Domesticity And The Hulk

I did an amazing amount of cooking yesterday. HUBS and I needed something we could eat for dinner, plus we'd run out of bread so I could make sandwiches for him to take to work and there weren't any interesting sweets in the house. So, at around noon, I just decided to make everything.

The bread was first. I'd been wanting to try making Irish Soda Bread for some time, and since we currently had no bread and no extra cash to buy a loaf, this was the perfect opportunity. One big round mass of bread cut in half makes two loaves perfect for sandwich slices. It's also good warmed up and dipped in my mix of olive oil/cracked pepper/balsamic vinegar/grated Parmesan.

After the bread success, I decided to start on dinner by cooking a small pot of red beans. I have never done the whole soak-beans-overnight-first thing because my mom never did it. You sift through the dried beans to get the crappy ones and any rocks out, set it to boil and leave it for hours. Adding water so they never dry out or burn. Does it take a while? Yeah, I think this pot took roughly six and a half hours. But, if you're like me, you've got plenty of other things to do with that time.

Then I jumped into cleaning lettuce. What's that you say? Why am I cleaning lettuce? Because...It's from my garden! I grew that awesome butter lettuce you see and I'd cut some of it last Friday and needed to get cleaning so it wouldn't wilt to death in my fridge.

Can I share a secret with you? I got tired of washing lettuce long before I finished the gig. Also? There's still a shit-ton of lettuce in the garden. I'm afraid we won't be able to eat it all before it starts to bolt and turns bitter. I don't want the only real crop I have to go to waste! And even if we do eat it all, eventually it will turn cold and I'll have to buy lettuce again. Blah! Unnecessary fears!

My lettuce work turned into a scone making adventure. Back when I was living with my mom I made scones all the time that used yogurt. We don't have any yogurt and I wouldn't have felt like tracking down that recipe anyway, so I used one from Ms. Martha instead. I used half whole wheat flour and added the zest from one lemon to the mix. They turned out superbly and are already on their way to being all ate up.

Then I started on the sofrito. This was another thing I'd been meaning to make for months but hadn't. Since I was trying to think of something different for dinner, this was as good a time as any to jump in. The recipe didn't call for any seasoning other than cilantro (I used dried), so I added some salt and some hot madras curry powder. That did the trick, and you can use sofrito on just about anything.

While the sofrito cooked I watered the garden and pulled some weeds. HUBS came home after I finished my shower and I made noodles while he cleaned the litter boxes. We ate and I felt tired but good. I'd put in an honest day's work and got a lot out of it. Then, it happened.

I was putting the food away so I could go to bed and watch Craig in Scotland. I had a good two cups of sofrito left after using some for dinner. I put the lid on it and was about to walk it over to the refrigerator when...the container flew out of my hand, landed on the floor and spilled half of my sofrito.

Friends, there is nothing I hate more than wasted food. Add to that the fact that I'd used almost all of our tomatoes, my only red pepper and a whole onion...I was irate. I became so angry that it would be fair to say I Hulked Out. I threw a roll of paper towels and accidentally hit Tux. I crumpled up a pie pan and a platic storage bowl. I cursed and screamed and acted like a complete fool. And I couldn't quite stop myself.

At least, I felt like I couldn't. My rational mind, which I guess had worked enough for that day, was totally checked out. My immediate thought was That's what I get for working hard. You work hard and you get shit on anyway so why try?

See? Completely screwed up.

What's worse is that I got so angry I made myself sick to the stomach. Plus, I woke up angry today and had a horrible cuss-filled morning because of it. And that bout of glowing ire literally wore me out. I feel fuzzy headed even after a long nap. I've got a dull ache in my brain that a good meal couldn't even take care of, and it's all because of ONE CUP OF SPILLED SOFRITO.

I am nothing if not a teensy bit fucked up.

Again With The Food

An especially good meal. From September.

Summer. Hot. We've been having an early heat wave here in St. Louis, and aside from the fact that this means I've been carrying icy cold water with me whenever I leave the house, this also means the idea of cooking (on the stove, in the oven) makes me sad.

It's got me longing for my good old single days when I could just eat a bowl of cereal and a popsicle and be done for the night. With HUBS around? This will never do.

