So, when I went to the store today to buy tea to make my own sun tea, I was surprised to find that there wasn’t much of a selection. They had decaffeinated iced tea, and they had “cold infusion” black tea, and a case of 24 iced tea bags that made a gallon each. Seeing as I wasn’t even sure if I would like sun tea, I didn’t want to commit to two-dozen gallons of it.

I ended up buying a cold infusion tea, but when I got home, I read the instructions that said that it takes five minutes to steep in cool water. How over-steeped would it get if I left it outside in the sun for two hours? So, I opted for some black tea that we had in the cupboard. When my parents moved to Tucson seven years ago, they gave us a bunch of tea and other things they couldn’t store, and I think that’s where this tea came from. I’m sure it’s fine.

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I looked around and found this plastic fork. I folded the corner of the bag with the hole in it over itself and clipped it with the tines of the fork. Then, I popped it in the microwave and hoped the fork didn’t melt. To my great delight, it didn’t! My broccoli cooked perfectly, and dinner was saved. Yay me!

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Tonight, I would have just gone to bed and dealt with the cravings in the morning, but Bonnie was also hungry, so I went out. Mine was the only car in the drive-through. The only thing I had to wait for was my food to cook. I didn’t have to wait for anyone else to place or receive their orders. I can’t think of another time that’s happened to me.

While I was waiting, I noticed a giant spider out of the corner of my eye. It was crawling toward me, and I damn near broke my neck as I whipped my head around to see what was about to attack but realized that it was a tiny spider that was casting a really big shadow from the fluorescent lights above the car. I tried to use my receipt to catch it, but it hid from me in the gap between the windshield and trim.

I texted a picture of the spider to Bonnie, and she was aghast that there was a spider living in her car. She said that it must be because she’s always shit-talking that laminated-faced CEO when she sends Marco Polo’s while she’s driving. “There’s software installed in the car that opens the spider compartment?” I asked. She confirmed that there was.

Bored with the spider, I turned my attention to the screen in front of me. Apparently, my stupid space car thought the drive-through window was a truck.

Clearly, it was not.

Stupid space car.

When I got home…

…I pounded my burger.

I’ve been eating gluten occasionally for the past year or so because it doesn’t seem to affect me anymore, but I’m not 100% convinced. I didn’t feel great after eating my burger tonight, but that could just be because I ate a giant cheeseburger at 10:30 at night.

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The guy standing in the parking lot taking orders as all of us fatties drove past him told me that if I had gone inside, they would have given me my shake immediately. He spoke as though I were new to the In-N-Out experience, not someone so versed in the In-N-Out process that I went out of my way to go there just for a chocolate shake. Besides, what was I going to do with that information at that point when I was seven cars deep in the drive-through line?

So, I waited in my car for longer than necessary for something that was totally unnecessary. This is who I am now. Just a little more than a year ago, I was car-free, and I would be again if I could. As it is, I have a car, and so I break down and make bad, lazy decisions at least once a week. What can I say? Making bad decisions is the American way.

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I wanted to find the best substitute for eggs in brownies, so naturally, I turned to the internet. The first result was Google’s AI overview, which said I could sub in 1/4 cup of apple sauce for each egg. I happened to have little 1/2 cup containers of applesauce on hand, so that was the easiest solution. Aside from cooling down the butter and making the batter a little stiff at first, nothing seemed off with the applesauce.

It wasn’t until I checked my brownies when the timer went off after 40 minutes in the oven that I became concerned. They jiggled like quicksand when I pulled the rack out. My brownies were still liquid after 40 minutes! I put them back in for another ten minutes and then another ten minutes, but things were only getting worse. Now, instead of looking like quicksand, the batter had fallen like a souffle, and all of the water from the applesauce was boiling on the surface. The brownies were oddly simultaneously raw and burnt.

So, no brownies for me tonight. Maybe never again. I can’t afford to experiment with $9 boxes of brownie mix. I guess I paid $9 to learn that you can’t trust AI. What would AI know about cooking anyway?

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I use a gluten-free cake mix, but unfortunately, I found out tonight that the mix contains palm and canola oil which, for whatever fucking reason, make me congested, so I’ve been trying to avoid them. Sometimes, I forget to check the ingredients, though. I don’t know what I’ll make my Dutch Oven Strawberry Upside-Down Cake with now, but I have this recipe down now, so I’m sure I can find a gluten-free cake mix that isn’t made with oils that make congested or make my own cake mix.

