Lost Track

So I've lost track of what day of the food purge challenge we're on... and I'm over it... over counting the days, not the challenge. And I got a new phone (yes - again - long story) but I lost my countdown app so I cannot even tell you how many days until we go to Vegas!

Anyways, Poppa was in the hospital all last week - so the challenge was a little sporadic. We're doing good in regards to grocery shopping and only buying fresh produce and milk (although I did have to buy some sugar for the many birthday cakes I've been baking). But we're probably not doing as good as we could be doing with eating out.

Nanny stayed with us a couple nights last week, one of the nights we had apricot porkchops.

Recipe from HERE. It was good, but I didn't like how the breading didn't stick to the meat. I'm thinking it's a technique issue, so I'm willing to try this again for sure because the apricot it a really good combination with the pork.

This is why I had to buy sugar:

Happy birthday to Sandi!

This was a chocolate cake with chocolate mocha buttercream frosting... I was really pleased with this cake. Not only was the chocolate cake super easy (it's called one bowl chocolate cake because you just dump in ALL the ingredients and mix!) but it was the prefect balance of moist and fluffy but not too fluffy where you feel like you are eating air. I also like the possibilities that this chocolate cake has, next time I'm thinking of a raspberry filling.

Cake #2: Happy birthday Mom!

This cake was a lemon cake, with lemon curd filling and a lemon butter cream frosting. I then decorated the top with some left over lemon curd. This was good, but eh... I'm not as happy with this as I was the first cake of the week. Firstly, I LOVE lemon curd and have the best recipe for it (Martha Stewart's). But why does it have to be such a pain to make, it truly is a labor of love that doesn't happen to often because of the labor aspect of my feelings for it. I think it even drives Kyle crazy, because as much as you prepare in advance you still need about 4 hands to make lemon curd! The cake was very dense, and I think it was suppose to be like this, but I'm just not convinced. If I made this again I would double the amount of lemon curd between the layers and then just do a plain buttercream, not lemon flavor.

Both of these cake recipes came from my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook.

I absolutely LOVE this cookbook. It is my go to cookbook for desserts. I got this cookbook as a gift from Ted & Linda Forgeron as a housewarming gift when we moved into the condo. When they gave me the cookbook I tucked the little card they wrote with it into the book and have used it as a book mark ever since.

Food Purge Challenge Day 5, 6 & 7

Yikes, we didn't do too well over the weekend (food purge challenge day 5,6 & 7 = Fri., Sat., & Sun.). Friday night we went out for Ali's birthday to Trebol. They have the best margaritas and sopapillas. I had been looking forward to this all week!

Here we are and then Ali opening her present:

Saturday... well... Poppa hasn't been feeling well and he went into the hospital on Saturday night. He's doing fine. But anyways, I was at the hospital all night and at 1:30am when I was driving home I went through McDonald's for my usual plain cheese burger and soda.

Tonight, I suppose I could become all gung-ho with cooking something for dinner... but Kyle's already talking about going to Super Burrito on our way back from visiting Poppa at the hospital. Super Burrito is in Milwaukie and about the only time we go there is when Poppa's out at Sunnyside.

But stay tuned for Monday's dinner, because I need to get back on the plan! But in regards to not grocery shopping... we've stuck to that! For breakfast on all these days we've been going through the ham, eggs, and bagels - Kyle has been making breakfast sandwiches. I LOVE THEM! So we have been eating things that we have around the house. And I'm about to pop some popcorn - so even another item that we're using from the pantry!

Please Read

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

I highly recommend this book.

As someone reviewed on amazon: "The real story of this book is that a well-educated, resourceful, healthy woman was unable to make ends meet in low-wage jobs across the county; what should we expect from a portion of the population that lacks one or more of those advantages? Welfare 'reform,' as we know it, has not dispelled the struggling of the low-income wage earner."

Ehrenreich challenges the myth of the American Dream. Even her co-workers subscribe to this myth, working hard so that someday they, too, could live affluent lifestyles, failing to evaluate the extreme unlikelihood that they would ever leave the ranks of the working poor.

She offers solutions, and even if you don't agree, I think that everyone would be able to read that there is a problem that needs a solutions after reading this book.

Food Purge Challenge Day 2,3 & 4

I'm not good about sitting down at the computer during the week, well during the week when I'm actually working that is. Which I have been working this week, which is good. I'm on call tonight and I brought the netbook with me, so here I am! 


Day 2: Ground Elk 

I couldn't decide what to do with this ground elk, because I didn't want to lose the flavor of this lean meat. Final decision: meatloaf, which Kyle isn't a big fan of and I really have never tried to make before. It was a little challenging to find a recipe that I had all the ingredients for in my cupboard. I'm wondering if from now on I'll have to go pretty straight forward with this challenge and not try to make many complex things. That would probably make things easier. Besides the ground elk I used: 1 egg, breadcrumbs, 1 little can of tomato paste, cheese, an onion, and potatoes (we had fried potatoes for a side, they did not go into the meatloaf). 

Final product:

Verdict: Pretty good. Will I use this recipe again? Probably not. Will I try meatloaf again? Maybe, but I think I might pick a little fancier recipe. I had a hard time determining whether or not it was cooked through and think I may need to invest in a quality meat thermometer. Maybe digital like my Mom just bought, her and my brother Nathan have one and seem to be happy with it. 


Day 3 (Wednesday): At work I scrubbed a c-section (usually I circulate, I learned to scrub before the wedding and do it every once in awhile) and felt a personal victory. At home we were out of milk and cliff bars (which I eat for breakfast on my drive to work), which we get at Costco. Don't worry this all ties in... So on my drive home I was feeling super pleased with myself and decided that we better eat hot dogs at Costco for dinner because I deserved it! But then I got to thinking... with how pleased I am with myself, am I really going to reward myself with a hot dog? Did I really just think that? So Kyle and I went out to Red Robin. 


Day 3 of food day challenge = failed. 
C-section = victory!
I'm ok with these outcomes. 


Day 4 (Thursday, tonight): I'm on call, I ate subway for dinner. Kyle reported to me that he had leftover meatloaf (I had my leftover meatloaf for lunch yesterday). Call nights are a bit tricky since I'm not really home to eat in the first place. 


27 Days Until Vegas & Garth

Dinner at Mom & Richard's House/Wordless Wednesday

***Updated*** 2010 Movies

Theater:

Up in the Air

Precious

Avatar

It's Complicated

Rentals/At Home:

Band of Brothers

500 Days of Summer

August Rush

Julie & Julia

The Ugly Truth

17 Again

Food Purge Challenge, Day 2

We went out to dinner with Kyle's parents, Scott & Sandi.

I think I'll count this as neither a failure or success.

I'm currently searching online recipes for tomorrow's dinner.

Oh! I almost forgot... when I got home from work I did have an individual serving of applesauce.

Ha! Victory!