Experimenting

Before I decided to become a vegan, I was not what one would call an adventurous eater. I was the person who looked at the menu for 30 minutes before I would order the same thing I ordered every single time I went to that particular restaurant. I'd break out in a cold sweat if someone suggested we try somewhere new. But since becoming a vegan, I've tried things I never thought I'd try - tofu being a big one. Now, however, if I know a dish is vegan, I find it exciting to try something new. And when I like something I've had at a restaurant, I go online to find a recipe for it. I've even found vegan substitutes for some of my pre-vegan favorite dishes. Anyway, I recently bought yet another vegan cookbook. It had several sample recipes available that actually sold the book to me. One of those recipes is Green Tea Rice and Lemon Snow Peas with Tofu. You make green tea and then cook the rice in it. Who thought of that because it never would've occurred to me. This morning I made the Dawn's Early Couscous for breakfast. I've had couscous before but it didn't really strike me as a morning food. But, it was a quick and easy recipe so I decided to go for it. Worst thing that would happen would be I'd toss it out and have to eat homemade granola cereal, right? Anyway, to make this dish, you boil three cups of apple juice and then add the couscous (and a few other ingredients) and there you go. It was good. If I hadn't made the dish myself I wouldn't have believed couscous was involved (mind you I like couscous - I just didn't see it as a breakfast food). But again, I have to wonder, what made someone decide to boil apple juice (instead of water) for the couscous? How do you know what and how much of something to try to make a good recipe? I realize that these recipes were all tried and tested before they were published in the cookbooks but I just find myself wondering how someone came up with some of the combinations. P.S. I also made the Chocolate-Macadamian Cheezcake Truffles (recipe on amazon). All I can say is, YUM!!! :)

Plotter or Pantser?

Normally this would be a question asked of a writer but I'm curious about cooking. Are you a plotter (planner) or a pantser?

Since I turned over a new leaf and started eating vegetarian/vegan, I cook mostly from recipes. With the exception of a few Weight Watchers recipes that I loved, I'm not really a recipe kind of girl.

But that's not really the question I wanted to pose here exactly. No, I'm wondering about once you've decided what you're going to cook.

In this scenario, a plotter is someone who reviews the ingredients and lays them out beforehand so that they're readily available. They might even have them portioned out according to the recipe so that all they have to do is pour the ingredients into the mix when the recipe calls for it. The plotter always knows how the dish is going to turn out.

The pantser, on the other hand, mentally runs down the ingredients in their head and dives head first into the recipe, pulling the ingredients out of the cupboard as the recipe calls for them and portions them out at that time. Unlike the plotter, things don't always turn out as expected.

Turns out, I'm a pantser. I find a recipe that looks interesting and mentally run down the ingredients in my head and dive in head first. As mentioned, this doesn't always work out as expected. For example, the other day I decided to make Snobby Joes (the meatless version of the Sloppy Joe). The lentils were cooking and I was sauteing the onions and pepper. Then I added the garlic. When the lentils were done, I added them, along with the chili powder, oregano and salt. Next I went to get out the tomato paste and tomato sauce. Only, I didn't have any tomato sauce (oops!) in the cupboard. Obviously I was already committed to the dish by this point but I didn't have all the needed ingredients, which I would've known, if I were a plotter. In the end I added extra tomato paste and diluted it with water and hoped it would work out okay. It was my first time cooking the dish and I have to say I liked it, despite my substitutions. Would it have been better if I'd followed the recipe to a T? Maybe, but that's a question for another day (as in the next time I make it - which I will . . . and I DO have tomato sauce now!).

This isn't the first time this has happened (remember the cornstarch / cornmeal question?) and probably won't be the last but what I find most interesting, for me, is that I've never really been someone who cooked a lot - much less experimented with new foods. I've never been one to eat grains or vegetables - at all. And yet, I've changed my diet to where that's a huge part of my diet, and not only do I like it, I'm even playing with recipes, creating my own dishes. (Yes, I realize the Snobby Joe thing isn't that big of a stretch but some of the things I've done, are.) I am actually enjoying not knowing how something is going to turn out. Not everything has been a success but most of them are good.

And so I've learned something about myself. I am a pantser. What about you? When it comes to cooking, are you a plotter or a pantser? Inquiring minds want to know. :o)

Things I've learned about food and cooking

In a previous blog post I alluded to the fact that I've changed my eating habits. What I didn't say was that I eliminated meat and dairy from my diet. As a result, I've been doing a lot more cooking and I've learned some lessons along the way - not all of them pretty.

