Tag: blog

Ranch Burgers and Grilled Zucchini

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Peter’s mom, Marilyn, has a bountiful vegetable garden every summer and this one is no exception. She brought us great and HUGE zucchinis and lots of grape tomatoes, my favorite.

Tomatoes are a no brainer, we eat them straight up, caprese salad, etc. But zucchini is always a toughie. Besides bread, I’m a little stumped. Feeling adventurous, I sliced the zucchini long ways into strips, about a quarter inch wide. Salt, pepper and a little fresh garlic and grilled them up. The result as delicious! The garlic gives them a little spiciness and they go great on the side of turkey ranch burgers.

Ranch burgers are not my invention, but rather those at Hidden Valley. I tried the suggested recipe and the result is great. It’s an easy and fast dinner that even the munchkins like – 1 packet of dry ranch dressing and 1 lb of ground turkey. Mix well, form patties (go bigger, they shrink when cooked) and grill ’em up. Double the recipe and have plenty for lunch the next day.

Also I’ve gotten a comment from a reader who I actually know and like (although his comment made me question our friendship) regarding the simplicity an often the use of ingredients that are pre-made (i.e. Lenten Deliciousness). This person questioned whether or not it should really count as a recipe when it is simple to make and my answer is this; when you have a toddler crawling up your leg, a sink full of dishes and a very small window before all hell breaks loose due to hunger and bed time, and you have to create a delicious and healthy meal, you call me and let me know if my “recipes” count as recipes. Ok?

Tonight I tackle cake pops for Baylor’s family birthday diner tomorrow night. Pictures and play by play to come. Hopefully they are great pictures and a happy story and not something along the lines of the Whopper Brownies.

The Good, The Bad and The Punishment

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I came home to find this yesterday:

The good news? Bear’s breath has never been fresher.

The bad news? I have no idea if this stuff will kill him. But since it was yesterday and he’s his bad/usual self, I think we’re in the clear.

The punishment? The EARS

“Whatever. You think you’re sooo funny. First this stupid haircut and now the freaking bunny ears. Laugh it up guys. Laugh. It. Up. Because I’m so peeing on the rug tonight.”

The Wine-o that I Know

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It seemed fitting that I imbibe a glass (or two) of wine while I write this post (p.s. it’s the evening when I’m writing. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m drinking wine out of a coffee cup, thankyouverymuch).

My mom and step dad left for Montana, their summer home away from home. They run a guest ranch (www.hubya.com) just outside of Yellowstone and it’s the time of year that I hate when they go back to start getting ready for the season. We visit around the 4th of July and meet my mom in San Diego in the late summer, but that’s it until October each year.

The good part about them going? They unload their refrigerator, pantry and most importantly their wine collection on us! I left my mom’s house the other day with not only office supplies for the family business we run, but a ridiculous amount of wine. Not to mention the delicious things they purchase at Costco and AJ’s are now happily waiting to be ingredients in our next meal. The wine consists of either labels they’ve bought and decided they didn’t like (never had that problem myself) or gifts of a vintage they don’t prefer. But despite their origin, they are all happily at home in our modest wine rack.

While the influx of fermented grapes is wonderful, there are a few down sides. The first is we now have a great excuse to pop the cork more nights a week. And while this makes the night very enjoyable, my productive projects that I schedule for after Baylie is asleep like ironing, blogging, mopping, etc, are shot. While wine fueled posts are generally funny, they usually prove to be too much work to edit the following morning. And wine fueled mopping is dicey at best.

The second problem is that  is that I think the cheap wine we usually buy is a little self conscious. Peter pointed out that one of the bottles from my mom was from 2002. It occured to me that I never pay as much attention to the date on the label as the number on the price tag.  Therefore the bottle(s) of Rex Goliah ($4.99) is feeling a bit inferior to the bottle of Monte’s Alpha (not a clue on the price since I shop the shelves from my waist down) that I’m quite certain cost at least four times that.

But! Not to worry my pretties. I will drink you all and enjoy you equally. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell you.

