Life is more than the Cubicle

Here's a recap of the past couple of meals I've made.

Since I'm now done with school, I have a lot more time on my hands. So that means that I can now put a little more effort into my cooking instead of PB&J sandwiches and ramen. Someone should really do a study on how incredibly unhealthy it is to work and be a student. I think I took a few years off of my life...

Anyway..

Matt requested Coq au Vin last wednesday so I threw together this meal:

It's been a while since I posted and a whole bunch of stuff has happened so it's time for a recap.

1. I finished school!! *dances like a crazy person* Almost 20 years of school (including kindergarten) are finally over and done with and I plan on never, ever, ever returning unless it is for something fun like cooking or learning a new language. Either way, I'm done with anything related to a classroom or homework or tests for at least a couple of years. It feels SOOO good to re-enter the normal world of responsibilities. SO good to not be a full-time employee AND part-time student and it will feel even BETTER to have less stress and more time. So yes, I can go out for a drink after work and yes, I can go out for coffee, and yes, I can hang out in the middle of the week and yes, I can be more irresponsible than I have been for the last almost 3 years. It feels delicious!
2. Finished book #2 of the Game of Thrones Series (A Song of Fire and Ice) A Clash of Kings - so much drama! and war! and fighting! and intrigue! Don't let the page count scare you, it's a fantastic series
3. Started book #3 of the Game of Thrones Series, A Storm of Swords - excited to see how the drama and fighting play out!
4. Watched The Descendants last night with Matt. I cried a lot. Definitely a really good movie and highly recommended!
5. It's been freezing lately, or is it just me and my immune system that just sucks. I've felt like I've had a cold for weeks now. Matt and I went out shopping this weekend and I bought myself a pair of booties and an electric blanket to keep me warm in his house. He bought a mini space heater for the bedroom because it's always freezing in there. I'm now spoiled in warmth and sitting in my cold office feels like torture.
I've never had an electric blanket before, even in college, so I was definitely aware of what I had been missing out on with that thing. It's so toasty and warm and comfy. It heats you up right away and is seriously one of the best things ever invented...besides central heating.
6. My mom borrowed my stand mixer to make bread, which gave me the excuse to not bake or cook for a while, and has now given it back to me, which has eliminated my excuse to not bake or cook. So now I have to figure out what to give my coworkers as treats for the holidays. I bought some mini loaf pans so my plan was to make some mini lemon poundcakes, like the lemon-poppyseed poundcake from The Kind Diet. I only bought 4 mini loafs so I don't know when my patience will run out, maybe after only 2 batches. I'm also searching for a few tasty cookie recipes too like the vegan peanut butter cups from The Kind Diet or these delicious looking nutmeg maple butter cookies or these adorable gingerbread men macarons. Now, I'm getting too carried away, I might not even make it back from the grocery store.
7. Matt requested Coq au Vin this Wednesday so I'm rolling up my sleeves and sticking to the original Julia Child way of making this dish in all of its luxurious and delicious fattiness. The recipe includes bacon and searing and braising and butter. This is definitely not going to help me reach my, "I need to lose 50 pounds" goal, but oh well. I can be a fatty for one more week.
8. On Saturday, my family and I did a big crab feast with Matt. He was really excited about the whole crab fishing season that he wanted to try crab, even though he doesn't particularly like the texture or the effort involved. We bought 4 crabs (for 5 people) from Maxim market in Cupertino along with some tasty french bread, french butter, clam chowder, salad and chocolate for dessert.
The crabbies had to soak in fresh water so they would spit out all of the ickiness that they had swallowed in from the tanks and sea. In the understatement of the year, they were not happy. After they soaked, we boiled them in beer and water along with some ginger and thyme. Then my dad hacked apart one of them live to stirfry in ginger and green onions. He didn't really want to take a cleaver to a live crab but he did a fantastic job of powering through it. We were rewarded with some SUPER delicious crab. YUM!
9. Hm, I need to clean my house
10. Now I'm just making stuff up because my OCD requires me to hit the number 10 for my list.

Happy December!

-Janine

I now have 7 more days until I am done with my MBA

Tonight was my second to last class

We got an A on our last paper (yay!)

But are about halfway through our final paper which is due next tuesday (ugh)


Just 7 more days!