In no particular order, here are some of the lessons I've learned:

1. Even with a list, you will invariably forget to buy at least one ingredient for a recipe you want to cook.

2. It's helpful to know what recipe the ingredients are for (so that you don't get home and find a critical ingredient to a recipe was the one thing you couldn't find).

3. You can make substitutes for pretty much any ingredient in a recipe.

4. I still can't figure out if cornstarch and cornmeal are the same thing (according to wikipedia, the UK seems to think they're interchangeable). I just know I haven't found cornstarch locally and cornmeal didn't seem to negatively impact the recipe I used it in (see 3 above).

5. There are an incredible amount of fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. that I had never heard of before but are quite good!

6. It's not necessarily a good idea to buy random fruits and vegetables if you don't know how you're going to use them when you get them home.

7. Russet potatoes are hard. Seriously HARD. I have a knife that can slice through bone like it was butter and it did NOT want to slice through the potato. (Note: once cooked, the potato was delicious!)

8. Waffles aren't as bad as I always thought they were.

9. Cleaning a waffle iron is NOT easy. :o)

10. Cleaning a juicer is only slightly easier.

11. I used to always say I didn't like much that was green and my mother always said one should take two bites of something before they made a definitive statement such as that. Well,
a. I stand by my belief that collard greens are not good. (My dogs do not share my opinion, however.)
b. I was wrong about asparagus.

12. Just because something smells good while cooking does not mean it will taste good (see 11a above).

13. Recipes are not always precise. (Note to cookbook authors. . . if you say an ingredient is needed for a recipe, it's nice if you include how it's used in the recipe - just saying. Also, saying "cook for 30 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed" is not good when it takes at least 1.5 hours for all liquid to be absorbed.)

14. There are some things you just cannot find anywhere but at Whole Foods.

15. The employees at Whole Foods are very nice and very helpful - at least in my experience.

16. Other things can be found outside of Whole Foods but at much higher prices. (Example: The only other place I've found Grade B Maple Syrup charges $16 more than Whole Foods for the exact same product.)

17. Pretty much everything tastes better with freshly squeezed lemon juice on it. :o)

18. The same can be said for maple syrup.

19. Even though vegan eating is considered healthy eating, there are certain vitamins that you will need to supplement if you completely give up meat and dairy.

20. It's not always easy to find a dish at a restaurant that accommodates a vegan diet.

In any event, it's been roughly four months since I started this new eating program and, overall, the experience has been positive and I have no regrets. :o)

The blog about nothing

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine invited George's girlfriend to the movie? George was upset because his two "worlds" were colliding. Well, I have a similar situation going on at work. See, I used to talk about my friends from law to my friends in engineering and vice versa. Then recently part of my group moved their offices down by law AND a friend of mine from law came upstairs to my area and met SCG. Worlds are colliding!!!

Speaking of work, things are not much better there and I'm picking up old habits. You know, of the eating-under-stress variety. I've gained ten pounds in the last month. I still went to Weight Watchers though (and had to pay) because I figured if I was having to pay for it, I'd get more motivated to get the weight back off.

And since we're talking about getting the weight back off, I should mention that I've been going to the gym the last few days (7-day free pass to 24-hour fitness gym). Water aerobics and yoga may look like wimpy classes but they both kicked my rear! The step-aerobic class I took this morning had less of an impact than they did. I'm thinking of joining for the summer, since I don't anticipate having a lot of time in the fall - what with school and all. The company I work for gets a good discount on memberships.

This online dating thing is going slow. I guess it was last weekend that I decided to take the bull by the horns and quit waiting for things to happen. I went through the 50+ "matches" that were open and either closed them or sent out questions. I've only heard back from two or three - one of which closed the match because they were pursuing another relationship. One of the ones I closed replied back that they thought we had potential and wanted me to reconsider. I re-read his profile and I only see two things that would have made me close the match - but one was a biggie. And there is one match who I think I may know:

Don is a 50 year old laboratory analyst - the age fits. We went to the same church (it's a huge church so that doesn't guarantee that I know him). He was married for 23 years when his wife passed away last year - which would be about right (length of marriage, that is) if it were who I think it is. He did mission work - again fits the man I know. Where he lives fits, as do his answers to my questions. He has pictures but they haven't been released for me to view yet so... Oh and if it is the guy I think it is, we went out once many, many years ago. I thought it was a "as friends" thing but, apparently, he thought it was a "date". We had a very nice time but he never "invited" me out like that again. After I married (anniversary was 25 years ago this past Wednesday), I saw him and he confessed to me that he'd had strong feelings for me. I don't think I ever suspected that but I do know that when he told me I'd wished I'd known at the time because he was such a good guy. Meanwhile, I'm just waiting for the time when I know for sure if this the same Don or not.

