Remember this?

I love it.

Kittenpile

I love how in love with cats Ryan Adams is.

Don't Leave, Let's Order Breakfast!

I made myself a pretty good breakfast this morning so I thought I'd share.

What you need: egg(s), asparagus (steamed, roughly chopped), bacon (cooked & crumbled), tomato (chopped), grated parmesan, salt, pepper, hot sauce (optional).
Procedure: Scramble the first 4 ingredients together, top with the rest. Enjoy!

This is an easy way to use up leftover veggies from the night before. Try it; hope you like it!

here is one thing that validates, that vindicates life

I walk home alone, 

Bag covered in Cheeto dust.

Should this depress me?

(via) 

  

Dinner Hacking

I kinda failed at grocery shopping the last time I went - didn't really plan out complete meals. So I have been doing some hackery for my dinners recently. Here is my semi successful creation:

Pretty Good! 

I combined chopped, steamed asparagus, wide egg noodles, swedish meatballs and a horseradish-y sauce. For the sauce, I combined light sour cream, prepared horseradish, minced garlic, lemon juice & salt. I love this sauce and make it often (especially for when I grill steak). However, it wasn't quite right for this dish... but whatever. The asparagus and swedish meatballs played well off of each other and I think with the right sauce to bring this all together the dish could be a total success instead of just semi-successful.

Any ideas on what sort of sauce I should make? I suppose next time I could try the sauce that you usually put on a traditional swedish meatballs dish, but it might be nice to mix it up with something different; maybe lemon buttery? Comment with your ideas.

I don't feel like anyone considers me very important in their lives. Second class friend.

rough afternoon. i'll get over it.

Romance!

It's Valentine's Day!

I guess there is a lot of pressure on this day. Romance your significant other! Make today extra special! Do it. Do it, now!

I, for better or worse, don't have that going on in my life right now. Though, I suppose, I have always been the type that will use any excuse to turn a regular Tuesday into a reason to treat myself (and others if they want). With that in mind, here is my step by step guide to romancing the shit out yourself.

1. Buy yourself champagne at the store. 
2. Quietly laugh at the poor suckers buying the slim pickings flowers at Ralph's.
3. Go home and clean off the gym.
4. Make dinner for yourself like you would any other night.
5. Drink champagne while you cook
6. Take your dinner's picture. This makes the ordinary feel special.
7. Put strawberries in your next glass of champagne. YOU FANCY! 
8. Eat your dinner. Maybe light a candle.
9. Watch a romantic movie or tv show (or Storage Wars if you are me)
10. Think about making dessert
11. Search your entire kitchen for an ice cream scoop
12. Drink more champagne
13. Become discouraged because you totally thought you had an ice cream scoop. 
14. Drink even more champagne.
15. Find your ice cream scoop. Renew your faith in humanity and your own sanity. 
16. Make yourself dessert. Put way too many mini chocolate chips on it. 
17. Eat dessert.
18. Drink the rest of your champagne
19. Do not do dishes. Tonight is about l-o-v-e! 
20. Fall in love with how awesome you are. 

panko crusted pork chop with horseradish sauce, french green beans

raspberry sorbet with mini chocolate chips

p.s.  "singles awareness day" is dumb. It's Tuesday. 

p.p.s. If you wanna make a day special, just do it. Be terrific, you guys. You don't have to wait for an excuse like Valentine's Day (but do use it if you want). Everyday is great. Life is seriously wonderful. 

Romance Yo' Self

I wanted to have breakfast in bed this morning... but I live alone and no one will make food for me but me - doesn't really work out. So normally when I have this feeling I take myself out to a nice brunch or something, but instead I was ambitious today and made a yummy breakfast. Here are the details -

What you'll need: Avocado, couple eggs, salt, pepper, tin foil and a baking sheet.

the fixings!

Cut the avocado in half, hull out a little bit so the egg will fit, plop in the egg. I placed each half on a little tin foil bed so that it would sit level. Put salt and pepper on top. Cook in the oven til the egg is cooked.

raw!

Maybe next time I'll melt some cheese on top.

cooked!

My final step was to serve with a piece of whole wheat toast and some strawberries.

delicious!

It turned out wonderful. It looks pretty impressive for not a lot of work. And I am such a sucker for warm avocado... YUM. Try it out and let me know how you like it.

