Beef Stroganoff and Black Bean & Corn Creamchiladas

Beef Stroganoff

• Yum! E loved this, and RatDog took his dinnertime begging to a new level when I made this.
• I didn't bother making the house seasoning, because I didn't want to have to store it. Instead, I just mixed up a little bit of salt, garlic powder and black pepper. Easy enough. Don't make the mistake that one commenter made; they used ALL of the house seasoning in this recipe, and ended up with a WAY over-salted (1 cup of salt) dish.
• We served the beef stroganoff over mashed potatoes instead of egg noodles, because after Thanksgiving a big bag of potatoes was on sale at Target for 50 cents. What a deal :)
• I also used low-sodium cream of mushroom soup.

Black Bean and Corn Creamchiladas

• This was an easy-to-prep recipe; it was great to make after work.
• I really liked the sharp flavor of the low-fat cream cheese. E didn't love it as much as I did, but he does not love cheese the way that I do.
• I forgot to cover it before baking it, so the tortillas got a little crispy and (lightly) browned. It was still good.
• I didn't love the taste of the roma tomatoes on the top. Next time I might just top them with pre-made (and probably less healthy) salsa.

Trying some recipes out for Christmas

E and I will be hosting Christmas for his family this year. We experimented with a couple of recipes to see if either one would work for Christmas dinner. It's going to be a tough decision :)

Turkey Lasagna

• E loves lasagna, and I love goat cheese, so this recipe was pretty much perfect for us.
• I followed the recipe almost exactly, except that I used dried parsley and basil instead of fresh, because I wanted to freeze half of the lasagna, and I don't think that fresh herbs always freeze that well. I've noticed that sometimes frozen basil in a tomato sauce gets a slight metallic flavor.

Crockpot Pulled Pork

• I followed the recipe exactly. I served it with extra barbecue sauce and thought it was delicious.
• Basically it's comfort food at its finest :)

We are leaning towards serving the crockpot pulled pork at our Christmas celebration because it definitely was less work than the turkey lasagna was, and it might be more kid-friendly than turkey lasagna. Also, we want to make things as simple as possible, because the holidays can be a lot of work :)

Indonesian Chicken Satays

This is another favorite recipe of ours; we actually like a lot of the recipes in this cookbook. I recommend mixing up the marinade before you head to work, and let the chicken and marinade work its magic in the fridge during the day. Also, you should serve it with a peanut sauce. I recommend making the peanut sauce the night before, just to make things easier. Here is a link to a peanut sauce recipe.

Indonesian Chicken Satays

Clare Ferguson

"Chicken: From Maryland to Kiev"

pg. 103

Ingredients:

• 1 TBSP. brown sugar
• freshly squeezed juice of 2 limes
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 TBSP. soy sauce
• 1/3 cup thick coconut milk, from the top of the can
• 1 TBSP. molasses
• a handful of cilantro roots and leaves, chopped
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, about 1 1/2 lb.
• 2 TBSP. peanut oil
• 16 bamboo satay sticks, soaked in water for 30 min.
• Peanut Sauce

Directions:

1) Put the brown sugar, lime juice, salt, pepper, garlic, soy sauce, coconut milk, molasses, and cilantro into a saucepan and bring to a boil.

2) Simmer for 3-4 minutes, then remove from the heat and cool quickly over ice.

3) Transfer to a shallow glass or china dish.

4) Slice the chicken lengthwise into even strips or ribbons. Add to the marinade. Stir well to cover. Marinate for 20 minutes or up to 8 hours in the refrigerator.

5) When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

6) Drain the chicken, then push an even number of strips onto each satay stick, threading them on in pleated waves.

7) Brush each satay with a little peanut oil.

8) Lay the bamboo satay sticks across a baking pan. (I use something like this)

9) Baste the chicken with the marinade

10) Cook for 15-20 minutes, turning over after 10 minutes.

11) Serve with peanut sauce.

Note: The recipe in the cookbook also provides instructions for making these on the grill, in a stove-top grill pan, or in the broiler. We have only made them in the oven so far.

Trinidadian Split Pea Soup

When I was in high school and as a freshman in college, I was a vegetarian. I ended the vegetarianism when I traveled to Cuba for two weeks. It seemed like it would be inappropriate of me to request special meals when people there were living off of rations.

My mom always worried about me getting enough nutrients. When I came home from college for winter break, my mom and I went to the book store, and bought this cookbook. My mom and I chose a recipe together, and then went to buy the ingredients. She wanted me to learn how to cook and eat a healthier vegetarian meal than what I had become accustomed to eating (I didn't really like vegetables back then). She and I made this soup together. I made it a few weeks ago, and it was still as good as I remembered it to be.

Trinidadian Split Pea Soup

from Madhur Jaffrey's "World Vegetarian"

Pg. 602-603

Ingredients:

• 3 TBSP peanut or canola oil (I used peanut oil)
• 1 "good-sized" onion, peeled and finely chopped (I used my special chopper to quickly chop the onion, celery stalk, garlic, and chile)
• 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 fresh hot green chile, finely chopped
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (I used dried thyme)
• 1 TBSP. finely sliced chives (I used green onion)
• 1 cup coarsely grated peeled carrot
• 1 cup yellow split peas (picked over, rinsed, drained)
• 6 cups vegetable stock
• salt
• pepper
• 1 cup of diced yam (one large yam diced into 3/4 inch pieces)
• Tabasco sauce, or lime juice and cayenne pepper to season the soup.

Directions:

1) Put the oil in a large pan and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the onion, celery, garlic, green chile, thyme, and chives. Stir and saute for 5 minutes; a little browning should be encouraged.

2) Add the carrot and continue to stir and fry for another 3 minutes.

3) Add the split peas and stock and bring to a boil.

4) Cover partially, turn the heat down to low, and simmer gently for 1 1/4 hours.

5) Add the yams. Simmer for about 15-20 more minutes; until the yams are soft.

6) When done, taste for salt, adding as much as needed. Also add black pepper to taste.

7) Mix together lime juice and a little bit of dried cayenne. Use this to season the soup at the table. Be careful, because a little cayenne goes a long way. You could also set out Tabasco sauce or another pepper sauce for seasoning the soup at the table.

Recipes from October and November

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

• I made these on Halloween, in between groups of trick or treaters. A few times, E had to answer the door by himself because my hands were full of cookie dough. I also brought a few of these cookies to my grandpa while he was in the hospital.
• I highly recommend this recipe. We baked 2 dozen cookies that night, and I froze about 4 dozen cookie dough balls for later. Yummy!

Corn and Black Bean Quesadillas with Pepper Jack Cheese

• A couple of weeks ago, I bought a block of pepper jack cheese when it was on sale for 99 cents. We also had a lot of frozen corn, and some frozen crockpot black beans. This seemed like a good recipe for using them up.
• We made a double batch of these, because this recipe only serves 2, and we like to make at least 4 servings of a recipe so we can have leftovers for lunch.
• We both really liked these, and they were pretty easy to make.

Bacon Chicken Alfredo Pizza

• We had frozen rotisserie chicken, and quite a bit of bacon, and we didn't know what we were going to do with it. This was an easy recipe (nothing is from scratch) to make on a Monday night when we both worked during the day, and didn't feel like cooking a complicated dinner. It was good, too :)

Yam Fries

• I had an extra yam leftover after making Trinidadian Yellow Split Pea Soup (I will post the recipe soon). I made a half recipe of baked yam fries as a snack on Halloween. I thought that the color of the yam was very festive. And the fries were delicious :)

Updates

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. Things have been really busy at our house. First, a few weeks ago, we returned our original set of pots and pans to BB&B. Because I am a receipt saver, I still had the original receipt - and it wasn't that hard to find. We bought them (using gift cards from our wedding) when we returned from our honeymoon in August of 2008. Unfortunately, the pots and pans did not hold up as well as we had hoped. BB&B and Calphalon have great return policies (Calphalon has a lifetime guarantee), so it worked out fine for us. We ended up getting a set of stainless steel pots and pans, since we didn't want a whole set of non-stick pans. We really like this set; hopefully this one will hold up and be our set for a long long time. Because of the way BB&B calculates store credit (even with our receipt), we still had a decent chunk of store credit that we needed to spend there. We ended up applying the credit towards a breadmaker. I have not quite mastered the art of breadmaking yet, but hopefully it will happen soon :)

I was also sworn into the state bar a couple of weeks ago. That was exciting :)

Finally, today E and I ran a little over 2 miles without stopping. It was pretty windy and cold, but I was really proud of us. I keep thinking that we are on our last run outside for the season, but then the weather keeps tempting me. Especially since I prefer running outside to running on a treadmill.

