Beef: It's What's For Dinner...

at least for the foreseeable future...

Tonight I continued on my 2008 goal of cooking and eating real meals twice a week.  I haven't done that well in the in-between times - let's just say there have been a lot of Girl Scout cookies, nuts and pretzels involved - but when I have made dinner, it's been yummy and healthy :).

Last night and today I defrosted 2 containers of London broil I had bought apparently in September (judging from the date on the package).  Some meat-safety sticklers would probably say that's too old, but I've never been a meat-safety stickler.  That may come back to bite me someday, but until then I'll keep eating 4-month-old meat from my freezer :).

Anyway, I figured I should defrost both containers while I was at it since they were pretty old, so beef will be the theme of many meals to come.  Luckily, I got all Robin Miller-esque and came up with 3 different recipes to make with said meat for some variety, since that's the point of my cooking goal.  (Robin Miller has a show on Food Network where she makes food for a week and she always reuses leftovers to turn into a different meal for the next night, etc.)

I prepped the meat for all 3 recipes and just made 1 dish for dinner tonight.  Using my food scale and my wonderful santoku knife, I weighed and cut 1 lb of meat into thin slices for Mongolian beef, 1.5 lbs into thicker slices for barbecued round steak, and cubed the rest for beef stroganoff.  

In making the stroganoff and prepping the sauces/marinades for the other 2, I used up 

> the rest of some about-to-expire sour cream

> part of an onion in the fridge leftover from my quesadillas

> the end of a bottle of soy sauce

> almost all the rest of my Worcestershire sauce

> and a half container of cherry tomatoes that were starting to get wrinkly

The tomatoes actually went in some tomato basil soup I made for quick weekday lunches - using my new immersion blender from Christmas - so fun!  I love using my kitchen gadgets and using ingredients up right before they go bad :).

Anyway, I decided to have the beef stroganoff tonight, and it is really really easy actually.  Just brown the meat with some onions, simmer that with beef broth, ketchup and garlic, and then add in flour/broth roux and sour cream at the end.  Here it is cooking in the pan:

And the complete meal: with whole wheat elbow macaroni and steamed green beans (also a use-up ingredient almost past their prime).  We always had egg noodles with stroganoff growing up, but this is what I had and I really liked the combo.  Plus it's a lot more nutritious.

And the chef, in the kitchen after all the dishes were done:

Now I not only have leftover stroganoff, but I also have:

> 4 servings of tomato soup

> Bread in the freezer and pepper jack/provolone cheeses in the fridge for grilled cheese

> The sauce mixed up and the meat & onions already browned for barbecued round steak

> And the marinade mixed up and meat sliced for Mongolian beef

Ah, I love feeling domestic and making things easier for myself for the coming week!

NOT Snowed In :(

I so wanted to get snowed in this weekend on Lookout Mountain. Not a snowflake was to be seen, however. So here I am at work...blogging.

Despite the lack of snow, I had a great time visiting Wade over the long MLK weekend. I made the sudden decision Friday around lunchtime to drive up that night instead of Saturday like I had planned. I didn't want to get caught driving in the massive winter storm that was supposedly coming through early Saturday morning and all day Saturday. So I dropped Paisley off at the Tapps' (I love that they love her so much and want to keep her every time I go out of town!) and got on the road about 4:30. I think I'm actually getting a little used to the 6-hour drive, crazy as that is. It's broken up in about 2-hour segments - to Greenville, then to Atlanta, then to Chattanooga. The only thing I hate is driving at night when I feel like every set of headlights behind me is super bright and bearing down on me to go faster. It's probably just my imagination.

Saturday morning, Wade had to leave for an away game at 11:00, so we had a little breakfast and that's about it. Then he was gone for the rest of the day, so I did random stuff by myself. That was the day I was really hoping to be snowed in, and get all cozy on the couch and watch basketball and eat corn chowder and homemade bread from my mom. But since it was sunny and bone dry outside, I decided to clean the shower in Wade & Jonathan's apartment - just for my own peace of mind - so I went down the mountain to Bi-Lo to get cleaning supplies and scrubbed it up nice and pretty :).

I watched a little Australian Open and saw Federer going to a fifth set against Tipsarevic. He pulled it out 10-8 in the fifth, I found out later. I turned on the Carolina-Maryland game and fell asleep at halftime...then woke up to the announcer saying "and North Carolina has been beaten..." Ugh, go back to sleep. It was too cold to get out from under the blanket - despite Wade sweetly turning on the heat to 60 for me (as opposed to no heat at all, the way they normally live...in a drafty, old apartment with wood floors...on top of a mountain...boys...).

Wade and I went to a beautiful church on Sunday, one of those big stone churches with flagstone walkways and cathedral towers that looks like it should be somewhere in Europe. "The kind of church where you would have a wedding," Wade said. And I smiled :).

Sunday night we went on the first real date we've had the chance to go on in about half of our relationship. Wade took me to Outback, where we destroyed 2 loaves of bread in about a minute and then enjoyed our salmon, steak and asparagus, and our Sydney Sundae to top it all off. We rented the movie Waitress and went back home to watch it. That is a really good movie - weird sense of humor, but really funny. We laughed a lot and both really enjoyed it. It was a great night :).

