Sushi Night!

We had our sushi trial run with friends last night and it was awesome! My expectations weren't too high for our first attempt but it was surprisingly easy.



First up, we had to locate a bunch of Asian cooking items. We were thinking about taking our chances at a regular grocery store but then I found an Asian market literally a few blocks from our house. The market was... an experience? It smelled like poo inside the store and the lady at the front counter was eating food and licking her fingers. I kept repeating to myself, "It's all prepackaged. It's all prepackaged. It's all prepackaged." A few minutes and a few squirts of hand sanitizer later, we were ready to rock. While it was a completely disgusting place to shop, it was worth the trip. We spent $13 and got:

2 packs of seaweed wrappers
Rice paper
Rice vermicelli noodles
Rice vinegar
chop sticks
2 sushi rollers

First up, we made shrimp spring rolls.




We made ours with rice noodles, carrots, bean sprouts, cilantro and shrimp. Pile all of your ingredients up and roll the rice paper like a little tiny burrito. I also made a peanut sauce for dipping these. Without the sauce they might have been a little boring but these were one of my favorite things we made.

Next we started the sushi rolls. Sushi rice is really, really sticky. It was strange stuff. Also, you don't realize how much rice goes on a roll until you make it yourself. We used close to a cup of rice for every roll. So word to the wise for everyone: Make lots of rice. Lots. We ended up making a second batch and used over 6 cups of cooked rice. (Hope no one has to weigh in today!)

Here are our first two: shrimp rolls and veggie rolls.



The veggie rolls have spicey mayo (mayo and Sriracha sauce), carrots, avocado, bean sprouts and cilantro. The shrimp rolls have spicey mayo, shrimp, avocado and green onions. I suppose these were *close* to real sushi. They tasted like real sushi anyway.

We also made a shredded BBQ pork and coleslaw roll that was just stupid it was so good. I somehow didn't end up with a picture of that one. I also tried an orange chicken roll but it failed. Matt then one upped me with a chicken bacon roll. I didn't try that one but I hear it was good. I was seriously riced out at the end of the night. I hit my limit. But that doesn't mean there wasn't room for...

Crab rangoon rolls!



Dude. Crab rangoon stuffing, smeared on seaweed, and dipped in tempura batter. And then fried. It was so good. No need to say anymore.

The Sushi Experiment

Earlier this year, Matt and I went to California with some friends for a little vacation before the guys went on a tour. We were in the throws of our experimental vegetarian period so a trip to San Francisco and outlying cities was perfect. Everything restaurant had vegetarian items on the menu - and not just "vegetarian" items like spaghetti hold the meatballs. We're talkin real California hippy vegetarian cuisine.

We ended up in Sacramento one night to meet up with a group flying in from Omaha. We were in town so we stopped at Guy Fieri's restaurant, Tex Wasabi. Tex Wasabi is a sushi/BBQ fusion weirdo restaurant. If you've ever watched a show starring Guy Fieri you probably know that the dude is not a fan of vegetarian food. But I thought, it's a sushi joint (kind of) so we should be okay.

I was only kind of wrong.

The thing that Tex Wasabi is known for is it's really strange sushi rolls. Like, BBQ beef and french fries shoved in a roll. Everyone at the table ordered these kinds of rolls and ended up saying it was one of the best meals they had on the trip. I ordered an Asian slaw appetizer thing and a veggie roll. They. Were. Both. Terrible. My only regret from that trip is that I didn't eat meat at that dinner.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when we went to a party and the host made a platter of sushi for everyone. It was kind of late, maybe 11:00, so everyone but me was a wee bit on the drunk side. I sat in front of Keith (host) and watched him make sushi for probably close to an hour. He explained everything to me and made it sound relatively simple. I tried a few bites (Yes, I'm pregnant and I ate 2 bites of raw fish. Someone call social services.) and it tasted better than the run of the mill sushi restaurants dotted here and there all over Omaha. Which isn't saying a whole lot, really. In my opinion there's only one really good sushi place in Omaha that's worth dropping $75 at. Aside from special recipe items that most other places have, it is all the same. And it's all overpriced. But I digress.

