March 5-8, the messy weekend

My computer is in the shop for repairs, which is why the last entry there is so backdated, and why I haven't posted any food minutae for so many days. I thought that I'd lost that entire post, but thank God for Blogger's autosave feature. I came back today, and there it was where I'd left it. Hurrah! I wish I could hope the same for the contents of my hard drive, but oh well, c'est la vie. At least it was still in warranty and doesn't cost anything to fix but time. Right now I'm using M's old workhorse of a laptop, which is a bit slow, but has a huge screen that is something of a novelty. It's the one we normally use for watching movies. 

There wasn't really much to report on the food front this weekend, except large deviations from the plan. Thursday M had chili for lunch and I had pork, and there was so very much pulled pork left over that we decided to have it again in the evening instead of tuna melts. Five pounds of pork is a lot, seriously. Thursday night, I made shortbread cookies. I loooove shortbread cookies, but they are five dollars for eight cookies, and that's just crazy. Butter was on sale at Aldi's, so this seemed a good week to give it a whirl. With a food processor, making shortbread cookies turns out to be a breeze. Pop in a quarter-cup of sugar and let it spin to fine down a bit, add three-quarters of a cup of flour (My sifter is messed up, so I spun that a bit too), and then chop in a whole stick of butter, pulsing it till it turns into a doughball. Refrigerate for an hour, then divide the ball in eight circles, smash them with a cup, poke them with a fork, and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. They turned out wonderfully. I made two batches, which made sixteen good-sized cookies for basically a dollar's worth of butter and maybe fifty cents worth of flour and sugar. Not bad! Not good for me, but oh well. 

Thursday I also started a new experiment, washing clothes by hand. We've been doing a laundromat trip a month, which is a rather expensive proposition that takes hours out of one single day. What I've been doing is washing 5-10 pieces of clothes at once in the bathtub, rinsing them, then hanging them to dry on a tension rod with a plastic bin underneath it. It's really good exercise, so I don't feel quite as bad about the buttery cookies. If I keep this up, I'll have arms like Michelle Obama in no time! Well, as long as I don't go nuts with the butter, of course. 

Friday I went in to school with M, so a shortbread cookie on the way out the door was all I ate at home all day. Speaking of going crazy with cookies, sheesh! I hung out in the grad student lounge all day and finished another hat, my fourth in two weeks, and got a little much-needed human contact. I also got coffee and even more cookies, as well as a pulled pork sandwich from home for lunch. After M finished his classes, we went to a Friday evening program the UC Wellness Center was putting on. They showed a bunch of 80s cartoons, fed us healthy snacks, and had trivia raffles for fabulous prizes! I fell in love with the amazing taco dip they had there. Full of fresh veggies, guacamole and black beans, it filled a lot of cravings I haven't satisfied lately with the drive for thriftiness. Even better, there was a fresh fruit plate with pineapple, strawberries,  blueberries and muskmelon, all things that are out of our price range when out of season. I'm not ashamed to admit I made a bit of a pig of myself, but since it was lightly attended, there was plenty for all. M and I, being trivia buffs, also did quite well in the trivia raffle. I came home with a giant bouncy ball and a Fraggle Rock DVD, and he scored a set of Matchbox cars and a Barrel of Monkeys. (If you recognize the slap bracelets in the picture, then you know you are from the 80s.) It was a very fun evening, and all free! 

On Saturday, we slept shamelessly late, the last day before springing ahead made us wake up early, and took Pookah in once more to the adoption event at Petsmart. Once again, there were no takers, but she's showing better, without turning her back on anyone who might be the least bit interested. Adoptions have been slow these past few weeks, which worries me. We're going to hit kitten season soon, and fat, loveable five-year-old Pookah is not going to look good against a cage full of adorable, playful kittens. Fingers still crossed! While she was strutting her stuff, we took M to get a haircut. One of his Christmas presents was a card for a dozen haircuts, so he has no excuse to get a real grad-student scruffiness going on. I went over to Kroger and picked up the turkey breast I'd gotten a rain check for. A big six pound breast, originally twelve dollars, now six. That'll be several meals! 

Saturday night, there was a party at one of M's friends' apartment. It's graduate recruitment weekend, so there were new potential grad students who needed to be shown that the department is cool and fun and has parties. (This is in fact true, if you count very nerdy fun, which I do.) For the party, I bought a box of generic Ritz crackers (they actually taste very good) and made a cheese ball from one of the mixes M's mom sent us. A pack of cream cheese, half a stick of butter, once again with the food processer, and voila! White chocolate cherry almond cheese ball. We didn't eat supper that night because we went to the party, where we had nachos and veggie tray, cheeseball and potato chips. We did outlay some money, though. Last year when we were graduate candidates, some of the grad students took us to Graeters, a local institution and home of the Best Ice Cream Ever. They paid for our ice cream and told us that if M came to the school, he should pay it forward next year. So, as promised, we took one of the candidates and took him to Graeters, where we introduced him to the wonders of black raspberry chip ice cream. It was ten dollars for the three of us, but it was worth every penny, and fulfilling a verbal contract. 

