Category — howto

Hosting a dinner for a couple of friends isn’t terribly hard, but it does require some preparation.

For instance, this Saturday I decided to test out a recipe that I wanted to make for two friends coming over this coming Friday. We have an awesome night of board games, dinner and hanging out planned.

The recipe is called Sirloin Roast Wrapped in Bacon. How can you go wrong with such a recipe? Roast beef? Good. Bacon? Awesome.

So, Joe and I went out and I bought all the ingredients we needed and I have to admit, as I was preparing the roast – slathering on the Dijon mustard, carefully wrapping the roast with bacon (the kind with 25% less salt too – I am considerate of my guest’s arteries) – I felt a surge of as yet unearned pride. There I was, making a meal that would say: “I am an adult. I can host a successful dinner. I am awesome.” A montage played through my head: my guest’s eyes rolling up in their heads in ecstasy as they took the first bite. A ringing of wine glasses as they toasted my prowess in the kitchen. Admiring and envious looks.

Yes, I do have quite the imagination.

I slid the roast into the oven, marveling at my own handiwork and within 30 minutes, I could smell bacon and a hint of the Dijon mustard in the air. I congratulated myself; if the smell was anything to go by, this was going to be great.

Fast-forward to nearly 2 hours later.

The timer on the oven has buzzed; I open the oven door and when the fog clears from my glasses – there she is: the bacon wrapped roast. I break off a tiny piece of crisp bacon. It is perfect.

With great care, I remove the roast from the pan. I take out most of the toothpicks I used to hold some of the bacon and cut in with my sharpest knife and try a little of my masterpiece: it is not good.

The marbled fat that I somehow missed seeing when I purchased the meat is rubbery and disgusting. The Dijon mustard has added a sludgy texture that is reminiscent of flavourless mud. The bacon seems bland and a little soggy. The meat itself is dull – I might as well offer my guests waterlogged wood chips covered in filth and fat.

I have failed.

In fact, dinner was so bad that we ate almost nothing of it (while attempting to watch the movie Trick ‘r’ Treat which was nearly as bad as our dinner) and we tossed most of it straight into the garbage; it was that unsalvageable.

As I was washing the dishes, I saw the whole thing in a new and rather dismal light. I don’t even like Dijon mustard – it doesn’t belong on any food ever. I knew this and still used 1/3 of a jar on the roast. That bacon has 25% less salt – to hell with healthy arteries, everyone knows salt adds flavour! The toothpicks made the roast resemble Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies and it tasted gross!

My confidence in my cooking skills took a dive. My faith in the god-like abilities of bacon to make everything awesome wavered. I felt something like despair. I should have known that a recipe that came with the roasting rack might suck. I mean, it was a $14.00 rack for god’s sake. I doubt Gordon Ramsey would have clipped the it from the package and stuck it in his recipe box like I did.  I should also have known that buying a roast at your local Save On Foods might not be as good as say a butcher’s cut of roast. I might have been able to get the part of the cow that wasn’t riddled with fat if I’d gone to a butcher.

And then I remembered I had beer in the fridge.

So I had one, and I thought some more about my failed adventures in roast beef. Perhaps I wasn’t a failure after all.

I did learn the value of a good cut of meat and I did save my guests from having to eat a disgusting dinner (plus forcing them to choke it down politely because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings) – I hadn’t failed at all.

I just wasted some money and time and made my husband eat a crappy dinner…for the second night in a row…

And then I remembered I had beer in the fridge…

I recently stripped and replaced the caulking around the bathtub in our bathroom. Our landlord offered to do it, but after I realized that new caulking had been laid over old caulking the last time he “fixed” it, I decided to do it myself. I like things to be done right the first time.

So I stripped the old stuff off, cleaned up the mildew and soap scum and let it dry. Once that was done, I filled the bathtub with as much water as it would hold (this apparently helps mimic the gravity of bodies and water in the tub when it’s in use which allows the caulking to contract and expand properly) and then recaulked everything. It looks awesome now.

Unfortunately, I also had to remove a plastic shower guard to properly redo things. The old shower guard had at least three layers of caulking  – are people not aware you can’t recaulk in the same manner that you would give a wall a new coat of paint? – and some sticky stuff holding the guard to the tub ledge and wall.

A little Goo Gone, some elbow grease and a few swear words and it was done. Nice clean tub for a fresh start.

So, this morning I went out and bought a plastic shower guard. I tore open the package, removed the backing from the sticky part and laid it lightly on the tub’s ledge and congratulated myself on being such a fantastic DIY-er.

Just as I got ready to press the guard firmly into place, I realized the wall had an inch of tile going up the wall. The guard would have to be hacked up to accomodate the tile. Dammit.

I do not have a fine tooth saw capable of such a job and I had no intention of going back out to buy one, but I didn’t let lack of tools stop me! I improvised!

Tools of destruction

As you can see a marker, paring knife, scraper and file are all you need to horribly mangle repurpose a shower guard to fit your tub!

I call my approach “resourceful and innovative” – Joe, had he been here, probably would have called it a potential trip to the emergency room. I won this one: I only needed a small bandaid on the pinky finger of my right hand where I nicked myself with the scraper.

Now I just have to wait for the tub ledge and wall to be completely dry before I stick the guard on and caulk around it.

I’m sure I’m not the only person using whatever happens to be lying around the house for DIY projects – what resourceful and innovative measures have you taken to beautify your home?

Internet Explorer 7 – why do we use it?

There are other ways to look at all the Internet has to offer: (Firefox, Opera etc.) without having to swear at IE7. However, IE is the browser that most people are used to, so despite the frustration of not being able to find anything and the fact that IE7 seems to assume all its users are morons, we keep using it.

Well, if you’re going to use it anyway, you may as well learn to control it. Part of having control is being able to delete your internet history; the cookies, the browser history – the stuff you don’t want your significant other, your mom or the geeks at Best Buy to find on your computer.

There are two ways to delete cookies (or your browser history):

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools > Delete Browsing History…
3. Choose one of the options and click the corresponding delete button.

This will delete ALL of whatever option you pick. You will not have the option to pick and choose. So, if you chose to delete cookies, all cookies would be deleted. Even the ones you wanted to keep.

Or, you can delete cookies this way:

1. Click Tools > Internet Options
2. On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Settings.
3. In the Temporary Internet Files and History Settings, click View Files.

You can now choose the specific files, images and cookies you wish to delete.

If you want to delete things from your browser history, you can choose to delete everything through the Delete Browsing History… option (see the first set of instructions), or you can pick and choose:

1. Open Internet Explorer 7.
2. Click the inverted triangle  to the left of the address bar.
3. Click History.

You can now pick specific folders or pages to delete without being forced to delete everything.

Happy deleting!