It's 11 a.m. and my doorbell rang. Not expecting anyone, I was not dressed, so I quickly pulled on some clothes and went to the door. There was a young woman there holding a small bag with a beverage inside it. "Are you Matt? You ordered a drink?" she asked. After a few more words I know that it is for one of my neighbors and I point her to the right house.

I am blown away that someone would order for delivery a single beverage! Not part of a food order, but just a single beverage! There has to be fees associated with having it delivered and I'm willing to bet that those fees exceed the cost of the drink. That drink must be mighty good!

Last week on the day before garbage pickup, someone dropped a Christmas tree in my driveway. I don't know why someone would do that, all they had to do was to leave it in their own driveway and the garbage company would have taken it away. It would have been less effort than dragging it to a neighbor's driveway.
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Don't go food shopping when you're hungry. You know why. Well, the same applies to watching Youtube videos from a family candy making company. The other night I was watching them make their wonderful confectionary treats and a few clicks of the mouse later.................well, I'm waiting on the UPS truck to arrive with my bounty.

Just in case you haven't finished your Christmas shopping and are looking for something for that special someone in your life that seems to have everything. An 18k gold Zippo. It's appropriate even for the non smoker as it's a good conversation piece.

This is a fairly easy recipe. It calls for mini chocolate chips but feel free to experiment, I like to reduce the amount of chips and add in raisins. Chopped walnuts or pecans are also good. This recipe also works very well if you reduce the sugar. I always cut the sugar by one cup, using 1 1/2 cups.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups SUGAR
1 cup OIL (vegetable oil, nut oil, whatever you like to use)
3 EGGS
3 cups AP FLOUR (in the U.S. AP=All Purpose, outside the U.S. whatever kind of flour you would normally use in muffins or pie crusts)
2 tsp BAKING SODA
1 tsp CINNAMON
1 tsp NUTMEG
1/2 tsp SALT
1/4 tsp CLOVE
optional 1 tsp VANILLA
1 15 ounce can solid pack PUMPKIN (425 grams) (any hard winter squash can be used, like butternut)
1 cup MINI CHOCOLATE CHIPS (and/or raisins/nuts)

Procedure

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees with rack set at second lowest position. Grease and flour a Bundt pan.

In a bowl, add sugar, eggs and oil, mix well. (also add vanilla if using it)
Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and whisk to combine.
Add dry ingredients and pumpkin to the wet ingredients, about a third at a time mixing well, repeat until all the dry ingredients and pumpkin is added.
Add in chocolate chips, raisins or any other additions.

Let's Bake!

Put batter in prepared Bundt pan, place in oven and bake until a tester comes out clean, about 60 - 65 minutes.

After the cake is cool, you can either glaze it or dust it with powdered sugar (powdered sugar = confectioners or icing sugar)


The pic is a half recipe made in a 6 cup Bundt pan.

A simple explanation of the metric system.

This is a short, won't take a minute of your time.

One Pot, Three Ingredient Mac and Cheese.

If you can boil water, you can make this. What you need is 8 ounces (appr 226 grams) elbow macaroni, about 3 cups (appr 700 milliliters) milk and one cup of shredded cheese.

Bring the milk to a boil, add the macaroni, cook at a soft boil until it's tender to your liking, remove from heat and add the cheese, stir until the cheese is combined. Serve. Yeah, it's that easy.

When you're heating the milk, don't walk away from it, stir it a little, same thing when you're cooking the mac. You can add a little butter when your heating the milk if you want, but it's not necessary. Also, the exact amount of milk needed may vary a little, if you want it creamier then add more.

I can't believe she actually did it.

How many Big Macs can you eat in one sitting? How many do you care to eat? This guy ate 32. He forgot the fries though.

Due to a cold and wet Spring, I got my tomatoes started late this year. I'm usually knee deep in maters in the middle of August. This year, they are just starting to turn red. I've picked about 10 this past week. I have 4 plants.




This time next week I expect that I'll have more maters than I can shake a stick at. That is tomato heaven