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I thought it would be fun to post a list of all of the beers that are currently in my house.  Now, I do not have six-packs of each, some I have just one or two bottles.  Some we bought as part of a “make your own six-pack” thing at the beer store, for tasting purposes.

Anyhoo, in no particular order, here it is…

• Dogfish Head 60-Minute IPA
• Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA
• Sam Adams Noble Pils
• Sam Adams Winter Lager
• Sam Adams Coastal Wheat
• Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic
• Sam Adams Boston Lager
• McSorley’s Irish Black Lager
• Guinness Stout
• Saranac Pumpkin Ale
• Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin Ale
• He’brew (the Chosen Beer) Jewbilation 13th Anniversary Ale
• Rock Art Herb Jasmine Pale Ale
• Gritty McDuff’s 21 IPA
• Gritty McDuff’s Red Claws Ale
• Long Trail Double Bag Ale
• Mystic Seaport Pale Ale (Contract brewed for the Mystic Seaport Museum by Shipyard Brewing Company. Only available in the Mystic, CT area.)

Cheers!

Have you picked up the April 2010 issue of Everyday Food yet?  if not, you should; it is in stores now.  You can usually find it at the checkout at the supermarket.  It is a small, digest-sized magazine, the size that TV Guide used to be before they screwed it up, made it regular magazine size, and turned it into yet another trashy celebrity gossip rag.

This magazine is known for publishing recipes that are quick, easy, and affordable.  The “Grocery Bag” section this month offers recipes and shopping list for 5 weeknight meals for 4 people, all for about $50.  Another piece shows you how to make a big batch of something, make one meal out of it tonight, and use the leftovers for other meals.  For example, you can make a large batch of rice, and use it to make several meals throughout the week.

I made the Spinach, Rice & Ham Casserole.  Cheap, easy, and very tasty!  And quick…don’t have to turn on the dehumidifier because the kitchen got too hot and steamy!  It would be an excellent thing to make next week, if you celebrate Easter and are having a ham dinner.  It’s a good way to use some of that leftover ham.

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked rice
2 (10 ounces) packages of frozen spinach, thawed and with as much liquid squeezed out as possible
2/3 cup milk
2 eggs
1 cup grated Gruyére cheese (about 4 ounces)
Salt & pepper
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced or put through a garlic press
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 pound ham, chopped
——————–
Preheat the oven to 375° F.

In a large bowl, combine the rice, spinach, milk, eggs, and 3/4 cup of the cheese. Season with salt & pepper. Set aside.

In a skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic, season with salt & pepper, lower heat slightly, and cook slowly for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice, until just starting to brown.

Add the wine, stir, and cook until evaporated, about 3 minutes. Add the ham, stir, and cook for about 2 minutes, or until the ham is heated through. Add this mixture to the spinach mixture in the bowl.

Transfer it all to an 8″ square baking pan.  Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup cheese on top.  Put it in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Remove from oven when it’s done, spoon onto plates, and eat.  Serves 4.

A few of my notes…I could not find Gruyére cheese, so I used Swiss.  Bags of pre-shredded Swiss cheese are readily available at most supermarkets.  Not having to grate or shred your cheese puts this meal on the table a lot quicker.

You can definitely prepare the rice ahead of time, let cool, and refrigerate until ready to use.  For this dish, it can be freshly cooked.  But if you plan to make fried rice (and there is a recipe in the magazine for it), leftover, cold rice is a must.  Freshly cooked rice is too wet for any stir-fry dish, but when refrigerated, rice dries out a little, thus making it perfect for fried rice.

But PLEASE do not use that evil Minute or Success boil-in-bag rice junk.  You’d may as well just eat Styrofoam, for all of the flavor and nutrients it has.  Use regular long-grain rice.  It comes in big bags and is WAY cheaper than the processed crap.  And it’s not as hard to cook as some people think.  The magazine tells you how to cook a perfect pot of rice (yield 7 cups, more than you need for this casserole, but the whole idea of the magazine piece is to have leftovers!), so there’s another good reason to buy it.

The wine…if you do not wish to consume alcoholic beverages at all, you can substitute chicken broth.  Or just skip that step completely, after the onions and garlic have cooked for 10 minutes, throw in the ham and cook for 2 minutes.  Proceed with recipe as directed.

If you are making this and don’t have leftover ham, do what I did and buy a small ham steak.  Don’t worry if it’s more than 1/2 pound, mine was, but I just threw it all in anyway.  How big you make the pieces of ham is up to you.  Mike likes big chunks, but you can cut them smaller if you like.

