Let’s pretend we’re friends and we’re at lunch. We’re discussing your recent home purchase and your need for appliances.

I am going to look you straight in they eye and tell you how much I love mine. I love my fridge, I’d just tell you to make sure your freezer shelves fit right, because mine don’t and it can get a little frustrating sometimes. I’d tell you how much I love my dishwasher, that my dishes actually come out cleaner than when I bought them but I’d also add a warning that a cycle takes TWO HOURS.

I would tell you about my Frigidaire Professional Series microwave. I would tell you that it has a gift for thawing meat, melting butter and reheating pasta dishes without drying out the noodles and burning the sauce. I would tell you that it’s the best microwave I have ever used or owned but I would also tell you that I had to neuter the beeper on it. ZOMG THE BEEPER. So loud. And constant. I’ve heard other microwaves that chirp at you every once in a while, like a tap on the shoulder, “Hey. Psst. That water you heated up for hot chocolate? Still in here when you get the chance.” However my microwave is pretty much the appliance equivalent of a pissed of NYC Taxi driver in five o’clock traffic.

Really. That’s my only complaint. It’s ability to perfectly thaw a pound of ground meat in under 6 minutes? Totally makes me forgive all the shouting (or beeping, whatever.)

On to the oven.

Here’s the thing, I feel ovens up when I go out to stores that sell appliances. I open and shut their doors. Push their buttons and mess around with their grates.

I can safely say that my Frigidaire Professional Series oven is one of the sturdiest well made ones out there in its price range. Pots don’t fall through the grates as you slide them across. They’re not all tippy and rocky like my old range. The simmer burner is Frigidaire’s gift to melting chocolate and the oven’s ability to maintain a constant even temperature even without using the convection feature? The stuff baking dreams are made of. Another bit of fantasticness I discovered over Easter is the ability to take a portion of the top rack out so you can fit giant stuff in, like a ham, without having to remove the entire upper rack.

The ham? AMAZING.

The complaints I could manage about the oven are minimal, but since you’re my friend they deserve to be mentioned. There’s a lot of silly settings. Pizza button? Chicken Nugget button? Not a real complaint, it’s just, well, silly. I wish you could still see the time when the timer is going and the noise the oven makes as it heats can be unsettling (as in, what was that giant whoosh? Is my oven going to go all Backdraft without the cute Baldwin brother?) And the only thing with the range is the PowerPlus Boil burner, it is amazingly powerful, but the consistency of the flame? Dicey. It’s either on “torch” or “flicker.”

When I first found out that I’d have the chance to review these appliances someone made a passing remark that about Frigidaire being a crappy, ill-made brand. While I have always known of the brand, I had never known anyone to actually own their appliances, my dad is loyal to another brand while my mom had all of another high end brand in her kitchen.

I can safely say that my Frigidaire Professional Series appliances kick some serious cooking trash.

They’ve been in my life for three months now, and I can safely say – “Yes. I would buy the brand again and suggest it to people I know and love with confidence.”

So there.

I wrote this review while participating in a Test Drive Campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Frigidaire and received a Frigidaire Range/Microwave to facilitate my review.

Comments closed-The winner of the second Bedtime Kit is Sandra! Congratulations!

This post is part two of my partnership with Goodnites Bedtime Theater. I am being compensated for promoting a contest and sharing my family’s story, not for promoting a product.

First of all. The contest. You know, the one where you could win $2,500 for an adventure with your family? Well a little bird told me there are not very many entries so your chances of winning the grand prize or one of the numerous others are awfully good. Go to Bedtime Theater to enter and while you’re at it, download the free audio series/bedtime story about Iggy and his wiggy bed.

Go enter! No! Wait, stay here a minute, I need your help here for a minute then you can go…

(more…)

Internets, I have a secret.

I’m working my way through a possible food allergy.

The culprit? Perhaps gluten, perhaps a wheat allergy. Maybe it’s adrenal fatigue. It could also be cancer, or a third world parasite.

Regardless, if you know me at all, being allergic to the main things involved in baking chocolate cake is pretty much like telling a dolphin “Sorry dude, but you’re totally allergic to water.”