Slow Cooker Cookbook

Last week when I was planning out our meals, I saw this book sitting on our bookshelf. I don't remember buying it, and neither does E.

This week, we tried 3 recipes from it:

• Pork, Pea, and Spinach Curry Soup
• Chicken Peanut Stew (we really like a non-slow cooker version of this recipe from this cookbook)
• Cuban Black Bean Stew

None of the recipes were bad, but they were all pretty average and somewhat bland. When I saw that this cookbook had a 2.5 star review on Amazon.com, I wasn't surprised. Again, the recipes weren't terrible, but they just weren't amazing.

We do really like this cookbook, though. It was one of the first cookbooks that E and I ever used together. Chicken is E's favorite meat, and I think that he borrowed the cookbook from his sister (and forgot to return it). It looks like we can buy it for a penny on Amazon.com now - maybe we should, so we can return "our" copy to E's sister :) Anyway, we've gotten some good use out of that cookbook. These are the recipes in that book that we really like:

• Indonesian chicken satays
• Jamaican jerk chicken
• Nigerian peanut and chicken stew
• jollof rice
• stir-fried chicken with greens
• chicken kabobs
• chicken with udon noodles

I get most of our recipes online, but sometimes it's nice to use a cookbook. Sometimes I will find myself making a lot of Italian and Tex-Mex recipes, and I forget about all of the other options that are out there. A cookbook allows you to browse without having to type anything into a search engine, so you might find yourself inspired to make something that you weren't originally planning on making.

Slow Cooker Pepper Steak, Chicken and Corn Pie with Cornbread Topping

It's been a while since I've reviewed recipes. Both of these recipes were delicious.

Slow Cooker Pepper Steak

• I followed the recipe, and it was really good.
• It was a little salty, even though I used lite/low-sodium soy sauce.
• I served it with rice.

Chicken and Corn Pie with Cornbread Topping

• This was a delicious recipe.
• I made this enchilada sauce up the day before. I used a little over half of it in this dish.
• I used frozen rotisserie chicken that we shredded before freezing it. The recipe called for 3 cups of chicken, but we only had 2 cups. It didn't seem to make a difference.
• I couldn't find a 6 oz. package of Mexican cornbread mix. I found a 7.4 oz. package of sweet corn cake mix. I used the whole package, and I don't think that it mattered.
• I also used 1/2 cup of shredded monterrey jack cheese and 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese that I already had in my fridge instead of a Mexican cheese blend.
• Despite all of my substitutions/variations, this recipe was great. Very filling. We had it for dinner after we went for a run in some very windy and cold weather (the last time we went running outside, in fact). It was a great way to end our run.

I passed!

I passed the bar exam and will be sworn in at the end of the month. That is a huge relief.

I am thinking about starting my own law firm while continuing to work in my current part-time job. We will see what happens. I think that, as of right now, I would want it to be officially open for business in January 2010, but things could change. I'm nervous about the idea, but I also have a couple of good mentors, so I'm not as nervous about it as I once was.

I am still applying for jobs, and getting a lot of rejection letters and emails. The economy is (I'm going to state the obvious) unbelievably tough right now for job-seekers.

Rat Dog had surgery on Wednesday. He had a "mass" removed from his leg, and he had his teeth cleaned. He is not supposed to jump onto furniture or run up/down the stairs for ten days. This is supposed to prevent his stitches from ripping. He loves to run and jump, so it has been really difficult. He also has to wear a cone in order to prevent him from licking his stitches. It is really exhausting; I can't imagine how exhausting it must be to be a parent to a toddler. Dealing with post-surgery Rat Dog is enough for me right now.

We are still waiting to hear whether his mass was an infected bug bite or a bad (cancerous) tumor. I am really hoping that it was a bug bite.

Other than that, not much is new around here.

Baby Shower

On Sunday my mom and I co-hosted a baby shower for two of my cousins. It was nice to have the girls over, because some of my aunts and cousins hadn't been to our house before.

Here are some of the recipes that we used:

Rotisserie Chicken and Chicken Stock

• I bought a rotisserie chicken on Saturday. I took it home, and E and I removed the skin and shredded the rest of the chicken. I put half of it aside for the buffalo chicken dip. I used about 1/4 of it in the enchilada roll-ups, and I saved 1/4 of it to use later.
• When we shredded the chicken, we saved any pieces that were too fatty to use. We also saved the chicken carcass and the rest of the chicken bones. Then we put those pieces into the crockpot, filled it up with water, and added an onion (I just cut it into quarters) and some leftover carrot scraps. We cooked it on low for about 18 hours (most websites said to cook it for 12-18 hours), and then strained it and cooled it in a cold water bath in my sink. We ended up with about 12 cups of chicken stock. Yummy.

Buffalo Chicken Dip (based on this recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 of the meat from a rotisserie chicken, shredded
• 2 - 8 oz. packages of cream cheese (softened)
• 1/2 cup bleu cheese dressing
• 1/2 cup ranch dressing
• 3/4 cup of hot sauce (I used about 1/2 cup of Frank's Wings Buffalo Sauce, and 1/4 cup of Frank's Red Hot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce)
• 1/2 - 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
• French bread and tortilla chips - or whatever else you want to use.

Directions:

1) In a 1.5 quart (or larger) oven-safe dish, combine the chicken, cream cheese, dressing, and hot sauce.

2) Stir until well mixed. Then let it sit in the refrigerator for an hour or two.

3) Bake for about 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. When 10 minutes remain, add the shredded cheddar cheese to the top of the dip.

*** Note: You may have to experiment a bit with the oven temperature and cooking time.

Chicken Enchilada Roll-Ups

• I used this recipe - I followed it pretty closely.
• Instead of using canned chicken, I used 1/4 of a rotisserie chicken.
• I also used a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper, because I didn't want the roll-ups to be too spicy.
• I used a 6-pack of jalapeno cheddar tortillas (they were actually called "wraps" at our grocery store, but they were located by the tortillas). It was almost enough. I had to use 1 regular white flour tortilla in order to use up the chicken enchilada filling.
• I mixed up the filling the day before the shower. I think it allowed the flavors to blend together nicely.
• It is easier to spread the filling onto the tortillas if you take the filling out of the fridge and let it sit for a while before you try to work with it.
• I also barely used any salt. Maybe between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp.

Baby Shower Menu

• Besides the buffalo chicken dip and the enchilada roll-ups, we also served: mini croissant sandwiches (different variations of ham, turkey, and cheese), a veggie tray with ranch and dill dip, a fruit bowl (grapes and strawberries), punch, pickles and olives, and water with lemon.
• We also bought two 7" cakes from Target's bakery - a red velvet cake and a chocolate indulgence cake. They were delicious.
• For the 12 guests, we had plenty of food. We have a lot of leftovers, so I will be eating leftover baby shower food for the rest of the week. I'm not complaining about that :)

Baby Shower Games and Other Details

• We bought a baby shower word search game at a local party store. It was trickier than we thought it was going to be.
• We also played this Baby Shower Bingo game. It took a lot longer than we thought it would. My grandma won the Bingo game, though, so that made the wait worth it.
• All in all, it was really fun to co-host a baby shower. I'm really glad that my mom was there to help me and co-host it with me; we wouldn't have been able to have the shower without her help. E was also a big help. Thank you Mom and E :)

66 and 55

I have applied for 66 jobs since the bar exam, and have now received 11 rejections. That means that I still have a chance at 55 jobs :) Luckily, I started a new part-time contract position in my field to help pay the bills until I find a full-time job. I am learning a lot there, so that's good. I am toying with the idea of opening up my own law practice, but I feel like I need a few more months (like until February or March) to make a well-informed decision. Of course, if I find a good, full-time job before then, that would be ideal.

It is a little frustrating for me because I tend to be "Type A". I am trying to keep a positive attitude. It's easier to keep a positive attitude on the days that I go into the office. It's a little more difficult when I am spending my days off at home. I know that once I find my real full-time job, I am going to miss the freedom that I currently have during the day, though.

This past spring, I attempted to run a 5K. I didn't train for it at all. I couldn't run most of it. On Sunday I decided to start the C25K program. Today was my second day of Week 1. There are a lot of C25K podcasts that you can download and listen to while you run, so you don't have to keep track of the time. I have really enjoyed it (all 2 days) so far.

Since my surgery, I have been worried about using headphones. Apparently headphones have magnets in them, and my neurosurgeon uses a giant magnet when he wants to adjust the setting on my shunt. Magnets in headphones can reset a person's shunt. If that happened to me, I would have to go into the doctor and have him set it back to the correct setting. Because our health insurance doesn't have the best coverage ever, it is really expensive for me to go to the neurosurgeon and have him readjust my shunt. I try to go in as little as possible (especially considering my current employment situation). My shunt is located really close to my left ear, so I have just been avoiding the use of headphones.

E came to my rescue so that I could listen to a podcast while running on the C25K program. He cut the left earbud off of a set of headphones for me. Now I can listen to my headphone in my right ear while I am running. This is a little thing, but it really made all the difference for me. It's so much easier to want to exercise when I can listen to music.

Recipe Reviews

Oven-dried tomatoes

• Even after forgetting to water it for 5 or more days, the cherry tomato plant is still producing tomatoes like crazy. We found ourselves with a "problem": what should we do with all of those tomatoes?
• I found a few different blogs that showed how to make oven-dried tomatoes. We love sun-dried tomatoes, but hate how expensive they are. This is a great alternative, and I read that people freeze these too. We haven't done any freezing yet, because we used up all of our oven-dried tomatoes, but I'm sure we will be freezing a batch soon.
• This is how I did it (copy-pasted from an email that I sent to my mom):

1) Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil

2) Cut the cherry tomatoes in half

3) Put the tomatoes in a bowl and drizzle them with a little (very little - if you put too much they won't dry/cook right) olive oil. Add a little pepper and sea salt. Then mix them up a little.

4) Put them on the cookie sheet with the cut side up (skin side touching the sheet/foil)

5) Put them in the oven at 325 degrees for about an hour. Some recipes say to cook them for 2 or more hours at 200 degrees. That will probably work too. After an hour at 325 degrees, most of the tomatoes were perfect. A couple of the smaller ones were burned... so maybe turning down the temp is a good idea? You just need to keep an eye on them.

Cottage Cheese Chicken Enchiladas

• This recipe was a 3-stepper. Here is a link to the enchilada recipe.
• The night before we had these for dinner, I made the chicken in the crockpot. I put a small chopped onion on the bottom of the crockpot, then added the can of diced green chiles (the enchilada recipe calls for a 7 oz. can). I used the equivalent of half of a package of taco seasoning mix (but I didn't use store bought taco mix - too much salt). Then I added 1/2 of a bottle of beer, and 2 frozen chicken breasts. I cooked it on low for 5 hours. When they were done cooking, it was super easy to shred them. Then I used a slotted spoon to remove the onions and chiles from the crockpot, and added them and a little bit of the cooking liquid to the shredded chicken.
• While the chicken was cooking in the crockpot, I made enchilada sauce. I was trying to avoid all of the salt in the store-bought canned enchilada sauce. I used this recipe. It made more than the 10 oz. can that the enchilada recipe called for, but I ended up using all of it in the enchiladas.
• The next day, I put all of the ingredients together and made the enchiladas. They were really good. They tasted even better as leftovers, and we had a lot of leftovers.

Polenta with Spinach, Black Beans, and Goat Cheese

• We have made this recipe since I was a 1L, and we both still really like it.
• It calls for 1/4 cup of sun-dried tomatoes, so we were able to save ourselves some money by using our oven-dried cherry tomatoes. Yummy!

Tomato-Cream Sauce for Pasta

• I was extremely underwhelmed by this recipe.
• E really liked it, but I didn't even want the leftovers. I wouldn't recommend it.

Chicken Parmesan Burgers

• We had these for dinner tonight. We made them on the grill.
• We used ground turkey instead of ground chicken (probably because of our previous bad experience with ground chicken).
• These were really good. Definitely an "E-style" meal, too :) He likes pretty much anything with a marinara sauce.
• Baby bellas were on sale this week, so we sauteed them and put them on our burgers. They were good, but probably weren't necessary if you are looking to save a few bucks :)

Cherry Tomatoes and Mac and Cheese

Well, our cherry tomato plant has been producing tomatoes like crazy. And despite my lack of gardening skills, it is still alive :)

We found a couple of good recipes for using up cherry tomatoes... and we also tried out a new Mac and Cheese recipe.

Chicken Pesto Pizza

• This was amazing! I loved the way the cherry tomatoes tasted on this pizza.
• We did things a little differently than the recipe.
• First, we grilled the chicken the day before.
• Also, when I made the pesto, I toasted the pine nuts and the garlic in the oven instead of on the stovetop. I knew I would be heating up the oven anyway (to bake the pizza), so it just made things easier. I set the oven to 325 degrees, and then toasted the pine nuts for 5 minutes and the garlic for 7 or 8 minutes. It worked out well.
• I would also recommend cutting the salt for the pesto in half. I would use 1/4 tsp instead of the 1/2 tsp that the recipe calls for.
• Finally, we cheated and didn't make our own pizza dough. Maybe we will learn how to make our own this winter... but we had to draw the line somewhere. We typically use the "Thin Crust" (not the "Classic") version of this. Then we just follow the directions on the tube for baking it. Someday we will use our mixer or food processor to make pizza dough, though.

Warm Tortellini and Cherry Tomato Salad

• Another great recipe, and a great use of our cherry tomatoes.
• It made A LOT, so we had enough for 4 servings of leftovers.
• I would consider cutting the asparagus into halves before cooking it, because it was difficult to get it to cook all the way through (especially closer to the ends of the asparagus) in 2 minutes.
• Here's a link to the recipe.

Mac and Cheese

• We have a favorite mac and cheese recipe already (if you make this recipe, be sure to not use as much salt as the recipe calls for), but I thought that it would be good to try out a new one.
• There's not much to say about our new recipe, except that it is really really good, and I will definitely make it again :) I highly recommend trying it out.

40 and 7

Since the bar exam (and since I had to resign from my previous job) I have applied to 40 jobs. I have been rejected by 7 of those jobs. Well, I have been expressly rejected by 7; who knows how many others have rejected me already, but haven't told me about the rejection.

I'm not complaining. I'm proud of myself for applying to 40 jobs. The first 20 jobs that I applied to were major "reach" jobs; my dream jobs. Now that I've applied for those, I can't say that I never tried.

Today I received a rejection from a job that I had interviewed for. I am typically a good interviewer, but I felt a little "off" at this interview. Even though it would have been nice to have this job (a job, period) it really wasn't the best job for me and my "skill set."

When I graduated from undergrad in December of 2003, the economy wasn't doing so hot (although it was nothing compared to now). I got a job in my field then. Hopefully I will be able to prove myself a second time - during the Great Recession.

A Batch of Recipes

5-Cheese Stuffed Shells with Homemade Tomato Sauce

• Here is the recipe for the stuffed shells.
• The tomato sauce was a little more complicated. I found this "how to" and decided to use the tomatoes from my MOH and the "baby" tomatoes from the plant that my mom gave us. I sort of followed the eHow instructions, but I added an onion (also from my MOH), and 1/2 cup of red cooking wine. I also used fresh oregano (leftover from another recipe), fresh basil and flat-leaf parsley (from our deck garden). It was super yummy, even though it took a while. I also recommend taking the seeds out of the tomatoes first (the eHow recipe doesn't say that you need to do that, but when I googled it, most websites said to remove the seeds before making tomato sauce).
• All in all, this recipe was good. Trying to stuff the shells wasn't that fun, though. Also, the recipe made a LOT of stuffed shells - enough that we froze a couple of servings for later.

Falafel with Tzatziki Sauce

• Even though the recipe doesn't clearly specify it in the ingredients list, you will want to have pitas and tomatoes to serve with this. Also, I didn't know how to make bread crumbs since I didn't have any dried bread sitting around our house. Lucky for me, the internet came to my rescue.
• We used this recipe for the falafel, but we didn't make the cucumber sauce from that recipe. Instead we used this recipe for Tzatziki.
• E made the Tzatziki the night before, and we only made 1/2 of the Tzatziki recipe. If you only plan on using the Tzatziki for the falafel, 1/2 of the recipe is the right amount. We used FAGE Greek yogurt for the Tzatziki, a cucumber (from our MOH), and we had to substitute mint leaves for fresh dill because we couldn't find fresh dill at the grocery store.
• This was a great recipe; I give it a double or even a triple recommend :)

Shredded, Saucy BBQ Chicken Sammies

• This is a good recipe for when you are craving something that is like a Sloppy Joe, but you don't want a Sloppy Joe.
• We usually end up freezing some of this to use later, because the recipe makes a lot.

