A Brief Life Update

I'm back! Wow, life has been crazy for the past few weeks, and I apologize for being such a blog slacker. So here's what's been going on in a nutshell:

~Adam got sick. And then I got sick. It was some sort of nasty respiratory sickness, which I'm still recovering from as far as sniffling and congestion. Since I'm exceptionally loathe to take medication, being pregnant and all, I tried a device called a Neti pot. It's like a small teapot that you fill with a saline solution and use to rinse your sinuses out. Go here if you'd like to see a weird lady demonstrate it on Youtube. I do not recommend those bending exercises, though, unless you want boogers all over your floor!!! Just sayin'. I'm not entirely sure how effective the Neti pot was for me, but it was nice to feel like I was doing something about my cold.

~My work replacement started with the company last week, so I've been training her. And by "training", I mean playing solitaire while she does my job. Ahhhh, these will be a glorious last few weeks at work.

~My sister's birthday was on Tuesday. Since our birthdays are so close together, she made the three-hour drive down here so we could celebrate it together! Our cake was INSANE. She wanted a raw cookie dough cake, and I wanted an ice cream cake. So we combined and made a ridiculous double-layer chocolate chip cookie dough cake with a full carton of ice cream spread over the top. Calories don't count on your birthday, right? Right?? Oh yeah, and since my sister was turning twenty, and I'm turning twenty-four, we put forty-four candles on the cake. I dare you to find a more ridiculous cake (and one that makes a bigger cloud of smoke).

~So what am I doing on my actual birthday, which happens to be tomorrow? Well, not much-- I'll be spending most of the day at work. I'll also be celebrating Arnold Schwartzenegger's birthday, as well as National Cheesecake Day!!! This is probably going to involve me bringing some sort of cheesecake dish to work tomorrow. Adam probably has some special plan up his sleeve because he's sweet like that, but otherwise, that's what my day looks like.

~Today, we went to the local water park for free, courtesy of Adam's workplace. Since I can't really go on any of the slides, and Adam's favorite ride was closed for maintenance, we hung out there for a couple hours, said, "Well, this is lame," and went home. I am SO glad that we got in for free, because they way overcharge for everything there!!! I highly encourage any readers in the area to find alternative means of entertainment, because you will be charged theme park prices for a less-than-memorable experience.

~We are watching a dog for some friends who are currently out of town. The household menagerie score: DOG +1, extremely happy and excited to see our cats. CATS -2, throwing literal hissy fits and spending the past approximate 36 hours under our bed. ADAM AND MARIA +5, extremely entertained by how much the dog still loves the cats anyway.

~My midwife appointment on Tuesday actually took place at our apartment, so that they could scope things out and not worry about finding the place when B-Day actually arrives. Luckily for me. they did not take one look at my apartment and shriek, "NO WAY are you having a baby in this MESS!!!!" which is probably because I spent the two days before doing some hard-core cleaning. Not surprisingly, my blood pressure was high. Of course I wasn't going to tell them, "Yeah, I was under stress to get the house clean!!!" so now I have to actually formally exercise and eat more protein. Oy veh. On a more positive note, tomorrow marks nine months!

So that's what's going on at the Downright Domicile. Hope you all are beating the heat just fine and enjoying the rest of your summer!

Use It Up, Wear It Out: Coffee Beans (Day 6)

I had a seven-month-old bag of coffee in the pantry. Baby D. thought that it'd be fun to wait to slam me with morning sickness until the day after I bought this bag. I didn't touch coffee for two months, and by that time, the coffee was too old for this picky Washingtonian to drink.

There were some significant obstacles to finding a good recipe to use this stuff up. First, the majority of coffee recipes are for drinks, but the last thing this pregger needs is more coffee to drink. Second, most recipes called for chocolate chips or squares. Spare chocolate just lying around? In THIS house? I had baking cocoa, and that was it. Third, a lot of coffee recipes call for instant coffee-- you know, the kind that will dissolve and not leave scary chunks in your food.

