You know what sucks? Trying new recipes. I truly love moussaka. Could eat my weight in it. So when I found a recipe for it, I was all kinds of excited, and couldn’t wait to make it. My first indication it would be a mistake was when the recipe called for panko. After looking up what that is (it’s a flaky breadcrumb), I realized that it was going to be a problem finding a gluten-free version. Let me state for the record that crushed up rice chex is NOT a good substitute. Had no trouble getting it to stick to my fingers, but would not stick to the eggplant. Also, the total time for the recipe was 2 hours 40 minutes. I should have doubled that. As I told Petra when she asked why I was making that at 10pm, there is a reason I work in IT and not as a chef. The kicker? It wasn’t even good. After all that work, it just doesn’t taste that good, and not at all like any moussaka I’ve ever had. Epic fail. Yes, I am eating it anyway. I will say this though, the initial sauce (ground beef/lamb/bison, onion, garlic, oregano, crushed red pepper, red wine) smelled absolutely wonderful! I’m sure it was the garlic. I have developed an almost weird (or maybe full-on weird) craving for garlic. Anyway, will never attempt moussaka again. That was a waste of a Friday night.
Speaking of Friday night, I got a little something in my head Friday:
Petra got me & Molly with that on Facebook one morning. We probably deserved it, but still. Anyway, I popped it onto her Facebook wall Friday, and she kept refusing to watch it and claimed that she had it blocked from her head. Me being me, I saw her post that she was taking a nap, and proceeded to text “Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows” to her so she would see that as soon as she woke up. She claimed that didn’t work either so I decided that if I had to go into Sanford for any reason, I was going by her house and singing it to her. Normally, I would be pissed that I had to go get milk, but not that night. I headed right over to her house, and she was not kidding about having 1,000 cats. I rang the doorbell, and got covered in kittens. And no one came to the door. So I’m thinking they are either out back or otherwise can’t hear the doorbell because the door was open. So I texted her again to let her know I was on her front porch, and by this time, one of the kittens was parked on my lap like that was where it belonged. Jamie couldn’t take it anymore and had joined me, and decided she was taking one of the black kittens. An uncomfortable amount of time had passed by this time, and I had decided that there was something going on that wasn’t going to be interrupted, and we left once I made Jamie put the cat back. Petra didn’t get my text until about an hour later, and begged me to come back and get a cat. LOL
I volunteered to help man one of the rest stations for the CARA Ride for their Lives race Saturday morning. Naturally I was all kinds of tired after being up late the night before with the epic fail moussaka. But, I had prepared, and had my directions and stuff all printed out, and on the directions I hand wrote “Don’t forget chair.” The chair was on the front porch right by the steps ready for me to pick up and throw in the van on my way out. Yeah, that was a fail too. I forgot my chair. Thankfully, the gentleman from Performance Cycles brought 2, so I didn’t have to stand like a dummy the whole time. I did a lot of standing, but there was no other way to get around it while making 2.5 loaves worth of pb&j. I was on the first shift which ended at 11, but the last riders came through before Alex & I left the parking lot. LOL Oh, well.
I went to a mother-daughter tea party at church that afternoon with my daughter who didn’t want to be there. I think she was less than impressed with my top hat. Haha She wouldn’t let me continue to wear it in the van after we left and headed to Target. Hahaha
Target. That was a fun trip. To sum it up, the cashier asked me as she was ringing me up if I found everything ok. My answer? “I have no idea. I don’t remember what we came to get.” But we got a honey badger t-shirt…
Oh, yeah, the tea party? It was decided that the women would wear their hats to church for Mother’s Day. Yes, I totally wore a top hat to church. It think it inspired me to really belt out Sing Sing Sing. Hahahaha! I did almost crack up singing it because I could see movement from the youth out of the corner of my eye, and was sure they were doing the hand motions.
And because we had the white trash yard again because everyone around us had mowed, I started mowing shortly after we got home from church – and after I put the belt back on the blade pulleys. It was cutting like crap too. Not like dull blade crap, but no power crap. The belt came off again about halfway, and got up underneath one of the pulleys that has a cover over it. I couldn’t get the belt back up onto the pulley (wondering the whole time how it came off), and finally had to go get tools and take the cover over. When I swung back around, I stopped the blades, and just put the mower in park (still running) while I put the tools back on the porch. The hubbster said, “Oh, that’s bad,” and I turned to see smoke coming out from under the mower. The pulley had seized up even though the blades were disengaged, and was burning up. So, I was done with the riding mower at that point. There just wasn’t enough time to run to Lowe’s to get a new belt before the rain hit. So I proceeded to push mow. Pushing wasn’t near as bad as it used to be, and I can only assume that is because I am running now? Anyway, it was taking FOREVER, and finally the hubbster came over and said he couldn’t sit and watch me push mowing on Mother’s Day. So he finished the yard, while I did laundry – half of which is still in the dryer.

I’m really kind of amazed at the number of appliances we have. Yeah, that is mostly what’s in the pantry. Appliances, the big stock pot, dutch oven, & pressure cooker.







