meal plan monday: wednesday edition.

or: flash-boiling is not quite what it sounds like.
or: i peeled an acorn squash and lived to tell about it.

since i have been doing this weekly meal-planning thing, not only have mealtimes and grocery shopping gotten less stressful, (because since i have a plan i can just make a list and send the hubs shopping!) but several people have sent me recipes for new things to try. i love this. keep 'em coming.

my friend Dana sent me this recipe for squash stew, and it seemed like a winner. the ingredient list wasn't three miles long, i had heard of almost everything on the ingredient list, and it seemed like it would be a do-able crockpot meal. score! well, except for that i didn't read the part of the recipe that said that my tomatoes should be peeled, seeded, and diced, and i kind of forgot the part where she mentioned that she used canned tomatoes for hers, so yeah. easy cooking fail.

although, now i get to share with you the nifty little trick that my sister taught me: how to peel tomatoes.

1. gather your supplies. you will need some tomatoes, a knife, a pot of water, a long handled spoon, and a bowl of ice. and possibly an extra bowl to put your peels in, in case your garbage can has been commandeered for squash-peeling purposes.

2. score an X into each of your tomatoes. just deep enough to break the skin, but not so deep that you actually cut into the tomato.

3. boil your pot of water.

4. put your tomatoes into the water. i did mine one at a time so they could be completely submerged in my little pot. also, so that i could watch them more closely.

5. leave them in the water until you see the edges of your X begin to get loose. this will not take very long at all. a few seconds should do it.

6. scoop your tomato out of the water and into the bowl of ice. roll it around a little if  you want, to make sure the whole tomato gets cooled down. this keeps it from becoming a boiled tomato.

7. peel your tomato. this part is kind of fun and awesome. sorry i have no pictures of it - both my hands were busy being covered in tomato-y awesomesauce.

congratulations! you now know how to flash-boil and peel a tomato! now all thats left to do is to smoosh all the seeds out and cut your tomatoes into little bits. or, you know, just skip all that mess and use canned tomatoes like a sane person.

the other fun part of this recipe involved peeling and cutting up an acorn squash. the hubs got this started for me while i was busy flash-boiling. according to the commentors on the recipe, a helpful hint is to cut the squash in half and then microwave it for a few minutes to soften the squash and make it easier to cut and peel. this seemed reasonable, but we only nuked ours for one minute, because i knew it was going to be cooking for a long time in the crock pot and i didnt want to risk over-cooking it in the microwave first.

you'll want to nuke yours for more than one minute, if you value your fingers and/or sanity.

the hubs managed to peel a few sections of it, but quickly got frustrated so we traded jobs and he took over tomato-seed-smooshing and dicing while i took a stab a the squash. it smelled just like a pumpkin and was kind of reminiscent of my adventures in rutabaga-peeling in that when i finished i was mostly just happy to have retained all of my fingers.

other than those two time-consuming tasks, every other part of this recipe was super simple, and we were able to just throw all the parts into the crock-pot, which worked great for us since it could stay in the fridge overnight and then cook while we were at work the next day.

it looked delicious. it smelled delicious. it tasted... alright. we're not the biggest fans. but we ate it. for dinner Friday, and dinner Monday, and lunch Tuesday. i probably won't make it again any time soon, but i'm glad it tried it. if nothing else, it was a great adventure.

ok, ok. i know this is already pushing limits on being the longest post about boring things like stew that people are actually willing to read, but just a quick note about spices: USE LESS CINNAMON. the flavor was absolutely overpowering and the scent combination of pumpkin and cinnamon made it hard for my brain and tongue to register that this was not nearly as sweet as my nose would have it believe. also, the hubs is not a cinnamon fan in general. wierd, i know. (also, i used about half of the suggested chili powder. 2Tbsp is a lot!)(also also, this recipe makes A LOT and doesnt re-heat particularly well. i mean it still tastes the same, but it takes quite a dive in the looks department.)

so there you have it folks, another successfully meal-planned week. thats an entire month that i have stuck with this. amazing. so here's what we've got planned for this week:

Monday: leftover squash stew.
Tuesday: boboli. and maybe french fries. (cuz potatoes are totes vegetables)
Wednesday: crock-pot chicken parmesan.
Thursday: soup from a can.
Friday: shrimp/pasta alfredo with broccoli
Saturday: quesadillas and/or lasagna.
Sunday: superbowl gluttony goodness.

much too important.

my weekend was almost really terrible.

