myself with anti-histamines.

Finally at about 4:30 I decided that I should get some fresh air hoping it would make me feel better. Thus my fishing guide and I decided to go catfishing nearby as we are in a contest to catch the largest catfish. (It should be noted that I was supposed to work until at least 5PM so that the earliest I could have gotten home was 6PM. Therefore, going fishing this early would definitely not have been an option).

We got to the river at about 5PM and set ourselves up. At about 5:30, my fishing guide had a bite. He asked if I wanted it and I said it was his fish. He set the hook and asked again cause it was surely a cat (catfish). I said OK and started to reel in. It was my first catfish! We grabbed the measuring tape and it was 23×13 inches. Not too shabby!

cat1 It was a bit hard to hold this creature down and I was not about to stick my hand in its mouth like some people do. Only a few moments later did my line go off and I grabbed my rod and started to reel in again. This one was smaller (23×10.5in) but put up more of a fight which is always fun.

cat2 Both of these catfish were on the brown color scheme. I had never caught a catfish before this day and now I reeled in two and can definitely say one was all mine. Every other time before this when I would go catfishing I would catch carp, so I was ecstatic that I could finally put some entries in this contest.

About 30 minutes later, my line went off again. My rod almost went into the water before I could grab it. I did catch it and my line started taking off. I learned early to let it go a bit before you start fighting back but it almost took all my line off my spool completely! I started fighting it towards shore and it was a slow and tiring process. This fish would not give up. Finally I got it to shore and we, the fish and I, were both exhausted. This one was 27x15in! The biggest cat of the day and I was so proud to call myself “Queen of the Cats” for this day.

cat3 

This fish was more silver and blue in color and I thought it was beautiful. It should be noted that the contest is a catch and release contest, so all of these fish were released back into the river and swam away happily (well happy to get away). All three of these fish put me in 23rd place at the time for channel catfish. I was thrilled considering I had never caught one before this day.

This day started off horribly. Having an allergic reaction is horrible, especially one that affects your mouth and throat area. If I had not had this happen to me, however, I would not have caught these three fish as I would have been working and missed my window of opportunity (we didn’t catch any fish later in the evening).

Sometimes it is hard to see how anything good can come from something bad. Sometimes it is hard to find the silver lining. In this case though I did. I found the silver lining and it came in the form of a big silver catfish.

 

Love at First Sight

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Two years ago today I fell in love. I fell in love with sport shooting. It was love at first sight. Gun sights that is, and pulling the trigger sealed the deal. I remember the day vividly. Whenever something momentous happens it is easy to remember the date. In addition, this day (July 8th) just happens to be an old friend’s birthday so it was quite easy for me to remember when I fell in love with guns. To commemorate this anniversary of sorts, I decided to go shooting and shoot a new gun. Before I talk about today, let me reminisce about July 8th, 2011.

I have always been interested in guns and sport shooting. I just never had anyone to take me as I was growing up. Perhaps it was reading The Dark Tower series by Stephen King that started it all, “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” Whatever it was, I had a need that went unfulfilled until the day I went shooting.

Walking into a range for my first time I looked to the guidance of others for everything. What gun to shoot, how to hold the gun, how to stand, how to focus on the sights, and everything else involved. I ended up shooting a Glock 17 9mm for my first experience. I shot about 70 rounds of ammo that day. It took me about 60 to even hit the target I’m afraid to say. Once I hit it I was able to hit consistently, and I saved my first target to remember.

IMG_0438 Starting off with a 9mm may not have been the best choice, but holding the gun out, lining up the sight picture, focusing on my target, and pulling that trigger made me fall in love. If you have ever been shooting than you know the feeling. It is one of pure exhilaration, yet complete calmness. I become perfectly zen while shooting. Everything else fades away and there is nothing but me and my target. It’s almost a form of meditation since everything else disappears from your life as you focus on a single shot.

