Whip up some Gingerbread Body Scrub with a few spices from your kitchen, a neutral oil (olive oil works!) and some brown sugar for under $1. In another bowl, shake the same spices together with 1 lb. of Epsom salts ($1.50). Put both in pretty containers, print or write a nice tag, and put them in a box or basket with a loofah ($3) and a pretty ivory-colored pillar candle ($3) from Wal-mart. Voila, a treat for the senses and skin!

2. An art set for creative kids.

Pick up crayons ($0.50), watercolor paints ($1.00), and a ream of blank paper ($3.90) from the dollar store. While you’re there, grab five or six packets of unsweetened Kool-Aid or similar drink mix ($0.10 each). Make a batch of Kool-Aid Playdough and package it in small containers which you can get at the dollar store for $0.50, or well-scrubbed jars. (I save jars from pimientos and marinated artichoke hearts all year for this.) Put them all together in a box or basket and present it to the little artist to keep him/her entertained for hours.

3. Goodies for Guys.

They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Guess what? The way to making him happy on Christmas starts there, too! If you’ve got a guy you need an inexpensive gift for, it’s as simple as finding a large container (oatmeal containers are perfect for this) or picking one up from the store. Make a batch of microwave fudge and some microwave peanut brittle. (Note: if he or anyone in his household has a peanut allergy, make the brittle with some other kind of nut like cashews, or even shelled sunflower seeds!) Alternate layers of them in the container, separating each with some wax paper, and put a label on it that declares it’s all his, because if there’s one thing guys like more than goodies it’s not having to share them!

4. Cocoa for Co-Eds.

College kids are a hungry lot, but many of their dorms don’t allow any kind of cooking more complicated than using a microwave. Know how many would turn down a box filled with yummy things to suit those midnight munchies? None! So whip up a batch of homemade cocoa mix (ingredients cost $4.70) and put it in a pretty jar. In a second jar, combine a box of angel food cake mix with a box of chocolate cake mix ($2.75), then attach a printed card telling them how to make Cake in a Cup by adding 1/3 cup of the cake mix and 3 tbsp. of water in a large coffee mug sprayed with Pam and microwave it for 90 seconds. Bonus points if you throw in a pretty mug for them to use, too!

5. Pamper The Parents.

Oh, sure, everyone knows how tough it is for couples to take time off from their roles as parents and reconnect with each other. And, of course, we all make noises about how important that is, but unless the couple has family living nearby or a reliable babysitter (do those even exist?), it’s just a lot of empty talk. So imagine how much the pair would appreciate if you gave them a $25 gift voucher (that’ll only set you back $10) from Restaurant.com to a nearby dining spot AND you insisted on watching their kids while they went out for a nice dinner together… alone. As a mom who hasn’t had a Date Night with my husband in almost two years now, trust me, a gift like that is worth its weight in diamonds. Really!

 
 

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*No, I don’t get diddly squat out of this.

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For one thing, using store-bought (pasteurized) milk means I have to add calcium chloride to reintroduce calcium to the milk (yes, really) so it can form the curd which is the basis of any cheese. Now, getting away from chemical additives in my food was one of the things that led me to home cheesemaking (along baking bread from scratch, making my own pasta, etc.) So it ticks me off that the government is basically forcing me to either buy food with additives, or use additives if I want to make my own food. That’s seriously overstepping some boundaries, if you ask me.

For another thing, the raw milk ban means our already cash-strapped government is spending big bucks prosecuting something rather minor. How minor? According to Boing-Boing, despite a thriving underground and black market among foodies (and just about anyone who owns their own cattle), raw milk is responsible for two — yes, just two — deaths in the last ten years.

Oh, and did I mention that these statistics are of such great concern to the Feds that they’re raiding Amish and Mennonite farms, guns drawn and voices screaming, like they were meth labs?

Honestly, it’s enough to make me give serious thought to packing up the Venomous Household and moving where we can enjoy unpasteurized cheese in peace and quiet. I hear France is lovely, now that hardly anyone still smokes. And at least I could get some decent Brie there.

