Pit-za

I’m a little under the weather tonight, so I didn’t have the energy to make my usual gourmet fare (ha). I’ve been thinking about these pita pizzas since I saw them on Green Lite Bites. I crashed right after work and woke up wanting pizza, so this seemed perfect. Plus, the recipe met all of my criteria for the evening:

1. bread
2. cheese
3. five minutes or less
4. toaster oven-friendly

My version had tomato paste, chicken breast, peppers, basil, spinach, crushed red pepper, and reduced fat provolone. With broccoli on the side:

I don’t have much to say about this, except that it was good. I’m really posting it for my sister, because it’s a nice alternative to english muffin pizzas, which she and I both enjoy. The pita bread is more like pizza crust and didn’t get as soggy. It also holds up better under the weight of veggies than english muffins or tortillas or other not-pizza pizza bases.

I’m going back to sleep now. And by sleep, I mean, mindlessly watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It’s fascinating to see how the other half lives. Plus, we’re going to cancel cable soon and I need to get my fill of these sorts of things to remember fondly when I’m forced to do things like read books.

Salad burger

I wanted a light dinner because I’m going to try to go to kickboxing tonight, but I was starving, so it had to be fast. I decided on a veggie burger and a salad, but while the burger was cooking, I realized I had some spinach that needed to be used, so I threw the salad toppings on my burger and had some sauteed spinach with lemon and pepper on the side.

Fascinating, I know.

Soon, I will probably have some cereal. I’ll spare you the visual.

I was hoping that I’d get home and the apartment would be a mess so that I’d have an excellent excuse for skipping kickboxing, because I’m kind of nervous about going for the first time since my lungs went whack. But Matt cleaned while I was at work, so nothing’s stopping me. Except for the couch and the remote, which are calling me with their sweet, sweet siren songs.

Wherein I cook chicken. Again.

Tonight was another Ellie Krieger special - Tuscan Roasted Chicken and Vegetables.

We got the recipe from her cookbook, but I think it’s probably also on the Food Network website somewhere. I could Google it and find a link for you, but come on people. I’m a librarian. I Google things all day long. I blog to find solace from my day to day life.

I don’t travel much, so I have no idea what made this “Tuscan,” but I do love a good roasted tomato. Roasted zucchini is also a winner. The recipe called for fennel as well, but we are not fancy like that, so I just ignored that line. I’ve gotten excellent at that. I also made some rice. That Uncle Ben’s 90-second microwaveable stuff, because I fell asleep while dinner was cooking and woke up when the oven buzzed. The rice is kind of creepy. But I think I like it. As much as one can like shelf stable rice in a bright orange pouch.

In other news, it is almost the end of the semester, which means that next week at this time, I could potentially be having a beer in a virtually student-free environment for the first time since early January. And then, it was too cold to leave the house.

Wow, I almost just teared up with excitement. Living in college towns can be challenging. Fortunately, I’ve chosen a career path that will keep me in them for the next forty years.

Good move, Jenny. Good move.

Celebration station

I was up until all hours with the college children, monitoring their drink and snack consumption and taking pictures of them as they played Guitar Hero III. I didn’t even get home until 12:30 which, for a Sunday night, is about three hours past my bedtime.

Yes, I am your grandmother.

Anyway, so I somehow still made it to work on time today, and managed to work a full day, only behaving like a zombie for a few hours. But, needless to say, by the time I dragged myself home, I didn’t want to cook, and I was all geared up to order pizza.

And then, I came home and got engaged. And that seemed like another reason for pizza. Really, all signs were pointing to this:

I realize that some people believe that cheese is the essence of pizza. Or something. So I added my own to my cheeseless pizza. So, here we have goat cheese and veggie pizza. I also had a regular cheese slice. AND NO SALAD. It’s a celebration.

I think I’ve always associated pizza with celebrations, possibly because I heard a lot of ads for this growing up. Or because of an early life Chuck E. Cheese experience. Or was it Showbiz? Those bears, I swear.

