Pie Bake-Off

From A:

Today at work, we had a building-wide chili and pie bake-off. I made a pie for the competition. There were 12 total pie entries, including peanut butter pie, cookies and cream pie, two pumpkin pies, french silk pie, blackberry pie, ice cream pie, and a few others... including two cornbread pies. I'm not sure what was up with those except that perhaps they were meant to accompany the chili.

My recipe, chocolate chip pecan pie, took second place! If you'd like to recreate my masterpiece in your own home, here is how you do it:

Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie

Ingredients

Crust:
1 refrigerated pie crust, softened as directed on box

Filling and Topping:
¾ cup light corn syrup
½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (6 oz)
1 teaspoon shortening

Directions

1. Heat oven to 325ºF. Place pie crust in 9-inch glass pie plate as directed on pie crust box.
2. In large bowl, beat corn syrup, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and eggs with wire whisk. Stir in pecans and ¾ cup of the chocolate chips. Spread evenly in crust-lined plate. Cover crust edge with strips of foil to prevent excessive browning.
3. Bake 30 minutes. Remove foil; bake 15 to 25 minutes longer or until pie is deep golden brown and filling is set. Cool 15 minutes.
4. In small microwavable bowl, microwave remaining ¼ cup chocolate chips and the shortening uncovered on high 1 minute; stir until smooth. Drizzle chocolate over top of pie.

Serve pie warm or cool.

Happy Baking!!!

El Presidente

From A:

On Friday, J and I were able to have lunch at the president's house. Not the president of the country, but the president of the University of Florida. And no, he didn't personally invite us to dine with him. Actually, contrary to the name, the president doesn't actually live at the president's house. Former presidents of the university have lived in the house, but the current president decided to reside elsewhere and allow the house to be used for university functions. Which is neat, because otherwise I doubt we would have ever seen the inside. Plus, it probably minimizes the number of times the house gets rolled (a police officer was stationed at the house during our event to make sure all the engineers didn't get out of hand and start devising clever ways to utilize pyrotechnics).

The reason for our visit was a luncheon for my engineering department's anniversary celebration. We ate at tables set up in the backyard of the house, but the first floor inside was open for everyone to get their curiosity fix. It's a very nice house, complete with a reading room and piano. Here is J in front of the piano:

Here I am in another part of the house. I'm not really sure what this room is intended to be since there is only a single table with a floral arrangement on it:And here I am at the huge table in the dining room. This must be where all the student government officers schmooze important people in an attempt to get more money to spend on fingerprint identification scanners for the campus gyms.
And for the most entertaining photo, there were a bunch of boxes of wine on the back patio of the house. This is especially comical due to the firm anti-alcohol policy the president implemented when he started at the university. But once again, we can probably blame student government for it:

Christmastime

From J:

A wise man once said that you aren't really married until you have monogrammed Christmas stockings. Well.....

We're married now. Bring it, Christmas.

The post where I give out a delicious recipe

From J:

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the object of my recent affections:


Panera's Asian Sesame Chicken Salad. And no, I didn't take this photo. I found it on the internet. Anyway, this salad is delicious. I MUST HAVE IT. But it costs $6.99. I REFUSE TO PAY THAT MUCH.

A little bit of googling revealed several imitation recipes that looked terrible but one that looked pretty good. To no surprise, this salad's magic is all in the dressing. I tinkered around a little bit with the one I found and came up with this:

2 tsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sesame oil (the dark stuff)
3 Tbsp cider vinegar
1/8 tsp lemon juice
2 packets of Splenda (4 tsp)

Whisk vigorously. If you want some more oil in there for some reason, add a little bit of vegetable oil to thicken it up, but it really does nothing for the overall experience and adds some calories. The end result is tart and fruity with a little bit of a toasty, nutty flavor from the sesame oil. For the rest of the salad,

Chicken (we used lemon pepper rotisserie)
Fresh cilantro (just a bit)
Sliced almonds
Chow mein noodles
Romaine (or spinach, my preference)

Seriously, this is good. I would say that it's g--d eats, but I don't want to get sued.

Bunnies!

From J:

This morning A and I volunteered with the local rabbit rescue. Let me set the scene:

1) Drive in to the boonies
2) Turn at the traffic light
3) Turn in to the lady's house
4) Gawk at the menagerie of animals.

Seriously, this lady has everything. Two turkeys. Three dozen chickens (none for eating - just for eggs and as pets. Loud, loud pets. She had a dozen roosters.). Four dogs. Cats (at least 3). Ten birds. A pet rabbit of her own, and about 30 other rabbits that she's keeping for the rabbit rescue. Incredible. I don't know how she does it. Our job for the morning was to change out the their litterboxes and sweep out their hutches, along with feeding them. It felt like that scene from Napoleon Dynamite where he goes to work on the chicken farm for a day. A quick aside: gobble.


Enough of the boring stuff. Time for some cute pictures! Without further ado, I present to you.....Tim Tebun.


Tim Tebun was being sold for $5 on Craigslist as snake food, and was rescued along with four other rabbits. Then, one of those rabbits gave birth. WARNING: EXTREME CUTENESS AHEAD.


Two weeks old. TWO WEEKS. They liked me. Take this picture, for example.


Now, let's contrast that with what happened whenever A tried to feed it:


Bunny affection fail! But A could still rely on Tim Tebun.


That's the lady who owns the place burning her yard waste in the background, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. But it's probably also of questionable legality to have upwards of 70 animals at your house, so it's par for the course. Anyway, that little gray rabbit didn't want to be held, but another one did.


Lucky, the dog, was fascinated by the babies. I would almost say that he wanted them for appetizers, but he's had two whole weeks to make that happen so I'm inclined to say that it's just general curiosity. Obligatory shot of my wife holding the same bunny:

Bundon Spikes, perhaps? That's their mother lounging in the background. She was very laid back about us touching her babies.

After we played with the rabbits a little bit, it was time to leave. Will we return? I don't know. I seem to be mildly allergic to them. But it was certainly an interesting and pretty fun morning.

Tour!

From A:

J met me at work today and I was able to give him a tour of the new hospital before it opens on Nov. 1st. We got to see all of the places that will have restricted access once the hospital opens and patients arrive.

Here we are on the heliport (it's the 10th floor of the building). There's a great panoramic view of the university behind us. To the left is the stadium and O-Dome, and to the right is Century Tower and the auditorium:

We also had a little fun while we were up there:

A helicopter landed at the heliport across the street while we were there:

J gave a mock sermon in the chapel:

We checked out the 9th floor, also known as the "Penthouse." It was a bit of a letdown:

And despite the penthouse letdown, we got to see the 320 slice CT, which was very cool: