All out of OJ

I woke up this morning and decided to have a smoothie for breakfast, as I do many days.  Banana, strawberries or pineapple (frozen works fine), plain yogurt, and orange juice.  But, we're not at our house this morning, and there's no orange juice.  There is, however, some grapefruit juice.  It's citrus, it should work... right? 

WRONG!  Don't do it!!

It's been an interesting week!

We've been busy!  Exciting things like Friday night dates to Home Depot, Saturday work-work, and Sunday yard work.  And we decided to cut down some trees!  Two were already dead, and one turned our backyard into a hard hat zone starting sometime in August.  We didn't know until after we decided to cut it down that it's a somewhat prized Black Walnut... but I don't want to hear your whining because it's already been chopped down.  It tried to kill us!  Throwing down heavy tennis balls at our heads, and then trying to trip us with them, not cool.  They allegedly taste good, but a little research showed a huge amount of work, permanent stains, and potentially moldy nuts.  AND, it turns out this tree is toxic to lots of other plants! (So no composting the leaves or using them as mulch for your garden).  We decided that it had to go.  But... it didn't go easily!  Here's what we came home to on Wednesday:

This picture is deceiving.  The pile was like 3 times bigger than it looks!  It was as tall as me, and twice as long as it was wide!  There was definitely more than our 3 trees in there... I know for a fact that we did not cut down a cedar, but we sure shoveled a lot of it... at least it smelled good :)

But you're still missing information:  The forecast for Thursday was torrential rain.  And maybe ice.  Sooo... this giant pile blocking our driveway was about to weight 10 times more!  We scrambled, and came up with a wheelbarrow with a flat tire, broken tarp, and an empty garbage can... but we got the job done!  Only took us 7 hours... we're well warmed up for winter!  Here's what it looks like now:

It rained a little while we were clearing, so you can see the footprint

We wanted the mulch for back here, since one of the previous owners decided it was a good idea to put lots of glass in the way-back yard.  We tried picking it out, but it was impossible.  Now there's a layer of protection!

And it's a good thing we didn't wait, a giant snow storm is coming tomorrow! While I'm waiting out the snow, I might eat all of the halloween candy before the trick or treaters come. If they slip on the icy walkway to my front door while trick or treating, can they sue me?  Do you think I can pay them off with candy?  Maybe I'd better buy some more...  Or maybe I'll just give them black walnuts.

Rosemary Snack Crackers

I just tried these, and they're surprisingly good!  Surprising, because I had trouble picturing lentils with a crunchy texture and cracker-like taste.  But they've succeeded!  And allegedly, they're healthy too!

Fall is REALLY here!

How do I know it's fall? Because I made butternut squash soup!  And I was going to write a post about it, and then I realized that I posted almost the same exact recipe last year! I did a few things differently this year:

• No beer (still trying to do gluten free)
• 2 small apples (was the perfect apple ratio)
• No tortellini (again, trying to be gluten free... i used brown rice noodles)
• I kept the sausage in the whole time, and even blended it in with the blender
• For spices I used a bit of oregano, cinnamon, black pepper, and a dash of nutmeg and cloves.

And again, it was delicious!

I also spent some time this weekend scouring the web for an easy gluten free AND low sodium/sodium free dessert ideas, since I was having dinner with my parents and my dad is on a new low sodium diet.  The year-of-slowcooking-lady has been a really great resource for gluten free recipe's, and I found this easy (crockpot, always easy) recipe for cinnamon sugar almonds.  Beat an egg white with 1tsp vanilla, stir in as many almonds as you want (I used 4 cups).  Then mix with a whole bunch of cinnamon, sugar, and salt  (I think I used the recommended 3 tbsp cinnamon with 1.5 cups of sugar, with half the recommended salt), place in a greased/sprayed crock pot, and cover and cook on high for 2 hours, stirring every 20-30 minutes.  Let cool.  Voila!

Dad loved them, and so did husband :)  I will DEFINITELY make them again! 

October Starts Tomorrow!

When you buy a house, you suddenly get a whole bunch of catalogs that you've never heard of, that mostly contain items you can't afford... but you  look through them compulsively every month anyway.  Yesterday, we got a new catalog from Plow & Hearth, which mostly sells expensive things for the outdoor living room room no one in the northeast has.  BUT, it also had these, and I think they're AWESOME!  I might actually buy them! $17 for both isn't so bad... if only they came with the pumpkins!  Not sure about the name though... what's so spooky about being cross-eyed?

Spooky Spider Pumpkin Holders

Crock Pot Adventure!

Tis the season!  Here's what's in the pot:

1 onion, chopped
2 carrots
half a red pepper
half a green pepper
4 or 5 chopped garlic cloves (did you know in spanish, they call them teeth?)
beef stew meat
1 sweet potato, chopped
3? small red potatoes, chopped
half a zuchinni, chopped
Red cooking wine (1/4 cup?)
Beef broth (1 or 2 cups?)

