Good Idea #5: Healthy Eating

In a recent development, The Hubs has become terrified of diabetes. He is strong and fit and healthy as a horse, but all of a sudden he wants to take steps to ensure that he doesn't become diabetic and have to have his feet amputated. A worthy goal, undoubtedly. However, I'm not sure why the sudden worry. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he is turning 25 in June (yay car insurance discounts!).

Anyway, we are cutting way back on the sugar (I have always had a very insistant sweet tooth) and upping our intake of fruits and veggies. I am also trying to eat more whole grains and use less processed food in my cooking. On that note, I am proud to announce that last week, I made my own butter. It is fabulous. It is creamy and delicious and contains only two ingredients: cream and salt. No monohydroxyunsaturated anything in my butter.

If you'd like to try making your own butter, take heavy cream and put it into a large bowl. I started with a gallon of cream and ended up with what looks like about 5 lbs of butter. You can use a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or if you are like me and do not have the counterspace for a stand mixer, (*sulks bitterly*) you can use a hand mixer with the whisk attachment. Just beat it! First it will form thick strands off of the whisk, then soft peaks, then stiff peaks, then something a little firmer and then all of a sudden the cream siezes and buttermilk floods out, leaving butter behind. Now, since you didn't start out with cultured cream, the buttermilk isn't cultured which means its basically like unhomogonized 1% milk. It is delicious over cereal. Anyway, once your butter gets to that point, drain out the buttermilk and knead the butter in a bowl of cold water. Once the water becomes cloudy, dump it out and fill it again with fresh water. Repeat until the water stays clear. It is important to wash all of the buttermilk out because if you don't, the butter will spoil much more quickly. Incidentally, I am in the market for a French Butter Crock. If anyone knows where I can buy one locally, please enlighten me in the comments.

I am really excited about our foray into healthy eating. I have tried to make this change on my own before, but without the support of a spouse, it is infinitely more difficult. The Hubs, for most of our marriage, has worked at fairly labor-intensive jobs, during which a dinner of Chicken Ceasar Salad was completely insufficient. Now he is behind a desk a lot of the time and his caloric needs are much closer to my own so that, in order for me to eat healthy, I don't have to cook 2 dinners. Yay desk.

On a less healthy note, we ate a freezer dinner last night that made all of the other freezer dinners we muscled through completely worth it: Bacon Wrapped Chicken.


It was divine. Not something you'd want to make often because there isn't much that's healthy about it, but wow. It was good. It would be a great dish to take to a party because its easy (albeit time-consuming) to make but looks and tastes tre gourmet. I served it with fresh broccoli to up the healthiness factor and what a meal.

Hopefully the healthy changes to my diet and the regular (I can't yet say daily...) walking will make for a more energetic me that can keep up with full-time employment, part-time scholarship, and all-the-time wife-ing. Go me.

Good Idea #4: Going back to School

Back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad I'm not a fool...

And to earn a degree that will let me do something I actually enjoy doing and make money doing it. That's right folks, I'm going back to school for a degree in Graphic Design. I started college as an art major, but since I didn't really know much about what I wanted to do, everyone convinced me that I'd be a starving artist or a secretary with a useless degree. So I switched my major, sort of foundered around for a while, and ultimately dropped out because of some personal and family issues. Now that I've been a working adult for several years (as a secretary with NO degree,) I have figured out how I can use my artistic abilities to earn a living. I am SO excited to be going back to school. I wouldn't change the choices I made- I still believe that they were the right ones. Still, it was really tough watching all of my friends graduate and feeling like I'd never get there. I am tying up all of the loose ends concerning enrollment, registration, and the like, and I will be starting my first class(Fundamentals of Design- YAY!!!!) 2 weeks from this Friday.

Education has always been really important to me and my lack of a college degree has always left me feeling, well, lacking. This is a self-improvement that I have wanted to make for quite some time and it feels so good to finally be getting there.

I'z goin too bei smarterr nau...

