Not Fine Dining

So apparently I cannot function. Last week I left my coffee at home, twice. I also forgot both copies of a textbook I teach with at home. I mean, really? Get it together, Ashley. Instead of waking up at 6 to rush around like a mad woman, I slept in until 7. I planned on going to campus just for class and office hours, thus I could park in one of the 2-hour spaces closer to campus. Double thus, I took my sweet time this morning. I made some coat throat tea and a toasted challah roll with both strawberry and black raspberry jam. It was my last roll, which was sad. I also had an apple and some pineapple. Pineapple is my favorite, I think. But, I also eat a bag of apples a week. Who said I needed to choose a favorite, anyway.

I made it to campus with my bottled water and coffee. Glory! I did my teaching thing, then headed back to the office for some fine dining and office hours.

I don’t like to eat frozen food that often, but I’ve been busy lately. I bought this Lean Cuisine Panini. Are you cringing? Really? Chill out, it was actually decent. Processed, but decent. Stop cringing, seriously.

The rest of my day was devoted to reading and grading. I went to the local coffee shop and sat outside. BAD IDEA. It was HOT outside, but then the wind would blow and I would be freezing. It switched back and forth the entire time I was outside. What the hell, Indiana? Make up your mind. I switched between sips of coffee or water, depending on the weather. I also chowed down on some dried apricots. Do you like them? I feel like the only one that does. I like to tear them apart into two halves, and then eat them. It is the adult-version of eating the head and then the legs on you Teddy Graham.

Lars and I were able to eat dinner together, which is now becoming a rarity. I made us grilled cheese sandwiches with baby swiss on Great Harvest Bread Company’s rye. Their caraway rye  is fantastic. I also had a boring bowl of canned chicken noodle stop. If you cringe one more time!!!!!

To celebrate life and the second new episode of House (thank YOU for being good again), I enjoyed a triple berry fruit bar from Great Harvest. Okay, I love their fruit bars. I hate cherries in my baked goods, though. I don’t know why. It was still good, but I may just stick to a simple blackberry next time.

Is there a food you hate, but everyone seems to love. I hate cream cheese. I wish I liked it so I could hang with the cool kids.

The Ashley Challenge is going smoothly so far (I am devoted to posting EVERYDAY this week).

Farmers Market Adventures on a Sicky Saturday

Hello. I am here to narrate my Saturday of sicky-awesomeness. I have been feeling under the weather lately, but I refused to be a sloth. I slept in Saturday, which probably was the best thing to ever happen to me…this week. Also, my sick body appreciated it. My body recovering from Step class appreciated it. Have you been to a Step class? I went on Thursday and couldn’t even complete it. They are NOT MESSING AROUND. For sure.

Well, I slept in. Then, I poked Lars in the face until he decided to go to the Farmers Market with me. Overall: a successful trip. I picked up some Challah rolls (with tofu as a listed ingredient…is that normal?), dried apricots, strawberry jam, black raspberry jam, green beans, and the largest sweet potato I have ever seen.

For breakfast I toasted the tofu challah roll and covered it with some strawberry jam. Thank you rural Indiana for a fantastic start to the day.

I walked around the apartment most of the day and moaned in pain. I hate sore throats. I just drank tea and watched Lifetime, Mother May I Sleep With Danger? was on. The freezer provided my quick and delicious lunch. I love MorningStar Veggie Buffalo Wings, a lot. I’m not even a vegetarian. Doesn’t my picture look similar to the box? I didn’t even do that on purpose.

Lars and I decided to take it easy that night since I was whiny. I cut up the largest sweet potato I have ever seen and made some baked fries with some sea salt and olive oil. Lars boiled burgers. Boiled? Oh yes, he did. We have been watching a lot of shows about hamburgers. People grill them, boil them, and steam them. He was feeling adventurous and it worked. It doesn’t make the most attractive hamburger, but it was juicy. I still preferred them grilled, I think. BUT, this is a great method when you are unable to thaw out hamburger patties in time.

Also, the Great Harvest hamburger buns pretty much rocked my world. I was out of yellow mustard, though. Wah, wah.

Lars and I enjoyed dinner and watched Angels in America: Disc 1. I am anxious for the next disk; a great film.

Tomorrow starts the week of the Ashley Blogger Challenge! I am going to blog EVERYDAY. Can she do it? Who knows, but she is going to try!

Stay tuned…

My oven has no soul.

Okay, listen. I’ve been trying to convince myself that my house is not haunted. I ignored the basement with the secret door. I ignored the torture-chamber design of my basement. But, I will not–I WILL NOT–ignore a clearly possessed oven.

