Alton Smoothies (Not Smoothies Made of Alton)

I haven't seen Alton Brown's "Live and Let Diet" episode yet, but everywhere I look people are talking about his Buff Smoothie. I've been pondering my own struggles with breakfast and vegetation lately, and while there are many things with which I struggle, today I address just those two:

Breakfast and vegetation. I don't like 'em.

Which is to say: I need to be awake for at least an hour before food sounds even remotely appealing (all I want to do is drink coffee for two hours, and then go to work), and if it grows out of the ground I don't really want to eat it. There are a variety of problems caused by these dislikes; one of which is evident to everyone around me if I don't eat for awhile: I become what one might call... "difficult". Yeah, we'll go with "difficult".

So recently when Jim mentioned buying a huge bag of frozen fruit and Ferrett leapt on the Buff Smoothie Wagon, I was reminded that I've been meaning to try smoothie-making. I've been using AB's recipe as a guideline, but I add in whatever I have on hand... What follows is the story of smoothie today, which is different than what will be smoothie tomorrow.

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Here we have some vanilla protein powder (there was one scoop left, 23g protein), vanilla soy milk (I'm going to try a nut milk next, I can probably find almond at Publix), V8 V-Fusion, frozen fruit, and just look at this awesome banana. I've done wrong here, for the sake of the photo: Usually the liquid goes in before the frozen fruit. Yeah, I do have a little guilt.

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I'm pretty sure there's some pineapple hiding in there, under the peaches, strawberries, and blueberries. Maybe some mango? I don't know: I started with a bag of frozen Dole mixed fruits, and I've added to it, so I'm not sure what's actually there, or not. One thing I am sure of, though, my god y'all the drama when I tried adding blackberries. Never again!

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There's 1 cup of each soymilk and juice. And then the frozen fruit, and protein powder. Banana lies in wait until the rest is mostly blended before getting dropped in. I follow AB's instructions, blending on a lower speed until the vortex appears, and then really sticking the power to it thereafter.

And then? Smoothies!

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There's a Tim serving, a me serving, and a Mer serving. CJ actually laughed in my face at the idea that he will ever "in a million years" drink a fruit smoothie of any sort. Oh yeah? Game on, little man!

Gentleman Vegetables*

"Give me cauliflower, or give me death!", I bellowed at Tim as he got into the car. Okay, so that's a lie, but I did tell him I was going to die if I didn't get some carrots and cauliflower. This prompted a brief "What? Since when doesn't Tim like cauliflower?" conversation (apparently it doesn't count as "liking cauliflower" fingerquote fingerquote if it's also "covered with cheese" fingerquote fingerquote), and we aimed our car for our friendly neighborhood Food Lion. We performed a synchronized couples shop with Tracy and Aaron (he gave me a parking ticket! Not my spatula! Exclamation point! Bang!) and then: Vegetables! Were! Purchased!

Roasted Vegetables

• Vegetables (On this day: 3 sweet potatoes, 1 head of cauliflower, 1 pint of button mushrooms and 1 lb baby carrots)
• Lube (olive oil works, but so does sesame oil, or whatever oil, or Pam spray)
• McCormick Slow Cookers Savory Pot Roast Seasoning

Directions

Preheat oven to 425.

While that's happening, clean and dry your vegetables, cut up whatever needs cutting (sweet potatoes, I'm looking at you) so that everything is more or less the same size, then apportion across as many sheet pans as necessary to achieve one single layer. For this batch, it was two half sheet pans, but do what you gotta do. Apply the lubricant of your choice; I sprayed them with Pam. Sidebar: If you're using mushrooms, don't put them in now. Set them aside for a bit.

