You are here: Home / 2010 / Archives for September 2010

Faked Ziti

September 30, 2010 By 4 Comments

I don’t know about yours, but my family loves a baked pasta dish.  In an effort to make it a little more healthy (this is by no means healthfood, people), I made some changes.  The changes were actually quite delicious.

Prepare a quick tomato sauce -

I adjusted the ingredients very slightly:

2 T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 small onions chopped
5  cloves garlic chopped
3 32 oz. cans crushed tomatoes
2 8 oz. can tomato paste
Dried red pepper flakes (optional – to taste)

2 boxes of 100% whole wheat penne, cooked according to package directions, drained, rinsed and cooled
1 large bunch baby spinach washed and dried.

Start to assemble your baking dishes (you’ll probably need two)

Put some sauce over the noodles and then the spinach.  Gently toss to combine.

Then put the shredded mozzarella on top. I figured that if we only did it on top, instead of mixing it all the way through, that would cut the amount of cheese we used.  Granted, I did put a lot on top!

Then I covered them tightly with aluminum foil and put one in the freezer and one in the fridge.  The next day, I baked the one in the fridge on 425 for about 30 minutes.  I would have liked the cheese a little brown on top, but that’s a highly contested opinion in my house.  Serve with a tossed salad.

Delicious!

And I still have another one in the freezer for a later date.  Yay!



It is OK to use my photos or content provided a link back and proper crediting is given

Filed Under: All, Easy Dinner, Party Food, Pasta, Recipes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , ,

Judgment

September 29, 2010 By 6 Comments

This week I had a tremendous, eye opening experience.

I was accused of something horribly mean.  Something I did not do. The three people involved won’t even talk to me about it, so not only have I had no chance to defend myself, I can’t even get the whole story of what it is I allegedly said and did. From what I can surmise, someone whom I thought was one of my closest friends, told some other friends that I had started a rumor about them. If I’m able to put the pieces together here,  it seems to be referring to a conversation that happened around my kitchen table…. the first friend brought up a question, something that she had thought about them and I laughingly said, “I think you might be right”.  It was a light-hearted conversation, with absolutely no judgment.  Were we gossiping?  Yes, I guess we were – but there was no malice and it was not something said publicly.  Also, it was almost a year ago – why it was brought up now, I have no idea.  Lesson learned. Although it is absolutely something I would have said to the people involved and if they knew the context of the conversation, I’m sure this would be a very different situation.  As it stands, my entire belief system has been shaken.  Something that I absolutely knew for sure when I woke up the day before yesterday has turned out to be completely false.

I’m sure you can imagine the turmoil that caused.  But then, I realized that the turmoil, the sadness, the anxiety, the anger, and the judgments that I was making of the people involved were all within my control.  I can’t control what they do, say and feel, but I can certainly control my own response and reactions.

So, I cried and cried and cried some more and then I spoke to a very good friend about the whole thing, sharing my responsibility in the situation, because indeed I do have some culpability and I do have to think that if someone told me that someone else had said something about me like that and said in such a way that it was completely taken out of context, I would have been upset too.  I hope, however that I would go directly to the source and try to understand what happened.  I hope I would, but I can’t be entirely sure until it happens, right?

So where are the judgments and how am I turning them around?  I could judge myself. Should I have said it?  Obviously not.  But I know the truth about the context and as long as I know that as well as know who I am – well that’s the only thing I can really do.  I refuse to beat myself up about something that took place in my own home with absolutely no intent to tear anyone down.

I could judge the people that it was said about… Why wouldn’t they come to me?  Why would, after all the time we’ve known each other the conversations we’ve had over the years, why wouldn’t they give me the benefit of the doubt?  Well, I do know they’re going through their own things and maybe this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back and maybe coming together against me is just what they need at this point in time.

I can judge the person who started it.  But I love her.   And I have to consider that there is something, some reason that she felt this was necessary.  I can’t imagine what it was but since she won’t talk to me about it, I can only love her, let her go and wish her well.

I came across a great quote:  “When someone you love hurts you… cry a river, build a bridge and then get over it” and as a wonderful friend added; “And if you’re fortunate, you have friends that will help with the construction.”

I am indeed, fortunate.




It is OK to use my photos or content provided a link back and proper crediting is given

Filed Under: In My Life Tagged With: , , , ,

Roasted Asparagus and Pomegranate

September 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Every year, right around this time, I get very excited when I find pomegranates in the grocery store.  These little beauties are so delightful and one of my favorite fruits! Their beautiful, ruby color gives any dish a visual pop and their sweet tart taste is something I really love. I usually just use them in salads, but today I wanted to try a little something different.  I couldn’t find a recipe that roasted the pomegranate seeds, so I thought I’d try it.  Quite honestly, I was a little curious.. would they pop?  Would they make a mess of my freshly scrubbed oven?  I went ahead and took the chance…

2 bunches of asparagus, cleaned and trimmed
the seeds of 2 pomegranates
olive oil
salt
4 mahi mahi filets
1 bunch of baby spinach, washed and dried

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  On a sheet pan toss the pomegranate seeds with the asparagus, drizzle oil and a big pinch of salt and toss with your hands to combine.

