R & R

my husband loves me a ridiculous amount

(yes, those are flowers from iraq)

and i feel the exact same way about him!

four ingredients cannot be gourmet

last week at the office, i had just heated up my leftovers and was heading back to my desk to munch them, when everyone started to remark about how good my lunch smelled and how wonderful it looked. i think this is one of the most essential elements of a good recipe: leftoverability. since i usually live alone, if its not still yummy the next day, its not a good idea for me to cook it. i cannot depend on someone other than the garbage disposal to eventually finish it off. so i began to tell my coworks about my leftovers...its got sausage...tomatos...white wine... and that is about how far i got when they decided to be impressed and call it gourmet. i disagree. i think gourmet should take more effort and this is a really simple recipe, but hey, impress your friends: cook with wine. if you do decide to sip on the wine as you are cooking, make sure you set your 1/2 cup aside first. one time i had friends over and accidentally portioned out the whole bottle before i got a chance to cook with it. thank goodness there is a liquor barn nearby. and if you don't like the idea of wine, the baking isle of your grocery store will sell you nice non-alcoholic options or even apple juice will do. either way, the alcohol is cooked off before you eat it.

Spanish Pork and Sausage Casserole

2 T olive oil
4 boneless pork chops
4 sweet italian sausages
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves
1/2 cup white wine
8 plum tomatos, chopped (i buy two cans of chopped tomatoes. they even make seasoned ones now too)
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
2 T chopped parsley (i think this is for looks, i've never bothered with it)

heat the oil in a large, deep skillet on high. brown the pork chops on both sides, set aside. add the sausages, onion, and garlic to pan and cook over medium heat until sausages are browned and the onions are softened. return the chops to the pan. dump in the tomatoes, wine, and bay leaf. salt and pepper to taste. cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until all meat is done. remove the sausages from the pan, slice, and return to pan. the cookbook i found this in recommends the very imaginative salad and bake potatoes for side items. i prefer mashed (but the picture shows over pasta as that is what andrew prefers). i like to get a little bit of everything on my fork; the mash potatoes will hold it all together better than baked and thus be more likely to make it to my piehole.

its all pencilled in

as the countdown closes in on zero, i have devised a plan! i need orginization in my life. and if i have a plan, then i can delay the inevitable crazy/worry/fretting parts of armywife life.

today: cleaning the rest of the house

tomorrow and monday: laundry and baking, after work

tuesday: a visit to the salon, also after work. and sometime during the day, i should finally receive a sketchy ETA for andrew

wednesday: fretting, maybe during work, maybe instead of work

i do not have a set plan for thursday...either andrew will be home and...um..i'll be busy, or he won't and the fretting will need to be stepped up a notch. everything else seems to be on track, except i may have broken a toe today. i know, that clearly was not on the above list...it was a gruesome flipflop/shopping cart accident. i had just gone into the store for one or two (very necessary and healthy) things...and ended up buying about $50 worth of the tastiest, fattiest foods that the freezer section has to offer, knowing full well that i wanted them but lying to myself that it was all for andrew. so i guess the moral is: if you are going to buy a ton of fatty foods, make sure you are wearing durable enough shoes to get you and them safely to the car...

pancakes

i have decided it would be fun to post one of my favorite recipes every so often. yes, i realize this will cement my uncoolness with the 14 year old myspace crowd, but since i wasn't targeting that audience anyway, i think it will be ok. i do have ulterior motives, my alumnae association is thinking about doing a cookbook this fall as a fundraiser (hopefully we will have plenty of little old ladies to pitch in good enough recipes to overcome my eclectic tastes). so please try these out, tell me what you think, and if you have a to-die-for recipe, by all means, email it to me. on the off hand chance i know the nutritional information, i will give that out only by request. it is so depressing to think, "wow, that is going to be yummy," and then realize that of course it will be yummy because it will either kill you or instantly give you five more pounds.

i am starting off with the recipe i promised to email to mary back, oh, in january (sorry for the delay mary). i confess i've only tried this one once, but it was really tasty and you cant go wrong with easy to make, fatty breakfast foods:

German Pancakes

6 eggs
1 cup milk
t salt
1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 T butter
1-2 or more T powdered sugar

Heat oven to 400.
Put butter in 10inch deep-dish pie plate and melt in oven.
Wisk eggs, milk, flour, sugar, and salt until well mixed. Pour into hot dish.
Bake 20 minutes or until golden and puffed.
Dust with tons of sugar.
Makes 8 servings, or less, depending on how big you want your piece to be.

public behavior

i went to the movies recently. and it was quite the experience.

in relaying the story to my husband, i was so caught up in all the other stuff that i completely forgot to even tell him what the movie was or if i liked it. basically, i went to the dollar theater, so everyone else has probably already seen the movie, and i thought it was ok. the real entertainment was the other movieviewers.

there are things in this world to which i don't feel like i really need to be exposed. some of these things i shy away from. and some are like the proverbial train wreck and i just cannot take my eyes or ears away.

a special easter example:

or, if you need some clues as to where this story is going: 10 people i do not want to see naked.

so i am sitting in the theater, trying to watch the previews and then the movie, and there is a guy several rows back. i can hear him and i know it is probably a complete lie to think that he was snoring. mostly because it didn't really especially sound like snoring only sort of a little like snoring. but why would you go to the theater and promptly fall asleep? and even if you did, how could you instantly be snoring? i never saw a companion with him, but then, i really wouldn't have, now would i? and sadly, some curious, degenerate part of my brain kept listening, trying to decide if he was really truely doing what i thought he might be doing, just like how i cannot take my eyes from the weird blue chickens