I love using my slow cooker and I've been trying to use it a couple times a week to make dinner easier. Yesterday was BBQ beef brisket and it was delish!
Ingredients
1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
3 pounds beef brisket, trimmed of fat (unless you're lazy like me, then I just put it in fat side up and scrap it off when it's done cooking)
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring (dont have liquid smoke so I used more BBQ sauce)
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 cups barbeque sauce
Directions
1.Combine thyme, paprika, pepper, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne, and cumin in a small bowl; set aside. Rub brisket all over with liquid smoke, then rub with spice mixture.
2.Pour Worcestershire and barbeque sauces into a slow cooker; place beef on top. Cover, and cook on LOW 8 to 10 hours, until fork tender.
I cut the brisket in half and marinated it over night in the rub, a little BBQ sauce, and John's grandmother's homemade chili sauce. When I got home I could smell it cooking before I even opened the garage door.
This morning hasn't been that great. My allergies are kicking my butt so I didn't sleep well, I had to rush call a payment that was due two days ago that I asked John to pay but never got done (I dont know why I even asked him, if I wasn't around nothing would get paid) and when I tried to put some baked potato soup in the crock pot everything was going against me.
We had no milk for the soup so I grabbed a can of evaporated milk. When I started pouring it in (trying not to drop my cell phone in the pot while the lady on the other end had me repeat my account number for the 5th time) it was lumpy. "Oh crap!" I thought and looked at the expiration date. October of 2007, dang.
Looks like I'll be running to the store after work to get more milk, totally defeating the convince of the crock pot.
But I hope this brisket gets you in the mood for summer!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
roses
I'm not a fan of red roses, but when I spotted the perfect shade of red mini rose bush at Albertson's I had to pick it up.
It was back when we were living in the apartment and I really wanted some house plants. Even though people will tell you that mini roses can live indoors they really thrive and do better out.
I planted this little fellow in the backyard last April since it was looking so pitiful inside and it seems pretty happy now.
It's such a pretty shade of red and not one you really see on roses. It's a strong little bugger since it has to deal with Makoa on a daily bases. As you can see, one of the buds has been broken off.
Thrive and flourish little fella!
It was back when we were living in the apartment and I really wanted some house plants. Even though people will tell you that mini roses can live indoors they really thrive and do better out.
I planted this little fellow in the backyard last April since it was looking so pitiful inside and it seems pretty happy now.
It's such a pretty shade of red and not one you really see on roses. It's a strong little bugger since it has to deal with Makoa on a daily bases. As you can see, one of the buds has been broken off.
Thrive and flourish little fella!
Early morning marathon
Saturday mornings are made for sleeping in but I found myself waking up at 3 AM to drive John to Provo to run his half marathon.
Little Enna was being so cute, following me around and licking my foot when I stopped walking, so she had to tag along with us.
We picked up John's mom, stopped to get gas (not an easy task in Magna in the early morning hours) and headed off to Happy Valley.
John was dropped off at 4:30 AM to catch a bus to head up the canyon, my mother-in-law, Enna and I parked John's truck and tucked ourselves in for the long haul.
We chatted about everything and everything and then caught some Z's while we waited for 7:00 AM to roll around, John's estimated finish time.
We watched the first runner come in at a little after 7, he missed the final turn and someone had to go catch him :)
After a few more runners came by we headed out into the soggy weather to wait for John.
Enna thought it was great fun that everyone was running by her and would wag her tail at each participant. Her way of saying, "Your almost done! Keep it up!"
While waiting we talked of the beautiful cloud formations surrounding the mountains, I had to preserve the memory so I took a few shots. Nothing spectacular since I didn't want to run though the puddles to find a better location.
We also got a kick out of seeing who was practically dying and who looked like they were out for a leisurely stroll.
I'd like to say is was around 7:20 when John came into view, but I'm not sure since I didn't check a clock.
We shot some pictures and cheered him on.
We then headed off to the finish line to see him cross but he finished before we got there. I then stood around doing my normal thing when I have Enna (no she's not a puppy, yes she's full grown, yes she was a lot of money, no we dont have a miniature sled, blah blah blah) waiting for John to turn in his running chip and gather his stuff.
John finished the run in an hour and 52 minutes but they haven't posted where he placed in the race yet.
He did really well and now he's training for the full marathon on the 24th of July.
Little Enna was being so cute, following me around and licking my foot when I stopped walking, so she had to tag along with us.
We picked up John's mom, stopped to get gas (not an easy task in Magna in the early morning hours) and headed off to Happy Valley.
John was dropped off at 4:30 AM to catch a bus to head up the canyon, my mother-in-law, Enna and I parked John's truck and tucked ourselves in for the long haul.