i wish i could tell you that my friday night meltdown was the result of something big or life-changing or monumental like some terrible, horrible, news. like the loss of a family pet or family member. a car accident. a natural disaster. a reaction to the knowledge that life as i knew it was changing forever. (not that i wish those things would ever happen, but they would make the intensity of my emotional explosion more reasonable)

you guys, it was just a really bad movie.

a really bad movie that the hubs really wanted to watch. and i really wanted him to enjoy it. and i really wanted to enjoy the time we had set aside to just snuggle and be together. and then i felt bad because i spent the first part of the movie putting the finishing sparkly touches on my manicure. and then i didnt really like the movie. and then i had a headache and a sore neck. and then i couldnt find a comfortable way to snuggle. and then i wasnt really enjoying myself. and then i was convinced that i had ruined the entire evening. and then i blew up and actually ruined the evening that, up until that moment, the hubs had been very much enjoying.

there was screaming, and crying, and stomping, and swearing. (mostly by me) and then there was talking, and sitting on the bathroom floor, and more crying, and hugging, and promising to try harder to not bottle up our emotions so much anymore so that these explosion-type meltdowns maybe happen less frequently.

and then we hardly saw each other for the rest of the weekend.

i spent my weekend shopping in State College with my two bestest friends (more on that later) and holding babies at a baby shower, while the hubs spent his weekend puttering around the house and napping and making plans for his garden.

if you look at it from the standpoint of projects completed versus projects left undone, (which is how i have been measuring most of my time lately) this was the least productive and thereby worst weekend i have had in a long time. and yet, it was really one of the best. i spent quality time with quality people. i relaxed and laughed and drank coffee and went out to eat. and i'm really glad that my friday night was a stressful, messy, emotional wreck because it was a very clear indicator that the rest of my weekend needed to be relaxing and fun and full of life. i needed some serious balance, y'all.

because if life is only about projects and deadlines and serious business stuffs, then i want none of it. yawn. bo-ring. i'll take my life with a generous helping of friends and laughter and fun and silliness pleaseandthankyou. life is much too important to be taken too seriously.

too long?

is there some statute of limitations on Christmas decorations? is it a bad thing that we are the last house on our street that still turns their lights on at night? at what point does it go from being fun and festive to being stubborn and just kind of crazy? am i in danger of becoming one of those people who leaves their lights up all year? and would that really be such a bad thing?

well if i am beginning the descent into the realm of year-round-christmas-light redneckery, just know that it's not because i was too lazy to take the lights down, but i decided to leave them up (and keep plugging them in) because they are just so gorgeous and they make me happy. and that goes for the ornaments in the front window too. they're just plain happy.

the hubs thinks i'm kind of crazy. what do you think?

things i have ordered.

after procrastinating on most of my Christmas shopping right up to the point that i was forced to shop in real stores if i wanted to have any gifts to give, i have rediscovered online shopping. and i am in love. its just so easy! and it's practically like instant gratification! and i get mail! it's a win-win-win situation up in here y'all!

AND THEN there's PayPal, making it even easier to spend my money quickly. i'm so glad i remembered my password! best. thing. evar!

but seriously, who doesn't love getting mail? it's definately near the top of my list of favorite things. and getting fun things in the mail?? even better!!! and since i'm uber generous and thoughtful and WAY over-excited about sharing all this, let me just show you the things i have purchased so far this year: 

a smart cover for my iPad. because its smart. and because i am not, and the cover that i actually originally ordered right after Christmas was a different style and when it came it didn't fit right. it was all my fault. also, this one is green.

 a clear snap-on iPad cover. because i dont want my pretty new iPad to get all scratched up.

protective screen covers for the iPad. because i managed to mess up all three of the first set that i ordered in December. fifth times a charm!

 this cow creamer. because why not?

a 2012 calendar. because i can only live in denial for so long. and because its cute.

a little photo album. and some note cards. because i had a $15 credit at OneKingsLane that my sister was urging me to use. i think somehow she got money out of the deal. i dont really mind though, cuz aren't they cute and fun?

new bite caps for my camelbak water bottle. because instead of cleaning out my old bite cap again, i just chucked it, rendering my water bottle completely useless. and man, i miss my water bottle.

you guys, we're only 26 days into the year. someone please change my PayPal password back to something i can't remember before i spend all of my Europe money on little things that i kinda sorta really need but mostly i just kinda sorta really want.

