In the Kitchen with my Hubster

Warning: Lots of delicious food pics below. Remember to wipe the drool off your keyboard after viewing. ;)

Yummy Yorkshire Puddings

Buns for Sliders

Irish Soda Bread

Sliced Irish Soda Bread

Lemon Cornmeal Cake

Steak, Asparagus Risotto (YUM!) and Roasted Carrots

Sausage, Robiola, & Leek Pizza

Delicious Fish & Chips

Chips/French Fries :) Mmmm the best!

Fish

Spinach and Mozzarella Pizza

Another Sausage, Robiola & Leek Pizza
It kinda looks like a heart. :)

Chocolate Souffle

Creme Brulee

Pull Apart Rolls

Panna Cotta with blackberries and blackberry sauce

Fantail Rolls

These pics make it seem like we eat nothing but carbs. :)

The New Addition to our Garden

Meet "the Tumbler", our new composter!

Dan's really happy. He's been wanting one for a looong time. :)
Luckily, we found a great deal on one at Costco. I just love Costco!

Who knew it was going to take 2.5 hours to put it together?! No joke.

Beginning to assemble the tumbler.

What really sucked is that you have to drill the holes yourself. wth? I knew from that moment this was going to be a project.

Baby Dan seems to like it!

Inside the composter.
The white pipe is for ventilation, it allows air to flow inside the composter.

Getting the actual composter on the frame was tough. We had to put a pack of paper towels underneath it to keep it up so that we could bolt it on.

Sissy sitting at the front door.
My "kids" have what is called noise phobia. :(
Every time we would accidentally drop something loud onto the travertine tile they would run away from us and the tumbler.

The top is attached.

Fully assembled

And then we realized we couldn't get the darn thing through the backdoor. Great.

We got it through the front door, but then realized there was no way we could get it to the backyard because the side of the house is too close to the fence.
So we try to bring the composter back inside the house, but for some reason we can't get it back in. Great.
So we came to the conclusion that we had to take the tumbler off the frame.

We FINALLY got it to the backyard...the next morning.
Baby Dan was glad to see it outside too. :)

Fully assembled again and in its final resting spot. :)

Inside the tumbler.
(Please excuse the bad choice of clothes.) ;)

Later that night...
I've got our first scraps to dump into the composter.

I've got banana, carrot, shallot, and garlic peels.

There it goes!
Yay for being more environmentally-friendly. :)

Yeah, so besides it being a pain to put together, not being able to get it through the back door after we first assembled it we are very happy to have our composter back there.
We had a lot of good laughs after it was all said and done. I swear sometimes we just don't think.

The best $7 we have ever spent!

Back in January my hubby took a trip to the market without me and came back with a surprise. He bought 4 slices of jamon iberico belotta ham at $179.99/lb. Yeah, you read that right.

It is a type of jamon serrano, which is similar to prosciutto. It is imported from Spain (thanks to Jose Andres). These black pigs mainly eat acorns and because of that they have a fatty acid that is known to lower the LDL cholesterol and raise HDL cholesterol. You can read all about it here.

We watch a show with Jose Andres called Made in Spain where he shares delicious food from every region in Spain. He talked about this pig and ate some of this ham while he was there and we just knew we wanted to try it one day. Luckily, Dan saw it at the market and bought some. I'm so glad he did! It's the little things that he does that make me happy. :)

It looks like heaven and tastes even better! :)

So rich and full of flavor. It's different from regular jamon serrano.

It was well worth the $7.

A Foodie's Worst Nightmare

No more tomatoes, pickles, vinegar, relish, olives, dark chocolate, basically anything and everything that has a lot of acid or has been been pickled. That's what the doc says. I say I need to limit my intake. ;)

Dude, there is NO WAY that I could EVER give up all of the above completely.

My doctor has diagnosed me with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). >:( WTH?! I've been cursed!

I've been keeping a food journal so that I can see what foods affect me.

I have noticed that I can eat homemade quick pickles with no problem, but not store bought.

Homemade pickled carrots don't seem to bother me.

Malt Vinegar doesn't seem to bother me either.

And I can still handle dark chocolate without any major issues. Thank God!

Tomato sauce, tomato paste and dill relish leave me hurting and promising myself that I will never touch it again. :(

I'm feeling much better overall. The doc upped my dosage of Protonix, so now I take it twice a day instead of once and it has stopped the nausea. That has made a huge difference!

It sucks when you have to watch what you eat and worry that the next bite you take might have you sick for a few hours. Grrr!

I'm hanging on to hope that I won't have IBS for the rest of my life. A girl can dream.

The new haircut

Well I cut my hair again! In January I had cut my hair short and this time I decided to go shorter. I always wanted to go this short, but was too scared to actually get it done.

I really love it now, but as my husband knows I will soon regret cutting it, not like it so much and then end up loving it in a week or so. It is just this thing I have to go through with my hair. :)