Kevin's Mushroom & Onion Burgers

Kevin came home from work earlier than usual last Friday and said that he will make dinner for a change. Since it was the day before the 4th of July, he decided to make some hamburgers from scratch. This is Kevin's own recipe for mushroom and onion burgers.

First, he took out about 2lbs of ground beef and sprinkled some Montreal Steak seasoning on it.

Then he added a mix of Parmesan and Romano cheese.

Next goes in some breadcrumbs.

He then splashed on a few drops of Tabasco sauce, just a little for taste, not too much.

Lastly, he cracked in one egg to hold everything together.

Kevin then mixed everything evenly up in a large mixing bowl.

Next, he diced some fresh mushrooms into little pieces and added that to the mixture.

Then, add in one large onion that has been chopped to tiny pieces.

Mix everything together. At this point, do not be afraid to use your hands.

Kevin then split the meat mixture into 6 equal portions and shaped them into patties.

Set them aside once it's done. If the meat is too soggy from the egg, you can add in some more breadcrumbs. 2 lbs of ground beef should make about 6 large patties.

Now it's time to grill the burgers. Since we live in an apartment, Kevin had to use our George Foreman grill. It would have been so much more yummier if it was grilled on a charcoal outdoor grill :P Oh well...

While the burgers are on the grill, Kevin chopped up more onions and stir fried them in some butter.

He then added in some sliced mushrooms.

He cooked them up until they were nice and brown, then he set them aside.

Once the burgers are done, remove them from the grill and place them on a plate.

Scoop the mushrooms and onion mixture onto the burgers.

Place a slice of cheese on top and allow it to melt. You can pretty much use any type of cheese that you like but Kevin used Provolone.

You can toast/brown some Kaiser rolls in the oven and put on whatever condiments that you like. We just slapped on some mayo and a few slices of tomatoes.

Place the burgers on the Kaiser roll and top it up with a few squirts of ketchup.

There you go. Kevin's big and juicy mushroom and onions burger! We ate it with a side of red potato salad and some macaroni salad. Mmmm mmmm mmm....it was so yummy!

After dinner, we each had a slice of red velvet cake that we bought in the bakery earlier on. What a yummy dinner to kick off our 4th of July weekend! :D

MiNeeds makes life easier!

I was just talking to a friend the other day about how difficult it is to get a good and trustworthy contractor these days. She told me she had the same problem when she was looking for somebody to put in a water feature in her garden a while back. Then she heard about MiNeeds.com. It's a website that simplifies the search for home related repairs and improvements contractors. All she needed to do was go on the website, post that she was looking for a contractor and soon, she was receiving bids from various Dallas Contractors & Landscape Services! Not only did she save time (by not calling or emailing people for quotes), but she got to save money since she received multiple competitive offers from professionals eager to deliver the service to them. She also told me that the service from MiNeeds is free and it's available nationwide in the US. Now, her water feature in the garden is done and she still couldn't believe how easy it was to get it done!

I just love Netflix!!!

Before I say anything, let me verify that this is not a paid post. I just think that Netflix is really cool and I wanna share it with my readers. I know Netflix is not a new thing, it's been around for the longest time. However, we (yes, I know..a bit slow :P) just signed up for it about two weeks ago and we are lovin' it!

For those of you who don't know what Netflix is, it's an online DVD rental service. We just need to pay a membership fee of $4.99 a month and we can get DVDs sent direct to our home. All we need to do is go online, choose the movie that we want to watch and place it in the queue. Netflix will then send the DVD to our mailbox the very next business day.

I love the smart design of the envelope. We need to tear it open carefully becos we would need the envelope to send it back to them after we watched the movie.

The movie comes in a little sleeve, along with a short summary, rating and duration of the movie.

Once you are done watching the movie, just pop it back into the prepaid envelope and send it back to Netflix.