I decided to host a brunch for the new graduate students. It started off fine. I made a healthful granola. My blueberry crumble bars were their usual fantastic. Lars and I planned on making our favorite breakfast pizza and a spinach, green onion, and guoda quiche. We prepared the quiche first and popped it in the oven at 350 degrees. After 35 minutes we pulled it out. Liquid. Freaking liquid! Liquid like the fire pits of hell. Damn you oven. Lars and I checked the oven terminator: 150 degrees. What the mother? Right? We tried to save it, but it was a disaster. We ended up serving a quiche donut, because we had to cut out the soggy middle.

Then we made the breakfast pizza. We made it perfectly, and carefully slid it into our oven. It was 375 degrees. After 20 minutes, we checked on it. It was almost burnt! The temperature had moved up to 45o degrees.

At this point, I am expecting “I will ruin all your cooking, Ashley” written in Pam on my oven door tomorrow morning. Creepy shit, fo sho.

I was so upset, I could barely speak at the brunch. I kept waving my fist at the oven.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the clean apartment and the brunch layout, both of which may never happen again.

We had a bread tray with Honey Wheat and Mama's Old Fashioned Apple Bread from Great Harvest. We served it with some local spreads.

I hate that oven. Grr. My oven is the furnace from Home Alone. I hate it. Hate it.

Unpacking Extravaganza

Whew! Lars and I had a very productive day yesterday. We unpacked the entire kitchen and made some delicious meals.

After he taught, Lars and I headed over to our new neighbor’s house: Great Harvest Bread Company. Lars and I bought their Asiago Pesto and hamburger buns. Lars also stopped by our local wine and cheese shop for some peppered turkey and cheese. Along with our straight-from-the-oven Aisago Pesto bread, this made the best sandwich for unpacking-energy. We also got our greens in with a side salad.

Inside the bread bag: Asiago Pesto

For dinner we had the hamburger buns with cheddar and sautéed onions. These buns were fantastic, because they had this nice sweetness. I also prepared a simple sweet potato recipe from Eating Well. The fries came out decently considering the model of our oven is “Hot as HELL.” The temperature is actually higher than we tell it to be. We’ll make it work, Tim Gunn. To cool off these fries, I had a beer.

Well, here it is: our kitchen. This took forever. It is a small kitchen, but we have made the most out of the space we have. Further, this is an older house.

We have a rather large pantry room next to the kitchen. It is nearly complete, but we still need to find a microwave. Any suggestions for a decently price and effective microwave?

The kitchen…

In the corner, next to the sink, we have a built-in cabinet area. We were able to fit in all our cookbooks and most of our plates, cups, and bowls.

It also houses Lars’s homemade punk canisters. He is so talented.

My Aristotle bookend keeps the books in check.

Our sink is old school, but I think it is cute.

Here is the 75-pound kitchen island I bought from IKEA to serve as counter space. This was a bitch to put together, so it is our pride and joy.

The best part about unpacking the entire kitchen was that I finally unearthed my coffeemaker. This morning I tried Trader Joe’s Chicory Coffee. Yum. I also had some toasted Asiago Pesto bread, an apple, and strawberries.

I was excited to use my colander this morning to rinse the strawberries. It is super tiny and cute, and perfect for rinsing berries.

Well, back to unpacking. More pictures to come!

Potatoes and Popeye

Saturday was a whirlwind! I woke up early and headed to Great Harvest Bread Company, because I was in a sandwich mood. Luckily they were selling my favorite bread today: Popeye. Popeye is a bread with spinach, sweet red peppers, and Parmesan cheese (which you can see melted in little nooks throughout the bread). For lunch, Lars and I used it for sandwiches along with: sliced tomato, garlic cheddar cheese, and turkey. Yum! I ate mine with sliced apple and pickle.

After lunch we saw Inception. Go see it. It is like watching an action film on crack. When we came home to make dinner, we realized some dark clouds. Dark clouds that turned to lighting, high speed winds, and hail. While we hid in the bathroom, my dinner cooked in the oven: Oven-Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Onions from Cooking Light.

These sweet potatoes were so easy to make and so tender. The seasoning complemented it well without covering up the awesome taste of sweet potatoes. This is how you make sweet potatoes, not the crap I had Friday! I recommend maybe cooking them longer to brown them more (if you are into that kind of thing). Sorry the picture is dark because of the storm!

I actually recycled the leftovers to make hash for breakfast this morning. I recommend adding Canadian bacon, too (ours was expired)!

Time to catch up on your blogs and watch Lars make Indian for dinner (pictures and recipe to come).

How’s your weekend going? What is your favorite way to eat sweet potatoes?

Best Friends and a Restaurant Rant

Whew! I’m tired. We got back from Bloomington, IL at 4 AM. It was totally worth it, though. It was great to see my friends, Josh and Robert!

We had a 2 1/2 hour car ride, so I brought healthy snacks (apple slices and carrots) and bought an iced coffee before hitting the road.

Now, we got to Bloomington fine. We were early (we forgot about the time change), but wanted to find the restaurant first. We drove for 30 minutes with no success. Lars and I were starving. When Lars is hungry he turns into The Blonde Hulk. Luckily, we found a Great Harvest Bread Company! And, I found flavored whole wheat pasta. The pasta was not made by Great Harvest, but was made locally. Cannot wait to try it! Lars got a scone. Well it isn’t a scone by definition, but a pile of soft chocolate chip goodness. I helped him eat it. Delicious.

With Great Harvest directions, we hit the road to find the restaurant. We ended up here at some point:

We finally made it. I was a little grumpy and flustered at this point, so I ordered a wine. The server asked for my ID.

Server: Oh, you’re from Indiana…I can’t serve you.

Me: (realizing it is a bad joke and annoyed) Well I’m in Illinois, so I need a glass of wine.

Server: Good point.

Point: Ashley. I love Illinois, but only slammed it to get my freaking wine already.

For dinner, I ordered steak. I was given a choice of three sides. I picked cream of asparagus soup, broccoli, and mashed sweet potatoes. Sounds good? No. Here we go. The soup was excellent. Major props on the soup! I ordered the steak medium, and it came very well done. It tasted like hamburger. The broccoli was watery. The worst was the sweet potato mush a.k.a. Gingerbread Feces. I know, I know. That is a gross description, but an accurate one. It had the consistency of apple sauce. It tasted like a Christmas candle. It was way too sweet.

Dear trying-to-be-classy-but-is-tacky restaurant,

I recommend watching Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares (the British version because it is much more pleasant). He says to keep it simple. Sweet Potatoes, when fresh and especially local, taste good alone. Sure, you can add some “jazz.” You can mash them, slice them, fry them…whatever. But, when you decide to be all “creative” (I mean, pretentious) and make them high brow when you don’t know the basics, you end up ruining them. Plus, I know you are trying to cover up the fact that they are not fresh. You cannot fool me. I know what veggies taste like. Also, my watery broccoli? I have that same effect when I buy them from the freezer aisle. Bring out the natural taste of my veggies, don’t hide it under crap. I wish only the best for you.

Respectfully,

Ashley

P.S. When I got lost, I ran into a corn field. I know you have veggies around. Go local.

My friends ordered fish and pasta, and they liked it. Essentially, this is one (bitter) opinion. The Yelp-ers rated it high.

Afterwards, we hit up the Starbucks and drank coffee/tea and ate my peanut butter cookies. They loved them! We shut down the place (and sat even longer outside after it closed). It was great to catch up! I love these guys!

A Good Food Day

Ever had a good food day? Like everything just hit the spot? You are eating just the right amount and every bite tastes awesome? That was my day.

I started off the day with a blogger staple: oatmeal. I mixed in pecans (from Green Valley, Arizona, holler at my G-Ma!), strawberries, and brown sugar. I ate this while watching Pretty Little Liars on Hulu. I’m not afraid to say it, but that show rocks.

I took Bob’s Red Mill corn muffins out of the freezer (I had saved them from earlier) for lunch. They tasted better than I remember. I slathered them with strawberry jam. I also had an apple and sliced carrots.

After lunch Lars and I ran some errands. We got to take another tour of our new apartment for next year. I love the place! It has so much windows; I’m a fan of natural lighting. I’ll post pictures once we move in and get settled.

The highlight of my day was the chocolate I received in the mail from Hannah over at Wayfaring Chocolate. Thanks Hannah! It was wonderful. Hannah sent Dark Chocolate with Strawberry and Sichuan Pepper (made by the The Curious Chocolatier). The pepper added a gingerbread-type taste. I loved it. Loved it. I couldn’t wait to eat it, so I brought in the car on the way to our new apartment.

Cute package, right?

Lars and I had pizza for dinner. We used panini grilled flatbread again. I topped mine with olive oil, sliced roma tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, diced prosciutto, fresh basil, and oregano. I popped it in the toaster oven, and then enjoyed!

Up close.

Our new apartment is next to a Great Harvest Bread Company, so of course we stopped by. I bought a Blackberry Fruit Bar for Lars and I to split for dessert following dinner. It got a little damaged in my purse, but it was still the best fruit bar I have ever had. They used shredded coconut in the streusel, which added a nice sweetness without overpowering the natural sweetness of the blackberries. I also appreciated the amount of fruit they actually used. I’ll buy this all the time after the move.

What is the best treat you’ve had lately? The chocolate and fruit bar made for an awesome food day!