November is flying by!

Usually, I’d be decorated for Christmas by now and Christmas music would’ve been playing for weeks.  This year, however, when I walk in a store and see Christmas decorations, I am actually shocked.  Surely we’re still months away from Christmas, right?  How is Thanksgiving next Thursday?

Today when I realized how time seems to be slipping away, I decided to do something: I made a batch of soup to freeze for when Baby arrives in the coming weeks.  This is the first time ever I have made something with the intention of freezing it for later.  I am feeling incredibly grown up right about now and on my way to feeling incredibly prepared.  Just the simple act of making this turkey/vegetable/cheese soup was theraputic for me.  I felt like I had purpose as I stood at the cutting board chopping up carrots and onions and celery and potatoes. 

Because November has practically come and gone and CK and I didn’t do our big fakesgiving that we hoped to, and we didn’t paint the living room a pale purple like we planned to before we decorated for Christmas (not to mention, we haven’t even decorated for Christmas), and I haven’t spent weeks getting Christmas presents together and making a Christmas compilation to give to family again this year, I feel like I’ve missed out on the fun anticipation that November usually holds for me.

But, dumping those vegetables in the pot and spooning out portions into our new freezer storage containers felt almost as good as trimming the Christmas tree and setting up a nativity set.  In making this pot of soup, I was participating in a bit of anticipation – not the kind of anticipation that I usually experience in November, the kind leading up to the wonderful holidays of Thanksgivng and Christmas, but a different kind of anticipation.  In making this pot of soup, I was participating in a bit of preparation – again, not the kind of preparation that I usually experience in November, the kind leading up to a wonderful Thanksgiving meal or fabulous family Christmas, but a different kind of preparation. 

I have been, of course, anticipating and preparing for the birth of our son for a while now – precisely since March 23 when we found out he was on his way!  Today just felt a bit more real to me – like he is coming.  And even though I love Thanksgiving and I have been a bit sad about missing it this year (we don’t have an oven, have I complained about this before?  It’s true.  I can’t make a pumpkin pie and we can’t cook a turkey), making this soup today made me focus on how we’re getting something much better than an oven!  And even though I love Christmas and I just haven’t been on the ball with music and decorations and presents and cards, making this soup today made me focus on how we may not be decorated for Christmas (yet), but we’ve decorated a bit of space we’ve managed to carve our for Baby.

So, after the soup cooled a bit and I was able to split it among our new storage containers, I was feeling pretty good and hopeful about things.  Next Thursday, CK won’t be able to take off work since his class is from 4-6 pm, but we’ll enjoy green bean casserole and mashed potatoes - our little version of Thanksgiving this year.  We’ll count our blessings and stay away from counting our disappointments.  And then we’ll begin to decorate for Christmas and worry about painting the walls purple after the new year.

 

On Pumpkin Pie

I’m not sure when Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday, but bits and pieces from my childhood point to its being favored above all other holidays, even Christmas.  I’ve always been a girl who’s loved to eat, so a holiday centered around so much food is right up my alley.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the focus on gratitude and colored leaves and the big movie releases, too.  Basically, I love everything about Thanksgiving (though I could do without the football and the Black Friday shopping), but the food is probably the best part.  Namely, the pumpkin pie.  I don’t know how I ended up loving pumpkin pie so much, but I just can’t get enough of it.  You know those half pies that Publix sells?  Well, I have eaten the whole half pie in one sitting (more than once).  Truth be told, I could probably polish off an entire pie, but I’ve never tried.

 

About a month ago, we were chatting with C & M before church began one Sunday.  It came out that Clark Kent was heading to the States for two weeks and would be home over Thanksgiving.  ”No, I’m not going.  It’s too expensive.”  I guess they felt a little sorry for me because by the time the kids were released to go to their activities and the grown-ups turned to greet their neighbors, C & M invited me to their home for Thanksgiving (except not on Thursday since that’s choir practice).  It was sweet and they were earnest, so how could I not graciously accept their invitation?  They seemed genuinely excited, too, as they had never had Thanksgiving (why would they?).

 

After church, C scooted over to discus the traditional fare and I volunteered to take care of the sweet potatoes (after my green bean casserole was nixed – how can an entire family not like green beans but love brussel sprouts?) and the dessert.  The American, after all, should be in charge of a pumpkiny Thanksgiving dessert (because these guys over here just don’t do pumpkin – such a shame).

