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Thursday, March 30, 2006

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So….the adventures of the domestically challenged really don’t ever end. Last night, I had invited my dad over for dinner. Of course, if you read past posts, you would know that I have NO groceries. So…..here is what the domestic goddess (in this respect at least) came up with….

Caramelized Onion Seafood Linguine
2 T olive oil
4 cups sliced onions
4 cloves minced garlic
1 T white sugar
sea salt, fresh ground black pepper
1 t hot pepper flakes
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
½ c. red wine
1 can clams, undrained
1 pound shelled shrimp (give or take)
1 c frozen peas
¼ c. pesto
454 g. dry linguine

1. Heat a large, heavy skillet to medium-low heat. Add oil, then onions. I caramelized the onions for about 40 minutes (my dad and hubby were running errands; I was killing time). About 20 minutes in, I added garlic (and part of a shallot, just because I had it) and the sugar, salt and pepper. You have to do this on really low heat or it’s no good.
2. When they FINALLY got back, I added the tomatoes and pepper flakes, as well as the wine (and a swig for me!), then the clams. I let this heat for a bit, then threw the linguine in boiling water.
3. While the linguine cooked, I added the shrimp, peas and pesto.

Voila. Tasted really good! Very easy, pretty healthy. And, you’ll notice….there are pretty much no fresh ingredients whatsoever. Hahahahahaha

Hubby did all the dishes again. I did nothing. All I did was upend a good portion of the sauce directly onto a hot burner when I tried to pour it from the skillet onto the drained linguine. Brutal!

On a getting rid of crap note – bringing the wedding dress to a consignment shop tonight. :) Sad to see it go, but have no room.
On a literal ‘getting rid of crap’ note – I actually cleaned out the bunny cage yesterday. :) (No, we don’t neglect them, but Brad cleans it out more than I do). The bunnies were very appreciative and gave me many little kisses and hugs. I love bunnies!!!!!

So tonight will be fun. After dropping off my dress at the shop, whipping up something for dinner, etc. (and doing dishes), I will be turning into cooking super woman.

Tonight I am making "Angel Food Cake Lush" (from the new Kraft magazine), "Shocklate Cheesecake" (from Eat, Shrink & Be Merry) and "Fairest Wheels" (Crazy Plates, maybe?). At any rate, the former cake will be brought to my in-laws on Friday, while the latter two recipes are for a potluck Saturday Night. Something tells me I'll be missing ER tonight. :( Neeeeeeed a TV in the kitchen I think. Also, me cooking means kitchen disaster. I'll have to be uber vigilant to make sure this ends up okay.....I have left rather explosive messes in the kitchen on days past...

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

The verdict….

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I give myself a solid C+ for yesterday’s performance.

And to be fair, yesterday was a bit of an unusual day – it’s pretty hard to keep up with the normal routine when your mother is visiting (she’s gone now). I got home from work and checked the mail. This is usually the first sore point for me, as I have the terrible habit of bringing in our monstrous piles of mail (seriously, I try changing all my bank accounts to paperless ones, and then they send me a freaking paper confirmation of the change….good job guys. Try an email next time!), strewing across our dining room table and leaving it there.

I didn’t yesterday! (I know, this may seem minor, but it’s actually quite a significant step). I shredded my bank statement without opening it (bad, eh?), opened a thank you card from a wedding we went to in July (no comment) and recycled all the flyers. I think my mission for tonight is to put a “no flyers please” sign on our mail box. Aside from shredding them to use as rabbit litter, I really have no use for the six-inch-high pile of flyers we get each week. Thanks to the wedding, we have zero money to spend (i.e., no groceries this week!), so looking through them (even if I had time/motivation) is just an exercise in futility. :)

Anyway…on to dinner. I didn’t make it. Hubby did (sweetness). Spaghetti – which no matter how much hubby helps me, I just can’t make it as good as he does! Once, he told me of his secret – opening random spice jars, smelling them, and then adding them if he likes what he smells. I do know that one of his secret ingredients is montreal steak spice – if you haven’t tried this, you really should. It’s so tasty!!!!!! I drank far too much wine with and subsequent to dinner. (eep….not so good for the waistline), BUT where I deserve serious kudos is the fact that I insisted that the dishes be done before going to bed. Even in my semi-intoxicated state, we did dishes. And managed to not break any of our new spiegelau crystal (LOVE it) that can only be handwashed.

