Recipe Sunday

Just a quickie recipe today, but a good one.  Since it's late summer and the height of the sweet corn season, I thought what a perfect day to post this recipe. It's especially handy for those of us who are grill-challenged.

Oven-roasted Sweet Corn

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Cover a large baking sheet with foil (to aid clean-up).  Place a single layer of unshucked whole cob corn on a baking sheet (three seemed to fit perfectly here).  Bake for 30-45 minutes or until husk is hot to the touch.  Shuck and eat.

The husk keeps the moisture in and adds something to the flavor that was quite nice.   Still, the hard part of this recipe is shucking hot corn.  The way I did it was like this...  Leave the corn on the sheet and peel the outer most leaf down.  Repeat with each outer leaf (rolling the corn as you go) until they're all at the bottom of the cob like a hula skirt.  Use a pair of scissors to cut the hula skirt down to a mini-skirt.  Serve with butter and salt to taste.

It worked out beautifully here.  I hope it works for you, too.  Let me know if you try it and how it turns out.  =o)

Head Down, Pushing Through

I'll be keeping my head down and pushing through the work this weekend.  With any luck, this round of revisions will be done by Monday.  See you all on the other side.  (I'll be here, but I'm taking bets whether my sanity makes it with me.)

;o)

What are you up to this weekend?

Writer Chick is Wigging Out

Does this avatar make my thighs look big?  Seriously, my waist is tiny in comparison to those thighs. 

The staff?  That's to whack grungy little excuses on the head before they nibble at my gumption.  But seriously folks, I'm brain fried.  I have ten chapters to finish by the end of August with hopes of being ready to submit this puppy sometime in September.  Yep, I'm wigging out.  4-6 week self-imposed deadline anyone?  Considering the fact that I had originally hoped to be finished with this project in June and submitting by now, it's no wonder I'm pushing.  I feel like I'm way behind.  For crying out loud, I've been at this WIP since the beginning of last September.  I haven't spent an entire year on one book since the first book.  I feel like I'm draggin' butt.  Bleh.  I want to query.  I want to net me a nice big agent.  And then I want to see some publishing contracts. 

On second thought, maybe I should use the staff to whack myself around the head and neck until I just chill out.  Or lose consciousness.

Don't mind me.  I spent the whole afternoon working on a homemade lasagna that shall henceforth be known as The Lasagna That Ate New York.  I swear the damn thing weighed ten pounds.  Okay, it just felt like ten pounds.  But if I add up all the ingredients - 2-3 lbs of beef, a pound of mozzarella, a big saucepan full of homemade sauce (with baby bell mushrooms), a can of sliced olives, a tub each of cottage and ricotta cheeses, noodles... holy crap that sucker was huge.  Of course, now I'm brain-fried and my belly feels full enough to make me want to waddle.  (I won't but I want to.)

So, is it any wonder Writer Chick is wigging out?

Pardon me while I lay on the couch and digest.  If I can think straight, I might even get some editing done.

Why I'm Not at WriteOnCon

Yesterday in the comments, Deb Salisbury suggested I spend some time over at WriteOnCon.  Personally I think WriteOnCon is a great idea.  From their own site, it's 'a free, interactive experience, designed to give writers many of the features of a writer’s conference, but in an online environment'.  It sounds perfect for writers who - like me - find attending a conference beyond them at the moment.  Hell, the expense of traveling to whichever conference excites you is prohibitive enough and then you throw in the cost of the event itself.  Ack.  Even the thought of attending the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference in September is too much - and it's only a few hours away.

Having said that, though, I'm probably not going to be attending WriteOnCon.  At first I told myself my absence was because I'm not a YA writer, but that's a lame excuse.  A lot of writing advice covers multiple genres - even if some of it is tailored for a certain segment of publishing.  No, if I'm honest with myself, the reason I'm not attending is the same reason I avoid long protracted posts filled with wonderful writing advice...

