Back to school..... back to school... to show i'm not a fool

Ahhhh... Billy Madison. Wouldn't it be lovely to be curled up on the sofa watching Adam Sandler movies and soaps today? Alas, today was one of the days where I packed breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one bag, schoolbooks in another bag, laptop/work supplies in yet a third bag, and grabbed my purse to have a total of four bags (think mule with saddlebags on each side). If this keeps up at least one of those will need wheels before I get all lopsided and hunchy. I think my chiropractor and/or all of those who have seen the hunchback of Notre Dame will agree... not pretty.... no matter how fancy the accessories.

Because my school schedule is all kinds of crazy and I now leave work early to get to campus, my entire day starts earlier. This morning I needed some fuel to justify the pre-6am alarm so I made instant oats. I had semi decided for this blog I would show new veggies/new recipes I had tried. At christmas my Aunt Sara inquired about oatmeal combinations, so the following breakfast incorporates a bit of both (and I made a mental note to try other creative ones i had seen... stay tuned). The last time I was at the grocery store I picked up some dried figs. Let me tell you.. amazo! I had always liked fig newtons, this time it was minus the cake (and hfcs) which you didn't miss at all. Same tough, gooey texture. I used Kashi vanilla instant oatmeal and threw in some dried cranberries with my figs. In one minute I had a warm, fabulous meal-at-desk. Last night I was LOVING spending a long time in the grocery store. I hadn't been home (impromptu STL stop for the weekend, catching up with LOTS of friends (yeah!) class for 5 hours Monday, and that pesky full time job) and had been in dire need of some fresh veggies. There is something so theraputic about spending time evaluating the overwhelming veggie/food options available to you and thinking of all of the possibilities. I love taking my sweet time up and down every aisle and having the satisfaction of crossing off the items on my list (about the only list i can manage to work my way through it seems) Last nights meal (featured below in soft focus, compliments of these shaky hands) was based on this cooking light recipe. Thai coconut shrimp used the following ingredients:

• chopped onion
• red curry paste
• sugar
• large shrimp
• light coconut milk
• fish sauce
• chopped green onions
• chopped fresh basil

I served it with jasemine rice and snow peas sauteed in EVOO, salt and crushed red pepper. (p.s. one of those plates was for John)

Rookie mistakes I made include forgetting to chop the tails off the shrimp before I threw them in the pot and using too much coconut milk. What can I say... I love coconut milk. I was excited to cook with it (or finally make some purchases from the ethnic food aisle in the store for that matter), it is definitely my favorite part of thai flavored things. I used 'green' curry paste instead of 'red' because it's what they had and the descriptions, etc. looked similar. However I was so concerned with not making it overly spicy that I don't think you could taste it at all. Better safe than sorry, right?

I was still hungry afterwards so I made some butternut squash fries. WHAT HAVE I BEEN WAITING FOR all of this time? I love these things! My only regret was having too small a squash that made a small batch. I sprayed them with EVOO spray (probably a little too much) and them covered them with sea salt. I was in love with them and forced John to try, and he bunched up his face like he was completely grossed out... sucks to be him.. more for me!!

Oh man, my classes are nuts. For my law class we had an assignment due before the first class and she had already posted about 200+ pages online for us to print out. I kept thinking I was SO glad I'd double checked so I didn't have an Elle Woods moment on the first day with my big pink fluffy pen being 10 steps behind. I think I'm going to really like my entrepreneurship class but holy reading each week. This means less booze-filled spare time and more studying and food time. Shoes too, obviously, because what am I ... an animal?