Update

First, the clementine cake was just okay. Nothing special, and a little heavier texture than I care for. I'm not sure the problem was one or more of the mistakes I made, or if I just don't like this cake. Well, whatev. So it's not bulletproof. The clementines did smell nice while they were boiling, though.

Second, and more importantly (I have my priorities), all the teams I wanted to win in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs (except, you know, Dallas, and they were handicapped by not actually being in the series) did win:

     Not-Vancouver  —  Won!
     Not-Pittsburgh  —  Won!
     Not-Detroit  —  Won!
     Absolutely-Not-San Jose  —  Won!

And here's what I have to say about that.


Rich asked me which teams I'm going to be supporting in the next round (I think he might have been planning to place a few bets). Dunno…nobody, really. Now that the teams I really disliked are out, I'm good. (Yes, I know. Professional sporting events don't always bring out the best in me, okay?) Actually, I'll be pulling for Phoenix if they make it through. (That series has gone to Game 6, which is tonight. Go 'Yotes!)

In the meantime, I bought whipped cream for the clementine cake, which then led me to make the banana pudding we had for dessert last night. So that kind of worked out. And we're going to our first Texas Rangers game this week, so I can focus on a sport besides hockey.

All in all, a good start to a new week!

Bulletproof Cake

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…or What Happens When You Buy Food Because It's Cute

Okay, so we've been eating Cuties lately. Cuties are clementines (or sometimes Mandarin oranges) that are small, easy to peel, seedless and sweet. I had seen them in the grocery store but had never tried them. After reading Pioneer Woman's blog singing their praises (and their addictive quality), I bought a bag. Rich and I devoured them just as fast her family did. So I started buying them regularly—sometimes Cuties, sometimes Sweeties, sometimes Clemmys, whatever variation I came across.

As I mentioned, they're small. Well, the last time I was shopping for them, my local grocery had some of the tiniest ones I had ever seen. Really, the larger ones were the size of golf balls. Tiny. And, gosh, they were just so darn cute! So instead of buying normal-sized Cuties (wow, that's a phrase), I bought the tiny little miniature ones. Because they were cute.

But, cute or not, they were kind of a pain to eat. They weren't harder to peel or anything, it just took the same amount of effort and there wasn't as much return. We started to not bother with it. And, so, three weeks later, we still had a big bowl of clementines, only they were starting to look a little tired. As I always do in these circumstances,* I went looking for something to do with them, i.e., a recipe that would use them up, and found this. It's been decades since I attempted a flour-free cake, but it looked interesting, not too complicated and it would use a whole pound of aging clementines. Perfect!

Well. Maybe. First I forgot to cute the cooked clementines in half, and they do contain the occasional seed. Shrug that off; extra fiber, right? Secondly—and this one isn't my fault—how much exactly is a "heaping teaspoon?" Baking is chemistry. It's precise. Even if you never, ever measure anything in the kitchen, you have to measure when you bake, and pretty carefully, too, unless you're not all that concerned about the results. So how much, exactly, is a heaping teaspoon?

This?                                            That?

But none of that was as much of a problem as my unfamiliarity with my own food processor, the big one. To be perfectly honest, I hardly ever use it. I've got this fabulous Oskar that sits out on the counter, chops onions and makes bread crumbs like nobody's business, and takes maybe fifteen seconds to rinse clean. I love it, and use it for all except the really big jobs, such as chopping twelve tiny, boiled clementines. I hauled out the big processor and set it up. I dumped in the clementines (still whole, since I forgot about removing the seeds), put the lid on and hit the switch. For some reason, the bottom layer just sat there, untouched, while the top half was perfectly chopped. Hit pulse again. The top was chopped even finer, but the whole clementines on the bottom were still intact. After a few more tries, I finally looked really closely and discovered that my food processor has a smaller bowl stored inside the full-size bowl. I don't know if it's intended to be used that way for some application, but the smaller bowl kept the blade from fitting against the bottom of either bowl. So the fruit on top was gradually turned to liquid while the stuff on the bottom sat undisturbed.

Doesn't look suspicious.

Surprise!

Plus, each of those pulses had spattered and splattered the now-liquified top layer all over the inside of the bowl. It coated the lid, the plunger, every nook, every cranny—and some of the space between the inner and outer bowls. That fact came into play once I realized what I had done, and stopped to take the freakin' bowls apart. Just so you know, that's impossible to do when everything is coated with slippery, orange goo.