Next, and this is honestly the very super most important part: Sprinkle on the seasoning (save a little bit for mushrooms later). Sure, it's made to go in a slow cooker, but so what? Now, I don't know about you, but I know about me, sort of, and I know about the people to whom I've served these vegetables. Even heathens who "hate vegetables" like these, and it's because of the seasoning. It's magical. I'm not going to come right out and say that it's made of baby giggles and unicorn love and rainbows, but... pretty close. (When you add this to your vegetables, they come out tasting like roaring fires and grandma's house and the Snuggie-dreams of generations past.) Post-sprinkle, agitate. Your lubricated and sprinkled vegetables should look similar to this:

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Put them in the oven, and ignore them for awhile. 20 minutes, maybe. Then, add your mushrooms (sprinkle them!), and put them back in for another ten minutes or so. Because I like "caramelization", I use the broiler, too. I'm not ashamed. When the vegetables are the color and texture you prefer, take them out. For me, they look like this:

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I put these in a big sealed container, and stuck them in the icebox last night. This morning I nearly plotzed when CJ, who "hates vegetables", loaded up a monkey dish and chowed down. That's right, people. They're that good.

*I will never again be able to use the word "vegetables" without hearing James May say "gentleman vegetables" in my head.

Julie's Supper Club: Reuben Sandwiches

I make Reuben sandwiches my way. I'm the Frank Sinatra of mother effing Reuben sandwiches, man.

Which isn't to say that I make Reuben sandwiches the wrong way: Of this I am unsure, for I have never thought to visit the Google or the Wikipedia or any of the myriad recipe sites to find out just how, exactly, one should make a Reuben. I just... make them. I make them the only way I know how... and that's just a little bit more than the law will allow.

Reuben Sandwiches

• Pam spray - Butter
• Hillshire Farm Deli Select Ultra Thin Pastrami
• Sliced swiss cheese
• Kraft Free Thousand Island dressing
• Sauerkraut, drained
• Pepperidge Farm seedless rye bread

Directions

I use a griddle, these days, and I preheat it to 350 or so. While it's heating, I open the bread and lay out as many slices as I plan to make sandwiches. Then I spray them all liberally with Pam, and flip them over (spray-side down!) to begin the actual sandwich-building.

Plurp on some thouisle dressing, and spread it out, or not. Add, oh, five-ish slices of the pastrami, and then atop that add a layer of kraut. Next comes the slice'o'swiss, at which point in your sandwich building things will be looking as such:

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Put an un-sprayed slice of bread on top of this, so that you have a very nearly complete sandwich. At this point, pick up each sandwich (still with the spray-side down!) and move them to the griddle. Good. Got 'em all on? Now spray the slices of bread that are on top. Cook until the cheese is melty and the bread is GBD... and then flip. I had to use an offset metal spatula (! on my nonstick griddle! OH EM GEE!) in the instance below; my silicone spatula is still in Aaron's car, since we used it as a snow-scraper on my birthday. What?

I digress. Here's what the sandwiches look like, post-flip:

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Julie's Supper Club: Frozen Pizza

Oy, you guys. Today is One Of Those Days. One of those days when I need to be in precisely sixteen places at the very same moment, which is not this moment but is a moment that looms ever closer, and I am already tired about it in like sixteen different ways.

So:

The freezer pizza picturated above is California Kitchen's Crispy Thin Crust White,
and it is my very super favorite.

Tonight, that means Tim is making (what we call) freezer pizza. And then (hopefully) when the rest of us walk in the door after CJ's track meet, said pizza will be ready and waiting for us, and I can just Not Worry About It. Because that's what I want more than anything in the world right at this moment.

Julie's Supper Club: Sgt. Grumbles Makes Chicken Pasta

Wow, ask me what's for dinner and I can post forever. While I'm at it, here's a picture of my kitchen (taken a couple of years ago) for no real reason at all other than, hey, I cook there!

So, anyway, what's for dinner? You've probably already sussed out that I'm In Charge of Dinner. It's for the best, and if you ask me, I'll tell you I like cooking... but I don't like being the one who HAS to cook. If you ask me what's for dinner, suddenly there's a shift from me wanting to cook to me having to cook... like it's expected of me. Which: Of course it is, but I hate to admit it and I go all Sgt. Grumbles about it. What is up with that, anyway? I'm so weird.

Sidebar: Almost every day, on the drive home from work, Tim will lovingly look deep into my cheekbone (because I'm watching the road, right?) and sweetly ask me the following question...