Speaking of Brie… mine didn’t turn out. I’d love to blame the pasteurized milk for that, but the blame goes to my cat. Next time, I’ll remember not to leave the cheese press unattended while I shower. As they’d say in France (where they get to eat unpasteurized cheese to their hearts’ content), C’est la Brie.

Or something like that.

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Today’s cooking started with making baked donuts for breakfast, because VH and the Big-Eyed Boy are crazy about them. The contractor liked them, too. Up next: homemade cheddar crackers followed by whole wheat sandwich bread for next week’s boxed lunches, then whole wheat fettuccine (using my new CucinaPro 150 Imperia Pasta Machine which I’m absolutely crazy about!) for tonight’s chicken alfredo, and some whole wheat bagels to go with the cream cheese I made yesterday. Oh, and while all that’s going I’m also making brie.

That’s right: I’m making brie.

See, for Christmas, VH bought me a book on making homemade cheese. It goes nicely with my latest foray into making homemade sausage and, well, what else does one serve on top of homemade crackers, right?

Now, the contractor, having polished off four of my baked donuts followed by a handful of freshly made crackers, was just floored when he learned I’m making cheese from scratch. A divorced guy who shares a house with two other divorced guys, his kitchen skills apparently run the gamut from pressing buttons on a microwave to pressing buttons on a phone. From what he said of his ex-wife, she was similarly skilled in the kitchen. That someone makes cheese (or donuts or crackers or bagels or bread) from scratch was, to him, nothing short of mind-boggling.

All of which is to say that the mirrors above my fireplace are now stable, the cracks they’d made in my wall have been beautifully repaired, the bill was less than half of what we expected AND he’s offered to come back next week to help VH pull up the cracked porcelain tile floor in the kitchen that I’ve been complaining about for the past, oh, 5 years. Of course, he’ll be coming Saturday afternoon because, as he put it, there’s no sense interrupting next week’s cooking session.

Somehow, I suspect he’s going to show up with an empty Tupperware container or two.

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Back in October, when autumn’s lower temps made hot foods appealing again, I rather looked forward to spending all day with a pot of chili or soup simmering on the stove, to bread dough rising on the counter and the house full of smells no scented candle could hope to imitate. That was seven months ago, though. Seven months of soups, stews and casseroles, of trying to find yet another way to cook skinless chicken breasts, of supervising my son’s homework at the kitchen table while I chopped, diced, sliced and minced. I am tired of cooking dinner, I tell you!

So now that the weather forecast finally — finally! — calls for sunny skies, warm temps and an opportunity to dry out (the house, not me), I’m on strike. If God intended women to cook dinner every single night of the year he wouldn’t have invented the Weber grill. But, since He did, it’s time for my husband to get in touch with his inner primitive man (as if he’s ever lost touch with that, right?) and get grilling.

Yes, yes, I’ve read the stories about grilled foods and carcinogens, too. I’m shocked and saddened, I tell you. Just think of all the billions of people eating flame-cooked meat over the past 790,000 years or so, dying of BBQ-induced cancer and foolishly attributing their demise to plagues, wars and rival tribes’ fondness for bashing clubs against skulls!

Anyway, as a plump, martini-swilling middle-aged woman who’s still had no luck giving up cigarettes, who am I to turn down a perfectly medium rare steak for health reasons? Besides, didn’t Benjamin Franklin — who lived to be 84 despite eating flame-broiled meat — say that “beef is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy”? What? He said ‘beer’? Are you sure???

As luck would have it, the steak marinade I wanted to share with you — and the entire reason I wrote this post — combines both. Consider it proof that VK loves you and wants you to be happy. I know I am, now that I don’t have to cook dinner every night since it’s grilling weather at long last!

