julia & julia got to my head...

This week I'm doing an experiment in being a better housewife. Usually when I go to the groceries, I buy stuff to make one of two pots of things. This time, before I went shopping on Monday, I planned out a dinner for every weeknight, my meal plan goes like this: crab and corn bisque with side salad, stuffed bell peppers with sweet potato fries, shrimp and avocado spinach salad, chicken parmesan with roasted squash and zucchini, chili with cornbread.

Chicken parmesan, by far the most accomplished meal I've ever cooked:

with baked zucchini and yellow squash:

Stuffed bell peppers with sweet potato fries:

Shrimp and avocado spinach salad:

even made candied walnuts for the salad (so easy just sugar and nuts on the stovetop):

So far, so good. Gives me a chance to try out some recipes, and gives my husband something to eat after work instead of a Lean Cuisine. I may just do it all the time.

love

Look through the window, can you see the couple having a picnic lunch on the hill? Aren't they the cutest thing?

Just a quick lunch from a styrofoam container. He was feeding her and even wiped her mouth with a napkin, then they both cracked up laughing, so sweet! I felt a little stalk-y taking the pictures, even though I was just looking out of my window.

I've so often looked at that spot, perfectly framed by the branches, and wondered why no one ever sits there. They are the first people I've seen there in almost three years.

home alone (in pictures)

Seriously, I hate being in this apartment alone at night. I usually watch movies/reality tv all night until I finally collapse. I hate taking a shower when I'm the only one home, too many scary movies I guess, and I even hate making coffee in the morning when I know I am the only one here to drink it. Boo hoo. Anyway, I really respect people who live alone, especially in scary cities.

Went to the show yesterday to see Julie & Julia, and wasn't too impressed. I think I would've preferred a straight-up biography of Julia Child's life (I like her! What an interesting life...), or Julie Powell's story, the two stories together felt pretty forced. I love Amy Adams, but didn't find she was that likable in the movie, I couldn't care less if she got her duck boned or whatever. I youtubed Julia Child when I got home, and realized I had actually never seen her in my life, I think if you like/know her you might appreciate the movie a lot more - the three old ladies that were in the theater with me cracked up through the whole thing. Seriously, there were only three other people in the theater:

I like Julia Child for the same reason I like Van Gogh, she decided one day she wanted to do something and did it until she was great:

Julia Child began learning to cook when she was thirty-seven years old. She started because she wanted to feed her husband Paul. She started because though she’d fallen in love with great food late, when she did she’d fallen hard. She started because she was in Paris. She started because she didn’t know what else to do.

What do I want to do?

After the movie, I picked up last night's dinner:

I've wanted it since I read The Great American Dessert Bonanza, I plan to eat my way through that post by the way. The ice cream was so good... but still not my favorite B&Js.

The movies I rented all turned out to be good, and worked well together. Seemed like there was a theme:

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang especially surprised me because I had never even heard of it. I really liked it, may have to rent it again when hub is here. Who doesn't like Robert Downey, Jr. - he is such an awesome actor. If you haven't seen Fur, you need to watch it right now!

Ooh, new cd's too. I'm not sure why I still insist on buying real actual cds instead of just itunes downloads. I guess because we've lost a couple of laptops/ipods already.

mad women

My hub is at a dinner meeting so I am sitting with a glass of wine and watching a Top Chef marathon. I don't ever usually drink wine at home, but I'm pretending to be Betty Draper. I even have the matching pink finger- and toenails. I'm may be becoming a little bit obsessed with Mad Men.

new recipes

I've been craving brownies, and this recipe is good. I baked them in a floured silicon muffin tin so they came out chewy in the center with the hard crust on every one (am I a genius or what?). I ate them for dessert yesterday and for breakfast today, I just can't stop. Next time I will definitely make a half batch instead since I have basically no willpower. (Haven't exercised in 2 weeks either.)

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Mediterranean Shrimp Feta Pasta, doesn't that sound good? Forgot to take a picture, but it's another recipe that I made in the last week or so that I will definitely make again. It was so good and so easy, and all frozen or canned stuff which I can have on hand since I basically never have my car to run errands due to completely random events. Looked so fancy-schmancy too, you could impress people with this, I think my hub was impressed. (Instead of following exactly, I used 1/2 a small jar of leftover drained artichoke hearts and a very small can of drained sliced button mushrooms.)

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I got some Greek yogurt dressing to make a salad last week, but it was not good at all as a salad dresssing. So, today, I decided to make falafel to dip into it. I know I'm saying it like it's no big deal, but for me it is such a big deal. I've never even fried anything ever (except eggs). It's not real I guess, since it's just a can of chickpeas mashed up with some onion and stuff, but c'mon, I made falafel! They tasted good on the inside, but they didn't firm up enough and they sort of fell apart when I flipped them in the pan. Next time I would cook longer (until much darker brown) with more, hotter, oil and maybe coat them with bread crumbs or more flour also. Or maybe I'll try this recipe instead.

i don't recognize the world anymore

Watch it here...