"What would you like to do for dinner?"

This makes me irrationally angry (and yes, I do know it is irrational, see how I used "irrationally"?) because it's not about what I want to do for dinner, it's never about what I want to do for dinner! After doing stuff for everybody else since the minute I get up, and working all day, and picking everybody up and driving everybody home, what I want to do for dinner is exercise my takeout-ordering dialing finger, or have somebody else cook, or just generally have dinner magically appear (and have a clean kitchen at the end of it, thanks). The real question, I posit, is "What are you, my wife, the same person who cooks dinner almost every night, going to be cooking for dinner on this night? BTW did I mention I'm hungry?" but Tim swears that he asks me what I want to do for dinner because he's being considerate... and because sometimes I tell him to microwave queso. Which: true. (And he's very sweet, and I can be... cranky. Ish. SHUT UP.)

Anyway.

Tonight, I'm going to make what I call Chicken Pasta. Generic, no? But my family knows what it means when I say that, so that's what I call it. Again, this is not a test of precise measuring and if you ask me how much of what goes in I'm likely to tell you "a bunch", or "some", or "whatever looks right". Typically, I make enough food to feed an army/pack for lunch the next day.

Chicken Pasta

• Pasta (I like this Penne Rigate), and I use the whole 13.5oz box
• Chicken (use whatever you want, but know this: Popcorn chicken is the best.)
• 2 cans Del Monte Petite Cut Diced Tomatoes with garlic and olive oil (you can use spaghetti sauce, or whatever - you'll see what I do with these below)
• Mozzarella cheese

Directions

While the pasta is cooking according to package directions, cook the chicken (as much as you need to feed your number of people) in a large pan or pot sprayed with nonstick stuff. Cook until it's hot (for frozen pre-cooked popcorn, this is generally until it is heated through). After it's hot, reduce the heat, and add tomatoes.

Now, what I do with the tomatoes depends on my mood. Sometimes I just dump both cans into the chicken, sometimes I dump one can in as-is and puree the other. Up to you. Once the tomato is in and hot, drain the pasta and mix it in.

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Cut your mozz into 1/4 inch cubes, sprinkle it over the top of the chicken/sauce/pasta, and cover the whole thing for a couple minutes until the cheese is soft. Don't stir too much or you'll make a big cheeseball mess.

I like to have a salad with this - my current favorite is Fresh Express Sweet Butter Lettuce salad in the bag, and now I wish I'd never, ever, Googled bagged salad. I can't un-know those things, Internet Nation! Why do you ruin everything I love? WHY?

Julie's Supper Club: Tortilla Soup

"What's for dinner?", asks my aunt Julie on her new blog: Julie's Supper Club. That's her on the right, with my uncle Larry sporting the tres-cool double thumbs up, in an image I totally lifted from her aforementioned blog. You've met her before, when I talked about her Cabbage Salad back in January.

So, WFD? Today, it's leftover soup. This recipe isn't precisely in-line with my aunt's search for dinners that don't take forever to make after work, because it does take... awhile. That's why I made it yesterday (on a Sunday) when I had the time, and serving it for dinner tonight will be as easy as punching buttons on the microwave.

I'll give you the "recipe", but be advised that I'm not much of a recipe-follower when it comes to meal cooking (baking is an entirely different story. Baking is chemistry. Cooking is chemistry of the heart. Or soul. Or something that comes from a love-place that doesn't require precise measurements. Work with me, people!). The recipe is easily scalable and will accommodate however much of whatever you want to put in; what follows is how I made it yesterday:

Tortilla Soup

• Chicken (I used 4 boneless/skinless breasts plus some leftover thighs I had in the freezer)
• Prepared chicken broth (I used one 49oz can of Swanson's; you'll want enough to cover the chicken.)
• 2 cans Ro*tel Lime & Cilantro (use whichever flavor/heat you prefer. We're wimpy.)
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can red kidney beans
• 2 cans hominy
• 2 cans (or use frozen) sweet whole kernel corn
• 1 bag bite size corn chips (I like Tostitos white corn)
• 1 bag shredded cheese (I prefer jack, but the non-seasoned 'mexi-' blends work fine.)
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro
• Fresh limes

Directions

Put chicken into a stock pot, and add enough broth to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, at which point you'll remove it and set it aside until it is cool enough to handle. While the chicken cools, skim the broth.

