This Weekend

What we did:
The normal stuff and none of the reno stuff.

Friday night - we went to see Dooze and Lester, Sakah came too.
SaturDay and night - we watched a movie:  Beer Wars

Kinda slow and everyone HATES Anheuser Busch.
Then Matt researched the restoration of his 1960s Hornet bike, and I went to Sarah Qs for a girls night in.  I had a pregnant DD and that means trouble in my world.

SunDay and night - I was HUNGOVER which means I aimlessly followed Matt around while he went gather supplies for Hornet restoration and then I camped out with Grey's Anatomy Season 5.
Oh yea, and the Sunday morning movie was: CouplesRetreat

Pretty funny.  I laughed out loud a couple of times.  A little slow towards the end but mindlessly funny, which is exactly what you need when you're HUNGOVER. 

So no house progress but Matt is gonna have an awesome bike when he gets done.  And maybe someday I'll stop getting hungover so I can actually do a project or two.

Simple and Awesome Recipe

I tried a bunch of different recipes this past week.  Sloppy joes, Chili with pumpkin in it, hummus, Beef stew with beer and paprika....I'm back to menu planning if you couldn't tell.
 
But by far the best one from last week was the quickest and easiest:
Broiled Salmon with Peppercorn Lime Rub and Quinoa salad.

This really took 30 minutes - actually 30 minutes, not like Rachel Ray 30 minutes where it takes her 30 minutes and the rest of us an hour.

If you like salmon, try this one.  It's too easy not to try.

From Cooking Light:
Salmon:
Salmon fillets (I used 3 fillets.)
cooking spray
2 teaspoons grated lime rind
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 clove minced garlic
**I didn't measure any of that stuff and eyed it all.  That's just how I roll in the kitchen.**

Quinoa Salad:
1 1/3 cup chicken broth
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 chopped zucchini
1 bell pepper (or red pepper/yellow pepper, whatever you've got around)
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

Salmon:
Preheat boiler.
Place fish on broiler pan sprayed with cooking spray - skin side down.  Combine remaining ingredients, sprinkle over fish.  broil 7 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork.

Quinoa:
Combine chicken broth and quinoa in medium saucepan, bring to boil.  Cover and simmer 12 minutes or until liquid is almost absorbed.  Stir in chopped zucchini and pepper.  Cover and cook 5 more minutes or until liquid is fully absorbed.  Remove from heat and stir in extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Menu Planning

Even though it's not really a resolution, I plan to get better this year about my menu planning.
I've always been pretty good about planning dinners through out the week but lately I've been slipping and Italia now knows Matt on a first name basis - so much so that the delivery guy even brings a black pen for him b/c he won't sign the credit card slip in blue.

We need to make a change to say the least.

So my plan involves a magnetic calendar and a list.  Of course a list, I am Sue's daughter.... list maker extraordinaire.

Normally, I try to plan one week at a time.  I'm hoping this calendar will keep me better organized so I can get 2 weeks planned. 
Maybe I'll even be able to start shopping sales - what?  I'm never that organized...Never.

Wish me luck - I'll let you know how it goes.

This Weekend

Nothing exciting happened.
We didn't start any projects...unless you count laundry as a project??

We did have a great sushi dinner with Sakah at Watanabe.  Ate way too much and spent waay too much.  We get pretty excited about eating out and that doesn't really do good things for the bank account.

We also watched a couple of movies - The Future of Food.

This movie made me even more anxious to start my garden and it made me want to buy a cow and raise chickens.  Genetically engineered food - it's a little scary.
Although, I will say that I would have liked the movie to give more informaiton about why some believe genetically engineered food is a good thing. 

And our weekly Sunday morning movie was Inglourious Basterds.

This was a Quentin Tatantino film and you could tell.  Check it out on IMBD from the link above.  We'd heard mixed reviews from others but it was our style and we both really liked it.  But then again Matt LOVES anything with Brad Pitt in it - he has a slight man crush.