Well, if you can't eat it... why not wear it?

Enter Coffee Body Scrub!

I found the recipe here, but to save you some time, I'll just list the ingredients on this page:

• 3/4 cup ground Coffee Beans
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 tbsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/3 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 tsp Ground Cloves

Let me tell you right off the bat, that is not enough liquid for this recipe. When all was said and done, I used 1 T. olive oil, 2 T. vanilla, and 2 T. canola oil-- and I'm still not satisfied, but I need the rest of my oil to actually cook with.


The verdict: this stuff smells soooo good! It was a pleasant wake-up call! Everything was great in the shower, except for one unforeseen problem: the finer coffee grains stuck to my skin with the oils, giving me a lovely just-stepped-out-of-the-coal-mine look. I had to wash it all off with my regular soap, which I hated to do-- why did I have to wash myself twice?

But, according to several sites, this coffee scrub is supposed to help with cellulite. Great! Now, if I could just find a scrub that helps with stretch marks...

**************************

Okay, if you insist on an edible recipe, I did make one of those, too. You know that cooking is a real love when you cook just because!

The recipe is Espresso Biscotti from the cookbook Extraordinary Meals from Ordinary Ingredients by Reader's Digest.

First, you mix all the ingredients (including three tablespoons of ground coffee), and shape it into a log.

Ummm... I hope it tastes better than it looks...



You bake it once,

...And then slice it up. Here's where I had trouble, because this bread was CRUMBLY! I tried four different knives before I finally gave up and just blew through it. You can see one of the slices that got destroyed on the near end of the cookie sheet.

It still tasted good, though! ;-) After a second baking, it seemed to hold together better.

The girls at the office obligingly tasted it for me today, and declared it to be delicious! My advice: don't make this stuff right before bed, unless you want to be awake half the night. This is the voice of experience speaking.


And that is Day 6 of the Use It Up, Wear It Out Challenge! One more day to go-- I wonder what I'll make?

Use It Up, Wear It Out: TOO... MUCH... FOOD!!!

We are drowning in food here! On the Fourth of July, I cleaned out the refrigerator, nearly emptying it in the process. One week later, it is busting at the seams, in spite of me hardly buying anything at all this week! We're still working on the 15 Bean Soup and the pupusas, as well as other bulk items like homemade yogurt and 5-minute Artisan bread, so I am loathe to make more stuff until there's more room in the fridge.

That being said, I'm still going to do seven days of Use It Up, Wear It Out; it just might be stretched over nine days or so. Since the whole point of this was to save money, I can't justify making all this stuff just for the sake of cooking, and then letting it go bad in the fridge!

On a very nice related note, I was able to stick to my budget of $15 for all work-related food expenses- including snacks and lunches!- for the week. Any of you coworkers who read this and know how much I pack away every day will think I'm joking, but it's true! I am amazed at how leftovers can REALLY save you money in the lunch department.

Well, it's about time to stop writing and start thinking about other stuff that needs to get done around here. Hope you had a great weekend!

Use It Up, Wear It Out: Jello (Day 5)

Last night's cooking endeavor was less than stellar. It was the first Friday night that Adam and I have both been off work in a long time, so we made it Date Night. Through three years of college, Friday night was always date night, but for the past couple years, work schedules have kind of blown that out of the water. So it was fun to revive the tradition for an evening!

Since we're still working on eating the 15 Bean Soup and the Pupusas, I wanted to make a more dessert-y item. After some digging in the pantry and a consultation with Recipezaar, I found this:

I was going to make this jello-applesauce recipe. It requires that the jello set in the refrigerator for an hour before mixing in the applesauce. However, when the hour came up, we were in the middle of a movie, and I didn't feel like holding up the show just to stir in a quarter cup of applesauce. Wouldn't want to interrupt all that romance generated by watching Lion King 1 1/2, right? ;-)


So I just ended up with a plain old bucket of grape-flavored Jello. Since I don't like artificial grape flavor (reminds me too much of the children's Tylenol my mom fed to me by the truckload when I was a kid), Adam gets to enjoy it all for himself!