So the non-cooking thing was getting to a point of being just sheer ridiculous and I was veering dangerously into the territory of lower than depressing college student with frozen dinners, bread and butter and lunches of frozen vegetables and soups made of random items.

It actually got so bad, that for Halloween, when our program sponsored a taco lunch for the whole team, I took home an entire steamer tray of rice, beans, assorted meats and salsa. I still have a small soup container left but I ate that stuff for lunch and dinner every single day last week.

Gross, I know. You now know WAY more about me than you ever wished...and there is no way that you can un-know what you now know! HA!


Anyway


I went to the grocery store (gasp)

I love Sprouts

I was thinking (dangerous, I know), maybe it's time to put together a life list. Just a list of the achievable things that I can do that I want to do. Since I only have 5 more weeks left of school, maybe it's time to set up some fun goals

I stumbled across this link today while on my blog feed:

National Novel Writing Month

The goal is to end up with 50,000 written words by November 30. I've never written a novel, unless you count college and MBA essays about meaningful life things like corporate takeovers and management fluffiness. I haven't even studied that much english literature beyond the core classes and Shakespeare so we'll see how this goes. Hopefully I will find the patience and the energy to get through the month and if I don't make 50,000 words, that's okay too :)

Anyway, I already started a draft technically back in October so I think I'll just continue with that guy and see if I can hit the 50,000 word mark.


So, to add this to my life list so far, inspired by the Mighty Life List:

Write a novel with Nanowrimo. Get to a size that makes me happy. Organize the office at home. Set up wireless surround sound in the home. Finish 5 knitting projects next year. Purge the closets. Inventory the home library and track the books I read (quantity and quality). Conversational in Japanese, Cantonese, Italian, French.  Paint something on a canvas. Celebrate each month's national theme. Figure out my retirement/savings and start investing. House with yard and dog. Plant a successful garden. Visit at least 10 different countries with a passport. Learn a new basic/ancient skill (machine sewing, an instrument, embroidery, archery). Surf in Australia. Catch a swordfish. Scuba dive the Gold Coast or Bermuda. Sky dive over Australia or Hawaii. Bungee jump. Donate to locks of love. Volunteer. Master the art of baking/candy making. Master a new cuisine (french, italian, japanese, indian). Go back to school for something FUN. Dog sled in Alaska. Enjoy a Guinness in an Irish pub. Homebrew. Climb the Great Wall. Learn how to wear a traditional kimono. Visit all 50 states. Visit all 7 continents (including Antarctica). Make 100 crafty things (1. Joelle's baby sweater and 2. hat). Quilt all of my old t-shirts. Work in an antique bookstore. Live overseas. Read the 1001 books to read before you die (dad's already knocked down 30 of them! have to catch up!). View an old text first hand. Explore the major museums. View the Egyptian museum in Cairo. Sail the Nile. View the pyramids. Visit the Greek sites. Visit the Roman sites. Learn how to sword fight. Master each rope knotting style. Sail the greek islands. Spin wool. Live on a farm for a week. Adopt a child. Attend a game of every national league (NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, MLS, PGA, NASCAR). Invent something.


To be continued...

I was trying to avoid it this year but last night, Matt and I inherited a giant pumpkin and now I have to figure out what to do with it.

The main goal is to harvest its guts to make roasted pumpkin seeds

I was thinking maybe of doing something cheeky and buying a smaller pumpkin, cracking it, making X's for eyes and having the bigger one mourning its death

Like this:



Or just buying a small pumpkin and doing this with it:


It's so cute!

I'd totally make a few of those, shellac them and bring them into work. Too bad we have ants and stuff here though.

Mm, pumpkin guts!

So tasty :)

It's October


Holy crap, it's october


Snowboarding season will soon be upon me and well, as the boyfriend can attest to, I suck hard at snowboarding

My blogreel yielded this little gem from Tim Ferriss:

If you eat sh*t 10 times in a row, do two things. First, pause after each turn, or pause after getting up, and catch your breath for 20 seconds. No rush, brah. Second, when you’re ready to punch yourself in the face, or when your legs are totally shot, put your big girl pants on, head down to the ski lodge, and grab a hot chocolate or Hot Toddy by the fire. That will calm your inner animal, make you smile, and get you psyched to tackle it again in the morning.

