Pillow

Since I was thinking on it, I put a pillowcase upon the pillow that I am going to use for Mister's kid sis. I did this ahead of time, because I love the way that I put pillowcases on. I'm not allowed to do it for our bed, as Mister grumbles about how uncomfortable he thinks it is, etc., etc.



Look at that cute, adorable, plump little pillow! You'd never guess that it had a King sized pillow case on it!



Here's where it's all neatly tucked in, and smoothed down. I don't talk about it much, but my first job was as a housekeeper with my best friend. She showed me how to tuck pillowcases like that -- and it really makes a difference, appearance-wise. Because I shake the pillow all the way down, it also plumps it, and tucking the end in keeps that lovely plumpness.

... I am overly proud of this, which is why I wrote this post. :-P

Plans for the Week

So Mister's kid sis is coming out this weekend. We're driving out at 6 am Saturday, picking her up, and turning around and driving back. We'll get back to town 11 am - noon. We'll be going to HONK! from 1 pm - 9 pm, and driving her back to school Sunday early afternoon.

That is all that's planned.

So! Since I apparently do nothing but talk about food (pointed look at MY kid sis), let's start with the planning for that. As a cool treat, I'd like to try to make baklava for this weekend. That will need to be made on Friday.

I think it makes sense to have a crock pot soup cooking for when we get into town, so I'll probably make a hearty bean/sausage soup similar to this one. I would also like to pick up a Jiffy Corn Bread for that. We'll have dinner out, and breakfast on Sunday out. We have apples and granola bars for the car rides. We'll need to make breakfast Saturday morning, but we'll have eggs and bacon or something equally hearty.

I'll need to do the laundry (I'm devoting Thursday to that), and clean the apartment -- bathroom and all. Luckily, Silvia (our cleaning lady) was here last Friday, so it's not in that bad of shape. This will also be the first that anyone on Mister's side of the family will have seen my ring. My entire family did. :-P

Ideally, I would also find a spare set of sheets for when the girl's here, I'll poke around my house for that. I've already gotten my down comforter (and washed the cover), a pillow, and we have the futon mattress hanging out as an extra seat in the living room.



The only other things to talk about are what to do around HONK!. We'll probably hit up a few cool thrift shops, go to Lush, I have to do a deposit at work, and maybe watch a movie. We might just sleep. :-P


Ingredients needed:
-- 1 lb. phyllo dough
-- ghee
-- 1 c. pistachios
-- 2 c. walnuts
-- orange blossom water
-- stock
-- sausage
-- bacon
-- Jiffy Corn bread
-- eggs
-- milk
-- butter


Stuff from My Apartment:
-- rose water
-- crock pot
-- pastry brush
-- sheets
-- pan to bake corn bread


Schedule
Wednesday: TJ shopping
Thursday: Laundry, fetch stuff from my apartment
Friday: rest of shopping, baklava, soup prep

Pizza is delicious

I think it's safe to say that we now try to keep a pizza dough on hand at all times. I made pizza yesterday, on the pizza stone. It was quite tasty. It was so simple I almost shouldn't explain it, but just in case a person doesn't know how to make pizza...

Step 1: buy a pizza dough.
Step 2: put pizza stone (if you have one) in the oven, either on the bottom, or as close to the bottom of the oven.
Step 3: Preheat oven to 450F.
Step 4: Generously (really truly) cover the peel with cornmeal (or you can use a baking sheet).
Step 5: Stretch dough out to pizza shape. Let it's weight be the agent with which it stretches.
Step 6: Put pizza-shaped dough on peel.
Step 7: Brush a thin layer of olive oil over the entire dough (I forgot this step -- so I olive oiled the crust afterwards).
Step 8: Spoon on a layer of sauce. Use the spoon to spread it around and even it out. Don't go all the way to the edges -- leave a little crust.
Opt. 1: I threw some oregano and pepper directly on the sauce.
Step 9: Grate cheese onto the pizza. (I did a layer of parm., then a thick layer of mozz., then another thin layer of parm.)
Step 10: Put on whatever other toppings you'd like. I just chopped some fresh basil.
Step 11: When oven is preheated, put pizza in the oven. Shake the peel first, to make sure that the pizza dough isn't sticking anywhere. It should slide in easily.
Step 12: Cook for ~10 mins, then kick up the heat to 500F for another 2 or 3. Remember, do not open the oven AT ALL for the first 5 mins.
Step 13: Remove from oven and cool for 5 mins+ before cutting.

PIZZA!


Our much loved pizza stone.



Our lovely peel, sans cornmeal.

Wow

Hey guys! I won something! Crazy! I won a tee-shirt and a bandana that say "Mother Earth News", as well as some seeds!

Score! First time for everything. :-P

Slightly Productive

So I wound up having a discussion with Mister yesterday about how to make a day not feel like a waste. Inevitably, I feel like Sundays are wasted, every week. We wake up late (circa 11, or 12), lounge around, get around to getting food at 2, and then I have to be at work by 4:30. Do you notice how little actual day there is?

When stating how I'm so sick of feeling like it was a wasted day, Mister started talking about the importance of having a day of rest. I was like, "but I don't want Sunday to be a day of rest!" After a little more non-committal "day of rest" talk, Mister mentions that perhaps HE wants Sundays to be a day of rest for HIM, as he works during the week.

Oh. Well, now why didn't you say that in the first place?

So we're going to work out some plans to give me stuff to do during the week. Yay!

----

In regards specifically to Sunday's productivity, I did get one important thing done: I gave three boxes of clothes to Goodwill. That required going through ALL of my clothes (I probably have the equivalent of 5 boxes of clothes left), sorting, boxing, and carting away. In addition to this great achievement, I got rid of a book.

Got rid of a book? Blasphemy you say. Let's just say that it needed to be done. One person reading this will understand that statement -- but I can't be any clearer on the internet.

Anyways... here's hoping that my productivity kicks up.

Pound Cake?

The Best Pound Cake

It looks like it would be tasty ('cause it's a CAKE), so I will have to try this at some point.

This One's For You K

So recently, my sister mentioned that she had a blog. "Send me the link!" I cry, and she complies. I start looking, and casually mention that -I- have a blog as well. And offer the link as fast as I can before she can request to not have it. That's how nice of a sister I am.

As she's flicking through my blog quickly (unlike my ever-thoughtful perusal of her own... :-P), she mentions "You like putting things in jars". That is entirely true, and I accede the point.

Flash forward a day, and I had open bags of beans on my ever-cluttered (and tiny) kitchen counter from delicious, bean soup. Thinking that I have to do something about them, I scrounge around for four jars. I find four jars, and stick the beans in them. Noticing a lonely PB jar hanging out begging for me to put tapioca in it, I kindly fill a small jar of black tapioca pearls as well.

This is the state of my newly jarred items up until today:



Beautiful, isn't it? I just love glass jars filled with yummy things. You can always see food! And it's all different colors, and highly prettiful. No, I do not have a problem, and yes, I am currently seeing a therapist, why do you ask?

Well, en route home from said therapist today, I stopped in at Trader Joe's for nibblies. As I was poking around the tasty foods in the store, I came to the dried food section. I love dried food -- it usually goes in jars. Well, as I had also been eating oatmeal a lot, and I'm out of dried rose hips, I needed something else to make my oatmeal exciting and tasty.

So! Enter the new contenders for the title of Newly Jarred Items:



We have almonds, cranberries, and banana chips. Om nom nom. And a fun note:



Rotti Largo ex-pasta sauce, now almonds! :-D