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January 31, 2006

Are we there yet?

Matt, Matt, Matt. Not to be confused with Mat, Mat, Mat -- that will be on Friday :) Some people give off pheremones that make people attracted to them. Some people give off pheremones that make people want to stay away from them. Matt? Well, Matt gives off Eau du Flakey. He has a handle on things (or at least a grasp), but his presentation of it is just a little too laid back, and a little scant on details, and this causes suspicious people like me to wonder what's going on.

So, Matt's moving saga caused much cranky in me yesterday because I despise waiting around to do things. I like to know exactly when things will begin so that I am not in the tension/spring mode forever. This is the reason why I hated being on call -- I could deal with something when it broke, but not knowing when it would break or if it would break was just maddening. To Matt's credit, Murphy's law was biting him in the ass all day yesterday, between paperwork, and craptacular U-Haul service (shocking, I know), and his cell phone dying at the most inopportune time.

Long story short, don't use the uhaul.com "nearest location" feature to reserve your truck. On my advice, Matt did the reservation online, and ended up with one of those not-really-uhaul-just-a-random-storage-place "affiliates". They screwed him out of a truck, and did nothing to fix it. So last night we went to Matt's place in Seattle, loaded up the triangle car, Matt's Mustang and Missy's Mustang and actually got a lot of the moving done last night between 9:30pm and 1:30am :) Between the three cars we only had to make two trips to get the vast majority of stuff moved over to the new place (studio apartment to house).

Today, Matt's going to pick up the truck in the afternoon and we'll load in the big stuff tonight, which is basically just his bed and couch and bbq grill, and off to the new house for some nice dinner, which I shall be preparing. Cooking makes me happy.

Posted by jodikins at 9:08 AM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2006

Plugging along

Minor crisis this morning when I still couldn't find my barbell that I couldn't find last night. It finally turned up in the pocket that I checked 20 times before. Woo. And to think, for the first year and a half, I couldn't even unscrew the barbell myself! Now it's out more often than it's in.

Cooking update from yesterday. Grandma's pound cake sucked ass for some reason. I think I miscounted the sugar measuring and wound up with 1/2 cup less sugar in it. The result is a pretty dry cake. I frozen half of it for fondue for valentine's day. I figure that will stand up well to a sweet chocolate dunk. The rest I'm going to repurpose in some way -- maybe a trifle with the frozen strawberries lurking in the freezer.

Enough about the pound cake... onto yesterday's triumph: Oven roasted pulled pork. I finally got this one right. The night before, I threw in a 4 pound pork roast into an oven bag that had been floured. I dumped in the remaining bag of my Texacan Rib Rub (which I'm not going to be able to find again, and I'll have to recreate), which was about 2 ounces, and a teaspoon of liquid smoke. Tied up the bag and shoved it in the fridge overnight.

When I got up with the dog yesterday around 8am, I took the bag out, put it in my shallow roasting pan, pierced the top, and threw it in a still preheating 250 degree oven. I checked it around 1pm by squeezing a bit on the roast -- there wasn't any give, so it wasn't quite done yet. At 2:30 I took it out of the oven and let it sit until no longer scalding (probably about 30 minutes). Then I shredded the meat by hand into a large bowl. First I did big chunks because it was still quite hot. I put in some of the crusted spices -- pulled off any little bits of gelatinous fat and tossed them. When I got down to the end of the roast, I decided to squeeze through the meat a little bit more to mix some of the leaner, more dry pieces in with the darker pieces.

Then I tasted a bit of the meat and found low on flavor. And then a stroke of genius: I dumped in the bag of barbecue spiced roasting juices into the shredded meat. All the meat became just wonderfully moist, but not soggy. The slight smoky flavor came through and the wonderful roasted spices in the background -- heavenly! I finished it off by mixing in about a cup and a quarter of the Tony Roma's Red Hots bbq sauce knock off I made last night. Just enough to flavor the meat, not enough to change colors really. Just amazing stuff.

Posted by jodikins at 7:23 AM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2006

From one grandma to another

Since finally putting my kitchen in (a somewhat haphazard) order, I've been getting back to cooking that makes me happy. For Christmas, I made my grandmother Evelyn's hickory nut cake, and it was wonderful. Last night I made a raspberry custard inspired by her raspberry custard pies and it was yummy.

Today I saw a chowhound post on poundcake, so I called my mom for my other grandmother's southern pound cake. I copied down the recipe and waited until after grocery shopping and dinner tonight to delve into making it. It's not true to the original pound cake recipe -- this one appears to be heavier on sugar, and lighter on fat, but when done well, it's amazing with a nice thick, luscious crust.

