Dude, where's my casserole?

I vaguely remember making a casserole last night. I came home from school and the clinic, armed with my Z-pack and fresh box of Theraflu Flu & Chest Congestion, and determined to be a helpful spouse. Since T's mom gave us a casserole dish recently, I'm starting to catch on to the fact that baked dinners require a lot less supervision and consume a lot less time.

Thanks to the ever-trusty AllRecipes.com I found a tasty sounding dinner with all the ingredients I had on hand: broccoli, eggs, cheese and fake sausage. The actual cooking part of it was so quick I hardly remember frying the sausage and steaming the broccoli. Threw it all in the dish and put it in the oven...voila!

It gets hazy from there because that's when I put the tea water on to boil and started watching old episodes of Lost. Within 3 sips of the Theraflu, I was starting to feel woozy. I remember laying down next to T on the couch and putting my laptop on the floor. I remember starting a new episode of Lost... After that? Not much.

T must have eaten all the casserole, because the empty dish is in the sink. I must have made it to the bed at some point, because I woke up there this morning. Apparently I didn't have enough energy to take off my clothes, because I'm still wearing my pink hoodie, jeans and all the requisite undergarments. I woke up wide awake at 7:00 this morning, for the first Wednesday since my 8:30 a.m. Wednesday classes began. Except I felt like I was drowning in my own gunk.

With memories of the last time I went to school sick and all the dirty looks I got (two weeks ago) I decided to stay in... again. Why? Why do I, the non-smoker who never gets sick, have bronchitis for the second time in a year? I'm sure certain members of my family would say it has something to do with my lack of faith. I'm just going to drink my sleepy juice and wait for the anti-biotics to do their work.

Chicken Sudado: Adventures in live-blogging!

Because this is what happens when I'm left alone in the apartment for 48 hours with nothing but a dog to keep me from falling into the abyss of my new laptop... I am going to a potluck in T minus 2 hours 21 minutes, and I have a paper due on Tuesday for which I've written nothing but a meager outline and a thesis statement.

One of the 30 things I want to do before I turn 30 is perfect my mom's chicken and rice, which is really a misnomer because it's actually an awesome Colombian chicken stew-type dish that must be served with white rice. It was my favorite dish growing up and I've only made it a couple of times as an adult. Last time was 4 years ago, and let's just say that night was infamously affectionately dubbed the "Night of the Salsa de Plastico".

So, without further ado.... #3: Perfect my mom's chicken & rice: LIVE-BLOG FORMAT!!!

3:15 - I walk to Whole Foods feeling totally blessed to live only a block and a half from Whole Foods Market. With weather this cold, it's awesome that a trip to the store is just a skip, hop and jump away.

3:25 - After spending $8.38 on hydroponic tomatoes (p.s. wtf are hydroponic tomatoes??) I feel slightly less blessed by WFM.

3:30 - Sidestepping vomit in the alley on the walk home, I just want to be back inside.

3:40 - To E (the dog): "Let's live-blog this biatch!"

3:51 - Trying out the Emeril dutch oven for the first time. Had been waiting to season it, but I just decided it must have come "pre-seasoned" because this is the only pot big enough to hold 10 thighs and 5 drumsticks. Yes, that's way too much chicken. I don't care. I only make this every 4 years!

4:00 - Chicken is cooking in dutch oven on medium heat, covered, liberally sprinkled with salt. One chopped up large yellow onion and two chopped up large tomatoes are stewing in with it. Also added 2 T. of olive oil. I can hear the juices stirring. Sidenote: "sudado" means "sweaty" which is exactly how the chicken cooks - in its own sweat. Yum!

4:02 - Last time I cooked this dish, I was dancing around the kitchen to bachata. Not much room to kitchen-dance in this place:

But I can still sing along to K95 country. "Hell yeah! Turn it up!"

4:13 - Emergency phone call to Mom: "Do you peel the potatoes?" Mom says yes. Damn. I guess striving for perfection has its costs.

4:23 - All in! Roll call: 12 thighs, 6 drumsticks, 4 yukon gold potatoes, 6 carrots, 3 tomatoes, 1 onion (should I add more, I wonder?)... and 2 T. of olive oil. Now to let cook, covered, on medium heat for 30 minutes or so, before I stir it some more...