Tonight I made dinner that had finely chopped cauliflower as a stand in for rice. Not only did I feed it to the people related to me, I fed it to guests.

Oof.

What a bad time to come eat at Casey’s house, when she’s working through a possible gluten allergy. Kind of like going to Olive Garden and having them say “WHOOPS! SORRY! NO NOODLES! May I interest you in some garlic with a side of garlic?”

It’s probably just as bad as going to Olive Garden expecting olives and being very disappointed.

People come to eat at my house with a twinkle in their eye and stretchy pants on.

Imagine their disappointment when I serve them vegetables posing as rice, mixed with vegetables. And no dessert.

But I have had a rash. A horrible awful no good very bad rash. That burns and itches and welts and travels and is fairly unnerving. Thankfully my very lovely Jessica has recently suffered a very similar welted nightmare and told me everything she tried, everything that worked and more importantly everything that didn’t work.

I joked with her that God must like us most since we’re all Job like with our nasty rashes and vomitous pregnancies.

We also may have blamed our rashes on reality television.

She has come to the conclusion that diet and adrenal fatigue are most likely to blame which has led her to omitting anything fake from her diet, telling gluten to take a hike and taking enough supplements to restart a whale shark’s adrenal glands. (Do whale sharks have adrenal glands? Grant?)

Anyway, I turned to a local raw food healer whom I met through twitter and she talked me through an adrenal jump start.

(May I just say I love how the Internet has brought people to me so that I don’t have to suffer in puffy hives alone?)

Today I picked up my adrenal support capsules she recommended.

They are made from cow adrenal glands. And for some reason (taste? I think?) they add cloves and ginger to the cow parts in the capsule.

I loathe ginger (thanks pregnancy!)

I despise cloves (clove cigarettes, I was once young and stupid and impressionable.)

So dehydrated powdered cow parts, cloves and ginger.

If a 98 year old woman hadn’t stopped me in the health food store and commended me for not giving into the man and believing the lie that FDA has my best interests at heart, I would have left the cow caps there.

Three days gluten free. I’m really an awkward kind of hungry. I know I’ve eaten plenty, but there’s all these empty cracks waiting for chocolate cake and noodles. Carbs give you a very deliciously full feeling. For me, looking at gluten free recipes is probably similar to people reading their credit card statements, depressing, but it has to be done.

We’ve never been really crappy eaters. The treats we eat are almost always made from scratch by me. But we’re no perfectionists either. This isn’t a really dramatic change, just a sort of depressing one.

The cow caps begin tomorrow morning.

Forgive me if I moo.

We had guests (okay, the missionaries) over for dinner tonight. I decided to get fancy with dessert after Cody rolled his eyes when I busted out the box cake mix (I think he believes I’m getting lazy in my old age.)

In my Martha cookbook is a Caramel Banana Cake with Mascarpone Frosting.

All you foodie people are all “ooh! ahh!”

Well guess what? I’m not giving you the recipe because the cake was kind of nasty. But everything about it’s creation was perfection. Why perfection? Because this was my first fancy cake with my fancy new Frigidaire Professional Series oven.

I have cooked and baked and loved to cook and bake for years.

I have won awards for baking.

This is the first time I did some serious cooking with a high end stove.

(more…)

You know how you hear about contests or giveaways or programs and a specific person pops into your head, like “HOLY CRAP SHE WOULD BE PERFECT FOR THAT!”

Well the program was the second round of MomCentral’s Frigidaire Test Drive Campaign and the person who found out was Emily and the person she told was me. New house, borrowed appliances and a strong desire for cooking and baking. I applied immediately and was chosen to be a part of the team in charge of testing Frigidaire’s new professional series range and microwave.

I. am. lucky.

I know this.

And I’ve already tested nearly half of bells and whistles on these stainless steel beauties.

There is a button on the microwave that melts butter perfectly.

The oven’s bottom rack slides out as you open the door.

The gas range has five burners, the middle one that can be switched out to a cast iron griddle.

I’ve lived with a hand me down microwave over a decade old for the last four years.

