Yum food

I bought a crock pot a few weeks ago and it has literally changed my life.  I still have trouble with Day 4 of leftovers, but -ta da!- apparently you can freeze things and eat them again when you are not sick of them.  Here are two recipes that I have recently enjoyed.  I hope that the publishers of the respective cookbooks understand that this is free advertising for them, and do not prosecute me for providing them to you, free of charge.

Better Homes and Gardens “So Easy Slow Cooker”  Meredith Books 2008

Wild Rice and Chicken Soup

2 ½ cups cooked chicken

2 cups sliced mushrooms

2 medium carrots, coarsely shredded

2 stalks celery, sliced

1 10 ¼ oz. can condensed cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup

1 6-oz package of long grain and wild rice mix

5 cups chicken broth

5 cups water

1. In a 5 to 6 quart slow cooker, combine cooked chicken, mushrooms, carrots, celery, soup, uncooked rice, and contents of rice seasoning packet.  Gradually stir in chicken broth and water.
2. Cover, cook on low-heat setting for 6 to 8 hours or on high-heat setting for 3 to 4 hours

Southern Living Slow-Cooker Cookbook Oxmoor House 2006

Beef Burgundy Stew

6 bacon slices, chopped

2 lbs beef stew meat

1 16-oz pkg frozen pearl onions, thawed

1 8-oz pkg fresh mushrooms, quartered

6 small red potatoes, quartered

2 large carrots, cut in ½-inch pieces

1 14-oz can beef broth

1 cup red wine

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

3 minced garlic cloves

2 tbsp cornstarch

2 tsp cold water

1. Cook bacon in a large skillet over med-high heat until crisp.  Remove bacon, reserving drippings in pan.  Set bacon aside
2. Brown beef, in batches, in reserved bacon drippings until browned on all sides
3. combine reserved bacon, beef, onions, and next 10 ingredients in a 5 quart slow cooker.  Cover and cook on LOW 7 hours or until beef and vegetables are tender.
4. Whisk together cornstarch and water, stir into stew.  Cover and cook on HIGH 1 hour or until slightly thickened.  Makes 9 cups.

1 comment October 15, 2009

i might have to have it amputated

Oh. Dear. Lord.  I have been knitting this Christmas gift for a really long time.  I keep thinking it’s got to end Soon, but the decrease is happening so gradually that my dreams of being finished this weekend are clearly and thoroughly dashed.  I have spent so much time sitting on my arse that it may be broken, and my legs are certainly going to atrophy and eventually require amputation.

We did take time out today and get a Christmas tree.  It’s adorably lopsided (we’ve got the flat side against the wall – it’s perfect) and smells like the holidays and is crammed full of goofy ornaments and OSU paraphanalia.  I’ll post pictures soon. )

2 comments December 15, 2008

In case you missed it:

I finally put my money where my mouth was:

The healing process kind of freaked me out, but it’s fine and cute now.  I was there with the support of my sister, mom, and sister/in/law – Ellie stayed and took the pic, Wen and Mom were waiting across the street eating cheese curds and drinking beers.   All in all a good weekend.

Add a comment November 11, 2008

ooog

Ok, so I had a REALLY bad day yesterday.  The kind of day where I’m called all kinds of names, belittled, threatened and told I should go back to where I came from because I am not wanted there (this is the edited version, obviously).  And all by the same dude!  And, naturally, when I have those kinds of days, I comfort myself with carbohydrates.  Today, I had:

BREAKFAST: Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Latte (with whipped cream AND 2% milk), orange juice, and a pumpkin muffin from Panera (not as good as I remember them being)

LUNCH: As much as I hate to admit it – Hardees Lil’ Thickburger, fries, and a DIET Coke.  It was delicious.

DINNER: Pasta con broccoli, which anywhere else would probably be light and refreshing, but here involves about 3 pieces of broccoli and a major amount of cream sauce.  And garlic bread.  OH, and water.  And two beers post-dinner.

Now that, my friends, is a bad day.  I’m planning on going on a really long run tomorrow to attempt to make up for it, but if I go into a diabetic coma, you can point to the reasons why.  Now I’m going to probably go read about E and SB’s delicious, healthy, and local dinner and shame myself.

2 comments September 21, 2008

Hmmm

SO.  Some changes are afoot, work-speaking.

But first, let me say that there is a father-type (his wife, 10-year-old, and baby are with him) in this coffeehouse and he is wearing a shirt that has a picture of a clown on it.  Ok, you say, goofy but whatever.  There is MORE to the picture, though.  This clown is bent over a toilet.  Throwing up a rainbow.  Can you imagine your dad wearing that?  I love it when hipsters procreate.

Ok, back to business.  I got a new job/promotion.  It’s still with the same system, but a different branch and I will be Manager instead of Assistant Manager.  Yeep!  The branch is smaller and closer to where I live and near a bunch of cool restaurants.  So I’m pretty stoked about the new place, but sort of feel like I failed at my current one.  It’s just so hard to get anything done up there – you can have weeks and weeks of relative calm and then BAM, something shitty happens that is scary and/or sad.  The problems in that area are just so huge that most of the time you just feel like the library’s a candle in the middle of a damn tornado.  I can’t help feeling like I’m giving up, though, which makes me really sad.  I just know I can’t live that emotional rollercoaster forever.

