Lady in Pink

Chicken:

6 chicken tender strips, pounded flat

1 cup honey

1/4 cup soy

2 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp vegetable oil

red pepper flakes

cumin

onion powder

cayenne pepper

- mix honey through pepper and coat chicken in Ziploc bag, store in fridge to marinate for at least 30 minutes

Stuffing:

1 1/2 to 2 cups prepared, plain couscous

1 TB parmesan cheese

3 TB shredded Italian blend cheese

1 egg, beaten

Italian seasoning

salt

pepper

cumin

- mix all together in small bowl and set aside until chicken is ready

Sauce:

2 TB chicken broth

2 TB honey

2 tsp soy sauce

cayenne pepper

cumin

- mix all together and set aside

Preparation:

- preheat oven to 350 degrees

- in lightly buttered/greased casserole, spread a half-inch layer of plain couscous (I made an entire box of instant couscous and used some for stuffing and some for pan, with a little leftover)

- with one piece of chicken, lay flat, top with 1-2 TB of stuffing mixture and roll. repeat with all pieces and place them on top of couscous in casserole

- cover casserole with foil and place in heated oven and bake for 20 minutes

- remove cover and baste with half of reserved sauce

- return to oven for another 10 minutes and repeat basting with rest of sauce

- cook for another 5-10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through

I missed it yesterday because we were busy running around, having lunch with Saugata, and coming home to see Andrew, but yesterday, March 21st was SANTANA’S BIRTHDAY!!!

She is such a party puppy!!

Out of curiosity, we researched Freckles’s birthday…approximately October 13, 1994…She will be 14 this year!!! So old!!

Also, Happy Birthday to Dori, whose birthday is the same as Santana!!! Yay!!

You might not have any idea what any of this means, but it’s wonderful to listen to anyway Matthew did a great job of making them laugh and being smart. He doesn’t start until about 38 minutes in…Scott somebody goes first. He’s not as great. (PS. I might be biased)

A lot of things have changed for this semester (my CDC ‘internship’, less Scholars meetings, classes only TR, job search, apartment packing), and I’m still adjusting to things that changed last semester (the gym routine, free weekends, no Matt, no Hicania in my office).  So, I realized that I need some new routines.

1-Job search, Chai tea, & This American Life.  Andrea introduced me to Chai tea which not only makes me feel sophisticated and fancy, but gives me a reason to use my wide variety of mugs, AND is delicious.  Tonight I drank tea, caught up on like 3 episodes of TAL, and browsed new job posting on about 80 web sites.  I am ridiculously relaxed and excited at the same time…there are finally jobs I’m interested in/possibly qualified for, and unlike every other time I’ve looked at listings, I’m not ready to curl up in the corner and sob about it.  Is it the tea? Is it the NPR? Is it the fact that I had CDC training today and feel like I’m actually on the way to doing some active job searching?  WHO KNOWS.  But any way, chai is delicious, superintendents are nuts (TAL #346), and Santana is being sweet and cuddly like you’d never imagine. 

On that note:

2-Blogging about the adorableness of my baby puppy. (More writing in general).

Gorgeous, right?  Andrew brought his digital camera home from school and after I got back from Queens with Matt, my adorable little brother presented me with a series of absolutely wonderful photos of Santana.  I think this one looks like a professional portrait or something.  I have no idea how he got her to cooperate and sit still for so long.  I usually get a camera full of puppy nose when I try.  I might be turning into one of those grossly in love puppy-moms…Matt and I started a puppy baby book for Santana last week.  I took her to a groomer (just for a bath and nail trimming!) and she got her scraggly fur trimmed (I will admit, that made me a little sad…I love that she’s a scruffy pup) and a girly, flowered bandana, which I have left on for the past three days.  She might be completely spoiled…but she makes me feel better and smile even when I am feeling depressed, sick, lonely, whatever.  She is the sweetest, cuddliest puppy ever and just loves to play, be close, and pay attention to every move you make.  It is one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten (UK graduation gift from Veronica) and right up there with the important parts of my life.  She loves Matt, Matt loves her, she loves bacon, I love bacon, she loves running around in giant circles, Freckles loves slowly following her around.  Done and done.

