Giving baking my bacon a try instead of frying for my spinach salad.

Bocce ball Christmas party and all the Bell's Two Hearted Ale I can drink!

I have a big pot of beef stew on the stove to keep me and the house warm through the snow storm today.

First snow of the season.

Last week Meijer had a great deal on pork short ribs so I got 8.5 pounds to smoke. Last night I mixed up the following rub and applied it so it could sit overnight:

3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup garlic powder
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 teaspoons rosemary powder

I didn't have any brown sugar so I just used all white sugar.

I am getting ready to start the smoker. I was up and ready to go at 7:30 am, but the outside temperature was about 31 degrees and thought I might have a problem keeping the temperature up, so I decided to wait until it warmed up a bit. I took the ribs out of the fridge to bring up to room temp.

After that I plan on doing various chores while I babysit the ribs which include some more yard work and laundry.

I have the A Christmas Story DVD on for background ambience.

I got a whole-house humidifier when I got my new furnace. The humidifier has an outside temperature probe and sets the inside humidity based on the outside temperature.

Supposedly this will prevent the condensation that occurs and can cause mold and drywall damage when you forget to set the correct humidity level manually.

These are the levels that are programmed into the unit:

Outside Temp/Inside Humidity
40° / 45%
30° / 40%
20° / 35%
10° / 30%
0° / 25%
-10° / 20%
-20° / 15%

I can't wait until we start getting some consistent below-freezing temperatures to see how the system performs.

Going on the first pheasant hunt of the season tomorrow morning. I think whatever I bring home tomorrow I'll toss into the smoker with the ribs I am going to smoke on Sunday.

My awesome chopped pork sandwich I had for dinner tonight. I reheated it in a foil pouch in the toaster oven at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Perfect.

The turkey has just a couple more degrees to go. I haven't checked the poem's temperature yet.

This is what I'm starting out with.

I bought a smoker last night and put it together. This morning I am seasoning the inside and then I will smoke a turkey breast and a pork shoulder.

New furnace. The electronic air cleaner is the box with the blue lights between the furnace and the cold air return.

I got a new furnace and air conditioner installed yesterday and I'm excited about it for a number of reasons.

1. The furnace is 95% efficient. My old furnace was probably about 55% efficient, so I'm looking forward to lower gas bills.

2. It has a humidifier. In the past if I did not keep a humidifier running in my bedroom I would be miserable with a burning nose and really dry itchy skin, but it got to be a pain by the end of each heating season filling it up with water each night and cleaning it every few weeks. Plus the rest of the house wasn't properly humidified. The new humidifier even has an outside temperature and humidity probe so it can calculate exactly how much to humidify the inside air.

3. I opted for a whole-house electronic air cleaner. Their marketing material says it is 8 times better than the best HEPA room filters, and a lot of the on-line reviews say they noticed big differences in dust and pet hair after a few weeks as well as big improvements in allergy symptoms. The furnace is has two heating stages and a variable speed fan. The fan has a very efficient DC motor and you are supposed to leave it running continuously. Running it for one year would cost between $10 and $30 in electricity. The main benefit of this is it will equalize temperatures throughout the house. In the summer my upstairs was many degrees warmer than my downstairs. I would put a big fan at the base of my steps and blow cold air up the stairs at night. That should be a thing of the past. Another benefit is that the air cleaner we be continually cleaning the air.

The installers were really good about putting down drop cloths on the path from the front door to the basement door, but the tile floor in between still got some mud on it. I pulled out my Hoover Floormate and in under 10 minutes the floor was perfectly clean again. I love that thing. Huge thanks to Tim and Lisa again for turning me on to that a year or two ago. I'd replace it again in an instant.

There was an article in this week's Chicago Tribune that had a recipe for making homemade butter. It intrigued me so I gave it a try. This picture shows it this morning immediately after I separated it from the buttermilk. I still have to chill it and then under running water knead out any remaining buttermilk. I think I will salt half of it, and then portion it out in one or two ounce portions and freeze most of it.

It's been forever since I've had liver and onions, and I happened to spot liver when I was grocery shopping yesterday, so sometime this week I will make liver and onions, a baked potato and broccoli.

