Sarah theme continued

Frankly, I don't know what it is, but I just can't stop with the Sarah Palin topics. Oh well, here's another one for your perusal, Poodle.

SPECIAL ALERT: Californians Turned Off By Wine With Remarkably Similar Name to a VEEP Hopeful

Is this news? I'm leaning towards "entertainment", which is the only reason I go anywhere close to politics.

Diva WineKnow put me on to this topic. Made me laugh. Check out this article on Fox.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/24/palin-syrah-wine-drinkers-balk-at-a-chilean-wine-with-hints-of-alaska/

I'm just moosin' with ya

In the case that moose suddenly becomes a trendy meat item what with the intrigue from Sarah Palin, I serve up some solutions that hopefully will put you on the cutting edge of cuisine. Again, should this take off across the nation like her unprezidented (tee, hee) stardom has.

Of course, moose don't roam around Alabama, which is good because some places have their hands full with deer. You may be relieved to know that your favorite venison dish can be prepared with moose meat as a substitute. In case you don't have venison recipes, I offer some moose meat recipes for your digestion.

Moose Stroganoff
1 1/2 lbs moose sirloin steak (cut in 1/2" strips) 3 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup flour, plus 2 tablespoons flour 1tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt 1 cup beef broth
1/2 lb mushrooms, chopped 1 cup sour cream
2 small onions, chopped 1 clove garlic
Roll meat in 1/4 cup flour and salt. Saute garlic, onions and mushrooms in oil for 5 minutes. Add meat and brown. Remove meat, mushrooms and onions from pan. Add remaining flour to drippings in pan. Add Worcestershire and broth. Cook until thickened. Add sour cream. Heat until gravy simmers. Add cooked moose and vegetables and reheat. Serve over noodles or rice.

I'm starting to crave a Nordic vacation after reading that one. Let's head south and warm up. 'Cause nothing says "authentic moose recipe" quite like ........

Mexican Moose Casserole
1 1/2 lbs. ground moose 1/2 Cup water
1 pkg. soft tortillas 1/2 Cup mushrooms
1 (10 oz.) can enchilada sauce 1/4 Cup sliced black olives
1 can tomatoes 1/2 lb. grated cheddar cheese
Brown meat and spread evenly in bottom of baking dish. Tear up tortillas and place over meat. Pour enchilada sauce, tomatoes and soup over tortillas in layers. Sprinkle cheese on top and refrigerate overnight. Bake 45 minutes at 300 degrees, covered. Remove and brown.

These don't do it for you??? Relax, Poodle. You can also use your favorite meatloaf recipe featuring your fresh ground moose or use ground moose as the twist on your next hamburger.

Off to pick up my new eyeglasses.

OK, This is better than that grocery store crap

Inspired by a posting by Cardiac Diva.

Here's a suggestion on how to pass some time watching the hurricane coverage over the next 24 hours. For those of you who don't hear me on the radio, from time to time, I advocate drinking games during coverage of national events to make them much, much more interesting (I'm not about to be branded PC, so why pretend?). I believe these can work for those purposes. If you prefer to lessen the mixing of alcohol, I suggest an alternate game could be that any time you hear the phrases that are the name of these drinks, swill your beverage of choice. You can actually order these drinks in New Orleans at St. Charles Tavern.

MANDATORY EVACUATION
1 1/2 oz. Absolut Ruby Red vodka
1/2 oz. vermouth
ClamatoPrune juice
Combine vodka and vermouth in cocktail glass. Fill remainder of glass with equal parts clamato and prune juice. Stir. Drink. Ask next-door neighbor whose ficus tree blew over and crashed onto your roof-- even though you'd warned him for months to uproot it--if you can use his bathroom. Repeat.

CATEGORY 5
1/2 oz. vodka
1/2 oz. tequila
1/2 oz. rum
1/2 oz. bourbon
1/2 oz. gin
Sweet-and-sour mix
Splash of fruit juice
Combine vodka, tequila, rum, bourbon and gin in a tall glass. Fill remainder of glass with sweet-and-sour mix and splash of juice. Stir, then garnish with an inverted drink umbrella. Drink during peak storm hours, and vow not to believe anyone who tries to tell you the hurricane that flooded your garage and destroyed your shed was just a Category 1.

CONE OF PROBABILITY
1 oz. cinnamon schnapps
1 sugar cone
Pour the schnapps into the sugar cone. Every time you hear a TV weatherman say, "cone of probability," bite off the end of the cone and down the shot. If you hear Weather Channel StormTracker Jim Cantore say it, drink two shots consecutively. (They should change this to the "Cantore Zone"... damn him.) Have you ever noticed that, despite all the cone of probability talk, if Cantore is parked in front of your house your ass is toast?