Despite not feeling well this morning, I did manage to pull myself together and do some stock up grocery shopping. I snagged the chicken breasts on sale, pork loin roasts on sale and a small hunk of reasonably priced beef to marinate in kalbi sauce. Tonight i'm going to take one of the pork roasts and put a rub on it, sprinkle it with liquid smoke and toss it in an oven bag overnight. Tomorrow morning, I'll toss it in a low oven and let it do it's magic all day. I'll also go through the chicken tonight and bag and freeze it

Posted by jodikins at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2006

Final Thoughts On Willie Green's Organic Farm Winter CSA

Today was the final week of the final session of the Willie Green's Organic Farm Winter CSA, and I have to say I have been less than impressed as the season wore on. The pricing wasn't terrible. For the 12 weeks, I bought 360 credits at roughly 70 cents each. Items were tagged with a cost in credits, apples were 1.5 credits each the whole season, or $1.04 each. A little on the pricey side, but the apples at least were ripe and in good condition. I really can't recommend anything else from the program. The herbs were always half dead (and I do mean half dessicated) and in smaller bunches than you get in the clamshell packs at the grocery store. The salad greens were a bit haphazard -- there were some things in there that were clearly weeds. No, not fancy greens. No, not sprouts. Actual non-edible weeds. The baby lettuce heads were absolutely full of dirt and took forever to wash and clean. Squash rotted on two occasions (something that properly harvested and stored winter squashes should not do, at least not within 48 hours of receiving them), and the one gigantic butternut squash I did manage to get and use before it went bad... was the palest most bland awful butternut I've ever had.

The one week that I decided to use close to 60 credits and really stock up on veggies for the holidays, they fucked up my order and gave me someone else's non-custom box. They eventually delivered some of the stuff that I'd ordered, but it wasn't complete, and the quality was again lacking.

Throughout the course of the season, there were a couple of minor issues with incorrect items, but the big screw up was really a bummer.

All in all, I have to say that I'll be trying Pioneer Organics or even looking to somewhere else for my organic produce needs. Willie Green's is a nice concept, but the quality was poor for the price.

Posted by jodikins at 8:03 PM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2006

Saturday fun

Although I did not nap yesterday, I did crash out around 9:30pm. I slept until 2:30am when I realized that Richard wasn't upstairs yet, so I went to go check on him. He was still working, so we finally came upstairs around 3:30am. He went to sleep, and I tried to go back to sleep, but I'd almost reached my magical 6 hour point for a full night's sleep. So, I played some solitaire and other games on the sidekick, and finally went to sleep for a bit. I ended up getting up around 5:30 though -- went and had some tea. Well. A lot of tea. I've had 3 cups of tea today, as I have rediscovered my love for Mr. Boston's Mint-n-Tea bags. I went back up to sleep at 7:30, slept til 9:30 when Richard got a phone call. It's now 11:45 and I want to go back to sleep again :)

Next weekend we need to help Matt move, this weekend we need to sift through statements and do expense reports for the past 6 months.

In other news, I started this test earlier this morning. I got 18 immediately and then the magical #19 after a few minutes. I got 2 more answers straight up by googling, and 3 more answers I figured out on my own after I got a hint. I'm currently up to 27 including the cheated two and the hinted three.

Update: Final tally on the Mensa Quiz: 22/33 unassisted, 3/33 with a general hint about the test, 5/33 that i'd never get in a million years, and 3/33 that were tough but i could have gotten eventually if i'd not just googled for the answers.

Posted by jodikins at 11:39 AM | Comments (2)

January 19, 2006

Into the ocean.

So, the person who formerly sucked my lifeforce, emailed me today to say that she really missed having me as a friend. Yes, there's a reason for that: I am a good friend. I really sat down and thought about it. The fact is I don't miss her, and there is indeed a reason for that: She is not a good friend. The entire email was about how she's not as mad as she once was at me (gee, thanks), and gosh I've just made such a huge difference in her life, and won't I please start talking to her again.

The email needed to say that she'd done a lot of heavy duty therapy, and that she understands that she was a crappy friend, and apologizing for that. But it didn't. Have I been waiting for that? Nope. Between love and hate, there's a vast sea of indifference. She falls into that ocean.

Posted by jodikins at 10:54 PM | Comments (1)

Quilt In A Day Sucks Ass.

