Unconscious Mutterings - 417

1. Girlfriend :: me
2. Crushed :: garlic
3. Source :: paper
4. Corner :: Baby (dirty dancing)
5. Gossip :: girl
6. Encounter :: of the first kind
7. Make an offer :: real estate
8. Stylish :: clothing
9. Profit :: margin
10. Waste :: garbage

http://subliminal.lunanina.com/?/um/ind/week_417/

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This is something I used to do, back when Live Journal was "the place" to be. I still follow the words weekly via google reader but haven't posted my thoughts in awhile. Going to try and keep up. The words are posted by http://subliminal.lunanina.com/mutteringslogos.php weekly, she explains the process as:

Free association is described as a "psychonanalytic procedure in which a person is encouraged to give free rein to his or her thoughts and feelings, verbalizing whatever comes into the mind without monitoring its content." Over time, this technique is supposed to help bring forth repressed thoughts and feelings that the person can then work through to gain a better sense of self.

It's interesting and typically somewhat entertaining as to what you really do think of when provided with a otherwise unrelated list of words.

Meal Planning 01.17.2011

Happy belated new year!!! Hope everyone is off to a fine start this year. :-) I've been slacking in some departments but am getting back on track, slowly.

We have a new pet now, a bearded dragon he's been an interesting addition and I must admit I never thought I'd find a reptile cute. His diet involved some veggies and squash which is encouraging me to use more in our meals as well. :-)

Here's the meal plan for this week:

Monday - Tilapia (steamed for me, fried for him) with zucchini and yellow squash

Tuesday - Pulled pork sandwiches (cooked in the crockpot), w/ salad

Wednesday - simple something

Thursday - Taco fiesta Chicken lasagna

Friday - Goulash (casserole got the recipe from my mom, will post later)

Saturday - Turkey w/ "lizard" greens (collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens) sauteed with garlic

Sunday - Leftovers

Breakfasts:
Eggs (omelet, sandwich, hardboiled)
Turkey bacon
Oatmeal
Cereal
Yogurt

Lunches:
Tuna salad
Egg salad
Sandwiches
Pizza bagels
Salad

Snacks:
Veggies
Cottage cheese
Hummus w/ wheat thins (or veggies)
Nuts

Turkey, turkey, turkey

Hope everyone had a wonderful and fulfilling thanksgiving last week. And if Black Friday or Cyber Monday are your thing that you got some great deals. I did make one cyber purchase yesterday but it was an impulse buy for myself. :) I decided to get myself a pretty apron, I've been cooking a lot and when I wear the old school boxy aprons while I stay cleaner (I'm somewhat of a klutz) they don't feel comfortable nor look cute. So when I saw on a blog I read (don't remember which one) there was a deal for cyber Monday from Flirty Aprons I decided to order one, Cherry Blossom specifically. It hasn't arrived yet as I ordered it yesterday and didn't pay for fancy shipping. I'll update when it arrives.

My parents made a huge turkey on thanksgiving, like 21 pound huge for six people, six. My dad feels he can fit more stuffing inside a larger bird, while that is probably true. It leaves us all with tons and tons of turkey leftovers. Since I can now eat more solid foods, nothing crunchy or anything fried, etc. But soft, easily chewed as my extraction site is still healing. Anyways my point. I was looking through recipes online for ideas, and saw a recipe for turkey enchiladas. Well that sounded like a good idea, so I made up my own recipe, I didn't measure anything so I'll put down my guesstimates. Luckily enchiladas aren't an exact science.

Green Chili Turkey Enchiladas
made 5-6 enchiladas

5-6 tortillas (we had flour on hand)
2 cups cut up/shredded Turkey (or whatever meat)
2 heaping tablespoons light sour cream
bag(s) shredded cheese
1 can green chilis (this is a small can)
1 can green chili enchiladas sauce
Salt, pepper, to taste

What to do:
Heat over to 350.
Cut up the turkey into small pieces or shred if your patience allows. :)
Add sour cream, green chilis, and a handful of cheese, salt, pepper whatever seasonings to taste. I added a 6 pepper blend and cayenne pepper. Mix till blended and all meat is coated.
Then take a heaping spoonful of the mixture and place on a tortilla roll and place seam side down in a casserole dish.
Pour can of enchilada sauce over all rolled tortillas, bake in over uncovered 20-30 minutes till warm.

Pull enchiladas out of the over and sprinkle top with cheese, to taste but try to get decent coverage. I mixed habanero cheese and pepper jack blends for ours.
Then place under broiler for a few minutes till the cheese is bubbly and begins to brown.

Let cool for a few minutes then enjoy. :-)

Notes: I made this completely with things we had in the house on hand, we enjoy Mexican food and almost always have enchilada sauce, green chilies, so feel free to change it up to taste.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Here is one of the two pumpkin spice cakes I made. One for each parents house, were getting two turkey meals tomorrow. ^.^ So I made cakes and pumpkin dip.

The pumpkin dip recipe comes from an e-book (free) that's posted here: Yourway.net it's on page 14 of the .pdf file.

On a completely random note, I had to have one of my molars extracted yesterday due to cracking the tooth. So I've been on a liquid diet the last two day, a cold liquid diet. So I've been "eating" slim fast, pudding, ice cream, and some cold cheese soup. I want warm food so badly, tomorrow I get to which will be so awesome. I'm looking forward to mashed potatoes, stuffing, and anything else that doesn't require much chewing.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Chaos Theory

Life was going great, there was routine and consistency, so I guess I should have expected something to happen. Unfortunately I couldn't, nor would I have wanted to predict what happened next. My man and I just "celebrated" two years together (yay us), but this was downsized due to his brother passing away. His brother was 26 years old and just graduated from the motorcycle mechanic institute, and moved home. He unexpectedly passed away on November 3. So the last few weeks became a complete and utter whirlwind, life is just now going back to "normal." Obviously it's not the same, but we are making due.

Trying to get back into normal routines is taking time, the desire to do laundry wasn't great to begin with and now at times it's down right annoying. But it's getting done, slowly...because it piled up a little bit recently. Earlier this week I actually did some meal planning for the week, I picked easy dishes and spent a little more money on some convenience foods, but at least I'm attempting to cook at home again. Tonight I was adventurous and made broccoli cheddar soup, it was my first attempt at a homemade version of this, which I always crave in the cooler months. I used this recipe, and just varied the Velveeta amount till it was good, I also added some matchstick carrots, I was a little short on flour so I added some cornstarch to compensate. It came out REALLY thick but I think that's due to my man adding more cheese. I made some Pillsbury crescent rolls to go on the side (buttery flavor), as I said easy convenience foods. But it was good and filling. I didn't think to take pictures but it looked pretty standard for broccolli cheddar soup. ^.^

Hopefully I'll have happier news to report in the near future, just trying to get back into the swing of things.

Meal planning 11.01.2010

So this was the plan, then I realized I'd planned nothing for Monday, so I switched Wednesday and Monday. :-)

Monday: Hamburgers (with lean beef), and sweet potato fries

Tuesday: Crock Pot - Garlic, Garlic, Garlic Chicken (this is cooking right now and smells AMAZING)

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Garlic Chicken Pizza (recipe I'm using as a base) w/ salad

Friday: Pan Burrito with shredded lettuce 

Saturday: Steamed tilapia, steamed veggies and rice (I throw everything in the rice cooker so it's easy)

Sunday: Bourbon Chicken w/ stir fry veggies over rice/noodles (decide that night)

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Burgers from last night turned out good, the fries were tasty with a little spice involved so they were a hit. We just need to figure out a complimentary dipping sauce for them. ^.^

We just used some lean beef, added a little Lawry's, pepper blend and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, grilled up on the foreman grill. For more detailed pictures of the fries being made check out my picasa album. 

Coupons

Okay so it was only a matter of time that I began more seriously clipping coupons and trying to obtain better deals. As many of the intelligent women's blogs I read do on a regular basis, I'm a n00b (newbie) in video game terms. But I have been reading and gotten a few good deals here and there, and been slowing cutting down our grocery bill by planning with the sales and using coupons.

Coupon organizer evolution

I began using coupons years ago but it was a short lived phase, mostly because I didn't know what I was doing, like most consumers used the coupons to buy something new that sounded good. Not to actually save any money, unbeknown to me. So my first coupon organizer wasn't practical in many ways, probably part of the reason I didn't stick with the system initially. Because it wasn't really a system, it was an attempt. I was young and living in an area with no double coupons made it less intriguing.

Binder with roomy front pocket 

Fast forward to now, I had an accordion style organizer for awhile, but it was getting to cramped and I was "missing" things since I couldn't find them inside. Even if I pulled everything I needed before shopping, and kept the rest in my purse. I was frustrated. So I decided to take the plunge and make a binder, when I first saw these binders people created for coupons I was amazed in some ways. And didn't think I'd want to take a binder out in public (which I have yet to do). But so far I'm happy with the organization and ability to find things.

