making stuff

Was in a bit of a mood to get back on track with making healthy meals last week.

I bought one of those veggie spiralizer things and made some zucchini noodles

sauteed with some olive oil, salt and pepper and garlic powder. It really shrinks down, that was one zucchini, enough for dinner for 2 but no leftovers.

Made a tomato lentil sauce from the oh she glows cookbook to go on top

it was good

That same night I baked lemon chia seed muffins for work snacks and made that delicious toasted coconut almond granola. Doug's been eating it like crazy even tho he "hates nuts".

I've also been working on our 'family yearbook' for 2015 and finally finished it and ordered it. So excited! A nice neat way to keep track of our life together.

And I made another bib, this one for my cousin who's baby shower is on my work weekend (of course). I think it's a fun print because it's so cute, and she actually used to have a pet hedgehog!

This morning Doug and I slept in, I made breakfast

turkey bacon, eggs with gouda, and roasted potatoes, mmmm

A guy came to check the furnace (a - ok), talked to my brother while walking on treadmill, went to work for 1/2 hour to learn about strokes, and now back at home and about to work again on our bedroom trim. Wish us luck!

Annie Homemaker

Today I went up to mom's to learn how to can. Mom had already started without me, but I helped can the rest of a half bushel of tomatoes.

It wasn't "hard", but time consuming, and uses a lot of water!

Oh my gosh mom's garden puts mine to so much shame. This is my first garden and all, but mom has huge tomatoes and the stems are so thick and hearty and mine are just not. Next year maybe I'll try the raised beds, but I just don't have the space mom has (and hard work drive?). Oh well.

She had one basil plant that grew like 4 feet tall and was overflowing with leaves, so we made pesto.

I followed some easy recipe I just googled, it was 1/4 c. toasted almonds (but I did toast mine a little too long :(, 1/2 cup olive oil, 2 cups basil leaves (I think my huge pile was more than that), salt and pepper to taste and a dash nutmeg all whizzed around in the food processor. Easy. I took home half the recipe and plan to have it over hot penne pasta tomorrow with some grilled chicken on top. Yum!

the housewife edition - pressure cooker 101

Writing 'the housewife edition' reminds me that I have yet to post one last honeymoon edition, whoops! Anyway, I received a pressure cooker back in 2010 and I never used it. I had heard nightmares of explosions, even to Liz's own sister, and I've been afraid. So it's been sitting in the cabinet... until yesterday.

I had decided I wanted to start cooking my own dried beans and then keeping them in the freezer. I use a lot of beans and at $0.80/can they are still a cheap protein, but could be cheaper and less cans since there is no recycling in our neighborhood, plus eliminate that whatever bad stuff is in the can linings. So I asked Liz for a lesson and she agreed.

our cookers side-by-side.

So now my first explosion is under my belt...

It started when we noticed the top of my pot never started rattling (indicating pressure was reached) so we kept waiting and waiting. And when I went over to inspect it I noticed the overpressure valve was cockeyed and letting out too much steam, so I went to push it flush, but instead it pushed through in to the pot and then 250* steaming hot bean water came shooting out of that hole like Old Faithful. So I'm standing there yelling "Help! Help!" (another reason I don't want to work in the ER) to Liz, and then running for my camera, while trusty Liz turns off burners and threw something over the hole so it would stop geyesering out stuff. But we were too late.

it was all over the floor

and all over Liz's new cookbook

And later we noticed even in little cabinet crevices and on the ceiling. But, perfectly cooked beans!

So, now I feel a bit more bolstered to try again and to make sure that little valve is flush first next time.

In other housewife news, I made a better-than-last-attempt chicken biriyani last night for dinner

Doug approved.

I'm guessing my days of this

are limited. I had 3 interviews last week and I felt like 2 of them went really well. My old lawyer boss said they called for a reference and he said he gave the 'highest reference possible', that was nice. So hopefully I'll be a working RN soon!

housewifeing

This weekend flew by pretty quickly. Doug had to go into the office for some OT this weekend so I went with him. I sat in a desk nearby watching movies while he worked. The engineer he works under stopped by to check his work and he brought us lunch. It was a nice gesture, but pretty much the worst wendy's burger I have ever had (and I like wendy's burgers!) I think the problem was when Doug asked what I wanted and I said a jr. cheeseburger, no mayonnaise. And I got a cheeseburger with only mayonnaise on it. Haha. Oh well.

Later I made this cranberry sauce I love with the last of the season's cranberries. I wish they were in stock year round!

Saturday night we went to my old work's Christmas party. It was so nice of them to include me and fun to see everyone. Except getting ready for the party was not fun. I felt like I had nothing good to wear, I have lots of dress clothes, but not much cold-weather-nice clothes. And ended up in a dress that somehow got shorter as the night went on feeling like a shorter-fatter-Pretty-Woman wanna be in my dress. Part of that is my black boots are not real leather, under pants they are great, but other times I feel like they just look cheap. I have instated a 'no more fake leather boots' ban on myself ever since a pair of old boots just started peeling away, and have been replacing my cheap crap with more quality pieces as I see it on sale, just haven't found good black dress ones to replace these cheap fakes yet. And then trying to find jewelry also was not fun as I pull out tangled masses of necklaces half of which I don't even like!

So this morning I went through my closet and got rid of a bunch of stuff. And then the same thing with my jewelry box. I read some article a couple years ago that when you're shopping you should ask yourself if it makes you feel like a '10' and if not- don't buy it. Now, sometimes I feel like you need a couple '8s' because I don't need to look like a 10 while I'm just sitting at home or cleaning or whatever, but as I look at my discard pile, none of them were 10s. (Or a couple shirts I did love, just got shorter over the years :( ) and a lot of it was stuff I haven't worn in a long time, because I just don't like how it looks on! So I think that is some pretty good clothes shopping wisdom. I did tell Doug though that I would like to set aside some $ to go and buy a couple classic pieces so that I will have something to go to for that cold-weather-but dressy occasion.

This weekend I also spent some time scrubbing spots off my cabinets, and learned I can't even scrub too hard because the paint was scrubbing off! And Doug and I worked on interview prep questions.

We shopped at Lowes for a little kitchen microwave update project, and some water shut-off project he is going to do. They have the best workers there. The guy in the plumbing section was a retired plumber! And so Doug got to brainstorm and talk with this guy for free. Nice.

I think that was the end of my productivity for the day because I started in on season 5 of Alias while Doug put a new belt on my car. Yay! No more embarrassing squeaks!

Sunday, church (which was awesome), and free tacos. More Alias for me while Doug worked on stuff. My parents came over for a visit. Sometimes I don't like being the oldest child. Earlier in the week my mom sent me an email.. "if we die this weekend, mail the check on the counter..." Geez. They are doing some future nursing home insurance plan which is super expensive and they could (and hopefully will!) just live on healthy for the next 15+ years in the meantime wasting their money. I guess that's what insurance is all about though, a calculated risk. Anyway, I was asking mom why they want to do that and she said she doesn't think any of us would let them live with us!?! Which is crazy, and I reminded her today that Doug and I both said we would be willing to take care of our parents as long as we are able. So anyway. Heavy stuff.

Then for some reason Doug and I watched another scary/thriller movie right before bed. Prisoners with Jackman and Gyllenhall, really good, but better to watch during the daytime! We did not like how Christians were portrayed in the movie, but hopefully people can tell the difference between a real Christian and some crazy fanatic-gone-wrong "Christian".

This little kitty was laying with her head propped right on my foot