So, Mary from Quilt In A Day finally called me back. She said they checked the warehouse to see if perhaps the package had not been sent, but they couldn't find it there. They didn't have a record of it going out via UPS, so they "assume" it went out via USPS, and they have no tracking on that and presume that it's lost.

Let's review the Quilt In A Day timeline:

12/01/05: Placed order for $68 worth of closeout fabrics -- beautiful blues for a quilt to be named later.

12/14/05: Sent email to customer service asking if the order had shipped yet. Received no response.

12/20/05: Saw that my credit card had been charged for the items on 12/03/05, but still no package. Resent my email from 12/14/05 and said Second Request, Response Required, and threatened to do a charge back if they didn't get back to me with status on the order.

12/22/05: Finally received a response that was vague at best. It said my order had been processed on 12/02/05 and that it "would have gone out 12/5 or 12/6" and that I should be getting it shortly, and to let them know if I didn't.

1/05/06: Sent another email stating the package still had not been received and asked if there was any tracking available for it. Received no response.

1/11/06: Looked on the Quilt In A Day website, and filled out the webform for customer service contact, and said I'd still not received this order and that the customer service experience I'd received had been appalling at best. Please contact me as soon as possible with status. No Response.

1/18/06: I'd had enough, I called the customer service number for them in San Diego, stated my problem, and was told I'd get a call back that day. No call back yesterday.

1/19/06: Finally received a call back stating that they didn't have any records of it shipping and couldn't find the package so they assumed it went out USPS and that it was lost.

So. Delivery Confirmation is all of what, 45 cents? Answering emails takes 15 minutes, tops. Losing a customer for life is priceless though. Congratulations Eleanor!

Posted by jodikins at 9:33 AM | Comments (0)

Things to do today

Call Quilt In a Day AGAIN.
Get form notarized now that the other statement has come out.
Pick up packages from Management office from hell.
Make book list.
Make lunch/dinner.
Pick through beans.

Posted by jodikins at 3:04 AM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2006

Go coinstar

$77.04 after $7 in processing fees. Not bad!

Posted by jodikins at 8:39 PM | Comments (0)

Holy crap

8.5 lbs of coins!

Posted by jodikins at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)

The dry before the storm

The rain streak ended yesterday, but a big storm is supposed to be rolling in today for more rain, woo. Leslie alerted me to the story of the car that mistook Kanishka for a drive thru. That was a little freaky because when we were coming home from lunch yesterday, there was a police car in front of us at the light at Avondale Way to Avondale Road and we saw the lights come on and watched it go back in that direction. My goal today is to gather up the sea of loose change around the house and in the car and hit up coinstar and cash in on that.

Yesterday and Saturday I ended up doing a fair amount of cooking. Saturday night I made this weird chocolate peanut butter butterscotch chip hot fudge cake. It was a nice recipe in that it called for half the sugar of the original hot fudge cake, however I'm not sure how I felt about the butterscotch/peanut butter combo. The pudding on it was nice though -- the peanut butter really thickened it nicely.

Yesterday we picked up my organic box stuff. This week was frozen blueberries and raspberries. I turned some of the blueberries into blueberry muffins. The berries are okay, but under-ripe. Willie Green started out as a good thing, but overall, the quality of their items went downhill fast. I won't do their CSA next year, between the delivery problems and the sometimes really crappy produce.

I also made meatloaf last night with ground turkey breast which came out great. Richard hates meatloaf, so he had lots of mashed potatoes.

Posted by jodikins at 9:46 AM | Comments (0)

January 15, 2006

Tired

Got some sleep last night, not entirely sure how much because I can't remember when we went to bed. Maybe 2am and I slept til 5:30ish. Then til 8 or something. So, I'm still tired, but trying to fight through it. Ended up playing a lot of Halo last night. I still need to work on my close up fighting skills, but a lot of the time my tactical abilities make up for my deficiencies in the up close battles.

Not much else going on. I trimmed my nails back quite a bit last night -- they were starting to drive me nuts when typing, and I thought the dishwashing was going to make them weak enough to start breaking again.

The rainy streak continues, but last night was a little surprising. I went to take Gbic out and noticed that I could see the rain, and that it was coming down in little whitish balls that were bouncing off my jacket :) A little bit of sleet/baby hail last night just to mix things up. It's been relatively dry thusfar this morning, but I'm sure that the 27 day streak is going to hold.

Tonight I'm going to try to make some meatloaf and mashed potatoes and gravy and glazed carrots.