And, because I promised my mom I would (her email is broken):

Coolest ring ever.

From this experience, I have learned that I have freak fingers. This ring is a size 3 1/2. And it’s a little loose. I guess the jewelers were fascinated by this because I know there were many comments about how they’d never made a ring this size. For an adult.

Thanks.

Manwich

Matt made dinner tonight, while I was at the gym huffing and puffing my way through a 3-2-1 class. Seriously, nothing can make 24 seem ancient quite like doing aerobics with college students. But, whatever, it was my first class since I started having all of my lung problems, so props to me for getting through it.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Matt’s kind of magical in his grilled cheese abilities. Mine always pretty much suck, and I tell myself that it’s because grilling is man cooking. Am I right?

Yes.

The grilled cheeses that he made for us tonight were from Ellie Krieger’s cookbook, which came in for me at the library last week. It is no secret that I love Ellie Krieger and want to be her. I’m not proud of my borderline obsession with her, but I’m not not proud. Anyway, because it was an Ellie recipe, it was fancy, so instead of grilled cheese we had sweet and spicy grilled cheese. Here’s a close up:

These were so good. Two kinds of cheese, caramelized onion, tomatoes…. mmmm. It’s basically my perfect meal, in sandwich form. Thanks, Matt!

I made a spinach and strawberry salad with balsamic vinaigrette to have on the side, and we also had some fruit salad that I picked up at the grocery store today. And, to round out the meal, chips.

These are those Flat Earth veggie chips. I mean, 1/2 a serving of veggies in every serving of chips? That I can get behind.

I didn’t finish my fruit salad because the sandwich was so filling. I think I’m going to be regretting that
in about two hours, because I’m about to go to work to serve caffeinated beverages to students busy studying for finals. Seeing those crazed study eyes is bound to give me flashbacks to college and grad school, and that’s going to make me want to stress eat.

Maybe I’ll pack some cookies.

We’ve all seen this before

This has been a long week, and it’s not quite over yet. To comfort myself in my time of need, I made a big bowl of whole wheat pasta with roasted tomatoes and zucchini, sauteed spinach, chicken breast, and goat cheese (which is creamier and melts better than the feta I usually use).

I don’t like to brag, but it was awesome. I’m sure Matt will agree when he gets home tonight.

Last night, I made some chicken, veggie, and rice noodle lettuce wraps. It was my first stab at peanut sauce, and it worked out surprisingly well. Here’s a really crappy picture of round one.

There were two or three rounds. I wanted to use up the lettuce I bought at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, because it looked a little dodgy. I meant to save some of it for Matt, but it was too good. To make up for it, I took him to buy the second issue of Secret Invasion (in case you didn’t know - it’s the crossover event of the year) when he got home from work.

We’re going out of town tomorrow, and I’m really hopeful that the magical cleaning fairies will visit our apartment (specifically the refrigerator) while we’re gone. For now, I’m just enjoying Top Chef and really wanting to eat some wedding cake. At some point in the next hour or so, I guess I’ll start on the endless pile of dishes that lives in the sink.* See you in a few days.

*or, obsessively check my bank account to see if my stimulus check is there yet.

For Marilyn

As an early Mother’s Day gift, I am posting tonight, even though dinner was boring. All because my mom asked me to. I think she worries.

I woke myself up sneezing again, and when I finally got back to sleep, I somehow missed my alarm. And the gym. And half of my morning routine. Then I felt weird and congested and gross all day. It was super.

Because I didn’t feel like cooking, we had black bean burgers. With cheese! And avocado! I also tried out my new bread which contains no high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. It was $4.69 for a loaf. And I thought my Fage habit was going to be a problem.

Here it is with some vegetables from a bag I found in the freezer:

I thought the monkey would cheer me up. It kind of did.

It’s 9 and, when you’re 97 like me, that means it’s bedtime. We might get severe storms tonight, so if my own sinus problems don’t wake me up, I’m sure that will. I might as well sleep while I can.

