Sunday, April 05, 2009

Uh OUCH!

I made a brisket yesterday. I read through the recipe (in "Fine Cooking" magazine)when I bought the meat, but apparently my reading comprehension was a little off. I saw the part about 2 1/2 hours, and the part about another 1 hour more, but I failed to notice the first 1 hour.So I started the brisket at 3:30 and then realized that this would mean eating at 8 o'clock.

Now, I can wait that long. I'm generally not that hungry in the evening. But my guys can not. Taylor said "We are going to have to eat 8 snacks to wait that long." So I suggested burgers. We'll eat the brisket today.

I know it's a waste of money to buy pre-formed burgers, but I do it anyway. I try to keep at least one packet of pre-formed patties in my deep freeze at all times. They come in handy in times like these. And having bread dough in the refrigerator all the time really has come in handy too. I pulled the brisket out, put it on the back of the stovetop, cranked the oven to 450 and baked off 4 burger buns. Lowered it back to 350 and put the brisket back in.

Taylor cooked the burgers. It's not optimal to cook meat from frozen but he made a mistake that caused them to come out perfectly. He lit the grill without opening the vents. By the time I notice that, the burgers had thawed nicely. I opened the vents and they finished cooking.

But this post is about the OUCH! When I went to pull the brisket from the oven, my carefully sealed foil lifted off the edge of the pan and I steamed two of my fingers. Left Index, Left Middle. And of course I was carrying the heavy pan from the oven to the island at the time so I had to just keep going. No dropping that pan.

There was SIGNIFICANT pain last night. I iced it for about 2 hours, took 400 then 400 more mg of Ibuprofen, and tossed down a sleeping pill at the same time. This morning I woke 10 hours later and the fingers don't hurt. But that middle finger has a terrible blister on it.

So I have no moral tale to tell you about this. Wait. I do.

1. Read the entire recipe a couple of times and maybe underline the cooking times before you start.
2. Always keep a backup meal in the freezer.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Bear is Moping

We finally have fixed his bark collar so that it is about 90% effective. We thought we'd fixed it before, but his barking has gotten worse with the nicer weather. Finally last night I told the guys that we needed to adjust things again. He was on my lap and went into a barking fit. I held him and pressed on the collar and he really yelped mid-bark.

"He needs to have some hair on his neck cut," I told them. "Someone that doesn't love him as much as me needs to do it. Maybe Dad."

I'm always teasing Mensa Boy about how he doesn't kiss the dog like the rest of us do.

Today I got a text while in yoga. "The bark collar is finally working!" Taylor said.

"Yay! what did you do?" I asked.

"Tightened it two notches and Dad shaved his chin like you said," he replied.

He's been pretty quiet now. A minute ago he ran to the door barking quietly when the ice cream truck came, but then cut himself off with a shriek.

Poor him. But good for us!