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Archive for March, 2009

The Late Late Post

I haven’t posted since last Thursday! Yikes!! I feel like it has been a crazy few days between work, fun and more work, but there are a few delicious and random things to blog about, so it was all worth it 🙂

As I mentioned before, I am working on an editing project on the side and that is definitely taking up a lot of my time (and the piles of junk around the apartment are evidence of this). I really enjoy editing because it gives me a chance to put to use the organizational side of things…I love to research, write and edit my own papers, but when someone else has done the writing, I can step back and just sort of put together the puzzle and try to untangle the lines of argument and help the writer figure out the best way to organize their ideas. I have spent the last 7 years or so editing papers for some of my best friends, which is tons of fun!! Now that I am getting paid for this particular bunch of editing, it makes it feel like a real job and like I am actually putting my English MA to work! Hooray! It is still time-consuming, especially because it was sprung on me with somewhat short notice, so I spent a lot of time this weekend curled up on the couch with two colored pens, a big quilt, and a puppy sleeping on my lap. I felt like I was back in grad school…and it made me very glad that I was NOT still in grad school. It’s nice to be able to leave work at the end of the day, leave the pile of papers on my desk and not worry about them again until the next morning.

We also managed to get some fun in…we went to the gym on Sunday for some random weight training and swimming. The highlight of our weekend was actually Friday night when we went to the Showbox Downtown to see Blue October. The opening band was mostly annoying, too loud and a little too scream-y for my tastes, but Blue October was AMAZING. If you are a fan of them at all, I definitely would recommend seeing them live…the put on a great show and they played their entire new album which was just released really recently. In my experience, bands have usually played a mix of old and new stuff, but we got a wonderful taste of exactly what the album felt like before the played the older, recognizable songs. It was different for me, but really wonderful…we went out and bought the CD on Sunday!

A note to the two people who randomly met at the show and then proceeded to intensely make out in front of everyone through most of the songs: Was it really necessary to have your hands in each other’s pants in the middle of the concert?? I hope you enjoyed the rest of your evening in whatever way you saw fit, but some of us were facing forward and could not see past your groping. In the future, it would be greatly appreciated if you could relegate yourselves to some shady corner. Thanks!

Our original plans for Saturday included getting up early, heading to the gym, running errands downtown, being super productive. Our actual activities included sleeping in late, watching some Netflix with breakfast, trying to get the pile of dishes down in the sink, spending way too much money at Walgreens and Whole Foods, making dinner (see below), and watching more Netflix on the couch before bed. I also threw in some editing and cuddling with Santana. Not so productive, and definitely less active than originally planned, but we were exhausted so we went with it.

THE FOOD

Friday night, before the show, we went to one of Tom Douglas’s restaurants, Serious Pie. We have had this on our list of places to try ever since Matt moved up here. Serious Pie is basically a fancy pizza place. They have fresh ingredients, just a few pizzas to choose from, and a really small but cute atmosphere. We shared two pizzas—the buffalo mozzarella and san marzano tomato with basil (delicious, perfect thin crust, simple and addicting) and the guanciale (pancetta-type meat made from the cheek of the pig), soft egg, and dandelion greens (same amazing crust, ridiculously fresh-tasting runny egg, addictingly-salty pork product and a really fun treat). We decided it was a fun night on the town and also went for the panna cotta with blood orange for dessert. Panna cotta is one of my favorite desserts because it is smooth and creamy and usually not completely overwhelming. Serious Pie’s was a really great one and the blood orange was a great complement to the sweetness of the cream and sugar. Yum! Thumbs up for Serious Pie!

Saturday morning/early afternoon, when we finally crawled out of bed, I made breakfast burritos!! I am be  coming addicted to these things, so I thought I’d make them at home instead of dragging us out to breakfast since we had all the ingredients on hand. I filled spinach wraps with salsa, sour cream, center cut bacon, soft scrambled eggs, shredded cheddar, and an onion/garlic/pinto bean sauté…perfect breakfast/brunch for a lazy morning.

Since we had such a late breakfast, we skipped lunch and snacked to hold us over until dinner. Since I made a run to Whole Foods, I filled up on samples (chicken sausage, grapefruit, and other random yummies) and we shared some chips and organic fruit snacks while I was editing on the couch.