3-Monday Date Nite.  My partner GA last year was one of about…oh, maybe…five reasons I didn’t have a complete meltdown during my job between August 06 and May 07.  I was really afraid we wouldn’t see much of each other after we stopped working together…NOT SO.  We managed to have mostly weekly date nights on Tuesdays last semester that got slightly more sporadic later in the semester.  This semester we’re going with Mondays for early dinner, late movie.  The bonus is that she’s got class in the UDC between dinner and the movie, so I’m going to set that time aside for me to sit in the computer lab down there and get definite work done every week.  I think this will be super helpful and give me some regular scheduling where so much of the rest of my stuff this semester is super flexible and doesn’t commit me to specific hours for most of the time. 

4-Craftiness! A while ago, my aunt (ex-aunt-in-law?) bought me some scrapbooking stuff as a gift, and I have since been mildly interested in it.  Then this past October, Marinda invited me to a "Stampin’ Up!" party and I was completely hooked.  I am trying hard not to spend lots of money on it, because it can get expensive, but every once in a while I treat myself to a mini-splurge.  And during weeks when I’m particularly stressed, but not necessarily overly busy, I force myself to set aside an hour on a night in the middle of the week and stamp for a bit — it is SO relaxing for me, and then I get to have some concrete result of the relaxation.  I think it overall has a great effect on me, so I am going to make it a part of my weekly routine this semester to keep me on track and in the not-flipping-out range of existence.  Andrea and Kelly also taught me how to knit (well, almost), and that requires more patience to get something close to a feasible result, but it is still relaxing, and can be done with slightly less-focused concentration. So, YAY!  Plus, it all gives me an excuse to sit with some girls and relax and catch up. 

5-Puppy walks.  Yeah yeah, back to the puppy.  On top of a more regular gym routine, as the weather warms up, I want to get back into the habit of long walks to Rec. Park with Santana.  She loves the walk and the park, and I love to watch her explore and then get tired of walking and try to pull me up random steps into strangers’ houses to go home.  Really, the reason for wanting exercise in my routine is self-explanatory, but the need for adorable puppy fun is less obvious if you aren’t turning into a crazy dog lady like I am.

6-Reading for fun.  My two class (Modernism something or other & Masterpieces of the Novel) are a mix of books that look wonderful, and books I will trudge through.  I read a bunch of wonderful stuff since last semester, and my list of books to read keeps growing.  So, even if it’s slow, I’m going to build in time for reading non-school books.  Next on my list:

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk Read more about this book…

The Tenth Circle: A Novel by Jodi Picoult Read more about this book…

So, mostly everyone I’ve talked to about this recipe eventually responds with something along the lines of, "yeah, well, cream and bacon will make anything delicious." Probably fairly true…I am a huge fan of bacon. I really align myself with Homer on this one…Simpson that is…the pig is indeed a "wonderful, magical animal."

That being said, I was really surprised at how wonderful this dish turned out. (I had this dish at a dinner party a little over a year ago, and this was my attempt to replicate it without a specific recipe)

Brussels sprouts are a type of cabbage, which I’m usually not a fan of unless it’s in a really well-made coleslaw. When we bought the pack of B.sprouts at Pike Place, I remembered my mom always being crazy about them, and I remembered that I was generally fairly disgusted by them. I also remembered that I think that disgust was based on smell, cooking method (steamed until super soft), and general childhood fussiness. However, I also remembered that a year ago, I was shocked by how much I loved the dish that Stacey had made for our group dinner.

So, I searched the internet for a recipe…and couldn’t find one. I could find recipes that incorporated one or another part of what I remembered, but couldn’t find the whole thing. So, with a few recipes in the back of my mind, I sort of just made it work. I was scared….it was worth it. It was a delicious side dish (I served it with Sole, aromatic veggies, and orzo, but it would have worked better with a stronger main dish…beef, chicken, pork, even a salmon or something). Sure, it’s not exactly healthy, but B.sprouts are full of nutrients (the darker, more colorful a vegetable, the more nutritious it is), and this is a great way to introduce them into your diet. Just make sure the rest of your meal isn’t full of bacon and cream, and you’ll be fine.