I added them in the order listed above, but saved half the garlic to put directly on top of the meat.  For some reason, I took the effort to brown the entire frozen slab of stew meat (it's chunks, but they were so frozen solid that they never broke apart), and then deglazed the pan with a tiny bit of red cooking wine and beef broth, and poured that into the crock over the beef.

Who knows what it will taste like, but it sure was colorful!  And gluten free!  And my 6 quart crock was quite full.

UPDATE:  It was really good!  The sweet potatoes and meat all fell apart when stirred, and made a nice thick, sweet stew.  I sprinkled a little bit of "pasta sprinkle" and black pepper on before serving.  It was ugly though, so no photo.

To Wheat, or Not to Wheat...

I'm doing an experiment.  It all started with a giant bowl of pasta.  Followed by weird stomach pains.  I don't really know if these pains were caused by the size of the bowl, by the pasta itself, or maybe they were just coincidental.  But it happened a few times... hence my experiment.

I'm attempting to go 2 weeks without consuming gluten. 

THIS IS HARD!!

Do you know what gluten is?  I knew it as "that stuff that makes bread dough...doughy."
But it's also a magic ingredient that's in just about everything!  Cookies, chicken broth, soy sauce, cookies, cookies... did i mention cookies?

So, in preparation, i did my research and stocked up on some gluten free cookie supplies.  Here's what you need to know:  packaged gluten free cookies are pretty gross.  Homemade gluten free stuff is DELICIOUS!  I even found a "cookie" that I can claim is breakfast.  Here's a scone recipe, right off the package of baking mix!  IT'S DELICIOUS!  (I'll be honest, the only scones I ever baked before were weight watchers... and therefore a huuuuge dissapointment.  but not these!!)

Here's how good these are: I went to take a picture of them, and ended up eating half of one, even though I wasn't hungry!! Mmmm.

Click Below for Recipe 

Praying for a good harvest

This coffee is so disappointing!  I could say that about most of my food over the last 24 hours, since I'm "eating healthy" after a weekend full of cookies and holiday food.  Then again, I had a hot dog for dinner.  Guess I'm taking the gradual road to eating healthy... also, my hot dog was not disappointing.  Neither were the cookies.  Have you seen the commercials for the "whonu" cookies??  They're pretty good!  But Husband ate half the box in one sitting like he usually does with Oreo's (how is he not fat?).... we'll see how he handles all that fiber he didn't know he was eating, muahaha.   

Speaking of fiber, my garden isn't dead yet!  It looks dead, but I've got a few green tomatoes and baby peppers, so there's life yet!  Look at this guy I found while cutting down my spent sunflowers this weekend!  I never saw a praying mantis disguised as a stick before...

And here's what my sunflowers looked like!  They were ENORMOUS!!

Gaviota, gaviota

Here's a story about what happened to me and my sandwich this past weekend:

Mmm, Sandwich!

 

Just Chillin, taking it all in.

And here we go!

Ugh!  I think I just got attacked with a beach umbrella!

Oh my god no, it's alive!  And it wants my SANDWICH!

This is ridiculous!

Go away you jerk! It's my sandwich!

oh MAAAAN!

That's when family stepped in, while I ran screaming toward the seaweed infested waters to cleanse my hair of seagull cooties.  Then, since I was still hungry, I ripped off portions of my sandwich highly likely to contain seagull cooties, and proceed to eat the remainder of my sandwich under protection of an umbrella and family guard, because this was no normal seagull.  It was ENORMOUS, and when husband threw a sandal at it, it barely flinched.  No fear.  I think I finally met someone who wants cookies more than I do!

It's late. I feel old.

Monday, 9pm.
2 glasses of wine, no dinner (but I did have 2nd lunch)
Close my eyes on the train... enter "the spins".
I'm the only 28 year old I know who gets tipsy from 2 glasses of wine, at a work function no less!

This reminded me of a story, but I forgot what it was... So here's another one!

A few weeks ago, husband and I took some friends to the U2 concert, as a birthday present. It was really hot out, but there was a lovely breeze at the new meadowlands stadium (which I'm allergic to, but that's a story for another time). We brought some subways to tailgate, and had some beer and hot dogs (because I condider it blasphemous to go to a stadium without consuming beer and hot dogs!). Once settled into our seats, Husband and i got into a very serious conversation about who knows what, paused, did the wave, continued. I pointed out that we'd just had our very own "when harry met sally" moment just in time for us to resume serious conversation, pause, wave again, resume serious conversation, crack up laughing! it was wonderful!! I'm so proud to have a husband who appreciates these special movie moments the way i do. Later on, it got kind of hot way up in our nose bleed seats, but I took a nice refreshing shower when the drunken idiot behind us spilled his beer on my head.

http://movieactors.com/actors/brunokirby.htm

Mmm, Chemicals!

What is it that makes blue box mac and cheese soooooo delicious?  (Chemicals!  Boooo!) 