The point here is that I got to thinking about my cooking lesson and Tex Wasabi and I'm pretty sure I can do this at home. Matt and I are going to make our own faux sushi dinner Friday night. No raw fish consumption this time though. I'll wait until I'm not pregnant to give myself food poisoning. Here's the proposed menu:

shrimp spring rolls
crab rangoon rolls
spicy veggie rolls
BBQ pork and slaw rolls
orange chicken teriyaki rolls

I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of leftovers...

Year of Goals - #3

I took a class at Whole Foods about "vegetarian cooking for the former meat-lover." It was fun and informative. And full of serious protein which may or may not be a good thing, depending on how you look at it.

I learned how to cook seitan. Seitan is basically pure wheat gluten. You wash a hank of flour dough until all the starch disappears and you're left with a hunk of gluten. Yummy, no? We made mock Asian BBQ beef. It was really, really good. Seitan is a pretty convincing faux meat. But easy does it - all that protein, remember?

I also learned pointers on cooking tofu. Tofu in restaurants is always good but at home I've never been able to make it taste good. Because I was cooking it wrong, come to find out. If you're going to fry it or sauté it or marinate it you first need to soak out all the excess water. Sort of like eggplant. (Something else that never tastes good at home.)

The third main dish we made was a little... different. We made meatloaf out of lentils. I love meatloaf but I did not love the "meatloaf" we made in the class. I understand the basic concept behind making it and I think I could come up with my own recipe for it.

All in all, it was extremely informative and well worth the $25 registration fee. I would recommend it to anyone, not just folks who don't eat meat.

Meat Free: Day 10

Today is day 10 of our meat free (disclaimer: unless you consider fish a meat... which is clearly is) experiment. We haven't been too creative with our meals so far. Just the basic stuff reworked. I did buy a great cookbook, but haven't actually cooked anything out of it because that would require a meaningful and thought out trip to the grocery store. Overall, it hasn't been too much of a challenge. Matt and I have bravely faced fried chicken, bacon, a cheeseburger joint, and a bag of frozen meatballs without caving. I think we're going to extend the fast until Christmas, or Christmas Eve in my case. Three words: homemade Swedish meatballs.

I couple points of interest about non-meat life that might be worth sharing:

1. Not eating meat has resulted in lots of meat dreams. I'm fairly certain this is a me-specific result of a change in my eating habits and not an overarching issue that plagues vegetarians - but I'm sharing anyway. I've had separate dreams where I've eaten beef tacos, steak and bacon. Each time I know I'm not supposed to eat it, almost like I'm eating it on accident. Then, Matt usually walks in and I either shove the rest of what I'm eating into my mouth or throw it away and try to act casual.

2. Giving up meat (land meat?) is kind of like quitting smoking. You can insert your own "cold turkey" joke here. Every part of your brain has to be ready to let it go. At first, I thought in terms of, "I only have to get through this one meal. I can handle that." But now I'm thinking long term. Who knows what will happen. Matt is completely ready to give it up. I think I might need some more convincing before I swear off of it for life.

3. I'm terrified of telling my parents. I'm already the freak of the family. Telling them, "Matt and I are taking a meat hiatus to further explore our political/dietary views on meat," may send them over the edge. My dad does have a really great sense of humor though when it comes to my liberalness. He always tells me, "I didn't raise you to think for yourself." It probably won't be that bad. If they panic about the no-meat thing, I'll just throw Cat under the bus and remind them that she has tattoos, which is way more freaky. :)

4. I tried buying frozen meals for office lunches and my options were pretty much the following: pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta, pizza, pizza, pasta. This is also how I discovered that salt is considered an adequate substitute for flavor in most "vegetarian" dishes. I feel bad for real vegetarians when they're trying to eat outside the home. They kind of get the crap end of the stick .

5. Everyone keeps commenting that they/me would loose like OMG so much weight on a vegetarian diet. Umm... hello? Have you met my friend Cheese? He likes to hang out with my other friends Potato and Noodle.