Monday was a pretty lazy day of sleeping in, chatting in PJs, eating the rest of the corn chowder, etc.

Now, 3.5 weeks til my Valentine's/Wade's b'day visit in mid-February. And I better get back to work!

Goal check

How did I do on my first week of 2008 goals? I would say ok.

I did make dinner 2 nights this week. You saw the quesadillas... I also made honey baked chicken, rice and peas for Jill and me on Saturday night. I finally figured out why my rice has been chewy and gross every time I make it - apparently that particular short-grain brown rice has different cooking instructions than what I remembered mom telling me growing up for regular rice. After I read the instructions on the bag, it was much better for the meal on Saturday.

Wade and I did do devotions two days. Sunday morning's was interrupted temporarily by Paisley jumping over the railing of my 2nd floor balcony! Yes, my dog is a moron sometimes. She was being really whimpery, pacing around my room and frustrating me, so I let her out the door in my room that goes to a little 3x4 foot balcony. She walked in circles a few times (because that's all the space there is out there), and then I saw her squatting down facing the back wall as if she was about to jump. Just as the thought crossed my mind, "she wouldn't jump" - she leaps up and disappears over the wall! I freaked out (as Wade was in the middle of praying) and ran out there. Luckily she had landed on the short piece of roof on the back of the house, and I was able to pull her back over and get her inside. Yikes, close call!

I hung out with lots of good friends this weekend... On Saturday, we gathered at Marcy's apartment to watch Carolina slaughter NC State at basketball. Lindsay and Adam brought baby Caleigh, and other UNC friends came too - Lee and Sara Williams, Michael Beavers, Shaynah Kleber and Greg Lanier. It was so fun to see all of them, and of course all the girls passed Caleigh around, taking turns with the little cutie pie :).

Saturday afternoon I got a surprise visit from my neighbor, Rebecca, who I really like. She and her husband got married this summer and moved in right across from me. He is a first-year resident at CMC, which means she spends a lot of time alone while he's working :(. So she came over to catch up and relieve her boredom, and I was glad she did, as we had a fun chat.

Saturday evening, Jill came over for dinner and catching up, and then we headed over to a birthday party for a guy named Sink. I had only met him once before, but he's a fun guy and good friends with Jill's boyfriend Matt.

I did not quite make the 8 hours of sleep goal. I think I got about 7 hours of sleep about 5 days last week... and I was still tired enough to take naps on Saturday and Sunday. And I didn't do any of the other goals either, but I've got another 350-some days to do those!

Quesadillas

In keeping with my 2008 goals, I made dinner tonight - for just me, with no leftovers.  I've been in a crazy quesadilla-craving mood lately, so I figured I'd just go with it.

Here are the bottom halves of the quesadillas on my NEW griddle from the Tapps.  I love it!  I used a 4-cheese Mexican blend, and quartered some grape tomatoes and chopped up red onion to fill my quesadillas :).

The scene in my kitchen.

The finished meal, complete with spicy rice and carrots.  The spicy rice was not that great.  I used some of the taco seasoning, but the rice was not done or something - it was still chewy.  I think the rice I have is faulty, because it tastes chewy every time I make it, even though all the liquid is absorbed.

The quesadillas were yummy though.  Next time I'll have to have salsa or something to dip them in.

Now I must go to bed to salvage what's left of my sleep.  Blogging more AND cooking AND keeping in touch with friends AND getting 8 hours of sleep is going to be tricky.  But I did get to talk to my old roomie Jess on the phone tonight and catch up - fun :).

8 Goals for 2008

I wouldn't say I'm a huge New Year's resolution person, but I feel a little bit like I'm having a quarter-life crisis right now, so I decided to make some goals for this next year to help me focus. I tried not to make them too broad or too ambitious, so I can concentrate on actually reaching them and doing them well, and not stress myself out over periodic failures in the process. And I tried to include specific numbers, instead of things like "at least xyz" because when I do that I feel like I should always be doing better than I am.

Goal #1 - Cook dinner 2 nights a week. That means a balanced meal - no leftovers - made from scratch at home. I want to gradually get myself out of the habit of making big recipes of something and then eating that one food, heated up in the microwave, for every lunch or dinner for a week. I'm going to make myself hate every food on the planet by doing that!

Goal #2 - Get 8 hours of sleep 5 nights a week. This is going to be really tough, but I have been living on a lack of sleep now for many months, and it affects everything else in my life. This will entail going to bed by 11 on weeknights when I get up in the morning by 7.

Goal #3 - Do devotions with Wade twice a week. We started this at some point this fall, and I think it means a lot to both of us. It fell off during December (exams, holiday parties, sleeping in on vacation, etc.), but it is so important to our spiritual growth, both individually and as a couple. For now we usually each read a Psalm out loud over the phone, and the person who didn't read prays through the Psalm (out loud) that the other one just read, and vice versa. We may change it up at some point, but I would highly recommend this, especially to long-distance couples :).