Cinco de Mayo

I know it’s not really Mexico’s Independence Day, but isn’t it nice to have a fake holiday in early May?

It was a nice day today, not that I would know. I am not allowing myself to be outside until we are safely into June and the pollen has all been burned to death by the scorching Kansas sun. And then I will only go out long enough to complain about how hot it is.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I made something new -

from Dreena Burton’s Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan, which finally came through via interlibrary loan for me (for “research”).

There’s the veggie-sizzle part. It’s basically a big stir fry with zucchini, green peppers, mushrooms, spices, and some beans. Then you shove it into tortillas.

Since the burritos were vegan, I made some nachos. For extra protein. And a salad. For extra virtue.

These were really good, but I think I need more beans next time, or a bigger burrito, because I was still starving after I finished this one. I was halfway through another one when I happened to look at the tortilla package and see that they trans fat. Gross. I went all over the world to find stupid tortillas without hydrogenated oils and then I get ones with trans fats. Will I ever learn? Anyway, I scooped out the filling from the rest of the second one and ate that. And some ice cream. And some almond butter. I think I’m full now. Maybe.

Of course, we do have five trans fat burritos left. I guess I’ll toss them into our mysteriously smelly refrigerator and see what happens.

Let’s call this… Sunday night

I woke myself up sneezing at four different points during the night (I also tried to wake Matt by groaning loudly and stomping around to get tissues so that he could sympathize with my pain and comfort me, but it didn’t work), but I didn’t actually get out of bed until 10:30. As you can see, I am a highly motivated individual. Since then, I have: gone to the gym, gone to the storage unit for more fans, gone to three different grocery stores (I have special needs), caused a scene at the Starbucks in the first grocery store by having the gall to use a gift card, looked at magazines at Hastings and confirmed my suspicion that Martha Stewart is somehow behind them all, cooked dinner, eaten dinner, and watched several episodes of Seinfeld. Including that one with the valet who has such bad B.O. that nothing gets the stink out of the car. It gets me every time.

We had those Veganomicon black bean burgers again, with some spinach and roasted sweet potato chips.

You will notice that I have yet again violated the vegan sanctity of the black bean burgers by adding cheese.

I had every intention of cleaning tonight after dinner, but when I got home from the gym this afternoon and Matt had already cleaned the whole apartment. Because he is made of goodness and light. That is also why he is in the kitchen doing dishes while I am blogging and watching a horribly depressing show about the top ten kitchens in the United States. Every single one of them is at least twice as big as our entire apartment. Oh wait, now it’s a different show about some couple buying a house, but there’s a catch - they have to stay under $625,000 dollars. HOW WILL THEY DO IT???

This is why I never watch HGTV. Matt said I should watch the kitchen show, because it would give me something to aspire to. But really, what more could I want? A kitchen with a normal floor instead of remaindered carpet? More than three and a half square feet of counter space? A refrigerator that doesn’t stink?

Dare to dream.

Quickfire

During dinner, we watched Top Chef from Wednesday, and the whole challenge was based on creating a healthy, nutritious meal for a family of four with a budget of $10. And the fancy pants chefs were all “OMG, TEN DOLLARS?!?!?” And, me, I just patted myself on the back because the meal we were eating probably cost like… five bones. Jenny: 1; Top Chefs: 0.

So, what we had a was Moroccan shrimp kind of thing. I cobbled it together from a few recipes I’d seen recently. It was basically red pepper, tomatoes, raisins, and shrimp.

All served up with some couscous, salad, and a New Belgium wheat beer called Mothership Wit. It’s organic!

Iron Man was awesome, by the way. I feel like I should have blogged about it IMMEDIATELY, but we had to go get subs and come home and watch television and not clean the apartment. And, really, there wasn’t much food in it, so it’s not officially relevant. But it did have a good cast, a good script, and Gwyneth Paltrow had really great outfits.

And now it’s time to watch The Wire. Not a lot of food in that, either.