File Folders

So I created a binder after reading about a few different people's variations. I went to Target not wanting to spend much money, but realized the importance of a zippered binder being a klutz. This was the only one on the shelf as it's not back to school time, but I think it is a perfect fit. The front has a mesh pocket that's fairly roomy, I put my cell phone in there and my keys just to test it out.

The other cool feature is the built in file pockets, there are 4 pockets with dividers on the front of the binder. I've been keeping unclipped coupons and store advertisements in here so far. This is secured by that elastic string and circle on the front of the binder.

Inside the binder

When you open the binder there are a lot of "built ins" on the left side. Two card holders, a small zippered mesh pocket (with pennies for the picture), two pen holders, a larger zippered pocket, and an old school cell phone holder (that I placed a small fold up reusable bag). That area makes it easier to keep things together and maybe in the future use a pencil pouch for loose coupons.

It's organized with dividers, the sections are Food, Health, Home, Store Specific, and Restaurants. I bought baseball card holders to hold the coupons, folding when necessary. Within the large sections the coupons are organized alphabetically, the other sections are less than one page each but I will alphabetize those should the need arise. In the back I have a folder to place over sized ad's or other items.

The rest of the pictures can be found on my picasa album. I'll update how this goes in terms of saving $$$ and time. ^.^

Crock pot chili

So I made some chili the other day, as planned. I didn't quite realize, or well think about the fact that 6 quarts is a gallon and a half of anything. So in the end I created 1/5 gallons of yummy chili...that consisted of 3.5 lbs of beef. :-)

I read some basic recopies to remind myself of ratios and get an idea of quantity for the crock pot, as I'd never attempted chili in the crock pot.

Crock Pot Chili

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
2.5 lbs stew meat
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cans spicy V-8
1 can chili beans
1 can red kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 medium onion chopped
2-3 cloves garlic chopped/minced (depending on taste)
1/4 cup chopped jalapeños (to taste)
ground cumin
chili powder
cayenne pepper
oregano
salt
pepper
hot sauce

Directions:
First, I chopped all things that needed to be chopped or diced. Then I put some mined garlic paste (jalapeño* liquid from jar) in a pan and turned on the heat, then I added the ground beef. Began to brown beef, and added stew meat. After all meat was in pan I added the onions and some of the garlic I had chopped reserving some to go straight into the Crockpot (we like garlic).

Served with a few Fritos and Cheddar on top

While meat was browning I added the canned tomatoes, V-8, and beans to crock pot and stirred together.

Once the meat was browned on the outside, I drained the fat and added it to the crock pot. Mixed all items together then added all the seasonings. I knew basic measurements and just eyeballed everything, so I can't post the amounts that I put into the crock pot. The hot sauce I used was called After Death and I only added 3-4 drops, that was enough. But we like things super spicy most of the time.

Then turned the Crockpot onto low for 7-8 hours, I stirred it a few times throughout the day, just to insure no meat dried out from stick out at the top. It was a little soupy in the end, but for leftovers I added a table spoon of cornstarch (mixed with water) and that thickened it up really well and made it a more traditional chili consistency.

*Whenever we brown beef we typically add some jalapeño liquid from the jar and a 6 pepper blend to add some flavor to the meat, no matter what dish we are creating.

When menu planning doesn't happen...

Okay so I slacked this week, last week we never made the meatloaf or tilapia (if you haven't figure it out the fish is frozen). I mentioned on Monday I could make the meatloaf, but I was easily swayed into venturing out. So we went out on Monday, Tuesday I went impulse grocery shopping with my mom. She needed a few things so I went with her, as we'd been out shopping most of the day. In the end I picked up a few things I knew we needed and a few things we did not. Impulse shopping is too easy sometimes. So Tuesday night's dinner was a store made quiche which are really tasty and something I have not attempted to make myself, yet. Tonight was hamburger helper, because it was easy and here.

Recap:

• Monday - Fast Food
• Tuesday - HEB Jalapeno and Cheese quiche
• Wednesday - Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper

The plan for the rest of the week:

• Thursday - Chili - probably in the crockpot, haven't decided
• Friday - Dinner with my Mom
• Saturday - we'll have company, so it's kinda up in the air, possible going out might make something. Going to leave it up in the air
• Sunday - leftovers or something simple