Angel Hair Pasta with Tomatoes

I made this recipe for the first time when I lived in Jamaica for a summer. I spent a couple of weeks right outside of Ocho Rios with two Peace Corps Volunteers ("PCVs") , and volunteered at an environmental day camp. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad that I got to spend some time away from Kingston. Anyway, Jackie (a PCV who was "stationed" in Kingston) and I stayed with one of her friends (also a PCV), and we took turns making dinner. I was not a very good cook back then. I think that my main "specialties" were black beans (from a can) and rice, homemade pico de gallo salsa, and scrambled eggs. I am pretty sure that I didn't know how to cook meat of any sort. When it was my night to make dinner, I was scared. Then I thought of a pasta dish that I once ate at a "fancy" restaurant, and decided that I would attempt to recreate it. Miraculously, I didn't start the PCV's house on fire, and my dinner actually turned out to be pretty good.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 package of angel hair pasta (cooked and drained)
• 2-3 cloves of garlic (chopped or crushed)
• 4 hot house tomatoes or 8-10 roma tomatoes (diced)
• 1-2 TBSP of chopped fresh basil
• salt and pepper (to taste)
• olive oil
• freshly grated parmesan

Directions:

1) Heat olive oil in a large pan on medium heat.

2) Saute garlic for about 1 minute

3) Add tomatoes, basil, salt, & pepper to the pan. Saute for about 5 - 10 minutes.

4) Toss the tomato mixture with the angel hair pasta.

5) Serve with parmesan.

Lots of Recipes

One of the best parts about the bar exam being over is that I get to cook again. It feels good to be back into a routine. I have been craving a lot of Italian and Greek ingredients lately, and the recipes that we have made definitely reflect that.

Penne Alla Vodka

• Absolutely delicious!
• We substituted crushed tomatoes for whole tomatoes; I thought that it would make the sauce have a better consistency.
• I highly recommend this recipe.

Light Alfredo with Spinach Ravioli

• We made this for our first wedding anniversary.
• It was really good. The only thing that I might change next time is that I would use a little less chicken broth.

Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Feta Cheese

• Another great recipe.
• Fairly easy to make (although E made this; but it seemed like it didn't take him too long)
• It was a nice Sunday night dinner.

Phyllo Pizza with Feta, Basil, and Tomatoes

• We used cherry tomatoes from our "backyard" garden for this recipe... and fresh basil from our deck garden.
• I liked it, but dealing with the phyllo dough was kind of frustrating, and it wasn't that filling. It seemed like something that I would order at a restaurant, but it was a lot cheaper to make it myself.

Slow Cooker Stuffed Greek Peppers

• This was a good way to use up some of the feta from the phyllo pizza.
• It was easy to make and pretty good; I didn't really like the way that the peppers tasted after being cooked for so long, but the filling was really good :)

Lemon Thyme Chicken

• Chicken is E's favorite meat, and this recipe seemed like an interesting way to prepare it.
• It wasn't mind-blowingly amazing, but it was good.
• We ate this with broccoli.

Teriyaki Vegetable Noodles

• Another recipe that wasn't amazing, but it was good.
• The bright side: we had most of the ingredients at home, so it didn't cost too much to make. AND the recipe made A LOT of servings of noodles, so we froze some of the leftovers into individual containers for when E has night classes this fall.

Baked Potato Skins

• I really like bar food. Potato skins are a favorite for me.
• This is a good recipe :)

Monkey Bread

• When I asked E to make monkey bread, I figured that he wouldn't like it very much. Usually I'm the one with a sweet tooth. I was wrong; E loves it!
• The only thing that we changed about this recipe is that we didn't add raisins.

Hello Neglected Blog

I survived the bar exam. I won't find out whether I passed until October 8, so I am trying my best to forget about it. So far, I'm doing a pretty good job. I've only had 2 nightmares about it; way better than all of the nightmares that I had after 1L exams.

Without going into too much detail, a certain part of my life isn't working out very well right now. Luckily, I have time to straighten that out. Plenty of "down" time, in fact. As an ENFJ, I like things to be decided and I like to have things planned out. I was so happy in April when I thought that I had things planned out with that aspect of my life. Right now I am sacrificing a little bit of my sanity (the part that likes to have a clear path to follow) in order to do what is right for myself.

This weekend, my Man of Honor (MOH) came up and helped E and I fix our house. Our house had an insulation problem and it was causing one of the walls in our master bedroom to freeze during the winter. It was so good to see my MOH. We went out for dinner and then to a drag show. Not much has changed, drag-show-wise, during the last five years. But a lot has changed in my life. Five years ago, I was getting ready to move to the DR for a second time. Back then, I had no idea that five years later I would be married, have a dog and a house, and be finished with my law degree. Life is full of surprises. Although one aspect of my life is very much in limbo right now, I take comfort in realizing that five years from now I will find myself sitting at a drag show with my MOH and my husband and be able to look back on how much my life has changed for the better during that time. I keep reminding myself that this period of limbo is just a part of the journey.

"Game Day" is Almost Here

I may or may not be counting down the hours until Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. I also may or may not have decided on my first post-bar-exam beverage :) I had a mini panic session about the bar exam today, but luckily a DQ treat fixed that.

Studying has really taken its toll on me this week. I woke up a couple of days ago with some major upper shoulder pain; definitely a product of spending too much time reading. I did two things to cure this pain: (1) I got a 3-month membership to a therapeutic massage place by our house; and (2) I have been using Icy Hot and I feel (and smell) like an arthritic grandmother.

I have been having a hard time focusing on studying these past few days; my mind keeps wandering to how great it will be to put this exam behind me. I know that I really couldn't have studied more, so if I don't pass, I will have no regrets about my lack of effort. There is way too much information to know, and I have accepted the fact that I will not know all of it; hopefully I know enough to pass.

I have lots of fun things to look forward to after the bar exam; this is what I have planned for my first week and a half of freedom:

• having breakfast with a friend before he moves to California (I will miss him!)
• a massage to make my shoulder feel better
• my friend's bachelorette party (we are having a spa day; I can't wait for a pedicure!)
• getting a haircut
• our first wedding anniversary :)
• E taking a few days off of work so we can relax at the cabin with RatDog
• starting my job on a full-time basis
• reading for fun (I ordered a bunch of cheap, used books off of Amazon and have been getting them in the mail over the last few days)

We won't know whether we passed until October 8, so hopefully I will be able to push any anxiety that I may have out of my mind between now and then.

8.5 days of studying to go

I'm finally in the home stretch of this evil bar exam. I don't feel like I'll ever be ready, but I'm just ready for it to be over already. I can't wait to enjoy the rest of the summer, and to find out what it is like to live a life free from law school and standardized tests. Well, mostly free from standardized tests... I have another one coming up in a few months, but I'm not going to go into great detail about it, because I'm not sure that my blog is anonymous enough for that. Let's just say that I am full of surprises, and am glad that E is always up for an adventure (or at least the possibility of an adventure) :)

I feel like my renewed sense of adventure is a product of my surgery. In the last few months, I feel like I've returned to "normal"... well, the "normal" that I was before my cyst became symptomatic. Maybe this sense of "renewal" is all psychological, but I am willing to bet that at least part of it is not. My brain was pretty squished before I had surgery.

I plan on doing a blog series about my cyst and surgery after the bar exam, mostly because there is a lot of scary/bizarre anecdotal information on the internet about arachnoid cysts, and I want to provide recently diagnosed people with a more optimistic (and probably a more correct) source of information.

Yesterday I took the day off from studying. I realized that I hadn't taken a full day off from studying and class in about a month (yes, I even studied for a few hours on the 4th of July - lame!). My brain and my body didn't want to study yesterday, and I didn't feel like pushing myself. I think I made the right decision. I feel about a million times more focused today (except for this blog-writing study break, of course).

Anyway, wish me luck :) I don't know if I'll post again before the bar exam, but I will definitely update when I'm on the "other side" of this exam. Can't wait!!!

Busy Times

It's been a busy week or two since I've updated this blog. I'm pretty worried about the bar exam, and I'm really glad that E is here to take care of me and RatDog :) He's been making dinner every night, making us chocolate malts almost every night as a bedtime snack, cleaning the house, going grocery shopping, meal-planning, doing laundry, walking RatDog twice a day (I only have to take him out once a day - woohoo!). Plus, he is putting up with my bar exam induced mood swings, and still manages to tell me that he loves me several times a day (barf! I know...sorry blog-readers). Needless to say, I'm very very lucky.

Our neighbors really like lighting off fireworks. This is bad news for RatDog. Yesterday we had a thunderstorm AND people were lighting off fireworks like crazy. RatDog definitely was in panic mode. Poor guy :( Last night we took him for a walk, and while we were on the walking path, one of our lovely neighbors launched a firework ON to the walking path. I ran away, screaming. RatDog ran as fast as his little dog legs could run (faster than me). E wanted to go have a talk with the neighbor who launched the firework and tell him/her that you should launch them UP and not onto the walking path. I thought that it might be too dangerous to talk to someone who was doing that; drunk people + fireworks.... I'll stay away, thank you very much. On our walk back into the house we saw a family with little kids heading onto the same walking path that we were just on. People (our neighbors) really need to be more careful.