It's really convenient for us, we don't even have to go out of the apartment to get our movies and to return them! :D Another thing I like about Netflix is that we can keep the DVD as long as possible, there are no late return charges. Once we return the DVD, they will ship out the next movie on our list to us. Also, we can watch movies on their website (while waiting for the DVDs to be shipped to us). For $4.99 a month, I think its a great deal. So far, we have already watched 3 movies and I've watch the entire season 8 of South Park online :P We are currently waiting for our Twilight DVD to arrive, it should be here today...Yay!!!

Collision Repair Experts

Have you ever been in an auto accident and don't know which auto body repair shop to go to? There are just so many to choose from, how can you know which is a trusted and reliable shop? Collision Repair Experts is a nationwide network pairing consumers with the most trusted local auto body shops and has largest network of collision repair experts. Their network of auto body shops has thousands of testimonials and feedback ratings so you don't have to take any chances getting your vehicle back to pre-accident condition. Collision repair shops in their network must adhere to stringent quality and service guidelines. A collision is bad enough - they take the pain out of collision repair. Head over to auto body irvine and check out their website now.

Macy's 4th of July Fireworks

We managed to get home from the Street Festival in the city just little bit before the sun went down and just in time to watch the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular. The Macy's fireworks is known to be the biggest 4th of July fireworks display in America. With over 120,000 fireworks lighting up the New York City skyline, shot out from 6 barges on the Hudson River, it's definitely a sight not to be missed.

This year, Macy's 33rd annual fireworks display returns to the Hudson River. It's to mark the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudsons historic voyage down that river. For the past few years, they have been shooting the fireworks from the East River. The move back to the Hudson is really great news for us. We could not really see the fireworks from our apartment when they shot it from the East River, cos it was on the other side of the city. Now that they have brought it back to the Hudson, we have a full unobstructed view of the whole display.

After setting our chairs up near the big window and tuning to 1010 WINS, we are ready for the show to begin. By tuning into 1010 WINS, we were able to enjoy the fireworks display with synchronized music accompaniment by The NY Pops, Audra McDonald, Idina Menzel, Rob Thomas and the Choir Academy of Harlem. At approximately around 9:20pm, the show began! Here are some of the photos that we took of the fireworks display from our apartment window.

The whole display lasted for about 25 minutes, pretty amazing actually. We were however disappointed with the grand finale (or the lack of it). Overall, it was a good show but for something that is labelled the best and biggest fireworks spectacular in America, I guess the finale wasn't really that spectacular after all. But still, it was pretty cool. Thanks Macy's for the show!!

Just a little side note. One of the six barges caught on fire following the show. It took them a couple of hours to put the fire out!! Nobody was hurt and everything is fine now! :P

Armani Exchange Denim Sale!

I just love wearing jeans. It's one of the most versatile piece of clothing that you can find in your closet. You can wear it when you are working in your yard, out shopping or even glam it up for that evening outing. However, buying that perfect pair of jeans can be tough, really tough. Once you find that perfect pair, you would want to tell the world about it.

AX is one of my all time favorite brands when it comes to jeans. AX Armani Exchange is accessible Armani, inspired by street-chic culture, fashionable dance music; everything that signifies freedom and personal style. Armani Exchange is the youthful label created by Italian designer and entrepreneur Giorgio Armani. With Armani Exchange, Mr. Armani interprets his sensual and unique style to create a casual, yet sophisticated collection for the young, urban and sexy. It designs, manufactures, distributes and retails fashion & lifestyle products, including apparel, accessories, eye wear, watches, jewelry, and music.

Armani Exchange is now having their "New Premium Denim starting at $98" promotion. There are so many different styles and designs to choose from but here are some of my favorites.

This is their J57 Potassium Straight Leg in Indigo. I just like how simple it is, nice straight leg cut, no nonsense with a natural worn in appearance. It's basically a nice, well cut basic pair of blue jeans. I love it!

