Weekly Food Round 2

Well last week's challenge turned out pretty good. The only food I didn't end up eating was the green curry soup. Something a little off about it...maybe the tofu chunks were too big. Oh well. On to the next week!

Since the food prep was relatively successful, I am empowered to try it again. Here's what's on tap:

Cilantro jalapeno hummus. Pretty tasty, though I couldn't find the tahini at the store so I skipped it in the recipe. Hoping this will make a good savory snack with chopped veggies.

Green curry quinoa with veggies. No surprise here -- I have the green curry hanging out in my fridge so might as well. I made the sauce and added broccoli, peppers, onion and sugar snap peas. Took a little taste and it's pretty yummers, so I'm excited.

Egg Friends. These were a huge hit for myself and T. I fill half a cupcake pan with liquid egg whites and fill with tasty stuff from there (cilantro, basil, ground chicken, jalapeno, cheese, etc). Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, add cheese on top to bake for another 5. T is to be credited for the new nickname, though I think I might prefer "Egg Pals."

Enchiladas. Haven't made them yet, but got some corn tortillas, reduced fat cheese and Macayo's enchilada sauce. I'm toying with the idea of adding some pumpkin puree to give it a little more nutritional value, and I will include onion, jalapeno and ground chicken.

This week I am queen of: Making food ahead of time

I had a rare Monday off, so I decided I would try something I never have time to do: prepare meals for the WEEK.

Totally novel concept -- making food on a day you do not plan to eat it. Sounds crazy, I know. And it might just be.

Here's my trouble with making a bunch of food ahead of time: we don't really like frozen food that has been reheated. Well, one of us doesn't. And so I never make food in bulk with plans to freeze it.

However, this week's plan does not involve freezing. I actually hope to eat most of this stuff by week's end. I'm also hoping it will save me time in the mornings. Well, if I actually spent time to make my breakfast or lunch and then bring to work, this would save me time. It WILL make me more motivated to bring my own food to work, since this is already prepared and packaged.

Le menu for this week includes:

• 2 containers of green curry tofu soup. Smells really good. Hoping soup will travel well. Note: recipe calls for red curry but I chose green.
• 4 stuffed peppers with ground turkey and quinoa. I picture this as a dinner meal. Two dinners even? Note: I added taco seasoning and waited to mix in the cilantro until after the meat was cooked. Cilantro, like many fresh herbs, taste better if they are not cooked too much.
• 2 burritos made with left over turkey/quinoa mixture. (Aside: What is up with parchment paper and why can I never figure it out? I wrapped two burritos in parchment paper and tried to tape the ends. Turns out, tape does not stick to parchment paper. I ended up putting so much tape on these damn burritos it will take a sword to bust into them.)
• 6 egg mcmuffins. I made mine out of liquid egg whites with various assortments of deli ham, mozzarella cheese, basil, cilantro and ground turkey. I plan to pack these for breakfast. Note: I did not add the English muffins. I plan to toast those as I go.

Crossing my fingers that most of this will not end up in the trash in a week and a half. Optimistic that this will help us eat more of our groceries and less of the menu at Big Boy's pizza and subs. (Actual place nearby.)

Looking for best practices that help other, more organized friends out there.

Let's get decor-ganized!

I stole that from 30 Rock.

Anyway, I am on a mission. A mission to sort through junk, and toss, donate or sort everything in sight. I am starting on the guest room.

Let me tell you something about our guest room. It has had approximately three guests in it. Four, if you count the exercise bike. It's where I keep linens, grad school stuff (read: stacks of papers and notebooks I have yet to burn in a post-school ritual), sewing/craft supplies, costumes and suitcases.

It's a total mishmash -- likely the reason no one ever takes us up on our offer to house them. That, and whoever stays here has to share a bathroom with us as our master bath shower has never functioned correctly.

So I ignore it most of the time. But in the spirit of the new year, and watching the agony my sister went through in a recent move, I decided I would be proactive and get organized.

But not just organized. I want it to be cute! I want it to match! I want it to be so beautiful that I relish every chance I have to go file away a spool of thread or glitter pen! I want it to be decor-ganized!

So I spend time on Pinterest looking for ideas to copy. I see girls who have entire rooms devoted to craft organization, and they have beautiful matching tote boxes with hand-made labels hanging from the lid by a DIY piece of twine. And I feel inspired. YES! I say. I can do this!

