BIG BIG Kasa Kecky Weekend!

We got all that wood so now it's time to build the fence. But first let's start with the dinnah on Friday.

Seester has the Soprano's cookbook. So on Thursday, I was looking through it and found this recipe which translated from Italian to English "Pizzaman's Steak". Of course, I embellished the recipe. Here's what I did:

1 28 ounce can Italian Peeled Tomatoes, drained and chopped
1 15 ounce can fire roasted tomatoes, kinda drained
1/2 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves
Italian seasoning
4 steaks (I couldn't afford the Ribeys to I used Tri Tip)

Cook the steaks in a large skillet until browned on both sides. Salt and pepper them. Then remove them to a platter.

Add the onion and garlic to the pan. Saute for a couple of minutes then add the rest of the goodies.

Simmer it for about 20 minutes...oh, at this time I pour in all those juices that are sitting in in the platter of steaks.

Add the steaks back to the pan and cook until steaks are done.

Served with salad and steamed broccoli. NOM!

Okay, now for the fence. But wait...here's my addition to Kecky's Kurb Art:

I call this Stack-O-Melba-Toast:



These Grape Stakes we got last weekend are made from old-growth redwood. Look how nice the wood still is at the cut. Patina-Poppy has been brushing the wood with her foxtail brush; really brings out the rusticness of the wood.

Okay, so here's the progression of the fence. First we had to dig the holes. Okay, that was my job. Poppy was the brains behind the operation. I was the muscle.





Then cutting down the wood for the posts:



Jax-The-Unhappy-Cheese-Connesewer really hates this whole project...



She wouldn't get out of the truck for nothing...she wouldn't even eat her cookie. She's much better today.

Power-Saw-Poppy is still cutting wood:



Oh, it takes a lot of beer to build a fence...there are only 2.7 grams of carbohydrate in that beer, by the way!



Then came time to place the posts and fill the holes:





And now the fun part for Particular-Poppy; placing the rails. She's been out there for over an hour this morning making them just so...



All that's left to do now is get some bailing wire and secure all the connections.

Here's the finished fence and one happy Poppy!





Another project success at Kasa Kecky!

Have a great week!

We Likey The Porkie...

I will admit this pork looks a little rare, but that's mostly because I drizzled my balsamic reduction all over it. I don't know why, but Porcine-Poppy and I could not get over the taste of these chops. All I did was season with my chipotle salt and some pepper, then Poppy cooked them on the stove top. Then I drizzled that balsamic on and around the chop. I served it with mixed greens and the arugula from the garden. Really a very tasty meal.



Speaking of stove tops...The saga continues. I got a voicemail from the stupid home warranty company. I believe they are getting tired of us. I was given two choices: 1) they approved the safety valve for repair; or 2) we could take the cash value of the safety valve, which is $256 and take care of fixing it ourselves and be done.

Neither one of these choices sounded very good. While they did approve the repair, the valve would go back to A1 Stove Hospital in Inglewood. You might recall that was the place that lost it and then found it and it took over a month to get it back.

Anyway, after I got that message, I called Poppy and relayed the message. Poppy was very dissatisfied and I'm tired of dealing with it so she took over. About an hour later, I sent Perturbed-Poppy an email asking how things were going. She said she wasn't making any headway with them and that they won't budge. She proposed that we get a local company to fix it and they reimburse us for the costs. They don't like that idea cause it wouldn't be one of their approved inept vendors. They don't really care of the part gets fixed or not. They are content to keeping doing this over and over.

So, I'm about out of fight. I'm a slumped-over shell of my former conflict-loving-self. I think we should take the cash value and be done with them.

On the upside, in 2008 I purchased this jacket:



I bought it for our trip to Germany a few years back. I haven't worn it much since then until this Winter. It's been my go-to coat. It's like wearing a warm blanky. A few weeks back, Road-Trip-Poppy and I were on our way home from our Trione pick-up party weekend and the zipper broke on the jacket. I've tried to fix it but no luck. I don't think a seamstress can replace the zipper cause it's also embedded with that seam-seal stuff. So, I email Landsend and tell them my tale. The gal responds that they don't do repairs, but I can feel free to send the coat back for a refund. I'm like "What? Even if it's worn?" She said "Yep." Now that's the way to run a business. First Home Crappy Warranty Company could learn a thing or two from Landsend!

Have a great weekend...Split-Rail-Poppy and I are going to put together a fence.

Not exactly Kecky's Kurb Art, but art all the same...

I've been following my Co-Worker-Friend-Rob's blog for a while now. He is one talented photographer. This photo is one of my very favorites so far.



I will admit I know next to nothing about photography so it's all magic to me.

