It's Been Awhile...

I'm almost intimidated to begin trying to catch up on all that's been going on.  But, being busy has got to lead to more interesting blogs than "I did nothing this week," so here we go!  I'll begin the catch up with, what else?, food!

Tuesday, March 10th

Potato salad, tomato soup, grilled cheese.  Mainly, I wanted to make a tomato soup, as I found a recipe that got rave reviews...  And, given my soup pickiness, I liked that there was no way to screw up any of the ingredients!

And, what goes better with tomato soup than grilled cheese???  NOTHING, that's what.

...Except maybe a huge baguette.  Whatever.

To the recipes.  I wanted to make a potato salad, even though it didn't exactly go with the meal.  I don't do mayonnaise, so finding a good potato salad recipe has always been a challenge.  I didn't love this one, either, but I also only included the potatoes.  (No pepper, olives or artichoke hearts.)  If anyone has a good potato salad recipe, PLEASE SEND IT TO ME.  I would pay you if it was close to the potato salad that I got back at Cafe Europa in college.  Seriously, if you're in Charlottesville ever, go there, get the potato salad.  SO GOOD.  (Also get the tomato basil soup.  Perhaps that's why I made potato salad and tomato soup together...  Reminds me of Cafe Europa.)

I made this creamy tomato soup - I would not use butter, though.  (Not a fan of the oily film it creates.)  For grilled cheese, I had some nice, rustic white bread, beautiful heirloom tomatoes, and some tomato-basil cheddar.  Delicious!

[Also, look at my fun plates!  M3 got "samples" from a new supplier that she's working with - Working Class Studio - and distributed them.  Such fun!  And I love love love square plates...]

Thursday, March 12th

Salad, asparagus, garlic bread, bean pasta.  M1 wanted to make a fun pasta sauce, and found this recipe from Barilla!  Obviously, she changed the pasta shape (love mini shells,) used vegetable stock in stead of chicken stock (thanks!) and we sprinkled a three-cheese blend on the top, instead of ricotta.  Yum!  I really liked all the vegetables that worked together in this sauce - broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, white / cannellini beans (which I rarely think to eat...)

She also made a salad and garlic bread, and we roasted asparagus - coat in olive oil, toss with salt and pepper, oven!  (I also have to think that this must have been a pretty healthy meal - good for us!)

Sunday, March 15th

Guacamole, fajitas, pineapple upside-down cake.  M3 made guacamole, which I'm extremely grateful for, as she's never been huge into guacamole herself, so I have to assume my guacamole-loving presence may have influenced that slightly.  She also found a tip - if you make guacamole and throw a pit back into the mix, it'll stay green longer.  (Brown guacamole just isn't that appealing.)  In the end, I think we're both still on the hunt to make guacamole as spicy and good as Wholly Guacamole!

Fajita makings included: tortillas, guacamole, black bean / onion mixture, peppers / onions, salsa, cheese, sour cream...  And some steak thing that was apparently amazing...  If only I ate meat...

I would like to state here and now that I love "create your own" meals.  With all the different tastes of our little group (I don't do meat, M1 doesn't do spicy, M3 doesn't do... a lot of random vegetables,) being given a lot of different things that will all taste great together, but being able to leave out what you don't personally like is just great!

For dessert, there was upside-down pineapple cake.  One of my favourites!  (Pineapple obsession?  Me?)  Actually, the maraschino cherries may be my favourite part...  Add some coconut, we've almost got a pina colada!

Sunday, March 22nd

Spicy mac and cheese, garlic bread, apple cobbler / strudel.  In the absence of M1, M3 jumped on making something spicy!  She loaded mini bow tie pasta with cheese (at least three kinds, though I forget which,) green chilis, tabasco sauce, chili powder and paprika.  It was delicious, and I, traditionally, do not do mac and cheese!  (This, though, is referring to the kind from the box - the powdered cheese kind of creeps me out.)

[I'm also realizing - garlic bread comes up again and again in our meals.  It's just so frickin' good!]

She also made some apple dessert - apples wrapped in pastry dough of some sort.  It was delicious.  And I am hugely sorry for forgetting my camera this night!