We chatted about everything and everything and then caught some Z's while we waited for 7:00 AM to roll around, John's estimated finish time.
We watched the first runner come in at a little after 7, he missed the final turn and someone had to go catch him :)
After a few more runners came by we headed out into the soggy weather to wait for John.
Enna thought it was great fun that everyone was running by her and would wag her tail at each participant. Her way of saying, "Your almost done! Keep it up!"
While waiting we talked of the beautiful cloud formations surrounding the mountains, I had to preserve the memory so I took a few shots. Nothing spectacular since I didn't want to run though the puddles to find a better location.
We also got a kick out of seeing who was practically dying and who looked like they were out for a leisurely stroll.
I'd like to say is was around 7:20 when John came into view, but I'm not sure since I didn't check a clock.
We shot some pictures and cheered him on.
We then headed off to the finish line to see him cross but he finished before we got there. I then stood around doing my normal thing when I have Enna (no she's not a puppy, yes she's full grown, yes she was a lot of money, no we dont have a miniature sled, blah blah blah) waiting for John to turn in his running chip and gather his stuff.
John finished the run in an hour and 52 minutes but they haven't posted where he placed in the race yet.
He did really well and now he's training for the full marathon on the 24th of July.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
doors
So when John gets distracted lights aren't turned off and doors are shut, this is even worse when he's really wrapped up in a project.
Last night was the worst. We let the dogs downstairs with us since they usually just lie on the floor chewing their bones, but most of the other doors downstairs need to stay closed. My craft room has all of our furniture from the living room in it, the guest room (which really is hold-John's-crap room) is very full of saw dust and I dont want it tracked through the house and the storage room is where Sophi's litter box is and the dogs like to get in it.
John ran from room to room doing God only knows what and leaving every door open in his path meaning the dogs followed and/or chased the cat in after. Then I would herd everyone out (when I could find Sophi) and close the door again.
Then John went upstairs to turn off a breaker and next thing I know the dogs are chasing the cat around upstairs. I turn to John and say, "You didn't close the baby gate!" and his answer, "I wasn't the last one who went up there!"
Yes, yes he was. I hadn't gone upstairs since I came down to start working.
I think he's losing his memory because all cases where something wasn't shut his answer was, "I wasn't the last one...."
Last night was the worst. We let the dogs downstairs with us since they usually just lie on the floor chewing their bones, but most of the other doors downstairs need to stay closed. My craft room has all of our furniture from the living room in it, the guest room (which really is hold-John's-crap room) is very full of saw dust and I dont want it tracked through the house and the storage room is where Sophi's litter box is and the dogs like to get in it.
John ran from room to room doing God only knows what and leaving every door open in his path meaning the dogs followed and/or chased the cat in after. Then I would herd everyone out (when I could find Sophi) and close the door again.
Then John went upstairs to turn off a breaker and next thing I know the dogs are chasing the cat around upstairs. I turn to John and say, "You didn't close the baby gate!" and his answer, "I wasn't the last one who went up there!"
Yes, yes he was. I hadn't gone upstairs since I came down to start working.
I think he's losing his memory because all cases where something wasn't shut his answer was, "I wasn't the last one...."
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Flowers and such
Like I said, most of my flowers have bloomed and I have to say I think the bed looks pretty good for only being a year old! I like to walk the beds every day to see what's new and exciting, also to pull the occasional weed.
This bed is doing far better than the one on the left. I think it's because it was getting more water from the sprinkling system, but I should have fixed that. I bought this little sprinkling kit that hooks onto the hose faucet, a little unsightly but it gets the job done.
A few more flowers still need to bloom; the rest of my lilies, my dianthus and peacocks, my blanket flowers, cosmos and dahlias. But I do think the garden is looking nice, very cottagey in my opinion.
Here is my mini rose bush in the left bed. My family gave it to me for my last birthday and I love it. The last frosts sure got to it though so the leaves aren't looking that great, at least the flowers are intact.
I would like to take credit for this beautiful dahlia but I cant, it's one I bought last Friday for the left bed. Not a lot is blooming over there so I felt like it needed some cheering up. I hope my poppies bloom this year, they'll really liven the place up.
(yes those are forks you can see in the pictures. I had a huge cat problem last year and they killed a lot of my flowers, especially the left bed. So I'm trying everything in my power to get them to stop using my garden as a litter box)
Let me show you what I did last night:
That right there is 4 GFCI sockets hooked together *fist pumps air* That's pretty rad in my book and I'm very pleased with myself.
John loves to micro manage and usually I sit quietly and let him tell me how everything goes together even though I know what I'm doing. I couldn't hold my smile though once he started telling me how to know which way is up on the socket. He then promised he'll try really hard not to micro manage.
