While my quest for the perfect man has clearly fallen short, I have fully dedicated myself to eating well "for one". I bought a book called "Going Solo in the Kitchen" by Jane Doerfer, and promptly shoved it in my bookshelf because 1. Cookbooks are way too grown up for me, and 2. Single-person cookbooks make me sad. So of course, I took the high road and lived off of Macaroni and Cheese, Nutrigrain bars, and Pita and Hummus for the past semester.
Well, it's a new semester so - just like every semester when I organize my pens and notebooks to start with perfection - I thought it'd be great to make big batches of a couple of recipes, and freeze them in single portions to eat after a long day of learning. I spent an entire afternoon shopping and then cooking lasagna and beef stew, and let me tell you, it was a disaster. The final product ended fine, but I had pieces of food all over my kitchen, and was constantly transferring food from one dish to another because I either didn't have, or only had one of, the dish that Martha called for. That little minx just assumes that everyone has 12 large stew pots and copper sautee pans just laying around their professionally designed, state of the art kitchens. Guess what Martha, my kitchen hasn't been updated since the mid 90s and I wouldn't know what a copper sautee pan was if it knocked me over the head. So I shuffled, spilled, and swore until I ended up with a couple of decent meals perserving in the freezer.
I must add the freezing things scares me. I don't know the appropriate tupper wear or protective gear for my food to appropriately wait in the cold until I'm ready for it. Spending my life in MN and ND, I have dozens of clothing items for the freezing temperatures. I assess the day and choose the appropriate combinations of hat, mittens, scarf and coat to protect me against the elements. However, when it comes to putting food in the freezer, I either half-hazardly place the ice cream lid back on the container or shove the contents in a zip-lock and hope for the best.
*So far I have eaten one serving of the beef stew and I was impressed with how well it turned out (however, once I realized I would have left overs the only thing that possibly sounded appealing was an ordered pizza... c'est la vie).
During my Extreme Freezer Makeover, I managed to pick up some No Name chicken breasts. These things are great because they are individually packaged, so I can be a "Solo in the Kitchen" for-ev-er and always have fresh chicken breasts waiting for me.
So tonight, I dusted off my "you're single" cookbook and pulled out my "you're single" chicken breast and made myself a phenomenal version of Chicken Parmesan.
If you have other people in your life, you may have to modify this recipe (but at least it's you and not me...)
Mix 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese and 3 tablespoons breadcrumbs in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix 1 medium egg, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, and 1 teaspoon water. Sprinkle flour on a plate because it will be used to coat your chicken. Once you've defrosted you chicken (harder than it sounds, folks) dip it in the flour, then in the egg/water/soy mixture, and then coat it with the cheese/breadcrumbs. You will then place it in a buttered baking dish in an oven at 450 (and if you're like me and don't read ahead on recipes, you will begin preheating your oven now and waiting 5 minutes before you start baking). Bake for about 20 minutes. I paired it with some whole wheat spaghetti and Marinara sauce and it was a-maz-ing (I hate when people say that word in blocks, but that's how good it was). Even pup wanted a bite, and he is very loyal to his Blue Buffalo diet.
Again, full credit for this recipe goes to Jane Doerfer and her book Going Solo in the Kitchen (which you can buy here, on Amazon, so that cute bookstore boy doesn't realize your life consists of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and boxed wine).
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did!
With love (to those I know, I don't love you that I don't know... no offense),
K
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Bathroom Remodel
This is one project in which I had no part, and it was all left to professionals. However, I thought I'd share a few pics of it because it looks so good (seeing as it was done by professionals and not me...)
Before
Before
After
The middle picture displays a future project that I will have get to do. My bathroom was originally just a tub (that happened to be unusable, so more like a stone hole), so we (and by we I mean the professionals) tiled all the way up and put in a water-resistant window with 2 layers of obscured glass (to keep my neighbors pure) to allow for a shower head. However, I can't count on my fingers the number of times Dan the tile-man told me how much he disagrees with having windows in a shower (too little too late Dan), so my genius mother came up with the idea to put a shower curtain over the window to keep the water out.
We (my mother) bought a window curtain that goes nicely with my main curtain, and I just used a cool 3M command strips hook thing that held up the rod, and then (because I didn't have any extra shower-curtain hooks) I made a pocket in the curtain with safety pins (I know, I'm impressed too).
The future project comes in because I plan to cut the curtain just below the window, and then make ties with the extra fabric to make a roman shade that can be brought down when I shower, but then put up as a window treatment every other time. And, use some obscure, new product called a needle and thread to secure the pocket. I'll keep you posted on that (but don't hold your breath, because the average person can hold their breath for under 3 minutes and my time frame for this project is being measured in months...)
** In the spirit of full disclosure, I feel that I should tell you that after my first shower, my command strip hook fell down and took my precious window treatment with it. If someone had asked me, "What would happen to adhesive if exposed to steam?" I would confidently say, "I'm glad you asked, adhesive would weaken when exposed to steam for a period of time". But when it comes to my good ideas of how to make my house a home, and my undying loyalty to 3M command strips... I forget the basics and am left disappointed...
Long Time Coming
I started this project when I started this blog. It was a breezy day in September when I walked into a little store I like to call "Michaels" with nothing more than a dream and a desire to turn my first home into a page from Pottery Barn. I ended up spending that month's rent (jk mom) and left with a bunch of "stuff" that I would have to do something with. I found two large canvases on sale (turns out, they weren't actually on sale, but by the time I got to the register I was too exhausted to care) and had the brilliant idea to paint them the same color as my wall and stencil a sophisticated damask and hang them on either side of my window.
