It’s true… many people these days do not stop to watch commercials. The advent of the DVR has made television commercial spots a finicky form of conveying your advertising message. BUT… sometimes commercials are unavoidable, or maybe you forget that you can fast forward through them.
If you have watched the Food Network anytime in the past YEAR, or any daytime television program on network cable for that matter, you may have seen a direct-to-customer ad for Debbie Meyer Green Bags. Their website claims that, when you store your fruits and veggies in these bags, they will stay fresher longer… by absorbing the ethylene gas that is naturally given off by the fruits/veggies. The commercial itself is quite funny (as most As-Seen-On-TV product commercials are)... she opens the door to her fridge and it is PACKED completely full of Green Bags, each brimming with perfectly fresh looking produce. Though the commercial did not prompt us to call and order Debbies wonderful bags, their existence did remain the heads of my parents…. soooo when they saw a display of the “official” Green Bags at the local Kroger, they decided to try some (classic marketing strategy by Debbie, BTW).
This isnt the first time we have experimented with As Seen on TV products… we have had great success with some (my dad loves his Flowbee) and not so much with others (the Eggstractor is a POS). We decided to test the new found Green Bags with bananas… and a week later this is what we saw:
Pretty cool…. considering my family buys a lot of banannas, usually just a couple too many, making us the proud owners of many a brown/VERY ripe banana. Although the ripe ripe bananas make the best banana bread (recipe to come), now we should have more yellow bananas around for snacking and my favorite sandwich: Peanut butter, banana, and honey. Yum!
Side note: We tried a second bag of tomatoes, and some did start to rot inside. I told my mom that the bags only claim to extend the life of veggies, not make them live forever
The can’t all be winners * sigh * The recipe seemed to have such potential too! My parents love going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast, and the hashbrown caserole there is one of their favorite dishes. My mom found the following recipe in a Secret-Recipies-Revealed type book, and wanted to test it out. We were hoping to discover a dish that would be perfect for a morning Bunco party, but sadly we only came up with this bland disaster.
How could you go wrong with potatoes, onions and cheese? I do not know… all I can recommend is that you do not attempt this dish, we didnt care for it enough to serve to friends. Also, it took forever to try to wash the pan we cooked it in. Boo.
Cracker Barrel Hash Brown Casserole
Ingredients:
1 cup milk
1/2 cup beef broth
1 TBS butter or margarine, melted and divided
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Dash garlic pepper
1 package (30 oz) frozen country style shredded hash brown potatoes
2 cups (8oz) shredded Colby cheese
Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the milk, brother, 1 TSP butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Stir in hash browns.
Heat remaining butter in a large nonstick skillet. Add hash brown mixture.
Cook and stir over medium heat until potatoes are heated through.
Stir in cheese.
If desired, transfer to a greased shallow 2 quart baking dish.
Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
Forget Indiana Jones or that SATC movie… The Dark Knight is gonna be the best thing to hit movie theatres this summer.
Batman has been my favorite superhero since I was about 8 years old… I had Gotham City made out of construction paper on my bedroom door, and I watched the live-action tv show (in re-runs of course) every single day after school. In college, I was extatic to find an essay prompt on my Theories of Personality Developement Psyc Mid-term to read ...Relate Ericsons theory of personality development to Bruce Wayne/Batman… Awesome. I got to write a whole essay on how bruce witnessing his parents death as a child/other life experiences helped mold him into a vengeful yet noble superhero.
I think Batman has always been my favorite because Bruce Wayne is just a regular guy (with disposable income)... he doesnt need a lab experiment gone wrong/genetic mutation/to be from another planet… he is just a man mad at the world and doing something about it. Perhaps it’s the fact that, in comic books, the good and the evil are so clearly defined that is draws me in… real life is hardly ever that clear.
Of course, the fact that Christian Bale, one of my favorite actors, is playing the Dark Knight doesn’t hurt When I first heard he would play the role in Batman Begins , I was a bit skeptical. Sure, he was young and attractive for the part of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, but that was back in the EIGHTIES… it took me a split second to realise that American Psycho was filmed in 2000 and just SET in the 1980s… which made me love American Psycho more… but I digress.
Even accepting the fact that Christian Bale would be good for the role, I was still very sceptical to go see Batman Begins . I knew the movie premise and that it had the potential to be AWESOME, but I didnt want to get my hopes up… and I definatly did not want the movie to make a mockery of the best superhero story ever (umm does anyone even remember the George Clooney-Batman movie... yeah I didnt think so). Needless to say, my jaw was on the floor as I watched Batman Begins in the theatre… the movie better than I even thought it could be*, and Bale was an excelent choice for the role. I am so excited to see him again in The Dark Knight, coming to theatres and IMAX July 18th. Get Excited.
It’s been over a year (just about) since I have actually attemped to start a new craft project… the “craft area” of my room is full of tools, instruction books and materials needs for seveal different projects, and to be honest before last week I’d forgotten I even owned most of them (oh dear). The craft area (actually just some plastic drawers kind of burried in the corner) of course also has seveal 1/2 finished projects… typical of most crafts I suspect.
But this project was going to be different! When I saw the pattern online, and knew that I alread owned the supplies nessary, I was determiend t start and finish it in a timely manner A quilted pillow top seemed like just the right kind of craft to start, since it was small and would let me practice my machine quilting. (I have peiced together seveal quilt blocks, but have never gotten around to the actually QUILTING part on my own before).
It also gave me the change to play with my new camera!
...Deciding fabric placement
The top, all sewn together
The reverse side, you can see more of the details…
...EXTREME CLOSEUP….woah
Ta da! All finished
It’s not quite square, but that’s ok. I more wanted the quilting practice, and to be able to visualise how the case would fit the pillow in the end. Now I know (using a block about 1/2” smaller than the pillow dimensons gave me the look I was going for).
My next project… T-Shirt Quilt using old college T-shirts… maybe that’ll get done sometime in the next year But it will be AWESOME!
When I first heard he would play the role in 
A quilted pillow top seemed like just the right kind of craft to start, since it was small and would let me practice my machine quilting. (I have peiced together seveal quilt blocks, but have never gotten around to the actually 