Saturday night was a semi-repeat of an Indian dish we’ve tried before: Major Grey’s Chicken. This time we had two mangoes on hand so we added those to the chutney to give it a little fresher taste…it worked out really well and made a TON of chicken (leftovers for today’s lunch!).

I have never seen mangoes like this before, but they seemed really similar to the typical ones I normally find and they were really the perfect amount of fresh fruit to add to our chutney.   

  

This time we also avoided any horrible side-dish recipes and just made stir-fried chick peas and onions with curry powder. Simple and yummy if a bit dry…next time maybe we’ll add some stock to steam them off at first. We also used our rice cooker for the first time to make some basmati rice which we added green onions to. I had a mini-breakdown and felt like a complete failure because even with a rice cooker, my rice got destroyed!! We had to make a second batch, and that one was not even close to perfect, but was at least edible. The rice we had in the cupboard was a brown basmati, so I am wondering if the measurements included with the rice cooker threw us off…they had three times listed: soft oriental rice, basmati rice, and brown rice. I had basmati brown rice…I had no idea which to use and flipped out a bit. Next time we’re trying regular white rice…I may be cursed when it comes to rice, just FYI. It was especially frustrating because dinner was running late and it was nearly 9pm by the time we sat down to eat!

It all turned out delicious though, so I am done being frustrated (until the next rice adventure).

Since we were running super late for dinner, we had an adventurous appetizer of steamed artichoke with a butter sauce. Neither of us have had artichoke like this. I love artichoke hearts in pasta dishes or in creamed soups, but I’ve never pulled off the leaves and scraped off the tiny bit of meat at the end. I think I overcooked them, and our butter sauce didn’t turn out very spectacular, but I thought it was fun and didn’t dislike it. I’ll definitely try again and maybe even order it in a restaurant (food is sometimes just more fun if you don’t have to prepare it). Matt wasn’t a very big fan even though he really wanted to enjoy the fun of picking the leaves! I was sad he didn’t enjoy it, but since we had a yummy dinner on the way, it wasn’t that much of a disappointment! Yay for new veggies! Here are some pictures of the artichoke massacre!

Sunday morning we actually got up at a reasonable time and I made ham and cheese omelets! There are no pictures from Sunday…partly because the omelets were a falling-apart (but delicious) mess, and partly because the camera was probably buried under all the piles of junk in our apartment. We had a much more productive day on Sunday, ran some errands, went to the gym, got work done…quite wonderful. For lunch before the gym we made turkey caesar wraps and some chips (which I had bought on a whim because they were on sale at Walgreens the previous day!!). Yummy and a nice not-too-heavy meal before swimming!

For dinner we took a risk and tried a new Chinese restaurant. We have had a hell of a time trying to find a good, cheap, takeout place around here and it is getting pretty frustrating…apparently Seattle has never heard of Lo Mein! The yummy (but a little pricey) place across the street from us has a noodle dish similar to lo mein, but it isn’t called that, and no place else that we’ve tried even comes close. Help!!

Anyway, the last time we tried a new Chinese place, it was the WORST experience of our lives. Most unsatisfying meal ever! Matt joined Yelp just to give this place a bad review.  Since Yen Wor Garden, we have been really hesitant, but last night we went to Szechuan Bistro in Greenwood, based mostly on Yelp reviews and location. Great choice!! Not only was it decently priced, it was really delicious!! We got a standard Sesame Chicken to figure out if this is going to be a good place when we are having late-night Chinese cravings and some fried dumplings because we are suckers. Both really really good…definitely not the best ever, but way better than most of what I’ve tried since moving to Seattle. I especially liked the dumplings because they had very thin wrappers on them instead of the thick doughy dumplings that some places have. Matt prefers the thicker dough, but I like the crispiness and meat to dough proportion of these ones. We planned for leftovers and got a second entrée: Sizzling Plate with Hand Shaven Noodles and Beef. Here’s a list to summarize this dish:

