12/12/12 Concert for Sandy Relief: Initial Reactions

I did not watch all of the 12/12/12 Concert for Sandy relief last night, but I did watch some.  Regrettably, I fell asleep before being able to see Sir Paul McCartney perform (there’s a reason they put him last, people.)  I did record it though, so, sometime this weekend I can watch the musical acts and skip through the stuff I don’t want to see.

Here are my first impressions, and thoughts on what I did see.

• Bon Jovi is losing his oomph.  I love Bon Jovi as much as the next girl, but if you have to tune down your songs because you can’t hit the high notes anymore, tune them down enough so that you’re still not straining.  Don’t believe me?  I was looking for youtube clips, but, I can’t seem to find any yet.  I’ll get some, and get them up for your review.
• Eric Clapton rocked it as always, and, didn’t tune down a single note.
• Alicia Keys is an amazing performer and musician.  Even my dad commented on it.
• I was going to comment when I saw Mick Jagger unbuttoning his shirt.  I stopped short when I saw he was wearing a shirt underneath.  Well done, Mick.  No one wants to see your 69 year old “abs.”  Unfortunately, Roger Daltrey did not get that memo.
• Why was Kanye West wearing a skirt?

What are your guys’ initial thoughts?  I’m sure I’ll have more to say after watching the rest.

Tasty Tuesday: Freezer Favorites

Sometimes, I just don't feel like cooking a whole meal from scratch.  I would love to, at every opportunity, but sometimes, I'm just tired, or crabby, or too darn hungry to go through all of the prep and cooking when I can just grab something out of the freezer.

Lately, a lot of those something's have been from Trader Joe's.  Their frozen meals are not so bad, in fact, some are quite good.  (I've heard recently about a recall on Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice, so maybe pass on that one, yeah?)  However, a lot of their frozen pasta dishes are pretty tasty.

Confession:  I get crabby when I'm too hungry.  Like, seriously crabby.  This usually results in me yelling or getting cranky with someone (mom, boyfriend, sister, cat...) or crying.  It also inhibits my ability to find food to eat.  I can be standing in front of a  stocked fridge and find absolutely nothing.

This was my conundrum last week.  I wanted to make linguine with clam sauce (which I'll do a recipe for another day, because it's super easy and super delicious,) but my mom said the clams in the house were off limits.  *Sad trombone*  So, I started hunting in the fridge and freezer.  After about three trips back and forth, I settled on a bag of Trader Joe's fettuccine with mushrooms.  At 150 calories a serving, I didn't feel bad eating more than one serving (there are 3 in the bag.)  This frozen delight takes six minutes total, with one stir halfway through.

Trader Joe's Fettuccine with Mushrooms

I tend to find that sometimes, (okay, most times) frozen or prepared meals are over-salted.  The bag suggests garnishing with grated parmesan cheese.  After a quick taste, I decided that no extra salt was needed, but did give the bowl a healthy grind of fresh cracked black pepper.  I also tossed in two large handfuls of fresh baby spinach.  The baby spinach wilted down to almost nothing, but gave the dish a fresh-not-frozen taste, as well as some color.

While it wasn't something fresh and homemade, it stopped the crabbies.  What are your favorite Trader Joe's or frozen meals?

Word.

Tasty Tuesday: leftovers.

I’m going to try something new today, and maybe, every Tuesday for the foreseeable future.  As my blog blurb suggests, I cook at home.  Not as much as I should, but I do.  Sometimes, what I make is pretty darn tasty.

A lot of times, what I have to work with is leftovers from various meals as well as a vast array of condiments in the pantry and fridge (and I do mean vast.  The last time we did a full fridge cleanout, we found seven different types of mustard.  Seven.  And that was just mustard.  Don’t even get me started on the hot sauce.)

So.  Leftovers.  Love them, or hate them, we have to cook with them, because, well, it’s wasteful not to.

Awhile back, my fridge was packed with leftover steamed white rice, sugar snap peas, and steak.  I certainly could’ve reheated everything separately, but why stop there?  We also (always) have garlic, onions, s&p, hot sauce (as I mentioned earlier.)  We also had that day Korean short rib sauce/marinade (found here.  We purchase it from our local Asian market.)

I grabbed my heavy duty pan.  Using canola oil, I sautéed one medium onion, sliced.  When they were almost done, I added the snap peas and steak (which I cubed) to get the chill off.  The steak and snap’s were already seasoned, so a little bit of additional garlic, s&p went a long way.  Then I removed everything from the pan and put it aside in the bowl I’d later use for serving (let’s conserve dishes, yeah?)

A bit more canola oil in the pan, and in goes the white rice.  I let my rice get nice and brown, picking up all of the flavors left behind from the onions, peas, and meat.  After a few minutes, when it started to look like fried rice, I added the veggies back in, and stirred everything together to combine.  The rice should be popping and sizzling a little.

Once it’s determined that everything is heated through, I added the short rib sauce.  This turned the dry rice into a rich, decadent, sticky, delicious meal (think of rice from a teppanyaki or hibachi restaurant, when they add a little bit of teriyaki to hold everything together.)  I let the sauce cook out for a few minutes, stirring often, so the bottom of the pan doesn’t scorch.

This is my take on beef fried rice.  It took a lot of leftovers off my hands, was good not only for dinner, but reheated well as lunch the next day at work.

Fried rice with steak, sugar snaps, onion, and short rib sauce.

