midwest neurotica

Tonight I was left home alone with two kiddos who are accustomed to being fed well. With dad out of town, I decided to not take the risk and whip up one of the fabulous creations you have seen here in the past. It was take out night!

Naturally, the kiddos were thrilled. I was pretty pumped too - as it was the perfect excuse to break my diet just 5 days in. Awesome!

So, in all my neurotica, I looked up KFC.com today and planned out what I would get. Yearning to “go out all”, I chose a plate - complete with chicken, two sides and a biscuit. I was just SURE the biscuit would take the calories over the top.

Was I more wrong!?! Tonight, in total curiousity at the damage I had done, I used KFC.com’s nutrition calculator. It tallied my “splurge meal” at no more than 500 calories. Boneless wings, mashed taters, corn and a biscuit is diet friendly? Who knew?

While heavy on the sodium and white carbs, this treat meal was a suprising calorie steal.

After all the New Year’s festivities, I was left with a few servings of that scrumptious spinach dip. Given that spinach quiche is so divine, I figured the dip would serve as a perfect cheese replacement on an egg sandwich. To make the dish a bit more grand, I baked crescent rolls in puffy squares to serve as the bread.

Spinach & Artichoke Breakfast Sandwich
Serves 4

1 can crescent rolls
8 eggs
4 T milk
leftover spinach & artichoke dip

Preheat oven according to crescent roll directions. Unroll crescent dough and separate into rectangles instead of triangles. Fold rectanges in half, do not press. Bake according to directions, tending towards the lower time limit.

Whisk 2 eggs and 1 T milk at a time. Using a small skillet, make an omelette that is folded into thirds. Then fold that rectangle in half. Using a cover for the skillet and cooking over low heat makes these omelettes turn out perfect.

Meanwhile, reheat the dip in the microwave. When the crescent rolls are done, slice in half and top with dip and egg. Repeat to make 4 sandwiches. Enjoy!

If I can make it to 9pm before pooping out, the late evening hours are my peak. Much writing, crafting and back in the day, schooling, has been done between 10pm and 2am. When I was still at home, this was also important and cherished time with my mom, because she was up too. You see, we are the night owl types. The corollary being: we can easily sleep til noon.

This fact seems to bewilder my husband, who cannot sleep a wink past 6:30am. This is true even if he went to bed very very late. I, on the other hand, thrive best with 9 hours under my belt. More is even better. Tack on a mid-afternoon nap and I am golden. My brain just does not work between 2 and 4pm.

Unfortunately, it is only now at the end of a nearly 2 week respite from the daily grind that I’ve really reached a good rhythm. After I exhausted the hubby in un-decorating tonight, I was primed to re-arrange the living room, complete with a new lighting scheme. He just wanted to sit and watch the game. I swear he was imagining ripping my head off every time it bobbed in front of the screen during this frenzy.

And now, its nearly midnight, and I am still wide awake and totally gunning for some “me time” in blogland. I’ve also got Sex and the City on - so I can simultaneously envy both SJP’s perfect curly hair and the chic glamour of NYC life. This time brings me back to college and my last days of true freedom before “real life” hit. I could sleep late on most days, hit my productive high at 1am and never fear the next case of the Mondays.

I relish in my late night alertness now, but will pay for it Monday morning. It might just be worth it though, if only to reignite that sense of endless opportunity and promise of even better tomorrows.

*Today’s disclaimer - I rarely watch The Simpsons, but I love this quote.

Our New Year’s Eve was full of foods of all varieties - wings, meatballs and the ever-present cheese dip are just a few. There was so much, that one of my creations was saved for New Year’s Day. We served my hot spinach artichoke dip - a cross between the traditional cold and hot dips - with chips and italian beef sandwiches. A tasty combo!

Hot ‘N’ Hearty Spinach and Artichoke Dip
Serves 6-8

1 cup sour cream
2 T mayo
1 pkg Lipton vegetable soup mix
10 oz spinach, thawed and drained
1 can artichokes, drained, rinsed and chopped
1 pkg shredded italian cheese (for hot version)
1 large tomato, diced (optional)

Combine sour cream and mayo with soup mix. Fold in spinach and artichokes. If serving cold, refridgerate for at least one hour. If serving hot, fold in italian cheese. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or microwave for just a few minutes until the cheese has melted. Serve with melba crackers or tortilla chips. If desired, top with freshly chopped tomato.

Despite having owned a crockpot for 2 years, I’ve been a little bit scared of it. You see, its pretty easy for me to overcook anything. So, the thought of cooking something for 8 hours sends shivers down my spine. Until I gave it a shot. I figured, it’s a new year and I don’t want the crock to sit there* for yet another year!

This morning I initated a user-friendly-looking crockpot recipe. Tonight I enjoyed the delicious results. Served with buttered rice, broccoli and cheesy garlic biscuits, this crockpot Italian chicken was so yummy and comforting. We’ll be making it again!

Crockpot Italian Chicken
From The Simple Life Yahoo newsletter

Three chicken breasts, a packet of Italian salad dressing seasoning, a teaspoon of melted butter, and a cup of water. Throw it in on low for six or eight hours. Right when you get home, add half a cup of milk, half a cup of chicken broth (or stock), and a package of Philadelphia cream cheese, stir it, and let it cook for
another hour or two. Serve it over rice.