4:29 - What's worse than your dad nagging you to clean up? Your husband nagging you to clean up. What's worse than your husband nagging you to clean up? Your husband adopting your dad's catch-phrases to nag you to clean up. What's worse than all of the above? Hearing your husband and your dad nag you (in unison!) to clean up when you are completely alone in the house. "Clean as you go!" they nag. I know, I know...

4:41 - Panicked and added another half an onion. E apparently took advantage of the crisis to sneak a chunk of potato from the kitchen to his spot in the living room. Then decided it wasn't cooked enough for his tastes. What a snob.

4:42 - Back to work on my immigration paper. Good-bye, country music.

4:47 - Nevermind. Dog is whining. Can I take the dog outside while the chicken is cooking without burning down my entire building, I wonder? Or if I feed him, will he leave me alone so I can write?

5:06 - Dog let me feed him and left me alone. I've written 375 words. A 2,000-word limit is a lot less than I thought. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, the smell of that chicken is making it harrrrrrrd to concentrate.

5:45 - Chanced a trip outside with the dog while the chicken simmered on the stove.

5:49 - Returned to find the apartment happily still in tact.

5:50 - Started the rice. Listen people, this is how you make good rice:

1. Put a pot on the stove and dump in a little oil (1/2 - 1 T is probably enough).
2. Heat up the oil on medium-high
3. Put in the rice - say 1 cup.
4. Shake the rice around a bunch until its coated with the oil.
5. Add twice the amount of water as rice - in this case, 2 cups.
6. Shake salt into pot liberally to taste.
7. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat (or high, if you like a little burned rice on the bottom of your pot, like my dad).
8. Let it cook, UNCOVERED, until the water is boiled down to the point where you can't see it and there are holes in the surface of the rice.
9. Reduce heat to low and cover the pot.
10. Cook 20 minutes or until fluffy/done.

6:02 - Just tried the chicken it is AMAZING. Added more salt. Per mom's instructions, I am now letting the chicken cook uncovered for the last 20 minutes, to allow the sauce to thicken up.

6:07 - How the hell am I going to get 7 blocks on foot with a giant dutch oven full of chicken, a pot of rice and Taboo? Is this one of those tricks with the fox, the chicken and the bag of corn?

6:17 - Uh oh. Here's something I didn't expect. I'm falling asleep...

6:26 - And... DONE! (The picture doesn't do it justice, but I had to take a closing shot!)


Buen provecho, ya'll :) Let me know if you like it!

The Deposition Queen

Tonight, I am full of myself. Why? Because tonight, during Trial Advocacy, I did my first deposition. I only had 20 minutes, and was assigned a mere portion of the case to cover with the witness. But I KILLED it! And henceforth, I have dubbed myself the Deposition Queen.

Cocky, I know. I'm indulging myself.

Seriously, though. I loved it. Doing a deposition felt like going on a scavenger hunt or playing 20 Questions or being an investigator. Instead of getting to read through an employee file (this is a sexual harassment case) I actually get to pick the brains of one of the key characters! I told my classmates I had a lot of practice cross-examining witnesses when T & I were dating. (Who am I kidding? I still grill him for info on a daily basis...)

I was supposed to go to Virginia with T this weekend. Instead, I am staying in the Big City so that I can attend a tax clinic training and work on a paper for my Crimes & Immigration class. Ugh. A paper for class. And a class taught by my legal writing professor at that! I'm having bad memo flashbacks... I guess this is what I get for not doing a journal. Since I'm stuck here though, I will be able to do a couple things. 1. I can go to the "J party" (1/2 way to JD celebration) in which the school pays a bunch of money for 2Ls to drink free beer, further cementing the co-dependent relationship of the legal profession and alcohol (I'm starting to think there's some kind of secret marketing agreement between law schools and Budweiser, like how all the public schools have Pepsi machines). 2. I will be attending a friend's potluck on Sunday and cooking my grandmother's recipe for chicken & rice (chicken sudado), so I can hopefully check off another of my 30 before 30.

Anyway, I am just killing time until T comes to bed so we can watch Supernanny or Modern Family on Hulu. He's walking the dog, but I should probably brush my teeth before he gets back. I'm being a bad laptop owner and sitting in the bed with the computer. Breaking my own rules. Oh, well. I suppose the Deposition Queen can do as she pleases.

2L-and-a-half

So... school's back in session. I'm now on the back half of this law school ride. Crazy.

