Making up for Lost Time (or How I Tried Five New Recipes in Less Than a Week!)

I didn't purposely set out to try so many recipes in such a short period of time (#73), but that's what happened.  So here's how it turned out...

Every week I write out a to-do list for that week, so in an effort to remind myself to eat a little healthier, I put "eat fish" on the week before last's list.  I had some ocean perch in the freezer, so I opted to thaw that out.  And my friend has repeatedly talked about a sour cream and onion recipe that she uses for fish on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the actual recipe, so I tried to make it up on my own.  For starters, it took a lot longer to bake than I expected.  So I ended up having a two-part dinner... broccoli and yellow rice to start, fish about 30 minutes later.

Gotta say that I wasn't that impressed.  But that could be due to the type of fish I used or that I didn't have the recipe quite right.  I'll probably give it another chance now that I have the actual recipe, and next time I'll use the same type of fish she uses.

Next up was Nigella Lawson's One-Pan Sage-and-Onion Chicken and Sausage from her cookbook Feast.  It had an average five out of five stars rating on the Food Network site which is pretty amazing.  And I have to admit that I love Nigella... everything of hers that I've ever made has been incredible.  The only problem with this recipe was that it required cutting up a whole chicken.  I have never been able to cut up a chicken.  My mother tried to show me once, but I never seemed to be able to "feel the joints" and "just pop them apart".  Normally I would get around this by buying a chicken that was already cut up, but I decided to grow up and cut up my own chicken.  It felt like that scene in Julie and Julia when Julie gets herself all worked up over boning the duck!  I put it off until about 11:30 at night, but I finally got up the nerve and lo and behold I ended up with ten separate (and only slightly mutilated) pieces!  It went into a marinade of olive oil, onion, worcestershire sauce, sage, English mustard, pepper, and lemon.  I don't generally like lemon and often leave it out or substitute lime, but kept it in this time and I am so glad.  The lemon itself was so sweet that it smelled like fresh lemonade!  After the whole thing sat in the fridge overnight, it went into a pan with some sausages and fresh sage to bake.  It smelled soooo good!  And it tasted great.  I've been eating the leftovers all this week, and it has reheated really well.  The juices are perfect sopped up with a nice piece of bread, too.  Yum!

soaking up all those yummy flavors

getting ready to go in the oven

 

too bad this isn't a scratch-and-sniff blog!


 The same day that I made the chicken and sausages, I also made ricotta cheese which I talked about in a separate post.  The ricotta cheese led to a Rachael Ray recipe for pizza topped with chicken, ricotta, sun-dried tomatoes, broccoli, mozzarella, and fresh basil.  With the exception of keeping track of all the ingredients, it was fairly easy to put together.  I used grilled chicken strips and fresh pizza dough from Trader Joe's and the leftover broccoli from my fish dinner a few nights before. 

The broccoli seemed out of place at first, but the more I ate, the better I liked it.  The whole thing was very filling... one-and-a-half pieces were plenty.  But it reheated great in the toaster oven, and the leftovers tasted even better than fresh out of the oven.  I think this recipe is a keeper, too!

The last recipe was pretty simple and just added fresh dill and chives to the rest of the ricotta.  That made a spread on toasted ciabatta bread which was served with greens in a little dressing (my favorite Trader Joe's Tuscan dressing).  I forgot to take a picture, but it made a nice light lunch.  Very fresh. 

So that's the saga of my week of cooking.  Without even meaning to, I think I've made up for all the months that I skipped last year.  It's gotten me in the mood to cook, though, so who knows what might be next?

Cheese!

Let me start by saying I love cheese.  Cheese is probably my favorite food.  When I was young, and I mean 5 or 6 years old, my favorite present was a gift certificate to Hickory Farms.  I would go taste all the different kinds of cheeses (this was back when there were actualy Hickory Farms stores), and then select little tiny pieces of two or three different kinds.  I could work a five or ten dollar gift certificate!  (but I laugh thinking of what those poor store clerks had to put up with!)

I love cheese.  So this is why, when I ran across a recipe for making your own ricotta cheese, I got very excited.  I can't say that ricotta is a cheese that I have any particular love for, but being able to make any kind of cheese is totally cool.  And that's why I put it on my list (#21). 

