Sunday, October 26, 2008
Me - the disaster movie
I shouldn't be allowed in a kitchen. If I had a mate, I'm sure I would be eternally banned from the vicinity of anything that is related to food preparation. But. I don't have a mate. I have cats. And they don't care. Most of the time.
I am entering week four of my "new path." A path that is dictated by budget - a very tight budget. I've had to re-examine my spending habits, which included re-examining my eating habits. Being a complete kitchen idiot, ninety-nine percent of my meals manifested out of a to-go box, bag or, if I was feeling daring and adventurous, the micro-wave.
Up until this evening, I was holding my own in the battle between all things food and making it work in the kitchen. I discovered the blessing of pre-roasted chickens in the grocery store and am now able to stretch that sucker for a week and beyond. There are frozen portions of homemade chicken soup nestled next to the homemade tomato soup in the freezer (soups I learned from a brief stint in a sandwich shop years ago - it came back to me pretty quickly).
Last week I made my first ever meatloaf. I know! How can someone reach my advanced years without ever creating one of those wonders???? It was pretty good and provided my school lunches for most of the week.
So I was feeling fairly confident. Confident enough to attempt a pork loin this evening. The recipe came from one of my new favorite sites Sparkspeople*. A simple recipe for a balsamic vinegar glazed pork loin.
That simple recipe ended up creating a scene of purple spatter that would have made an prime case study for crime scene investigation. And before that happened I had to solve the problem of too much meat, get it into my head just how to brown meat, and then do the math on roasting time in the oven...
Once the stove disaster happened (make SURE the pan has cooled to low before pouring vinegar into a pan of sizzling hot olive oil), the balsamic vinegar glaze was off the menu. The pork loin was skewered together (a result of cutting it in half) and popped into the oven.
It's resting comfortably now while an impromptu pot of applesauce is steaming on the stove. I can't screw up applesauce, now can I?
Want to lay a wager down?
I am entering week four of my "new path." A path that is dictated by budget - a very tight budget. I've had to re-examine my spending habits, which included re-examining my eating habits. Being a complete kitchen idiot, ninety-nine percent of my meals manifested out of a to-go box, bag or, if I was feeling daring and adventurous, the micro-wave.
Up until this evening, I was holding my own in the battle between all things food and making it work in the kitchen. I discovered the blessing of pre-roasted chickens in the grocery store and am now able to stretch that sucker for a week and beyond. There are frozen portions of homemade chicken soup nestled next to the homemade tomato soup in the freezer (soups I learned from a brief stint in a sandwich shop years ago - it came back to me pretty quickly).
Last week I made my first ever meatloaf. I know! How can someone reach my advanced years without ever creating one of those wonders???? It was pretty good and provided my school lunches for most of the week.
So I was feeling fairly confident. Confident enough to attempt a pork loin this evening. The recipe came from one of my new favorite sites Sparkspeople*. A simple recipe for a balsamic vinegar glazed pork loin.
That simple recipe ended up creating a scene of purple spatter that would have made an prime case study for crime scene investigation. And before that happened I had to solve the problem of too much meat, get it into my head just how to brown meat, and then do the math on roasting time in the oven...
Once the stove disaster happened (make SURE the pan has cooled to low before pouring vinegar into a pan of sizzling hot olive oil), the balsamic vinegar glaze was off the menu. The pork loin was skewered together (a result of cutting it in half) and popped into the oven.
It's resting comfortably now while an impromptu pot of applesauce is steaming on the stove. I can't screw up applesauce, now can I?
Want to lay a wager down?
Labels: Cooking
Posted at 6:55 PM | |
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
A walk in the woods
I got to put some things in the ground
Even with this season coming around
It's green's last gasp
And leaves brown
And autumn days are winding down
--Sara Hamer - Things to Forget
It's not because I'm going dotty. It has happened twice a year, every year, for many years. So, it's not a symptom of old age creeping near. No, really, it's merely a symptom of the changing seasons.
You see, every spring and every fall I experience a few brief moments when I'm not sure what season it is. It's a deja vu of sorts - when the weather mirrors where it was only a few months before. Are we moving from summer to fall? Or spring to summer?
Whatever it is, it signals my favorite times of year. Beginnings and endings, changing seasons, transition. Change. The air smells different. The breeze is clear. Nature is preparing - for hibernation, for awakening.
Since moving into my house nine years ago, I've witnessed what could be evidence of Brigadoon's annual descension - right outside my backyard. Or not.