Sidebar: At this point I sometimes throw everything into the icebox. This makes removing the fat and ick from the broth a whole lot easier, so long as you've used boneless meat. If you use bone-in meat you're likely to get a gelatin out of chilling it). Isn't it so quaint how I said "icebox" right then? Onward:

Add both cans of Ro*tel (do not drain).

Drain, rinse, and add all remaining canned items (black beans, kidney beans, hominy, corn). You don't need to do this, but it's how I do it. I've made it without draining the hominy and corn, and it turns out just fine, but I will always (always) rinse the beans. Bring this all back up to a gentle boil... not much more than a simmer, really. You don't want it at a rolling boil.

Next, turn your attention to the chicken. Some people don't mind (even like, I guess) bits of skin and fat and gristly gack in their soup. We are not these people. Thus, I very carefully go through all of the chicken by hand, cleaning and tearing bite size bits of meat (and only meat) to toss back into the pot.

Once you've got the chicken appropriately cleaned and sized bite-ably, return it to the pot and simmer for, you know, awhile.

Chop up the cilantro, and cut limes in half.

To serve:

Put a handful of chips into a soup bowl; top with shredded cheese and chopped cilantro. Ladle hot soup in gently, and top with a few squeezes of lime. Enjoy!

The Glee Closet

If you know me, you know I love Glee.

It isn't a secret: I force Tim to watch it with me (he's in the same room while it's on, anyway), I own Season 1 volume 1 on DVD (holla, Renee!), CJ now knows almost all the words to Defying Gravity - not because of the award-winning Broadway musical Wicked, oh no, but because it was performed on Glee, and I bought both volumes of the soundtrack.

It's the soundtrack that brings us here to this blog, today. See, I went out to lunch with my dudes, and we went to the Blue Cactus Cafe (holla, again, Renee!), where I had my usual: Be Bim Bob (why do I always say Bop?), double egg, 2 scoops of spicy bean paste, and sweet tea. The thing is, I drove. I always drive because I have the sweet parking spot, and you can probably deduce that I drove mine very own car. In said car is a stereo with a cd player, and in said cd player is a cd. Two guesses which one it is.

Right: One of the Glee soundtracks. Which I love, love, love. I drove to work this morning belting along at the top of my lungs for the entire commute (it really helps alleviate my otherwise foul mood lately, to sing along with Glee)... and yet, with my dudes in the car?

I didn't even turn the stereo on. I was... embarrassed! I'm in the Glee closet, and did not even realize it.

Pics Or It Didn't Happen: I Make Stuff

I've been knitting a lot, lately (as you may have noticed). I'm enjoying this, because I've leveled up my Skill of Understanding about how certain things work, and why. I'm still not very good at following patterns; I start off just fine, and then I completely lose it somewhere in the middle and do whatever I feel like doing, until I'm done. This is due in large part to my inability to keep track of where I am and what I've completed, in said pattern.

I'm working on that.

My knitting bender began with CK's Christmas gift, which I started (with much self-congratulation) early enough to complete in time for Christmas. And then I actually completed it in time for Christmas. Whoa. (I still almost can't believe that I stuck with it and met my self-imposed deadline!) I chose to knit it on needles which were smaller than recommended, and that worked out well for the scarf; poorly for my hands. This was slow-going, and painful; I could get four or five rows done and then need to stop for days. I spent those couple of months sporting pain patches and ace bandages on my hands during this project, and people acted like I was joking when I said it was a knitting injury. No, really. It was.

Anyway, I really for-real-this-time followed a pattern, though, and here's the finished product:

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Then I made a softer, one-cable version for Tracy, but I don't have any photos of it, and I don't remember what the yarn was. It was soft and pretty and purple, though, and I liked how it turned out. Hey, Tracy, take a good photo or two, wouldja?