Use It Up, Wear It Out: 15 Bean Soup (Day 4)

In case you haven't guessed by now, I love beans (and I probably shouldn't be advertising this). I love the variety, the colors, and, of course, the protein they pack! So it was a bit surprising that a bag of 15 Bean Soup has been lingering around the pantry for months on end.

This is a marketable version of stone soup. All you need is the bag of beans! ... and a pound of ham... and a can of tomatoes... and onion, and spices... and so forth. It came with a little spice packet that was chock-full of must-have ingredients like hydrolyzed soy protein and artificial smoke flavor. And those were just the ones I can pronounce! So I tossed it.

I suppose there are two reasons why this was sitting around forever: 1) the 8-plus-hour soaking time for the beans, and 2) the price of ham. So yesterday morning, I threw the beans in a pot of water on my way out the door for work, and when I came home later, they were good to go! Gee, that was hard. :-P Then, since I'm a cheapskate, I used about half a pound of bacon instead of the pound of ham. I wasn't about to go hog-wild about this, after all! Fortunately, it did the job.

The verdict: when all was said and done, it is overpriced for a mere bag of beans with a little packet of chemicals. But the soup is soooooo tasty. I will definitely keep the recipe on hand somewhere and just use my own beans next time!

My overall reaction: I could totally pig out on this any day!

Adam's reaction: He doesn't like bacon, so he didn't try it. More for me, mwuahaha!

Use It Up, Wear It Out: Masa Harina (Day 3)

Masa harina, to all you gringas, is corn flour (not to be confused with corn meal), as well as the next thing I needed to use up in the pantry. Last year, I went on a quest to make my own homemade tortillas. How domestic, right? Unfortunately, I found out about two cups into the masa bag that corn flour dough is extremely crumbly, and that corn tortillas are all but impossible to make without a tortilla press. Que triste.

Isn't that the cutest little corn man?

I also threw in a can of refried beans that had been a member of this household a little too long. What could I make that would use up a generous portion of masa without using too many exotic ingredients?

I found Pupusas.

Although they sounded more like something out of a biology textbook than a meal, I was willing to give them a try.


First, you take a ball of dough and flatten it into a circle. Spoon the filling (in this case, beans and cheese) in the middle, and work the edges up and over the top.

That stuff is IMPOSSIBLE to keep together. I suddenly remembered why I hate working with corn flour.


Fry it in oil for several minutes...






And enjoy with the toppings of your choice!

The verdict: I love that this uses up so much masa. Unfortunately, it didn't use up too much of the beans, because each pupusa required a mere tablespoon or so. I found the pupusas to be a bit bland, but I think that has a lot to do with me forgetting to add salt to the dough and cutting the cumin in half (one whole Tablespoon kind of scared me). It was pretty good with salsa, and even better with sour cream! And I bet it would be delicious with a spicy meat filling. I am definitely NOT a fan of fried foods, so that was a major drawback for me. The South hasn't won me over yet! ;-)


My overall reaction: Meh. But it uses up the masa well enough.

Adam's overall reaction: Delicious! Can I have some more?



Thus ends day 3 of the Use It Up, Wear It Out Challenge!

Use It Up, Wear It Out: Soup, Soup, Soup! (Day 2)

Something came up yesterday that took me out of the house for the entire day, so I didn't do any creative cooking. So, I'm going to talk about the dish I made on Saturday that is my favorite way to use up those pesky pantry ghouls:

SOUP.

What I love about soup is that you can throw just about anything in the pot, and with the right seasonings, it'll all taste good! What a great way to clean out the pantry!

Now, there are a few things that my soup always needs to have. First is some form of meat. Now, I'm all for going meatless, but DH tends to feel a bit deprived if there's not some meat in the dish. So what I will do is take a small quantity of meat (I used one chicken breast on Saturday), and cut it up into teeny tiny pieces. Psychologically, it does the job.