Eventually I got it done. I mixed the clementines, more pureed than "finely chopped," with everything else, put it in the oven and baked it. It cooled overnight, and considering the whole comedy of errors—which I started shortly before midnight, BTW—it appears to have turned out okay.

It looks more or less like Nigella's, right?

I haven't cut it yet because Rich has been out all day and it was such a big deal to make, I need a little fanfare. But I did learn a few things through all this.

• I should use my big food processor more often, or at least look at it more carefully.
• Boiling clementines smell delicious and, oddly, just like cake.
• Almond meal is dang expensive.
• Little tiny clementines, cut in half and squeezed, contain exactly the perfect quantity of juice to add just the right touch to a Blue Moon beer.

I wish I had realized that last one a little sooner.

*I'm cheap. I don't like wasting food, or the money it took to buy it.

The post season is here

It's Stanley Cup playoff time, and since my beloved Stars are already on vacation I have to pick other teams to support (temporarily). So here's who I'm rooting for:

     Not-Vancouver
     Not-Pittsburgh
     Not-Detroit, and
     Absolutely-Not-San Jose.

I'd just as soon see the NY Rangers not progress very far, though Brad Richards has been much too gracious (dang it!) to root against. And I'm torn about wanting Not-Boston to win, since Boston did bring Marty Turco on board at the end of the season and he is still my boy. Speaking of Marty, I'd love for Chicago (who didn't re-sign him this year) to bite it early, and since they're playing Phoenix in the first round, and Phoenix (and nice guy former Stars coach Dave Tippett) happens to be the only team I'm actually supporting directly, that's the win-win I'm hoping for.

Yeah, it gets complicated.

Pass me that hanky

The last few days have been a little odd. For no reason I can see, I've been really emotional. Teary, weepy, start-sniffling-without-warning emotional.

I'm not sure what the reason is. This emotional roller coaster has seemed downright hormonal but, frankly, it's been a few years since I had to worry about that. There must be some explanation, though I can't figure out what it is, for why my mascara doesn't make it through the day.

I got all weepy (several times) thinking about the Dallas Stars and the fact that they didn't make the playoffs again. Actually, that's not correct—I'm disappointed about the playoffs, but that's not what makes me so sad. It's the terrible feeling the full season tickets holders were left with after the last game of the season, Saturday night. We couldn't celebrate success because there wasn't any. We should have been enjoying watching our favorites players one last time, but the Stars sat out a bunch of the guys we know and love, several of whom probably won't be playing in Stars uniforms next season. Instead, we got to watch a few "NHL debuts," and let me just say I couldn't have cared less.

Plus that game was Fan Appreciation Day, celebrating all the fans…except us.

All season long we were there, approximately seven thousand of us, for every freakin' game, good or bad. We showed up, filed in, spent money on concessions, filled our seats and cheered. Every game. And during the dark days when we were the only ones showing up, they told us, over and over, "Bring your friends! Let's fill the place up!" Yes, we knew we weren't enough. Yes, we knew they wanted to fill the arena. We wanted to fill the arena. And when attendance started booming, we were thrilled—no more cheering in a vacuum. No more staring across the ice at banks of empty seats.

But the fact is that when attendance was down, the number it was down to was us. We were still there, no matter what. Maybe what the Stars meant to say was, "Thanks for coming, for being serious, hard-core fans we can always count on to show up. Thanks for supporting us through thick and thin." Yeah, maybe. But that last game left us with a bad feeling. (For the record, section 310 STHs just shrugged—well, that's over—and left quietly.)

I also had a mammogram yesterday. My breast cancer, in 2005, was discovered in a routine mammogram, just like that one. I've told the cancer story elsewhere, so I won't go through it again, but the fact is that I never think these mammograms are going to be a big deal. I sincerely don't think it's going to bother me. But I get there and it really, really does. Somehow just being in the quiet room with the machine, sitting and waiting, brings it all back. I was sniffly and intermittently teary while the technician was having the radiologist look at my images. After she came back, said nothing had changed (that's good news) and escorted me back to the changing room, I just sat and boohooed for a few minutes, trying to get myself under control. Then I texted Rich, telling him this was the last one I'm doing by myself. (First-class husband that he is, he just replied to let him know when the appointments are. He's a sport, that man of mine.)

