We celebrated a friend's 30th birthday the other night with breakfast burritos on the deck and a bonfire. I dont' remember if I've blogged about the breakfast burrito before, but it's certainly worth discussing again since it seems to be one of everyone's favorite, including me.
I'm convinced one of the keys to a delicious batch is cooking them outdoors, in the greatest portable cooking device ever created, the Kansas Cooker. aka the farm-implement-turned-frypan, but any combination of fire and a large pan will do the trick.
Anyway the recipe:

Breakfast Burritos
18 eggs
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 cans rotel, hot or mild or one of each
1 lb excellent bacon or sausage
1/2 bag shredded potatos or hash browns (Simply Potatos brand)
8oz shredded cheddar or jack cheese
16-20, 10 inch flour tortillas

Brown meat and drain fat (or not), add onion and saute until tender, add green pepper and saute until just barely tender crisp. Add potatos and rotel and let cook until liquid is evaporated. Lower heat and add crack eggs into pan, scrambling as you go and combining in with the meat/veggie mixture. When eggs are thorougly cooked taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as desired. Spread out in an even layer in the pan, top with cheese and cover. Heat tortillas briefly, a few at a time either over the open flame or on a sheet tray or pan. Spoon 1/2 c. or so of filling into each tortilla and fold up. Serve with hot sauce.
Makes 16-18

Note how I say makes 16-18? Well, the six of us ate every last morsel, which I attribute to it having been a while for most of us. They were delish.

For dessert I wanted something casual and transportable, since we had originally planned on going to the drive-in. I've had this Ina Garten Coconut Cupcake recipe kicking around in my dessert file forever, but I've never had the guts to make it becase the ingredient list freaks me out every time I see it...here's why:

Yup, that's five eggs, SIX sticks of butter and a pound of cream cheese. A little frightening, no?
So, as if that wasn't bad, I decided to make JUMBO cupcakes, just because I wouldn't want anyone feeling shorted on the birthday treatie thing. So here's the result:


I put a raspberry on each one just to cuten them up a bit, and boy immediately said they looked like boobies. Whatever.
Yes, they were yummy, but IMO, not as good of a yum value as they could have been given all that fat. But they were simple to make, and the recipe made six super-jumbo cupcakes plus six regular size cupcakes, with almost half the icing leftover.

Has anyone else tried the new personal size watermelons?
I can't say that I'm a big proponent of genetically massaged food, but these little babies are super fab. I usually don't buy watermelons because I never have room in my fridge for a whole one, and those cut and wrapped pieces from the store are a germophobe's nightmare, but now the magic of science has solved the problem. Welcome to the table these new slightly-bigger-than-a-cantaloupe-sized watermelons. They're cute, seedless and tasty as heck. Even better, they're easy to transport and store and make a perfect belly-filling serving size for two.

I'm having anxiety about the rapidly approaching finish of the Tour de France, and NO MORE LANCE. I mean, I'm thrilled that it's looking like he's going to win #7, but I can't imagine summer without my other boyfriend pedaling his way to Paris. It's going to be weird. I hope he intends to remain in the public eye somehow because I get a little crabby without regular Lance fixes.
I'm also excited to see who will become my new cycling boyfriend. Will it be David Zabriskie? He certainly did a good job of putting himself on our radar with his Tour adventures this year.

Thankfully, things have been a little slower this week. Eight straight days of getting up early and working 12 or 15 hours in the 95+ degree heat were a bit much, but I'm now happily back to sleeping until 7:30. I still haven't knit a single stitch, and all I seem to be able to manage on the cooking front is off-the-top-of-my-head quick stuff which isn't very interesting.
Here's my breakfast this morning:

That white stuff is fruit dip. How can something so simple (and silly) be so good? Plus it's like instant gratification because it takes all of two minutes to make. In case there's anyone out there that isn't familiar with this stuff...
Fruit Dip
8oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1 jar marshmallow fluff
a splash of vanilla
Stir together until smooth and enjoy with cut fruit or berries. WAY better than the ingredients would suggest.

Boy and I went to see the Violent Femmes last week...a blast from our past. The show was great and it was Boy's first time EVER at First Avenue. I, on the other hand, spent a great deal of the disposable income of my teenage years going to all-ages shows there and at the Entry, and at least a couple of those were the very same Femmes. The whole smoke-free bar thing really makes the experience more enjoyable, but it was weird being in a place like First. Av. with no one* smoking.

Anyway, we had eaten a late lunch and no dinner, so after the show we were both starving and looking to prolong the adventure. We ended up here:

Certain of you, who are most assuredly on the verge of deleting my blog from your daily read list due to my recently infrequent updates, will recognize this as one of your favorite dining establishments. I bet you never thought I'd eat here in a bajillion years, DID YOU??
Yup. I chowed down. So voraciously, in fact, that it didn't even occurr to me to capture the moment until it was almost too late...


So there's the dirt on my virtually non-existent extra-curricular life. In the mean time, we're still building a house. Do check out my other blog and Flickr for snaps of THE ROOF!! and some much-anticipated interior framing. YAY!

*I did actually see a girl smoking INSIDE, whether she was making a statement or just stupid, however, was not apparent...

I didn't think I had a post in me tonight after spending the day in hell suit...(again, and more on that later) painting at the house, but then I ran across this over at core77 and just HAD to share! It's TOO COOL!
In case you're too lazy to click on the link above and read about it, here's the pics:



The artist is Dave Cole, who it looks like has done some other interesting things in strange with fiber arts genre. Do check out the slide show with captions for more info.

I would absolutely kill to see this in person.
HMMMM... can you say expensive?? Backhoe(x2) at ~$175/hr for four days? And it makes me laugh to think about someone teaching heavy equipment operators to knit. Or maybe they taught some knitters to operate heavy equipment?
Don't you wonder what they're using for yarn?
P.S. the pics are just models :(