6. Yes, fish it totally cheating but I don't really care. I tend to do things half-assed. We limit it to twice a week though as recommended by the FDA.

Anyone else considering or doing some kind of change in diet/habit? What are your reasons?

By The Book

I'm on a mission to find some new cookbooks and expand my culinary horizons. Right now I get most of my recipes off Pioneer Woman or I frankenstein recipes out of Better Homes and Gardens. I also have the Top Chef cookbook, which frankly is a joke. My eyes glaze over at the directions in there. The food, however, is amazing.

I sent out a call to friends (thanks, Facebook) and I got two recommendations:


The Secrets of Jesuit Soup Making and Moosewood Cookbook.

I don't trust the Amazon reviews. Taking food suggestions is like taking movie suggestions. You really have to make sure people know their shit when they advice you on such topics. For instance, one person was complaining about a book I looked up, saying that the recipes had too many ingredients in them and the soup took too long to cook. WTF? Soup cooks all freaking day when you make it from scratch. You can't make a soup from the stock up in 30 minutes. It's just not going to happen. Another reviewer was complaining about the obscurity of ingredients that Julia Child uses. Do I even need to explain how stupid that is?

These are not issues with the quality of the books, these are issues with the quality of people's patients. And those are definitely not people that I want to take food advice from. I have my quick and easy recipes and I make meals that come out of boxes. Sure. But when I want something yummy and soulful, I look for a complicated recipe with 87 ingredients and I enjoy myself. After all, that's what cookbooks are for.

In addition to the two books above, I'm also looking for a really good Jewish-American cookbook. I want old school NYC deli food. "Old people food" if you will. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who is knowledgeable about that genre of food, so it's just me and Amazon on these ones:


2nd Avenue Deli, Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook, Junior's

Anyone else have any cookbook recommendations?

Easiest Freaking Homemade Ice Cream in the World

I cannot believe this. Sugar free, fat free, everything free, one ingredient homemade ice cream. I will be stopping at the store today to buy the ripest bananas I can find...

How To Make Creamy Ice Cream With Just One Ingredient

Ratpatootie

Can you guess what I made from looking at this picture (and ignoring the post title)?



I made ratatouille!

It was sooooo good. I was thinking about the movie Ratatouille and I wondered what exactly was in ratatouille. I googled it, then looked in the fridge and it just so happened that I had everything needed to make it. (Everything minus red wine, but I figured I was close enough.)

To start, sauté onions and green peppers in olive oil. I only sautéed mine long enough to make them a little transparent because I'm ridiculously impatient, but they would probably taste fantastic if I'd browned them.



I then threw in Italian parsley and garlic and about 3/4 of a jar of sauce. Heat that up a little bit and then throw about a cup of the yumminess in the bottom of a baking dish.



That looks good enough to eat on its own...

Slice an eggplant, green zucchini and yellow zucchini. I had the world's biggest zucchinis, so only used about a third of them. I chopped and froze the rest and I kid you not, the remainder filled five baggies. I could feed a 3rd world country for a month with the zucchini in my freezer.



Toss the sliced veggies in the pot with the sauce and heat it for about ten minutes. Now, I actually put the eggplant in first for about five minutes because it takes a little longer to soften up than the zucchini. So, the eggplant got ten minutes and the zucchini got five.



Slice up your tomatoes (as many as you'd like) and grab the baking dish. Layer the slices of veggies and tomatoes in the dish and pour the remainder of the sauce over the top. I think I then cooked it for about 40 minutes at 350. You could leave it in there for an hour if you have the kind of self-control that I am obviously lacking.



Yumm. Yumm. Yumm. Grab a big scoop of it and sprinkle some parmesan on top. I intended to eat it over rice but realized I didn't have any as I was boiling the water for it. I went for garlic bread instead, which I feel ended up being an excellent choice.



I think this would also taste amazing as a real stew or over chicken, pasta, a piece of cardboard, anything remotely digestible by the human body. As a little bonus it's also a seriously easy and delicious vegetarian meal. You could even make it vegan if you left off the parmesan, but really? Why would you want to do that?

