My First Apron

Oh, my gosh!

I missed you.

I hope you are enjoying the weekend, and that you get a long weekend. I love long weekends because Saturdays are like Fridays, except you’re not tired from work. We spent today running our errands (wedding bands, grocery store, sunscreen now that it’s summer) because I am a taskmaster didn’t want to wait until Monday. Also included in these errands were a pair of white flip flops from Old Navy. We went into Old Navy specifically for these flip flops- okay. Real life. I have dirty feet in the summer. Do you? Tell me it’s not just me. I don’t know what it is. I spend hours in the shower in the summertime with a pumice stone and strong soap trying to get the dirt off. I’ve had more pedicures in the past couple of months with wedding stuff than I’ve had in my life and still, the dirty feet. To try and combat this, I decided to get a pair of flip flop “house shoes”. Meaning I can put them on after the shower and know that my clean feet are going into shoes that have never been outside or had a chance to get dirty. I picked white flip flops because: I will know if they get dirty, and I would never be caught dead outside my house in white flip flops. Is that weird, or do you get me? So right now I’m cruising around the apartment in white flip flops with wet hair. I’m sure Coach really thinks I’m pretty.

In other news, while I was at Old Navy I also found a swimsuit for the honeymoon. It’s a one piece. Not Coach’s favorite. But- it’s so cute! So 50′s! So stomach-fat-controlling! I wanted to post a link to it…but, it is out of stock online. It is Old Navy’s “twist-front control max” swimsuit in black.

For dinner, I made you (& Coach) mussels. And then forgot to take pictures of them! Can I tell you about them anyway?

Okay, thanks.

They were so easy. In a big pot, I combined 24 oz. Miller Genuine Draft Beer (in the form of a Tall Boy, purchased by his lonesome from the liquor store down the street. Given to us in a paper bag. I made Coach carry it) with a generous splash of Pinot Grigio, 1/2 tsp. of sea salt, 3/4 tsp. red pepper flakes, 2 tablespoons minced garlic, and the zest and juice of one lemon. I turned the stove on medium-high and after a few minutes of letting the beer, wine, and spices start towards a boil, I added 2 lb. scrubbed fresh mussels.

A few months ago, I would have gotten to this point reading the blog entry and been like, “okay, whatever. I’m not making shellfish.” But! You totally can. You can go up to the counter and say, “I want 2 pounds of mussels.” And they will give them to you, no funny looks. And it will cost you nine dollars or less. This is true.

Don’t be scared. I promise!

And let me take this moment to say 2 pounds of mussels is too much for two people. I don’t know what we were thinking. Two pounds is probably for four people.

Now that you’re confident in your shellfish preparing abilities, cover those mussels up, turn the heat to medium, and let them steam for 15 minutes. Or 20, if you are busy trying to make a quick salad. I would say not more than 20 minutes, though. When you lift the lid of your pot, you’ll see that your mussels have opened!

After that time, put your salad on the table along with a loaf of good, crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, bread. Turn off the stove and bring the pot over to the table (don’t forget your trivet. You don’t want marks from the hot pot on the table). Provide a ladle. Enjoy lots of mussels, and use your good bread to sop up lots of broth. Do not eat any mussels that did not pop open in the steaming process. If you don’t finish your mussels, put them in an airtight container and store in the fridge- be sure to eat them the next day or throw them out.  Enjoy!

Next time I’ll have pictures. I promise.

Love, Grace

Hi! I said yesterday that there were lots of things around here that are keeping me busy. While I’m going through pictures of recipes I made lately, in the spirit of being brave and blogging, I thought I’d talk about the shenanigans going on around here.

This fall, I will start my school counseling internship. This is sort of like student teaching, except it lasts for an entire year. I’ll be in the school where I am interning four days a week, all day, doing everything a school counselor does. It’s going to be awesome.

The school where I have my internship is also awesome. I am very lucky to have a place there. It is also VERY far away from where I live. Too far away for me to realistically take the CTA. Driving, I could be in Lafayette, Indiana, by the time I took the CTA to my school. Not kidding. So, we recognized the fact that we were going to need to get another car.