I’ve only baked with the most entry level of stoves and ranges, so entry level in fact that if I stepped away from anything cooking or baking in or on them it would surely end up burnt and sticky. I spent a lot of uneccesarry time parked in front of my oven but for the most part things turned out right.

The first round of Frigidaire appliances promised moms more me-time, to do other things instead of hang out by our appliances waiting for them to do their tasks (and hopefully properly.) In conjunction with the test drive of these appliances by dozens of different moms, Frigidaire has set up the Spin and Win campaign, where you can spin to win one of several different daily prizes or the grand prize, a new Frigidaire Affinity washer and dryer. Also for each spin Frigidaire will donate $1 (up to $250,000) to Save the Children.

I wrote this review while participating in a Test Drive Campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Frigidaire and received a Frigidaire Range/Microwave to facilitate my review.

So, any challenges for me and my new appliances? My first one? Remember my big fat Ciabatta Fail? IT SHALL BE RECTIFIED.

I am not a food blogger.

Food blogging is a whole mess of work between the photography, the steps, the presentation and THOSE PEOPLE WHO ALWAYS HAVE TO TELL YOU HOW TO DO IT BETTER. (I’m looking at you CORN SNOBS.)

Blah.

So I made these muffins today. Only I made them in my muffin top pans. (Proof that God loves a good muffin top.)

SCOOORE!!!

I took pictures of all the steps but they didn’t turn out very well because today was the day God nearly forgot the promise he made to Noah not to flood the Earth ever again and the lighting in my kitchen was seriously compromised due to all the fire and brimstone going on outside.

Let me show you…what my street should look like normally…(well okay so this is AFTER all the flooding, but you get the idea.)

Earlier today? It looked like this…

Normal trip to the mailbox should go something like this…(with tutu, yes.)

Earlier in the afternoon? This…

And you people wonder why we Mormons are so big on being prepared for natural disasters. The only reason I left my house today was because if the world was going to end today?

I was going to have Double Stuffs to see me through it.

So yeah, I made the muffins. And took pictures. Pretty self explanatory.

What I didn’t do was take a picture of the finished and baked muffins.

Because I ate them all before I remembered.

And this? Is why I would never hack it as a true food blogger.

How much of me wants to be pregnant because I can’t?

This whole pregnancy thing goes in waves. But lately I’ve been beaten in the face with too many “why her and not me?” situations that the whole “WILL CASEY EVER BE PREGNANT AGAIN?” dilemma is beginning to eat a part of my brain previously saved for saving puppies, playing sudoku and baking cupcakes.

My big attitude of “MEH” towards the whole topic was smashed to pieces over the last month when both of my parents and crotchety old grandma asked why Cody and I weren’t producing more awesome with our reproductive parts. They never had to worry about “when” or “how” with babies, they just popped in and came out when they wanted them to. Same with my grandparents. Then there was the lady on the plane.

“So when are you going to make her a little brother?”

REALLY?

PEOPLE ASK CRAP LIKE THAT TO TOTAL STRANGERS?

I know Cody wants more babies, and he wants me to be a mom to more babies, he likes the way I do things. Cody wants to get me pregnant more than any man has ever wanted to impregnate a woman in the history of reproduction. It’s really hard to tell him each month that my body failed at making us more babies yet again.

I want to be pregnant. I liked being pregnant, I liked having that bump, feeling a little person kicking the daylights out of my internal organs. I even miss worrying that I would pop her head open every time I crossed my legs because the little kid decided to LODGE HERSELF in my crotch early on.

I don’t want to be pregnant. I didn’t like knowing what every food on God’s green Earth tasted like in reverse. I didn’t like having to eat only to have something to barf up an hour later. I didn’t like constantly feeling like I had drank my weight in cheap beer. I didn’t like having to plan my life around when and where I’d be when the need to barf hit me. I also didn’t like paying so much freaking money on medicines that only helped me barf a few less times a day.

I want to have another baby. I like babies. I really liked my baby and I really love the little kid that my little baby is growing up to be. I really love my sister and I really want my little kid to have a sister or brother of her own. I like this whole mom gig, while I’m not alway at the top of my game, I feel I put forth a game worth performance.