I hope you will try this recipe, and if you like it, go and buy the magazine!  So much great stuff in it.  And no, Martha’s not paying me to say any of this!

I’m not a big fan of getting dressed up.  When it’s necessary, it’s black pants, black shoes, and some sort of nice top that isn’t a T-shirt with a baseball or beer logo on it.

For the longest time, my “dress pants” were a pair of Lands End black jeans that I got on sale for $7.00 at Sears.  But I found myself needing another pair…the Lands End ones were a little too tight, and uncomfortable to wear.

These days, I only wear Double L® jeans from L.L. Bean.  They make them in plus sizes, and they are the only decent-fitting, high quality, yet still affordable plus-sized jeans I can find.  I used to buy my jeans from Lane Bryant, but that store has turned into a joke.  I stopped shopping there when they did away with normal jeans, and started offering nothing but “trendy” crap, such as low-rise and/or stretchy, skin-tight jeans.  Also, it didn’t help my opinion of them when they got into having skinny models.  I mean, LB is supposed to be a fat women’s store…how about selling things that actually look good on us.  Just because they make low-rise jeans in a size 22, does not mean that the world wants to see my muffin-top butt hanging out of them.  It’s not that I want “mom jeans”, I just want regular jeans with a normal waistline.  Is that too much to ask for?

L.L. Bean does sell the Double L® jeans in black, but I was disappointed that this does not extend to the plus sizes.  So, on a recent visit to the flagship L.L. Bean store up in Freeport, Maine, I decided to check out other options for plus-sized black pants.  Some of them were rather awful, like these elastic-waist pants…if I wanted pants like that, I could have just gone to Wally World to get them.  I think they look cheap and tacky.  I can’t even find those ugly pants on Bean’s website.  But you don’t want those, anyway.

I tried on the Bayside Twill Pants, and really liked how they fit.  These are designed for a curvy figure, because not all women look like Kate Moss.

They have a full fly-front, none of those “faux flies” that they sometimes put on the tacky elastic waist pants.  The front is a normal waistband, but the back is elasticized for comfort.  The pants also have belt loops, so you can put a belt on and cover up the elasticity.

The fabric is not as heavy as jeans, but not as lightweight as many other slacks I’ve seen.  It’s also a wrinkle-resistant fabric, which is important to me, because I HATE ironing!  If you follow the instructions on the tag for washing (cold water), you will have no problems.

And they have POCKETS.  Damn, but I hate it when they don’t put pockets in non-jeans pants for women.

Although I carry a purse, I refuse to put my keys and cell phone into it.  Think about it for a minute.  If someone snatches your purse, and your keys and phone are in it, you are pretty much screwed.  The thief not only has your money and credit cards, but they also have your drivers’ license AND the keys to your home.  They’d probably go to your house and clean the place out before you even get home.  After all, you’ll have to find some other way to get home if you now have no money or car keys.

And without a cell phone, how are you going to call the cops?  Pay phones have gone the way of 8-track tapes.  Sure, maybe you can go into a store and ask someone there to call the cops.  But if it’s the middle of the night and stores are closed, the only option might be to knock on the door of a stranger’s home.  I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t open my door to strangers, even in broad daylight.

This is why I won’t wear any pants that do not have pockets.

Anyhoo, I’m happy with these pants.  If you are a plus-sized lady who is looking for some decent pants, you might like these.  They come in other colors besides black.  But if the closest L.L. Bean store is one that is in a mall, you probably won’t find them there.  These are small stores which will not stock all of the sizes.  You either have to go to the Freeport store, or order online.  L.L. Bean does have an excellent return policy, so if you order something and it doesn’t fit, or you just don’t like it, they are good about taking it back.

If I hadn’t found anything at Bean’s my next stop probably would have been Sears.  I’m glad I found them at Bean’s, as I much prefer shopping there than in mall stores.  At malls, I always am made to feel like a criminal, with security cameras following my every move. But I never get treated like a criminal at L.L. Bean.

I hate clothes shopping, so I’m glad this is over and done with!

Yeah, I know I said I was going to make my own makeup box.  But that changed when Mike and I were at this outdoor store called Cabela’s, where I saw these fishing tackle box inserts.  They were pretty cheap, well under $20 for a four-pack, looked like a good solution for my BE makeup storage needs.  So I bought a four-pack.

I don’t own anywhere near as much BE makeup as some women I’ve met on message boards and stuff, so my collection only filled two of these boxes.