If you'd like to see more of Co-Worker-Friend-Rob's stuff, take a look:

http://gdzlla13.wordpress.com/

So there's a way to insert a URL into the blog, but it's not working so you'll need to block and copy the address to your browser, but you won't be disappointed.

Enjoy the rain!

It's the thrill of the hunt...

As you know, this is Roger-The-Escape-Cat. I can't really call her that anymore because since we moved, she goes outside regularly and poops in my garden. Don't worry, I've not fed you anything that had cat poop in it. Anyway, P-O'd-Poppy was home sick yesterday and sent me an email that our senior-aged cat had caught herself a mouse and brought the half-living little thing into the living room and promptly dropped it. It was able to escaped under the couch. Poppy tells me to stop at the store to get a mouse trap. No way I'm gonna do that!!

A while later, I get another email from Call-Of-The-Wild-Poppy saying that Mouser-Roger had caught the poor little thing again and proceeded to play with it until Terminator-Poppy could catch and put the little creature out of its misery.

Odd thing is that Poppy said that's the first time Mouser-Senior-Cat-Roger ever caught a mouse before...and it better be her last.

So later, I told Tamal-Poppy I was bringing her home a special appetizer given to me by Seester by way of Co-Worker-Brandon. It was he and his wife's home-made tamales. Here is Hunter-Poppy's response to my email about not eating anything cause I was bringing home a surprise appetizer... "I'm having a couple bites of beans and a beer that's all. Mouse hunting has made me hungry and thirsty!"

Mouser-Senior-Cat-Roger slept from the time I came home until she got up this morning. Mouse hunting makes her tired!

So, I've been in denial for a while about the oven. After the safety valve was replaced oh, more than a month ago, all worked great for a few days and then the flame started dying down, again. I kept pressing the button and that seem to work, but now there is no flame at all. Our home warranty is set to expire in May so figured I'd best get on it. I have no intention of renewing the stupid warranty either.

So I called and they sent out a different Russian vendor. Oddly enough looks like Dad.



He laid there for what seemed an eternity, shaking his head and finally shrugging his shoulders. Asked where we had the safety valve refurbished. I said "A1 Stove Hospital." He said "Need to send back." Noooooooooooooooo!

He'll need to file a report with the home warranty company and then set up a time to come take the valve. Meanwhile, I'll call the home warranty company and tell them we're done with this and it's time to pay for a new stove. Sucks!

This morning I planted tomatoes for Mi-Poppy. She's under some delusional impression we'll actually grow tomatoes. I think we got three tough little cherry tomatoes last year.



Wish me luck. I also pulled some arugula, kale and cabbage to make room for the tomatoes. I'm going to braise the bounty of my harvest for dinner.



For lunch today, I had breakfast tacos. So very tasty too!



Here's the beginning of our fence project. Just need to find the time to build it.



See the wood? We've got a truck full of it. It's going to be very cool once we're done!

Later.

Another Weekend Has Come And Gone...

It was a pretty busy one too. Started with Friday night with me picking up Dad for the weekend. From there, we met Becky at a neighborhood bar. Dad wasn't liking the noise factor there so off to The Pizza Place On Noriega. Again, noisy. Who knew that Dad would go from deaf to hearing like a freakin dog! But he loved the pizza so not a total loss.

Once home we put Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer's new scootering bomber jacket on to show Dad. She's not to fond of it, just yet anyways.



Saturday, got up made Dad his coffee so he could take his pills with his Fig Newtons. Then for our walk on the beach. Thinking about what I was going to do for lunch, I asked Dad if he liked tomato soup. He said he did, but likes it made with milk. That told me that he's thinking of Campbell's soup. I starting to think, how hard can it be to make my own cream of tomato soup, so I did:



Here's how I did it; I got a can of tomato sauce, a can of tomato puree and a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes. I had some beef broth so into that I put a carrot, onion and garlic. Cooked until soft and then with a little of that broth, put it my handy-dandy immersion blender and pureed that and added to the soup along with some pepper, celery salt and onion powder. Cooked it for a few and then added some Truvia and a bunch of cream. NOMMY!!

The rest of the day I prepped for taco night. Made some pico de guillo and ground the meat for the tacos:



Dad spent the rest of the day in the backyard napping in the sun.

Check out my cacti:



Sunday was the day we went to Monterey to pick up a truck-load of grape stakes. These will be used to make the split-rail fence in the front and back yards. Very exciting stuff. From there we went to Castroville to have lunch at the Central Texan BBQ. Just as good as we remembered.

Here is Porky-Poppy enjoying her rib and me demonstrating my two-fingered method of eating BBQ:





Guess that's about it...oh, here's a fun-fact: Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer is 21 inches long...



That's all I've got.

Have a great day!

TGIF and stuff...

I'm so looking forward to the weekend. I tell you, now that Friend-Family-Front-Desk-Laurie and I took over our new duties, come Friday, we're exhausted. I'm thinking we're too old for manual labor.