Check Liver Light Is On

This is how my insides feel about my life choices:

Greatest Since Sliced Bread

On a whim, I purchased Rosemary Focaccia Dough at Fresh & Easy for $1.69. It ended up being mad easy to make and very tasty. 

Wrapper McPackaging

The simple instructions are to take out of the package, pat it out into an even blob, put on greased baking sheet, let it rest, dimple with your finger, prick it with a fork, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt  & dried herbs (if desired) and bake. Sort of sounds like a lot of work, but really it takes no time at all.

Dimples McDough

My bread came out lop-sided. Not sure why - some magical air bubble or something. Regardless, it tastes great. I am going to feel so fancy making a sandwich with this. Not to mention that it was cheap as heck for the impact it makes on a meal & how much it makes.

Tasty McBread

Overall, I give it high marks and will definitely be getting this again in the future.

I'm Lovin' It: At Home McMuffins

Before heading out of a long hike (which I'll write a post on later), I decided to make some imitation Egg McMuffins for the gang. 

I tried out a new technique for making the eggs. I cooked them in muffin tins in the oven. This was extremely easy. Basically all you have to do is grease the pan with cooking spray, plop the egg in (breaking the yolk if desired - I did since McDonald's does too) and bake. I sprinkled a little salt and pepper on the top of each one before throwing them in the oven. 

easy like Sunday morning

The only downside is that a regular muffin tin ends up making the eggs a little too small for an english muffin. So I skirted this problem by breaking each egg a little so it covered the surface area of the english muffin.

y u so small?

hulk smash!

To finish off the McFakeMuffins, I put one strip of bacon (made in oven) and a cheese slice. I used whole wheat english muffins, low sodium bacon and 2% milk cheese slices. They turned out really well. Next time I will make them with turkey sausage patties.

suck it, Micky Ds

Super Bowl World Peace

I was originally planning to host a get together with SD peeps for the Super Bowl but that shit didn't work out (lame). So I turned those lemons into lemonade and partied elsewhere - here are some highlights.

Since both teams (Giants & Patriots) have pretty much the same colors and I didn't have heavy loyalties either way, I decided to go with a simple red, white & blue outfit. Also, since I live in Sunny SoCal I had the luxury of wearing shorts in February; suck it everywhere else. The look is a little 4th of July (or some similar America! holiday), but I think it was successful.

Shorts: Ann Taylor Loft, Tank: Don't Remember , Sweater: Target, Shoes: Keds, Necklace: Vintage

Detail of necklace - Vintage from my grandma

Onto the food! 

I made a veggie platter and buttermilk ranch dip with bacon bits & green onion. It was really great and ended up being pretty low-cal (bonus!).

Steamed asparagus, steamed french green beans, raw carrots & celery

Next, the main course was swedish meatball subs. I thought it would be a fun little twist on the old standard of a meatball sub with marinara sauce. I definitely liked these more than the traditional, but then again I like a swedish meatball meal better than spaghetti and meatballs... soooo, live your dream.

I tried to make this crap picture better with instagram... didn't really work.

And finally, for dessert I made brownies, cut them into football shapes and iced on laces. The icing was a little runny so the laces didn't really come out as well as I had hoped, but they were a real hit anyways. Lesson learned: make food shaped like the ball of the sport you are watching and you are a culinary winner (this may fail if you make hockey pucks).

Fudge-y! 

Game, Commercials, Madonna 


I wasn't very excited about the match-up mostly because I don't have any favorite players on either team and just generally don't much care one way or the other for either team. I did end up rooting for the Giants because of Lex and my mom suddenly deciding she liked JPP. It was a really good game - and the last quarter was classic.

The commercials seemed weak this year and I was hoping for some more memorable stuff. The kind of things you talk about at the watercooler. oh well... not buying a car, beer, phone or whatever else they were selling.

I thought Madonna's performance was solid. It was overly theatrical which is exactly what I expected from her doing the Super Bowl. I was so ready to make jokes about her super toned arms but they were censored with sleeves (boo!). The highlights were, of course, MIA flipping off the camera and Cee Lo's teeth. The lowlight was everything about LMFAO (though, I did laugh at the "I workout" bit).

Not too shabby of a day for last minute. 

Note to Self

Things to blog about:

1. Is the sax solo coming back?
2. Homemade McMuffins
3. More baby pictures
4. Hiking

Soon.

Sloth Life

(via)