• I love things that sizzle!!
• The wonderful woman serving us brought out a super-hot cast iron pan in the shape of a cow (not a hippo, as I first thought) with sliced onions on it and a bowl of noodles, sauce, veggies, and beef and then the noodle mixture got poured onto the hot plate…SIZZLE!
• The sauce had a really mild flavor but a nice spice. It was a really interesting combo and let the noodles shine.
• The noodles!!! How amazing…hand shaven! This is obviously a huge part of this restaurant because they have it written in big letters on their window to draw people in. And they are yummy!! They are a bit thicker than regular noodles so they have a nice bite to them, but aren’t so thick that they’re gummy or too chewy. Very very satisfying
• The beef was not as good as Chef Liao’s (the place across the street from us), but compared to some other beef I’ve had from Chinese restaurants, not bad! And very flavorful!

All three of the items we ordered were delicious and went well together…plus, it was all ready and served to us in less than 10 minutes…crazy fast. Granted, no one else was in there at the time (I think it’s more of a lunch place), but SO fast! It is definitely a place I’d order take out from (free delivery!) if I was craving Chinese.

Tonight we had Open-Faced Bagel Sandwiches for dinner!  Toasted bagel, one slice of cheese, some super thin and crispy bacon and a runny egg! This was a super satisfying break during all the editing I was doing tonight!

   

We’re still planning butternut squash ravioli and an exciting secret meal that Matt and I invented last year and will be featured as a guest post on Dori’s blog! Stay tuned!

Random thing I just thought of: Stay Tuned is the name of an old movie my brother and I used to watch all the time…this family gets this crazy satellite dish and it turns out it actually sucks people into this world of television where they have to survive and everyone always dies because there’s some evil plot going on, and this couple (whose marriage is failing at the beginning of the movie) beat the system, escape from the tv and reignite the flame of their relationship! Awesome! For some reason I associate it with Mom and Dad Save the World—maybe we had them on the same tape?? Also, no one seems to know of these movies when I mention them!! I miss watching horrible movies with my brother!

Also, enter some contests! It’s fun! And possibly very rewarding!

– Kelly at Every Gym’s Nightmare is giving away a Gaiam Back Support! Wow! This is a super exciting giveaway and I would LOVE one of these to wear during the day…my lower back has always been a trouble spot and I am working on being really conscious of how I sit, stand and move!

– Cover up your Gaiam Back Support with an adorable tshirt from Strawberry Shortstuff. Diana is giving this away to celebrate 100ish blog posts! Hooray Diana!

Two Very Different Cooperative meals and a MUCH better swim day!

On Wednesday we went to the gym and took our second Swim 101 class…SO much better than last week.  Last Wednesday, the instructor was a sub and she had no patience for 2 people brand new to the class who had never done swimming drills before.  It was pretty intimidating!  This week the normal instructor was back and she was spectacular!  She figured out what level of swimming we were on and tried to teach us some basic things to help us get down our stroke, breathing and body movement through the water rather than throwing us into a bunch of drills of strokes we’ve never heard of.  I definitely felt more comfortable and can’t wait to keep working on it and get up to the point where we can do all the different strokes.  It’s such a great workout and even though you don’t feel it as much while you’re swimming because it is so low impact, afterwards your body is totally exhausted.  My shoulders and legs are feeling nice and sore today!  This weekend we’re going to get to the gym both Saturday and Sunday to spend a day doing some cardio and racquetball as well as a day in the pool.  I also have an appointment with a trainer to set up some weight-training stuff and just get an intro session for free because I’m a new member! Hooray for gym time!

The last couple days, Matt and I have been on the ball working together to make dinners.  After the gym in the evening, it is SO tempting to grab something to eat on the way home, but we had eaten out on Tuesday (delicious Afghani food…review hopefully to come soon!) and we really need to work on saving our eating out expenses.

So, Wednesday night Matt was taking the lead on dinner…before I moved in, he had a fairly steady diet of sausage and baked beans.  Not my idea of a meal I want to eat all the time, but something I’m really familiar with because my dad was also a huge fan of beans and kielbasa, hot dogs, or other sausage in the crock pot.  

Matt seared up some Chicken and Garlic Sausage and threw in a can of baked beans to heat up.  In order to get a little non-protein going on, I threw together a green salad with cucumbers, and used our last ciabbata sandwich roll to make some Texas Toast slices for us. I made a balsamic vinaigrette and used that and a bit of ranch dressing on my salad.  Matt had bleu cheese (this is not at all a shock).  It was yummy and very quick and satisfying after a late workout!