FEEDER BAND
2 oz. Midori
2 oz. rum
1 scoop vanilla ice cream
After your home loses power, combine Midori and rum in a cocktail glass. Add a scoop of the vanilla ice cream that is melting in your freezer. Stir, and drink through a straw.

BEACH EROSION
1 1/2 oz. Goldschläger
1/2 oz. apple brandy
1 pack Sugar in the Raw
Combine Goldschläger, apple brandy and sugar in cocktail glass. As you drink, seriously contemplate moving your Yankee ass back to New Jersey where it belongs.

DOWNED POWER LINE
1 1/2 oz. rum
5 oz. Jolt Cola
Combine ingredients in a cocktail glass. Drink while trying to figure out how the heck you're supposed to go two freakin' weeks without television and AC.

FLOOD ZONE
2 oz. Kahlúa
2 oz. Baileys Irish Cream
4 oz. rum
Serve in a 6-ounce glass and laugh-cry deliriously as the mess spills all over the countertop. (Get it? There's a little math involved, Pumpkin!)

LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT
1 oz. Jack Daniel's
Splash of sarsaparilla
Rock salt
Load both barrels of a shotgun with rock salt. Climb to the roof of your house with gun, bottle of Jack Daniel's and can of sarsaparilla. Fill shot glass with Jack and splash of sarsaparilla. Watch for looters. When you spot one, blast his ass with rock salt. Drink shot. Repeat.

I don't know about you, but thanks to Cardiac Diva, I'm going to be a lot more relaxed while watching hurricane coverage from now on!

Grocery Shopping Strategies

I've got food on the brain ... and an empty stomach and 'fridge, so I'll write about it instead of eating (yeah, that'll work).

I recently read where the average American buys groceries twice a week. Are You Serious?!?!? Are you like me and don't really love the grocery store? It's not bad, it just takes a lot longer than I feel like it should and that's my basic beef with it. Not a quick thing -- so, maybe that's why people go twice a week and make 2 quick trips. Not efficient, Cupcake.

The price of food, along with everything else, is going up. Brace for your grocery bill to rise 4-5% this year compared to last year. What can we do to make sure we get the best bang for our grocery buck? Here are some of the things I do:

• Clip coupons ... but only the ones you already buy.
• Make out your menu list for the week before heading to the store. This way, you won't have to make that quick trip later on to pick up that one item because you will list all ingredients needed for your meals when making your shopping list.
• The Main Squeeze, an efficiency expert, was impressed when he discovered I listed needed groceries working from the south end of the store to the north end. When I run out of frozen waffles, for example, I write it down on the bottom portion of the list because it's on the north end of the store (and I get the frozen stuff last so it won't melt in the heat).
• The less expensive meats are poultry.
• Freeze meats that you're not using within a day or two, especially when they've been marked down because stores typically do this on the last date of sale before expiration.
• Did you know that store brands are typically 15-20% cheaper than national brands? Noodle that one.

I'd love to hear your grocery shopping tips. Share with the group.

My New Favorite Grill Item

Cupcake, you know how I love all things grilling. Well, I've run across this amazing gadget that is simply a must-have item. And the price is beyond excellent. Williams Sonoma (don't you just Love that store?!) has come out with a mesh pan, like the ones used in the Basque region. You remember, that tiny, tiny area between Spain and France. They're really nationalistic and don't want to belong to either of those countries. Anyway, one of the great things they've added to cuisine is cooking in innovative cookware over the grill. (Photo source: williams-sonoma.com)

When one grills in a mesh pan, several amazing benefits spring to mind:

1. No more sticking to the grill with that fun, fun subsequent scrubbing and burning off stuck-on food.

2. You can soak the mesh pan in a wonderful device known as your kitchen sink to get it really clean

3. The mesh pan allows the food to cook without adding oil to the veggies, which is important to those of us watching our fat intake and who have been advised not to hand-pour olive oil while cooking (yes, this from my Italian-origin trainer -- more on that sacrilege another day, Poodle).

4. If you use chips in your fire to enhance the flavor, your veggies really absorb it better in the grill pan

5. You can slice up the items in your grill pan smaller than you'd be able to do otherwise on your grill

Check it out on http://www.williams-sonoma.com/. Let me know what you think.

Oh! And sorry for the absence. I'm cooking up something else and will reveal it soon enough, but it's taking up a lot of my time right now. Miss you, Strudel!