In honor of giving my mother in law a "real" american meal that I loooooved as a child, I went all out last night, not only did we have mac and cheese from the box, but we put hot dogs in it too, kiddie style.  Delicious! Only thing missing was a little ketchup, but I thought that was taking things too far.  And ok, i'll admit it... the adult in me came through, I mixed in some (lots of) broccoli to cut the guilt, and only put 1/4 of the recommended amount of butter (seriously? 1/2 stick of butter per box?  And does anybody really only prepare 1 box at a time?)

It may look gross, but you just need to look at our eyes to tell it was delicious.

PS - Don't fear, this is not the only american food I've exposed my mother-in-law too.  We've also had lots of hamburgers and grilled vegetables, chili, sandwiches, salads, lasagna made with no cook noodles and sauce from a jar, and a variety of other "short cut" or "improvised from the pantry" recipes.  But we forgot to have meatloaf or taco salad!  Oh no!  MMmmmm, taco salad... is it too early to start thinking about lunch?

nuts about breakfast!

So these were on sale at the grocery store once.  It was a trap!  They haven't been on sale since, but I got hooked; they're delicious!  And healthy... I can even pronounce most of the ingredients!  But I repeat, though they're delicious... it's a trap*!  I keep buying them, even though they're not the cheapest option, because they're so tasty and satisfying, and just sweet enough that they go really well with my coffee for breakfast.  There are a bajillion flavors, and so far I've liked every one I try!  My favorites are the basic fruit & nut (shown below), the cranberry almond, and blueberry pecan.  I also think I had an awesome peanut butter and jelly bar once... but I haven't seen it in the store again, so maybe I made it up.  (FYI - the quickest way to my heart is through peanut butter and jelly.  Make note in case you need to get back into my good graces some day - pb&j just might be the key.  For some girls it's jewelry and fancy cars, but for me, I'm pretty sure food is the way to go.  Though I won't stop you from buying me jewelry if you should be so inclined... just saying it wouldn't hurt to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich too).

image from www.kindsnacks.com

However, the other day I saw a cheaper, smaller, knock off brand in the super market, and decided to give it a shot.  Stop & Shop Nature's Promise, peanut butter flavor, from the organic aisle.  Even better list of ingredients, I could pronounce allllll of them! (reminds me of that old ice cream commercial).  The bar was a little smaller than the KIND bars, but also had lower fat and calories... so would be better as an anytime snack.  Not as many options in flavors, but still tasted pretty good, and less expensive!  I think perhaps I'll split my time between the 2 brands, so that I can afford to buy coffee sometimes...

* "trap" in spanish is "trampa", which always makes me imagine some tramp trapping a good man

Hot hot hot!

I'm not talking about the weather. 
I'm talking about soup!

This afternoon, soup saved me.  As of late, I've been losing my battle with pollen...

Until today!

Thanks to some mulligatawny soup from this place up the road, I've remembered my old friend:  SPICY FOOD!!  Since allergy medicine (as well as the allergies themselves) make me a bit of a space cadet, I do what I can to treat them naturally.  Namely, by using a neti pot and getting lots of rest.  But thanks to today's incidental soup purchasing, a world of other helpful options have worked there way back into my memory!  Ok, not a world.  But two!  And both have been very effective in the past!

1. Spicy foods!  This includes hot peppers and chili powder, as well as fresh ginger. Wasabi and horseradish are not recommended,  because unhappy sinuses + horseradish = evil explosion.  Eating raw onions and garlic might count, but the aftertaste just makes me keep eating foods that I can't really taste unless I've eaten chili first.  (Why is it that with a stuffy nose I can still taste bad things like onion breath but not delicious things like cookies?)
2. Chopping onions! All that crying is kind of like using a neti pot, without the weird posture. haha.

I think tomorrow I'll chop a bunch of onions, and use them to make chili!!

Mooooo

I feel like a cow.  And in honor of this occasion, I ordered a hamburger for lunch.  I think the guy liked me, look at the amount of fries he gave me!  To put this to scale:  I measured that hamburger with my ruler.  It's 5 inches across... I've resorted to eating it with a fork and knife it's so big.* 

Lunch for the rest of the week?

  This is not at all normal for NYC, especially for less than $6.

Unfortunately I only took 3 packets of ketchup! What was I thinking?!

*strike that... my fork just gave up and yielded under the weight of this thing

Home alone (at work)

I already ate my 2nd breakfast, and I still have to survive 2.5 hours until it's acceptable to eat lunch!

"Kevin Arnold" face. 
No wait, he's from the wonder years.  I was going for that other Kevin from my childhood.

Also, I feel like the entire world (ok fine, country) has today off, except for me.  

So is that a good excuse to go buy some cookies and a fancy coffee for third breakfast?

Wrong side of the bed!

Things are not going my way this morning! 