Tuesday was our latest box of CSA produce, and we wanted to put a lot of that to use over the first few days.  Half of the cucumber went into our salad on Wednesday night (the other half is in the fridge at work, waiting for my mid-afternoon snacking this week).  A bulk of the produce was set aside right away for some stock/soup making!! I don’t make homemade stock very often…mostly because I can get pretty good organic, natural, low sodium boxes and stockpile (Matt will enjoy the pun) them when they’re on sale.  But this week bone-in chicken breasts were Buy One Get One Free, and we were getting a lot of basic veggies in our CSA box!

So Wednesday morning, Matt took Santana for her AM walk so I could work on the stock…two chicken breasts (bone-in, skin on), carrots, celery, onion, some herbs and water went into the Crockpot to cook all day.

While Matt was working on his sausage and beans, I strained out the solids, pulled the skin and bones off the chicken, stored the chicken in the fridge and put the stock back in the crock and into the fridge to chill.

This morning was another morning of Matt and Santana outside and me in the kitchen!  It definitely throws off our normal schedule to make things that take some morning prep, but I do enjoy getting some cooking time in first thing in the morning.  

First thing, I skimmed the gorgeous layer of fat off the top of the stock and got rid of it.  Then some peeled and roughly chopped potatoes and onions went into the stock, along with some random herbs and spices.  This went on low heat to cook from about 7am until 2:30pm.  

After that got on the heat, I worked on chopping up some vegetables.  Our original idea was to do a chicken corn chowder, but when I saw all the yummy vegetables in our CSA box, I decided to turn it into a Chicken Confetti Chowder with lots of colorful fun! 

 

I finely diced/chopped some more onions, celery and carrots, along with zucchini and red bell peppers.  Chopping vegetables is extremely relaxing for me…a great start to the day!  These went into a container in the fridge to wait until this afternoon!

   

Matt was working from home today, which was perfect for my plan!  I gave him some detailed instructions:

1. Chop chicken and make sure I didn’t miss any little bones!
2. Use stick blender to blend potatoes and stock until creamy.
3. Add chopped chicken, diced veggies, and 1 can of drained corn to crock pot.
4. Add some boxed stock if there isn’t enough liquid.
5. Cover and let it cook on low until I get home.

Around 3pm I got a call at work with some minor chaos, because the veggies and chicken nearly overloaded the Crockpot and there was no room for the corn! When I got home I ladled out one small serving of soup and added the can of corn. The important part was getting those veggies (especially the carrots) in there to get cooked through! I tasted, adjusted the seasoning a bit (added some cumin and red pepper)and turned it on high to get it bubbling for an hour or so. It’s currently still cooking, but here’s what it looks like now:

I’m excited for dinner!! My taste test for seasoning was pretty good, and I think I’m topping mine with a few crackers and a tiny bit of parmesan cheese! Can’t wait! Will have updates tomorrow of how wonderful it was :) 

A great giveaway (on a really fun blog!): Tina at Carrots ‘N’ Cake is in the middle of a Pure Bar giveaway, which I am of course really excited about because of my recent cravings for bars during mid-morning snack lull at work!

Another fun fun giveaway over at Nikes and Ponytails—a crazy bunch of goodies that are way too tempting NOT to enter the contest!

Good luck!

Coming soon:

• Guest post on Dori’s blog (finally!)
• Two restaurant reviews!
• A link to Santana’s upcoming review of her birthday toy
• Butternut Squash Ravioli….hopefully 🙂
• Meghann’s Blogger Bake Sale starts on Monday April 6th and I’ll be contributing something wonderfully fun, but I’ve seen the list of others’ contributions and they are tempting!! Definitely mark your calendars so you can get your hands on some great homemade goodies and help Meghann with a wonderful cause!

Me & Food

A Bacon Wrapped Life (previously Lady in Pink)

What started as an outlet for random rambling and general blogging (and a fun surprise from a wonderful boyfriend!) has become primarily a venue for even more enjoyment of food, with a bit of my random life excitement popping in–thus the name change.

