Here and there

- Yesterday Mary tripped whilst jumping out of an ivy bed. And skinned her chin on the pavement. And it started bleeding. And J started feeling his first paternal instincts kick in. She's ok, i just can't get over how strange it is that our dog face-planted on the sidewalk.

- When I was getting ready to blow dry my hair yesterday morning, I somehow managed to gouge a strip of skin out of my forehead with my thumbnail. Quite possibly the most randomly attained self-inflicted injury of my life. It looks like I accidently drew on myself with a red pen. Great.

- My car is going to be ready: apparently never. I get daily email updates from the "collision specialist" and I think they're trying to figure out how many times they can tell me the vapor canister doesn't fit before I freak out.

- After finally deciding what to take to Thanksgiving next week at J's folks' house, I did a test run last night of Cheesecake-Filled Pumpkin Cupcakes. I don't even like pumpkin desserts, and holy crap these are amazing. And beautiful! I did follow reviews and omit the crazy frosting recipe and used a simpler cream cheese frosting. I'm taking a bunch of them in to work today to disperse of them, which means I'm going to have to actually speak to people today. And you know how I hate that.

- My mother gets here in 5 days! We have appts at bridal boutiques and meetings with caterer to look forward to! While I am upset my dad isn't coming this time, I'm excited because it means we can just sit around and talk and do the down-time things we gals like to do together.

- My back is getting itchy from my sunburn. Yes, we made it to Florida last week. I haven't quite figured out what to say about our whirlwind trip other than: I have the coolest in-laws in the world and I love Ft. Myers Beach.

- It did become apparent to us though that after more than 2 years together, our dogs don't like to be apart. They may not play together or really pay any attention to each other, but both of them had some issues with not eating and umm, other stuff, while we were away. From now on we're going to use an in-home pet service so we don't have to split up these two knuckleheads. Jamie, interested in some travel? :)

Dinner for 8

Thursday night after I got home from the gym, J and I slowly started to make dinner.  He prepares the food for the grill, I saute the veggies...  In the middle of snapping the end off a green bean, someone knocked on our door.  Amidst the dogs barking their heads off, I peeped through the peephole and saw it was one of our first floor neighbors.  (The neighbor that we weren't entirely sure liked us as much as his roommate).

 

Of course we welcomed him in, the perfect host and hostess that we are (flashback: me, in sweaty gymclothes with a tousled ponytail.  J: I'll just say thank goodness he had pants on).  What happened next is kind of blurry in my memory due to hunger pains and the fact that I'd ceased reading New Moon just long enough to make some green beans.  Neighbor Jeremy, who we'll now call Jer (that's for you, Gib), starts talking about grilling and grills and can we grill and do we have a grill and you get the picture.  It ended up with J telling Jer that yes we have a grill, and it's on, and we're getting ready to throw a few steaks on it now.  Jer says something to the tune of "Do you mind if we grilled some veggies on it?"  He says he's got food downstairs and that they'll bring it up.  I say, "Sure."  I didn't catch his use of plural pronouns.

 

So he left, and J and I were just as confused as we'd been when we opened the door to see a guy who hasn't necessarily expressed his love for us yet.  Five minutes later he and a girl showed up with 2 grocery bags of food, a huge bowl of potato salad, 2 boxes of Boca burgers, and an unopened bottle of Southern Comfort.  Five minutes after that, three of his friends showed up at our door with beer.  Five minutes after that, one last straggler shows up.  Total: 8 people.

 

In what might've seemed like an act of antisocial behavior, J and I sat at our dining room table and ate our dinners while our neighbor and his posse hijacked our balcony.  They were drinking beer, they were laughing, they were not at all acting like this was an odd situation.  Our dining room table is right by one of J's fishtanks so two of NeighborFriends came to look at it.  They're a married couple.  They have African Cichlids too.  The talked with us for quite a while about it.  They also have a new puppy that they rescued.  Ok, we like them.

 

Flash forward two hours.  All 8 of us are standing in our kitchen (which makes me laugh because my old kitchen had a max occupancy of 1.4 people) laughing at one of J's animated stories, as Mary and Leo entertain us all.  Turns out 2 of NeighborFriends work with Jer at the Botanical Gardens and they offer some advise on our budding herb garden on the balcony.  They loved the dogs.  Showered them with love and treats.  And all in all, when it was all said and done we had a lot of fun with them**.  We joked afterwards about why anyone would invite friends over for a cookout if you don't have access to a grill.  Totally random and spontaneous.  And it completely made me appreciate how clean our place was.

 

After all, you just never know when you're going to host someone else's dinner party.

 

**The married couple had a friend in town.  An extremely tall girl, like towered above the rest of us.  At one point when we were all in the kitchen, she bent over and then slowly crumpled to the floor.  It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen...don't think I've ever seen anyone faint before***.  I gave her some water, someone reached into our cabinet and handed her a bowl.  I'm assuming it was her for to puke in, which hello, gross.  She just sat there saying she thought she'd been food poisoned (she ate a veggie burger) and how she then said it was sun poisoning.  It was very odd.  And she didn't even want to leave then either; they stayed another hour.  Her friend's husband said later that "Guess the air's thinner up there."  I said, "Where?  Here on the 3rd floor?" and he goes, "No, when you're 6 foot 7."

 

***Retraction: sophomore year in college J-Gib fainted due to a massive allergic reaction to amoxicillin.  That day took 9 years off my life.

 

YUMMUS!

