Monthly Archives: January 2010

I went out! To listen to an 80s tribute band called The Reflex. The venue wasn’t too large but it was lively and from where I stood, the view was pretty perfect. I was part listening to and watching other people. I’m nosy. I know. To my right seemed to be a sweet spot of luuuuve. The first lucky guy standing in the sweet spot convinced his new (somewhat drunk) girlfriend to spend the night with him. Hubba hubba. When they left, another guy appeared and then I overheard a girl quickly pick him up. Then below was a sea of people dancing and making out. It was fun to watch. One lucky girl was dancing with three guys and then they all left during a break. Towards the end of the evening, I even witnessed two girls start a catfight. Their respective dancemates quickly broke up the fight, though not before one girl ended up with a bloody nose. It appeared they were just dancing into each others spaces and that must’ve set it off. The music was good, the crowd was fun. I feel like it’s always a drag to get me out but once I’m out, I have a good time.

I had been using Bare Escentuals mineral makeup and Mineral Veil for two or three years now and recently, I discovered it was making my face itchy. Now that I think back, it’s probably been irritating my skin for all the times I’ve been using it but I had chalked it up to acne or bug bites. It wasn’t until yesterday that my mom asked me what was up with the redness and scratching? After some conversational sleuthing about what I’d been putting on my face these past few days, we finally figured out that my makeup is irritating my skin. Not that I ever need a reason to buy makeup but yay, I get to buy new makeup! As it happens I read about a website yesterday, Goodguide.com which provides ratings on consumer products based on how safe they are to your health and the environment. So I’ll be poking around looking for something to try. If you have any recommendations, please tell me!

If you can make rice krispies treats, you can make granola bars. They’re that easy. I’d been stocking my desk at work with Kashi granola bars but I wanted to try making my own. Again my measurements are imprecise but it’s the ingredients that count. For this recipe, even the ingredients list doesn’t count for much because you can add almost anything you like. Almost… I kinda’ messed these up because I substituted a very important ingredient. Still, it’s tasty and I’ll just have to try again!

• 3 cups of oats
• 1/2 cup of flax seeds
• 1 cup dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, mango, chopped dates)
• 1 cup nuts or seeds (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, crushed peanuts, almonds)
• 1/2 cup honey, molasses (your preference)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (nutmeg, pumpkin spice mix)
• 3 tablespoons (unsalted) butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

You want a decent mixture of nuts and dried fruits for added variety.  Also you can control the sweetness depending on your preference.  However, you do need to have enough sticky liquids to hold the bars together.

In a large shallow pan, toast oats and any raw nuts in a 300 degree F oven for 15 minutes.  Stir every 5 minutes to keep it from burning.  Be careful not to burn the nuts.  Some of the nuts I got came pre toasted or roasted.  I left those out of this cooking process.*  Once they’re done, toss together the toasted oats, nuts, and dried fruit in a buttered a mixing bowl.

Melt the sugar, butter, vanilla, salt, spices and honey in a saucepan and pour the syrupy mix over the dry ingredients.

Stir well to combine, then lay out the mixture on a flat pan.  I would’ve preferred the flat glass pans but one’s in the freezer holding a lasagna and the other was in the dishwasher.

Take a rolling pin, or two buck chuck and compress the granola.  You want them to hold together.

Once cooled, cut them into bars.  You can individually wrap them or store them in a sealed container.

*Option: Mix everything together then bake the bars after.

Oops!  Generally, substituting ingredients is fine.  But with granola bars, it’s necessary to have something very sticky that can bind the ingredients together.  In this case, honey or molasses.  I didn’t have either so I used maple syrup.  Needless to say, maple syrup can’t bind worth shit.  So I got a lot of crumbly granola bars and essentially, it works out better as cereal.  Now I know, so you know too!

Three is for 3 out of 5 stars. At least that’s how I would rate it, though you wouldn’t be able to tell, judging by the way I snarfed the food! Here’s why the mediocre rating though. The food was not that good. The menu is mostly full of dishes that are fairly heavy. I wouldn’t mind that so much except it doesn’t give you many options. We stared and stared at the menu for a while. The food is just not special. This coming from someone who hasn’t eaten out in weeks, I mean, it was still a treat and I still enjoyed going out.
The mac and cheese at Boston Market was better.

I wish I could’ve tasted the mushroom more than the overpowering cheese.

My heartburn. I thought it was gone but after almost a week of that burning and finally resorting to a night sleeping upright, I’m cryin’ uncle. Pass me the Prilosec. Thinking back to what I’d been eating, I think I can safely point to what triggered it: citrus season. Florida grapefruit, tangerines, limes. Oh and coffee. I skipped coffee yesterday – a weak attempt at quitting. I still had a grapefruit last night and this morning, 2 cups of joe. I like to live life on the edge. Ugh, it sucks to have geriatric issues.

The chinchillas can be such troublemakers. On their nightly supervised romps around their room, they run right for trouble just as soon as I let them loose. Marco thinks wires are the bomb. Nom, nom, bzzzt! Gina runs right under the computer desk into the nest of wires as I’m sitting there. They’ll run right out the door if I forget to shut it. Not to mention dismantling the container of fish supplies like the nets and cups. They are smart critters no doubt about it, pulling pranks knowing I’m outnumbered. Gina makes a beeline into the nest of wires and as I’m chasing after her, Marco takes off into the living room. Finally, last night, I decided screw it, function over aesthetics – I ginned up cardboard box barriers to keep them out of the computer wires.