I don’t want to have another baby. Newborns, sleepless nights, barf, poop, diapers, manners, teething, time-outs…I think you get my point. If I were to stop with the moosh she’d be 18 when I turn 40, plenty of time to become a doctor or an acrobat or something.

Why all this mess and confusion? Why such a teeter totter of emotions?

Because.

Life is confusing and full of sucky sucky trials with no instruction booklet.

In my church back home in Indiana I have watched 46 pregnancies in less than three years. I have watched over a dozen women be pregnant twice, AND THAT’S JUST WOMEN I KNOW FROM CHURCH. There are quite a few women who have a child the moosh’s age AND TWO MORE younger than her. I have watched even more women go through pregnancy on the internet.  (To all the lovely ladies to whom I’m referring, especially the three dozen pregnant ones, I’m happy for you, this is nothing against you, please don’t take it personally. It’s just really hard for me. It’s not your fault you can get pregnant, so quit apologizing.)

Outside my church most women my age don’t have kids. Let alone two. Only in my chosen faith am I the lame duck. It’s not a commandment that women get knocked up young and often in the LDS religion, it’s just what seems to happen. Which leaves a lot of us women of the LDS faith feeling like we missed the booth where they were handing out fertility on our wedding days. 

Which brings me to adoption. I have a fierce admiration for couples who choose to adopt and am always brought to tears when I see a new family made by the sheer awesomeness that is adoption.

But I have never felt like it is for me.

Just as you may feel that a tattoo, marriage, children or Law School may never be right for you.

I wish I just had an answer.

Sometimes I think I won’t get pregnant because I couldn’t handle it, two kids, the PPD, the pregnancy. But then I read that Dooce is pregnant and the bitter hag that resides behind my kidney thinks up all sorts of horrible things. (Totally jealousy talking Heather. Sorry.)

Sometimes I think it’s just not the right time. Law school. Debt. Thousands of miles from family. Crummy insurance. But then I see plenty of other women with no committed partner, no family, drug addictions, no real home, no common sense and no insurance get pregnant. (Not to mention the ones that aren’t even old enough to get a driver’s license.)

Sometimes I think I’ll never be pregnant again and should just move on.

Get over it, you know? Part of me is actually envious when women have an absolute answer to their fertility, either they don’t have the parts, their husband’s don’t make the stuff, or they’ll die if they try. How’s that for an absolute? But that’s not acknowledging all the trials and crummy stuff they have to go through when that news is passed onto them. Surrogates? IVF? Sperm donors? Adoption? 

No one has it easy. 

Sometimes I even think that maybe I birthed my fallopian tubes along with the moosh and have no reproductive organs left. But then my period comes and I’m reminded once again that “DEAR CASEY, YOU STILL HAVE ALL YOUR PARTS AND GUESS WHAT? YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT.”

I used to be optimistic that because my body birthed a healthy baby once, it could totally do it again. Nature didn’t screw up on me, my parts knew how to get pregnant and get that kid out in one piece. 

I still am that kind of optimistic sometimes.

Other times I’m just plain ticked that I know DARN WELL that my body knows how to get pregnant but refuses to.

And then there’s that part of my brain that thinks “You did so well with the first one, why risk getting a dud the second time around?” Don’t roll your eyes at me. Enough mothers have admitted to me that fear of getting a different deal the second time around. (Sometimes even the first time.) While ultimately I would gladly take whatever child God sees fit to bless me with, I wonder what the heck I’d do if I had a kid with straight hair. How would I pick them out of a crowd?

I know my body can get pregnant. I know my husband can get me pregnant. I know that I could provide another little kid with a home, and love, and kisses, and snuggles and bedtime stories and songs and trips to the ice cream store and the best big sister ever. I know I’d do a good job even though I also know I’d second guess my decision every other half hour for the next, oh, until I die.

I’d try and do a really good job, the best I know how to do, if I could only get my womb on one.

This is not a recipe for the faint of heart. If the idea of baking makes your left eye twitch, walk away and hope that someday you’ll have dinner at my house and that I’ll make this. However, if you looove a challenge, go forth and pick out some ‘nuts.