I have my first pheasant hunt of the season in two weeks. It will be at a state park that is just minutes from my hunting friend's house which makes it really convenient. I still have birds from last season in my freezer. I want to try making corned "beef" out of a goose. I am also thinking about buying a gas smoker like Tim-in-law. I had a charcoal smoker years ago, but is a huge huge pain trying to keep the coals at just the right temperature. I think smoking is the best thing for game.

I put in a fire this morning while I was having breakfast, working on the butter and reading the paper. Nice. I put logs inside the fireplace around the edges so the fire will dry it out and make it easy to start for the next fire. Good trick. I think I am going to have a chimney sweep come out soon. I have never had it cleaned or inspected. I also might have him put a cap on it.

I took Mitch to get his annual checkup and shots. He became a favorite at the vet's when he was in every week or two for his scratched eye. When I took him in this time all the vet techs poured out from the back and made a fuss over him in the lobby. Seriously, there were 5 people that came out to say hi to Mitch. They always tell me to bring him in if we're in the neighborhood just so they can say hi. He's like a rock star there.

OK, enough procrastinating. I got my laundry done yesterday while the furnace was being installed. I got my grocery shopping done yesterday evening. That leaves picking up dog poop, raking leaves and cutting the grass this afternoon before the rain comes in again. TTFN.

$700 Crate & Barrel solid wood buffet for $139 at their outlet store!

I think this shot gives a better idea of how much wood is there.

A little over 2 face cords. More wood than I expected but I'm glad I have it now.

The natural state of the greyhound.

At this point in my gin and tonic career I think this is my favorite recipe for a delicious frosty limey drink:

4 ounces gin
8 ounces diet Schweppes tonic water
Juice from half a lime (about 1 tablespoon)

I take my lunch to work everyday. It saves me money and, more importantly, I eat better than if I went to a restaurant every day. My normal lunch is a sandwich, usually ham or turkey, one or two pieces of fruit, and maybe some nuts. A couple weeks ago I had a craving for a meatloaf sandwich, so I made a meatloaf over the weekend and packed that for lunch everyday. I liked it so much I'm on my third meatloaf made specifically for lunch sandwiches.

I remember ordering a gin and tonic back in my college days and thinking it was disgusting. I couldn't even finish it. Fast forward several years after that, I thought maybe my tastes matured and I tried it again. Blech. A few years ago I had the same thought and did the same thing. Blech again.

A few weeks ago the thought crossed my mind yet again, so I picked up a bottle of Tanqueray gin and a bottle or Martini & Rossi dry vermouth, looked up the standard martini recipe and I liked it! Next I went out and got a bottle of diet tonic water and a lime and made a gin and tonic. Loved it!

I picked up a bottle of Bombay Sapphire last week, and it is really smooth, but I think I like the pronounced pineyness of the Tanqueray better.

This weekend I bought a cocktail strainer and a set of 4 martini glasses. The strainer makes it way easier to make a martini.

Several weeks back I had people in the neighborhood I met that also had a greyhound watch Mitch overnight. When I picked him up the next day I noticed he was severely squinting his left eye. It only took a couple minutes to realize he probably was a bit too curious of the neighbor's two cats. I took him in to the emergency animal hospital (it was Sunday) and sure enough he had a couple scratches on his cornea. After too weeks of antibiotics and pain killer it was not healing up correctly. Mitch's regular vet did an operation where she scratched a grid pattern over the injury to let the healing process start over again fresh. It worked and he is back to normal again.

Took my car to the dealership a while back for an oil change and they asked if I wanted my cabin air filter changed for only $50. I declined. Last week I picked up a cabin air filter at the car parts store for $16 and it took less than 90 seconds to change it.

I am getting ready to start the process of getting quotes for a new furnace and air conditioner to take advantage of the $1,500 federal tax credit.

This is how my meatloaf cooked without a loaf pan turned out.

Trying something I saw on the Internet. I put my meatloaf in a loaf pan and then turned it out onto s cookie sheet to cook. It's in the oven right now.