Christmastime is here

I’ve been so lame about posting lately. I even made something new earlier this week. Behold, Lemony Chickpea Lentil Soup from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan:

Like everything from that cookbook, it was delicious. And there are about forty six servings left. We could have had some last night, but I had to work until two, so we decided to start a new Christmas Eve tradition of pizza. Luckily, we caught the last place that was open for deliveries about 20 minutes before they closed.

In my family, we always did most of our celebrating on Christmas Eve, but since I had to work, Matt and I saved the main event for today. We got an early start after being awakened by more scratching in our bedroom wall. Santa!

After some coffee, we opened presents. Matt got me some awesome gifts, including these:

Cookbooks and chocolate! What could be better?

Right after our gift exchange, Matt made pancakes for brunch. I had mine with some berries:

I watched a movie, cleaned a little, started packing for my trip, tied a new apron on, and got started on our Christmas menu:

We started with a spinach salad with chopped apples, craisins, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette:

For the main course, we had chicken, roasted lemon-rosemary squash rings, and a riff on green bean casserole- green beans with portobellas and feta.

We had a couple of kitchen episodes that involved a few run-ins with the smoke detector, so we decided to nix the stuffing. It was a good call in the long run, as I had plenty of room for dessert, which was apple crumble.

With soy cream. And an awesome little appetizer spoon from Crate and Barrel that makes dessert last longer. Going back for seconds also makes dessert last longer. So does going back for thirds. I love Christmas.

Okay, I’m off to finish getting ready for my trip. My flight leaves at the ungodly hour of 5:55am, so I plan to get to bed early so that I can endear myself to the neighbors by blow-drying my hair at 4 in the morning.

I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to post while on vacation, but rest assured that I’ll be eating lots of delicious food.

Happy new year!

I’ve got a new attitude.

I’m working on cultivating a positive attitude about Sunday nights. Right now, for instance, I am congratulating myself for doing about half of the things I so boldly claimed to the internet that I would do today. Good job, self. I blame it on this book, which I stayed up late reading and woke up early to finish, leaving me in some kind of sleep-deprived haze on the one day of the year when I am supposed to be extra well-rested.

After a long afternoon of errands, I did some grading and then started dinner. I made chicken cacciatore (Ellie Krieger’s recipe), which, for the record, I don’t recommend if you’re really tired, have a swollen knee, and/or feel like eating anytime soon. What I’m saying is that it took forever, and it was all up and down, up and down. I need to really focus on finding less active recipes for those kind of days. Or, I don’t know, actually reading the whole recipe before I get started. I’ll file those under 2009 resolutions.

I had a pretty small bowl because I was still full from lunch. We went to Wamego on a whim to eat at Toto’s Tacoz, only to find that the restaurant, along with much of Wamego, was closed. We ended up eating at a diner where I had a delicious omelet with a few home fries and some toast. Good, but greasy, and I’ve been full ever since. I didn’t even eat an afternoon snack. This is unprecedented.

Because of my knee being a little puffy and painful, I skipped my “run” today, but I’m hoping to get back on it tomorrow. I think the best part of my “training” is that, even though the 5k is two weeks from today, I still haven’t actually signed up for it. I think I’m afraid I’ll jinx myself. I should probably get on that, as I’m supposed to be raising money for it. Oops.

Boktoberfest

At the penultimate farmer’s market of the year on Saturday morning, I got the biggest bunch of bok choy I’ve ever seen. I mean, it wouldn’t fit in a bag, my arm hurt from carrying it, and, half gone now, is still taking up an entire shelf in our refrigerator.

And it was only $2!

So, bok choy has been the featured ingredient in our last two dinners.

Last night, which got a little hectic because I had another event with my class, we made soba with tofu and vegetables, in a delightful almond sauce, using this recipe.

My RA started flaring up last night, and eventually woke me up at 4:00 this morning. I love that. Luckily, I have an awesome husband who didn’t mind getting up at 5:00 to get me some medicine. Anyway, I took the morning off work, and I learned several important things:

1. The construction workers do not care that I did not sleep well and that I am in pain; they continue to yell and dig holes and drive their truckies around regardless.
2. People who live in my building do not seem to work during the day.
3. Which seems to lead them to rampant abuse of hot water, as I had none when I eventually rallied and got out of bed to get ready for the day.

Because not working when I have a million things to do and I feel like I’m supposed to be working makes me twitchy, I drove over to work, got my laptop, and came back home to work for the afternoon. I think I’m going to make “Work on self-care” one of my 2009 resolutions, because I’m going to go ahead and admit that I’ve been kind of a failure at it recently. And I’m pretty sure that getting depressed and eating half a bag of candy corn doesn’t really count.

Anyway, after I finished working, Matt and I went on a really short walk so that I could try to loosen up my knee. Then, we made chicken fried rice, using an adaptation of this recipe.

We still have so much bok choy left. I have no idea what to do with it.

