Crock-Pot Jambalaya - Home Entry!

I’m going to pre-warn you that this is going to be a pretty piss poor entry this week. I’m saying that mostly because I almost didn’t have an entry for you at all this week due to pure unadulterated laziness. I was going to claim a sabbatical or something similar. Truth be told, I felt like being a homebody this weekend and a homebody I was, as I didn’t manage to make it a ½ mile from my house all weekend long. At the very last minute (read: Sunday afternoon) I got a bit of an inspiration (read: pulled from my ass) that lead me to this.

My inspiration came from two things really; which may or may not be related in this little head of mine. First off, it was Fat Tuesday last week (aka: Mardi Gras), which makes me miss the great food I had in my all too short trip to New Orleans back in 2002. Secondly the inspiration came from trying to convince Kevin Saturday night that maybe we should consider moving to New Orleans in a couple of years.

His response? “No.”

His reason? “Heat, Humidity and Hurricanes.”

Which beat my reason of, “you can drink booze in the streets.”

While my reason doesn’t really hold up real well to his reasons, it still doesn’t quench the desire to do it. Not to mention I have a couple of years to wear him down to the idea (Wah HA HA (evil laugh)).

SO YES! This does bring us down to the entry itself, which is Jambalaya via crock-pot (told you I was lazy!).

Here are the ingredients to make Jambalaya via crock-pot. The recipe also calls for shrimp but since I don’t eat anything that comes from the sea, it was omitted. Feel free to add as many of the poop-shoot crustaceans as your heart’s desire if you make this yourself.


No poop-shoot crustaceans needed.

First thing first was to cut up the chicken and sausage. Except for the sausage was fresh from the butcher so slicing wasn’t an option. For those who are vegetarians, please look at the below picture NOW. The rest of you…man, did the meat and fat and whatever else they shove in sausage just ooze out. Even I, who loves red meat more than I really should, had trouble stomaching the bloody red sausage boogers that were inside. I ended up throwing in the sausage whole with the thought that I would just cut them up later.



Hi Vegetarians! Welcome back.


Salmonella anyone?

Oh sorry vegetarians. Here’s another picture to get over the last one.



After the meat was cut up, in went the green pepper and onions. Yes, (to those who know me well) I also detest onions. Which is why I cut the onions so huge that there would be no problems whatsoever in picking them out. I also added the stewed tomatoes, white wine, chicken broth and spices.



After that….well, it was the crock pots turn.


Crock-pot in kitchen 2 PM

Since we have 5 hours to kill until the crock-pot is done, let me tell you about our crock-pot. Kevin and I got our crock-pot at Kohl’s last year for $25. I was excited to use the crock-pot so we went to the store right away and got some meat, potatoes, and carrots to make a pot roast. I hurried through cutting up all the veggies and meat and turned on my ‘crock’ for the very first time. I burned my fingers, as I didn’t know the outside got so freakin’ hot. I watched the ‘crock’ cook for at least 15 minutes thinking that maybe I had a magical crock-pot that actually cooked a 6-hour roast in 20 minutes. I was excited. I was thrilled. I was…really not in the mood for pot roast.

After cooking and smelling the pot roast for 6 hours it was time to eat it. Except I didn’t want to. In fact, I don’t think there was anything I would LEAST want to eat (except onions and things from the sea)(and maybe mushrooms and mustard)(and eggplant)(yes, I’m impossible). But I forced myself to eat my crock-pot pot roast. And I forced myself to eat it the next day too. After that, I put away the crock-pot in disgust and haven’t taken it back out again until…now.

…OH HEY! The jambalaya is done! Fast 5 hours, huh?


Crock-pot in kitchen 7 PM

A little rice and viola! Jambalaya!


It really does taste better than it looks.

The jambalaya turned out pretty good and it was a heck of a lot easier to do than the gumbo I tried making last year. Little word to the wise, if you do try crock-pot jambalaya, make sure to remove the food from the crock-pot when it’s done. We failed to do this and ended up with over-cooked mush for leftovers the next day; though at least the mush was better than the pot roast that I never wanted.

Sea World - San Diego, CA

Growing up in Wisconsin it was pretty common for a lot of families to go down to Florida over Spring Break. My family was no exception. Every other year we would pack up the minivan with cold sodas, tanning lotion and funny hats and take a two-day car trip down to Tampa, Florida. After a couple of days there we would then drive over to Sanibel Island for the rest of the week. Being as fascinated with palm trees and Miami Vice as I was, I loved our Florida trips more than anything. I didn’t even mind the drive down (and my little brother throwing up all over the place before we realized he has chronic motion sickness). I would sit in the very back row of the van listening to Duran Duran tapes on my boom box (with headphones) while I mouthed the words of ‘Rio’ and ‘Planet Earth’ for 1,273 miles. I honestly only had about 3-4 cassette tapes for the entire trip so it doesn’t phase me at all that I can still sing-along with the entire ‘Notorious’ album.

While we were in Tampa for the couple days at the beginning of the trip, we would always either go to Busch Gardens or Disney World, never Sea World.


