Monday Musings: 06.02.2013 Edition June 3, 2013
Posted by Toy Lady in Eating Down the Fridge, Family, Food, meal plan monday, Musings, random stuff.5 comments
Well, I guess we’re starting to get into a new “normal” swing of things – this week was Peeps’s first trip to the Public Market since, well, last Thanksgiving, I think.
This not working thing will certainly have some advantages for him, I’m thinking. Especially when it comes to our market trips!
I may have gone a tad overboard, though – the beet greens looked so gorgeous, and the asparagus has such a short season – and how could I pass up wild garlic? And the pork bellies looked so nice – can one really have too much BACON in the house?
I don’t remember if I mentioned it or not, but this year, I put some fingerling potatoes in the garden. I’ve never grown potatoes before, so I’m kind of excited about it!
And how even more exciting when the little bits of potato started to sprout! Way better here in the garden than, say, in the bottom of the potato basket in the basement. . . don’t you hate it when you reach into that bag of potatoes and find one that looks like some kind of freaky alien?
We started tracking class with Jar this weekend – and what a gorgeous morning it was!
The idea here is for him to actually use his nose and sniff and sniff and actually follow the trail of the person who left it, with, of course, lovely tasty treats planted along the way to let him know that he’s on the right track. (Ha! Get it? TRACK? I slay me!)
However, this was all new for him, and, as it turns out, focused sniffing is tough work for a dog!
After about an hour, old Mr. Sniffy Face was all sniffed out. But still – a good time was had by all – and we’ll be working on it this week and ready to learn even more bright and early next Saturday morning!
The herb garden has certainly been happy with the warm weather and occasional rain, that’s for sure!
The oregano and tarragon are already nearly out of control, the sage and thyme both have blossoms, as do the chives, and the lavender is starting to bud.
And the mint – well, the mint seems to be trying to make a run for it. I don’t know what that’s all about.
Oh, and speaking of herbs – and gardens – (see how I did that?) – the garlic scapes are coming in.
Last fall, we planted several cloves of a hardneck variety of garlic, and this kind of garlic puts out these shoots – I think it’s the plants way of creating seeds (but I’m just guessing there).
Anyway, we diligently watch the garlic plants, and the MINUTE we see the scapes, off they go – we want our plants putting their energy into making big, juicy bulbs of garlic, not flowers, right?
Maybe breakfast one day this week will be scrambled eggs with sauteed garlic scapes. . . after all, nothing says “please go out and play golf and just let me do my work” like garlic for breakfast, does it?
I don’t know, but it almost seems like the kitty misses the dog when he’s outside, doesn’t it?
And once again, it’s time for the weekly menu plan. While she’s recovering, we’re making sure Peeps’s mom is eating properly at least once a day – she’s got stuff in her fridge that she nibbles during the day, but we want to make sure she has a warm, nutritious dinner.
Monday - I realized that I still have a Groupon that expires this week – so instead of the pork chops we’d planned on, I’ll take one for the team and stop for cheesesteaks on my way home from work. (About what I said about a nutritious dinner for Peeps’s mom – cheesesteak has protein, and that’s nutritious, right?)
Tuesday -Since we were right there in the Bon Appetit magazine and all, we thought the Spiced Salmon Kebobs looked fantastic. We’ll grill the asparagus with it and cook some farro - can it get much healthier than that? Plus, I told you, the fresh oregano is just crazy – this’ll use up, oh, at least a couple of sprigs, anyway!
Wednesday - Last week, I added a chuck roast to my mental “get this out of the freezer soon” list – and, since we’re enjoying such seasonably nice weather, we’re going to grind it up and make burgers. Peeps wants to add some of the wild garlic to the meat as he’s grinding it, and we’ve got tossed salad and will stick some small potatoes in foil packets with some olive oil and garlic scapes – did I mention that it’s all garlic all the time around here this week?
Thursday - This month’s Bon Appetit featured a recipe for Spaghetti with Parsley Pesto - but instead of four cups (!) of parsley, we used the greens from the wild garlic for the pesto. It’ll be great. Since we already made the pesto, it’ll be a quick matter of cooking the pasta and tossing it together -just the thing on a Thursday evening when I’ll most likely be working late.
Friday - This week on pizza night, I’m planning to use the handful of wild garlic that I saved from the pesto, which I think will go famously with some of the caramelized onions I’ve got stashed in the freezer. Gosh it’s nice to have this stuff on hand, isn’t it?