Dutch Oven Strawberry Upside-Down Cake

Serving Size:

10

Time:

1 hour

Difficulty:

Easy-peezy

Ingredients

• 1 -2 pounds of Strawberries
• 2 Boxes of Funfetti Cake Mix
• 2 Sticks of butter
• 2 cans/bottles of lime soda, sparkling water, or champagne

Directions

1. Cleanup is a lot easier when you line the Dutch oven with foil.
2. Cut up your strawberries and put them in your foil-lined Dutch oven.
3. Pour two boxes of Funfetti cake mix over the strawberries.
4. Cut two sticks of butter into 1/8″ – 1/4″ pats and place them evenly in the cake mix.
5. Pour in two cans or bottles of lime soda. I like to use either Lime Topo Chico Seltzer or the little single-serving-size bottles of champagne.
6. Put the lid on the Dutch oven and place it on the fire. put 12 – 15 coals on top of the Dutch oven.
7. When you can smell the cake, it’s done. Take it off of the fire and let it sit for a few minutes.
8. Stuff your gob!

The post Simple 4 Ingredient Dutch Oven Strawberry Upside-Down Cake Recipe appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

All I could think about was that scene from Chef when Carl scolds his kid for burning the Cubano and trying to serve it anyway. Where did standards and pride in craftsmanship go?

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I used to have a neighbor whose favorite day of the year was St. Patrick’s Day. It also happened to be his younger brother’s birthday, and since he still lived at home with his parents (in his 40s), they always had a St. Patrick’s/Birth Day party at my neighbor’s house. I’m not sure if this needs to be said or if it’s evident, but they’re both alcoholics.

For 13 years, you could count on a party on the Saturday before St. Patrick’s if the day fell during the week or on St. Patrick’s Day if it was on a Friday or Saturday. Saturday night, I found out in 2018, was the great white buffalo of St. Patrick’s Days. A year in which St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Saturday was as rare and sacred an event as a new pope being selected or the successful birth of a baby panda.

I Guess I Get It

People work, so your celebration has to be tempered if St. Patrick’s Day falls on a weekday. There was more to it than that, though. You see, my neighbor and his wife had a modern millennial marriage where everything had to be equal. If he spent a dollar on himself, she had to spend a dollar on herself. If she went out with the girls one night, he was entitled to a boy’s night. I’m all for equity in a relationship, but what they did wasn’t that. It was tit for tat. If either of them were A-type, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an Excel spreadsheet to keep a running tally of what they each owed each other.

It wasn’t just spontaneous or random extravagances, either. They had a standing trade each week, too. Saturdays were his day to wake up with the kids, and Sundays were her day to wake up with them. That’s the other reason Saturday nights were so sacred. They were his. He could stay up as late as he wanted. Plus, St. Patrick’s Day had only fallen on a Saturday once or twice since he started drinking, so 2018 was a big deal. Knowing all of this helped me understand the tissy he was in as St. Patrick’s Day approached in 2018.

St. Patrick’s Day 2018: The Big Show

I’ve never seen anything like it before… from a grown-ass man. From a child the night before a trip to Disneyland, but not from a grown-ass man regarding St. Patrick’s Day. Especially from a grown-ass man who drank every day of the week anyway. St. Patrick’s Day shouldn’t be anything special to a drunk. It was, though.

He was so excited. He rented a bounce house for the kids, bought Guinness and Johnny Walker, hung shamrocks and leprechauns all over the house – and, I should probably mention, he started drinking at 10 a.m. – and then he blew his wad. He premature ejaculated all over his precious St. Patrick’s Day party. Sometime around 6 p.m., he passed the fuck out and didn’t wake up until the next day.

The next evening, he came over to my house and hung out by the fire in my backyard, lamenting that he had ruined his St. Patrick’s Day party and he would have to wait seven years until St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Saturday again. Knowing that there would be a leap year coming up in two years, I had to check to see when St Paddy’s Day would next fall on a Saturday. I knew it wouldn’t be seven years.

Try Again In 11 Years

I broke the news to him that St. Patrick’s Day wouldn’t fall on a Saturday again until 2029. Eleven years! He was crestfallen. Bonnie and I both thought it was hilarious. I think about him and that night every St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t really have any St. Patrick’s Day memories before he moved in across the street and we started hanging out. I just have one from my childhood, and to be honest, I’m not even sure it’s St. Patrick’s Day related. We read Green Eggs and Ham when I was in Pre-school or Kindergarten, and then we had a Green Eggs and Ham party where they added green food coloring to the scrambled eggs. I absolutely refused to eat the green eggs.

St. Patrick’s Day was just another day for me until I met my new neighbors. Both of Bonnie’s parents are of Welsh ancestry, so St. Patrick’s Day was never really a thing for her either. Her mom used to wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day to represent her Welsh ancestry, even though she’s never even left the country.

St. Patrick’s Day 2017: The Year I Invented Corned Beef Tacos

Bonnie likes to cook, though, so she started making corned beef and cabbage when we married. In March 2017, she and our neighbor’s wife were sitting in the kitchen discussing what each was going to cook for St. Patrick’s Day, as I walked past the kitchen. When I came back from the bedroom, they were talking about tacos, and I thought they were talking about making corned beef tacos, and I got really excited. They were not, but the idea was hatched, and on St. Patrick’s Day 2017, corned beef tacos were born. You’re welcome.