• I overslept
• husband used all the hot water (he was sleepy too and zombie showered I guess)
• I missed the late train, and had to wait for the REALLY late train
• I stood in a very long line for iced coffee while I waited, only to receive really crappy iced coffee which I'm pretty sure contained sour milk, but I was out of time to request a new one...
• skinny girl stood next to me on train platform, made me feel fat
• got middle seat on train (normally fine) but couldn't figure out how to balance coffee and book... made a fool of myself trying to put coffee on floor by sticking my face in neighboring gentlemen's lap
• in nyc got 2nd iced coffee at fancy coffee place, I ruined it by putting wrong ratio of milk/sugar
• regretted not buying delicious looking pastries while lamenting over 2nd coffee failure
• muggy and uncomfortable out, hair looks awful, skin shiny
• it started raining before I made it to the office, the kind where an umbrella is useless (I always get lucky and miss the rain when I arrive on time... observation: in NYC it never seems to rain between 7:30 and 8:30 am, but rains quite often at 9 am and later)
• Starving upon arrival at the office (since I didn't buy delicious pastries and coffee wasn't drinkable) I unpacked my lunch/snacks and realized I brought a rotten banana, squished strawberries, grapes, AND raspberries.  And no chocolate bars.

When I recounted these events to myself, I laughed, and *pouf*, bad mood gone!

PS - I know I said I was giving up coffee, but I'm not quite there yet. 

PPS - I gave in and bought expensive "local" strawberries last night, so cute and tiny and DELICIOUS!  Also, I suceeded in growing a strawberry!  Just one, but a strawberry nonetheless!

PPPS - Has anyone ever eaten a mulberry?  I think I have a mulberry tree, but I'm not 100% sure.  Berries all over the driveway.  I could eat them, but they might be poison, how can I tell?

I get so emotional bay-bay, every tiiiiime I think of you-oo-oo!

I'm trying to convince myself that I don't need coffee in the mornings.  I've been good about not having coffee more than 4 days in a row, so I've done pretty well avoiding the physical addiction - I'm not getting headaches at least.  But I still feel like I neeeeeed that sugary appetite supressant to get through the morning!  I yeeeaaarn for it.  Mentally.  So this morning, I planned ahead and bribed myself away from coffee:  expensive juice/smoothie, and a couple of ginger snaps (and yogurt, fruit, and granola bar as backup).

But I didn't stop at a couple of cookies.  I ATE THE WHOLE BAG!  8 servings! That's 40 cookies!!!!!!!!  And of course didn't touch the healthy back-up options.

So much for fixing my emotional attachment to a breakfast item.  I think maybe I'll have some coffee tomorrow morning...

The apple doesn't fall far from the... sandwich?

I treated myself to an enormous sandwich for lunch today.  Smoked turkey, brie, sprouts, green apple, and honey  mustard on a roll.  Mmmm!  I noticed it was a little too crunchy, but I continued eating, thinking it must be a healthier roll than I thought (you know, healthier bread = harder to chew?).  Turns out the person making my sandwich was too distracted by my beauty (just kidding, though he did give me extra chips and TWO pickles!) to concentrate on what he was doing... he gave me slices of apple with seeds still in them!  I ate apple seeds!  But i'm pretty sure I chewed them enough so that this can't happen:

Though considering how quickly I ate all the potato chips, I could get that fat.

NY Pizza is so overrated

I just had some really crappy pizza for lunch. In general, I don't like pizza. I've been told many, many times, that this is unbelievable... but it's true! I have a texture problem with the gunky mozarella, and pouffy bland crusts.  I ate it today because it was free, and as I've discussed before, free food has a strange power over me.

However, I overcame my pizza bias and ate lots of pizza in Italy... and loved most of it! The super thin crust kind, mmmm. In Siena we sat at a touristy restaurant on the plaza, eating bacon pizza, which was basically pizza with cheese, onions, and bacon melted on it. Yes, the bacon melted.  Amazing.

Mmmm, pizza and beer. And salami and cheese and bruschetta, because why not?

We were sitting next to this!

il campo

we tried to take a self portrait

we almost succeeded...

And here are some other pictures from the same day!





I fell off the face of the earth!

A lot's been going on!  I have a house guest (other than the birds, they finally left!  Mama bird was SCARY!) to whom I'm trying to speak another language, and then I went to Italy!  It was amazing!  Except I kept accidentally speaking Spanish!  I was so focused on being able to communicate with my mother-in-law at my own house, that I forgot to learn any Italian for vacation!  But language was hardly a barrier since everyone in Europe seems to speak English these days, and I was able to eat lots and lots of pastries, pasta, and gelato EVERY DAY, and somehow lost weight.  I should do that every day!  Here's a picture of husband and me in Italy!

Mmmmm, gelato!

Tweet!

The birds are crazy around here lately.  And very industrius!  Look closely at this wreath on my front door (no, the birds did not build the wreath):

There's a nest hanging on my front door!!

And look inside!



A REAL Easter Egg!!



It's like the easter bunny came early, and was running low on chocolate... it's only the size of one single mini cadbury egg (the BEST easter candy in my opinion).  But this one isn't chocolate, it's real!!  Anyone know what kind of bird lays a tiny bright green/blue/teal egg???  Can a robin's egg be that dark?

A little behind...

Warning:  If your not interested in plants, this is a very boring post.  But not to me!

Now that I have a yard, I'm going to have a vegetable garden this year!  (In containers!  In my driveway...taking it slow, haha).  I don't know where the sun will be in my backyard (lots of leaf-less trees at the moment), but you can be sure that I will be marking out a spot for a REAL vegetable garden for next year, after I figure out where to put it!

I'm a bit of a procrastinator, mixed in with a bit of what I suspect is adult onset ADD, so I finally ordered seeds last week, and planted them last night.  Only about 2 months later than recommended.... we'll see what happens! 

Ordering seeds is stressful!  There are so, so many choices!  I'd never even seen a seed catalog, so I signed up for a bajillion different ones, such as Johnny's, Burpee, Stokes, Cook's Garden, and more!  I dog-eared and circled all over each of the catalogs, loving everything, wanting to become a full time farmer.  But then the day came when I realized that I needed to choose JUST A FEW, to try this year.  I had to cross off many options, including this beauty, because I just had to draw the line somewhere!  But it will be on my "short" (actually very long) list for NEXT year!



Romanesco Broccoli (image from wikipedia)


So what did I actually buy?  Well...

brandywine tomatoes

yellow tomatoes

grape tomatoes

smaller "apple" sweet peppers

long skinny green eggplant (on sale!)

golden beets

nasturtium

lavender

bergamot

sweet peas

echinacea

mini "icelandic" poppies

coleus

Notice I did not buy any basil, chives, oregano, etc. That's because I freaked out and couldn't handle anymore decision making.  Also, that's a loooooot of seeds.  I'll just buy some already grown this year!  I also have already planted some seeds my mom brought me a few weeks ago... spinach, green onions, mammoth sunflowers, and red sunflowers.  They're all very happy!  I can't wait to plant them outside... this morning (at 6:15) I planted some sweet pea seeds along the fence... I hope the squirrels don't find them! 

(Mom's also hooked me up with a threesome of baby blueberry bushes, 2 forsythia bushes, some hollyhocks, dahlias, elephant ear, and a few other mystery ground cover/shade plants, I'm so excited and/or overwhelmed!!)

Green Things!

My yard is turning green!  Not necessarily in all the right places, but some of it is green, and that's better than none!  It seems that very little of it is actually grass, but who cares as long as it's mostly green?  We thought we had some clumps of super duper grass celebrating "yay spring!" but upon closer inspection, it's not grass.  Here's what it looks like:

Can you tell what it is?  CHIVES!  I have a yard full of chives!  And so do the neighbors!  When we mow the lawn will it be oddly onion scented?  How did they get there???   Did Earl (the rabbit living in our backyard) do it?  Or maybe the wild parrots (also in the backyard, and yes, I said parrots, they're green!)?

Oh my darlin, oh my darlin...

I loves this snack-time surprise!

I have parties in my tummy all the time!

Dandelion Slayer

Believe it or not, we only went to the hardware store once this past weekend!  We went for a bunch of things, but my most important purchase was one of these:



Giant Garden Fondue Fork



A weed-ripper-outer!  I'm pretty sure the sellers just mowed over all of the dandelions last year, so this is what my yard looked like before:



I even found one that already had 3 seed heads about to open,
they'd been yellow and I missed it!



And this is what it looked like after:



Those are piles of DIRT.  Stop thinking otherwise.



Maybe the snow this morning covered this mess up and made it look a little better?  If not, at least they blend in with the rabbit holes...  Actually, as I was digging out a particularly stubborn patch of dandelions next to/over one of the rabbit holes, I was suddenly overcome by the fear that it would turn out not to be a rabbit hole, and that a skunk or opossum would come out and bite me and give me rabies!  Luckily, that didn't happen.  (My foot did slip down inside though!  EEEeeek!)

After I finished making the front yard look like a battle zone, I looked at the backyard and did nothing but sigh.  Then I went outside and set up "repotting" camp for four of my houseplants in the driveway, and I came back inside with eleven potted plants!  They're reproducing like bunny rabbits!

Yaaaaay!

There are green things growing in my yard! 

But I don't know what they are! 

Maybe daffodils?

The anticipation is killing me! 

(Perhaps some of these surfaced at Thunder Moon Farm last year???)

I can't smell anything!

It's been a long couple of days.
That's the last tissue in a box that was only opened on Wednesday!

(Not pictured is the gallon of ice cream* Husband brought me for lunch yesterday... I could almost taste it!)

