a martha stewart show (~2002) recipe i originally scribbled onto a
school menu with a purple crayon....and later got sick of trying to
decipher the crayon and looked it up on the net. yums warmed and with
butter. goes perfect with a sunday or easter ham dinner.
bake your yams! you can nuke them in the microwave & puree them in
the food processor or blender, but it works so much better to prick
them and wrap them in foil, tossing them in the oven to bake just like
regular potatoes. when they are nice and soft, i simply beat the hell
out of them with the electric mixer. no need to dirty all the blender
parts.
2 C unbleached flour
1 Tbls baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ginger
3 Tbls brown sugar
grated orange zest
6 Tbls melted butter
~2/3 C buttermilk (or sour milk*)
1 C cooked, pureed sweet potato
(*sour milk = pour 1 T lemon juice into a glass measuring cup. fill to
the 1 C line with milk and let sit @ room temp for 5-10 min. it will
curdle.)
1. mix first 6 dry ingredients together. Add melted butter and blend until it has a crumbly texture.
2. stir in sweet potato until well blended.
3. add enough buttermilk to make a soft texture. knead a little more flour into the dough if it is sticky.
4. pat (don't roll!!) the dough to 1/2" thickness. cut with 2 " biscuit
cutter dipped in flour. place on parchment-paper-lined pan.
5. prick lightly with fork. brush with ~2Tbls melted butter.
6. bake @ 350* for 15 minutes.
do NOT re-roll dough! it makes the 2nd batch of biscuits tough. roll
the leftover scraps in cinna-sugar, twist and brush with butter, baking
on parchment as above to use the scraps. the more the dough is handled,
the tougher they taste.
30 March 2009
10 March 2009
What A Deal!!
Rock that economy, folks, wooooooo! Have you ever sat and actually read the fine print on your junk mail? I was in the mood for some light reading, and man, this just hit the spot. I needed that laugh.
First Premier Bank of South Dakota wants our business! It’s true. They specialize in account holders with less-than-perfect credit. (Wait, what are they trying to say about my bill-paying abilities?? Bite me!) So get this, we’ve been pre-approved for a credit limit of a whopping $250! But wait…there’s more!
We have 25 days to pay First Premier back in full, or we can get charged some fees. And that 25 days is from the date we make the first transaction, not 25 days from the billing date. Remember that, mmkay?
0% introductory APR (which is the fee First Premier charges for allowing us to borrow the credit) for a whole year, then 9.9% until they decide they want to change the rates, which can happen any time they choose after allowing us to open an account with them. If our account goes delinquent ONE time in 12 months, our APR jumps up to 19.9%. But we can talk them back down to 9.9% after we make on-time payments for 3 consecutive months after that.
19.9% APR (plus a $5 or 3% fee for each transaction) if we want to spend our credit like cash from an ATM. But we can’t get more than $25 in cash within the first 90 days of the account opening.
$95 one-time Program Fee as a condition of extending credit to us…well, for letting us borrow the money. Okey Dokey. Guess that makes up for the 0%APR.
$29 one-time Account Set-Up Fee as a condition of extendin…wait, then what was that first $95 for?
$48 Annual Fee for allowing us to borrow…I just said that.
$7.00 Monthly Servicing Fee for …can you guess that one? This is getting tedious.
$.50 minimum monthly finance charge. A finance charge is what the bank can charge us for allowing us to borrow the money. Kind of like an APR, right? So much for that 0% introductory APR. I thought zero meant none.
$3.00 monthly account maintenance fee (for closed accounts with a balance of $20+). Um, which is somehow different from the minimum finance charge. Because the account needs maintaining. Like a pool boy or something.
But wait….there’s still more!
$29 for a payment made one day late…plus the APR bump mentioned above.
$29 if we spend any amount over our gargantuan credit limit. I am challenged to find a place where I would not actually spend it all.
$25 if First Premier decides we are good enough for a credit increase, they will automatically deduct that bad boy whether we want the increase or not. And they don’t have to tell us when we get that increase.
$11 if we want to pay them through an autodraft service through First Premier.
$7 if we want to pay by phone or internet through an autodraft. Um which one is it, $11 or $7 guys? Wouldn’t this actually fall under the account maintenance I’m already being charged for? You are maintaining my account by forcing me to pay for it, right?
$5 imposed by First Premier if we want to send our payment by wire transfer.
$3.95 annually if we want to use the internet to access account information , and ostensibly to make payments….which we’ll be charged $7 or $11 a pop for, if they can figure out which one to charge…or maybe it’s both? Who the hell cares at this point?