 

So, for much of October I fretted over Thanksgiving dessert.  Linda had been indulging in a piece of Cheesecake Factory pumpkin cheesecake over the past few weeks (available seasonally at Barnes and Noble) and so cheesecake was on my mind.  I had grand visions of wowing my hosts and their two kids with a beautiful pumpkin cheesecake.  But I had two problems: I didn’t have a spring form pan as mine sits tightly packed in Uncle Bob’s nor have I ever made a proper cheesecake before.  The spring form pan was easy enough to borrow, but boy, oh boy, was it hard to settle on the recipe I would use.  Many hours (many hours) later, I finally decided to trust Martha Stewart and made the test pumpkin cheesecake just in time for Clark Kent’s and my fake Thanksgiving two weekends ago.

 

That Friday afternoon when I made the cheesecake reminded me of when I went ice skating for the first time in my entire life with Dana back in junior high.  The Cutting Edge had just come out and I was 90% sure that when I stepped onto the ice, I was going to be the next bit thing, a natural born ice sktaer.  Like, I was probably going to skate just about as good as Kristi Yamaguchi.  I was 13 and in the 8th grade and I just knew that I was going to discover some natural ice skating talent.  I don’t think anyone will be surprised to know that I could barely get around the rink once.  Anyway, I thought (with all my heart) that I would be the one who could make cheesecakes perfectly upon her first try (like, Martha Stewart perfect).  I followed each step super carefully and camped out in front of the oven and just knew that the surface of my first cheesecake would remained uncracked.  But, I was wrong and this cavernous guy reared its ugly head upon cooling:

With some homemade whipped cream (that was really divine), the cheesecake was pretty good.  It wasn’t heavenly like the Cheesecake Factory’s cheesecake, but it certainly was nice having a piece of autumn each night for a week:

But this wasn’t the recipe that would wow my hosts for of fake Thanksgiving.  I felt super pressured to present perfection – I’m the American and it’s MY holiday, so I better deliver awesomeness.  I decided that I just couldn’t try another cheesecake (mostly because cheesecake was really stressing me out and also because 5 blocks of cream cheese really add up).  Thankfully, my friend Kate sent me this Martha Stewart recipe for an EASY pumpkin pie in a shortbread press-in crust (because who really wants to mess with making pie crust?  Not this girl!).

 

Last weekend was my test run.  I wanted to be sure to make it before CK took off for the States.  It was a solid hit, cracks and all:

This was my first pumpkin pie (last year I made pumpkin cheesecake bars that were completely awesome!) and I just couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out (though when I make it for fake Thanksgiving next week, I will up the spices).

I think that I just may have found my recipe (as in my tried and true, go-to recipe) for Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.  Though I’m sad I won’t be bringing green bean casserole to C & M’s, I’m totally thrilled that I’ll be taking this pie.  It wowed me, and even if it doesn’t wow them, I’m going to be happy.

 

Motherhood: the perfect brownies and the possibility of goth boots

I love The Smitten Kitchen. Blogger Deb is funny and thoughtful and a fantastic baker.  Not only do I love her recipes, but I love her stories, too.  Back in a post from July she wrote:

Some people find out they’re going to be parents and — you know, after the whole “yay babies!” cheer has simmered down a bit — freak out because they haven’t yet a) traveled the world, b) made their first million, paid off all of their debt and saved up enough for $200 toys for their little snowflake or c) well, grown up yet. But me, I actually had a moment of panic because I hadn’t yet found the perfect yellow layer cake recipe.

But, Deb met the deadline.  She found the perfect yellow layer cake recipe a couple months before her son was born.  Her post reminded me of that episode of Friends where Monica wants to the be the mom known for the best chocolate chip cookies.  Go ahead, watch this 4 minute clip – there are so many things that are funny about it. [Edit: Sadly, the PERFECT clip of Friends that I had originally posted here was removed from YouTube.  Hopefully, you know the episode I am referring to and if not, take my word for it :: it was a good one!]