Next came Brenna's panda hat, which was a baby shower gift for Meg and Travis. This is the kind of knitting I do most often - make it up as I go along, and hope for the best. Tim pointed out the cuteness of making a panda hat out of bamboo yarn... which was entirely unintentional because I'm not that witty: I just liked the softness. I thought it was pretty funny when I saw Meg tell someone on Facebook that Brenna gets her ears from me. Hee!

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Photo by Travis (used with permission)

Around the same time, we learned that CK was going to be a daddy, and then in February we learned that the baby is a boy, so I chose a socially-dictated gender-specific colorway and embarked upon my first ever baby blanket project - another success at pattern-following.

As of this writing, the blanket is drying on Meredith's bedroom floor, after last night's wet blocking. I'll add some photos of the finished project "soon"... here's one from last week's "in progress" shot for Ravelry:

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And last but definitely not least, Merry's Little Mitts. She wanted mittens, I want to learn mittens (thus, these were my first attempt at mittenyness), and then when she tried the first one on halfway in (thank you, Magic Loop), she decided she wanted them fingerless. She's quite pleased with the result:

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He Turns The Seasons Around, And So She Changes Her Gown

Ever get the sensation the time is passing you by much more quickly than previously authorized by you: The boss, queen, captain, lord, and master of your particular domain?

Me too.

I've been doing stuff, and stuff, but mostly I am completely enslaved to: My kids, their lives and commitments and schedules; then there's Tim, and his life and commitments and schedule, and lately the same could even be said of the cats, and then of course mine own self; my job and commitments and such. Oh, you're still stuck on that part back there about how I'm a slave to the lives of THE CATS? Sad, I know: It's something I never thought I'd find myself saying, like, "hey, oh, me? Well I'm spending a great deal of time making sure my cats get to their veterinary appointments, and giving the one her medicine, and making sure to keep her contained, and OY the trouble with that abscessed anonymous-animal bite, would you believe that anonymous-animal gave her the Feline Leukemia? But it isn't even Leukemia at all, but rather that's a misnomer, and..."

Sad. So sad. At my girl Mandy's birthday party way the hell over yonder in Prosperity, SC, I found myself making polite dinner conversation with a friend-of-a-friend (who I'm pretty sure wanted to be way more than friend-of-a-friend with Tracy's rad hotness; we blame the $20 beer), and I had so much to say: About my kids and my cats. At least Tracy was there with us, and whenever Tracy is present, fun is had. Ave Maria Her Holy Hilariousness was there too, but way down at the other end of the table, so all I could really do was send her two texts from six feet away (which may or may not have had anything to do with ampalamps).

Speaking of birthdays, as of the last posting, you may recall, I was busy surviving my 36th birthday. As it turns out, my 36th birthday was the best birthday I've ever had (even beating out that trip to Vegas for my 21st (sorry mom), and that time I got my first tattoo) . It just so happens that my birthday was awesometastical - even though at the outset I did not believe it would be so: First, the Snowpocalypse. Our decennial snowfall with accumulation ("SnOMG, it's sticking!") happened to occur during the afternoon of my actual birthday, nearly ruining the carefully planned surprise celebration. Second, I was sick as a something that is really super sick; had been (and would continue to be) for days. Let's just say getting through the evening required two Aleve, three Imodium, and a bargain with the Universe. Third: I was having a giant cow over The Getting Old.

As it turned out, none of that even mattered: Tim and Aaron wore shirts with actual collars (and jackets, even!), T-dawg sucked it up into Spanx, and I wore a dress. We went to Hennessy's; I had a great meal (I spoon-tapped that crème brûlée for ages before finally eating it), great company, and utterly astonishing birthday presents. Three weeks later, I'm still completely gobsmacked over the presents I received during dinner and then the eventual party.

Aaron even chauffeured, and when we returned home he drove the car into the church lot and we did a few hilarious doughnuts in the snow.

Birthday Awesome: 1,000,000

Plague: 1

Snowmaggedon: 0