Vegas and Popcorn

Lie the title of this post?  Yeah, the two do NOT go together.  I got a note from Sheila saying she hit one machine with 4 deuces, and the deuces were wild.  KA-CHING!

Wait, I am pretty sure she didn't win $2500.00.  This is probably more like it.....

Here's a picture of the inside of the slot machine..... it's a mouse processor model.  Way to go Sheila!

Now that I've handled the big winner news from Vegas, I'll cover the news from my house.  My cousin, Marsha from Oklahoma, was in town for her daughter's wedding last week.  She stayed this week to baby sit her two grand kids (2nd marriage) while her daughter and new son-in-law go on their honeymoon in Cabo.  Well, she's been doing her duties of driving to school, straightening up the new house, and cooking all week.  Last night, the children's father picked them up cause it was his weekend to have them.  That gave her a free night.  She and I met for dinner at Casa Milagro.  Here are a few pictures...

 I talked Marsha into getting the shrimp.  She loved it.  I'm dieting, so I just had the stuffed cabbage rolls.  I also had a drink called a Milagro Heat.  It's a habanero infused Jose Cuervo Especial Silver Tequila, Patron Citronage, lime juice, and organic Agave nectar, served on ice.  It was really good.  Then, we both had a frozen Margarita since it was happy hour.  This is Marsha.  She is so cute.  She reminds me of my mother when  she was younger. 

 This cutie was sitting next to us.  We had on almost matching hoodie shirts.

The waiter snapped this of us.

We had a great evening.  It wasn't packed, so we just stayed there a couple of hours.  Then she came ot my house for a while.  It was a great visit.

Got up today, LATE.  I slept til almost 9am, which is really unusual for me.  I read the paper and drank coffee with Gary, then made myself a HUGE breakfast.  I had oatmeal, 3 strips of bacon (turkey low fat), blueberries and strawberries.  I decided sine I wasn't eating until 10:30, that I needed to eat a lot, and hopefully it would last thru the afternoon.  Then, I went for my a bike ride.  I rode my bike, which has 20 something gears, over to Angies, then stole Chloe's bike.  It is a cruiser, no gears.  I got in a little over 3 miles in 30 minutes.  It was work, but whatever.... I got it done.

I don't care how long I do it, walking.... riding bikes..... working out at the gym.... anything physical is flat out work.  I do NOT really enjoy it.  I'd prefer to sit on my fat arse and do nothing.  Maybe when I can do it and "not" think of it as work, I'll enjoy it.  Whatever.



I did come home and decided to try popping pop corn. I took pictures and they are NOT exciting, but I think it adds to the blog.

First step.... add 1/2 cups of popcorn kernals into a brown paper sack.  Fold the top down twice.

I set the microwave on 3 minutes.  That was NOT long enough.  I set it on 2 additional minutes, but it started smelling like it was burning.  I think maybe 4 minutes would be best for 1/2 cup of kernals.  Just make sure you LISTEN to the popping.  Just like microwave popcorn... when it gets too much of a delay between pops, it is time to take it out.  Either that, or if it smells like it's burning... it probably is.

Well, only half of it popped.  There was about 1/4 kernals left in the bag.  DO NOT SCOOP THE POPPED CORN OUT USING YOUR HAND.  They unpopped kernals are waiting in the bottom of the bag to burn your fingers.  My thinking was, take out the popped, and continue popping the unpopped ones.  Not only did I burn my fingers, but they didn't pop anyway.... they just burned. 

 My results were good though.  The popcorn was just like you would expect it to be.  Not very flavorful.  So, I spritzed it with a little EVOO, salted it, and sprinkled some butter substitute on it.  That made it soooo much better.  The reason for the EVOO?  Not flavor.  Since it was dry, the salt didn't hold, nor did the fake butter tasting stuff.  The EVOO fixed that.  I didn't use that much, so I'm not going to count it as a fat.  This is NOT as good as microwave popped corn, because of the missing oil, but I wanted diet pop corn anyway.  Maybe it will be like microwave turkey bacon.  Turkey bacon is not nearly as good as regular pig bacon.  BUT, if you don't eat pig bacon for a while, the turkey bacon is really good.  I have found that the only way to fix turkey bacon to make it taste good is to cook it slow in a skillet.  If you cook it in the microwave, it is gross, even if you haven't been eating pig bacon. 

So much for the help from "miss diet meister".  I am not going to weigh again until next week.  Mainly because I drank two alcoholic high calorie drinks last night, had a few tortilla chips, and the meat in the cabbage leaves was too good to be healthy and low fat.  Wish me luck.....