Anyway, our meal plan from a couple of weeks ago turned out well. The corn and potato chowder was a favorite in our house. Instead of buying the seasoning mix that the recipe calls for, we googled it and just made our own from the spices in our cupboard. It turned out great.

Last week we also tried out:

Miami Black Bean and Corn Salad

Delicious; I really liked the citrusy flavors.

Wagon Wheel Taco Pasta Salad

Yummy! But this recipe makes A LOT of pasta salad, so I would recommend making it for a potluck ... or maybe cutting the recipe in half.

Tonight we had:

Lentil Barley Skillet

We had a lot of lentils and barley in our cupboard; this was a good way to use them up. E liked it better than the lentil soup I made in January :)

Here are some recipes that E will be trying out this week:

Herbed Greek Chicken Salad

Creamy Bean Soup with Taquito Dippers

Crockpot Salsa Chicken

Crockpot Burrito Soup

Have a great week! Happy 4th of July, a day late :)

Pesto

This recipe is courtesy of my stepmom. It's a great recipe :) Pretty easy to make, too.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (packed) of fresh basil (do not chop)
• 1/2 cup of EVOO
• 2-4 cloves of crushed and peeled garlic (we used 2 cloves, and that was plenty; just ask the people who sit by me in class...haha!)
• 1 tsp. of salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of toasted pine nuts
• Fresh shredded parmesan cheese
• Hot cooked & drained pasta

Directions:

1. Place basil, EVOO, garlic cloves, and salt into food processor and process. (We also added the pine nuts to the food processor; just our personal preference).

2. Pour pesto over the pasta.

3. Top with lots of parmesan cheese and pine nuts (if you didn't add them to the food processor).

Bar Exam Studying Blahs

I'm really burnt out on studying. The stress surrounding the bar exam is making me question almost everything (except E & ratdog) about my life right now. It is terrible. I could not be productive today to save my life. I'm disappointed in myself because I had a plan for what I was supposed to get done today, but when I got home from class I worked on something else instead (not related to the bar exam). Maybe I will just take the rest of the night off and go for a walk with E & ratdog. I really need to clear my head right now.

I feel like the bar exam is taking me so far out of my comfort zone that I am "reverting" to my old tendencies. In my case, that would mean wanderlust. Every time that I get burnt out on studying, I imagine E & I selling our house (at a huge loss) and moving someplace new and different. I'm craving the feeling of being anywhere but here.

This week we have to take a two-day simulated bar exam. Rumor has it that the Bar Exam Review Class makes this simulated bar exam absolutely miserable to "scare us straight." Unfortunately, I've been "scared straight" for the past 2 weeks. One month from today, the whole thing will be over. That is simultaneously terrifying and exciting.

A Couple New Recipes

Black Beans and Rice

We made this recipe using 2 "cans" worth of black beans from our freezer. The curry powder that the recipe calls for is a nice addition to a typical rice and beans dish. We also liked that the recipe uses brown rice, since it is healthier than white rice (I think). We also used crushed red pepper flakes instead of the fresh red pepper, just because we didn't have a fresh red pepper on hand. All in all, this was a good, simple recipe and we will definitely make it again.

Baked Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Cheese

This is a recipe from Cooking Light. We made it because we already had 2/3 pound of browned Italian Sausage in our freezer, and we have basil growing on our deck at home (thanks Mom!) that we wanted to use. We had most of the other ingredients at home, too. In fact, we only had to buy the tomatoes, the ziti, and the mozzarella. It was pretty inexpensive to make, and it was good, but it wasn't amazing. It was a good way for us to use up some extra ingredients that we had siting around our house, though. And it was cheap :)

We're going to be trying out quite a few new recipes this week. E will be the chef, because I will be studying for the bar. 

Here are the links to some of the recipes that "Chef E" will be trying out, in case you're looking for some ideas:

Barbecue Chicken Taco Salad with Sour Cream-Lime Dressing

Corn and Potato Chowder

Easy Layered Bean Dip

Penne with Spinach, Feta, and Toasty Pine Nuts

Pesto (I will post this recipe later)

Spinach, Pine Nut, Feta, & Craisins Salad

Our friends, Rachel & Ryan, brought this salad to a friend's house a few months ago. It was delicious, and it seemed like a nice summer dinner. E & I recreated it at home recently. We got about 5 (big) servings of salad out of this recipe. 

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of fresh spinach leaves (pre-washed)
• 2/3 to 3/4 cup of pine nuts
• 1 package of Original Craisins
• 1 package of crumbled feta
• Creamy Poppy Seed Dressing (we cheated and used the Kraft brand, but you could make your own)

Directions:

1) Toast pine nuts in a shallow baking pan in a 325 degree oven, stirring occasionally, until golden brown (about 5 minutes). Allow them to cool. NOTE: You could also toast the pine nuts in a pan on your stove if you don't want to heat up your house by using the oven. 

2) Combine spinach leaves, pine nuts, Craisins, and feta in a large bowl. Toss.

3) Serve with Creamy Poppy Seed Dressing.

Headaches & Prescriptions

I woke up this morning with a migraine; my guess is that it was caused by a combination of the weather change and the SUPER uncomfortable chairs that we sit in at the bar prep course. I skipped bar prep class today, and instead went to get my migraine medicine refilled (because I must have taken the last pill some time last week).

When I get a headache like this, I wonder if having surgery was pointless. Then I remember how big my arachnoid cyst was and how it was probably causing other problems (i.e. with concentration) and that it could cause even more problems in the future (possible temporary paralysis on one side of my body). I'm glad that I had the surgery, but I feel guilty for spending so much money on the co-pay for the surgery when it didn't cure my headaches. 

On a sidenote: health care reform definitely needs to happen. The co-pay for my migraine meds was $30 for 12 pills. If I didn't have health insurance, my meds would have cost $307.99. That is outrageous. I like the idea of a single-payer health care system because it would take the insurance companies out of the picture, but I am also not so sure that I trust our government (or any government) with running such a system. The government is inefficient and can be corrupt, and businesses (I mean, "non-profit health insurance companies") are greedy and also can be corrupt. I honestly don't know which way is better. The current system definitely isn't working, though, and it is way too expensive. As human beings, we all have a right to affordable health care.  When people argue against universal coverage by saying that it will lead to longer waits to see doctors, I understand where they are coming from, but it offends me on a spiritual and moral level. We currently benefit (by having shorter waits to see doctors) because some of our brothers and sisters are lacking access. 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 is one of my favorite Bible passages and I think that it is somewhat applicable to such an argument against universal coverage.

Still Studying...

Can't wait for the bar exam to be over. I really have nothing interesting to say; I haven't tried out a new recipe in a couple of weeks. I made a "to do" list for post bar exam life. A list of books to read and fun things that I can do, since I will have spare time (outside of work). I'm even being Type A about my free time :) Thanks a lot, law school.

One of my friends on Facebook always puts "FML" at the end of her status. I really don't like the FML website. This girl is still in high school, so I know that it probably seems cool to her :) But today I found a website that is an uplifting version of FML, and I love it. I've always loved stories from the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" genre; I'm glad to see that I'm not alone :)

More Proof That My Brain Is Fried

In my last entry, I was trying to write that because my state has a high bar passage rate, and I wasn't at the very bottom of my class, I have a good chance of passing. I read the sentence I wrote about 6 times before hitting "publish post", and at the time it made sense. 

Then a few minutes ago I realized that what I wrote made no sense whatsoever. I tried to edit it but could not figure out the right way to say it...so I deleted it :)

I could make the cliche joke about lawyers being bad at math, but I think that it makes more sense to blame it on too much time spent reading multiple choice questions (and getting them wrong!). 

89% bar passage rate... I can (hopefully) do it!

Freaking Out

Studying for the bar is making me crazy. If I think about things logically (our state has an easy bar; an 89% passage rate or something like that) I stop panicking for a few minutes. Then I do a couple of multiple choice questions and realize that I know nothing. 

I'm wondering if the bar prep course that I'm taking (it shall remain nameless, but it's a popular one...so....) was a waste of my time and money. The lectures are not cementing the law into my head at all. I think that I would have been better off buying the materials from a previous student and studying them on my own. That is how I usually learn best. Driving to class during rush hour and then sitting in class for 3.5 hours each day is burning me out. But I work for the bar prep company as a "bouncer" at the classes, so I have to attend everyday. At least I'm getting paid? 