Adult ADD

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Sometimes I think I’m loosing my mind. Other times, I’m sure of it. But mostly I think I have too many things on my to do list and my brain can’t focus and or keep track of all the items. I am a big list maker, to the point of insanity, and yet all the lists (work and in general. House and kid. To do today and to do this week and to do this year. Grocery, mall, Lowes, Target. It’s a sickness) and a blinding number of hot pink post it notes are not enough. I get to a room and forget what I came for – or get distracted from the reason I went there in the first place and complete 6 other tasks before getting back to the original.  Here’s an example:

I put Baylie down for her nap and walk past her high chair on the way to the office. I remember that her high chair is scary dirty and in need of a bleach spray down and a hosing off outside. I head to the laundry room to get the spray and I’m immediately distracted by the mop soaking in bleach water (yes, I like bleach) and proceed to rinse it. Then I notice the washer is done so I flip the wash to the dryer and take what’s in the dryer out. I see it’s my reusable grocery bags and set out to return them to my car. On my way back from the garage, I notice my new strawberry plants are looking a little wilted so I stop and water them, the lettuce, roses, petunias and catch a few other plants as our sprinkler system is on the fritz and I have no idea if Angel the yard guy actually fixed it yet. I go back in side to text Angel to see what the verdict is and in the process, notice how dirty Baylor’s high chair is. So I head to the laundry room for some bleach spray….

And thus the vicious cycle continues until either the kid wakes up or I actually get to throw away a few post it notes. Blog? DONE!

Happy Anniversary!

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Yes, that’s right. It was 1 year ago today that The Goon Room was born. I was looking through the stats from the past year and thought I would revisit some of the highest hit posts from the past year and also my personal favorites.

The highest hits in one day was “It’s A Facebook Miracle!”. Not only funny, but something that everyone who has a slight obsession with Facebook can relate to.

My favorite kiddo posts are a mix of me whining about something Bay is or isn’t doing and those that are mushy because she’s so stinking cute – Kiddo Milestones and Daddy Did My Hair are two of the best.

The Rant category always gets  lot of comments and excitement mostly because I’m a snarky, awesome complainer. The best examples are the “ungrateful for” series, specifically 7  Things I’m Ungrateful For. Also I particularly hate tourists and annoying people.

I always get nice comments on my recipes, like the delicious meatballs featured in My Meatballs are Better Than Your Meatballs and the yummy sauce that complements the meatballs so well. However, there were some losers such as Whopper Brownies.

And a few random posts like What the Mary Poppins?! and Phones On A Plane are two of my favorites, well, just because they were fun to write.

So peruse the material from the past year and enjoy – there’s more where this came from. Thank you so much for reading!

What’s in Baylie’s Bag? – 2 Edition

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This is the second edition of “What’s in Baylie’s Bag?”. In case you missed the first, I am documenting  the crazy things that Ms.B likes to carry around with her in an edition posted each week.

This week, Bay chose the baby buggy that once belonged to her Aunt Ali and myself as her method of transportation of her treasure. The contents? Why Barbies, of course.

Contents:

Peter Rabbit themed Barbie

Bath Tub Barbie

Barbie brush

A bowl that once contained Goldfish crackers that were most likely stealthily eaten by Bear T. Dog – now containing a play food ice cream cone

A wiffle ball

The instructions to her Peg Play game which she opens and pretends to read by saying “read read read”. Also a few pegs and the strings from the game

The bathing suit and towel costume from her new and very much loved Build-A-Bear brand “Kat”. We can’t be normal and just build a bear, we build cats

UofA Wildcat puppet – BEARDOWN!!!

Search Me

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In anticipation of the one year anniversary of The Goon Room, I was looking over some of the blog’s stats. Top posts, highest number of visitors, etc. One stat that I find hilarious is tags searched. So what people are using to search for The Goon Room. And they are:

goon room, the goon room blog, the goon room, terrorist drink

Now, the first three make sense. But if you haven’t been a reader of The Goon Room for long, they you’re probably unfamiliar with the last one. Be sure and catch up on “If We Don’t Drink, the Terrorist Win“.

Mom Bloggin’

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Do you enjoy reading The Goon Room? Does it make you laugh, smile and help pass the boring hours at work? Can you relate, disagree or have you made one of the recipes I’ve posted? Then please rate The Goon Room on The Mom Blogs! Note the new link in the blog roll on the right —->

Link to new page on The Mom Blogs:

http://themomblogs.com/blogs/detail.php?link_id=11847

As always, thank you for reading. I enjoy writing and especially love writing The Goon Room and it’s huge that you all take the time to read and comment. I’ll remember you in the acknowledgments of my first book.

Dare to Dream?

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I had the most vivid and crazy dreams the other night. None of it made any sense, but at least they weren’t nightmares.

The bad part about them is they felt like work – I was dreaming about writing the blog and some funny idea that I had dreamt about. Yes dreamt about…in my dream I was dreaming. And the really weird part is that the in dream I was dreaming about, I was making a salad and how it was this brilliant recipe and the blog was going to be about how it came to me in a dream.

The interesting thing is that this blog was, in fact, a result of my dream. However, obviously the content is slightly different.

If only the work I do in my dreams was more productive….if I could sleep type or sleep mop, then I’d be on to something.