Tuesday, March 24th

Salad, butternut squash risotto, pistachio gnocchi, "white forest" cheesecake.  Mine!  This meal was inspired by Ivy, which is currently my favourite restaurant - small plates (meaning you can try a lot) and a wine list where most of the bottles are $26 - what's not to love???  They recently changed their menu, though, discarding of the two dishes that M1 and I always got when we went.  So, obviously, I needed to try my hand at these.

[I made my first salad (of these dinner series) that didn't involve fruit - spinach, red and green peppers, purple onion, tomatoes...  Simple.]

I had made butternut squash risotto before, on "Risotto Trio" night.  It turned out lovely, once again.  The other dish that we loved was this pistachio gnocchi.  In my head, at least, Ivy's was still better than mine, but that's not to say it was bad.  I found a recipe for Pistachio Cream Sauce, so I threw this over gnocchi (from Trader Joe's!  I'm on a huge TJ kick currently!)  The results were pretty good...  I'd perhaps suggest a bit less cream (?)  And there were tons of leftovers to last me for several days!

Despite my poll claiming I was going to let people vote on the first cheesecake that I was going to make, well, I couldn't wait a week!  So, I made the White Forest Cheesecake (white chocolate, maraschino cherries.)  I'm going to hold off posting a recipe for this - I made several substitutions on ingredients, and the result was quite sweet.  (Note: One should not use maraschino syrup as a substitute for cherry flavouring.)  Not bad, I mean I ate half of the 9" cheesecake, but I'd definitely make some changes when trying it again!

That being said, as predicted, I had all of two votes for my cheesecake poll.  I saw at one point there were three votes, two for the "Cookies & Cream" version, so I'm declaring that the winner - project for next weekend!

And, with that, I'm actually off to M3's for Sunday night dinner.  As of this afternoon, she didn't know what she was making.  But I love surprises - especially when they involve food!

Busy!

I got another one of those emails from my mother late last week - "We haven't heard from you in awhile. Just wondering how you're doing." And then I got a voicemail [Note: Hate voicemail.] from my mother on Sunday saying exactly the same thing. As if I needed to be reminded that things are busier than I'd like and that I'm a terrible daughter who hasn't talked to her parents in, well, over-a-week.

Seriously, though. Of the past nine evenings, I've had plans on EIGHT of them. Maybe to you social butterflied out there, that's no big deal, but this is coming from homebody Jennifer! I generally try not to have plans two nights in a row. (Eight of nine calculated to more than two in a row.) How did this happen???

And... I've got plans for the next three nights!

(Woe is me. I have fun things going on. I know, I know, I'm only half complaining!)

And, with that, I shall leave you again! Hopefully I'll get the chance to actually write about some of my happenings, rather than just allude to them! And, you know, call my mother...

A Letter

Dear Adam Lambert,

I think I love you.  I find you oddly adorable.

Your version of "Ring of Fire" sucked.  Please never do that again.  Ever.

Love,

Jennifer

Adult Scratch Mittens?

I went to bed Friday night with an unscratched face.  I woke up Saturday morning with this:

Myself and a friend separately joked, comparing me to an infant.  You know how you can get babies those little mittens to keep them from scratching themselves?  Yeah...  Perhaps they should make them for adults?

Jennifer's Exercise... For the Year...

I don't work out much.  I think about it several times a week (as all the boys in my pod at work go to the gym on their lunch breaks, and another friend talks about her coed basketball and soccer teams, and other people are running marathons....)  But I don't actually work out much.  I walk Cody three times a day.  That counts for something.  Right?

However, I did used to be more active.  And, sometimes, I can commit to one-off exercises.  Like 5ks.  Three miles.  Anyone could practically do that in their sleep.  I did it yesterday.

In 2006, E and I (and some other people?  We couldn't remember.) ran in a St. Partick's Day race - the Ras na hEireann - in Davis Square.  (Don't ask me to pronounce that.  No idea.)  This year, she was doing it again.  I procrastinated on signing up for it, but, as luck would have it, the girl E was running with couldn't do it, so I swooped in on her spot (which came with a free t-shirt, thank goodness.)  (You all should know that I run races for the t-shirts.)

I searched online for a bit, in an attempt to find pictures of people at this race.  Everyone (except me) wore green.  One in five people wore bobbly shamrocks on a headband:

There was a guy in a speedo (and a bow tie.)  There was a guy juggling while he ran.  There was a dad pushing a double stroller (Ironman BOB, woot) that passed me in the final quarter mile.  There was a person dressed in a huge bear costume.  Basically, the people-watching was fabulous.

