I’m sorry for my fail.

It’s been so long since I posted about anything that I don’t even want to look at the date of my last entry into the world of blogging. I’m sorry. Epic fail on my part. I’ll explain by saying that for the most part, my absence has been due to life-craziness, my annual undiagnosed case of SAD and a lack of desire to cook anything spectacular. The other excuse is that I am sans camera lately, which kind of hurts any picture-taking ventures. However, to bring you up to speed:

• I made the Guaranteed Fudge Brownies from Baker’s Banter for a girls’ night, and consequently decided that PJ is my baking goddess. OH ME OH MY – you need to make these babies TONIGHT. Fudgy and soft and perfect with cold milk – and still good a couple of nights later. I’m going to make them again this weekend, and will try for photos.
• I finally made my own salsa from canned tomatoes, a half an onion, garlic and a seeded jalapeño. It was met with grand approval from 354 and myself. I will probably make more this weekend.
• Also, I still have Romas to oven-dry and make into faux sundried, though I may or may not pack them in oil (botulism, you know). In any case, I am on a quest to get over my childhood dislike of tomatoes – this is the next step.
• I have a lot of ideas for cooking, but most of them are spoiled for me by the time I get home. aka I get home, sit on the bed and watch NCIS or Burn Notice, pet the dog and hope nobody comes beating on my door. If I even get hungry, I’ll eat cereal (Raisin Bran Extra! is my new favorite) or a quesadilla.
• I keep meaning to make weekly meal plans, so I can grocery shop appropriately and never question what I’ll be eating at any given time… but I’ve failed at that, too. More resolve needed for this one.
• 354 makes good pancakes, a discovery made on National Pancake Day when I all but sulled up like a kid in the floor of a Wal-Mart candy aisle and proclaimed that I wanted PANCAKES and ONLY PANCAKES with REAL MAPLE SYRUP. So that’s what I got. I’m so spoiled.

So… that’s basically it. Now that the sun’s back in residence for a little bit and the weekend should be pretty, there should be a couple of posts involving the Guaranteed Fudge Brownies, homemade salsa and whatever 354 and I decide we’re gonna eat. I plan on staying home for the most part this weekend, cleaning up and cooking and just spending time with him, anyway. (Did I tell you he finally admitted to being a closet foodie? Oh happy day!) More often than not lately, we spend a lot of mealtimes at the in-laws, which is fine – I like my in-laws! – but I’d just like to stay at home, cook with him, clean water tubs with him (how romantic), play with the boys and just spend time with my baby in T-shirts and our underwear. So we’ll see what I can come up with before next Monday, eh? See y’all then!

Honest Scrap Award!

Cat awarded me the Honest Scrap award today – definitely one of my favorite awards around the blogosphere, despite this being the first time I’ve seen it. Thank you, hon!

The Rules:

a. List 10 things about yourself – and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep! and…
b. Pass along the award to 7 bloggers who you think embody the spirit of The Honest Scrap.

1. My childhood dream has never changed: I have always, always wanted to go out West and be a cowboy – a real hand, not some dude – complete with heirloom saddle, old truck and good dog.
2. I learned Spanish before English as a baby, and also how to ride before I could walk.
3. I have never had real fingernails (read: because I gnaw them) until now; as of now, I’ve had nails for a little over a week and that’s amazing.
4. I adore any form of martial arts, but especially kami bushi kai because of my dojo. I love my dojo family and all my friends there, including my sensei, Shihan McElwee. I actually planned to take three years for myself and get my black belt here, but things may not turn out that way… we’ll see.
5. I have learned more about myself, my relationship with God and how I deal with the outside world in the past two years than I had all through high school and most of college, including how to connect all facets of myself and my beliefs.
6. Some days I really would like to be a housewife, but I know deep down that would slowly drive me insane, so I’ll be content with extension agent/cowboy. Or birddog trainer. Or horse trainer. Or private chef. Or police officer (which is a banned career choice). Something like that. I also think I would be a good milwife, but that’s not gonna happen.
7. I love to write, not just about food (which is fun), but anything in general, usually sci-fi/fantasy or fanfiction. I have at least nine multi-chapter unfinished stories floating around on GDocs or my harddrive (or FF.N/FP.N) that I periodically get into writing fits with (and then fall back out of). However, I’m rabid about not letting people that know me well read my stuff off the cuff. Don’t ask why, I can’t explain – I just can’t stand it. (Remnants of high school, I guess – paranoia.) BONUS: I’m a closet Avatar fan. Please don’t hate me.
8. 354 is my best friend and although I could survive without him, I don’t really want to. He’s brought so much into my life and I’m counting on him to bring more light after we get married. We understand that marriage is something to be worked for, along with many other things. Besides, life wouldn’t be as fun without someone to constantly aggravate (right, dear?).
9. I have one tattoo on my left ribs, about three inches from my underarm. It’s a triquetra design that I had wanted since high school; I got it right after a friend died in a freak riding accident, but not “for” her (I believe it’s against the Word to get a tattoo in remembrance of the dead). I want more, including a tribal horse head like the one on the current Kentucky plate (WARNING: opens large JPG) and matching wedding bands for me and 354.
10. You could probably call me accidentally self-destructive; I can hurt myself a lot in very little time without trying, and not in the course of events where one would normally be injured. For example, I managed to sprain my left wrist and torque my knee this weekend, but I’m not sure how. I handle big injuries better than little ones (i.e. my near-fatal concussion in ‘05 or the 2″ long, 1/2″ deep gash on my thumb from last summer vs. recent wrist sprain or a mashed finger).