So, Deb’s story and the Friends episode got me thinking: by the time I have children, what do I want to bake really well?  And it came to me in an instant: brownies.  I love yellow layered cake and chocolate chip cookies just as much as the next American girl, but I adore brownies.  Yes, it was settled, I would be the mom known for her amazing brownies.  So amazing that her kids would miss her brownies nearly as much as they’d miss her when they go off to college.

Now, as luck would have it, another favorite blogger, crafter, and baker of mine posted this entry just a couple of weeks after I got thinking about The Best Brownies ever.  After reading the Black Apple’s description, I was sold:

These are so reliable, so fast, and so good, and they fit my brownie-criteria to a T. I know that people look for different things in their brownie, but these are my top concerns:
-Chewiness
-Soft-ish insides
-Crisp (but not hard) little crust on top and sides

I gave them a try and … guess what?  They were perfect.  In.Every.Way.  She’s right: they’re reliable, fast, so good, chewy and softish, with a crisp upper crust.

The Best Brownie Ever

Please don’t think that I’ve just gone and settled for the first recipe I’ve tried.  After several batches of Chocolate Raspberry Brownies (sans nuts and raspberry topping), Cookie Dough Brownies (which we loved because not only because they were delicious, but the recipe made a lot: 9×13 pan instead of an 8 or 9 in square!), and Cheesecake Brownies (cream cheese makes anything better), I know a little about what I’m looking for.  While all these brownies are stand-outs in their own right, the Black Apple brownies still win.  I feel so accomplished to have my go-to brownie recipe secured.  Sure, it’s not my original recipe, but I have every confidence in the world that our kids will love them.  I might not make batches to send to them when they head off to college (mailing baked goods makes me nervous), but I will make them every time they come home to visit.

So, to me, motherhood means making the perfect brownies.  It also means letting your kids dress themselves and if that means they’ll pair their favorite polka dot shirt with their well worn plaid pants and hand knitted striped socks (because I will know how to knit by the time we have kids), then fantastic! I will proudly take them, in their silly and lovely mismatched outfits, out in public where they can parade around a bookstore.  After all, it’s just an outfit!

I’m glad I tell Clark Kent my thoughts because he holds me accountable.  We sit next to a very lovely couple in church most Sundays.  Both husband and wife hold degrees in Mathematics and are very nerdy (in the best possible way!).  They’ve had us to their home for Sunday lunch and we’ve met and talked with their two (very nice) teenage children.  Their daughter is very shy, soft-spoken, sweet, and when she is in church, she sits between her parents … wearing the most interesting foot wear.  And I mean interesting. I remember the first time I noticed them, I had to do a double-take.  It’s not like you would ever expect a girl like E to wear shoes like that. Like, crazy platform, goth-like, boots – a little bit something like this:

Definitely not something I would ever choose to wear – or want to buy for my daughter to wear.  As we walked home from church the other day, I asked Clark Kent, “What if our daughter wants to wear shoes like E?  What will we do?”  I sounded desperate.  Clark Kent, without missing a beat, said, “We’ll let her and it won’t be a big deal.”  I stared at him, in disbelief.  He then continued, “If we’re going to let our toddler pick out her own clothes, we might as well let our teenager.”  Touche, my dear husband, touche!

So, to me, motherhood is also the possibility that my daughter will choose goth boots over the sensible, yet stylish, Clarks that her mother might choose for her; and I’m ok with that now that I am armed with the perfect brownie recipe for her!  After all, they’re just shoes!

 

The “Surprise! We owe £1700″ chocolate bundt cake!

Tuesday started off brilliantly.  The blueberry crumb bars were finished off the day before and as soon as Clark Kent set off for work, I turned to the internet for some baking inspiration.  My sweet husband loves his chocolate and I wanted to make him a surprise “I love you” dessert.  I first thought about making a double layer chocolate cake.  However, I didn’t have the energy (nor did I want to use up ALL of our butter) to also make frosting.  The “electric whisk” we have just does not cream butter well – and when I made the blueberry crumb bars, I creamed the butter by hand – which was a bit too much work for me.  

THEN I REMEMBERED THAT CLARK KENT HAD BROUGHT HOME MY BUNDT PAN!

The decision wasn’t too hard.   I would make a chocolate bundt cake and to solve the frosting problem, I would simply sprinkle powdered sugar over it.  I searched the internet for a while before landing on THE perfect recipe (as it did not require an electric whisk nor did it require bringing any butter to room temperature!).  So, I excitedly got dressed, very deliberately choosing my red shirt so I would match my new apron (from Linda), and got to work on the bundt cake.

