Cake = heaven

This weekend was filled with tons of glorious sloth-like behavior. My least exciting weekend in recent memory and to me it felt like I had checked out of life to sleep and read and do or not do whatever I wanted (the not-do was heavy in the homework area). This is the time of year where weekends start filling up fast and having a minute to breathe and enjoy some solitary confinement felt pretty indulgent. Also because I wasn't out traveling/eating/dressing up/boozing/shopping/reflecting on how I had a friend in college that was a pimp.... I made a few homemade things which were then glamorously photographed. After work on Friday I was in the mood to use some of the coconut milk I had used for my Thai shrimp earlier in the week. I melted some dark chocolate and made a coconut milkshake! It tasted exactly like a Mounds/Almond Joy candy bar. Amazing!

Feeling fabulously rested the next morning I decided to make some whole wheat pancakes.. EXCEPT that I didn't have any milk (or even soy milk) and no real butter. Luckily I found a recipe that didn't include any of those ingredients. I ended up making from scratch Vanilla/Banana Whole Wheat pancakes:

• whole wheat flour
• sugar
• baking powder
• baking soda
• salt
• egg
• yogurt
• water
• oil
• vanilla extract
• mashed banana
  

The flavor was pretty banana/vanilla-ey (yum) so I don't know how it would be plain. A little later I went to Yoga and even finally bought a class pass to get me through the month. I haven't been to a chiropractor in forever and intermittently doing yoga has been the reason. Lately however, as I hadn't been to a class in months... plural. shameful. Increasingly all kinds of cracks and creaks and aches have been happening in my shoulder/neck/back/chest area. I'm thinking spending money for a month of yoga is better spent than my copay to the chiro. Yes?

I also hit up the library, where I checked out the above selection of DVDs. I love old movies and musicals, so I thought Follow the Fleet seemed right up my alley (plus who doesn't love Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers?). It was okay, I sort of kept picturing my grandma going to see it as a little girl and thinking how much movies had changed. Also Fred Astaire was a little, scheming, funny sailor. Sort of a combination of my brother (in his Navy days) and Zach Morris. How likable is that? It sort of made me gag though how women viewed men back then. This movie was released in the late 30's or so and reflects the complete lack of independence females had and/or wanted. This girl meets a guy for four hours and then takes out her life savings to restore some boat he might like. Not to mention he was kind of a jerk to her in the first place. Where was the He's Just not That into You book then? Finally when his other options have run out they end up happily together forever. And you expect me to be satisfied with this ending? It just made me want to burn a bra. Seriously.

I also rented Annie Hall because I feel like there are tons of cultural references to this movie, so I was ready to see what all the fuss was about. I think my problem is that as long as I have been old enough to know who Woody Allen is (sometime around 11 years old I saw his ex wife on Oprah talking about their story) I knew he married his step daughter. EW. I mean I whine, I talk about my problems, I'm paranoid and have moments of unabashed insecurity. However I found him extremely resistible. Why was this movie such a big deal? (sidebar, loved Diane keaton, and her nerdy/trendy 70s wardrobe).

However did I mention how much I love the library? It's just 4 blocks or so from my apartment and it's a beautiful big building with all kinds of interesting programs and things to do. I worked in the campus library in college and the local library was pretty much our weekly source of movies and books growing up. I forgot how peaceful and nice it is just to be there.. definitely something I plan to use more in the coming year.

So after a long day of movies, cleaning, and more nothingness, I made another creation from Ellie Krieger's cookbook. the Portabella/Gorgonzola/Sun dried tomato Paninis. I think I O.D.'d a bit on that cheese with my pizza earlier in the week, and it was soo rich!

I decided I was hungry and hour later and made a Whole Wheat half sandwich with apricot jam and blueberries. YUM.

Sunday morning I woke up early, did some Yoga, watched Meet the Press, This Week and in general felt like a contributing member of society (sometimes i just hate sleeping the day away!) I made a semi turkey sandwich thing which I very much considered brunch. Egg on a turkey deli slice with tomato, spinach, and grilled cheese and wheat toast. Nice.

I even went to mass (once again, no excuses, the cathedral is 4 blocks from my apartment), and then walked to the new downtown grocery store. Laying on the couch with John I proclaimed my undying need for cake. The following resulted in this:

Is it just me or is cake totally heaven sometimes? I can go days eating vegetables and be perfectly content and then all of a sudden I need a fix of sugar from a baked good. That was yesterday for me.

We also had Pineapple stir-fry. I used a frozen onion/pepper mix and added in a can of pineapples with the cubed chicken. It was over Jasmine rice and we used soy sauce because the sauce that was recommended on the bag of stir fry turned out pretty nasty (bbq sauce plus fruit juice plus soy sauce... it was gross, it was tossed).

So I am back at work this morning and am sad that my company doesn't recognize Dr. King. Note to self: next job work for the government/financial institutions/or education so I can start getting some of these days off! I hope everyone is having a fabulous Monday and is getting geared up for this, a most exciting and historical week!! :)

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?