dinner plates

this is a 2-part post.

part 1: my dinner menu for the week. if you know me, or have worked with me, or have read any number of blog posts i've written, you know i like lists. my new coworkers love to inspect what i've jotted down or make fun of my non-sensical post-it notes, but i believe it only adds to my inexplicable charm. i like to write. it. down., then cross. it. off. it is a self-satisfying little thing i do. sometimes it causes me anxiety. but in those cases, i simply ignore the list. the real satisfaction comes from seeing activities numbered and printed on a random sheet of paper, and serves as a reminder of my potential. hence, there are many, many half-crossed lists around my house. apparently, i am not living up to my potential.

but tonight, there is a current, running list: our menu. i love a meal plan and accompanying grocery list, although i'm nowhere near as good as thisgirl. girlfriend is rockin' it! but back to me.

(list)

(uploaded from my new blogger app. smartphones are so NEAT.)

i try. i really do. and i have managed to really adhere to my dinner menu so far, so i'll recount it for you here. potential-measuring, if you will.

sunday - toasted gnocchi with pesto, tomatos & goat cheese. simple and yummy

monday - praise-the-braise chicken with feta & tomato. i love a crockpot. i improvised here with canned tomatoes with juice instead of broth and goat cheese.

tuesday - grilled lemon steelhead trout that looks suspiciously like salmon, with rice & brown sugar green beans.

wednesday - tricked-out pepperoni tombstone pizza. usually, it's leftovers, but i ate them for lunch today.

thursday - turkey turnovers. again with the subbing of goatcheese. mainly because i didn't feel like spending $15 on cheese, which is a major accomplishment for me.

friday - this says shrimp pesto pasta, but i'm betting on leftovers OR orange balsamic chicken thighs with spinach.

saturday - out of town. someone feed the lawyer, please.

sunday - this is usually pizza night, but i'm going with shrimp pesto pasta.

monday - leftovers, again usually reserved for wednesday nights.

tuesday - tuna steaks with rice and green beans (2 staples i keep stocked).

wednesday - black bean tortillas with prosciutto, goat cheese, corn and tomatoes.

thursday - pizza.

and that's as far as i've gotten. but i'm impressed with myself.

part 2: tonight's dinner conversation.

me: (mostly yapping about convos with friends while the lawyer gobbles up dinner)

the lawyer: (mostly gobbling while pretending to look interested in things he doesn't care about)

me: did you like it?

the lawyer: mmm, yes baby. really good. (exits table and opens deep freezer.)

me: are you getting ice cream?

the lawyer: yes.

me: what kind?

the lawyer: moose tracks.

me: can i have your wine?

this exchange is a total flip-flop of what normally happens.

blog vomit

i feel like i've been holding back all the things i really would like to blog about, but can't because of the effort i'm putting into this blog challenge. have you seen the pictures i've put up on here?? time. consuming.

i've got to get this stuff off my chest.
so, in no particular order, general musings/rants about life incidents.


i've joined a gym, in addition to the pilates studio. here's to getting my skinny on.

the law student is still cleaning like cinderella as we wait on job leads to ripen. i'm not complaining, but i still feel kind of usurped.

i made 160 dream cookies last night. i'm going to have to frost those suckers tonight. find the recipe on my blog by clicking on the label "dream cookies."

i'm already getting excited/anxious about the upcoming travel schedule and workload for the next week, with our last home football game and thanksgiving, then back home for one more football game. we are road warriors!

i'm a little pissed at small town and its recent dog leash law incidents. just because someone fell over and broke their wrist doesn't mean my little roxyface is in any way capable of malicious, unprovoked bloodlust or general rowdiness. and who are all these people that think the park is a dangerous place because of dogs? where did y'all come from? i've been going to this park daily for over 3 years - you must be talking about some other place. they're dogs, not hellhounds from the seventh circle. they like to run. i'm pretty sure i can manage my own dog, without a police officer in a golf cart riding around to see if roxy's off her leash or not, thankyouverymuch.

i've always been sort of a closet sci-fi fan, but chose instead to tease the law student about his extensive fantasy book collections. until i started reading one series. consider me out.

whew, i feel better.