Preheat the grill pan and let it get screaming hot.  Here’s the trick: put the fish on the grill pan and let them cook until the protein releases almost all the way from the pan.  If it’s really sticking, it’s not done on that side.  Once the protein starts to release, flip and cook the other side.

Pu the asparagus and pomegranate seeds in the oven and start checking them at about 8 minutes.  Mine took about 13 till they were just the way I like them.

On a plate, put a handful of the baby spinach, and then top with the fish and vegetables.  Drizzle a little olive oil over all the food and eat. The pomegranate seeds were still slightly crunchy, but warm and even sweeter, while still maintaining their tart flavor. Delicious, healthy, yummy, easy.  What more could we ask for?



It is OK to use my photos or content provided a link back and proper crediting is given

Filed Under: All, Fish, Healthy, Recipes Tagged With: , , , ,

ToDo for iPad

September 26, 2010 By 3 Comments

I love planning.  Truly, I do.  And Franklin Covey changed my life.  Really.  You can see all of the writing I do about Franklin Covey here (scroll down on that page, this post is on top!).  I don’t, however, love the Franklin Covey software and I’m just not going to carry around a paper planner anymore.  So, I use the ideas and strategies that I learned from the Covey planners and I’m always on the lookout for a way to keep them near.

When I saw this app, I was really excited.  ToDo for the iPad by Appigo It looks like a planner, I can customize the look of it, choose my own categories and organize things the way that I like them. It’s $4.99 for the iPad or iPhone.

This app is gorgeous. I’m a girly girl, so the floral theme was my choice, but there are a few themes to choose from and there’s even a Pirate theme for a couple of dollars, but I was pretty happy with the purple flowers. You choose binder, paper, bracket and ring styles, so you can really customize and make it your own. Isn’t that pretty?

There’s a “bookmark” where you can see your categories and how many things you have within that need to be done at a glance.

“turn the page” to see a list of all your tasks, with its category and the number of items in it.  Tap the plus sign on the top of the page to add a task and a new window pops up.

Here you can choose your task type, and there are different formats for Normal, Project and Checklist – it’s all pretty self explanatory and you can add categories, due dates, etc. from there.

Alternately, if you want to add something in a hurry, tap the lightning bolt and you can quickly add a task, modifying it later.

Tasks are removed as you toggle them as completed, or in the modification window you can also just delete it.

This is a beautiful app, well worth the money.  The one thing I feel would complete it is a week, or month, calendar view. Sometimes I just like to look at a calendar… old habits die hard.  I see there have been some complaints about syncing… I haven’t had an issue though.



It is OK to use my photos or content provided a link back and proper crediting is given

Filed Under: Geek Girl and Gadgetry Tagged With: , , ,

Chimmichurri Sauce

September 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Yum, y’all.  Spread this on anything.  We had it on roasted chicken breast, but I’ve got some steak in the fridge that’s going to get the rest of this tomorrow… That is, unless I do shots of it later. So. Good.

I always thought that this was exclusively Argentinian, but recently I read on Wikipedia that it’s also found in Uruguay, Nicaragua and Mexico. I loved one of the stories however and if you know me, you know I never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

One story claims that it comes from ‘Jimmy McCurry’, an Irishman who is said to have first prepared the sauce. He was marching with the troops of General Belgrano in the 19th century, sympathetic to the cause of Uruguay independence. The sauce was popular and the recipe was passed on. However, ‘Jimmy McCurry’ was difficult for the native people to say. Some sources claim Jimmy’s sauce’s name was corrupted to ‘chimichurri’, while others say it was changed in his honor.

I love it being attributed to an Irishman.  I mean, it’s green and all, right?

Here’s what I did:

2 bunches of parsley cleaned, dried and trimmed
9 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon red pepper flake
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
the zest of 3 lemons
the juice of those lemons (about 1/2 cup
1 cup extra virgin olive oil

You need to start with the garlic, but you don’t put whole cloves of garlic into a food processor, you might wind up with big chunks of garlic.  What I do is pull each clove off the bulb and paper and all and with the broad side of a big knife smash it.  (Put the knife on top of the clove and with your other hand, make a fist and smash the knife with the side of your fist.) You’ll wind up with this:

then just pick up the paper, it’s really that easy, the paper just separates from the garlic.

Put the smashed garlic cloves, the oregano, salt, red pepper flake, ground pepper, the lemon zest and juice into the bowl of the processor and pulse about 5 times.

Add the parsley and pulse about 20 times, or until it looks like this:

Then, with the motor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the mixture.

Pour the sauce into a container with an air tight lid and allow to marinate for at least an hour before using.

So good.

I started out with this much on top of the chicken but just kept adding more.  I dressed the salad with olive oil, salt and pepper and had more salad after I was done because it would have been criminal to throw out what was left on my plate.  A big piece of crusty bread would have been a very welcome addition for mopping.



It is OK to use my photos or content provided a link back and proper crediting is given

Filed Under: All, Recipes Tagged With: , , ,
Improve the web with Nofollow Reciprocity.

Bad Behavior has blocked 1001 access attempts in the last 7 days.