Can't psych myself out now, gotta put my big girl pants on

I think I may have lost my cooking mojo

Not sure when it happened, but lately, even when I read a delicious sounding recipe I immediately think, "Wow, this is going to take way too much EFFORT" and then I end up making some rice or popcorn

Last night I at least made myself roast some vegetables only because I didn't want them to get gross in my fridge

Made some rice and voila, dinner....and today's lunch.....and tonight's dinner probably

Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's because I have felt like crap every morning (I usually wake up with pounding headaches and a phlegm-y cough)

Hopefully I get my cooking mojo back because fall is a great time to make the comfy cozy classics, veggie style! (Yes, I'm still a veggie, it isn't a fad, closer to vegan now that I've finished my eggs and cheese and just by sheer luck, have no dairy products in the house)


I didn't post a picture of this, but I ended up cooking a sugar pumpkin last week. It didn't taste like anything probably because I didn't season it well, but it was an interesting experience cooking a gourd. Unlike my spaghetti squash incident, it was a lot easier to cleaver in half too.


Oh! I did start knitting a new blanket last night. It's a cable knit throw with this really cuddly yarn. My plan is to create the blanket with one pattern from top to bottom but changing colors when the yarn runs out so hopefully it'll look more gradient in color changing than jarring, but we'll just have to see. Pictures possibly to come when I've knit more than a row...

Anyway, I should get back to work but at least I'm comforted in the fact that I have a nice knitting project waiting for me and that no one will judge my choice of dinner entrees :)

Love, the J9

Last weekend, Matt and I went to Denver for our annual journey to the Great American Beer Festival. So here is what we did in picture form!

We got to San Jose at "way too early" o'clock in the morning. Sat next to a priest on the way out there. Didn't notice his collar and both wondered why someone would be wearing that much black. (This is a funny story, just wait till the end)

It's been a while so here are some pictures!

Matt and I attended Brews on the Bay last weekend in San Francisco. It's a beer festival for local breweries hosted on top of the USS Jeremiah which is docked in the bay on Pier 35. It was a pretty nice day but SUPER windy

I finished The Help this weekend in 1 day and if that's testament to my opinion about the book, then I really don't need to write much here :P

The BF and I went to Napa over the weekend to celebrate his new job and to relax and get out of town. We drove up on friday night after work and had dinner in downtown Napa at a tapas place named Zuzu. The next day, we spent the morning at Oxbow public market checking out the farmers market, had some mexican breakfast fare and coffee and then headed out wine tasting along the Silverado Trail. We hit up Mumm, Miner Family, Robert Sinskey, Chimney Rock and maybe another? After we got back into town, we had some oysters inside of Oxbow at Hog Island Oyster, bought some cheese and charcuterie from The Fatted Calf. Saturday night, we had dinner at Bounty Hunter in downtown Napa and then Sunday, we had a picnic with the cheese and charcuterie goodies that we picked up at Oxbow along with a bottle of merlot. It was so much fun that I forgot to take pictures :)







Slow Cooker Dish 2: These are turkey, apple and cheddar meatballs from the same book that I made tonight. These were pretty good. I grated the green apple and smoked cheddar with my food processor to cut out on the arm work. The apple and cheddar are mixed with ground turkey, an egg, dried cranberries and some spices and formed into meatballs. Stack the meatballs into the cooker and cook on high for 4-6 hours.

I cooked mine for about 4 hours and it turned out a bit drier than I would have liked, so this probably would have done well with just 3 hours of cooking. I served this along with a pasta with an olive oil, pea, shallot, garlic and lemon sauce and we had two english muffins from a Napa bakery that were SO good. I also made homemade blackberry jam with some fruit that I couldn't finish from the weekend. The jam was made by boiling the blackberries (mashed a bit with a potato masher) and maple syrup for a sweet and slightly smoky flavor. We paired all of this with a chardonnay from Carmel Valley Vineyards.

It's really sad that Borders is closing and going out of business, but it also means that I have epic book hauls like the one I got two days ago.

Honestly, I was in the store for maybe an hour and had to pare my haul down from 6 books to 4 only because my arm capacity was exceeded. The haul included: