Friday, May 8, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Accomplishments
So far today it's all food, and all food I've already eaten. Does feeding one's self really count as an accomplishment? I don't think so. And neither does watching Batman during the day. But it's raining and yucky outside again, I don't want to go to base or eat dinner out alone, and I hate to clean.
Clean! I cleaned the bathroom sink and did a load of laundry this morning. Accomplishment! Aah, now it's on to make some more food and watch more tv. I feel better.
Clean! I cleaned the bathroom sink and did a load of laundry this morning. Accomplishment! Aah, now it's on to make some more food and watch more tv. I feel better.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Home cooking
The trick to contentment when one partner has to travel for work is to create rituals for life when he's away. Little things to look forward to when lonesome threatens. I am so impressed by couples who maintain their marriages over three-, six-, nine-month deployments and more, but when Josh leaves for a week, I make soup.
Josh doesn't like soup. He thinks food should be chewed, not drunk. I love soup - I love good vegetarian food with complex flavors and lots of nutrition, especially when it can be made in one pot. Soup fits the bill. And it's especially fitting when the weather looks like it did today.
So I made Zucchini and Rosemary Soup from Epicurious, with just a few modifications. (4 cups of broth instead of 6, extra zucchini, and less butter than is called for.)
And oh, it was good. It was just what the doctor ordered, and it took less than an hour to make. Just a little slicing, a little saute, a couple shavings of Parmesan, et voila:
When I was growing up in Maine, my mother planted zucchini in the garden. She planted in spring, after a loooong, cooooold winter, and let's just say she had to get creative to use up all those zucchinis when the harvest arrive. This soup would be a beautiful way to feature the fruits of your springtime enthusiasm.
Josh doesn't like soup. He thinks food should be chewed, not drunk. I love soup - I love good vegetarian food with complex flavors and lots of nutrition, especially when it can be made in one pot. Soup fits the bill. And it's especially fitting when the weather looks like it did today.
So I made Zucchini and Rosemary Soup from Epicurious, with just a few modifications. (4 cups of broth instead of 6, extra zucchini, and less butter than is called for.)
And oh, it was good. It was just what the doctor ordered, and it took less than an hour to make. Just a little slicing, a little saute, a couple shavings of Parmesan, et voila:
When I was growing up in Maine, my mother planted zucchini in the garden. She planted in spring, after a loooong, cooooold winter, and let's just say she had to get creative to use up all those zucchinis when the harvest arrive. This soup would be a beautiful way to feature the fruits of your springtime enthusiasm.
On my own
Goals for the week while Josh is gone:
*Hang out with girlfriends (and see Wolverine!)
*Clean and reorganize my kitchen
*Ditto the bedroom
*Vacuum
*Start a new knitting project
*Nail down a couple of Red Cross projects
*Eat healthy
*At least two yoga classes
Items actually accomplished since he left five hours ago:
*Eat a healthy breakfast of Cheerios and skim milk...followed by garlic cheese dip on crackers. At 9:00am.
*Read the entire Internet.
*Start a batch of homemade yogurt so I can keep eating later.
*Play MarioKart Wii and unlock a new character.
You can see how this is going to go.
*Hang out with girlfriends (and see Wolverine!)
*Clean and reorganize my kitchen
*Ditto the bedroom
*Vacuum
*Start a new knitting project
*Nail down a couple of Red Cross projects
*Eat healthy
*At least two yoga classes
Items actually accomplished since he left five hours ago:
*Eat a healthy breakfast of Cheerios and skim milk...followed by garlic cheese dip on crackers. At 9:00am.
*Read the entire Internet.
*Start a batch of homemade yogurt so I can keep eating later.
*Play MarioKart Wii and unlock a new character.
You can see how this is going to go.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Overheard
Well, I kind of hope it wasn't overheard, actually. But Josh and I were at the dog park this afternoon, watching the dogs and sneaking in a cuddle or two when a curious pup came to see if we had treats to offer. (We didn't.)
Our favorite, of course, was the little Blenheim Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who looks just like my parents' dog Nemo. Cavaliers really are the best little dogs, and Nemo's doppelganger gave us some love.
As we were leaving, I noticed he'd wandered far away from his owner, and I leaned to Josh and jokingly said "They're not keeping a close watch on that puppy. I think he needs to be adopted."
Josh replied: "Did you say adopted? Or abducted?"
Ahem.
Our favorite, of course, was the little Blenheim Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who looks just like my parents' dog Nemo. Cavaliers really are the best little dogs, and Nemo's doppelganger gave us some love.
As we were leaving, I noticed he'd wandered far away from his owner, and I leaned to Josh and jokingly said "They're not keeping a close watch on that puppy. I think he needs to be adopted."
Josh replied: "Did you say adopted? Or abducted?"
Ahem.
Good food
We've had a couple off-nights where food is concerned, this week. There was the big kahuna, and a vegetable "pie" that fell apart, and tortilla soup that was basically flavorless. (Turns out you cannot make a stock in 30 minutes, no matter what the recipe says).
But! We had one really good night, too. I mean, when four portabello mushroom caps and two cups of gruyere are involved, how bad can it be?
Last week I borrowed Vegetable Heaven by Mollie Katzen from the base library. And while the "Golden Rice Pie with Spinach Filling" and the tortilla soup didn't work out so well with me, I can't say enough about the broccoli-stuffed mushrooms. They are simplicity itself, just minced (in the food processor) onion and broccoli, sauteed, then mixed with a cup of gruyere and stuffed into mushroom caps. A handful of broccoli florets make a pretty crown on top, and then a little more cheese before the cooked caps hit the broiler. 