Let's talk about the noodle. As you know, Carb-Starved-Poppy and I have embraced our low-carb lifestyle, but sometimes, you just want some noodles. I went online looking for low-carb pasta and found these:



The Miracle Noodle is now branded and marketed. But in reality, the noodle (Shiritaki) has been around for hundreds of years and comes from Asia. You can also find them in any Asian grocery store. I bought a 6-pack of the Miracle noodle from Amazon. Figured it would be cheaper than getting them at the store. They come packed in water and have an odor of dead fish. You rinse them off and put them in boiling water for 1 minute.

Last night I made a raw beef Asian style soup with the Miracle Noodle. Darn tasty!

Pasta-Poppy wants to try them with spaghetti sauce, but I don't think they'll work.

This is a Dad weekend. So tonight we'll be going to the Pizza Place on Noriega. Tomorrow will be one of Dad's (and Poppy's) favorites, taco night.



Sunday, we're off to Monterey to pick up some old used Grape Stakes that we'll repurpose as a split-rail fence around the front yard. After that we'll head to this BBQ joint in Castroville. Yeah, Castroville which is the artichoke capital of the world. But better than that, Porkie-Poppy and I found a hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint when we were down there a few years back. We spent a whole afternoon there talking to the owner's son. Hope it's still good!

Enjoy your weekend!

Tails Of The Perfumed Ladies...

Last night was one of the best dining experiences Poppy and I have had yet! Some of you are familiar with Chris Cosentino from the Food Network but also his restaurant, Incanto. Last night was their 8th Annual Head to Tail dinner. Offal-Poppy and I have been dying to do this, so as a very early birthday present, we went.

The evening started out with me wanting to sit somewhere and have a nice glass of wine. We stopped in at Blush on Castro. We had a lovely Cava brut rose; then Poppy had a glass of house red and I had a glass of Pinotage. If you've not tasted a pinotage, I highly recommend you do. It's a NOMMY grape from South Africa.

Happy and relaxed, we headed to Incanto. My other big request was that we eat at the chef's counter. Not exactly a chef's counter, but close enough to the action. My wish was granted. Odoriferous-Poppy and I settled in to our seats at the coveted bar when the next thing Pepe-Le-Pew-Poppy and I smell are these two gals that sat right next to us. Perfume doesn't usually bother me, but it was as if these gals bathed in it. They both looked like something out of the big-hair 80's and smelled even worse. I can't even explain it. It reminded me of when my Mom would spray on a can of Aqua-Net on her hair and you'd walk by and you could taste it.

There's no way that we could stay sitting there with The-Perfumed-Ladies. I was crushed. Perturbed-Poppy went to see the hostess about changing our seats. The hostess totally understood because she smelled them too. So just as we were getting up to change seats, the sommelier tells us that The-Perfumed-Ladies are waiting to be seated at a table. Far out! We get our seats at the bar!!

I was having such a nice conversation with Tatiana sitting to my right and finally figured out she was Chef Chris' wife. It was so cute the way he served her and then would ask her opinion. Plus, we got to talk to him a little so I really enjoyed that.

Then a man came in; he must have been someone important cause they were making a fuss. We asked who he was and turns out it was author, Harold McGee. Not that I know who he is, but I hear he was on Colbert Report a while back. Basically, he's a food author and scientist. I asked Chris "Like Alton Brown?" Chris replies "Alton Brown learned everything he knows from Harold." Well, Harold gets seated right next to Pleased-As-Hawaiian-Punch-Poppy. They get to talking and I look over and he's having her taste his wine.

I tell you, it was magical...and then there was the food:

Our first course was the Venison Liver Crudo:



I had a little texture trouble with it at first, but then it got better. Our next course which I forgot to photo was Snouts & Snails. I told myself I would never eat snails, but I couldn't pass this up. They were good, albeit, chewy. The snout, however, was INFINITY NOM. Smokey porky goodness.

Up next was the Tripe with Wheat Grass and Hay pasta:



This was a winner! He made broth from the wheat grass and hay and then made pasta out of it. The tripe was very mild compared to what I've had in the past.

Then came the Lamb Kidney and Tongue with Asparagus:



The kidney was very tasty...kind of liver like. The tongue had that lamby flavor I've been craving for years. Way gamy and way good!

For the dessert it was called Bones:



Pastry with a bone marrow mascarpone filling and some kind of strawberry blood.

One of the things I like about the restaurant is the art work. This picture is above the bar. Take a look at the little dog. That's so Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer. That's her exact worried look.

Artsie-Fartsi-Jax:



Real-Jax:



Mmmm hmmm.

Now it was time to go home...by the time we gathered all our stuff, everyone was wishing me happy birthday. So cool!

Bye bye...