THE etouffee recipe

the law student (the esquire, the law graduate, et cetera, et al) is quite the little sous chef. i came home to a huge crockpot of black beans and chopped veggies for my dish of the week: crawfish etouffee. etouffee means "smothered," and i'm thinking it must also mean delish. i never make this stuff the same way every time, because i can never find the same etouffee base or sauce or mix or whathaveyou. ever. mom always made it with a jarred sauce - how convenient. must be one of those magical grocery store items only she can find.

so, per amanda's request, here is last night's recipe. not only was it scrumptious, it was also pretty.

you'll need: butter, 1 chopped red pepper, 1 chopped green pepper, 1 stalk chopped celery, garlic, black beans (canned or homemade), onion, crawfish tails (i use bernard's, in the frozen section at the kroger), tony's seasoning and tony's instant roux, and 1 can of rotel tomatoes.

canned black beans are convenient. whole beans are not, but they are infinitely more tasty. giving a grocery list to a man is almost always a crapshoot, which is how we ended up making our own (awesome) black beans. i will learn this one day. be explicit, or you will come home to a plastic bag full of dried black beans. to avoid having to soak the beans, we threw them in the crockpot. recipe follows.

1. pour boiling water over 1 cup of dry beans in water into crockpot--cover beans, plus about 1 inch. *note - 1 cup of dry beans yields way more than 1 cup of cooked beans.
2. throw in garlic (a few cloves, to taste) and chopped white or yellow onion.
3. 3-4 hours on low (we will probably eat around 7:30 like normal)
4. check every few hours to make sure 1) water level is good (add more BOILING if needed) and 2) to stir. taste test for consistency.
5. congratulate yourself by doing a solo happy dance in the kitchen in your socks.

next, the roux. here's last night's recipe. boil the rice while you are making this.

1. melt 3/4 stick of butter in large pan.
2. throw in chopped veggies - peppers, onion, celery, whatever
3. pour in one can of rotel tomatoes, juice included.
4. sprinkle generous amounts of tony's roux mix into pan. stir. bring to boil. add more as needed to thicken. lower heat when to desired consistency.
5. dump in crawfish tails. stir.
6. spoon in black beans, making sure to get a little of the bean water. stir to mix.
7. you can smother your rice with the etouffee to be super literal, or you can just stir in the rice, like i did. season to taste.

and voila, you now have the prettiest, tastiest crawfish etouffee ever! the colors in this dish look fabulous.

amanda, you're welcome.

facelift and a recipe

a new look for my blog! you like?

i still need a cute header that matches, maybe with a photo. and for the life of me, i cannot figure out how to add a photo under the "about me" section. help, please. thanks!

let's do a diet and exercise update, shall we? where did i leave off? saturday? boy, do we have some catching up to do! i did not work out at all saturday and ate leftovers for lunch, followed by dinner out with dad at boure. sunday, after church, we had salad and macaroni and cheese, then i taught pilates, went to the gym for over an hour (yay me!), and cooked steaks with veggies for dinner while the law student slept through most of the super bowl. we're miami dolphins fans.

monday, i blew it. yogurt, coffee, and peanut butter crackers at work, and then--kaboom. no exercise. for dinner: raisins, fritos and french onion dip, and a bowl of cereal. after a nap, i had fritos and french onion dip again, followed by a bunch of raisins. yesterday was better. an apple, 2 fun size candy bars at work, then dinner: beef, cheddar and potato pie (and a twix ice cream bar. shut up). i walked roxy in the freezing cold and went to the gym too. i have high hopes for today too. i'm down one pound already. i know it could be anything--water retention, scale, empty stomach vs. full--but i'll take it.

i know you're still interested in that beef, cheddar and potato pie--it's the law student's new favorite dish. i came home one afternoon to find it already placed in the cookbook stand next to the stove. so here's the recipe! you can look it up on rachelraymag.com, but i had adjust the amounts because i use a small pie pan or something. it's super, super easy and very tasty.

you'll need: 1 lb. ground beef, 1 carrot or a few baby carrots, 1 stalk of celery, 1 clove of garlic, a few small new or red potatoes, cheddar cheese (about 6 ounces, give or take), salt & pepper, 1 egg beaten with water, 1 dark beer (like samuel adams winter lager) and 2 cold puff pastry sheets (i used pepperidge farm--2 sheets to a pack) and a little flour.

first, preheat your oven to 375. heat a pan or skillet on medium high heat. chop your veggies and garlic and toss in. add the beef, breaking it up, and cook for about 10 minutes. lower the heat just a bit and add about half a cup of your beer (and drink the rest). add the cheddar cheese and stir. meanwhile, flour a surface and roll out one puff pastry sheet to a 12-inch round. i personally can never get mine round, but it still tastes the same. place this in a pie pan. roll out the other sheet in flour to an 11-inch round. toss your beef mixture into the pie pan. brush the egg wash onto the edges of the first pastry sheet. place the second sheet on top and crimp the edges together to seal. brush egg wash all over the top and sprinkle with salt and pepper. bake for 45 minutes, tenting with foil if the pastry crust darkens quickly.

