Things I learned by going to school in Wisconsin

Recently, DH and I had an old college friend and one of the best men in our wedding (a Wisconsin native) come visit for a few days.  We reminisced, of things and people like beloved Patrick Blessing, Pearl Harbor parties in the basement of Merriman house, Ripon police officers and more.  In many of the stories we found little pearls of wisdom that we believe we would not have acquired had we not gone to school in Wisconsin, to wit this list:


1- You can always find something portable to use in a hotel room when someone (possibly you) is feeling sick and needs to vomit and can't make it to the toilet, e.g. an ice bucket, a trash can, the dirty laundry bag, a glass, the pot for the coffee maker, etc.


2- Never, ever leave someone who is super intoxicated (read: if you can still stand but they can't) alone to meander off and find their own room, dorm, etc.  You want to be responsible, two drunks are always better off than one alone.


3- If you want to be a good roommate, floormate, friend, etc., you must at all times keep on hand quality supplies that can help you clean up a puke-fest mess created by drinking too much vodka and eating pizza while celebrating someone's birthday.


4- A "tall" drink as they call them in Colorado, does not mean the same amount of alcohol you would have in a regular size but with more mixer, it means you make a bigger drink with more alcohol and the same amount of mixer you would use in a regular size as they do in Wisconsin.


5- Wisconsinites are trained from when they are wee ones to make Bloody Marys, this is why they make the absolutely best ones!


Now I realize that all of these are related to alcohol, but hey, aside from getting a good education at Ripon, I learned how to be a responsible drinker there!  And for the mommies out there, I am sure some of these will come in handy!  Please feel free to add on any that you might have, would love to hear/read them!

Mock Moussaka

This weekend I was sick (and still am), I had energy in short fits but I wanted to make a good/hearty dinner for us on Saturday so I tried my very own version of Moussaka.  You can do it little by little and never use up all of your 'sick' energy.


I had never had this dish before but many years ago when I still watched Iron Chef one of the judges and Iron Chef Cat Cora used to mention it often from their Greek heritage and I always thought it sounded interesting.  So I looked up some recipes for it and decided my version would be 'mock' because I didn't want to cook it with traditional Bechamel sauce (since flour is a no-no at this time) and maybe instead with some Alfredo sauce, also I used beef instead of lamb but other than that basically the same recipe... if you like eggplant (or even if you don't), this is the dish for you.  

If this were Lasagna, these eggplant slices are your noodles

Peel, slice and then salt your eggplant.  You can place it in a colander or on a rack (as above) to get it to sweat and release the bitter flavor it can have, do it for about an hour.  When you are ready to cook it, wipe it clean (don't wash or it will soak up that water) with a towel.

Meat mixture with no tomato sauce added as of yet...

Roasted eggplant laid nicely as my 'noodles' in the casserole dish

Meat sauce with tomatoes layered on top of eggplant

BEFORE - Home made Alfredo on top (only cause I was too lazy to go buy some Alfredo - oxymoronic)

AFTER

YUM!

Adventure in Buena Vista

As part of the adventure in me trying to stay at my current place of employment, I am trying to 'diversify' some of what I bring to the table.  A recently took on the task of becoming a Mental Health First Aid instructor, meaning not only am I able to provide mental health first aid but I can teach others how to do so.  

This required me to go to Buena Vista, CO for a whole week (at the cost of my employer), participate in and pass the class.  I thought it would be a piece of cake, to pass you have to take a test and then do a presentation - you of course get graded on both and then either pass or fail.  Since I do presentations all the time I thought 'no worries': wrong! The instructors start telling us how not everyone passes, they give us a scoring card so we know what we will be graded on for our presentation, things like: "if you go over or under 6 to 8 minutes your allotted time" things aren't looking good for you buddy.  All I'm thinking is: great, I'm trying to impress my employer and might end up costing them a bunch of money and me failing the class, awesome. 

To top it all off I develop an eye infection late on the second night for which I head to the ER on the third night in Salida, 30 minutes away, driving myself wearing glasses that are a couple of prescriptions old - don't say it! I know what you are thinking cause I thought it myself too.  But, I won't keep you in suspense, eye infection and all - I passed!  If it makes you feel better, I put my contacts on to drive back down to Denver although it stung the crap out of my eye, but I like to say, better to put up with a stinging eye than not being able to see really well while driving, right?  This here, this is the case I'm building for lasik surgery...

On the other hand, I met a great group of people (most of whom I won't see again probably), was able to stick to my new eating habits (I have lost 12 lbs. since I started!!!) and had some great time to myself.  Also, I enjoyed flipping channels on the TV like a zombie all night long, something I haven't done at home in over 2 years since we decided to eliminate cable/TV from our lives, but it proved once more to be a total time suck and reminded me why I'm glad we don't have it at home.

I was really glad to be home at the end of the week, that is until I started coming down with something Q the brother-in-law kindly passed to DH who then was generous in giving it to me and am now feeling totally BLAH, upside though: the cold medicine has me so wired I was able to get this blog posting done, ah life!

A few of my favorite things...

So we've established that I'm on a diet and that DH is partaking of the torture we are willing enduring.  It is a high-protein and veggie diet (read: very low carb).  How did I never, ever realize how many carbs we ate on a daily basis?!?  How many? Wwwwaaaaayyyyy too many!


Well, let me get to the good stuff.  Lately (read: last week and a half), I am really craving salmon, I even ate it for breakfast one day!  And, I'm following this recipe for it that I found recently which is really easy, super tasty AND doesn't leave the house smelling like fish.  Let me know if you are interested in the recipe!

Before...

After! Ta-da!!

And my two favorite side dishes: roasted asparagus (hey, it is worth the funny pee smell) and tomato slices with lemon olive oil and balsamic vinegar drizzled on top - YUM!!!!

Aren't you wishing you were on a diet now too? :)  Probably not, but at least now you know that if you come over to our house for dinner, our diet won't affect you in a negative manner!

Playing catch up

My apologies for being MIA for a month.  Lots of stuff in my lap the past few weeks and I haven't been very good about taking care of all of it, the ball-juggling was temporarily out of service but I seem to be getting a grip on things again.  


So what's been happening?  What did you miss?  A little of everything.


Life in General
The biggest reason there haven't been any posts? Not even of what I have been up to in the kitchen?  DH and I went on a diet *GASP*!  I know, I can barely believe it myself.  I have been soda-free for 16 days *double GASP* - and it is killing me!  (Hi, my name is Jenny and I am a Mountain Dew addict) Because of this diet there haven't been any exciting recipes to share but hopefully I'll come up with something soon.  My pants are already a teeny-tiny bit looser (yay!)... but this is hard.  Thankfully, when I have a bad craving day like today, DH tries really hard to provide the moral support needed from a diet buddy.  At my office some of my coworkers know what I am doing and are also very supportive and full of praise ~ this kind of back up is one of a kind and truly appreciated.


We had the carpet cleaned at the house... they didn't do as good of a job as I expected but it does look somewhat better than before.


I was in a car accident.  Long story, not in the mood to tell it but if you ask me about it one-on-one I will share all the details.


Milestones
Aggie turned 10!!  Sounds silly to say but I am grateful everyday that I have him in my life.  Before becoming his human companion, I had only experienced "shared" dogs, you know, like when your parents get a dog for you and your 3 siblings to "share", get what I mean?  He is my little puppy doodles who constantly wants to follow my commands to make me happy, stingy with his kisses, always hungry and willing to eat whatever is offered (or not), a constant visitor at the vet's office for a number of issues, amiable with DH and myself but not with most other humans, old-man cute and most recently a pirate.

Yes doctor, I'm on the treadmill every day...

My brother-in-law turned 29 (for the second time)!  Just remember: Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese.


My older sister, also known as Candela and her husband had their 20 year wedding anniversary!  I totally spaced it even though I had a reminder in my phone and just realized it the other day as I was going through all the important dates in my calendar - what a doofus!  But I think it is an awesome occasion with the proof of their success evidenced in their three kiddos, not many people achieve this milestone anymore so be proud of yourselves and may you be happy together for many more years!  
Chains do not hold a marriage together.  It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.  ~Simone Signoret

It is really hard to find a picture of just the two lovebirds, so instead here is one with their kiddos as well.  Please notice that the youngest child in blue is smiling (a rare thing for him in pics) this is because I bribed him with $1.

My other brother-in-law (Candela's hubby) had his birthday!  I think (but am not sure) that he turned 43.  Happy birthday viejito!  "Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." Jack Benny


Transitions
My intern Mary finished her internship with us and graduated from her MSW program.  I couldn't be happier for her but miss her every day.  In the process, she completed a much needed program evaluation on one of my star programs, an invaluable contribution! 


After 6 years with AT&T I switched to Verizon.  DH made that transition over a year ago because of his phone so it wasn't that bad.  My contract was done and my phone was falling apart.  Why is this a transition big enough to mention here? Because I went from my beloved Palm to a Droid Pro.  Mind you, I started using my first Palm back in December of 2000 and have been a loyal user but with the company being defunct there was no other option (and no, the iPhone was not an option, I don't like Apple products).  It hasn't been as hard to adjust as I expected it to be, but the Droid Pro and I are still just getting to know one another.  You can still hear me asking a few times a day: babe, why the f@$k is this not working like I want it to.... ah life.

It's just another meatless Monday...

Ohhhhh... what did I make? My first all-vegetable Lasagna!  I saw a recipe for one yesterday while I was trolling through food blogs and it looked really tasty except DH hates mushrooms (I know, right?!?)  and I am no fan of red bell peppers (roasted or not) and the recipe included both.  I gave it some thought and decided that I was always liked the combination of cauliflower, yellow squash and shredded carrots and thought that might make a nice filler for the dish.  DH suggested artichoke hearts which might have worked but I was all out of frozen ones, the flavor of the canned ones is always metallic and therefore: YUCK! and I had absolutely no gumption to head on over to the grocery store to buy some.  
Preheat the oven to 350.  Start with some onion (a whole medium one) and garlic to taste.

Chop up the yellow squash.

Shred a couple of big carrots, or if your store offers shredded carrot packs go with that and this is about half a big cauliflower.

Add the cauliflower to the pan first and then the squash - let those two hang out for a little bit in the pan and then let the carrots join the party.  This is a good time to add salt and pepper to taste and I also added crushed red pepper flakes for a little extra kick, you choose how much.  When it looks like they are all melding together and having a good time, add a couple of cans of tomatoes (I used fire-roasted diced ones).

I added two eggs to the ricotta cheese below, salt and pepper to taste and then mixed it all up.

And then... Put a little sauce in the dish before adding the noodles.  Place a layer of noodles, a layer of ricotta cheese mixture, and then sprinkle some shredded mozzarella cheese and then the veg.  Repeat until you run out of ingredients or room in the dish.

Ready to be placed in the oven - just cover it with foil first.  Let it cook for 20 minutes, take the foil off and then let it cook for about 15 minutes longer to melt the cheese on top.

Why is it that I can never serve a perfect slice of lasagna?  Some of it always tries to escape as I scoop it out of the dish... Ta-da! Serve with a side salad (and maybe some garlic bread?) and enjoy!

Salad that Rocks!

To my knowledge, not many people think to themselves: hmmmm, salad.  But more and more, I certainly do.  Let me walk you through my process:

Start with the greens, I love using pre-washed mixes (especially if they include shredded carrots) but also regular greens like spinach, romaine and the likes. For tonight I used leaf lettuce

Then you can build upon that with anything your heart desires in this case I have strawberries, green onions, avocado and tomato - don't forget to add a little salt to the tomato and avocado to really bring out their flavors!

See, doesn't this look pretty already?

It doesn't end there for me, I also add some dried cranberries, walnuts (but any nut you like will do), goat cheese and blueberries.

 Pre-goat cheese... don't you just LOVE the colors in this?

For dressing I have been using balsamic vinegar and lemon olive oil (that I find at Whole Foods) I love the citric flavor that it brings to the salad, but again whatever your heart desires is what you should add.

Ta-da! Dinner (or part of it if you share it with others) is served! Yum!!