Eggplant Parmesan

I'm in a remarkably good mood today and posting like a crazy person as a result! My friend Eric reminded me this morning of something I strongly believe in. Saying, "I don't have time," is just a polite way of saying "It's not a priority to me." I always think I don't have time to blog anymore, but really I just wasn't making it a priority. I also use that excuse for running, getting print materials, and restocking my Etsy shop. So, no more excuses. I'm going to start making sure I take the time everyday to make more *fun* things a priority, not just businessy things.

This weekend I got caught up on editing two large shoots that were bogging down my brain. I did three new ones but I feel caught up to the point where it's not overwhelming anymore. I also spent a lot of time with my friend Jen and we finished a painting project that I'll post later.

Matt was gone all weekend so I ate mostly leftovers or went out for meals. Sunday I wanted to make something really good for dinner since he'd be home. I decided on chicken parmesan.

So, I went to the store.

And I looked at the chicken.

And I couldn't believe how expensive chicken breasts are.

I thought about it for a minute and went over to the produce section. How about eggplant parmesan instead? Two fresh chicken breasts were something like $7. A big honkin eggplant was 99 cents. So, eggplant it was.

I had never cooked an eggplant before and it kind of scared me - this huge purple bulb with a funny hat... A quick google search showed me just how easy it is. Slice up the eggplant, bread it, fry it, done. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty good. Not fantastic, but I think if I made it again it would be better. I'm surprised at how meaty in texture it was. It felt thick and substantial, more so than most produce does when you fry it up. Kind of like a fried portobello.

I loosely followed some instructions that said to slice it 3/4 of an inch thick. Personally, I think it was too thick. I thought some of the bigger slices tasted too much like cucumbers. Next time I'll slice it 1/3 of an inch. To bread, I dipped the slices in egg wash, flour, egg wash again, then bread crumbs. Then I pan fried it in a bit of olive oil.

I got about 10 slices out of my 99 cent eggplant so it was definitely worth the money. I plan on cooking it again. I'm on another one of those "meat is disgusting" benders (that will probably only last until the next time I smell bacon) so I'm trying to come up with some good stuff. I want to try a mushroom and eggplant veggie burger next.

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Last night for dinner I wanted something a little different so I made a buffalo chicken pizza.Honestly, aside from the crust, there isn't anything "pizza" about it. It's just a bunch of stuff that sort of resembles a pizza...

I usually go the Boboli route when making homemade pizza but I wanted a really thin, crispy crust for this one. I grabbed a couple of the pizza mix packets instead. Good thing I grabbed two because I completely screwed up the first one. The one and only direction on the package was, "Add 1/2 cup of hot water."

I failed. Completely.

I added 1 1/2 cups. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't getting doughy. It was just a bowl of liquid that smelled like bread.

The second one went as planned, but that stuff is a bitch to spread out onto a pizza pan. You are a saint if you have the patience to roll one of those things out at home. It stuck to everything except the pan because I used cooking spray on it. I evidentially should have sprayed my hands and arms up to my elbows because I was covered in the stuff by the time I was done.

Luckily enough stayed on the pan to constitute a pizza crust.



I topped it with Frank's buffalo sauce, sauteed onions, parsley, garlic, celery, chicken, basil and bleu cheese crumbles. Everything you need to go with buffalo sauce - except carrots. I thought that might be weird, and coming from someone who loves pickles on pizza, it probably is. Unless it was a Thai pizza, then it would be necessary.

Mmmm. Thai pizza!

I also made some bleu cheese dressing to smear over the top of it when it was done.



I'm not a fan of bottled dressings so I'm happy to have finally figured out how to make it from scratch. For this I mixed about a cup of sour cream, maybe two tablespoons of mayo, and a couple splashes of milk. (I think you can use skim, low-fat, regular and it doesn't really matter.) I whisked that together until creamy and then added dill, onion powder, garlic, a heap of fresh chopped parsley, ground pepper and bleu cheese crumbles. It was pretty amazing.