Since I have been out of town for the past few days, I have no food review for today. Honestly, I'm getting pretty tired of the freezer dinners. They just aren't the same as fresh food. Yes, it was quite enchanting the first week, not having to cook, but the quality of the food was just blah and after an entire month of it, I don't think I can do it again. I am, however, going to try a different method of making things ahead. I am going to go back to planning 2 weeks of meals at a time, shopping every other Friday, and just doing everything I can do ahead of time as soon as I get home from the grocery. Chopping, browning, etc. That way I will still have a plan, still save time on work nights, and still have fresh food that isn't a drudgery to eat. We will finish up the freezer meals we haven't eaten yet (except maybe the Chili...I may just throw that out when Alex isn't looking) and next payday I'll buy groceries like a normal person.

So overall, I'd say OAMC has its merits, but it isn't for me. I enjoy cooking (and eating) too much. When I know I am capable of "Wow!", "meh..." just isn't good enough. Also, I plan to start using coupons a lot more in the coming months, and that isn't easy to do when you only shop once a month. That takes a kind of planning that is well beyond my abilities.

And so, Good Idea#1 dies a quiet death after it fell on the "error" side of the trial and error process. So long OAMC, I will remember the good times.

Anna Rambles

Being sick has gotten in the way of a lot of things recently, namely my Non-negotiable priorities. Still, I have found that categorizing exercise and scripture study as non-negotiable keeps them on my mind a bit more than they heretofore were. The past few weeks I have done them about 40% of the time, which, while it is not perfect, is better than the < 5% I was averaging before. My hope is that as my cold disappears and the weather improves, my batting average will increase.

In other news:

I cleaned my ENTIRE house on saturday. Dishes, Laundry, sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, dusting, the works. I am the queen of my domain.

Daylight savings time started which means last night it was light out well after 8 o'clock. I can smell camping season quickly approaching.

I am going to Vegas this weekend with The Girls. A few weeks ago, The Hubs gave me a few dollars to get a coke and I told him I was going to save it for my trip. When he asked why I would hang on to such a paltry amount, I replied that where Las Vegas is concerned, one never knows when a girl will need some singles. He wasn't nearly as amused as I was.

My favorite dessert is Tiramisu.

That is all.

And now, the dinners we have tried since my last post: Spaghetti and Sweet Onion Pork Chops.
The Spaghetti sauce was good. That's a pretty tough one to screw up. I think I may save that recipe, make a whole stock pot full of it, and can it someday when I am feeling adventurous. (Maybe canning will be a "Good Idea" in the future. I have never tried it. Frankly, the idea that something may explode in my kitchen is not confidence-inspiring.) When I asked The Hubs what he thought about it, he said "Its spaghetti- what's not to like?" It was really nice, however, not to have to brown the meat. Cook noodles, dump in sauce, warm through. Nice.

The Sweet Onion Pork Chops were really tasty. The sauce was tangy and sweet (although next time I will be adding a prodigious amount of hot sauce and liquid smoke) and was quite good. It could have used more onion. I also think that it would taste better over chicken, but don't tell The Hubs I said that. He doesn't like it when I blaspheme.

Sweet Onion Pork Chops:
The Hubs: 9 (I believe this is his highest score yet)
Me: 8
Wrench: "Its good"

Tonight we will be having Creamy Lemon Chicken, which I am looking forward to. The promise of broiled swiss cheese topped with fresh lemon slices gives me great anticipation. *wipes drool off of chin* Tune in tomorrow for the review!

The Hubs Has a Good Idea

He's a pretty smart cookie actually, he has good ideas quite frequently. But don't tell him I said that, I'd never live it down. Last night as we were eating Lime Pepper Chicken (more on that later), The Hubs suggested that some of our dinners for next month come from the Crock Pot. I readily agreed and so, next month some of our Freezer Meals will be designed for the Crock Pot. Also, since none of the freezer recipes we have thus far eaten have wowed me with their excellence, I will be keeping only the best of the freezer recipes and then just making and freezing a bunch of stuff that I already make. Jamaican Jerk Chicken, for example.

The Lime Pepper Chicken was good. Nothing fancy, the flavors were not complex, but it was good. Oddly enough, there was no pepper of any sort in the recipe. If I make this again I will add some habaneros or scotch bonnets for a little kick. Once again, I forgot to get scores from The Hubs and Wrench, but they both approved. I'll give it an 8. Not bad for a work night.