Source: Better Homes and Gardens

WELL....turns out I suck at stuff like that. I buy cute plastic storage boxes, but only if they are on sale and I never take the time to fit them into a color scheme. I tend to reuse containers, even if they are old shoe boxes or a free purse I got from Macy's. I can't seem to care about labeling:

So my conclusion is this: Organizing is great and I feel happy when I've done it. But I am too cheap and lazy to really go the distance. (Honestly, in order to make everything match, I would have to spend hundreds of dollars. And that is just stupid.)

I'm thinking in the future I should just stick to white boxes, and then if I get really ambitious, go for some kind of color-coded label system.

Haha yeah right. Here I go again. Do you see how this happens? My dream of matching totes = totes unrealistic for me.

Morning After Christmas

It's December 26 and I'm sitting at our computer desk with a hot minty drink.

I'm not playing Christmas music anymore, because frankly I'm a little saturated with everything (yes, even you, Charlie Brown).

I'm not eating Christmas cookies for breakfast like I have for about a week. Doesn't seem right. I'm also afraid to step on the scale.

Interesting how the novelty and magic of Christmas just fades away. I'm glad for it. If we celebrated Christmas all year I fear it would become a chore. Looking at my Lindsay stocking made of felt and yarn would make me shrug instead of making me smile. (These are stockings my mom made several decades ago for all the family members. Each one is designed with a little doll with hair and uniquely colored dresses. I always thought mine was the best because the dress is red and white and goes perfectly with the Kelly green color of the stocking. )

While I'm glad that Christmas is gone this year, it occurred to me that I should write down a few highlights so I can look back in future years and remember a few things that might be easy to forget.

• Baking cookies has become a tradition for me. It allows me to give handmade gifts to my friends and spend a little time in the kitchen. This year, the treat boxes featured chocolate chip cookies, orange cranberry cookies, candy cane cookies, peanut butter cups and chocolate-covered marshmallows.

• I gave a duffel bag to my brother, who is commuting to San Diego for work these days. He loves it but sometimes I miss him.

• We also gave a duffel bag to T's sister, who will be spending several weeks in Mexico this spring. She is excited; her mom and boyfriend are not so much.

• We gave a new bedspread to my sister and her new husband. They were just married a few weeks ago and they are doing new couple things like buying King-sized beds and moving into a house just for the two of them. They are wildly cute and I like how newlyweddy they are.

• These newlyweds have also brought a little joy to our family in the form of a Pomeranian puppy. Pippy is tiny, fluffy and endlessly adorable. She wears little dresses and shirts that say, "Meet me under the mistletoe." Lots of entertainment for the whole family.

• I received so many gifts that I loved I almost don't know where to start. My mother-in-law made me a denim apron that ties at the waist, a crocheted scarf that is just the right color of red and a skirt with a little flower on the front. So much time spent on these gifts; I can tell they were made with love. I received a number of cooking and sewing accessories -- I guess I can report that I have some actual hobbies now. I'm excited to try out my new toys.

• T and I...well.....we got each other the same thing. And not just the same CD that we both like. But a custom-made plush toy representing a character in the book that we are writing together. We both worked on it secretly for weeks, hoping to surprise the other with such a unique and unexpected gift. But when you share a brain you tend to come up with the same ideas. I love that we now have two of these, and a story to boot.

So now our house is filled with gifts, random plates of cookies and treats, and wrapping paper shards. I plan to clean it all up today. The decorations won't come down just yet, but soon we'll be putting all this stuff in the attic. Can't wait until next year.

Good morning zebra!

I'm trying a new recipe today: Zebra Cakes. To create a zebra cake, you alternate between scoops of devil's food and vanilla cake mix to create a stripey look when it's baked. (More on that later.)

I was so excited to do this, I woke up at 7 a.m. And I didn't hit the snooze button once. In the last two hours, I have made four zebra cakes and a pan of brownies. I have also swept and vacuumed the floor. And started a load of laundry. I am a maniac.

Yesterday it was all I could do to get out of bed before 8 a.m. And that's just to get to work on time -- not even to do something honorable like work out.

Lately I've been wondering how I would do if I didn't have a job and just stayed home all the time. Optimistically, every day would be like today: shooting out of bed to achieve my goals with tornado-like enthusiasm. Realistically, that kind of fervor would last for three days. Then I would probably turn into Borezy, the lazy bore.

But I'm not at any risk of having that life for now. So I'll just be happy for the days that I get to be a little busy bee in my own house, rare though they may be.