Posted by jodikins at 9:29 AM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2006

More Music

I'm not sure if this will stick, but I did get up around 7:30 this morning and have been up since then. Started a load of laundry, got dressed, walked the dog, and then I sat down to sift through the music I've recently imported. For some reason this led to me searching for old songs I know I don't own. Or didn't own. Man alive I loves me some ITMS. Well, almost love. Until the pigfuckers release Kids In America as a single or even a Kim Wilde album and not a bizarre soundtrack to a movie I've never heard of with an assload of hideous country songs, I can't really call this a pure love.

Posted by jodikins at 9:50 AM | Comments (0)

Lean Cuisine Paninis are Vile

That is all.

Posted by jodikins at 1:49 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

Entertaining Sans Table

Despite having the sleep schedule from hell yesterday (got up at 7, made everything except the bread for the dinner last night, and went to sleep from 11am til 2:30, got up made the bread and the rest of the stuff and cleaned up for dinner at 6:30), the dinner was fairly decent. Not my best work, but since it was Matt's first experience with my cooking, it's not necessarily a bad thing to set the bar a little lower than my absolute wow meals ;)

In futzing with my standard Macaroni Grill knock-off bread, I found a different recipe. I combined that with my tried and true recipe and ended up making something that was very similar to the bread from Giovanni's in Berkeley, CA. AKA Bread of the Gods. So I wrote down all the modifications and I'm going to try to reproduce it at some point when Adam and Leslie can verify it's Giovanni-ness.

Dinner was great -- Matt's very fun and he loves Gbic, which is always a plus. The combination of the heavy carb meal and general lack of sleep made Richard and I actually go to sleep by midnight. But, true to form, at 2:15, Richard got up to use the bathroom, and then I couldn't get back to sleep. I tossed and turned and finally just gave up at 3:30 and came down here to start the dishes, walk the dog, and get the mail that I didn't get yesterday.

Now I'll catch up on some reading and figure out what I'd like to check out at the library. I might have to enlist Leslie's assistance at resetting my fucked up sleep schedule. Costco might be an option, or just general non-nappiness.

Posted by jodikins at 3:51 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2006

Oh yeah yesterday

So, despite still having a disjointed and screwed up sleep schedule, I managed to drag my ass out to hang out with Leslie and help her get her excess Naturewood listed on eBay. We had chinese food, but it's really starting to make me feel crappy when we do that -- maybe we'll try the English place next time! Or the Village Cafe. Hrm, many choices within walking distance.

Anyway, we hung out and Leslie introduced me to the wonder of Jewelry Television. Gem Jars... AND a fanny pack! It was nice not having to deal with people for the most part and not shopping for a change hah!

Went home in the afternoon, and then later, we decided to go do dinner at Las Margaritas. I think I found something that I like there -- the #12, enchilada and chile relleno, though I'd get them with beef next time instead of chicken.

Posted by jodikins at 7:45 AM | Comments (0)

Sort of better sleep schedule

I got about 4 hours of sleep last night, but I've been up since 4:15 and I just can't seem to get back to sleep. So, I got up, made myself a cup of tea, dumped that over ice, and have begun my day.

7:18 am update: Well, I've walked the dog, made koolaid, and have been importing cds and playing yahtzee online to stay awake. In a bit, I'll make breakfast for myself. Later I'll make breakfast for Richard and get his day off to a good start, but right now it's too early to wake him.

7:40am: breakfast made and consumed. Dropped some jelly toast on my floor mat and Gbic dispensed with it. I'm really freaking tired. The good news is that I've imported a dozen cds already this morning. I think each binder holds 40 cds, so I'm well on my way.

7:49am And on the 13th cd, iTunes puked. And seems to keep puking. I'll try a different cd.

8:18am Hrm, maybe these binders hold 80 cds each.

Posted by jodikins at 5:43 AM | Comments (0)

January 9, 2006

Little notes to my husband

Hi Honey,

I think it's cool that you're getting all of your little #idiot friends to come play halo with us. But when you bring in a little chickie friend that you've been mentioning a little too often for my tastes, and just drop into a game with her, it brings out the worst in me :) Thus why when Roger came in later, he said "Goddamn, she's playing the best game of her life!" wrt my score.

The way to handle this in the future is to say "Hey honey, come help me teach this chick from #idiot how to play Halo. You two can team up and play against me." And with two simple sentences, you save yourself the embarrassment of wifey on a rampage hunting down said chickie and killing her unmercilessly as much as humanly, or superhumanly, possible :)

Love and kisses,
Wifey

Posted by jodikins at 9:45 PM | Comments (0)

January 7, 2006

Let the cooking begin!