When I went back to the range the next time, I ended up shooting a .22 pistol and it was much easier to develop my shooting skills. I even ended up joining a league to keep me practicing and to see the improvement in my abilities. I did end up shooting 9mm again and I was much better after I got my technique down. Shooting is expensive though and finding the time is not always so easy. I hadn’t been to the range since December 2012. Which brings me to today.

IMG_0431  I realized that it was my shooting anniversary and there was no time like the present to get back into it. I decided to make a reservation to go shooting and to try a new gun. I also wanted to try a revolver since I had never shot one before. I went with a .38 special (Ruger LCR) and it was snappy to say the least. Many reviews claim that the recoil is felt less and it can be a “shoot all day” type of gun. I’m afraid I have to disagree. After 50 rounds I was ready to be done. Since I still had time left, I decided to try a larger caliber. I went with a 1911 .45 ACP (also from Ruger).

IMG_0432 This was a great gun to shoot. I loved it. The recoil was nothing like I expected from a larger caliber. I’m petite with small hands so I have always been scared to shoot larger guns. I’m definitely going to try some more 1911s and other types of larger caliber guns. I might even start shooting some shotguns or rifles in the future.

Today was a great day of shooting just like it was in 2011. I love going to the range and shooting my favorites. However, trying new things makes me remember how I fell in love two years ago. It was simply love at first sight.

 

Shrimp Bowls & Pea Soup

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I’m stubborn. Sometimes it is for the smallest and most stupid things and sometimes it means something more. Some people tell me it is due to my German heritage. Some say it is due to my upbringing. Maybe it is just a poor character trait. Whatever the reason I have had two standoffs.  One was for a shrimp bowl that I won (and rightfully so I might add), and the other was for some leftover pea soup that I needed to take care of but just could not bring myself to do it. Let’s start with the shrimp bowl. It was a few years back and as I write this I cannot remember how it even began. That is how stupid it was – no recollection of the real events that led up to it. Just a memory of me being stubborn but winning in the end.

The shrimp bowl was a bowl of shrimp in the fridge that ended up starting to smell since it had gotten pushed to the back of the fridge. Perhaps it was my suggestion to put it outside until garbage day. It ended up outside and there it sat for about 3 months. Yes, three whole months. It, the shrimp, ended up drying out and adhering to the bowl. I refused to take care of it as it was not my bowl of shrimp. Friends would stop by and ask about it. I would reply that it was a shrimp standoff. Why was I so adamant about not cleaning up this measly bowl of shrimp? I have no idea except for the fact that it wasn’t my responsibility and maybe I found some sort of amusement in seeing how long this would go on. It was cleaned up by the person responsible and I felt validated. Stubbornly validated.

Flash forward to this year. I made a batch of pea soup for a guy who hates peas but likes pea soup. This was also Easter weekend so there were plenty of other leftovers to be eaten as well. Needless to say only half of the soup got eaten, a week had passed, and it needed to be tossed. Before I knew it another week had passed and somehow it had become a month. I looked in the fridge and this leftover container (a giant pot really) had somehow got forgotten and pushed into fridge oblivion.

I knew this needed to be dealt with but I did not want to open this container to face the possible smell & to find out what the soup had morphed into. I tried to tell myself that I shouldn’t have to deal with it. I made it for someone else. He should deal with it. I did say that I would deal with it earlier so had already committed to it. Plus, he couldn’t deal with gross smells. This was my gross mess to deal with. I procrastinated since I figured I would just throw out the whole pot in the garbage and be done with it in one easy step. So I waited and finally took care of it today. Roughly three months later the pea soup is finally gone (thank goodness the pot managed to be saved).

What does any of this really mean? If people would just deal with the things that they didn’t want to deal with sooner than later, we could all move a little bit closer to where we want in life. It might just be having a clean & more spacious fridge, getting to use a pot again that had been out of commission for 3 months in fridge oblivion, or it might be finding a new job and doing something that makes you happier. As I’ve gotten older and possibly matured I have discovered that there is a difference between being stubborn and being opinionated. You can have opinions & values that you want to hold tight to and be a person of integrity, but when one is stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, nobody wins.