St. Patrick’s Day 2025: The Year I Invented Corned Beef Hash Tacos

Life has changed a lot around here since 2018. I haven’t heard from my neighbor since he sold his house in a drunken stupor and moved his family to Alafuckinbama. Bonnie can’t eat beef or chicken without getting sick, and the kids both do their own thing, so there’s no reason to make a big St. Patrick’s Day feast. Still, one has to eat, so I decided to keep the corned beef tacos tradition alive without the expense and hassle of cooking a corned beef.

I cooked up a can of Hormel corned beef hash, a head of cabbage, two carrots, and a yellow onion, and I put it all on corn tortillas – because they’re naturally gluten-free – and topped them with a bit of shredded Tillamook Sharp Cheddar Cheese.

Last week, I put a can of corned beef hash on my tacos just to try it because it’s cheaper than carnitas. I was somewhere between whelmed and underwhelmed with corned beef hash on my beans and cheese tacos. So, that’s where my expectations were today. About as low as they could be.

Oh, my fuck! Those tacos were so fucking good. I’ll tell you how I did it so you can try them for yourself and tell me if they really are as good as I think they were or if my low expectations made them better than they are.

Serving Size:

2

Time:

20 Minutes

Difficulty:

Easy

Ingredients

• Small Head of Cabbage
• 1 Yellow Onion
• 4 Garlic Cloves
• 2 Carrots
• 1 Can of Corned Beef Hash
• Corn Tortillas
• Cheese
• Mustard
• Brown Sugar

Directions

1. Heat olive oil on medium heat in a large pot. Make sure you have a lid for the pot that you use because you’re going to need it.
2. Sautee chopped yellow onion for 5 minutes.
3. Add minced garlic until fragrant.
4. Add carrot slices and cook for a few minutes.
5. Add chopped cabbage, season with salt and pepper, put lid on pot, and cook until cabbage is soft and wilted.
6. In a skillet, heat olive oil on medium heat.
7. Add a can of corned beef hash and cook for 5 minutes.
8. Add 2 tablespoons of mustard and 1/2 tablespoon of brown sugar to the corned beef hash and stir thoroughly.
9. If you have a gas range, toast your tortillas on an open flame. If you don’t have a gas range, figure out how to toast your tortillas.
10. Put cabbage and carrots on each tortilla, followed by a scoop of corned beef hash. Finish with a bit of sharp cheddar cheese.
11. Fill your gob.

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Now, you might be thinking that I’m feeling nostalgic for my childhood and those simpler days, but I’m not. I like knowing well in advance what the weather will be like on a given day. It allows me to plan my week. On Monday I installed and waterproofed all of the electrical around the firepit. I did my grocery shopping yesterday, so that I wouldn’t have to go out today or tomorrow. I also took some time yesterday to bring anything inside that might be damaged by rain. So, that freed up today to be an inside day. I had planned to do taxes today, but I got far enough with them last night to be sufficiently depressed for a good long while, so today was all about editing.

I haven’t spent a whole day editing in months, and today was no different. While I got some editing done, I also spent a good chunk of my afternoon cooking. I made noodles for lunch, and then baked a loaf of gluten-free, almost vegan banana bread. It was almost vegan because I tried to find a gluten-free recipe that didn’t call for eggs, not even thinking about the fact that the whole recipe would be vegan, but I didn’t want to bother with vegan butter, so I used real butter. Otherwise, I followed the recipe’s instructions. So, now I have a great big, beautiful, gluten and egg-free loaf of chocolate chip banana bread.

It was actually really tasty! Beginner’s luck?

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You can imagine my interest in expanding my menu, hence the sopes yesterday. The thing is, though, I’m also trying to avoid a whole bunch of time spent cooking. When I’m in the mood to cook, I don’t mind spending hours in the kitchen, but I’m not in the mood to cook every single day. So, I’ve been on the look out for foods that meet my dietary criteria, and can also be prepared in half an hour or less.

Bonnie and I both love this noodle recipe that I’ve been making for a couple of years. I think I wrote about it a few weeks ago – – yep, I did. I have to be in the mood to make it, though, because it takes so much time. The other thing is that I started making it because I wanted ramen, but it’s not ramen. I use Barilla gluten-free fettuccine. It’s just not the same. So, while I was walking through the store yesterday, I had an idea. What if I added a can of mixed veggies to a box of rice noodles?

The result was something closer to ramen, but there is much room for improvement. Had my local grocery store sold gluten-free ramen, I would have bought it, but rice noodles were the closest thing they had, and they weren’t great. The flavor was good, but it will take a few tries to perfect it. I seasoned the dish with salt, pepper, and garlic sauce, and I chopped up a green onion on top.

I’m going to order gluten-free ramen online, and try it again because the noodles were definitely the weakest link in this recipe.

In Other News

I made a bracket to hold this little stool, so that it has a place to live, and isn’t always leaning against something and falling over.

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