Contrary to the beliefs of many friends, I don’t always cook with bacon, cheese, or other random sources of fat (although these are all delicious and often considered!).  I appreciate my increasing ability to cook with lots of different veggies, leave meat out all together sometimes, create healthier versions of old recipes and just generally bring health and wellness intomy life.

All that being said, I love to indulge, to succumb to temptation, to provide temptation, to jump into a giant hypothetical vat of whipped cream and absolutely gorge myself…OK, so this is where all those previously-mentioned misconceptions come from.  Along with my indulging, I also love to exaggerate. 🙂 If I had to identify my “food philosophy,” it would be this: Food makes me happy and I want to use food to make you happy!  I am enthralled not only by the flavors, textures, scents and other sensations of food, but also by the science, history, sociology, psychology of food. Food is a key part of every aspect of life, and in times when more and more people have harmful relationships with the source of nourishment and life and can no longer take enjoyment in the act of eating, I think it is extremely important to recognize and remember the vital role that food plays in our lives.

Indulgence is also not such a stable relationship either, and part of my challenge as a cook and a consumer is to work this indulgence into an overall healthy approach to eating.  My boyfriend, Matt, and I work on this issue together and I am so grateful that we have each other for support and the mental and emotional nourishment that supplements the physical nourishment we get from our food.  We both LOVE to eat, and luckily we both hate mushrooms…it works out nicely.

I recently finished my MA in English, so I’m also just getting past my college mentality towards food–fit in whatever you can, whenever you have time.  I’m currently working as an undergraduate admissions advisor at a small, private, naturual health sciences university.  I love student affairs and am excited to be at this early stage of my professional career with lots of hopeful options down the road.  In this job, I have had the opportunity to expand my advising experience and work with a huge variety of students so far, but I have also been exposed to a community of physicians, students and other faculty/staff members who are very involved in the field of natural health.  This hugely affects my perspective on food at this point in time; in a very short time I have absorbed a ton of amazing information and ideas about whole foods nutrition and overall wellness with an all-vegetarian cafeteria at my fingertips.  When I am at work, it’s very easy for me to push my own boundaries in terms of food knowledge and comfort-levels–something I also plan to be encouraged to do through this blog.  I have been in this job for about 6 months now and I can’t wait to see what else I’ll learn from this healthy community while I’m here!

COMPLETE CHANGE OF TOPIC: Another key thing about my life is my wonderfully adorable dog, Santana.  She’s a beagle-chihuahua mix who was a graduation present from my roommate when we finished our undergraduate work.  Santana moved with me from KY to central NY, and while I was in graduate school she helped me get through the rough patch of readjusting, making new friends in a completely different program and school and dealing with a crazy crazy grad student schedule…sometimes I’d be home all day reading and writing, sometimes I’d be gone from 8am until 2am the following morning and she was as flexible as a puppy could be–and always excited to see me when I got home! I was questioning my choices a lot and finding it hard to make time for relaxation and enjoyable activities, not to mention eating right and generally watching out for my health.  I can’t really explain how vital Santana was to getting through those 2 years.  She moved to Seattle with Matt and me and the three months before she got here were brutal (while I was here early doing some job-hunting).  She is a trouble-maker, and I sort of love her for it.  She fits us, and we love her so much we let her start her own blog. Originally this was Matt’s idea, but yeah, I am that kind of puppy mom…deal with it and just enjoy how adorable she is.  The blog does a great job of portraying her very anthropomorphized personality!  Ok, I’m done raving about her for now, but I figured it was important to me and thus to the blog. I may even include some puppy-friendly recipes at times!

There’s a lot more “about me” that I could ramble about; as an English student, one of my biggest flaws was editing things down!  This blog will likely change as my life continues to shift, but my goal is to be constantly encouraged by the presence of the blog world to continue my quest for healthiness in my happily bacon-wrapped life.

