Like Father....

I was not entirely shocked to discover that Riley has picked up some of my husband's traits.  I present you.....Riley Builds a Device.

Yeah, I didn't rig this.  This is a Riley original.  This made is so that she didn't have to hold the bone up to chew on it.  Pretty clever.  And if you remember back from the wedding, my husband built device upon device.  The does it for his D&D games and, well, anything that he can.  He loves rigging things up to make them more efficient.  His friends tease him that it should be a line of children's picture books: ____ Builds a Device.

And so, this kicks off a week of me honoring my hubby and his 30th birthday! 

Pampered Chef

 

 We had such a good time at the Pampered Chef party last night!  The dog was a bit wild with five women and no "daddy" in the house, but other than that, smashing success!

 

 This dip is awesome.

 Organic braeburn and crackers.

Baked brie with fig and cranberry compote and organic honey.

The electric kettle had hot cider in it.  I was disappointed because I've misplaced my mulling spices, but the cider was actually so good that it wasn't missed.

Thanks for the great party!  If anyone out there needs some Pampered Chef, please drop me a line!

Food in Review

Not sure how to describe this week.....welcoming fall?

Friday: We welcomed the new Freebirds in Denton.  Me with a carnitas burrito bowl full of pico, house-roasted hot tomatillo salsa, corn salsa, rice and black beans.  My only complaint?  Too much cheese, if you can believe it!  Other than that, it was pure heaven in bowl form.  No photos were taken to save me the shame of admitting exactly how much food I dominated in one sitting. 

Saturday: We had plans for a pre-thanksgiving feast with friends.  They literally host Thanksgiving early....with three different turkeys done three different ways!  Epic. But Riley's swollen face kept us from the feat.  Our back up plan.  A grilled cheese sandwich.  Yep.  Just that.  Not even a side.  Sad in comparison, no?

Sunday: I made up for Saturday's sorry meal with some slow cooked comfort food!  I made my very first beef stew!  I used stew meat from CM's meat counter, organic yukon gold potatoes, organic carrots, pearl onions, fresh sage, thyme, and rosemary.  I loosely followed this Shiner recipe and used about 2/3 a bottle of bock.  Then it cooked.....all day.  The end result was fall-apart melt-in-you-mouth meat but the veg still held its shape.  Perfect combo.  Served with bread and butter.

Monday: Kroger had Muir Glen pasta sauces for $2.99 each.  That's an insanely good price.  I love their tomato products, and it seemed like a good time to try the pasta sauce.  I got the Cabernet Marinara and paired it with Rising Moon's basil, asiago, and pinenut pesto ravioli, a Caesar salad, and a ciabatta roll from WF.  The ciabatta and sauce were great.  The salad was just a salad.  The pasta was downright disappointing.  I'll be going back to the CM brand organic raviolis.

Tuesday: More stew...this time stew that's sat for two days.  Something about left over comfort food dishes (like stew, chili or lasagna) taste SO MUCH better days later.  Like the manicotti from CM a few weeks ago!  I hated it the first night.  I could have eaten my weight in it the second go-round.  The stew did not disappoint at all.  This time it was paired with leftover whole wheat buttermilk biscuits from gaming on Saturday, again, Mama Pea's recipe.

Wednesday: I went for an easy one after dance class.  Soup and sandwiches.  Soup of choice was Campbell's Italian Wedding.  Sandwich was turkey pastrami, sharp white cheddar, arugula, and horseradish mayo on toasted everything bagel thins.  Believe it or not, this meal rocked me to my core.  It was amazing.  Wish the everything bagels where whole grain though.

Thursday: I wanted to use up the pasta sauce, so I did something I rarely do.....I put it on "regular" pasta.  See, my half Italian (and I mean his mother is actually from Italy not a descendant) ate a little too much spaghetti and marinara in his youth.  Shocking, right?  So, I try not to make long, strand-style pasta with red sauce.  But I love it!  So, I added some crispy prosciutto to the mix in the hope that the addition of a favorite ingredient would disguise the fact that we are, in fact, eating one of his least favorite dishes.  At least I went for whole wheat linguine instead of spaghetti.  That counts, right??

Riley wishes you all a wonderful weekend!

 

Party Prep

I love hosting gatherings.  I especially love the really laid back gatherings.  This might explain why I did not always enjoy the wedding planning.  There is NOTHING laid back about planning a semi-formal wedding which, whether I like it or not, is what we ended up having. 