Coach’s school is about halfway between where we live now and where my internship site is for next year. Coach’s school is in a great area that is attracting young families like crazy. It is close to the lake and has grocery stores and parks within walking distance. At some point, we got the idea that we could move to that neighborhood instead of buying another car. Coach could easily walk to work. We would even have a nicer apartment! More amenities! Apartments within our price range (which we calculated by adding the price of our rent now to the estimated cost of purchasing and maintaining another car) have workout facilities in their buildings, dog runs, and pools- much less dishwashers and washers and dryers in the units. Things I dream about!

We even went so far as to register for grill accessories, knowing that by October 1st, we would be the proud owners of a brand new grill on our fancy balcony in our fancy apartment. I was very excited to move, except I wasn’t. Our apartment now is vintage. I kept imagining my eclectic sense of decorating in an apartment with stainless steel, floor-to-ceiling windows, and exposed brick. I kept thinking about how we’d be broke. I kept thinking about how we were going to trade space, random dinners out, and a charming apartment for a washer and dryer. In the same weekend, we confessed to each other that we didn’t really want to move. Lickety-split, I removed the grill accessories from the registry and we were off to IKEA for a new kitchen island and storage for the dining room and bedroom, which were projects we had put on hold when we decided to move (pictures of the completed projects to follow!). Coach hung up pictures that had been on the floor propped up against the wall for months. I measured windows and looked up tutorials for how to make curtains with fabric and hem tape. We bought a Keurig (I’m not sure why that feels like it was part of the “we’re not moving” thing, but it does. And I’m back on coffee). Last night, Coach hooked up our new one-step-up-from-basic cable. We were solidly anti-cable, but after two years of CBS sports events being fuzzy, the NCAA championship going in and out the other night were the last straw for poor Coach. And the Hoosiers weren’t even playing. To that end, when he was flipping through the new channels last night and saw that we get the Big Ten Network, I thought he was going to cry.

I still have lots of ideas for our apartment, like making curtains. I also want to rig up some sort of bulletin board or cork board- I like this and this and this. I want to replace the top of the desk so that there’s actually room to write, not just room for a computer. I want more lighting everywhere in the apartment. I considered the idea of painting, because the spots where the last people patched over where their curtain hardware was do not look that good, and I can’t quite get my kitchen cabinets clean even after rubbing so hard I had a Magic eraser burn, but Coach says that the project would be way more difficult than I realize. We’ll see.

There’s part of me that’s afraid we will get this apartment exactly how we want it just in time for whenever (NOT in the near future) plans for Coach Jr. are in the works. But I guess that’s life, right? It doesn’t make sense not to try to make the home you live in beautiful and wonderful and a reflection of your tastes just because you won’t live there forever, I think. At least that’s what I’m going to tell myself.

Have you made any big changes lately? Do you have any clever and charming DIY’s you’ve tried, or want share?

Love, Grace

hi, friend.

I’m sorry that I haven’t talked to you in awhile! I’ve had LOTS of reasons to stay busy- school, working on the apartment, getting ready for the wedding. But I think that I stayed away because I’ve been worried I’m just not very good at this.

My insecurities started when my garlic and soy sauce kale entry got spam-bombed. This is (I don’t think) a technical term. I’m talking for one whole afternoon, I did nothing but delete nonsense spammy comments from that blog entry. And you know how it is, the whole time my self-talk centered around, “well, if you didn’t think you were such hot sh-t in the beginning and started humbly with a free blog instead of buying your own domain name NONE of this would have happened, and you don’t even know how to take pictures anyway, and having a Facebook page mystifies you. What are you doing? You should just quit.”

So I decided to just forget about blogging. For a whole week. But it’s been there in the back of my mind, and I decided that maybe there’s a reason that I decided to go big in the beginning, and I don’t have to be good at it, I just have to like it (which I do) and over time I’ll figure out little tricks like how to work a Facebook page and how to keep entities who are not real people from being able to leave comments.

For now, I’ll try to be the Little Cook Who Could. Chug, chug.

Love, Grace

Before we were cute and engaged, back when I was on the popcorn and Merlot diet, Coach and I worked at the same school. Instead of being on the popcorn and Merlot diet, Coach was on the Burger King diet (Chipotle on special occasions). Sometimes he would go through the drive-thru at a local fast food place that serves chili dogs and bring it back to school to eat. I would have to vacate the premises and eat my lunch in my classroom. Coach and I became friends because we were two of the only people at work under the age of 50. We caused mild ruckuses and were always the instigators of weekend plans, bringing our friends together for nights out.