I'm worried that I won't learn everything that I need to learn in time. I definitely don't want to take this exam more than once, so today I decided that I basically need to cut all non-work and non-bar exam studying social obligations for the rest of my summer. I'm glad that I had a fun weekend last weekend. I am "allowed" to go to my friend's upcoming bridal shower, see another friend once while he is in town this month, and that is about it. I don't want to be part of the 11% that doesn't pass. After three years of law school, what's another 2 months of studying? My summer vacation will start at the end of July this year :)

Turkey Sloppy Joes

My mom makes the best sloppy joes ever. I think that sloppy joes are great, because they are a comfort food. Usually comfort foods aren't that healthy. I think that we made them a little healthier by using ground turkey instead of ground beef. 

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of ground turkey
• 1/2 c. ketchup (you can also add a little barbeque sauce to this for a spicier taste)
• 2 TBSP vinegar
• 1 TBSP dried onions (or 1/4 to 1/2 cup of finely chopped onions)
• 1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
• 2 TBSP sugar
• 1 T. mustard

Directions:

1) Cook ground turkey and onions until brown, drain off fat.

2) Add the rest of the ingredients; you may need to add a little water, too. 

3) Stir well

4) Simmer for 1/2 hour over low heat

Turkey Meatballs and Laughing Cow Chicken

We bought 5 pounds of ground turkey (on sale). It's supposed to be healthier for you than ground beef, and I am trying to eat a minimal amount of red meat (for health reasons), so we tried out a few different recipes. 

This recipe for turkey meatballs turned out great. They were a little garlicky, though. We ate them with a vegetarian version of this spaghetti sauce. 

We also made ground turkey taco meat. We haven't eaten it yet, though, because we froze it. We used our normal taco seasoning recipe. 

Finally, the "Laughing Cow Chicken" recipe had been posted on several cooking blogs that I read. I love Laughing Cow cheese, so I decided to try this recipe out. It was okay; I don't know if I just did a bad job of cooking it or what, but I didn't love it. It wasn't terrible, but it just wasn't my style. 

Shiny Happy People

This weekend, Becca was in town, and we (Becca, E & I) ended up driving to visit Andy; he lives close to the town where the three of us (Becca, Andy, and I) grew up.

It was so nice to be around my closest friends. My life has changed so much in the past 3 years; law school, moving to suburbia, getting married, and having surgery. These changes have been for the better, but it was still so nice to hang out with my old friends. They are so positive and they take risks (like being a freelance photographer or creating art for gallery displays) and they do what they love and love what they do. Lawyers are often referred to as being deal-breakers; part of a lawyer's job is to think about things that might go wrong and to advise their clients about how to prevent those things from happening. A lot of people in my field are negative. For the past three years, I've attended school with people who were also being trained to think negatively. So it was GREAT to be around my friends who really don't care about law school related things. I felt like myself again. It's so great to have friends that you can go months (or sometimes even years) without seeing, and when you see each other again, it's like no time has passed. I'm so lucky.

People used to say that I was a "free spirit". I don't think that I ever really was that much of a free spirit; I have always liked to plan things and to have goals for myself. I worried about things a lot; I still do. I've always wanted to know where my life is heading. However, I would like to take some of this "free spiritedness" (or whatever it was) with me into my career. Obviously I need to be able to advise clients about what they should and shouldn't be doing, and unfortunately this advice can sometimes be negative. But I still want to be a fun person to be around; someone who encourages people to be happy and to do what they want with their lives. It's so easy to get caught up in negativity; I think that I need to shut out some of these negative influences from my life. I think that this might be easier said than done, but I'm going to try it.

Crockpot Dried Beans

In an attempt to lower our sodium intake and to save money, I made pinto and black beans in our crockpot. It worked out well. A bag of dried beans costs about $1, and it makes about 3.5 cans worth of beans. That's a good deal :) I made 2 bags worth of black beans and 2 bags worth of pinto beans (on separate days). Then I divided them up into freezer-friendly containers, and froze them.We have the equivalent of 14 cans of beans in our freezer. It wasn't too much work, and it saved us money AND it is also saving our health. We are going to use 3 cans worth this week for our dinners, so we're not hoarding too much food :) 

I used this recipe: Cooking Dried Beans in Your Crockpot

I followed the recipe exactly when I made the black beans. When I made the pinto beans, I turned the crockpot up to "high" and cooked them for 5 hours. They turned out, and the 5 hour cook time worked better for my schedule that day. 

Graduation & Psychic El Caminos

Last Sunday I graduated. Thank God law school is over! Of course the day after graduation we started bar prep courses, so I didn't get too much time to enjoy a school-free life :) I definitely will enjoy not having school after the bar exam, though. 

I've spent most of the holiday weekend with a cold/allergies. I even had an asthma attack during church on Sunday. I need to go to the doctor so I can get a new prescription for my inhaler because this one is almost used up :) 

My boss took all of next week off from work, so that means I get the week off too. I'm really happy about that. I love my job, but I need a week to get reorganized after finals, graduation, etc. I will still have bar prep class every morning, but at least I will have the afternoons free to get things done.

In other news: E got all of his transfer documents completed, and he is officially a junior in college! That is great news, because that means the end is in sight. I'm so proud of him :) Depending on how this semester goes, there is a good chance that he will be done with his undergrad degree by the end of the Fall semester of 2011. He's a little nervous about whether he will like his classes and be able to keep up with a heavy courseload while working. I know that he will have no problem. 

Yesterday, at Target, we bought some lounge chairs for our deck. We drove E's car (a Chevy Aveo). We weren't really thinking about how we were going to get those chairs home, I guess. We got the chairs out to the parking lot, and tried to fit the chairs in his car. No luck. Suddenly, I had a thought: I knew that it was Sunday and a lot of people had probably just been at church. After all, we had just been at church (until my asthma attack). I knew that someone would offer to help us out, and my thought was that it would probably be someone who had just heard a sermon at church and wanted to help out a stranger. Maybe their pastor had discussed Hebrews 13:2 during the sermon; who knows? :) 

Right after I had this thought, a man who was driving an El Camino approached us. He asked us if the chairs were going to fit in our car. E said, "No. We're just going to go home and pick up our other car." I wondered if these chairs would even fit in our other car; a small Saturn.

The man looked at me and said, "I can put the chairs in the back of my car if you would like. I will follow you to your house; is it far from here?"

I looked down and saw that he was wearing a cross necklace. I decided that I must be psychic :) 

The man and his wife helped load our chairs into their car and then followed us to our house. They dropped off the chairs, we thanked them and we offered them a drink. They declined and they left. E was embarrassed, but I felt like the whole thing was supposed to happen. I don't know why it was supposed to happen, but it was a nice coincidence. I'm very grateful; an El Camino is perfect for hauling lounge chairs :) And we really enjoyed our lounge chairs yesterday; it was perfect deck weather. 

Tacos, Tostadas, Toffee Bars, and Chicken

I just finished a take-home final, and now I only have 2 more to go until I graduate! I'm taking the rest of the day off to regroup and re-motivate. 

We haven't been doing a ton of cooking because of final exams; instead we've been cleaning out our freezer. We have some frozen soup, frozen mac and cheese, and a frozen pasta dish that are ready for us for dinner this week. I also have some unhealthy frozen mini pizzas to get us through final exams :) 

Tacos:

Last night we had tacos for dinner. We make our own taco seasoning instead of buying the packets from the store. I've noticed that the packets from the store either have too much salt (bad for E) or MSG (bad for me). We have a ton of spices & seasonings at home, so making our own is pretty easy. We use this recipe, but we cut the salt in half. We usually buy whole-wheat tortillas. Then we shred up some monterrey jack cheese, buy pre-shredded lettuce, and then serve with taco sauce or salsa, fresh tomatoes, and maybe some sour cream.

Tostadas:

To use up the shredded lettuce and cheese, we try to make tostadas within a few days of making tacos. We buy pre-made tostadas, and then either make refried beans out of pinto beans, or just buy a can of refried beans (not that healthy - oops!). We also either buy guacamole at Chipotle or make some at home. A typical tostada for us is: tostada shell (warmed in the oven), refried beans (warmed on the stove), guacamole, sour cream, salsa, cheese and lettuce. They are really easy to make & it's a good way to use up some of the taco fixings. 