Yumm.

Organics and Green Cleaners

Buying organic food is something that Matt and I go back and forth on. Obviously, we would love to only shop at Whole Foods. There's no denying the quality of produce and meat available there, but our budget doesn't always allow it. Aside from the price of it there's also the limitation of giving up those certain delicious items that wouldn't exist without some mad food science. I'll be damned if I don't love me some Velveeta and Diet Coke.

CNN had a pretty informative article this morning about buying organic: How to buy the best organic foods. We've already started doing one of their tips which is gradually replacing items in your kitchen with their organic counterparts. First up in our house was eggs. The difference in price is pretty freaking big. ($2.40 vs $1.00) but I swear they taste better. There's more of an egg flavor to them. It makes sense though... A lot of the flavor in our meat and animal byproducts is lost because of the way they're breed and housed. Free-range chickens move around a lot more than caged chickens so the muscles have a stronger flavor to them. It's kind of like white meat verses dark meat. Dark meat comes from the muscles the chickens use (legs and thighs) and white meat comes from the muscles they don't (breasts and wings).

I also think it would be nice to rid my household of chemical cleaners. I'm slowly but surely replacing things like laundry detergents and cleaners with safer alternatives. Seventh Generation has some great products and even coupons on their site. Real Simple also had an incredibly thorough article a few issues back about items you may already have around the house that double as safe grime busters. I also think it's a smart thing to do now since we often have our little nieces and nephews over and might one day have kids of our own running around. Kids touch everything, investigate everything, put their mouths on everything... I'd feel much better knowing that my house is free of any unnecessary chemicals.

What does everyone else think of buying organic and natural? Is it important or just a bunch of hippie BS?

Also check out:

• Dirty Dozen: Top 12 Fruits and Vegetables to Buy Organic
• 18 Easy Convenience-Food Upgrades

Girl's Night Skinny Dip

I went to a "girl's night" slumber party at my gay boyfriend & his husband's house on Saturday. Matt asked me what we do on these girl's nights. I told him, "Stereotypical stuff. Drink margaritas, eat a ton of garbage that we shouldn't eat, talk smack (kidding), watch chick flicks, etc."

And we did. They made margarita's with sherbet (YUMM!) and some crazy good stuffed jalapenos. We sat outside and talked for four hours. Then, we watched First Wives Club, possibly the best grown-up chick movie ever. I love it so much that I forgive Diane Keaton for her inability to be anyone besides Annie Hall in it.

My contribution to girl's night was a bean dip that I made up, sort of a four layer bean dip. The boys are dieting in preparation for a trip to Miami so I tried to bring something half-way slimming to the fatty-fat-fat buffet table. Ignore the fact that is was eaten on chips...

Four Layer Skinny Dip
*no picture exists because it was devoured like crack*

1 can of fat free refried beans (I think I used Ortega)
1 to 1 1/2 cups of low fat or fat free sour cream
1 packet of taco seasoning
1 cup pico de gallo (1 large tomato, 1/4 white onion, fresh cilantro, lime, jalapeno, salt)
1 avocado

Spread the can of refried beans into the bottom of a dish. (I used an 8x8 dish.) Mix the sour cream and 1/2 of the pack of taco seasoning together, spread over the beans. Next spread the pico de gallo over the sour cream - be sure to leave out about 2 tbsp. Mash up the avocado with the leftover pico de gallo to make guacamole. Drop the glob of guacamole in the middle of the dish and you're done! (Instead of regular chips, you could serve it with baked tortilla chip or pita bread.)

Then, I negated my efforts by making dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter filling.



It was so very worth it though. I planned on doing a three mile run on Sunday so I made sure to eat one for every mile.

Summer Cooking

One of the unfortunate things about Spring and Summer is that some days it's just too hot in the house to do majoring cooking in the kitchen. As soon as we pick up a new tank of propane, we'll be busting out dinner on the grill. But in the meantime I'm trying to come up with delicious meals that require little effort. Because of the heat, yes. But also because I'm lazy sometimes.

