The Holiday Curse

Let me share with you, all both of my dear readers. I have to tell you a secret. Well, two secrets, actually. The first one is that I really do not care for baking. Or cooking. There, I said it. I'll do it, but I can think of about 100 things that I would rather do.

The second secret is this: If you happen to know how to make something really yummy, do not let anyone know about it. Because if you do, you will be stuck making it for every holiday party/gathering/potluck/whatever for the rest of your life.

Since I had to make a couple five pumpkin rolls yesterday morning, and they didn't make themselves no matter how long I sat in front of the computer reading blogs, I thought I would at least try to make it a little more fun for myself by doing a pictorial recipe, P-Dub style. As it turns out, it's not easy to do this. You should probably have either a tripod for your camera, a friend over to take the pictures, or a third hand. I had none of these, so some of the pictures are a bit blurry.

Please forgive me. It will be worth it, I promise.

Now I'm going to show you how to make a pumpkin roll. And I blame the fact that I have to make these every holiday on my mother. She started it.


The cast of characters: Flour, granulated sugar, eggs, canned pumpkin, cinnamon, baking soda, cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, and a 20 oz bottle of liquid crack Diet Coke. The Diet Coke is not actually part of the recipe, but it was vital if I was going to make it through the morning.

Start by getting out your mixer. Thanks to my mother, I am fortunate enough to have a Kitchen Aid. Unfortunately, it's only a 4-quart bowl. You'll find out why this is unfortunate a bit later.

Dump 3/4 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, three eggs, and 2/3 cup canned pumpkin into the bowl.

Then add one teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Mix these ingredients together. I know what you're thinking. Most normal people would use the paddle attachment here, and not the whisk. I would too, except for the fact that my paddle attachment has been missing for a couple of years now. I have no idea where it went. One day, it just vanished.

Mix until this is a nice, yummy pumpkin color. It only takes a minute or so.

Then take a cookie sheet, and line it with tin foil. Make sure your piece of tin foil is big enough that you have overlap on the sides. This will be important later.

Spray the lined cookie sheet with Pam or other cooking spray. My mother used to just rub a stick of butter all over it. That works too, but I've found that the spray is more convenient, not to mention less calorie-laden. Because at this point, we care about calories, right?

Pour your lovely pumpkin mixture into the cookie sheet, and spread it out evenly with a spatula, covering the whole pan.

It will look something like this. Slide this into a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Yesterday, 13 minutes was just about perfect.

While your pumpkin mixture is baking, take a white linen baking cloth (I've also used clean kitchen towels before, don't tell, ok?) and sprinkle it generously with powdered sugar. I mean really...don't skimp here. There's no such thing as too much powdered sugar.

You can tell it's done because the edges will have started to pull away slightly from the pan, and they will be a nice golden brown. Don't mind the little hole in the middle there...that's where I stuck my finger to see if it was done. It will never show when we're finished.

Now this is the tricky part, and I could have taken a picture of this if I had a tripod, a friend, or a third hand. But I didn't. So grab both edges of the tin foil on either side of the pan, and lift your pumpkin bread out of the pan. You can do this when it's still very warm. Quickly flip the bread over and onto the sugar-coated baking cloth. Act surprised when you and your toaster are now covered with powdered sugar. Because you sprayed the tin foil with cooking spray, it should peel off quite easily.

Now, starting from the bottom edge, roll the bread up in the cloth like a jelly roll. Take your time and be gentle. We're going to let this sit rolled up for exactly 30 minutes. Don't ask why. All I can tell you is that I've tried less than 30 minutes, and I've tried longer, and neither one works out very well. Just trust me.

While our bread is rolled up and cooling, we're going to make the filling. Start with two 8 oz packages of cream cheese. The filling-making goes much easier if the cream cheese is soft.

Add one cup of powdered sugar.

Then two tablespoons of butter...

And a teaspoon of vanilla. If you are trying to make five pumpkin rolls in one morning, you may be tempted to double the recipe and make two batches of filling at once. While this might seem like a great idea, if you only have a 4-quart bowl, it is not a great idea.

This is why. I'll bet this never happens to Martha Stewart. Because she has the industrial Kitchen Aid mixer with the 6-quart bowl and the automatic lifter thing. Also, she's Martha Stewart. And I'm not.

If you make just one batch of filling at a time with your 4-quart bowl, it works much better. It also works better if you have the paddle attachment, instead of the whisk. Have I mentioned that my paddle thing went missing? If you want to know what to get me for Christmas...a replacement paddle would be great. For the mixer, I mean.

When the 30 minutes is up, unroll your pumpkin bread and spread the yummy cream cheese/powdered sugar mixture evenly all over it.

Then carefully roll it back up again, this time without the cloth. If you're lucky, the bread will not stick to the cloth, and it won't crack. But even if it does, the cream cheese makes a pretty good glue. It took some practice before I got to the point where my bread didn't burn, stick to the cloth, and rip in places. If you get it right the first time, more power to you. You can be Martha Stewart.