Sometimes when I want to take a break on the computer I shoo them back to their huts. They’ve caused enough trouble for one night. Then poor Marco does one of these pitiful looking numbers, rattling his bars looking so forlorn. He knows I’m a sucker for sad eyes and they’ll come out for round two.




Or I counter with kibble. Take that! Ok, now I must go collect the presents they’ve left me.

Ingredients:

• Lasagna pasta
• Ground turkey (2 .5 lbs)
• Ricotta cheese (the big tub)
• Eggs (2-3)
• Mozzarella cheese
• Flat-leafed parsley (1 bunch)
• Onions (3)
• Tomatoes (3)
• Spinach (1 box of frozen)
• Garlic (10 cloves or a whole head)
• Oregano and basil
• Cooking oil
• Spices: salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, cinnamon

Start by boiling salted water to cook the pasta. While that’s going on, wash and chop everything up.

Next, I took care of the ricotta. Beat 3 eggs first, add the chopped oregano and dried basil (or fresh, if you are too good for the dried stuff), then stir in the ricotta. You can do this step after cooking up the meat too if you want.

Then you cook the turkey with the following seasonings: chili powder, dried basil, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper, and cinnamon. If you’re anything like me and can’t measure worth a bag of beans, this is where you might run into the issue of pan-not-big-enough.

So I could only cook the garlic with the meat, while the onions, spinach, tomatoes, and parsley had to go in a separate pan.

Then you stir them together with the tomato sauce.

Layer as you please.  I don’t know if there’s a correct pattern.  Sometimes I start with pasta, sometimes with meat.  Sometimes I end with pasta, ricotta, mozzarella, sometimes I end with meat and mozzarella. Bake until the cheese browns a little at 350 degrees F.

This recipe is very similar to my last one. I changed a few things however.

1. 3 eggs to the ricotta rather than two to make it a bit richer, as well as freshly chopped oregano and basil. It smelled so good!
2. I remembered to add the flat-leafed parsley this time. It disappears when you stir it into the meat so it’s good to get a big bunch.
3. Cumin and chili powder to the ground turkey rather than using a roll of pre-packaged pork sausage. Although one of the packages of ground turkey was pre-seasoned with Italian seasonings, whatever that means.
4. A box of frozen spinach to the meat-tomato sauce.
5. I couldn’t find whole wheat pasta that didn’t need pre-cooking so I had to use regular whole wheat pasta.
6. Jarred spaghetti sauce and 3 fresh tomatoes. I think I read somewhere that canned tomatoes contain bpa because they’re lined with plastic. I didn’t verify this. Did you know cooking tomatoes can cut down smells in your house kinda’ the same way skunked people bathe in tomato juice? If you add garlic and onions though, I dunno. Again, not verified.
7. Three onions instead of one.
8. I forgot the order of layering and jacked it all up. For the first, I did meat, pasta, ricotta, mozarella twice. For the second, I did pasta, then 2x – meat, pasta, ricotta, mozarella. Basically, I’m a sloppy imprecise cook. I don’t measure anything so really all you need is the ingredients list to follow this recipe. Especially if you don’t want to wind up with two large lasagnas. Though after you taste it, you maybe want two after all. I add in so many fresh ingredients it comes out delicious!

By the way, I don’t plan on eating 2 humongous lasagnas one right after the other. After it cools, you can plastic wrap it, foil it, then freeze it for at least three months. I did that with the last one and it was still as good as ever. If you’re going on vacation or know you will be busy in the foreseeable future, this is a great way to pre-plan. That way, when you come back from vacation you don’t have to worry about grocery shopping and cooking for a while.

I discovered a new flavor of Kashi TLC granola bars when I was at Target the other night.  Dark Mocha Almond.  They’re SOOO good!  They contain these wonderful little dark chocolate chips.  I wasn’t craving chocolate before but now, I feel like opening up the rest of the bars just to pick off the chocolate chips. 

I also got Cherry Dark Chocolate and they also have the dark chocolate chips too.

Just a minute ago, I was taking a bite and a dark chocolate chip fell and rolled to the floor!!  So before losing any more, I stuffed the rest of the bar in my mouth and ANOTHER CHIP fell to the floor!!! 

OK.  That was my traumatic event of the day. 

As predicted (evidence I’m clairvoyant), the cymbidium bloomed this winter. I also noticed two new sproutlings which are probably plant stems with leaves rather than more flowers. We may have to spend some cold winters at home in the coming years if we want those new stems to reward us with any flowers.

I think back to last winter how I kept the house at freeze-my-bum off temps and feel like it was worth it. The hard part is finding that just right temperature that will induce cymbidium blooms without killing the phaleonopsis.

Look how pretty!

Sleepy. Lethargic. Hungry for carbs. Next thing you know, I’m going to be sprouting hairs. Rawr, I need a cave to curl up until March.