"Why don't you ever come and see me?"

On the drive down to Sea World on Sunday, I called up my folks.

“Hey Mom, how come we never went to Sea World?”

“We’ve been to Sea World.”

“I haven’t been to Sea World.”

“Yes you have.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Oh, well, we probably went after you stopped going to Florida with us.”

“Why didn’t we ever go to Sea World though? Busch Gardens bites*.”

(snicker)”Oh yes! You poor unfortunate child who never got to go to Sea World!”

“I know! That’s what I’m saying!”

We got to Sea World San Diego at about 11 AM Sunday morning. By 11:45, we were actually parking. 45 minutes line-standing later, we were actually inside the park. Unfortunately, at that point we were really hungry, so we stood in yet another line for 20 minutes to get a crummy $7 sandwich. We were beginning to wonder if we had made a mistake coming here. This was only intensified after I lost my digital camera after an hour of walking around.

I am pleased to tell you that someone did turn in my camera and that the park got a lot more fun from there. The fun actually started at the dolphin show. We sat in the ‘Soak Zone’ but purchased $6 ponchos. Pretty freakin’ expensive for a piece of plastic but well worth it; the only thing that got wet were our sandals. The ponchos also came in handy for the Shamu show, the Atlantis ride, and as general warmth when it started to get cold later in the day.


Believe it or not...Not the gay-est man at Sea World.

"Weeeee!"

After the dolphin show we saw Shamu. Or the orca who is now claiming to be the original Shamu. We also pet the bat rays, feed the ducks, went through the aquariums, saw the 3-D movie and other amusement park related things. It was a really good time. 15 minutes before the park closed we rode the Atlantis log ride\roller coaster…twice. Does everyone know what a log ride is? My only reference to the log ride is from Six Flags Great America in Chicago. They have the log ride there…. and a boat ride. The only difference is that the one is shaped like a boat and the other a log. I always preferred the log ride to the boat ride. Maybe it was the whole looking like a big piece of crap floating along.

Orca formally known as 'Tim'. You can call him Shamu.

Anyhow, most people have been to Sea World before so I’m hesitant to describe it that much. I will however, mention the Platinum Passport.

On Thursday when I bought the tickets, I debated with myself for awhile whether or not I was going to get the regular $56.00 one day ticket (with free Fun Pass upgrade) or if I would just go balls out and get the Platinum Passport at $164. I ended up getting the Platinum Passport and it was awesome.

Bat Ray

Not only was parking free and the guest pass for Kevin was free, but we got a 20% discount on everything else in the park, including the gift shop and beer. Not only that but anytime there was a line for a ride or show, all we had to do was show the passport and we got to skip everyone in line and walk right in. There is some debate on the ethical nature of paying more to get line-jumping privileges. I believe I have complained about it myself when I wasn’t the one who got to line jump. But now that I’ve experienced it, I’m all for it. Just saying.

Hey, has anyone else realized how many boat\sea\water related things I’ve done for this blog? I need to go inland I think.

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*By the way, I don't actually think Busch Gardens bites. In fact, it's pretty neat. I just said that to be difficult.

YouTube! - Midweek Lame Entry

So I’m a little bit slow on the whole YouTube thing. YouTube has been around for two years and I’m just now getting around to setting up an account and figuring out how to transfer and edit my videos. Yes, I’m that lame. To celebrate my lameness, I’m posting the lamest video ever (outside of the hours upon hours of video of my cat which I took when my video camera was new and I had nothing better to film).

This was shot during my trip to Wisconsin last September. The video is of Andy’s Dogs. The video is aptly entitled ‘Andy’s Dogs’ with a very detailed description of ‘Andy’s Dogs’. (Tags: Andy, Dogs).

By the way, no one is more annoyed than me hearing myself say "who's here? who's here?" in a childish voice.

Enjoy!

Orchid Show - Costa Mesa, CA

Because of the rain that was supposed to fall on Saturday, I searched for an indoor thing to do this week. This posed a problem for me as I didn’t know of many indoor things to do that I haven’t done already (like movies, ice skating, munchkin tossing (they’re small), etc). Saturday morning I stepped outside to our patio and noticed the prettiest weed I’ve ever seen in my life. And I say ‘weed’ as it’s coming out from a crack in the pavement and I certainly didn’t plant it myself. It could be a flower for all I know, and if someone does in fact know, go ahead and email me.


Weed or plant? You decide.

Regardless, this weed\plant was the inspiration I needed to head to the Orchid show at the Orange County Fairgrounds.



I had believed that an Orchid show would be, obviously a bunch of orchids, but I also thought that there would be demonstrations. You know, like how to take care of an orchid or the history of orchids through time, or why the orchid is similar to a porn star but charges less-just…something. But no, it was just orchids. As I said to my friends after the fact, “It wasn’t really an orchid show so much as it was an orchid store.” A store that charges you $4.00 to walk in and look around that is.



