My Brother Is The Non-Caped Ketchup Cleaning Crusader!

I'm always in awe of the legendary innovativeness of my family.
It's as though we sprang from the sacred hoo-hoo of The Mother of Invention herself!
Anyway, my 22 year-old brother may have lost his job due to to a newer kind of sport I'll dub "EXTREME PROBLEM SOLVING."
See, he's afflicted with a chromosomal disorder similar to Down's Syndrome but he's high functioning enough to secure placement in a work skills program at school.
Alas, Amelia Bedelia Syndrome may also play a part in this sad, sad tale of well-meaningness gone horribly awry.
Anyway, the manager of the restaurant at my brother's latest job site instructed him to go out to the patio and clean all the ketchup bottles.
Always the dutiful employee, my brother did exactly as he was told.
The problem? Well, the problem is that he cleaned the ketchup bottles by meticulously licking each and every one until they shone brilliantly; something only a potent spit varnish will accomplish.
I'm the mother of picky pickers and a sister to a real live ketchup licker.
Awesome!
The teacher in charge called my mom to notify her of my brother's kitty kat-bath-meet-ketchup-bottle cleaning technique in what had to rank as the most awkward conversation ever.
Puzzled, my mom just kept repeating, "But he doesn't even like ketchup."
How many licks to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop? The world may never know.
How many licks to clean a ketchup bottle? Ask my brother who is now presumably the newest ketchup-licking champion of the world.
I can't wait for a fast and furious match-up between him and the CATSUP-licking champion of the world because that'll undoubtedly be a feat of condiment epicness that Pay Per View will add to their lineup.
Advice For Ketchup Bottle Cleaning Day:
A cleaning rag that's handy is dandy.......... but to licker is quicker!

And This Is Why You Shouldn't Shop On An Empty Stomach And An Empty Mind

So, me and Sunbum, the oldest Infidel daughter, hit up the grocery store one late and lonely Saturday night.

Heed our warning: Fatigue and Hunger can make for a dangerous shopping excursion combo.

Everything in the store either made us drool uncontrollably or laugh hysterically.

I'm sure the other patrons were absolutely thrilled to share the narrow aisles with our picture-happy selves.

I'm sure of it!

This super special Texas "Boomerang", that suspiciously looks like a Frisbee, will always come back to you--well, provided that you recruit someone for catch and return duty. I guess one could say that Texas discourages people from playing with themselves.

A Smiling Infidel EXCLUSIVE! We spotted a rare albino Yeti lying in hibernation on the shelves. Sunbum played Yeti-Human Goodwill Ambassador and gave that Yeti a big ol' bear hug.....and you saw it here first way before the tabloids have a chance to run the story along with another "Obama Is Secretly A Reptilian" headline.

I was walking around the refrigerated section minding my own business when BOOM! a little pea salad invaded my life. You just never can predict when and where a random pea salad will happen to you. 

And your life will never be the same as every immature pea/pee joke enters your mind causing you to linger in front of the coolers laughing and spraying spittle on your sacred pea salad container. (Hey, look at me! I'm singing "I got the whole pea salad in my hands....I got the whole pea salad in my hands")

Oh, Sweet Sue, wondrous mistress of canned meat. We had never before encountered such a mystery grocery specimen as an entire chicken stuffed into the confines of one diminutive can. Naturally, I just had to spread the gospel of canned whole chicken with all our fellow grocery store patrons. I was on a mission with a Sweet Sue proselytizing quota to meet. My final victim was an unsuspecting lady in the parking lot who exclaimed "Really?!!!??? That's so weird" when informed that she too could be the proud owner of a canned chicken that by now I'd lovingly dubbed "Lucille." (Want to see what Sweet Sue looks like on the inside? I warn you, it's pretty as in pretty disgusting. HERE'S the link. There's also a Facebook Fan page of which I'm a proud member.)

Tortilla Heaven.......We're going there someday to frolic with the Churro Angels under a Fajita Sky.