 

The cake went in the oven and I ran to check our mail.  I live with the ever present hope that something good will be waiting for us in the mail basket (though I have become horrible myself at keeping up with correspondence…KJ, if you’re reading, one of these days you’ll have some Royal Mail).  I was especially hopeful on Tuesday since Monday was a Bank Holiday, so it had another day to pile up!  Instead of something spectacularly marvelous waiting for me, something spectacularly tragic was waiting for me: our council tax bill.

 

A bit about council taxes: everyone, whether you rent or own, is responsible for council tax – which goes to fund garbage pick up, local schools, recycling, police, ambulance, among other things.  OF COURSE, our condemned building (no, really, it has been condemned and will be torn down in two years – we’ve been notified) is in THE most expensive borough and even though it is condemned, it’s in band C (not even the cheapest band).  So, we owe a little over £1700 to live here, which brings our total rent just shy of £1000 – to live on campus, to live in a condemned building, to put up with 3 am fire alarms pulled by drunken “freshers”, with a too-small oven, with no mail when the university is closed, with no tumble-dryer, with sub-par furniture, with asbestos stickers on the ceiling.  Furthermore, when we agreed to live in this campus flat, our “landlord” (the building manager) did inform us about council taxes with the following: “You will have to pay council taxes, but it’s a bit of a mystery.  No one really knows how much it is, but don’t worry, it’s not too much.  You’ll get a bill for it eventually.”  Clark Kent and I trusted this guy as we were very new to the UK and were just happy to have a place to live.  6 months later the bill comes.  So, as the bundt cake was baking, I was freaking out and Clark Kent was at work, blissfully unaware of the bill we just got. 

His “Surprise!  I love you” cake turned into a “Surprise!  We owe £1700″ cake. The cake turned out fantastic and was the best part of our Tuesday.  You see, our Tuesday didn’t get any better after the bill arrived.  I ended up chipping/breaking/we’re not sure my back tooth and we had to endure another night of small group.  

 

Yesterday was better.  Clark Kent has been motivated to move.  If we’re going to pay £1000 a month (that’s $1500!) to live (unhappily) on campus, we might as well try to  move off campus.  It couldn’t be any more expensive!  We have our first flat viewing this evening at 5:30 and one tomorrow.  We have extraordinarily high hopes for these flats.  The convenience of being on campus and roughly a 7 minute walk to work just isn’t worth the aggravation and unhappiness it’s causing us.  Join us in crossing your fingers that tonight’s flat viewing will be a GREAT success. 

 

 

The Best Bundt Cake Ever Recipe (in case you’d like to make a “Surprise!  Whatever is applicable to you” cake. 

Bring the following to a boil in a saucepan:

1/2 c butter

1/2 c vegetable oil

5 tbs cocoa powder

1 c water

Meanwhile, whisk together:

2 c flour

2 c sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Once chocolate mixture boils, stir and add to the flour mix and mix well.

Add the following to your batter mix:

1/2 c buttermilk

1 tsp baking soda

It will be a bit difficult to incorporate smoothly, but a wire whisk does wonders.

In a small, separate bowl, mix together:

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

Don’t worry if the cinnamon doesn’t dissolve.  Also, if you want a stronger (any at all, really) cinnamon taste in the cake, I suggest adding more than the called for 1 1/2 tsp.

Add the egg mixture to the batter and stir well.

Pour the batter in your greased bundt cake pan and bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes (though in my oven, it took close to 40 minutes).

Allow to cool at least 2o minutes before de-panning.

Sprinkle (most generously) with powdered sugar and enjoy!

 

Home made day

God bless the Bank Holiday of the UK.  And, there are TWO in May!  Since Saturday was busy with rising early for a day of food shopping at both the local Farmers’ Market AND the high-end Waitrose and Sunday necessitated earlier-than-we-would-like rising to make it on time to church, first on our agenda for our Bank Holiday Monday was to sleep in.  I think we rolled out of bed and made it to the kitchen, finally, around 10:45!  I didn’t even feel lazy!  I felt accomplished!