So, those are some things going on in my world. What's going on in yours?

Technologically Challenged

I think I may have mentioned that I have a technological disability. If you've ever felt stupid when dealing with a computer or cell phone, this post may make you feel better about yourself.

Okay, so I have a cell phone and have had one for 12 or 13 years. It's never been something I've used a lot though. It's always just been there for "just in case" needs. And I can tell you that when my very first cell phone came with features like call waiting, I didn't see the need. But it was standard and it was more of a hassle to get it removed than to just keep it, so I kept it. I didn't figure it would be an issue, since I wasn't giving out my number anyway.

So, the few times someone DID actually call in when I was using the phone, I disconnected all parties. Don't know how I was doing it but, if nothing else, I was consistent. About the time I would figure out how to work all the features, I would get a new phone and start the process all over again.

Well, a few weeks ago I switched cell phone service providers. As such, I was required to change phones. Now, I still don't see the need (for me anyway) to have all these extra features. While I am using my phone more frequently now, it's still a "just in case" phone to me (although, I haven't replaced my dead house phone yet so it's the only phone I can be reached on at the moment - but that's another story). Even so, the sales person tried to sell me their top of the line phone. She kept showing me these phones with all these features ("you flip it this way for easy text messaging" she said. "I don't know how to text message," I replied. "This one takes pictures," she said. "I don't need a phone that takes pictures," I replied. "You can make this one have a bigger screen," she said, "for when you're on the internet." "I don't need to access the internet from my phone," I replied. And on it went.). I did end up getting a camera phone though, mostly because you can't hardly get a phone without it anymore - plus it was free with my company's plan.

Which, by the way, I want to recommend an improvement to the (or maybe just my) camera phone. You see, I was snapping shots of my dogs and got a great one of Max. Thing was, no one told me that you had to SAVE the picture (yes I'm THAT stupid) so I lost it when I flipped it closed. So my recommendation is that the phone alert you to the fact that it's not saved. You know, like maybe making a sound and then asking "are you sure you want to close this document/picture without saving?" before you lose it. It's just a thought.

But, anyway, I'm still learning the new phone. And last night I was talking to a friend of mine and I heard this beep. I wondered what it was. It was brief so I wasn't sure. Then it beeped again. I started thinking someone was calling me. It was going to be my first call waiting call. I was pretty anxious about it because of my track record of losing both callers in the past.

Then the beeping stopped. My friend had been talking the whole time and I didn't want to interrupt so I hadn't said anything. Then the beeping started again. This time I interrupted my friend and said "Hold on, I think I have another call."

I pressed the "send" button, assuming that's what would switch me to the other call, right? Well, after I pressed it I hear the hi / low pitch you hear when you're phone has been off the hook too long. Figuring I'd missed the caller, I pressed the "end" button. When I tried to get my friend back, I found out that I had disconnected "both" calls. Doh!

I called my friend back, apologizing for disconnecting our call. We were only talking for a few minutes when, again, I hear the beep. I sighed heavily and said, "I think someone is calling me."

She said something and I responded, "Did you hear the beep?"

"Yes. Wait, I think I did."

On cue the beep sounded again. "That?" she asked.

"Yes!" I replied.

"Honey, that's in the store. I'm in WalMart! That's a sound in the store."

Oh.

So I hadn't really disconnected two callers, like I'd thought. No. I'd merely HUNG UP on my friend, for no apparent good reason! LOL

Not embarrassing or anything.

Now, don't you feel better about your skills? ;-)

New Look

I decided I needed a new look and this is what I decided on.

You know, I really kind of like it. :-)

A Tisket, A Tasket

When I bought my house going on seven years ago, I decided I had to do some grown-up things to go with the grown-up mortgage. So I subscribed to the newspaper (which I only read on Sundays and only the comics, TV Guide and Dear Abby at that...I let that subscription lapse after about a year or so), and several magazines. One of the magazines I subscribed to was Good Housekeeping. I figured it could give me ideas on inexpensive decorating things.

