Making Waffle Cones

I bought a $20 Bella Waffle Cone Maker for Mark.  David and I whipped up a batch tonight.

The instructions were a little awkward and I think they were translated from another language, as it called for two eggs, then said to mix the yolk and the egg white with salt, etc.  Who discusses the parts of an egg?  You just put two eggs in.  The ingredients also called for 1/3 cup milk, but the instructions never said when to add it.  I looked at other recipes online and added it at the end, choosing to use evaporated milk as it was suggested in one of the online recipes.  The cooked batter was wonderful, but as crumbly as a potato chip.  Getting the lid to snap closed on the batter was impossible and although I put the required amount in, it overflowed and the waffle didn't cook evenly.  And it was too hot to work with AND even with the instructions, the cooked waffle kept slipping off the plastic cone form when I was trying to transform it from a flat pancake into a cone.  Needless to say, making cones was a failure and David and I ended up pressing the last three in bowls, which worked well. 

David scooped some softened ice cream and when he plopped it into a big cone, the cookie shattered.  Mark liked his cone, but we all agreed that I should take this back and get my twenty bucks refunded.

We ruined three and the picture below are our somewhat successes. Our fingertips are burned.

 

Clogged Drain Cleared!

Our bathroom sink was slow to drain, probably from years of soap buildup.  We have a septic tank and I am not a fan of pouring in harsh chemicals like Drain-O, so I looked online and found this clog busting recipe of things I had on hand.  

1 cup baking soda
1 cup white vinegar
1 gallon of hot water.

First put the baking soda into the drain. Follow it with the vinegar. It will react with the soda and fizzle. Let it stand for a couple of minutes then pour the boiling water down the drain.

I put a gallon of water on the stove to boil and went straight to work. Our sink has a permanent drain stopper, so I pushed what I could down the little opening and then poured the vinegar, using my fingers to push the bubbling baking soda down the drain.  One more slosh of vinegar was all it took for the mixture to clear the sink.  While that rested, I waited for the big pot of water to boil, maybe five minutes.

When I poured in the hot water, I could hear bubbly noises from the vinegar-soda solution, but I didn't get that big whoosh of water drainage that I expected.  Maybe the hot water needed to sit in the trap for a while to melt the clog, so I put another pot of water on to boil and tried again.  The second pot of water went down a little faster.  The third pot was the charm!

I wonder if I could have saved my soda and vinegar and just flushed the pipes with boiling water?  I hope I didn't hurt the PVC.

Yes, we could have taken out the trap and cleaned it, but that would have involved emptying the storage stuff from the cabinet.  Plus - YUCK - who wants to do that??

Bear In Our Yard - video/pictures

We heard the trash can fall over at 9:45am, pretty late in the morning for a bear.  We don't keep the can in the garage, because this attracts bugs and mice, which frankly creep me out worse than bears.  It's the trade-off for living near woods (paradise).  I was taking pictures from our driveway between our son's car and Mark's giant Snap-On Tools truck.  We wanted the bear to feel trapped.  Mark went to the front of his truck and banged on it, scaring the bear enough to run past me.  Hopefully she will remember this and not return!   I estimate this big bear to be a 5' tall and 200 pound female.  We would only be in danger if cubs were involved.

Go away bad bear!

She sees Mark as he bangs on his truck.

And runs past me.

Between our yards, toward our driveway.

Running across our driveway with me hot on her heels

Running toward the lake in our front yard

Headed from our yard to another neighbor's

The End.