A recent recipe that made the cut

I like to cook. And I like to cook new things especially. I very rarely make something more than once. When I cook for you, you will be a guinea pig, because I'll be trying something new on you. But the whole point (aside from just liking variation) is to collect recipes that I love. The recipes I aim for must taste great, but if they're fast, healthy, and/or inexpensive they get bonus points. And when I'm a grandmother with a family I'll have a list of the stuff I make and it will be awesome. Both my grandmothers are/were great cooks and when one of them died we missed her food, but there were not many recipes written down.

So as per my style, I am collecting and modifying recipes systematically. For each recipe that I keep and tweak I've probably made 10 others that didn't make the cut. And instead of an old school recipe box I use software of course. It's called YummySoup! and I love it. It's super easy to import recipes found online, really easy to modify, group, and organize them, and you can make an actual cookbook out of it really easily.

Anyway, I didn't have a whole lot to eat today, so when I got home from work at 6:30 I wasn't hungry so much as hangry from low blood sugar. I thought about picking something up on the way home but I didn't know what I was excited about so I just decided to make this new recipe really quickly immediately after getting home. So I flew through making this. It was a race between me and my impending super low blood sugar rage. And I won, in more than one way. This was a perfect quick weekday meal. And really yummy and satisfying. It also didn't hurt that I plan what I'm going to make on the weekend and do all the grocery shopping then, so all I have to do is get home, choose between a few meal choices, and cook it. Oh, and I also cooked the bacon this weekend and that saved some time.

So here you go. I'm sharing it. I'll be making this again for breakfast sometime soon.

Cheesy Bacon and Potato Frittata

I love love love LOVE this band

Click here for the video (youtube embed is a fickle mistress). So that's what they're like just randomly playing a song in a hotel room. That's talent, people.

You should definitely check them out live. I've seen them a few times and it was easily in my top 5 best live music experiences.

They'll be at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga in July!

Come over

A super mellow, velvety song with a smokin' hot video.

Click it. Watch it. Love it.

http://youtu.be/PtEXBhs2Vtw

Easter is my favorite holiday

• All of the candy (especially fruit-flavored candy) with none of the costume work or begging of Halloween.

• Also my Easter basket used to contain other gifts as well. Such as this guy. Boy did I love this guy...

Why, I cannot tell you.

• Easter is really close to my birthday. So sometimes we would have it together. Which meant, Easter basket! Candy! Funfetti angel food cake! With funtetti frosting! All my family there because my birthday is as important as Easter! And gifts!
• And it means it's finally spring (back when I did not live in the PNW) and summer is coming!!!

So basically Easter for me is like Christmas combined with Halloween, but with none of the snow or work. And ham.

Although none of those things really apply now, and I'll just have to wait for kids in my life for Easter to return to its former glory, I do have a new pastel colored stash in my office candy drawer.

Adorable video of the day

I've seen this about a dozen times. Not only adorable, but good on the ears.

Cordova. In pictures.

The Violent Offender and I had a work meeting in Anchorage a few weeks ago. So we went to that. It was cool. We ate at Crush as per bajabucky's suggestion. It was yummy and we actually learned some things about wine in Alaska!

But then I took the 45 minute flight to Cordova to visit bajabucky in her new 2,000 person town.

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me in the plane because it was one of the most beautiful flights getting into Cordova going through the mountains.

So this is where bajabucky works. That's the deck outside the building. It's quite pretty. With the harbor and water and boats and mountains and eagles and all.

Inside there's a wooden salmon. I wanted to steal it.

So just imagine you go to work, you drive 5 minutes cause it's a small town. You walk up the above deck, walk by that sweet salmon, go upstairs, sit at your desk, and look right. That's your view.

Then you come home to this dog. Who may or may not have been barking aggressively at your out of town friend the whole time from her crate.

But she's got positive qualities. Like not attempting to eat the 30 lbs of food we made for bajabucky's housewarming party, like my dog would have. Halibut ceviche, carnitas, grilled halibut, battered and fried pacific cod, beans, homemade salsa, and salmonberry cheesecake bars. No, Cordova didn't know what hit them. And yes, the party turned into a 4 person dance party. Twas a good time.

But the other thing the dog can do, is run at least 20 mph. We took her on a 'Cordova dog walk'. That's where we drive, she walks. This dog has unlimited energy and stubbornness so getting her worn out is top priority. She had a good time. See, she's catching up!

There she is!

And I got video.

And then I flew home, ate the tater tot enchiladas bajabucky packed in my suitcase, and proceeded to get the flu.

Influenza!

Kinda sounds like a fun festival or something with the exclamation mark there, doesn't it?

Well, it was not. And I'm using the past tense loosely. I felt much better today, but I felt better Monday too and that was a red herring, so we'll see. Tuesday was when I figured out I had the flu and not just a catchy bad cold. It started Saturday night with a dry scratchy throat. Sunday I was tired and felt pretty bad and stayed in bed just to try to stave it off. Monday proved that didn't work. Tuesday hit me like a ton of bricks and I had my housemate, Tina Turnher, pick me up some supplies - Nyquil, coughdrops, and a Drumsticks variety pack.

Yum!

They seemed to do the trick. I felt much better today. I took a bath! I played fetch with the dog (who was quaking from too much unspent energy)! I did a couple hours of work! Sure, I stayed in bed for the 4th day in a row, but this time I didn't feel super horrible and I wasn't asleep most of the day.

So ok, Violent Offender, a $12 Walgreens flu vaccine would have been worth it. I didn't choose not to have one, I just didn't do it. My mistake! Next year, definitely.

So, I'll probably be home tomorrow as well (might still be contagious and surely won't have a ton of energy). But I should be able to get some work done, take care of all these dishes and kleenexes that have piled up, and change the sheets from the sickbed variety to the have a boy over for the weekend variety.

That's it for now. Sorry about the radio-silence. It was caused by 1) hanging out with the 21-year old, who happens to be a) awesome and b) moving 2,700 miles away next week, 2) going to Alaska for a week for work and visiting Bajabucky, and 3) the influenza. More on those first two later...