PS i am going shopping for real on Saturday with Deenie and my BFITW. because i love them and i dont see them enough and they are fun to shop with, and because i need new pants. and if there is one thing that you can't buy online with any amount of certainty, it is pants. wish me luck!

a-door-able.

have you ever had one of those experiences where something that initially seems like the opposite of normal slowly integrates itself into your life over time to the point that you no longer notice it as being abnormal but rather it's become the new normal? how about then when things go back to the original normal and all of a sudden what is normal seems like it is wierd and out of the ordinary? anyone have a clue what i'm talking about? just me?

ok, i'll give you a real life example to clarify. so we've been living without doors on the basement stairs or our two hall closets for a couple months. we took them down when we started painting in the front room and the hallway back in November because we were going to give them a quick coat of paint and some new hardware, and then throw them right back up all quick and easy-peasy-like. except for it wasn't quite as quick as we originally thought (is it ever?) and so we were just a little doorless for a while.

and you know what? it wasn't so bad. i mean sure, anyone who's come over in the past 2 months now knows exactly how many coats we own and what brand of toilet paper we prefer (7 of mine, 2 of Marks, and Charmin Basic in case you were curious) but it was actually kind of nice to be able to go up and down the basement stairs without having to worry about the extra step of dealing with a door. and since we don't have any lil kiddos running around we didn't have to worry about them getting into things or falling down the stairs. in short, we got used to our semi-doorless way of living.

until last week. when the doors went back up. i had kind of forgotten what the space looked like without the dark, gaping, empty doorways showing off all our clutter. it looks... clean. bright. and just a little wierd. but i'm sure i'll get used to it again soon enough.

so now we only have two doors left in the main level of the house that still need some sprucing - the guest bathroom door, and the front door. (and i guess technically the sliding glass door too, but that's gonna take more than just some paint so i count it more like a window) all in good time though. slow and steady is the name of the game around our house - one room, and one project at a time.

weekly plan: Jan 23.

well, we made it through another week of meal planning. granted, i only tried one new recipe last week, and that one recipe managed to turn my kitchen into a disaster zone for a full day and a half, and it didnt turn out as well as it should have because i managed to overcook the noodles, and i made about twice as much as we needed, (we're finally finishing the last of it for lunch today) but overall i would definately have to call last week a success for meal planning!

as far as how we did on the other stuff we had planned, i might have been a tad bit ambitious. yes, we got the doors painted and re-hardwared and re-hung. yes, we cleaned out the fireplace. and as a bonus, we even finally took Harold down and out to the backyard.

but that stuff about the kitchen? yeah no. after a little discussion, our plans for the kitchen have expanded a little beyond what i had originally thought. instead of just painting the walls in there (which would take zero time because our kitchen is super-tiny) we are also going to fix a spot in the ceiling, paint the ceiling, paint the cabinets to match the trim, and hang a shelf. still relatively minor stuff to be sure, but it's not the kind of thing thats going to get done in a couple hours on a Monday night.

but since i'm on a roll with this whole having-a-plan thing, here's our plan for this week:

To Eat:
Monday: taco night! (carried over from last Friday)
Tuesday: squash stew - recipe from Dana (i'mma try it in the crockpot)
Wednesday: whatever Victoria brings over for dinner
Thursday: shrimp, rice, and a vegetable
Friday: orange citrus chicken (from this book), Mark's roasted potatoes
Saturday: leftovers, whatever i find at the mall food court
Sunday: eggplant parmesan, salad.

To Paint:
- coffee table.
- my toenails.

To Do:
- catch up on laundry.
- buy better scissors.
- shop with my BFITW on Saturday!

and as always, the plan is subject to change. and if it does, it's no big deal. after all, this is the year of non-resolutions and vague goals and no pressure to do anything perfectly, or really to do anything at all.

maryland pickers.

so apparently i've been on a real furniture kick this week. allow me to introduce to you our other furniture-find of the week:

i have no idea where this particular gal is going to live for realsies, but i just love her little round feet so much that she just had to come home with us! at the moment she is fitting very nicely into that corner of our fireplace room.  and even if we don't like her or we can't find the perfect place for her, we haven't really lost anything, because we picked her up for free on the side of the road.

yeah, you heard me right. i totally trash-picked that computer desk.

she was left sitting all alone and forlorn at the bottom of our neighbor's driveway. out with the trash. except that the trash guys had already come and gone for the day, and she was still there. passed over by even the trash guys. i don't know that it gets much lower than that. so on my way to work, i enlisted the hubs to help me load her into the back of my car and off we went! i think the neighbors might have actually watched us take her. we are officially those neighbors.

and yes, she's not the most high quality piece of furniture (hello, particleboard!) and she does need a little bit o' lovin' but i dont think its anything that some wood filler and a fresh coat of paint and maybe some new hinges can't fix. so here's to turning trash into treasure - we'll be sure to let you know how (and if) she turns out!