For instance, tonight I made a delicious salad plate of tuna salad, mixed lettuce with vinaigrette, chopped tomatoes, cheese, olives and a few baked chips. Light, yummy, doesn't require me to stand in front of the stove.



I've found out that the trick to really good tuna salad is to make your own relish. Don't use the garbage in the jar. Mix together chopped pickles, onion, dill and garlic and you've got yourself better relish than Heinz will ever make.

A couple of days ago when it was cold and rainy I made Runza pie. (Trust me, it's good.) I couldn't make it in a regular pie pan because mine disappeared, so I had to shove it into an oval shaped pan. I had a few scraps of the pie crust leftover and I didn't want to throw it away... So I made a quick and easy leftover dessert. Mmmm. Leftover dessert. Doesn't that sound awesome?

I pressed the leftover dough into little circles and baked them in ramekins. I only had enough for two, but pretend there was an entire pie crust there and I made a dozen.



Then I whipped together equal parts softened cream cheese and Cool Whip. Again, I happened to have about 3 ounces of cream cheese sitting in the fridge, but lets say I had a whole package and mixed it with about half a tub of Cool Whip. Then I beat in powdered sugar until it tasted sweet enough - but not to sweet. For a whole batch I would try a 1/4 of a cup and go up from there. I scooped that on top of the crust...



...Then covered it with fresh strawberries.



Mmmm. Delicious.



After I took that picture I drenched them in extra Cool Whip. I didn't take a picture of it because it's embarrassing. I recommend you do the same though. It was so delicious.

P.S. Who else thought of Family Guy when I mentioned Cool Whip?

Here's a sort of recipe if anyone wants to make these:

Package of premade pie shells
8oz block of cream cheese (you can use the light or fat free kind)
1 tub of Cool Whip(you can use the light or fat free kind)
Powdered Sugar
Fresh strawberries

1. Make small circles out of the pie crust (maybe with a cookie cutter?) and put them in the bottom of muffin papers. Bake crust according to directions on the box, but keep an eye on the time since these are a lot smaller.

2. Whip together the cream cheese and a cup to a cup and 1/2 (depending on your taste) of the Cool Whip. Beat in the powdered sugar according to taste. Try starting with a 1/4 cup. Drop spoonfuls into the muffin cups.

3. Cover the cream cheese mix with fresh strawberries.

4. Add a spoonful of Cool Whip to the top if your heart desires. And I'm guessing it will.

Easy Recipe: Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

I made this last night. It was really, really easy. And delicious. I didn't take a picture of it because you probably wouldn't want to make it if I had. Beige colored food does not photograph well.

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

Package of 2 refrigerated pie shells
12 oz. bag of frozen mixed vegetables
1 pound of chicken
1/2 an onion
Small can of mushrooms
Can of cream of mushroom soup (or whatever kind you want)
Can of turkey gravy
Garlic
Salt and pepper
Cheese (if you so desire)

Cut the chicken into strips and season it however you'd like. I sprinkled mine with Lawry's and chicken seasoning. Creative, I know... Boil it in water for 5-10 minutes (until it's white inside) and shred. Throw it in a pot with the veggies, mushrooms, onion, gravy and soup. Cook over medium heat (you're really just warming it up before it goes in the oven). Add garlic, salt and pepper to taste. It actually needs a decent amount of salt. I never add salt to anything I cook but I thought this recipe definitely needed a sprinkle. I think I also threw in some bay leaf and worshishtershirerer worcestershire for some extra help.

Press the first pie shell in the bottom of a pie pan. Add the filling. Cover it with cheese if you choose to. Press the second pie shell down over the top and trim off excess if there is any. Pop it in the oven at 425° for 20-25 minutes or until the top turns a nice golden color. You can also brush the top with a little melted butter before sticking it in the oven to give it a nicer color.

Easy. Delicious. What else can you ask for?