Okay, this is going to sound stupid.  I know it's stupid and I'm the one writing it.  But, the reason is simply that any time I read writing advice, and I'm not doing things exactly the same way, I begin to doubt myself.  So I warp my writing to match the advice.  Even if it's good advice, it ends up hurting my writing.  It's almost like I subconsciously apply that advice to everything I'm writing until my own voice is buried.

It's like this quirk I have where if I spend any amount of time around someone with an accent, I pick up that accent.  My father was the same way.  People get very angry when they think you're mimicking them, but seriously, we can't help it.  Hell, I don't even know I'm doing it until someone says something.  :shrug:  Maybe we're just a suggestible people.  B.E. the human chameleon?

This is the same reason that the first few years of my writing career, I couldn't read other people's books while I was working on my own stuff.  I'd read and then my writing would begin to sound like whoever I was reading.  I got over that.  Someday maybe I can get over this, too.  Right now, though, I really don't want anything to interfere with this WIP.

So, I'm not attending WriteOnCon.  Since I assume most of the rest of the world is normal and doesn't pull a chameleon around other people's ideas, I'd recommend the rest of you go and check out the wonderful things they're doing over at the conference.  Once I'm done writing this book, I'll probably go back and read through everything I missed - because missing out on good advice entirely is just stupid.  

Have you been to WriteOnCon?  What about other conferences?  How have they worked out for you?

Lazy Day

I'm taking a semi-day off.  It's hot, humid (for Colorado) and I'm just drained.  Time to nap on the couch. 

What are you up to today?

Recipe Sunday

Well, since last week's Budget Saver Sunday didn't seem to blow anyone's skirt up, I thought maybe Sunday would be a good day to post a recipe.  It's still budget conscious - because I'm that way - but it's mostly about the food.  So here goes nothin'...


Chickie-Mex Meal

4 frozen chicken burritos
3 chicken tenderloins (thawed)
1 T olive oil
dash chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 can enchilada sauce
1/2 c sliced olives
1 roma tomato (sliced thin)
4 oz (or half a package) Mexican blend shredded cheese
sour cream (optional on the side)


Cook the frozen burritos at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes or until they're mostly cooked and thoroughly thawed.  Remove from oven.  In a skillet, heat the olive oil and cook the tenderloins until they have a nice brown on both sides.  (They will still be a little pink on the inside.)  Season tenderloins to taste while this step is occurring.  I used chili powder, salt and pepper here.  Place partially cooked tenderloins on top of the mostly cooked burritos.  Cover all with the enchilada sauce.  Sprinkle with olives.  Sprinkle cheese over everything.  Take the tomato slices and lay them artfully down the center of the meal.  Sprinkle a little more cheese over the tomato slices.  Put back in the 350 degree oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the tenderloins are cooked through and their juices run clear.  Serves 3 - depending on how hungry those three are.  

As with most recipes I use (except baked goods), the quantities are subject to change.  If you like more seasoning, use more.  If you need to feed more people, increase the quantities.  Ditch the olives if you don't like them, or decrease the cheese if you're watching your cheese intake.  If you're uncomfortable with judging whether your chicken is cooked through when it's covered in sauce, cook the tenderloins thoroughly in the pan and decrease the oven time to just long enough for melting the cheese and getting the sauce bubbly-hot.

I made this last night and it seemed to be a big hit with the family. 

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.  And please remember, with recipes, it's all about your tastes, so your mileage may vary.  Which means, basically, if you don't like it, don't shoot the cook.

(The top pic is not a photo of what I made, but it's the closest image I could find to how my dish looked.  I did use those El Monterey frozen burritos, though.) *All images deleted to avoid any chance of copyright infringement*

Another Pretty

I'm still deep in edits.  And you know, it's not really that I don't have a lot of time to post, it's more like all my brain power is focused on this book.  Anyway, I hope to have something intelligent to say soon.  Until then, here's a picture I took on my trip to Vegas in May 2003.

There was a pic here, but I had to delete it.

I'm not sure what kind of plant that is, but isn't the sun streaming through it pretty? Judging from its placement in the photo group, it was taken somewhere between the Joshua Tree forest and Hoover Dam, so Arizona maybe.