Here is the recipe (courtesy of The Barefoot Contessa and Food Network):

Ingredients

• 4 cups whole milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3 tablespoons good white wine vinegar

Directions

• Set a large sieve over a deep bowl. Dampen 2 layers of cheesecloth with water and line the sieve with the cheesecloth.
• Pour the milk and cream into a stainless-steel or enameled pot such as Le Creuset. Stir in the salt. Bring to a full boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat and stir in the vinegar. Allow the mixture to stand for 1 minute until it curdles. It will separate into thick parts (the curds) and milky parts (the whey).
• Pour the mixture into the cheesecloth-lined sieve and allow it to drain into the bowl at room temperature for 20 to 25 minutes, occasionally discarding the liquid that collects in the bowl. The longer you let the mixture drain, the thicker the ricotta. (I tend to like mine on the thicker side, but some prefer it moister.) Transfer the ricotta to a bowl, discarding the cheesecloth and any remaining whey. Use immediately or cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. The ricotta will keep refrigerated for 4 to 5 days.

It was so easy! 

watched milk takes a while to boil

 

curds starting to form

 

letting the whey drain

it's cheese!

I didn't have any kosher salt, and I didn't exactly measure what I used.  It could have used a little more salt in my opinion, but all in all it was good!  Very creamy and very fresh tasting.  I ended up with more than two cups worth, so part of it went on a pizza and part of it got mixed with fresh herbs and became a spread.  Yum!  The whole process was totally fascinating, especially watching the curds start to form as soon as the vinegar was added.  And then seeing the whey drain off and leave something that looked like actual cheese was pretty amazing.  I am definitely doing this again sometime!

Why do things have to be so difficult?

January 5 - changing windshield wipers

This is my picture from last Thursday, which was my day off for working this past weekend.  The weather was gorgeous and after running some errands, I remembered as I was pulling into the garage that I had bought new windshield wipers over a month ago which I kept forgetting about.  I realized that I really needed to take advantage of the nice weather and go ahead and change the wipers before I got to the point of really wretched wipers, freezing rain or snow, and trying to change them with gloves on (which is what I ended up doing last year!).

Now I have been replacing my own windshield wipers since I was in college, but with my swiss cheese memory, I can never remember from time to time exactly how it works.  I did buy the same brand as last time thinking that this should make the process a little easier.  So I started with the passenger side, opened the package, pulled out the little instruction paper and studied the paper and studied my wiper and studied the paper and studied the wiper and studied the paper and studied the wiper.  Flipped the wiper over, held down the little tab, popped the old wiper off, and slid the new wiper on.  Success!  I confidently moved over to the driver side, opened the package, pulled out the new wiper, briefly consulted the little paper, tried to flip the wiper over... and came to a screeching halt.  The wiper wouldn't flip.  I studied the paper, then studied the wiper, then studied the paper, then studied the wiper, tried to flip it again, studied the paper, studied the wiper, looked at the passenger side wiper, studied the package, tried to flip it again (and again and again, because you never know when it might just decide to work!), and collapsed across the hood of my car.

I am not a stupid person.  I pride myself on being able to problem-solve and work out complicated situations.  But the damn wiper wouldn't flip over!!!  I ended up breaking the old wiper apart, so that just the bracket was left attached to the arm and just yanking on it so hard that somehow I must have hit that magic angle and the whole thing slid out.  I was so shocked that I just stood there for a minute, and that's when I noticed that it was facing the wrong direction.  In some bizarre twist of auto mechanics, I had managed to install the bracket upside down last time!  The new one popped right on just like it should (right side up this time) like it was just mocking me.  Stupid windshield wipers.  Bah!  I know that I was out there for more than 45 minutes.  It was ridiculous.  Why do things have to be so difficult?

Pictures

So I officially started my 365-day photo challenge (#37) on December 31st.  It seemed appropriate since that was the one-year mark for starting the whole 101 in 1001 project.  But, obviously, you have not seen any photos on here!  Well, I was trying to figure out how best to archive the photos and make sure that it was easy for anyone who was interested to see them and follow the flow of the days.  I initially started out with Picasa and within an hour or two decided that I hated it.  I also accidentally deleted a bunch of pictures off my blog and had to repost them.  It was not a good time.  Picasa is officially not part of my happy place.

So, I have been searching the web for another site.  This resulted in my opening accounts on several different sites, posting a couple of pictures, deleting the pictures, and cancelling my accounts.  I went back to Picasa and this time noticed that just in the course of the past year, I have already used up 16% of the allotted free storage space!  Well that was a shocker, and I quickly realized that there was no way I could post 365 photos plus all the other photos that I would normally post just as part of the regular blog without completely filling up the space.  And I had already read about someone else's nightmare story where they lost all the photos off their blog because of that exact problem.  I must have my camera set for a high resolution, so most of my photos are kind of large on the memory side.