I mixed some cilantro leaves, lemon juice, and olive oil into whole wheat couscous for a base, although there are lots of less carb-y options for the South Beachers among us.
It was a delicious meal, and will be a treat on our menus in the future. Thank goodness we had one good dinner this week.
But! We had one really good night, too. I mean, when four portabello mushroom caps and two cups of gruyere are involved, how bad can it be?
Last week I borrowed Vegetable Heaven by Mollie Katzen from the base library. And while the "Golden Rice Pie with Spinach Filling" and the tortilla soup didn't work out so well with me, I can't say enough about the broccoli-stuffed mushrooms. They are simplicity itself, just minced (in the food processor) onion and broccoli, sauteed, then mixed with a cup of gruyere and stuffed into mushroom caps. A handful of broccoli florets make a pretty crown on top, and then a little more cheese before the cooked caps hit the broiler. 
I mixed some cilantro leaves, lemon juice, and olive oil into whole wheat couscous for a base, although there are lots of less carb-y options for the South Beachers among us. 
It was a delicious meal, and will be a treat on our menus in the future. Thank goodness we had one good dinner this week.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Dinner: Impossible...to eat.
There are some pretty major perks to living on a military base overseas. Josh gets paid a cost of living allowance (COLA) each month that shifts with the exchange rate, so pricey Japanese food and fun are budgeted for. We have access to American shopping on base, and discounted travel packages for day trips and longer vacations around this part of the planet. And every once in a while, some of the service organizations on base (like the Navy Exchange store and Morale, Welfare and Recreation) will throw a weekend bash to thank us for being reliable (captive) customers. This was one of those weekends.
Josh and I didn't have any big plans. Since we're not in the market for any major purchases and neither of us cares about skateboarding demos, we planned to avoid base most of the weekend. But then I got an email a couple days ago and scored tickets to dinner Saturday night - prepared by Chef Robert Irvine, the host of Food Network's Dinner: Impossible! SWEET.
Dinner: Impossible is a great show. The chef, who was in the British Navy and used to cook in the White House, gets shipped off to some crazy location and has to oversee dinner preparations for a big crowd under awful circumstances. Cook a gourmet meal for 200 people in a single day, in a tiny galley, on a moving train. Done! Oversee at-risk high school students to make food for an upscale crowd. Possible! It's a lot of fun to watch, and the food always looks and sounds incredible. And since there was an Edwin McCain concert on base later that evening, we decided to dress up and make a night of it. It was so cool - as soon as we got in the door, there he was! We even got a picture.
Then we walked through a buffet line and loaded up our trays. And can I say, we were so excited! We're both a little bit foodie, getting more so as we expand our palates in the East. At home we eat very well, rich vegetarian meals with lots of spice and oomph. We watch food shows, I read food books and blogs, we love food. Our expectations of a meal from a chef of this stature were very high. See?
Little bites of everything: we tried baked crusted salmon fillet with apple salsa, fried chicken drummettes, macaroni and cheese with shrimp, braised Asian-style short ribs, seaweed and calamari salad, homemade coleslaw, Nicoise salad, warm German potato salad, and seafood gumbo.
And it was all bad.
We left half of the food on our plates. The salmon was overcooked, the chicken soggy, the short ribs were so salty I actually grimaced, and the cole slaw was swimming in mayonnaise and had no other flavor. The gumbo tasted like it had come out of a can - a government surplus can. We didn't even try the desserts, we were so bummed out.
So, I can say that getting our picture taken with the chef was the best part of dinner. That and the Edwin McCain concert! He and his band ROCK, and he's got a bigger voice than I ever realized. Plus he's a Greenville, SC hometown boy, which is just a bonus.
Thanks, Edwin!
Josh and I didn't have any big plans. Since we're not in the market for any major purchases and neither of us cares about skateboarding demos, we planned to avoid base most of the weekend. But then I got an email a couple days ago and scored tickets to dinner Saturday night - prepared by Chef Robert Irvine, the host of Food Network's Dinner: Impossible! SWEET.
Dinner: Impossible is a great show. The chef, who was in the British Navy and used to cook in the White House, gets shipped off to some crazy location and has to oversee dinner preparations for a big crowd under awful circumstances. Cook a gourmet meal for 200 people in a single day, in a tiny galley, on a moving train. Done! Oversee at-risk high school students to make food for an upscale crowd. Possible! It's a lot of fun to watch, and the food always looks and sounds incredible. And since there was an Edwin McCain concert on base later that evening, we decided to dress up and make a night of it. It was so cool - as soon as we got in the door, there he was! We even got a picture.
Then we walked through a buffet line and loaded up our trays. And can I say, we were so excited! We're both a little bit foodie, getting more so as we expand our palates in the East. At home we eat very well, rich vegetarian meals with lots of spice and oomph. We watch food shows, I read food books and blogs, we love food. Our expectations of a meal from a chef of this stature were very high. See?
Little bites of everything: we tried baked crusted salmon fillet with apple salsa, fried chicken drummettes, macaroni and cheese with shrimp, braised Asian-style short ribs, seaweed and calamari salad, homemade coleslaw, Nicoise salad, warm German potato salad, and seafood gumbo.And it was all bad.
We left half of the food on our plates. The salmon was overcooked, the chicken soggy, the short ribs were so salty I actually grimaced, and the cole slaw was swimming in mayonnaise and had no other flavor. The gumbo tasted like it had come out of a can - a government surplus can. We didn't even try the desserts, we were so bummed out.
So, I can say that getting our picture taken with the chef was the best part of dinner. That and the Edwin McCain concert! He and his band ROCK, and he's got a bigger voice than I ever realized. Plus he's a Greenville, SC hometown boy, which is just a bonus.
Thanks, Edwin!
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