Machete Man

     Sometimes, I do stupid things.  The stupid thing I'm going to tell you about today is that time I got chased by a man with a machete.  This happened when I was like, 16, and was kept as a highly classified secret because I feared that if my parents found out, they would lock me away until I was 78 or something.  Because obviously girls who get chased by men with machetes are not safe to be out and about.  But last Thanksgiving, the story came out to my parents and my aunt so it's safe for the rest of the world to know now.
    We just wanted an innocent adventure.  One of my cousins (the one I usually do stupid things with) was visiting and we met up with the guy I was seeing and, living in a small rural town, had absolutely nothing to do.  The answer was clear.  We had to go trespassing!
     We have some train yards in town.  I honestly don't know much about them.  I had never visited them prior to this night and, after what transpired, I have never been back.  To give you an idea of the train yards so you can accurately picture them in your mind and make this blog reading experience more exciting, the train yards are a grassy, brushy area.  With trains in it.  Fix this image in your imagination.  Now imagine that it was dark.  Because it was.
     I have no idea why we chose the train yards from among the vast options of other places to trespass but that's teenagers for you.  We parked my trusty white 1993 Corsica (Le Blizzard) a little ways away to be all sneaky like and hiked in.
     The train yards are creepy.  Our teenage minds were well able to imagine serial killer hobos hiding behind every bush and rock and entire hoards of zombified hobos (I'm afraid of hobos sometimes btw.  Not all the time.  Just sometimes) lurking in the rusty boxcars.  My cousin is afraid of snakes.  Being a mean creature, at every rustle of the grass I jokingly said "Ooooooooooh!  It's a snaaaaaaaaaaaaake!" causing her to shriek and me to giggle.
     Then there was a really big rustle in the bushes.  Too big for a snake.  Too big for a rabbit.  We paused, cocked our head to the side like spaniels and peered into the brush.  Stupid mistake.  Never pause.  Just run.
     A scary hobo man with ripped clothes and loooooooong stringy hair leaped out of the bushes shrieking like a banshee and waving a MACHETE!  For, the record, I did not see my life flash before my eyes.  I SAW A FRIGGIN' SCARY HOBO MAN WITH A MACHETE FLASH BEFORE MY EYES!
     I ran.  I ran all the way to my Corsica (Le Blizzard), fumbled the keys into the lock, dove in, locked it again, and waited.
     Where were the other two people in the party?  Were they chopped into little teenager bits for hobo stew?  Were they strung up and having their skins peeled off to make kid suits?  Were they still alive, fighting this scary hobo man tooth and nail and cursing me for abandoning them?  I was all a dither.
     Luckily, both of them soon came racing out of the woods.  They hopped in the car and away we sped.
     Here is what happened.  I ran (like a sane person), the guy tried to run but there was a hole and he tripped in it and fell down.  My dear, dear cousin, God bless her soul, continued watching the crazy hobo with the machete.  Luckily for her, the machete man got tangled in the bushes.  And fell down with a giggle.  Obviously she had to stop and laugh at him.
     So, that's the story of the Machete Man.  It was scary, but we all survived!.  I have other stories where I do stupid things!  I will tell them to you sometime!

*Note:  I was going have a sweet picture of a scary man with a machete but I am at a place.  And google imaging "machete man" brought up very graphic images.  I don't want the other people here to be really creeped out as I quietly sit here looking at blood and gore.  Might give the wrong impression.