Just primping and preening for our Tortilla Heaven publicity photo packet. We'd make the perfect Tortilla Heaven spokesinfidels, don't you think?

I thought the gang of little gagging & magging Dots on the box was funny. Look at their horrified expressions. One would think that they posed for the Dots artist right after returning from the terrifying new film "Nightmare On Dots Street" where the Dots buffet scene sent them over the edge.

A box featuring a gaggle of clearly grossed-out characters is certainly an interesting marketing strategy. Here's my best Dots impression.

This is quite possibly the best named product on store shelves. I can just envision a young J.J Walker, of Dy-No-Mite! fame, bellowing out My-T-Fine! as he slurps up a heapin' helpin' of pudding.

How many people looking for love cruise the grocery store aisles in search of Mr./Ms. Right? Now they can tell folks they picked up a My-T-Fine and sweet little sumthin' sumthin' at the store last Friday night. Oooohhhh baby, you lookin' My-T-Fine!

Join us Infidels next time as we share even more scintillating Texas-styled store-ies with you!

And Now For The Further Adventures Of That Hapless Homemaker: Ima Crockstar

Today's episode of Ima Crockstar brings you the true life happenings straight outta Ima's ghetto kitchen where there's always something cooking........and that something is usually from the clearance rack.

By the way, I've offically adopted Ima Crockstar as my new alias. I may use it in the future as a potential bowling league name. And it could prove useful as a nom de plume for when I prank cooking blogs with shockingly crass crockpot jokes.

Hey, it's preferable to Ima Crocstar which would infer that I endorse stuffing feet into the unsightly plastic sweat lodges known as Crocs.

Anyway, Ima Crockstar may be my alter-ego but we share one distinct commonality: we're both cheap women and cutthroat grocery shoppers.

As such, it's disheartening to stock up on the favorite fruits and vegetables of the mini-Infidels only to have them, for example, arbitrarily decide that the previous week's celery feeding frenzy is a thing of the past thus leaving the newer celery supply to rot in the fridge. This happens with frustrating regularity.

So, here's what I did: I created a new Infidel specialty I dubbed "ROTTEN FRUIT COBBLER." When life gives you fetid fruit,  turn it into a miracle of crockpot cooking.

First order of business was to scour my refrigerator. Don't report me, but my fridge shelters exotic bacterial strains as well as illegally harboring dangerous fruit fugitives.

Then, I quickly divided up the unattractive offerings into separate piles: Slimy, Fermented Enough To Make Fruity Moonshine, First Community Fruit Fly Colony, Like Nothing The Food Pyramid Has Ever Seen, and the scariest of them all, Sub-Human Fruit. I quickly disposed of that last category into a waiting trash bag.

One misplaced lightning strike and Sub-Human Fruit would become animated and frankly, the last thing I need in my tiny kitchen is competition for space from some ghastly Frankenfruit.

Basically, I ended up with peaches, nectarines, bananas, and a few rogue mangoes to serve as sacrificial crockpot offerings. Ima Crockstar and I are both excessively lazy. We didn't even bother peeling the peaches or nectarines, preferring instead to just savagely squish everything with our bare hands.

In keeping with the emerging tropical theme, a can of pineapple tidbits was thrown into the crockpot mishmash along with some concentrated orange juice, brown sugar, cinnamon and a little bit of Bisquick baking mix.

Then I just made a simple Bisquick/milk/cinnamon/hot melted butter concoction to top it all off. (Unsure of exact measurements? Yeah, me too. I'm a recipe guesstimator. Try THIS site. It's chock full of Bisquick cobbler crockpot recipes.)

In a word? The ending results were divine.

Ima Crockstar once again swooped into the Infidel kitchen and saved the day along with saving money and saving produce from the trash heap. I should order one size XL cape with a crockpot logo across it for my superhero friend/alter-ego.

Does your produce look like it starred in a horror movie called It Came From Satan's Fruit Stand? Don't fret. Think of me and Ima Crockstar and try our patented ROTTEN FRUIT COBBLER deliciousness!