Be sure to click on over to The Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan post for loads and loads of other ideas.
Monday Musings: 05.20.2013 Edition May 20, 2013
Posted by Toy Lady in Family, meal plan monday, Musings.10 comments
Boy what a week it’s been!
You’ll recall from last week how Peeps and I were both having mother issues – his mom came through her surgery just fine and is feeling well enough to, well, she’s kind of giving the hospital staff a rough time, so I guess that’s a good sign, right?
My mother had her procedure, too, and, fortunately she didn’t have to be admitted to the hospital, and both my parents spent Friday evening and Saturday morning with us before heading home. And of course, Saturday morning included a trip to the Public Market – I not only got my regular produce and eggs, but I got a flat of cute little violas for this year’s window boxes (Mother helped me pick them out).
I do still have to get a few more plants – some hangy stuff and maybe something a little taller. . . then I’ll get everything properly planted. But for now, aren’t they cute?
The perennial portion of the herb garden is, well, it’s perennial, huh? I did divide the thyme and the oregano a couple of weeks ago, and next year, I may do the same to the tarragon and the sage. Maybe even the lavender.
Meanwhile, the new stuff – dill, basil, rosemary, and a couple more parsleys – are settling in nicely, so I guess we can have plenty of fresh herbs to look forward to this summer.
We came home from visiting Peeps’s mom Saturday evening, and we were TIRED and HUNGRY – it had been a long day (week) and it was well past dinnertime.
As it happens, one of the things I picked up at the market was a package of romaine hearts, and the current issue of Cook’s Country featured a grilled Caesar salad which sounded quite good. While the recipe includes homemade dressing (and, of course, I had to make the mayonnaise before I could make the dressing!) anyway, I’m sure a decent bottled caesar or creamy parmesan dressing would work just fine.
The deal was – you cut the lettuce in half, leaving the core in to hold it together, and then brush the cut side with dressing before slapping it on the grill.
That’s right – grilled lettuce.
Trust me.
AND, since we had some leftover roasted chicken breast, I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to give a couple of slices of that meat the same treatment – brush with dressing and reheat it gently on the grill.
It was the perfect late, light dinner, and, even making the dressing from scratch, it came together in well under half an hour.
I do still plan to get rid of that gosh-awful linoleum tile in the front entry – even though I have no idea what kind of shape the hardwood will be in when I do.
Since it’s such a cruddy job, and my discretionary time seem to be somewhat limited lately, I’ve decided it may work better to just clean up a dozen or so tiles at a time – I have to scrape the tiles off, then remove what appears to be a double-thick layer of some sort of adhesive, then I need to thoroughly clean up the solvent that actually softens the glue.
Someday, the floors will need to be refinished anyway, but for now, I think I much prefer the spotty, paint-spotted, and scratched hardwood to the awful plastic tile or, even worse, that fugly old blue carpet.
And I think Jar agrees.
And once again, it’s time for the weekly menu plan. We still don’t know what the Peeps’s Mom Situation will be, so we’re going to try to keep things as manageable as we can. Although it’s looking to be a spring-like week, it’s also looking like we may see a bit of rain, so . . .
Monday - Between a late day at work, forgetting to pre-prep the meal, and hospital visits, we ended up putting off last week’s falafel, so we’re going to remedy that right away. The falafel mix is made and in the fridge, as is the dough for whole-wheat pitas.
Tuesday - While we were rummaging in the freezer looking for shrimp (which we did NOT find), we did come across one last package of Chinese pork, all cut into cubes and ready for a batch of fried rice. Okay.
Wednesday - And since we’re pre-cooking rice for Tuesday, we’ll do a little extra for some (meatless) veggie burgers we noticed while thumbing through the current Bon Appetit magazine. And again, the dough for honey-whole wheat burger rolls is also made and in the fridge.
Thursday - Seasonally warm weather notwithstanding, while we were digging in the freezer, we found a smoked pork shoulder that Peeps had put aside for his favorite meaty beans – that’ll probably also be another future dinner and several lunches, I’m sure.
Friday - And as always, it’s pizza night. At this point, we don’t know what the head count will be, but I’d imagine that even if Peeps’s mom doesn’t make it over for pizza, she’d probably not mind some delivery!
Be sure to click on over to The Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan post for loads and loads of other ideas.
