A new toy and a drink and a bonus dessert

I have mention many times my love of gadgets for the kitchen. I don't have many gadgets for household stuff: cleaning tools, closet organizers, yard work helpers. No, my love of gadgets is centered solely of cooking and baking. I have toyed around with the idea of featuring posts based on a different gadget used to make the dish. I want to gather some more ideas and then get that done. I think it would be kind of fun. My latest purchase was something I have seen on TV for two or more years. Dude said we don't need it-and we don't. But has that ever stopped me before? I think not. I explained that it would just be the two of us soon and if I can save a little on the gas and electric bill when not doing a lot of cooking and baking, it would benefit to our checkbook. He so isn't falling for it.





Yes, I bought a Nuwave oven.



And I cooked our entire dinner in it. Baked potatoes, baked chicken breasts and cibatta bread. All the boys at work have dubbed it the "Easy Bake Oven" and ask what wattage light bulb it takes. Skeptics. Wait till they taste the dessert I'm making in it tomorrow. They will be eating crow. Or more specifically, lemon bars. You get the point. The second night I also made our entire dinner: oven roasted potatoes and rubbed pork loin roast.


When I made the upside down apple pie last week (I made another for Dude's parents this weekend when we went up to visit-they loved it too), I had about two cups of apples left. I made a free formed tart type pie for Drama Queen. I had the one extra pie crust left in the package, so all the good stuff that was left over went in it. Baked it about 30 minutes in the oven with the upside down pie. She ate the entire thing in two days.

I also found a picture of the POMtini I made with some the the POM juice I received from that fine company.

POMtini

1 bottle of POM juice

2 ounces good vodka

1 tsp of orange liquer

small squirt simple syrup (I make mine with equal amounts sugar to water)

Ice

Shake all ingredients in shaker. Use strainer top and pour into martini glass. I had nothing to garnish it with, so it looks a little plain. I tried to get a good shot of my new martini glasses, but they don't show up very well. I took a day and went to visit my Mom and we visited a really nice kitchen store that has the expensive brands (that I can't afford, but drool over) and I found these pretty glasses. Our Flirtini's will taste great next summer in them too!

We had a nice visit with Dude's parents this weekend. Just the two of us drove up and stayed over night. Joan made us a delicious meal of individual meat loaves with the ketchup glaze, twice baked potatoes (forgot how much I love those!) and some coleslaw. We rounded out the night with four games of Rummy 500. Howie and I are always a team and we lose to Dude and Joan 95 percent of the time, but we pulled out two wins on Friday! Howie is pretty matter of fact about his illness and it made me sad when he talked about things he is getting done now so Joan doesn't have to deal with it after he is gone and that he wants to give some gifts back to his 4 kids that they gave him in years past so he was sure they went back to the correct giver. He feels good so far, but has only been on the chemo pills for three days. He does 5 days of the pills then waits 2 weeks and goes back in for a check up. We will know more then. I just want to thank everyone for their kind words when I first posted he was ill. It sounds crazy-or maybe it doesn't to all of you, but it was easier putting it up here on my blog then telling people who know our family. Maybe it is because I can log on and read at my leisure, or maybe it is that while we don't know each other personally we know each other through our passion of food and there is an understanding here in cyberworld. Whatever it is, I'm thankful that I can log on and catch up on lives, loves and your food passions.

See you later in the week!

P.S. The cocktail recipe makes 2 drinks, I forget to write that with the recipe