A Turkey Mercedes: The Ultimate Thanksgiving Day Parade Vehicle

So, I got this e-mail trumpeting the succulent wonders of a Turkey Mercedes. It even gave explicit instructions on how I, elasticwaistbandlady, could manufacture my very own Turkey Mercedes just in time for Thanksgiving.
I've tried out lesser turkeys. I vividly remember eating Turkey Pinto and Turkey Yugo during the holidays of my impoverished youth.
You could never dance "The Bump" after eating Turkey Pinto for fear of sudden combustion.
Isn't it enough that your flaming Uncle Rick is at the dinner table? Do we really need the whole family ablaze too?
Anyway, I decided that it's high time that I move into the luxury turkey market by taking a Turkey Mercedes out for a little test drive.

In most cases, a smoking, overheated Mercedes would be a bad thing--but not a Turkey Mercedes. It just makes it smell delicious.

When you press the Turkey Mercedes beak-shaped horn it emits a distinctively throaty "Gobble, Gobble" sound.

And you can't pass another Turkey Mercedes on the road without your Turkey Mercedes launching into either a mating dance or an Alpha Turkey Squawk-A-Thon.

The best part of a Turkey Mercedes? You'll never have to buy gas for it. No, instead a Turkey Mercedes will GIVE you gas, and plenty of it, too because the fuel components run completely on corn-based products.

Although, admittedly, the emissions system is ploppy stank-fest of foul fowl matter.

Turkey turds--they ruin everything.

I'm hoping against hope that Pebbles will release Turkey Mercedes Boy, an updated follow-up to her big 80's hit Mercedes Boy, before the next big Turkey Day rolls around.

"Would You Like To Ride In My Turkey Mercedes Boy?"

PEBBLES- MERCEDES BOY

TURKEY MERCEDES: THIS THANKSGIVING'S STATUS SYMBOL OF CHOICE.

Please contact your local authorized Turkey Mercedes Dealer for more information. Or you could just go to this TURKEY MERCEDES site on Allrecipes where you can see for yourself what all the inner workings, secrets, and just what a Turkey Mercedes is really made of.

*From Mercedes Ruehl to Mercedes-Benz....... NO actual Mercedes were harmed in the making of this recipe. Please be a responsible Turkey Mercedes owner and have your Turkey Mercedes' oil changed every 3,000 miles or every time your mom asks if you've gained weight while you're scarfing down your holiday dinner. Whichever comes first. *

Hi, Do You Remember That I Have This Second Blog Thingie Going On?

Yeah, sometimes I forget about it too. :)
Poor, poor neglected second blog.
Anyway, I just posted a delightfully easy salmon recipe. There's also pictures of me in thongs, instructions to achieve Baked Potato Xanadu, and a special guest, Lyle Lovett posing as our spokesmodel for a very informative post entitled 'Eating Cheap:You're Doing It Wrong.'

Clicking on this linkie ----->THE INFIDEL WOMAN COOKS<-------- will serve as a magical time and distance portal that will send you hurtling through the Internets and right into the land of The Infidel Woman. Enjoy your trip!

Our Emergency Food Storage Plan Has A Name....

It's Reagan: The Crotch-Sniffing Wonder Dog!

How much is that doggie in the window?
Well, I guess we should calculate that by the poundage, shouldn't we?
Our Church keeps questioning us via survey as to our food storage preparedness.
Honestly, most of the time we're just ecstatic that we've accomplished keeping our many mini-Infidel bellies filled up. I know that thinking about the future is important.....more than that, it's a commandment. We do have a small reserve but nowhere near the amount of supplies the church recommends per each household individual.
I'm thankful that we can add 85 pounds of fresh meat to our emergency food plan.