Last night was fun. Rob got here around 8:30, we hung out for a bit, and then headed to Claim Jumper which overall was not sucky. We got waaaay too much food though, and ended up wanting to die afterwards. It's kind of weird knowing that we used to eat like that on a regular basis. Anyway, we came back here and hung out some more and played with Gbic and passed off one of our old xboxes on Rob so he can join the Halo clan. Rob brought me down some Canadian candy bars (Aero which I love, and Coffee Crisp, which I had not had before but is quite good).

After Rob left, Richard and I played Halo until the wee hours of the night. I took Gbic on an unscheduled long walk since we ran into a couple of real huskies along the way. Got back and decided to prep the chicken thighs the way I do baked rotissiere chicken. I dug out an oven bag and mixed up the spices and threw that over the thighs and popped it in the fridge. I'll bake them later today for several hours and then pull everything off the bone for other recipes.

This morning I've already made creme anglaise, which was actually very simple with the right tools. Laying the bowls out ahead of time (pan for the milk and cooking, bowl for the raw egg yolks, and bowl for the finished product with strainer over it) really helped. Also indispensable is the digital thermometer -- I touched 176, but quickly got it back down to 174 before dumping it through the strainer. As soon as the butter softens, I'll make the Orange cake for my Italian extravaganza.

Chocolate Orange bread so far:

1 c. ground almonds
3/4 c. flour
6 T. potato starch
grated zest of 1 large organic orange
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder

5 egg whites

3/4 c butter
3/4 c superfine sugar
two drops orange oil (1/8th tsp?)

3 egg yolks

1/2 c milk

Waiting to see how this is when cut, but I think I might have removed a little too much structure from the cake to make it light and airy. It collapsed quite a bit when taken out of the oven.

And I sliced the cake through the middle and it seems okay... it's a little dense and not very sweet at all, which will add to the refreshing quality of it. Later I'll make the filling and the ganache topping.

And the end result: meh. The cake had a gummy layer -- the ratio of almond to flour was off some. The filling just was wrong... next time I'd do that with sheet gelatin or tapioca starch. The flour butter confectioners sugar thing just didn't work. Didn't bother with the ganache -- I can save that chocolate for another recipe.

Good to have tried it, though. I think I might repurpose the cake into a trifle. I ended up eating the creme anglaise as pudding :) I wouldn't put the vanilla bean in next time either. The crunch of the tiny vanilla beans was offputting.

Posted by jodikins at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

January 6, 2006

Food chemistry

So, I used to make great chili, with amongst other things, cocoa powder, chocolate and masa harina. It just occured to me why this was so good -- the base lime in the corn flour (masa harina is treated with a slaked lime bath) reacts with the acids in the chili (chile powder, chocolate, and sometimes tomatoes) to smooth things out. This being said, I think I'll have to buy a new bag of masa harina to keep on hand. Hopefully I can find it smaller than 5lbs though :)

Posted by jodikins at 7:59 PM | Comments (0)

Groceries, woo

I figured we've got a fairly busy weekend ahead, so I finalized my list and we went grocery shopping at 12:45am last night. Left the store at 1:45 am, put everything away, made a little food for us, and then played Halo until 3:25am. Whee! Meals this week will include chicken enchiladas, stuffed shells arrabiata, creamed chicken, baked beans and potentially other stuff. I was going to poach the chicken thighs, but I think I might just throw them in an oven bag with an onion and some seasoned salt and roast them real slow.

Tonight Rob will be in town briefly. We shall be introducing him to the joys of Claim Jumper, which overall does not suck :)

Posted by jodikins at 8:53 AM | Comments (0)

January 4, 2006

Fraud, food and friends

I woke up this morning to find that a second one of my credit cards had fraudulent charges on it going back to November. This wasn't a card that I use anymore, so I was surprised to see a statement notification. I checked and saw that I had late fees and finance charges in December. So I went back to the bill before that, and there it was again. Amoco Oil in Brooklyn and another MTA charge, which I know is NYC Transit system. These mirror the charges that were placed on the other credit card. I'm pissed. Both cards have been cancelled, and I have no idea how someone got my information or how deep this will go. I don't think they have enough information to open new credit cards as me, but they certainly had enough to reprogram cards with my information from two accounts. Tomorrow I'm calling my remaining credit cards and getting them pre-emptively cancelled to hopefully put a stop to all of this.