My cold persists and so without further ado, I bid you adieu.

If, in today's post, you find grammatical errors, stories with no conclusion, or other nonsensical ravings, please forgive yours truly. I. Am. Exhausted. I forsee a nap in my lunch-break future.

Since I am scarcely able to string together a coherent sentence, I will be brief. Beef and Broccoli = yuck. After running a slew of errands both on my lunch break ( I still squeezed in a walk later in the day!) and after work, by the time I got home I was tired and starving. Usually in that state I am able to wolf down large amounts of dinner without even tasting it, but the unsavoriness of the Beef and Broccoli trumped my tum. The flavors were weird, the meat was tough, and the broccoli was soggy- not a good combo. The Hubs and Wrench said it was fine (I was too tired to even remember to ask for their scores) and that they didn't mind it at all, but as for me, I will not be making it again.

Beef and Broccoli:
Me: 1.5
The Hubs: "tastes fine"
Wrench: "Its good"

As part of my debt-busting good idea, I'd like to share some ways in which I save money. Today's tip, FREECYCLE. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of freecycling, it is based out of a website with local groups all over the country. You sign up (free!) with your local group and start the fun! You can post things that you don't want anymore (I'm talking anything- from an old lawn mower that may or may not work to your leftover coupons to the couch that you just replaced) and people come and get them. You can also post things you want or need. I have gotten many items from freecycle. For instance, last night I acquired a whole bag of jeans. I wear a really hard-to-find size (translation: expensive) and although these are much too short, I am going to cut them all down into capris for the summer, saving about $100 I had planned for just such an expense. So now I can use some of that money to replace other parts of my wardrobe that are nearing the end of their life-spans. Unless, of course, I can find those on freecycle too...

A Week Gone By

This weekend was somewhat tiring. We were not at home for more than a few hours each day and consequently did not eat dinner at home except for Friday night, when we had the Rotini. It was delicious. That one is definitely going on the menu for next month. The scores were in almost perfect harmony:

Rotini:

The Hubs: 8

Me: 8.6

So what have I learned after a week of eating freezer meals? Firstly, next month I will be planning side dishes such as salads, breads, etc. to go with the majority of the meals. Secondly, next month I don't think I will plan freezer meals for the weekends. We are usually quite busy and, oddly enough, I miss cooking a nice dinner on Saturday and Sunday. Don't get me wrong- the freezer meals are good, but they're nothing compared to my usual fare. (I know, I'm so humble. Just ask me.) I still want to be able to cook mouthwatering apple and white wine pork chops. Or Jumbalaya. Or Gumbo. So- next month I will do freezer meals for Monday through Thursday and then have my delicious dishes Friday through Sunday.

In other news, I got a new car this weekend! Now, this may seem like a strange way to go about paying off debt, but I assure you: it fits right into the plan. How is that, you ask?

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, The Hubs and I had a 1989 Ford F350 that, to make an exceedingly long and painful story short, blew up in Middle-of-Nowhere, Wyoming. We still owed money on said truck, so when we rolled into the Salt Lake Valley completely car-less, we didn't have many other options aside from rolling the loan for the truck into our new vehicle. Fast forward to last week: we were still fairly upside-down in our vehicle. The mileage was getting high, it was starting to have a lot of issues, and we felt strongly that it wasn't going to live to see the day when we had it all paid off. SO- after lots of looking at several dealerships over the course of a few months, we finally found a great trade that, while it would raise our monthly payment, would erase the negative equity we had in the old vehicle and would give us something that would actually last, hopefully well beyond the day when it is paid off. Clear as mud? Good.

So this is what I got:

Its a 2010 Hyundai Sonata. *Sigh* Love. What we save on gas is going to easily make up the difference in our monthly payment. (We have a 60 mile round-trip commute, so you do the math...)

Anyway, just wanted to share my good news. Also, this weekend made me realize how grateful I am for The Hubs' family. I got to see them a lot this weekend and, though I'm not sure what exactly it was that brought this on, I realized just how important they have all become in my life and just how much I have become a part of the family. Living accross the country from all of my blood-relatives is difficult to say the least, but my in-law family makes it much, much easier.