And, after several false starts - we'd start running, then come to a halt as the people in front of us stopped - the race itself went pretty well.  Again, just a 5k, but I didn't feel like dying at any point...

...Until this morning.  Post race yesterday, I stayed pretty active - did laundry, played with Code, walked to M3's for dinner.  I went to bed, woke up a little sore.  Walked Code, got ready, went to work.  Here comes the killer - I sat for three hours.  At this point, I wanted to take my usual 10:30 break, go to the bathroom, rescue my water bottle from the freezer.

OUCH.  I almost turned around and reevaluated having to leave my desk, walking hurt so much.  What was I expecting, though?  I hadn't run more than a mile since the fall...  And, per usual, I didn't really stretch...

Eventually, I got over myself and waddled around the office, realizing that moving helped things.  Boring ending, I know.

Quick Quick Quick Food Blog!

Mainly, I just need to spread the recipe as far and wide as possible.  To, you know, the maybe five people who read my blog.  And I got it from one of them, so that's four...

It's been pretty quiet on the food front.  M1 didn't get a chance to cook last week, and M3 was away for the weekend, so all I have to write about is the meal I made last Tuesday: Salad and Mulligatawny Soup with homemade croutons!  The salad consisted of spinach (current leaf of choice,) pears, strawberries, almonds and pecans.  I altered the soup recipe to my tastes (two apples, half an onion, bit more curry,) and it was delicious.  (Great suggestion, Kelly.  I'd gladly accept any others you have!)  At the suggestion of the soup recipe, I decided to try homemade croutons.

People, homemade croutons are easy!  It's something I never thought of making before, so I was a bit questioning when I read this suggestion.  But they are so easy and SO good.  (Probably not SO healthy, but, please, I ate a salad and a vegetable-packed soup.)  I kind of combined this recipe from a few (I think, can't remember,) so I'm just going to write it out:

Homemade Garlicy Croutons

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Melt some butter (~1/4 c) on stove.  Saute some minced garlic in there, just till you can really smell the garlic.

3. Add more spices.  I'd suggest salt, pepper, oregano, maybe a bit of paprika...

4. Toss with bread cubes (~3/4" square, but I love a variety of shapes and sizes.)

5. Bake on cookie sheet for 10-15 minutes, till slightly brown.

6. [I forgot to do this, but I read somewhere to sprinkle parmesan cheese over the croutons when they're 2-3 minutes from done.  Sounded fabulous.]

7. Let cool, and enjoy!  (I made these a day ahead of time to let them get a little more of that delicious stale-bread greatness that croutons should have.)

A million times better than those crumbly, boxed croutons...  And, I mean, I always end up with stale bread anyways...

"Could there be a 'Fan Favourite' robot?"

Ready for the nerdery???  YES.

So, there were two highlights to my past weekend.  One was dinner with S.  The other was a robotics competition.

Both of my brothers are smarty pants engineers.  In high school, they both got involved with a program called FIRST.  I'm not entirely sure what the organization does other than this robotics competition, and, frankly, I don't care to read about it on the site right now.  The robotics competition, however, is awesome.

This is for high schoolers.  Both of my brothers are way out of high school, but both are good people and have mentored teams in their areas since leaving high school.  Simon now works for an engineering corporation, which was founded by one of the guys who founded FIRST.  (I repeat, smarty pants.)  This year, Simon acted as an ambassador at the Boston Regionals, and he said I should swing by.

And I am thrilled that I did!

Each year, FIRST comes up with a new challenge (necessitating that each team makes a new robot every year.)  This year's challenge was called "Lunacy."  Check it out on YouTube for how it's played.  [Note: If anyone can advise how to imbed YouTube videos, that'd be great.  I'm clueless.]  In case you don't care to watch the video (fair enough,) here are the basics:

- Goal is to get "moon rocks" into your opponents' trailers.  You get two points per "moon rock."  (There are also special other balls, but they came into play so infrequently and I never understood them, so I'm going to skip them.)

- Preliminaries are played in some number of rounds.  Teams are randomly paired and randomly pitted against one another.  Teams get points for wins and ties.

