Home Sweet (in a few weeks) Home

Well T & I finally took the plunge. “What plunge? I didn’t know there was anything to plunge into!” you say…and I respond with…

How to make Pandora & your Mac best friends

I was getting SO TIRED of opening Pandora (the most amazing customizable Internet-radio ever) in one browser on the iMac and then desperately hating a song and wanting to thumbs-down it, or getting tired of a station and wanting to choose a new one and FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY not being able to find it . With this new-age world of Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE, and the zillions of other browsers that T & I apparently use on a rotating basis, along with tabs which I enjoy using liberally – Oh and don’t even make me talk about SPACES (we have 9, yes, count ‘em, 9 because we constantly get annoyed with each others stuff in the way & I just require more room than the standard 4 allowed for).

So I devised a solution to keeping Pandora easy to access & free of the chance of being accidentally closed, thus killing the party mood. I might be the last person to think of this, but I was so, so happy when I did.

World Beer Fest: A raving review

So Saturday, T & I spent a much, much antcipated day doing one of our favorite combined activities: drinking weird beers.

We purchased a pair of evening tickets to the WBF (World Beer Festival) because we were told it was the most fun of the two sessions. Clarification: the early session runs from 12-4 pm, at which time they shut everything down…drag all the stragglers out from under the acorn trees, and wind everything back up for the evening session, which runs from 6-10 pm. But at the very last minute (no, really…like, the night before) with some advice that the later session was a little on the crazy side and with my slowly onsetting anxiety attack over being squeezed into claustrophobic tents at night. In the dark. And I can’t find my husband. & I’ve had alot of beer. – Well…I hopped on Craigslist and offered to trade my tickets. I got a quick response and everything worked beautifully!

And OH MY what a beautiful day to spend out in Moore Square in downtown Raleigh! The sun was shining (although the weather had fore casted rain & thunderstorms all week) and there was a cool breeze and everyone was in such a good mood  – not just T & I! It really felt like the whole crowd was just happy to be there. I don’t think we were the only ones who had been looking forward to WBF.

Beer-Braised Beef & Onions

This recipe is my answer to many issues:
1. I had a chuck roast I impulsively purchased at Whole Foods. I recognized the cut as one that is used in SO many slow-cooker recipes.
2. I dislike potroast. Every time I looked over a recipe that mentioned carrots or turnips or something similarly unpleasing I just had to keep moving. So what ELSE do you do with A POT ROAST, because that is essentially what I purchased.
3. Slow cooker recipes typically cook for 6-8 hours on low…right? Well…I leave my house around 7:00 am – and I don’t get home until 4:30 – so even with the crock-pot turning to it’s “warming” mode with the little timer and everything, that means that whatever poor meal that was trapped in the slowcooker will get 9.5 hours of heat. So…yeah can someone find me a slow cooker recipe that cooks for like 10 or 11 hrs? kthx.

Browsing my iPhone at lunch today I noiced an application for Epicurious (“There’s an app for that”) so I promptly downloaded it & searched “chuck roast”. I eventually happened upon this Beer-Braised Beef & Onions and there is little in this world that I love more than onions. In any shape, fashion, or form. Fried, caramelized, grilled, raw. Love ‘em. Also, it only cooks for 3~ hours…

Click the link I posted in the last paragraph for the recipe in it’s full form. Below is what I made (substitutions, etc).

Caramalized Black Pepper Chicken

I found this recipe from following @nicoleritchie on Twitter. Crazy, I know…but for this recipe alone I justify my obsession with celebrity & comedian Twitterers. The original recipe (via Food & Wine) calls for using 2 Thai chilis, but I don’t know what those are & I don’t feel like figuring it out & making a special trip to the grocery store.  So I throw a little palmful of red pepper flakes in the mix instead. It also calls for cilantro. Which I hate. So it’s not in there.

Other than the obscure chilis, I have everything on hand. I realize that ginger is not something that everyone keeps on hand, but both T & I enjoy the flavor so much that I’ve taken to purchasing a nice hand or two of ginger when I find a good deal on it, then in one big event, I peel it all and cut it into “coins”, then put it in some tupperware and freeze it. Alton Brown suggested this as a method of storing ginger and it’s worked so well for me. Note: when you toss the tupperware in the freezer, try to remember to reach in there and give it a serious shake every 30 minutes or so until it really hardens up…otherwise you’ll end up with a giant fozen solid piece of ginger in the shape of your tupperware.

The longer you cook the chicken/sauce the thicker it will become – eventually turning into a sort of syrup – which I adore. It’s all very sticky and tangy and sweet and salty. Delicious.

Employed again!

I never thought that after a month of unemployment I’d turn around and get a great opportunity to work in an industry that I’ve always admired. But it’s true. Due to my constant complaining about applying for jobs and unemployment, an anonymous Tweet-er spoke up and offered to scan the job availabilities in his firm. I applied, I interviewed…and just like it happened two years ago when I was fresh out of college – the first job I applied to I got. Amazing.