I am done rambling now, kudos for reading this far. Tune in tomorrow for a review of Beef and Broccoli.

Differences of Opinion

Tonight marks the end of my work week and for the first time in I-can't-remember-when, there is no gigantic smelly pile of crusty dishes waiting to ruin my Friday. My sink is so clean it sparkles. OAMC be praised! Instead of playing scullery maid, tomorrow I will be able to devote my attention to my mutts and to a long-neglected project.

Last night's dinner was a split decision. We had the Cheeseburger Soup and I loved it! The Hubs, not so much. The soup was flavorful (although not as cheesy as one would expect) and filling, and although I will be making changes the next time around, (about 3x the potatoes, 1/2 the broth) I enjoyed it thoroughly. The Hubs, however, had had a bad day and was starving (which, in our household is a synonym for extreme crankiness) by the time he got home, so I think he would have been better served with something more substantial than a soup. I learned last night that he doesn't really like soup. We've been together over 8 years now and I never knew that. Chowder, sure. Chili, great. Stew, awesome. Soup, no. Live and learn I guess. So our scores are as follows:

Cheeseburger Soup:
The Hubs: 2 (and he said that was being generous)
Me: A wholehearted 8 (although with the changes I plan to make, it could easily be a 9.6)

So there you have it. Maybe next month once I make it thicker I will tell him it is Cheeseburger Chowder. Maybe I will stick to serving this as a side dish. The spread of these scores is interesting to me. Even though we spend more time together than almost any married couple I know, we are still our own people with differences of opinion. Namely, pork chops v. steak, sliced bread, and Bob Dylan. How fascinating.

And now, a request. To those of you who read the blog even occasionally, would you do me the honor of becoming a follower? I would just like to be able to gauge my readership a little better. You don't have to if you don't want to, but I know several of you who read regularly that aren't followers and I'd just like to know who's out there!

Thanks sincerely,

Anna

Back to Debt-Busting

So I said a while ago that I was going to take March and April to get used to living on a budget and, slowly but surely, it is all starting to come together. As of now, the debit cards (both mine and The Hubs') are officially retired. I will be writing checks for all of the bills that go in the mail, but everything else I plan to do in cash. I will be using The Envelope System to help us stick to the new budget.

If you aren't familiar with the envelope system, here's how it works:
1. Make an envelope for each category of expenses you have and label it accordingly. One envelope for gas money, one for grocery money, one for savings, one for your electric bill, etc.
2. Fill each envelope with the money that you have budgeted for that particular expense.
3. Each time you make a purchase, you put the receipt into the envelope the cash came from.
4. No borrowing from other envelopes!
5. At the end of the pay period, whatever you have left in the envelopes goes into savings. (Until my emergency fund reaches the desired amount, then whatever is left will go toward debt.)

That's the plan anyway. I have yet to implement it, but I think it will be great. I think I will be setting everything up over the next few days.

And now, last night's dinner.

The Chicken Chow Mein, most feared of all my freezer dinners, wasn't actually that bad. While it in no way resembled anything Chinese, it wasn't vile. It tasted like chicken and rice with cream of mushroom soup. Nothing fancy, but decent. I will concede, however, that the water chestnuts were odd and unnecessary. So overall, it was a keeper, but I will not insult the Chinese people by calling it Chicken Chow Mein next time I make it. I will call it...hmmmm...Mushroom Chicken. Yep, that'll do. I think I will also add broccoli next time.

Chicken Chow Mein a.k.a. Mushroom Chicken:
The Hubs: 5
Me: 5.5

Not spectacular, but reasonably good. Tonight, Cheddar Cheese Soup. (which I added hamburger to, so I call it Cheeseburger Soup instead...)

Thus it Begins

Last night, how to describe it? The peace. The tranquility. The harmony. I came home from working late, popped my casserole dish into the oven, hit the button on the rice cooker, and viola! A mere 40 minutes later, a hot dinner came out of the oven as if by magic. I had 40 entire minutes to clean the kitchen, play with my dogs, and read with The Hubs!