And I did get some ideas. Like the one about getting a basket for your bathroom to hold all your "toiletries". I went out almost immediately and bought this cute little basket and came back and filled it with all my "stuff". It's an idea I really liked and really worked. It also saved time when cleaning because rather than having to remove all your "stuff" from the counter, you just had to move the basket, clean and replace the basket on the counter. Easy-peasy.

Okay, so a few months ago I went out and bought two more baskets. I wasn't really looking for baskets (actually, I was at the store looking for work stuff) but I found these two I really liked and they just happened to be on sale, so I snagged them. Didn't really have any idea where I would put them or how I would use them. They're both bigger than the original one I bought and a lot deeper.

So fast forward to yesterday...I was cleaning my bathroom and realized that I've kind of outgrown the original basket. It overflows. So I decided to try out one of the bigger baskets. I started being really neat about it...putting all the Mary Kay stuff on one side and and the Estee Lauder stuff on the other. I put all the hotel lotions and soaps in there. But the more I put in there, the more I'm finding in the smaller basket. It was like it had a false bottom or something. Anyway, by the end, I'm just chunking stuff in the basket (guess I don't have a lot of patience for organization and stuff). But, the good news is, it held everything, with no overflow. Plus it looks good on the counter, and I still have two baskets to play with.

I was thinking about the baskets last night and thought I could fill them with the books that won't fit on my new book carousel. I could also put the smaller one in the guest bathroom (now that I've cleared the plants off the counter) for guest toiletries. We'll see.

All this talk is making me feel like I need to renew my Good Housekeeping subscription. But my question to you is, have you ever gotten a really good decorating idea from a magazine? And if so, please share! :-)

Also, do you have baskets and what do you keep in them? Inquiring minds want to know.

Can you keep a secret?

I've mentioned before that this is my secret blog. . . no one knows about it. I have one person that I don't know from RWA that knows about this blog (and only one person from my local chapter - and she doesn't know the name [I did tell her once, she just didn't remember it - which I'm okay with]), and I trust her with all my secrets so it's okay if I put this post out there.

At work we're getting ready for boss's day. Last year we dressed all our bosses up as pirates and the everyone else had to guess which pirate they were supposed to be. It was fun and all but at the time, I suggested we do a 50s theme this year. They all said okay and them I'm sure they promptly forgot about it. But I didn't.

So a few weeks ago we had our monthly Staff Support (SS) meeting and I brought it up again. I threw out the 50s theme again and they all liked it, but then started leaning towards Elvis and wanting to dress all the male bosses as Elvis from different times in his career. The lone female boss was going to be dressed up as Priscilla. Okay, we have a starting point.

Then, a co-worker and I decided to see where we could find Elvis "costumes" for cheap (because we pay for all of this out of our own pockets) and ended up at buycostumes.com. From there we went to their adult wig selection and we went off in another direction.

I sent an email to all the other SS telling them what we'd found and we scheduled a meeting for today to discuss further. I'd come up with an idea for a game, which was a starting point but after we started brainstorming I think what we decided was even better. We made a lot of decisions and I think it's going to be so much fun. We're going to dress up eight people (we're doing more than usual). We'll have Elvis, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Dean Martin, Jeff Bagwell, Marilyn Monroe, Sonny, and Cher.

Now, you may be saying "Didn't she say the lone female boss?" but then probably disregarded it because I also said we're dressing up more than usual. But you'd have been right the first time. We're dressing one of the men up as Cher (his SS doesn't particularly like him so her wanting to do that to him is more out of spite but we all agreed it would be fun - and we like him so. . .).

Anyway, I worked up a little "program" today creating a tri-fold document. On the outside it tells them what the event is called and other miscellaneous information. When you first open it up you see the "rules" of play (which I'll go into in a minute). When you open it further you have all the bosses' names, with a blank beside it (for their guesses), the questions they're allowed to ask and the menu (the SS make them lunch too - and we've already decided on that as well). Everyone seemed to like it.

But the rules - we've decided not to dress them up from the beginning this year. Instead, they're going to come out as themselves, having only an index card with numbered answers on it. The group will be broken up into teams and each of the "celebrities" will visit with the teams. The team will say, "I want the answer to question 5 (or whatever number)". They won't read the question. The celebrity won't know the question - only the answer (they're not going to know who they are either - at this point anyway). Each team gets to ask three questions from the list, of which there are ten, of each celebrity. Then they have to make a guess at who they are supposed to be.

