Links and Thinks

Is the title too twee and/or dorky?

1. I've been making good headway on a few of my resolutions already. My 45th birthday (!!!!) is this March, and the day falls in the middle of the week. I had a few grandiose plans for celebrating but those usually end up getting scrapped. Instead I decided to give myself a gift I sorely need: I am taking the entire week off. A birthday staycation!

I am already counting down the days: 45 business days to go. Seriously.

2.  Also from the resolution front: I dropped off a couple of bags of food at the Food Pantry, added this Donate page to my bookmarks, did my monthly edits/purchases post, and got the 3 posts in last week.

3. I am also working on the budgeting. For years I used Quicken on Windows, and loved the program. It was linked to all my accounts, I could categorize all my purchases easily, and setting up budgets was a breeze. Switching to a Mac changed all that; Intuit refuses to make a good version of Quicken for the Mac, so I had to abandon my beloved program. I've been half-heartedly using Mint, but my Nordstrom account doesn't link to it, and after all this time, I just don't love the idea of doing all of my financial planning up in the clouds. I have online banking so it seems like a weird tic, but when I pull all my accounts together in one place with their account numbers, I just feel better if it is on my computer.

So I have been comparing programs and I am torn between two: iBank and Moneydance. Anyone have any experience with either? Thoughts?

4. I want to add Helen's dinner-table "aspiration" as an addendum to my own New Years resolutions; we have a great kitchen table, and we only use it with company. Not only is it a great way to truly slow down and appreciate our food (when I did Core we sat at the table all the time), but it is a way to spend more time together, take a breath between working and laying on the couch watching TV, and most of all, will eliminate most of the food stains on our clothes, laps, computers, and rug. ;-D

5. Lest you think all of this resolution business is a waste of time, a recent study showed that our personalities are changing all the time even though we think they are not. Science! (TM Jessie) It's never too late to change yourself.

6.



This is what I needed the plastic shoe boxes for. ;-D

Yes, those are all of my frozen bagged foods. I made tomato sauce and a batch of Sheila's green pasta sauce, and froze them flat on a cookie sheet.



Then I stacked them in the plastic boxes, alongside another container of soups. They had been scattered throughout the freezer, and I realized we weren't eating them as much as we should. This should help with that.



That's chicken noodle, smoky black bean, Tuscan bean, and butternut squash-carrot soup on the right. My friend Amanda created another recipe for a savory parmesan-nutmeg muffin that I am going to try, and I think we will be making quick work of some of these soups this week. (I will post the muffin recipe once I have tried them out!)

P.S. I stole the shoebox idea from Kat at Corporette, from a post from many moons ago. The frozen baggies idea I incorporated immediately, but I waited on the shoe box until now. It felt way too anal-retentive organized, but...that's what I am! Might as well make it work for us. :)

7. Meal planning frequently falls apart for me when I try to do it over the course of a week, and sometimes (like this one) even Sunday Cooking doesn't get done. I think sometimes I am just too ambitious; I buy all the ingredients but for whatever reason I just don't feel like doing the work, and the food goes bad and we order pizza instead.

So when my friend A linked this cooking challenge, it was a light bulb moment. OH! Not every meal is made for the same reasons, or with the same amount of effort -- and even comfort non-cooking foods have their place in meal planning!

I can use my own lists of known classics and my Pinterest board for new ideas, but this categorization from that post is one I want to use over and over:

• Classic Weeknight – Exactly what it sounds like. Quick, simple, healthy, meals that require minimal effort when you are charged with getting dinner on the table fast.
• Make-Ahead – Some of these would also fall under “Classic Weeknight,” but the beauty of them is that you can do a large chunk of the work on the weekend and store in the freezer.
• Keep the Spark Alive – These are a little more involved than regular weeknight dinners, but they are every bit as crucial to your psychological health because they take time and love and have the potential to get you excited about cooking again.
• Security Blankets – These are not recipes, per se, but suggestions for finger-foody things (peanut butter, hummus, baby carrots) that don’t need to be cooked.

The challenge is that you look at your calendar for the week, and see which nights should be Security Blankets or Make Aheads, which are ones that you have time to try new things (Keep Spark Alive), when you can prepare Make Aheads or just Classic Weeknights. You are supposed to pick a couple from each, and Security Blankets for the rest of the days.

I LOVE THIS IDEA. I can tweak it for us so easily, to ensure we definitely do more home cooking, with a reasonable mix of new, favorites, easy, hard and pre-made, or just a happy PB&J or baked potato.

8. Doesn't this sandwich look amazing? I don't know why it never occurred to me that we could make reubens at home. We can make reubens at home, OMG. And it can be a healthier version too: turkey pastrami, good sauerkraut and rye bread, a light Thousand Island...my husband is going to love this one. Oh my yes.

9. Did everyone see Ally's trick for wearing collared shirts under crewneck sweaters? She doesn't button the shirt underneath except for the top and bottom buttons, and tucks the rest to the sides. As I commented on her blog: Woman, you are a genius.