Where I don’t deserve kudos:
1) Did no laundry whatsoever yesterday.
2) Did not make the bed this morning (seriously, it’s the first time in months that hubby has been up and away before I am, so it was just a shock to the system to even have to lock the door behind myself…..)
3) In addition to making dinner, hubby did the lion’s share of the clean up while I visited with my mom.

Today’s mission:
1) Keep the kitchen clean (it’s currently only semi-clean…counter could use a good wipe, but at least there are no moldering pans).
2) Fold laundry.

There are a lot of other things I really should be doing, but if I’m being realistic, my dad is coming over for dinner tonight (and for a Costco trip), and I know he won’t leave until late.

The rest of this week will be pure insanity. Thursday, I’m going shopping for a special event. Friday, we are foisting ourselves upon the in-laws for dinner. But I’m making dinner because I insisted. (good job mrbunsrocks) so I have to come up with something tasty that can be done in the crockpot and transported the 90-minute drive to the in-laws’ new house. Saturday I’m going to a potluck, where I ALSO insisted on bringing two dishes….so I have to make those too.

Hopefully this whole domestic renewal thing doesn’t come crashing down around my ears. Maybe if I’m SUPER ambitious, I could shake the crumbs off my tablecloth. How’s that for motivation? Oh, and readers of my previous blog – do not despair. There will be food in this one too. It’s the one thing I can do right!

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

No more fuzzy mould

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A new life, a new blog, a new me.

Or is it.

It’s at least somewhat ironic that the day I decide to start my new blog is also the one day that my house is pretty clean. You see, I have a problem. A big one. A big messy one. Sometimes it will even be crusty or mouldy, if I let it get bad.

I am a royal slob.

Very embarrassing to admit, but they say that admitting you have a problem is the first step. I have a problem. I have no desire to clean anything EVER. In fact, this is a problem I have had for a long time. I even remember a certain grade two teacher giving me the nickname…’messlie’ (a play on my actual name). Oy. I also remember the time in grade four when I finally cleaned out my desk at the end of the year and found a pear that had actually turned turquoise stuffed at the back of my desk. Very nasty.

There were also several times in university where my nalgene bottle would sit full of orange juice for so long it would ferment, distort and threaten to explode with unreleased gases. Even yesterday, I stunk up the kitchen because of a Tupperware full of black beans that we (okay, not me) finally removed from the fridge. They had been there for two months, and I was just too apathetic to care. I really do have a problem.

So now you know the dirty secret. I am dedicating this blog to a life of renewed domesticity, and also to my new husband. He tolerates quite a bit from me in this respect.

I will tell you about yesterday though. Yesterday evening, at 10PM, a virtual bomb dropped on my house. It came via the telephone. My mother was coming tonight. Oy. Not cool to only have 24 hours notice, especially when I will be sleeping for 8 of those hours and at work for 11 (long commute). This left me a measly three hours to transform my swinely haven into a castle fit for a mother.

From this point on, I vow not to let my house get to the point where I haven’t seen my dining room table in two months because it’s covered in flyers, where I wear my shoes in the house because I just can’t stand having the dust/dirt stick to my feet anymore, and where I will no longer allow a tea cup to ferment in my office until it is a nearly unrecognizable fuzzy white lump. :)

Here are my goals for today:
1. I will not go to bed without making sure the kitchen is clean.
2. I will fold my laundry instead of leaving it in a crumpled heap on the floor until the next time I wear it.

Now, I can’t be the only person with this problem. Usually, the only ones who will come out of the woodwork are those detestable individuals who gleefully ‘confess’ that they spend three hours a day cleaning their home. These people – I will never be one of them, nor do I have a desire to be one. There are too many fun things to do to waste my life cleaning. But until I get a massive raise, I can’t afford to hire someone to clean for me. So I’m going to work on cleaning up after myself at a reasonable rate. And don’t blacklist hubby – he definitely does more than his fair share, but neither one of us is a real Martha.

I could be half Martha though. At least I can cook.

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