 

 

 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Sorry for the delay on all these baking posts but I did not even have a computer until my birthday. Now that I have one, I can publish my few old things that I had stored and move on to new projects. This one is on chocolate chip cookies.

Can you believe that in 28 years of my life I had never made chocolate chip cookies? I had never really made cookies except for around Christmas time as I got older. I’ve been making quite a few cookies lately since I got a Martha Stewart cookbook from a book sale. Side note, I love book sales.

Anywho, I had a request for chocolate chip cookies. I looked to Better Homes & Gardens and I looked to Martha Stewart for help. Their recipes were different of course so I decided to make them and see which would be my go to chocolate chip cookie.

One can look at the recipes to see the differences. The Better Homes recipe uses shortening which I think hinders it being moist or crisp, it was in-between. Martha’s cookie uses more butter and less brown sugar to produce a thin and crisp cookie.

The end result was quite pleasing. They both tasted delicious in different ways. The Better Homes cookie had that classic chocolate chip cookie taste. It wasn’t soft but wasn’t crisp.  It is a good recipe for a reason, but not good enough. The Martha cookie tasted more like brown sugar, more molasses like, even though it has less brown sugar. The Martha cookie won this contest for it tasted delicious right out of the oven, cooled and crisp, and even over the next week.

Better Homes and Gardens Recipe:

Prep: 25 minutes  Bake: 8 minutes per batch

Oven: 375F  Makes: about 60 cookies

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 12oz pkg (2 cups) semisweet chocolate pieces

1.5 cups chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. In a large mixing bowl beat shortening and butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, and baking soda. Beat until mixture is combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Stir in chocolate pieces and, if desired, nuts.

2. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375F oven for 8-10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Transfer to a cookie rack and let cool.

Martha Stewart Recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg, plus 1 large egg white

12oz semisweet chocolate chunks (about 2 cups)

1. Preheat the oven to 375F, with racks in the upper and lower thirds. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. Beat the butter and both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

2. Add the vanilla, whole egg, and egg white. Beat on low speed until well combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, about 1 minute.  Add flour mixture in two batches; mix until just combined. Mix in chocolate.

3. Shape 2 heaping tablespoons of dough at a time into balls and place about 1.5 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are golden brown, about 18 minutes. Transfer parchment and cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Betty on the right, Martha on the left. Size does not matter but taste does. Martha wins.

Better Homes on the left, Martha on the right. Size does not matter but taste does. Martha wins.

Reminiscing about River Fishing

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River fishing has been slow so far here because the river has been moving fast. The ice did not even melt until May and it has been raining almost non stop. I tried going in April and ended up catching more icebergs and freezing myself to death than anything else. Going in May did not improve the results. The river is moving. Impossible to catch catfish right now.

Did I mention that is what I am after? I joined this contest with a certain someone to catch the biggest catfish. It is called King of the Cats and it is a catch and release contest. Seeing as how I have never caught a catfish I though it would be fun to try. Which brings me to my point. Last year I went fishing for the first time in 20 years. I went to catch catfish and caught a giant carp. My first fish in 20 years.

We went on the river nearby. It was still. The way it should be when trying to river fish. You can cast out to where you want your line to go. You let your rod rest on a stick that god designed for catfishing and wait for it to bounce. Then you grab it and start the fight.

photo    I, however, caught a carp. I had no idea what to do which made it even better. I saw my rod wobble and I grabbed it and started reeling in. What was on the other end started swimming away. Me, being completely new to this, kept reeling in and tired myself out instead of letting it swim a bit and then reeling in. It’s kind of like a dance. Let it swim, reel in, let it swim, reel in, and so forth. Whatever you do, don’t let it swim towards the rocks or trees in the river because that is when you lose. I was running up and down the bank like a crazy woman so that this wouldn’t happen. I was begging for help saying that I was tired and couldn’t do it. Of course, a certain someone would not help me, but rather told me what to do. By the end of it I was tired, but still managed to perk up for my first fishing photo before I let the carp go back into the murky river.

photo

I will always remember that day of river fishing with my new rod and no experience. My love for fishing has only grown and I have discovered that I am quite the natural fisherwoman. I think it has to do with growing up in Minnesota and having a good guide.