The stuffs you need:
• 1 crate thingy of B.sprouts (probably about 2 cups, before we trimmed them?)
• 4 slices of bacon, cut into small (about 1/2 inch) pieces before cooking
• 1 large shallot, sliced
• 1/4 cup water or chicken stock/broth (obviously the stock/broth will add more flavor than the water)
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup heavy cream (this just depends on how much you want to add)
• A little parmesan cheese & fresh ground black pepper

The cookings you do:
1. First thing’s first…trim the B.sprouts. I’m not sure if we did this completely right, because it seemed like we almost halved the amount of veggie we had left by the time we cooked. I checked a couple websites, cooking blogs, random internet things to find out how to clean and trim, and they all talk about trimming the stem (where it’s harder, dried out) and the outer leaves (any that are loose or damaged or anything and could negatively affect the taste and texture of your food). The further in you get, it seems the leaves just get sweeter and more tender, so I guess over-trimming is better than under-trimming. Anyway, we (mostly Matt) trimmed all the B.sprouts and then cut them in half down the middle of the stem, so we had twice as many pieces, all with a flat side. Rinse and set aside.
2. Delicious thing’s second…cook the bacon. If you’re going to chop or crumble bacon into a dish, it’s always easier to cut it into small pieces before you cook it. If your knife isn’t super sharp, it will be annoying, but you can get around this by either using kitchen shears (if you don’t have a pair of scissors set aside specifically for your kitchen, you really should) or by using slightly frozen bacon (I’d recommend the shears). The chopped bacon can go directly into a cold pan and cooked over medium high heat. It doesn’t need as much attention as bacon slices, but just stir it once in a while, and keep an eye on it. Take it out and drain on paper towels when it’s done to your desired crispness. Then hide the plate of bacon in the microwave or under a larger dish…or anywhere someone like Matt won’t pick at it.
3. Drain off all but about 1 Tablespoon of the bacon grease and lower the heat to medium/medium low.
4. Slowly cook the shallot in the pan with the bacon grease. You can cook them anywhere from soft and translucent to lightly caramelized. You can also use regular onion for this, but I really love the soft, sweet flavor of shallots.
5. When the shallots are just before where you’d like them to be (they’ll cook a little bit longer), push them out to the sides of the pan, leaving a wide space directly on top of the burner. If your bacon grease is completely gone after cooking the shallots, spray a little cooking spray or add just a tiny bit of oil (or butter!) in the pan so the B.sprouts won’t stick.
6. Place the B.sprouts in the center of the pan with the flat side face down, in one single layer. If your pan isn’t big enough to let them all squeeze in there in one layer, brown them in two layers, then put all of them back in the pan when you add the water/stock/broth later.
7. On medium-ish heat, let the B.sprouts’ flat sides brown (about 4-5 minutes or so, until they get beautifully golden brown). Don’t stir them or move them around, but check one half-way through to make sure they aren’t burning.
8. When they’re browned enough to make you smile, toss them gently together with the shallots (they might fall apart a bit, but that’s not a big deal), and add the water/broth/stock to the pan, stirring just a little to scrape up any yummy bits that have stuck to the bottom. Let this water/broth boil off for a few minutes, until it’s almost completely gone. This finishes cooking the B.sprouts, so if you want them firmer or softer, decrease or increase the liquid accordingly.
9. Add the cream, stirring slowly, and stick by the pan from this point on, because the cream will thicken up quickly and will be pretty nasty if it burns.
10. When your cream has thickened enough so that it’s coating the B.sprouts and is not soupy (if you find it’s too much cream, just decrease the amount you use), add parmesan cheese and black pepper to taste.

Send her some hand-made comics…

…she will love them

I am really amazed at how accurately XKCD manages to portray the way I feel with some stick figures…anyway, December 27th couldn’t come soon enough, and I’m crossing my fingers that next semester flies by. Maybe sometime before February someone will find a way to make $50, 1-hour cross-country trips possible…please?

Angular Momentum…my favorite

Welcome to my first blog.  My boyfriend set this up for me because he knows how much I love to write.  This blog will be my venue to share my thoughts, writings, and dinosaur comics which I find amazing.