$3 if we lose our statement in a pile of junk mail and need another copy….wouldn’t I just rather pay another buck and print it from the web anyway?
So, in summary, let’s tot that up, shall we?
Credit Limit: $250
Program fee -95
Account Set Up -29
Annual fee -48
Monthly - 7
First finance charge (minimum) -.50
Available to borrow $70.50 (or less.)
Pay by internet -3.95
Autodraft (rounded up for safety) -18
Now available $48.55 (or less.)
For a single year, it would cost a minimum of $273.04 just to have this line of credit, and that doesn’t include any interest, over-limit fees, limit increases, internet or autodraft charges or anything. If we really needed $250 that badly, we wouldn’t actually have $250 after opening this account. And then to get penalized every month? Just opening the account and leaving it open for 6 months without making a single transaction would give us an over-limit fee in month 5. We have moved on. We live by cash on the barrel now. You can keep your exclusive offers, First Premier Bank of South Dakota, but thanks for the laugh!
First Premier Bank of South Dakota wants our business! It’s true. They specialize in account holders with less-than-perfect credit. (Wait, what are they trying to say about my bill-paying abilities?? Bite me!) So get this, we’ve been pre-approved for a credit limit of a whopping $250! But wait…there’s more!
We have 25 days to pay First Premier back in full, or we can get charged some fees. And that 25 days is from the date we make the first transaction, not 25 days from the billing date. Remember that, mmkay?
0% introductory APR (which is the fee First Premier charges for allowing us to borrow the credit) for a whole year, then 9.9% until they decide they want to change the rates, which can happen any time they choose after allowing us to open an account with them. If our account goes delinquent ONE time in 12 months, our APR jumps up to 19.9%. But we can talk them back down to 9.9% after we make on-time payments for 3 consecutive months after that.
19.9% APR (plus a $5 or 3% fee for each transaction) if we want to spend our credit like cash from an ATM. But we can’t get more than $25 in cash within the first 90 days of the account opening.
$95 one-time Program Fee as a condition of extending credit to us…well, for letting us borrow the money. Okey Dokey. Guess that makes up for the 0%APR.
$29 one-time Account Set-Up Fee as a condition of extendin…wait, then what was that first $95 for?
$48 Annual Fee for allowing us to borrow…I just said that.
$7.00 Monthly Servicing Fee for …can you guess that one? This is getting tedious.
$.50 minimum monthly finance charge. A finance charge is what the bank can charge us for allowing us to borrow the money. Kind of like an APR, right? So much for that 0% introductory APR. I thought zero meant none.
$3.00 monthly account maintenance fee (for closed accounts with a balance of $20+). Um, which is somehow different from the minimum finance charge. Because the account needs maintaining. Like a pool boy or something.
But wait….there’s still more!
$29 for a payment made one day late…plus the APR bump mentioned above.
$29 if we spend any amount over our gargantuan credit limit. I am challenged to find a place where I would not actually spend it all.
$25 if First Premier decides we are good enough for a credit increase, they will automatically deduct that bad boy whether we want the increase or not. And they don’t have to tell us when we get that increase.
$11 if we want to pay them through an autodraft service through First Premier.
$7 if we want to pay by phone or internet through an autodraft. Um which one is it, $11 or $7 guys? Wouldn’t this actually fall under the account maintenance I’m already being charged for? You are maintaining my account by forcing me to pay for it, right?
$5 imposed by First Premier if we want to send our payment by wire transfer.
$3.95 annually if we want to use the internet to access account information , and ostensibly to make payments….which we’ll be charged $7 or $11 a pop for, if they can figure out which one to charge…or maybe it’s both? Who the hell cares at this point?
$3 if we lose our statement in a pile of junk mail and need another copy….wouldn’t I just rather pay another buck and print it from the web anyway?
So, in summary, let’s tot that up, shall we?
Credit Limit: $250
Program fee -95
Account Set Up -29
Annual fee -48
Monthly - 7
First finance charge (minimum) -.50
Available to borrow $70.50 (or less.)
Pay by internet -3.95
Autodraft (rounded up for safety) -18
Now available $48.55 (or less.)
For a single year, it would cost a minimum of $273.04 just to have this line of credit, and that doesn’t include any interest, over-limit fees, limit increases, internet or autodraft charges or anything. If we really needed $250 that badly, we wouldn’t actually have $250 after opening this account. And then to get penalized every month? Just opening the account and leaving it open for 6 months without making a single transaction would give us an over-limit fee in month 5. We have moved on. We live by cash on the barrel now. You can keep your exclusive offers, First Premier Bank of South Dakota, but thanks for the laugh!
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