THE RESULTS ARE IN!

We just got Shadow's test results in! I'm pretty excited that her results were split 50/50! On one side Shadow is a Samoyed and on the other she is a German Shepherd Dog. Shadow sure has a lot of shepherd look to her but I  couldn't figure out the white on her, so that explains that and her deep love of snow, not to mention her thick neck fur.

Also Samoyeds are know as the smiley dog, Shadow sure is a smiley dog! I am very pleased with my results and it didn't come back chihuahua!

Asparagus Goat Cheese Bake

Here's an easy little new side dish. The website called it an asparagus goat chees bake, but I think that makes it sound complicated. All you have to do is trim your asparagus, pour 1 tbsp melted butter over top, spread around as much goat cheese as you like, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, (I didn't use a lot because I don't like them,) pour another 1 tbsp butter over the toop and roast for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. The only thing I didn't like was that the topping kept sliding off the stalks. I am thinking it would be better to chop up the asparagus. Try it out, let me know.

Dogs love Snow!

Dogs love snow, especially Shadow. I suspect there will be some husky when her DNA test comes in. The snow would be really nice if it wasn't windy. The wind makes our walks a little tough on the cheeks! The temperature is only 28 instead of 12 so it was somewhat enjoyable. After our walk I let the pups roam the backyard.
I love the snow flying action. Shadow loves to roll in the snow, I'm going to post a video of that soon.

Bandit thinks its fun to chase my boots moving under the snow and she loves to eat the cold snow. Maybe Bandit will make a bowl of Snow Cream.

 And Hef? Hef says "I'm flopped out in my cage, don't come any closer, I'm not going outside!" I think I'll snug up with Hef inside for a while. Stay warm everybody!

Remember Spring?

We do! And we want it back! Friday it was 52 degrees and now its back to 16 degrees! ARGH! I was teased!

Doggie DNA Test!

Isn't science something? Has anybody heard about these? They sell a kit now for mix breed dogs to find out what breeds are dominant in their gene pool. I am dying to know what kind of dog Shadow is! I found the test on Ebay for a great price. I decided it would be fun to test Bandit as well. She is very clearly a German Shepherd Dog, but it will be neat to have proof of that. I was just notified that Shadow's sample was recieved by the company. I took a picture of the whole kit they send. It included two swabs to collect cheek cells. Shadow didn't mind getting swabbed, but Bandit thought it was fun to avoid getting swabbed. Then we mailed them back. In a few weeks they will send me a report telling me what our favorite pups backgrounds are!

Any guess on some breeds for Shadow?

King of Hearts

"No competition, right?"

"Have a glass of champagne! Happy Valentine's Day!"

Lazy Sunday

Sundays are pretty lazy around here. We tend to stay home, read the paper, and relax. So here are some old photos of Hef that are pretty cute.

"Yes, I recommed the spring mix. I also recommend getting your own."



"NOM!"

I like watching Hef eat his salad, he makes these little nibbly noises. Crunch crunch!

Cute or Weird or What?

So sometimes Bandit will walk up to Hef's cage and makes these weireed kinda piggish sounds that I don't understand. I caught her on camera grunting away. What do you guys think she is doing?

Ham and Cheese Cannelloni

Alright, we are back in the kitchen! I saw this recipe in a magazine, but is was an ad by the alfredo company (Bertolli Light Alfredo Sauce, I think) and decided to try it. Recipes from the company trying to sell you the product always make me nervous, I don't think they have great chefs writing their recipes. Anyhow it was simple enough and something different so I tried it. Now Hef's dad asked me, what is cannelloni? (And he is italian, so I was surprised) I summed it up this way, it is like Manicotti but it has ham in it. That got an "ok" and so we were ready to go. It's actually very simple and sounds and looks more impressive then it is. If you plan to try this at home you will need:
1 cup Ricotta *Whole milk/Part Skim, whatever ya want
1 cup Shredded Mozzarella (or a little more who cares, cheesey is good!)
1 large egg
1 jar alfredo sauce
8 slices deli ham (I used Oscar Meyers Carvers because I had a coupon and it sucked as I will get into a little further down)
8 egg roll wrappers (I usually find them in the Tofu section of the produce store because they are refridgerated, if your a dough/pasta making person, go nuts make your own)
1/2 cup Grated Parmagiano-Reggiano (I have a budget mind I used the grated parmesan in a jar so there!)

Also I added a good amount of McCormick Grinders Italian Seasoning and I think that helped boost the flavor, just ricotta and mozzarella and egg seemed bland to me.