new favorite recipe

i heart rachel ray magazine, most of the time. there's always a LOT of recipes in there, but some of them have so many ingredients that i dismiss them immediately, or sometimes they look too complicated (by complicated, i mean precise). i almost dismissed this recipe for drunken risotto with spinach and sausage because it requires you to stir constantly. but i'm so glad i didn't! below, find the recipe. please enjoy. notes: if you like wine, buy 2 bottles, because 3 cups is almost one whole bottle. and i bet mushrooms would be good in this dish.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups dry red wine
• 2 cups chicken stock (fyi--outdated chicken broth in the fridge works beautifully)
  
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)
• 3/4 pound bulk Italian sweet or hot sausage (i used a whole pound)
  
• 1 small onion, finely chopped (i found a quarter of an onion and also used a shallot)
  
• 2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped (i love garlic, so i used about 4 cloves)
  
• 1 1/2 cups arborio rice
• Salt and pepper
• 1/3 pound spinach leaves, stemmed and chopped (about 2 cups) (i used frozen, because i always have it)
  
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (please. who keeps fresh grated nutmeg? i used ground)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup grated pecorino-romano cheese (or parmesan or something like that)
  

Directions:

1. In a large saucepan, combine the wine and chicken stock; keep warm over a low flame.

2. In a large, heavy pot, heat the EVOO, 2 turns of the pan, over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, crumbling the meat, until browned, about 2 minutes. Add the onion and garlic and cook until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in the rice and season with salt and pepper. Add the warm wine-stock mixture a couple of ladlefuls at a time, stirring vigorously after each addition and letting the liquid evaporate before adding more (this is really really important), cooking the risotto for 18 minutes. (or something like that)
   

3. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, stir in the spinach, a handful at a time, to wilt. Stir in the nutmeg. In the last minute of cooking, stir in the butter, then the cheese.

wussy wednesday wussy

first, my apologies for being a wednesday wussy wussy. i let you down 2 whole weeks in a row! le sigh.

my current wussy wednesday diwemma? i've wost my bra. my favorite bra.

it's not as bad as it sounds. i did not lose said underpinning in a wild display of alcohol over-indulgence or frenzied passionate clothes-shedding (but that would make for great stories). i discovered this morning my nude-colored, slightly push-up, everyday bra was nowhere to be found. this is very upsetting in hazy early-morning hours. so now i have to call parentals on both sides to see if they have found my underthing hanging around.

the law student and i had so much fun in starkvegas this past weekend! mostly, it involved a lot of packing, unpacking and re-packing, but fun nonetheless. we even got a cute picture of the both of us--no small feat. i promise to edit this post later and add the photos. we got soaked--well, the law student got soaked. this smarty-pants had enough common sense to not go sit in the rain to watch the game and waited until the rain had come to an acceptable cease-fire (for the most part). we tailgated with lindsey and the mayor and ate too much food.
too much food as in too many oatmeal cookies, ham and cheese sandwiches, and fritos with french onion dip. hello! mcfly! this fly honey has to be in a swimsuit SATURDAY. the prospect is disheartening.

so, in honor of my pudge, i will give you 2 pudge-friendly recipes. these recipes just LOVE your pudge.
poppyseed sandwiches

you'll need: butter, mayo, poppyseeds, sister schubert (or kroger brand!) yeast rolls in the tin, ham, provolone and sugar. you'll use: a bread knife, the oven, the metal tin, and a little basting brush if you have one, or a spoon.

take your frozen uncooked rolls out of the tin. mom swears there are some at kroger in a small rectangular tin (about 8-10 rolls), but i've never seen them. you can try to cut across the entire rolls so you have top and bottom halves, or you can cut up the individual rolls and then rearrange them back in the pan after. this way is easier to start, but a little annoying to remember how they go back in the tin. place the bottom halves back in the tin.

preheat your oven to around 350, or according to the directions for the rolls. melt about half a stick of butter in the microwave in a medium bowl. once completely melted (don't burn), add about half a cup or more of mayo, some sugar to taste (you want it kind of sweet) and lots of poppyseeds, and stir into a not-too-thick, not-too-runny, about-the-consistency-of-mayo sauce. the sauce should be savory (butter) and sweet (sugar), so adjust accordingly to taste. brush or spoon the sauce on the bottom half of the rolls, pretty thickly. add the ham and provolone and put the roll tops on top. heat the sandwiches in the oven for 20 minutes or so, according to package directions. a tailgate hit!!!

oatmeal cookies

cream well in a mixer: 3/4 cup shortening (crisco), 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 1 egg, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1/4 cup water

mix well in a large bowl: 3 cups oats (regular, not instant), 1 cup flour (all-purpose, i guess--i just use what's in my little canister, and i promise you i bought the stuff years ago), 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. baking soda.

add oat mix to cream mix. spoon onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 12 minutes. they're best when still warm and gooey.

tampa in T-33 hours.