I will probably continue this over on Tumblr for the month of March, but I have been pretty bad at it over here. I'll try to come up with a creative way to combine the month's photos and post in a collage over here. Anyway. Here's the last two days of February - the useless change in my desk drawer, and the Bonnaroo playlist on Spotify that I can't stop listening to.
So we've noted in the past my aversion to ground beef.
But, the more into cooking I get, the less inclined I seem to be to murmur "ewww," in the grocery store whilst selecting ground sirloin.
Nonetheless, I still prefer ground turkey in some dishes. And while I certainly cannot boast the healthiest of lifestyles, I do tend to eat in a somewhat balanced fashion during the week (until Friday afternoon, usually, when I deem approximately fourteen beers between 3PM and midnight my "dinner"). These made for a delicious dinner, and a great light lunch stuffed in a pita with greens the following day.
I've always loved turkey meatballs, and I usually like to add some sort of crumbled cheese and veggies of some persuasion (chopped spinach is always a good call). These, I constructed from lean ground turkey and diced bell peppers, and stuffed with feta cheese in the center. Served with some dill-yogurt sauce and cous cous, they were met with rave reviews.
I’m not sure how any of you made it through the weekend without knowing that my medicine chest holds contact lenses, Chaser pills (do not work all that well. Or perhaps I drink more than any little pill could cure?) and a bunch of random cold medicine and tablets without original packaging in a Tiffany box. You were really dying for this, huh?
I’ll have the recipe involving said Dill up soon, don’t you worry.
And no, that’s not my jalopy with the fancy GPS gypsy machine in the dash.
1 t mayo (my mom always used mayo instead of butter inside grilled cheese when we were kids. This was usually met with a skeptical eye among friends, but it's really so delicious and makes for a much creamier grilled cheese. Apparently the trend is catching on across the interwebs as well! It is also worth noting that I generally do not like mayonnaise and never get it on sandwiches when I have a choice. So. Even if you’re averse. Give it a go.)
2-3 slices cooked bacon
3 slices tomato
Several thin slices fresh jalapeno
1/2 cheddar, 1/2 jack cheese
Assemble accordingly, you know what to do.
And if you can panini press that bitch (we know how I love my panini maker) afterwards, definitely do it.
And if you don't like jalapenos then we should probably not be friends. Sorry I'm not sorry!
As per usual with food magazines, I realized the other day I had gawked at all the food porn photos and never actually made anything from its pages. I decided to change this, and handed it to Matty.
A few minutes after thumbing through it (and mumbling the occasional "oooh,") he arrived on the following recipe. I tweaked it a bit to suit our tastes, but we definitely have BHG to thank for our meal last night. These were easy and so, so delicious.
First thing you should do is pickle some carrots. This made a lot, so if you don't care to have a bunch of pickled carrots left over (I decided I did), then just halve this formula.
Pickled Carrots
What it's Made of:
1 cup warm water
4 T white vinegar
2 T sugar
1 t salt
4-5 carrots, cut into thin strips (I used a veg peeler and did ribbons). Should total about ~4 cups once cut
How it's Made:
Combine all ingredients except carrots and stir to combine.
Pour over carrots, cover and refrigerate for 8+ hours, or up to one week.
I should have let these go for longer in the fridge, so get them in as soon as you decide this is what you're going to make. After the carrots are pickled and the pork is in the slow cooker, you have all the time in the world to spend your Monday holiday drinking all the beers productively.
Here's 17-20, better know as: Time, Drink, Something You Hate to Do and Handwriting.
I am much better at this over on Tumblr, if you need me to prove it. Anyway. Without any further ado:
A new logo and project is in the works for this dear, ten-year-old domain, folks.
And the people behind Neverbroken Productions is going from "me" to "we".
Me and the uncle hung out on the couch. He is looking like quite the adult infant these days, but who am I to judge. It sure makes a comfortable seat for me.
So. We're all painfully aware that football is over.
But for me, that certainly doesn't mean weekends should be without rich, fun, and tasty treats. And since the introduction of the cast iron dutch oven to my kitchen, I have been hankering to fry something.
There is some shorthand that you experience while in the service industry that stays with you forever. You'll be working in a cube and not realize that every time you're out of some sort of supplies, you'll say they're eighty-six. You mumble "at your back" in the grocery store. And, you maintain classic abbreviations for food, after hearing these phrases shouted by cooks on the line for years. Buffalo chicken is almost always memo'd on tickets as "Buff Chix". I still call it this almost every time. I can't resist.