Since dinner, I’ve been grading papers, which pretty much sucked every bit of energy I had left. So now I’m going to go to bed and try to force myself to have a positive attitude about tomorrow. GO TUESDAY.

Packet up

We love things cooked in packets here in the See Food household. Fish cooked in packets, sweet potatoes cooked in packets, chicken cooked in packets. If you could bake cakes in packets, I’d do that, too. But you can’t, and that’s why I don’t bake cakes.

Anyway, tonight we had chicken packets with whole wheat couscous and green beans from the farmer’s market.

For these particular chicken packets, I used a recipe I’ve tried a few times before – they have salt, black pepper, garlic, crushed red pepper, and orange slices.

I slept for 11 hours last night and I’m still feeling wrecked. Last week was pretty stressful, and next week is looking a little intense, too. So, I think I’ll take it easy tonight, especially since I did approximately zero things today, which means I’ll have to do lots of things tomorrow.

I really wish I hadn’t started talking about cake, because now I want some. And I don’t have any. I might be able to dig up some decaf creme brulee coffee, and if I close my eyes, maybe I can pretend it’s the real thing.

I think it’s pretty obvious that I need my own show.

I had every intention of making one of the delicious meals from the carefully thought out plan that I devised on Sunday, but then I got home and it all fell apart. I’ve had a headache since yesterday, and I was so tired, and I just wanted a snack. First came some crackers, and then I moved to harder stuff like half my weight in peanut butter, some trail mix, and handfuls of Skittles. I blame the cake I had at work at 10am. I’ve had the sugar sweats ever since. Anyway, in a valiant attempt to salvage the evening nutritionally, I made a smaller than usual dinner of quinoa and steamed brussels sprouts:

Oh, and at the last minute, I threw a little leftover chicken tender on there. I know, I know. It is just too gourmet for you. Sometimes, I pull out all the stops. I do it for the readers.

Now I have to go make an epic decision between doing what I should do (clean), what would be good for me (taking a walk), and what I’d like to do in an ideal world (read until I fall asleep, no later than 8:15 pm).

I think we all know where this night is headed.

This post is boring.

Today, I did several things to attempt to manage my fatigue

1. Only had one caffeinated beverage (apparently this works out in the long run, though I’m not sure the people who have to be around me during my mid-morning stupor would agree).
2. Took a short walk at lunch. I investigated the track on campus and have deemed it worthy. I might even try to take some running shoes with me some day this week.
3. Did a circuit training class at the gym that made me feel like I was going to keel over. I always read that weight training increases your metabolism, and metabolism=energy, right? Maybe it doesn’t. I’ve never been good at science. If I’m wrong, please don’t tell me. I’m fragile.
4. Ate animal flesh.

This last one is really the only one that’s relevant here. We’ve been going fairly meatless lately, and whenever my fatigue flares up, my mom always tells me I need to eat some chicken. So, for her, I made lemon/rosemary chicken with roasted potatoes and broccoli for dinner.

It was good, but I forgot to microwave the potatoes beforehand and they took forever to cook through. I actually had to put them back in the pan after I took this picture.

Now, let’s see if any of that helps. Considering that I’ve fallen asleep at the laptop three times while typing this, it’s not looking good.

I’ll try to be peppier tomorrow.

Pizza Pizza

Sorry, sorry. I got distracted.

Thursday, we had a departmental retreat at a Challenge Course. I’d been dreading it for weeks, but it was actually pretty cool. The kids leading it were a little… ill-equipped to draw analogies between our work on the lessons learned in the course. One of them started talking about cheeseburgers at one point. Stuff like that. Anyway, we went out for a tasty Mexican meal afterwards and I had shrimp fajitas. They were still awesome the next day.

Speaking of the next day, I spent Friday afternoon at my favorite place, the pulmonologist’s office. It was, as usual, a stellar experience, in which he told me that the muscles that help me breathe are 23% as strong as they should be, but he has no idea why. So, I get to go back in six months. It was just the tiniest bit frustrating. So, leftovers were really the best option.

Yesterday, I worked. On student move-in weekend, we set up outside the library to give away free water and help people find their way around our ginormous campus. It’s always fun. I came home and had more work to do, so Matt cooked dinner – spicy chicken and noodles. Only we didn’t have noodles, so it was really more like chicken and pasta. Either way: delicious.

For some green stuff, I made broccoli. With some Parmesan. Because it’s not really a day unless you’ve had cheese.

Today has been pretty busy, though I’ve spent most of it on the couch. I’m teaching a class this semester, and today was syllabus day. It’s my first time teaching anything other than library classes, so I’m a little nervous.

Since the Fall semester starts tomorrow, and that’s by far the busiest time of year for me at work, I decided to go all out on tonight’s dinner. For the first time ever, I made pizza from scratch. I used this recipe and the dough didn’t rise right, but it still tasted delicious. Like super crispy flatbread pizza. I had two and a half pieces, but since I wasn’t sure how it was going to taste, I started with one. Here it is, along with a salad of mixed greens with tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette.