It's a morning haze that tells me summer is over. Or winter. Sometimes I have to apply some thought to figure it out...
This past weekend, I went for a two and a half mile stroll in the woods with a friend. She called me up Sunday and said "You wanna go for a hike?" Without hesitation, I threw aside all plans (read: responsibilities) for the afternoon and said "Sure!"
We drove out to the local lake, plotted the "green" and "yellow" paths on the trail and set out. There was a light breeze through the trees, the temperature was perfect... About a quarter of the way down the trail was when I began to open up to the nature around me, lifting my eyes from the path before me.
There wasn't much in the way of wildlife - trail-bikers had ensured that the critters were probably well off the trail in hiding. But there were sounds - birds, crickets, the trees whispering on the wind.
Near the end of our walk, though, we were rewarded with a brief glimpse of one of nature's creatures - a deer who crossed our path, then disappeared into the woods.
As we wound around the trail, I thought of the conspicuous symbolism of the changing season as it relates to my changing life. As cliched as it is, it was inescapable. However, I didn't dwell on it. Instead I opted to just enjoy the walk and take it at face value.
And perhaps that's all I need to do, period. Lift my eyes from the path and just enjoy the walk.
Labels: Life
Posted at 6:05 PM | |
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Does Dan-Active Work for an Irregular Brain?
Wow. It's been a while, hasn't it?
I have to confess: I haven't written in so long because, well, I've been mentally constipated. Truly - with my life (and the times) doing a 180 in the last couple of months, I think the sphincter of my capacity for self expression contracted tighter than prairie dog's butt in a dust bowl (thank you, Dan Rather).
In what I hope turns out not to be a pathetic effort, I'm just gonna get rambling here to see what I can jog loose and, at the very least, get caught up on the doings in my little speck of the universe.
My Life and Welcome To It
I'm a week into what friends have dubbed The Transition. I've been unemployed now for two weeks and started school a week ago.
The day after my last day of work I felt a little discombobulated. It wasn't like a sick/mental health day or a day of annual leave or a holiday. It was a you-are-now permanently-off work day and it felt odd. Not bad, mind you. Just odd.
I haven't been unemployed since my late twenties. Oh, during my starving artist decade of my thirties, there was a smattering of no work here and there, but nothing extended and certainly no length of time that warranted collecting unemployment benefits - not that I could have collected at the time.
I have to pat myself on the back for impeccable timing. Who could have guessed that the collective mutiny at work would have landed us on the unemployment line right at one of the worst economic upheavals in modern times!
Setting the quickly evaporating hope of an actual retirement aside, though, this could end up being a positive thing. Oh, how, you ask, do tell.
Okay, I will.
For the next nine to twelve months, I'm on a fixed - and very tight - budget. I'm fortunate in that I had a nice soft financial cushion to fall back on. I'm relying on that to see me through for the next year while I regroup.
It's limited, though. There's X amount of dollars with nothing else coming in (aside from unemployment benefits which fizzle out sometime in March) which means I have to get frugal. This has forced me to scrutinize my spending and to begin to find ways to to stretch that dollar farther than a peasant on medieval torture rack.
I've mapped out a detailed budget (thank you Google docs - they've got some great templates just for that purpose) and identified areas that needed to cut - some easy, some not so easy.
My biggest area of wasted dollars is in food. I don't, or didn't, regularly cook for myself. I am a fast food and take-out junkie (Sonic burgers my drug of choice) which isn't good for the pocket book to say nothing of the habit's ill effect on one's health.
I've set a target for weekly food expense and am determined that the food I eat will be generated from my kitchen. Period. I've managed to log one full week without slippin' off the wagon - yay me.
One element that helps this effort along is the school I am attending is darn near out in the middle of nowhere, which makes lunch time treks near impossible. So, I bought a lunchbox and have been bringing my lunch every day which, by the way, has garnered some envious looks from other students who've lusted after my homemade chicken soup while they munched away at a box of microwaved, over-processed, and poor excuse for sustenance in the misguided belief that what they are eating is actually better than the fast food fare offered from the school cafeteria.
Speaking of lunchboxes, I'll soon be replacing the one I have with a Bento Box.
You may be thinking that that's not exactly frugal, and you might be right - but, my reasoning which lead me to the purchase had to do with efficiency.
justification of purchase/ The Bento Box stores hot food and keeps it hot along with un-hot food. It will allow me to heat up my lunch before leaving for school in the morning and thus avoid the line at the microwave at lunchtime, as well as avoid microwave line social faux pas, like removing someone else's meal before it's done even though the timer'd gone off and it's owner wasn't standing there waiting on it and how was I to know it wasn't finished yet?