The rest of the day was spent being lazy (yay!) and dining on homemade food (double yay!!).  For breakfast, we enjoyed warm blueberry crumble bars (with an orange shortbread crust) that I made on Friday.  [This was such a success that I invited a French-man riding his bike by our window in for a piece on Friday evening.  The French-man seemed to like it, too.]  While a rented movie on iTunes downloaded, I made baked sweet potatoes with leeks and gorgonzola cheese!  At lunch, I mused that since I had two great successes (like, each final product was so good and each far exceeded my expectations), I knew a failure was lurking right around the corner.  For a few moments during dinner preparation, I feared the failure was closer than I would have liked.  However, I was brave and even though the my final product didn’t look exactly like the one in the recipe book, the taste was good enough to be happy about having leftovers today of a salmon pasta salad.

 

Oh, sugar plums!

Today marks the end of the fourth week of No More Sandwiches.  It’s been a great month of eating and experimenting and I have to say, I’m proud of myself.  Since it’s the end of the month and we’re running out of food, it would have been so easy to simply do things that I’ve already done.  But, this week I tried out two new lunch ideas: a crustless quiche and a bean salad.

 

Both the quiche and the bean salad fed us for two days each, they were super tasty, and super cheap!  The quiche was ridiculously easy!  The crust was a generous layer of cheddar cheese and I mixed zucchini, mushrooms, and onions in the egg/milk/flour mixture.  Delicious!  I was terrified of the beans.  Before this week, I had never dealt with dry beans – the beans you have to soak and rinse for 12 hours, the beans you have to boil, and then simmer for 2 hours.  I was definitely nervous, but it turned out great!  I added tuna and feta cheese on top of the beany bed and some sliced tomatoes and boiled egg.  We used the oil/vinegar dressing CK made up for our church’s potluck a couple of weeks ago, and it really was a delicious, and filling, lunch!

 

The sun continues to shine more and more over here.  In fact, we’ve enjoyed almost two full weeks of sunshine with just one rainy afternoon.  We’re hoping the fantastic spring weather will continue when Linda’s here.  She arrives in less than a week now!  There are afternoon tea plans, country walk plans, Jane Austen house plans, and Wind in the Willows Museum plans.  Living so far from family isn’t so bad when you’re able to visit every three months or so.  

 

I helped a “colleague” (no one in the UK says “coworker”) of mine search for a book this morning.  I thought I had successfully located the book and proudly presented it to her.  She was relieved for a brief moment – but then she realized it was not the correct book as the bar code did not match and exclaimed, “Oh, sugar plums!” as she handed the book back to me. 

“Did you just say ‘sugar plums’?”  I asked.

“Oh, yes.  You see, I used to be a primary school teacher, you know,” she replied before walking away at top speed.  Everyone in the library walks either super fast or super slowly.  I fall into the latter category, naturally.

 

A Successful Third Week

Another week of no sandwiches for lunch has ended rather well.  This week we enjoyed very berry lemon bread (with blueberries and raspberries – and, perhaps a bit too many berries), lots of good fruit (plums, pears, apples, oranges), a little bit of leftovers (pasta and green bean casserole), garden and tuna salad, easy Shells & Cheese, and our favorite, cous cous.  I tried my hand at the plain old big bag of cous cous (instead of individual flavored packets) and it turned out wonderfully delicious (thanks, Allison, for the chicken stock recommendation!).  Now that I have three weeks under my belt, I’m beginning to relax a little.  I’m not obsessing over what we’ll have for lunch the following day and I start preparing lunch just 20-30 minutes before Clark Kent arrives home (which is a great improvement over the hour it took me to prepare the first week!).  I have really fallen in love with the role of house-wife (though, technically, I do work – even if it is just a few hours a day).  Even though I have spent many years NOT cooking and not being interested in the Food Network or food magazines, I’m really coming around.  I so wish I could spend a few hours in Barnes and Noble in the cookbook section.  I’d like to spend a hour or two in their cafe looking through the cooking magazines.  I’d like to watch the Food Network with Linda (now that I appreciate it).  Even though England has a great Barnes and Noble counterpart, Waterstones, they don’t sell many magazines.  And, there is not many places to sit comfortably to look through books.  That is something America does right, I think!   For now I have to settle for the library and their cookbooks.  Or allrecipes.com – which I love. 