If you want the truth, this has taken me years to perfect. I'm a slow learner. And I don't like baking. When you're finished, your roll should look something like this. At this point, you should immediately cut a small piece off each end, just to make it look even and pretty. I only do this for aesthetic reasons. I certainly don't eat those ends that I've just cut off. No ma'am. Well, maybe just a little.

At this point, place your roll in a sheet of tin foil and wrap it up, placing it in the fridge for a couple of hours. They're much easier to cut when they've been chilled.

Hello, my precious.

For my office potluck, I sliced two rolls into about 3/4" pieces and brought them in that way. For Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law's, I just took the roll whole. Three of them. I am not allowed in their house unless I am bearing pumpkin rolls. That's how it's always been. On the bright side, that's the only part of Thanksgiving dinner I'm required to make.

Yum, yum, and more yum. Doesn't that look delicious? I brought these to my office yesterday, and the most frequent comment was, "Oh my gosh, these are awesome! You really made these?" Because apparently, I don't look like someone who can make...something. So here, pictorial proof, that yes, I actually do make these myself. But only when I'm forced to.

And when you're finished, I would recommend hiring a four-person cleaning crew to deal with the layer of powdered sugar that has taken up residence in your kitchen.

My Baby On the Beach

When I first saw this picture, I thought, "What is wrong with the left side of her hair over there?" Upon closer inspection, I realized that was a seagull behind her.

Doesn't she look like a California girl? How old are they before you stop calling them your "baby?"

Just Because...

The band is leaving tomorrow night for a trip to California, where they will be in a competition, and also get to go to Knott's Berry Farm and the beach.

So I'm putting these pictures up. The first one because I think it's a great picture, with the sunset in the background. I know, their makeup is a little scary close-up, but when you're in the stands and they're on the field, it doesn't really show. Which is why I DO NOT understand the mandatory false eyelashes. Seriously, you cannot see their stinking eyelashes from the stands.

That's Danni in the middle there, twirling her rifle and watching it come down so that she can catch it with a grace that always surprises me. Nothing says "rifles" so much as girls in toga outfits, no? I like the way that Danni's rifle and the girl's to her left are at the exact same angle. The girl on her right, not so much.

Have a great time, baby...bring me back some Huntington Beach sand.

Sunday Night Fun

Guess what I did Sunday night? It involved free wine, and a large crowd of people.

Hubby made a big sale on Friday, so we got free tickets to the Suns v. Pistons game.

But these weren't just any tickets...

These tickets were in a suite. So I got to see how the other half lives.

Luckily, we were the first ones to arrive at our particular suite, so I could take a few pictures without looking like a dork who's never been in a suite before.

Except that I'm a dork who's never been in a suite before. It was pretty cool. I like free wine.

The Suns warming up...

The Pistons warming up.

I guess the flag-wavers need to warm up too.

These two were in our suite. There were 12 of us all together. I thought this was a really sweet father/son bonding moment. This kid was really nice. I talked to him after Shaq got tossed out of the game in the second quarter. I said, "I think they're doing ok without him, right?"

The Suns were up by 20 points when the big man got tossed, and they won by about that same margain.

The little boy said, "I think they're playing better without him!"

I agreed. He was so cute.

If you click on this last picture to make it bigger, you might be able to make out a man sitting in the first row down on the floor. He's right in the middle of the picture, wearing a sweater vest and a yellow shirt. He has dark glasses hanging from the collar. That? Is Muhammad Ali. Cool, right? The announcer pointed out that he was there, and everyone gave him a standing O. It was nice.

I don't much care for basketball, but I'm glad we went. I mean, how often do you get to sit in a suite? If you're me, that would be never. Well, except for Sunday night. It was fun.

Also, I'll bet all two of you are thinking that since I didn't post about the football game on Saturday, that we lost. Wrong! We won, 29-25. And now, we get to play the team we've never beaten. This playoff game just happens to coincide with the band's trip to California, where they will be running all over Knott's Berry Farm while their football team is taking a beating. I bet they have more fun at the amusement park! I know I would.

Lesson Learned...And Football!

This is what I've learned from NaBloPoMo. It makes posting in my blog feel like a chore, rather than something I want to do. I've learned that while some people can post every day and make it interesting, I am not one of those people. So, I'm dropping out. See, I feel better already.

High school playoff game #1 tonight. We're playing the team we beat two weeks ago in overtime. I'll bet that won't be on the minds of the other team at all, right?

And then, if we win tonight, we get to play the team we've never beaten again. I think this might be a very short playoff season for the Wolves.

I'll be there rooting them on, anyway. Go Wolves!

A Bargain Dog

It occurred to me yesterday when I used the picture of our dog Bo in my last post, that I'd never properly introduced this member of our family.