With winter coming on, hot meals will be a comfort, plus I prefer to eat my main meal of the day at lunch. The Bento Box will hold more than will my little Target box. Plus, it's just way cool./ justification of purchase
So, unemployment, radical life shift and an uncertain future, in the long run, may just turn me into a kitchen queen and budget diva - not a negative, to be sure. And in the meantime, I'm gaining new skills that just might be in greater demand once this economic crisis subsides - anyone think they might be in need of a newly minted bookkeeper in about, oh, say, nine months?
He Said, She Said, They All Said
How about that economic crisis, huh? How about those presidential campaigns, huh?
I've purposely avoided tuning in to the TV pundits this fall. Their egregious and willful ignorance (to say nothing of their bias) does nothing to keep my blood pressure down. Instead I've been hitting the internets, reading everything I can - pro and con - about the campaigns, the economy, et al.
I am so weary of the partisan shenanigans. How does one party dare to point the finger at the other? No-one has a clean record here. No-one doesn't have a few bones rattling around in their respective closets.
And of course the tail-spinning economy is the Democrats fault. No, wait, it's the Republicans fault. Ooops, no it's Obama's fault for his tax plan (which hasn't been implemented yet because he hasn't been elected yet - surprise!). No, wait - it's McCain's fault because he was buds with Charles Keating.
You know what's really frightening? It's the voters who make up their minds based on a few sound-bites on the evening news. It's the noisome party die-hards who refuse to engage in intelligent and open minded discourse. It's the, excuse me, idiots who can't see past the propaganda and do nothing on their own to ferret out the facts.
Add to that the sorely misguided folks who opt not to vote at all, who do so out "protest" or to "send a message" or, even worse, just don't care.
I have a very good friend who is a political officer for the State Department. In a recent conversation, he stated that he may not vote at all because there were aspects of both candidates' platforms with which he strongly disagreed.
Well, I kinda lit into him. I was appalled that he would so blithely give up this most fundamental of rights. Especially given his position as a State Department employee!
I later got an email in which he stated my sermonizing had prompted him not to waste his vote after all. He found a party more in line with his views - the Green party - and he's voting.
Folks, not voting isn't the way to fix things. Not voting is saying "I don't care. Do whatever you want." Not voting inches the door closer to shut on our basic freedoms. Think about it. Think about the consequences if we all gave up that right.
Shudder.
Okay. Well, I think I've rambled on enough. I certainly hope I'll be back here more regular-ly in the future (pun intended). In the meantime, I'd be interested to know how the economic turmoil has affected you. Have you made budget changes? Lifestyle changes? Let me know in comments.
Thanks for stopping by - before you go, enjoy some pics taken (with the iPhone camera) on the campus where I am attending school. Not bad for a Vo-Tech, eh?
I have to confess: I haven't written in so long because, well, I've been mentally constipated. Truly - with my life (and the times) doing a 180 in the last couple of months, I think the sphincter of my capacity for self expression contracted tighter than prairie dog's butt in a dust bowl (thank you, Dan Rather).
In what I hope turns out not to be a pathetic effort, I'm just gonna get rambling here to see what I can jog loose and, at the very least, get caught up on the doings in my little speck of the universe.
My Life and Welcome To It
I'm a week into what friends have dubbed The Transition. I've been unemployed now for two weeks and started school a week ago.
The day after my last day of work I felt a little discombobulated. It wasn't like a sick/mental health day or a day of annual leave or a holiday. It was a you-are-now permanently-off work day and it felt odd. Not bad, mind you. Just odd.
I haven't been unemployed since my late twenties. Oh, during my starving artist decade of my thirties, there was a smattering of no work here and there, but nothing extended and certainly no length of time that warranted collecting unemployment benefits - not that I could have collected at the time.
I have to pat myself on the back for impeccable timing. Who could have guessed that the collective mutiny at work would have landed us on the unemployment line right at one of the worst economic upheavals in modern times!
Setting the quickly evaporating hope of an actual retirement aside, though, this could end up being a positive thing. Oh, how, you ask, do tell.
Okay, I will.
For the next nine to twelve months, I'm on a fixed - and very tight - budget. I'm fortunate in that I had a nice soft financial cushion to fall back on. I'm relying on that to see me through for the next year while I regroup.
It's limited, though. There's X amount of dollars with nothing else coming in (aside from unemployment benefits which fizzle out sometime in March) which means I have to get frugal. This has forced me to scrutinize my spending and to begin to find ways to to stretch that dollar farther than a peasant on medieval torture rack.