One last important note: I love lists! Love them! If it can be said in a list, say it in a list! Here’s a summary about me and my food, in list form:

• A lot of the recipes I use or create are chock-full of indulgence.
• Every once in a while I have the energy to try to clean up around the edges and make something on the fancy side.
• More and more I celebrate new veggie options and other healthy additions to my food life.
• Always I want a delicious and enjoyable experience in the kitchen and at the table–if I don’t like it, I don’t cook it.
• Exception to the note above: If I really like you, I’ll cook whatever you want! Maybe not that extreme, but I love to feed the people I care about, and the act of cooking for them is just as important as eating the finished product. 

I am excited to dive into the wonderful blogging community and hope that you can find some yummy recipes and fun randomness along the way.  I love feedback and new ideas, so bring on the comments! And the bacon!

Weekend Fun!

As predicted, Lady in Pink has taken on a whole new look! Welcome to the all new Bacon-Wrapped Life!! Stay tuned for a post/page that talks about what that means and how it relates to what goes on in the blog.   Thanks to wonderful wonderful Matt for putting up with me while he tried to help make my blog a little more personalized!! I spent a good portion of Saturday moaning and groaning that the blog was ruined and it would never look right….after I shut up and waited a few more minutes, Matt had everything where I wanted it!! He’d taken the images and designs I’d made in Publisher and turned them into a blog! Wow! I’m a lucky lucky girl to have a boyfriend who will put up with me when I am whining and complaining!

Another fun blog note, Missy is having another giveaway! This time for Michael Seasons Natural Snacks…these look super yummy, so enter her contest and cross your fingers!!

Speaking of Missy, she does a great job of updating throughout the work day (I take a break from answering emails and working on applications every couple hours to check all the blogs!) and after looking at the pictures of her yummy wraps for lots of recent lunches, I found myself with a crazy craving for spinach wraps!

So we bought wraps instead of our usual bread and made tasty grilled wraps which were filled with:

• Ham
• Turkey
• Center cut bacon (30% less fat than regular bacon!)
• Provolone Cheese
• A tiny bit of light mayo and mustard
• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• A drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar
• Grated parmesan cheese

So delicious! We had it with some store-bought macaroni salad and kettle-cooked potato chips…very satisfying dinner. I had a repeat of it for lunch today (minus the bacon, oil & vinegar, and obviously not grilled) with some honey mustard dressing from the cafeteria.  Thanks for the inspiration Missy! Also thanks to the George Forman Grill for the toasty toasty wonderfulness on the outside of our wraps!

Earlier in the weekend we also had another blog-inspired meal!  When Dori did her blogger interview a couple weeks ago she had a picture of nachos on her site until the next time she updated.  So every couple hours when I made the rounds of blogs at work for a few days I would be greeted by this really tempting picture of loaded nachos! At some point in discussing our love of nachos, we got onto the topic of individually-topped nachos, which I have had at Chili’s before, and that Dori said they now have at TGI Fridays! 

So, of course I have been dreaming of nachos for a few weeks.  Matt and I even tried to find loaded nachos at the small mexican bar/restaurant down the road (in the middle of my sick day)…no such luck! They have delicious chips and salsa and an amazing black bean dip, but not exactly what I was craving.  SO we used cheese, black beans and chopped onions and made these:

 

We served them with sour cream and salsa (not homemade, because it was a lazy day) on a giant serving platter that we both ate off of.  SO satisfying to have a bite of everything on each chip!! Thanks goes to Dori for the tempting nacho picture on her blog for inspiring this one!

Because I have been busy getting work done, we’ve been pretty low key, but we have some fun things on the menu for this week so I’m going to try and get pictures of everything!  Plus we’ll be making some more minor changes to the blog design when we have time. Hooray for fun projects and yummy food! Have a great week!

Some Past Food and Some Future Fun

***UPDATE: I fixed my giveaway links, which I had COMPLETELY messed up this morning! Plus, soup and quesadilla picture added below! Sorry for my Friday morning absentmindedness!***

First, a couple more contests to note:
– Yet another Mix My Granola Giveaway. I keep noting these because I LOVE the idea for this product/service/website. Even if you aren’t going to enter the contest, look at all the options they have for mix-ins…so many choices!! So fun! Check out  Healthy and Sane for Elina’s Mix My Granola Giveaway!
– Bridget at Yogurt and Berries is giving away some chocolate goodies!! A great way to stay sane if I’ve ever seen one!