Want to see what John did last night? Well that's too bad because I'm not going to show you. It would look like he did more than me and maybe he did but I like to pretend that my work was harder and I dont want to distract from my awesomeness. So lets focus back on my 4 GFCIs shall we?
This bed is doing far better than the one on the left. I think it's because it was getting more water from the sprinkling system, but I should have fixed that. I bought this little sprinkling kit that hooks onto the hose faucet, a little unsightly but it gets the job done. A few more flowers still need to bloom; the rest of my lilies, my dianthus and peacocks, my blanket flowers, cosmos and dahlias. But I do think the garden is looking nice, very cottagey in my opinion.
Here is my mini rose bush in the left bed. My family gave it to me for my last birthday and I love it. The last frosts sure got to it though so the leaves aren't looking that great, at least the flowers are intact. 
I would like to take credit for this beautiful dahlia but I cant, it's one I bought last Friday for the left bed. Not a lot is blooming over there so I felt like it needed some cheering up. I hope my poppies bloom this year, they'll really liven the place up.(yes those are forks you can see in the pictures. I had a huge cat problem last year and they killed a lot of my flowers, especially the left bed. So I'm trying everything in my power to get them to stop using my garden as a litter box)
Let me show you what I did last night:
That right there is 4 GFCI sockets hooked together *fist pumps air* That's pretty rad in my book and I'm very pleased with myself.
John loves to micro manage and usually I sit quietly and let him tell me how everything goes together even though I know what I'm doing. I couldn't hold my smile though once he started telling me how to know which way is up on the socket. He then promised he'll try really hard not to micro manage.
Want to see what John did last night? Well that's too bad because I'm not going to show you. It would look like he did more than me and maybe he did but I like to pretend that my work was harder and I dont want to distract from my awesomeness. So lets focus back on my 4 GFCIs shall we?
Monday, June 7, 2010
busy hot weekend, epic journey part 2
This weekend was busy with projects.
First off my sister graduated from high school on Friday (Congratulations!) so we attended that and went to lunch with the fam after.
I bought some gorgeous flowers that evening for the backyard and a couple for the front. It was a nice night to plant and I really enjoyed my time in the dirt. Most of my flowers are bloomed so I'll have to put some pictures up.
No basement work was done Friday night since John had to replace the swamp cooler's water line that the dogs destroyed or else we might have died of heat stroke.
Saturday morning I let the dogs out in the backyard and an hour later I checked on them. Makoa had chewed up the water line again (thrilling John to pieces) and had started on the TV cable line.
We had to find a cure for this behavior since we cant be out supervising the dogs the whole time and they're spending more and more time in the backyard alone while we do work in the basement.
Our solution, Chicken wire. It looks appalling but so far seems to be doing it's job. Makoa hasn't tried to chew anything it's wrapped around yet, well see if it'll hold.
We also took the day off from the basement and went to see Robin Hood. Good movie, Russel Crowe is dreamy.
I'm not sure how John can talk me into these things, he makes these points and at the time I think, "Wow! That's brilliant!" and let him do whatever he wants.
So now our whole basement ceiling is gone, I'm still not sure why...
John decided that he wanted to rearrange the furniture in the basement so the cable line had to be moved so the ceiling had to come out. I know I'm baffled too.
So now my family room resembles how it did when we first moved in minus all the crap shoved to one side of the room and the scattering of dog toys.
On the plus side we can get all new lighting now. :) bad side is we have to look at unfinished sheetrock for who knows how long.
So if you need ideas for my birthday coming up, you can ease our suffering by buying a gift card to Lowe's (while there say it's for the Voshell's, they'll know who we are ;)) or a gift card to Best Buy. Yes I just advertised my birthday on my blog, but can you blame me?
John tore down the ceiling Sunday while I hauled the sheetrock out to his truck. It was hot, sweaty, dusty, stinky work.
Then came the hard stuff that I couldn't really help with without being in the way.
We want the fish tank on it's own breaker because it will use up SOOO much electricity and we dont want to trip the breaker every time I vacuum. We had an empty 30 amp breaker so John changed it to two 20 amps. That was the easy part. To get the "fish" wire to the breaker box he had to take the breaker box out of the wall meaning that all power had to be cut and all wires had to be taken out. Getting the wire the the breaker box was the easy part, John fished it up the wall and I grabbed the end when it finally poked through. Putting the breaker box back into the wall was the hard part. It took John an hour and a half. Since I didn't have anything to do (couldn't help John, lap top had died, power was off so couldn't make dinner) I sat outside with the dogs and ate popsicles.
We were without power for a good 3 working hours (more if you count the trips to Lowe's and the grocery store).
Finally when everything was back in place and the power was back on we ran the wire to the future fish tank's home and put in one double socket.