I also like the J24 - Wing Printed Boot Cut, also in Indigo. This is a little bit more flashy compared to the J57. I love how it has the wings logo on the back pockets in a modern print and abraded edges on front and back pockets. As usual (just like any other AX pair of jeans), the cut is just great!

My all time favorite is the special edition, online only exclusive J70, the Embroidered Skinny Flare Fit. I am a big fan of flare cut jeans. I like how it fits through the waist and leg, then flares slightly near the bottom to cover a boot or shoe. Just look at how well the cut is!! I love it, I love it, I love it!!

Oh and before I forget, Armani Exchange is having their "Text AX contest" SMS campaign at this moment. All you need to do is text AX for a chance to win a pair of denim every day for the month of July. Just text the keyword "DENIM2" to ARMANI (276264). For more info, visit http://clk.atdmt.com/K01/go/159833558/direct/01/. Also, customers who purchase a full price pair of denim from Armani Exchange, in store or online, between 7/7/09 – 7/19/09 will receive a gift card of $20 off you next purchase of $100 or more, valid 7/30/09 through 8/15/09! How cool is that?!? You can also go check out the AX Blog as well as follow AX on Twitter at @ArmaniExchange. So what are you waiting for? Go check out the denims at AX today!

McBurney YMCA Street Festival

After we left Coney Island, we went to check out the Street Festival on 6th Avenue, between 14th and 23rd Street. We saw them setting up earlier that morning (on our way to Coney Island) and since it was pretty near to our PATH station, we decided to go take a quick look around.

It was a pretty big street fair, about 10 blocks down 6th Avenue. There were all kinds of stalls, from food stalls to music, clothes, knick knacks and on site massages/spas. It somewhat reminded me of the Malaysian pasar malam, only a whole lot cleaner :P

There were all kinds of ethnic food on sale at the festival. From Thai (we bought a big yummy cup of Iced Thai Milk Tea for $2) to Greek ( those Baklavas look really yummy) and Japanese (regret not trying the Takoyaki ). There were just so many stalls, I stopped taking photos after a while. African, Spanish, Indian, Turkish, Chinese food, just to name a few. Of course they also had regular American carnival food and drinks like lemonade, funnel cakes, hot dogs...the usual.

There were also nice little stalls selling cheap knick knacks and handicraft. There were a whole bunch of stalls selling stuff like bowls, bags, mirrors, carvings...exactly like what you can find in Bali or Chatuchak Market in Bangkok. The prices are of course wayy wayy wayyy more expensive.

The more popular stalls were the clothes stalls. They had all kinds of sundresses, hippie looking cheese cloth skirts and pashminas for sale. They were pretty affordable too. You could get 5 pashminas for $20. Not too bad at all.

Apart from clothes, music and food, there were also all kinds of other random stalls. Check this one out. A mobile garden center :D

There were also mobile spas and massage stalls. Surprisingly, this psychic reading stall had lots of business too! I guess New Yorkers like weird and quirky stuff. Overall, we had an interesting afternoon walking around the street festival. We spent about an hour or so walking around and we finally left the city by early evening. Look out for my next post when I blog about watching the 4th of July Macy's Fireworks Spectacular from our apartment! :D

DogOsuds Dog Shampoo

Most of you know Abby, our family dog. Actually, she is more than a just family dog, she IS family. She is such a joy to have around, full of energy and really good with kids. However, Abby has a little secret. She used to itch, scratch herself non stop and stink beyond belief! How can something so cute and adorable stink so much? It's not that we don't bath her or keep her clean. We would wash her one day and the stink would return the very next day!!

Sounds familiar? Many dogs suffer from this problem too. Another problem dog owners have is that they have to wait weeks between bathing their dogs because its skin gets so dry and flaky. Some pet owners hate bathing their dogs because they rinse and rinse and rinse...and still can't get them completely rinsed! All this problems sounds very familiar to me and I bet it does to you too. Well, it's time to stop all that and time for that "new dog smell" once again! Need help? Why not try the all natural dog shampoo Dogosuds ® made by Dinovite, Inc.

DogOsuds is not just any regular dog shampoo. It contains 100% pure, therapeutic grade essential oils that have natural, healing properties. Not only that, it also contains no chemicals, no perfumes, no fillers... in short, nothing to irritate or dry your dog's skin! DogOsuds is also a gentle soothing shampoo that works well for sensitive skin and lathers beautifully as well as rinses beautifully. On top of that, DogOsuds is a natural flea deterrent and also works great to remove skunk odor! It comes in four exciting blend, the essential oil blend, lavender, peppermint/tea tree and for those who does care for scented shampoos, the unscented blend. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and check out Dinovite's dog shampoo and other Dinovite products at Dinovite.com today!

Nathan's 94th Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest

We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to head out to Coney Island for the famous 4th of July Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. Over 40,000 people were expected at the event, so we decided to take the train instead of drive.

We took the PATH from Jersey City to 14th St then hopped on the F train to Coney Island. The whole journey from our apartment to Coney Island took us about 1 and a half hours, not too bad at all. I don't think we would have made it in 1 and a half hours by car, with all the traffic jams and driving around looking for a parking spot.

From the train station, we headed to the legendary corner of Stillwell and Surf Avenue. This is where Nathan's is located and also the venue of the Hot Dog Eating Contest.

The contest officially begins at noon and we arrived sometime around 10:30 in the morning. As you can see, the crowd was already pretty big and growing at a very fast pace.

We got a pretty good spot in the crowd, close enough to see what's happening on the stage. If we were just a little bit later, we would be standing way at the back and would have to watch it on the jumbotron. Being there with the crowd was just so electrifying. There were live performances, music, people dancing everywhere, beer....it was just a huge street party! I even got hit on the shoulder by a flying beer can! :P

They were pretty good with security too. You can see cops standing on every street corner as well as cops stationed on the rooftops.

There were all kinds of acts before the main event. Check this guy out, he holds the world record for all kinds of trampoline jumps. He can jump on skis, on a snowboard, while jumping thru a hula hoop..all kinds of tricks. They also had performances by the Ringling Bros Circus, the Coney Island Strong Man as well as a hot dog eating contest for kids. It's not how fast or how many dogs you can eat. It's a neatness contest. Using only one hand, the kids must try their best to eat a hot dog without squirting the mustard and ketchup out or messing up their mouth. Hahaha! In the end, every kid was a winner (of course!).

At noon, the whole event was cut live on ESPN and was broadcasted nationwide. They started off by swearing in all the judges.

Check out the ESPN cam! They zoomed in on us quite a number of times. If you were watching the event on ESPN, you would have seen us on TV! :P

After a long and exciting wait, the contest officially began! You can see Joey Chestnut (10th from right) and Takeru Kobayashi (9th from right) stuffing their faces with hot dogs. Last year, it ended with a tie of 59 hot dogs in 10 mins. Chestnut won after after going into overtime. It was also neck and neck this year. It's amazing to see them stuff two hot dogs at once in their mouth..hahha! At last, Joey Chestnut was declared winner with 68 hot dogs in 10 mins!! Not only did he beat last years record, he also broke the world record of 61 hot dogs in 12 mins! So, once again...USA held on to the great Mustard Belt, for another year. Don't be sad Japan, there is always next year! :P

After the contest, we headed out to the boardwalk to walk around. The ever popular Sideshows by the Seaside was raking in a lot of visitors but we were not really interested to see 'death defying' freak shows :P

There were super long lines for all the rides, especially the Wonder Wheel. I guess we would have to come back sometime at the end of summer, when there is not so many people.

The boardwalk was also packed with people. Lines for all the concession stands were extra long and all the seaside cafes were filled with people. Thank goodness there was a Coke booth giving out free cans of Coke Zero. I would have fainted from dehydration if I had to stand in line with all those people just to get a drink.