Some people give their dogs a flea bath.
We bathe our Reagan in meat tenderizers and steak seasonings.
Some people smother their dogs with love and affection.
We smother our Reagan with onions and gravy.
Some people feed their dogs homemade dog food.
We feed Reagan a fluffy bread crumb mix. It makes the most delightful stuffing.
Some people take their dogs on walks and to the doggy park.
We refuse to exercise Reagan. We want him fattened up.
Some people take pictures of their dogs.
We do too. And then we manually draw in the dividing lines that quarter him up into serving pieces.
Some people take their dogs to dog shows.
We take Reagan to the Meat Packers Of America Convention.
Some people teach their dog new tricks.
We've taught Reagan how to lay perfectly still inside a nice big Dutch oven.
Some people think that dogs are man's best friend.
I think 'Man's Best Friend' would make a great name for a dog meat seasoning packet.

Reagan is a beautiful dog on the outside but it truly is what's inside that counts, people.
Not to get all competitive and stuff.........but my dog is more delicious than your dog!

Just Dew It....Dewin The Dew.....Dew Me, Baby....Dewd, Where's My Car

Me and the mini-Infidels went on a road trip last week to the beautiful town of Brenham, Texas- home and birthplace of the world famous Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory.
While there, we visited a homeschooling friend out in the country who allowed us to pick a whole bushel of wild Dewberries growing free and natural all over her property.

No, we didn't pick this kind of Dewberry. Way too dry and hard to get to.
R.I.P Heavenly Dewberry.
We picked this kind of Heavenly Dewberry, instead!
So, what did we do with all the Dewberries we captured during our hunt? Well at first we joked around saying that if Scooby Doo was there he'd be called Scooby Dew. I pithily commented, "Tis better to pick Dewberries than to pick Dingleberries," which got the Ewwwwwww reaction I was looking for. Melody stepped on a couple Dewberries and we teased her about stepping in 'Dew Dew.'
But then we cut the Dew Dew and got down to the business of making a delectable treat out of them.......
SHOOBY DOOBY DEWBERRIES!
Yes, I'm making you travel the long clicking distance to my other blog to see what we did with the Dewberries. It's not costing you any gas money to get there so stop complaining!

From The 'Cheez-Its, How Many Blogs Can One Woman Possibly Have?' Files

I've been cheating on you guys with someone else.
I started another blog to post pictures of sweet recipe success and bitter recipe failures. Yeah failure is pluralized. I'm also going to be breaking down some food cost comparisons starting with homemade breakfast taquitos versus McDonald's version. All of my many crafty projects past, present, and future will go up over there too to spare you the agony of it all.

"For the love of Triscuits, if that Infidel Woman tries to foist even one more picture of her lame paper plate butterfly puppets on me I am going to pretend like I have Sudden Instant Implausible Blindness Syndrome."

Really, you may think I created another blog for me but in actuality it's all for you because I love you and want what's best for you.
Now, go read about how my daughter turned the tragedy of my busted-out jeans into a triumphant piece of art. Go read about how to create a simmering Chicken Dijon With Spinach for your family dinner tonight. GO!
The Infidel Woman Cooks!

Elastic Did A Bad, Bad Thing.....

First of all, allow me to wish those of the Jewish faith a very Happy Passover season.

Okay, I scored some nice Manischewitz brand Kosher Split Pea Soup mix on a grocery store clearance rack for super cheap. Hey, I know that I'm only getting a split pea....and sure it blows to think about someone sitting around disfiguring perfectly good peas to make them go farther..... but a Whole Pea Soup Mix would probably cost more and with grocery prices on the rise, I'm happy for what I can get to meet the nutritional needs of my merry band of Infidels.

The bargain price I paid for this fine and hearty meal would definitely make any good Jew worth his weight in matzoh balls beam with unbridled happiness.

What I did next, however, would instantly crush any modicum of mirth or joy- kind of like the time everything was going splendidly during the Jewish Community Center production of Fiddler On The Roof.....that is until the guy playing the role of fiddler shook his Shekels a bit too hard and fell off, fiddle and all. "Rock-A-Bye Fiddler On The Rooftop, When The Wind Blows, The Fiddler Will Rock......"