See, he needs meat. All day, all night; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. If we're not eating sandwiches twice a day (lunch and dinner) this means cooking. On the stove. Or, God help us all, in the oven.

I am tired of cooking everything I cook. Rice. Pasta. Chicken. Pork chops. Steak. Sausage. Beef in its many forms. Vegetables. I just want to stay cool, y'all, but HUBS won't let me!

And don't mention fast food to me. Really. Or HUBS cooking. I'm sick of all the fast and semi-fast food in the city, and HUBS can only cook three things: pasta (blah), burgers (eh) and fries (we're about 75% potato now).

This house holds scores of recipes, it's not the preparation that's stale. It's the food. How, internet, how can I satisfy my meat lover and my desire to not cook during the summer? Advice please! Tell me!

Didn't That Go Too Fast?

Well, I hope everyone had a truly wonderful, restful, celebratory end of 2009/beginning of 2010. What did you do, internet? Here's what HUBS and I have been up to:



As you know I got a job during the second week of December. We went out for sushi the following week to celebrate at Miso, a place in a relatively chi chi area known as Clayton. It was SO. FREAKING. GOOD. Unfortunately, my job ended last Monday. They ran out of work so all the new temps were put on "standby" for whenever they get more work in again. I feel kinda good that I actually got an extra day's pay out of them, though. See, the previous Friday they had told everyone else not to come in Monday, but since I'd worked hard enough to get put in the mail room I didn't hear that announcement and came in. They did need me in the mail room, so I worked a day more than the other temps. The mail room supervisor told me that as soon as they got more stuff in they'd call me. Until then, I've been applying for everything else I can. So, it sucks but I don't feel horrible about it.



Look at that first picture. Those, my friends, are homemade - from absolute scratch - biscuits that I made on Christmas morning. HUBS and I were supposed to leave for the 2 hour trip to his folks that morning, but they postponed the festivities until Saturday because of the insane amount of snow and ice they were getting on Christmas day.

Suddenly our day was leisurely and filled with free time. I was hit with a biscuit craving and we didn't have any of the frozen ones I like, so I got off my ass and made some from scratch. Yay! They got a bit crispy on the bottom on account of me never having made biscuits before and rolling them out a bit too thin, but I did a pretty good job with them. I even used Christmas cookie cutters to make them festive. I'm so damn cool.

I got a lot done between C Eve and C Morning. You can see the fruits of the night before in the second shot. I made dough ornaments for HUBS' parents as our gift to them. I got these fancy cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma to cut them and then used some glitter glue to decorate. I ended up with about 18 ornaments total. And, they really liked the gift.

Here's where things get interesting. The weekend after Christmas our furnace reached its last leg. So, for a week now we've been living in below-normal-temps-for-the-inside-of-a-house conditions. We bit the bullet and bought a new one on New Year's Eve. Luckily we got 6 months same-as-cash financing so we have no payments on it until the end of that period. Before that time's up we'll get a small loan to pay the thing off. Also, since it's way more efficient than our old one we'll get a nice tax credit and save some money on our monthly bill and they're installing it right now. YAY!!!



Also on New Year's Eve, we bought this car right here. Except our red is a deeper, metallic red. I know this seems like an impractical thing to do on only one income, but HUBS' lease was up on his car and he managed to get a brand new, safer, cooler one for only about $20 a month more. Again we bought at just the right time, we got a no payments for three months deal. That's right, you guys, for three months we can use that money to pay off some bills. YESSSS!!!

After picking up the car we went to dinner (less than $10 for both of us; I am silly with coupons!) and a movie (yup, I had coupons for that too). I was even wearing makeup! All day! And I do admit I felt quite spiffy.

I have to say, I'm feeling pretty good and overall productive right now. I've realized that I feel too overwhelmed when I take on projects in big blocks of time. So, I'm doing things more "here and there" now. Instead of look-for-work-look-for-work-look-for-work for hours on end I look for jobs for a bit and then work on a freelance story a bit and then goof off a bit and so on. It's my first day working like this officially, but so far, so good.

Tell me your Christmas and New Year's stories!