At the time, I had a long-distance boyfriend and I was pulling out all of the stops to show him that I wasn’t as feral as I knew I seemed. As a part of this, I wanted him to see what an amazing cook I am. At the time, I was not an amazing cook. The only thing my stove was used for was boiling pasta water or making popcorn and I used my oven for the first time after living in my apartment for approximately a year. I didn’t want to make anything for the first time with the boyfriend there, so I recruited a guinea pig: Coach. Our system was simple. I picked out the recipe from my Anyone Can Cook cookbook  that I wanted to cook for the boyfriend, and Coach would come over with his cooler of Miller Lite (I wish I was kidding) and eat it, both to make sure it wasn’t poisonous and to offer feedback. At some point the system expanded to where he would also bring me a bottle of wine in return for cooking, since he knew my requirements: Merlot, under $10, funky label. We would eat and then sit in the front room, him in the cozy chair with the ottoman that I got for $5 at a garage sale and me in the glider from the house I grew up in. We talked and finished our drinks and I smoked until late in the evening.

Recently, Coach asked me to make chicken with pan sauce from the  cookbook. It was the first thing I made for him during our Grace’s Test Kitchen days, “back when we were just friends,” as we call it. He had loved it when I made it that first time, and the times when I cooked just for practice and not to make a specific recipe, I usually made that. This time, however, his reviews were not as good. I asked why, wondering if maybe I had done something different before. “Nah,” he said, “I think you just know how to make things taste better now.”

One of the meals that Coach always asks me to make again these days is marinated pork chops. I call these Thai pork chops in my head, but I am no expert in Asian cuisine and cannot promise that these are actually Thai. This is one of those marinades that you will have to taste as you mix, because some may like it spicier or sweeter than others. I have never actually measured out the ingredients, so don’t feel obligated to follow my numbers. The combination of flavors is good no matter which one stands out more, I think. Ladies and gentlemen, Thai pork chops:

Chop a Serrano pepper. Leave those seeds, friends! Be brave.

Transfer garlic and pepper to a bowl and add roasted red chili paste.

Add soy sauce, fish sauce, and lime juice. Again, make sure you are mixing and tasting after each addition. Finish with a pinch of sugar. Marinate overnight.

The next day, take the pork chops out of the refrigerator and let them come up to room temperature, if possible. Put the marinade that is left in the bowl in a saucepan and bring the marinade to a rolling boil for a good five minutes and then simmer until the pork chops are finished cooking to create a sauce.

Put two tablespoons of canola oil in a skillet and heat to medium. Add two chopped cloves of garlic and saute until golden. Add pork chops and cook for about four minutes each side or until done. You want the internal temperature of the pork chops to reach 145 degrees.

Remove the pork chops from the skillet to a plate and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm. Add carrots to the skillet along with a little soy sauce or broth for moisture. Saute carrots to desired doneness. Squirt some fresh lemon on top, if desired.

Serve pork chops and carrots with rice or quinoa and top with some of the sauce. Sprinkle with chopped fresh cilantro.

Here is the printable recipe.

Hi! How are you? Is it hot where you are? Right now in Chicago it’s 82, or that’s what it said on the marquee on the bank while I was waiting for the bus outside of Trader Joe’s. Which brings me to the first thing I love…

1. Trader Joe’s. I love Trader Joe’s. Whole-heartedly. TJ is one of those things that my family and friends are really sick of hearing me talk about. I never really went to TJ until I moved to Chicago. Now, I go whenever I can- especially when I spend the day subbing (I sub at Coach’s school) because a) there is a TJ on the way to the train- imagine my delight- and there is nothing that helps me shake off a day of little people and their incessant questions like a little three buck Chuck and other miscellaneous treats. Today is my last day of spring break (I sub tomorrow. Kindergarten) so I decided to live it up by hopping on the bus and heading to my neighborhood TJ. I love every part of the process. I love picking out the interesting food, I love the atmosphere, I love being greeted by the fresh flowers when I walk in. I was on a mission to buy certain things today (more on that later) but I also stocked up on some treats such as beefless ground beef, Chai latte mix, and vanilla beans, which for some serendipitous reason are being sold in a two-pack for $3.99. These will very soon be turned into some of Skinnytaste’s vanilla sugar which was such a hit present at Christmas and hopefully some of Joy the Baker’s homemade vanilla extract. Joy, one of my number one food blogging Internet heroes, explains how to make this extract in her cookbook that is as beautiful and comforting as a bedtime story.