This is Bo. We got him from the pound, and the pound people could only tell us that he'd been dropped off two days before, he was about a year old, and he was a pug/chihuahua mix.

Whenever I tell anyone that we have a dog that is a pug/chihuahua mix, I can see them trying to process in their head what the dog might look like, and I almost always get a remark ranging from "Ummm." to "Ehhh." As you can see though, he's a cute dog.

We paid $10 for him at the pound. This was $5 per day for boarding, since he'd been there two days. We got him in December of 1999, so we think he's about 10 years old.

Back in the day, we called dogs like these "mutts." Not a pure breed, but a mixture of two or more breeds. I think we got a bargain when we got him for $10.

A few years ago, we were at a puppy store at the mall. We saw, in one of the little windows, a dog called a "Chug", which was described as a chihuahua/pug mix. Suddenly, our little dog was no longer a mutt, but a Chug! He'd been vindicated! Validated!

I rushed home to tell him that he wasn't actually a mutt, like we'd always thought, but a Chug. I also told him that his relatives were being sold at the pet store for $1500.

He snorted, jumped up on the couch, laid down in the exact center of it, and went to sleep.

There are all kinds of these designer dogs now. What we used to call mutts are now coveted, expensive pets. The Chug is an interesting combo though, because the look of the dog can really differ, depending on which body parts are pug, and which are chihuahua. Bo got a chihuahua face, and a pug body, complete with a curly tail.

This guy has a more puggish look to him:

This little guy definitely has a more chihuahua look to him. In fact, on the website I stole the picture from, he was called a "pugwahwa." No, I'm not kidding. So I guess Bo can either be a Chug, or a Pugwahwa...depending on how he's feeling that day.

This little guy is a Labradoodle, or a labrador/poodle mix. I don't even want to know how they accomplished that one. They can also go for around $1500 in the pet store.

This is a Puggle, or a pug/beagle mix. Again, I think we used to call these mutts. Now they're called "pricey."

Here, we have the unfortunately named "Schnoodle." A cross between a poodle and a schnauzer, I'm guessing?

This guy is my favorite. This has got to be the cutest mutt ever. He a cross between a Bichon Frise and a ShihTzu. (Pronounced Shit-zu, in less sophisticated circles) He's called a Shichon. I have no idea how you would pronounce that, but I'm sure they'll tell you at the pet store, for about $2000.

So what I'm saying is that we got a righteous deal on our Chug. Pugwahwa. Mutt. Whatever he is, he is a great dog and a beloved member of our family.

This got me thinking though. When Steve and I first moved in together (yes, we lived in sin, I know you're shocked, get over it), I had a golden retriever named Majerle. For those of you not familiar with former Phoenix Suns player and total hottie, Dan Majerle, it's pronounced "Marley."

Majerle was a female golden retriever. Steve decided he wanted a dog too, so he went out and got a cute chocolate brown and white cocker spaniel. We named him Ziggy. Ziggy, Majerle...get it? Anyway.

Ziggy was a male. Since I was a stupid college kid and had never bothered to have my dog spayed, the inevitable happened after a while. Majerle ended up having five puppies. Four of them were black and white females, and looked like little cocker spaniels. The fifth one was a male, and he was all golden retriever.

Here's the part I regret. We gave these dogs away for free. For free, people! Do you know what I could get for a cocker spaniel/golden retriever mix now, in these days of the designer dog? I even thought of the perfect name: The Cockretriever.

Silliness

My hair is turning gray at an alarming rate. I have never colored my hair, other than an unfortunate incident with Sun-In during college, but I'm seriously considering it now.

You know it's getting bad when your six year-old goes to hug you, and then says,

"Mommy, ALL your hair is turning gray!"

I think that may be a slight exaggeration. It's not ALL gray. In fact, it's more brown than gray. But since she was so nice to point it out, I told her that all my gray hairs were named Kylie. Then I amended that, and decided that half of them were named Kylie, and the other half were named Shannon.

She said,

"What about Danni?", who was sitting on the couch three feet from me.

I said,

"Surprisingly, only a couple of them are named Danni."

Danni then gave Kylie her best smug "I am the favorite child" smile.

Let me point out that I do not play favorites among my children. Danni was only my favorite yesterday. This may change tomorrow, or even today after school. It's very situational. Shannon might even be my favorite again. Someday.

Then Kylie kept trying to get me to admit that some of my gray hairs were named Bo. Bo is our dog, and the only member of the family who has never given me a gray hair. Nevertheless, she kept on with her insistence that some of my gray hairs must be named Bo. I said,

"No, but there are also a few named DADDY!"

We all dissolved into giggles. We were having fun, and I realized that the cheerful mood in the house was most likely because Shannon was at the mall.

After husband went to pick Shannon up later, she came into the house and flopped on the couch, not missing a beat in her texting. Danni walked in the room, and I looked at her and said,

"A dark cloud descends upon the house."

Then we both busted out laughing.

Shannon was not amused.