Steak Marinade

Ingredients

• 4 steaks
• 1/4 c. beer
• 2 tbsp. teriyaki sauce
• 2 heaping tbps. brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. seasoned salt
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper
• 1 garlic cloved, pureed/minced

Directions:

1. Put everything but the steaks in a large Ziplock bag.
2. Drink whatever’s left in your bottle or can of beer.
3. Mix the stuff together.
4. Add steaks and, removing as much air as possible, seal the bag. Now, shake it up.
5. Place steaks in fridge to marinate at least 1 hour but no more than 8 hours. Turn several times to ensure marinade soaks into both sides.
6. When ready to grill, remove steaks from marinade and pour the juice into a pan.
7. Bring liquid marinade to boil then remove from heat.
8. While grilling, baste steaks with the liquid marinade at least once per side.
9. Discard remaining marinade. Eat steak. Drink more beer… or, in my case, a martini.

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]]> http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/bless-the-beasts-and-the-grillin/feed/ 3 http://www.electricvenom.com/my-venomous-life/i-want-a-new-drink/ http://www.electricvenom.com/my-venomous-life/i-want-a-new-drink/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:01:37 +0000 Venomous Kate http://www.electricvenom.com/my-venomous-life/i-want-a-new-drink/ Earn free gift cards from Amazon and other stores by searching, playing games and clipping coupons here!
]]> I need to find a new signature drink. Martinis are so passé, not to mention I can’t make a decent one and therefore have to rely on the skills of others. Suggestions?

Some caveats:
(1) No “shot” type drinks. Only sippers!

(2) I want something simple, as in: open bottle, pour, enjoy.

(3) If it costs more than $25, VH will “accidentally” forget to buy it. Even if it’s a sure-fire Get Lucky drink.

(4) Don’t suggest red wine (it gives me headaches) or tequila (I give other people headaches).

(5) Nothing too sweet. Yep, I’m STILL dieting. (Down 27 pounds now, thanks for asking.)

That said – heh – what do you suggest?

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]]> http://www.electricvenom.com/my-venomous-life/i-want-a-new-drink/feed/ 44 http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/happy-eat-an-animal-for-peta-day/ http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/happy-eat-an-animal-for-peta-day/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:59:16 +0000 Venomous Kate http://www.electricvenom.com/?p=9943 Earn free gift cards from Amazon and other stores by searching, playing games and clipping coupons here!
]]> In honor of the 7th annual Eat an Animal for PETA Day, we at the Venomous Household will be having roasted loin of veal with foie gras and a cherry-grape red sauce.

Why, yes, I did have to plan ahead by ordering the roast from the butcher and the foie gras shipped overnight from Amazon.

But, hey, it’s worth it to get not one but two — count ‘em, TWO — burrs under PETA’s saddle.

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]]> http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/happy-eat-an-animal-for-peta-day/feed/ 4 http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/at-least-i-wont-serve-frozen-turkey/ http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/at-least-i-wont-serve-frozen-turkey/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:38:31 +0000 Venomous Kate http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/at-least-i-wont-serve-frozen-turkey/ Earn free gift cards from Amazon and other stores by searching, playing games and clipping coupons here!
]]> Saturday night we had some neighbors over for dinner and, considering the time of year, it’s not surprising that the subject of deep-fried turkey came up. Now, despite my Southern roots, I have to admit that I’ve never tasted such a thing. Oh, I’ve heard of them. These days, everyone seems interested in coming up with ways to do something strange on Thanksgiving, whether it’s deep-frying the thing or serving turducken. I’m not a fan of change, though: there’s something almost sacred about a perfectly roasted Norman Rockwell-kind of turkey and I’m reluctant to try anything else come Thanksgiving.

Still, I was curious but wouldn’t know where to begin (aside from not doing it in the garage). Fortunately, the folks at Yumm.com have provided an excellent primer on how to deep-fry a turkey.

If you haven’t visited Yumm before, it’s worth the click. Billing themselves as the “yummy corner of the web”, they focus on fast, easy and (sometimes) healthy recipes. Plus, they provide video how-to guides on everything from making Adam Sandler’s memorable sandwich in Spanglish to carving that deep-fried turkey once it’s ready.