* "The best medicine!" according to our local CVS Pharmacist

Yo ho and really bad eggs

Yesterday was not my day.  All sorts of things went wrong!  But one very important thing went right:  while the rest of connecticut waded through the muck, our (empty) basement stayed dry!! HOORAY!  To celebrate, I decided to try using up some leftover egg yolks to make my husband a delicious caramel flan like his abuela makes.  FAIL

Lets start at the beginning.  I should have realized these eggs would not bring good tidings, based on their origin.  Why did I have extra egg yolks?  Because I used the whites to try and save my cloudy chicken broth.  Apparently, when you make chicken broth, you're not supossed to ever let it boil, ever.  I was tight for time and lacking this pertinent information, so I boiled the heck out of my chicken bits.  Gross foggy brown liquid later... I did some research and found out that you can fix this mess by boiling it with a mixture of egg whites, crushed shells, and vinegar.   THIS WAS NOT PLEASANT (this chicken just wont leave me alone!)  It smelled really weird and was very difficult to clean up... but it worked!


Flan Comparison Diagram

So now I had some decent chicken broth, a weird smelling kitchen, and several egg yolks.  There's not a whole lot you can do with egg yolks on a weeknight.  But it just so happened that my pantry was stocked with condensed milk*, evaporated milk, vanilla extract, and sugar.  So I tried my had at microwave caramel flan... otro desastre.  Still tasty, but definitely not the smooth creamy custard known as flan.  Maybe it wasn't really the egg yolks' fault, seeing as I chose a microwave as my heat source.  Eggs + microwave tends to end badly, but I'd heard it could work...  I'm pretty sure flan isn't supossed to bubble and puff into layers as it cooks.  Nor is caramel supossed to turn into rock candy on a spoon.  Oh well, at least it still tasted good!

*I never used ot have condensed milk in my pantry, but husband eats it with saltines - it's his favorite meal.  And I thought I had a sweet tooth!

Cranky Pants

Lack of sleep + train chaos + damp + cold = Liz on the verge of tears

Wimping out + going home + coffee + strawberries + bathrobe = Happy Liz

And now there's sunshine streaming in the window! 

Once in a while, taking the easy way out can be the right choice.

(Don't tell your children!)

PS - anyone willing to knit me a pair of these?

B-gock!

I cooked a chicken!  A whole one!  It was my first time!  I forgot to take any pictures, but that's probably for the best, because to be honest... it's kind of a disgusting process.  It tasted great, but I definitely considered becoming a vegetarian more than once throughout the course of my afternoon.

Things got off to a rough start, when I realized my defrosted chicken was not actually defrosted.  I sent it to the lukewarm water spa for an hour or so, which seemed to help.  I opened up the chicken to remove the little package of gross things, only to find it was still frozen and wouldn't come out!  And not only that, but the package was PAPER, so it ripped open and oooooh it was not a comfortable 10 minutes of surgery.  (Who puts a paper package in a typically moist location??)  Eventually I got it all out and into the garbage, put the chicken on it's rack, and washed my hands 17 times.

I pureed a bunch of fresh thyme, sage, and parsley with some salt and pepper, butter, and a bit of olive oil, and rubbed it all over the chicken, inside and out.  Strangely, it turned the skin yellow... like fake tanner. (Spa, tanning session, maybe the I wasn't being so cruel to the chicken after all...)  I had half a tomato leftover from lunch, so I put that inside the chicken, along with a quartered onion.  Placed about a half cup of water in the bottom of the pan, and covered the roast with foil.  Into the oven, 350, for about 90 minutes (this chick was a little under 6 pounds).  Then I bleached everything in the kitchen.  Not really, but I wanted to.  I tried to be reasonable, and only bleached areas the chicken had been.  And washed my hands 16 more times.

I removed the foil for the last 10 minutes, and then put it back on for about 20 minutes after the chicken came out of the oven.  The smell was woooonderful, and I couldn't keep my hands off for long... I needed to know how it tasted!  Lucky for me, it was delicious!  I went right to work making little piles of white, dark, and soup meat, but a good portion of it went straight into my mouth.  I hadn't realized how slimey (the spell check wants me to say smiley, but it doesn't feel appropriate considering the carnage) I would get!!   I think the slime helped combat the compulsive hand washing, because the skin on my hands is feeling a little softer than usual today, haha.  (Gross!)

I tried to use as much of the leftovers as I could... I made gravy and broth too!  The gravy had the flavor of the roasted herbs too, really nice.   I couldn't think of anything to do with the skin though, it was way too disgusting (I've heard you should use tit to make the broth taste better, but ewwwww slime).  The whole process was pretty gross, it was tasty (served with steamed broccoli and experimental sour cream & parsley mashed potatoes), but once again thoughts of vegetarianism are swirling through my head... I don't see too many whole chickens in my future... for now I think I'll just stick to my former approach to cooking, mainly cooking things that are not recognizable as body parts!  And maybe I'll start growing some of these chickens, I know my mom would be very, very happy:

Peeps!

PS - Have any of you ever microwaved a peep?  I'm a goody two shoes and therefore haven't tried it, but I've thought about it...  maybe that should be my preferred method of "growing" peeps?

Easy and delicious cuban food!

