Really? Seriously? Its Been One Of Those Days.

So the meal of the week began with an exhaustive search for a recipe for Saltah (salta). Any recipe! I try to use the most authentic recipes I can, but at this point I feel like I could post the recipe for Hamburger Helper and no one would even notice. Christine looked in her cook books (she has tons) and I searched the internet...trying to find one. Even the resources at the library were exhausted. Neither of us having any luck. How can a dish that inspires so many blogs and websites about its amazing taste...not yield any with a recipe. (I was lucky enough to find a picture of what it should look like.) Only two recipes were to be found on the internet and only one of these recipes involved meat as an ingredient. In my opinion if you are making a meat stew than MEAT should be listed under the ingredients list. So this narrowed my search down to a very cryptic and difficult recipe to make of it what I could!

On the way out the door to purchase my required ingredients I checked the mail and was intrigued by a letter from the Virginia DMV. The lovely state of VA has suspended my VA license. This is very interesting because I do not have a VA license and have not for almost three years now. I live in TN and have a TN license. So what's the deal? They are suspending the license that I do not have. In a state that I do not live in. For canceling the insurance on a car that I no longer own. The lady from the DMV was about as pleasant as you can expect from a DMV call center employee, but I am still left scratching my head. Well no fixing this problem today....

So I go out in search of ingredients. This I thought would be an easy task since none of the items were out of the ordinary. Well maybe the Fenugreek, but I knew Christine had some of that. Marc and I went to Kroger where we easily found the meat and onions needed. No leeks. So we head to Publix that always has them...No leeks. We go to another Publix to get the leeks and by this time it is 3:30. When you are serving dinner at 6pm this heightens the stress.
4pm: I have no Fenugreek and Cole had canceled because of a busted pipe problem that she and David had to go perform emergency plumbing on. So now I have to get wine too! Great! Plus I still have to drive to Christine's to get Fenugreek so that I can have dinner at least started by the time they arrive. Guess what...they are not home.

So I say "F*** IT! We are having Pot Roast!!"

I even got a nice BOX of wine to class it up! That's right a box. Honestly I can't get over the stigma of the box wine...even if it is a better way to store it. The wine of course was not great...but I have had worse...so I am ok with the box! The funniest part was when I had to open the box. Note the very confused look on my face!





So I made my pot roast which was onions, leeks, cream of onion soup and beef broth dumped in the pot with the meat...and cooked on 350' for 2 hours. Then potatoes were added and I cooked for another hour. Nothing special!

While this was cooking before Jason and Christine arrived we began watching a documentary that I rented from Netflix on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was pretty interesting, but some parts were odd and even quite comical. In the beginning the Tibetan people are doing a walking, kneeling, face on the ground and back up prayer chant while climbing a mountain. Screw the gym...do 100 of these prayer "workout" moves a day and there is no way you will ever have to go to the gym again. My question is..."if these people are doing this every year on New Years Day...then why can't they do it in sync with one another? Hell they got all of those prison guys doing Thriller...these people have been doing this their whole lives.

Anyway, back to the food. I am amazed at how this cooking project is not only growing but how it is becoming a weekly tradition that I along with Marc and my friends are looking forward to. Christine's yearly venture is to improve on her baking...so she has taken to making the National Desserts of these countries. (Let me say that she found a recipe for Honey Cakes a HELL of a lot faster!) Hopefully, she will start giving me the recipes to include along with the main course recipe. And Cole my former boss and good friend I believe is now hooked on the project and has decided that she will use her past bartending knowledge to attempt to make drinks that pair well. I told her just to bring the wine, but she's getting pretty into this. I have created monsters! And why wouldn't I? This is so fun! So move over Lady Gaga...my monsters are armed with aprons, flour, and some alcohol!

Christine was successful with the honey cakes, but they were a disappointing dessert for how much work they took. She spent two days making these pancakes, letting them rise and then baking them. The Honey Cake was pretty, but tasted like cornbread.


Then she pulled out this gadget that looked like a sex toy...or something you really do not want the doctor to use on you. It is called a drizzle stick. The name doesn't help much either...

Anyway, she heated up the butter and honey and drizzled it on the cake. So then it tasted like Cornbread with honey on top. Yemen was a HUGE ASS FAILURE!

I also wanted to include some pictures from the 2010 Blizzard (Cole called it that) and the pictures of the new furniture that so many of you have requested. Enjoy!



The Pups playing in the snow!









What a Sexy Man!!!







Playing fetch with mommy is serious business!









It's COLD!!!








Sadie says "Mommy there is snow on my nose!" and of course Beau's butt...you just can't take a picture without his booty in it.







ACTION SHOT!








The House and me jumping for joy in the front yard!








Back Porch View








The little tree couldn't hold the weight...Proud to report that it is now back up and doing fine.







Beau-dog looking outside and dreaming of hot summer days.








The new chairs!








The new couch. Now I just need some really cool curtains!








The living room.







Next week we will be venturing to Pakistan for Chicken Biryani.