A Couple Of Good Productive Days

Some things have not been going well around here lately.  Nothing life-altering, but when things go wrong (broken birdfeeder pole, lettuce plants died inside the house,  roof shingle blew off in a storm, etc) it adds up, it can get pretty annoying.

So I am happy to mention a few successes!

1.  I cooked a standing rib roast a couple days ago, and I don't think I've ever done that before.  I marinated it overnight (red wine, garlic, onion, herbs) and cooked it to "rare". I don't eat meat rare, but I was slicing it in 1/2" pieces to freeze and reheat later (so that it wouldn't be "well-done" after reheating.   Came out great!

2.  I went grocery shopping (hence the standing prime rib) and also bought a spiral sliced ham (for slicing and freezing for sandwiches).  I check the receipt before I leave the store to make sure I got my Safeway loyalty card discounts and the digital ones from their website.  They were there.  But when I got home, I realized that they had charged me for the ham twice.  

I wasn't sure how to prove I hadn't bought 2 hams.  But in the middle of the night, it occurred to me that the repeated price of 2 hams would be exactly twice the cost on the label.  Which would be really unlikely if I had bought 2 different hams.  So I brought it back to the store (in a cooler with ice-packs around it) and explained it to the customer service manager.

She finally agreed and refunded the cost of the "2nd ham".  Yay!  If she hadn't, I would have demanded they check their videotape of the purchase.  I'm glad a didn't have to.  Actually, it occurs to me just now that I benefited from the refund more than I should have.  

I used a 10% discount coupon I got from them for getting my RSV vaccine.  And I got credit toward a future gas purchase (every $100 spent there gets me 10 cents per gallon off at their gas station).  I don't think I will go back to complain about that because I think it would just be too difficult to calculate and it would be about $2 at most.

3.  A very minor thing, but I advised 2 different people that they had dropped a glove, and a 3rd person that they had dropped their covid mask.  Little things matter.

4.  I've mentioned having laser printer color problems.  The Canon agent finally concluded (after an hour-long discussion and fix-attempts) that I most likely needed new toner.  So I bought some.  And when I got home and looked at the boxes, suddenly I saw similar ones in the computer room.  I had already bought new ones!

So yesterday, I went to return them.  I was concerned they would accept toner back.  But the boxes were unopened and pristine, and they didn't even argue about it.  But when they scanned the receipt on the 1st (black) box, it refused to register.  I figured there was a special policy refusing toner returns.  Bt when I suggested scanning the actual box bar code, it was accepted.  As were the color boxes.  

That was a great relief.  Toner lasts a lot longer than inkjet cartridges but is more expensive per cartridge.  If they had refused the return, I would have been out more than $250!  But it all worked out and I am very happy about that

5.  My good neighbors gave me a small box of Xmas goodies.  I had already bought a small box of chocolate-covered cherries for them and was waiting to add some banana/walnut muffins.  I finally made the muffins last night.

I was delayed on that because I kept not quite having all the ingredients.  Banana/walnut cake is a rather complicated recipe usually cooked in a bundt pan.  It came to me via Mom from Dad's mom.  I've loved it from childhood to the present.  Mom said she would only leave me the recipe in her Will, and she came darn close to that.  Thankfully she relented when she realized she couldn't cook any more.

It is sort of like a spice cake, but only like a standing prime rib roast is like a rump roast.  There is the usual flour and sugar and baking soda.  But you have to separate the egg yolks and whites.  You have to chop walnuts.    You have to mash 2 ripe bananas.  You have to "sour" some milk (milk plus some vinegar).  You have to whip the egg whites.

Then stir various ingredients together in a certain order for a couple minutes each (and it is thick and hard to stir).  Finally, you gently fold the whipped egg white in.  Add that is just for the bundt cake method.  But I wanted to make cupcakes/muffins for the neighbors present.  

I get in over my skills sometimes.  Muffins cook differently from cakes.  I had to look that up and got so many different instructions.  350F vs 375.  15 minutes or 20.  Cupcake papers or parchment paper circles on the bottom.  Top oven shelf or middle.  Fill 1/2 way or 2/3.  I went with cupcake papers and averaged the rest.

Because there is always "the toothpick test"...  The final arbitrator of doneness, LOL!  I was nervous about the results the whole time they were cooling.  After an hour, I finally gave one a taste-test (I had 22).  It was perfect...

I don't bake desserts often.  Brownies or tollhouse cookies a few times a year.  I hadn't made a banana/walnut cake in 5 years.  I 'm not sure I had made them as muffins before.  You experienced bakers may smile, but I feel insufferably pleased!  For me, that was a big deal.  And they worked out.😁

6.  And finally, I did something that might be useful to all cooks.  I've been frustrated about where to place my recipe cards while using them.  I've previously propped them up on the back of my cutting board, but stuff gets splashed around sometimes.  I wanted something better.  I could have glued a plastic clip to the base of the cabinet door above where I do my food prep.  But that seemed ugly.

So I stuck a small piece of double-sided tape in the center of the bottom of the door.  Then I stuck a small refrigerator magnet on the tape.  Then I put a small magnet with a handle on that.  I just take the top one off and trap the recipe card between them. 

 

So I've had a great couple of days.  Successful returns, error-adjustments, cooking a few things, and a nice little invention.