HELP - The Vending Machine is Attacking Me!!!

Good day Good People of virtual land!
Today I feel the need to vent about the evil-doings going on at Vending Machine Companies. Now, I've been pretty good not getting candy, chips, pop, etc from the vending machines at work - mainly because I'm trying to save a dollar or two and those things can lead to a quick 5 or 7 dollars wasted per week. But every now and again, I get a craving for something that I happen to see in the vending machine, and I'll suck it up, use some spare change and buy it.

But today, I got a nice little surprise, I felt like having a Mt. Dew, just a regular old Mt. Dew. Not the Mt. Dew "Voltage" or the Mt. Dew "Baja Blast". Not even the Mt. Dew "Code Red", just good old, regular old Mt. Dew - Green! It cost One Dollar and twenty Five cents (yes I wrote this out to show my knowledge of the price and following disappointment). I had exact change, even all in quarters to make it a little easier on the person who comes every week to collect the money. I put in my money and pushed my selection.
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Nothing happened. Now at first I thought I just lost my $. This vending machine has been known to eat change and not regurgitate anything, but that's another blog post. But that wasn't the case. Then I thought Mt. Dew might be out, I had a backup plan, Orange Crush (ghetto, I know, but I LOVE Orange pop too, I just wanted a Mt. Dew today). But no, that wasn't it either - as I looked over at the little display screen, nothing showed up, except that One Dollar & Twenty Five cents was "loaded" What in the world could be the problem?! Then that's when it hit me. When I realized that the vending machine had been the victim of the most devilish trend in U.S. culture in the new millenium. The news of the inflating price reached my eye sockets and hit me like a ton of skittles (a ton of bricks, a ton of skittles - it still weighs a ton...)

The price had risen. Like Jesus Christ on Calvary on the 3rd day. I was flabbergasted! Now some may say, it only went up to $1.50. But that is SO NOT THE POINT!!!! Sure it's a quarter today, but what will it be next week, next month, next YEAR?! We are not at an amusement park or an airport where it's expected for them to charge ridiculous rates for 20 ounces of refreshments... We don't even get a slick little souvenir cup that we can keep to remind us of the wonderful experience we had while visiting our workplace.

Now, I should probably be used to inflating prices. I shouldn't be buying items from vending machines, I probably shouldn't be wasting company time writing this post - but ya know what - If any-ol-body can raise prices by 25 cents, I'm gonna throw in my 2!!!

Cherry Syrup

Okay so as you may see now, I come up with random ideas and some times actually go through with them. I'm real late on this one because I actually tried this before the ketchup or the cake balls, but better late than never right? Anyway ...

I had the idea of making a flavored simple syrup for my tea so as to add another dimension to the tea and in preparation for a future business endeavor. We received a huge can of tart cherries and so of course it became my 1st one ... and it was just alright. We've used it in our tea (both hot and cold), but it was not mind blowing so I'll continue to tweak it for a bit. Especially since it tasted like a certain store bought ice tea when I attempted to make sweet tea with it. Not that I'm clowning store-bought sweet tea, but homemade sweet tea is so much better! We also used it in some lemonade and ginger ale ... that was fairly delicious, but I shall revisit this at a later date when I feel like coming back to cherries.

With the Fall season approaching (or is it here?), I think it's time for experimenting with apples. I look forward to making apple cider and maybe even an apple syrup. If I fill ambitious enough I'll give an Apple Jelly recipe a try because it's my favorite flavor of jelly, but not so easy to budget in since there's always grape jelly and I'm the only one that really eats it. Oh yeah, I'm sure I'll do my Candy Apple Chicken again soon too so I look forward to that. Depending on if I can figure something out maybe I'll make a Candy Apple Cider ... mmmm!

Again, there's no telling when I'll actually get time to make these things and blog about them, but I will try.

Homemade Ketchup

Have you ever had any homemade ketchup? Well, my household has and it was delish! Oh, and the smell as it was simmering in the pot ... whew! It was mind blowing. Now I know, I know ... we could have just bought some ketchup; it's not that expensive - right? Well, we had quite a few tomatoes & peppers in the fridge that we needed to use up. Husband doesn't eat tomatoes enough for us to just eat them (yes, I do eat tomatoes right out of the fridge by their lonesome with a dab of pepper if I'm in the mood for it - say something, I dare you). Also, I've been on this whole "let's try it homemade" kick for a while now. And of course, another one of the food blogs I follow had posted about homemade ketchup weeks before. So of course I had to go for it.