I'm not afraid to admit that the past week I've been obsessed with one thing: perfecting my hummus recipe.  I think I'm there.

1 can chick peas (I find not calling them garbanzo beans really helps the flavor)

2-3 T. olive oil

1/2 T. sesame oil

2 cloves garlic

5 kalamata olives

juice of 1/2 a lemon

a dash of kalamata olive juice

dash of cumin

dash of red pepper flakes

salt and pepper

Set your blender to pulverize.  Garnish with a few sliced olives on top.  Ohhhh yeahhh.

Our favorite restaurant's hummus was the inspiration; their blend is very smooth, lighter in color and a little "looser" than store-bought and I think that's what we love about it so much.

Lentil Soup for the Soul

This year I have developed an obsession.  And no, it's not my semi-regular reliance on Alka Seltzer Nighttime Cold, it's my obsession with lentil soup.  I probably eat it twice a week at work, the low-fat Progresso variety, and since these are hard times we live in, at $2.39 a pop (hello, inflated Harris Teeter prices!) I figured I could make it for cheaper than 5 bucks.  And guess what?  Homemade is better.  

In case you're interested:

2.5 cups lentils (soaked overnight, or at least 5 hours)

1 can chicken broth (or veggie, to please your veggie friends)

3 cups water

1 carrot, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 cup shredded baby spinach

2 tsp balsamic vinegar 

1 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

salt & pepper

dash of hot sauce

Saute all veggies (minus spinach) for 5 mins.  Add lentils, liquids, seasonings and cover.  Bring to boil and lower to simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.  Use food processor (or in my case my mother's gift for my tonsillectomy this time last year, Magic Bullet) to blend 3-4 cups of soup to thicken.  Add balsamic vinegar and spinach, simmer until spinach wilts.  Serve with shredded parmesan on top.

Delish!  I know a boy who will get home from work at 9:00 tonight who will have a hot bowl of lentil soup waiting for him.

Oh and 35 more things...

As of 11:17PM EST, I've sneezed 35 times today. Given my 7-in-a-row sneezing habit, you can see how this isn't hard to do.

It started out like this: I woke up this morning, tried to wake up the boyfriend to no avail, as he started mumbling incoherent morning babble, so I hopped in the shower. When I got out of the shower, there he was, crazy-haired J (much like this picture from the Poconos) making bacon (we had bacon?) and eggs. This boy knows how to keep his girl happy. Annnnd...chubby.

And the delicious smell of bacon in the morning made me sneeze. And then I sneezed again. And...you know the rest.

Chicken soup for Stacy's soul

Yesterday marked the one-week mark of Justin's cold, and the 2-day mark of my own. That's right, for a whole week I kept the sniffles at bay, but they've since descended on me. We were supposed to go to a birthday dinner on Saturday but there was no way that was happening, so we did what we do best; retreat into hermitville. After renting a movie, we made a comfort food feast that would delight any 80 year old: brussel sprouts and chicken soup. It's my mom's chicken soup recipe that we used to make together before I moved out here, and shouldn't everyone have one of those in their arsenol? If you don't, I'll my mom's with you.

Christmas Confetti Chicken Soup
2 c. cooked chicken
6 c. chicken broth
1 package of frozen spinach (thawed/drained/chopped)
1/2 red pepper finely chopped
1/4 onion finely chopped
1/2 t. nutmeg
3 T. butter
3 T. flour
1/2 c. fat free half and half (optional)
(I cook the chopped chicken in the soup pot and then remove and set to the side). Saute red pepper, onion in butter until soft. Add flour, stir, cook for 3 minutes. Stir in chicken broth and let come to a boil and reduce down for about 10 minutes. Stir in spinach, nutmeg, and chicken. If you want, stir in the half and half at the end. The end result is a lovely pot of greens and reds, hence the name.

It's really good, and easy to make, and it makes enough to feed a small army of sick people. I came home today at noon, ate some soup, drank some theraflu, slipped on my eyemask and fell asleep until 6. Delicious!

What's for dinner?

I've always loved to cook. I like to blame it on my mother's lack of culinary expression as I grew up. I can remember most of my childhood nights eating odd concoctions, usually hamburger meat and a weird combo of gravy mix, tomato sauce, and corn. And now that I'm older, I know that my mom was just a busy lady, with two kids, a job, and a husband with very odd habit of pouring ketchup on just about anything. What's the point in slaving over a delicious curry if he's just going to pour red goop on it? I get it now, Mom.

But even as a kid, I was so inspired that I used to write my own recipes and give them to my mom. If I was feeling extra excited about my new creation, I'd even provide an accompanying illustration, like, "Here, mom, because I wasn't sure you knew how to read, so I drew this picture of a taco sandwich for you." [Note, my mom kept that recipe, because what better way to make your child feel foolish than to wait 20 years and then show them a barely-legible scribbling they made about putting a taco between two piece of bread, and apparently some peas, as visible in the drawing.] One of my favorite treats as a kid was a Dorito sandwich (always fond of the sandwich?), which was white bread, slathered with cream cheese, with a crunchy layer of nacho Doritos inside...mmm...mmm. Cue the slideshoe of me a chunky child, thanks.

Tonight I'll be making a stromboli. Mostly because after yesterday's 4 hour black-out nap after the St. Patty's parade, we woke up absolutely.freaking.starving. and that's all I could think of. So tonight, it's a rolled up log of cheese and veggies and meat. Perhaps I'll take a picture and send it to my mom...for old time's sake.