Me? I’m going to stick with the old tried and true sugar-brined and roasting method. It’s worked for me for 11+ years, ever since VH and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together. But I am thinking about giving deep-fried Twinkies a shot.

Mmm… Twinkies.

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]]> http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/at-least-i-wont-serve-frozen-turkey/feed/ 10 http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/rat-its-whats-for-dinner/ http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/rat-its-whats-for-dinner/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:28:19 +0000 Venomous Kate http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/rat-its-whats-for-dinner/ Earn free gift cards from Amazon and other stores by searching, playing games and clipping coupons here!
]]> Faced with soaring food prices and plummeting grain supplies, officials in India are encouraging the populace to eat rats. That’s right, rats.

Fans of “Fear Factor” probably just lost their breakfast after reading that sentence. One FF viewer even sued NBC after watching the episode. Granted, that incident involved the consumption of pureed rats, hair and bones and all. But even intact the rodent is considered gruesome fare in America, so much so that restaurants are closed down when rat infestations are discovered.

Now, I like to think of myself as a adventurous gastronome. I’ve munched on preying mantis, guzzled down goat innards, licked my lips after eating lamb cheeks and once even worked on a wad of whale baleen. Though I’ve never done dog meat, I couldn’t consider consuming a cat. Other than that, I have what we’ll just kindly refer to as a cast-iron stomach. (No doubt a history of drinking martinis has somehow contributed to that fact.)

So I can’t honestly say I’d reject rat right from the start. But rats that have been running around on the streets of India, a country with some of the world’s worst industrial pollution? Every year, India’s filth-contaminated drinking water kills people, and it was just over a decade ago that rat-borne bubonic and pneumonic plague wiped out scores in the country’s rural areas. When it comes to eating the little buggers, I have to admit I’m a bit too squeamish to consider it.

Then again, I live in a country where food is so abundant that we pay money to gyms, personal trainers, nutritionists and physicians to help us work off the effects of over-consumption. We can’t begin to imagine losing 50% of the country’s grain supply as India has thanks to rats.

The good news is that an Indian-born researcher at the University of Florida may have discovered a vaccine against both bubonic and pneumonic plague. Rats given an injection of the vaccine survived exposure without any traces of the plague remaining in their bodies. The vaccine is being developed in oral form as well which means, depending on the result of human trials, that an inexpensive yet effective way to prevent plague may be just around the corner.

If that’s the case then perhaps the Indian government’s recommendation to “let them eat rats” is an innovative and responsible one in the face of the country’s food crisis. Come to think of it, perhaps it’s something Americans will get less squeamish about as our own food prices continue to soar. After all, I hear they’re pretty good in rat enchiladas or shepherd’s pie

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]]> http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/rat-its-whats-for-dinner/feed/ 6 http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/i-have-seen-heaven-its-in-texas/ http://www.electricvenom.com/food-bites/i-have-seen-heaven-its-in-texas/#comments Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:00:28 +0000 Venomous Kate http://www.electricvenom.com/?p=9523 Earn free gift cards from Amazon and other stores by searching, playing games and clipping coupons here!
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There is a place in Central Texas where class and age and race have no meaning, where strangers gladly rub elbows with one another, and where Heaven and Hell themselves join together to glorify the cloven hoofed pig. That place, my friends, is Smitty’s Market in Lockhart, Texas.

From the moment I entered a cloud of fragrant black smoke enveloped me. Not that I could see it, mind you. If there’s one thing darker than the cast iron stoves perched to either side of the meat counter it’s the confines of the pit room itself. Layers upon layers of creosote coat the pit room’s walls and ceiling, a grime so deep and black it seems to suck up the light from the twin roaring fires.

I turned to my brother, certain we’d stumbled into a back room not meant to be seen by civilized (and heat intolerant) customers. His only response was to point out the menu to me, a chalkboard bearing the honor roll of a good BBQ joint: hand-made sausages (spicy and regular), ribs (by the pound or by the slab) and brisket (full fat and lean). I would have salivated, but so fierce was the heat in that small, dark room that my saliva had instantly dried up, along with my contact lenses.

