Rollercoasters

Hi. I sometimes forget this thing is here. Life has been pretty overwhelming lately.

Here’s how the last week has gone…

I finished hand-stitching this quilt.

I made a giant mess out of my apartment.

I made a bunch of jewelry, with the help of some friends.

I also had the help of the six-year-old neighbor boy.

I made some greeting cards.

And then I donated all of that stuff to a benefit.

I went to a Kentucky Derby party.

I made some faux roller derby helmet covers.

My work team had faux roller derby t-shirts made.

And then we golfed in the shirts…and helmets… and tutus.

I suck at golf, but the sight of these ephemeral flowers made the hours worth it.

I won an incredibly ironic and unexpected merit award.

I was handed the gavel, to use during my Presidential term for MEHA.

For my Incoming President’s address, I was going to use a quote from my favorite modern philosopher, but at the last minute, I decided to just go ahead and show his Pep Talk to the assembly.

I headed to Hibbing to see the Great Gatsby with my college roommate.

I drove through a freaking blizzard on my way home.

And then a few minutes later, the blizzard was done.

I got this in the mail.

I cleaned the fridge.

And then I made soup out of the wilted stuff I found in the fridge.

And now I’m trying to get caught up on Once Upon A Time before the season finale tomorrow night. If Hulu doesn’t quit buffering soon though, I might throw my TV out of the window.

If you’re looking for me, I’ll probably be hiding from the world for awhile. Don’t take it personally, I’m just trying to survive.

 

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a happy, healthy, fulfilling 2013!

2012 in review

Is this thing on? Apparently it is… perhaps I will revive it in 2013.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Stormy

Today went kind of like this:

Really exciting and fun plans with sister totally squashed by threat of severe weather, which has not yet proved to be true. Crabby attitude ensues. Bah, humbug, etc. etc.

Dinner, rather than something fun along our antiquing route somewhere between Lindstrom, Taylors Falls, Stillwater, Hudson, and home, was pasta.

I bought way too much fresh produce at Costco yesterday, completely failing to remember that I’m on the road for work all week during the day (i.e. restaurant meals), and have obligations pretty much every night (i.e. I will not be cooking this week… at all).

So, with that in mind, tonight’s dinner went a little something like this:

Stormy weather (and attitude) pasta

1. Start a pot of water boiling for pasta. [When the water finally boils, cook pasta of your choice, reserve about 1 cup of pasta cooking water, drain, and set aside… I used linguine)

2. Over medium-high heat, saute half an onion, finely chopped, in a few tablespoons of olive oil, until nearly translucent

3. Add about 1 Tbsp of crushed red peppers, a few minced cloves of garlic and about 6 large mushrooms, very thinly sliced

4. After a few minutes, add 6 or 7 baby sweet peppers, thinly sliced into rings, a big squirt of anchovy paste, and a big squirt of tomato paste (yes, I totally buy these two items by the toothpaste-style tube – way less waste!!!).

5. A few minutes later, add 3 roma tomatoes, diced.

6. A couple minutes later, add about 1/2 cup sweet marsala wine, about 1/2 cup chopped marinated artichoke hearts, and about 1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives.

7. When the sauce has started to simmer again, add about 1 cup of chopped parsley, and about five giant handfuls of baby spinach, chopped. After the greens have wilted, lower the heat. Add freshly ground pepper and salt, if needed, to taste.

8. Add the cooked pasta (drained – see step 1 above). Add reserved pasta water as needed to thoroughly coat the pasta.

9. Serve with lots of freshly grated parmesan. Look outside and sigh. Not that you’re excited about severe weather or anything… but canceling plans in favor of safety, when safety turns out not to have been necessary… frustrating.

You should make this.

Red Curry Coconut Mussels and Cambodian Grapefruit Salad

The curried mussels recipe makes way more sauce than you need for 2 pounds of mussels, so I usually pour off about half before adding the mussels. I freeze the reserved portion for a quick curry another day. I use the entire can of red curry (instead of the half can called for). It’s spicy, but not painfully so. The heavy cream was a surprising ingredient, but I have made this a dozen times – once subbing extra coconut milk for the cream – and it really is better with it. Make sure to use coconut milk that doesn’t have extra thickeners, or the final product will end up strangely slimy.

The grapefruit salad… wow. Amazingly good. I can’t wait to make it this summer, to be eaten ice cold on a hot day. I added a diced avocado, and served without extra greens. I didn’t have a red chile, so I added a big spoonful of garlic-chile paste to the dressing. Also, I only had sweetened coconut and dry roasted peanuts on hand, so I just toasted them both together in a skillet, watching closely so they didn’t burn.

Roasted Garlic

Roasted garlic is delicious. Roasted garlic is versatile. Roasted garlic is kind of inconvenient. It takes quite a long time to cook, but the payoff is totally worth it. The uses are endless…

If you have an hour and an itty bit of freezer space, DO THIS.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Cut the top off of several heads of garlic, and drizzle with olive oil.
I used an 11″x17″ pyrex baking pan, and covered it tightly with foil. If you’re only doing one or two heads, you can just wrap the individual heads tightly in foil.

Spring! Sprung :)

NonBreezy 2012

Several years ago, a group of my girlfriends and I spent a snowy weekend at Breezy Point Resort in central Minnesota. We have made our winter getaway a nearly-annual event since then, but we haven’t been back to Breezy in several years. Regardless, the official unofficial name for the weekend has become “Breezy,” although it’s lately been morphing into “NonBreezy” or “UnBreezy.” Creatures of habit, we are…

Actually, the creatures of habit thing isn’t a joke. Unfailingly, the weekend consists of lots of talking, lots of laughing, a craft project or two (thanks, Mindy!), lots of movies, and several Ryan Gosling references. Oh, and food. Lots and lots of food. WAY TOO MUCH FOOD. Our menu really hasn’t varied much since we started doing these weekends. Yoga pants, Chex mix, Buffalo Chicken Dip, fondue, and Twachos have become the staples. What are Twachos, you ask? They’re nachos that you eat while watching a Twilight movie.

Meme credit goes to Becky

This year we switched it up a little bit, adding some Saturday morning yoga demonstrations, and making good use of the hot tub and sauna that this year’s house had. We also skipped the fondue, and adding some more fried things. I think we were all more sick from junk food by Sunday morning than we’ve ever been before… but it’s only one weekend a year, right?

Junk food, night one 

Backup junk food

Jalapeno popper dip, beer cheese fondue

Pickle cream cheese egg rolls!!! Originally inspired by a happy hour that  An Herbalist Eats wrote about and I couldn’t get out of my brain…

Pickle cream cheese egg rolls MUST be eaten off of a styrofoam plate, with Ranch.

Fried zucchini

Buffalo Chicken Dip: Before

Buffalo Chicken Dip: After

Chex Mix, with Cheez-Its

Puppy Chow

Sriracha-Cream Cheese Wontons

Twachos – photo credit to Shannon

Let Girls’ Weekend 2012 commence!

Welcome!

The Chemo Quilt that I made for my aunt is featured on Quilt Story today. If you are a new reader, welcome!

I love their site. It is full of beautiful quilts and the stories behind them. You’ll also find patterns, fabric giveaways, link roundups, and lots lots more. Be sure to check them out.