Finally, this evening, I came across another article that mentioned Wordpress and the fact that they give you 3GB of free storage space (compared the 1GB on Blogger/Picasa -- because, yes, they are tied together, even if you didn't realize it, which I did not).  After giving it a trial run, the uploading process is definitely faster on Wordpress, and it's much easier to add captions.  So the result is that I have created a separate blog on Wordpress to be used strictly for the 365 day photo challenge.  As it stands right now, each post will be titled with the date of the photo and have a brief caption.  Then if I want to tell more of a story about a particular photo, I will post it here and blog about it.  Confused yet?  Welcome to my world!  At any rate, here is the link to my new companion blog...  http://thelist365photos.wordpress.com/.  If anything changes, I'll be sure to let you know!  Oh, and feel free to post comments about the photos on either blog.

The First 365 Days

Exactly one year ago today I started a new adventure with the "101 things to do in 1001 days" project.  I had already spent several weeks (months?) creating my list at the encouragement of one of my very best friends and set up this blog to record my progress.  I was excited and a little nervous going into it... after all, I had put some pretty big tasks on that list.

So, 365 days later, what have I accomplished?  Well, fourteen items have been crossed off, and nineteen others have been started.  I have done things to improve my health, things to improve my relationships with the important people in my lives, and things to just have fun!

What have I learned so far?  Having a list really does help me get things done.  Things that seem scary in my mind are rarely as scary in real life.  I am much more a creature of habit than I ever would have guessed.  It's just as important to schedule and make a point of doing fun new things as it is to schedule and make time for chores.  I cook even less than I thought I did.  And I really am good at procrastinating!  (although I already knew that, but had maybe forgotten exactly how good!)

I do know that I need to make a better effort to review the list regularly, because I could have crossed off a lot more items if I had just remembered that I was supposed to be doing them!  But over a third of the way through, I can definitely say that I am still excited and still a little nervous... there are quite a few major things that still need be crossed off!  636 days and counting...

Food!

I have been failing miserably on the count of trying one new recipe every month (#73).  As a matter of fact, I am realizing exactly how little I cook at all.  It really is appalling!  But a few months ago, I did get a strange craving for a dessert called "peach stuff" we used to eat when I was growing up.  I never knew what the proper name for it was, but in searching the internet for baking instructions, I found out that it is essentially a dump cake.  It could not be easier to make... canned peaches, a yellow cake mix, a little cinnamon, and butter!

It's not particularly attractive, but it is sooo yummy!  The cake mix makes almost a crust on top, so it comes out a little like a cobbler.  Perfect with a glass of cold milk!

For the holiday season, I decided to make "mix" according to my grandmother's recipe.  It's a chex mix, but so much better than any other I've ever had.  It's fairly easy to make, though, except that you have stir it every 15 minutes for the 1 1/2 hours that it bakes.  And it makes two huge roasting pans.  I've never had an oven large enough to fit both pans in at the same time, so I have to bake them separately which doubles the time committment.  The end product is always worth it, though!


It's hard to tell the scale here, but these are the largest foil roasting pans you can buy!



It is the perfect salty, savory snack, and it always makes me think of my grandmother.  She used to give it to everyone for the holidays, usually in Pringles cans that she had covered with foil wrapping paper and topped with a doily.  A very good memory!
Even though I don't cook very often, I am constantly looking at recipes and cutting them out of magazines.  I have a huge stack of them, all organized into categories(!), just waiting to be tried.  Because of that, I had become intrigued with the idea of brussels sprouts.  My initial reaction is still "eww, gross!", but that is mostly based on the mushy bitter sprouts that probably came out of a can or freezer bag back when it seemed like all vegetables were cooked by being boiled to death.  And I have discovered over the years that there are many foods that I thought I hated, but it turned out I just didn't like the particular variety or method of preparation that I had been brought up on.  So when they had cases of brussels sprouts at Trader Joe's last week, I bought a stalk...

Nothing intimidating about that bad boy!  Nope!  So it sat there on the counter for a few days.  When I finally checked the recipes I had pulled out, and I was mostly interested in pan roasting or oven roasting them, I found that I didn't have any of the other ingredients that I needed.  So the next day I talked it over with one of my co-workers who cooks a lot, and she said she had recently gotten into cooking brussels sprouts, and that she usually just tosses them with some olive oil, salt, and rosemary.  Now that I have!  Or so I thought.  I threw out a lot of my spices and herbs when I moved last summer, because many of them were old and I figured this was a good way to refresh my stock.  Unfortunately, it has mostly resulted in my searching for something that I know I have only to find out that I actually don't.  So, I ended up using some garlic-infused olive oil, salt, and thyme, and then they roasted in a 400-degree oven for about 15 minutes.  It could not have been any easier.