- After the preliminaries, teams are seeded.  1-8 teams then pick two other teams (generally other great ones or ones that compliment their abilities) to form an "alliance."  ("Alliance"?!?!  It's like "Survivor"!)

- Finals are bracketed.  Single elimination, but best of three.  Alliances remain the same till the end.

I'm not an engineer.  However, it's so great to see high school kids come together and make these amazing, creative contraptions.  My favourite part of these competitions is always picking robots to root for.  My favourite this year was this one:

Its ability to bring the "moon rocks" to the top to dump out in the opponents' trailers was amazing to watch.  (Unfortunately, they only made it to the semi-finals.)  This sparked my desire to vote for a fan favourite...  (Too much reality television, you say?)

Other than the robots, there are lots of great things to enjoy at FIRST Regionals:

- The Blue Man Group played a little number.  (This may be Boston-specific.  Whatever.)

- The costumes:

A team was called the Ligers.  They purchased a lion costume and a tiger costume.  And switched heads.

There was a girl dressed as a pirate, carrying around a large wrench.  PIRATE WRENCH.  GET IT?

(Were you involved in some competition in high school?  Do you remember how INTO it you got?)

- Grown men doing the chicken dance...

- Stadium french fries.  Yum!

A Letter

Dear Boston,

I feel like you're sending me mixed signals...  Last Monday, there was a foot of snow.  This past weekend, it was sunny and lovely, with temperatures in the 50's, possibly hitting 60.

Now?  Less than twenty-four hours after the 50-degree weather than melted all the snow?  A rain / snow / ice mix???

Really???

Love,

Jennifer

8am Saturday

Why why why am I awake???

When I woke up (closer to 7,) I don't think I was with it enough to realize the time.  Discombobulation due to this cold thing.

So, I've always kind of shunned people with "bad colds."  Seriously, it's a cold, how "bad" could it really be?  No more.  I'm not even sure my cold is that bad, in all reality, but I just feel gross.  And my nose feels huge.  And the swallowing...

Ugh, yes, it's only a cold, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Going to go walk the pup and see if I can get back to sleep...

Onions!

I just wanted to add one quick note.  I think I'm coming around to onions!

I wouldn't consider myself a picky eater, exactly, but being a vegetarian tends to make you come off as picky, no matter what else you'll eat.  That being said, there is a list of foods other than meat that I'd generally rather not eat - olives, mayonnaise, mustard, a number of cheeses (this is a whole other story,) and, until recently, onions.

I don't love love love onions, but I've been putting red ones into my salsa recently, and I'm really enjoying them.  They're definitely no longer vegetables that I completely shy away from anymore.  So, nothing ground-breaking, but I always like it when I come around to foods that I've disliked for so long...

Also, why are they called "red" onions?  They're clearly purple:

A Quick Food Update

In an attempt to not leave it too long without blogging about food (heaven knows I can't go more than a couple of hours without talking about food,) I wanted to catch up on food from the past week!

Tuesday, February 24th

Heuvos rancheros, hash browns, banana burritos. This was mine! So, I generally don't do eggs. Not that I'm against eating them, I'm just not really a fan. However, I went to a restaurant for brunch a little while ago, and I had read about how fabulous their huevos rancheros were. So, I decided to give them a shot. (It was a nice place, so if I was going to like eggs, Metropolis was a great place to start.)

There was quite a bit involved in these, however. In an attempt to put as much non-egg into these as possible, there were several layers:

1. "Black Bean Hash"

2 t oil

1/2 onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

jalapeno pepper, minced

4 t cumin

medium potato, petite diced

1/2 t salt

15 oz. black beans

2 T cilantro

pepper

1. Saute onion, garlic, jalapeno in oil.

2. Add potato, cook 5-7 minutes.

3. Add cumin, salt, saute briefly.

4. Stir in black beans, heat till cooked through.

5. Stir in cilantro, pepper. [If serving alone, serve with lime!]

2. Eggs [Yes, I'm going to write out how I made scrambled eggs. I had never done it before!]

1. Whisk eggs and a splash of milk, plus salt and pepper.

2. Melt some butter over a medium-high flame.

3. Pour in eggs; cook till they begin to set, then stir (and add red pepper and jalapeno and cheese.)

4. Finish cooking - till there's no more runniness!

3. Salsa [Homemade salsa is my current obsession.]

Tomatoes + corn + cilantro + onion + chilis + garlic + lime juice + salt + pepper (+ black beans)

Layer these, and garnish with avocado slices!