 

I’m getting more and more comfortable in the kitchen.  It feels good to figure out what to make for lunch and dinner, to plan a shopping list or put an order in to the grocery store (remember, we love our grocery home delivery!).  It feels great having lunch or dinner ready for CK when he comes home; it gives me purpose (does that sound silly?).  And, of course it feels great each and every time he smiles or compliments the food (and, bless his heart, he is full of compliments!).  

 

The “beer” bread is in the oven (made with Coke, as it is cheaper!).  I know the Tastefully Simple mix can be made with any carbonated beverage and I’m just hoping the same is true for this from scratch recipe) and the chili is simmering on the stove (made with minced lamb!).  The peanut butter muffins are on the cooling rack and even though there’s a messy kitchen to clean up, I’d say the weekend has gotten off to a most splendid start.

 

Week 2 of Lunches: Still a success

Even though half a cucumber, half a zucchini, and an entire head of lettuce froze in our too cold fridge and had to be thrown away throwing a bit of a wrench in my lunch wheel, lunches this week were pretty good.  Monday was an easy one: leftovers for lunch.  We’ve started a tradition (two weeks in a row now) of having scrambled eggs and pancakes for dinner.  Clark Kent makes them and they are THE BEST pancakes ever.  Not only do they taste amazing, they are great for three other reasons: they’re a cheap dinner, they’re filling (neither of us even gets hungry later in the evening), and there’s left over for Monday’s breakfast.  Except this Monday, we just had toast and saved the pancakes for lunch!  (Which was also accompanied with some leftover pasta/asparagus/peas fro a previous dinner.)

 

Tuesday, I baked THE BEST banana bread (except I left out the nuts, subbed whole wheat flour, used half the (brown) sugar called for, and “made” my own buttermilk with milk and lemon juice) and we enjoyed tuna salad and mashed up avocado on really good cream crackers.  We eat these crackers all the time, having first discovered them on our very first day here (October 10).  It seems that every time we eat them, Clark Kent muses, “These are great crackers.  They’re really strong!”  (Kind of like EVERY time he sees a white pigeon he asks me if it’s a dove.  NO!)

 

Clark Kent’s favorite lunches have been those that involve cous cous.  Wednesday we had tomato flavored cous cous, which was the last of the convenient packets of cous cous that are SUPER easy to make and very deliciously flavored.  Now that I’ve made the easy kind three times, I will have to move into the big bag of plain and much more economically sound cous cous for next week.

 

Thursday was probably my favorite lunch – quesadillas made with corn, canned beans in a chili sauce (I am still very sad that I cannot find black beans here!), onions, and plenty of cheese.  It made three big quesadillas and we just split one – which means…LEFT OVERS!!  I have come to see left overs as beautiful!  We’ll be enjoying some left over quesadillas tonight, as a matter of fact.

 

And today was a carb party!  I had anticipated some kind of salad – perhaps egg salad again like last Friday.  Or, even another day of cous cous.  But, with the lettuce, cucumber, and zucchini casualties earlier this week, I had to do something else.  We finished off the meatloaf yesterday for dinner, but we still had some mashed potatoes…so, along with some very good Kraft Mac&Cheese, we enjoyed a very comfort-esque food lunch.  

 

This new lunch thing has really been fun.  I can’t wait to go back to the grocery store this weekend to prepare for the next two weeks!

 

Blondies for a tough week

Blondies with peanutbutter chips

Originally uploaded by alisabethmix

Clark Kent has had a rough week. Fridays don’t look so good when they’re deadlines. He’s working against the clock to get a paper submitted for the Dublin conference that he’s presenting at on April 1. He’s been tired and frustrated and I hate not being able to do anything. I want to help. I want to help him come up with a solution; but, well, my degree is in English and I can’t even diagram sentences let alone help him solve for various measures of economic efficiency through estimated parametric and nonparametric production functions. (I just interrupted his work so he could feed me that line.)

I may not be able to help with his work, but I can (and did) bake him something! When I got home from work this evening, I began searching through a new blog I found (thanks to Allison) and landed on a pretty easy (and delicious looking and sounding) blondie recipe. I didn’t have butterscotch chips on hand, but I did have a bag of Reese’s peanutbutter chips that Linda brought with her at Christmas. So, into the kitchen I went. I tied on the apron (also brought by Linda at Christmas), measured the butter, listened to The Weepies and William Fitzsimmons on the handy laptop, and baked the blondies.