2. Women’s Health magazine. I believe I’ve mentioned it before. I really love Women’s Health. I get most of my health/beauty/style information from this source. I love the advice. I love WHM. Coach, who reads Men’s Health, also loves my WHM. In fact, many times when my latest issues come in the mail, Coach gets ahold of it before me. Most recently, I love WHM’s book, Look Better Naked. For me this is not at all about nakedness and totally about the fact that when I zip my wedding dress I can’t breathe. I think you have to be able to breathe to say vows and to thank people for coming to your wedding, so I need to do something about the size of my body. Specifically my midsection. While my new Spanx should come in the mail soon, I’m also taking the opportunity to learn the plan put together by some of the wonderful people at WHM for eating, exercise, and other things such as how to make my skin prettier. The book came in the mail (finally!) yesterday. I got up to the 6-week meal plan, which is why I bought the following at TJ: Brussels sprouts, flaxseed, tofu, artichoke hearts, and frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts. So far, I am completely intimidated by the plan (why does effective exercise have to hurt? I like my easy hour on the elliptical watching Criminal Minds reruns!) and totally excited about it. Reading the meals made me hungry- they sound really good. If you are looking for a plan to help you eat right and get in shape, I would totally recommend it. LBN is developed by trained people who know what they’re talking about, and focuses on health- not just results.

3.  Vegetarian meat options. I’m not a vegetarian, although I think I could be a really good one. What I am is someone who is watching her calorie and fat intake (see above). I especially love the Morningstar chipotle black bean burgers (stay tuned for something delicious to do with these burgers) and their breakfast sausage patties. In my freezer now I also have Morningstar chickenless chicken nuggets, which I thought I was going to have for dinner tonight with Frank’s Red Hot and blue cheese dressing, until I thought of a better idea based on my new LBN book (if it’s good, I’ll post about it!).  In my fridge I have tofu, as mentioned, and beefless ground beef, as mentioned. You might remember that awhile ago, I made homemade meat sauce. And when I saw how many calories were in that serving of ground beef, my brain exploded. Totally, totally not worth it! Unfortunately, Coach believes that ground turkey is totally, totally not worth it. Which means we are at a taco impasse, and I need tacos in my life. Which means I make them for lunch, with my meatless meat. I think you should give meatless meat a try, if you haven’t. There are so many reasons to cut down on our meat intake, and so many delicious ways to try!

4. My Vitamix. When we first bought the Vitamix, I was afraid of it. It is a high-powered, expensive kitchen appliance. I read the books cover-to-cover (I do not believe I have ever done that before). I started using it very slowly, like in the tomato sauce, and a smoothie here and there. But now, I am on Vitamix fire! The smoothies are so delicious. What an easy and tasty way to get fruits, veggies, fiber, and protein into my diet. I’ve been making Coach smoothies for breakfast every day with strawberries, bananas, vanilla soymilk, and vanilla whey protein powder. Since I can sit down and eat (and to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the frothy effect of the milk + protein powder on the smoothie), I make an egg and toast or PB and toast and a smoothie of just fruit and carrot juice. It is delicious and wonderful and perfect to drink while making my a.m. Internet rounds.

5.Tom’s wedges. I can’t lie- I just ordered two pairs of these bad boys. The Lina pair (l-o-v-e) and the gray pair. I’ve never been a full-time heel wearer, you know? I like heels a lot in theory. I like to be fancy, in theory. I also travel by walking, especially now in Chicago, which means if I want to wear heels, I either carry a big bag with extra shoes or I have sore feet. But, I discovered something amazing this past Saturday- you look SKINNIER in heels! Who KNEW?! Not me! I do now though, and I also needed to add some footwear to my summer collection. I’m adding to my trosseau, after all. I couldn’t decide which pair- crazy and fun or sensible which will match everything? It was Coach who was finally like, “why don’t we just order both? It’s not like you won’t wear them.” SO I DID. And I’m so excited. They are so cute and have great reviews. I’ll be long and lean looking all summer long! Stay tuned for Instagram pictures and my own reviews.