**Note:  Machetes are scary.  So I put a picture of a puppy up instead.  I stole it from the internet.

I Don't Follow Recipes

    At least not all the way.  I take a look at the recipe and then measure things like soda, salt, vanilla, etc in the palm of my hand.  I've had many people tell me you can't estimate measurements while baking.  It's a science.  This, in the past, has particularly driven my dad nuts when he's asked me to make stuff for him because he measures out every single ingredient exactly.  But I do it my way and people will always eat what I bake and no one has died yet.
     This recipe is based on Neiman Marcus cookies (my mom's fav, btw).  I'm baking them to trade.   Two dozen cookies traded to a coworker in exchange for enough rhubarb to make a small pie!  I'm excited.  I grabbed a Neiman Marcus recipe off the internet (this one has chocolate chips!) and starting mixing.  
     I then realized that this recipe doesn't have oatmeal and my mom's does so this recipe is unacceptable.  So, then I started getting creative.  First of all, I used almond instead of vanilla (whoa, crazy!) which had nothing at all to do with the oatmeal at all but it sounded tasty.  I reduced the amount of flour so that I could add oatmeal.  Then I was looking through my cupboards and realized that I also have whole wheat flour and bran.  Wouldn't that go great in an oatmeal cookie?  So, I again reduced the flour so I could add those too.  I kind of measured.  Almost.
   Then I thought to myself, "man, I sure do like craisins and walnuts in my oatmeal cookies.  I should add craisins and walnuts!"  A quick text to my coworker gave the okay from him and his wife to add craisins and walnuts.  Good thing my parents gave me this ginourmous bag of walnuts!  The next issue was that when I dumped all my craisins in there weren't enough since I had doubled the recipe so I could bake my cookies and eat them too.  Good thing my parents gave me part of a bag of golden raisins!

 So anyway, that's the usual series of events when I bake.  I find a recipe, then make it "better."  I sampled these cookies and they are pretty dang tasty.  And my apartment (which I cleaned yesterday) smells amazing! Here's an approximate recipe (again, I didn't measure).

Kind of Neiman Marcus Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons almond extract
3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup bran
chocolate chips, craisins and raisins, chopped walnuts to taste.

1.  Cream butter in sugars
2.  Mix in eggs and extract
3.  Mix soda, powder, and salt
4.  Add the rest of dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated
5.  Mix in chocolate chips, craisins/raisins, and walnuts with a wooden spoon
6.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes (in my oven anyway)
7.  Cook, remove from cookie sheet, and eat!

*Note:  if you don't have or don't want to add wheat flour and bran, just add do about one cup of regular flour.  Again I didn't measure.  Try that and add until it looks right.

Morels!

  
     We didn't find any.  The afternoon was still a success, however, as I was able to get enough greens together (mostly Virginia water leaf and violet leaves and blossoms, but also a few sprigs of dandelion) for a nice spring salad.    
     The site was Thunder Woman County Park in Black Hawk County along the Cedar River.  The area is flooded right now but green stuff is coming up and blooming.  An associate and I carried plastic grocery bags and scoured the ground with our eyes looking for morels.  Like I said, we didn't find any, but it was a beautiful spring day and we swapped stories about what's blooming where at this time of year and what kind of foraged plants we've eaten and how we cooked it and if we liked it and all that jazz that nerdy nature people do when they are out foraging.  Aside from food, there were quite a few objects tossed around by people and the river.  A couple treasures I spotted are 1. a nice glass saying "Robert River Rides.  Quad City Queen.  Spirit of Dubuque.  Mississippi Belle 11" which will make a nice vase should I ever desire to plop some flowers into it and 2. a GINORMOUS snail shell (the biggest I have ever seen on an Iowa river) that looks like it had something go to town getting at the critter that used to call the shell home.  Here are my treasures.

     So pretty!

     So back home with my bounty I went.  I had some chicken brining (I have been informed that this will completely transform my cheap frozen chicken breasts).  I made an Asian inspired coating and baked the chicken and then tossed it in a spicy glaze.  Turned out good.  For my spring greens I made a quick honey-mustard vinaigrette which was DELICIOUS.  Will need to remember what all I put in it.  Also steamed some broccoli and cauliflower for good measure.  Went fancy tonight.

  Alas, now it is finals week (the reason I haven't posted anything in a long time is because of homework) and I need to write a paper now.  The fact that I actually made real food during finals weeks is just weird.  Usually finals week is pizza and pb&j time.  Although, I do want cookies.  Cuz it's finals week.  And cookies are good.

Also, congratulations to Erin and Rich King on their newest addition Audrey who joined her brother Owen today!  Happy Birthday, Audrey!