As there's never a good reason to not eat potatoes, I also made spicy hash browns again.

And, because there's never a good reason to not eat dessert, I made Banana Chimichangas. Ummm, yeah, and I fried them in more butter, instead of oil. They were awesome.

Also, in case anyone was wondering (I didn't know!) you can totally nuke eggs for a couple of days, and they're delicious. I had huevos rancheros for a couple of lunches following this dinner!

Sunday, March 1st

Potato soup, cheese biscuits, lemon bars. M3's night! So, I've always been slightly picky about soup - I like minestrones and some tomato-based soups, but I don't do stews (the whole no-meat thing,) and I've never really found many creamy soup that I like. So, I was a little nervous when I heard that M3 was making soup.

NO NEED. It was awesome. I'm still thinking about it. You can see the recipe here. (She left the bacon out, and made it with vegetable stock for my sake - so nice!) She also made cheesy biscuits, which were great for dipping in the lovely soup.

And, there were lemon squares for dessert. I always forget about lemon squares - when I think "dessert," my mind instantly goes to chocolate, sometimes berries...

[I greatly apologize for the lack of pictures of this fabulous meal.]

Tomorrow, it's my night again! I made croutons tonight... And I'll leave you with that for now!

The Best Saturday Since... Awhile

Yesterday, I became a brunette:

(Please excuse the red eye.  I lack photo-altering software on my new computer, apparently.  Should look into that.)  So far, loving it.  It's darker than I anticipated, and I look slightly vampire-ish when my hair's wet, but it's fun!  And, frankly, it's just hair.  If I don't like it, can change it again in a month or whenever.

Pre-hair cuts, M3 and I went to Chipotle, which is delicious.  Unfortunately, we went so early that they didn't have any guacamole yet.  I was more distressed by the fact that they didn't offer up anything after the "We don't have guacamole yet."  I was seriously just completely ignored for a couple of minutes.  However, they suggested I get salsa instead (which was already my contingency plan,) and then gave it to me for free!  Phew, Chipotle and I remain on good terms.

We then made a brief Target run.  Nothing exciting this time, just general necessities.  Definitely was nice to get them in bulk from Target, rather than paying Shaw's prices for shaving gel and dog food...

Not too much later, it was time to begin the evening!  Last summer, M1, S, E and I went to Sauciety for Restaurant Week (which is happening again later in the month!)  It was, I believe, my favourite meal ever.  That's a lofty claim, but everything about it was fabulous.  Sauciety's (pronounced "society") thing is that they make food, and then you dip everything in sauces.  There were, I believe, twelve sauce choices for the main part of the meal, and then three sauces came with bread.

We started out with wine, and then they bring bread - regular rolls, cranberry-walnut rolls, flat crispy sheets, and little breadsticks.  Three sauces came with the bread - a delicious basil-garlic sauce (my favourite for the breads,) an artichoke sauce and a roasted red pepper sauce.

For the main course, I got grilled vegetable skewers (eggplant, peppers, onions)...  And sauces.  My favourite sauces were the green peppercorn-black trumpet mushroom, chimichurri and the roasted red pepper romesco.  The latter was fabulous with the sweet potato wedges.  We also got asparagus, mashed potatoes, broccolinis and sea salt fries:

(My friends got some assortment of steak, crab cakes and swordfish.  All we delighted.)  After the food was gone, I proceeded to sop up the sauces with more bread...  Mmmm...

Ummm, and then we had dessert.  Possibly, the only upsetting part of the dinner was that there was a list of dessert sauces...  But they didn't actually have these.  However, the desserts alone were absolutely delicious.  We had cheesecake and a creme brulee trio.  (My cheesecake was better.)  The creme brulee trio was awesome.  There was vanilla, chocolate and Bailey's.  Yum!  Yet another reminder that there is always room for dessert.

After that, it was off to a "Plus One" party.  Not SOs...  Just "bring someone not on the invite list."  Idea was to meet new people.  As we all know, I'm generally more likely to chat with my friends than socialize, but I did talk to a few new people.  Generally, I thought it was a great idea.  Nothing incredibly noteworthy to tell, though.

Sassy new hair, one of the best meals ever, good friends...  Great Saturday.