Hoppy Easter!

Corny? yes please. I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend. (can you still call it that if you didn't get Friday off?) I have been having melty cadbury eggs in my morning oats and it has been GLORIOUS.

Minus not being able to have fish (tear) and the occasional mishap after drinking (re: street corn dog) giving up meat for lent only pushes me further towards the full time veg category. I'm a fan. I heart vegetables. I don't care what people say. We're in love and we're running away together.


Because both John and I had commented lately on how good manicotti sounds, I decided to make a variation using big shells (by the way, is it hard for anyone else to find wheat varieties of pasta other than spaghetti? just the midwest maybe?)

Lauren's The bomb Impromptu Cheesey Faux Meat Shells

• 1/2 container part skim ricotta
• 1/2 container low fat cottage cheese
• spinach chopped
• shells
• organic spaghetti sauce (yeah, yeah, i'll make my own one of these days)
• boca crumbles (SO could not taste the difference, texture, taste, everything was a dead ringer, i'm sold)

after this picture i put the meat sauce (and then more regular sauce) over the shells and baked. The shells had been pre-boiled and then dried a little on wax paper... and it STILL made for a soupy end result... what gives??

Irish bars on Easter weekend? that'll do.

For Easter at John's family's house (tear.... I missed my fam and the large gathering in IA!) I contributed with a couscous salad. I had wanted to make this vegetable one from a cookbook I had at home, but had left the recipe (oh iphone... where for art though iphone). Come saturday night, we are still out and about, and I have my sister get on the computer to google a recipe. This is what she found:

CousCous Citrus Salad with Olives: (eating well)

• couscous (tried to find WW but didn't have it, yet again)
• frozen O.J.
• orange zest
• orange
• lemon juice
• chopped calamato olives
• fresh parsley
• fresh thyme
• EVOO
• salt
• mustard
• red onion (i didn't have chives or scallions)

It didn't knock my socks off... but texture-wise i liked it, and it was the kind of dish that makes me want to branch out in cooking alternate flavors more often. John's family was sort of curious about it but not bowled over. His mom asked for leftovers to have for the week though, which made me happy.

............... and that's the cooking week in review.

I just signed up for MY LAST GRADUATE CLASS EVA. How awesome is that? Oh August, you can't get here soon enough! I hope everyone is having a fabulous week! Happy Hump Day :)

Taking the Skank Train to Skanktown

(Gossip Girl Style) Spotted: a former, now infamous, college friend of mine making scandalous news. Did you ever meet my friend Laurie? She was really more of a friend to my friends. I never was that close with her.. mostly because by the time I met her she had made a few stops on the skanktrain to skanktown. Case in point, she was a petite white girl from the suburbs, who one night at dinner was greasing the cornrows she had given herself (my internal monologue said…. Stop being friends with this person) Seems innocent enough but unfortunate.. right? What about the time she wanted to go dancing in a bikini top and clear plastic light up heels. yeah, who does that? Anyway, after college we all lost touch with her but it was pretty well known that she was into some sketchy business sure to result in making the top of the casting list for Flavor of Love’s 10th season: the skankiest truck stop girls we could find. Where is this going? Apparently Wednesday this off-the-map former friend was ARRESTED on three felony counts for pimping. That’s right, running a prostitution ring. And not the Elliot Spitzer high class ones either. HOW does that even happen? How in the world do you get into that? This is a girl who graduated from college as a math major with honors who was raised in the suburbs by a normal family (as opposed to, say, raised in a brothel by porn stars and vegas showgirls). Where does the skankiness come in?? Where we… former classmates/friends asleep at the wheel here? Should we have been ready to have an intervention at the first sign of a overly-penciled eyebrow? Craziness. And now she’s gellin like a felon and will be supplying me with my next set of Missouri plates. What a topsy turvey world we live in. (note: I realize this sounds a bit harsh, but DUDE, she was allegedly profiting from exploiting the low self esteem of other women. SO not okay)

Whew. Enough of that. Here is Aunt Sara's Oatmeal combo of the day. I had 1/2 banana with approximately 1/4 cup blueberries in my Kashi vanilla oatmeal. Warm on this cold and snowy day.. just what the doctor ordered.

Last night I microwaved an acorn squash. I halved it, scooped out the seeds, rubbed it with earth balance margarine and cinnamon, put the halves back on (secured with a toothpick) and covered in saran wrap. After microwaving for 6 minutes... Vwalla! yummy squash ready to eat. I also made couscous (Israeli type pasta) for the first time. I had it once in a restaurant and was obsessed with the idea of little round pasta balls, even though I had no idea what exactly it was. I made approx. 3/4 cup and cooked it with little sauteed onion, sea salt, ground pepper, and parsley flakes. It was the quick cooking kind which was ready in under ten minutes... take THAT spaghetti noodles.

I enjoyed my dinner while watching the President's farewell address. I'm a little over him these days... is it Tuesday yet??? Good thing 30rock came on soon after and pretty much made my night.... could Tina Fey get any funnier?

Speaking of gossip girl, I am wearing a headband today and have been taking it off to rub my head every ten minutes. I forgot how headache-inducing the pressure can be. No WONDER Blaire Waldorf is so mean all of the time... she needs an advil and to rethink her trademark headband in favor of other plaid accessories.

In other news.... Happy Friday to you, my non-skanky peeps!