With motivation ebbing, I took them outside to paint them my wall color. Those of you who are astute readers will remember that this was a breezy day in September. I also took these to my deck in the later afternoon, where there just happens to be a shadow from my house (go figure). So needless to say I was wrestling with leaves, hairs falling out of my cheap paintbrush, and a shadow that makes it really hard to evenly spread off-white paint on a white canvas. It was at the moment when I picked the last leaf out of my wet paint when I decided that this project was going to be "just good enough".
My good friend Jillian Michaels once told me (and everyone else who bought her Yoga Meltdown dvd) "this is not about perfection, it's about being perfect with your imperfection". Little did she know her words of wisdom would extend beyond my "crow pose" and into my crafts.
These imperfect, newly off-white canvases then sat a few weeks before I got back to them. Rather than purchase a stencil online (which, after the fact, I completely recommend), I found a damask style on-line that I liked and printed it out. I then laminated it and cut out the shape, thus making a stencil. This was way more work than it needed to be. And in the spirit of doing more work than necessary, I then traced the stencil on the canvas with pencil. To do it again, I would buy a stencil and just paint right on the stencil as you go.
So I not only painstakingly drew each damask onto the canvas, but then I had to go back and paint inside the stenciled lines. I can't even write with wit about this part of the project because it was so unnecessarily time consuming.
(This is a picture of both the pencil and the paint)
Then my semester got busy and my back couldn't stand hunching over a canvas any longer, and my super-project that I started in September sat in the guest room until today. In the meantime, my computer had some work done and all my photos were lost. Luckily, I am lazy enough that I have only completed one full canvas, so the image above it what's left of the second canvas. I also got some different furniture since that blustering day in September, so putting these on either side of my window no longer seems right.
So today I set out to hang the completed canvas above my mantel. In line with the rest of this project, this seemingly simple task turned out to be a disaster. I heard about this idea to put a dab of toothpaste where you want the nail to go and then stick the canvas where you want it on the wall, so the toothpaste transfers onto the wall and you can put your nail there. If you remember, I have an aversion to nails and putting holes in my plaster wall, so I got some stellar 3M command hooks, transferred the toothpaste onto the wall, and stuck my strips on the wall. I hung my canvas from the hook, stepped back to admire my work, and my canvas then pulled the hook from the wall and fell to the floor. I watched this happen, in slow motion, and when I went to grab the canvas, it knocked my two picture frames from my mantel, and the glass shattered on the floor. I then had to delay the project further to both vacuum and wash all the floors in my house so my pup wouldn't hurt his paw.
And for those of you who are wondering, my stupidity and bad luck in this DIY has not escaped my notice.
I gave in and put some nails in the wall (granted it took my 4 nails to get two holes) and, for safety's sake, I also used velcro command strips to secure the edges to the wall, because if there was a sliver of a chance that the canvas would fall onto my mantel and knock my TV to the ground, it would happen.
So here it as, the "finished" product that you've all waited for years to see...
With motivation ebbing, I took them outside to paint them my wall color. Those of you who are astute readers will remember that this was a breezy day in September. I also took these to my deck in the later afternoon, where there just happens to be a shadow from my house (go figure). So needless to say I was wrestling with leaves, hairs falling out of my cheap paintbrush, and a shadow that makes it really hard to evenly spread off-white paint on a white canvas. It was at the moment when I picked the last leaf out of my wet paint when I decided that this project was going to be "just good enough".
My good friend Jillian Michaels once told me (and everyone else who bought her Yoga Meltdown dvd) "this is not about perfection, it's about being perfect with your imperfection". Little did she know her words of wisdom would extend beyond my "crow pose" and into my crafts.
These imperfect, newly off-white canvases then sat a few weeks before I got back to them. Rather than purchase a stencil online (which, after the fact, I completely recommend), I found a damask style on-line that I liked and printed it out. I then laminated it and cut out the shape, thus making a stencil. This was way more work than it needed to be. And in the spirit of doing more work than necessary, I then traced the stencil on the canvas with pencil. To do it again, I would buy a stencil and just paint right on the stencil as you go.
So I not only painstakingly drew each damask onto the canvas, but then I had to go back and paint inside the stenciled lines. I can't even write with wit about this part of the project because it was so unnecessarily time consuming.
(This is a picture of both the pencil and the paint)
Then my semester got busy and my back couldn't stand hunching over a canvas any longer, and my super-project that I started in September sat in the guest room until today. In the meantime, my computer had some work done and all my photos were lost. Luckily, I am lazy enough that I have only completed one full canvas, so the image above it what's left of the second canvas. I also got some different furniture since that blustering day in September, so putting these on either side of my window no longer seems right.
So today I set out to hang the completed canvas above my mantel. In line with the rest of this project, this seemingly simple task turned out to be a disaster. I heard about this idea to put a dab of toothpaste where you want the nail to go and then stick the canvas where you want it on the wall, so the toothpaste transfers onto the wall and you can put your nail there. If you remember, I have an aversion to nails and putting holes in my plaster wall, so I got some stellar 3M command hooks, transferred the toothpaste onto the wall, and stuck my strips on the wall. I hung my canvas from the hook, stepped back to admire my work, and my canvas then pulled the hook from the wall and fell to the floor. I watched this happen, in slow motion, and when I went to grab the canvas, it knocked my two picture frames from my mantel, and the glass shattered on the floor. I then had to delay the project further to both vacuum and wash all the floors in my house so my pup wouldn't hurt his paw.
And for those of you who are wondering, my stupidity and bad luck in this DIY has not escaped my notice.
I gave in and put some nails in the wall (granted it took my 4 nails to get two holes) and, for safety's sake, I also used velcro command strips to secure the edges to the wall, because if there was a sliver of a chance that the canvas would fall onto my mantel and knock my TV to the ground, it would happen.
So here it as, the "finished" product that you've all waited for years to see...
I swear my phone's camera does not do this justice...
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