September 2007

The lasagna is now cooked, sliced, and packaged up for Coffee’s lunches this week. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to eating a piece (and Coffee had one too) just to ‘test’ that it was, indeed, uh, lasagna. And it was! Huzzah!

I’d share my recipe for the aforementioned but the truth is that we mostly wing it. A layer of this and a layer of that and some of that other stuff tossed in – the only guarantee is that we make it with veggie ground-round instead of meat. We made it a bit too juicy this time around, but, eh, it’s not like we’re serving it to guests.

The super-spicy curried chicken stew is in the crockpot (e.t.a. is 8pm) and it’s smelling pretty good and curry-esque. In a few minutes I’ll start the bread machine making another loaf of rye bread. Both of those will be accompanying Coffee to work, too, unless I save a scoop and a slice for myself.

If the curried stew turns out well – by Coffee’s curry-lovin’ estimation – I’ll post the recipe later or tomorrow for anyone who wants to give it a shot.

Around 6-ish I’ll start making the buffalo wings (for me! yes!) and the garlic bread (also for me! yes!) and then I’ll be DONE for the day when it comes to cooking.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to with kids is being able to cook real meals – full meals – for more than one person. Not that I expect the kids to appreciate a big ol’ homemade stew, of course, but I like the idea of providing nourishment whenever I can.

To the person who found my blog by searching, “how can I make my inner labia pink instead of brown”, please stop looking for the answer. Not just on my blog, but anywhere else. Stop.

If you’re looking for the answer because you’re uncomfortable with the colour, please know that porn and the mainstream media is not giving you an accurate portrayal of your girlie bits. They come in all colours, shapes, sizes, textures… honest. Cross my heart. I bet yours are perfectly pretty in whatever shade of pink/brown/white/black/yellow they happen to be.

And if you’re looking to change the colour because someone else – male or female – has suggested that you should look into doing so, please consider whether this is someone who deserves to see that part of your body EVER AGAIN. (Hint: they don’t deserve it.)

Perhaps you’re wondering why I’m all hot in the biscuit to cook things lately. Hey, me too! Part of it is the “winter’s coming!” nesting instinct, part of it is likely related to the whole SAD thing and the last part is simply that if I’m craving food, I might as well make it myself and gain weight from real ingredients rather than chemicals and fillers.

I’ve long had the Pioneer Woman Cooks web site on my RSS reader, and have drooled over almost all of Ree’s recipes (especially because the pictures are so very appealing – even just the damned ingredients!)

It seemed like a good idea to start with something fairly simple – in case the photos were better than the end results.

I should note: almost all of the recipes on the site are made with very basic ingredients – as Ree notes, her local grocery store doesn’t carry all the fancy-schmancy stuffs – and while some of the items are US-specific (and we may not have that specific brand in Canada) it’s easy to find something that fits the bill.

Last night, around 7:30pm, we made the Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies. I had purchased 8 jalapeno peppers, one brick of cream cheese and one slab of bacon, thinking that would be more than enough to give the two of us an enjoyable ‘snack’ if they turned out well and few enough to not feel completely wasteful if they turned out badly.

Suffice to say that when Ree says to make more than you think you’ll want, she wasn’t kidding. Oh my! I should have purchased the entire bushel of jalapenos and all the cream cheese and, well, two or three whole pigs for the bacon.

It took us about 20 minutes to prepare them – with me scooping out the seeds and stuffing ‘em full of cream cheese and Coffee doing the bacon-wrapping. We made them fairly mild in part because of my ulcer and in part because, of course, we weren’t sure how spicy they’d turn out. Nearly all of the seeds and white membranes were removed – next time, we’ll do mine that way and leave more “spice” for Coffee’s.

They took about 30 minutes in the oven to cook since our oven isn’t the most efficient – but the smell of the bacon (and the sizzle!) was killing us LONG before they were ready.

And then it took us about, oh, 20 seconds to scarf ‘em all down.

Sweet, sweet, merciful love. Oh. OH! I am now stating, in a public forum, that I love Ree. She’s my new BFF – even if we never email, meet or, y’know, even if she has no idea that I exist.

Tonight I’m going to make the buffalo wings. I suspect that if they’re even half as good as the jalapeno thingies I’ll be building a little shrine to Ree in my kitchen.

“I must learn to love the fool in me – - the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool.” – Theodore I. Rubin, MD.

I decided that since I was feeling mostly unenthused about grocery shopping today, I’d take advantage of my food cravings and pick up the ingredients to make some recipes that I’ve been keeping on hold in the back of my brain. Don’t worry, I also picked up some vegetables and milk and ‘real food’ things.