Shrödinger’s Cookie Sheets April 19, 2013
Posted by Toy Lady in Family, Musings, random stuff.1 comment so far
Ya’ll know about Shrödinger’s Cat, right? Of course you do.
See, here’s the thing.
Remember how, a couple of years back, Peeps’s mom finally decided to sell the old homestead and move north?
And how between Peeps and me, we made multiple trips to Jersey to help her sort and pack and get ready to make the move?
And how finally, more than two years after the closing on the new house, we finally got her in the new house permanently?
She was in that old house a LONG time. And in that time, she’d acquired an awful LOT of stuff.
During the packing and moving process, Mom decided to rent a portable storage container. Not the name-brand ones we see all over the place – some company that had a full-page ad in her local phone book. She spent the better part of her first fall and winter after buying the new house filling that container with miscellaneous and sundry, uh, stuff.
Well, by the next fall, we all agreed that, since she OWNED the two houses, and neither of us was excited about driving back and forth to Jersey all winter, she’d be better off all around if she spent the winter in Rochester, then went back south in the spring to finish the packing job. So she put in the call to the Pod People and directed them to deliver her container to the new house bright and early one fall day, which they did.
Only . . . when they opened the unit, it wasn’t her stuff. They’d sent some random person’s stuff. And her stuff was nowhere to be found.
The company looked – or at least they said they did, but somehow, there was some sort of glitch, and they had NO IDEA where the storage container with her number on it had ended up.
So. It’s six months later, and it’s time to get serious about moving her. She went back “home” to finish packing, and by “finish packing” I mean, well, I’m not really sure what she was doing, but I’m pretty sure that there was very little actual packing involved.
Keeping in mind that this was a very difficult move for her – she was leaving her home of nearly 35 years to move to New York State, of all places. But still – that house wasn’t going to pack itself.
And again, with near-constant encouragement from both Peeps and me, she finally decided to hire a moving company – this time, she went with a company she’d heard of (rather than some random company that advertised in the yellow pages and now no longer has an ad!), and she scheduled a weekend in late October for them to come, pack her house, and move the contents to Rochester, for which event I was the lucky winner of the coin toss. Actually, I had the vacation time available to spend the week, that’s all.
They needed to use a BIG moving truck.
And when they got here, they completely filled the garage with boxes. And the basement. The attic too. And that’s not even counting furniture.
“Yes, yes,” you ask, “but what about the cat guy?”
Well, you see, now that she’s in her own little house, with a nice, roomy kitchen, she’s been hankering to do some baking.
Unfortunately, given her penchant for procrastination, she hasn’t stumbled upon any bakeware yet. In fact, I’m not even sure she’s come across any “kitchen” boxes.
So I proposed my own thought experiment: Shrödinger’s Cookie Sheets.
The baking sheets are either:
- In the erstwhile pod, and thus, lost forever, OR
- In one of the eleventy-thousand boxes still left to unpack, OR
- They never made it to Rochester and the moving guys are enjoying fresh-baked cookies even as we speak.
And there is no way to know – until every one of the boxes has been opened – and, ideally unpacked.
The real question, though, is how badly does she want to bake her cookes?
Monday Musings: 03.25.2013 Edition March 25, 2013
Posted by Toy Lady in Family, meal plan monday, Musings.8 comments
I’m afraid Monday Musings is going to be short and sweet this week – just like the cheese, it’s been a “heluva” week!
Work has been crazy busy – I’ve been working late every single day for the past two or three weeks – it’s hard to keep track anymore. I think it should start settling down now for a few weeks – which is a good thing, too, because I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up! I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.
Sad news this week, too – I received a call from my father, and my grandmother had passed away. This was the grandmother who’d just celebrated her 90th birthday last June – she’d lived a long, full life. She’d been failing for a while, I think, and for the past couple of weeks she was quite ill.
We are grateful, though, that she wasn’t in a lot of pain at the end, and that it was reasonably quick. There is very little more difficult, I think, than watching a loved one suffer and linger.
She was the last of my grandparents left – and the last of The Boy’s great-grandparents. We attended the memorial service together this weekend, and it was very moving.
I did get to the public market this weekend, but again, no photos.
I’m not entirely sure when I last used my camera, or, to be honest, where I left it.
