Weekend Achievements

I think that overall I had a pretty good weekend. On Friday, Susan and I decided to blow work early and go to Cooking Uptown, a fabulous cooking supply/classes joint off of 7th street that I am obsessed with (side note: anyone want to take a pizza and calzone making class there on May 24th?). I needed to buy a bundt cake pan for my upcoming adventures in baking. I also ran into about 1000 other things I wanted to buy but talked myself out of because my birthday is in June, so I can just get other people (Blake) to buy these things for me.

I wound up with this adorable little mini-bundt cake pan. As you may know, I LOVE making tiny desserts because I have what I like to call "portion control issues." This is also why I shouldn't be left alone at a buffet (especially at the Golden Corral). The pan is just so damn cute and it makes these tiny delicious cakes. The cakes will be discussed in more depth in a future post once I get my pictures uploaded.

I also went to Borders, where I of course spent way more money than I wanted to. I got the Everyday Italian cookbook on Susan's recommendation. Giada is fabulous, and she has three cookbooks and it took me a really long time to settle on one because they all looked amazing. I went with this one because it included a recipe for tiramisu, which I have been wanting to learn how to make. I also got the Williams-Sonoma Mastering: Cakes, Frostings, and Fillings book. I've been wanting to learn to do serious baking for a while, and this is how I'm going to do it. It shows you all sorts of basic recipes and several ways to change them up, and it presents the easiest recipes first, which is key. Next weekend I will be making a pound cake. Regular pound cake is a really easy recipe that I'm pretty sure I can handle, so I'm going to make a chocolate-espresso version I think. The people I work with are going to hate me for bringing them cake every Monday, but they'll deal with it.

I successfully went to the gym both on Saturday and Sunday mornings (yay me) and I did most of my cleaning...I have to mop the floors tonight because I got lazy yesterday. We never made it to the boat because of the crappy weather. But look how pretty this rainbow was! It was right outside of our window. The picture quality's not great, but it was really a pretty sight.

I also finished reading Wicked. It was good, but it was long, and I'm not sure that the whole fairy tale thing is really my genre. I may try the sequel book still though because it was a good story. I started reading a book I got at Borders by Jen Lancaster "Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office." This is more my style. It's mindless and funny, which is how I like most of my reading this time of year. Once I'm super bored in the summer I'll get into smarter stuff.

I think that's about it for the weekend. I'll post again later with Bundt cake fun and perhaps a few new kitty pictures since I just unloaded my camera for the first time in about 6 months. Happy Monday everyone! :)

Obsession: The Office

Ok, pretty much everyone that knows me knows that I'm obsessed with The Office. I quote it all the time. It's just amazing. And last night was their first new post-strike episode and it was hilarious. Even though I typically don't enjoy the episodes that take place away from the office environment, it was still fabulous. Please let there never be a TV-ending strike again.

30 Rock was also fantastic. If you don't already watch it, you should. It's just really really funny.

And if you missed either of these shows, you can watch them for free on NBC.com...something that I will surely be doing from work at some point today. Yay!

Weekend Goals: the "I Stink" Edition

So since last week when I predetermined my goals for this weekend, I've already botched two of them. Well, one is my fault and the other is the fault of Mother Nature. I've been trying to plant herbs for WEEKS now but we keep getting rogue days where the overnight low is close to freezing, and some daintier herbs, like basil, don't appreciate such low temperatures. Yesterday and today it is 80 degrees and beautiful outside, but then next Monday - Wednesday will have overnight lows in the 30's. Damn it. I'm considering buying the herbs anyway and just bringing them inside overnight on those days, but I don't know if I want to chance it.

Also, I'm an idiot, and I forgot that to volunteer on weekends at the Humane Society I have to sign up by noon on Thursday. I realized this at 2pm on Thursday. So I guess I won't be making my triumphant return there until next week. Boo. But I did sign up to make a monthly recurring donation to them last week, so I don't feel too awful about myself.

Susan and I are considering blowing this joint after lunch and either A. drinking wine on my roof or B. going shopping, depending on how long the upcoming rain holds off. Yay. Also, I'm pumped to make tasty kabobs tonight. So the weekend's looking good already.

Weekend Goals:

• Go to the gym at least once, but hopefully twice. This fat isn't going to burn itself.
• Cooking: kabobs tonight, ravioli tomorrow, and enchiladas Sunday. Also, I'm going to try out a chocolate bundt cake recipe on Sunday at some point. I've never made a bundt cake before, so it should be exciting.
• Hit the By Design warehouse sale. We got our pretty new kitchen table at the warehouse sale a few months ago for an amazing price...and I'm looking to get a buffet cabinet of some sort.
• Runs to the grocery store, Target, and Home Depot (it's high time to get this whole screen door situation under control. And possibly the tile flooring for the balcony as well)
• Boat maintenance.
• House cleaning: kitchen, bathroom, windows, mopping...boooooo.
• Possible run to Borders...I have a gift card and I haven't been there in forever
• Reading
• Attempt to stay away from the mall. Even though I just mentioned the possibility of going today. Also, that's where the aforementioned Borders is. I suck.

Happy weekend everyone!

Afternoon activities

So I ran at the gym again today. I increased my routine time from 35 minutes to 45 minutes and I feel pretty good about it. Here is the unfortunate thing: it is absolutely georgous outside. Like 75 and sunny and breezy and I had to come back to work for the afternoon. Boooo. I'm going to go ahead and guess that my productivity will be at an all time low for the rest of the day. If today was Friday I would have not come back to work and I would have gone home and sat on my balcony, or perhaps the rooftop deck, to read and drink wine and eat cheese and crackers. I may actually do that tomorrow if it's still pretty out.

Tonight is going to be glorious, because it marks the return of new episodes of some of my favorite shows: 30 Rock, The Office, and Scrubs. I know I'm trying to not watch as much TV, but there are just some shows that I will never be able to drop. I'm looking forward to eating the last of my veggie lasagne from the weekend and enjoying some happy TV watching time. Also, I'm going to cut up and marinade the ingredients for the kebobs we're grilling for dinner tomorrow night. Yay!

Obsession: Risotto

As Susan and I have discussed about a thousand times, risotto is surely the nectar of the gods and should be enjoyed as often as possible. It is by far one of the most delicious, versatile, easy dishes to throw together of all time.

I started my love affair with risotto when I saw this recipe in my Everyday Food magazine about 3 years ago and I immediately became obsessed. Once you can make regular risotto, you can add all sorts of tasty stuff to it. Last night I had risotto with orange bell pepper, yellow squash, green beans, and tomato. It was scrumptious. I've also experimented with adding meats, like rotisserie turkey and chicken or pancetta, and about a million different veggies. It's all gold. If you go to the recipe search on Cooking Light's website and put in risotto, it pops out about 50 amazing ideas. But who really needds a recipe? Here are some basic ways to add different ingredients:

• For adding vegetables that need to be cooked a bit first (like when I used the bell peppers, squash, and green beans above), saute them until cooked and then add them to the risotto just as the last of the broth is being absorbed.
• For adding items that don't need to be cooked first, such as tomato, add it when you're stirring the cheese once you've removed it from the heat.
• For adding frozen veggies (I like to use peas), or already cooked meat, stir in as the last of the broth is being absorbed and wait until they've heated to add the cheese.
• For adding raw meats, like bacon or pancetta, add at the beginning, when you are sauteing the onions.
• For adding dried mushrooms (such as porcini...delicious), rehydrate the mushrooms in water overnight, and then use the water in lieu of half of the required broth.
• For making tomato risotto, use tomato juice in lieu of half of the required broth.
• For some basic substitutions that change the taste slightly, use red wine instead of white, use vegatable, turkey or beef broth instead of chicken, substitute feta, mozzarella, or pretty much any other cheese for parmesean, or use leeks or shallots instead of onions.

I like to have risotto as my main dish, with a spinach salad on the side. Blake (because of his whole 'needing meat to constitute a meal' thing) likes to have it as a side dish. It's just so delicious. I must have been a fatty in a former life, because I love food way too much for my own good. :)

Blog inspirations, volume 2

Who knew that ALL of my roommates from college had blogs? Well, at least the roommates that I still talk to. Check out Alannah a.k.a Mallie's Blog.

And I just learned about getting my comments under control...let us not forget about the disclosure in my first post about how retarded I am with computers. :)

Per request...

Alannah, who might be the only person that reads this blog (hi mal!) has requested pictures of my kitties. So without further ado, here are pictures of my furry little children. The pics are a few months old, as I hoard pictures on my camera until it is full and then unload them all at once:

Norman likes to play fetch (for real), help me cook, and be as naughty as possible.

Wylie likes to climb into things, love Blake but hate me, and drink out of the bottom of the shower.
And here's Blake with the boys. :)