Get ‘er done

I was a busy little bee today. I basically didn’t have time to be in a mood again, so at least there’s that, but I was slammed at work. This doesn’t happen that much in the summer, because my teaching load is lighter and I’m usually working on projects with more fluid deadlines, but today was back to back to back. To back. And back again. And I’m still not done - I have a few more things to wrap up at home tonight. The good news is that it’s Wednesday, which means two more days and then it’s smooth sailing into a weekend of… cleaning.

Anyway, on to the food. I was all excited to make this saffron lemon chicken salad thing from Ellie Krieger’s cookbook, and then I went to the store to buy saffron and I definitely came home without it. It was in the spice area with all the other normal spices, but instead of being, you know, 4.99 or whatever, it was 19.99. And there were about 6 strands of saffron in there. What kind of jackass business is that? Those strands of saffron probably cost more than my outfit that day. So what we had was lemon chicken salad. Sans saffron.

That chicken salad was awesome. I chose it specifically because I had a pound of green beans from the farmer’s market that needed to be used, and this recipe called for a pound of green beans. Lucky me. I was also intrigued because it involved cooking a lemon, scooping out the the insides and chopping up the peel for the salad. Zesting would’ve been easier, but this had really good flavor. So it was green beans, marinated grilled chicken breast, lemon peel, and a nice lemon-honey vinaigrette. With some bulgur on the side. Oh, bulgur. How I’ve missed you.

Okay, time to work and get myself psyched for a 5:30am gym trip.

Yay?

Catching up

I’m going to dispense with my usual witty commentary because I’m a little stressed and a lot tired and I’ve got to be up early for my lung tests. I’m also going to a conference later this week and I have about eleventy million things to do before I leave for sunny Southern California.

Saturday night, after a movie marathon, I used the rest of the bean salad to make a polenta casserole that turned out really well. I also made a salad, which I spun in our new salad spinner. We used our new dishes from Donna:

I also had cake.

Sunday, I went to a crazy hard class at the gym and came home starving for fajitas. And so:

Grilled chicken (in a Tapatio, honey, garlic, and paprika marinade), peppers, onions, and tomatoes. And some cheese. Mozzarella, which is not necessarily appropriate, but did not smell bad like the other cheese.

And I also had cake.

Tonight, after kickboxing, I made my first frittata in our brand new wedding skillet. Half of it got a little crispy on top. Crispy, not burned (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, MATT).

I had more than this but I started small because I was nervous:

See the crispy? It was good. It had potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, and feta. I made some Ezekiel 4:9 toast to round it out.

Oh, and I also had cake. And finally, I remembered to take a picture:

You can see the peanut butter and jelly layers! We still have a lot of cake left, which is not a problem for me. We may get to freeze even more of it to enjoy on our first anniversary. Oh, and that’s a little bit of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream on the side. If you were wondering.

Posting may be sporadic for the next week (sorry, Mom). Matt’s taking me out for an early birthday dinner tomorrow, if I’m still standing after my tests. Wednesday I should be making some food, so I’ll try to post it.

This was what we ate on Tuesday.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as “some kind of chicken” because my mom would’ve hated it.

We had spicy chicken with bulgur and cherries salad. Only the chicken wasn’t so spicy. That’s okay.

There was supposed to be eggplant in the salad but eggplant is disastrous around here, so I left it out. Then I realized there were no vegetables, so I threw together a salad with some mixed greens, chickpeas, grape tomatoes, and goat cheese.

Today, I had to go back to my favorite doctor ever, which was a treat, as always. Next week, I’ve got to take this test, which, in the biz, is referred to as a meth challenge, and which I prefer to think of as METH CHALLENGE, some kind of reality show for meth heads.

Anyway, after the doctor, I worked from home and was reminded again why it’s not a good idea for me to fulfill my dream of a work from home life style at this point in my life: snack attacks. Or, as I like to call them, snack-cidents. I just can’t stay out of the peanut butter. Or the yogurt. Or the granola. Or the trail mix.

Now I’m going to go do some cleaning to try to make up for it.

Detox

Last night I went out with some friends for a dinner/drinks thing to celebrate my upcoming nuptials. We went to Coco Bolo’s, where I had a salad with shrimp, chicken, and pico de gallo, and some crazy banana/rum/ice cream dessert that set me on a really bad path for the evening. I bet most people wake up with a normal hangover after their bridal showers/bachelorette parties, but not me. I woke up with a sugar hangover. I had that banana thing, most of a piece of baklava, half of a “magic bar” which had coconut, chocolate, 46 tons of sugar, and a bunch of crack or something in it to make it almost impossible to stop eating. And some “dirty shirleys” which have 7-Up and grenadine. I haven’t been able to eat anything remotely sweet all day. Even smelling my peanut butter, which is only made from peanuts, made me feel a little sickly.