Second, my new favorite seasoning: red wine vinegar. For two years,my soups have always been really bland, until about a month ago, when I tossed in some vinegar out of desperation. It really does the trick without adding extra salt!

Third is chicken or beef stock. It adds that je ne sais quoi.

Fourth thing I always add is beans, for the protein. This was actually the whole reason for Saturday's soup, because I've had a can of kidney beans forever that needed to be used.

What else was in my soup, you ask? Here's the run-down:

• 1 Chicken breast
• Onion
• Garlic
• Canned tomatoes
• Kidney beans
• Corn (frozen)
• Broccoli (frozen)
• Potatoes
• Carrots (found languishing in the crisper drawer)
• Alphabet noodles (another long-term pantry resident)

A couple things I've learned about making soup: I always saute the onions, garlic, and meat in oil first. This is also where I add the herbs and spices, so that it really infuses into the oil and the meat and packs the biggest flavor punch.

If I add pasta, I boil it separately until it's very well cooked, and add it at the very end. Otherwise, it will soak up all the liquid in the soup. Be prepared for this to happen with refrigerated leftovers!

Well, that's about I can think of for now. If you are blogging about your own pantry adventures, you can link your post here! Bon appetit!

The Use It Up, Wear It Out Saga:

The Challenge

Grape-Nuts

Use It Up, Wear It Out: Grapenuts (Day 1)

My Use It Up, Wear It Out Challenge began tonight, when I was absolutely starving. There is a definite lack of snack foods around this house, which is pretty devastating for a pregnant lady. I rummaged around the pantry and found this:

Also known as Grape Nuts, for the more brand-conscious. This has been sitting around for at least six months. Six months ago, I remembered absolutely loving Grape-Nuts- I mean, "Nutty Nuggets"- in high school, so I bought a box. Unfortunately, I grew a couple wisdom teeth between high school and now, and thus I came to the literally painful realization that Grape-Nuts now wedge perfectly in my gums. Not fun!

Believe it or not, you can use Grape-Nuts to make these:

Also known as delicious muffins!

The recipe I used is found here. What I liked about this recipe:

• It calls for applesauce (another thing that's been in the fridge forever! Score!)
• Whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup sugar-- brown sugar. And that's it.
• A good amount of cinnamon (my ingredient of choice!)

This was a definite win.

If you are also using up things in your pantry, feel free to link a post about it here!

The Use It Up Saga:

Day 2: Soup

Use It Up, Wear It Out: The Challenge

My pantry is full of weird culinary odds and ends. I started to get bugged by it about the same time that I realized that the Downright Domicile needed to drastically cut spending this month. Since my day job pays me somewhere between volunteerism and Chinese minimum wage, we've been behind on the midwife bills (among other things. We just won't mention those). Now that Adam is done with school for the summer and can work now, the pressure's off a little bit, but we will be daaaangerously close to missing the 100% payment deadline at the end of July.

Now, I definitely lean towards the crunchy side, but I'm gonna have to say no thanks to an unassisted childbirth in the bathtub.

Enter the week of Use It Up, Wear It Out.

It's common knowledge that one of the easiest expenses to control is food. And I refuse to spend any more money on food right now, when I have a whole bunch of random ingredients in the pantry that just require a little ingenuity to become dishes. So, for each day this week, I will choose one pantry ingredient that needs to be used up and figure out some way to incorporate it into the day's menu.

I'm so looking forward to the challenge, that I am opening it up to you, as well! I would love to hear the creative ways that any of you might be using up food hiding in the back of your pantry. Feel free to write a post about it and share it on the Linky! Happy cooking!

The Use It Up Saga:

Day 1: Grapenuts

Day 2: Soup

Wisecracks

Driving home from a birthday party last night, Adam and I were discussing the various physical changes that pregnancy has brought on me.


Me: I've had a few people tell me that I'm glowing.

Adam: I know-- it's been keeping me awake at night!


Silly, silly husband.