A woman stepped through the murky haze of billowing smoke, and there in that hellishly hot room I was not in the least surprised to find her clad in red and wielding a trident-sized fork from which hung a slab of beautifully crusted, blackened meat. “Help you?” she asked as the juices dripped from that tender smoked flesh she had speared. I was giddy. Too giddy, in fact, to order and fortunately my brother handled that for me.

Just as fast as he could utter the glorious words “Full slab of ribs, six regular sausages and two pounds lean brisket” the meat appeared before us. The fork-bearing woman whipped out a knife and began slicing and sliding the meat onto sheets of brown paper, the kind they used to wrap packages in for mailing. Our packages didn’t have far to travel, however: once the meat was paid for we stepped through a pair of glass doors I hadn’t previously noticed and entered a dining room out of the 1950s.

At Smitty’s you don’t order your sides along with your meat. You also don’t ask for sauce. I suppose you could — if you wanted to look like a fool — but you wouldn’t need it. You do, however, need side items if only to cleanse the palate between sausages and ribs. Side dishes are served in the dining room behind a long wooden bar overlooked by old-fashioned Coca Cola signs. Here the temperatures are cooler and if the walls aren’t perfectly white they nevertheless look pristine in comparison with the pit room. Whether it’s potato salad you’re after or, incongruously, a whole avocado, they’ve got it… but don’t expect to eat it with a fork. Just as they don’t offer sauce at Smitty’s they also don’t bother with forks. Never have.

By the time I’d ordered Texas-style pinto beans (my personal favorite) and a Big Red soda the rest of my family had already seated themselves on folding chairs pulled up to one of the six long wooden trestle tables in the room. In this palace of all things pork-related there’s no such thing as private seating: you eat alongside everyone else, crowding closer and closer together as business picks up. But lest you worry what some stranger might think of you tearing into a rib and licking your fingers, it’s really no problem: everyone licks their fingers at Smitty’s. Sometimes they even lick the sheets of brown paper that serve as plates. It’s that good.

Now, having lived for the majority of the past 20 years in the Kansas City area — a place that’s been known to make some damn fine BBQ — I like to think of myself as a bit of an aficionado. I know, for instance, that the crap Chicago calls BBQ is a travesty, and that Memphis might think they know what they’re doing but their sauce all tastes like vinegar to me. And don’t get me started on the putrescence of South Carolina’s mustard-based sauces.

So you can imagine my surprise when, juices streaming down my chin, I found myself eating the very best BBQ I’d ever tasted. A BBQ with no sauce. A BBQ consisting solely of meat lovingly and carefully smoked, basted with its own liquids and worth every drop of sweat expired in pursuit of its fleshy perfection. I cannot tell you how the pinto beans were, nor whether Smitty’s potato salad is creamy or tart. I can’t because after that first bite of meat I lost all interest in everything else; the world dwindled down to me and a big pile of steaming meat, and for thirty-five solid minutes it was the most intense, heady relationship of my life.

Alas, all good things must end and after two sausages, six ribs and a massive pile of lean brisket, I had to bid adieu to Smitty’s. If ever in my life there was a moment when I toyed with the idea of becoming bullimic it was there at the center table in Smitty’s as I gazed longingly toward the glass doors leading back to that dark, sweltering pit room where, I knew, there waited a seemingly endless stream of meat. Ultimately, however, like Adam and Eve shuffling away from the Garden of Eden, my brother and I had to leave the paradise of pork behind, too.

Stepping out into the blinding rock-lined parking lot, I turned to my brother and said, “You know, I think I’ve figured out why the Islamic extremists hate us. Wouldn’t you be pissed if you’d been forbidden to eat food like that?” And there in the heart of the Lone Star state, our bellies bulging as we sood beneath a searing sun, we agreed that the key to world peace might very well lie within the unassuming brick structure wherein Smitty’s is housed. Yeah, their BBQ is that good.

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