And, last but not least, my mother-in-law in Denver has been sick. Weird sick. Slurring her speech, acting strange, sounding for all the world (from the info we're getting over the phone) like she's had a stroke, but then not having signs of it on the MRIs they keep doing. And she resists seeing a doctor at all, much less going to the emergency room. We have to wait for texts from Rich's brother (FIL gets pissed if the brother calls us, because "it's nothing to worry about, she's fine") to see what's going on, just waiting and hoping for the best.

I thought after both my parents were gone that I was done with this particular torment. After all, I love my in-laws but they're not my parents. But no. I worry just as much, but have considerably less influence. (Even though my MIL loves me, she only tolerates so much butting into her business.) So thinking about that triggers the waterworks, too.

Maybe it's something seasonal. Springtime. The pollen count. Or, I don't know, another lingering side effect of those steroids I took a few weeks ago. In any case, it can't last forever, right?

Please?

Tweets

Last thing on Sunday night I thought I'd share some of my favorite tweets. I thought these were especially funny or at least entertaining. Plus one link at the very end to a remarkable and very cool video clip.


@SportsSturm (Bob Sturm):

• And now with more insight on the Tebow trade let's bring in our NFL insider, Pat Robertson. Pat?
• I get home and my wife is watching the Bachelor. No dude in the history of the universe needs a cross checking quite like him.

@joshgroban:

• When I die instead of burial or cremation I wanna be chopped with avocado, is that unhealthy?
• Last nights solar flare changed the key of my dial tone, turned my electric toothbrush timer to "infinity" and set me up a hotmail account

@Alyssa_Milano:

• ~GROUPHUG~ Get in. The whole damn lot of you.
• Just pulled the mommy-move of peeing while holding the sleeping baby. You can file this tweet under "T" for "talent" & "TMI".

@alydenisof (Alyson Hannigan):

• If I had invisibility as a super power I think I'd use it to sneak bites of people's food at restaurants.

@QuiltingMuriel (Muriel B, 92 yrs old):

• NY temp is 20 degrees, then 60, then snow, then 60. Mother Nature is finally going through menopause.
• I made a Trump joke and lost 10 followers. I can only assume they have very bad hair.
• Remember 2 turn back your clocks tonight. I'm going to try for 30 yrs. :)
• Yes, and I'm sorry I ate the peppers. It's all moot. RT @TomDahn Ron Paul: I Would Not Have Ordered Bin Laden Raid
• I don't like the term "ripe" old age. Sounds like I'm getting soft and too mushy. Oh, wait...
• Time is precious. I'm at the point now if a young salesgirl is on her phone & ignores me, I just start putting items in my purse.

@michaelmuhney:

• My daughter tells me 10 times a day, "I love you Daddy." About twice a day she says, "Daddy, I farted on you." #prettyGOODratio

@OldSpice:

• Should we form our own political party? Key platforms: chicken-fried lobster 4 all, dinosaurs in the military & more explosion-related jobs.

@alyankovic:

• While I think it’s unlikely that we’re the only forms of life in the universe, I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones that deep-fry Twinkies.

@juliebenz:

• I have a window seat...ugh! I will be the one giving climb-over lap dances today.

@TheTweetofGod:

• I believe meat is murder. And that vegetables are burglary, bread is mail fraud and dairy is impersonating a police officer.

@katesmithlaw (Kate Smith, a friend and local attorney):

• So, it is now legal to carry a concealed handgun into a bar in Ohio. No one order shots!

@gublernation (Matthew Gray Gubler):

•  How funny would it be if the statue of liberty was really just the slowest Trojan horse ever.

@wfaaweather (Pete Delkus, last August):

• i'm trying to figure out the forecast for tomorrow. i'm thinking about going with HOT. i hope it's accurate.

@GarretDillahunt:

• Finding myself strangely attracted to @missmoronmagnet....wait.

@Razor5Hole (Daryl Reaugh):

• This is awesome - “@wyshynski: New Puck Daddy: Video: Watch 25,003 stuffed animals fly in a hockey rink http://yhoo.it/scTw8x”

Let's call this a cheerful start to a good week, 'kay?