Laid back parties really hold a place in my heart though.  Part of that might very-well be the fact that before I met my husband, I really hadn’t been able to host a successful party.  My former husband was so disliked that we’d “throw” a party and not one person would show.  Not one.  How sad is that?!  Yet, hosting a get together now (in this life with a wonderful man) is not only no big deal, but frequent.  Because of gaming there is a gathering of one sort or another in our home nearly weekly.  And they let me cook for them.

I also use parties to force myself to do a more thorough clean of our home and feed people.  Yeah, I can’t help it.  I love to feed people.  I hate to clean, but I love a clean house.  So the end result of being forced to clean always leaves me very fulfilled. 

I’ve been planning a party for a while now that happens this week.  It’s a Pampered Chef party.  I’m excited.  I get to cook….with other people!  And I get to put out really fun appetizers (in a hopefully very clean house).   I just did the shopping for the party.  Oh my….there will indeed be some good grub!  I truly cannot wait. 

Sadly, the cleaning part has to happen first.  Ugh.  Why doesn’t the cleaning fairy ever visit my house??

As an aside....to all the vets past and present, thank you and happy veterans' day.

Whodathunkit?!

The time change is not agreeing with me.  I am LOOPY, people!  I stared at my paperclip holder for at least 30 second trying to figure out how to put more paperclips into it….

….then missed!

Everyone in our household seems a bit off this week.  Riley, no longer of the swollen face, is waking me up so that she can use the bathroom again.  WE JUST GOT OVER THAT!  Then they went and “gave” us an hour.  Now she’s all confused and can’t figure out why mommy is “sleeping in” every morning, though it’s only 4:30 in the morning in non-puppy time.  The husband fell asleep on the couch Sunday night at 8:30.  So we went to bed.  At 8:30!  Yeah, we’re ancient.  And he’s not slept well at all this week, which affects how I sleep (which I just spelled slepp). 

Oh yes, this is one out of whack family right now.  We’ll be very happy when our bodies have readjusted.  I do not ever remember being so heavily affected by the time change.  Can we just do away with it?  Please.  J

I'm so out of it that I missed out on my blog-o-versary!  Yeah, I've been blogging for a year as of the 7th.  Who knew I'd keep doing it past the wedding?  Certainly not me.  So, what do you think, should I keep doing it?  

Adrift

So, for some reason, I can flow through Central Market effortlessly without being overwhelmed in the slightest.  Yet, put me in Whole Foods, and I feel utterly out of my depth! 

My best friend says that Central Market inspires her to cook.  Whole Foods inspires her to be healthy.  Well, I choose both (and I think she would second that).  So, I make mini shopping trips when I can to fill in gaps left by the other.  Today was a WF gap day.  Really, it's that they have bulk almonds for $3.99 per pound, and that's a steal!  I came out with two pounds of raw almonds that I intend to butterize about a half pound at a time. 

I did find something that made me incredibly giddy today though, in my attempt to better familiarize myself with the inner workings of WF.  I discovered raw cheeses!  I picked up a container of raw milk gorgonzola.  Bleu cheese of some nature is usually included in a Waldorf salad, but I'd left it out of my raw meal.  I am SO GLAD I went to the grocery store before I ate that salad.  The gorgonzola was amazing, and it completed the salad perfectly.  They had a fairly decent variety of raw cheeses.  I'm already kicking myself for not getting the raw sharp cheddar! 

So, here's to being inspired toward health through tasty, tasty food!

Am I the only one intimidated by a grocery store?  Man, I feel like I need a spotter in there!

This week in raw

To continue my little adventure into raw, I've prepared myself a salad and a snack for the beginning of the week.

The salad is a take-off on a Waldorf salad.  My salad included organic New Zealand apples, halved grapes, diced organic red onion, and a dressing made of avocado, lime zest, lime juice, and sea salt.  The mixture was piled atop spicy organic arugula and sprinkled with raw sunflower seeds.  I think this is a total win!

For my snack, I made Blender Gurl's cashew cheese, but with what I had on hand. 

1 1/2 c soaked cashews
2 T nutritional yeast
2 t lemon juice (plus zest)
2 t sea salt
handful of cilantro

Pulse till crumbly.

I'll be enjoying this on Ezekial 4:9 bread.  No Ezekial isn't raw.  But it's sprouted and more nutritious than regular bread.  So, I find it to be a perfectly acceptable substitute.