Those are some big heirloom tomatoes we found at the farmer’s market yesterday. Delicious.

So, speaking of the semester, I have a feeling that my posts are likely to become slightly more sporadic in these next few weeks. I also see a lot of pasta in our future. Please, do what you can to work through it.

Oh, I’m also going to go ahead and apologize in advance for any future photographs. I know that you’ve gotten used to the high quality images I usually feature here at See Food.

Wish me luck!

I’m back!

We actually got back Sunday night, but I’ve been kind of shell-shocked. And now I have lots of pictures and a dysfunctional space bar, so we’ll see how this goes.

(FYI: it is really long, so be warned)

My awesome parents took me grocery shopping at two of my favorite stores – Trader Joe’s and Harris Teeter. We don’t have either out here, and it was kind of bittersweet to be filling up the cart and knowing that I couldn’t take it with me. I really wish Greek yogurt and chicken sausages traveled better.

Anyway, my sister and loyal blog reader requested that I share my culinary magic with her family, and, luckily, she lives just a mile or so away from my parents, so I was able to oblige.

Trader Joe’s Meal #1:

Whole wheat couscous and a rosemary chicken/white bean/stewed tomato dish. I make white beans and stewed tomatoes with pasta, I don’t know why I never thought about chicken. It was good. Even my nieces ate it. I was really proud of my older niece for trying the tomatoes, as she’s a slightly picky eater. My younger niece wasn’t a big fan of the couscous. She said, “I don’t think I like this rice.”

Trader Joe’s Meal #2

Speaking of nieces, my older one made a special request for baked ziti, so I made this baked pasta dish with whole wheat penne, marinara, TJ’s quattro formaggio mix, and some roasted garlic chicken sausage. I ate a little to make sure it was okay, but it was really for my family.

I had the pasta with some roasted vegetables, and chicken sausage. With cheese.

And then, my crowning glory, Trader Joe’s Meal #3:

I didn’t actually cook this. Matt’s train was late coming in, and I was starving while waiting for it, so I coached my mom through the process via cell phone. This was a delicious pizza with TJ’s whole wheat dough, pizza sauce, some sweet apple chicken sausage, peppers, and lots of cheese. Mmmm. I ate about 1/4 of this. We had leftovers for lunch the next day. Oh, also, some sauteed vegetables on the side. I bought a bunch of vegetables and had to use them. My parents aren’t big vegetable people.

Man. I love chicken sausage. I wish I could find it here.

Other than this, I spent the week at my parents’ house eating lots of baked goods and chocolate things. My mom is an enabler. She keeps this JUST OUT in the kitchen:

Yeah, I probably ate all that.

Also, some delicious coconut bars:

And a bunch of Trader Joe’s Trekking the Himalayas, eaten in little bits like so:

That used to be my special cup. It’s like a goblet. Anyway, see those red things? Those are Goji Berries. They do not taste good. But they are some kind of super antioxidant. So I figure that basically makes up for all the cake I ate. Right?

Also, pretzel slims and almond butter:

And smoothies, and Greek yogurt, and white bean hummus, and soy and flaxseed chips. And brownies. And chocolate chip bars. And so. much. cake.

My parents took Matt and me and my sister’s family out on Friday night to a fancy new restaurant in their town, where I had a caprese salad, almond trout with rice pilaf, and some peach/strawberry/rhubarb cobbler.

We had our final party on Saturday, the day before we left. It was so great to see people I usually only see at Christmas. In honor of us, my Grandmother made a round of turkey burgers in addition to ground beef burgers. They were really good. We also had fruit salad, pasta salad, baked beans, and more. I forgot to take a picture.

I really should’ve taken a picture of the cake, though. Since it was a wedding celebration, a cake was a given, and I requested a coconut cake. My awesome grandmother obliged… by making FOUR of her awesome coconut cakes! Seriously. We took one back to my parents’ and I spent a lot of the evening trying to figure out if it was physically possible for me to house the whole thing before we left Sunday morning. It wasn’t. But I had a lot. Mom, is there any left? You should take a picture.

Sunday, we headed back up to Raleigh to meet my in-laws for brunch before we flew out. We had a great meal at Porter’s. I think Debbie took some pictures, but there have probably been enough pictures in this post.

Wow, this has been so long.

Okay, here are our three dinners since we returned.

Post-travel ravioli with brussels sprouts (on the monkey plate because I was so sad about leaving NC)

Last night’s spicy peanut chicken (so good):

I had all day off yesterday but was so busy running errands that we didn’t eat this until 9. Oh well. Live and learn.

And, finally, tonight’s pasta with zucchini/tomatoes/spinach/parmesan:

Okay, I’m cutting myself off. The space bar thing is driving me nuts. I’m also exhausted and confused about what day it is since I had the day off yesterday.

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.