The finished product along with some Trader Joe's turkey and dressing

 And to answer the big question...  I am pretty sure that I still don't like brussels sprouts.  They seemed a little dry on the inside, which might be from sitting around for a few days before being cooked.  They were okay, and I will probably try them again sometime, but I don't see these making their way into my regular cooking rotation.  Hey, but at least I tried them, right?  And they do look really pretty!



Getting organized and Keeping clean

Okay, so this isn't on my list, but I do have to brag on myself a little bit.  As you know, I am slowly but surely getting things unpacked, sorted, and decorated around the house.  The only things on the actual list that have to do with this are getting all the boxes unpacked (#80) and decorating my bedroom (#16), but it really does carry over to all the other rooms too.

At any rate, I recently got my office/library room all organized, and I am sooo pleased with how it turned out!  I can't say that it's 100% finished, because I haven't hung any pictures and I have two bags of random papers to sort through, but on the whole, it's done.  There are two bedrooms on the main floor; one is the guest room, and then this one has my computer, papers, and the majority of my books.  I wasn't happy with the original furniture arrangement, so I did my best Winnie the Pooh imitation and sat and thought and thought and thought, and came up with this:


View in from the hall -- I am really liking having the desk face out into the room rather than at a wall

View back to the hallway... and books!

Nice view out the window and lamp found on One King's Lane... and more books!



Huge (3' x 4') cork board from Pottery Barn Outlet... note the 101 in 1001 list down in the corner!


This bookshelf is a particular triumph, because it was a complete disaster previously.  I really should have taken a "before" picture, because it was completely (and I do mean completely) crammed full of papers and notebooks and computer stuff and every other imaginable bit of random stuff that never really seems to have a home.  So, when our Container Store opened here in October, I went a little bit crazy and found these gorgeous boxes to help control the madness.  Okay, maybe it was a lot crazy, because I spent $285 (although one $25 box did get returned).  I am justifying it, though, by saying that the boxes are very sturdy (which they are) and so beautiful (which they are) that I will have them around for a long time, and every time I look at them, they make me smile.  I spent several hours looking at different combinations of different types of boxes and trays, but I liked these the best.  Then I looked at all the different colors they had, but I finally realized that what was catching my eye in the display was the combination of all the different colors rather than using only one or two colors.  It really keeps them looking bright and fresh.

Still have the slidey things under the feet... oops!

As for the rest of the house, I have been making an effort to keep it tidy since my mother and her husband were here before Thanksgiving.  With all of the holiday stress and craziness, I decided it would help my brain feel more restful if the house weren't a wreck.  So November 27th was the official start date of my six weeks with no dirty dishes laying around (#41), and so far so good!  Like I commented on the list, it is truly pitiful that I had to even make this a project, but there it is.  And with the exception of all my shopping bags that accumulated over the last week or so (which all got put away last night, thank you very much!), the rest of the house has stayed nice, too.  Really, my ultimate goal in life is to have my house always looking presentable enough that if someone showed up at the front door I wouldn't be mortified to have them come inside.  It's really not in my nature to be clean and tidy all of the time, so this requires a lot of effort on my part.  I have found that often the clutter just doesn't even register to me... meaning I can leave the same glass sitting on the table for a week and not really "see" it.  Or I don't even think to empty the dishwasher after it's been run.  I know that doesn't make any sense, but it's true.  I guess that's my abstract-random nature showing through!

So the other piece that goes along with this is getting my house professionally cleaned (#64).  I haven't actually done this yet, but I did buy a deal from Angie's List that's good for four hours of cleaning.  This particular company is supposed to specialize in detailed cleaning, which I find very exciting.  The one time I had someone come in and clean my house (when I was selling my house in Memphis), I was very disappointed at the quality of the work.  I guess I was expecting meticulous work since I was paying for it, but that is not what I got!  So maybe if this company works out, then I could have them come clean occasionally.  Ultimately, that's another one of my life goals... to have my house cleaned professionally on a regular basis.  It's one of those things I never have seem to have the time to keep up as well as I would like.  It seems like such a luxury, but really, isn't that why I've worked so hard to have a job that makes good money?  So once I actually have them out to the house, then that's one more that I'll be able to cross off!