unplugged (sort of)

There was a time I was addicted to all social networking sites. I had my blog, MySpace, my MySpace blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube ... you name it, I was plugged in. I spent far too much time on all these sites. I have decided to pare down these obsessions, and last week I officially deleted my MS account. Hurrah! I don't miss it at all. I also turned off all my updates on Twitter. The only reason I didn't delete my account there all together is that the main use of it for me is to put pictures in my FB status updates through Twitpic. And I do.

So I'm down to Facebook and my blog. I'm not about to give either up. But I do feel freed by dropping all that excess networking weight. Now to update my FB status update to say that I'm going to bed.

Nite nite!

Summer bliss

I know that people are polarized about cilantro. To some, it is divine. To some I've heard it tastes like soap. Those poor, poor people. To me, cilantro is the freshest taste of summer - impossibly yummy.

Guacamole

• 5 soft Haas avacados


• 2 1/2 limes


• 1 tsp salt


• 3/4 cup onion, diced


• lots and lots of cilantro (maybe 1/4 cup or so)


• 3 roma tomatoes, diced


• 1 1/2 heaping tsp minced garlic


• a couple shakes of cayenne pepper

In a medium bowl, mash together the avocados, lime juice, and salt. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Refrigerate for at least an hour for best flavor.

*if serving with salted tortilla chips, watch the salt in the guacamole. you may want to put less in.

not much going on, but isn't this the cutest 15-month old ever?

Today is the first day in over a week that it's not raining. Last night the sun came out long enough for us to play out front of the house while the hubby mowed the lawn (yay, no more jungle!). Hopefully there will a bit of sun today -- I wouldn't mind the rain every night from 9pm to 4am. Can we work with that?
Anyhow, I haven't done much cooking this week -- Chicken chili on Friday, hubby made peanut chicken on Wednesday (anyone know of a really good Thai peanut sauce? I'm obsessed with this peanut sauce at a Thai restaurant I went to with Autumn while in NYC, but I haven't found anything to compare in the store) ... I digress; and I don't even remember what we ate earlier in the week. It obviously wasn't memorable. Anyhow, here are pictures from playing yesterday -- I know I'm biased, but my child is so freaking adorable =)

Suzy Homemaker

I sometimes remind myself of that semi-homemade person on Food Network, minus the obnoxiousness and the stupid tablescapes. Is she still on tv? Okay, so I don't remind myself of her in the least, except that I take a lot of shortcuts in my food where I don't think it matters too much. Like I use frozen bags of shrimp (I apologize in advance to anyone who takes offense at frozen bagged shrimp, but I'm highly allergic to raw shrimp proteins and I can't handle them without gloves. It's bad. If someone wants to come over and fix up my shrimp for me, I'd lessen my carbon imprint and all that for you) ... anyhow, frozen bagged shrimp, giant jars of minced garlic (I only use fresh when I'm roasting whole bulbs) ... you get the picture. I use fresher ingredients when I think it really matters for my food, but I'm comfortable using my shortcuts when I can make a tasty dish faster and easier and get back to living my life and spending time with my family. Awww, right?

I go on this crazy silly diatribe to give you this:

I have never tried the Bertolli's pastas in the refrigerated section of my grocery store, but this week we decided it was time. I give you tomato cheese tortelloni with shrimp and bacon in a garlic cream sauce. It uses 3 pans -- if you can find a way not to use three pans and for everything still to be hot, I bow down to you :)

In a pan, saute 4 slices of raw bacon, roughly chopped. When bacon is almost cooked, add raw shrimp and saute until cooked to your taste (a couple minutes is sufficient).

In a small sauce pan, combine 1/4 heavy cream, 2 oz cream cheese, 1 tbs minced garlic, salt and pepper and a pinch of basil over medium heat until bubbly.

Boil water and cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and combine with sauce, and then add shrimp and bacon.

de-freaking-licious. Yum!

food pictures for which I didn't write recipes

I sometimes take pictures of my food because it's so tasty I don't want to forget how to make it. But then I forget to write down the recipe, and then I don't remember what exactly made it taste so good.



Take this orzo. I remember that I boiled it in chicken broth. There's chicken (I think leftover from a rotisserie), and cilantro, and red pepper flakes. There might be some sort of soft cheese -- goat, feta ... but I don't remember. It was damn tasty.


And this beautiful pork roast was rotisseried all day on the grill, and I know there was a lot of seasonings, but I haven't the slightest what was on it. But that was a magnificent roast.



And this soup. I know that I started with Squash soup, and added cooked orzo and sausage, maybe some onion. I imagine there's fresh parsley in there, given the greenery. That's as far as I know ...

Someday I'll attempt to recreate these dishes. For now I'll just drool at the pictures.

Lost: one bunch of Swiss chard

I bought a bunch of Swiss chard a couple Sundays ago. I had been on the hunt for some for the past couple months, as they don't seem to stock it at my regular grocery stores. I finally found some at the Sweetbay, the weekend before last and snatched it up. I was making creamed chard this week! (Sounds dirty, don't it?)

Then something happened: I couldn't find the darn stuff. I searched the fridge, through the veggie bins, on all the shelves ... I don't really have the biggest refrigerator. I just couldn't figure out what happened to it.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I was cooking dinner, and I went into the freezer for the shrimp. Lo and behold:

Hard as a freaking rock. And then it thawed, and was super soggy. My poor Swiss chard. I guess I'll be taking another pilgrimage to Sweetbay sometime soon ...

My country boy

You can't really see it, but the bottoms of those feet are F-I-L-T-H-Y. Capital "F". My little country boy (that's what my daycare lady calls him) hates shoes. Always has. Do they grow out of it?

Happy Mother's Day!!