The best way to eat vegetables

I've never had a sloppy joe before.  I remember them from grade school lunches - a pile of orangey red mushy meat food on a hamburger bun.  Eww.
I ran across a recipe for sloppy joes - nary a can of Manwich in site so I thought I'd give it a try.

It started something like this:

 Yep, those are carrots.  Grated carrots...in sloppy joes?!  Yep, this recipe started with diced onion, grated carrots and minced garlic.

For my first go around with sloppy joes, I wasn't disappointed but I have nothing to compare at this point.  I'll definitely keep this in my stash for picky eaters in the future....this is a great way to hide some veggies.  Once you add the tomatoes, the carrots disappear.

I think for Matt and I though, the next time I make this recipe, I'll pour it over noodles and call it spaghetti.

Here's the recipe for ya:
From Martha Stewart.
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 carrots, coarsely grated (2 cups)
1 medium onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
Coarse salt and ground pepper
3 tablespoons tomato paste
3/4 pound ground turkey (93% lean, dark meat) (I used 1lb)
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons dark-brown sugar
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
4 whole-wheat hamburger rolls, split

In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium; add carrots, onion, and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 5 minutes.

Add tomato paste and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add turkey; cook, breaking up meat with a spoon, until no longer pink, 4 to 5 minutes.

Add tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, 12 to 14 minutes. Serve on whole-wheat rolls.

House Tour

Because our house is one big circle and mighty confusing if you don't live here (so I've been told,) I thought a pictoral house tour may help.
I'm only including the dowstairs since we don't live upstairs yet.
Let's start at the front, shall we?
We come in the front door:

Turn to the left, through a doorway and enter the living room:

Walk behind the loveseat to see the rest of the room and down the looong hall way type situation:

Let's walk through that door way - and you'll find my "closet" and where I'm supposed to work out:

We'll continue down the "hallway situation":

The door way to the left in the above picture is the master bedroom:

The doorway to the right in the master bedroom is the master bath which is dirty and I'm not showing you.  Privacy, please.

The doorway at the end of the loong hallway situation is the laundry room and my shoe closet:

Now, lets go back to the front of the house and come in the front door again:

This time we're turning to the right and through another doorway:

Step into the room and look down another looong hallway type situation:

Let's walk through this door way and find the dining room:

Continue down the "hallway situation" to this:

Through the door on the right is the downstairs bathroom:

And through the door on the left is a cut through to the other hallway, the one with the red runner just past the room with my closet and workout gear, and a door to the creepy, flooding basement.  No picture necessary, not really much to look at.

Past the bathroom door is the breakfast area, where the "china cabinet" lives, which you cannot see in this picture:

At the very back of the house through the last doorway down the looong "hallway situation" is the kitchen:

I called all the walkways "hallway situations" b/c all it really is a walk through a bunch of rooms.  I've left out the stairway doors (one in the landry room and one in the workout room) since we're not visiting the upstairs today.  It's much too cold up there, we only keep the heat set to 45 degrees since we don't live up there yet.

So there you have it, a tour of the Ringger Hudson Compound.  Hopefully, this will help you follow along when we start making changes and I start talking about where the new kitchen, new dining room, new living room, etc will live.

Other Furniture We've Acquired

Over the past few months we've been fortunate to acquire some new pieces of furniture from my Dad's side of the family.
A buffet and the clock sitting in the middle of it:

Currently residing in the odd little aside to the living room that we don't know what to do with.

Another buffet and hutch - you might call this a china cabinet except we don't have any china:

Currently residing in the breakfast area, where we never have breakfast....or any other meal for that matter.

Dining table:

This table will unfold and we have leaf for it too - perfect for Thanksgiving dinners....except that I don't cook Thanksgiving dinners.  Cooking turkey scares me.
It currently resides in the breakfast area, keeping the "china cabinet" company.
Bonus points if you can spot the puppy in my picture. 

And every great table needs chairs:

We have 5 of these and 1 with arms.  They currently reside in the dining room with the big table we found on Craig's List for $75, b/c the Craig's List table will not fold down like the inherited one.

We're very thankful to have this furniture from the family and with some of my own history.  Bonus that it's pretty and in great shape.