Leftovers no more

I have finally finished my leftovers from last week! It seems like they have been around for a lot longer than that though.

Leftovers can be wonderful. I definitely don't have the energy nor the inspiration to cook every night; so in that sense, they are completely necessary. However, when I had them for two meals on Sunday and still wasn't quite done, I was approaching the end of my rope.

At least one of the repetitive meals was super photogenic. Soup and salad featuring week old greens and even older cabbage (in the soup).

For the soup, I halved this recipe and added a bunch of things from the fridge/freezer. The soup base is a can of diced tomatoes and half a can of refried beans with 1-2 cups of "stock" (water with all purpose seasoning...that's basically what bullion is, right?) plus frozen veggies, cabbage, and meatless crumbles topped with tortilla chips and some parmesean cheese. Quite good, and ready in about 15 minutes. Tough to beat...at least the first time around.

Salad is old greens from giant tub I thought I would have no trouble finishing before it got soggy (early in the summer, I did eat a Costco sized tub of spinach pretty much all by myself while my parents were out of town for 10 days. Not so much this time and I can't explain it) plus diced peach, pecans and fresh herbed cheese drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The cheese really did the trick, as it should for $7. I can't help it if I have expensive tastes!

Me want cookie!

Yeah, what else is new?

Sunday night, when I probably should have been re-vamping a power point and practicing a presentation, I decided to empty my cupboards instead to make a massive batch of Quaker Oats' Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies. A bold choice that did wonders for my sanity at the time and feelings of accomplishment for the weekend. Unfortunately, I don't have the same positive remarks for the presentation :-/

Most of the ingredients. I can't believe I forgot to feature the oats. Duh.

1 3/4 sticks of butter plus 1 1/4 cups of sugar. We're off to a great start!

Who needs a mixer? Look at that creaminess, achieved with only a mini spatula and a mild arm workout. Next the eggs and vanilla get added.

Once the wet is combined, in goes the dry. 1 1/2 cups of flour and 3 cups of oats. Almost needed a bigger bowl, but somehow managed to get it all mixed with same mini spatula and minimal spillage.

And now the fun part! The original recipe calls for raisins. As if by only adding dried fruit, the nearly 2 sticks of butter at the beginning don't exist. These are cookies, and cookies = dessert, so I added my mix-ins accordingly: semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, shredded coconut (I did go with unsweetened here,) Craisins and pecans.

I used a heaping teaspoon to parcel the dough out onto the cookie sheets and ended up with about 60 cookies.

Although by the time I went to bed, there were only about 55. Quality control is an essential step that I take very seriously.

At least when my less than stellar grade comes back later this week, I will have sufficient sweets to drown my sorrows with.

Loooooooong Day

Like my bike ride to campus---I mean "Grounds" as we say here at "The University"---my weeks start out all up hill. But once I get through 6 hours of class on Wednesday, it's smooth sailing on the way home/to the weekend.

Today seemed extra long since I went Downtown this morning for a class simulation/field trip at City Hall and then back to school for an hour before spending 3 hours working on a group presentation. At 5, I headed home only to turn around and head out again to attend a neighborhood planning meeting (1 of 3 required for the semester for the class that had the field trip.) The meeting ended at 7:30 and I was glad to come home to some leftovers.

Knowing that I would be attending the meeting, I moved "cooking night" up this week. Last night I tried to use up some of my large collection of vegetables in a giant pot of curry.

Sweet potatoes, potatoes, my last 4 baby carrots, bell pepper, eggplant and kale all got added to the pot. I also decided it was high time to use up some of the block of tofu that had been in my fridge for over a week. I was worried I had already left it too long, but it turns out it is some of the best tofu I've had in the US (Japan gets its own category. If you don't believe me, ask Andrew, tofu non-enthusiast for his unbiased opinion.) The brand I bought was Twin Oaks, the extra firm tofu variety with Italian Herbs. After I use up the rest of it, I will be hunting for some more!

In addition to the positive tofu experience, I also liked how kale tasted covered in curry better than when I tried to roast it in the oven. Which is a good thing, since Tuesday and Wednesday's dinners only used up half of the curry.

My favorite part though is the sweet potato. Don't be surprised to see a lot more of them as fall rolls around.

And now it's time for bed. おやすみ！

Doing my part

Yay, it's Saturday and I have done my part for the economy today. My morning started at the Downtown farmer's market, continued with a trip to return light bulbs to Lowe's and a trek to Target where I emerged with a cart full of things for my apartment. Now my wallet is recovering from my spendy ways on a new purse hook. Classy.

I recovered by eating a yummy sandwich made with some of my spoils.

Wheat bread with hummus, guacamole, leafy greens, fresh roma tomatoes from the farmer's market, and some Target string cheese with nashi (Asian pear, also from the farmer's market) and tortilla chips on the side.

Lunch got me through the assembly of two shelving units, listening to some NPR and a good 40 minutes of blog reading/writing. I suppose I should get back to work...there is a pile of dishes in the kitchen and two empty boxes in the middle of the living room floor waiting for me.

Dining Hall at Home

Apparently there is something about Wednesdays that makes me feel the urge to cook. Tonight I was inspired by 3 days of cloudy, wet weather and an ongoing hankering for pizza. And fries. A typical student meal, except without a meal plan I get to make them myself.

I only used 1 of the suggested 4 sweet potatoes the recipe called for and neglected to modify the other ingredients, so these were oilier than they should have been. Not exactly crispy either. Next time I might try them in a frying pan instead of the oven.

I made my own yeast-less pizza dough with this recipe. On this one I remembered to halve all of the ingredients. I had a nice round base all spread out on the cutting board, but when I tried to transfer it to the pan, it ended up looking like this:

I covered it with these...

...starting with a layer of pesto and meatless crumbles.

The was a slight mishap with a sliding hot mitt as I was removing the pizza from the oven, making it look even wonkier than it already was, so there is no photo of the final product save for the slices on my plate below (note the missing cheese on left piece.)

Cheeseless...so sad. Also sad is the fact that I unwittingly bought low fat feta cheese at the store and it tastes nothing like the full fat version and doesn't really melt either. At least this meal used up a fair amount of the container.

Mmmmmm fries. Thankfully it would take something much worse than failing to calibrate a recipe properly to make sweet potatoes taste bad.

And now that dinner has been cooked, eaten and cleaned up after, it's back to school work. Ugh, there have already been a few days where I can't believe I signed up for this willingly!!