On a side note... Can you believe how expensive meat is? It's outrageous! Why is chicken so expensive? They're rotten little birds that are born by the dozen. Farmers should be giving them away for free! I often make several vegetarian meals a week because grocery shopping is insane otherwise. We tried to buy a hunk of roast beef for Easter dinner and a 5 pounder was nearly $20.

For beef?

In Nebraska?

Is that a joke?

Busy Weekend!

I don't think this last weekend really counted as a weekend. I'm exhausted this morning.

Friday, I spent three hours baking a German chocolate cake.

Saturday, I woke up early to do last minute Easter prep shopping. You know, there's something to be said for living in suburban Nebraska. Everyone gets up and does their Saturday morning shopping in their pajamas. I'm never alone in looking like a dirtbag at the grocery store. If I lived in a trendy city that required me to look good when I went out, I would probably never leave the house. I suspect that's why home delivery services are so popular in places like New York.

I got home from shopping and then cleaned the house. And then raked the yard. And then battled the giant tree-sized weed that we let run amok behind the shed. And then baked another cake. All in preparation for...

Sunday. Easter. Thanksgiving the Sequel.

All of my family came over for the holiday so Matt and I cooked our butts off. We made a pot roast, a spiral ham and three casseroles. We managed to send home all the leftovers except for a small container of candied sweet potatoes (which I hid from people) and some of the pot roast. My absolute favorite part of any holiday is eating leftover meat and dinner roll sandwiches.

Needless to say I didn't get to do much relaxing this weekend. So, it's extra needless to say that I'm not jazzed about working this fine Monday.

Creative Ways To Save

Matt and I have been making an effort lately to spend less money. Focusing on food alone is helping out a lot. We only go out to eat maybe twice a week now. Usually once a week for lunch at Jimmy Johns (at $14 it's an expense that is well worth it) and once out to dinner on the weekends. Spending less on eating out of course means that our grocery bills are going to be higher. Now the challenge comes to reduce our grocery bills.

We've started buying some items in bulk with our Sam's Club card and we make sure we eat our leftovers, but I still think the grocery bills are high. I've subscribed to coupon emails and I clip out of the newspaper. Did you know that Target has coupons online? They do! It took me a while to find them but they're right there! Target is probably one of the most expensive places you could possibly buy groceries, but sometimes they'll run a really good coupon for like, 50 cents off Silk Soy Milk which Matt drinks like it's going out of style.

Still seems too high though. What's another way to cut costs? How about making pantry staples from scratch? I just read a great article about how to save over $100 a year on spaghetti sauce. We buy a lot of spaghetti sauce in our house. We've always wondered how to make it ourselves but never really tried to figure it out. It's a pretty genius plan. Make one giant pot of it and then freeze it? Duh. Easy.

Now I just need to learn how to brew my own Leiney and we'll be set.

What other grocery staples are easy to make at home?

Recipe! Irish Leftovers

Yesterday was my first St. Patrick's Day as an Irish man's wife. I performed my wifely duty and cooked corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and beer bread. I have never, ever, in my life eaten corned beef and cabbage before. The words just sound gross. Turns out though that it's really, really good. I'm a corned beef and cabbage convert.

We ate the leftover corned beef in the form of reubens for lunch (Frank's Sour Kraut - also a big yum) and were left with a giant container of cabbage and potatoes. Soooo, I made my version of a Runza. For those of you who don't live in Nebraska, Runza is a fast food restaurant with a deliciously weird sandwich called, what else, a Runza. It's ground beef and cabbage baked into a bread pocket. There are versions with cheese, mushrooms, whatever.

I browned a pound of ground turkey with onions, garlic and hamburger seasoning. Then I chopped up about 1/4 of a head of the boiled cabbage from last night and threw that in. I also mixed in a scoop of the sour kraut leftover from lunch and a small can of mushrooms.



I scooped the mixture into a premade pie crust.



Drenched it with shredded sharp cheddar.



And covered it with the second pie crust.



And ate it. Yummmmm...

Almost as bad as Googling "mechanically separated chicken."

