this week

- I do not want to eat veggies. I just want to go out to dinner. EVERY. NIGHT. Made some pizza last night for some out of town guests.

- Today is my tenth day in a row of working. Nope, didn't plan that one out. BUT! I have tomorrow off. Yaaaaaaaay!

- I am on my very last pair of socks. Clean socks.

- My car is still totalled. I am still going to drive it because there is nothing wrong with it (other than the fact that it looks like a golf ball). But where it counts, it's perfect.

- Don't want to eat veggies, but we did get almost a dozen oranges this week. GOOOOOAAAALLLLL!

- Getting a new phone/phone plan soon. Less enthused than I was about car shopping.

- My eye is still twitchy. I should have marked it on my calendar. I think we're going on two weeks?

Bonus: I bought some really good chocolate pudding from La Grande Orange last night. Made my whole week!

bye-bye, civic

Le sigh...

So.

After 3 months of waiting for an appointment and a week of my car being in the shop, they have informed me that the adjustor missed some damage and they're going to total it. Over HAIL DAMAGE. Which is all cosmetic. So now my car, which runs perfectly, is being considered a total loss. Cool. But not really.

Because I had all these dreams about driving this car for the next 5+ years until I found a car I really wanted and was willing to shell out big $$$ and a monthly car payment.

And I don't even LIKE cars. Really, I don't. I don't like driving, even though it's a big part of my job. I can't think of a single car that I want to buy.

Okay, that's a lie. I can't think of a single car in my price range that I would like to buy. I can think of plenty of other cars that I would like to buy.

And there are much worse things in the world and I'm super blessed and I really should not be complaining and I know that.

But my car being totaled is a total bummer.

veggies: week 3

Arugula flowers (what?), kale (yum), lettuce (agaaaain), dill, spinach, broccoli raab (yum again), radishes (will be the death of me), broccoli, turnips, grapefruit, carrots, & salsa verde cheese.

Last week's conquests:

- thai lettuce wraps

- braised radishes (still not good enough to get me to like radishes)

- bok choy with cashews (must find a better way to make bok choy/better skills with cooking bok choy)

- sweet potato & roasted garlic enmoladas (A FAN FAVORITE!!! Right up there with broccoli raab skillet pizzas)

- homemade salsa (not as good as my Auntie Rosie's killer, amazing, superhot, secret salsa)

- sauteed collard greens with garlic and lemon (solidly good)

My deepest apologies for my overuse of parentheses. Russell J is on dinner duty tonight. We'll see what he comes up with!

f-minus

Tried to make radish chips today. Massive failure. I don't know what the heck we're going to do with the rest of these radishes.

home again, home again pt II

Dallas was. a. blast. I sincerely believe that the best vacations include giggling with your very best friend, eating whatever you want, & getting sucked into trashy TV marathons. Check, double check, & triple check.

This is what my weekend looked like:

Chicken cachapa w/maduros at Zaguan (aka, the best place I ate at in Dallas).

Tequenos at Zaguan

craft dallas

This was a good weekend off for me. I had the chance to breathe & think & dream. And I came up with this:

I'm the person I've been becoming since I was a very little girl. I am passionate about food, the planet, healthcare, & how the three intersect. I really, truly want to be a nurse. Or maybe a chef. But a nurse for now. I do not like my job, but my job does not define me, and sooner or later, THE job is going to come around.

I LOVE FOOD, not only for its gustatory appeal, but because it is so essential to family, love, & happiness.

I had a killerrrrr weekend in Dallas.

The veggies are back in town. Today, we got more spinach, baby bok choy, turnips, 2 grapefruits (yech), MORE RADISHES (the two radishes from last week are still awaiting their fates), collard greens, cilantro!!!, MORE LETTUCE (to add to the lettuce we didn't even crack into last weekend while I was gone).

This week, I made kale & white bean stew, which was good, although I'm never very excited about soup. But I AM excited about the following recipe, which I made last night & am STILL salivating over:

Broccoli raab, tomato & cashew skillet pizza

Adapted from Sunset Magazine, January 2011

3 tbsp olive oil, divided

1 ball (1 lb.) whole-wheat pizza dough (or 1 plain pizza dough ball from Trader Joe's if you ran out of time to make pizza dough)

4 oz. broccoli raab, cut into 1.5-in pieces

1/2 tsp each kosher salt & red chile flakes

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

1 large tomato, sliced

1 handful raw cashews

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat a frying pan over medium-low heat. Add 1 tbsp oil & brush all over pan.

2. Divide dough into 2 balls. Press first ball of dough with your hands, working on a floured surface, into an 8-in. round. (The magazine recommends a 13-in. crust in an oven-proof frying pan, but hey, I only have tiny, non-oven-proof pans, so this is what you get). Press into frying pan so it comes up sides slightly. Cook until golden on bottom, 5 minutes. Set on a cookie sheet, golden side up. Re-oil pan & repeat with the second ball of dough.

3. Add remaining oil to pan along with broccoli raab, salt, & chile. Cook 2-3 minutes, until wilted. Transfer to a plate.

4. Sprinkle crusts with mozzarella, leaving a border around edge. Add vegetables & nuts over cheese & sprinkle with remaining cheese.

5. Bake pizza on sheet until crust is crisp, about 15 minutes. Cut into wedges.

the veggies are here!!!

Spinach, a head of lettuce, some dill, a couple of oranges, some turnips, kale, broccoli raab, and two HUGE radishes (who knows what those will turn into). PLUS a gallon of milk from real Arizona cows and some pineapple farmer's cheese, which is actually better than it sounds, although I'm hard pressed to figure out any other way of eating it than spreading it on crackers.

If I were staying home this weekend, I would regale you all with tales of culinary experimentation.

However...

...I'm going to Dallas tomorrow! See you when I get back! xoxo

P.S. Any recipe ideas for my veggie treasure chest? Leave 'em here!

2011? for real?

I almost typed in 2001. That was a pretty good year...TEN YEARS AGO. Oh my goodness, where did it all go?

Resolutions:

- Well, we joined a CSA, which I am so freakishly excited about. Minus the fact that I think this means we'll be eating RADISHES for the next three months. I don't know if I can come to love radishes.

- Cook more.

- Work less. Stress less. Generally give myself a break.

- 6 pack abs? Right?

- Rediscover all the things I used to love to do before I convinced myself that falling into the "work hard in high school SO you can get into a good college SO you can work hard in college SO you can get a good job SO you can make lots of money SO you can buy lots of things SO..." So what? I don't know. But the money is good and the job is not so good, so maybe by this time next year, I'll have a whole different career? Or at least hobbies that make the day job not so...job-like.

- Blog? Right? I did get a sweet Flipcam, which is currently full of New Year's Eve Just Daaaance videos. I'm hoarding away all the ones with me in them, hoping that they will never reach the light of day.

And I had another one, but I forgot what it was, so oops, I guess it must have been a lie.

Here's the big one, though: Figure out how in the world I'm going to get back to Namibia or to Haiti to work with all the babies that my heart hurts for. Whether it's nursing or being a teacher or saving all my tips from the barista gig I have to get when I finally quit being a nurse, I just can't help but believe that God puts these kids on my heart and never lets me forget them for a reason. So that's the big one. Figure out how to get from point A to point B (or point Z, because as of right now, it seems like quite a ways off).

Happy 2011. Seriously, 2011? When the heck did that happen?

P.S. I remembered my last resolution: Start extreme couponing.