Toffee Bars:

We had a potluck in my last law school class ever. When my cousins and I had a girls night about a year ago, my cousin brought over the ingredients and recipe for chocolate toffee crescent bars. They were delicious, and pretty easy to make, so I decided that they were a good thing to bring to a potluck :) Here is the recipe that I used. Just remember to let them cool for a while; otherwise the chocolate will make a big mess :)

Chicken:

A few months ago, I made chicken stew with white beans and spinach. When I made it, I froze 3 slices of bacon, 4 chicken thighs, a diced onion (you have to freeze this in a ziplock bag inside of an airtight container so it doesn't stink up your freezer!), 2 TBSP. of tomato paste, and a cup of chicken broth, so I could make it again another time. I made it again this Thursday, and only made one change: instead of adding oregano (I really don't care for oregano), I added 1/2 tsp. of dried basil. It was delicious. The best part was that thanks to my obsessive meal-planning and freezing, I had all of the ingredients except for the beans and spinach, so it was really inexpensive to make :) 

A Little Late to the Party

E & I Netflixed the movie Hotel Rwanda and watched it during a study break on Thursday. Holy cats! I put that movie on my "to think about list" whenever I am feeling sorry for myself. We were "a little late to the party" because that movie came out in 2004 or 2005, and it's 2009. 

I also had my first day of work on Thursday. It went well. My boss said that he will be very flexible about my schedule while I am studying for the bar; that it will just be a good time for me to get "trained in" and to learn the ropes. I feel a lot better knowing that it will not be high pressure in the beginning. I think I will really like working with him and with our clients. 

We celebrated my birthday yesterday. I started the morning off by trying to study at a coffee shop. I over-caffeinated and had a hard time concentrating, in part because it was my birthday :) E & I went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was nice; it was good for E to take the day off from going to doctor's appointments with his dad, and it was just a lot of fun. 

We also went furniture shopping. We need to move E's closet into our bedroom so that way we will have a true home office for me to use. We were considering buying all new furniture for our bedroom, and found a set that we liked. But we just couldn't get past the price. We decided that we are just going to buy a cheap (maybe used if we can find one) white or cream dresser/cabinet for our bedroom, and stick with our current non-matching furniture theme. It's more "green" of us to not buy new furniture too :) 

We had been toying with the idea of going on a post bar exam vacation; we have quite a few airline miles saved up, and they will be expiring soon. We booked a vacation this morning, but we won't be going until later on in the year. The cost of this vacation is about 1/3 of the cost of buying new bedroom furniture; it wasn't a tough decision :) We have also used up about half of our airline miles now. So we will probably be taking another cheap trip in the near future :) It is TBD.

More good recipes

Here are some links to some good recipes that we have recently tried out.

Crispy Yogurt Chicken

• Really good & different way to eat chicken.
• It takes a while to cook, so plan ahead.
• We served it with oven-roasted broccoli. Yummy!

Ravioli with Balsamic Brown Butter

• Vegetarian
  
• It's pretty simple to make, and it's a crowd pleaser.
• We served it with garlic bread, and roasted asparagus.

Good News

I had an interview yesterday, and it ended with me accepting a job. I haven't signed a contract yet, though, so nothing is set in stone. Still, it sounds like a great opportunity and like I will learn a lot. There is also room for growth. I will just need to figure out how to balance working and prepping for the bar exam. I will not be expected to work a lot of hours while I am studying for the bar, so that is good. I am really excited and hope that everything works out with this position :) I also hope that I pass the bar exam :)

Spinach-Artichoke Dip

E & I have a mini crockpot (The Little Dipper) and it is perfect for making this dip. It has a 16 oz. capacity. Yesterday I was craving Spinach-Artichoke Dip; I think it was the weather. Here is what I came up with:

Ingredients:

• ½ of an 8 oz. pckg of cream cheese (cubed)
• ½ box of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• ½ can of artichoke hearts, drained & chopped
• ½ cup of shredded cheese (either use Parmesan OR we used a 3-cheese Italian blend)
• 1/3 cup of mayonnaise

Directions:
1) Combine all ingredients in the Little Dipper.
2) Cover and heat. Stir after ½ hour (if you’re around)
3) You can leave it on for about 3 hours (or I did, at least).
4) Serve with crackers, chips, bread, or veggies.

NOTE: I left mine on for 3 hours while I was at class, and came home to some WONDERFUL spinach artichoke dip. We also have some leftovers: ½ a pckg of cream cheese, ½ can of artichoke hearts and ½ box of frozen spinach, so it looks like I will be making this again soon. Sounds good to me :)

A Few More Recipes

Spicy Ranch Oven Fried Potato Wedges and Boneless Buffalo Chicken Tenders

• This was a pretty easy meal to make. The blog from which I got the recipe gives instructions on how to make both of them at the same time :)
• The only thing that I would change about the potato wedges is that I would use sweet paprika instead of smoked paprika. I'm not really a fan of the flavor of smoked paprika. Also we got the ranch seasoning from Penzey's instead of using Hidden Valley.
  
• The buffalo chicken tenders were really good. E & I love buffalo wings, but they aren't very healthy for you. These are at least baked, and not fried. They tasted really good fresh out of the oven, but the next day (as leftovers) they were kind of soggy. But I still ate them :)

Beef Stew

• We followed this recipe, except for one thing: we didn't add celery. We had all of the ingredients (except for the beef) at our house, so it was a good recipe for us to use to clean out our pantry.
  
• It turned out really good, and while it was cooking, RatDog became obsessed with sniffing the air and walking over into the kitchen by the crockpot. When I ate it as a leftover the next day, RatDog ran all the way from the bedroom into the kitchen and started jumping and begging for it :) It was pretty cute.
  

Southwestern Chicken Wontons

• These were good (something different), although E had to make them by himself because I had a lot of homework. He said that dealing with the wonton wrappers was a big pain.
  
• He used a little less cilantro than the recipe called for.
  
• I ate mine with ranch dressing :)
  

Yellow cupcakes with chocolate icing

• A couple of weeks ago, during a very boring class, I got a MAJOR craving for cupcakes. I found this recipe and decided to try it out when I got home.
• The batter itself was delicious, but something went wrong when I baked them. They turned out super dense and were just blah. I am guessing that I messed something up, but I won't be using this recipe again.
• The chocolate icing turned out delicious. It was E's favorite part :) Once I find a better cupcake recipe, I will probably use the icing recipe again :)
  

Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken with Green Beans

E & I made this for dinner last night after pseudo-running our first 5K. It was pretty easy to make, and it was delicious!

We started on the green beans first, because they have to bake in the oven. Once the green beans were in the oven, we started on the chicken. We timed it pretty well. The green beans were done about 3 or 4 minutes before the chicken. Not too bad :)

E's Green Beans:

Ingredients

• Fresh green beans (rinsed and trimmed)
• Sea salt
• Olive oil

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2) Place green beans on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Stir/shake so all of the green beans are coated.
3) Add sea salt, and stir/shake again.
4) Bake for about 20 minutes. After they have been in the oven for about 10 minutes, shake/stir them.

Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken

Ingredients

• 4 tsp of brown sugar
• 12 oz of boneless, skinless chicken breasts (probably about 4 breasts)
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 TBSP of salted butter
• Salt (to taste)
• Pepper (to taste)
• 1/2 cup of chicken broth

Directions
1) Melt the butter in a pan (we used a non non-stick pan - if that makes sense)
2) Brown the garlic in the butter
3) Add chicken breasts to garlic and butter and cook thoroughly, adding salt and pepper.
4) When chicken is fully cooked, add chicken broth and then scrape up the brown bits.
5) Add brown sugar on top of each breast (1 tsp per breast)
6) Allow the brown sugar to melt into the chicken (about 5 minutes)
7) Serve with green beans

Long time, no update

I'm feeling a little flakey right now. Lots of projects/end of the year stuff to finish up, and not a lot of time. My somewhat decent eating habits have gone down the drain. I've eaten a couple boxes of Girl Scout cookies on my own in the past week. Drinking too much coffee. But at least I'm taking a multivitamin.

I have some good recipes to post, but it probably won't happen for a few more days.

I've been on a few job interviews in the past 2 weeks. I think that one firm was probably looking for a 2L instead of a 3L, so I don't think I will be getting that job. Oh well, interviewing is good practice. They also wanted someone to work for them 40 hours/wk this summer, and that wouldn't be very doable while studying for the bar, so it's probably for the best.

I have another job lead, but have been playing phone tag with the possible employer, so I don't know if it's a good lead or not. Hopefully I will find out more today.