When he came home from work, he saw them on the stove and said, “My dismal evening just got infinitely better.” Just the kind of reaction I was hoping for. At 9 pm he’s promised to take a quick break for a blondie! Just a couple more minutes to go…

 

Operation No More Sandwiches: Success!

This might be a little repetitive for any of my faithful Flickr friends, but I am so excited about a couple of things and just have to share my excitement on this space.

 

I’m not sure how long Clark Kent and I have dreaded the ever boring lunchtime sandwich, but it’s been a while.  I was even beginning to not like my favorite, the tuna sandwich.  CK had even gotten sick of his one-time favorite, the salami sandwich.  Lunchmeat has been a struggle here – to find good, affordable, tasty lunchmeat in this country is next to impossible.  Trust us.  We were also growing tired of the bag of chips that could accompany our sandwiches and I’m pretty sure the fun sized candy bar that we enjoyed for dessert on a daily basis is partly responsible for me now being officially overweight (as the doctor told me two-ish weeks ago).  So, it was high time for a change.  We’re turning 30 in a few months and it’s time we eat like adults – which, as far as we could figure out, meant: more fruits and vegetables and no more individual packages of chips or candy.

 

Last weekend’s trip to the grocery store was exciting.  It was fun to go carefully through the produce department filling our buggy up with all sorts of fresh fruits and vegetables.  We even loaded up on frozen vegetables.  I had an image of what I wanted lunch to look like every day in my head, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to execute it.  But, guess what?  One reason why I’m so excited about this week’s lunches is because the reality of lunch time this week totally matched what was in my mind!  I had so much fun preparing lunch this week and Clark Kent gladly walked home for his lunch hour each day – which is a bit new for us, too.  I have been meeting him at his office since we got here.

 

It’s been a week of firsts: my first time cutting a real pineapple, my first time making egg salad by myself, my first time making cous cous, my first time making pumpkin muffins from scratch, my first time making several substitutions in baking (whole wheat flour instead of all purpose, apple sauce instead of oil, half the amount of sugar called for and then using half brown/half white, more pumpkin than called for), my first time making quesadillas, my first time cooking with a zucchini (well, I did make zucchini muffins once, but all I had to do was grate the zucchini and fold it, raw, into the batter).  With so many firsts, I just KNEW that I would mess something up.  I nearly had a mess up with the eggs today, but Linda helped me through it thanks to the power of Skype. 

 

So, while we have had lemon raspberry bread (which was more like cake) and mayo in our tuna and egg salads and feta cheese, most of the other things we’ve enjoyed for lunch this week have been really healthy.  I’ve been able to get lunch ready and on the table and the entire kitchen cleaned up (all dishes washed, dried, and put away) before CK has walked in the door each day this week.  It’s such a great moment for me when he walks in the kitchen and sees the table: his eyes light up, he says something incredibly sweet, makes over how nice everything looks, hugs me, and then oooohhhs and aaaahhhhs all through lunch.  It’s also so nice to make a cup of tea and sit in our living room together for 10 minutes before he heads back to work and before I start my shift at the library.  We’ve been able to walk each other half way to work until the sidewalk parts and he goes one way and I go the other.  

 

It has just been THE best week of lunches EVER.  In my life.  And I mean it.

 

Our menu this week was:

Monday – mushroom flavored cous cous with sauteed mushrooms, zucchini, onions, and garlic and feta cheese and cherry tomatoes on top, a piece of lemon raspberry bread, and an apple

Tuesday – leftover quesadilla with Mexican beans, corn, and cheese inside (Monday’s dinner), green beans, half a delicious avocado, a piece of lemon raspberry bread, and an orange

Wednesday – a scoop of tuna and sweetcorn salad on top of a garden salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, and feta, a piece of lemon raspberry bread, and fresh pineapple and strawberries

Thursday – roasted vegetable cous cous with sauteed zucchini, onion, garlic, and mushrooms and feta, a pumpkin apple muffin, and pineapple and half an apple

Friday – a scoop of egg salad on a garden salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, and feta, a pumpkin apple muffin, and pineapple, strawberries, and half a banana