I’m now feeling brave enough to tackle the other white meat. We’ll be trying out one of these recipes, with a side of baked sweet potatoes. Which do you think I picked? Which would you choose?

• Apple-Apricot Pork Chops
• Blackbird’s Pork Chops
• Cherry Pork Chops
• Pepsi Pork Chops

* Full disclosure - the crockpot has actually been used a dozen times or so… to make velveeta cheese dip for get-together and work parties.

Get it? Ha!

I’ve just returned from a far-too-long but enjoyable trip to San Francisco for the fall meeting of AGU. In my “real” life, I’ve got these science degrees that seem to keep me employed. I don’t get to do nearly enough cooking, writing or picture-taking in that world, so I come here and there to take care of those needs.

The best part of this trip, aside from seeing some dear friends, was of course the food. Here’s how it went down:

Saturday
Late lunch at Hana Zen where we devoured some spectacular rolls
Korean BBQ at the Westfield food court - the spicy chicken was to-die-for

Sunday
The most divine lunch EVER at Yank Sing
Thai curries that were just average at the Westfield food court

Monday
Bagel & coffee from the corner shop
Fish tacos at Rubio’s
Korean BBQ at the Westfield food court - just too good to only have once!

Tuesday
Bagel & coffee from the corner shop
Fish tacos at Rubio’s
Snacks at the CUAHSI reception

Wednesday
Breakfast burrito from Carl’s Jr
Overpriced but yummy vegan indian from New Delhi
A delicious bread bowl filled with clam chowder, from the food court

Yes, yes I know that I ate from the food court quite a bit. It was a real nice food court though, I swear. Unfortunately my $32 a day state university per diem didn’t stretch much further than that. I tried to focus on the asian and other west coast fare that I just don’t get here on the prairie. It was all quite tasty, but I am so glad to be home.

As much as there are things I miss about city life (good bagels, Starbucks on every corner), I am home now. I don’t want to be anywhere but snuggled up with my family on this icy winter weekend. If they’re lucky, they might even get some cookies out of it!

Gosh, cooking? I had McDonald’s again for breakfast this morning. A can of soup for lunch. It’s just been blah around these parts. Sometimes, when I think things are falling apart, I take stock of what I have.

So… I just realized: my web browser is totally decked out. I can do so much (too much?) without going anywhere near a desktop. Here are my tricks:

1. Firefox - It’s just better. Period.

2. Gmail - I check 3 gmail addresses from one account. I do not label anything - it all gets archived to inbox zero. The search always finds what I need. I’ve added ping.fm to my GChat list, so that I can update my Twitter and Facebook “What are you doing?” status.

I also have GCal synced with my Outlook at work and with my husband’s GCal and his Outlook at work. Plus, all of that gets synced to my BlackBerry.

3. Integrated Gmail - I use this to make my inbox collabsible and put my Reader just below it. I don’t use it for GCal.

4. Todoist Sidebar - A straightforward, simple to-do manager. I have 3 projects - personal and one for each blog.

5. Stumble Upon Toolbar - Find great new sites in your favorite categories, recommend sites to others, a great time waster (I mean, creativity development tool)

6. Twitterfox Add-On - Puts Twitter in your browser. Tweet, read tweets and reply to tweets.

7. Bookmarklets - I have a StartUp folder I launch every morning, with GMail, Facebook and CNN. I use the bookmarks toolbar primarily for “actions” rather than favorites.

• Post to del.icio.us - Keep sites to find later, a replacement for Favorites
• Add to Kaboodle - Add items to my wishlist
• Share on Tumblr - Can access multiple accounts to share inspiration
• Press This - Direct way to blog about a particular site

I can spend a whole day doing lots of somethings - what a perfect reason to be grateful!

As if cupcakes, tiny cupcakes and frosting shots were not mini enough, cake balls are now all the rage.  Since I am all about following food trends (ha!), I decided to jump on the bandwagon. There was just one problem - I don’t like chocolate.

Wait, what are cake balls? The directions are simple: bake a cake from a boxed mix, crumbled, combine with store-bought frosting. Chill and make into balls. And then, unfortunately, the standard recipe calls for melting almond bark and coating the little round bits of goodness. Ick!

Being the rebel that I am, I decided to forgo the chocolate. I chilled what can only be called ‘dough’ for an hour, and then rolled the balls in powdered sugar. I put them in a pyrex and then popped them in the fridge - mostly so the kiddos wouldn’t eat them all before I got home from work.

When I did return home, I found slimy gooey cake balls. Hmm. So I rolled them in cinnamon sugar and left them on the counter. They did dry out some this way and tasted even better. However, it wasn’t until this morning that I thought (i.e. read on a blog) about a better way.

While some recipes calling for the cake-crumbling and frosting-mixing to occur straight from the oven (which is what I did), others say to let the cake cool. I decided that the hot batter/dough I created caused the gooey, wet texture. Next time, I will have more patience. (Don’t laugh.)

Do you twitter? I do.