Alright, ingredients at the ready! First pour enough Alredo sauce (approx 3/4 cup, I didn't measure I eyeballed it.) in a 9x13 baking dish. My trick is to pour some in the center then lift and tilt the pan so the sauce spreads around.Then mix the ricotta,mozzarella, egg and italian seasoning in a bowl. Lay out the first egg roll wrapper and spread the ricotta mix on it. (Officially the recipe says 3 tablespoons but I didn't measure I just covered them nicely and it came out good).

 Now this was the fly in my ointment. As I mentioned I bought Oscar Meyers Carvers. Obviously this ham isn't a nice slice. There was one decent sized slice in the whole package, the rest was bits and scraps. Not impressed. So let me emphasize you need nice thin ham slices that will roll up easily and not chuncks that will tear your sensitive egg roll wrappers. Also let me emphasize that these Oscar Meyers Carvers are a waste of money because I can just imagine putting them on a sandwich trying to take the first bite and all thse little bits fall out onto the plate. Anyhow, take your nice thin sliced ham and spread it over the ricotta.

 I also made one with pepperoni because I ran out of crappy ham! I am really pleased with learning this new recipe. It will be incredibly easy to change it up, ham and cheese, pepperoni, just cheese for our vegan friends, maybe leftover stuffed pepper filling with the cheese, it's very adaptable.

 So please preheat your oven to 400 when you are about halfway thru making your cannelloni. I always change recipes preheat your oven time because my oven always ends up sitting on for ten minutes until the food is ready. As it happens I didn't cook these the same night(Mondau) as I rolled them(Saturday). Hef's dad had leftover steak and wanted that instead. I have nice Pyrex cookware that comes with snap on lids so I refridgerated them until Monday. (Sunday night we went out for lobsters, btw, yum!). I think this made the bottoms a little soggy, sitting in the sauce until then. So if you want to make in advance, I wouldn't put the sauce in the bottom, I would keep them in one dish and transfer to the sauced pan before cooking. Of course I also think it could be done a few hours in advance then thrown in the oven for company when you want it.
Ok, so before putting into the oven, top with the rest of the sauce, some parmesan/parmigiano and some italian seasoning if you are using it.

Bake for 20 minutes at 400F, pull out when it looks like this! Dig in!

P.S. If anyone wants a nice typed version without all my comments let me know. I am using a new program called Living Cookbook to store my recipes on the computer, instead of annoying Hef's Dad with a lot of magazine pages around the house, and after I type the recipe in it makes it a nice document and I'm happy to share it.

Bon Appetit!



For Better or For Worse

Does anybody else enjoy reading the comics? My Gram would save me every comics page in the paper so I could read them. One of my favorites is For Better or For Worse, for one thing they feature house rabbits, pretty cool! They do a good job out lining the joys and perils of having a house rabbit. Usually the panels are the mom doing something and then in the last panel the kids mess it up or something. I can really relate to the mom right now.

See Bandit snagged the seam on the carrot and tore it open, so I decided to sew it up for her, and to prevent clumps of stuffing on my carpet. Here's the before

I don't think I did too bad a job sewing it up. Bandit, of course was very nervous about the operating process and kept a close watch on me while I sewed up.

And this morning, here's how the carrot looks! I am not going to sew it again.

Bandit's Carrot

Ok, so I could not resist this! How adorable, a carrot toy for Bandit! And it was only two dollars, Hef's dad had a gift card to use up and so it only cost us 2 cents! Bandit loves it!

"Your sure its a fake carrot, right? Ok then, how about some real carrots for me?"

YEAR OF HTE RABBIT!

A Happy and a Hoppy Chinese New Year! Everyone knows it, it's the year of the rabbit!

"So let me sleep!"
Hmph! Oh well! In good news my mother went home from the hospital today!

Groundhog's Day not Rabbit's Day!

Happy Groundhog's Day! "Uh, yeah Mom, that's a groundhog thing so I don't need to leave my cage, be in a hole and pop up into the snowstorm, ok? Thanks"

 Now Hef think of the bloggers... "Think of my toys Mama, they won't nom themselves!"

 Don't you want to see your shadow? "Shadow's right there, Mom! Are we done now?"

 "Oh and Mom, there's Bandit, so we got everyone covered," So that's why they use a groundhog and not a spoiled house rabbit. Honestly our snowstorm was a bit of a let down and Hef's dad still had to go to work.