I am not liking this whole first week back thing. First of all, I didn't have my schedule straight from the get-go, unlike in previous semester. I'm dropping and adding classes all over the damn place. That hasn't helped in the Buying Books department. I currently own only 1/3248th of the books I will need to survive this semester (i.e. the NITA case file for my trial ad class).

My corporation professor actually put in the syllabus that he teaches the "Socratic" method. Now, I actually like a professor that'll keep you on your toes. And Professor Inc. appears to be one of the funny ones. The only problem is that his humor is at the expense of us unsuspecting students. And since I don't have my casebook yet, I won't be prepared tomorrow when he makes an a$$ out of me. AND we only get two passes for the semester. It's not a good sign for a class when you start out scrambling.

And thus, life goes on as usual. Despite feeling like this year is off to a creaky-groany start, I'm still grateful for being back in routine. I've been cooking like crazy since last week, when I took a stab at planning a menu out ahead of time. (Last week's menu: burritos w/fresh avocado, homemade pizza, breakfast-for-dinner with fresh biscuits & bow-tie broccoli alfredo!) Yesterday I made a to-die-for (fake) chicken fried rice, and tonight T & I baked a black bean spinach pizza. Yum!

In a Super Mario Wii update, I am on level 5 but appear stuck at the Big Castle.

Sometime not long from now, I would like to empty out some words about this new laptop I got as an "early graduation present" and how different the law school experience has been since taking a computer to school. But not tonight. I think I need to start scheming my way out of humiliation in the morning.

What a pear!

My new favorite food is the Bosc pear. Fry it up in some butter, toss in some walnuts and sprinkle dried cranberries on top. Crumble some cheese over the whole thing. Yum YUM! (Or should I say, "Scromph!") One day, I won't live a block and a half from Whole Foods. That will be a sad day for my diet.

I got my blood levels tested the other day on account of some issues with my "lady parts" as my mom so disgustingly delicately put it. Supposedly all is normal. But I am starting to worry that I am pre-diabetic. Wow, this blog is a crazy outlet for my hypochondria! I can't help but think it's doing T a great service. (Now I have the poor unsuspecting internet to listen to my various ailments and suspicions!)

And in other news, T & I went to a dance party wedding this weekend where, for the first time in our entire relationship (i.e. 7 years on Saturday), he kept dragging me onto the dance floor. I'm still not sure what got into him, but after trying to get him to dance at so many weddings, I'm not gonna complain! Even if I did have to hide in the bathroom a couple of times just to get away from him and catch my breath. Even if I did come out of the bathroom once to find all the guys at our table rushing at me saying, "Did you see what T did?! He got some guy crowd surfing!" Even if he literally made me dance my way out to the coffee nook and dance my way back to the table. And even if we did almost knock over the photographer not once, not twice but three times.

T has two theories for his sudden love of dancing. His first is that now that we've tied the knot, he feels like he can kick back and enjoy everyone else's without stressing out about whether we're going to have to do that at our wedding. His second theory is that it's because of something I've told him over and over (at every wedding reception, I'm sure) about how I don't care what he looks like when he dances, I just love to see him having fun. He said it's because of me. Obviously, I like theory #2 better. But they're both pretty good.

And since the wedding was in the deep south of Virginia, I got my good fill of the life I miss here in the Big City. We stopped at a fruit co-op and bought jars of red raspberry preserves and kickles ("pickles with a kick!"). We heard all about how the hotel receptionist's daddy declared on the day of her birth that she would be known as "Mary Cathreen" and how her grandbaby has the same name, so there are now two people on the face of this earth with the name Cathreen. We spotted a headless deer and a vulture (and possibly a deer head in the mouth of a vulture). And at the wedding, we ate mashed potatoes, green beans, lots of gravy and watched the bride and her mom dance to good ol' Rocky Top.

scromph

i notice a lot of "om nom nom" on the internet these days. i like it. it reminds me of cookie monster. (that's supposed to happen, right?) but i tend to get annoyed when i realize a phrase is cool. like in high school when all of a sudden all my buddies indulged in a 5 second prelude to every sentence: "duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!" better known on the internet as, "d00d!" then later T got into calling everyone a "dump" and it was quickly picked up by his roommates (as most of his phrases are). it became the word of choice for making fun of friends around his house. flashforward some years and bro-in-law introduced us to the "epic fail" thanks to some friend's proclivity for hanging out on nerd-core message boards. (i am certain i just used the phrase "nerd-core" improperly just now.) next thing you know, everything is a FAIL. almost literally. i was once at a party a couple years ago in Richmond when i noticed this picture taped to my friend's refrigerator. it was an enormous (real!) walrus with a bucket looking ecstatic, with the caption, "I HAS A BUCKET!" and then another picture of a man taking the bucket and the walrus looking very upset and the caption, "NOOOOOOO!! THEY BE STEALIN MY BUCKET!" and i laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and seriously would not stop laughing the whole way home. the next day, i realized i was the last person on earth to have learned about lolcats.