This box holds all of my eye shadows, as well as items also in the smaller containers.  I can fit a lot of them in here because I can set them sideways and still get the box closed.  At the top, I have sections for lip colors and eye stuff like mascara, eyeliner, brow gel, etc.  As you might be able to tell, the vertical dividers can be removed.  But the long horizontal ones can’t be moved.  If I had known that, I would have looked further.  But, oh well, I’ll make do with what I have, it’s better than what I HAD (which just involved throwing it all into a bag, where it was hard to see what was there).

The “medium” sized containers will not fit sideways, not if I want to close the box. So they go in this way. These are foundations, Mineral Veil, Bisque, etc.  I also made spaces for my Kabuki brushes, which will not fit into the brush roll (which you will see in a few moments), as they don’t have long handles.

Now we have the large containers, which do not fit at all, since I can’t move the horizontal dividers in these things. They are a foundation, a 25 SPF Mineral Veil, and a Soft Focus Glee.  If I were to use one of these boxes for travel, I’d leave the foundation and Mineral Veil at home (since I have  a smaller 25 SPF MV), and dispense some of the Glee into an empty smaller BE container.  I have a foundation that’s about to run out, I’ll just use that container, and put in in the same place in the box where that old foundation was.

This is my brush roll case. I got it for free when I was in the BE club, where I was getting foundations auto-shipped to me. I’ve since canceled that, but the freebies were nice. This came with a couple of brushes that I didn’t already have.  You can also purchase a similar brush roll at a BE Boutique, Sephora, or any other good cosmetic department or beauty supply store.

And this is what it looks like when it’s opened up. One of each brush I own, except for the Kabuki brushes that are in one of the boxes, are here.  I have a few duplicate brushes, due to getting them in kits and all, but I keep them aside until the old ones wear out and I need to use them.  No need to waste valuable space in the brush roll on them!

So I only used two of the four boxes I bought for almost my entire BE collection.  No doubt I will need more boxes someday, and I can always buy more if necessary.  But my plan for now is to use one of the empty boxes for my travel kit.  I can take whatever makeup I want to use on the trip out of the other two boxes and assemble it into a kit that will fit easily into my suitcase.  The brush roll can just go into the suitcase as it, it doesn’t take up much space.  This will be nicer than them all jangling about loose in a bag, they will be easier to find and use.

So there you have it!  And you don’t have to go to Cabela’s to get boxes like this, any place that sells fishing supplies will have these.  My only suggestion is to get them slightly larger, if you have more of the large BE containers than I do.

I’ll be going to the one in Manchester, NH this year.  At first, I wasn’t going to bother, but the way things are scheduled, it works out that I can go.

The event will be held at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Manchester on April 30-May 1.  We already had plans to be in Manchester on Sunday, May 2, only, for a New Hampshire Fisher Cats game; I thought about getting a hotel room and coming up on Saturday, but decided against it.

But then, we decided we wanted to see “The Full Monty” at the Palace Theatre in Manchester.  The Hilton Garden Inn in town has a special theatre package, where you get a room, two tickets to whatever show is playing, breakfast the next day, and free shuttle transportation to the theatre.  We opted for the May 1 show, so we’d be in town the next day for the ball game.  We also got an excellent rate for the package, just $129.

Then, I got an email reminding me to register for CKC Manchester if I wanted to go.  I looked at the dates…the show is in the evening, the convention is in the daytime (well, the shopping part and some of the classes are)…so May 1 was doable.  So I registered…no classes yet, but that could change.  I’m more interested in just walking around in the Vendor Faire and seeing what they’ve got for sale.  I don’t want to pressure Mike to get moving so we have to get there in time for me to take any classes, plus, I don’t feel like lugging a kit of supplies along.  All I really want is to have a couple of hours to look around and shop.

Mike doesn’t have to go in with me, I just registered a day pass to the Vendor Faire for myself.  He doesn’t like going to these things, just as I don’t like going to his model train shows.  If we get into town before 2PM, he can always just hang out at the hotel bar and have a beer.  Once it’s 2PM, it will be time to check into the Hilton Garden Inn, he can go and do that, and I can just walk over when I’m done with the show.  It’s not a long walk, but long enough so that I won’t be wanting to use the fitness equipment at the hotel.

The reservation is in my name, though…would they let him check in without me?  I’ll need to find out.  I guess I could check us in at 2PM, and then go to the convention.

Anyhoo, it’s been a few years since I’ve been to one of these things, and I am greatly looking forward to it!  If you are interested in attending a CKC convention, here’s the website where you can see if and when there is one near you!