At the end of it all, the teams turn in their program with the answers and the team with the most right answers wins. (We're going to get them a little something but that hasn't been decided on yet.) While they're turning in their answers, the celebrities will be leaving the room and will be asked "who are you?" to see if they know. Then we'll dress them up as their character and they'll come back into the room - to music.

Elvis will come in to "Love Me Tender", Sonny & Cher to "I've Got You Babe", Bill Gates to "Money" (I don't know if that's the name of the song but I sang it for my co-workers and they knew what I meant.), Marilyn to "Happy Birthday Mr. President", Jeff Bagwell to "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". We haven't definitely decided on Dean Martin's song and Donald Trump will come in with pink slips saying "You're Fired!"

I'm already looking forward to it and it's a good two months away! I think it's going to be a lot of fun and I'll have pictures to prove it! :o)

But don't tell anyone - it'll be our secret. ;o)

I'm a Believer!

I had intended to include this information in my last post but forgot. It's really for Ellen that I'm confessing this and I've advised her to get ready with her "I told you so". With that in mind, here's what happened. . .

Last Saturday I went to the library to return the audio book Dear John. I thought since I was there already, I'd check out the other audio books, since I said I might give it another try before I wrote it off forever. Anyway, they had a larger supply of audio books than they did when I was there before National. Good books even.

Well, even though I had the "not for me" thought in my head, I selected three books. Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline, Shopgirl by Steve Martin and The Devil in the Junior League by Linda Fracis Lee.

So Sunday, after I got home from the movie, I decided to start listening to Dirty Blonde, while I cleaned house (I'd picked up a CD player the day before at WalMart). And later I was kicking myself for not listening to it sooner! I will say, though, that while the reader was better than the Dear John reader, I had a little issue. It was like I was sitting down with my girlfriend and she was telling me this story. It was comfortable and all, but the thing was, she was apparently telling me the story in a restaurant and was eating, and/or drinking and/or taking drags off of cigarettes (I couldn't figure out exactly what it was she was doing) from time to time. Other than that, she was great. I finished listening to it Tuesday night.

Wednesday I popped in Shopgirl (even though I need to finish Kasey Michaels' book so I can write a review! Argh!) and listened to the whole thing. Steve Martin did the reading and I have to say, he could have a whole new career reading books. He was fabulous! The story itself was a bit strange but the reading could not have been better - really.

All the while I'm listening to these books, I'm cleaning house.

I went to work today and was telling someone about it and told him that I'm LOVING audio books and think I'm spoiled now - may not ever be able to sit down and actually read a book. They're great.

Meanwhile, my house has never looked better.


And Ellen says, "I told you so." LOL

On the Road Again

As promised, I'm going to comment on my virgin audio book experience. As you may recall, I was listening to Nicholas Sparks' (who, after talking to several people at the conference, is definitely off my "list") Dear John.

I was skeptical for a couple of reasons. One being that I didn't think I had the attention span to follow a story being read. Another being that I was so disappointed in the last book of his I read that I wasn't sure if I wanted to read/hear another.

So, okay, I put it on as soon as I dropped off the boys at the kennel Wednesday morning. The reader initially had a thick southern accent that I wasn't fond of (but I also think I may have been looking for things to not like). And I never did get comfortable with the "voices" he did for the people. I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first but, several hours out, I realized that one thing that was bugging me was that the heroine of the story sounded EXACTLY like Dustin Hoffman in his role of Tootsie. Exactly like it! So I couldn't quite get the image out of my head that the heroine was a drag queen as I listened. Not to mention that the southern accent he attributed to the characters made them all come off sounding dumber than dirt - which I think is a misconception about southerners, but that's another story.

But, I plowed on anyway. The story was okay - definitely not my favorite of his books (but also not my least favorite - that honor goes to the last one I read) and there were a couple of places that I cried (which wasn't necessarily a good thing, considering I was behind the wheel of a car at the time). And there were a few places where my mind wandered off enough that I knew I had missed something - but I didn't really care so I didn't go back and replay anything.

In the end though, I might try another audio book but what I was telling my roommate was that what I think part of the problem for me was, was that I read in my own voice. The intonation and inflection I would have given would have been different I think. I think I might have enjoyed it more reading it than I did having it read "to me". And part of that might be because the story was told in first person, I don't know.

Anyway, as I said, I might try another audio book but I'm still kind of leaning towards thinking it's not really for me.