I hadn’t made it past two booths before I was accosted by an orchid salesperson. Thinking that I wasn’t going to get much information looking at price tags, I picked his brain. I got to tell you, these people are really into their orchids.



Things that I have learned about orchids from the sales person who was really into orchids:

• Orchids are sensitive to cold and heat. Do not put your orchids in the freezer or oven if at all possible.
  
• Some orchids need to be watered everyday. If you go on vacation, make sure to book a second ticket for your orchid and the specialized greenhouse you have constructed from a plastic milk carton and scotch tape.
  
• Some orchids will only bloom once or twice a year. The rest of the year you will loathe your orchid for being so ugly and unwilling to ‘put out’.
  
• Different orchids have different history. Some samurai warriors liked orchids and would go on dangerous missions to collect them. We don’t hear about these samurais as they were killed while doing other dangerous missions like scrapbooking and basket weaving.
  
• The awesome looking orchids are actually hybrid orchids and are not as well respected as ‘natural’ orchids. This is similar to the ‘natural’ Ford Escort not respecting the Hybrid Toyota Prius while it’s cruising along at 80 mph in the carpool lane (with only one passenger!) while the Escort is stuck in traffic.
  
• If the weather is warm enough, you can water your orchid at night. The orchid will not mind having his feet wet when he goes to bed. You will try not to laugh when an orchid salesperson says ‘having his feet wet when he goes to bed’.

I felt a little guilty for not buying an orchid after all that. But man, talk about high maintenance!



After my little chat, I cruised around the rest of the show. That took approximately 15 minutes. I ended up leaving and headed over to the swap meet next door. Since I wasn’t working the swap meet, I was able to shop. I bought socks. Yep, one whole square mile of shopping bonanza and I got socks. And they weren’t even for me.



By the way, it never did rain on Saturday.

Whale Watching - Newport Beach, CA

Hello Hello. Welcome to the 2nd week of February 2007. February IS the shortest month but yet the hardest to spell. Am I the only one who always screws up February by spelling it Feburary? I tend to cheat with ‘Feb’ as much as humanly possible. Thank Gates or whomever for spell check (boy howdy).

But you didn’t come here for my ungodly spelling mishaps, did you? Well then, moving on…

As the title suggests, I went whale watching this weekend. I had planned on doing a whale watching outing as a new event since December (an easy to spell month if you ask me) but never got around to it. Mostly I had assumed (enter ass-you-me joke here) that the only port that did whale watching close to me was up in Long Beach near the Aquarium. Silly, silly me. A quick search of the Almighty All Knowing Orb (a.k.a. the internet) proved me quite wrong. There is not only one but TWO companies that do whale watching a mere ¾ of a mile from my place of residence. Huzzah Me!

Kevin and I ran into our friends, Andrea and Roland (and their wee child, Oliver), the night before and they were more than happy to accompany us on our outing. Little children love boats. And fish! Unless they don’t, like the children who for whatever reason cry when they see Santa. Weird, strange children. But not Oliver! No, Oliver likes boats and fish and fishing rods oddly enough. I didn’t ask him on his take of Santa.

Due to an oversight of time, we almost missed our whale watching boat. But thankfully the people at the Newport Landing were kind enough to hold the boat for 5 minutes while we got our party together even though they did scowl a bit about it.


Area code '949' if you're interested.

The trip was around 2 and a half hours total and cost $25 per person. They promised that if we did not see a whale, or at least a dolphin, they would refund our money. To ensure that this would not happen, they immediately took us to a location 2-3 miles out in the Pacific where the dolphins were happily playing.

And it was really cool.



I’m going to stop the story telling at this point to tell you a quick story that Roland told me. Again his sentiments reflect my own. So I quote (badly) Roland who said, “My parents went whale watching once and showed us the pictures. Basically it was, ‘Here is where the whale WAS’ and ‘Here is where the bird WAS’ and ‘Here was where dolphin WAS’.” This is very true. I’m tempted to upload the 15 pictures I got of “Dolphin was here” shots. But I won’t. You can thank me later.


Dolphin WAS here. Oh wait! There it is...kinda.

After the dolphins we moseyed on further south. We eventually saw the spout of a grey whale but never the picturesque scene of the whale tail sinking into the water. The most we got was a quick glimpse of a back or stomach or something grey-matterish and that popped out of the ocean for a half second. I’m happy with that. After stalking the whale for an hour, we headed back to the dock. Roland and Oliver braved the cold and sat on the bow of the ship for the journey. Andrea and I went inside the cabin where we made a verbal wager on who the men’s bathroom door was going to smack into next.



By the way, if you do go whale watching this time of year, remember that although it may be close to 80 degrees where you are (sorry Midwest!) the ocean is no place for sandals and shorts. Oh sure, you may be all comfortable on shore but at sea you’re going to freeze your ass off. Just saying.

For yet another boat related new thing, this was all right. The dolphins were excellent; the whale…not as exciting due to limited visibility but still cool, and the trip itself was fun. I wouldn’t be opposed to going again, especially if I had a guest in town.