We volunteered to help with the post-tornado clean-up today and it was insane. They were busing people from campus to the areas that were hit the hardest. The house we were helping with was completely leveled, stuff was everywhere. We worked for about two hours (the sweat helped with the sugar detox, btw). It was really surreal work, you’re going along and throwing stuff in big bags and boxes and everyone once in awhile you stop and think, “Oh, this is someone’s roof. This is someone’s wall. This is a piece of a mirror that someone used.” We even found the rotating plate from inside her microwave, broken into a bunch of pieces. The woman who owned the house was there, trying to get the last bits of stuff out of her basement. She had a cute dog. I’m sad for them.

I came home and basically slept for the rest of the day, got up at 6 and took a walk with Matt, then made dinner. We had chicken and veggie skewers grilled in the grill pan, with some quinoa pilaf. I also had a little salad bar salad from the grocery store that I didn’t eat at lunch.

Now I’m watching The Tudors (still dirty) and getting ready to go to bed because I have to work in the morning. Yes, on a Sunday.

99% local

Well, we ate local and I have the bruises to prove it. You’ll see.

I was really productive today and checked off maybe 42 things from my to do list. Granted, I’m one of those people who adds things they’ve already done, just to check them off. But, whatever. I’d say that 47 or however many things is still a lot.

After kickboxing, I had to go to Target to get a new prescription filled and to pick up some absolute essentials like conditioner and Now and Laters. By the time I got home I thought I was going to die, and Matt was wasting away on the couch so I made my quick local dinner. Things got thrown off track when the local cheese I already had on hand turned out to be bad (which I didn’t know until I ate some of it). I had to run to the grocery store. I literally ran. I was that hungry. And still in my gym clothes so it looked normalish.

Anyway, here’s what we had:

Spinach/tomato/cheese/egg scramble with a strawberry salad w/ honey dressing and kale chips. The 1% non-local food was a little olive oil. I need to do research, but I’m guessing we don’t have olives here.

What would have made this perfect would have been some goat cheese. I know there are goats around here, so I’m going to have to look into that.

I went back for seconds on the kale chips and the salad, and while I was eating the salad, I also, inadvertently, ate half a bug. The other half is on the floor somewhere, where I threw it, screaming. I was screaming, not the bug. That would have been horrifying.

Matt was in charge of washing the greens. That’s all I’m going to say.

His response? “Like my dad always said, bugs indicate freshness.”

I’m trying to work through it.

Last night we had balsamic chicken with steamed green beans/asparagus and whole wheat couscous. See:

Tasty.

Miss Rap Supreme is on, so I’m outta here.

Miss Wrap Supreme

We just enjoyed some lettuce wraps while watching Miss Rap Supreme. I know it’s not a good idea to eat in front of the television, but when you don’t have a table, options are kind of limited.

This is “soba” vegetable salad lettuce wraps with chicken “sate.” Lots of air quotes because I broke a  few rules. For instance, those are not soba noodles. Soba noodles were 4.69 for 12 ounces. Whole wheat spaghetti was 1.89 for 12 ounces. Decision? Made. Also, this chicken sate was supposed to be in skewer form but we don’t have a grill pan or any other pan in which to effectively cook skewered meat.

Either way, it was great. I also made some spicy peanut dipping sauce for my serving, which was a delight. I’m really getting the hang of that stuff.

I also had a cookie. I’ve been starving all afternoon, which I trace back to cranking the Arc Trainer up to resistance 50 this morning. I’m surprised I lived to tell about it. I’m sure lots of my fellow gym-goers have also been telling about it, because really, my sweat level was obscene.

Speaking of sweating, I think it’s time to go log a few minutes with the Wii Fit so it won’t act all disappointed in me for skipping a few days.

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.

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.

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.

Some kind of chicken

When I was growing up, we weren’t a very adventurous family in terms of eating. This explains why I’d never eaten totally normal things like pears or hummus until recently. So, pretty much every night for dinner, when I’d ask my mom what we were having, she’d say “Oh, some kind of chicken.” And so, every time I make chicken, I think of her, fondly. Especially tonight, since she actually provided the chicken that I so expertly prepared.

Spicy Citrus Chicken Packets with vegetables and couscous

With some ginger beer. To be followed later by barley beer. You know how much I love my grains.

Close-up of the chicken packets. It’s a fancy way of saying: cooked in foil. This is a Clean Eating recipe that Matt requested. Something about those orange slices just makes the chicken so much better.

Lime roasted asparagus and zucchini balls. These are the guts left from last night, professionally melon-balled by Matt.

I think I’ll have some fruit in a little bit. We have a mango that’s looking kind of sad.

The farmer’s market started up again today, which is quite exciting, because it’s right across the street from our apartment. Last year, we only went once, but I think we’ll be hitting it every week this spring/summer. Especially now that I know about all of the baked goods. The produce was still a little sketchy, but I picked up some cheap local spinach that looked decent, so we’ll see what I can do with that.

I also did the Arthritis Walk with Matt and Donna, went to the gym, got coffee, did some work, and now Matt’s watching No Country for Old Men and I’m trying really hard not to because it’s a little intense for my current state of mind. So, I think I’ll drink some beer and eat some fruit and call it a night at like 8:30. Perfect. That should give me a good, solid 12 hours of sleep and make it easier to face my Sunday.