Key Lime Pie

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Last summer was incredibly hot for what felt like forever. It was actually one of the hottest summers in history here in MN. Since I am in the mode of perfecting recipes I decided to do a more summery pie. I asked for input and the final verdict was key lime pie. Shoot. I really do not like this pie. I have never had a taste for it and I know that there are key lime snobs out there. However, once I set my mind to do something I do it.
To begin, I started searching the web for key lime recipes since I did not have my cook book handy. (I would have done this anyway to compare recipes). This immediately put me into a panic. There are tons of recipes for key lime pie out there and they are all slightly different. Some with more sweetened condensed milk than others, some with sour cream, some with eggs, some with food coloring. The basic components were the same but I have no idea what to do with this pie. Fruit pies are easy. I’ve done them for years. I can search recipes and pick one out and know what to do to tweak it to make it perfect or just not do it at all based on the componants, but key lime might be my death sentence.
I settled on two recipes. One from pioneer woman and one from allrecipes.com. They were drastically different. The pioneer woman used only one can sweetened condensed milk & egg yolks. She claimed you could use limes if you didn’t have key limes so I decided to try it with limes. The other recipe used two cans sweetened condensed milk and sour cream & I used the key limes for that one. Now when I was squeezing the limes for these recipes I didn’t know how they would taste. The key lime juice was like lime juice on steroids. It was so tart. I don’t know if it is because I live in MN and the key limes are not as fresh but the juice from the key limes compared to the limes might make a difference in the pies.
When it was all said and done. It was actually the allrecipes.com pie that one the contest. The pioneer woman key lime pie was delicious. It was very light and sweet and refreshing. The consistency just wasn’t what one wanted for a key lime pie. The other pie was more tart but not overwhelming. The extra sweetened condensed milk and sour cream was able to counteract the tart key lime juice. The texture of the pie was very nice as well.
I only had one key lime pie snob to test them out on, but he was the only one that mattered since it was his request.

The Perfect Poundcake

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Sometimes I like to give myself challenges or tasks in the baking world. I called this my first baking challenge: The Perfect Poundcake. I gave myself the weekend of July 21-22 2012 to complete it. It stemmed from the fact that I had made Ina Garten’s Honey Vanilla Poundcake and it was dry to my dismay although quite flavorful. I know that poundcake tends to be dry when most people make it, but I loved everything that came out of my Barefoot Contessa cookbook, so I decided that I would try to perfect a poundcake.

My plan was to modify Ina’s recipe & try a random recipe off the internet that looked interesting to me. For Ina’s recipe I thought about the dryness aspect. In some of my other bread recipes I use oil instead of butter. I know that this may be frowned upon in some baking circles, but it makes some breads incredibly moist. So I decided to replace half of the butter with oil. I didn’t want to lose the denseness from the butter but I thought that if oil worked in other recipes than maybe it would work here. Friends, it was a failure. Not only was it just as dry, but I had lost some flavor as well. The honey vanilla notes did not come through as strong.

On to the random recipe. This one was intruiguing to me. It used cream, where Ina had no liquid really to speak of, and it started in a cold oven and baked for a longer period of time. The poundcake didn’t look as pretty, but it was just as flavorful and oh so moist.

I know this wasn’t a very difficult baking challenge, but it made me feel successful & happy. Sometimes that is all you need. Also, I should thank those around me who ate lots of poundcake along the way as I was going towards my goal.

Sorry for the lack of recipes, but I don’t have the source from which the random one came so do not feel right publishing it without giving proper credit.