6 comments September 12, 2008

It’s too colllllld

I am seriously done with this winter crap. It’s too cold to run (it’s too painful when it’s under 20 degrees), I’ve been eating mainly butter, sugar, and chocolate based foods since November, and all my hobbies at the moment (knitting and reading, primarily, with some papercrafting thrown in) involve sitting on my big old butt, letting my legs atrophy. Give me some sunlight! Some winds from the equator! SOMETHING to get me out of this bleedin’ house!

Add a comment February 11, 2008

scared straight

I have had one hell of a day.  It actually started last night, with the dog pacing, pacing, pacing, from about 1-2 am because of the thunderstorm.  So I woke up late (I don’t even remember if I set the alarm) but still managed to get out of the house on time and set off on the highway to get to work, which I knew would be busy because we’ve got both the elections and tax preparations going on this morning.  Unfortunately, as I puttered down the highway under more rain, my windshield wipers stopped, mid-wipe.  I should say that this happened before, last month or the month before, maybe, but it wasn’t so much raining then as it was just a dirty windshield, so I didn’t exactly deal with it like I should have.  But, now that it is actually raining, I didn’t have a lot of choice.  I got off the highway and went to call work to tell them I’d be late, only to realize that my phone had been shut off sometime in the last 24 hours because they need my money.   SO, there I am, in a part of town that I’m not totally familiar with, wipers paralyzed and no way to call anybody to tell them anything.  I can’t even just pay the bill over the phone because my account is jenky for some reason and the automated system won’t take my money.

So I get back to an area I know and for some reason my wipers start working again.  But the forecast says rain on and off all day, and I sure as hell don’t want to be driving back from work, in the dark and in the rain, and suddenly they stop again, so I go to a place I’ve taken my car before.  They tell me they don’t have the schematics for my car and suggest I go to a dealership.  The guy was nice, though, and let me use the phone to call my work.  THEN I went to the dealership way far south and sat there for about 3 hours, after being warned that a) if they were currently working they might not be able to figure out what’s wrong, and b) the diagnostic test is bare minimum 100 dollars.  After the 3 hours it turned out they figured out and fixed the problem and charged me the 100 dollars, no more, no less.  It was so frustrating though, sitting there, not able to call my dad for reassurance that I was doing the right thing, so I had to deal with this phone situation, another thing I’ve been pushing to the side.  So now I have a new contract, a new phone, and a new number and hopefully I won’t have to deal with the phone issues for awhile.

By the way, I did not get the job that I was wishing for.  Which is sad.  Apparently I was practically a shoe-in until they interviewed this mysterious outside person who shocked and awed them.  I really just wish that one of the interviewers hadn’t been going around telling people (like my boss’ boss) that she was 98% sure I’d be the one – it got my hopes up way too high.

3 comments February 5, 2008

progress report

i am making some serious progress on the aforementioned goals for the new year!  i am terribly happy with this – even though some of it i can’t take total credit for.

1) health – my knee has been touched by the spirits and has made miraculous leaps towards recovery.  i ran twice this week and there were only some residual twinges!  i am still easing back into a full running workout, but for the moment i am going to postpone my trip to the orthopedic doctor.   i have also just returned from the optometrist, which in total was more money than i had really thought about spending but i will soon have some cute reading glasses that will hopefully make me look studious and adorable.  oh, and help me see better.

2) i have been on the phone with and left messages for like, a few people and have even made myself a spreadsheet to chart my monthly progress.  wahoo!

3) i have now had two interviews for the great job – i still don’t know what my chances are but i’m putting myself out there.  so go me.

1 comment January 19, 2008

New Year, New Stuff

Time for a list of things to do and be for the coming year:

HEALTHY:  This means going to the doctors I’ve been putting off like a) an optometrist, because I’m fairly certain I should be wearing glasses at least some of the time, b) a dentist, because I probably don’t need to be wearing these retainers that I’ve had in there since I got my braces off, and c) an orthopedic guy, because ever since the 1/2 marathon my knee has been jacked up whenever I run, which has resulted in me being lazy and my butt increasing in circumference.  I’ve been putting off these things because I don’t know how much they’re going to cost, but it’s time to suck it up and deal with them.

A BETTER FRIEND: To my family and friends, because I completely suck at phone calls.  I’m just bad.  And I want to be better, because there’s people out there that I love and miss, and they may have no idea because I don’t call and tell them that.

CRAZY ABOUT MY JOB: I put in for a different position at work, one in collection development that I think would be so rad.  I told my boss I was going to bid on the job, and she wished me well and said “well, you’ve lasted longer than most white folks here.”  Which kind of made me feel like crap, like I’ve gone and lived up to her low expectations.  But it’s not about leaving where I am, it’s about doing something I actually want to be doing, and I’m really very sure I don’t want to be a manager.  I can’t take the constant vigilance that it requires – you relax for one second and the punks start to think they can take over again.

So those are some pretty big goals.  Wish me luck.

2 comments January 2, 2008

anybody going wassailing?

Ahhh.  It’s practically a new year, so I’m kicking the year off right by using capital letters today.  We had a really really nice time up in Illinois for Christmas (where I got to play with a new kitty and didn’t sneeze my face off) and now there’s another long weekend ahead to be filled with movies (today’s going to be Walk Hard, tomorrow perhaps Juno), knitting, and playing with my new toy:

That’s right, I have joined the hip (thanks to an insanely generous parental unit).  I even subscribed to several NPR podcasts.  It is verrrrrry fun.  As for knitting, I got a great book from the Benj that has a bunch of projects I want to do, starting with the cupcakes.  It’s called

and it’s all kinds of pretty.

Add a comment December 29, 2007