Goal #4 - Train Paisley to stay on "place" (her bed). When Paisley went through her training at 5-6 months old, the last command to be taught was "place" - in which she should immediately go to her designated place on command and stay there until I release her. This is great for dinner parties (so she's not all up in everyone's food) or other guests coming over, etc. She didn't get as much training with "place" though as she did with sit, stay, etc., because I was tired of drilling her all the time every day by that point.

Goal #5 - Get leather chair & ottoman repaired. This is pretty self-explanatory, but it requires calling the store and/or leather repair place and hauling the furniture wherever it needs to go to be fixed, and paying for it. But I'm tired of having gaping holes with stuffing coming out of both arms of my chair, and covering it with a blanket and not sitting in it!

Goal #6 - Put up curtains in my house. Another self-explanatory goal, but one that requires money and time to search out and put up curtains. I just think it would make things look so much more homey.

Goal #7 - Make dinner for 3-4 families with new babies. Our church has a new baby about every 3 weeks, and I have made a meal for all of one family ever. That is terrible, considering I would describe my spiritual gift as being behind-the-scenes, cooking and hospitality-type things. I also have a zillion friends having babies too, so I think one meal every 3-4 months should be doable.

Goal #8 - Keep in touch with good friends and hang out once or twice a month. This is the most nebulous goal, but I really want to be committed to staying involved in friends' lives - friends who have been with me through some of the best and worst times in my life, and have prayed with me, laughed with me, held me accountable, challenged me, and loved me. There are tons of people who fit those descriptions to some extent, but I have in mind 8 in particular (how fitting - 8 for 2008). Some of them live in different cities, so it'll be tougher to get together, but I want to make it a priority. But Jess, Susie, Marcy, Lindsay Dyer, Lindsay Hecht, Libba, Jill and Hillary - you guys are the best and I want to make sure you hear that from me often :). Bonus is my CG girls from church, but I know I'll hang out with them, so they don't count for the goal.

So there you have it...my 8 goals for 2008. Hopefully they'll provide some fodder for blogging too - from what I made for dinner (pictures and recipes included), to what I'm learning from God, to fun times with friends.

Blog O'Dogs

I love the recent fad of combining words or names to show their status as a couple. Brangelina, Gyllenspoon, Vaughniston... It's ironic, actually, considering my distaste for alternate spellings. But I think the word combination craft intrigues my obsession with grammar, spelling and language, because you have to join words at points that make sense with traditional language conventions and make sure letters or sounds are paired with other letters and sounds that follow standard English protocol.

I got to thinking (way too much) this morning about labradoodles - the dog breed that's a cross between labrador retrievers and standard poodles. Wade's sister has one, which I met over Christmas, and my cousins also have one, which my parents met on New Year's. Mom was describing my cousins' dog to me, saying it was like a big mop of huge curly hair, which I thought was interesting because Angie's dog has relatively short hair, though still curly. Mom said that labradoodles can vary widely in looks, because they can be bred in a number of ways.

So I thought of even more names to capture the exact breed of dog, depending on the parents. There's the puppy of a lab and a poodle - your basic labradoodle. If you breed that labradoodle with another lab, you get a labradordle (more lab than poodle). If you breed the labradoodle with another poodle, you get a labroodle or maybe a poobradoodle (more poodle than lab).

If you bred a golden retriever and a collie, you'd end up with a litter of gollies. A Scottish terrier and a Great Dane? Painful as that would be, you would get a Great Scott!

Which other combinations can you think of?

Christmas Break

I apologize that I'm about to combine a couple weeks and various unrelated activities in one post, but I've barely been to my house recently, so I'm just now getting the chance to upload Christmas pics, etc!

On Christmas Eve morning, we started an excellent new tradition of having a little Carolina reunion breakfast. Lindsay and Adam brought the newest little Tar Heel, Caleigh, and Jess and Marcy came, along with Wade (the adopted Tar Heel - right baby?). It was great to see everybody and Caleigh gave me baby fever - aaaah! Here are the girls, on the bench outside Original Pancake House.

Wade and Paisley had a little daddy-doggy time on the floor Christmas morning. Awww...

And here is Mr. Handsome himself, showing off the shirt and tie I gave him for Christmas.

And over at the Johns household, all the "kids" scrunched onto the couch for a picture with our stockings :). From this angle, Hillary looks super small and Wade looks super tall...not that that's entirely an optical illusion!

A goofy family shot of Wade, me and Paisley :). I love how his chin is pushing into her eye - haha!

The weekend after Christmas, we headed down to Atlanta to visit the Wrights and go to the Chick-fil-a Bowl on New Year's Eve. Here's the Tapp fam - maybe next year's Christmas card :) - before heading to the game.

Wade and I got to sit in a box above the Clemson end zone. Cushy seats, private bathrooms, a cash bar and free snacks - not a bad way to watch a bowl game on New Year's Eve! We also bought foot-long hot dogs for dinner. Wade got onions and mustard, and I got peppers and ketchup - we're just different like that ;-). The rest of the fam didn't make out so bad either... they sat on the 4th row, about the 47 yard line.

It turned out to be a really exciting game, with Auburn winning at the last second in overtime. War Eagle and Happy New Year!