Scraps for dinner!

I like to play a game called "What's in the fridge?"  Sometimes, this game overlaps with another one, called "What's in the freezer?"  I played a mix of the two this weekend!  I didn't take any pictures, since it was super ugly, but it was also super delicious!  Here's what I used:

Fridge:
1/2 a head of cabbage
1/2 a can of tomato paste

Freezer:
Cooked ground beef, crumbled (about a cup or 1/2 pound?)
Cooked italian sausage, diced (2 links?)
Super salty leftover stir fried egg plant (1/2 cup?)

Countertop:
1 onion
2 red potatoes

Instrucciones:

1. Chop onion, place in bottom of casserole or crock pot.
2. Dice potatoes, same.
3. Chop cabbage, same.  Mix the 3 together a bit.
4. Season with oregano, mrs. dash, herbes de provence, or whatever herby stuff you might have.
5. Salt and pepper too (unless you have super salty eggplant coming, like i did)
6. Spread around sausage, ground beef and eggplant
7. Mix tomato paste with water (about 1 cup total liquid) and pour over.
8. Put on lid, and bake at 350 for an hour or two, checking to make sure concoction doesn't dry out.  If it does dry out (like mine did after more than 90 minutes, husband neglected instructions to turn off oven when timer went off), rescue with tomato-y liquid!  I used a can of tomato soup.  

It was delicious, I win!  I like this game! Would also work just fine with uncooked meats, just make sure to cook long enough for them to come to a safe temperature.  Instead of tomato-y liquid, I bet broth would work... and instead of eggplant I imagine mushrooms would work well.  Maybe I'll try those substitutions next time I play!

Pretty Cookies!

Roughly 2 and a half years ago, I went to my cousins bridal shower.  Someone got her a pizzelle press, and I exclaimed, "ooh, I love pizzelles!"  My grandma overheard, so when my bridal shower came around... guess what I got?  Thanks Grandma!  But with all the moving we've done in the past few years it's been neglected. Today I finally opened the box!  It came with a couple of easy to follow recipes, so here I am all ready to go:

 

The press is pretty easy to use, there's a little indicator light that signals when the cookies are done!  How great is that!  Unfortunately you can only make 2 at a time and need to stand around while they cook, but it's pretty great not having to worry about burning the entire batch of cookies!  Here are the first few beauties, below.  Also convenient is that you can refrigerate the batter (or so the recipe book says), so timing is pretty flexible.  I stopped half-way through, I'll finish making cookies some other time!  Like maybe in a few hours when I've eaten all of these? And maybe I'll dip them in chocolate... like Mike's!

I actually made the batter yesterday night, planning to cook them and just didn't get around to it, so I've already tried refrigerating the batter.  The texture changed enough that you could probably use the dough as regular cookie dough, rolling it flat and skipping the press... maybe just baking on a sheet like regular sugar cookies?  Feel free to experiment!    Here's the recipe I used, courtesy of Cuisinart:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, melted (i used salted... that's what i had!)
1 tablespoon anise extract (or vanilla, I did 1/2 and 1/2)

mix liquids and sugar, then add dry.  If using the press, rounded spoonfulls... if making without a press... who knows!  Experiment!  Makes 35-40 pizzelle.

Fresh Snow!

Guess what we got yesterday?
That's right... MORE SNOW!!  Good thing I like making snowmen.

(photos not shown, yesterday's snow"wo"man belongs in an adult magazine) 

We shoveled and shoveled and shoveled, then shoveled some more.

Thank goodness it was a beautiful day!!

 

We took a break by doing this:

 Unfortunately, we did not take this picture when Husband got up, only when I did:

We think that if we had, we might have seen his cell phone taking an extended rest. 

It's ok, he needed a new one anyway.

Turkey Sandwich for Breakfast!

I made bread on sunday night! I love my mixer! I more or less followed this recipe from the book that came with ol' red, and made them into a variety of sandwich shapes. I didn't know how much they would rise, they turned out pretty enormous!

So... I made a giant turkey sandwich on homemade bread for lunch. Yay! When I got to work, it looked so much better than my yogurt that I ate half for breakfast! I'm eating the other half now... haaaaaalf a sandwich! (sung as only the best-roomate-ever-other-than-your-husband can sing it, tune of hallelujah choir). They're so much better in halfs!

And beyond the bread, my sandwich gets even better! Fresh fixins from Costco! I bought 12 tomatoes. Giant ones. I really only wanted 3 or 4, but hey, it's Costco. Also, a bajillion pounds of lunchmeat and cheese! Freezer is stocked, and now we don't have to wait in the line at the stop&shop deli! Yaaay! One hour of costco-suffering may have saved us hours of stop&shop suffering. Or maybe not... that's the tricky thing about costco... you're never sure if it was worth it.

Now that we're homeowners with storage space, we often ask ourselves: Should we man up and pay the membership fee at Costco? And so far, our answer keeps being "eh...", ie, indecisive. So this past weekend, I convinced Husband to accompany me to Costco under Mom's supervision and membership, this time through the eyes of potential members for the first time. Our theory was, it can't hurt (and if it so happens that they have snow blowers, bonus! Alas, they did not).

What a zoo! I'm so proud of Husband for not losing his temper while we were there, I know I came very, very close! Especially when I picked up the package of a bajillion individually frozen chicken breasts and got chicken juice all over me! Ewwww! And no purel or napkins or anything of the sort in sight! (Don't worry, I still bought the chicken, what a deal! Though obviously a different package...)

What's with the men buying weird things? We saw a man with a cart full of nothing but mountains of Coca Cola! And another buying trays and trays of Lysol wipes (where was he when I was covered in chicken juice??), and yet another with several BAGS of avocados! (aguacate! my second favorite spanish word!)

$260 later, no cookies, covered in chicken goo, and full of questions about what that man would do with all those avocados, we loaded up the car and headed home. How did we spend that much and not even come out with a package of cookies??!??!!! The jury's still out on whether or not we'll join... but we've at least postponed the decision until we run out of granola bars, which will be several months from now judging by the size of the box!

Blow, blow, blow your snow?

When we bought a house, we knew that there would be a lot of homeowner maintenance, but we didn't realized that would mean we could quit the gym (technically I quit several months ago, but lately I don't feel too guilty about it). Shoveling! Grrr! I have one of those "back saver" shovels, but it's all a lie. They don't save anything if you have to lift the snow 4 or 5 feet in the air to the top of the piles of snow lining the driveway! My waist is getting nice and trim though, all that twisting to launch the snow up and over the pile. Only one side of my waist though... I can't turn left! (haha, actually I can't turn right, left I can do).

Latest rumor is there's another snowstorm heading our way... so we decided yesterday we should consider getting a snow blower. We live in an area that usually only gets a few inches at a time, close to the salt water stays warmer and there's all that salt in the air... so nobody has a snow blower... in a normal year that would just be silly! But so far this year we've had several feet! 18", 6", 14", 4", 5"... it all adds up! With this latest storm I've even heard "feet" rolled into possible storm scenarios. So husband and I were thinking...

You know how if you bring an umbrella it doesn't rain, but if you forget the umbrella it pours?

How much would YOU pay to make it stop snowing? Does that amount happen to equal the price of a snow blower???

We decided that yes, we would buy a snow blower if it meant no more snow. But apparently everyone else in New England came to the same conclusion a week earlier than us... there are none to be had! They're sold out everywhere!

Anyone want to come shovel my driveway this week? I'll pay you!