So this weekend, I just so happened to have a rotissere chicken, buffalo sauce, and some other necessities on hand. I had to give this concept a try.
I adapted from this recipe from Sweet Pea's Kitchen. They could have been healthier, I suppose, had I baked them as Christina did. But as I noted above, the whole inspiration was frying something in the dutch oven. And while Christina's photos are way more stunning, I can attest these taste un-freaking-real. Baked or fried, you should make. Immediately.
A heart for V-day? Sure. The pup and our bed about sums up my <3.
And a phone for the 15th - how about a screenshot of the featured app showcase for a major wireless carrier with my dear old company sitting pretty? That counts. And proves my boss is a rockstar.
Saturday Matty was off from work. That made me happy.
Sunday, inside my closet was clean for approximately fifteen minutes. Ozzie inspected and all.
Monday, I scribbled blue and considered the fact that I didn't feel that way despite it being the arguably "worst" day of the week. I am still somewhat on top of the world at work and am loving it these days.
We made self-portraits at our old apartment to hang in the entry way.
Between the tambourine, the orange camera, the MocoSpace tee, and the ridiculously large domepiece, I'd say mine is pretty spot-on:
Everyone has had to answer this on some bullshit job interview in their life. And you, inevitably, nervously sputter whatever you had rehearsed whilst pacing your apartment that morning; That you would like to lead a team. That you'd like to capitalize on this fantastic opportunity with this promising organization. That you intend to be the authority on some sort of technology or skill set. You say something, basically, anything that implies that you do, in fact, have this fabled plan, and that this particular company (and not the one you interviewed with yesterday, or tomorrow) is whom you envision it with.
But all too often, you're out the door after your first annual review--
And the grand promises you made that day in an HR office were just a means to getting your well-heeled foot in the door.
That is, I guess, unless you are me.
I graduated college in 2006 from a little University perched atop Beacon Hill. My business degree, with an emphasis on marketing, looked splendid on paper. I had also taught myself the basics of web and graphic design; enough to slap Adobe Photoshop and (what was then) Macromedia Dreamweaver onto my skill set section of my resume. I figured I stood a pretty great chance of landing a job that would utilize these skills, that would challenge and thrill me, and that would pay me as much, if not more, than what I was making waiting tables by the Garden.
Of course, none of this happened within the time frame I (or my parents, for that matter) expected. I graduated in June, continued to sling drinks till August, and then picked up a six-month paid "internship" for an IT security company based in the 'burbs, 30 minutes away from my South Boston apartment and still college-bound friends. The commute sucked, the product bored me, and I sat in a cube. This wasn't at all what I had envisioned. I kept waiting tables for both the money and the sanity.
A week before Christmas, my internship was nixed and I was basically politely pushed out the door.
I packed up my desk with shaking hands and, strangely, no tears. Despite being a perpetual mess of emotion, I recall an odd sense of lucidity leaving that office park that afternoon, never to return again.
For some reason, I had always assumed that when I reached the latter half of my twenties, I would own all kinds of grand cookware and cutlery and know how to use it (and I would hold these things in my home which I would also own, but that is neither here nor there in this post).
Regardless, one thing I have wanted for who-knows-how-long is a cast iron dutch oven. I came across one over the weekend (this guy from Emeril, to be precise) and, at $50, when most enamel dutch ovens are upwards of $125, I hopped on it. And I knew what I was going to make first. Short ribs. Without a doubt.
Short ribs are one of those things that have exploded onto menus in recent years. Despite it being classified as "chuck" meat, after a few hours of low-and-slow cooking, they turn into the most tender, melt-in-your-mouth delicacies little money can buy. I have eaten these everywhere; with Guinness in stew, over polenta with roasted veggies,with gnocchi, with wine, with anything, who cares. They're delicious.
Couldn't have picked a better meal to have to share. Matt and I made braised short ribs with homemade pasta last night. I will share the details later, but here's a peak:
I discovered this little challenge this morning via Tumblr, and I am pretty excited to partake. Chantelle over at Fat Mum Slim created this list to inspire people to share their lives via photos, on day at a time.
This is a great idea! And now that I factory restored my EVO back to it's original non-sucky state (and can have apps again) I have been messing with PicSay Pro quite a bit.
(I know. I'll get on the iPhone bandwagon some day. Some day when said iPhone doesn't cost me upwards of $600. And some day when I work for a company whose bulk user base isn't running on Android. And some day when I can also buy a slide out keyboard for aforementioned iPhone because typing on glass is for chumps.)
So without further ado. February 1st, my view today:
