Cassie

Deconstructed lentil burrito bowl (vegan)

Snagged this great recipe for Mexican Style Beluga Lentils from The Witchy Kitchen (great recipes on this blog by the way). The only change I made was that I added double the paprika because it was the last bit in the little can so I just dumped out the whole thing. Oh yeah, and I didn’t add onion powder because I didn’t have any. I used Tapatio for the hot sauce.

1 Cup Beluga Lentils (Rinsed)

3 3/4-4 Cups Water

1 Tsp. Red Wine Vinegar

1 Vegetable Bouillon

1 Bay Leaf

1 Tsp. Cumin

3/4 Tsp. Paprika

1/8 Tsp. Onion Powder

1/8 Tsp. Garlic Powder

Black Pepper and Hot Sauce to taste*

Place water, lentils, bay leaf, and bouillon in a sauté pan and bring to a boil. Stir. Allow to boil hard for about 45 seconds to a minute. Turn the heat down to where it will keep the lentils at a low simmer and place a lid on the pan at an angle, so that steam can escape. Allow to simmer on low heat, stirring intermittently, for about 20-25 minutes.* Once the lentils start to look plump and done, add the vinegar, dry spices, pepper, and hot sauce. Mix and remove from the heat.

* I couldn’t get this part right so there ended up being a lot of liquid left once the lentils were cooked. What I did to fix this was drain the lentils into a bowl to collect the cooking liquid. I added a little bit of the liquid at the end to loosen everything up and to make sure the spices were mixed in well.

The corn salsa is my “recipe.” It has no heat because I didn’t have any peppers to add but it became friends with the lentils straight away and they’ve been inseparable ever since. It was an un-recipe really because I was cleaning out the fridge and was using up stuff I had in the freezer and what not. So here it is:

1 bag of frozen corn

1 small onion (or half a large one) chopped to the same size as the corn

I huge handful of cilantro* chopped

1 tsp cumin

The juice of one lime (or 2 key limes)

Salt & Pepper to taste

*I usually take the stems of the cilantro leaves and then chop it until I have about a handful of just the chopped leaves. Sure it’s more work but who wants to eat stems?

**If the pepper fairy were to visit me and I had peppers to add, I would chop and add a poblano pepper

Add all the ingredients, stir until well mixed, taste it and see what else you want to add. Maybe more cilantro? Maybe more salt? You decide. Keep tasting and don’t worry I won’t tell anyone you used the same spoon over and over.

Overall thoughts: I really liked the lentil recipe and mos def am making them again. Have to admit I was pretty impressed with my corn un-recipe, too. Deconstructed looks prettier but I ended up mixing everything up in the end anyway.

Salsa

Everything else

First world problems: Spending too much money on food

Everything else

February 1, 2016

Hello, it’s me.

Its officially one month in of this new year, 2016. Not so new anymore. So how did I do with my handy dandy budget for food this month? Effing horrible, that’s how. I pretty much doubled what I budgeted for and might I add there were no envelopes used at all.

How do real people actually make this work??? I swear we don’t eat that much! Remember my mom gave us $200 as part of our Christmas gift? Yeah, well, that was gone so quick I almost forgot she gave us that money. We pretty much doubled the original budget. Ugh! I don’t even know how. Well, I kind of know how. Sure, we went out to eat at restaurants. Yeah, I admit, I had like 4 beers when I could have (and probably should have) had just one. I also went to Subway quite a few times for my son for his wrestling matches or those all-day wrestling tournaments. I did really well in scrounging up meals with the food we had in the cabinets and fridge. My kids were like, “Mom, why is the fridge so empty?” Of course there was food in there but not as full as they are used to seeing it. Dang. Doubled the budget… I still cant get over it. No, we are not rolling in money like that. I’m a social worker and my husband works part-time (well, 30 hours a week but still part-time). We do feed 2 very active kids – our 14 year old boy is ALWAYS hungry. Still! What the heck!?

What’s the game plan now? It’s a new month and a new start (cue eye-rolling) and I think what I’m looking at is having to budget more fast food like Subway because the reality is that is sometimes that is what is the most practical. I did buy some of the ingredients to make my son’s usual order at Subway at home but he’s picky about stuff like that. We’ll see.

Accountability time. So far I have spent $243.35 on food. That includes a trip to the grocery store for our usual stuff to make dinners, a trip to Starbucks, Papa Murphy’s pizza, and random food at Safeway. Should I just use this like MyFitnessPal and record everything I spend on food. Not much fun for you to read I guess but no one is reading this anyway. I wish people would though. I need some help, some tips, some pointers! Seriously, how do people do this? I know there are families out there that can feed a family of four on the cheap and have some fun, too. But how and how cheap? Pray for me.

Love,

Cassie

2 years ago today…

Confessions, Everything else

There must be something about the day after Christmas because 2 years ago today was the last time I posted anything on this blog. Here I am again, the day after Christmas, without an idea as to when the last time I posted was until I logged on. In short, I’M BACK!!!

I’m not going to pretend that I will pick up right where I left off because a LOT has changed in these past 2 years. For one, I’m married now, have a acquired a 3rd dog (I’ll have to tell you that story later), have moved back to Tacoma (which is something that I never thought in a million years that I thought I would do), graduated from USC and am now an MSW, a LICASW actually. I have a kid in high school now, too. Lots of changes.

Now that the holidays are mostly over, I find myself reflecting on what to do now. I am thinking about how I am going to clean up my diet after all of the cookies, pies, and other goodies these past couple of months. I am also thinking about how to clean up my finances because I don’t know about you all by I spent a lot of money on gifts this year. I am grateful that we’ve been blessed with the ability to give nice gifts to the kids and our family members but still, it was a lot. Man, kids’ gifts get more expensive as they get older don’t they? On top of that, my grace period is ov new year new me BS er and I have to start paying back my student loans (eek!).

Ok, now, please be advised that this is NOT a “new year, new me” manifesto. Those are annoying, no offense. I am making a promise to myself that I will do more of what I want to do from now on. What are those things? Well, cooking and blogging of course. Grad school kicked my ass and sadly I have not been cooking as much as I used to. No cooking, means no blogging. So there will be more blogging, too. Running. I have had “half marathon” on my list of things to do for about 5 years now. That’s just ridiculous and indicative of the how many excuses I have given for why I have not done it yet. This post is already getting long so I’ll spare you those. Travel. Now that I’m back in the PNW I have to make to Canada this time. I say this time because during the 12 years I lived here before I never went (I know, a shame).

For the first matter of business, I will be coming back with a new project to overhaul our finances like I was saying earlier. We are like most American families and have a ton of debt. Most of it is mine from student loans and I won’t tell you how much because I’m embarrassed to but I will tell you I should have about 6 master’s degrees by now with the amount of student loan debt I have. We also have a bit of credit card debt from our wedding. What does this have to do with food? The grocery bill, duh. I am super meticulous when it comes to tracking our bills but other than bills I am lazy when it comes to our spending and that includes groceries. So, to remedy this, I am considering going to the envelope method where I will budget out our expenses and put cash into the respective envelopes. I’m wondering who else have actually done this and have it work. I see a million Pinterest pins from people who explain what it is and how it worked for them to pay off a trillion dollars in debt in a year but are they for real? That can’t be real, can it? Irregardless (I know that’s not a word leave me alone) I am going to try it and see how it goes.

The budget for groceries for our active family of 4 is going to be – drum roll please – $500. Is that insane? No seriously, I want to know. I did a quick calculation in my head, and I think that’s about how much we spend. I am going to take out $200 every 2 weeks and use the last $100 as a buffer so we don’t go over. Whatever is left over I guess can roll over into the next month, or we can save for a nice dinner out or something.

Ok so that’s about it for now. You will be reading a lot more from me and could really use any suggestions on how to lower costs for food for a busy family. That’s if anyone is reading this… Oh well, if you’re not. See you soon!

Delicata squash and carrot soup

Recipes, Vegan Recipes

I had these 2 delicata squash that I needed to use because they were getting old. I was home all day so I roasted them in the oven following the instructions on the sticker that was on it.

To roast the squash: cut lengthwise and put cut side down with a couple tablespoons of water in a baking dish. Cover and roast at 375 degrees for about 35 minutes.

Recipe for the soup follows:
2 delicata squash roasted and removed from skin with spoon
24 baby carrots boiled until very soft
2 cloves garlic peeled and boiled withe carrots
Half inch size of fresh ginger peeled and also boiled with the carrots
Everything went into the blender even the boiling water. Seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. Added some soy milk -about half a cup- to get things moving and voila!

Oh! I also put about a teaspoon of curry powder in the blender, too.

Mini grilled cheese and tomato soup

Everything else

After an afternoon of shopping – groceries, Christmas gifts, and the like – I decided to go with an old standby for a quick dinner. I don’t know if you can tell from the picture but those are baguette sized slices of bread and that’s a dessert bowl – you know the kind you would put a scoop of ice cream in. I don’t know why I but I love small food. Just like animals are cuter when they’re babies I think small food is so cute and fun to eat. Of course hubby had a real size bowl and regular slices of bread.

This meal is entirely from Trader Joe’s.
– the TJ’s carton of creamy tomato soup
– roasted garlic and time bread loaf
– Earth Balance
– sharp cheddar

That’s it! Except I’m also having wine because that’s what shopping makes me do.

What is this gnarly thing?

Everything else

Who can guess what this highly underutilized vegetable is???

I have a great recipe that I got from the New York Times with this thing as an ingredient. Any guesses?

Lazy Sunday breakfast

Adventures, Breakfast, Favorites, Menu

Hash browns, pan roasted heirloom tomatoes, over medium eggs with smoked salmon and dill, pancakes, and – last but not least – Bloody Mary. Then football and a long run later. It’s days like today that I’m glad I know how to cook because we are able to enjoy a great meal while still in our pajamas, no makeup, no shoes, no lines, and no snooty severs. Just good food and even better company.

Happy Sunday!

Pear, goat milk Brie, and honey crostini

Adventures, Favorites, Recipes

A perfect light lunch after my grocery shopping today. Everything you see here is from Trader Joe’s. no, they don’t pay me to say that although I wish they would.

Here’s what it took:

Sourdough bread slices
Sliced goat milk Brie
Sliced pear
Drizzle of olive oil
Broil for few minutes
Then drizzle honey
And a few grinds of black pepper

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