Best Lemonade Ever....

Ok, for the record, this is not exactly "lemonade." This is also not exactly "limeade." Lemon-Lime-Ade?  Whatever you want to call it, it's awesome. I've made lemonade with honey, agave nectar, and any number of other sugar substitutes, and they were all good...but this by far the best tasting lemonade I have ever tasted, much less made. It is good mixed with liquor (tequila, whisky, vodka...all good!), it is good simply poured over ice. It's just awesome.

What you need:
4 cups of fresh lemon/lime juice--I actually counted today, and I used 15 medium limes and 6 huge lemons
2 1/2 cups of sugar
ice
water

That's really it. :) Boil the sugar with equal parts water until clear, and juice all of your fruit over a sieve. Pour the juice and sugar syrup into a 1 gallon pitcher and add enough ice to make it cold, and then top it off with water. Serve over ice.

Husbands....

Let me preface this by saying that I have perhaps the most helpful and eager to please husband in the world. He cleans my kitchen and washes the dishes and runs to the store while I'm cooking to grab that last second ingredient that I must've forgotten without complaint or even hesitation. He will take a shopping list to the store and even drag a child or two along in order to save ME the hassle. Yes, I love him. He's definitely a keeper, which is probably why I've kept him around for 12 years.

That said...is my husband the only husband out there who can't seem to make it through the grocery store, no matter how short his list is, without calling to clarify something or another? Tonight, he said he wanted chili dogs for dinner...um...well, ok, I guess. Not having ANYTHING to make chili dogs in the house, I sent him to the store with the following list: hot dogs, canned chili, hot dog buns, and cheese (written just like that). My phone rings about 15 minutes later:

"Honey, they are all out of Tillamook 2 pound bricks..."
"Um, ok? So get something else..."
"But..."
"Then get 1 pound of Tillamook..."
"I guess I *could*..."
"Well, I don't see as you have much choice short of picking something else..."

Needless to say, he came home with a 1 pound brick of his favorite cheese. LOL!

But if it's not this, it's, "So, they have a 6 pack or an 8 pack of the item on your list...which do you want?" or "So I have a coupon for buy 2 get 1 free, but there are only two on the shelf..."

It is almost as though all of his grown-up judgment seeps out of his brain when he walks through the door of a grocery store...Someone tell me he's not the only husband that does this?

Work Smarter, Not Harder

First off--hello! This is me, knocking the cobwebs out of the corners of my all-but-abandoned blog. :) Lots has happened since I last posted, but for the most part, I've simply been slacking in the blogging department because it's just easier to cook without taking photos and notes about recipes. Sorry! Forgive me? ;)


Ok…so, it's no major secret that we eat a ton of fruit around here, and that pineapple is no exception to that. In fact, we almost always have a pineapple or two laying around waiting to be cut--we munch on it, I serve it with dinner, and I even incorporate it into lots of breakfast, dinner and dessert recipes.

All that said, it's such a pain in the butt…I often spend 10-15 minutes neurotically trimming one, only to watch it basically vanish in less time than it took me to cut it up. However, I had a lightbulb moment a few months ago! I have always used my teeny tiny little biscuit cutter to cut out the core after I've trimmed and sliced the pineapple. I am not sure why it never occurred to me before…but the larger biscuit cutters are perfect for trimming off the skin!

Simply slice the pineapple into 1/2-3/4 inch disks, choose the largest one that will fit inside the skin, and press (or pound) them through the pineapple!

So easy peasy--today I cut up 3 whole pineapples and it took me about 5 minutes total. :)