But the market trip was, again, another quickie, mainly a “maintenance” trip – some carrots, potatoes, eggs – mainly staples, you know? I rushed home, unloaded the car, packed the dog into the car, dashed to class, rushed home, unloaded the dog, changed my clothes, and headed back out for the service.
I feel as if I’ve spent the better part of the weekend in the car.
And once again, it’s time for the weekly menu plan. You know, I have to ask myself what I was thinking when Peeps and I planned this menu. I’ve been so tired I could barely think, yet I opted to spend the better part of the day in the kitchen, preparing, well, pretty much everything. But that means minimal work during the week, so there’s that, I guess.
Monday - On our list of “must do before summer” is Cooking Light‘s Slow Cooked Tuscan Pork Roast – it’s really quite simple, and so tasty! And the cool thing I’ve just discovered is that, even if I forget to soak beans (oops!), since I use “fresh” dried beans, I can just dump some hot water on them, and by the time I get home from the supermarket, the beans are fully hydrated and ready to cook!
Tuesday - We had a bunch of roasted butternut squash leftover, and, honestly, I forgot about it in the back of the fridge! So when I noticed it, I decided to get sort of creative – I pureed the squash and used to make a ricotta filling for canneloni – which I made using Cook’s Illustrated‘s technique for manicotti – and also finishing up a box of no-bake lasagna that had been knocking around the cupboard. I shoved the the pasta rolls in the freezer, and Tuesday,we’ll bake them, still frozen, and with a simple bechamel sauce. And maybe some cheese.
Wednesday - Those jerks at Fine Cooking keep sending me recipes, and every now and then, I see one that we MUST make – like this Five-Spice-Glazed Salmon – not only does it look good, we’ve got everything, including wild Alaskan salmon, on hand. I’ll serve it with the green beans I froze last summer and some basmati or jasmine rice.
Thursday -You’ll recall that we roasted a turkey last weekend. Well, whenever we had roast turkey when I was growing up, the final meal from the bird was always a turkey and rice soup. I used the rack, along with the wings and some other bits, to make a quick pressure cooker stock , and then we strained it into the pot with sauteed shallot, and some diced carrots and celery. I’ve always found that rice will swell to absorb any and all liquid, so we’ll add a grain of some sort – possibly barley – when we get ready to serve the soup.
Friday - Although it’s Good Friday, it’s still pizza night! I’ve finally finished the ricotta filling that was in the freezer, so this week, I’m thinking caramelized onions and good olive oil, along with the obligatory mozzarella. Sound like a plan?
Be sure to click on over to The Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan post for loads and loads of other ideas.
Happy Birthday Peeps October 19, 2012
Posted by Toy Lady in Family, Home, random stuff.comments closed
Why yes, this day is the anniversary of Peeps’s birth.
He’s officially back to being two years older than I am.
It’s also his mom’s birthday.
And his mom’s broker’s birthday.
And (you are NOT going to believe this!), my mechanic’s wife’s birthday.
(Boy, I only share my birthday with debt service day – most of the municipal bonds I work on have principal and/or principal and interest payments on June 15. And isn’t that just interesting to everyone?)
So here we are. Peeps’s birthday. Nothing too exiting going on – I ordered him a bunch of stuff that he’s been wanting for curing and smoking. Who says that romance can’t last?
But I’m going to tell you about his REAL gift. Yup – it’s a gift money can’t buy.
If you’ve been around here for a while, you’re aware of the Saga of Peeps’s Mom.
When he left Jersey to come to Rochester, he left his (reasonably) able-bodied mom behind. After all, she was a big girl and had been taking care of herself for, well, longer than I’ve been around, anyway.
However, time does have a way of catching up with people, and Peeps’s mom was not immune. Eventually, we were able to gently persuade her to, first, buy a house in Rochester, then actually move into it.
But she still hasn’t emptied – or unloaded sold the old house. So last spring, the minute the snow melted, Peeps took her back to Jersey to “pack.”
Well, it’s the end of October now, and she’s still not packed.
So.
She’s got packing-and-moving guys coming Monday to, well, pack her house and move it (well, the stuff, anyway).
And she’s got a friend of her neighbor coming to look at the house after it’s empty and to (hopefully) make an offer (a reasonable offer).
And she’s got me driving down there Sunday to help hold her hand and keep her from going too nuts with the closing and selling of her almost-40-year home.
And then we’re driving home. To Rochester.
Yup, happy birthday, Peeps. Here’s your . . . mom.