Variations:  

• Scramble an egg and mix in, Chinese style.
• Fry an egg, top your bowl of rice with it, Korean style. (My personal favorite.  Egg + Sriracha = happiness.)
• Any mixture of vegetables and protein would work.  I don't recommend fish, as it would fall apart into the rice mixture.
• Sub brown rice, if you enjoy it!

70* in Chicago in December =/= Christmas

It’s no secret that I still live with my mom.  I’m not ashamed.  I just do.  Hopefully, within the next 6-12 months, that will change.  But for now, I do.

I want a Christmas tree.  I want to decorate for Christmas.  Not because I am Christian, because I’m not, but because I find it festive and fun.  I’ve never had a Christmas tree.  I’ve never decorated a Christmas tree.  We’ve never had twinkling lights.  My mom did put a string of lights on the mantel this year, but let’s not get crazy!

When I have my own place, Christmas will throw up in it every year.  Christmas will be from the Friday after Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day.  There will be music and lights and a tree with gorgeous ornaments and a star on top.

I’ve been grinchy lately because the weather has been unseasonably warm.  No one else is complaining that yesterday, December 3, 2012, the registered temperature at O’Hare hit 70 degrees.  I want snowflakes and icicles (but NOT black ice, right, Chrissy?)

I started a list of things I want to do this Christmas season the other day.  Including:

• See A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre (a tradition of my Graham’s family – we are going this Saturday.)
• Visit the Christkindlmart at Daley Plaza (my hope is to go Saturday after the matinee.)
• See the Great Tree at the Walnut Room (but not eat there… the food suffers at this time of year.)
• Decorate a Christmas tree*
• Go ice skating
• Be kissed under mistletoe*
• Make Christmas cookies with my family (This will happen Sunday the 23^rd.)

*These would be firsts.  No, I’m not kidding.

TGIF

Things that have made today better than any other day of the week so far:

•        Free coffee with a fuel purchase this morning.  I bought $12 worth of gas, and saw a little itty bitty sign informing me that I was privy to free coffee.  Thank you, Shell gasoline!
•       It’s payday.  Thank goodness for that.
•       NYE plans have been finalized, see point 2, it’s time to buy the tickets.
•       In addition to point 2, it is FRIDAY.  We have a double date this evening.  We never have double dates.  We’re both pretty excited.
•       Making plans to catch up with a friend and former co-worker whom I haven’t seen since she had a baby in August.
•       A cute chuckle from a blog I follow.  Kate at The Small Things Blog gave us a tutorial this morning on how to add patches to the elbows of a sweater.  Hers happen to be cat patches.  They’re super cute.  Also, all of her tutorials and posts are awesome.  I feel like maybe we could be friends, because she grew up in Illinois, and I grew up in Illinois. (yeah, yeah, Illinois is huge and we probably never lived within 200 miles of each other, but still.)

Black Friday

There are three types of people in this world:  those who love Black Friday, those who loathe Black Friday, and those like me, who love looking at the ads (which I do every Sunday, not just the Black Friday ads) but loathe and would not be caught dead taking part in a doorbuster sale.  (There is one exception to this, which I will get to later.)

I know people who begin planning for Black Friday the second the ads and sales are announced.  They have very early Thanksgiving dinners.  They set multiple alarms.  Some even camp out for sales, you know, like at Best Buy where you can get a $600 camera for $10, but there’s only ONE in the entire store.)

To me, this is craziness.  Why would you forfeit SLEEP AND SANITY to not even guarantee yourself such a deal?  No thank you!  I do have to give them mad props though.  Last year, I did go to Wal-Mart for a midnight doorbuster, but I was not the one purchasing it, and I was mainly there to keep the other person (Graham, this was right before we were dating) company.  We were lucky in that the item he wanted was one that they were giving numbers out for, so there was no pushing/shoving/clawing, rather just sitting in line and waiting.  I heard the rest of the store was mayhem.  Adults shoving children out of the way for items.  People fighting over everything from comforters to toaster ovens.  Not.my.thing.

Most of the time, the sale items are big ticket things I just don’t need yet, and don’t have a place to store them in until I do have need for them.  What I do enjoy, is the online shopping, and this is mostly for clothes.  Last year, I was lucky enough to get a lot of things from The Limited drastically reduced, albeit, most of it has the tags still on because by the time I got around to wearing it, it didn’t fit anymore.  Before this weekend, I hadn’t bought new work clothes since that time (approximately.)  My mom and I stopped at Francesca’s Collections and LOFT, where I was able to get some new, versatile wardrobe options on sale (bonus!)

So, to all of you Black Friday shoppers… good luck to you.  I’ll be thinking of you from my couch, in my sweats, with my laptop.

Apology

It has been brought to my attention that a previous blog post, which has since been deleted, has been viewed as offensive to my family.

This hurts me more than I can put into words. I love my family dearly, and it was NEVER my intention to hurt any of them in any way, shape, or form. The post was meant to express the simple fact that Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday. My family, however, are my favorite people on earth, and I cherish and appreciate then more than I can verbally express.

I clearly did not think my words through as I wrote them that day. I believe in sincere, heartfelt apologies, and admitting when you are wrong.

My post was about thanksgiving, and not my family. I was wrong to express my feelings on this upcoming holiday in such a way that could have painted my family in a negative light. It was in no way my intention and I sincerely apologize to all of my family.

I hope that they can understand that if I would have thought that anyone would be hurt by my post that I would not have ever written it. I hope that they can accept my apology.