I decided that adding a few morsels of meat to the soup mix would render it more flavorful and filling. Yes, I did something naughty and violated the purity of the Kosher-observant split peas by allowing a filthy ham steak to co-mingle with them in our soup pot.

I wonder how you say "unholy alliance" in Hebrew ? I wonder what the Yiddish translation of the phrase "for something that seems so wrong, this tastes sooooooo right" is?

In English, the words are "I never knew that peas getting porked could be so delicious."

Inspirations From Infidel Indigestion.....

Today's inspirational moment came to me via a can of honey roasted peanuts gluttonously consumed during the wee hours of the morning only to return via my digestive tract a short time later.

Everytime I belched, it tasted exactly like peanut butter.

When I tried to wash down the peanut butter-burp gagginess with a glass of grape juice, it resulted in gassy, mouth-flatulence reminiscent of the time when I was 6 and would only eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches which subsequently sent me into a PB&J-induced coma.

So, in order to maintain a perfect and harmonious balance between you and your esophagus, do not use grape juice to chase down the pound of peanuts you just ate......unless of course, you're one of those super lazy people who eat dry cereal and then wash it down with milk because you're too slovenly to get out a bowl and spoon. If you're one of those kinds of people, think of this post as a recipe to a yummy PB&J shortcut.

Because I'm Chick Pea-sy.....Chick Pea-sy On Sunday Morning

Well hello there, foodie friends!

Are you looking for the perfect snack to complement your luxuriantly peaceful weekends? If so, I can attest that you need to stay far, far away from the combination of Zesty Garlic Hummus dip and Baked Pita Chips. Even if the deafening sounds of crunchy crunchiness doesn't completely shatter your Sunday solace, the gastrointestinal aftermath that follows, surely will.
Listen to my Infidel admonition....... BEWARE THE LEGUMES!

Without going into too much detail, let's just say that if this flavorful duo was listed on a restaurant menu they would entitle it The Rudie-Pooty-Ripe-N-Tooty special. Oh great and holy frijole in the sky, me and the mini-Infidels did partake of the sinful hummus among us and spent the rest of the day toddling around like walking/talking Whoopee Cushions. We were deathly afraid to hug one another. :(

I talked to Carrot Jello last night because Papi said that she needs advance warning on the care of feeding of Elastic for when I visit her this summer. Rule number one: Under NO circumstance should you feed Elastic, hummus--especially after midnight because she'll wake up the whole house. Seriously, if I would have been strapped into one of those contraction monitors yesterday I could have visually seen the dramatic spikes charting across the screen with every bowel-ripping rumble. I'm not even sure that a contraction monitor has the capability of accurately recording the abdominal pressure that was going on......a Richter Scale would have proved far more useful.

Father Al Gore should focus his panic-riddled environmental agenda on the investigation and subsequent banning of hummus. Obviously hummus farts is contributory to widespread global warming and must be stopped!


CLIKETY HERE to support renewable energy credits based solely on harnessing the powerful force of hummus flatulence. Yeah, it may contradict the last sentence in this post but being contradictory is what Father Al Gore is all about.

It's Fantastic-Frou-Frou-French-Food Friday!

This Frenchy-French Crepe Cafe opened up here in the Houston suburbs last summer. It's a welcome change of pace to have a bit of Ooh-La-La added to the landscape since we've already reached the maximum quota allowed per capita of Mexican restaurants that specialize in serving food identical to your favorite Banquet brand heat-and-eat frozen dinner entrees.
I guess as parents we just haven't infused enough culinary culture into the life of our mini-Infidels because oldest daughter, Sunbum had no inkling that there even existed a magical world of crepes nor did she have the knowledge of how crepes function as a pancake-like vessel bringing a hidden treasure of tasty fillings right to your plate. In fact, so hopelessly crepe-incompetent was Sunbum that she kept pronouncing crepe as "creep."