I don’t have any new recipes from this week, because we grabbed food on Wednesday and last night we took our leftovers from Monday and turned them into a casserole. There isn’t really a recipe for this…I literally took everything we had leftover, stirred it all together in a casserole dish and baked it for about an hour or so. The beets tinted everything this really pretty pink/red color and the French bread got nice and crunchy. I didn’t use all of the leftover gravy because there was a lot, but I put in just enough to coat everything and keep it moist. I was really pleased because it mellowed out a lot-not a lot of lemon flavor at all. It was a very comforting bowl of dinner and we used up all our leftovers! Hooray! No pictures 🙁

I do have a meal we made a few weeks ago that turned out really yummy and a nice warming dinner during the cold spell we just got over! Plus, I just realized I never posted it, even though I took pictures!

When I was growing up, we had tomato soup (Campbell’s) and grilled cheese all the time. I have known this meal as long as I can remember, and it was probably one of the first things I could make by myself. I went through a lot of grilled cheese and tomato soup stages growing up. No dipping the sandwich, dipping the sandwich before every bite, crushing Ritz crackers into the soup before eating the sandwich, finishing the sandwich before touching the crackers, the soup could only be mixed with milk, the soup could only be made with water, when I started cooking I had to use exactly half milk and half water, Ritz crackers were not good enough and I needed oyster crackers…I’m sure there are some I’m forgetting. I was pretty obsessive about things like this…I would decide there was a “right” way to make or eat it, and I had to do it that way for a while, until I decided there was a new “right” way. When I was little I didn’t want crusts on my grilled cheese (which I think is a pretty common kid request), and I remember babysitting my younger cousin and being really annoyed that he would want me to cut off his grilled cheese crusts! Except that by then I loved the crusts, so after I’d cut them off his sandwich I would dip them in my soup and eat them myself…think grilled cheese sticks instead of sandwiches. One way or another, grilled cheese and tomato soup has always been one of the most satisfying things for me when it’s cold out, and I assumed that everyone identified with this meal in some way.

Several months ago I realized that Matt had NEVER had tomato soup! I was absolutely shocked…how did you go 23 years without ever having Campbell’s tomato soup and grilled cheese? This was nuts! I quickly taught him the ways…with both Campbell’s and also some more organic, boxed brands perked up with fresh basil from our summer herb box and a few other variations. Matt has always loved grilled cheese (what’s not to love?) and he has really enjoyed pairing it with tomato soup, although he is not a fan of the Campbell’s condensed soup…maybe you have to get hooked on that when you’re little enough to not have a sense of what makes a soup “good”?

So we had a few leftover flour tortillas and cheddar cheese from our taco party, a box of Pacific Natural Foods Tomato Soup from Ken’s Market, and a variety of canned goods (I always stock up on tomatoes, beans, etc. when they are on sale). So we made a new grilled cheese and tomato soup variation! Cheese quesadillas (sprayed with cooking spray and cooked in a frying pan) and Mexican tomato soup (1 box PNF soup + 1 can black beans + 1 can diced tomatoes w/ green chilies + some red pepper for spice).

Delicious and SO easy! This obviously made a ton of soup, but I had it for lunch the next two days at work. I am always blown away by how many meals we can get out a few canned goods and some basic ingredients…it makes my thrifty side smile. Think how cheap that is per meal compared to if we had eaten out each time instead of eating that meal! I’d say the entire meal cost less than $10 and we got 2 dinners and 2 lunches out of it! Crazy!

 

Some other fun that will be coming up and I’ll have more info about:
– Blogger Bake Sale, hosted by Meghann. I’m planning to contribute something to go up for sale, so keep an eye out for more info about that! If you’re interested, contact Meghann for more info! 
– Guest post on Dori’s blog
– All new design for this blog!
– A side job doing some editing that will result in a good chunk of income, but will most likely make me super busy for a few weeks and result in a little less posting until it’s finished. Hopefully it will also result in lots to post about once I am finished with the editing!
– We’re getting artichokes in our next CSA box and I have never worked with them before! Excitement and/or chaos should be forthcoming!
– Both Dori and Santana have birthdays TOMORROW, 3/21!!! Happy Birthdays!!!