Shall I compose a sonnet to thee, o freezer full of food? How shall I ennumerate thy goodnesses?

My nightly routine went from "Night on Bald Mountain" to Beethoven's 6th.

For those of you who are more visual:

from THIS:




To THIS:





From Berlin 1945 to Pax Romana. From The Osbournes to the Cleavers. Ahhh. Much better.

And now, as promised, a review of the dinner:

We ate the Chinese Honey Ginger Chicken and it was...meh. It wasn't bad, it was just very, very bland. When all else fails, add hot sauce.

On a scale of one to 10, 1 being "even the smell made me gag" and 10 being Nectar of the Gods, The Hubs and I will each be giving the recipes a score.

Chinese Honey Ginger Chicken:
The Hubs' Score: 5
My Score: 4.2

That being said, this recipe has the potential to be at least a 9.6. Next time, I am going to treble all of the seasonings and use either white wine or apple juice instead of water.

Tonight's dish, Chicken Chow Mein. *gulp* I am dreading the eating of this dish so much that I have set aside cash in preparation for the drive-thru trip that I foresee following the tasting of this...err....meal...

C-Day

Let me begin by saying that Once-A-Month-Cooking is not for the faint of heart. It was confusing, overwhelming, and exhausting.

But oh, the rewards! All of the finished products looked and smelled delicious and my freezer is brimming over with meals that I won't have to cook after work.

When I say all of the recipes looked and smelled delicious, I mean that they all looked and smelled delicious except for the Chili (which smelled less-than-appetizing) and the Chicken Chow Mein. I must have been asleep at the keyboard when I let this one onto my recipe list. It was a casserole. And not only a casserole, but the casserole that other casseroles have nightmares about. It was a horrid concoction that jiggled ominously and made splurping noises when stirred. Seriously, why oh why would one need Cream of Mushroom soup to make Chicken Chow Mein? Maybe I should have just cut my losses and substituted green Jell-O. But, in the name of frugality (lest we should forget Good Idea #2,) I didn't throw out either the Chili or the Chicken Blob.

Here are some things I learned on C-Day:

What I will do differently next month:
1. I won't come down with a cold on C-Day Eve.
2. I will get all of my advanced preparations done in advance. That ate up a LOT of time on C-day.
3. I will not get all of the ingredients for all 15 recipes out ahead of time. This proved to be a huge waste of my already scarce counterspace.
4. I will not open all of the cans in advance. Due to my cold and my lack of advanced prep, I didn't get all of the recipes made in one day. I did 10 recipes on C-day with the help of my afore-stated lovely friend and her equally lovely sister, 4 recipes on Saturday, and I will do the very last one tonight. I had to put plastic bags over the cans that I had prematurely opened.

What proved invaluable:
1. A healthy supply of paper towels.
2. Burn Salve.
3. Mariah Carey on the iPod....(only those of you who know me personally will know just how much I am kidding when I say that...)

As for my predictions about how I and my kitchen would look at the end of the day, "Cut me Mick" was just about right. I really did feel like I had gone ten rounds. My kitchen, on the other hand, fared a little better than I had predicted. Due to my friend helping with dishes while she was here and my own periodic dishwashing breaks (and my dogs gobbling up everything that hit the floor...), my kitchen looked less like a Hurricane Katrina zone and more like the site of some pansy little tropical storm. Still wrecked, but no casualties.

And last night, I asked The Hubs (as I always do) what he would like for dinner. He asked me (as he always does) what his options were. I simply referred him to the list of meals I had in the freezer, he chose the Chinese Honey Ginger Chicken, I got it out of the freezer and measured the rice and water for the rice cooker so that all I have to do tonight is pop the chicken in the oven and start the rice cooker! No tears or throwing things involved. Tune in tomorrow for my review of our first freezer dinner.

So: all in all, I declare C-Day a success. Even though right now I feel like death warmed up, when I look in my freezer, I feel like a domestic goddess. Bow to me, oh ye kitchen utensils- I am no mere mortal.

Anyone know where I can get a cape?