So, a few moments after picking up the Crepe Cafe menu and making the obligatory offensive Gay Paree jokes, Sunbum began reading over the menu and making Mmmmmmmmmm noises and commenting about how Italian creeps looked really good to her and how bad she really wanted an Italian creep.
Shocking as the moment was I had to pull it together and inform Sunbum that as her mother I would neither condone nor support her dream of having an Italian creep. I reminded her that as enticingly hot as an Italian creep may appear on the outside that the inside stuffed full of excessive body hair and gold chains was sure to disappoint-and isn't what's on the inside that really counts? It worked. Sunbum conceded that maybe a powdered-sugar strawberry crepe was more suited to her tastes. (Should I also worry that my daughter has a thing for fruity creeps?)

Thank heavens. I really would hate to have to send out wedding announcements regarding the nuptials of my oldest daughter, Sunbum Soprano.


Look, to the best of my knowledge, humor-blogs is not a Mafia-affiliated organization and they don't employ narcs. However, they do still know when you click on this linkie for me because your click moves me up to the deee-luxe apartment in the sky instead of moving me down to sleep with the fishes. CLICKETY! Gracias.

This Cake Could Potentially Save Your Life!

So, this weekend I donned my very festive beach-themed apron and magically transformed into The Smiling Infidel Gourmet!

I baked up a delectable treat that's not only the embodiment of chocolate bliss but can also help immunize your entire family against the dastardly Avian Flu. Seriously. Just read this article. Yeah, life-saving cake that you don't even need a prescription or an overseas Internet drug dealer for.

Here's all the ingredients assembled together. You might want to add a hair net to your list because life-saving or not, most people don't care to munch on hair strands embedded amongst the cakey morsels.

Ummmmm, I know it's magnificent, but please stop staring at my sexy red spatula. kthx.
This is the part where you throw everything haphazardly into a shiny metal bowl. Throwing everything around haphazardly- that's where my secret kitchen talent lay.
For this next step you need to have a beefy, steroid-induced bodybuilder on stand-by to break the nearly impenetrable seal on the sauerkraut jar using sheer brute force. Otherwise, you'll be standing there in your kitchen moaning and grunting and panting while trying to loosen up the sauerkraut lid while your husband sits in the next room wondering if you checked out that Joy Of Erotic Cooking cookbook from the library.

You now have the sauerkraut precisely where you want it. The sauerkraut is a prisoner of your cutting board with nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide as you show off your mad knife-wielding skills and hack it into oblivion. You are the master and commander of the kitchen blade. That'll show those mofos over at Benihana Grill for refusing to hire you!
Whenever I use my mixer I like to sing that classic 80's song by The Cars, Shake It Up, only I change the words to "Mix it up, oooh, ooh, mix it up...." This is a very crucial instruction. If you don't encourage and play cheerleader for your mixer, your cake will turn out crappy. Notice that I'm using Libby's brand sauerkraut for my masterpiece. Yeah, Bush's Best sauerkraut just wasn't good enough. Sorry, Bush's. If one day I decide to make a canned baked beans cake, you're in!
Be extremely cautious as you transfer the batter over to the greased-up Bundt cake pan. If you get any batter on you the Police will automatically arrive at your doorstep and haul you away to a battered women's shelter.
Behold........the majestic awesomeness of my SARS-fighting secret weapon, Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake! I like the way it looks covered up in powdered sugar. It gives it a bit of "Walking In A Winter Wonderland" whimsy, don't you think? The mini-Infidels took this to their Homeschool Book Club and nobody could guess the secret ingredient. Nobody! Oh, that sauerkraut is really a genius master of disguise, fooling and deceiving all who get close to it. I'm going to put some on my next IRS audit.

We're not through with the Sauerkraut celebration just yet. The Smiling Infidel Gourmet will soon delve into the exotic wonder of The Passion For Sauerkraut cookbook to bring you the tantalizing recipe for Sauerkraut Custard Pie which is sure to also ward off sickness while delighting your taste buds!