10. Is it time for my birthday staycation yet?

Broken pipe dreams

So. That's what I've been up to.

That rusted-out piece of crap belongs to my kitchen sink. MY KITCHEN, YOU GUYS.

It's been a long weekend, sans sink. The new garbage disposal was installed on Saturday, but when the guy went to unscrew the pipe from the old one, it pretty much crumbled apart in his hands.





See how the pipe goes nowhere now? Yeah, that was a problem. We called around for a plumber, and the contractor who did such a fabulous job on my shower was available for an assessment on Sunday and could fix it on Monday. So we stuck a bowl underneath, a cookie sheet on top to remind us not to accidentally throw anything down into it, and waited.



I had plans to cook this weekend, too. But not only did I not have a sink, my counter was full of everything we usually store UNDER the sink.



So frustrating! But that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst was when we discovered on Saturday night that our neighbor's sink shared a mainline pipe with us which has no valve to keep them separated. When they did the dishes it dripped down from the open pipe. Hubby realized it when he went into the kitchen and saw a stream of water running around the baseboard of the counter. He opened the cabinet to find the temporary bowl completely full and water everywhere.

SIGH. We mopped it all up, talked to the neighbors and asked them to keep their washing down to a minimum until we got it fixed (luckily, they happily agreed) and we stuck a much bigger bucket underneath. Kept an eye on it every few hours after that, dumping any build-up out and preventing another flood.



The contractor came on Monday morning, as he had promised when he gave his assessment on Sunday, and not only fixed the broken pipe but replaced the other one with PVC while he was at it.







Once he was done, I finally was able to appreciate my new garbage disposal. Ours has been on its last legs for years, to the point where we only used it if we accidentally got small food scraps in the sink. This one ROCKS. I had forgotten how handy they are!

To fully inaugurate it, I cut up a couple of spaghetti squashes for dinner, and threw the strings and seeds down the disposal. What a satisfying moment, to hear it all grind up and have the pipes wash it all away. At last!




Plus, now I have spaghetti squash for the next couple of days. Yum!

Mid-week Weekend Cooking

All I meant to do was make a pot of chili on Tuesday. Really, that was going to be it.

And some cornbread.

Then, as long as the oven was on, I added a few more dishes.

Like applesauce.





Roasted Brussels sprouts, after plucking them off that giant stalk.









Tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, a little balsamic vinegar, and dried thyme. Roast for 30 minutes or until browned and softened, yum!


Of course, there was the chili, cobbled together from a few recipes. I don't often make chili.



I sauteed the onion, pepper and garlic, adding in plenty of cumin, chili powder, and salt/pepper.



Next, I minced up the chipotle peppers and added them and the leftover adobo sauce to the skillet, then browned the meat with it all together. Threw the two bags of frozen pinto beans (ones I made back a few months back which had been hanging out in my freezer) it in a big pot with both cans of sauce, added a little more seasonings, and let it simmer for the rest of the day.



Not the most exciting picture, but you all know what chili looks like. :) The chipotles actually made it a little too spicy for me, but Hubby liked it so it's mostly his. The leftovers are about to get packed up and frozen tonight.

As for me, my girlfriend J had joined me at the farmer's market on Sunday because she wanted to pick up a spaghetti squash to use in this recipe. I already had 4 of them sitting on my counter --




--so I cut up a couple of them and baked them while the chili simmered. I had reserved some of the ground beef instead of using it all in the chili, so I browned that and added in one of my remaining frozen bags of homemade sauce (a new batch will be made this weekend!) in a skillet. The recipe then calls for tossing the squash in 3 eggs, flour and cheese to make the base, which I did, then poured the meat sauce over it.

Just before it went in...



After it came out.



It's a good recipe, but I don't love it. Maybe because both times I reheated it, it was either too cool, so the eggs were chunky, or too overcooked, so everything had dried out. It's not that different from my usual treatment of spaghetti squash as spaghetti mixed with sauce and turkey meatballs, so I am not sure what the problem is. But I am still eating it up!

In the end, I had:
cornbread (not picured)
roasted Brussels sprouts
applesauce
chili
spaghetti pie
extra squash

Plus I worked like a crazy person at my kitchen table all day. Pretty productive day!

(P.S. Thanks for the heads-up about the photos not appearing. I switched from iPhoto to Aperture as my photo software on the Mac, and some of the settings had it updating photos even after I had loaded them to Flickr. That cause the URLs to change. I turned off all the settings I could find that might be causing the unwanted syncing, so I hope that the Flickr photos stay static going forward. I will give it a couple of days to test then I will go back and fix the rest of the photos in this month's posts. Sigh!)

A lovely summer weekend

Thursday was a work day of course, but it was also the night we went out to celebrate Phillip's birthday, so I am counting it as part of the weekend. Like I did in college, LOL!



I ordered another pair of the Gap white modern bootcuts, this time a size smaller.  Verdict: LOVE THEM. The 20s are just too big around the thighs, and they stretch out everywhere as the day progresses. These are snugger but when they stretch, they still fit. Hurray!