Now, being true to who I am, I of course didn't have all of the ingredients nor did I use or measure all of the ingredients for the recipe. I figured, it's ketchup, just throw some stuff together and see what happens. I wrote down all that I placed in it and may put that up if someone cares to see it, but let me tell you ... This ketchup was AMAZING! It's a little too much on the vinegary side for what I am used to, but I could get used to it I'm sure. Plus, it made for a great sauce on one our or slow cooker chicken meals. It also has little seeds in it because I don't have any cheesecloth, but I like the rustic look, taste, and feel of it.

Will I make this again? Of course. Will I follow a recipe next time? Prolly not to the T. The point is ... we've discovered we like homemade ketchup and if I find that it's more cost efficient for me to buy tomatoes and make it over buying a bottle, I'll do it. Also, I just had a great idea ... I love BBQ Sauce, but I have yet to make my own. I think I can use this stuff as a base to make some. That way I could have whatever lil extra taste I want in my sauce. Oh the possibilities!

I'm not going to even pretend as though, I know what will show up on our homemade plates next time. However, I can say that I will be attempting to do better at taking pics and describing the steps. I'm working on it. I think a craft project will be up next though because its one that needs to get done sooner than later or a certain set of runners will be all up in arms ...

Strawberry S'More Cake Balls

I did it! I did it! I've been trying to make some cake balls since reading about them on one of my fave blogs, Bakerella.com. I finally did it this past weekend ... mmmmmm! Okay, not really. They're actually way too sweet for my liking and I made them too big. BUT it's definitely something I'll be trying again because I want to be able to make them for Kiddo's parties; I imagine little bite sized cake balls are so much better than getting a huge sheet cake that ends up sitting at the house cause I over estimated the amount of cake to buy. The other thing is I need to perfect this concept I randomly came up with and decided to run with. Bakerella tells exactly how to make cake balls, but I had to do some experimenting since I am not a huge icing fan. I used marshmallow puff instead and of my! It was a sticky mess! But I'm not discouraged ... I shall try again. I have over a year before they need to be perfected.

My recipe is below. It's not from scratch this time (I used a box cake), but one day I'll step up my game because cakes from scratch have that much more love in them. I'm trying to make my godmother proud since she's the Cake Master of the fam. ;)

Ingredients:

I box of Strawberry Cake Mix

~8 oz of Marshmallow Fluff

16 oz melting chocolate (I used some leftover Baker's Milk Chocolate that I had)

~ 3 Tbsp of Graham Cracker Crumbs

There are approximations because I just didn't measure this time, but I will attempt to remember to do better as I continue to experiment with food and blogging about food.

I made the cake balls based on Bakerella instructions (go to the site, it's awesome!). The only differences were that I used marshmallow fluff instead of icing. I meant to take pics and will attempt to get them on here before next week since these are clearly still in the fridge. Again, I will be attempting this again, but I just have to work on measurements and whatnots. Plus, I have the recipe book so I have to try the various recipes for various Holiday desserts ... there are some football Oreo truffles that have been calling my name.

"Cool" Things to do on Facebook, that I'm Apparently not Hip to

WHAT UP PEEPS?!
I have noticed a growing trend when it comes to the most common and over utilized social networking site in the present time. Now, I will admit, I am a facebook user, probably more than I really should be at my age, but there are somethings in which I cannot get used to... So, as me and my lovely wife were sitting down one night, we came up with a list of things that we just don't understand why people do them - REPEATEDLY... So I have come to the conclusion that I am falling into that "old man" category... I'm just not as cool as I use to be (my wife still has some time to be cool, so I won't place her in that category yet...)
But here are the things that we came up with:


10) "Liking" your own status.

9) Purging your friend list randomly (after "friending" every Tom, Dick, & Harry that sends you a request).

8) Allowing yourself to be stalked by putting your every move in your status

7) Owning a blasted farm, being in somebody's mafia or playing some other random game.

6) Taking pictures of your new tattoo.

5) Telling Facebook "good night" or "good morning".

4) Cussing people out on Facebook without using their names. (Just man up, call them up and tell them that they're a "no-good something or other"!)

3) Giving advice to EVERYONE.

2) Changing your name or having a "cool" middle name. (i.e. Jason "I'm the hottest thing on this planet since they invented Chick-fil-a" Moore)

The #1 Coolest thing to do on Facebook that I'm apparently not hip to...

Taking pictures in the bathroom mirror with your camera phone...