But this weekend I’m making two recipes from the Pioneer Woman Cooks web site – homemade spicy buffalo wings and, equally as potentially tasty, bacon-wrapped jalapeno thingies

It’s good that you can’t see the drool spewing forth from my lips as I ponder the end results of those two recipes. I am a major MAJOR MAJOR fan of buffalo wings and I’m itching to break in my new dutch oven. And hell, bacon? Yes please.

When spring rolls around again and I’m 407 pounds heavier than I am now, I will remind myself of just how good it felt AT THE TIME.

There are many grocery stores within a short driving distance of our house. Each one has pros and cons – prices are higher at one but it has more of the products Coffee likes; one of them has a better produce section and the other has a great organic/health food section.. trade-offs, really, that make it a little frustrating to do the weekly shopping all at once.

When I venture out on Fridays, I check my list to see which store is more reasonable to visit on that particular trip. I confess that, on some occasions, I’ve visited several stores and made myself angsty about what feels like spending an entire day inside an exceptionally-bright warehouse.

Sticking to one store makes life easier and happier for me.

For all of its faults, the Zehrs store nearest to our house has one big benefit. Their male employees, and the ‘bag boys’ in particular, are all approximately 20 years old, adorably pink cheeked, and blush mightily whenever they speak to me. One of them has been known to flirt – brazenly – with me, even as I’m talking about how my husband likes a particular brand of crackers. I refer to him as my “Mrs. Robinson Boy” because, well, he’s SO YOUNG.

Today, after making every boy in the entire store blush just by smiling as I walked by, and then being greeted by a (new!) stammering bag boy who could barely sustain eye contact with me, I have decided that this store is hiring the cute little hotties specifically to cheer me up this winter.

THIS is how customer service should be. Cater to me, people.

Every few months, Coffee and I withdraw $100 from the bank and convert that into parking money that’s divided between our two cars.

We use it at the library and when we go for sushi and for any other adventure that requires a meter-feeding – it’s one of those little things that make life so much easier in the long run. No searching and digging for a quarter when we need one. I use a circular (never used) “ashtray” that fits into my cup-holder to store change and it’s saved me a lot of angst.

Last week, Coffee withdrew the money from the ATM and left it aside for me to take to the bank for quarters.

It slipped my mind, at first, since he had tucked it in an out of the way place. He reminded me a few days later.

The next time I went out I forgot the money.

The next time I went out I forgot the money again.

The next time I went out I remembered the money but forgot to go to the bank.

Yesterday I forgot to go to the bank.

Today I had to visit the post office to mail out a bunch of packages and letters. I parked my car at the FAR end of mall – away from the post office – so I’d have to walk past the bank as I was leaving. I figured I’d hit the post office and drop off the bulky stuffs and then grab the..

Okay, so I forgot. Again.

Seriously. I’m starting to think that all those years of chugging diet Coke really WAS a bad idea.

Boston Legal starts tonight. I’m pretty sure I forgot to mention that as one of the world’s biggest “good things” about autumn’s arrival.

Sweet, sweet Denny Crane.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Move the furniture around. In fact, why not move some of it right through the front door and out of your life? If we’re lucky, this will get you in the mood to launch a purge of everything that no longer belongs under your roof. Maybe you could throw a Simplification Party, complete with an exorcism. Or corral your friends for a haul-it-all- away caravan to the garbage dump. I don’t care how you do it, Cancerian. Just get rid of all knick-knacks, wall hangings, funny mirrors, broken dreams, balls and chains, and formerly cute mementoes that have lost their cuteness. It’s time to liberate your home.

(Freewill Astrology.)

I love crockpot recipes that do not involve pre-cooking any of the meats. I also like my food spicy.

This North African Beef Stew is super-duper tasty, has a nice bit of spice and, despite what you may think at first glance, the dried fruit makes for a really nice sweet addition. I used a recipe from an old cookbook and improvised/adjusted for my own tastes; what you see below is the recipe that I ended up making today. It was unspeakably good, imho, but we’ll wait and see how Coffee feels about it!

North African Beef Stew
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2 pounds of lean stewing beef
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, sliced 1/2″ thick
1 medium onion, cut into wedges
1 cup water
1 tablespoon concentrated beef stock
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (spicy!)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
8 cloves garlic, minced
20 ounces of diced tomatoes, undrained
1/2 cup dried apricots, quartered
1/2 cup dried plums (prunes), quartered

Directions:

1. Cut meat into 1 inch pieces. In a 3 1/2 or 4 quart crockpot, combine meat, sweet potatoes and onion. Stir in water, concentrated beef stock, cumin, cayenne pepper, cinnamon and garlic

2. Cover and cook on low setting for 7.5-8 hours or on high setting for 3.5-4 hours.

3. Stir in tomatoes and dried apricots and plums/prunes. Cover and cook for 30 minutes more.

4. If desired, serve stew over hot cooked couscous and garnish with chopped peanuts. (I prefer to eat it as is..)