As for food, Richard's friend Matt wanted to do dinner, so we tried Tres Hermanos Restaurant in Kirkland. I think it has been the best of the Mexican restaurants that we've tried here, but I think I'd get something different next time. The salsa was amazing -- they even serve an extra dish of hot veggies and stuff to mix into their normal salsa if you'd like. I'd definitely go back to try more things on their menu. Matt was fun -- we like him, and we're happy that he'll be living closer soon :)

This afternoon I also stopped by Leslie's and dropped off some of the absolutely outstanding baked beans from yesterday. Hopefully she and Adam enjoy them as much as we did -- then we can get together and have a great big bean pot night sometime soon!

Posted by jodikins at 7:43 PM | Comments (0)

January 3, 2006

Beans beans the musical fruit

Well, I got a late start today, but got the beans in the oven at 2pm. They should be ready by 8pm, which is not hideous. An hour into their cooking and I can already smell them -- yummy! The Uncle Ben's chicken recipe last night was a bomb, but I salvaged it by mixing up the sauce beforehand and smelling and tasting and discarding before it ruined the rest of the dish. Ended up improvising a sauce with the grainy dijon, honey, orange juice, hot sauce and seasoned salt. Not terrible.

Minestrone did not get made yesterday, but it's still on the agenda for possibly tomorrow. Tonight I need to finish bills and get them out first thing in the morning. Tomorrow will be more cleaning and laundry, then I'll get down to a final grocery list for the Matt meal this weekend.

Posted by jodikins at 3:14 PM | Comments (0)

January 2, 2006

One more day

Just one more day of potential vacation. It's been nice not having to deal with work things for the past two weeks, but alas, tomorrow morning everyone will be back at work. Later today I'll knock back the kitchen again and do a quick clean of everything downstairs. Rob's coming out this week on business up in Vancouver, so we expect to see him Friday evening. Matt will finally be coming over sometime this weekend as well -- I need to finalize a meal plan there. I'm thinking of doing Stuffed Shells, Rosemary Focaccia, and some broccoli or something in that vein. Not sure what to do for dessert though.

My goals for the week include hanging the pictures finally in the living room and elsewhere. I also desperately need to snag a cd binder and organize the pile of cds and inserts on my desk.

Meals today will be Minestrone soup for lunch for me, grilled ham and swiss sandwich for Richard. For dinner I'll try that Honey Dijon chicken recipe I got out of Cooking Light (an Uncle Ben's ad really). That will use up a bunch of veggies leftover from the New Year's festivities and clear out some space in the fridge. Tonight I'll pick through the navy beans and soak those for Beanpot beans tomorrow. Cornbread and apple pan dowdy will complete the menu there.

Posted by jodikins at 8:10 AM | Comments (0)

January 1, 2006

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2006. There are plenty of resolutions I could have made last night, but let's just all try to be better people this year. Yesterday was nice -- we basically stayed home and I cooked throughout the day. At 11:35 we watched a little bit of Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year. It's great the progress that he's made at rehabilitation after his stroke, but like watching my dad, it kind of made me too emotional to watch him struggling. We turned over to watching New Year at the Needle or something, which was awesome. The fireworks sucked but the show itself was very enjoyable. Richard and I kissed at midnight and finished watching the show... then went to bed like the old people we are.

On the agenda for today: leftovers; pick through beans for baked beans; hope that the organic box that didn't get delivered yesterday, got delivered today; more cleaning; bills.

Yesterday's cooking fest was as follows:

Lunch: Broiled marked down Kalbi flank steak, broiled Cooking Light recipe citrus glazed chicken breast, rice

Snack: Raw veggies and onion dip

Dinner: Awful cocktail meatballs -- the grape jelly/chili sauce kind, made with cornflakes and the marked down ground dark turkey. First of all, the grape jelly/chili sauce was bleh: overly sweet and completely lacking in spices. Second, I really do not like dark meat turkey, but given the outcome of the dish overall, I'm glad I only wasted $1.99 on the meat :)
Pigs in a blanket -- had a tube of crescent rolls I wanted to use up, and used whole Healthy Choice hotdogs. Results? Meh. The lowfat hotdogs got rubbery on the exposed ends, but overall not hideous.
Chips and onion dip: Baked Lays chips and onion dip and baby carrots.

And later on we had some Martinelli's sparkling grape apple juice -- reliving my family's Welch's Sparkling Grape juice tradition. All in all not a bad day.

Posted by jodikins at 9:04 AM | Comments (0)