As for the new crop of award-receiving bloggers:

1. Julie of Peanut Butter and Julie
2. Sandy of Eat Real
3. Maria of Two Peas and Their Pod
4. Sally of Aprovechar
5. Todd & Diane of White On Rice Couple
   
6. Ryan of This Is Reverb (PW’s Pastor Ryan)
7. Ceres of Ceres Secrets

I’m not going to individually call these folks out as to why I’m giving them this award – if you check out their blogs for any reason, you’ll see what I mean. Just know that all these blogs are some that I have favorited. I look forward to new posts whenever they pop up.

Thanks to Cat for the award and I hope everyone else likes theirs as well!

Looking for the silver lining.

Today has been an exceptionally shitty day from the start. From an hour-late start from a co-worker at the barn waaaaay before sunrise to a cracked wrist and unscrewed water hoses to the dog eating my half-slice of pound cake (at least he didn’t knock over the seedlings on the island), it was not a good start to the day. I baked muffins before I left the house; I thought maybe it was just a bad morning. Everyone has bad mornings, right? (Don’t lie, I know you have them, too.)

Then I got to work. Papers were piled all over my desk. I checked my bank account, hoping for a payday pick-me-up. Unfortunately, thanks to a large amount of overdraft (which I was expecting) and the monthly auto-payment for martial arts (which I wasn’t), I’m now down to a whopping $6.00 balance in my checking account for the next two weeks. $6.00 to eat on and buy diesel with and pay off some of the massive debt I’ve sucked myself into. You can see how thrilled I am, I’m sure. My first thought was, ‘How the hell am I going to buy groceries on six bucks?!’

Image from BHG.com, © Copyright 2009, Meredith Corporation

Thankfully, food was there to save my very limited grace. And not necessarily in a consumption-type way, although my favorite sandwich helped to raise my spirits a little, if only temporarily. No, it was Tastespotting, Food Gawker and a hearty number of my favorite blogs that made life a little more bearable for a bit.

Pasta and beans, in a not ‘e fagoli’ way.

This little gem, while I will definitely be making it again, was a lesson in premade lunch. Or to say it better, make your damn lunch the night before when you originally had the thought to begin with and don’t wait until morning when it’s 19°F outside and there’s a draft coming through the flimsy window over your sink and you know you’re going to want something warm for lunch.

Okay. Deep breath. There we go.

Last night I had decided that I needed to do something with the remaining half-can of cannelinis that were about to go bad in my fridge. They had been starring as a protein in salads lately, but salad isn’t going to star in my food plan in the next few days – it’s too damn cold. So of course, pasta came to mind. And pasta + white beans = …pasta and beans? That’s pretty much the conclusion I came to. I figured I’d come up with something eventually before I went to bed, I’d eat some for supper and have leftovers for lunch. Unfortunately (not at the time), I got the invitation to the future in-laws for supper and NCIS (which turned out not to be a new ep, but I still hadn’t seen it), so I went there instead. I got home late, dumped clean clothes in a pile off the bed, jumped in the shower and went to sleep. Which left me with no readymade lunch for today – so I made it literally rightbeforeIleftthehouse. And for a rush job, it turned out pretty damned tasty! Points for me.

Recipe and the rest of the post behind the cut…