Safe Flight and New Sewing Room Cabinets

I have decided that I never want to fly again if I can't sit in the exit row. SO MUCH LEG ROOM!

Both flights were pretty uneventful. It was rather windy when we were landing in Minnesota so I was very thankful when we finally touched down. I think my guts might not have lasted too much longer without deciding to spew if it had gone on too much longer!

The past couple of days I've been awfully busy. We tore out an old awful ugly hearth from the family room in the basement and then my grandpa and I installed some awesome new cabinets for my mom.

Since the insides are almost as cool as the outsides, here are some shots of those as well.

The bottom row is full of nice deep drawers that pull out the entire way so that you can get to everything inside of them. The rails can be moved so you can adjust them however you need which is pretty nifty.

The upper row of cabinets is equipped with shelves.

The best part is the witch in the corner watching over everything.

Can you see her?

Next on the agenda is picking a paint color for the walls and getting knobs on the cabinet!

On My Way!

In a few short hours I will be squished into an aluminum tube hurtling through the skies towards Utah.

I'm planning on having a Dutch Goodie Giveaway (I had fun shopping for treats yesterday), so look for that in the next few days. And don't worry too much if you don't hear from me for a couple days, I'll be busy uncreaking my legs and overcoming jetlag!

Easy Meatloaf... in the Microwave?

Okay, I have to admit I was rather skeptical when my mom told me you could make meatloaf in the microwave. It's not that I didn't believe her that it would work, it's just that I didn't believe her that it would work very well. However, it does work, very well, and it's VERY tasty. If you have access to homemade catsup, use it because it will be even BETTER that way!

Loaf:
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
3/4 cup oatmeal
one medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup catsup
1/8 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 Tbsp horseradish
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper


Glaze:
1/2 cup catsup
1 Tbsp horseradish
3 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp prepared mustard


Combine all of the loaf ingredients. Mix together well. For the next part you have a few different options. You can use a microwave safe ring mold and pack the entire amount in there or you can form two loaves by hand and cook them on a glass plate. Or you can get completely wild like I did and separate the mixture in half, make one big loaf and two little loaves to freeze so your husband doesn't starve while you flee the country for a month.

Microwave at 70% (I have a 1000W oven, so this was 700W) for 15 minutes. Let sit for 15 minutes. While it's sitting, whisk together the glaze ingredients. After it's sat, spread the glaze over the top and microwave on high for another 3 minutes.

That's it. It's THAT simple! I froze the mini loaves that I made (already cooked) so that Martijn can just take one out to thaw before he goes to work and reheat it when he gets home. My mom said if you don't have horseradish that sweet-hot mustard works really well too!

Check out Tasty Tuesday @ it's new home- Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and Tempt my Tummy Tuesday @ Blessed with Grace for more yummy recipes.

That's NOT a photo!

I'm not sure if I should post this or not. It's a bit risqué, but it's so funny I can't help myself.

The basic gist is a couple moves into a new house. The man is sweaty and grubby so he says he's going to take a shower. While he's showering his wife is setting up the new mobile internet. He walks out while drying himself and the following conversation takes place-
Man: Funny picture of your mom!
Wife: *pause* That's not a picture.
Mother-in-Law: Hi, Martin.

I am not kidding, I've CRIED watching this commercial because it's so funny. Most of Martijn's and my communication for several years was via MSN/IRC and using the webcam, so this is a rather plausible scenario.

A Touch of Dutch has written several posts on the subject of the wild world of Dutch commercials.

I'm going to go giggle myself to sleep now.

Yah, it's more Pyrex- try to act surprised!

I'm such a Vintage Thingie Thursday slacker. I need to amass collections of awesome things to show you people every week, but since I am in a one bedroom European sized apartment (people living in refrigerator boxes under the freeway overpasses have more room than me) I need to keep it reasonable. I have found quite a lot of Arcopal (French Pyrexy things) and a few JAJ pieces but I decided to only buy the ones I really really love and leave the others for someone else.

After I posted my last VTT lamenting the fact that I needed to find more casserole size dishes, I managed to find about four the next week! Sticking to my "Do I really love this?" creedo, I only brought two home.

This is the oval casserole dish from the Fiesta series, manufactured in the late 60s.

The pattern name on this one is Kent and it's a rectangular casserole.

Check out more Vintage Thingie Thursday fun @ Coloradolady!

P.S. If you're here from clicking on the Mr Linky on coloradolady's blog, you might want to read my post yesterday about Snap Links!

Snap Links

It seems like a lot of blogs use Mr Linky to do their blog carnival link ups, and this is a good thing because you have a handy dandy list of links to click on instead of having to dig through comments and find links that way. It can, however, be a bit tedious to click on all 30-40 links (or 300 if you are talking about Works for me Wednesday's Mr Linky).

I have found a solution! It's called Snap Links. It allows you to open multiple links at once, and I loooove it. I even put off upgrading to Firefox 3 until they had a compatible version.

Snap Links only works on Firefox, which I'm sure all of you very smart clever people already use. If not, you can download it here. Then you can download and install Snap Links here. Once installed, all you have to do is right click (keep holding the button down) and drag the box until it selects the links you want to open.

Let go of the button and the links you've selected will pop up in new tabs.

Geez, I have a lotta bookmarks in my quick-link bar... but look at the opened tabs! Those are the links that were selected in the previous screen shot.

In addition to using it for Mr Linky posts, I also like to use it when I'm doing a random Google search and want to check out several of the hits at once. It's also good for "Link Roundup" posts. Maybe I'm just really lazy but I hate clicking and going back and forth between tabs and windows when I don't have to!

I don't recommend clicking on all 300 links at once because your computer will likely have an aneurysm and then you will be sad. 10-15 links seems to be a pretty good number, and it also breaks the list down into bite size pieces! After you've read your snapped links then you can go do something else for a little while, it's almost as good as a kitchen timer for allotting a certain amount of time to computer time.

So, Snap Links works for me! What works for you?

Ham and Cheese Pastry Thingies

I love puff pastry. I use it for Pot Pie crust, turnovers, and these babies:

I have given them the very descriptive name of Ham and Cheese Pastry Thingies. I am able to buy puff pastry in 15cm (around 6 inch) squares in the freezer section for a reasonable price, so that's what I use for these. I like to make these every now and then when Martijn and I are home on a weekend and are having an attack of the munchies. They're quick to put together and quite tasty!

This is tricky to really classify as a recipe because it's sooooo easy, but here goes!

For each "Thingie" you'll need 1 sheet of puff pastry, 1 tbsp shredded cheese, and one slice of ham that you've chopped into bits.

Spritz some baking spray into a muffin cup and lay a sheet of puff pastry over it. Press it into the muffin cup gently to make a little "pastry cup." Sprinkle the cheese and ham into the pastry and then bring all of the corners of the pastry together. Bake at 400 F (200 C) for 15-20 minutes or until the puff pastry has "puffed" and is a nice golden brown.

Really, you can put whatever filling you'd like into these! Some other ideas that I've had are broccoli and cheese, red bell pepper and cream cheese, turkey and swiss... the possibilities are endless!

Check out Tasty Tuesday @ it's new home- Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and Tempt my Tummy Tuesday @ Blessed with Grace for more yummy recipes and for more helpful kitchen tips see Kitchen Tip Tuesday @ tammysrecipes.com.