I love cooking, but I never have enough time.  Which is why I love my crock-pot so much.  Husband loves my crock-pot too, because I use it to make him ropa vieja*!  I know I've probably mentioned this before, because it's so easy and I make it fairly often, but I don't think husband will ever get sick of it, so I'm ok with that.  I made it Monday and he's having it for dinner tonight, 4th night in a row, haha.  Here's how easy it is!  The list looks long, but it's just faking you out.  Plus, it will last a while.    You could also freeze it, but we always eat it all.

Ingredients

• Flank Steak
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato sauce
• 1 can of tomato paste
• Red Bell pepper, sliced
• Clove or two of garlic, minced
• Large onion, sliced
• Bay Leaf
• Cumin (tablespoon?)
• Oregano (teaspoon?)
• Salt and Pepper
• Wine, Cooking wine, or white vinegar - 1/4 cup(ish)

Directions

• Place garlic, onions, and peppers in bottom of crock-pot.
• Place flank steak on top of the veggies.  Sometimes I sear in the juices first, sometimes I don't.  I haven't noticed too much of a difference.  If you don't sear and it has any visible fatty portions, you should probably remove them.
• Add tomato paste, oregano, cumin, and bay leaf.
• Pour in the tomatoes, sauce and vinegar or wine.
• Cook for 4 hours on high, or 8 on low.   Longer is not a problem.  
• Pull out steak and place on a large plate.  Cut in half or thirds, against the grain (to make strips shorter when shredded).
• Using two forks, pull in opposite directions with the grain, and the steak should shred very easily.
• Mix shredded steak back in with tomatoey goop in crock pot.
• Salt and Pepper to taste (authentic would be lots of salt, but not so healthy), and serve over rice!  (or mashed plantains, or potatoes, or in a burrito, though cuban husband would be mortified by the potato and burrito suggestions) We usually have with rice, cuban black beans**, and sliced avocado.  Sour cream also goes nicely... as do scallions)

To make it more veggie heavy, you can add a bunch of shredded or diced carrots, and the flavor won't change much.  I've also heard apples work, though I haven't tried it.  You could also up the amount of peppers and onions, or use only half a flank steak (but don't tell my husband!).


*Husband would freak out if I served it as shown in this Wikipedia image.  Yellow rice and black beans can't be served together!  Silly Cuban food rules.  Or maybe I got the rules mixed up?  Husband?  Care to clarify?
 
** You can buy Cuban black bean soup in a can, but I make husband make the beans!  Recipe to come if I ever try my own hand at them...

Amazing!

Remember when husband's phone decided not to come back inside after all that shoveling?  Well after last week's thaw, our snow mountains shrunk into snow sand castles... and husband found his phone!  It had been soaking up some rays, so it was looking nice and steamy after that slow soak in the melting snow.  I'd heard that if you take a phone apart and put it in a bowl of rice, it helps draw out the moisture... so we tried it. 24 hours later we put it back together and plugged it in... AND IT WORKS!  I kid you not.  Best cheap phone EVER!

I made these ricotta cookies to celebrate (also, they're Italian... and we're going to Italy!). They are delicious!  I had one for breakfast.  Now it's snowing again... maybe we'll play hide and seek with another phone?

Kale Fail

I've been hearing a lot lately about kale chips.  Everyone says they're awesome and that they're just like potato chips... so I couldn't wait to try them.  A crunchy, delicious way to eat kale?  I was doubtful, but figured it was certainly worth a shot.  Kale is one of those foods that I want to like, I just can't seem to get there.  Smitten Kitchen feels the same way!

Unfortunately, my kale chips are super gross.   They did nothing for me except make my house smell like broccoli while they baked.  And then they still tasted like kale... with a slightly "burning" undertone.  Did I do something wrong?  Do any of you out there like kale and recommend a way of eating it?

Eatily!

I was supposed to go to Eatily today for dinner with a friend.  I haven't been yet, I can't wait to go!  But things came up, and we changed our plans to lunch at Le Pain Quotidien.  I had some delicious vegetable quiche that claimed to have less than 400 calories (I don't believe it!) and tasted some bread spread with ricotta, figs, and honey.  MMMM!!!  I'm sad that i didn't get to check out the smorgasboard that is Eatily, but that's ok, because WE BOOKED A TRIP TO ITALY TODAY!!  (The real thing, not the restaurant!)  GIVE ME ITALY TIPS!!  What do I HAVE to see?  What do I HAVE to eat?

I'm so excited!!!  We're not going until May, but that gives us pleeeenty of time to plan!  I've never been, so I'll pretty much be happy with whatever we see, though we have a history of action packed travel agendas.  We'll see!

To celebrate (and to mourn the train home that I missed by 1 minute), I enjoyed a take-out frozen margarita on the train ride home, yippee!

I'm a cheetah

What is it about unhealthy orange foods that makes them so satisfying?
Healthy orange foods can't claim the same. 
A satisfying carrot?  Who ever heard of such a thing!
Cheetos are shaped like baby carrots... and much more delicious.
(By the way, there are some very scary recipes on that cheetos website)

Mmmm

2nd breakfast.  Mmmm.  Actually It's 11:30... so is this elevensees?