I've mapped out a detailed budget (thank you Google docs - they've got some great templates just for that purpose) and identified areas that needed to cut - some easy, some not so easy.
My biggest area of wasted dollars is in food. I don't, or didn't, regularly cook for myself. I am a fast food and take-out junkie (Sonic burgers my drug of choice) which isn't good for the pocket book to say nothing of the habit's ill effect on one's health.
I've set a target for weekly food expense and am determined that the food I eat will be generated from my kitchen. Period. I've managed to log one full week without slippin' off the wagon - yay me.
One element that helps this effort along is the school I am attending is darn near out in the middle of nowhere, which makes lunch time treks near impossible. So, I bought a lunchbox and have been bringing my lunch every day which, by the way, has garnered some envious looks from other students who've lusted after my homemade chicken soup while they munched away at a box of microwaved, over-processed, and poor excuse for sustenance in the misguided belief that what they are eating is actually better than the fast food fare offered from the school cafeteria.
Speaking of lunchboxes, I'll soon be replacing the one I have with a Bento Box.
You may be thinking that that's not exactly frugal, and you might be right - but, my reasoning which lead me to the purchase had to do with efficiency.justification of purchase/ The Bento Box stores hot food and keeps it hot along with un-hot food. It will allow me to heat up my lunch before leaving for school in the morning and thus avoid the line at the microwave at lunchtime, as well as avoid microwave line social faux pas, like removing someone else's meal before it's done even though the timer'd gone off and it's owner wasn't standing there waiting on it and how was I to know it wasn't finished yet?
With winter coming on, hot meals will be a comfort, plus I prefer to eat my main meal of the day at lunch. The Bento Box will hold more than will my little Target box. Plus, it's just way cool./ justification of purchase
So, unemployment, radical life shift and an uncertain future, in the long run, may just turn me into a kitchen queen and budget diva - not a negative, to be sure. And in the meantime, I'm gaining new skills that just might be in greater demand once this economic crisis subsides - anyone think they might be in need of a newly minted bookkeeper in about, oh, say, nine months?
He Said, She Said, They All Said
How about that economic crisis, huh? How about those presidential campaigns, huh?
I've purposely avoided tuning in to the TV pundits this fall. Their egregious and willful ignorance (to say nothing of their bias) does nothing to keep my blood pressure down. Instead I've been hitting the internets, reading everything I can - pro and con - about the campaigns, the economy, et al.
I am so weary of the partisan shenanigans. How does one party dare to point the finger at the other? No-one has a clean record here. No-one doesn't have a few bones rattling around in their respective closets.
And of course the tail-spinning economy is the Democrats fault. No, wait, it's the Republicans fault. Ooops, no it's Obama's fault for his tax plan (which hasn't been implemented yet because he hasn't been elected yet - surprise!). No, wait - it's McCain's fault because he was buds with Charles Keating.
You know what's really frightening? It's the voters who make up their minds based on a few sound-bites on the evening news. It's the noisome party die-hards who refuse to engage in intelligent and open minded discourse. It's the, excuse me, idiots who can't see past the propaganda and do nothing on their own to ferret out the facts.
Add to that the sorely misguided folks who opt not to vote at all, who do so out "protest" or to "send a message" or, even worse, just don't care.
I have a very good friend who is a political officer for the State Department. In a recent conversation, he stated that he may not vote at all because there were aspects of both candidates' platforms with which he strongly disagreed.
Well, I kinda lit into him. I was appalled that he would so blithely give up this most fundamental of rights. Especially given his position as a State Department employee!
I later got an email in which he stated my sermonizing had prompted him not to waste his vote after all. He found a party more in line with his views - the Green party - and he's voting.
Folks, not voting isn't the way to fix things. Not voting is saying "I don't care. Do whatever you want." Not voting inches the door closer to shut on our basic freedoms. Think about it. Think about the consequences if we all gave up that right.
Shudder.
Okay. Well, I think I've rambled on enough. I certainly hope I'll be back here more regular-ly in the future (pun intended). In the meantime, I'd be interested to know how the economic turmoil has affected you. Have you made budget changes? Lifestyle changes? Let me know in comments.
Thanks for stopping by - before you go, enjoy some pics taken (with the iPhone camera) on the campus where I am attending school. Not bad for a Vo-Tech, eh?
Labels: Current Events, Life, Politics
Posted at 2:34 PM | |
