I'm Officially A Hoarder

With dinner cooking in the oven most of the day, I had to do something to pass the time.  Pretty little flowers, right?  I spend an hour every morning picking the blossoms off and throwing them over the fence.  Truly, my lawn is dandelions.  There is little grass involved.

I'm trying to keep these from appearing by the hundreds every morning.  All those tiny brown seeds at the middle are the problem.  I'm really not sure why it's so bad this year than other years.  I found if I pulled up the blossoms, THESE did not appear, so every morning as the puppies protect their borders, I pull up flowers.

At the appointed hour, I began to brown the meat for the dinner concoction I was making.  I got this recipe from Michael Symon of Food Network TV.  He and other Chefs have been doing live Facebook videos for your home-bound entertainment.  

Brown the beef, cut up onions, carrots and celery and toss in six cloves of garlic.  It was very weird that the store had absolutely NO garlic at all ... not even the already-chopped variety in a jar.  I think garlic is going the way of toilet paper.  I had to use ground garlic I found in the cupboard.

I added in more spices than normal and stuck it in the oven.  I was a little hesitant and desperately looking for a backup because I truly didn't know if this pan was ovenproof.  I expected the handles to melt off any second.  I left the oven light on and kept a close eye on them.

It smelled DELICIOUS!!!  Crushed tomatoes, bay leaves, oregano ... what could be better?  The meat was to be served over pasta smothered in the sauce, toss on a little parmesan cheese.  Sadly, it had no flavor at all.  I kid you not, it didn't even taste like it had tomatoes in it.  It was BLAH!!!!  At least it was edible so we didn't go hungry, but zero flavor.  Thanks to the Chance family for being guinea pigs.  I should have ordered pizza.

So much for Michael Symon recipes.  On the other hand, we were highly entertained before, during and after dinner by Miss Snoopy.  You can see where she got her name.  She was in the box less then five minutes after I arrived, and stayed there until I was ready to go.  

There's just something about kitties and boxes!!

I did get a nice surprise that I know will taste MUCH better than that dinner.  One of the local restaurants in California (who happens to serve the best food in town) has contests every week.  Name someone you think deserves a free lunch.

I nominated a friend whose husband passed away recently from cancer.  In spite of her troubles, she drives other friends to hospital and doctor appointments WAY out of town, and does it day after day.  Winner winner pastrami burger dinner!!!  WE WON!!  Little did I know, not only SHE gets a free dinner but I do too!!!  Woohoo!!

And lastly for the day, I am officially a hoarder.   I now have 24 rolls of toilet paper.  I've seen on several occasions that husbands and wives split up in the grocery store, both taking packages to the checkout counter.  I don't know how they have room to store all that product.  I should be good for ..... oh a year at least!!!

There's more cooking to come as I try my hand at homemade tortillas.  Hey, there's nothing else to do at the moment.  In the meantime, I'm looking for more ghost towns to visit and trying to fit one roll of toilet paper in my glove box ... just in case I need something for bribes or maybe even ransom money.