Did you know that second breakfast is a real thing? And so is elevenses*!  Who knew!! They're not just eaten by hobbits!

* According to Wikipedia, elevensees used to equal a late morning whiskey break in the US... let's bring that back!!!  It would really help me ease through that 11-12:30 stretch of stomach growling...and i'm sure it would greatly improve my mood! (though maybe not my productivity...)

I'm not a mushroom! Hooray!

I got a haircut!  I had been rocking an 18 month old uber-short Rihanna haircut, which was looking pretty strange, now shoulder length. I'm trying to grow it long again, but needed something to make it look a little more normal (also, I was bored).  I decided I wanted layers... because why not?  But I was terrified I'd look like a mushroom!  Luckily, I got this great haircut, and I don't look like a mushroom! (Hmmm... now I want mushrooms, maybe I'll cook some for dinner...Hey, did you know about these?  I'm thinking about trying one!).  Here's how my hair looks right now, since I haven't washed out the nice blow-dry the hairdresser gave me: 

Question:  Do I have a mullet?  Guess it doesn't matter as long as it looks good, right?

But, it won't look good for long.  As soon as I wash my hair, it will most likely look like this everyday:

My hair likes to all point the same direction, like I'm walking around in my own little bubble with an imaginary breeze.  I also have a history of developing wings out of any bang layer (maybe to stay aloft on the imaginary breeze?) so this could get interesting.

Free Food!

Have you ever noticed that if there's free food, you HAVE to have some?  (Or is that just me?)

For instance:  I just went out and bought a giant vegetable udon soup* for lunch.  It's still too hot to eat, so I've only nibbled so far.  I'm about to dive in, when word comes around that there are extra platters of sandwiches, salads, and cookies in the kitchen (from a meeting).  I resist the mad stampede to the kitchen (thereby missing out on all the free dessert), but even though I have lunch ready... I CAN'T RESIST THE CALL OF FREE FOOD!!  So now, in addition to my udon soup, I'm having pickles, coleslaw, and olives (since obviously the salt in my soup wasn't enough).  Not so sure this goes together, but that has never stopped me before!

*I think maybe the soup guy liked my  new hair cut**, he gave me 5 times the normal amount of these kinda gross fish cakes in my soup (I used to think they were hard boiled eggs mysteriously missing the yolk and died pink).

**How do you know if you have a mullet?

Change of Season... and Furniture?

I just found a pumpkin!
I bought it months ago and used it as a decoration... but now I'm going to cook it!

Be warned if you Google images for "funny pumpkin" that there are some surprisingly disturbing results!

However, that's how I discovered the existence of pumpkin armchairs...
which led me to a link for this wonderful love child of an armchair and a Snuggie**

courtesy of http://dreamfunhouse.com

**image results for which open up a whole other world of fun

Tinkle Tinkle little star...

I recently discovered the "stats" tab, which shows some statistics regarding web traffic visiting my blog... and I thought I'd share a graphic showing some of the things people have searched for to stumble upon my site:

Source:  Blogger Stats

My particular favorite, [pregnant "hold it" "i peed my pants"] really baffles me.  Have I given the impression that I'm pregnant and have recently peed my pants?  Because it's not true!!  I'm not pregnant (though I eat like I am) and I haven't been peeing my pants!!  Also, I'd like to point out that the tally says my blog was visited as a result of said keyword search MORE THAN ONCE!?! For the record, I tried this search myself... and Google did not find my blog.  But perhaps after this post it will! haha

Super Bowl

Some people might think the Super Bowl is named for the king of football games, sometimes referred to as "bowls".  But I have another theory.  It's called the Super BOWL because on Super Bowl Sunday, you eat lots of foods that are served in BOWLs.  Dips, Chips (baskets are giant bowls), Chili, even chicken wings come with a side of blue cheese in a little bowl.  Lots and lots of bowls = Super Bowl Sunday.


For our Super Bowl food, we had guacamole, hummus, a failed attempt at baba ghanoush, a failed attempt at jalapeno poppers (ok, so these don't come in a bowl), and chili.  (All for just 2 people, yikes, I think I may be right back where I started last week!)

Cookie Surprise!

Yaaay weekend!

I'm still experimenting with meringue cookies... today was a flop!  

I'm not sure what I did wrong, but they wouldn't whip.  At all.  

So I dumped the mess into a pan, added chocolate chips, and cooked it!  Here's what happened...

I opened the oven and thought: Sweet!  Giant chocolate chip cookie!  Let's get that out of the pan and eat it!

Oh shoot!  I broke it!

It's hollow!  And somehow, delicious!  

The outside is crispy and light, and the layer under the air is like marshmallow!

To make your own hollow cookie, pour flopped meringue in pan on top of parchment paper
bake at 250 for 1 hour, turn off oven, and leave pan in, undisturbed, for a few hours, until oven is cooled off.