This is a Lane Bryant sweater top, my gold J Crew Outlet yellow stone necklace, and orange Clark sandals. So summery -- I had to keep in the flamingos and patio umbrella so you could get the full summer look.


Hair flip! Hahahahaha.


That night we went to a fabulous Southern-coastal restaurant in the city, then a tiny, delicious martini bar. Much laughter and jokes and good times were had to celebrate Phillip's birthday. So glad we did this! We all needed a break from work.





The iPhone collection. No one can put them down anymore!

Sunday I went down to my girlfriend Jessie's new apartment. She is loving showing off her new neighborhood to me, and I am loving exploring it with her. First we went to breakfast at Pannenkoeken Cafe, where we ate pannenkoeken, of course.






Pannenkoeken is a thin Dutch pancake, served open face with many different toppings. I went for a savory breakfast, with ham, pineapple and Havarti cheese. So, so good! I added a little of this Dutch syrup called stroop (no, really) so it wasn't too dry. The syrup wasn't as sweet as American syrup, but it was the perfect sweet compliment to the savory ham and cheese. I will definitely want to hit that place again.

Stroop!!!

We then wandered through Lincoln Square, checking out the funky toy stores and of course, Gene's Sausage Shop. Like I am going to pass that by!



Gene's had plenty of homemade sausage and pierogis, and their deli salads looked amazing. There was a shredded carrot with horseradish one that I want to try soon. (And then figure out how to copy it.)

Then we wandered through the residential streets. So, so cute! Lots of gardeners and neighborhood pride here.











I decided that I was not going to prepare much this week; we did not finish everything I cooked last week, and I am tired of the waste. The freezer is fully stocked and everything can be defrosted quickly when we get home. For the first week in a long while, we are going to eat our dinners on the same night that we cook them. GASP!

Of course, I prepped a couple of pints of blackberries and made a batch of blue-cheese coleslaw, but that's for lunch more than dinner. :)

So I came home and hung out on the porch reading my stack of Time Magazines that I had fallen behind on. I made a plate of snacks for me and Hubby. Mmmm.





George came out to join us too.

How was your weekend?

Sunday Cooking: Farmer's Market Fresh

As promised, here is what I made this week. But first, here is what I bought at the farmer's market this week:





The mushroom guy has amazing sausages and raviolis. I had to pick up the vidalia onion brats to try, and then once I committed to buying frozen foods at the farmer's market adding a package of ravioli didn't seem like a leap. We still have baggies of tomato and green sauce in the freezer to use with it.

The blackberry jam was a replenishment of a staple; for years I ate that sugar-free all-fruit preserves from the grocery store, but I bought a jar of real raspberry jam a few weeks ago, and I realized what I had been missing all this time. I'm never going back to the fake stuff. (Nor am I ready to make my own. Let's not get ahead of ourselves!)



Of course, the star of the show were the berries. Oh, how I love fresh berries. One vendor had pints of late-summer strawberries so I got those along with blackberries and raspberries.



They were a little tart and my husband likes them sweeter, so I sprinkled a teaspoon or two of sugar over them so they would get juicier and sweeter. Works like a charm!

Besides the fruit, I only made two dishes this week: frittata and soup. The rest we can pull from the freezer as the week progresses.

I had most of the ingredients for the frittata already in the fridge, so all I added from the market was the onion.



I wanted to change things up from my usual frittata mix, thus the pepper jack cheese. It definitely gave it a nice kick! The tomatoes are from Lady Moon Farms, one of the few farms that had a positive chapter in Tomatoland (just finished it, Dad! Great rec, thank you.).



This is the kale, onions and tomatoes wilting and carmelizing in the skillet. I like to cook them a bit before putting them into any egg dish.  Gives it a chance to soften up a bit, and gives me a chance to add seasonings to the veggies.

Once it was done, I put it in a ceramic oven dish.





Mixed up the eggs and cheese, poured it over the veggies, and stirred it all together with a fork, Baked at 375 for 40 minutes, and done!



Next I made a simple corn chowder from Mark Bittman. He recommended scraping the kernels off the cobs, then boiling the cobs in water for 30 minutes to get more flavor out of the cob and to give the liquid a richer corn flavor.



It looked weird, but it worked!



There is a LOT of corn on six ears. But it is so, so good. Nothing is as good as fresh summer corn. I don't even bother to eat it the rest of the year, even the frozen stuff.



The rest of the chowder was butter, skim milk, cheddar cheese and some flour. I love Bittman, but he does not skimp on the heavy stuff. I will look around and find a lighter version for next time. But this was pretty dang tasty.

Then it was time for dessert. Hubby covered his with gobs of whipped cream, but I am a purist and kept it to the sugared berries and a sponge cake dessert shell. (Look at that glaze they produced so quickly! Yum.)




I think I did so well at the farmer's market because I kept it down to what I truly needed. I tend to go crazy there, buying up all kinds of foods we don't eat in time. This time I practiced restraint, and it looks like it worked.