My Week in Food

        Yesterday was a very productive day for me.  I had decided earlier in the week that I was changing up some of my weekend routines so that I could get more done.  We've started to look at houses which means we don't get home until 7 or later.  These are the nights you don't want to chop veggies for supper.  For the past month, we'd usually end up eating frozen pizza or something just as easy and not at all nutritious.  To remedy this, I decided to do all of the veggie chopping on Saturday.  I had done this last weekend and it worked really well.  I've moved laundry day to Friday night (I lead a very exciting life.).  Saturday morning I made myself a pumpkin spice latte.  This is a recipe that I got from a vegan blog called Peas and Thank You.  Don't worry I'm not going vegan, I just enjoy her writing style and some of the healthy ideas from her recipes.  I unveganized it by using cow's milk.  It's still good.  I don't have the garam masala the recipe calls for so I added a dash of chili powder.  Same basic concept.  Side note, a couple days after we tried this recipe without the garam masala or chili powder I found an article in the Sioux City journal about garam masala with a recipe.  Thank you to the food gods!  I didn't try to make it yesterday.  I figured I already have enough planned for the day.  So after enjoying my pumpkin spice latte (my weekend treat!), I did the two loads of laundry left over from Friday night.  After that I raided the refrigerator for all of the veggies that needed to be chopped.  These included: 3 green peppers, 1 red pepper, 1 orange pepper, broccoli and a bag of carrots.  Crank up the radio and I'm in business.  In case you're wondering what all of that looks like, here's a pic:

I don't feel like the picture is an accurate depiction of all of the chopping I did but I hope you get the point.  On Saturday I also made a batch of rice and chicken noodle soup.  We frequently have stir-fry during the week but I always forget to make rice.  Ta-da!  Problem solved!  The chicken noodle soup is for today.  I like to have Sundays be very relaxing and being able to reheat a pot of soup will add to that.

Earlier in the week, we made pumpkin pie smoothies.  I got the recipe from the same site as the pumpkin spice latte.  We had already used the food processor so I had to use my blender.  I'm not that huge of a fan of blender and I was considering getting rid of mine due to the lack of use it gets.  I dragged out our blender and put the ingredients in.  The pitcher of the blender didn't appear to be sitting right but I wiggled it around and got the same result.  I turned it on and none of the ingredients moved.  This is not normal.  I adjusted it and tried a few more times... same result.  I took the pitcher off and looked at the bottom.  It was broken!  I've used this blender maybe 3 times since I got it!  What a piece of crap!  It was a Black and Decker Crush Master.  Don't buy it.  Another side note, I had registered for this as a wedding gift and someone gave it to us.  I'm not criticizing the gift.  I'm criticizing my ability to pick out a decent blender.  I stood there looking at my pumpkin pie smoothie ingredients in a busted blender wondering what to do.  Steve reminded me that I have an old blender from my grandma.  Grandma had given me this blender when I was going to college.  It was extremely old and she was going to get rid of it anyway.  We poured all of the ingredients into Grandma's blender.  Well, almost all of them.  An ice cube fell on my foot in the process.  I have a bruise.  Cooking/baking/smoothie making is dangerous work.  Grandma's 40-year old blender worked perfectly and our smoothies came out great.  So to recap: New blenders are junk.  40-year old blenders are great.  Here's a pic of both:

Ironic, right?  Please ignore my messy kitchen.  That's my week in food.  I hope you enjoyed it!

Winning the Battle... Maybe the War

   Today I will be spending the day in my kitchen chopping vegetables and fruit, browning hamburger and cooking chicken for next week's meals.  I'm taking solace in my kitchen.  This last month has been particularly stressful for me.  I'm trying to do all of the prep work today so we can have tasty and nutritious meals this week. I've over-scheduled myself until January and the perfectionist in me in rearing her ugly head.  The perfectionist in me questions everything I do at work, in my church activities, my participation in holiday traditions, how I play music, how I complete my crafts and so on.  Many people appreciate the perfectionist in me.  They know if I'm assigned a task or take on a task, it will be done correctly.  But I don't appreciate her.  The perfectionist in me questions everything except my presence in the kitchen.  Cooking and baking are the one thing that comes naturally to me.  Being in the kitchen is the one place the perfectionist won't follow me to.  The one place were she won't nag me and tell me I'm doing something wrong or not good enough.  It's the one place where I can tell her to take a flying leap and she actually listens.  I've done battle many times with the perfectionist in me.  She's easing up a little bit but when I get stressed especially around the holiday season, she rears her ugly head.  Quite frequently I lose my battle with the perfectionist but not in the kitchen.  In the kitchen I always win.