Everyone loves the CrockPot

I was on the way home from church Sunday afternoon and I had to stop by the grocery store and pick up a few things. Well as usual I ended up getting a few things that I didn't plan on getting. One of these things was a roast... in my defense it was on sale. As I was walking around with this thing in my hand I was trying to think of what else I needed to get so I could put all this goodness in the crock pot Monday morning. I ended up getting the basics... onions, potatoes and carrots.
I rubbed the roast with some olive oil and sprinkled some rosemary, a little bit of sea salt, and black pepper then seared it in the frying pan just enough to brown the outside. The whole time I'm doing this I'm still trying to decide on what else to put into this thing. I found some, I guess you would call it hot sauce, that I got in my stocking this year at Christmas. It was a Vidalia onion and orange hot sauce. It was really good, kinda sweet then the after taste was a bit spicy.

So I sliced up the onion, quartered the potatoes, sliced the carrots and added some green beans. I also added a little more rosemary salt and pepper then dumped the whole bottle of hot sauce on top. The potatoes and carrots seemed to soak up the sauce more than everything else and the whole thing, I thought, was really tasty. It ended up more like a stew than just a roast, but I'm easy to please when it comes to food and I was pleased with the way this turned out. Of course I guess it's hard to make something not taste good in the crock pot.


--I think next time I might substitute the red potatoes for sweet potatoes--












I'm not sure why this next picture is so blurry. I
took it about seven times and this was the best
one.

snow? I mean uh... SNOW!!

So they were calling for anywhere between 2-5 inches of snow last night and today. Well we didn't get that much, but it was enough to cover the car a little so I snap a picture this morning as I was headed out to work. Most of the main roads were fine but all the side roads were pretty slick, although I only saw one car pointed the wrong direction in the ditch. I know what you're thinking... and no, the car in the ditch that I saw wasn't mine!

Free Weekend Entertainment!!!

So humor me and read to the bottom of the stuff I posted. I know it sounds really stupid...probably because it is!! So all the guys at the shop I work at were offered free tickets to the TNA pay-per view wrestling event in Charlotte this weekend. At first I wasn't going to go but the more I thought about it I decided that if I could convince my roommate to go with me then I would go. I mean hey, it's free! So Ben and I headed down to the old Cricket Arena to watch so serious ass kicking! (I wish you could hear the sarcasm in my voice) I remember watching professional wrestling when I was a kid and even then I knew it was all fake, but I never remembered it being THIS fake! So it all started about 7:30p.m. Sunday night and went until 11:00. I must say that it was a lot of fun... but I don't think I would ever pay to see this out of my own pocket. Lots of Laughs



The icon Sting! This guy was doing this when I was real little.














Mine and Ben's best wrestling faces!














This dude was over seven feet tall!! Look at how tall the rest of the guys are.












The guy in the white is 6'8"
Wow! all this action!! HaHa









This is really funny! I was laughing so hard...

Cravings

For the past several weeks I've had an unexplainable craving for scallops, so Saturday while I was out I stopped by the Fresh Market and pick some up along with a couple of other items. I opted for bay scallops instead of sea scallops strictly because of price. I paid $8.99/lb whereas the sea scallops were $15.99/lb and since I was only cooking for myself I went the cheaper route.

Scallops in Vermouth Cream
1 pound sea scallops
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup dry vermouth or other white wine
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Toss scallops with flour. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add scallops. Cook 4-5 min or until lightly browned on both sides, turning occasionally. Remove scallops from skillet.
Add vermouth to skillet, stirring to loosen bits from bottom of skillet; bring to a boil. Cook 2 min or until vermouth is reduced by half. Stir in whipping cream, salt, and pepper; reduce heat to low. Add scallops; cook just until thoroughly heated.

I also made some brown rice to go with the vermouth and scallops.
While at the Fresh Market I picked up some snow peas and sauteed them in olive oil along with one shallot. I also happened to find a beer that I'd not yet had so that made it's way onto the table as well.

I've also had a realization that has turned into a sort of craving. While at home in Statesboro GA over Thanksgiving and Christmas I was able to go to the Sugar Magnolia Bakery several times. This got me thinking, and I realized I haven't even looked for a bakery here in the Charlotte NC area! So, Saturday morning I visited a couple that were both very good but a good bit different. I first went to "Amelie's" which is a french style bakery focusing more on pastries and sweets although they do have bread and sandwiches too.
I had to make a decision about what to buy and it took me a few minutes but I decided on a Vanilla Eclair and a Chocolate Croissant. Both were excellent!

The second bakery I went to was closer to downtown Charlotte and focused more on the bread side of things. "Nova*s" was a very beautiful bakery and I bought a loaf of country sourdough and a loaf of pumpernickel. Click on the link above and read their history, it's very interesting and their website is really nice!

Messin' Around

So I got home from work the other night and started looking at my camera and looking through all the menu features, that sort of thing. I've had this camera almost a year and I've taken a lot of pictures with it but I've never really messed with
the settings to see just what kind of
things it can do. I still don't know
much about changing the
aperture and other settings like
that but at least
I now know a little more about
shutter speed.
The top picture was taken with no flash to get an idea of how dark it was for comparison. All the rest were taken with only varying shutter speeds.
The brightest light in the sky was the moon but I never could get a clear picture of it. Also there are several stars, I think a planet and of course airplanes.
















































Cannon Power Shot A720IS