So now I’m working again. 8 until 4, Monday through Friday… giving me JUST enough time to hit up any shopping (grocery or otherwise) and get home to see T come in from work. Many more options come along with leaving work at 4:00 pm – namely, the option of missing all of the traffic coming out of RTP at 5:00. That is so nice to not experience.

For instance, though…I picked up a nice little chuck roast from Whole Foods last night and so tonight for dinner we’re having the Caramalized Blackened Chicken, and I’m doing a potroast for tomorrow night! MAN I feel like a multitasker!

Now I just need to figure out how to post my recipes separately. WordPress: how do I do this? I guess I’m expected to just flood my blog with posts of seperate recipes, and then link back to them when they’re relevant? I guess that works. Somehow I felt that if I wasn’t posting just one recipe in a post…I wouldn’t get sued by the originator of the recipe…I guess we’ll have to wait and see…and possibly call our lawyer. Either way, I was getting tired of trying to reference my own records and having to wade through 3 or 4 posts to figure out which one held the recipe I wanted.

Menu Plan – 4/13-4/17

Well, T has returned from his trip to Atlanta, and none too soon. I was starting to rely on Twitter as my only means of communication with the outside world. Well that & my ED-Doctor brother has been spending his “nights” in my guest bedroom while his house is on the market, so when I wake at 8:30 am he comes in and has a bowl of cereal with me and then I work all morning on finding a J-O-B and then when I’m about sick of it and about to leave the house to run some errends, he stumbles out of the room, groggy after his morning of restful sleep in the solarium that is the guest room and I pepper him with questions about his exciting evenings in the ED. I’m sure he loves the pop-quiz as soon as he wakes up. Either way, it’s been nice to have some company!

So obviously I lost track of my weekly meals…two weeks spent eating cereal and trying to eat away the rest of the frozen lunch Lean Cuisine things I used to buy when I had a job in the office (when they’re $1.88/ea at Kroger I buy in BULK). But here I am, back on the job of eating for under $50 a week (thats 3 meals a day, for 2 people).

Menu is as follows:
Monday – Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Scrambled Eggs
Tuesday – Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Sticky Lemon Chicken & Champ
Wednesday – Lemony Ricotta Pasta w/ Basil (+ chicken for my meat-loving husband)
Thursday – Hoisen Pork w/ Asian Cabbage Slaw
Friday – pork leftovers

Keep reading for instructions, ingredient lists, etc..

My trip to Trader Joes :: or :: Why I ran out crying with free flowers

So after all of the hullaballo about Trader Joe’s I really felt like I needed to check it out for myself. It might have helped if I understood the purpose behind Trader Joe’s before I dove in head first – I just thought it was a cool organic-ey, hipsterish supermaket along the lines of Whole Foods; I was wrong.I later learned the TJs schitck is that they are like a cheaper Whole Foods (organic, unusual) but with a pretty reputable house brand.

I was inately uncomfortable being there. Maybe it was because I was there as a spectator. Who goes to the grocery store to just to browse? You browse J Crew, but you usually go to a grocery store with a list and a mission. I needed one or two things, but mostly I was there just to browse. My first impression was something like this “Ooooh those flowers are pretty! Same price as the Harris Teeter though…Hey! Where are…what the…no lemons?”. Exciting, I know.

What do you do when it’s 5:00 am & your day needs to start? AKA the post that turned into a mantra about job hunting.

Oooh this has the potential to be a very busy week for me, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get there. Todd left this morning at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am to catch a flight to Atlanta for work for TWO WEEKS. And guess who dragged her tired, complaining, wrinkled-pillow-face self out of bed to voluntarily take him? That would be me. As I laid there and watched him put shoes on, collect bags, and say good bye, I was suddenly stricken by the fact that if it were me, I’d be sorely disappointed to realize that Todd would rather sleep than drive me and my bags to the airport. So I popped up, pretended to brush my teeth and got some coffee and off we went.

Menu Planning! for 3/30 – 4/3

This week will be a little different, since T will be leaving for Atlanta for business tomorrow, and I’m joining him Friday through Monday (to visit some friends who have graciously opened their home to us!) I’ll probably be subsisting on cereal and stir-fried chicken & veggies all week because I have all of that here and this trip for T means he’ll be eating on the company’s dollar for 2 weeks and, well, in this recession it really just offers an opportunity for us to save some serious money.  BUT I’m going to post here some of my favorite meals to make anyway :)

I had all of these gorgeous recipes picked out to make but they’ll just have to wait! It’s really pretty difficult to cook a “meal” for just one person, unless that one person seriously enjoys leftovers and WOW I am so not that person.

Monday – Chili Rubbed Tilapia & Asparagus … A very flavorful way to cook a very boring fish.
Tuesday –  King Ranch Chicken Casserole
Wednesday – Casserole leftovers (this one’s great the second time around!)
Thursday – Greek Chicken with Tomatoes & Feta … a BEAUTIFUL meal, and yum :)

I’ve included a FULL grocery list this week. I didn’t pare it down for little old me alone. Thus, this weeks grocery list should include everything you need to make 3 cooked meals. I broke it down for easy grocery store manuvering.

Read more below for recipes/instructions/grocery list…