Have a great Friday tomorrow and a great weekend! I hope the weather is good where you are. Check out the blog in the next couple of days for some fun with meatless meat and LBN-inspired recipes.
Love, Grace

Hi, I miss you!

My last finals for winter quarter are due tomorrow. I have a long spring break to-do list written on my new notepad. My new notepad has neon paper with no lines.

It is late right now. I have been staring blankly at the script I’m writing for a voicethread due in one of my classes and eating those whole wheat pretzels from Trader Joe’s. And when I say eating, I mean total open mouth, crumbs that won’t be totally off of my chest until I shower kind of eating. Mindless. It’s getting close to bedtime. Also, friend, I love Trader Joe’s. I so totally love Trader Joe’s. Last Saturday, I was in a huge PMS funk, and I went to Trader Joe’s. It makes me so happy. But- can we talk about these pretzels? I have pencils on my desk, right? I might as well be chewing those (it took me about two pretzels to form that thought, but I still continued to munch).

In the spring and fall, when it’s windy, if our windows are open and our bedroom door is shut, the door shakes and bangs as if there was a Harry Potter monster stuck inside. It’s awful. To remedy this, we’ve decided to leave the bedroom door open, even if it means I wake up with a mouthful of cat hair from where Chuck slept on my pillow for his requisite 37 hour daily nap. The bedroom door is open right now, and Coach is asleep, since he has a grown-up job. Which means every other light in the apartment is off. I like that our apartment is little enough for me to hear him sleeping. Comfort. I dislike the fact that the minute I look away from the computer screen I will be completely blind.

Anyway, so on to the food. I have a list that is loosely entitled the “when I get that terminal diagnosis” list. The top item on that list is procuring a pack of cigarettes. Smoking is bad. It is bad for the body and for the people around the smoker. It is expensive. It is not healthy. I’m so glad I quit and thankful I quit successfully. And- I miss it all the time! So, that’s the first thing I would do if I received a terminal diagnosis.

Lately, my “when I get that terminal diagnosis” list has centered around food I would never eat again if I didn’t have to. Here’s my list so far:

- baby carrots

- almonds

- white fish in general

- bread

- cereal

- sweet potatoes

- green beans

- salmon

- beans

- canned tuna

I keep trying to like these foods, because I know they’re good for me. For instance, my bread right now is a very, very good source of fiber. I console myself with the tablespoon of delicious, salty, sweet peanut butter that I slather all over it (have you read The Art of Racing in the Rain?)

Mostly, I just wanted you to know. That even I, who loves food whole-heartedly and whose love language is feeding others, does not view all food as created equal. Well, I might feel differently if I wasn’t a person who needed to order Spanx and avoided pants with buttons.

And, like I said earlier, I miss you, and can’t wait to get back in the kitchen this week. Among other kitchen putter projects, I’m thinking we should have a pancake re-do. Are you up for it? I am.

Love, Grace

I know I said I’d be off the grid this week.

In fact, I should really be working on my Counseling Theories paper right now.

But, I had to tell you- I tried to make you a delicious breakfast this morning. Pancakes. They were a disaster- burned on the outside and soggy on the inside.

I don’t do a lot or know much about baking. Are pancakes baking? If I’m doing breakfast, my breakfast is always savory and hopefully spicy. I can make French toast, but I don’t, because I don’t really like it. Eggy bread. Ick. My pancakes involved whole wheat flour, oatmeal, vanilla soymilk, vanilla whey protein powder, an egg, some baking powder, some salt, honey, and a previously frozen mashed up banana. They were sort of a mix of recipes I found online plus the addition of the protein powder.

I’m not sure what I did wrong. I don’t know if I should have used applesauce instead of the banana and had the banana as a topping? Maybe that’s what made the insides so mushy? I think the concept was good, but somewhere the practical application failed.

So here I am, in the middle of finals week, hoping you can help me figure out what went wrong with my pancakes! And, while we’re talking pancakes, what are your favorite kinds? Any other tips for making them golden brown and delicious?

Love, Grace