Independence eve

Happy Fourth of July Eve. If, like me, you live in a state where fireworks are legal to sell, buy, and set off from morning until night on the week of the Fourth, maybe you’re not so excited.

I had a busy evening, and we’re going out of town tomorrow morning for a mini-honeymoon and to celebrate Matt’s birthday, so I’ll make this quick. After the gym tonight I was starving, so I made a few things I knew would be fast:

Open-faced Mushroom Lover’s burger (I don’t typically believe in this “open-faced” nonsense but the only thing we had in the house that even vaguely resembled a bun was a single piece of Ezekiel bread) with swiss cheese, whole wheat couscous, and steamed citrus veggies. Took all of ten minutes, so. All in all, a good thing.

Also featured: new flatware!

I then went to do laundry (FOR FREE - thanks, Donna!) and had some cookies and blood orange tea. Then I came home and ate kind of an obscene amount of birthday cake. This time my hands are even blue. Oops.

Now I’m going to see if we have some beer in here somewhere. The fireworks are starting to get to me.

Double dinner

Okay, not really. Not that I haven’t been known to indulge in a fourthmeal every now and again. Although, for me, it’s really more like eighthmeal. I eat a lot of meals.

Anyway, Matt and I have been wanting to try out our new grill pans (Thanks Mom and Dad and new Mom and Dad!), so Matt made portobello panini while I was on my way home from work. I wasn’t that hungry, because I’m on this new medicine that’s been making me feel sickly, so I just had this one and decided to wait until later for the rest of my meal.

Gorgonzola and sun dried tomatoes pressed between portobello halves. So, yeah. Delicious.

Then I ran to Target with Donna and suddenly it was 8 when I got home and I only had an hour before the Top Chef FINALE. We had a bunch of leftover portobello pieces, so I decided to marinate and roast those. I also needed some veggies, protein, and calories to round out my eating for the day, so I roasted some tomatoes (grape tomatoes - they’re safe), broccoli, and chickpeas along with the mushrooms. Then I really wanted couscous but the salad greens aren’t going to last much longer, so I compromised and had both. Look at this bounty:

Up close:

Roasted chickpeas are great. I think I’ll have some more in a few minutes. Oh, I also added some goat cheese. Because. It’s goat cheese.

Top Chef is on.

Boo, Lisa.

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.

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.

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.

My left eye hurts

My allergies are back IN FULL FORCE and yet I still insist on walking to work. Outside. If there was a 1.5 mile tunnel connecting me to work, this would be a whole different story. But there’s not. And so, tonight I look like I have a substance abuse problem because my left eye is red and sort of closed. It was bad last night, too, but I took some Benadryl before bed, and that seemed to carry through for much of today. Though I did spend most of my reference desk shift this afternoon inadvertently winking at people walking by.

I just got back from Target, where I went to buy eye drops but came home with sixty dollars worth of cleaning products, shirts, tights, and things in jars. Before that, I made what was supposed to be Tilapia with Citrus Vinaigrette but turned out to be Tilapia with salt and pepper (and a gross messy pan). Here it is with roasted brussels sprouts and whole wheat couscous:

It’s strange to me that I can probably eat a pound of brussels sprouts. And that I crave them when I have headaches. So, from now until the end of allergy season, at least, I’ll be wanting brussels sprouts. Then it will suddenly be 115 degrees every day and I will actually be burning, so I won’t notice the headaches as much.

Our apartment is so small that the whole thing still smells like fish and I’m paranoid that it’s gotten into all of my clothes and tomorrow when I have to give a presentation to the department heads, I’ll stink and I’ll be just like that girl we always made fun of on the bus in third grade (I still feel bad about it). Anyway, so I’m spraying everything frantically with some kind of “odor neturalizer” I happened to pick up tonight.

I’m going to tend to my eye. And spray one more time.