Today I would've taken a stab at getting back on the plan, but I had leftovers that needed using up first. For lunch, I warmed up the last of last week's split pea soup, which was getting crowded out of the freezer, and paired it up with corn muffins. Corn muffins make soup a real meal, I think. For dinner, I used the last of the pulled pork and my carefully reserved pork liquid to make fried rice. The cold pork water was gross, with an inch of fat on the top of the lid, but when I removed that and microwaved the jellied juice, it was the perfect medium for cooking rice. I didn't have peas to add this week, but I tossed in two eggs, all the rest of the pork and a packet of seasoning mix, and we got a very good meal of pork fried rice. No picture this time, but you've seen it all before. 

Now, though, I have to totally rewrite the plan for the coming week. Not following the plan for three days means that there are perishables that need eating, and meals that need filling. I was supposed to make penne hot dog casserole tonight and send the leftovers to school tomorrow, so that meal needs filled, etc. It's not a big deal, and I'm still glad to have a plan. My mom tells me that she's been inspired enough to start making a plan, and I'm glad. They waste more food than we eat, I think! Besides, between working out with the Wii and washing clothes today, I'm ready to sit down and let my aching muscles and blistered foot relax. 

March 2 and 3, new recipes

I'm rolling two days together here, which may become my new pattern. My six-month-old laptop has decided that working is bourgeoisie, and instead it will turn itself off at random intervals to keep me on my toes. So it's going back to Compaq Heaven to get a new set of fans and probably a complimentary hard drive wiping, while I make do with M's old five year old Gateway laptop, which is a fricking workhorse for all it has no battery. This is sad, because while I'm using the Gateway, we will have nothing to watch our Netflix on. We may have to finally dig up the actual discs we got about four months ago and send them back to continue on with our queue. At least those we can play on the actual television. 

Anyway, in the food department, yesterday was a day for an exciting new recipe, tomato soup lasagna bake. I found it on the label of the tomato soup can. Basically you brown and drain a pound of ground beef (I used turkey) and a diced up onion. Shake in a teaspoon of dried oregano, and if you're addicted to italian seasoning like me, throw some of that in. Over that you glop on a carton of ricotta cheese as evenly as you can. I was going to sub in cottage cheese, but was tickled pink to find ricotta on sale at Aldi's this week. It makes a difference! Over the cheese you put four cups of uncooked rigatoni, and then over that you pour two cans of tomato soup mixed with one cup of water. Squish it all down so it's all wet, then simmer it in the pan for 15 minutes, till the pasta is cooked, and then toss on a cup of grated mozzarella. 

I didn't take a picture, mainly because I was starving and worried that the burger bottom was going to burn even more than it already had if I didn't get it served up right away. If I make this recipe again, I will definitely half-cook the noodles ahead of time, because they simply took too long. By the time they were done, my ground turkey had burned black on the bottom. Other than that, though, it was a really good recipe. It wasn't hard, it didn't take a lot of attention, and the flavor was great. Excellent way to use two of my dozen free soups. There were plenty of leftovers for lunch today. 

For supper this evening, I wanted to give M a treat. A new favorite dish he's discovered since we moved to this area is Cincinnati chili, an odd dish that really isn't much like chili at all at least not to me. It's really hard to describe, watery and sweet beanless chili that's served over spaghetti. If you've ever had three-, four-, or five-way chili at a restaurant, you've probably had it. I'm not terribly fond of it, but it's okay. It's very expensive to buy at a fast food joint around here, five or six bucks for a one-person serving. This week at Meijer, though, they had seasoning packets on sale, and all they required was water, tomato paste, and ground meat. Score! I cooked up the chili for more than an hour in my six-quart pot, then boiled up some spaghetti noodles, then served it garnished liberally with low-fat cheddar and oyster crackers, very traditional. 

It turned out really well. I actually liked my homemade stuff better than the stuff from Skyline or Gold Star Chili, partially because it was less greasy and partially because the whole pot cost about 5 bucks. M was also a big fan. He had seconds, and there was plenty to pack up for his lunch tomorrow. There might even be two days of leftovers for him in there, since I think I'll stick to the turkey sandwich plan and leave the chili to someone who can really appreciate it. 

I've also been making granola this week. I got all the ingredients together and made a batch last night, which turned out delicious. I didn't put in sesame seeds, subbed in pecans for almonds and peanuts, and only used craisins for fruits, but it was snacking genius. I tried to make another batch today, while the chili was simmering, but M came home and I got distracted and left it in the oven way too long. It's not bad, a little carmelized, a little carbonized, but edible. I love making granola because it's the only way I can afford it, and it makes me feel handy and clever. 

I've been reading lately about container gardening online. We've got this nice patio here, and it gets good sun during parts of the day, so I think it could work. I need to get some containers and some dirt, but after that, smooth sailing, right? I'm thinking I could maybe decorate the outside of a plastic storage tub and plant into there, plus I have a kitty litter bucket and an empty hanging basket for tomatoes. A garden like that wouldn't have a big yield, but I think it would be satisfying to watch growing. And being able to grow some of my own herbs, garlic and green onion would be very handy, since I'm always running out.