Coconut Prep

3 coconuts, drill two of the eyes with a drill and drain the coconuts through cheesecloth over a cup(save the drained coconut water.) Bake the drained coconuts @ 375 for 15 minutes until they crack. Crack them in half with a hammer (or the kitchen floor if it can handle it. heh) Peel off the husk of the coconut with a vegetable peeler, rinse off the coconut and process it a food processor or shredder.

Boil a half cup of milk in a container and add 2 oz. of the shredded coconut. (this will be your coconut milk)

In another half cup of boiling milk add 4 oz. of the shredded coconut. (this will be your coconut cream)

Put both containers in the fridge for at least an hour. After an hour place each coconut milk mixture in a blender and puree.


Strain each mixture through cheesecloth, toss the coconut stuff left over after squeezing.

Prepare your cake pans! (two 9″ pans well greased and lined with parchment)

Cake Ingredients

2 sticks of room temperature unsalted butter (beat in mixer until fluffy, about one minute)

mix in 16 oz of sugar and beat until fluffy

In a medium bowl whisk together:

14.5 oz cake flour

1.5 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

In another bowl combine:

A half cup of the coconut milk, a half cup of the coconut cream and a teaspoon of coconut extract.

Alternate adding the flour mixture with the coconut milk mixture in three parts.

(flour-milk-flour-milk-flour-milk)


Beat 4 egg whites until stiff and glossy, mix in a third of the egg whites to lighten the batter and then gently (GENTLY!) fold in the remaining egg whites, leaving little bits of egg white fluff visible.


Distribute the batter evenly between the two pans and bake in a (hot) 350 degree oven. Bake for twenty minutes, switch the position of the pans, rotate 180 degrees and bake for another 20 minutes. Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for ten minutes and then invert onto wire racks to cool completely.

When the cakes are cooled, cut each layer in half so you have four layers. Spray each cake layer with the reserved water saved from the coconuts.

FROSTING!

In a double boiler add:

12 oz sugar

3 egg whites

1/2 t. of tartar

1/4 t. salt

1/3 c. of reserved coconut water

Beat on low with a hand mixer constantly over simmering (hot) water for one minute. Turn the mixer up on high and beat for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add:

1/2 t. of vanilla

1 t. of coconut extract

Beat for another minute on high.

Spread a small amount of frosting between each layer of cake and top with a bit of the shredded coconut until all four layers are stacked.

Frost the entire cake and cover with shredded coconut.

Eat. Mmm.

In case you’re new here, hi! I’m Casey, I looove to bake but am too lazy to do a full blown food blog, I don’t like to write down recipes, I just like to do them. Anyway, yeah. I’ve won a few awards for my baking and stuff. I like food. And coconut. And cake. Mmm.

Do you have any idea how much better my brain functions at 78 degrees? Or 85 degrees if a swimming pool is nearby? Way better. The last time I was blindsided by depression was in February. Blah, icky, gloomy, stupid February. And I also have a confession to make.

This last little bout?

Totally more or less my fault.

Someone forgot to call in her refill request. A week went by, constant thoughts of “OH I SHOULD GET THAT REFILLED” went through my head. But I always found something to distract me. Blah blah long story short I bottomed out awful quick and when I finally called in my refill request I was smacked down with a whole bunch of BS NO HEALTH INSURANCE BUREAUCRACY.

Side note.

Dear Cody,

If you take a job that doesn’t offer benefits you will be eating Spaghettios and rye bread until the day you die. I will make sure of it.

xo-Red

Apparently I needed to go back and have my level of crazy re-evaluated. I tried to explain to them that I felt fine, the medication that was prescribed to me last time was working wonders, I didn’t have any insurance coverage that would allow me to come back in at a price we could afford and IF THEY DIDN’T GIVE ME MORE I WOULD END UP BAT CRAP CRAZY SO GIVE ME THE DRUGS!

*ahem*

I guess in my current lucid condition I can see why they may have suggested a re-evaluation instead of handing over prescription medication.