I've also interviewed with a couple legal temp agencies so that way I'm at the top of their list after the bar exam. At least if I'm working somewhere and making money (any money), I will be able to hold out longer while looking for a permanent job. I've been told that it could take between 6-12 months to find a law firm job in this economic climate. There are too many law schools in this area (which I already knew). So I definitely need to find a way to bring in some income while looking for that job. Especially once the student loans come due in December. *gulp!*

E has changed his plan for going to school. As of Fall 2009, he will probably be taking 11 credits/semester at a local university that has a more friendly night-class schedule for working adults. For the amount of money and time that he is spending at the Giant Bureaucracy University, he will be able to earn 11 credits at the Working-Adult-Friendly University. He has to switch his major from Engineering to a double major in Accounting and Math. But he is going to try it out for a year, and then after Spring 2010, we will have a better idea of whether an Engineering major will be possible. Since there are no more night classes available in his major at Giant Bureaucracy University, and because he gets tuition reimbursement, there is really nothing for him to lose by trying this out. He took a Myers Brigg test, and Accounting came up as a top career choice for him, so it's not a totally crazy idea.

E & I also found a church in our suburbia to join, so I am going to New Member Classes (E can't make it, because it's during his lab). It is making me feel more like I "belong" in our suburbia land. It's good to meet some of our neighbors.

Alright, I think that's all for now. I need to miraculously write a paper on Saturday. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and have been working on it until a few minutes ago, so I think it's possible that I will finish it tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me :)

Avocado Dip

When I planned out my lunches for last week, I decided I would have avocado and provolone sandwiches (like a vegetarian sandwich that I usually eat at a sandwich shop). Unfortunately my version of the sandwich was blah! I hated to see my avocados go to waste, so I made a dip out of them. It's very good; even E likes it, and he doesn't always like chips and dip.

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe avocados (peeled and take the core out)
• 1 cup of sour cream (more or less)
  
• Juice from one lime
  
• salt
• tortilla chips

Directions
1) Smash the avocados up in a bowl.
2) Add the sour cream and stir.
3) Add the lime juice and salt (to taste). Stir.

KK's Spaghetti Sauce

My stepmom makes really good spaghetti sauce and pesto. She gave me her recipe for both, and on Friday I tried out the spaghetti sauce. I mostly followed her recipe and it turned out really yummy :)

Here is my version of her recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 pound of Italian sausage (browned & drained)
• 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes.
• Medium onion, chopped
• 1/2 green pepper, chopped
• 3 cloves of crushed garlic
• 1/4 tsp. of crushed red pepper (she uses 2-3 whole cayenne peppers, but I didn't have any at home, and I was too lazy to run out)
• 2 bay leaves (remove after cooking)
• about 2 TBSP. dried basil
• 1 tsp. dried oregano (she uses 2 TBSP, but oregano isn't my favorite so I cut down on this one)
• 2 tsp. ground fennel seed (easy to grind up in the Cuisinart or food processor)
• 1 TBSP. sugar
• 1 tsp. ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup red cooking wine
• olive oil - 1 or 2 TBSP.
  

Directions:
1. Heat olive oil in saucepan.
2. Saute onions and peppers for a few minutes.
3. Add garlic and saute for about a minute (be careful because this burns easily)
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer all ingredients until sauce slightly thickens (20-30 minutes).
5. Don't forget to remove the bay leaves (and whole cayenne peppers if you used them).
6. Serve with fresh grated Parmesan cheese.

Mom's Minestrone Soup

I made a double batch of this soup today, using my mom's recipe. It made 16 servings of soup. E & I are eating 2 servings for dinner and freezing the rest in individual serving size containers. I added up the cost per serving, and it comes to 81 cents; I'd say that's a good deal. My calculation doesn't include the olive oil, salt & pepper, and any cheese that you serve it with, but it's still very thrifty and will be nice around finals time :)

Here is the recipe for one batch (about 8 servings)

Ingredients

• 2 TBSP. olive oil
• 1 med. onion, chopped
• 2 medium carrots (peeled), sliced or chopped
• 1 medium-size zucchini, peeled and diced
• 6 c. vegetable broth or chicken broth (you can use bouillon; we used pre-made broth because the lower-sodium canned broth was on sale this week)
• 2 c. water - or a little more if needed
• 1 (14.5 oz.) can of Italian diced tomatoes with basil, oregano, and garlic
• 1 c. uncooked pasta (elbow or spiral or whatever is in your cupboard)
• 1 can (15 oz.) dark red kidney beans, drained
  
• 1 ½ c. frozen green beans
• salt & pepper
  

Directions:
1. Heat oil in large pot, add onions, sauté for 3 minutes.
2. Add carrots and zucchini; sauté for 3 minutes.
3. Add rest of ingredients. Bring to a boil, turn down after a couple of minutes and simmer until veggies are tender (about an hour). Stir occasionally.
4. Sprinkle with fresh grated Parmesan cheese after dishing it up in a bowl.

Weather changes & headaches

This week's weather has wreaked havoc on my head. I've had headaches on Tuesday, Friday, and another one today. I'm pretty sure that it's because of the schizo-weather. Snow on Tuesday, warm and sunny (like it should be) on Friday, and today the weather is changing again. Yowzers! It makes it hard for me to get my homework done.

I hate to admit that I still get headaches after having surgery. It makes me feel guilty for having surgery and spending lots of money on my shunt.

But these weather change headaches are different than some of the awful headaches that I had pre-shunt, so maybe the shunt wasn't pointless?

French Toast

E & I have two different ways of making French toast. Sometimes we will just buy a bag of cinnamon swirl bread and use a plain egg batter to make it; it turns out pretty good. We also have a Better Homes and Garden Cookbook with a simple French toast recipe. We used that recipe today, since we had all of the ingredients at home.

Ingredients:

• 4 beaten eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 2 TBSP. sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 8 slices of bread (we just used wheat bread that we had leftover; it probably wasn't thick enough, but it was free!)
• 2 TBSP. butter

Directions:
1) In a shallow bowl, beat together eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon & nutmeg.
2) Dip bread slices into egg mixture, coating both sides.
3) In a skillet or a griddle, melt 1 TBSP of butter over medium heat.
4) Add half of the bread slices and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden brown.
5) Repeat with remaining butter & bread slices.
6) Serve with syrup (and I like to add butter & powdered sugar too... yummy!)

Blueberry Banana Muffins

We had some leftover ripe bananas and some frozen blueberries, so I used this recipe (awkward title, in my opinion) and made up a batch. We used frozen blueberries, and we substituted shortening for butter. They turned out good. Today I procrastinated homework and cover letter writing by cooking and baking. Oh well; we all need a mental health day sometimes :)

Berry Breakfast Smoothie

I've been trying to get in the habit of eating more fruit. They also say that blueberries & flax seeds are good "cancer fighters." I don't know if it's true, but I also call this my anti-cancer smoothie :)

This recipe serves 1 person (using a pretty big glass).

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. (more or less) orange juice
• 1 TBSP of ground flax seed (I buy a bag of flax seed and then grind up about a week's worth in my mini Cuisinart. Then I refrigerate the ground flax seed)
• 1 banana (peeled & sliced)
• 1/2 c. yogurt (if you want to be super healthy, use Greek yogurt. But then you will probably want to add some honey to this recipe. Also Greek yogurt is usually $$$, so I just use plain or vanilla yogurt most of the time; gotta stay on a budget)
• 1/2 c. frozen blueberries
• 3-5 frozen strawberries
  
• MONEY SAVING TIP: I used to buy a bag of "Mixed Frozen Berries" instead of measuring out blueberries & strawberries separately. Then I noticed that I was paying almost $4 for a 12 oz. bag of mixed berries. And a 16 oz. bag of frozen blueberries or strawberries is around $3.25.
  

Directions:
1) Put ingredients in a blender

2) Blend (on a high speed) until all of the ingredients are mixed together

3) Enjoy!

Other helpful note: Check your teeth after eating this; blueberries like to get stuck between your teeth....

Banana Muffins

We finally used our wedding mixer this weekend; I think that some people get married just so that they can get a Kitchenaid mixer. It's like a rite of passage :)

E & I had been intimidated by ours, but it wasn't as complicated as we thought it was going to be.

We used my mom's banana muffins recipe. Yummy!

The recipe is supposed to make 36 muffins, but I probably overfilled the muffin cups, because we only got 28 out of the recipe :)

Ingredients:

• 3 3/8 c. flour
• 2 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 c. shortening (we used Market Pantry brand - it was cheap; we have subbed unsalted butter in the past, and using the shortening made all the difference)
• 3 eggs
• 3 bananas (peeled & sliced) (we used SUPER ripe bananas)
  
• 1 c. sour milk (to make milk sour: add 2 TBSP of vinegar or lemon juice to milk; wait a while for the milk to thicken, and then it has soured)

Directions:

1) Put ingredients into mixing bowl in the order given.

2) Beat on medium speed with a mixer for 2 minutes.

3) Fill muffin cups 2/3 full

4) Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes on the center rack.

5) To know if they are done: either do the toothpick test or (this test is easier for me) if the center of the muffin springs back when touched, they are done.