I've started buying whole wheat pasta versus the unwheaty kind as some sort of vague attempt to be healthier. It's a tricky thing to do though. First off, there's a difference between a package that says "wheat" versus "whole wheat." Also, did you know that anything labeled "enriched" is actually not a good thing? The nutrients in wheat get stripped out when flour is processed so the manufacturer adds artificial nutrients back in, making it magically enriched.

"Enriched wheat flour is white flour. The bran and the germ portion of the whole wheat, which are rich in vitamins and minerals, have been refined out. To compensate for refining out approximately 20 nutrients, they add back 4 synthetic nutrients, niacin (vitamin B3), reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate (synthetic vitamin B1), and riboflavin (vitamin B2). These nutrient additives...are added to mostly refined and processed foods giving a false sense of nutritional value and can lead to nutritional imbalances."

That's from the site Healthy Eating Advisor. Click on that link with caution though. Reading the contents of that site may ruin food for you. It pretty much outlines all of the cancer, obesity and ADHD causing ingredients in our food. It's frightening to think about it.

Still not going to stop me from eating Velveeta and Diet Coke though...

Mexican Chicken Chili

I had a taste for soup tonight. I figured I'd just use what we had at the house and pop open a can of tomato soup, throw in some chicken and call it good. But then I had to make a trip to the grocery store after work and my soup sort of morphed into something else.

I ended up with a Mexican style chicken chili... I guess? It was delicious and the colors looked fantastic in the pot. Food definitely tastes better when it looks pretty.



I cooked maybe a pound of chicken in a medium pot. I sprinkled it with a handful of diced onion, garlic, marjoram and oregano. I poured over enough chicken broth to cover the chicken. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat and cover. Cook for somewhere between 5-10 minutes. The chicken should be falling apart. You can pretty much shred it with your hands or a fork and throw it into the soup pot. (You might want to let it cool first)

While that was happening I threw together:

1/2 can chicken broth (or whatever you have left)
1 can chopped chilies (with juice from the can)
1 can Rotella's tomatoes (with juice from the can)
1 can tomato sauce
1 small can of corn
1 can black beans (with juice from the can)
1/2 chopped red onion
1 chopped Anaheim pepper
Crap tons of garlic
cilantro
pepper

You can either stop here and have yourself a nice, healthy dinner or you can do what I did and throw a glob of sour cream on top.



Yumm!

Yet Another Real Simple Recipe

Lat night I made the mac and cheese out of Real Simple magazine. You can tell I've really been cooking from it because it's covered in food splatters. I didn't take pictures of it because it's mac and cheese... you probably know what it looks like, plus in photographs it would just look like a pile of slimy yellow slop.

I modified it a little from the recipe in the magazine because I'm lazy creative.

14oz boz of whole wheat macaroni
8 oz block of sharp cheddar, grated
1 lb bag of chopped cauliflower
1 1/2 cups of low fat sour cream
splash of milk... 1/4 cup maybe
salt, pepper, garlic and parsley to taste

Cook the pasta and cauliflower, stir everything else in until melty.

At that point, I just started eating it right out of the pot. But according to the recipe I was supposed to have put it all in a casserole dish and sprinkled some bread crumbs and olive oil over the top, baking it until it was a little brown and crispy on top.

This recipe was "healthy" sort of. Maybe, if you don't count the cheese? There's a vegetable in there! I should get credit for that.

Creamed Spinach Broccoli

Last night for dinner I made another turkey meatloaf (twice as big this time for twice the leftovers) and creamed spinach. Sort of.

I set out to make this recipe from Real Simple magazine.



So, I thawed out my spinach.



And then I noticed that it wasn't spinach. Plans changed and I made creamed broccoli instead.

I melted 8oz of reduced fat cream cheese and about 1/4 cup milk (I don't measure anything.) I threw in what I thought was too much garlic, and then added more (I also like a lot of garlic) and then added a couple shakes of minced onion and pepper. Once it got melty I tossed in the broccoli and cooked it until it was thick and creamy.



It ended up being delicious. I didn't have high hopes for it, but wow. I made something freaking delicious on accident.