That's as far as we got this weekend. This week's goals is the get electrical all done, Reverse Osmosis filter in (another could-be-hard project) and cabinets installed.
Let's hope we can get it all done since this weekend John will be incapacitated since he's running is half marathon Saturday morning. Cross your fingers for us!
On a side note I apologize for everything I write turning into a novel.
First off my sister graduated from high school on Friday (Congratulations!) so we attended that and went to lunch with the fam after.
I bought some gorgeous flowers that evening for the backyard and a couple for the front. It was a nice night to plant and I really enjoyed my time in the dirt. Most of my flowers are bloomed so I'll have to put some pictures up.
No basement work was done Friday night since John had to replace the swamp cooler's water line that the dogs destroyed or else we might have died of heat stroke.
Saturday morning I let the dogs out in the backyard and an hour later I checked on them. Makoa had chewed up the water line again (thrilling John to pieces) and had started on the TV cable line.
We had to find a cure for this behavior since we cant be out supervising the dogs the whole time and they're spending more and more time in the backyard alone while we do work in the basement.
Our solution, Chicken wire. It looks appalling but so far seems to be doing it's job. Makoa hasn't tried to chew anything it's wrapped around yet, well see if it'll hold.
We also took the day off from the basement and went to see Robin Hood. Good movie, Russel Crowe is dreamy.
I'm not sure how John can talk me into these things, he makes these points and at the time I think, "Wow! That's brilliant!" and let him do whatever he wants.
So now our whole basement ceiling is gone, I'm still not sure why...
John decided that he wanted to rearrange the furniture in the basement so the cable line had to be moved so the ceiling had to come out. I know I'm baffled too.
So now my family room resembles how it did when we first moved in minus all the crap shoved to one side of the room and the scattering of dog toys.
On the plus side we can get all new lighting now. :) bad side is we have to look at unfinished sheetrock for who knows how long.
So if you need ideas for my birthday coming up, you can ease our suffering by buying a gift card to Lowe's (while there say it's for the Voshell's, they'll know who we are ;)) or a gift card to Best Buy. Yes I just advertised my birthday on my blog, but can you blame me?
John tore down the ceiling Sunday while I hauled the sheetrock out to his truck. It was hot, sweaty, dusty, stinky work.
Then came the hard stuff that I couldn't really help with without being in the way.
We want the fish tank on it's own breaker because it will use up SOOO much electricity and we dont want to trip the breaker every time I vacuum. We had an empty 30 amp breaker so John changed it to two 20 amps. That was the easy part. To get the "fish" wire to the breaker box he had to take the breaker box out of the wall meaning that all power had to be cut and all wires had to be taken out. Getting the wire the the breaker box was the easy part, John fished it up the wall and I grabbed the end when it finally poked through. Putting the breaker box back into the wall was the hard part. It took John an hour and a half. Since I didn't have anything to do (couldn't help John, lap top had died, power was off so couldn't make dinner) I sat outside with the dogs and ate popsicles.
We were without power for a good 3 working hours (more if you count the trips to Lowe's and the grocery store).
Finally when everything was back in place and the power was back on we ran the wire to the future fish tank's home and put in one double socket.
That's as far as we got this weekend. This week's goals is the get electrical all done, Reverse Osmosis filter in (another could-be-hard project) and cabinets installed.
Let's hope we can get it all done since this weekend John will be incapacitated since he's running is half marathon Saturday morning. Cross your fingers for us!
On a side note I apologize for everything I write turning into a novel.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Mold seems to follow me
I was starving to death so I bought some donuts out of the vending machine. I happily popped one into my mouth and instantely thought, "Why does this taste like a nail salon?" ironically I looked at the package at the same time this thought came into my head and read, "New package, same great taste!" and was like, "LIES!"
I was really hungry so I was like, "oh well" and popped in another one. It still tasted awful.
Then I opened the package fully and almost passed out. White mold covered the rest of my donuts. I shreiked. Even thinking about it right now makes me want to vomit.
I got my money back on the rancid donuts but if I get sick or die I'm going to be really upset. I dont think I can ever eat crumb donuts again...dang I really liked those.
Update: I'm 65.2% sure that I'm developing a fever...and when I burp it tastes like a nail salon again....oh poop I think I'm not going to make it!
I was really hungry so I was like, "oh well" and popped in another one. It still tasted awful.
Then I opened the package fully and almost passed out. White mold covered the rest of my donuts. I shreiked. Even thinking about it right now makes me want to vomit.
I got my money back on the rancid donuts but if I get sick or die I'm going to be really upset. I dont think I can ever eat crumb donuts again...dang I really liked those.
Update: I'm 65.2% sure that I'm developing a fever...and when I burp it tastes like a nail salon again....oh poop I think I'm not going to make it!
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