As for the zebra cakes, I believe I made one fatal mistake. I substituted apple sauce for most of the oil in the cake mixes. As a result, the batter was a little thick, and did not spread too evenly. So maybe my zebras are a little dizzy. Or maybe I'll change the name to "Zany Cakes (which bear no resemblance to Zebra Cakes but are in fact a little crazy)".

Italy - three days later

Well, we're back. Very little Internet opportunities abroad, so I was not able to blog.

I want to spend the next hour outlining all the little details, telling you funny stories, expressing my love for this country and the best week of my life.

But frankly, I am too. effing. tired.

I thought I really had this jet lag thing beat. We had few problems when we got there -- full days and fairly restful nights. And when we got back, we were so exhausted we slept overnight and were awake the next morning. See? Beat. We sleep at night and are up during the day.

But the long arm of the law (of gravity? of the theory of relativity?) has finally caught up with us. The past few days have been somewhat of a blur....waking up at 2:45 a.m. one morning (went back to sleep), and waking up at 4 a.m. the next (did not go back to sleep).

And now we are so tired we are watching the clock until we feel we are allowed to go to bed. You see, we don't want to go to bed too early for fear of waking up too early again. Make sense? Oh and also, we both slept from about 6 to 8 p.m. tonight. Little nap to tide us over.

So....Italy was beyond my wildest dreams. Swimming in the Mediterranean made me want to be a better person. It was that beautiful. But right now, so is the Bed of Sleep and Dreams. So I'm not in a good state to judge.

Italy - the night before

It's the night before we leave for Italy. Conan's on. Beverly's meowing at the door. Things are pretty typical.

We packed up our fancy new backpacks tonight. We totally look like real backpackers. Surprisingly roomy, those things! Can't wait to heave those around the Mediterranean.

For some reason, I feel nervous about this trip. We've traveled before: New York, Boston, Chicago, Key West. Just not to a foreign country. I honestly don't know what to expect. Maybe I don't have enough imagination, but the only thing I think of when I think of Italy is the shape of the boot.

We are preparing for the worst. If you only looked at our packs, you might think we were traveling to a remote jungle. We have a first aid kit, extra garbage bag, toilet paper, spork, flushable wet wipes, disposable tooth brushes, and a little roll of duct tape. Seriously, if we get caught unawares on this trip, it will be because we did not pack for a zombie attack.

I know I'm being paranoid. I'm sure we will learn our own travel tricks and can probably leave the global phone at home next time. I just want everything to go well, avoid spending thousands of dollars on fancy amenities like flip flops.

I was asked which monument or museum I look forward to most. My response: Uhh, does food count? Honestly, I can't wait for all the cheese, pasta and gelato I can stomach. Then I suppose I'll go get me some Sistine or David or somefink.

I will try to blog as we go...no promises. I am happy we are going. Trips just seem a little unreal until I'm actually on the plane. With my all-weather poncho at the ready.

You're so vanity

There's not a lot I can remodel, repaint or replace in my house. The kitchen cabinets are not worth the time, and the master bathroom requires a professional. And possibly some professional grade explosives.

So I do what I can. And this past week, I repainted the bathroom vanity in the guest bath. Step by step for those who like that kind of thing. If you don't, skip ahead to the photo:

1. Take everything apart. Knobs, hinges, etc.
2. Sand lightly. Fill in any unwanted holes with wood filler.
3. Prime with oil-based primer. One coat will do ya.
4. Paint. You can use a combo of roller and brush, but I learned that the folks at Young House Love were right: skip the foam roller and go with a cotton or fabric roller. Foam rollers = bubbles.
   
   4a. I chose Dark Granite by Olympic. Don't let the patronizing paint guy at Lowe's talk you out of this color. Specifically his words were, "Now, are you looking for BLACK or ALMOST BLACK?" in a "do you know your colors, little girl?" kind of way. He also pointed out to me that I had picked the wrong paint to tint. I would put money on the bet that he is single.
   
   4b. I ended up with kitchen/bathroom acrylic latex, semi gloss, base 5. I also ended up with an entire freaking gallon of it, thanks to the advice of the aforementioned patronizer. You will probably need only a quart.
5. Wait 48 hours. Visit often to admire your nearly finished project. Do not let the doors dry while sitting on the bathroom rug. Trust me.
6. Add adorable, overpriced knobs. I recommend Anthropologie.
7. Attach hinges. I bought new ones. Then I bought more new ones that were actually the right kind.

And once again, I have spent two weeks on a painting project and I am vowing never to do one again. But I do love it, so I'll probably be back in a month.