Long story short. I’m not any more crazy than I was four months ago, or even four years ago. The meds stayed the same and I will be calling in refill requests a month in advance. I may even just stockpile them. Along with thousands of hand sanitizing wipes and packets of stolen Sweet & Low. And then I’ll get a bunch of cats and yell at kids who play on my lawn. I could easily become that lady.

In the meantime I am taking good care of myself. I am surrounded by lovely friends who also take good care of me. I have one that stands at my door and sings me songs at the top of her lungs, I have another one who offers copious amounts of cupcakes along with babysitting services, I have yet another one that promises to drag my sorry rear out to dinner and feed me until I can’t think let alone feel. I got dozens of sweet sweet emails, many with funny stories to take my mind of the garbage my brain was trying to pull over on me. I even have one friend who called just to make fun of me.

Thanks you guys.

I am in a wonderful place.

Short of baking my kid to a crisp today at the pool (seriously, has anyone ever heard of one kind of sunscreen negating another kind and actually inviting the burning rays of the sun to suck all life out of tender flesh? Because I swear that’s what happened.) I had a very good day.

I even took my first Pilates class. Yeah, you should be laughing.

Do they sell cores at Costco? I could really use one.

Let’s talk popcorn. Popcorn WINNERS.

First I used one of those random number pickers. This one to be exact.

First it came up with this comment by Beth.

“Hmmm, there seems to be a lot of popcorn fans out there!

I love me some Orville popcorn. When the bag just comes out of the microwave I pour it in a plastic bowl and then throw in a handful of regular M&M’s. The chocolate melts a bit and is a perfect combination of sweet and salt. It is the cheap mans version of Peterbrooke’s (local chocolatier) chocolate covered popcorn.

I also love, love, love chocolate chip cookies. When they are warm from the oven put a few in a bowl and then put a scoop of vanilla ice cream over them and hear them sizzle and ooze. Yummy!

…and now for the part where I kiss up. Your blog is seriously the first one that I check each morning. LOVE IT!”

Promise I didn’t pick it on my own from all the gratuitous comment blog love. Promise.

Our second winner is Nicole.

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve been counting down the weeeeeeks until So You Think You Can Dance came back on! It’s BY FAR the best show out there….especially in summer.

On to my snacks… our family loves ice cream. We’re totally ice cream people. But I will not allow an ice cream with a hardened chocolate in it in my house (ie: It’s gotta be Oreo and not chocolate chip)…cookie dough is the one exception to the rule.

You have to try my popcorn, though. A bag of popcorn (even butterless would work if you’re being healthy) sprinkled with fresh lime juice and….wait for it…hot sauce. YUMMY!”

And thanks to all of you who commented, made me undeniably hungry and made my grocery store trip today $30 more than usual. (The whole ham wrapped pickle with cream cheese was by far the most popular suggestion. Closely followed by hot popcorn tossed with M&M’s.) *drool*

Then there was the urban legend popcorns. A few of you mentioned Orville Redenbacher’s Corn on the Cob flavor, one of you thought it was a Canadian specialty. Another one of you wept because you were sure that Orville had stopped making it. Guess what?

Another one of you didn’t believe that Orville’s Buttery Garlic truly existed. I say NAY!

And then bunches of you agreed with my suggestion that Old Fashioned Butter is WHERE IT’S AT.

And then there’s the “Go big butter or go home” people. They balanced out the air/stove popped only crowd.

Note this, no one said they DISLIKED popcorn. Seriously. We all like it in different ways and combinations. But we pretty much all like it.

Remember the whole egg/syrup debate of spring 2008? Not only do some people not like eggs and syrup to touch, some people don’t even like eggs, or syrup. I’m pretty sure there was at least a dozen people who don’t even like breakfast.

Popcorn on Earth and goodwill to men. Congrats to the winners.

******

And in a completely random baking side note.

These are the best baking invention since individually wrapped sticks of Crisco. Seriously, little chunks of caramel that melt evenly, that don’t have to be unwrapped, go perfectly on ice cream and can be shoveled in your mouth handfuls at a time. Or, erm, uh. AND! No high fructose corn syrup!