Thursday, May 03, 2007

Poor Chef...Not-so-poor Chef

You know, I think the difference between a poor chef & a not-so-poor chef comes down to the menu. When you're not-so-poor, you think of diverse gourmet meals that sound appetizing, you make up a list of all the ingredients to buy, you purchase them, etc. When you're a poor chef, you see what you have coupons to buy, what's on sale, or whatever you currently have (could consist of macaroni & cheese, spagettios, cereal) or purchase whatever is the cheapest at the store (mac & cheese, spaghettios, cereal). As you may have guessed, I am a poor chef at present. When we were in college we had a really nice thing called "student loans" which helped me somehow fool myself into thinking that we could actually afford hamburger meat and oreos. Now that we're out of school and have a "real job," we can't afford our luxury meals and I'm forced to order the newspaper so I can raid the coupon section to help our family eat somewhat decent meals. How fun to be out in the "real world." Any similar experiences out there??

Today Anna & I went to the YMCA. I did 30 on E, 15 on T (treadmill), & 20 on AW. We came home & had lunch. I did something today I've never done: I cut up cucumbers for the purpose of eating them RAW. Yes, you read correctly, we ate raw cucumbers and raw carrots with our lunch. I was so proud of my healthy lunch. Anna quickly ate them up & actually said YUMMY when she ate the cucumbers. I must admit, I've never been a cucumber eater--they were...okay. I want to accustomize myself to them. What raw veggies do you eat? I need some more ideas.

While Anna was in school, I went over to watch Angie's kids so she make an appointment. It was quiet--both kids slept the whole 2 hours I was there...I typed up more recipes. My goal is to type all of the recipes that I make on the computer, categorize them, print them off, put them all in one binder (instead of 4). Ahhh, organization. It makes me happy.

I took some pictures of the yard and our square foot garden. I really love this house and I love our yard, too, even though it isn't exactly the way we want it yet...but I love it just the same.

I need to purchase some good quality vanilla ice cream soon. It's that time again---within a week I will learn whether or not I'm pregnant and either way I'll need some good ice cream. The pregnancy test is scheduled for next wednesday, but I figure that if I'm not preggo my period will be here before then. We shall see. On tonights agenda: movie or Frasier??

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We eat lots of raw veggies. Broccoli, califlower, grape tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, snap peas, celery, etc. My kids love all of them. I think I grew up eating it so I just had my kids grow up eating it too. Sortof like wheat bread, it's what I had so now that is what my kids have. Carter won't eat white bread.

Anonymous said...

Jill,

Good quality ice cream is awesome. But for years I've wanted a home ice cream maker, hand crank or electric. I guess I'm open to the work of a hand crank because all I do is look for newer and harder ways to work (read bassoon and voice and getting a DMA). Making it at home, you can make sure you know exactly what goes into your ice cream. You would be limited by the quality of the vanilla extract you buy, and any other ingredient you can think of to make it. Just last semester I bought mango sorbet at my local Chinese market, and it was so much better and more interesting than simple ice cream. But we've established I don't do anything the normal way, or even really like the normal way. I like exotic and spicy and full-flavored anything. Bland is out, store-bought (I hope) will one day be out, and lots of homemade Asian and Mexican will be in.

Coincidentally, just yesterday I bought a book called Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2. I ran across the first volume in a public library a few years ago. The concept is to take favorite foods from restaurants and make them at home, while usually saving money. Let me know if you have a fav restaurant food, and I'll look in my new cookbook. If I have it, I'll send you a copy. But go to the library and look for cookbooks. You'll be amazed at what they will probably have.

Later. KC