how did i start talking about all this?

oh yeah. because i wanted to start a real blog post by mentioning the delicious sauted bananas i made for dessert tonight. my new thing is frying fruit. yum yum. and that's where this came from. because in my head, i literally heard a delicious noise and remembered there's a meme for that now: "om nom nom." except i don't want to say om nom nom. i want to say SCROMPH! because that's exactly it sounds like in my head. not the same ring to it, i know.

in other news, i did exercise today for 30 minutes. i think i read trust and estates for about the same amount of time. ah, early semester studying. it seems so easy and relaxed right now...*

*note: i am not on law review or any of the other major extracurriculars!

bored

I'm bored with school. I think I drink too much these days. And I can't bring myself to focus on reading. I wish that T & I didn't spend so much time in front of the computer. And, by the way, even though I made a delicious dinner (seriously, try this)(and this) I am hungry.

I'm mad I didn't make the trial team. I don't feel like reading for Evidence anymore. I miss my honeymoon and the summer. Blah.

long weekend short post

nothing much going on here. my best friend and her husband came to visit for a couple days, which was pretty awesome. i love when people come to stay with us and i get to see my neighborhood through a fresh set of eyes. makes me feel pretty grateful for where i live. i especially love when people come from virginia, with their unspoken tales of cool breezes, green hills and long drives.

they brought their dogs, which added some fun but also made the entire visit a little more exhausting than it normally would've been. since they left, i have taken a long nap (3+ hours), talked to my bro on the phone, cooked from the awesome earmarked copy of the Moosewood cookbook that a friend mailed us as a wedding gift, won my first (half) game of trivial pursuit, drank pink zinfandel and half-heartedly hit on the Hubbard who responded with half-hearted interest. it's been a lazy night. i like it.

Peanut butter to the rescue

Maybe T is right. Maybe I have turned into a grown-up. He made that comment after finding a stack of O (as in Oprah) magazines scattered across the coffee table.

"Why did you take out all your old magazines?" he asked me.

"I was looking for recipes," I said. A perfectly normal answer... for a 42-year old mom.

I'm kind of joking. I think I'm secure enough about myself not to get too worked up about the sometimes middle-agey things I do; the things that I never thought I'd be doing myself. Still, it can be disconcerting, especially when called out by someone else, to realize that I am living out an adult life.

Anyway, I was looking for recipes because my dumb (and by dumb, I mean really awesome) doctor told me that he would recommend the South Beach diet and exercise if I wanted to kick-start my, um, system into working properly again. This because of the double digit weight gain I've put on over the last year and a half or so. Lest you think I am divulging too much personal information, keep in mind: I'm telling everyone I know.

Here's the thing about the South Beach diet, and I'm not going to devote this post to its intricacies or why I decided to actually take the challenge my doctor posed to me: it's really hard. I have to spend two weeks eating no starches, no sugars, no fruit, basically none of the things I count on to make eating fun. No rice for my beans, no taco shell for my ground beef, no pasta for my cheese and no bread or jelly for my peanut butter. And no brownies. Or alcohol.

That leaves pretty much four categories of food: (some) veggies, (low-fat) cheese, (fake) meat and eggs. Plus nuts and spices and stuff. I'm on day five and generally pissed about it.

But not tonight. Tonight I tried a recipe that I discovered while surfing for ideas on my lunch hour. And I want to share it with all lovers of peanut butter, because, for anyone who has ever longed for cookies whilst being too lazy to actually bake them, this one is worth trying out. Contrary to my expectations, though possibly because I haven't eaten a single simple carbohydrate in nearly a week, they turned out delicious!

South Beach Peanut Butter Cookies (supposedly good for all phases)

Ingredients

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup Splenda granular (sugar substitute)

1 egg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degres. Mix the three ingredients thoroughly. Drop by spoonfuls on a cookie sheet. Dip a fork in Splenda and press gently on top of cookie.
2. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from pan carefully after cooling slightly. Enjoy!