If you think the boardwalk was bad, check out the beach!! I can't even see where the Atlantic Ocean hits the shoreline, cos there were just so many people! I wonder if it's so pack every weekend during the summer time or it's just extra packed cos it's the 4th of July weekend.

After hanging out in Coney Island for a few hours, it was time to leave. My face was burning from sun burn. We are usually very good when it comes to sunblock, but I guess we totally forgot how hot it can be and left home without it. To make matters worse, we couldn't really feel the heat, cos there was a strong cool sea breeze and it wasn't humid. If you think my face is red, you should see Kevin's. It's so bad til he didn't even want to take photos. Actually, his sunburn is very very bad. As of yesterday, he was hurting all over and even had some blisters on his nose. That's a sign of it being a 2nd degree burn. We will monitor his sunburn and if it doesn't get better in the next few days, we will have to take him to the doctor :( We did take a few photos of our sunburn after we got home. However, Kevin doesn't want me to post that photo up on the blog (he said he looks terrible). If you really want to see how bad and red we are, email me! I will send you the pic :P

Happy 4th of July!

Wishing all of our readers

a Happy 4th of July!!

(have fun, be safe...)

InTheRooms - A Global Recovery Community

Dealing with an addiction, whatever that addiction it might be, can be hard. Most people with an addiction wants out from their problems but find it very difficult to take that first step. Now, there is a place online where you can go to make it so such more easier.

InTheRooms is a global recovery social network that is designed specifically for people (their family, friends and allies too) in addiction recovery as well as people seeking help to find recovery for their addiction. It is also one of the top recovery sites on the Web. InTheRooms Meetings database is now the most current and most comprehensive database of meetings for members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and Gamblers Anonymous (GA) meetings in the world.

The innovative InTheRooms Meetings database layout is similar to how Wikipedia is designed. It’s simple, straightforward and functional. It features the latest dates, times and locations of local fellowship meetings across the United States and around the world. Anyone who is registered and belongs to a 12-step recovery program can now go online and quickly find a meeting of their fellowship. The site's Wiki platform allows people to update changes in times and locations of meetings, upload photos, post videos, participate in discussions, create blogs on their profiles as well as connect with other members within their fellowship.

InTheRooms is the most comprehensive resource for global fellowships, local support groups and individuals dedicated to recovery. They provide a wealth of information and resources in helping people around the globe battle their addiction, 24/7. Not only that, they are also safe and secure in their privacy, allowing people to connect and share their experiences in a comfortable and anonymous manner. Go visit InTheRooms and see what they are all about today!

Verification Call from Marlboro

I received a call from the people who will be organizing our travel documents and stuff for the Marlboro Ranch trip today. They just wanted double check the spelling of our names (for the plane tickets), address and contact number.

The lady on the phone said that we should be getting our activity pack in a few weeks. We are supposed to rank in order all the activities that we are interested to take part in at the Ranch. Of course nothing is set in stone, we can change our minds and choose other activities once we get there but this helps the organizers out a whole lot in terms of estimate head count for each activity.

They will also include something to measure our hat size together with the activity pack. Yup, looks like we will each be getting our own cowboy hat when we arrive at the ranch. Woohoo! We are also supposed to tell them our clothes size (we will be getting a whole lot of free clothes) as well as our shoe size (for our free cowboy boots!). We should get our plane tickets and check for $1,250 sometime during the 1st week of Aug. They will also be sending us two pieces of luggage, luggage tags as well as two caps for us to wear when we get off the plane (makes it's easier for them to recognise us during pick up at the airport in Montana).

Woohoo! Another day closer to our ranch trip! I can't wait....

* Click here to be directed back to the Crazy Mountain Ranch Homepage. You can check out other ranch related posts as well as look at photos from the ranch during our Summer 2009 trip!